No More PMS? Eat These Foods For Fast Relief | Dr. Mark Hyman

and here's something most people don't know it's not just your ovaries that produce estrogen your belly fat is also an estrogen producing Factory right so all those belly fat cells in there aren't just holding up your pants they're actually spewing out hormones welcome to the doctor's pharmacy at another edition of Health bites I'm Dr Mark Hyman now common assumption is that the symptoms of PMS are an inevitable part of being a woman and require medical intervention with sometimes serious medications to correct them now to think that 75% of women have a design flaw that requires medical treatment just to live a normal life is just absurd PMS is not a normal consequence of being female if you're one of the many women who do suffer from PMS you don't have to suffer from PMS every month enduring mood swings breast tenderness fluid retention migraines bloating or heavy painful periods well medications May sometimes be helpful they can have pretty significant side effects and the good news is you can balance your hormones without them and without their potential side effects many young women are becoming increasingly aware of the potential harms of birth control not because their conventional gynecologist is explaining it to them but to their own personal experience they're on a journey to educate themselves and they want a more nuanced personalized approach to hormonal health so today we're going to discuss what you can do to to support your menstrual cycle through your diet and a comprehensive functional medicine approach to get rid of PMS for good and feel great all month long the key to solving this type of problem is getting to the root cause of the symptoms now I hear this story all too often but the good news is that there are Simple Solutions that don't involve taking medication we know what causes hormonal imbalances sugar caffeine alcohol stress a lack of exercise and environment toxins all contribute to hormonal imbalance and worsening a PMS even changes to your gut microbiome can affect your hormonal health so what would conventional medicine docs do for PMS well they give you nades or things like ibuprofen birth control uh they might give you saraph or proac in other words but they don't get to the root cause of symptoms and they inhibit your natural cycle your infradian Rhythm and the birth control pill often has significant side effects with long-term use including mood and gut issues disbiosis uh taking the pill depletes folate vitamin B2 B6 B12 vitamin c and e magnesium zinc selenium all important by the way for fertility um there's also an association between hormonal birth control and depression in fact a nationwide perspective coort study of over a million young women in Denmark reported an increased risk for anti-depressant use in women prescribed hormonal contraceptives and the results were published in Jamma psychiatry and their risk was highest in the adolescence who were aged 15 to 19 years old so we don't want to be giving these teenagers anti-depressants and the pill and just medicating side effects of medication it's crazy so you have to look for what are the real underlying causes of PMS well it's hormonal imbalance and there are a lot of causes for hormonal imbalance so it's important to understand what they are and how to deal with them the main problem is something called estrogen dominance which means that your estrogen levels are too high and your progesterone levels are too low now this may be an absolute increase in other words a very high estrogen low progesterone or it may be a relative dominance of estrogen over progesterone and unfortunately this is not something well recognized by traditional medicine and you can measure this right the fluctuations in estrogen in relation to Progesterone can cause all sorts of problems including neurotransmitter signaling and lots more because estrogen in part regulates serotonin levels in the brain and that can contribute to PMS symptoms things like mood swings dep depression irritability uh and an absolute or relative excess of estrogen in relation to Progesterone drives most of the symptoms of PMs and menstrual problems like flu retention breast tenderness migraines mood swings heavy bleeding cramps all that is really related to this excess estrogen and inadequate progesterone as women get through their later Cycles in life poor diet is certainly a big factor and when you clean up the diet a lot of hormonal stuff just gets sorted out and then there's a lot un fortunately hormones in conventional meat and dairy products so I encourage you to eat regenerative organic products and particularly Dairy might not be your best friend if you're having a lot of female hormone issues i' encourage people to just quit Dairy as an experiment to see what happens there also environmental toxins that play a big role in hormonal health and unfortunately a lot of these petrochemical toxins are also endocrine disruptors they act as hormonally active compounds in the body even at low Doses and in fact there's a word for them called xenoestrogens