Episode 2: Happy hormones naturally, for general health, easier periods and optimising fertility (Part 1 of 2) - a podcast by Dr. Maz Roginski (BHSc. Chinese Medicine)

This episode was inspired by the patients who come to see me with symptoms such as painful, heavy or irregular cycles, with growth such as cysts, fibroids and endometriosis - and also those who come to see me with imbalanced hormones (whether estrogen, testosterone, thyroid or stress hormones, and so on).
Because Chinese Medicine is a functional medicine, each treatment is highly personalized and can differ greatly from person to person. But what often doesn't differ are the lifestyle and dietary tweaks that I recommend as supportive therapies. Join us as we discuss some common factors underlying imbalanced hormones, and simple health hacks we can use to restore balance.
Show notesTranscript
Today's episode was inspired by the various patients who come to see me with symptoms such as painful periods, heavy bleeding, irregular cycles, with growth such as cysts, fibroids and endometriosis - and also those patients who come to see me with imbalanced hormones (whether estrogen, or low testosterone and so on).
Because Chinese Medicine is a functional medicine - and it views symptoms as the body's cry for help - it sees symptoms as the body's message about what is out of balance. Because it does so, it seeks out the root cause of the imbalance so that this can be corrected, rather than just masking the “cry for help” (or dialling down its volume). This means that the acupuncture and the Chinese herbal medicine that I give (for my patients with the symptoms I just mentioned) is highly personalized - it differs greatly from person to person. But what doesn't differ, is that the lifestyle and dietary tweaks that I recommend as supportive or adjunct therapies are very often common to all of the patients who come to see me for help with these symptoms. This is because in situations of changes to the menstrual cycle - or overgrowth of tissue (as in cysts or fibroids, or the growth of tissue outside it's physiologically-designated area, as in endometriosis), or various hormone imbalances - very often in these situations, there is an underlying foundation of inflammation, and / or of excess estrogen. Therefore, any lifestyle adjustments are going to aim to reduce inflammation, and / or rebalance the hormones as required. So before we go into these natural health hacks for happy, healthy hormones, let's briefly talk about sex hormones.
All humans produce in varying amounts, estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. There are various subtypes of each of these hormones, but for the purposes of this discussion, we'll just stick to the three main, overarching types. These hormones - estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone - affect not only our sexual and reproductive health, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics (such as the growth of breasts, or the deepening of the voice), but they also have wide-ranging effects on the body, beyond the reproductive system. This is because we know now in modern medicine - and Chinese Medicine has been talking about this for millennia - that all of the body's systems are integrated, and they're in a constant interplay of communication with each other. Therefore the balance and health of our sexual hormones is going to have knock-on effects throughout the body. The hormones mostly involved in the menstrual cycle are estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen governs the first half of the cycle, and it prompts ovulation, the release of mucus, the growth of breasts and uterine lining, whereas progesterone is released midway throughout the cycle, at ovulation, and it helps to regulate the cycle. It's important to prepare the uterus in pregnancy, but it is also important for the production of testosterone in people assigned male at birth. So it's important for everyone, and I love the shorthand that Chinese Medicine terminology offers us when we talk about sex hormones - it's really beautiful, because it enables us to talk about the many complex biological pathways,

Further episodes of Balanced Natural Health with Dr. Maz

Further podcasts by Dr. Maz Roginski (BHSc. Chinese Medicine)

Website of Dr. Maz Roginski (BHSc. Chinese Medicine)