Why Balanced Hormones Are a Woman\'s Best Friend

These days, being a woman is harder on your health than ever. From full-time work to the demands of motherhood and everything in between, chances are good that, at some point, you’ve found yourself in the same boat as a lot of other modern women—sleep-deprived, run-down and just plain stressed out. And whether you realize it or not, this can have a silent but less than desirable effect on your body’s delicate hormone balance as you age… a shift that can bring a whole boatload of concerns along with it.

Hormonal building blocks like pregnenolone, progesterone, melatonin and DHEA are particularly vulnerable to these stress- and age-related imbalances. For example, in a multi-step process, pregnenolone converts into both progesterone and DHEA, the former of which converts to the stress hormone cortisol and aldosterone, and the latter of which converts into sex hormones, including testosterone and estrogen. Moreover, pregnenolone is a key source of support for cognitive health, playing a critical role in your brain’s nerve receptor function and acting as an essential natural factor in mood balance.^1-2

With continued stress, however, pregnenolone’s cortisol pathway is emphasized, while the DHEA pathway is downgraded—leading to potential effects on the menstrual cycle, as well as lowered libido, sluggishness and unstable moods.

Changes in progesterone levels, on the other hand—such as those that commonly accompany menopause—can lead to a state known as “estrogen dominance,” in which there is no longer a healthy balance of progesterone to estrogen levels in the body.³ This, in turn, carries consequences for cardiovascular, thyroid, liver, breast, uterine, ovarian, cervical, and bone health—and contributes, among other things, to lower energy levels, mood imbalances, water retention, weight gain, irritability and sluggish metabolism.⁴

Finally, healthy DHEA levels are linked to heart health, breast health and peak cognitive performance—three areas that can be impacted when this important steroid hormone plummets as you age—while the antioxidant hormone melatonin is essential to healthy progesterone balance and achieving high-quality, restorative sleep.^5-9

Needless to say, all of these interconnected naturally occurring compounds play a crucial role in keeping your body’s day-to-day wellness in check—but while age may interfere with their ability to do their job, the good news is that research suggests that supplementation may help to keep your health on track.

Studies indicate, for example, that Pregnenolone, DHEA and progesterone supplements can soothe the stress response and exert a relaxing effect in times of anxiousness—while supporting brain function by enhancing neuronal health, neurite outgrowth and neurogenesis.^10-12 Supplementation with Melatonin, meanwhile, can protect progesterone from free radicals thereby supporting progesterone levels—which has been shown, in turn, to significantly improve sleep quality and duration in clinical studies.^13-14

Of course, the first step to reclaiming your body’s balance is to assess your own levels of these key hormones with CP’s Comprehensive Hormone Panel—a test kit that provides you with easy and accurate results from the comfort of your own home. Should your results indicate that your levels of pregnenolone, DHEA, or melatonin are in need of support, all three natural compounds are also available as supplements from Complementary Prescriptions®. HerBalance Cream® is another option for the modern woman. A combination of natural oils, it smoothes the skin and uses a natural source of progesterone added to select antioxidants, making this formula a woman’s best friend. Simply work with your doctor to determine the best approach to take… and let CP do the rest.

References:

1. Reddy DS. Neurosteroids: endogenous role in the human brain and therapeutic potentials. Prog Brain Res. 2010;186:113-37.

2. Wu FS, Gibbs TT, Farb DH. Pregnenolone sulfate: a positive allosteric modulator at the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor. Mol Pharmacol. 1991 Sep;40(3):333-6.

3. Lee JR. What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause. Warner Books, May 1996.

4. Lee JR. What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause. Warner Books, May 1996.

5. Heaney JL, Phillips AC, Carroll D. Ageing, physical function, and the diurnal rhythms of cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011 Jul 28. Published Online Ahead of Print.

6. Hinson JP, Raven PW. DHEA deficiency syndrome: A new term for old age? J Endocrinol. 1999;163:1-5.

7. Jansson JH, Nilsson TK, Johnson O. Von Willebrand factor, tissue plasminogen activator and dehydroepiandrosterone sulphate predict cardiovascular death in a 10-year follow-up of survivors of acute myocardial infarction. Heart. 1998;80:334-337.

8. Schwartz AG. Inhibition of spontaneous breast cancer formation in female mice by long term treatment with dehydroepiandrosterone. Cancer Res. 1979;39:1129-1132.

9. Merril CR, Harrington MG, Sunderland T. Reduced plasma dehydroepiandrosterone concentrations in HIV infection and alzheimer’s disease, in: The Biologic Role of Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), by Regelson, W., Kalimi, M., and Loria, R. (eds.), Walter de Gruyter, Inc., Hawthorne, NY, 1990.

10. Noda Y, Kamei H, Kamei Y, Nagai T, Nishida M, Nabeshima T. Neurosteroids ameliorate conditioned fear stress: an association with sigma receptors. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2000 Sep;23(3):276-84.

11. Reddy DS, Kulkarni SK. Differential anxiolytic effects of neurosteroids in the mirrored chamber behavior test in mice. Brain Res. 1997 Mar 28;752(1-2):61-71.

12. Charalampopoulos I, Remboutsika E, Margioris AN, Gravanis A. Neurosteroids as modulators of neurogenesis and neuronal survival. Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Oct;19(8):300-7.

13. Taketani T, Tamura H, Takasaki A, Lee L, Kizuka F, Tamura I, Taniguchi K, Maekawa R, Asada H, Shimamura K, Reiter RJ, Sugino N. Protective role of melatonin in progesterone production by human luteal cells. J Pineal Res. 2011 Mar 22. Published online ahead of print.

14. Caufriez A, Leproult R, L’Hermite-Balériaux M, Kerkhofs M, Copinschi G. Progesterone prevents sleep disturbances and modulates GH, TSH, and melatonin secretion in postmenopausal women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2011 Apr;96(4):E614-23.