How Low-Toxin Living Supports HRT and Hormonal Balance in Midlife Women
For women currently in midlife, you're likely seeing a lot of advice on how you need to add more: more hormones, more resistance training, more steps, more boundaries, more protein, more healthy fats, more stillness (which is actually doing less, but we're still saying it as more!) and on it goes.
While I agree with all of that, individualized to each woman, we also need to discuss what we need to remove.
The modern world has quickly overwhelmed our bodies, minds and souls with toxins that are foreign and unrecognizable to our systems. In the name of convenience, we're bombarded with artificial light, packaged food, and fragrant products. Before such convenience, our grandmothers (and maybe our mothers) were cooking and baking from scratch and still seemed to have more balance than we have now.
And this is having an effect. I see younger women struggling with obesity, infertility, menopause, and cancer.
While I am a fully trained, board-certified, licensed in good standing and practicing medical doctor, you won't find me condescending the alternative medicine or wellness crowds. They’re correct about our toxic burden.
Despite the internet fighting on social media between medicine and “wellness”, our best health is truly somewhere in the middle. That's why I often look to the practitioners of KaleBlossom, Rachel and Carly, for advice on lowering our toxic load.
I can and frequently do prescribe hormone therapy (bio-identical, which may or may not be compounded depending on the patient), but it's not all I believe in. Hormones offer the support to your systems, removing toxins lowers the strain on them.
Bio-identical hormones can include:
Estradiol (one form of estrogen)
Progesterone
Testosterone
These get sent into the body, attach to their own receptor on a cell and make a bodily function happen. These are the same receptors that endocrine-disrupting chemicals are attaching to. So while I can prescribe hormones, the receptors need to be available and unattached to disruptors.
Let’s keep this from being another thing that overwhelms you and take this room by room in your house.
Kitchen
Try to avoid:
Plastic wrap
Plastic containers
Non-stick cookware
Unfiltered water
Why?
Even The Endocrine Society states that plastics are a threat to human health. Plastics and their additives are known endocrine disruptors, meaning they mimic hormones in your body, throwing off your own hormonal system. These can show up in plastics (particularly if heated), cookware and even in our water (and air).
Swap in:
Silicone, glass or stainless steel bowls and containers
Cast iron or ceramic pans
Find some of my plastic-free essentials here!
• Non plastic dishwasher detergent (I use this tablet detergent)
Bathroom
Try to avoid:
Fragrance or “parfum" (in products and air fresheners)
Excessive products (simple is beautiful!)
Toxic period products (if medications can be absorbed through the vagina, like vaginal estrogen, maybe we should use better products down there)
Why?
“Fragrance" is a completely unregulated term, meaning there is no oversight as to what chemicals are in the product, how safe or unsafe they are, where it comes from or if they even have to tell us what's in it. Yikes.
These can be linked to hormone disruption, chronic illness and respiratory illness.
Swap in:
Basic cleanser, if needed
Basic moisturizer (I use plain almond oil and coconut oil)
Organic cotton period products like NatraCare (tampons, pads, liners), Cora, or Sandis
Cleaning Closet
Try to avoid:
Fragrant laundry soap
Toxic cleaning products
Why?
Just like in the bathroom, fragrance is the Wild West and not doing us any favors.
Swap for:
Non toxic cleaning options like our grandmother's good old-fashioned baking soda and vinegar!
We use this vinegar based solution and this laundry detergent, plus our own homemade wool dryer balls. Wool dryer balls can be found here on TrulyFree
We use this Castille Soap to make handsoap (just mix with water)
WAIT! Before you spiral (I’ve been there!), just know this isn't about controlling everything. That's not possible.
Ask yourself: what's within my reach right now? Where can I start? The goal is not perfection, it's progress. This is stewardship and it's a work in progress always.
Resources:
Some of the information contained in this article is the result of my training, medical knowledge, and personal experience without a specific source to be cited.
The author(s) can earn commissions through affiliate links.
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is for educational purposes only. Discuss with your doctor.
https://www.endocrine.org/news-and-advocacy/news-room/2020/plastics-pose-threat-to-human-health
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935124008703