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Welcome to "Living Healthy Chicago," I'm Jane Clauss.
Now, we know that a healthy lifestyle can benefit our bodies
in so many ways, but did you know that,
that includes keeping our hormones balanced too?
Well, today we're gonna learn how to make that happen.
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Today Doctor Dominick Patawaran is joining us
to break it all down
and we know that hormones play such a huge role
in our bodies, but most days we don't even think about them,
but we know they're important.
So doctor, can you explain what their function is?
- Hormones are chemical substances
that are part of the endocrine system
and they go to different organs in our body
to help regulate how they function,
so they can influence the metabolism,
sexual development, growth, energy
and they really play a big role
when keeping the body balanced and well regulated.
- Can you explain how and why our hormones change as we age?
- Well, there're some hormones that naturally decline
as a part of aging.
They also can be impacted by our lifestyles, chronic stress
that as you know we were dealing with the pandemic
and it's these levels of dysregulation
that can be impactful on how people live their daily lives,
that then lead to clinical symptoms.
- We know that there are medical treatments
that can help balance or manage our hormones,
but lifestyle practices are also very important
to help managing hormones.
- Lifestyle management, I always think is the key place
to start when it comes to trying to help support
or balance out those hormones.
So, we look at diet, are we getting a well balanced diet
that is rich in organic whole foods?
Are we getting good sources
that we'll make a three fatty acids?
Beyond diet, exercise is very important
to help support our hormones,
getting good sleep and keeping good circadian rhythms
really can help keep hormones balanced.
You can absolutely make an impact by changing
and recognizing things in your lifestyle
that you can adjust.
- Let's get gender specific now
about certain types of hormones and we'll start with women
and the change of hormones that happen during menopause.
- Yes, so estrogen and progesterone
really important hormones for women,
helping regulate fertility, obviously controlling the cycle
and as women reach that menopausal place
there's a decline in those estrogens
and it's that drop in estrogens
that contributes to a lot of the symptoms.
There're foods that you can use.
They're called phytoestrogens.
These are things like ground flax seed,
organic whole soy foods, they bind those estrogen receptors
and may actually help support some of those symptoms
that you're feeling
making sure that you have good vitamin D,
Omega-3 fats to lower inflammation can be very helpful,
minimizing alcohol and avoiding excess caffeine
can decrease that exacerbation of hot flashes
and symptoms that you feel.
- Now, we need to talk about men.
Men as they age have a sometimes drop in testosterone,
does that happen to all men
and is it as drastic as a change for women?
- Men actually goes through a similar process,
it's actually called the andropause and about 40% of men
by the time they're in their 40s,
start to have an impact actually in their hormones,
they feel like they're gaining more weight,
they seem to be putting on more fat, less muscle mass,
you can actually even see mood issues like depression,
even anxiety as those hormones become suboptimal.
How you live that can keep those levels higher
for longer periods of time.
Foods like great Omega-3 fatty acids
to support the production of hormones
as well as inflammation in the system,
really getting good quality proteins,
strength training is really impactful
to help build testosterone.
There're some supplements
that can help support testosterone.
Sometimes we use zinc which is really important
in the production of testosterone.
- I love it.
We're talking with Doctor Dominick Patawaran
an integrative medicine physician and when we come back,
we are going to talk about hormone conditions
that can affect everybody.