The Gut Bacteria Secretly Controlling Your Estrogen

Introduction to Hormone Heroines 0:00

A lot of times women find that they don't like how they look, they do not like they feel, and they think. And there's this underlying fear that a lot times we don t talk about, but it's like, is this as good as it s going to get now? Am I stuck with this? Because I don' like what I see in the mirror. I do nt like that I can't think as fast. That I just don''t feel like myself anymore. My clothes don ''t fit right, I feel yucky. pretty set of symptoms that women tend to say, what is this? What has happened to me?

I thought it would happen to everybody else and not me. Do you feel like your hormones have turned against you? Trust us, you're not alone. We're Dr. Serena and Dr Heidi. And on hormone heroines, we explore all the root causes that are behind hormone imbalances. and we teach you how to thrive through them. Join us for real talk, expert tips, and even a few laughs. Welcome back to hormone heroines today. We're going to be talking to Lisa Smith and we're gonna be diving deep into gut dysbiosis and Hormones and how those are interconnected Lisa smith helps women restore energy balance hormones and slow aging She is also a host of the top 2% Pretty well podcast where she discusses drivers behind gut health hormone balance and holistic beauty So let's dive into those topics today Welcome.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here. Yeah. We are super excited to have you, this is one of my personally favorite topics. Hello. Talking about the gut and how it impacts everything, especially hormones.

Gut Dysbiosis and the Estrobolome 1:36

So let's start off with how does gut dysbiosis affect hormones, specifically estrogen? So gut, dysbiosis for our listeners is the majority of us are dealing with some level of it. And that is when the ecosystem in our gut is off. So when we think about our guts, I love to think of it in a very simplified way is that we've got a couple different armies battling each other within the environment or within that ecosystem. To just picture we have the good army, we had the bad army. And depending on our food, our stress, or sleep, so many things in life, are inflammation levels.

We either tip the scales in favor of the good army or in the bad army. So what we want to do, obviously, is we wanted to tip. The scales. In favor. Of the. Good army, but with all the things we deal with, especially when we think about food environment, toxins, water, air, stress. we tend to. Tip it. in favor of the bad army. And when that happens, and those armies are the bacteria in our gut. So we've got probiotics, the good guys, we got the guys that are what we refer to as pathogenic bacteria or commensal that's overgrown, but basically it's too much of something that we don't want.

And so, that is what we're talking about when we talk about dysbiosis. We're taking about a bad army having the upper hand, and we want to shift it so that the good army has the other hand. That is for everyone, regardless of whether we are talking hormones or inflammation or fatigue or brain fog, but for us specifically today, Dr. Serena, we were talking So what happens with dysbiosis is it throws our hormones off and we can get deeper into that, but that's the general overview. Okay. Well, I love analogies.

So I loved the one that you just gave with the good and bad armies. I think that a really good picture for most of us to think about. Let's dive in a little bit deeper since we are here to talk about hormones on how that dysbiosis can affect estrogen. Yeah, and that's, this is the really fun. This is where, if you geek out on this, like I do, This gets really, fun and interesting. And there's a good news story at the end of it. So hang in there as you're listening, because it starts out kind of, kind dark, but we, we come out, you know, the journey.

so what happens is there, We tend to think about. the opposite direction. What does estrogen do to the gut? What is progesterone do that to that gut and not that many people are talking about the reverse, which is what you just asked me. And what happens in the got that influences our hormone balance? And there's this part of our gut, that microbiome, the ecosystem, called the astrabalome. And that astrabalome are the bacteria, they're good guys, and they help to regulate how much estrogen we have in our body.

So whether we're regularly cycling, whether are in perimenopause, or menopaus, That astrobalone, if it's healthy, it is doing this really cool job. So I got another word picture for us. You know, what it does, think about the estrogen in our gut and it gets packaged onto a garbage truck that's supposed to go out in elimination. It's suppose to out with the trash. And so we got these great garbage trucks and they pack up all that estrogen and take it out when they're supposed. So basically it goes through our system.

Our body uses what is needs. Goes through the liver to the gut, gets detoxified, goes to gut. The gut says, out the door you go. Now, there is this sneaky enzyme called beta-glucuronidase, and beta glucurinidases elevates when we have that dysbiosis we talked about, when the armies aren't right. So beta glucoronids actually goes up to the garbage truck that's already packaged and ready to go out the door and it knocks estrogen off of the garage truck. Now it recycles back through our body and we end up with too much estrogen.

