Join Dr. Shook in today’s podcast as he discusses “Bad Estrogens.”
Welcome to the hashimoto’s doctor podcast you’re now part of a growing community of people determined to take their health back through education and self-empowerment but because of the health care system today we don’t have access to the types of health care that we want so we have to do things differently we’ve got to do things smarter and we do that by becoming
Our own advocates this podcast will give you the perspective and thoughts of one of the world’s leading hashimoto’s doctors so let’s get started hey guys dr shook here i hope you’re doing well today in today’s podcast what i want to talk to you guys about is a very very important subject and this is really about the bad estrogens we’re going to call them bad
Estrogens they’re not necessarily bad estrogens but the fact is is that there are some there are dangers to your estrogen byproducts your your body when your body makes your sex hormones your testosterone your estrogen it breaks them down for elimination because remember with hormones there are there are four key things that we have to look at we have to look
At production we have to look at we have to look at transportation we have to look at sensitivity of your body to the hormones we have to look at detoxification this this falls under the detoxification of hormones this is really important to understand because whenever your your body wants to eliminate hormones and it does it utilizes the hormone then it breaks
It down it’s called biotransform biotransformation biotransforming the hormone for elimination it takes the hormone that is fat soluble and makes it water soluble so that it can be eliminated through your urine your sweat or your feces okay so your body has to break it down and eliminate it now estrogens in particular get metabolized into a few different
Forms and the ones that we look at are called hydroxylated forms okay so it’s so we you know your primary estrogens are going to be estrone is the primary estrogen then estradiol and then estriol okay now estrone is the is the primary estrogen and these these estrogens they they break down and they’re eliminated by the body and they get hydroxylated now when
They get hydroxylated we there are three different forms of this we call it 16 so the number 16 hydroxy estrogen and then it’s 4 hydroxy estrogen and 2 hydroxy estrogen the the important thing to know here is that you’re you’re going to have all of these in your body it’s normal to have these in your body but it’s the amount of each of each type that is that is
Important now these are these are metabolized estrogens but they can still have a weak effect on and stimulatory effect on your um on the the cells of your body so you can still have a response to them but it’s considered weak and it can also take up a spot for your for your normal estrogen for your estrone for example it can it can take up a spot on one of the
Little docking stations on the cell so every cell in your body has these little things called receptors if we think of it as like a little lock and key the the hormone like your estrogen your estrone for example your primary estrogen would come up to the cell fit in like a key to the to the receptor on the cell and stimulate changes in the cell’s function okay
Now these hydroxylated forms they may be able to partially fit into one of those estrogen receptors and block the estrone or estradiol or estriol from having its effect on the cell so this is important because it doesn’t stimulate the physiology the same way for one thing so it could actually block and create some problems with your uh response to estrogens
Now the other thing is is that you know these metabolites they they have to be measured you know post-hepatically so after they’ve gone through the liver so we typically we measure them urinary in a urinary form they’re not they’re not available to be measured in the blood they’re we measure them through through a urinary test and we can look at the 16 hydroxy
Four hydroxy and two hydroxy estrogen metabolites now the problem with these and the real issue here comes down to the fact that the 16 hydroxy estrogen it’s it’s associated with when we have higher levels of it than we should it has been associated with cyst formation and tissue proliferative problems so when we see someone that has a lot of cysts throughout
Their body i’m thinking we may have an issue here with with higher estrogen metabolites like 16 hydroxy um you know i see it a lot with you know cysts everywhere cysts in the breast uterine cysts uh cysts throughout the body that’s that’s something that’s on my mind do we have a problem if someone tells me that you know they’ve had a history they have a history
Of endometriosis and this is not this is not uh clearly understood but we believe that it does have an impact your 16 hydroxy may have a role there so these these metabolites if they’re too high they can promote you know cyst formation is what we believe in tissue proliferation or tissue growth which are you know you know as it sounds that’s it’s not a good thing
