The Secret to Rebalancing Hormones Naturally

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What if I told you that your low energy, mood swings, stubborn weight gain, or even brain fog aren't just normal aging? They're actually signs your hormones are crying out for help. And here's the twist. It's not just your age or your genetics. It could be your medications, your sleep habits, your nutritional deficiencies, and even eating the wrong diet.

You might be eating salads or a certain type of food that you think is healthy, but it's actually destroying your hormonal health. In today's episode, I'll be exposing the hidden hormonal wrecking balls you probably haven't heard about and how to take back control of your health Naturally. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

Today's episode is brought to you by Vibrant Wellness, advanced specialty lab testing that spotlights the latest in functional medicine, longevity, and gut health, along with detoxification, brain health, hormones, all by utilizing state-of-the-art technology to ensure precise results. Go to vibrant-wellness.com to learn more today.

So hormones are chemical messengers secreted by glands like your thyroid, your adrenals, your ovaries, your testes, and your body needs certain things in order to make Hormones like cholesterol, amino acids, peptides, and healthy fats. Your body needs those to make hormones. And hormones tend to fall in one of several categories or be made up of several things. First is steroid-based hormones.

These are lipid-based, so fat-based, fat-soluble hormones derived from cholesterol. This includes estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol. So in order to make these hormones, you've got to have very specific types of healthy fatty acids and fat-based The other one is peptides and proteins. Now, peptides are short chains of amino acids. Did you know that insulin is a peptide?

That is the most important hormone for blood sugar. Growth hormone, which makes you strong and makes you age more slowly, that's a peptide as well. So peptides, you might have heard of peptides and some of the natural therapies and supplements and treatments people are doing today to help their hormones. Well, peptides Are crucial for that.

And then we have single amino acids such as certain thyroid hormones and melatonin. These are derived from amino acids like tyrosine and tryptophan are critical as well. So first thing you need to know, that in order for you to have proper hormone balance, you have to have very specific fatty acids in your diet and you have to have very specific types of peptides and amino acids in your diet.

And if you're missing, those proteins and those fats, your body cannot make the proper hormones. Notice I didn't say carbohydrates there. And that's why carbs are never called essential. We say essential fatty acids and essential amino acids, because really those are the only things that are essential for proper hormone production. Now, let me talk about why this matters.

Fats and proteins are key typically, and there are some hormones that you really require both together. In order for you to make the proper hormones. You know, there was this whole craze of low-fat diets, sometimes even a no-fat diet. I remember I literally had a patient come in once who was on a no-fat diet and his hair started thinning.

He started losing his muscles, started getting brain fog because his doctor placed him on a statin drug. He had high cholesterol, so they placed him on a low-fat diet. What I've seen in clinical practice, along with thousands of other practitioners, is when you get on a low-fat diet It absolutely destroys and wrecks your hormonal health. Now, I also want to mention this too.

There are other things that are critical for your hormonal health. We did— I mentioned fatty acids, I mentioned amino acids and peptides. And then here is a dietary principle that is probably going to surprise you. If you eat too little fiber, it's going to harm your hormonal health.

If you eat actually too much fiber, this happens sometimes in a vegan diet, that can actually disrupt your hormone production as well. So there's a very specific dosage I'll get into. Of fat, of protein, and of fiber you want to get to optimize your hormone production. Now, I want to start off here by going through the root cause of hormone imbalances.

And these first 2 I'm going to go through, you want to pay very close attention because these are the 2 primary hormone imbalances that then throw off every hormone in your body. Oftentimes when somebody has hypothyroidism or PCOS or infertility or even low testosterone, they tend to think to themselves, well, this issue was caused by lack of thyroid hormone.

No, typically there was another hormone before that that was imbalanced, and that's what's disrupting your thyroid hormone as an example. So let's dive in here. Number 1 cause of hormone balance is chronic stress, which increases cortisol, high cortisol.

So what chronic stress does is it elevates Cortisol, which disrupts something called your HPA, that's your hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, called your HPA axis. And this impacts hormones throughout your entire body and system.

So when you hear somebody is in a fight or flight state, that's that HPA axis and your adrenals go in overdrive, creating stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol. What that does is that starts to suppress Thyroid hormones and reproductive hormones when cortisol gets too high and also starts to increase insulin. So the number one hormone you need to fix if you want to heal is cortisol.

It is the single most important. Now, the other thing that happens when cortisol gets too high is this leads to a reduction in something called DHEA, which is critical for men and women for testosterone production and even for women for you producing enough estrogen. One question I've gotten actually fairly frequently is, Dr. Axe, should I take a DHEA supplement?

And for some people, the answer is yes. It's actually not many though. I don't think it's typically a supplement most people should be on. But the reality is, if your DHEA is off and you go and take a DHEA pill and you think, oh, that's fixing my test— or your testosterone's off and you go and take DHEA, that's not why your DHEA is low in the first place, or your testosterone.

The problem is cortisol. And so if we go and fix the cortisol, for most people, they're much better. Like men with low testosterone, you're much better off going and taking rhodiola rosea, Panax ginseng, ashwagandha, reishi, some of these herbs rather than taking DHEA, because you're actually going to get more to the root of the problem of cortisol.

And then, of course, doing things to bring more joy to your life, take more time off, relax more, read a book, spend time playing pickleball with friends. Doing things to lower cortisol will be much more effective at supporting DHEA and testosterone long-term than taking a DHEA supplement. And same thing for women.

If you're a woman and you know that your estrogen is in excess or low, excess is going to cause infertility, too low, especially when you're going through menopause, that's going to cause hot flashes and premature aging, there are other ways to fix that outside of just running to hormone replacement therapy first.

You could do black cohosh, red clover, wild yam, shatavari, and a number of other herbs and dietary changes that would actually fix the problem. But what most people do today is they just run and they try and treat that hormone that came up on their blood test. They see, oh, my estrogen's off, or estradiol, or testosterone. They'd go and try and treat that. That's not the problem.

The problem is the cortisol. Now here's another example. Stress can cause hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism by hindering the conversion of T4 to T3 in the thyroid. Now oftentimes this happens, so your body's producing enough T4, it's not converting it to T3, which is the active form your cells and organs need to function properly, to burn fat, to have thicker hair, to have proper energy.