And it's estrogen that the body has already said, I'm ready to discard this. I don't want it anymore. broken down yucky stuff. So now that's going through and now we have these symptoms, it becomes especially apparent in PMS and perimenopause when things are kind of going a little

Leaky Gut and Hormonal Imbalances 6:12

off the charts. They're going sideways for us and we're mad at everybody and feel terrible and why could I literally rip someone's face off? That could have to do with your astrabalone. Yeah. I like to think of that estrogen also that's like coming back in is it tends to be a little bit more inflammatory too. You know, it's tends be little more triggering than like you said, than the good stuff that we like have. But, so let's talk about what kind of, like we talked about larger like picture what affects that dysbiosis.

But can we identify any like specific things that affect the estrobalome specifically? Like what would increase or decrease that beta-glucuronidase that you were just talking about? Great questions. So those are the things, it can be different things for different people, but think of all the thing we know that drive inflammation. those are the things that throw that off a balance. So it can be as specific as a food sensitivity you or I might have, or it could be a general as, you know what, I've gone through a season, and I'm not really sleeping very well, so that means that things are off balance, it doesn't just mean I feel more tired, It means my cortisol is elevated, And we know that cortisol's our main stress hormone, So when that elevates and stays elevated it throws other things off downstream.

That can be your estrabalome. That could be not just gut dysbiosis, but that can contribute to leaky gut. that could contribute hormone deficiency by itself. It's separate from the estrabalome, right? Because it's stealing the raw materials to make our estrogen and our progesterone and testosterone. So when we think about the astrabalone, we thinking about anything that throws the gut off and inflammation is the first thing that comes to mind, but it's anything. That's going to throw your gut out of balance.

So it could be processed foods. It could toxins in your water. Or it can be relationship stress. Like it is a gamut. Okay. You mentioned leaky gut. How does that differ from gut dysbiosis? That's such a good question. We tend to think of them as the same, right? It's the gut. The gut's either healthy or it's not healthy. Well, they're two different things and they play off of each other. So gut dysbiosis, we talked about those armies and those armies are out of balance. Leaky gut is a little different.

I'm glad you like word pictures and analogies because that's pretty much how I talk. When we have leaky guts, picture, We can picture our digestive tract from our mouth to our butt as one hose. Let's just forget about the organs. let's talk about hoses there, right? Goes in our mouths, eventually comes out the other end. Well, if you, it's summer, you may have a garden. I am way behind on my garden, but we all have these beautiful gardens and we want to get out and water them. We went to Lowe's or Home Depot and bought this cool new hose.

So we're kind of excited about watering our garden And the next day, we say we bought it yesterday and we woke up today and some bratty neighbor boy came by and he poked holes through our brand new hose. So now we go to water that garden and there's like water springing out all over the place from that hose, and yes, We still get water at the other end, but all these leaks are happening. That's a picture of a leaky gut, pretty much. We have this thing that's supposed to be semi-permeable and nothing is supposed You know, in the spigot comes out the other end, but, you know a little more complicated.

We have, we have you, know selective diffusion, if you will. But let's just forget about that. we're not supposed to have holes in, the in hose. And what happens is due to lifestyle choices, inflammation, due the food sensitivities, some gut infections, a whole bunch of things, We will get little holes poked in that hose and when we do. things leak out into our bloodstream before the body's ready for them to migrate out. So then our immune system is so smart that it says, This isn't supposed to be here.

This is a problem. And then it begins that inflammation process. If this is the problem, I've got to fix it. if this a pathogen or something that's a threat, it could just literally be food that isn' quite broken down to the molecular size it's supposed t be yet, and then the body reacts with inflammation. But what's happening with leaky gut, also called intestinal permeability or hyperpermeability, is that these things are getting out too soon and they're causing havoc in the body. Yeah, I like to think of it as it sets off the alarm bells in body and then it just starts attacking lots of things.

And the inflammation seeps everywhere and can cause all different issues, not just in outside of the gut as well, which leads me to my next question is

Declining Estrogen and Aging Symptoms 11:15

how does this leaky gut complicate hormonal imbalances? Wow, in so many ways, right? Because once we have this leaky gut, as you said, all the alarm bells are going off. And what are those alarm bills? They are a whole bunch of different defenses that we had, particularly inflammation. Again, going back to what we were talking about. Here's one example. It could be many things. I would love for you to chime in as well on some of the things you found. But I alluded to it a minute ago, and that is we have raw materials to make our hormones.

And there's something called a prognanolone steel. Pregnanolones is a raw material for cortisol, but it's also for estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. So inflammation. causes cortisol to rise because our body is in full alarm and saying, oh my gosh, we've got to shut down this threat. So as that cortisol rises, well, it's stealing raw materials that could be made for our hormones and our neurotransmitters and all these other things. That's one of the big ways that inflammation influences hormone production.

