Modern lifestyles contribute to unbalanced, excessive, or deficient levels of sex hormones in men and women. This may result in unpleasant outcomes—such as low sex drive or infertility—as well as to dangerous diseases, including cancer and heart disease. Here’s key information you need to make choices to help keep your sex hormones balanced.

While there are multiple male and female sex hormones, I’m going to concentrate on the best-known: estrogen and testosterone. You might not be aware that women produce and use testosterone, and men produce and use estrogen. The bodies of both sexes can convert testosterone into estrogen. So all sex hormones are important to you, whether you are male or female.

Balancing Strategy One: Carefully Consider Before Taking Supplementary Hormones

Some people have diagnosed medical conditions that may be treated with supplementary estrogen, testosterone, or other sex hormones. Before deciding whether to use hormones if you have one of these conditions, be sure you thoroughly understand the potential benefits and risks—and weigh these carefully—since sex hormones influence your entire body. Consider if there are alternative evidence-based treatments, as well as the benefits and risks of these. If you use oral contraceptives, be sure to understand possible side effects.

Millions of men and women seek supplementary hormones for vague purposes, such as weight loss, low energy, or a quest to regain lost youthfulness. In this case, the risks are likely to outweigh potential benefits. This is true regardless of whether you use compounded bioidentical hormones or those approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The National Toxicology Program of the Department of Health & Human Services classifies estrogen as a known human carcinogen, associated with both uterine and breast cancer. Supplementary or excessive estrogen has also been linked to ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, dementia, and stroke.

The dangers of testosterone supplements are not as well understood, with studies finding different outcomes. The FDA requires labeling of prescription testosterone products for safety risks affecting the heart and mental health, as well as the potential for abuse. If you take these supplements, benefits, if any, may be small and fleeting. A medical journal editorial titled “Testosterone and Male Aging: Faltering Hope for Rejuvenation” states that “the sole unequivocal indication for testosterone treatment is as replacement therapy for men with … organic disorders of the reproductive system.”

Balancing Strategy Two: Avoid Endocrine Disruptors in the Environment

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are capable of altering the production and/or function of many hormones. Interference with estrogen is the most-studied impact. EDCs may be found everywhere in modern environments, including pesticides, plastics, flame retardants, food, clothes, fragrances, pharmaceuticals, cooking and eating items, and personal care and cleaning products. Adverse effects of EDCs can be developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune-related. Even tiny amounts can be harmful.

Common-sense strategies to minimize endocrine disruptors include consuming organic food; avoiding pesticides; using stainless steel, glass, or ceramic cookware and storage containers; staying away from air pollution whenever possible; washing new clothes before you wear them; and avoiding personal care, cosmetics, and cleaning products with added fragrance (other than plant oils) and chemicals with long names you can’t pronounce.

One of the most important ways to keep endocrine disruptors out of your body is to not eat animal foods. This is because most endocrine disruptors are fat soluble and accumulate in magnified amounts in animal fat. For example, the Institute of Medicine states that, for the EDCs’ dioxins, “consumption of animal fats is thought to be the primary pathway for human exposure. In humans, dioxins are metabolized slowly and accumulate in body fat over a lifetime.” This brings me to strategy three.

Balancing Strategy Three: Avoid Eating Animal Foods

All animal foods contain sex hormones that are often identical to the human versions. This is true even for animals raised without added hormones. All animals—including mammals, birds, and fish—need hormones for their own functioning. The hormones they produce become part of their tissues and secretions, which you consume if you eat meat, poultry, fish, eggs, or dairy.

Typically, the sex hormones you consume in the highest quantities vary with the type of animal food. Dairy and eggs contain the largest amounts of estrogen. For dairy, the soaring estrogen levels are tied to the fact that modern dairy cows are pregnant most of the year, and during pregnancy females become major estrogen producers. Testosterone exposure is strongly related to eating both milk and eggs (remember that your body may convert the testosterone to estrogen).

Hormones in animal foods are absorbed into your body. One study had adult men and children who had not yet reach puberty drink about 20 ounces of cow’s milk. Both the men and the children had elevated levels of estrogen and progesterone (another female hormone) in both their blood and their urine after consuming the milk. Testosterone secretion was suppressed in the men.

