6 Things Disrupting Women’s Hormones (and How to Balance Hormones Naturally)

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Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show, where each and every week we explore the science and principles behind how to grow in body, This week we'll be exploring how you can naturally balance your hormonal health, everything from infertility to PCOS to painful PMS, and what to do after menopause through healing using diet, herbs, supplements, and lifestyle changes.

And I'll be going through exactly how to address every female hormonal issue and get to the root cause today. Everything from using, as I mentioned, diet, even peptides, which I'll be talking about in just a moment. That work for balancing your hormones.

Before I dive in though, make sure to subscribe to the channel and hit the link in the show notes to subscribe to my weekly wellness newsletter so you can get my top tips for natural healing delivered straight into your inbox. Well, here's the reality.

There are tens of millions of women in the United States alone and hundreds of millions of women around the world that are struggling with hormone imbalances like PCOS, infertility, painful PMS, and severe menopausal symptoms, and they're incredibly common. And there are reasons for that, and I want to get into the top 6 reasons why your hormones are distraught right now.

And then I'm going to get into the cures. What are the remedies to start to heal your hormones and create balance? Whether you have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's or some other hormonal issue, we'll get into that as well today. Now, number one is birth control.

Around 65% of women in the United States under the age of 49 report using some type of contraception, such as the pill, which is around 20% of the use. Birth control pills work by supplying synthetic hormones, especially estrogen and some progestin, to manipulate the natural menstrual cycle and prevent ovulation.

Basically, your body thinks it's pregnant, and so it can't get pregnant because of the excess estrogen is what happens with birth control. Now, while it's effective for contraception, what the birth control pill does, it disrupts your natural cycle.

Long-term use has been connected to mood swings, bacterial overgrowth, so major disruption of your gut microbiome, weight gain, altered stress responses. Basically, it changes your personality and also really can tank your libido in certain instances as well.

And some experience changes in their hormonal levels also when they discontinue the pill, leading to irregular periods and infertility for a period of time.

Now, I do want to say I have taken care of tens of thousands of patients and women specifically of this age, and I was shocked when I first got into clinical practice and I saw the amount of women coming in who were on the birth control pill and when they were getting off as well, the struggle with gut issues, with bloating, sometimes with other digestive distresses, with Candida overgrowth, I mean, I would say Candida overgrowth was one of the biggest things we noticed when they were getting off the pill.

And here's the other big one, hypothyroidism. The birth control pills pulls numerous nutrients out of your body. So if you're taking birth control, remember this, this is a drug. It's a synthetic drug that's pulling vitamin B1, B2, B3, B6, B9, B12 out of your body, along with magnesium, zinc, and good bacteria, and even selenium. All of those things are now depleted.

So think about, you have all these nutrient stores in your body, they all start going down. And what that does is that disrupts methylation. Methylation is where your body is, is creating. And if we're talking about specifically the methylfolate cycle, this is important for your mitochondrial health. It's important for your body creating cellular energy. It's important for thyroid function.

It's important for fertility. Let me ask you a question. Did you ever take birth control pills in the past? And here's another question: Do you have hypothyroidism? If you did, most likely the number one cause of you having hypothyroidism is the fact that you took birth control pills for so long. It's the number one, number one factor. And so just know there are major side effects there.

Now listen, birth control isn't the only drug that leaches nutrients out of your body and impacts your hormones negatively. Antibiotic drugs are a big one. Antibiotic drugs also deplete your body's absorption of B vitamins, which again are critical for methylation, and that's critical for cellular energy. When you don't have mitochondrial health and cellular energy.

Remember, your mitochondria are like your body's power plants. They create energy that then feeds your thyroid and your liver and your pancreas and your ovaries and your uterus. And, and basically, they allow your body to create the right amount of hormones, allows your body to cleanse and, and give your body energy.

Well, if it's not able to— if it doesn't have the energy to do that, your body can't create the proper amount of hormones. Birth control pills negatively affect that. Antibiotics negatively affect that. Those are probably the top 2, but listen, every drug you take creates some type of imbalance.

You know, anti-anxiety drugs, sleep drugs, antidepressant drugs, Ambien, Prozac, Zoloft, they all negatively affect your body and they pull nutrients out of your body, increasing your risk of other hormone-based conditions. So again, number one thing disrupting women's hormones today are conventional medications.

Now, the good news is, is now you can go and take certain vitamins and probiotics and build your nutrient values back up. But one thing I see too, a lot of times women think, well, okay, I've got imbalances, well, I'm taking a multivitamin, I'm eating healthier. Oftentimes, the biggest thing affected was your gut microbiome.

So you need to do higher dose probiotics and higher doses of B vitamins multiple times a day in order to actually get your nutrient stores back up. Okay, so that's, that's important as well, and we'll get into that later. Number 2, high stress and that increase in cortisol levels absolutely is causing major disruption in women's hormones today.

In 2023, more than 50% of adults in the US reported feeling frequent stress in their lives, which was severe enough to disrupt their functioning. Another study found that 80% of doctors' visits were stress-induced. So whether that be having a cold or flu or hypothyroid or low testosterone in men, or anxiety, these are stress-related. High levels consistently disrupt every system in your body.

And here's the thing to know, when cortisol goes up, melatonin goes down. Well, melatonin goes down, now your body can't rest and repair and recover and create as much cellular energy, so now your body lacks the mitochondrial health to energize and run your organs, right? So high stress and cortisol, how that affects the adrenal glands specifically, then disrupts your other hormones.

And when cortisol goes up, that also causes progesterone and testosterone to go down, which is very bad for both men and women. So, so that's gonna be a major issue. So that's the biggest thing along with the medications disrupting cortisol is the constant state of stress.