And what are some other ones you've found? Yeah, so just on that specific note with cortisol, because it's one of my other favorite topics, besides the gut, stress is the next one. But I also like to be clear that, you know, stresses stress, is stress of stress. Meaning that whether it stress coming from emotional or psychological stress or stress from inside your body, it is going to raise that cortisol. which is, like you said, leaky gut is that physiological stress that's causing that cortisol raise.

And you mentioned the pregnenolone steal, but I've also found that cortisol not only steals the progneolome, it also makes you metabolize your good hormones even faster. So then you're clearing out the good things as well as not getting ones to replace it. And then it can also block some of the receptors downstream. So even if you have enough, it's like blocking the receptor so estrogen progesterone can't get to it so. That's one of the big ones for stress but what I've also found for inflammation is that then it also triggers your immune system and then you can start having all the allergic reactions or start down that whole pathway because like when food gets introduced to yourimmune system in a way that it's not supposed to, it might start thinking that needs to attack it all time.

So true, that is so true. And as you were talking, what else popped up in my mind in addition to immunity and inflammation was the role of also along those lines is insulin resistance. So as that cortisol rises, as you were saying, then also our receptor sites become less receptive to our hormones because just as insulin resistance comes along, what I've learned is that estrogen receptors become more receptive as our glucose is high and our insulin is elevated. So that alters everything too as well.

That's a new one. I hadn't learned that one yet. Yeah, especially for people who are getting BHRT, so bioidentical hormone replacement, there's there a small percentage of women who feel nothing. And even in their blood work, or even the hormonal testing, even a Dutch test, registers that they're not getting the effects of the hormone replacement and some of that related this is so interesting to just a subclinical insulin resistance which is fascinating as well. That is, fascinating because like we said stress is blocking those receptors but now it's actually down regulating the sensitivity of estrogen receptor as, well as blocking it potentially.

I know that was kind of a newer discovery I found because I have clients who have said, I'm not responding to my hormone replacement. So that led me on a deep research dive and I was like, oh my gosh, why are we not, Why do we, not know this? Why is this not something that's become more well-known because it's definitely an issue. Well, another reason why we need to focus on our insulin sensitivity as well as our gut health. But let's move on to a little bit more focus the hormones and those downstream effects.

So we just talked about how the gut can dysregulate or down regulate all of our hormones. How does that effect of declining estrogen levels affect different signs and symptoms of aging in particular? Man, so here are the main symptoms that I tend to see. I tends to brain fog, weight gain, especially around the belly. And to our skin does not respond as quickly. So that elasticity, it just seems to go away overnight. Patience gets affected. we tend to get frustrated more easily, more irritable more, easily.

We tend not to have the energy that we used to. So basically what I found is we don't, you know, women who hit that stage of life where the estrogen, in perimenopause, estrogen is bouncing around. And then when menopausal hits, it pretty much takes a nosedive and it falls off. And when that happens, a lot of times women find that they don't like how they look, they A lot of times we don't talk about,

Supporting Gut Health and Hormones 16:54

but it's like, is this as good as it is going to get now? Am I stuck with this? Because I don' like what I see in the mirror, and I do not like that I can't think as fast. And I just don not feel like myself anymore. My clothes do' not fit right. I feel yucky. That's a pretty pervasive set of symptoms that women tend to say, what is this? What has happened to me? I thought it would happen to everybody else and not me. Okay. Well, on that note, let's talk about options. Let's leave on a positive note.

How can we help those women out? Specifically, we already talked about bioidentical hormone replacements. That's always an option, but we also mentioned during this episode that even when on, you might not feel the effects. What are some of the ways that you address women who maybe are on the BHRT but not feeling the effects versus like specifically for like supplements and dietary advice. I'm glad you asked it because we I promised in the beginning, you know, we're going to come out of the valley.

We're gonna hit the Valley and we are going come back out. Yeah, let's leave on a hopeful note. Let's do it. Okay, because there's so much hope that I mean, there is so many we can do and it doesn't have to cost a lot of money a a time or a So we want to start upstream. We want start with a gut first and foremost. Easy, easy things we can do. Make sure that we're getting that balance back of the good guys versus the bad guys. And that's easier than it sounds. A good probiotic. I like I like a probiotic that helps to promote some of the strains we have that tend to kind of go into hiding when the bad guy take the upper hand.

I can just tell you the strain is called anerystipes, but that help to build those bacteria that build then what's called postbiotics and not to get super technical, but it builds these things that help to repair the gut, basically. So regardless, get on a good probiotic, and then you eat foods that helped to build up the good army. The probiotics itself adds numbers to the army, then what you eats feeds the Army. And that's eating stuff. That's prebiotic foods, but I'm going to rattle off some because people listening are like, that's easy.

