We talk a lot about the best ways to maintain balanced hormones – eat appropriately, get enough sleep, exercise, eliminate toxins and reduce your stress levels – but what happens around age 40 when our hormones start to naturally decline?

In the years leading up to menopause, known as perimenopause, women start having hormone fluctuations starting with lower progesterone. Add in some stress and your progesterone lowers even more because your body will use it to help make more cortisol. Once menopause hits, your estrogen will begin to fall significantly, and you might notice an increase of fat around your belly. This happens because some of estrogen’s functions are to increase metabolism and insulin sensitivity. As perimenopause and menopause progress, symptoms might increase including hot flashes, weight gain, difficulty sleeping and a host of other problems. Some women can relieve these symptoms with lifestyle changes, supplements and herbs, while other women might choose to replace missing hormones with replacement therapy.

Men can’t escape weight gain due to hormone imbalances either. As men age, testosterone – a hormone with many functions to help maintain weight – starts to decline. And due to lifestyle habits, many men under the age of 40 have low testosterone levels for their age. Low testosterone leads to increase fat mass and weight gain, which then sets off a chain reaction that often leads to fatigue, depression, inflammation, and further weight gain.

We’ve talked a lot about how stress can lead to hormone imbalances and weight gain, but another side effect to stress concerns the thyroid. The thyroid is in charge of metabolism. If your cortisol is high due to stress it tells your body to conserve energy, therefore your thyroid secretes less active hormone and reduce your metabolism, leading to weight gain.

If you’re still having trouble overcoming symptoms of hormone imbalance even after making lifestyle changes, you may want to consider hormone replacement therapy. However, it’s very important to find a physician that specializes in hormone testing and is dedicated to treating the underlying cause of your symptoms and not just your symptoms. A physician who understands bioidentical hormones is also important because they have the correct shape to fit into all the receptors on the cells in your body.

There is a great deal of confusion regarding the connection between hormones and breast cancer. I believe that breast cancer can be related to an imbalance between hormones such as estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. As I have said before, many things can lead to these imbalances such as stress, poor diet, lack of exercise and toxin exposure.  One of the interesting experiences I have had since my breast cancer diagnosis is wondering what I “did wrong” to develop breast cancer. I have realized that it is an exercise in futility to beat yourself up over “how” you get something like this; you just move forward and optimize as many parts of your life as you can.

Another interesting thing about breast cancers is that there are different types. Breast cancers are typed by what hormone receptors they express. Some breast cancers express estrogen receptors (known as estrogen receptor positive). These are the breast cancers that are sensitive to estrogens and women with these types of cancer should reduce their estrogen exposure. Other breast cancers express receptors to the hormone progesterone and to HER2 receptors. In normal, healthy breast cells, HER2 receptors receive signals that stimulate their growth. With too many HER2 receptors, however, breast cancer cells grow and divide too quickly. Depending on the receptors expressed, the breast cancers can be classified as positive or negative for estrogen, progesterone and HER2. Treatment options are based on which receptors are positive on the breast cancer cells.

Approximately 10-20 percent of breast cancers do not express any of these receptors. They are known as triple negative breast cancers (TNBC). This is the type of breast cancer I have. It is not hormonally sensitive (so I could take hormones if I needed them). These types of breast cancers tend to occur in younger women (under the age of 40 or 50), black and Hispanic women and women with genetic mutations such as BRACA 1 and 2. Some of the main issues with triple negative breast cancers are that they are harder to treat and more aggressive. However, there are many therapies that show promise in treating TNBC and it is a very hot area of cancer research. I have an amazing team in my corner and am positive that I will overcome this challenge and be around to share information with you for decades to come.

Last week marked the official start of summer, as if you weren’t hot enough. If you’re experiencing hot flashes, the summer heat probably isn’t giving you any relief, but below is a list of tips that might help relieve your pesky hot flashes.