There's another study here published in the American Psychology Journal, and they found that 76% of adults report there are aspects of their lives that were negatively impacted by stress, including their eating habits, their physical health, and their ability to socialize and engage in the hobbies that they love.

Some of the biggest warning signs you have high cortisol are weight gain, insomnia, or just generally trouble sleeping, and a weakened immune response. I mean, how many of you have trouble sleeping? If you are not sleeping well, it's almost always stress. And by the way, I think a lot of times people think, well, I'm not a stressed out person.

If you're going and busy all the time, like for instance, I was talking to, um, a film producer and his daughter was having major major sleep issues. And the problem is, is that she is just doing so— she's an achiever. She wants to achieve. She wants to make her dad proud.

And she's working for, you know, she's, she's going to school and she's doing extracurriculars, but probably every moment of every day. And by the way, she's engaged to get married. Like she has stuff every second of the day, every second of the day.

And if you're in that state where you have something every moment and every second of the day and you're incredibly busy, That will, again, so think about this as well. Are you an achiever? And by the way, it's okay to be an achiever, but are you still trying to, are you trying to achieve every second of the day? And here's what I found for myself. I wanna share this.

When I, I never thought myself as a stressed out person, but when I was in my first couple years of practice, I started getting something called leaky gut syndrome. I started having digestive issues. I went to see this Oriental medical doctor and he says, Josh, you've got too much stress. And I said, well, I don't feel stressed. And he said, well, tell me about your daily habits.

And I told him, well, you know, I wake up at 6:00 AM and I read my Bible. I do my spiritual growth time. I work out, I go to work, I get home after dinner, and then I tend to, you know, while I'm watching TV, I will be on my computer just, you know, working on a book or a, or a radio show. Or I was just sharing all these things with him. And he said, what do your weekends look like?

I showed that too, that Saturdays I tend to work. And I said, Sundays, I, you know, I, I take off quite a bit, but he said, listen, he said, here, he said, you cannot work from 6:00 AM to 10:00 PM every day.

He said, if you just start shutting it off at dinner, and if you take 30 minutes around lunch and don't eat over lunch and be working while you're eating, and you just take a 30-minute walk, he said, see what happens in your body. And he said, try and take more time off even on Saturdays, on the weekends. Okay, I just started taking more time off. Boom, digestive system's completely fixed.

And with that also testosterone, I knew went up as well. I felt stronger, more energized. So if you are struggling with hormonal issues, oftentimes it's a— it's the root cause is busyness. You're too busy. You're on every single moment of the day. After dinner, just turn it off. Just relax. On the weekends, turn off, relax, schedule in time for just a walk.

If you do that, it will significantly improve your hormones. Okay. But high cortisol absolutely disrupts hormones. Number 3, insulin resistance. 1 In 3 Americans is now insulin resistant, according to a research study from the University of Stanford. Insulin resistance occurs when cells in the body do not respond effectively to the hormone insulin.

This is the hormone responsible for regulating your blood sugar levels. And so if you feel kind of energy-wise up and down during the day, you have insulin resistance. If you're holding on to excess body fat in your midsection, like your tummy or your hip area, You have insulin resistance, and most women have this issue.

And there are specific hormonal issues in women connected to insulin resistance. I want to mention this: as a result, the body requires higher levels of insulin to keep your blood sugar stable. So this is sort of a vicious cycle of what happens. It's sort of like your body needs more, so your body actually can produce more, but not enough.

You don't have enough receptor sites in your cells, so it doesn't actually fix the issue. You just have the sugar and insulin staying in your. Your bloodstream, which is going to cause inflammation. Now, insulin resistance is often associated with conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome, that's PCOS, which can lead to irregular menstrual cycles.

Also, it decreases your fertility levels and it can increase androgen levels, which is why women can sometimes start growing things like facial hair when that shouldn't be happening. And so we see if you have an irregular cycle, typically the first hormone that's affected is cortisol or insulin.

Okay, so either cortisol gets off, there's too much stress, That impacts insulin, which that will then impact estrogen and progesterone. Okay, so that's sort of how that typically works. And if so, again, PCOS is a cause. You know, there are, there are probably over a million women today who have PCOS and they actually don't know they have it.

This is so, so common in women, and they also don't know that that's impacting their fertility and a number of other things. So if you have an irregular cycle and any of the symptoms I talked about, you need to go and fix it. Because over time it will get worse and worse and worse, causing inflammation and damage to these organs. And we'll go through how to start to fix it here in a few moments.

Number 4 is being overweight or obese. More than 2/3 of adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese. Excess body weight can lead to hormonal imbalances, particularly in hormones related to reproduction such as estrogen, progesterone, insulin, and stress hormones like adrenaline and Thyroid hormones. Now, most people don't realize this: your muscles and your body fat—those are organs.

So when you think of organs, you might be thinking of your ovaries or your liver or your pancreas. But your fat, your body fat, is an organ, and it's an organ that actually produces hormones or gives off signals. So hormones, especially ghrelin and leptin, which make you more hungry. The more body fat you have, oftentimes the more hungry you are. So it's this vicious cycle.

The more fat you put on, the more hungry you are. Well, the good news is once you start doing the reverse, the reverse happens. But it's really important that you start to really focus on reaching your ideal body weight. Insulin is key in this as well. Now, as I mentioned, here's another big thing.

Fat cells not only are responsible for estrogen or for ghrelin and leptin, these hunger hormones that really signal your body to burn fat as well. Fat cells produce estrogen, and excess body fat can lead to higher than normal estrogen levels, which can suppress the function of the ovaries and disrupt your menstrual cycle.

So basically, your fat cells, when they're producing all this estrogen, it tells your ovaries, well, you don't need to produce as much. So it actually suppresses the ovaries, but your body still has all this excess estrogen, which then leads to infertility in the and these cysts growing, these ovarian cysts.

