If your hormones are out of whack, your gut may be to blame. I am going to show you how your gut microbiome impacts your hormones, stress, immunity, even your moods, and what you can do to heal it.
I am sure you’ve heard about the gut-brain axis. Well, actually, it’s the gut-hypothalamus axis.
The gut microbiome directly communicates with the hypothalamus, and the hypothalamus with the gut microbiome through the sympathetic nervous system. As well as hormones that the hypothalamus orchestrates and hormones that the gut produces.
The Gut and The Hypothalamus
There’s this beautiful communication network between the gut and the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus knows exactly what nutrients you’re consuming, how, and what your immune health is, because your gut is one of your first lines of defense. If you’re having issues with viruses, bacteria, any threats or toxins, your hypothalamus senses how well your hormones are being metabolized because the gut is part of the metabolic process of detoxing hormones.
Your gut isn’t just about digestion. It helps with hormonal metabolism as well.
It’s especially important to make sure your gut is healthy and your gut microbiome is in good balance during perimenopause and through post menopause. Because as your hormones start to decline, that affects your gut health, which in turn affects your immunity, your brain chemistry, and systemic inflammation.
If your gut microbiome is out of balance, meaning you don’t have enough beneficial bacteria in the gut that are producing the right types of short-chain fatty acids, you will not detoxify estrogen appropriately. Your imbalanced gut microbiome produces too much beta-glucuronidase. Beta-glucuronidase is an enzyme that breaks the bonds on estrogen that’s supposed to be detoxed and released through your feces.
If these bonds are broken, estrogen gets reabsorbed by the gut back into the bloodstream. That’s one of the prominent features in estrogen dominance. It’s not that you’re making too much estrogen, but you’re recycling your old used estrogen. Healthy gut microbiome helps you to detoxify estrogen, cortisol, and, in fact, all your steroid hormones so that you can stay in hormonal balance.
Leaky Gut Controls Your Hormones, Stress & Immunity
Now, if you have a leaky gut, it’s going to cause havoc with your hormones.
A leaky gut is a damaged intestinal epithelial lining, basically allowing toxins to leach into the bloodstream when only water should be able to go through. Leaky gut is not a medical term; it’s a layman’s term, meaning the transport system of the anterior sites is no longer functioning normally.
That poor barrier function can cause inflammation, which signals a stress reaction and an immune reaction. Your microbiome is affected by stress, and when it’s outta balance can cause you to experience more stress chemically. When your cortisol levels are very high, it actually eats away at the lining of your gut. When your microbiome is out of bounds, it puts out inflammatory metabolite. That actually triggers your adrenal glands to produce even more cortisol, and it becomes a perpetual cycle.
Your immune system actually begins in your mucus membranes as you breathe and when you swallow.
The first immunoglobulin that is important for immune function is immunoglobulin A, and it’s produced at high levels in your gut. IG A basically tells your immune system what you’re being exposed to through your mouth, through your food. Some 70% of your immune system resides in your gut. Your gut is where some of your immune cells become more mature. An imbalanced gut microbiome can trigger autoimmune conditions.
What are Some of the Symptoms of the Gut-Hormone Dysfunction?
Abdominal bloating, constipation, and skin issues.
Remember, if you have a leaky gut that toxins are floating around from the intestine into the bloodstream. It has to be detoxified somewhere, and it can come out in your skin as rashes, acne, or oily skin. Hormonal symptoms like PMS, breast tenderness, moodiness, fatigue, and weight gain.
Support Your Gut and Hormones Together
If your gut microbiome is affecting your hormones, first, you need to support your gut and your hormones together. One thing that I really found interesting is when my patients have taken a Genesis Gold® to support their hypothalamus, that they tend to get a better balance in their gut microbiome. Not just from the probiotics and the digestive aids that are in Genesis Gold®, but by the fact that the hypothalamus is functioning more optimally.
It improves their gut microbiome.
It helps to heal up the lining of the gut itself.
I’ve actually had patients who’ve had irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea and constipation both respond positively to taking Genesis Gold®. And you would think it can’t stop both, yet both of these issues are inflammatory in nature, and by decreasing the inflammation and improving the hypothalamic gut communication, the spectrums of IBS can heal.
The phytonutrients and Sacred Seven® amino acids really help to balance out the environment so the gut microbiome can flourish. Plus Genesis Gold® supports hormone receptor site activity and helps support appropriate metabolism and detoxification of hormones.
Follow a Plant-Based Diet
Now, the second thing you need to do is really follow a plant-based diet like the Mediterranean Diet.
Plus, avoid processed foods, sugar, and inflammatory oils. Make sure that you’re drinking enough water and consuming enough fiber, which feeds the microbiome. Add fermented foods to your diet to increase the amount of commensal microbiome, microbes that support the beneficial bacteria.
Stress Reduction
Third, practice stress reduction and getting enough sleep.
Both help your gut function more optimally, and it also helps your hormones to metabolize properly. The power of hypothalamic support lies in much more harmonious communication between the gut and the hypothalamus. Gut function is orchestrated by the hypothalamus. Your hypothalamus knows exactly what you’re eating, and as soon as it touches your tongue, your hypothalamus starts responding to what you’re eating and tells your gut microbiome what it’s supposed to be doing.
For instance, producing enough short-chain fatty acids that are beneficial to the hypothalamus and to the brain.
Genesis Gold® helps support the hypothalamus-to-gut communication or what we call top-down communication. When the hypothalamus is supported, digestion, detoxification, and hormonal regulation improves.
Your hormones will never fully balance if your gut is out of sync. But the good news is that healing one helps to heal the other.
If this resonates with you, subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more hormone and gut health content and share with a friend. Check out Genesis Gold® and please join us in our Hormone Reboot Training.
Thanks Deborah, this was very informative and interesting. I would enjoy more videos on this topic!