Especially for Women
Looking at Hormone Balance and Women’s Health
Genova Diagnostics’ Women’s Hormonal Health
Assessment Can Help You Achieve Your Optimal
Hormone Balance
Although women are able to reproduce during less than half their normal life span, their reproductive and related hormones exercise a strong influence on health throughout their adolescent and adult lives.
Fortunately, improvements in our understanding of hormone function - and our ability to measure it accurately - offer a woman an opportunity to improve health and quality of life by adopting lifestyle and nutritional patterns that can help her achieve her optimal hormone balance. The Women’s Hormonal Health Assessment can also be used to observe changes in hormone markers associated with hormone replacement therapies and hormonal birth control.
Hormones are complicated. Obviously, deficiencies aren’t healthy, but there can also be too much of a good thing. As we age, hormone balance can shift, resulting in deficiencies and excesses. This hormone “balance” can vary from one woman to another based on family history, lifestyle, stress, diet, and individual biochemistry.
In the Mood…
From a girl’s first period to a woman’s golden years, the wrong mix of hormones can have bad effects on emotion.
It can make a menstruating woman’s life sheer torture for one week out of every four with the extreme mood swings of PMS. Levels of estrogens and androgens have also been linked to depression and erratic behavior. A proper balance of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are also important for fertility and a healthy menstrual cycle.
In several studies, levels of the androgens, testosterone and DHEA, have been linked to sexual function. Populations of women gong through surgical menopause (hysterectomy) felt stronger libido and greater satisfaction with their sex lives after taking androgen supplements.
Getting to the Heart of the Matter…
Some of the most exciting recent medical research explores the effect of estrogen and progesterone on cardiac health.
Among other effects, estrogen lowers the level of lipids linked to heart disease risk. The action of estrogen on receptors in heart and vessel cells also seems to improve their ability to expand and contract to meet different circulatory needs. It has been proposed that estrogen stimulates production of nitric oxide, a compound that is important to healthy cardiac function.
Thinking Makes it So…
Hormone balance can impact how well a woman’s mind functions as she ages, and throughout her life.
Several populations of older women have been studied to discover the association between the various hormones and cognition. Some studies have found levels of estrogen to be a key factor in overall sharpness of thinking in older women. At least one found a connection between estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone to specific kinds of intelligence.
The Hip Bone’s Connected…
As women age, their bone integrity can play a large part in determining how independent they remain - and, in some cases, how long they live.
Ask older women what scares them most, according to one study, and the answer won’t be death for many of them, but hip fracture. Other studies have found that hip fracture sharply reduces a woman’s mobility and independence. A remarkable percentage of women die within two or three years of hip fracture.
Healthy levels of estrogen and estrogen metabolites, however, promote bone formation. After women reach their peak of bone formation in their thirties, estrogen and estrogen metabolites can also influence rate of bone loss.
Hormones and Female Cancer…
Recent research has found a possible link between cancer risk and the ratio of two estrogen metabolites, 2-hydroxyestrone and 16a-hydroxyestrone.
It has been demonstrated in several studies that eating more soy can influence which metabolite the body preferentially produces. If this promising research is supported by enough follow-up studies, it could be possible to identify risk for breast and endometrial cancer - and do something to reduce it.
What can you do?
Talk openly with Dr. Holec about your concerns and she may order testing, including the Women’s Hormonal Health Assessment.
The Women’s Hormonal Health Assessment analyzes a blood sample for levels of important hormones and metabolites.
Three estrogens - Balane of estrone, estradiol, and estriol shifts during a woman’s life, and each exercises a strong (and often different) effect on her health.
Progesterone - This hormone rises and falls during the menstrual cycle, influencing fertility and PMS, and after menopause it modulates the effects of estrogens.
Two androgens - Both testosterone and DHEA affect sexual function, body composition, and cognition.
Estrogen metabolites - The “2” and “16a” forms of hydroxylated estrone have different effects on genetic expression and rate of cell proliferation; their ratio may indicate a woman’s risk for breast and endometrial cancer.
Sex hormone-binding globulin - This analyte influences the circulating levels of free testosterone and estradiol.
1 Do you experience unpleasant PMS symptoms?
2 Do you have any of the other conventional risk factors for cardiovascular disease
(smoking, overweight, family history, suboptimal lipid profile)?
3 Have you lost interest in sexual intimacy - or does it hurt to have sex because of
Vaginal dryness?
4 Are you experiencing the negative symptoms of peri-menopause - such as hot
Flashes, vaginal dryness, flooding, or urinary incontinence?
5 If you are post-menopausal, have you suspected that you’re losing memory or
not functioning as well as you once did?
6 Do you have a family history of breast or endometrial cancer?
If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions, ask Dr. Holec about this test.
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