Obesity is also closely linked to, as I mentioned, this insulin resistance, which that makes PCOS worse. There are doctors that call PCOS type 4 diabetes. So type 2 diabetes, we know what that is. That's related directly to pancreas and being diabetic with those insulin receptor sites. Type 3 diabetes is Alzheimer's.

Type 4 diabetes is called sometimes PCOS because it's the condition that is most closely connected to insulin resistance. And so knowing if we go— if you have PCOS and we go and directly impact insulin positively, that is the best way to start reversing PCOS. Best way. Number 5, poor thyroid function.

Around 12% of the population, that's 1 in 8 adults, will experience a thyroid condition of according to the American Thyroid Association. And the thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate your metabolism, your energy generation, and overall endocrine function.

And both overactive and underactive thyroid, such as hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism respectively, can lead to significant hormonal disturbances. And symptoms of thyroid dysfunction include fatigue, thinning hair or even hair loss, weight changes, Irregular menstrual cycle, and mood disturbances.

Since thyroid hormones interact with reproductive hormones, imbalances can often affect ovulation and overall reproductive health as well. And so we see here poor thyroid function is another big one here, especially if you've got fatigue, you're tired all the time, or your hair is thinning. Those are really big warning signs you have poor thyroid function.

If your body temperature is low, if you get kind of cold all the time, That's another warning sign. Number 6, endocrine disruptors. According to the Endocrine Society, there are likely over 1,000 human man-made chemicals that could be considered hormone disruptors. These hormone disruptors are chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system.

This is the network of glands and organs that produce hormones. They mimic or block natural hormones in the body, leading to disruptions in hormonal balance. Now, We see this a lot with these processed soy products.

Processed soy products like soy protein and soy milk that are non-organic more than anything have xeno and phytoestrogens which impact your body's own estrogen causing you to have excess estrogen. We see this a lot with BPA, that's bisphenol A, a lot of these plastics. Also phthalates and pesticides we find in our food supply. These cause estrogen specifically to become imbalanced.

Part of what happens is they're so toxic to the liver that your liver has to deal with these now. And your liver is what's responsible for balancing, keeping your estrogen levels balanced, at least in part. So when that happens, your liver can't do its full job. It's overwhelmed with all of these chemicals. So now you just have this excess estrogen in the body.

And this also is why, uh, you know, drinking out of plastic bottles and metal cans and using a lot of, you know, chemical cleaning products in your home and cosmetics, these are also linked men having more feminine-like characteristics because it's causing them to have excess estrogen.

And then when women have the excess estrogen, it's causing infertility, PCOS, irregular menstrual issues, and then, and then more severe menopausal symptoms. And so we see all of these. And of course, here's another big one. It increases your risk of many types of cancer, like estrogen-based breast cancers.

And so it's really important that if you are going to get to the root of your problems, that you address these 6 hormone killers. You need to do everything you can to get off these medications. Number 2, you need to be aware of the stress in your life and lowering those stress levels by simply scheduling things you love to do in downtime.

Number 3, focus on balancing insulin, which we're going to teach you how to do with diet here, losing the, the weight, which we're going to teach you to do here, optimizing thyroid and mitochondrial function, which I'm about to teach you to do, and Here's the other big one: stay away from all of the chemicals that are in our food supply, beauty care products, and everything else.

Now, I want to dive into tailoring a specific diet, exercise program, and herbs and nutrients to help balance out women's cycles. And this is something I've worked with a lot of women on, everything from women athletes who are looking to increase athletic performance to women in all walks of life.

And here's something that most women don't do that more women are aware of in areas like Japan and Asia. You should be eating differently based on your cycle, what, what part of your cycle you're in, okay? Whether you're in the early stage, ovulation, mid-stage, or the end of your cycle, there are very specific foods and nutrients you need during different phases of your cycle.

Now, I also want to say there are a lot of other elements that can play into this. There's seasonal eating, there's eating for your own unique, um, you know, bio-individuality. So for instance, if you have hypothyroidism, well, you consistently need to get more of a certain type of food. Or if you've got anemia, you need to get more of a certain type of food, of course blood-building foods.

So, so here are some general rules you should know about, and then I'm going to go into greater detail. Week 1 of your cycle, you tend to have low Estrogen. This is the first week of your period, okay? This is when estrogen is at its lowest. When estrogen is low, you want your carbs to be low.

So when you're on the first week of your cycle, I know what most women want to do is they want to go and eat more carbs, okay? Because you get this hit of dopamine and you sort of— you get this effect of, you know, eating ice cream, eating a bag of potato chips, eating a lot of bread, just getting more carbs. However, it makes it worse.

When you are on the first week of your cycle, the week of your period, you want to do lower carb, more meat, more vegetables, more fats. You don't want to do higher carb, you want to do low carb. So, so think about it generally like this: when estrogen is low, carbs are low. When estrogen is high, carbs are high. That's what your diet should look like. So week 2, what starts to happen?

Your estrogen levels start to go up and start to peak. Especially at the very end, right around ovulation. And that's when you want to add in those healthy carbs, especially things like sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes, rice, berries, getting those good pomegranates, getting those good carbs in is what you want to do on week 2. And then ovulation, again, that's around that 2-day period.

That's also— you'll see that's when estrogen will start to actually start to drop, progesterone increases, and this is when you want to focus on fiber and vegetables that start to detoxify excess estrogen in your system. And then week 3, estrogen and progesterone are at a peak. Those, those can go up. And then, um, that's when you continue with eating healthy carbs.

So, and then in the middle, at the end, estrogen drops and you go low carb again. So it's kind of like low carb, higher carb, lower carb, throughout your cycle is what this should look like. I'm going to get into more specifics here. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see here on this, on this chart, you can see here week 1 carbs are lower.

