After the age of 35, perimenopause, (some women think menopause) many women complain of decreased sex drive even though they still love their husband. All of a sudden they start to gain weight and lose hair. They diet and exercise to no avail. The diet and exercise don’t seem to work at all. Hair loss is troubling and emotionally devastating.
It’s not your fault.
After the age of 35 for most cycles but not all cycles your body is not producing progesterone. Some women identify this time as menopause or perimenopause. Your body is producing estrogen, but your body is not producing progesterone for most cycles, but not all cycles. Why?
Your body after the age of 35 is undergoing anovulatory cycles for most of the cycles.
What is an anovulatory cycle?
An anovulatory cycle is a cycle in which you do NOT ovulate. If you do not ovulate, then no progesterone is produced. Let me digress. During a normal ovulaatory cycle before the age of 35, a follicle starts to grow on the ovary. The follicle gets bigger and bigger. Then at day 14, the follicle pops like a pimple, and an egg emerges. The used follicle becomes the corpus luteum. The follicle produces estradiol. The corpus luteum produces progesterone. So for the beginning part of the cycle the follicle produces estradiol. And the ending part of the cycle the hormone that dominates is progesterone.
After the age of 35, for most cycles but not all cycles, no ovulation occurs or anovulation occurs. The follicle comes up and gets bigger and bigger. But no ovulation occurs and the “pimple” does not pop. No egg comes out. If no egg comes out, then no corpus luteum is produced. No progesterone is produced since no corpus luteum is present. However, estradiol is produced since a follicle is there. So after the age of 35, estradiol is produced during a cycle, but no progesterone is produced for most cycles.
Because there is no progesterone to “balance” out the xenoestrogens and estradiol, there is a condition that John Lee, MD calls Estrogen Dominance. Estrogen Dominance just means too much estrogen.
Estrogen Dominance means too much estrogen and is the synergistic action of estradiol and xenosetrogens together making you sick. Remember that xenoestrogens are not really estradiol. Xenoestrogens kind of act like estrogen but are not really estradiol. They have strange effects that are kind of like estradiol but not really estradiol.
Before the age of 35, progesterone used to “balance out” estradiol and xenoestrogens. However, after the age of 35, there is no progesterone and there is no balancing out. Thus, you get Estrogen Dominance.
Estrogen Dominance is characterized by weight gain, bloating before the period, breast tenderness, and loss of sex drive. Some months are better than others because some months you ovulate and have progesterone. But most months you do not have ovulation and do not have progesterone and feel lousy.
The solution is to take Natural Progesterone to “balance out” the xenoestrogens, and cut out xenoestrogens. Sex drive is restored. Hair frequently gets thicker. Weight is lost without dieting and without exercise. Many times if you are really good about getting rid of xenoestrogens, then you won’t even need progesterone after a while.
The reason why you have weight gain is that Estrogen Dominance makes you less sensitive to thyroid hormone. Your thyroid hormone levels are normal however, your sensitivity to the thyroid hormone is decreased. This is a typical case. Thyroid hormone levels are normal or low normal, but measured temperature of the patient is 97 something. The normal body temperature should be 98.6.
The patient looks hypothyroid. Body temperature is low. The hair is thinning. The patient gains weight around the belly and hips despite exercise and dieting. The eyebrows appear to be thinning. The patient may feel lethargic and tired. Sex drive is low.
So the patient looks hypothyroid, yet the thyroid hormone is normal.
Why?
Xenoestrogens in synergy with your own estradiol reduce sensitivity to thyroid hormone.
The solution is to cut out xenoestrogens and take progesterone. In about 60% of all women, most of them look less hypothyroid. In women where the onset of Estrogen Dominance started after the age of 35, this success rate is much higher.
The reason why the success rate for solving the thyroid problem is not as high as I would like is because we are all poisoned with Bromine and Fluoride. Bromine is used as a leavening agent in commercial bakery products. Bromine is used in sports drinks. Fluoride is from toothpaste and fluoridated water. Fluoride and Bromine are in the same class of chemicals as Iodine. T3 has 3 Iodines. T4 has 4 Iodines. T3 and T4 are thyroid hormones. T3 is the more effective one. If you are Bromine and Fluoride poisoned, the Iodine around the T3 or T4 is replaced by a Bromine or Fluoride and the T3 and T4 does NOT work.
In other words, Bromine and Fluoride poison T3 and T4 so that they do not work. However, poisoned T3 and poisoned T4 still show up on the thyroid test.
So most Americans are poisoned with Bromine and Fluoride and have a certain percentage of poisoned T3 and T4 that do not work.
The solution is to take Iodine to push out the Bromine and Fluoride out of the body. If you take more Iodine and Iodide, this will out compete the Fluoride and Bromine and push them out of the T3 and T4. Brownstein, MD proved this and documents this in his book, “Iodine Why you need it”.
