Category Archives: Hormones

All hormones, all the time.

BPA free is a load of B(p)S!

“BPA Free” Is TOXIC

Researchers at the University of Texas have found that “BPA-free” doesn’t mean safe, in fact BPS, which is the replacement in plastics, is just as toxic. BPA, which has been taken out of most consumer goods because of it’s strong effect on estrogen has been replaced by bisphenol S (BPS). I’m guessing you noticed that “bisphenol S” sounds almost exactly like “bisphenol A” and there’s a very good reason for that: it’s because they are almost exactly alike. When we found out how dangerous and toxic BPA was and consumers demanded BPA  free producs manufacturers just replaced it with BPS which has the same effects but isn’t as talked about in the media. Great system.

BPA Looks Like This:

BPA molecule

Bisphenol A molecule

 




 

 

BPS Looks Like This:

BPS - too close to BPA for comfort.

BPS – too close to BPA for comfort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The obvious similarities between BPA and BPS make them act in similar ways in your body.  BPA and BPS both bind to estrogen receptors and are linked with hormone-related cancers like breast cancer, prostate cancer and obesity.  BPA free doesn’t mean safe.

BPA free is a load of B(p)S!

BPA free is a load of B(p)S!

BPA free is a load of B(p)S!

The bottom line is that “BPA free” is a load of B(p)S!!! Share this with as many people as you can and help your friends and family buy safe products that are not plastic. Be a smart consumer. You can read more about the research below:

BPA replacement alters hormones at low doses, study finds — Environmental Health News.



Wonder Woman Did It Right – Power Poses and You.

I’m not sure if you know this, but we should all be more like Wonder Woman – for so many reasons really, not the least of which is her power pose. Harvard professor Amy Cuddy did a fabulous (FABULOUS!) TED talk on what she calls a “life-hack.” It’s a simple, profound way to change your life – totally free, totally low-tech, and totally based on Wonder Woman. So obviously, it’s legit.

 How Power Poses and Wonder Woman can change your life:

Really, how couldn’t Wonder Woman change your life – that’s the real question we should be asking. In all seriousness, this talk gives a deeply inspiring message about the simple things we do day to day, how we stand, how we sit, how we hold our bodies can change our physiology and our likeability as humans.  We speak a verbal language, but we also speak a deeper more influential language that we call body language.  Your body language is always influencing how others perceive you, but more importantly, it changes how YOU feel. Amy Cuddy’s research showed that not only does your posture change how you feel, but it also changes your hormone levels in a significant and meaningful way.  Standing in a power pose for two minutes significantly raises testosterone levels, boosting confidence and mood and lowers cortisol levels, which reduces anxiety. If you’ve got a big job interview, that could be just the thing you need to get through it with flying colors.




Straight from Amy Cuddy's TED talk - the classic power pose, a la Wonder Woman.

Straight from Amy Cuddy’s TED talk – the classic power pose.

This means you can have a profound impact on your mood, your stress and your overall health in just two minutes.  So what if you take two minutes a day? What would the impact be then? You can actually change your destiny with two minutes of the power pose. It is that simple, because we are truly ruled by our hormone levels. Also, this not only changes how you feel internally, but also how you interact with the world and how those interactions go for you. Outside of prescription hormones this is typically not easy to do, so it’s amazing that this free, simple step can make such a huge difference in such a short time.

Here’s Amy Cuddy’s power pose TED talk:

The idea is that even if you don’t feel powerful, you can fake it ’til you make it. You can act powerful and confident until you realize that you actually ARE powerful and confident. Until you realize that a power pose is just your normal way of being in the world because you have become a leader.  Essentially standing like a leader gives your body the idea that you need to have the confidence and mental-emotional balance of a leader, so it produces that. Isn’t that just mind-blowing? This is just like the research that showed that smiling, even when you’re sad, causes your body to release the endorphins that would be released if you were actually happy.  Essentially if your face smiles, your body feels happy even if you’re smiling on cue. Maybe the classic case of changing your body changes your mind? You have nothing to lose – this is free, simple and takes two minutes. So, switch to a power pose and change your hormones and your life.



Thyroid and Fertility

Thyroid and fertility are intimately linked. Anyone who is having infertility issues or actively trying to conceive can pretty much tell you that everything and fertility seem linked – it’s just the way it goes.  It takes a healthy momma to make a healthy baby and if your body isn’t keeping up with its own needs it’s certainly not going to take on the burden of an entirely new, vulnerable human that is 100% dependent. That is just good sound decision making.  What that means is that in order to get pregnant you have to get healthy in lots of ways, and one of those ways is balancing your other hormones – thyroid included.