Week 2 into the middle of week 3 is when your carbs should be the highest, and it's when estrogen is at its highest. Then you're gonna have another dip down. That's when carbs should drop again for the most part. And you'll see there's another little kind of jump there, but overall that's sort of like moderate Carbs.

And, um, and then also I want to mention here, you'll see here on the cycle, when you're ovulating, that's also— you see that little bump in testosterone as well. That is when you're at your strongest. If you are a woman and you want to, um, optimize your health and fitness, that's when you should have your hardest workouts. It's when you should do leg day, okay? It's when you should do squats.

It's when you should do deadlifts. It's when you should Really work your butt and your legs as hard as you can. Now listen, you want to be working these body parts throughout your cycle, but during week one, you want to be doing easier workouts when you're, you know, week one of your cycle.

Things like, you know, an easy yoga flow or going for a walk or a hike or just doing things where you're creating movement and blood flow, but you're not overexerting yourself. Okay, and as time goes on, you want to make those workouts. Harder and then lighter at the end of the phase. So let's walk through this together, these phases and some more specifics.

So again, week 1 is your menstrual and early follicular phase. Think about this as day 1 through 10. During the first 5 days, your body sheds the uterine lining and hormones like estrogen and progesterone are at their lowest. And this is going to make you feel tired and low energy, which— this is your body speaking to you. It's telling you, hey, take it easy.

Move a little bit, do some good things for blood flow. Again, do a 20-minute workout, do a 30-minute, get a nice little sweat on and then stretch and relax. So it's stretching, it's movement, it's doing that. So let me break it down like this for you. Let's go through the top 10 foods for the first 10 days of your cycle. Organ meats like liver, again, number 1. Number 2, bone broth.

Number 3, red meat. Then green leafy vegetables that are cooked, like spinach and kale. And then beets. And then seaweed. Seaweed has iodine and other trace minerals that help build the blood. Pumpkin seeds are rich in zinc and magnesium, which can be great. Chia seeds, citrus fruits, the vitamin C, flaxseeds, and avocados. These are some of the best foods you can eat during this stage as well.

And then the top supplements are going to be iron, dong quai, magnesium, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin C. Okay, those are the top 5 supplements. Now, in, in addition, if you are having pain due to PMS, I would also recommend Vitex or cramp bark. Those help balance those hormones, reducing the abdominal cramping.

But specifically magnesium, iron, dong quai, cramp bark, Vitex, omega-3s, vitamin would be the most beneficial you might consider during this phase and during this time. And again, it's a lot of organic meat, especially red meat. Steamed vegetables, beets are the best during this phase. Now I want to walk you through phase 2, okay?

This is the luteal phase, and it's— this is included as ovulation and early luteal phase, which is days 11 through 21. And this is when women tend to feel their best. Estrogen and testosterone are at their peak. You have higher levels of energy, mood, your libido's higher, better physical performance.

And with your nutrition during this phase, you want to lean into more high-energy foods and make sure you're also doing high protein. Okay, so more carbs, even more protein. Now listen, I generally think you want to be doing high protein the whole time. Okay, so that's really not changing.

You want to be doing about 25 to 40 grams of protein 3 times daily most of the time, or if you're doing 4, if you're doing a snack too, you can back that down a bit. But for the most part, you want to do that. And the other thing is you want to support your body in detoxifying excess estrogen.

This is a phase where the first phase you want to do a lot of those green leafy vegetables for blood building. This is where you want to do more cruciferous vegetables to support your liver in getting rid of excess estrogen and toxins. So this is where you'd want to do a lot of steamed vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale would actually be good there as well.

But these foods that contain sulfur, garlic, onions, you really want to support detoxifying your body in this phase. And also at the end of this phase, it's good to do some Brazil nuts because those are going to support progesterone production as well. Due to the selenium content. So now let me walk you through the top 10 foods during the luteal and ovulatory phase of your cycle. Eggs.

Eggs are fantastic, especially getting that healthy egg yolk is going to be great for detoxifying that excess estrogen. Cruciferous vegetables that we mentioned like broccoli, green leafies like kale, salmon rich in omega-3s which are going to reduce inflammation, zucchini. And celery. Those are hydrating and they support digestion. Sweet potatoes are amazing. They also support progesterone.

So lots of sweet potatoes, lots of yams on this part of your cycle. Watermelon is great because it's cool— cooling and detoxifying. Herbs like turmeric. I mentioned Brazil nuts, maca root. These are all good foods. Remember, you want to increase the carbs. You can do a little bit more fruit as well, especially things like sweet potatoes on this part of your cycle.

And then here it's really good to— again, first phase was doing a lot of red meat. You can continue doing red meat here, but also consider adding in other diversified proteins like wild-caught fish and chicken and eggs. Now here are some other supplements you may want to consider to support ovulation and detoxification. Number 1 is B vitamins. Taking a methylated B complex, especially vitamin B6.

It's critical for hormone production, so taking a methylated B vitamin. Number 2, probiotics. This is going to support gut health, the absorption of those B vitamins, and detoxification. The next is zinc. This is critical for tissue repair. As you do more workouts, as you challenge yourself more, you try and, you know, you do your butt, you do your legs in terms of those very hard workouts.

And then herbs like milk thistle, which are going to help detoxify Your body of excess estrogen. And the last phase of your cycle is your luteal and PMS phase. Now, in the days leading up to your period, you might experience some of these PMS symptoms— aches, moodiness, fatigue. And the reason for this is progesterone and estrogen are declining. This makes energy for exercise decrease.

What you want to do here, again, is sort of, you know, you can work out moderately, but you don't want to, you don't want to exhaust yourself, okay? Have a good workout, have a good stretch at the end, but don't overdo it. Here are some of the top foods for the cycle. Number 1, you want to really want to focus on magnesium-rich foods. Dark chocolate is incredible, bananas.