A series of studies considered the changes in diet in Japan after World War II. In the 50 years from 1947 to 1997, intake of milk, meat, and eggs increased 20-, 10-, and 7-fold, respectively. During that time, the death rate from breast cancer roughly doubled, and ovarian cancer deaths increased by a factor of four. The death rate from prostate cancer increased 25-fold. The researchers consider that the estrogen in dairy may have been responsible for these dramatic increases in reproductive cancer death.

All three strategies to balance your sex hormones are important. Avoiding animal foods may be the most powerful—and the most overlooked.

(Additional references)

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Wild carnivores are regularly exterminated to protect livestock. But Ripple discovered that the surrounding ecosystems suffer when this happens. Humans, who eat meat but are biologically designed to eat a more plant-based diet, are killing the predators whose role in a balanced ecosystem is precisely to eat meat. Why? So that humans can consume the prey of true carnivores.

Ripple is one of 43 conservation scientists and ecologists from around the world who made headlines last July when they published a report titled “Saving the world’s terrestrial megafauna” in the journal BioScience. They appealed to the scientific community and to governments around the world to prevent the imminent extinction of large carnivores and herbivores.

Grass-Fed Beef—Not Sustainable or ‘Eco-Friendly’

In his work, Ripple studied the impact of ruminants, especially cattle, on greenhouse gases. Ruminants are animals that ferment their plant-based food in a special stomach during digestion. During this process, ruminants emit methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Ripple reached the following disturbing realization: “In our research, we found that even with dramatic reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, we can’t meet our climate goals. We need to quickly and drastically reduce other greenhouse gases, especially methane.”

He added, “Comparing greenhouse gas impacts per pound of product produced, grass-fed beef has the strongest food-related impact, followed by sheep (another ruminant), cattle that are grass-fed part of the year and on a feedlot in winter, and finally cattle that are kept on a feedlot all year. So the popular idea that grass-fed beef does less environmental damage than feedlot beef is actually the reverse of the facts.”

Ripple Effect: The Transformation of Hart Mountain

Beyond methane, Ripple and his colleagues studied what would happen to a severely degraded ecosystem when grazing cattle were removed. The profound effect on the surrounding wildlife and vegetation is strikingly visible (photos below) from the research they did at Hart Mountain, a national pronghorn antelope refuge in southeastern Oregon.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s description of Hart Mountain: “The 278,000-acre refuge is one of the most expansive wildlife habitats in the arid West free of domestic livestock.” This was not always true, as “grass-fed cattle” dominated and degraded the reserve for decades. In 1990, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service banished grazing cattle to try to restore the ecosystem and allow more resources for pronghorn antelope and other animals whose numbers in the wild were precarious.

The results are astonishing and delightful. The shrubs and trees key to the ecosystem, such as willow and aspen, started growing back, and stream banks were restored when cattle stopped trampling them and eating down the plants. Wildlife numbers rebounded as their habitat healed itself. This transformation is documented by numerous before-and-after pictures that show a wounded environment at the time when cattle reigned, and green flourishing young trees, shrubs, and grass without livestock present. The destructiveness of so-called “grass-fed beef” is undeniable in these before-and-after photos.

Reversal of ecosystem damage by removing livestock

On Human Health

Ripple is fascinated by the parallels between environmental and human health recovery. “When you stop eating animal products, studies show your arteries can reopen and health problems vanish with the blockages. Just as we saw at Hart Mountain—get rid of the cattle, and streams will be beautifully restored in the landscape.”

Watch the video below for a full presentation by Dr. Ripple on the Rewilding of Hart Mountain.

_References

1. _{Nijdam D, Rood T, Westhoek H. The price of protein: Review of land use and carbon footprints from life cycle assessments of animal food products and their substitutes. Food Policy. 2012;37(6):760-770.}
2. _{Ripple WJ, Smith P, Haber, H., Montzka SA, McAlpine C, Bouche, DH. Ruminants, climate change and climate policy. Nature Climate Change. 2014;4:2-5.}

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Hormones Are Chemical Messengers That Carry Information Through Your Body

Your body is an awesome machine composed of 100 trillion cells. Hormones are chemical messengers that flow through your blood, carrying information from one group of cells to another. This coordinated process keeps your body functioning.

Most people have heard of hormones like insulin, thyroid, estrogen, testosterone, human growth hormone, cortisol, and vitamin D. There are dozens of others with indispensable roles in maintaining health. Many are made by endocrine glands, such as the thyroid, whose only job is to produce and secrete hormones. Other organs, such as the stomach, intestines, heart, and skin, produce hormones, in addition to performing other critical biological functions.

