The Genetic Consequences of changing hormones

Our medical system has trained us to focus on a “break-fix” approach.

We’ve stopped thinking about what is happening within us and instead focus on what is happening to us.

This approach extends to supplementation, too. We take supplements for the sake of supplementing, but is it what our body truly needs?

Last week, we had several patients come to us after spending thousands of dollars on everything you can think of, yet they still had symptoms.

Over the next eight weeks, as we edge closer to spring, I want to dive deeper into what we call “corrective resolution” and discuss healing your body from within, specifically by understanding your unique genes.

I want you to regain your energy, vitality, and address the core issues causing all the symptoms, labels, and ongoing health challenges.

We’re going to explore how your unique genetic expression affects your metabolic, neurological, inflammatory, digestive, and nervous systems.

Changes in testosterone, progesterone, cytokines, and estrogen are inevitable. How you respond to and correct the symptoms that may arise is something you can control.

You just have to learn how your body works.

Consider this in three ways:

• Symptomatic relief.
• Problem-solving.
• Corrective resolution.

The emphasis of this new series of articles will be on corrective resolution.

Today, we’re going to start with the genetic expression of low progesterone.

This is for you if you:

• Struggle with periods (or have struggled).
• Have been diagnosed with a menstrual dysfunction (adenomyosis, endometriosis, PCOS, PMDD, etc.).
• Are 35 to 48 years of age.
• Are in pre-menopause or peri-menopause.

PATIENT EXAMPLE – Paris from 28 to Post Menopause

I’ll give you a simple example from a patient’s typical journey (medically and/or via alternative medicine).

Paris, 28, has endometriosis.
First, she wants to stop the pain and agony of endometriosis. She also wants to fall pregnant, so she looks for “The Symptomatic Solution.”

She gets a laparoscopy, and the symptoms ease. She goes on to have three gorgeous children within the next six years.

“The Problem Solution”
Now, at 33, she starts having gastrointestinal issues (bloating, IBS, gassiness, discomfort), and her endometriosis symptoms and period pain return.

She decides to take an alternative medical route and follows a gut microbiome protocol and hormone detoxification protocol to address the issue. She starts having normal periods, feels much better, and sticks to a solid nutrition regime to maintain her improved health.

“Problem Correction Resolution”

Then Paris hits 55, changing nothing in her diet. She’s one year since her last period (menopause).

She starts gaining weight, getting hot flushes, waking up all night, bloating returns, anxiety is through the roof, and she experiences severe brain fog.

She’s freshly diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, hypothyroidism, and high cholesterol.

She now needs to take thyroxine and a statin.

She comes to see us at 55, and we dig deeper. The problem has been bubbling underneath it all. She has:

• Liver dysfunction.
• Hypothyroidism.
• Immune dysfunction (an autoimmune condition that caused the gut dysbiosis years prior).
• Methylation problems, causing her inflammation levels to rise.
• Genetic predispositions that make her more susceptible to low immunity (which runs cyclically, starting from the liver dysfunction).

The question we want you to ask today is: Is it deeper than just my blood work, my gut, and my symptoms?

Is there something bigger going on that I need to look at to fully resolve and stop what feels like one problem after another?

So let’s simply break down the initial onset of health concerns that often arise between the ages of 24 and 48, specifically looking at:

• Period problems labeled as adenomyosis, endometriosis, period pain, acne, PCOS, PMDD, or PMT.
• Post-pregnancy metabolic dysfunction (when things don’t shift years after childbirth).
• Pre-menopause and the lowering of progesterone.

From a hormone-specific perspective, lower progesterone is common in all three scenarios. Often, a synthetic progesterone alternative is the answer—things like the mini pill, birth control, IUD, Mirena, etc., are the medical solution to the problem.

Progesterone is beneficial for:

• Sleep.
• Temperature regulation.
• Libido.
• Mood regulation.
• Thinning out the uterine lining.
• Bone health.
• Stress management.
• Control of adipose tissue (our fat tissue).
• Control and release of ALT and AST (enzymes found mostly in the liver, with AST also in the heart, pancreas, and muscles). This is important to help with the detoxification of estrogen.

