It is widely accepted that the human body produces three sex hormones: estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. It is also commonly accepted that, with age, hormone production sloughs off. In fact, if you are a woman over 35 years old or a man over 40, your body’s hormone production has already started to decline. It’s a physiological fact.

There are diagnostic tests that can provide a comprehensive profile of all your hormone levels. When I am diagnosing a patient, if possible I use a saliva test to analyze specific hormone levels. Nevertheless, even without the benefit of having met you or analyzed the results of your saliva test, I can immediately have a snapshot of your hormonal profile if you just answer four questions. My questions are:

1. Are you a man or a woman?
2. How old are you?
3. If you are a woman, are you still menstruating?
4. If you are a man, how is your sex drive and energy level?
5. About how many inches has your waistline expanded over the last ten years?

• If you are a woman who is 35+ years of age and you are still having menstrual cycles, you are most definitely estrogen dominant. How do I know that? Because the female body’s production of progesterone begins to decline rapidly in the early to mid-thirties and, if the body is still menstruating, that means it is still producing enough estrogen to stimulate the monthly cycle. Decreased progesterone production combined with ongoing estrogen production results in estrogen dominance.
  
  If you are a woman who has not had a period for at least twelve months, you are either menopausal, post-menopausal or you have entered menopause prematurely as a result of a surgical hysterectomy. The average age of a woman entering natural menopause in the United States is fifty-one years old. Monthly menstruation ceases because the ovaries are no longer able to produce enough estrogen to ovulate.

• While menopause evidences a drastic shift in your body’s hormonal equilibrium, it does not mean that the sex hormones are suddenly absent from the body. Most physicians and their patients operate under the misconception that, once a woman enters menopause, her ovaries turn off like a light switch. This is not true. In fact, the ovaries of a menopausal woman are still quite actively producing forty to sixty percent of the estrogen produced by a pre- menopausal woman. Progesterone production, however, continues to decline. The result is that many menopausal women continue to suffer from estrogen dominance.

• If you are a man over 40 years of age, your testosterone production has already started to decline. If you also report feeling sluggish, bloated and lethargic these too are symptoms of hormonal imbalance. Your age and your symptoms indicate that you are in the midst of male menopause, or andropause. If you tell me you suffer from a decreased sexual appetite and an inability to lose weight, I know that you are most likely also estrogen dominant in addition to being testosterone deficient.

• Weight loss research shows that, as soon as age causes hormone production to shift and estrogen dominance to result, the average person will add 1-2 pounds around their middle each year between ages 35 and 55. As long as the body’s cellular metabolism is compromised by untreated hormone imbalances, most particularly estrogen dominance, those extra pounds around the middle will be next to impossible to lose.

• Here’s some more bad news about estrogen dominance: estrogen levels impact body fat distribution. In both men and women, higher estrogen levels predispose body fat to store around the abdomen. Estrogen dominance has also been linked to the fact that middle age women also tend to store more fat on their bottoms, hips and thighs. If you are estrogen dominant, there is a reason your body increasingly resembles a pear!

Dr. Randolph

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Menopause or Hysterectomy
Andropause (male menopause)
PMS
Weight Loss
Osteoporosis

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