Thyroid and Fertility Infographic from Dr. Fiona – a ND in Toronto.

Thyroid and fertility are highly linked.

The link between thyroid and fertility is important.

Thyroid and pregnancy Infographic, brought to you by White Lotus Naturopathic Clinic




 Thyroid and Fertility and Food Sensitivities

Thyroid health in women is not as easy as it sounds like it should be.  There are so many factors and thyroid is often just the canary in the coal mine that lets you know there is something bigger going on.  For both thyroid and fertility it is incredibly important to find and eliminate hidden food sensitivities.  Food sensitivities can cause general inflammation, which can make implantation more difficult and affect sex hormone levels. Food sensitivities can also set up an unhealthy immune cascade which actually triggers your body to start attacking itself like in Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. If your body is attacking your thyroid then it’s absolutely vital to do whatever you can to protect yourself.  Essentially if you’re worried about your thyroid or trying to get pregnant you have a good reason to get rid of food sensitivities. If you’re doing both or those things then there’s no excuse not to do this for yourself.

Thyroid and Fertility – Working With a Good Practitioner

It’s also important to know exactly what is going on – most primary care physicians will just test your TSH levels on a screening without looking into things on any deeper level.  It can really help to see a good endocrinologist who will actually look at your hormone levels and thyroid antibodies (just in case it is Hashimoto’s) or to talk with a naturopathic doctor who can balance you on a whole body level. If you’re trying to get pregnant this becomes especially important because we can’t address the link between thyroid and fertility unless we are clear about exactly what is going on. Thyroids can be under-functioning because of poor nutrition, because of a goiter, because of altered sex or adrenal hormones or because of hashimoto’s.  TSH levels just aren’t going to tell you any of those things. The best fertility team should have a reproductive endocrinologist, a naturopathic doctor and a good acupuncturist – especially if you’re considering IVF (In vitro fertilization)  because acupuncture has been shown in research to increase the success rate of IVF so many IVF centers have licensed acupuncturists on staff. Keep in mind fertility is a group effort – mom, dad and all of the health care practitioners have to be working towards the same goal.

Thyroid and fertility are intimately linked because in order to have a healthy pregnancy, you really have to have a healthy body starting out.  You just can’t skip this step.



Finding Your Food Sensitivity

I am a huge believer in the food sensitivity problem, largely because finding and eliminating a food sensitivity has literally changed my life. That sounds really cliché, but it’s actually true. Just keep reading and I’ll explain.

What is a Food Sensitivity?

Food sensitivities are a little bit mysterious, but one thing we know for sure is that it isn’t an allergy in the conventional sense.  If you eat a peanut and swell up and have to go to the hospital, that isn’t a food sensitivity. That’s a food allergy and it’s pretty easy to spot (just look for the ambulance and the disgruntled school nurse wielding an epi-pen.) Food sensitivity is allergy’s sneakier, tricksier second-cousin.  Your immune system is reacting to a food, but it’s not reacting in a huge dramatic way that gives you a clue to what’s happening.  It’s also not reacting immediately so you can put it all together in a nice simple way, like peanut + me = badness.  Instead, it’s a vague, ambiguous process that can’t be identified through normal means – you have to actually be your own science experiment, and god knows that’s fun.  Actually, I’m a bit of a geek, so I do *love* any kind of science experiment.

Eating a food that you’re sensitive to create a slow-moving background level of inflammation that just keeps your body irritated enough to make whatever else might be going on worse.  Everybody’s body has a weak spot – some place where they’re most likely to break down – and that’s where the low-level inflammation from a food sensitivity hits.  It just creates inflammation that people say is just “normal” for them, or just “aging” or something that’s “in their family.” Uh-huh.  So – here’s my story:




I grew up being a bit of a (read: ENORMOUS) tomboy.  The things I liked doing were all a little rough-and-tumble like hiking and camping and building things and riding horses and skiing into trees and dancing for hours on end. When I started having joint pain pretty young I just assumed it was because I road-tested my body and that it was “normal” (did you spot the dead-giveaway?) Yep. It’s also “in my family” to have joint pain, so there’s that.  Here’s the thing: when joint pain starts at around 6 years of age, it’s only going to go downhill.  By the time I got out of med-school I was having pain that made me feel like an 80-year-old woman and to shuffle when I first got out of bed.  It may occur to you that this isn’t, perhaps, “normal.”

