Women's hormones, gut + metabolism

The Estrogen + Histamine Connection

Ever noticed you tend to get headaches or migraines around your period or ovulation?

Do you get the sniffles every time you drink wine or coffee? Or a runny nose while eating?

Ever waken up in the middle of the night with your heart racing and full of anxiety?

Do you get moody and raging PMS before your period? Or ever get a bad case of the period poops?

Ever feel like a bloated whale from so much water retention?

Struggling with environmental and food allergies?

Maybe your skin is itchy or you’ve got some rosacea?

Welp girlfriend, you may be experiencing histamine intolerance. As if that didn’t suck enough estrogen LOVES to join in all this fun making the shit storm even worse.

Histamine is a super important player in our immune system and only becomes a problem when in excess. Histamine is needed to digest food, needed for exercise performance, brain function, and helps deliver nutrients to cells.

Histamine “intolerance” occurs when you have too much histamine than your body is able to break down. DAO is the enzyme responsible for breaking down histamines in the GI tract (hint: addressing gut health is key here)

Estrogen and histamine are intimately connected. Histamine and estrogen attach to the same receptors therefore estrogen will cause a release of histamine from the mast cells in the reproductive organs. Increased estrogen down regulates DAO and lowers progesterone levels which is needed to support DAO enzyme activity.

DAO also needs minerals and nutrients to do its job. Copper and Vitamin A in particular are absolutely necessary to break down histamine. I guarantee if you are having a hard time with histamines and estrogen, you are most likely copper deficient which is one piece of the puzzle.

Excess estrogen = excess histmine
Excess histamine = excess estrogen

This is why addressing both is mandatory and the blanket recommendation of eliminating high histamine foods does not work. It may relieve some symptoms temporarily but getting to the root of the problem is necessary to break the cycle.

Scroll down for some basic tips.

In this case working with someone and running labs like the GI Map and DUTCH can be really helpful.

 

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Flax Seed is a Waste Product

But Laura, I was told that flax is supposed to help balance my hormones, help me go to the bathroom and eliminate excess estrogen. 🙄

Girl, if you are having a hard time going to the bathroom there is a whole lot more that needs to be addressed.

Here’s the deal. Linseed oil (flax) is used in paints and coatings because it undergoes oxidation and forms a natural, plastic like film under heat aka a nice 98 degree human body.

YUM! Plastic! I can’t think of anything better to balance my hormones! You all know the deal by now, PUFAs cause hormonal hell.

Basically they wanted to make money off of a waste product. Now that it’s being used for human consumption, animal consumption, and industrial production it’s bringing in that money honey.

The idea behind taking flax is that it contains lignans that can help bind to excess estrogen to help escort it out of the body. Which is great right? Wrong.

Flax contains linoleic acid, basically a shit load of omega 3 and PUFA, these are precursors to prostaglandins that stimulate cancer cells in dozens.

Linoleic Acid > Prostaglandin E2> polymines > proliferation

Estrogen becomes a problem when the liver is overburdened and can not detox excess, why are we adding fuel to the fire? We know PUFAs like nuts and seeds and flax seed cause a toxic shit storm creating more burden on the liver.

Studies show in breast thermograms that phytoestrogens or “weak” estrogens found in flax seed + other plants, soy + seeds are nothing to mess around with and feed cancer.

Thermograms show how strong phytoestrogens really are.

“We see so many women who start taking these supposedly healthy products go from at risk thermograms to abnormal ones in three months or less” – Sellens + Hobbins

And no, in today’s world, you are not low in estrogen, it is near impossible. Estrogen dominance is basically a pandemic.

The next time someone recommends flax seed or seed cycling to balance your hormones I’d give them a hard pass and do this instead:

+ Raw Carrot Salad
+ Well Cooked White Button Mushrooms
+ Beets for bile production
+ Castor oil packs
+ Eliminate exogenous estrogens
+ Give the liver fuel with fruits, dates, honey and sugar

Every Human Has The Same Cells

Yup, you read that right. We as humans have the same cells, all of us. Pick up any biology book and I can guarantee it will say the same.

Cells take in nutrients from food and convert those nutrients into energy to carry out every single function in the body.

And guess what, your cells require the exact same nutrients as every other human on earth. Our cells require carbs, animal protein (key word, animal), fat, and sugar, and they operate best when they are provided an array of all these nutrients.

I don’t care what Sarah on Instagram is promoting. Whether it be plant-based eating, vegan, carnivore, keto, fasting, or whatever it may be. It’s bullshit and this is why diets do not work long-term. You are simply starving yourself of the very nutrients your cells need to do their jobs.

Not to sound harsh, but nutrition is only as bio-individual as how much your cells got F’d up in the first place, how much stress you put on your cells through toxins, chemicals, processed foods, dieting, physical and emotional stress, over-exercising, under-eating, pharmaceuticals, birth control, poor sleep, lack of light, lack of joy, etc…

What got you to this place in the first place?

This is where targeted nutrition comes into place but the foundations are simply the same.

And no, this is not your fault. We live in a STRESSFUL world filled with toxins, confusion around what to eat, and a constant pressure of needing to look a certain way.

How do you expect your cells to thrive in a constant stressed out malnourished state?