The process of maintaining all your body’s vital functions within the range needed for survival is called homeostasis, and hormones play a major role in making sure these requirements are met—no easy feat.

How Hormones Work

Hormones circulate in your blood, but they don’t act on all cells. A hormone can target only cells that have a receptor that “fits” that particular hormone. This is often compared to a lock-and-key system: the receptor is the lock, and the hormone is the key. Some hormones have target receptors on most cells, while others act far more selectively. Once a hormone binds to its receptor, the targeted cell responds by taking action, making some change indicated by the hormone.

A Little is Good, but More Can Be Toxic Excess

A common misconception in understanding how your body functions is that if a little is good, more is better. More frequently the truth is that a little is good, and more is toxic excess.

Hormones illustrate this principle perfectly. Because hormones have such a profound influence on physical function, your body typically secretes them only in tiny amounts—often so tiny that special methods are needed to measure them. Even these small quantities are active only for a short time, and most are soon destroyed naturally by the body. A hormone may also be carried in the blood in an inactivated form or bound to another chemical that keeps it from reaching target receptors.

High levels of some hormones can have dire consequences. Additionally, hormones sometimes team up to regulate crucial body functions and maintain homeostasis. If the level of one hormone is off, others may get disrupted, and unhealthy effects then cascade.

Three Ways to Mess Up Your Hormones

Experts have concluded that more than half the people in Western societies develop a hormone-related disease at some point in their lives. These include diabetes (both type 1 and type 2), polycystic ovarian syndrome, osteoporosis, and hypothyroidism.

Your body is designed to precisely regulate the exact amounts of hormones and receptors it needs. However, hormone-related disease occurs for many reasons, and sometimes cannot be avoided. Prevention of these diseases may be possible if you avoid the three most common ways of messing up your hormones. Here they are, in reverse order of destructiveness.

1. Enjoying the worst of modern lifestyles.

Examples include staying indoors all day, sitting for hours at a stretch, not getting enough exercise or being inactive, sleeping too little or erratically, and frequently skipping meals. Contact with fragrances, herbicides, pesticides, and thousands of other manmade chemicals can disrupt your hormones as well.

2. Second guessing your body by supplementing with hormones that are not for clinical treatment of a diagnosed disease.

As you have learned, your body closely fine-tunes the hormones it produces and how it deploys them. Artificially high hormone levels as a result of supplementation can be profoundly dangerous. Use of hormones for general lifestyle goals such as “anti-aging,” building stronger muscles, losing weight, and enhancing sexuality can result in serious long-term consequences.

Supplementing with hormones should be a thoughtful decision made by a fully informed patient in partnership with a knowledgeable health team, and only after considering all options for treatment.

3. Eating animal foods.

All animal foods contain hormones (whether the animal was raised following organic practices or not). Animals, like humans, need hormones to maintain homeostasis and to reproduce, and animal hormones are often similar or identical to human hormones. In addition, your digestion and metabolism of animal foods can act to disrupt your own hormonal functioning in multiple direct and indirect ways.

Choosing to avoid these perils gives your body its best opportunity to maintain hormonal balance and healthy functioning.

(Read the second article in this series, 3 Strategies to Keep Your Sex Hormones Balanced.)

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• Diabetes (by 46%)
• Hypertension (by 38%)
• High cholesterol (by almost 500%)

An international survey of adults 65 or older in eleven industrialized countries found U.S. respondents the sickest, with 87% reporting a chronic medical condition and 53% taking four or more medications. The statistics are discouraging, but this does not have to happen to you.

The secret to a longer life does not lie in prescription medications or expensive, sometimes dangerous, anti-aging pills and injections. Instead, you can find out how to stay vital by studying groups of people who have consistently maintained outstanding health into their old age.

WHAT DO CENTENARIANS EAT?

Scientists who study longevity often focus on centenarians, those aged 100 or older. You may be familiar with this idea through the popular concept of Blue Zones, where populations have unusually high concentrations of healthy centenarians.

Studying Blue Zones is rewarding but also challenging. Researchers must validate that people are actually as old as they say they are, and reliable records are not always available. Also, although it’s possible to measure what centenarians are eating now, what did they eat over the preceding decades?

A look at the Okinawan islands of Japan, one of the Blue Zones, offers some important insight. Careful research has validated the birthdates on record for Okinawan centenarians. In addition, detailed information on diet going back to 1949 is available from population surveys periodically conducted by the local government.

