By Louise Belle BHSc (Nut Med)

Are you irritable? Do you have heavy, painful periods? Do you experience breast pain or sudden mood swings? Many women (and men) suffer each day, trying to cope with hormones that are completely out of whack. When your hormones are working in perfect harmony, everyone is happy and life is sweet. When hormones fall out of balance, they can cause complete chaos and lead to a whole range of symptoms that can interfere with your day to day life.

Your liver is the major cleansing and detoxification organ of your body and is responsible for breaking down and clearing out excess hormones (one of its many jobs). When excess oestrogen is floating around in the liver, it quickly removes it from circulation before it can cause damage. When your liver is sluggish and not functioning efficiently, its ability to break down oestrogen (and other hormones) is decreased. Oestrogen starts to build up in the body, and leads to oestrogen dominance. Oestrogen and progesterone need to be balanced with each other, but when oestrogen rises and progesterone drops, a whole range of hormonal issues can occur.

Your liver is constantly bombarded with chemicals and toxins from every angle, through car fumes, pesticides and herbicides, cleaning products, smoking, processed foods, artificial sweeteners, beauty products, alcohol and plastics. This places a large load on your liver and over time, it can cause inflammation or damage to the liver and lead to inefficient clearance of hormones. Another problem is the fact that many conventional cleaning and beauty products contain artificial chemicals that resemble oestrogen. These are known as xeno-oestrogens and mimic the effect of oestrogen in the body, leading to hormonal imbalance. These xeno-oestrogens may contribute to conditions such as premenstrual tension, endometriosis and fibroids.

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