But I feel so much better on ______ diet Laura! Give it some time girlfriend, give it some time. Soon you will end up depleted and in a worse place than where you started, all for what? To lose a few pounds? Or because it was trendy and some influencer told you to do it?

Before someone wants to tell you what you should be eating remember this. You need animal protein and fat. You need carbs and sugar. We simply can not discriminate against food groups. It’s fact. It’s science.

You may be surviving eating junk food, plant-based, vegan, carnivore, keto, low carb, intermittent fasting, eating only 1 meal a day…

But are you thriving?

How You Eat Matters More Than What You Eat

Every morning you run out the door eating your breakfast in the car or walking.

You’re stressed at work so you eat lunch at your desk trying to get things done or your face is buried in your phone.

You’re standing over the sink scarfing down your lunch because you’re too busy.

When you were a kid your parents always fought at the kitchen table.

You were always judged by family members or friends for going up for seconds, how much you ate or what you ate.

You always had to fend for yourself as a kid because your parents were never home for dinner.

You second guess everything you put in your mouth, whether it’s good or bad, too much or too little.

What do all these have in common? Stress! Yes, even these experiences from your childhood can create stress and a constant fight or flight state as an adult around food.

Let’s break it down real quick, digestion starts in the brain. The brain sends signals to your organs to start producing digestive juices to break down and assimilate your food.

If your brain is in constant fight or flight or stressed the F out from any of the above along with any other emotional stressor of the day stress hormones will prevent the brain from sending the signal to your organs that it is time eat.

Stress takes away from the digestive process due to your body being more concerned about surviving and running from that “angry bear” aka stress. It will divert blood and nutrients away from your digestive tract to your muscles, heart and lungs because those are priority and take away from resting and digesting.

What happens when this occurs?

Chronic fight + flight = weight gain, poor digestion, poor nutrient absorption + hormonal imbalances

I can assure you 80% of your problems could be solved by creating a stress free environment and mentality around food. If you grew up eating pizza and french fries in a stress free home, I guarantee you will be better off than someone who grew up eating “healthy” in an anxious and stressed out state all the time.

Here’s some tips:
CHEW YOUR FOOD / 10x before swallowing, almost to liquid. Large chunks of food will ferment, rot, feed that bad bacteria and cause extreme stress/ inflammation on your digestive tract. Inflammation = weight gain

ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS / put away your phone and shut off the tv, step away from your desk and do not eat while driving or standing over the sink.

EXPERIENCE YOUR FOOD / This new food delivery shit is really destroying our relationship with food. There is something to be said about going to a store and picking out your food and preparing it yourself. Smelling, touching, experiencing your food is so important. Go to Farmer’s Markets, find a local farmer, go to a grocery store you enjoy.

WORK THROUGH PAST TRAUMAS/ ANXIETY AROUND FOOD / yes, past traumas, negative thoughts and second guessing your food will reflect your relationship with food today and may be the reason for a lot of your health issues.

TAKE A FEW DEEP BREATHS BEFORE EATING / using your breath is one of the easiest ways to come out of fight or flight and into a rest and digest state.

And lastly, EAT TO SUPPORT YOUR METABOLISM. The whole point of eating pro-metabolic is to bring down stress hormones.

Are You Estrogen Dominant?

I used to be that girl.

I went to the tanning salon, I was on birth control for 12 years, loved my MAC makeup + perfume, burned those candles, loved the smell of a clean house, drank out of plastic water bottles or tap, cooked on non stick pans, heated up my perfectly counted pre-prepped macro meal in plastic in the microwave (but I was being healthy right guys?), ate all the PUFAs + conventional foods.

No wonder why I ended up with every estrogen dominant symptom in the book! I was not only getting estrogen endogenously but also exogenously with all these external sources.

I also had gut issues galore preventing me from not being able to eliminate estrogen appropriately.

I was stressed to the max depleting my body of progesterone, the most important hormone of them all and the only thing that could keep my estrogen in check.

There are 2 types of estrogen dominance. Straight up estrogen dominance- an excess of estrogen but other sex hormones like progesterone are in normal range and relative estrogen dominance- when estrogen is high in relation to low progesterone levels.

Symptoms:
Allergies/ histamine intolerance
PMS
Dry skin
Infertility
Fibroids, cysts, cancers
Sore breasts
Low sex drive
Difficulty losing weight
Varicose veins/ cellulite
Blood sugar swings
Osteoporosis
Heavy periods
Cramps
Cyclical headaches, migraines + acne
Fatigue
Water retention
Gut issues – SIBO, IBS, Bloating
Anxiety/ depression
Thyroid dysfunction

But Laura, I got my labs and it shows i’m low in estrogen but I have all the symptoms of estrogen dominance.

Welp, girlfriend that lab doesn’t account for all that excess estrogen being stored in your tissues. If your body is stressed the F out cortisol will be high and estrogen builds up in your tissues.

If you feel estrogen dominate but your labs are normal or low, chances are that you probably are.

One thing that grinds my gears, women that are told to take DIM but never address why they are estrogen dominant in the first place or if their detox pathways are open. This is harmful.

The first thing you can do is avoid endocrine disruptors + toxins that are mimicking estrogen in your body then address elimination.