foreign Xeno means foreign and obviously estrogen means estrogen so foreign estrogens they come from pesticides Plastics many personal care products skin care products I mean these petrochemical products act as a toxic foreign estrogen like molecule that drives hormonal imbalances and most female cancers like breast uterine ovarian cancer so toxins are a big factor and you have to reduce your exposures a lot of nutritional deficiencies also affect hormone function particularly magnesium vitamin D and also iron what else should we be doing for PMS or premenstrual syndrome how do we get you back in balance and so you don't have to suffer and be really struggling your whole life because I just I just don't think that it's something that women should accept it makes me actually quite angry that the conventional medicine system doesn't really take this seriously or just tries to medicate it instead of dealing with it from the root cause so the first thing is food food is medicine it it's information it controls every function of your body and mind including your hormones it connects us to almost everything that matters in our life so you have to know that what you put on your fork is the most important thing you do every day for your health so the first step to do with your diet is to cut down inflammation because inflammation will mess up your hormones so first get rid of the junk right then get R rid of the junk and then add in the good stuff so take out the bad stuff add in the good stuff um what's the bad stuff well our current diet is really high in sugar and starch and that drives insulin resistance and that leads to belly or visceral fat and here's something most most people don't know it's not just your ovaries that produce estrogen your belly fat is also an estrogen producing Factory right so all those belly fat cells in they aren't just holding up your pants they're actually spewing out hormones and there's something called aromatase also that increases estrogen production that's found in fat tissues so you know having more estrogen is not necessar a good thing especially when it comes from your visceral fat so one of the things you should eat and not eat to eliminate PMS symptoms right eat real food right real food you know what that is right my joke is if God made it eat it if man made it leave it did God make an avocado yeah did God make Doritos or a Twinkie no right just don't eat that um so also you want to reduce fast absorbing carbohydrates right any flour products sugar quickly absorb sugars like flour inotes white rice potatoes or not not all potatoes like the small uh fingerling potatoes may be okay but the big starchy potatoes we all eat are a problem and they can Spike insulin and that leads to insulin resistance and inflammation and that can cause PMs can cause PCOS it can increase the risk for all chronic diseases also you want to really limit caffeine or get rid of it entirely for a while to see how it affects your hormones and for sure alcohol alcohol it will screw up your estrogen and make you estrogen toxic ultimately um these really make hormone imbalances worse also I would encourage you to do a full Dairy elimination for eight weeks it's often a huge factor in PMs and many menstrual and hormonal issues uh next I want you to avoid ultr processed foods right starch empty carbs grains Sugar Sugar sweetened beverages energy drinks teas coffee you know I mean think about any any coffee or frozen blended drink from Starbucks sunken donuts with flavor it means tons of added sugar or glucose syrup and and lots of women drink these and they start their day with these drinks not realizing it's a sugar bomb like a vanilla latte mocha Frappuccino even a MAA have tons of added sugar I mean a grande mocha Frappuccino has almost 13 teaspoons of sugar I mean you never put 13 teaspoons of sugar in your coffee in the morning but if you're going to Starbucks for your morning fix you're literally killing yourself also avoid some of these quote healthy nut milks or oat milks uh they're they're often blended starch sugar and water so be careful oat milk really spikes your blood sugar uh sometimes there's also additional sugar from the flavoring too like vanilla or chocolate whatever Hazel not just stay away from all that stuff um drink black coffee put a little almond milk in it um ask for the unsweetened almond or coconut milk although usually don't have that also I want you to avoid processed food packaged food um all kinds of food with quote Health claims on the label you know plant-based vegan keto gluten-free whatever it doesn't mean it's healthy and my rule is that if it has a health claim on the label I guarantee you it's bad for you so just don't don't eat it's a way of of getting food marketers to kind of get you engaged but it's it's often hiding something bad underneath you want foods that really balance your blood sugar you want to focus on fiber rich low glycemic uh non-starchy ve veggies low glycemic fruits and fiber is really important because it helps balance out your hormones it helps um build a healthy microbiome it helps prevent