What are hormones? They are your “master control” molecules that direct and regulate every part of how your body functions.
There are dozens of hormones in the human body. You can think of them as the gears in a clock: each one has a different role to play to make the clock work, but they are also all interconnected and always influencing each other. If one clock gear gets rusty or broken, it will cause the other gears around it to malfunction as well, and the whole clock will stop working.
In the same way, if you are feeling tired or frazzled or anxious, if your drive or focus or strength isn’t what it used to be, the problem could be with one or more of these master control molecules, your hormones.
Fortunately, lab tests can show many problems with hormone levels in the body, if they are running too high or too low. After seeing which hormone levels are not at their best, the next step is to figure out why, the root cause of the problem. It could be something wrong with your immune system, it could be an infection, it could be something that could be improved with your diet, or your body trying to manage a large amount of stress. Often, there is more than one cause and more than one hormone system out of whack.
We are here to both track down the causes of your hormone imbalances and give you expert advice to help your body heal and regain its full health. We will discuss different options including stress reduction, healthy diet, vitamins, supplements, and prescription medicines. Then we listen to you, and what changes you would like to make to improve your health. We will then custom design a plan that makes sense to you to help bring greater health to your body, and partner with you to implement, monitor, and adjust the plan as your body heals.
We strongly believe that your body wants to heal, wants to do its very best for you, and we will do everything we can to help you do your very best for it.
Although there are dozens of hormones in the body, there are several key hormone systems in the body that we focus on and can accurately measure with labs:
Adrenal: Our adrenal system is primarily known as the system that regulates how our body responds to stress, but it has many other duties throughout the body. If your adrenal system becomes overloaded or worn out, primarily from chronic stress, you can experience symptoms such as fatigue, excessive sleep, cravings for sugar or salt, difficulty handling stress, changes in weight, nausea, low blood pressure, body aches, and feelings of sadness.
The adrenal is a complex network of interlocking hormones, but our practice measures a master adrenal hormone called DHEA. DHEA levels give us a measurement of how the entire adrenal system is functioning. If your DHEA level is low, we may recommend strategies like making healthier diet choices, techniques and treatments to help you manage stress, get better sleep, and taking DHEA by supplement. Increasing DHEA levels can also help the thyroid and sex hormone systems as well.
Thyroid: most people know someone with something wrong with their thyroid, because there are over 20 million people in our country that thyroid problems. While the adrenals primarily controls our response to acute stress (our “fight or flight” response), our thyroid system monitors and regulates our cells’ long-term energy needs. In a way, it’s similar to a thermostat on a heater or the idle control on an engine— it controls the “speed” of a variety of body organs.
People with low thyroid can feel fatigue similar to people with low adrenals, but they can also manifest other problems such as constipation, feeling too cold, slow heart rate, changes in their menstrual cycle, hair loss, and in extreme cases even coma. On the flip side, people with too much thyroid can feel nervous, have rapid heart rate, weight loss, lack of sleep, and in extreme cases hallucinations and psychosis.
Just like the adrenal, the thyroid is a network of hormones. Most standard medical practices often measure just the hormone TSH, which is actually not made by the thyroid but by the pituitary gland. It measures if your thyroid is overactive or underactive but not the actual amount of thyroid hormones getting to your tissues. We say that using the TSH alone to measure your thyroid is like trying to figure out how much gas you have in your car’s tank by looking at your speedometer.
At Integrated Health Concepts we measure five thyroid-related hormones: TSH, T4, FT4, T3, and FT3. We look at both the individual hormones and how they are relating to each other to decide the best course of action for you.
The standard treatment for thyroid disease is to give one thyroid hormone, T4. This works for some people, but only if their body can properly convert T4 into the other hormones. Often, we find that people feel better on a combination of T4 and T3. We will also look at nutritional deficiencies, your other hormone systems, and supplements to help your body produce and regulate your thyroid hormones naturally.
Many people come to us because they know or suspect that they have low sex hormones, and we are happy to help. Just like with the adrenal and thyroid, our sexual hormones are a system of interconnected hormones.
Testosterone is thought of as the men’s hormone, but women also need a small amount of testosterone for their bodies to function well. For both men and women, testosterone affects more than just sexual drive: it helps the body have energy, helps the brain with memory, drive, and ambition, helps our muscles build strength, helps the bone marrow to produce red blood cells, and helps regulate weight. Like many things in life, however, too much of a good thing is not a good thing: too much testosterone can trigger acne or hair in unwanted places, can cause you to feel angry and agitated, and can even damage your organs.
Likewise, both men and women have estrogen, although women need much more than men. Besides regulating the female reproductive system, estrogen helps keep skin and bones healthy, and helps mood and sleep. Women actually produce 3 different types of estrogen, but measuring the primary type called estradiol will give us an accurate picture of a woman’s estrogen balance.
An essential companion hormone of estrogen is progesterone. Besides its role in reproduction and menstruation, low progesterone can cause mood changes, poor sleep, headaches, and other symptoms.
There are a variety of ways to replace estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, and if any of them are low we will give you options and help customize a plan for you. The body needs proper adrenal and thyroid function to properly make and use your sex hormones, so we will make sure those are balanced as well.
The last major hormone we always look at is the one that over half of the population has a problem with, but most people don’t even realize is a hormone: Vitamin D. Although originally labeled as a vitamin, it actually acts as a hormone within the body. We all learned in school that vitamin D helps our bones, which it does, but it also has over sixty other functions throughout the body, including helping your immune system, brain function, cell growth, inflammation reduction, and insulin regulation.
Even though it has all these functions, low vitamin D is very common. There are multiple reasons for this:
- Our less than healthy diets
- Not having enough daily sun exposure
- The official government recommendations for both vitamin D levels and how much to put in vitamins are WAY too low.
Fortunately, vitamin D is the easiest hormone deficiency to fix with a daily supplement, although the correct dose is different for everyone. Our recommended vitamin D supplements include vitamin K2, a lesser known vitamin but one essential for vitamin D to properly work within the body.
To sum up, we have dozens of interlocking hormone systems in the body, and each one causes different symptoms and is measured and treated differently. Having properly functioning hormone systems is absolutely necessary for a healthy body that feels great and provides you with a fantastic life. We are honored to help customize a plan that will help your body heal any hormone system problems that you have and return you to vibrant health.
Remember, YOU are loved –
Dr. Hollandsworth
Click here to watch his YouTube video where he discusses hormones.