Me, being a tomboy. Before discovering my food sensitivity

Me, busy being a tomboy. This was before discovering my food sensitivity.

I had a great patient at that time and I was happily telling her all about how to discover her own food sensitivities at home, which involves the being-your-own-guinea-pig thing.  We’ll talk about it in a minute,  but it is a little involved.  Anyway, I’m explaining all of this to her and she looks me dead in the eye and says “this is the hardest thing anyone has ever asked me to do. Have you done it?” After which there was a pause, then a somewhat reluctant “no” from me.  The bottom line is that she agreed to test her food sensitivities if I would test mine.  Sigh.

So, I did.  As it turns out when I eat wheat I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck – but not until the next day.  So the day I eat wheat I feel great and have no troubles at all, then the next day I wake up and can hardly move. I’m achy (like 6/10 pain), stuffy, puffy and swollen and pretty darn irritable. If I stay away from wheat I actually don’t have that.  Huh.  Huge thanks to that patient, by the way, to whom I owe a lot of health.

Could I have a Food Sensitivity?

Yep, you could.  Pretty much everyone could. That’s the strange thing about food sensitivities. It can be a food you were raised with, that you’ve always eaten, that has always been a favorite and it could still be causing you a tremendous amount of trouble. Here are some general symptoms and conditions that I’ve seen associated with food sensitivities (not a complete list by any stretch of the imagination):

  • Pain of any kind including arthritis, neuralgia, fibromyalgia, gout.
  • Mood disorders including depression, anxiety, mood swings, and OCD.
  • Behavioral disorders like ADD, ADHD, oppositional-defiance, outbursts and anger issues.
  • Digestive problems like diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas, indigestion, gallbladder sludge and stomach pain.
  • Hormone issues like hypothyroid, PCOS, irregular cycles, low sperm count, diabetes.
  • Autoimmune disorders like lupus, hashimotos thyroiditis, Behcet’s, psoriasis.
  • Skin problems like eczema, hives, itching and acne
  • General issues including allergies, fatigue, weight gain, and swelling.

Finding Your Food Sensitivities (or, Being Your Own Guinea pig)

Guinea Pig (pretend), just like you.

This is actually a pretend Guinea pig, but since you will only be a pretend Guinea pig too, it seemed appropriate. If you really want one of these, you can buy it here.

Testing your food sensitivities is a simple process, but it does take some work – mostly in reading labels. Here’s what you do:

  1. Eliminate: Eliminate the food you’re testing COMPLETELY for 14 days – this means read your labels because wheat, corn, dairy and soy are in all kinds of things that you wouldn’t suspect.
  2. Challenge: Enjoy the heck out of the food you’re testing for a day.  If you’re testing wheat then have wheat day. Eat some waffles and pasta and a great french bread with a ton of butter.
  3. Observe: Like any other good experiment you have to be a careful observer. After your challenge day, take the food you’re testing back out of your diet for three or four days and watch to see what happens in your body.  For most people, the fireworks start the day after challenge day, but sometimes it’s even more delayed than that. Your body will tell you clearly if you’re sensitive to something.
  4. Retest: This isn’t actually necessary, but if you’re like me you’ll go through exhaustive mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you aren’t actually reacting to that food (my big rationalization was that I actually got a flu, which coincidentally started the day after wheat day.) So if you don’t believe the reaction the first time, then after your observation period, have another challenge day.  This time, believe your body when it tells you it’s sensitive (I could rationalize one well-timed flu but two is too much).

What Should I Test First?

The big four food sensitivity foods are:

Wheat (but it’s good to test Gluten too), Dairy, Corn and Soy

And those are in everything so read your labels!! Look in weird places like soy sauce (which has wheat), and salad dressings (which have everything).

The next most popular foods to react to are:

Nightshades (tomato, potato, peppers, eggplants), Citrus (lemons, limes, grapefruit), Beef and Chocolate

The great thing is that you can eliminate and challenge one food at a time or if you want to do it all at once you can just eliminate everything and go down to a really simple diet and then re-introduce foods one at a time.  This is a choose-your-own-adventure type of experiment.

I would highly encourage anyone who is having health problems to start testing themselves for food sensitivities – it truly does make all the difference in the world. For me, I went from a roughly 6/10 daily pain level to a 1-2/10. That is pretty freaking awesome – especially since I don’t have to take any drugs or supplements to do it.  As a side bonus, my allergies dropped down to almost nothing – I don’t take allergy medications except for the occasional mold-mix on days when Austin is literally covered in mold.