The reaction to low progesterone or the imbalance of progesterone to estrogen often involves three things:

• The gut microbiome.
• The immune system (malabsorption of nutrients).
• Poor methylation (often over-methylation of metals).
• Broken inflammatory, digestive, and metabolic genes.

Let’s go deeper here.

Problem 1: Period Problems – What exactly is wrong?

Women with endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS, PMDD, or other menstrual conditions experience symptoms before, during, or after their period.

Symptomatically, these women often have:

• Gut issues like IBS, constipation, bloating, burping, gassiness, and stomach distension.
• A sensitive immune history; most have a history of tonsillitis, glandular fever, pneumonia, hay fever, asthma, or ear, nose, and throat issues as a child. They were often sick children.
• Mood challenges such as anxiety, anger, depression, and irritability, which vary based on the condition.

Genetically, these women often have connections to the MTHFR genetic mutation.
This mutation was found in nearly 60% of endometriosis patients tested in a fertility study.
MTHFR affects several systems, including the immune, neurological, and nervous systems, as well as metabolic health, inflammation levels, and digestion.

It plays a key role in how we absorb vitamins like D, B, zinc, magnesium, iron, and folate.
Many of these women can’t take off-the-shelf versions of these vitamins because they don’t absorb them properly.

Over-methylation is also common, where these women’s genotypes over-methylate copper and under-methylate zinc.

Zinc is essential for estrogen metabolism, menstrual function, the immune system, and metabolic health, among other things.

This is why we start by looking at your blood work. When there are particular gaps in your blood work, and when many other interventions have been tried, we may need to examine your genetics and methylation.

We often start by testing things like:

• Full Blood Count (to assess your immune system).
• Liver Function (to evaluate its health, as it affects estrogen and progesterone).
• HBA1C (to detect changes in metabolizing that may increase inflammation).
• Homocysteine (to check how your methylation is functioning).

These are good starting points to determine if we need to look deeper at your genotype to correct and resolve systemic vulnerabilities in the body, as we did with Paris.

Problem 2: Post-Pregnancy Body Just Isn’t the Same

I personally gained a significant amount of weight after my second pregnancy. My body felt like a balloon. My ankles swelled up, and my cup size went from a DD before baby #2 to an FFF. Even 18 months later, I was still an FFF.

My body wasn’t right. I was so overweight.

Metabolic problems often arise after having children. Both estrogen and progesterone drop dramatically post-pregnancy. Estrogen, an insulin-sensitizing hormone, is elevated during pregnancy. Progesterone, as mentioned earlier, assists in liver detoxification.

The metabolic rate is lower postpartum compared to pregnancy, which may be connected to insulin resistance.

This was my symptomatic resolution, and it was effective until I turned 40.

Symptomatically, these women often have:

• PMS symptoms
  like breast tenderness, moodiness, constipation before periods, headaches, and cramping.
• Metabolic dysfunction,
  such as weight gain that won’t shift, poor circulation (feeling hot or cold easily, especially in hands and feet), puffiness, fluid retention, hair loss, constipation, and more.

Genetically, these women often have connections to:

• ADIPOQ, a genotype that encodes for adiponectin, a protein secreted by fat cells that affect insulin and glucose metabolism. This can be triggered because progesterone plays a role in adipose tissue, which is fat tissue. This genotype causes metabolic changes, especially postnatally. These women tend to lean toward insulin resistance and increased fat tissue.
• FTO, a gene where polymorphisms have been shown to cause higher ghrelin levels (the hunger hormone) in many populations, creating a larger appetite and the potential for overeating. Women who carry one or both FTO genetic codes may find it difficult to naturally reduce hunger as they did before pregnancy, as their leptin and ghrelin levels lean toward overeating.

The first thing we look at in women like me, who struggle with post-natal issues, is their hormones. This can be a symptomatic fix, which is how I was helped (at first) personally.