And so a lot of that conversion happens in the gut and the liver. And if there is stress on those organs, did you know that different emotions cause stress on those organs? Of course, cortisol is part of that. Fear is the biggest emotion that drives cortisol up, but anger can affect the liver, worry can affect the gut. Those negative emotions actually can disrupt that conversion.

So you want to get to the root of the issue to heal these hormonal issues, but the reality is high cortisol Throws off almost every hormone in your body. It also causes low progesterone and, as I mentioned, elevated insulin. So if you truly want to heal your hormones, the very, very first thing you should do is focus on healing cortisol.

And overall, cortisol followed by insulin, they are the master regulator hormones of almost all other hormones in your body. And then the next thing I want to hit on here is insulin.

Okay.

Okay, insulin affects blood sugar and fat storage, and too much can trigger other hormonal cascades. For instance, here is a quote from the medical journal Frontiers in Endocrinology. Here's what they say. Insulin resistance may increase the risk of female infertility by activating oxidative stress.

So oxidative stress is where you bite an apple and it starts to turn brown, it actually starts to age. So what insulin resistance actually does, women, It causes your organs to age too quickly. Imagine your uterus and your ovaries, and they have oxidative stress on them. It's like an apple aging; they're turning brown.

They literally actually some of these organs will turn brown rather than the colors they should be—that vibrant pink and red—and they will actually start to age more quickly. Okay, so insulin when it goes up causes your reproductive organs to. Age more quickly because of oxidative stress. This also interferes with your energy metabolism affecting embryo quality and development.

So it affects your uterus, it affects your ovaries, and then what this does, it impacts your hormone secretion and for fertility, embryo implantation. And according to several medical studies, it causes Infertility. It's probably the number one cause of infertility today is not estrogen being imbalanced. It's actually cortisol and insulin, right?

High stress, diet high in sugar that's causing insulin to go up. That's the biggest cause of infertility today. And so here's what cortisol does. It controls your body's response to stress and can shut down reproductive function, When it's chronically elevated. And what insulin does is what I just said. It's going to throw off your thyroid hormones. It's going to throw off estrogen.

It's going to throw off progesterone. And the other things they do I want to mention as well, insulin in particular, it also is going to throw off your hunger hormones like ghrelin and leptin, which is going to make you very, very hungry. This is why for some of you, you have constant cravings. And it's not the ghrelin and leptin though.

Okay.

It's the fact that cortisol's high or insulin's high, and so those hunger hormones are being released. Okay? Now, the other thing that can happen is they can— if cortisol and insulin are off, it disrupts sex hormone balance. High cortisol and insulin suppress progesterone and testosterone, which leads to low libido, also PMS and infertility. Okay? Are all linked there.

And then as I mentioned earlier, these hormones, like when cortisol gets high especially, It alters thyroid function. Cortisol slows down the conversion of T4 to T3 and also can disrupt T4 itself being created and TSH. Multiple medical studies show this. And what happens, most people go to their doctor with hypothyroidism and their doctor said, hey, here's some Synthroid or levothyroxine.

You have to be on these drugs the rest of your life. If doctors know what they're doing, in how to heal hormones. They simply need to go and fix cortisol and insulin. And now, and now there are other ways to do that we'll get into. I mean, you need certain B vitamins, you need selenium, you need iodine, you need zinc, you need certain phytonutrients.

And if you do that, well, now you can heal and reverse hypothyroidism. I mean, I can tell you I've helped thousands of women reverse hypothyroidism and get off their medication because We went and not only treated the thyroid hormones, we went and treated the hormones that were actually impacting the thyroid hormones, and we improved the conversion of things like T4 to T3.

There are peptides you need to do that as well. So most doctors are living so many years in the past, and they're not doing and addressing the things that are actually at the root of the problem. Now, a few other things I want to mention here about cortisol and insulin because they're so important, especially cortisol. Is cortisol and insulin drive belly fat and blood sugar to go up?

So if you're noticing you're keeping weight, especially on your midsection, your belly, and your hips, that tends to be hormonal weight gain. Okay, it's definitely hormone induced. And excess cortisol and insulin promote fat storage, which in turn releases inflammatory cytokines that further cause hormone problems.

So if you're a person and you've got hormone imbalance, and you just also feel bad, your joints feel bad, you feel lethargic. Lethargic, fatigued, just kind of sloppy and gross, it's a cortisol-insulin problem almost always at the very beginning. And one other thing I want to touch on, and this is very important, when cortisol goes up, you know the biggest inverse hormone to cortisol? Melatonin.

When you dysregulate your circadian and sleep hormones with elevated evening cortisol, especially at night or in the evening, That causes blood sugar imbalances, which interferes with melatonin release and sleep quality. Okay? So then you're sleeping poorly.

So then it's this vicious cycle where you're just tired and fatigued all the time and your body can't heal because now your battery is being completely depleted. So can you see where if you would go and actually start fixing cortisol, every other hormone in your body starts to heal and come into balance? And then secondarily, as we've talked about, it's insulin.

And so I want to talk about that for a moment here. Number 2, blood sugar dysregulation. Insulin resistance. Now, when you look at the statistics of how many people not just have diabetes, but prediabetes, and also known as insulin resistance, it's like 2/3 of people or nearly 70%. I mean, the numbers are crazy, the number of people with insulin resistance today.

And so you may not have diabetes, But if you have insulin resistance, this is going to cause major, major hormone imbalance for you. So insulin resistance increases androgens, male hormones, in women. Now, this is why some women, when they have PCOS or other conditions, they could start to get facial hair.

They could start to have acne or a lot of inflammation, like cystic acne or any sort of skin issue is a major cause of this. So if you're a woman and you have skin issue or hair in places you don't want it, those sort of issues, that's a problem where it's an insulin problem, which is then causing high androgens in your body for women.

And this is, by the way, one of the biggest causes of PCOS and infertility and anything that's disrupting ovulation. So if you're a woman with PCOS, the cure and the fix in almost every case is balancing insulin and improving your blood sugar. In fact, a lot of doctors call PCOS type 4 diabetes. Now we know what type 1 diabetes is. Autoimmune disease.

We know type 2 diabetes is, that's directly, of course, an insulin issue there. Type 3 diabetes is dementia because dementia and this cognitive decline is typically an insulin issue. And then, of course, PCOS and hormone imbalances, it starts with insulin as well in most cases.

