AD| Menopause is often characterized by the hormonal changes that bring about the most identifiable symptoms, but it is not as simple as one or two chemical levels changing. Estrogen affects your whole body, and changes in the way your body makes and uses it can be profound in ways that go far beyond mood swings or changes to one’s fertility. Bone density, energy levels, and even your ability to build muscle mass can change as your body produces less estradiol.
There are also options for supplementing estrogen levels to minimize some of the symptoms of these changes and to maintain the balance of your health going forward. If you are seeing perimenopause symptoms, there are a few things you should know about estrogen and menopause so you can make the right decisions for your health.
1. Estrogen Supplements Are Highly Effective
When the body does not make enough of a key hormone, supplements are often the best way to get it. Estradiol has been available for decades in an effective form, and in the last two decades, there have been new delivery options innovated with formulations that minimize possible side effects. Today’s estrogen pills are sophisticated enough to be used for everything from treating deficiencies that delay puberty to maintaining a healthy hormone balance during menopause.
2. Your Body Still Produces Some Estrogen
During menopause, your body slows down its production of estradiol, causing levels to drop in ways that lead to many of the classic menopause symptoms like hot flashes and headaches. It does keep producing estrone, however, so even if estradiol production stops totally, you are making one type of estrogen. Using prescription hormone replacement to bring your estradiol levels back up is an effective form of hot flash relief as it restores your hormonal balance.
3. Menopause Symptoms Are Signs of Change
Most of the time, perimenopause symptoms stop when a woman becomes post-menopausal. In many cases, they are a sign of change in the body’s hormonal balance and not the result of low estrogen levels on their own. Slowing down that change helps reduce symptoms for many people, but the change still does need to happen. Like puberty, it is a natural part of the body’s growth and ageing. The goal is not to use estrogen supplements to stop menopausal changes but to make this change easier to handle.
4. Both Sexes Produce Estrogen
All human beings have estrogen receptors and the ability to make at least some estrogen naturally. For men the levels are naturally quite low, but they are still there and there are still adverse health effects when they are too low. Similarly, women also make and use testosterone, and it helps with building and maintaining muscle mass. There is even an enzyme that converts excess testosterone to estrogen.
5. More Research Is Needed
The effects of estrogen and other reproductive hormones on the body are not as well-understood as they can be. Estrogen facts around basic topics like the number of receptors in the body and the effects of estrogen during the early stages of menopause are still being unearthed study by study. As a result, many women do not have the tools they need to identify early perimenopause symptoms caused by hormonal changes. More education, more research, and a better understanding of how estrogen shapes and changes the body can help with that.