1. Keep cool. Any slight increase in your body’s core temperature can trigger a flash. Keep your air conditioner flowing and your ceiling fan turned on to lower the room temperature. When you feel a flash come on, sip an ice cold drink. In hot weather, wear all cotton clothes to allow your skin to breathe.
2. Avoid dietary triggers. Hot and spicy foods, caffeinated beverages and alcohol can all trigger hot flashes. If your hot flashes seem worse after consuming these foods, eliminate the offender and see if the flashes diminish.
3. Herbal and dietary supplements such as black cohosh and Vitamin E have been shown to reduce the occurrence and severity of hot flashes and night sweats.
4. Exercise at least 30 minutes every day. Walk, ride a bicycle, run or do some other activity, but don’t exercise within 3 hours of going to bed to help prevent night sweats.
5. Speaking of bedtime, eliminate hot showers or baths before bed.
6. Relax with yoga, meditation, abdominal breathing or other stress-reducing techniques.
7. Quit smoking. Yet another reason to stop smoking: research has shown that smoking increases the occurrence of hot flashes. 
8. If your hot flashes are really severe and don’t seem to be getting better with these lifestyle and dietary adjustments, you may need more assistance. Speak to your doctor about taking natural progesterone as it has been found to provide relief for hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms.

I hope these changes provide you with some relief. Here’s to keeping cool and enjoying your summer!

Did you know that our skin is an organ in our body that depends on hormones too? The skin has three layers; the dermis, epidermis and subcutis. Cells within these layers actually have receptors for the hormones estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, human growth hormone (HGH), thyroid, melatonin and Vitamin E. This is why hormone imbalance in our bodies can show up in our skin.

Estrogen provides the skin with a number of benefits including improving inflammatory skin disorders and protecting against skin photo-aging from the sun. It has the ability to protect from free radical damage similar to antioxidants like vitamins C and E. Estrogens help to build up the dermis by increasing cell division and growth of the skin. They also hydrate the dermis and epidermis which makes the skin look fuller and reduces wrinkle depth. There are variations in skin thickness consistent with the variation in our hormones during the menstrual cycle. During menopause, as estrogen levels drop, your skin becomes thinner, drier and less firm with an increase in number and depth of wrinkles.

Progesterone is considered the hormone of wisdom. It tightens connective tissue by remodeling collagen, the tissue that supports our skin structure. Progesterone also stabilizes and regenerates the epidermis which keeps skin looking younger. On the other hand, testosterone is known as the hormone of power. It tightens skin structures, stimulates the breakdown of fat and strengthens the collagen strands that support the skin. This stabilizes the connective and fat tissues within the skin which creates a firmer looking skin.

So what can you do to protect and improve your skin? Start with a well-balanced diet supplemented with a quality multi-vitamin. The B vitamins are also good for healthy skin. Quit smoking! Use skin products that contain vitamins A and C for their antioxidant effects and creams with collagen help firm the skin. Use a high quality daily sunscreen or moisturizer with an SPF of at least 30. Stress can lower your body’s estrogen, progesterone and testosterone so try to unwind a little bit. Get some sleep! And of course, hydrate your skin by drinking lots of filtered water.

Our sex hormones – estrogen, progesterone and testosterone – work together to build us up, giving us our strength and resilience, however, as we age, these key hormones start to decline. Other factors besides our natural aging cycle can also cause a decrease in levels. Those factors pertain to our lifestyles, such as, eating the wrong foods, living in a state of chronic stress, being overweight, getting too little exercise and being exposed to too many environmental toxins.

Sex hormones play many important roles in our bodies. Estrogen performs more than 400 functions in the female body, such as maintaining memory, mood and muscles, maintaining bone and protecting against osteoporosis and protecting against heart disease. Progesterone has a calming effect and enhances mood, balances blood sugar and thyroid function and rebuilds bone. Testosterone builds muscle, increases energy and libido, enhances sense of well-being and strengthens bone.

This situation of declining sex hormones can be addressed with bioidentical hormones, but in order to sustain long-term health and well-being, certain lifestyle requirements must be followed. Changes in the way we live can be difficult at first, but once it becomes routine, it becomes the new way of living and can be done naturally, without much thought.

Proper nutrition and getting essential nutrients is key. Then comes stress management. We can’t live in a constant state of stress. It is important to stop and evaluate what the major stressors are in life and address ways to control and respond to this stress, not react to it. Taking part in physical activity also helps build up our hormones by eliminating excess weight, which is one of the biggest robbers of testosterone.

Adopting a way of life that fosters optimum functioning of our hormones will lead to a healthier, happier and longer life.