That is not some kind of weird thing I have to go eat. It's onions, leeks, garlic, it's apples, bananas, avocados, artichokes. Those are some of the big ones that you can put in your diet regularly and they will help to build back your good army. I think about ancient wisdom when we think of it as old wives tales, but an apple a day keeps the doctor away. That does so many things to address the 12 hallmarks of aging. An apple day, it hits all these different aspects of ageing. It's mind-blowing when you do the research.

So that's a great start. Get that balance back in your gut. And here's the super exciting part of it that people don't necessarily realize, and that is your gut starts changing in two to three days of just making a few changes. You may not feel it in 2 to 3 days, but it starts improving that fast. Yeah, that's hopeful. Then clean up things you know cause inflammation. That cleans up that leaky gut. So we could be foods that you no bloat you. There's a reason for that. Get rid of them. I mean, just for now, maybe not even forever, until you heal that inflammation, anything you do know doesn't agree with you, Just get rid of it for a couple few months and focus on the things that you do feel good on and, and let that gut do some healing.

Then once those things are out of the way, then hormone replacement, you have a much better view into, are they really going to be helpful or are not? Do I need to do more cleanup work first? I love that. I always tell people you can't out supplement a healthy lifestyle. And I think that is exactly your point. You can just take a pill and heal the gut. We got to eat the foods that it needs to be healthy. Exactly. If you could, you and I would invest in that pill, and we would be doing just fine.

Because if people just had a bill that could solve all their problems, then life would easy, right? Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's not supposed to Yeah. So yeah, those are some easy things and then dial in sleep. If you're like most of us, you might find that you are scrolling later than you should because you think you just relaxing but actually it's robbing you of goods. You know, so make sure you really do set that time at night. The hours before midnight are far more restorative than the hours after.

We need all the ones after midnight but the one's before are actually richer in restoration for us. So getting a good night's sleep, those are some really basic things. And then pay attention to what really ramps up stress and recognize it and then bring some tools into the toolbox for you. You probably can't always change those. We can change that was in our lives, but we can start to do some very simple things to bring us out of fight or flight. And those would be some core keystone things we could just do to at that point then say, do I actually think I want a hormone replacement?

Because if you do, they are amazing and they can work for you. But if don't, that can also be amazing. I love that, giving everyone options. So to drive home the point, eat healthy, which is get some plants in your diet, fruits and vegetables, get your sleep regulated,

Closing Remarks and Program Promotion 22:48

especially get hours before midnight, because that's going to help you out the most, give you that restorative sleep, and also help with the stress regulation, keep that cortisol down, both of those actually. And then lastly, it's to observe, find out what's stressing you out, and make sure you basically give yourself a little me time every day to help regulate your nervous system. Does that sound like your big three? Well said. Yes, that does. It sounds right on it. Love it! Well, let's leave it on that hopeful note for everyone.

And then I just want to give you, is there any last minute thoughts or things you'd like to share with the audience before we say goodbye? Yeah, there is. Regardless of which stage of life you're in, if you are feeling not hopeful and feeling like, oh my gosh, this is the way it's going to be, It's not, it doesn't have to be just, and it is definitely not a race. Slow and steady wins the race, so just start to incorporate those little things. They sound so over, overused, but actually they are, they're free and they what moves the needle and will change you epigenetically.

So in the long run, It'll change how fast it'll, slow down your aging. It will give you more energy. You'll feel better and you'll love how you look, feel and think. I love that. Well, that has been another episode of Pormon Heroins. Thanks for joining us today and thank you for being here, Lisa. It's been a wonderful conversation. I've loved it. Thank you. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye. You know how us women are always just pushing through it, and then when we go to find help, were often not taken seriously or told, oh, that's just part of being a woman.

Yeah, We've lived through, prioritizing everybody else, And then our own health falls to the wayside. That's why we started blossoming longevity by women or women. We created programs that meet women where they are, addressing the root causes and all of the struggles that come with every stage of life. Like our vitality program. It reconnects you with your youth and your life so that you can thrive through the years. And with Clarity, we go beyond the skin to restore your health, clear your complexion so you feel radiant from the inside out.

With our Silhouette program, we help you reclaim your strength, optimize your metabolism, and your body composition so that you can feel great in your own body again. And with Harmony, We help rebalance your hormones to heal from within so you feel vibrant and ready to take on the world. That is why it's time to stop saddling and start flourishing. Visit blossominglongevity.com today. Thanks for watching Hormone Heroines. If this episode spoke to you, follow the show and share it with someone who also needs to hear it.

And write a review. That helps more people find their way back to balance. See you next week.