So if you want to improve your fertility and you want to optimize your femininity and support your hormones and reverse things like PCOS, you have to focus on improving insulin. Here's how this works. In some cases, sex hormone binding globulin is a protein made by the liver that binds to sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone in your blood.

When insulin levels are high, they start to increase insulin resistance. When that happens, the liver produces less of this sex hormone binding globulin. When you don't have this thing that binds these hormones, You have more free estrogen and testosterone that just float around in the bloodstream. So remember this, here's what drives me crazy sometimes.

Doctors will go and do blood work and they will look to see how many— what hormones are in your blood, okay? But they're not looking at how well these hormones are being utilized by your cells, right? So very similar thing with insulin, right? You want insulin in your cell. In it to help bring sugar in.

So these insulin receptor sites, what happens in diabetes is these insulin receptor sites, they burn out. Okay? So now your body can't get sugar in the bloodstream. So sugar stays in the bloodstream causing loads of inflammation.

Well, the same thing happens when, if it's not only sugar in your bloodstream, what happens if you have excess estrogen in your bloodstream or excess testosterone in your bloodstream? Well, if it's excess testosterone in your bloodstream for women, It's going to cause PCOS, more masculine-like qualities. And for men, think about the same thing.

If you have excess estrogen in your bloodstream, and oftentimes it's going to have— men are going to have more feminine qualities. Oftentimes men can start to grow larger chest than they want. They can have more mood swings can start to happen. So all of this happens because you have excess estrogen and testosterone in the bloodstream and they're not being utilized and absorbed By the cells. Okay.

So it's not only sometimes that you have insulin resistance, sometimes you have estrogen or other types of hormone resistance that you haven't been able to fix. As I mentioned, in women, too much free testosterone leads to acne, facial hair, and PCOS. Listen to this. Between 35% and 80% of women with PCOS have insulin resistance. I think the number is closer to 80%.

Wow.

Almost all women with PCOS have insulin resistance. And if it's not insulin, it's cortisol. It's one of the two in every single case almost. In men, high insulin and low SHBG can lower total testosterone while increasing estrogen. And this leads to more feminine-like qualities for men, fatigue, belly fat, and very low libido and just lack of strength and lack of motivation.

Have you ever seen— there's a lot of men today who, because of this high insulin, they're just unmotivated. Maybe when they're in high school and even college and in their 20s, they were like motivated. They wanted to go change the world. They were just— they were a leader. And then sometime in their 30s or 40s, it's like they're not motivated. They kind of have this low-grade depression.

They're fatigued all the time. They don't have the same sex drive. That's because of this. And what most men— here's what they do. They go to their doctor and their doctor says, hey, Hey, let me put you on testosterone replacement. Now, some men don't even do that. They just don't do anything. They just live in this state of lethargy. But for some men, they go do that.

That's not the root of the problem though. If you just go and use that, take that testosterone, there are other negative health effects happening in your body that could increase risks of cancer and heart disease and diabetes. But now you're just going to try and fix everything with testosterone. It's not going to fix things. Now, let me say this, okay?

Some men, will see improvements when they get on testosterone because it does make them a little bit more motivated. They have a little bit more of this ambition. So now they'll start exercising and doing certain things to lift their mood. So for some men, for a period of time or later on in life, I think it can be good to do testosterone therapy.

But here's the thing, it should never be the first thing you do. Men, if you have high insulin and you take testosterone, it's not going to fix the high insulin. You're going to have a premature health problem Very soon.

I mean, this is how men sometimes will have a heart attack early on in their life or have another issue is that they just went and took hormone replacement or got on a medication and they never got to the root of the problem. It'll eventually catch up with you. So for men, here's what you should have done. You should have improved your diet.

And women, go and follow a diet that's low glycemic, lower in carbohydrates. You're doing more berries, you're doing a lot more healthy fat. Listen, you're doing the things we talked about earlier you have to have for hormone production. More protein and more healthy fatty acids and low to moderate carbohydrates. Okay. And then herbs and nutrients that balance blood sugar.

If you do that, men, your testosterone is going to go up. Women, your estrogen, progesterone will be balanced and you're not going to have all these androgens in your body. Okay. If you fix your diet and then you take the right herbs and vitamins and minerals and like for men, taking Panax ginseng, fenugreek, deer antler, tribulus, you know, Tongkat Ali. Tongkat Ali, those sort of herbs.

This is going to help bring your body and hormones back into balance, but most of the time you don't do that. Instead, you run to the quickest thing you think that you're going to feel a difference with, which you might, but it's not the best way to anti-age, to heal, and to live a long, healthy life. So if you want to fix your hormones, number 1, you have to fix cortisol.

Number 2, you have to fix insulin. Number 3, this is so important for hormone balance. Improving your sleep. Sleep deprivation, just one night of sleep deprivation can reduce testosterone levels by 15%. One study found that skipping sleep reduces young men's testosterone levels by the same amount as aging 10 to 15 years. So think about that.

Just one night of bad sleep, your testosterone drops like you're 15 years older.

Yeah.

You're 35 years old, you're feeling good. And then one poor night of sleep, it drops to like you're a 50-year-old. Okay? That much of a difference. Now imagine you get poor sleep most nights for years. This is why there's a lot of men today in their 30s that have the testosterone levels of what men had 50 years ago when they were 100. Or when you look at men, this is crazy.

When you look at men in Japan and Okinawa specifically, They have the same levels of testosterone that men do when they're in their 70s than men do in the United States in their 30s. Think about what a big difference that is. That's why we have this whole hormone replacement craze going on here. You know, in Japan, how many people use hormone replacement therapy? Almost none.

It's incredibly low because they understand using food as medicine and herbs as medicine to help fix But the big thing here is this, is you got to sleep better. Sleep deprivation increases cortisol and decreases melatonin, so now your body can't heal. Melatonin is critical for fighting cancer, for regenerating tissue, for healing from injuries, for reversing any medical condition.

If you have hypothyroidism or low testosterone or infertility or diabetes and you want to reverse that condition, you have to get good quality sleep. Okay. And cortisol increases by up to 37% after not getting enough sleep. And this also, of course, increases all the things we've talked about, such as insulin resistance. Here's another big one.