My estrogen was too high, so the proportion of estrogen to progesterone was off.
My liver was struggling, my thyroid was sub-optimal, and my pancreas was overloaded.

Within a month of addressing my estrogen levels, my cup size returned to a DD.
My period symptoms disappeared by my next cycle, and my energy skyrocketed!
Within a year, I lost 12 kilos in my mid-30s.

Problem 3: Pre-Menopause: Menstrual Cycle Problems or Metabolic Dysfunction

The Lowering of Progesterone

Now let’s fast forward to where I was at 40.
Within six months of turning 40…

• I gained 6kgs.
• I was eating right, exercising, doing all the right things.
• My hair was falling out all around the front.
• My eyebrows were thinning (and I totally over-plucked them at 14, so it was not good!).

My pathology tests showed I had:

• Insulin resistance: My HbA1c was 5.4.
• Oestrogen dominance: My LH & FSH were at the highest test marks. Plus, because of pre-menopause changes, my cycle went from 30 days to 21 days.
• Subclinical hypothyroidism: My TSH was 3.84.

So many women that we see, who have struggled with weight gain, gestational diabetes, and/or postnatal depression, often during or after pregnancy, start to see their problems resurge during pre-menopause.

There’s a massive connection between insulin resistance and fibroids, cysts, and adenomyosis. We wrote an article about it late last year—if you missed it, you can read more here.

If we need to look at your genetic expression, we often find a problem with the cholesterol and metabolic genes!

This is largely triggered by the HPA axis being switched on due to the lowering of progesterone, which increases cortisol in the body. This change in the metabolization of glucose, fats, and/or cholesterol was definitely the case for me.

Genetically, for women with a history of menstrual dysfunction or infertility, it’s more common to suffer more in the pre-menopause phase than other women.

Many of these women have genotypes that:

• Under-absorb iron OR need a specific type of iron they can absorb, which commonly causes heavy bleeding and/or low iron and/or anaemia.
• Overmethylate copper, which increases oestrogen dominance symptoms.
• Have autoimmune sensitivities, often triggering Hashimoto’s or Graves’ disease in their early 40s.
• Are prone to excess aromatase enzymes which can create tissue growth during menstrual cycles (often seen in adenomyosis and endometriosis).
• Are prone to gastrointestinal dysfunction which commonly triggers IBS, diverticulitis, sluggish bowels or chronic constipation, ulcers, and gastritis to name a few things.

We often want to do more testing (standard blood pathology) including:

• Full Blood Count
• Liver Function
• Homocysteine
• Thyroid Function Test & Thyroid Antibodies
• Micronutrient Levels and Ratios to opposite metals/micronutrients
• Metal Levels
• Inflammation Markers
• Parasites and/or H-Pylouri

This gives us a really good idea IF we need to dig deeper into what’s happening with her genes and/or methylation. We can also do a Genetic test to see what your genotypes are to resolve the bigger problem under the surface. Plus, we learn exactly what micronutrients and minerals are needed every day and the unique nutrition required to achieve your best self.

For Paris, the lady mentioned at the beginning, her results were incredible!

She is completely symptom free.
Her Homocysteine (methylation marker) went from 10.6 to 8.2 within five months.

• She lost six kilos (she had only gained 6 kilos).
• She is sleeping through the night.
• Her cholesterol has dropped and her doctor let her come off statins.
• Her thyroid levels have stabilised and her doctor let her come off thyroid medications.

To learn more about “Genes & Methylation: The Hidden Players in Pre/Peri/Post-Menopause”. To watch the video,  click here.

If you would like us to look at your blood work, genes or connect privately to help resolve your health challenges, we offer a Free Introductory Consultation. You can schedule a time here: https://calendly.com/nz-naturopathy/intro-consult

I hope this has been helpful to you! We look forward to hopefully connecting with you on Saturday morning. If not, I look forward to sharing more with you next week.

Warmly,
Carrie