The older group of Okinawans, generally those born before 1942, possess the highest functional capacity and longest survival in Japan, a country traditionally known for its longevity. Rates of heart disease and many forms of cancer are significantly lower among Okinawan seniors than in Americans and other Japanese people of the same ages. Almost two-thirds of Okinawans still function independently at age 97.

So what is the traditional diet of this group, remarkable for both longevity and healthy aging? Here were the major sources of their calories in 1949:

The following foods each contributed less than 1% of total calories: nuts and seeds, sugar, meat, eggs, dairy, fruit, seaweed, flavorings, and alcohol.

Overall, the diet of these centenarians derives 85% of calories from carbohydrate, 9% from protein, and 6% from fat.

Unfortunately, the mortality advantage that prior generations of Okinawans enjoyed has faded with the dietary changes that have occurred over the last several decades. Younger island residents have largely abandoned the sweet potato in favor of more “modern” choices: animal foods, white rice and other processed foods, and added oils. As a result they are sicker and increasingly overweight, and they are not attaining the advanced ages of earlier island generations.

Chart from “Caloric Restriction, the Traditional Okinawan Diet, and Healthy Aging: The Diet of the World’s Longest-Lived People and Its Potential Impact on Morbidity and Life Span.” Source here.

CAN DIET SLOW THE AGING PROCESS?

Why would a whole-food, plant-based diet, such as the one traditionally enjoyed in Okinawa and other Blue Zones around the world, have such a huge effect on aging? Is it just that this way of eating helps prevent killer events like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes? Or is nutrition impacting the aging process itself—putting the brakes on the complex interplay of processes that makes us age biologically? A recent study found that the latter outcome would result in a substantially longer period of healthy life than simply treating specific diseases as these pop up.

Scientific understanding of aging is in its infancy. Many interrelated factors contribute to the aging process. One of these determinants is the length of telomeres, protective structures found at both ends of our chromosomes. Shorter telomeres are linked to reduced life span and a substantially higher risk of chronic disease. Recent studies indicate that people with longer telomeres age more slowly.

Growing evidence confirms that lifestyle choices exert a powerful influence on telomere length. Dietary factors, as well as lean weight, are associated with longer telomeres. Researchers believe that a diet high in antioxidants (which is to say, a diet based on whole plant foods) protect telomeres from destructive oxidative stress. In a study of men with low-risk prostate cancer, findings indicated that a comprehensive lifestyle program that included a whole-food, plant-based diet was significantly linked to longer relative telomere length. The more closely the men followed the prescribed program, the more their telomeres lengthened during the five-year follow up period.

The bottom line: if you want to follow the example of centenarians around the world, a whole-food, plant-based diet should be the foundation of your lifestyle choices. It’s never too late to start.

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Whole Grains, Refined Grains, and Pseudo-Grains

The choice becomes clearer once you understand the biology of plants.

• Whole grains are the seeds of certain grasses that store their energy mostly as complex carbohydrates. Wheat, corn, rice, barley, oats, millet, and rye are the most common examples. Whole grain foods contain all parts of the seed: the outer protective skin (bran), the tiny baby plant (the germ), and food to nourish the baby plant until it can produce its own (endosperm).
• Refined grain foods, on the other hand, are generally made only from the endosperm. Most of the healthy bran, germ, and nutrients have been stripped away.
• Pseudo-grains include quinoa, buckwheat, and amaranth. These seeds are similar nutritionally to traditional whole grains, but they are produced by plants that are not grasses. While this difference is important to botanists, it’s less important if you’re simply trying to decide what to cook for dinner. You can use whole grains and pseudo-grains interchangeably.

Many published, peer-reviewed studies on people who eat more whole grains attribute a spectrum of health benefits to these foods. Here are three primary ones:

1. Whole Grains Decrease Your Risk of Obesity

A common myth is that foods high in carbohydrates cause obesity. Yet peer-reviewed research finds quite the opposite among people who consume higher proportions of their carbohydrates in the form of whole grains. Here are some representative findings:

• An eight-year study of American men found that those who ate more whole grains gained less weight. In fact, each additional 1.4 ounces of whole grains eaten per day staved off a pound of weight gain.
• Similarly, a twelve-year study of women in the U.S. discovered that those who consumed more whole grains consistently weighed less than other women.
• An analysis of fifteen research trials with data from 119,829 participants concluded that a higher intake of whole grains was linked to lower BMI and waist size.