Growth hormone release is reduced by 70% when deep sleep is disrupted. So if you're a man and let's say you work out a lot and you're trying to put on muscle, or women, you want to look really lean and fit and healthy, growth hormone, you have to have growth hormone to do that. It goes down by 70% with a poor night's sleep.

So very, very important if you want to heal that you get a good night's sleep. It is crazy when you look at the data around how much less sleep we get now compared to 100 years ago. And all has to do with the invention of the light bulb for the most part. I mean, you know, when here we should be living in tune with nature. God created these natural rhythms where the sun comes up at a certain time.

And it goes down at a certain time. You should be going down to bed when the sun goes down and waking up when the sun comes up, generally speaking. Now, maybe there's an hour or 2 difference. Let's say you're in the middle of winter. Let me give you another example. Let's say you live in Alaska, okay?

And the sun is only out for 5 hours a day some days, and then it's dark like, you know, 15 to 20 hours a day. Okay, that's— there are exceptions to the rule. But generally, it should at least inform you when you should be winding down and waking up, especially when you are in most time zones. Okay. So the reality is this, you want to get 8 hours of quality sleep a night.

But at the very, very minimum, if you want to be healthy, you should have 7 hours of sleep a night. Because I believe that sleep is maybe the most important, one of the most important things you can track. That's why I have an Oura Ring here. And there are other devices, but this is my favorite for tracking Sleep. And this is something that I feel really strongly about.

I'm always looking at my sleep score. It's the number one thing I look at for my own health. The other thing is, if you've ever done a continuous glucose monitor, those are great because that's looking for insulin. And then I can just tell my own stress levels with cortisol. I look at things like HRV, which is another thing you can do like on your phone via Oura Ring or another type of device.

But being able to track your insulin, HRV, which is somewhat a predictor of certain types of cortisol, and then your sleep together, those 3 things, that is incredibly, incredibly valuable in terms of being able to test things. Now, I also think there's values in going and getting blood work. You can go and look for things like your organ age.

You can go and look for different markers of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. For instance, if you want to get good quality sleep and have proper hormone production, you need vitamin D. You need proper levels of magnesium. You need certain types of amino acids. And so getting blood work done is very, very helpful in that as well.

But I just wanted to mention, knowing how well you sleep is very, very important when it comes to your hormone balance. Here's another study that came out. Listen to this. Short sleep increases miscarriage risk and lengthens time to conception in women trying to get pregnant.

So if you want to improve your fertility and decrease any risk, decrease risk of miscarriage according to this study, you have to optimize sleep and get good quality sleep. What I like to do, and I've mentioned this before, but my favorite therapies are this. Number 1, spend more time outside. When the sun comes up, try and get up with it. When it goes down, start getting ready for bed.

You want to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Okay? You want your room to be pitch black, zero light coming in, absolute black. You want it to be very cold, between 60 2 and 68 degrees. You want to use a weighted blanket. You want to feel weight on you when you sleep as well. And you want to make sure you're not getting too hot.

When you're eating, you want to do lower to moderate carb, not low carb, moderate carb, and not do many carbs at night especially. And you want to give yourself about 3 hours before you go to sleep at night. Walking around meals is good. Blue blocker sunglasses. You're much better reading a book or listening to an audiobook or something like that. Than you are watching TV. Okay?

Now, if you're going to watch TV, let's say you eat dinner at 6 to 7, then maybe watch TV for 1 hour, 7 to 8. Then that last 2 hours or hour and a half before you get in bed, listen to an audiobook or read or having a conversation with your loved ones or play with your kids, something like that. Tell them a bedtime story. Do those things and then get to bed at 10. Okay?

But I think for most people, being in bed by closer to even 9:30, but being asleep by 10 or 10:30 is what you want to aim for. To optimize sleep. Okay. Number 4 thing you got to be conscious of to get to the root cause of hormone imbalances, your body weight, in looking at fighting any sort of excess weight gain or obesity. Adipose tissue, so your fat tissue, is hormonally active.

Did you know that your muscles are organs? You don't think of your muscles like your liver or your pancreas or your lungs, do you? Or your heart? Or you probably don't think of your fat that way as well. Your body fat is an organ, acts as an organ. Did you know body fat converts testosterone into estrogen via a compound called aromatase? Okay? So men, this is especially important.

If you've got excess body fat, your testosterone goes down. Okay? Excess weight is tied to elevated estrogen and insulin if you're holding onto weight gain. Okay? Especially insulin. And it also increases inflammation and your risk of all types of cancers and mortality, by the way, too, if you're overweight.

In postmenopausal women, adipose tissue can contribute to up to 100% of circulating estrogen levels. And in premenopausal women, it can account for up to 50% of circulating testosterone. So again, it's an organ that's producing hormones, your body fat. And so you want to have— you want to have more of a lean body. You want a little bit of fat, though, right?

And this is also why women need a little bit more body fat than men, because of some of their hormonal sensitivities and what their body's creating. But you've got to be very, very careful and aware of body— of your weight. And that's why you want to incorporate the right dietary practices, stress-reducing practices, and exercise when it comes to balancing your hormones.

Number 5, when it comes to root causes of hormone imbalance, medications. Number 1 medication that's destroying hormones out there today are birth control pills. They shut down ovulation. They deplete your body of every single B vitamin. They deplete your body of magnesium. They depress your selenium levels and they suppress natural progesterone.

Birth control pills, of course, I mean, you know, that's why you're not able to get pregnant is it's throwing off— you're radically throwing off your hormones out of balance. You know, the other thing is your libido goes down. It changes your personality. Birth control is incredibly bad for women and bad for society. Okay? It's bad for women's health.

A lot of women think, oh, this is almost like a vitamin I'm taking just to not get pregnant. No, birth control pills are bad for your body. They're one of the greatest causes of nutritional depletion, nutrient depletion. They deplete your body of good bacteria. They actually imbalance your gut microbiome. Everything I'm saying is backed up by clinical research and the latest medical studies.

There's a study showing that if you take birth control pills, your chance of hypothyroidism goes up by 287% if you take it for 10 years. So birth control pills are not healthy. So if you have hormone imbalance, ask yourself, did I take birth control pills? Here's another thing. If you have hypothyroidism or infertility, ask yourself, did I take birth control pills in the past?