You want to focus on getting a lot of magnesium and potassium. You also want to focus on increasing your antioxidant content, which we'll go through here in just a second. You also want to focus on a lot of herbs that reduce inflammation. So you were working hard, you were doing more carbs during the last phase of your cycle. Now you want to focus on reducing inflammation.

Here are the top 10 foods you should consider for this part of your cycle. Number 1 again is dark chocolate. Do a 70% plus dark chocolate. Do more potassium-rich foods like sweet potatoes. Continue on with those, but, but decrease the amount. Rather than doing a whole sweet potato, do a half a sweet potato. Consider bananas, consider watermelon. So get more potassium there as well.

Pineapple is great because that's going to reduce inflammation. Kiwis and figs are also good during this phase. But again, you don't want to overdo the fruit. Half a cup or so is about what you want to do. Sesame seeds are rich in zinc and magnesium, which support your hormones. Oats and oatmeal are good during this phase because of what they do for sort of nurturing your body during this phase.

Ginger herbal tea and turmeric tea. I would buy— there's actually a great tea you could buy that's ginger, turmeric, and holy basil blended together. Continuing on with other magnesium-rich foods like spinach is great. Chickpeas, so actually eating hummus would be great. Chickpeas are also really good for progesterone production. And then warm soups and stews.

So during this phase, you really want to nourish and comfort yourself. Chicken vegetable soup, beef stew, but a lot of soups and stews, a lot of warming meals like it's Thanksgiving. Think of fall foods is what you want to do during this phase. Now leading up, remember this is right before your period. You want to focus on starting to build blood.

You may get a little bit more red meat kind of moving into that phase, and you also want to give your body the nutrient needs so you don't have cramping. This is where magnesium is great, especially a magnesium. Magnesium glycinate or a magnesium that has 18 aminos attached, so a magnesium that's a food-based magnesium. But I would do around 300 milligrams at least of magnesium a day.

Evening primrose oil has actually been shown to ease breast tenderness and mood swings, so do more of those fatty acids, the omega-3s and the evening primrose together. L-theanine, it's an amino that supports relaxation. Taking vitamin D. This helps reduce symptoms. Ashwagandha, lowering the stress on the body.

And again, things like turmeric, ginger, rosemary, doing more of these herbals to start to reduce inflammation in the body. And so if you're a woman and you are premenopausal, be aware of where you're at in the cycle. And remember, here's the basics of it. Phase 1, lower carb. And focus on building your blood.

Phase 2, increase your carbs and focus on challenging yourself in eating a lot of nutrient-dense foods. Phase 3, lower carb and focus on reducing inflammation and relaxation. I want to go one, one, one other thing to go back to the phase 2 there. Detoxification. Okay, so phase 1 is going to be low carb, build your blood. Phase 2, high carb, detoxify.

Phase 3, start to get into lower carb and reduce inflammation. And if you can do that within your cycle, your body is going to be healthy, it's going to be in rhythm, it's going to heal at the highest level possible. Now also remember, you're a unique individual.

And you might be somebody who is struggling with an issue like inflammatory bowel disease, okay, or autoimmune disease, and you have gas and bloating and digestive system issues all the time.

Well, there are probably foods and meals that are going to be better for you, but it might be where they're just very minor adjustments where, okay, you're on the part of your cycle where you need more carbs, that luteo-ovulatory phase. Well, maybe do a little bit more carbs then. Maybe it's a little bit more rice noodles or sweet potato. And the others you back down.

So there are— there is— your diet looks pretty similar, you're just making minor adjustments. Overall though, no, it's important that you listen to your body and support it based on where you're at in your cycle. Now I want to start to go through perimenopause and menopausal foods and some things you need to consider as you enter into menopause.

And remember, perimenopause is the period in women's life when you're sort of leading up to— you can start to feel some changes. In your body, you're going into menopause. And this is when you start to have— there can be many, many different types of changes in your body from starting to have your mood fluctuate to your body temperature fluctuate. And I want to go through the best foods for this.

Number 1, remember you need quality protein for cellular repair and anti-aging, especially fatty fish like salmon. Eggs can also be fantastic. You want more healthy fats, more avocados, more nuts and seeds. You want more cruciferous vegetables like steamed broccoli and cauliflower to detoxify the excess estrogens.

You want more anti-inflammatory foods, you know, the turmeric, the bone broth, things like that. Carbs should be complex like sweet potatoes, and more hydrating foods like cucumbers and watermelon are also very, very good. When you go through perimenopause, know that you're going to start seeing less of these fluctuations.

In your cycle, but more sometimes fluctuations in what you feel like is going on within your hormones. And part of what's happening typically is your estrogen and progesterone, both of these start to decrease. In Chinese medicine, they call it a kidney qi decrease of both the yin and the yang.

Okay, so the yang, the estrogen, the yin, the progesterone, both of those can start to decrease and decline. And so we want to do everything we can to just support all of these areas in the body. And so when you start going through perimenopause, you essentially want to kind of do everything we talked about before simultaneously. You want to build your blood.

You also want to support some detoxification while also supporting your body's insulin levels the, the entire time that you're going through your cycle. And so generally what that would look like is you want to eat a lot of organic meat, You want to do a lot of steamed vegetables. You want to do a lot of things like berries and certain types of fruit.

And you want to do a good amount of things like sweet potato and seeds like flaxseeds. Okay, also getting things like coconut milk and yogurt, healthy fats from extra virgin olive oil and avocado. That's sort of what the ideal diet looks like if you're going through perimenopause.