2. Whole Grains Reduce Your Risk of Chronic Illness

People who consume whole grains have less chance of developing the chronic degenerative illnesses that pervade the modern world. In fact, eating more whole grains is linked to lower levels of a common inflammatory marker associated with chronic disease. Consider a few of the many consistent results:

• While diabetes is popularly thought to be associated with high carbohydrate foods, an analysis of 16 studies found that 3 servings of whole grains per day reduced the risk of developing diabetes by 32%.
• Another analysis of 66 studies found a similar number: a 26% decrease in the risk of developing diabetes, as well as a 21% lower risk of cardiovascular disease with higher whole-grain consumption. Specific risk markers improved by these foods included fasting glucose, insulin, cholesterol, and blood pressure.
• A Scandinavian study of 108,000 participants discovered that eating more whole-grain products reduced the risk of developing colorectal cancer, with whole wheat having the strongest benefit.

3. Whole Grains Help You Live Longer

In 2015, researchers published an analysis of two large studies of participants followed for a period of about 25 years. They reported that each additional one-ounce daily serving of whole grains reduced the risk of death over the study period by 5%, and the risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 9%. The beneficial effect was seen from the combined effects of many foods, including whole wheat and whole-wheat flour, oats, corn and popcorn, rye, brown rice, and whole-grain breakfast cereals.

Scientists cite a number of reasons that whole grains could have such favorable effects. Their high fiber makes food more satisfying, and whole grains promote beneficial gut microbes, which produce protective short-chain fatty acids. These foods are dense with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants, and phytochemicals. Whole grains may also displace less-healthy foods that would otherwise be eaten. The big picture, as it is better understood, is likely to involve numerous, interrelated reasons why whole grains promote health.

Don’t let unsupported claims by those who ignore the consistent science deprive you of the pleasure and benefits of whole grains. These foods are inexpensive, filling, nutritious, and healthful. Enjoy them throughout your day.

Read More:

• The Smoke and Mirrors Behind Wheat Belly and Grain Brain
• The Only Three Food Groups You Need to Remember

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The city already had deployed a substantial wellness program, which features one-on-one counseling for exercise and stress management, financial incentives to lower disease risk factors, and several fitness programs. Yet the city still saw its health care costs climbing faster than inflation and was willing to try something new. After receiving requests from employees who had seen Forks Over Knives, the city’s management and human resources department championed a plant-based nutrition education program just for employees. Soon the city contracted with The Wellness Forum, based in nearby Columbus, to teach such a program. The classes were taught by The Wellness Forum’s executive director, Pam Popper, N.D., who was featured in Forks Over Knives.

The program was voluntary, but all the employees attended meetings to learn about it. Twenty-nine workers signed up for the first set of classes. For eight weeks, the enrollees heard lectures, discussed what they were learning, saw recipes being prepared, and – very importantly – sampled excellent, plant-based food.

The city measured several risk factors of the enrollees before the program began and then again eight weeks later when it concluded. While usual wellness programs can take years to achieve modest results, the plant-based worksite program achieved substantial health improvements in only eight weeks. Here were some of the results:

• The percentage of hypertensive participants fell from 20% to 3.7%
• The percentage of those with high triglycerides plummeted from 40% to 11%
• The percentage of those with elevated glucose decreased from 28% to 18.5%
• The average weight loss was 10.5 pounds
• Medication use decreased, with many of the participants planning to work with their doctors to reduce or get off drugs

Employees loved their new diets and many of them even encouraged their colleagues to sign up for the next series of classes. Enrollees gave kudos to the tasty food, the knowledge they gained, and the caring attitude they experienced. Here’s a sampling of what they had to say:

• “Everything I’ve learned in the program has worked. I’m having more fun with it now than anything. I like that I can eat a lot of food and get full on the Program’s diet. I don’t have to write things down.”
• “I definitely feel a lot better. I don’t want to put nasty junk that makes me feel bad into my body. I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible.”
• “Changing diet is a piece of cake compared to quitting cigarettes. After the first class, I saw myself as a plant-based eater.”

The positive results pleased the City of Dublin, which is planning to continue the program so more employees can find improved health. Further, the city has enthusiastically shared the idea of worksite plant-based programs with the larger community. As health care costs consume one out of every six dollars of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, the City of Dublin is showing governments and businesses how an innovative plant-based nutrition program can make people healthier and improve our economy.

Watch this video about Dublin’s former director of Human Resources, Dave Harding, and his transformation on a whole-food, plant-based diet:

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