Since I specialize in helping women with hormonal imbalances and people who have difficulty with their thyroid gland, I thought I would take the time to discuss hormones a bit using Hormone Labs. Hormones exert a powerful influence over all physical, intellectual, and emotional behavior. Problems with weight, memory, sleep, digestion, blood pressure, high cholesterol, cravings, addictions, sexual dysfunctions, and issues associated with the immune system are all influenced by the endocrine system. Endocrine problems lead to a wide spectrum of symptoms that, in most cases, can be reversed using natural methods like those therapies used at Triad of Health Family Healing Center.
A primary marker of the aging process in both men and women is a reduction in normal hormone levels, which is largely responsible for infertility, decreased energy and muscle strength, loss of libido, depression, mood swings, inability to cope, and an increase in the symptoms of PMS and menopause. Research has shown that the use of natural hormone replacement might benefit a person over a short period of time. However, one needs to be careful when using hormone replacement therapy because any hormone used triggers a biofeedback mechanism that leads to the body making less of the hormone being replaced. For example, if bio-identical estradiol is given to a woman, it causes cell receptor sites throughout the body to become more sensitive to estradiol due to the increase of estradiol in the blood. The increased cell receptor site sensitivity then causes the woman’s body to make less of the estradiol.
The image below shows the receptor site that has received a hormone. The receptor site is now temporarily “full” and cannot receive any more hormones. The receptor site has become more “sensitive” to the hormone that it has received.
Here, we see a number of different glands that all work together synergistically like a well-harmonized and conducted orchestra. Every player has its part to perform. If one of the glands is “out of tune,” it will affect all the other glands. This is why even relatively small hormonal imbalances can cause major symptoms. If the lab work done is not specific enough to reveal exactly what the hormonal (endocrine) imbalance is, many medical doctors deny that there is even an imbalance. What is even more absurd is that they try to find imbalanced hormone levels on labs that will never show an imbalance, even if it were present. For example, the active (free) sex and longevity hormones that create physiological changes in the body travel in the lymph system, not in the blood. Yet, for many years, many in the medical profession have insisted on checking for these hormones in the blood. It is absurd. There may occasionally be some small piece of useful information to be gleaned from checking hormones in the blood, but most of the time, the labs are nearly useless. What is even more ridiculous is that insurance companies rarely, if ever, cover the costs of the really helpful saliva labs. Instead, they only want to pay for expensive and often useless blood labs. What is even more obnoxious and disturbing is that the medical profession is constantly trying to convince the public that saliva labs are useless, even though some of the best scientists in the country work at these saliva labs. What an interesting world we live in. It seems to be all about the money here in the United States.
