Herbs and Hormones: Part 1

Welcome to a three part series on herbs and hormones. There are many common health problems that have a hormonal imbalance as their root cause. This series will take a look at how herbs can help with these problems.

Numerous health problems, symptoms, and conditions are related to, or caused by, hormonal imbalances in a woman’s body. In fact, so many things are caused by hormonal problems, that many of the complaints are dismissed as psychosomatic complaints by doctors who don’t know any better.

Just a few of the problems caused by hormonal imbalances include acne, night sweats, chronic fatigue, vaginal dryness, mood swings, depression and anxiety, headaches, fuzzy thinking, and water retention or swelling in various parts of the body.

More severe problems are also caused by hormonal imbalances though. Some of these include infertility, Endometriosis, fibroids, heart palpitations, urinary dysfunction and infections, breast pain, and irregular periods.

These problems, however, are not limited to women entering menopause which is the common belief of both men and women. In fact, many problems which affect teenage girls, young adult women, and middle aged women are all caused in whole or in part by hormonal problems.

Teenage girls often experience heavy acne problems when their body is going through puberty, and this is known to be caused by the hormonal changes happening within her body. Unfortunately many young women never get their hormones balanced properly though, so they continue to struggle with acne throughout their lives. Even older women can suffer from acne which again, is due to hormonal imbalance.

Very painful periods and heavy blood flow is another symptom or side effect of hormonal imbalances of women at all ages. In fact, a common prescription remedy for these symptoms for years has been to prescribe birth control pills, which are known to adjust the hormone levels in a woman’s body.

Women’s bodies create two hormones naturally: estrogen and progesterone. Both hormones play important roles in a woman’s body, and the balance needs to be kept in order for everything to work properly. Many things can throw the balance of these hormones off however, including stress, poor nutrition, or proper exercise.

Doctors and medical scientists will often be concerned primarily with estrogen–primarily because a woman’s body produces less of this hormone as she ages. The link between the two hormones, and the full importance of the progesterone’s role in a woman’s body is not fully known. Most often, treatments simply try to replace estrogen in as a woman’s body produces less of it.

The natural approach however, is to restore the balance of the hormone levels in the body. This in turn relieves the myriad of conditions and symptoms caused by an imbalance, and helps improve a woman’s overall health in the process too.

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