Hormone imbalance and LCHF

[Portlandprincess]

I’ve been looking at recommendations around balancing hormones. Protein at every meal is mentioned every time. Interesting. Are there any good links out there that anyone has come across?

[Subtle_badger]

I thought this was pretty good, even though Hidden left out glucogen

healthunlocked.com/lchf-die...

[Portlandprincess in reply to Subtle_badger]

Thank you..x

[Hidden]

I have learned more since I wrote this. Leptin is always produced by the fat cells but it only becomes audible when we have too many (and when we have not become deafened to it by insulin. Obese people have huge amounts of leptin in their blood - the equivalent of the body screaming stop eating - but they cannot hear it. Grehlin is the hunger hormone (produced in the digestive tract) but it is significantly a pleasure, comfort & reward messenger, helping to understand why its not just our conscious brains but our subconscious selves that drive us to seek comfort from food & over eat when we are upset & stressed. This is why one of my top learnings about my own weight management is to find a new job when eating lunch is the best thing that happens all day.

[Portlandprincess in reply to Hidden]

So keeping busy and distracting? Can changing lifestyle help our body get rid of the gremlin?

[Hidden in reply to Portlandprincess]

I don’t know - maybe someone should do a PhD on it...

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador]

Not sure if "hormone imbalance" is a thing. Hormones are just control signals, and as such they'll go up and down as the situation requires. There is no "balance" to be attained.

Certainly things can get out of whack if your body is trying to compensate for something when it's physically impossible to do so. For example if you eat loads of carbs at each and every meal, every day, for years on end, your body will be unable to adapt to that. It'll try, for example by allowing your blood sugar to range beyond its normal (healthy) limits, or by packing on bodyfat, but ultimately it'll fail, because it can't be done. No solution exists, not even in theory.

Generally, though, you don't need to nursemaid your body along. It knows what it's doing.

[Hidden in reply to TheAwfulToad]

It’s less about hormones going up and down but more about our sensitivity to them - can we hear what they are saying. But I am dancing on the head of a pin here...

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to Hidden]

Certainly there are two aspects of hormonal control (the amount of hormone being released and the receptors' response), but the latter is adjustable and therefore part of an outer control loop (adaptation loop). When things go completely haywire (eg., the leptin issue you mentioned) it's typically because that adaptation loop has hit the limit stops, not because something has become "unbalanced".

I suppose I'm just arguing over terminology here (like the badger I'm a bit of nerd for precision!). Perhaps one might use the phrase "conditionally stable", or "underdamped". My gripe really is that websites talking about "hormone imbalance" are normally following the same woo-woo pattern as pages about crystal healing and homeopathy. You can talk about (say) electrolyte imbalance because Na/K and Ca/Mg are normally present in specific ratios, and if they're not then bad things happen. But I'm not sure if it's meaningful to talk about the ratio of one hormone to another.

[Portlandprincess in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I so appreciate the discussions on this forum. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. Googling hormone balance and snake oil remedies in the shape of home test kits etc start to pop up.

(But I am having a few hot flushes recently. And emotionally a bit out of sinc. Latter could be lock down.)

[bigleg]

Apart from understanding that Insulin is a hormone that causes many health challenges when it is out of control as a result of too much sugar in our diet and the success of the LCHF way of life enable the body to fuel on healthy fats in place of sugar. I thought I would just put Hormones into Dr Mercola's search engine. Needless to say, many articles come up but this was top of the list: articles.mercola.com/sites/.... There is an interesting video at the top of the article: youtu.be/91yaIHQoy4c(Not working as expected?)

I will take time to watch later, but this weekend I have been focusing on The Low Carb International All Stars Conference. It ran all day yesterday in 3 separate time zones: Australia, Europe and South Africa and USA. At certain times they had Q&As so any watching live, could text questions and the moderator put the queston to the panel of presenters from that section. It is going to take time to watch them all and the couple of Q&A sessions I managed to catch yesterday were extremely interesting. So a busy few weeks catching the full conference. There is a small access fee and the presentations will be available for 2 months. This is the link for anyone interested: lowcarbevents.com/event/low...

[Cosmo501]

Hi Portland princess. Fascinating conversation. Thanks for posting this questions. I've been searching for similar information recently, and hitting blank walls. The Doc recommended I speak to a local health shop about supplements that help the body with hormone function (probably not the words used).... I was a bit stumped by that. I thought the doctor would be the person to ask!

[Portlandprincess in reply to Cosmo501]

There are so many kind and informed people on this forum. I spent a few hours researching key words from the conversations above. Brain is a bit sieve like...but it's very interesting.

How little is really known about hormones. Menopause is such a tricky life change but many drs have so little training in it. Plus, I wouldnt want to go down a medication route.

[help2020 in reply to Portlandprincess]

Hi Portlandprincess- thank you for providing this thread it’s so interesting. I thought I’d say on the subject of HRT and what cause that may have on weight; Well I have been taking the same HRT for 20 years this year (since the age of 31) during that time my BMI has been 19 and 30 and everything in between. I’ve tried every diet known to man and woman kind haha and my weight always fluctuated prior to that. So it’s a very very basic point but I just do not consider any link between that and my weight. Maybe it’s the same for menopause? Not sure how oestrogen levels affect weight gain or loss or appetite but I bet we have some experts on here who know Good luck x

[Portlandprincess in reply to help2020]

Just learning about Grehlin....when I type this the computer spellchecks as gremlin! Is really interesting. Cutting carbs has potentially put that gremlin into the cupboard. Best keep it away from food in the evening and nighttime