Because here's probably part of why you're still dealing with these issues today. Your bank account of vitamins, especially B vitamins, might be at the absolute floor.

And especially if you have an MTHFR gene where maybe you already didn't methylate very well, well, now what you need to do is you need to go and do higher doses, probably a double dose of a methylated B vitamin in order to start building those reserves back up so your cells can function properly to produce the right amount of hormones there as well. Okay? So, and most doctors don't know this.

I mean, it's— and so if you are dealing with, again, infertility, PCOS, especially hypothyroidism, if you took birth control, or if you have yeast and Candida issues or gut microbiome issues, birth control really causes yeast overgrowth over time. So you got to be really conscious of that and do the right things. High-dose probiotic. Here's what you want to do.

Most of the cases, high-dose probiotic, at least 100 billion daily, along with probiotic-rich foods, then lots of B vitamins and a lot of things like polyphenols, Those are types of antioxidants in extra virgin olive oil and certain berries and green tea, and a lot of foods that are going to balance out insulin and support these B vitamins being created as well.

So, but birth control pills, major, major cause of hormone disruption that a lot of women are not aware of. Next one is antidepressants, SSRIs. These affect serotonin, they lower libido, and they disrupt thyroid function and a number of other hormones in the body. If you've taken an antidepressant, it's also pulling nutrients out of your body. It can disrupt melatonin and magnesium as well.

And then antibiotics. These alter your gut flora, which impairs estrogen metabolism. And also remember we talked about converting T4 to T3 for hypothyroidism. If you've taken antibiotics, your body now, right after you do that and after, your body now is not as good at converting T3 to T4— T4 to T3.

Right.

If you've taken an antibiotic. So now you need to go and take a lot of probiotics to fix that issue. Okay, but it really— what it does, it impairs estrogen metabolism and liver detoxification. If you've taken an antibiotic, it also can damage your mitochondria for cellular energy. So lots of issues there.

And there are more medications I would get into, but the 3 biggest that really disturb your hormone balances are birth control pills, antidepressants, and antibiotics. Number 6 thing that's throwing off your hormones is your Gut microbiome, or what I'd call your neuroendocrine system or your gut-brain hormone axis. Your gut communicates with your brain and your hormonal system via the vagus nerve.

And if that's off, you're going to have problems. Now, you might be aware of this, that around 95% of your body's serotonin, that good mood hormone, that's produced in your gut. So you actually have hormones produced in your gut, and also your gut and liver break down hormones like estrogen.

Of course, your liver predominantly is what takes estrogen and breaks it down for you into a more usable form and helps your body get rid of the excess phyto and xenoestrogens that are toxic to your body, that increase cancer risk. So your liver breaks down excess estrogen, but it's your gut that must eliminate That excess estrogen.

And if your gut is inflamed or sluggish due to things like especially constipation, excess estrogen can be reabsorbed in your body, worsening PMS, PCOS, infertility, estrogen dominance, and even increasing your risk of estrogen-based cancers. And the gut microbiome regulates estrogen via the— what we call the estrobolome.

This Is a group of gut bacteria that's responsible for metabolizing estrogen. And if this is imbalanced, again, it leads to this excess estrogen, which is going to cause major, major health problems in your body.

So a lot of times, and this is true, when I take care of patients with hypothyroidism, the first things I look at are cortisol and insulin, and as organ systems, the brain and the gut microbiome. Okay. Third is the liver. And then the adrenal glands. So there are several things you'll see.

I mean, hormones are complex, but if you really want to heal your hormones, you've got to address some of these other organs instead because they're actually the ones causing the problem. Again, when you have a thyroid problem, the thyroid is never the problem, hardly ever. Okay, let me say it's very rarely the problem.

Typically, your thyroid problem is because you have a gut issue or a brain issue that's really— it's cortisol and stress. Okay, that's what's causing it almost every single time. And then sometimes adrenals as well. But really, that adrenal issue is because the brain is causing the adrenals to release the stress hormone.

So if you fix, like I got into to start, cortisol and insulin, you're going to fix all these other hormones. Now, let me hit on just a few more. Another major cause of hormone imbalance are environmental toxins.

BPAs, which are found in plastics, pesticides, personal care products, a lot of these different chemicals that we're exposed to on a regular basis, they can mimic or block natural hormones, particularly estrogen and testosterone. Now, this is associated with an increased risk of endometriosis, early puberty, and metabolic dysfunction. Do you know how early girls are hitting menses now?

How early they're hitting their period? It's at least 5 years earlier than they should on average, according to the latest clinical studies. So here's what this is doing. These environmental toxins and the excess chemicals in dairy and meat and the stress, all these things. So a lot of young girls, they're aging 5 years too fast.

So you might think, oh, this girl, okay, what's the big deal if she hits puberty early? Essentially, maybe it's 5 years off her life or more, or it's increasing her risk of cancer. There's all kinds of problems. But basically, you've sped up the aging of that person. That's what happens. And it's due to all of the chemicals in our food, or at least that's a major, major problem. Listen to this.

Exposure to BPA, bisphenol A, is associated with a 1.8 times, 180% increased risk of developing endometriosis. Girls exposed to certain chemicals, including BPA and phthalates, are much more likely to experience early puberty according to studies. So these hormone imbalances are happening earlier and earlier in life, causing people to age more quickly. And have these problems very, very early.

And we obviously don't want that, right? So those are the 7 major causes of hormone imbalance that most people are not aware of. We talked about a lot of things, right? Insulin and cortisol. We talked about the gut microbiome. We talked about sleep, right? We talked about numerous things there that are important toxins that you need to be aware of when it comes to hormone imbalance.

And what most doctors do today is they just say, hey, here is a medication. And some that are a little bit better, but it's still not getting to the root. They say, hey, everybody follow a paleo diet, or everybody should take, you know, this one supplement. And it's just not enough. If you want to heal, we need to go and address where the problems begin.

And it tends to be these cortisol and insulin issues. And if you can fix those, you can fix your hormones. Now, I do want to mention there is a difference between women's hormones and men's hormones, okay? And the conditions that they struggle with.

For women, The most common hormonal issues are hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's, irregular periods, PMS, PCOS, acne, unwanted weight gain, mood swings, hair thinning or growth of facial hair, low libido, and then mood-related issues and also fatigue. Okay. Endometriosis as well. And then menopausal symptoms and hot flashes.