The supplements that tend to be the most crucial tend to be the herbs that you're going to go use as well during menopause, along with lots of probiotics, lots of B vitamins. But the adaptogenic herbs like the ashwagandha are very— and shatavari are very helpful when you're going through this part of your cycle.

And then oftentimes your bone density can start to decrease, and this is where doing a magnesium and vitamin D combo supplement can be really powerful as well. Now, as you transition into menopause, Again, things like hot flashes, night sweats, these mood fluctuations, not feeling like your old self— there are foods that can make a big difference.

You know what most people turn to today when they start having these symptoms is hormonal replacement therapy, HRT. And there are studies showing that there are links between hormone replacement therapy and certain types of cancer. Now listen, there's many cases where that doesn't happen. Many women have had HRT therapy and have seen great results. I'm not saying you wouldn't feel better.

But I really believe that the order things should be done in is first you should try and change your diet and lifestyle. That's the first thing you should do before getting on HRT therapy. And with that, taking the right supplements— supplements that have been used for thousands of years for helping create balance.

If that still doesn't work, then try some peptide therapy, okay, and some other natural treatments like acupuncture. And if that doesn't work, well then get on the lowest dose HRT you can and try not to be on, on it for too long. That's really it. So I'm not against HRT in every case. I think there's a time and place for it. I do think it's overused about 90% of the time.

However, I do think there is a time and place where you want to do it for a time. But I think in most cases we can fix it and balance your hormones without having to do HRT. There's a natural hormone replacement therapy that we're going to talk about now. And so let's go through what that should look like. So diet for menopause should be pretty much exactly what we talked about with perimenopause.

It's going to be keeping your protein high, keeping your healthy fat moderate, keeping your carbs moderate, not going too high or too low on those, and really focusing on organic meat, bone broth, wild-caught fish like salmon, doing eggs, doing sweet potatoes and berries as your biggest source of carbs along with maybe some rice.

You can also do some sourdough grain products, whole grains like millet, those are all fine. Getting avocado, getting extra virgin olive oil, getting a little bit of animal fat like tallow is fine in moderation. And doing the steamed vegetables and some seeds like flax and walnuts, that's great. Doing a diet like that is wonderful for menopause.

You know, basically the diet that's sort of the middle, you know, I would call it a Chinese medicine diet or a Middle Eastern diet, is going to be very much along the lines of what we're talking about. Now, one particular type of food that can benefit women as they're going through menopause are foods that support natural estrogen production and have natural phytoestrogens.

And that's going to be organic soy and flaxseeds. Listen, soy is good for some people. Doing miso and natto and organic edamame or organic soy is good for you if you are going through menopause in almost every case. So take Get some good organic fermented soy ideally. Do some flaxseeds. These are going to support estrogen in your body, so you want to do that.

Doing that with the sweet potatoes and sesame seeds is especially good for supporting both estrogen and progesterone simultaneously.

Also, as I mentioned, bone density can start to decline, so doing more steamed green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale, doing celery, doing broccoli, doing Nuts and seeds we mentioned, especially walnuts and Brazil nuts and flax and sesame, can be wonderful for those estrogen levels. Doing more omega-3s I mentioned as well earlier. Vitamin D and magnesium together for bone density.

B vitamins, probiotics. Now here is a blend I really love, or the most important herbs if you want to see a big change in your symptoms and you want to get sort of a natural herbal hormone therapy. That I think is a good replacement or alternative to hormone replacement therapy, here are the herbs that are most beneficial: black cohosh, wild yam, red clover, shatavari, and dong quai.

Okay, those herbs together can make a big, big difference. Now, if you feel really fatigued and low energy, you may also want to add in something like a rhodiola rosea. If you can tell progesterone and estrogen are still way off, you might add in something like a Vitex.

If you feel just a sense of like being frazzled, stressed, you might add in something like a, like a, like a Chamomile or a Rehmannia. Okay, but generally speaking, the 5 I talked about, and the most important being Black Cohosh, Wild Yam, Red Clover, Shatavari, Dong Quai, those herbs together make a big, big difference as women are going through menopause.

And it's a great blend you can do in a higher dose twice a day to keep those hormones balanced. Now, also, as you are going through menopause, it's the most important time to start maintaining and building muscle mass and bone density. This is where weight training comes into play. The greatest thing you can do is increase your muscle mass.

Along with that, increasing your VO2 max, getting on a spin bike, getting on an elliptical, Walking to where you're going hard for a minute, easy for a minute. That's a good thing to do. It's just hard a minute, easy for a minute. In terms of doing a little bit of that interval training is very, very good as well. And even if you only do that one day a week.

Now, in addition, you want to do a lot of walking. Okay, so walk every day. You can also do things for balance. You can do yoga, Pilates, barre, all those sort of things. But you definitely do want to focus on building muscle. Okay. And having one day a week where you challenge your cardiovascular system. The other big thing is getting quality sleep, okay? 7 To 9 hours a night.

It's when your body's going to repair. It's when your body resets its hormones and really come into balance. One of the biggest things that will disrupt your hormones is not getting quality sleep at night. Also, in terms of lifestyle habits, you know, it's important to build meaningful connections and relationships.

There's a study out of Harvard that found the number one thing for longevity, and I also believe one of the number one things for women's hormone balance, is connecting with other women and other loved ones like your family. If you're married, connect with your spouse, connect with your kids, build meaningful relationships with other women. It's going to help your hormonal health.

That sense of joy, those positive emotions, those help balance your hormones. Now, I want to mention this in Chinese medicine, the way they view menopause. They view it as a beautiful thing. They view it as you're growing in wisdom. You're reaching a stage where you don't have these fluctuations. You be you can become more even keeled.

But what happens hormonally is your yin and your yang both start to decrease, which means yin is associated with qualities like coolness and moistness and nurturing. So your body has less of an ability once you go into menopause. Of cooling and moistening itself. This is why you get a hot flash. Think about it. Your body can't control the heat. It can't moisten and cool itself enough.