Right it’s something that we want to have everything needs to be in balance so we want to know if this is occurring now the 4-hydroxy estrogen is actually the one that we think of is the most dangerous because the 4-hydroxy estrogen we know it can create damage to our dna and that’s not a good thing because that can cause mutation and we we know that that is a
Risk factor for cancer so we obviously want to know if your four hydroxy estrogens are at normal levels or not and then the two hydroxy is actually the preferred form that is the form that that is that we want to see the majority of these estrogen metabolites in that form we you’re going to have a small you should have a small percentage that are that are your
4-hydroxy and a small percentage that are your 16-hydroxy but you know those are all things that you know what it’s interesting when you see someone that’s using an estrogen replacement so they’re using a hormone these are all things that i highly recommend you you check and that you observe because for one thing they can be having estrogenic like effects on
On the body but not be observable in your blood test and so let’s say you’re you’re checking your estrogen you’re going to look at the estrogen levels and they might be perfectly fine and you and and you might say well you know what i don’t feel like like i have enough or i’m having a lot of symptoms of an estrogen deficiency and you might be tempted to take
More but could it be could it be that you’re actually dealing with uh with high estrogen metabolites that are taking up space on the cells right they fit into the little lock-in key receptor blocking your estrogens from actually attaching themselves to the cell and stimulating it so it may be that you have higher estrogen metabolites and that this is a this
Is a big big problem because you don’t see that in the blood you see that in the urine you have to check for these specifically in the urine and you want to take these things into consideration you want to look at the the estrogen levels you want to look at the metabolite levels and you look at the metabolite levels because they’re risk factors for one thing i
Mean they’re they’re definitely risk factors for for bigger problems for tissue growth cyst formation cancers and all kinds of things that we definitely want to avoid so whenever i’m you know i’m looking at someone’s hormones i’m thinking about this whenever i see hormonal imbalances i’m thinking about this is this occurring are there are there high levels of
These metabolites are they in the appropriate race ratios if someone’s using a hormone replacement therapy is this occurring and that could be testosterone that could be estrogen all these things can feed into this pathway so you want to look at this and you want to know what’s going on here because there are nutritional strategies that you can utilize to try
And help shift your metabolism more to the to the preferred to hydroxy form right that’s the form that’s that’s going to be preferred and uh and and likely that will help you to reduce your risk of some of these bigger bigger problems that could occur so it’s something i want to share with you guys i hope this helps you to better understand estrogens and some of
These more dangerous types and forms so that you can be better empowered guys if you need help if you’re struggling to figure out what’s going on with your thyroid your hormones you know you may be a candidate to work with me one-on-one i work with two to four people per month to try and help them identify what’s going on with their hormones with their thyroid
With their immune system i work a lot with autoimmunity and really try to help them put together plans that are unique and specific to their needs that are that are based on diet and nutritional support to help them get their health back if you have any questions or you need anything please don’t hesitate to reach out to us please do let us know if you’ve enjoyed
The podcast share it with other people if you if you feel so inclined we’re trying to get the word out about these natural approaches that we need to take we’ve got to consider to really help us improve our health so i appreciate you guys i enjoy uh hanging out with you please let us know if there’s anything that we can do to help you please let us know if there’s
Any way that we can improve we’re always trying to do a better job and if you’ve enjoyed the podcast please do again share it review it on itunes for us if you don’t mind and just um you know help us help us spread the word but i appreciate you guys so much hope you have a wonderful wonderful day and i can’t wait to talk to you guys again soon thanks thanks so
Much for listening we hope you enjoyed hanging out behind the scenes with dr shook you can also talk with and learn from dr shook through facebook live on our facebook page at the office of dr brad shook don’t forget you can also get access to our videos guide books and thyroid programs at www.drbradshook.com oh yeah don’t forget one more thing we can change
The world one person one family and one community at a time until next time remember today is your day and no one will tell you who you are and what you can be
Transcribed from video
Bad Estrogens By Dr. Brad Shook