Masters of Health Magazine July 2020 | Page 94

An example would be a woman who is having issues with premenstrual symptoms such as bloating, breast tenderness, anxiety, heavy bleeding during menses, weight gain around the midsection, fatigue, insomnia, and emotional distress. She may also have a young family.

When testing her hormones, her thyroid may be suboptimal, which explains the heavy bleeding, fatigue, and weight gain. There may also be an imbalance of estrogen, progesterone, and cortisol. It’s possible to address these hormonal imbalances with supplements and lifestyle changes for an excellent prognosis and life-changing results.

Men

Men can be impacted by hormonal imbalance through weight gain, limited energy, hair loss, decreased endurance, erectile dysfunction, and low libido. All of these symptoms can be indicative of hormonal imbalance—either excesses or deficiencies of certain hormones in the body. These problems are often addressed by supplementing the body with the deficient hormone(s), changing lifestyle habits, and taking supplements to help with the body’s natural production of hormones. This is a gradual process that is monitored through diagnostic testing by a skilled practitioner.

Disease

In addition to reaching optimal health, balanced hormones can prevent disease. When seeking advice for a medical problem, health-care providers sometimes focus on symptoms instead of the multitude of factors that may be contributing to the ailment. They don’t always get to the root cause of the illness because symptom management takes priority.

Often, when a vague symptom like fatigue is presented, patients are told it’s a common manifestation of aging. Yet it’s not—when in optimal health. Even more problematic is the use of antidepressants for a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, lack of motivation, lack of sex drive, and mood swings. In many cases, health-care providers don’t even investigate the possibility of hormone dysregulation.