This is why certain foods help your body do that. Foods that are known as yin-building foods like coconut yogurt and yogurt, bananas, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, watermelon, a lot of the foods we already covered. These soy, flax, these bring coolness and moisture to your body to decrease those hot flashes. And the other one is a yang kidney deficiency.

That's linked to warmth, activity, and stimulation. And this is why you want to weight train. It's why you want to make sure you're getting plenty of protein. Those 2 things in particular will help build that part of your body as well. And so you want to support both the yin and the yang as you're going through this. This also helps your skin stay younger.

If you feel like you're young at your skin is aging, starting to get dry. Well, again, and by the way, this is good for women of all ages to know, but again, you want to bring moisture to it. Again, coconut yogurt, sweet potato, flaxseeds and flax oils, omega-3 fatty acids, wild salmon, the oils from that fatty fish, extra virgin olive oil, cucumber, watermelon.

These are all going to help bring— you ever notice, I remember as a young boy, There were movies, and you know women would be doing these facials, and they would have cucumbers over their eyes, and then they would have this green mask on their face, which was probably a blend of either oatmeal and cucumber and greens and all kinds of different different things.

And I remember saying, "What that?" You know, again, probably a teenage kid just thinking that's so strange. You know why's a woman got cucumber on her eyes? But cucumbers are full of silica. Cucumbers are full of electrolytes. They're full of moisture. They bring moisture to your skin. By the way, another thing that's amazing for this is honey. Incredible.

You know the reason why honey can be in a pot and last over 3,000 years? It's the only food that has a moisture balancing capacity. It keeps the exact right amount of moisture in order to not age and not dry up.

This is why if you ever have a, ever have a cut or something where a scar could form, Keeping honey on it is the single greatest thing you can do to reduce scarring because it helps with that. So whether you're doing honey internally or part of your, your, your, um, your face mask is another great one, it helps bring that moisture.

So this is why actually there was a compound that was used in ancient Chinese medicine to build yin and help with menopausal symptoms, and it's called royal jelly. Royal jelly is one of the top Things you could ever take to support menopausal health and anti-aging, especially for women, especially. So, and it's great for skin health. So loads and loads of benefits there as well.

So some things you can think about there for, as we're talking about sort of that yin and some things you can do there to, to, to help, help heal your body. And this is associated, by the way, not just with menopause. I mean, women going through menopause need to build a lot of yin, but if you're a woman and your estrogen is tanked, you also need to build yin.

Yin is responsible for growth, for nourishment, for fertility, for skin health, for maintaining your uterine lining. It promotes coolness, stability, the buildup phase for your— during that follicular phase. So women also need to focus, of all ages, supporting estrogen, which is very yin. Women also need to support melatonin, which is yin. Progesterone, which has a yin component as well.

So getting more of those yin foods that we talked about is good. And then the yang foods— this is if you have hypothyroidism or you have low testosterone levels. This is where you want to do a lot of red meat and very high protein. You want to do Brazil nuts and walnuts and pumpkin seeds. You want to do like a— you want to do, um, spicy herbs and warming herbs, a lot of cinnamon.

You want to do Panax ginseng. You want to do, um, you know, some of the good fats as well, like coconut oil. Um, you know, all of those things are going to help there. All of those things are going to help. And so, and so you want to get some of those too, especially if hypothyroidism. Fenugreek is a good herb for that as well.

So to hit on some of these yin-supporting foods again, again, it's going to be organic. Remember, it's so important it's organic, natural, non-processed soy. It's sesame seeds, it's goji berries and goji berry powder, it's seaweed, it's flaxseeds, it's yogurt, could be goat or sheep or A2 cow or it could be coconut yogurt, pomegranates, and then chickpeas or something like hummus.

These are all going to be yin-supporting foods. Also olive oil and steamed vegetables are very supportive here. The herbs we talked about, dong quai, Black cohosh, peony is another one, are all very, very good for this as well. So these are all estrogen supporting. Now I want to go into melatonin supporting. This is good for sleep if you're struggling with that.

Jujube dates, so red dates, black rice, walnuts, bone broth, herbs specifically like Rehmannia and chamomile. And then the progesterone boosting foods, if you know you have low progesterone, Avocados, eggs, sweet potatoes and yams, sesame seeds, pearl barley, wild-caught salmon, and steamed spinach. These are all yin-boosting foods.

And yin-boosting herbs are going to be Vitex, Rehmannia, red raspberry leaf tea, wild yam are all good there as well.

And if you need to boost testosterone, as I mentioned, lamb is great, venison, bison, Leeks and onions, pumpkin seeds I mentioned as well, nut butters like almond butter and pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, figs are very good for this, cherries, and then testosterone herbs like Panax ginseng, deer antler, tribulus, Tongkat Ali, any of those really, you know, yang-boosting, fenugreek, these are all these testosterone boosting herbs that are great there as well.

And if you want to heal your thyroid, some of the best foods include Brazil nuts, seaweed, walnuts, rice, especially basmati or black rice, doing that as a congee, berries like blackberries and blueberries, goji berries are great there as well, organic wild meat, especially wild-caught fish, herbs like ashwagandha, Ginseng, astragalus, forskolin, and rhodiola, even cinnamon.

These are all very good herbs for balancing. And then cordyceps as a mushroom as well. And depending upon the symptoms you're feeling, you may need more of one or another. So let me just break this down. If you're struggling with hot flashes, if you're struggling with feeling like your hormones are just very out of whack, you're your skin is dry.

So if you are feeling too dry, your skin is aging too fast, you're, you're having hot flashes, you want to focus on the yin foods. You need more moisture and more coolness.

