12 products for the prevention of hormonal disorders

Hor­mon­al imbal­ance in the body can cause many prob­lems, includ­ing the appear­ance of extra pounds, the devel­op­ment of dia­betes and the occur­rence of infer­til­i­ty. At the same time, sci­en­tists have proven that cer­tain foods can help main­tain the bal­ance of hor­mones. What foods should be includ­ed in your menu more often to stay healthy and live long?

How hormones affect health

Hor­mones are bio­log­i­cal­ly active sub­stances that play an impor­tant role in the human body. They are involved in build­ing cells and body growth, metab­o­lism and diges­tion process­es, are nec­es­sary to main­tain fer­til­i­ty and com­bat stress.

When the hor­mon­al back­ground is dis­turbed — some hor­mones are pro­duced in larg­er quan­ti­ties, while oth­ers in small­er quan­ti­ties, dis­eases devel­op in the human body. Prop­er bal­anced nutri­tion and doc­tor’s rec­om­men­da­tions can help “syn­chro­nize” the lev­el of hor­mones and thus main­tain health.

What diet supports hormonal levels

What a per­son eats affects the pro­duc­tion of hor­mones and their sig­nal­ing path­ways. “The body needs healthy fats, such as olive oil, avo­ca­dos, nuts and seeds, as well as suf­fi­cient fiber from fruits and veg­eta­bles and qual­i­ty pro­tein from eggs, fish and meat, to main­tain nor­mal hor­mon­al lev­els,” says the nutri­tion­ist. Melis­sa Groves Azzaro. — Con­verse­ly, pes­ti­cides, alco­hol, and arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers can neg­a­tive­ly impact hor­mone lev­els.”

In addi­tion to the avail­abil­i­ty of nutri­ents, suf­fi­cient caloric con­tent of the diet also plays an impor­tant role. “The body of a woman is espe­cial­ly sen­si­tive to a calo­rie deficit,” the expert warns. — If the body does not get enough calo­ries from food, it reduces the pro­duc­tion of sex hor­mones. For him, there is no dif­fer­ence between war, famine and a new weight loss diet.”

Best Foods for Hormonal Balance

There are more than 200 dif­fer­ent hor­mones in the human body. The best known of these are estro­gen, testos­terone, cor­ti­sol, insulin, ghre­lin, lep­tin, and thy­roid hor­mones. All of them are close­ly relat­ed to metab­o­lism, mood and well-being. Which prod­ucts will help sup­port their nor­mal pro­duc­tion?

Vegetables of the cruciferous family

“Cru­cif­er­ous veg­eta­bles, espe­cial­ly broc­coli and sprouts, help the body absorb estro­gen effi­cient­ly. Reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of cau­li­flower, brus­sels sprouts, kale, white cab­bage and boi choy is one of the ways to pre­vent the devel­op­ment of can­cer asso­ci­at­ed with the dom­i­nance of estro­gen lev­els in the body,” says MD, nutri­tion­ist Isla Barmer.

Salmon, sardine, herring

Healthy fats are essen­tial for the body to pro­duce sex hor­mones, includ­ing estro­gen and testos­terone. At the same time, it is very impor­tant to choose exact­ly the “right fats”, lim­it­ing sat­u­rat­ed fat in the diet and com­plete­ly exclud­ing trans fats.

Fat­ty fish vari­eties are rich in ben­e­fi­cial omega‑3 fat­ty acids. “The healthy fats in fish improve over­all hor­mon­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion. The endocrine sys­tem uses hor­mones to com­mu­ni­cate with the brain,” explains MD, nutri­tion­ist Car­rie Gabriel.

Avocado

“Avo­ca­dos are rich in beta-sitos­terol, a sub­stance that can pos­i­tive­ly influ­ence blood cho­les­terol lev­els and help bal­ance lev­els of the hor­mone cor­ti­sol,” says the nutri­tion­ist. Car­rie Gabriel. “The plant sterols in avo­ca­dos also affect the hor­mones prog­es­terone and estro­gen, which are respon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing ovu­la­tion and the men­stru­al cycle in women.”

Eat half an avo­ca­do for break­fast or lunch. This will pro­long the feel­ing of sati­ety after eat­ing and will avoid unnec­es­sary snack­ing.

Sweet potato

Sweet pota­to, or sweet pota­to as it is also known, is a high­ly nutri­tious veg­etable high in starch, antiox­i­dants and fiber. Togeth­er, they sup­port healthy blood glu­cose lev­els, there­by main­tain­ing a nor­mal ratio of var­i­ous hor­mones.

Thus, it has been proven that the inclu­sion of sweet pota­toes in the dai­ly menu con­tributes to the nor­mal pro­duc­tion of the hor­mone prog­es­terone, on which the mood and fer­til­i­ty of the body are direct­ly depen­dent. It is easy to replace the usu­al sweet pota­to in the diet, the fla­vors of the dish­es will only ben­e­fit from this.

Eggs

Eggs are valu­able sources of high qual­i­ty pro­tein, healthy fats and vit­a­mins. They con­tain fat-sol­u­ble vit­a­min D, which plays a key role in main­tain­ing healthy lev­els of sev­er­al hor­mones. They also con­tain choline, which pro­motes the pro­duc­tion of acetyl­choline, a sub­stance asso­ci­at­ed with the health of the ner­vous sys­tem and brain func­tions. In addi­tion, healthy fats from eggs sup­port the health of the body and reduce inflam­ma­tion.

Flax and pumpkin seeds

These healthy seeds are loaded with antiox­i­dants, fiber, and healthy fats. For exam­ple, flaxseed has long been known as a super­food because it con­tains a huge amount of nutri­ents and essen­tial fat­ty acids that sup­port healthy hor­mone bal­ance. And pump­kin seeds are an excel­lent source of mag­ne­sium, which, along with vit­a­mins C and vit­a­min B5, helps reduce the con­cen­tra­tion of the hor­mone cor­ti­sol in the body and strength­ens the health of the adren­al glands.

Seeds and sun­flower seeds can be added to yogurt and milk por­ridges and smooth­ies, they can be used to sprin­kle sec­ond cours­es. Flaxseed must be crushed before use, oth­er­wise there will be no ben­e­fit from it.

Kefir, sauerkraut, soy

“More than 20 dif­fer­ent hor­mones are syn­the­sized in the intestines, which are involved in the metab­o­lism of the body. These hor­mones con­trol hunger and sati­ety lev­els,” explains MD, nutri­tion­ist Isabelle Smith.

There­fore, the diet must con­tain pre­bi­otics — prod­ucts that improve the intesti­nal microflo­ra. And also pro­bi­otics — those ben­e­fi­cial bac­te­ria.

What foods should be avoided

While there are healthy foods for main­tain­ing healthy hor­mones in the body, there are also those that com­pro­mise the health of the body and can cause hor­mon­al imbal­ances.

“Stud­ies have shown that eat­ing foods with arti­fi­cial sweet­en­ers can change the bal­ance of bac­te­ria in the gut, which can affect the pro­duc­tion of the hor­mones lep­tin and ghre­lin,” says the nutri­tion­ist. Car­rie Gabriel.

And alco­holic bev­er­ages in gen­er­al have a neg­a­tive effect on hor­mon­al process­es. For exam­ple, they have been shown to increase the risk of devel­op­ing breast can­cer and oth­er types of can­cer.

Oth­er dan­ger­ous foods for health are processed and fried foods, foods with a pre­dom­i­nance of sug­ar and its sub­sti­tutes. Their num­ber in the diet should be lim­it­ed, mak­ing an advan­tage in the direc­tion of healthy prod­ucts.