the reabsorption of estrogen that can cause estrogen toxicity so you want to eat the rainbow eight aim for about eight to 10 servings of colorful veggies daily uh for all their health benefits uh make sure you sort of eat every day something from the cruciferous vegetable family like that's the broccoli family broccoli cauliflower kale collage cabbage brussels sprouts rugula bok choy they're all important because they they actually support estrogen detoxification and they help balance the estrogen and progesterone because they contain amazing phytochemicals such as glucosinolates or indol 3 carbinol diol methane all of these are you know big medical words but they're essentially molecules that are in in the broccoli family that help induce the expression of certain enzymes called uh CIP 450 enzymes that enhance the the metabolism of estrogen in the right way to produce beneficial estrogen metabolites including for example they call two hydroxyestrone and they reduce the formation of a toxic estrogen metabolite called 16 hydroxyestrone this associated with heavy periods with breast tenderness breast cancer and damage so so there's different ways your estrogen can be metabolized in your body to the good or bad metabolites and in the bottom line is if you eat more broccoli you'll be shifting towards the good metabolites so that's the Tome okay um and but the science is there it's quite fasting and I and I do measure in my practice the estrogen metabolites and I can see what's happening with women's metabolites and whether they need more B vitamins or more support F thione or more these chemicals from food these phytochemicals like indol three carbinol or D methane um you also want to focus on on slow absorbing and burning carbs sweet potatoes yams lentils some whole grains are fine like quinoa non-starchy veggies protein to avoid the blood sugar spikes those are really important then you eat protein first as opposed to starch first uh eat about four to six ounces of protein per meal roughly the size of your palm uh make sure you use high quality sources grass-fed Meats pasture eggs poultry I recommend force of nature I love it it's I don't have any Financial relationship but they have great regenerative sources of chicken and uh meat and bison and venison El so forth you actually need protein by the way to make to make hormones so they're part of the building blocks you need good fats to make hormones as well uh make sure your dad's really nutrient-dense you want a lot of bioavailable micronutrients like iron um magnesium B vitamins and so forth nuts and seeds are great for hormones i i a whole uh bunch of science on how they regulate hormonal Health but things like flax seeds are my favorite almonds chia seeds hem seeds pumpkin seeds sesame seeds sunflower seeds all these are rich in fiber they're full of good fats they have micronutrients like calcium magnesium zinc iron B6 phosphorus which are all important for a healthy menstrual cycle and hormone balance right your body is just a big biochemical machine and you have to put in all the right ingredients to make the right things work and what the problem is is most of our diet is depleted most of us are nutritionally deficient at some level or other most of us have unhealthy microbiomes most of us are exposed to toxins most of eat too much sugar most of us drink too much coffee most of us drink too much alcohol most of us don't exercise enough no wonder we're having all these problems right so we really need to get our act together if we want to reset and it doesn't take that long one or two cycles of doing this for women really helps reset the whole system um one of the cool things you can do is use flax seeds ground flax seeds about two to four tablespoons it's great for your hormones it's great for beneficial compounds that that are helpful in regulating your hormones like lignins and also um it's great for from bowel movements right so they they they really balance the hormones and they block the negative effects of some of the excess xenoestrogen so if you're exposed to environmental toxic estrogens you can actually reduce your exposure to them by having these flax seeds um also you want to increase the anti-inflammatory fats in your diet the Omega-3s EPA DHA and my favorite sources obviously are sardines Herring um mackerel anov you can use small wild caught salmon uh sometimes there's omega-3 enriched eggs uh there's plant-based sources like walnuts CH and hemp but um they're not really moving the body into the EPA and DHA only about 10% is converted so you want to get the also the pre-formed EPA and GHA from from fish or from supplements um now if you're a vegetarian or vegan it's really important supplement with omega-3 fats really will help your hormonal Health uh also increase monounsaturated fats these are avocados olive oils extra virgin olive oil macadamia nuts seeds really important saturated fat may not be bad for most people you have to watch your cholesterol and see what happens but uh grass-fed butter ghee coconut oil actually saturated fat is the building block for um your hormones