If you're struggling with— you just feel frail now, you feel frail and weak, and your body temperature is lower too, well then you want to focus on more of those yang-boosting herbs and foods, and maybe even some of the thyroid foods if that's the case for you. Okay, so, so that'll kind of lead you into which direction you would go.

Now, as I mentioned earlier, what most women, or many American women, do, and a lot of women in Europe and Australia, Canada, the Western world, is they focus on hormone replacement therapy, and they don't really change— make any of these changes we've talked about.

And while hormone replacement therapy can significantly improve your quality of life, it also comes with potential risks and considerations, both according conventional medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. Now, HRT is particularly effective in alleviating the menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, and vaginal dryness.

And these symptoms can be severe, and I understand that they impact your daily function, and that's incredibly hard. They also might decrease osteoporosis when you look at HRT therapy and bone density, and there might even be protection against heart heart disease.

So I do want to say, I do understand there are— there is symptom relief, number one, and some minor benefits potentially for bone density and heart when it comes to HRT. However, there are cons. And in TCM, introducing hormones exogenously from the outside can diminish the body's natural ability to produce these hormones over time.

It creates something called a negative feedback loop where, because you're getting estrogen from the outside, Your ovaries and uterus and other organs in your body stop producing those hormones. And in Chinese medicine, it's known to cause stagnation of your qi and your blood. It's like you've got a tap going on, water in your body, like living water going.

You turn off that tap because it's coming on, because now you're relying from water or nutrients or something from the outside. This has been linked to breast cancer, uterine cancer, heart disease, blood clots, strokes. With long-term use. It can also have side effects short-term of bloating, breast pain, skin changes, headaches, irregular bleeding there as well. So there are studies showing that.

Now again, I want to encourage you, let's go to my balanced approach that I talked about. First and foremost, don't jump to HRT. The first thing you should try and do is use food, herb, and lifestyle medicine. Okay, so follow the foods we talked about, take the vitamins, take the supplements, change your lifestyle. And let's see if that brings your hormones into balance.

And no, listen, you're gonna have a period of time where your hormones are gonna be a little bit off, but over the course of, let's say, 3 months or 6 months, hey, do they get to where you feel pretty good or great? Okay, if so, you're not going to need HRT.

And if you go through all of that and they still don't feel quite balanced, or maybe you saw a 50% improvement but you feel like you need a little bit more, well, then go to something like peptide therapy. Okay, peptides can help balance your body. I'll get into those in a minute.

If that still doesn't work, then get on hormone replacement therapy at the lowest dose possible while you continue to follow the right foods, herbs, and lifestyle treatments to bring your hormones into balance. I mean, a very small percentage of the population in areas like Japan do hormone replacement therapy. It's almost non-existent there. It's very, very low.

And so it should be very, very seldomly used here as well because there are potential side effects for cancer and other things. Okay, let's talk about peptide therapy for hormones. If you're struggling with fertility and PCOS, Number one, you probably don't need peptides. The first thing you can do again is the foods and supplements we talked about.

But if you still feel like you need help, you can take Kiss Peptin 10. This regulates a GnRH hormone in your body, which is beneficial for PCOS and irregular cycles. There's another one called ipamorelin, which increases human growth hormone, which can improve egg quality, ovarian function, metabolic health, and also BPA.

BPC-157, this enhances gut health, reduces inflammation, helps your body heal, improves insulin sensitivity. So that's another peptide you might consider if you're looking at peptides. If you're going through menopause and have hormone imbalances, doing TB-500, known as thymosin beta-4, this helps with tissue repair, immune function, and helps with estrogen. There's another one called CHKCU.

This is a copper supporter, and it promotes collagen production, reduces inflammation, and supports skin elasticity during menopause. And then there's another one called Epitalon, which regulates melatonin and may help with sleep disturbances. So if you're not sleeping well, that's another peptide you could use.

And then if you have hypothyroidism, including Hashimoto's specifically, you can take thymosin alpha-1. This modulates the immune system, reduces autoimmunity, and may help with Hashimoto's hypothyroidism. And BPC-157, which supports gut health and your body's immune response, which is great for thyroid health as well.

So you might also look into and consider peptide therapy if the herbs, vitamins, foods, and lifestyle medicine doesn't fully get you to where you want to go. But overall, remember, the first line of defense is food, herb, vitamin, and lifestyle medicine. The second line of defense is peptides. The last is doing a synthetic HRT.

And then after that, we don't want to do medications because those are even more severe in the side effects as we look at those as well. And remember, you know, everybody is different, and women in particular. You— your body is continually changing and fluctuating. So be aware, develop a level of self-awareness of what's going on hormonally in your body, and use food kind of like an artist.

I mean, in terms of knowing, okay, Okay, my progesterone's— my estrogen's low, my carbs need to be low. My estrogen's high, my carbs need to be high. Oh, and oh, I'm on this phase, I need to detoxify. I'm on this phase, I need to build my blood. And if so, your body is going to get in rhythm, you're going to get in balance, and your hormones are going to be healed and they're going to feel great.

So hey, I'd love to hear your comments on this as well. And listen, there are other experts you can listen to who have great wisdom on topics like this. Dr. Mindy Peltz is one that I've had on the show, and you can go back and listen to the episode with her. She did a great job, you know, going into some of this material as well.

And I just want to say thank you to all of you for listening here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember, each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles behind how to heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. And if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe, like, and share.

Millions of women living with hormone imbalance and they don't know that there are natural ways like this to heal. So I'd really appreciate, you know, whether it's going on social media or sending this message to a friend, hey, you should listen to this episode.

I'm so grateful for all of you that are sharing this, that are on mission with me, and that are the subscribers here that are part of the family, part of the Dr. Axe Show nation here. I want to say thanks so much and I'll see you on the next episode.