Like, these are some of the biggest Warning signs and symptoms that your hormones are imbalanced for women. For men, low energy, low libido, erectile dysfunction, mood changes, brain fog, loss of muscle mass, increased belly fat, lack of motivation, sleep disturbances as well, and just poor concentration. Those things are warning signs for men that your hormones are off.

And also, with a loss of muscle mass, also just loss of sort of strength and wanting to just even like pursue your wife and go after things, that motivation thing. Those are the biggest warning signs your hormones are off. Here's the reality. Standard blood tests and annual physicals won't necessarily identify a hormone problem.

It's up to you to pay attention to your symptoms and seek help and testing. Again, for starters, I think what you want to do is be aware of yourself, okay?

Be aware of these symptoms you have, and then going and getting a test tests done, are going to go deeper and make dietary changes, take the right supplements, you can radically improve your hormonal health if you do some good testing and you're working with a practitioner that can help create a personalized plan for you.

Because here's the other reality, I hit on those 7 major causes, it's going to be different for everybody.

I mean, I can tell you, like, I— like, I— this week, this last week, I had a patient who's part of my, my I have a virtual clinic and practice where I have a whole team of practitioners I work with, and then I do some of the regular calls with patients as well in a group setting, and then we do one-on-ones, and we create personal plans for everybody.

But when we have a patient come in with menopausal issues, like the hot flashes and really aging too quickly and arthritis, those sort of problems, brain fog, their diet and their supplements is very different than when I have a patient that has maybe Hashimoto's thyroiditis, or let's say I have a male with low testosterone diabetes.

Those diets, those supplements, those root causes are all very, very different. And so we need to address those differently. And that's why working with a practitioner and getting some testing sometimes done can, can reveal what you personally need to do. So I want to mention this.

When you are considering what to do next, you want to look beyond conventional labs and consider functional tests from a provider like Vibrant Wellness is one that we've used. And I really, really like what they're doing.

They actually have a hormone, something called a Hormone Zoomer, which includes 66 urinary markers, 13 endocrine disruptor markers, 2 bone health markers, an oxidative stress panel. They look at a number of things that can impact your hormonal health, and it's really, really valuable insights.

And so, one of the things you can do is go to vibrant-wellness.com and consider looking at some of what they're doing. But Vibrant Tests, They measure— they actually measure cortisol patterns, not just in an isolated time, the actual patterns, hormone metabolites, your detox pathways, a lot of these things that you need to know.

And if you want to learn more about the Vibrant Wellness testing, take a look at the link in the show notes to order your Hormone Zoomer today. Again, this comprehensive hormone panel, you can get that done by this company I recommend, Vibrant Wellness. Again, look in the show notes and look at the Hormone Zoomer Panel, and you can get that ordered today.

All right, I want to take a moment now and dive into how to use food as medicine to heal your hormones. Okay, what are the top foods you could be consuming right now to heal and balance your hormones? Well, let me say it can make a little bit of a difference if you're a man or a woman, but generally what I'm going to go through is good for most. Okay, one great food is eggs.

Okay, eggs are rich in choline, cholesterol, and protein. They're a great hormone-balancing food, doing Pastured eggs, grass-fed beef, red meat like bison and beef and lamb. These are great sources of protein, iron, omega-3s, B vitamins. Of course, organ meats are wonderful as well. Salmon, high in omega-3 fatty acids.

I would say that salmon is maybe my single favorite food for healing almost any condition. Avocados and other healthy fats are great as well. The great thing about avocados is they've got A lot of healthy fats. They're also high in magnesium and potassium, which support cortisol. And then I would say green leafy vegetables that are steamed. These aid estrogen clearance.

Also, broccoli is good for that. Broccoli rabe, dandelion greens, asparagus, these green vegetables, good for clearing out excess estrogen. Certain seeds, you might have heard of seed cycling, which can be great for women. Things like pumpkin seeds, flax, chia, and almonds. Generally, women that are going through menopause can greatly benefit from a lot of flaxseeds.

Men generally can benefit a lot from pumpkin seeds. And then women who are premenopause that are looking to balance their hormones and fertility, you actually want to do more seed cycling. And you can look up more about that. I've talked about that before where you're going to eat different seeds based on your monthly cycle.

And then cruciferous vegetables, these also help with getting rid of excess estrogen and reducing oxidative stress on your body, which is important as well. Another one I mentioned just a minute ago though is organ meats. I mean, organ meats and taking glandular supplements are incredibly beneficial. If you want to support your thyroid, take a thyroid glandular and a thymus glandular.

If you want to support your heart, take a heart glandular and a liver glandular. If you want to support your liver, take liver. If you want to support your immune system, take thymus and maybe take intestinal tissue and things like that. So glands and organs have tremendous benefits for supporting your hormonal health.

And did you know, you've heard of peptide therapy, the foods that are the highest in peptides, healing peptides, are organs and glands. So one thing I take most days is a multi-organ supplement that has multiple organs in it, okay? One, it has high doses of things like zinc and vitamin B12 and other nutrients, but also it's got all of these healing and regenerative peptides.

So loads of benefits there. Or if you're a male who maybe has low testosterone, you could take an organ supplement that has higher levels of testes and other hormones that are gonna— other tissues that are gonna increase testosterone for you naturally or have those healing peptides. Fairly same thing for women. You could take a blend that has ovaries and uterus in it, and that would be great.

But consuming organ meats, one of the things I do, there's a brand called Force of Nature. There's another brand I take as well. There's Burski. There's Lineage Provisions. There are brands that I consume their products because they have beef along with heart and liver in them, and about around 20% to 25% of the product. And you don't really taste it much.

Yeah.

So it's a great way to get these in your diet in that way. And so that's something I'd encourage you to do there as well. I do want to mention that for people that are following a vegan diet, their hormones can be very imbalanced because they get too much fiber, which can disrupt the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.

And if they get too many omega-6 fats, it's going to cause inflammation, which they tend to if they're doing excess vegetable oils. And then a lot of times they're doing a lot of soy. Which is going to cause excess estrogen as well. So I would say you've got to be very, very careful if you are on a vegan diet when it comes to hormone balance.