right uh your hormones are made out of fat also you want to decrease the inflammatory fats right trans fat hydrogenated fat margarine uh even a lot of the vegan Butters they're they're actually not recognized as safe to eat anymore by the FDA but they're still lurking on the grocery store shelves so be religious about never eating them uh also you want to reduce your intake of vegetable oils these refined highly processed oils you know if they're cold press if they're organic if they have high OIC levels they may be okay we need some but the amount we're eating is just a pharmacologic dose sunflower corn oil canola oil safler oil not so great also stay away from processed Meats stay away from like hot dogs stay away from R processed cheeses I mean you shouldn't be in G anyway but craft single they can't call it cheese because it's not more than 51% cheese that's just a bunch of chemicals uh obviously reduce your exposure to pesticides and and and hormones and antibiotics that are stored in in in uh in some of these foods and you can use the Clean 15 and uh Dirty Dozen guide from the environmental working group to guide you on which are the least contaminated or the most contaminated uh Foods uh fruits and vegetables so it's not always possible but try to eat grass-fed and organic when possible um filter your water I mean also support your gut really important to support your gut probiotic rich foods are key things like sauerkraut kimchi miso Nat which May taste weird but it's actually really good for you uh and Prebiotic Foods also like asparagus artichokes hikima and Juice Mar chokes all great for for your gut health don't eat within three hours of bedtime don't fast for too long actually can be a problematic for women uh and start your day with a a nutrient-dense food right protein fat and fiber think protein fat and fiber not the typical breakfast we have cereal muffins bagels you know sugared coffees I mean French toast pancake I mean the American breakfast is the worst and you do not want to start your day with that you want protein and fat and fiber for breakfast so you have eggs spinach Peppers olives maybe some feted cheese from sheep an omelette with avocado protein shake and you also need potentially some supplements uh a number of supplements been shown to really help ease PMS symptoms because they improve metabolic Health hormonal metabolism and here's the superstars uh magnesium glycinate at 400 and 600 a a calcium sometimes helpful it's calcium citrate about 600 A Day vitamin B6 really important for estrogen metabolism 50 to 100 milligrams a day and folate especially a preformed U form called methyl folate about 800 micrograms a day uh vitamin B12 in the form of methyl cabalin about a th000 micrograms a day and evening Primos oil that works really well take uh 500 milligram capsules uh one or two twice a day take fish oil Omega-3s EPA DHA about 1,000 milligrams one or two a day torine also really important for hormone metabolism it's an amino acid about 500 milligrams a day helps liver detox and a good multivitamin all these things work together and the good news is there's also a lot of herbs and phytochemicals that can really help including Chase Berry also Vitex is known as Vitex but Chase berry fruit extract is very good for regulating uh menstrual cycles and helping with PMS milk thisle dendelion root also is great certain isof flavor on from soy red clover kudu root help improve estrogen detoxification because they boost some of the metabolism enzymes that you need to properly regulate estrogen and they can be taken as supplements or in the diet also keeping your gut healthy I do recommend probiotics that help normalize estrogen and hormone metabolism maybe five to 10 or even more billion organisms a day in a probiotic supplement so you want to make sure you really attend your diet your lifestyle your sleep stress level your microbiome optimizing nutrition taking the right herbal support maybe a little progesterone that can help balance your hormones and really we can help reduce this whole phenomena of estrogen dominance that's leading to so much of the suffering that women have around their periods including PMS heavy bleeding clots and mood changes and migraines and you name it and remember women are not defective PMS is not a natural condition of being female you can Thrive and be healthy by paying attention to a few natural laws of biology you don't need drugs to survive you just have to learn how to balance your hormones with some simple changes in your diet lifestyle and supplements if you love that last video you're going to love the next one check it out here

Channel: Mark Hyman, MD

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Keywords: Mark Hyman, Mark Hyman interview, Mark Hyman live longer, Mark Hyman diet, how to live longer, how to age in reverse, nutrition tips, healthy foods, health tips, health theory, fasting tips, how to never get sick again, prevent disease, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, inspiration, motivation

Id: Amj4bc3834A

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2024