I mean, for most people, you want to do a balanced diet of things like organic meat, certain vegetables, certain fruits, things like sweet potatoes to optimize your overall health. And then I want to talk about peptides for a minute. Peptides plus nutrients equal hormone building blocks.

Your body relies on peptides, which are these short chains of amino acids, to send signals to glands like your pituitary, your ovaries, and your testes to trigger hormone production. Peptides also regulate functions like growth, repair, tissue regeneration, and healing.

And they're often not used enough in regenerative medicine and anti-aging protocols, but we're seeing a growth in people taking more peptides. Peptides work best when they're combined with nutrients like zinc and B vitamins and even omega-3s because your body needs these to synthesize The hormones properly. For instance, in order to create testosterone, your body has to have zinc.

In order to create DHEA and cortisol and even estrogen cleansing, your body needs magnesium. So you have to have these nutrients to heal your body. B vitamins are another example of this. Maybe the most important, so many people today are not absorbing their B vitamins. That's because their gut microbiomes aren't healthy, so they're not absorbing them or creating them enough.

It's due to MTHFR gene issues where they're poor methylators, the chronic stress, so your body's just sort of churning through the B vitamins too much. There's all kinds of reasons, but taking a methylated B vitamin if you have hypothyroidism, depression, low energy is probably a good idea. Any adrenal issues, chronic fatigue for most people. And then omega-3 fats, we mentioned those.

Just, you want to keep inflammation levels low. Now, I want to walk you through some of the best peptides. For balancing and healing your hormones. Number 1 is called CJC-1295. This stimulates the pituitary to release more growth hormone and IGF-1, which aids in tissue repair, metabolism, and body composition.

This matters for hormones like growth hormone because that impacts thyroid function, ovarian and testicular health, and even sleep-related hormone cycles. Number 2 is BPC-157. Now, this is probably the single most popular peptide today. This is naturally occurring peptide that is found in your stomach lining and stomach acid. This promotes the healing of gut lining, joints, and nerve tissue.

It can impact the release of growth hormone, and this matters if you want to increase your testosterone and if you want to heal and regenerate or reverse any type of medical condition, especially a chronic injury. But it really— it helps heal and seal leaky gut. It's probably one of the 2 most powerful peptides for healing leaky gut.

The other one would be one called KPV, is also very good for healing leaky gut. And there's another one I really like here called Casseptin-10. This stimulates the release of GnRH, that's gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which in turn increases LH and FSH, driving estrogen and testosterone production.

So if you get a test and you know your estrogen is low, your testosterone is low, This is a really great hormone for supporting that as well. Sometimes this can happen with low libido, infertility, some of those issues as well.

And sometimes it can happen— this can be good to help overcome some of the side effects if you've been on birth control or just had a lot of chronic stress in your life as well. And listen, there are a lot of other hormone peptides and bioregulators. I like thymulin, which is one you might look into. There's one that comes from the pineal gland that you might look into.

So there are several others that I think are really valuable at balancing your hormones, but those are some you might consider there as well. And then, of course, when it comes to balancing your hormones, one of the most common questions I get is, Dr. Axe, what about HRT therapy or hormone replacement therapy? Here's my opinion, okay? It shouldn't be the first thing you do, okay?

Listen, there are scientific studies and there are ancient wisdom that's thousands of years old that I'm going to share with you. This isn't just Dr. Axe saying it. This is all of human history and latest medical research. Okay? The first is this, from the ancient wisdom.

When you take something externally, a hormone, this is true of melatonin, this is true of testosterone, it's true of estrogen, progesterone. When you take it exogenously, rather than taking something to— so where your body creates more on its own, you turn off your body's own internal tap. This is why men that take testosterone, their testes shrink up and they don't produce testosterone.

Their testes stop producing testosterone for their own body. So that's not ideal. You don't want that. And there's a lot of beliefs in ancient wisdom that that's going to increase your risk of cancer because of that. And some other chronic health issues because you never dealt with the root issues of why it's low in the first place is part of it.

And also there's a lack of qi movement in that area now.

Okay.

So that's sort of the ancient belief. And I believe for most people, if you would go and instead change your diet, change your lifestyle, and take the right herbs and nutrients, most of the time we can fix it without doing it.

Again, I mentioned this with— if you're a woman going through menopause, rather than HRT, take a blend of black cohosh, wild yam, red clover, take Shatavari, get some of the right doses of things like magnesium and other nutrients. And then let's eat a diet that supports your body. Get more organic soy, get more wild-caught salmon and fish, get— do some coconut yogurt.

They're called yin-building foods if you want to look this up, like yin-building hormone foods in Chinese medicine, matcha green tea. Do more of that. And in most cases, and improve your lifestyle some more— spiritual growth, more walking, more just things you love to do. When you do that, you see a massive improvement, massive. And most of the time you don't need HRT.

You know why I know this as well? Because Japan, the longest living culture, they almost never do HRT over there. And they live longer, they're healthier and more active than we are. They have better overall quality of life and health, and they're not doing HRT over there. And thousands of years tell us this. Now, I do want to say this.

If you feel absolutely awful, Or you've done what I just shared with you, you've changed your diet, you've done the herbs, you've done all those, and not just one or two of them, you actually changed all those things together, and your hormones are still— it's still bothering you, then get on a lower dose of HRT. Okay? So I'm not— listen, I'm not completely against hormone replacement therapy.

I just think that it's something you should wait to do until you really address the root cause of your issues to see if that fixes it, which most of the time it does. And if it doesn't, then you can just get on a lower dose of HRT, okay? Whether it's a male considering taking testosterone. And the other problem I have with this is more and more men and women are doing it earlier and earlier.

The amount of men I see now doing testosterone therapy in their 30s is crazy to me, okay? And it's not completely healthy. Now, let me say, in some cases, I think that we're not seeing the side effects.

Some people will not see the side effects because If you have low testosterone and you now have that testosterone, and because of it, you go and start working out and lifting more weights, and you go and start pursuing your woman more, and you start— it improves your mood. That might be enough to offset those side effects if you also are changing your lifestyle because of those things.

Does that make sense? So some of you may not see those same side effects if it makes you much more active and vibrant. But I still think you want to do what I shared first and then do that as a secondary thing. And this is what they do actually when you look at Japan and China and Asian medicine.

An herb that has maybe one of the closest effects to impacting your hormones in that way that they would prescribe men is Panax ginseng. But they tell men, do not take that unless you're very ill until you're over 60 years old. Okay? So for them, you shouldn't try messing with and changing these hormones until you're at least 60 in most cases. Okay?

According to most cases of these ancient forms of medicine, unless somebody has a real major issue, and then you want to cycle them on and off of it and do some other things. So anyways, that's my opinion there. So again, pros for hormone replacement therapy, it's going to reduce symptoms. There are some studies on it improving hot flashes, bone loss, mood changes.

Overall, it can improve your quality of life. It's best to start taking over the age of 60 or within 10 years of menopause. Studies show the risk for complications are higher if you begin more than 10 years after menopause symptoms begin. So that's for women. For men, I think pushing it on later in life is a little better. For women, you want to do it around that menopause, menopausal age.

If you're going to do it. The cons, there are some studies that show an increased risk of clotting, stroke, and breast cancer. Also needs proper testing, timing, and delivery method. And often it's not addressing the root cause of the issue, it's acting like a Band-Aid. Okay? So those are the cons of hormone replacement therapy.

And as I mentioned earlier, there are medications like contraceptives, antibiotics, and Antidepressants that are causing hormone imbalance. You know, another big one though are statin drugs, one of the worst things you could ever do for your hormonal health.

Okay, so, so what I would say is if you were taking medication or considering it, what you want to study and look into— what could I do instead? Is there an herb? Like if you have, you know, high cholesterol, could you take hawthorn berry and garlic and an omega-3 supplement?

Yeah.

Start drinking more green tea and just change your diet up a little bit, some more berries and some more garlic, some more green leafy vegetables, and having salmon once a week, right? Can you do some things there to naturally improve it on its own? Okay, same thing there with the antidepressants.

Could you do vitamin D and SAMe and St. John's wort and exercise and doing some things to naturally do it? So you want to consider that as well because medications absolutely disrupt your hormones in a major way, whether it be statin drugs, there's also levothyroxine, there's lisinopril. Most of these impact your hormones negatively.

And metformin, diabetes drugs, the reality is if you took berberine and chromium and got some more cinnamon in your diet via herbs and more ginger and some other things, and of course, change your diet, you don't need the medication, so you're not going to have the side effect. And of course, ibuprofen, do turmeric and ginger instead.

There's all kinds of things you can do instead because almost every medication disrupts your hormone in some way, okay? Almost all of them, they do. A few other things I want to encourage you to do to improve your hormones. Remember, prioritize sleep. 7 To 9 hours of sleep a night. Dim the lights after sunset. Blue blocker sunglasses, less blue light. Also, reduce stress.

Listen, this is so, so big. I mentioned the single biggest thing earlier. It's cortisol. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to write down the things that are causing you stress, okay? And think about how to better deal with those. I then also want you to look at your schedule. Stop saying yes to everything and overscheduling things.

I want you to write in things you love to do and put that in your schedule. Playing pickleball with friends, going on walks, going on hikes, you know, taking an extra vacation. Reading your favorite novel, not to get ahead, by the way, this has been a game changer for me.

I used to have this sort of guilt about if I was reading something for fun because I thought, well, I could be reading a book on health and learning about, you know, how to, you know, certain things with cellular medicine. I could be reading a leadership book or a book about the Bible or the Bible itself. And one of the things I realized is that, okay, I can do some of those things.

But I also need to read for my enjoyment. And so, rather than watching TV now or scrolling on my phone, I started reading books or listening to an audiobook. And I will tell you, it is the single greatest thing that has allowed my cortisol to drop.

I mean, I've tried other things, but for me, just reading instead of being on social media, scrolling, or watching any sort of TV, like at night now, I just don't watch TV. I mean, I sit there and most of the time just read a book. A physical book. And my cortisol has dropped immensely. And with that, the other thing that really helps me is walking outside in nature.

And then, you know, spiritual practices like just being involved at, you know, church and, you know, gratitude practice, reading my Bible. All those things have added up. But what I want you to do is think about— and then like I do a guys' night once a week. I do a date night with my wife. And, you know, we do brunch on the weekend. So like I was really conscious of How do I lower my cortisol?

That's what I want you to do. I want you to write down and then I want you to plug it in your schedule. So you do it just like you'd show up for work or dropping your kids off for practice, whatever it is. I want you to write in those things that you're going to start doing and then schedule them to lower cortisol, reduce stress, and just enjoy and love your life. Okay?

Here's the other thing we mentioned, balanced blood sugar. Remember, high protein, high fiber, healthy fats. Okay? That's going to help tremendously. And then exercise. Maybe 2 to 3 days a week, do some weights or cardio and then walk. Strength training and walking, very, very good. And if you have joint issues, maybe get in the pool or do some cycling as well. That can be great.

So here's some key takeaways. Hormone imbalance is rarely caused by just one thing, okay? But the most common things are cortisol and insulin. And if you can fix those 2 hormones, you can fix almost all your other hormones, okay? It's a downstream effect. And typically it usually is a mix of stress issues, Blood sugar issues, and maybe toxins and poor sleep.

Those things will impact your body, typically causing the hormone imbalance. Here's the truth. You can rebuild your hormones naturally when you understand your body's signals and you give your body what it needs. Insulin and cortisol, they drive this hormonal cascade. So get these in check first.

Balance your hormones with proper sleep, nutrition, especially getting healthy fats and peptides, And reducing the toxins via eating more organic food, less sugar, less seed oils, that sort of thing. And then also look deeper than the surface. Medications might help you manage in the short term, but they will harm you in the long term.

I also want to say thank you to Vibrant Wellness for sponsoring this episode, and I want to encourage you to take a look at the link in the show notes to order your Hormone Zoomer today to get that lab work done. Again, you can find that in the show notes. And I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show.

Remember, each and every week we're exploring the science and principles behind how you can heal physically, mentally, and spiritually. Also, I want to thank all of you subscribers out there. Remember, the number one thing you can do to support this show is subscribe. The second, third thing are share. Let more people know the truth about how to heal their hormones.

And then, hey, If you're watching on YouTube, comment. I'd love to hear from you. What is your biggest takeaway from the show? And I'll see you on the next episode.