Your body needs estrogen for your reproductive, cardiovascular and bone health. Too much estrogen, though, can cause irregular periods and may worsen conditions that affect your reproductive health. Your provider can help diagnose what's causing your high estrogen levels and recommend treatments that can help.
High estrogen levels can cause symptoms such as irregular or heavy periods, weight gain, fatigue, and fibroids in females. In males, they can cause breast tissue growth, erectile dysfunction, and infertility.
Estrogen is good for your heart by keeping cardiovascular tissue healthy. It also helps with keeping your blood pressure stable. And when your estrogen levels are high, it helps keep blood triglycerides (a type of fat) low, increases HDL cholesterol (the good kind) and lowers LDL cholesterol (the bad kind).
Estrogen helps protect the heart from disease, potentially by maintaining higher levels of good cholesterol, called high-density lipoprotein (HDL), in your blood. Lower estrogen levels, especially during menopause, can increase your risk of developing heart disease.
Estrogen promotes the storage of fat for healthy reproductive years. When estrogen is balanced, the right amount of fat helps carry out female reproductive functions. However, when there's too little or too much estrogen, weight gain often results.
Your skin also becomes thinner, because the levels of collagen and elastin also dip along with estrogen. The hormone estrogen is responsible for making skin look younger due to the hyaluronic acid it produces. Estrogen not only affects your skin but also your muscle mass, metabolism, and energy levels.
When the ovaries start to produce and release (secrete) estrogen, fat in the connective tissue starts to collect. This causes the breasts to enlarge.
Estrogen is directly involved in metabolism and maintaining a healthy weight, including helping to regulate glucose and lipid metabolism. When your estrogen levels drop, your metabolic rate declines and your body begins to store fat. In other words, you gain weight.
And how do you go about it? If you are healthy, most experts agree that HRT is safe to use at the lowest dose that helps for the shortest time needed. If you're 59 or older, or have been on hormones for 5 years, you should talk to your doctor about quitting.
Symptoms of a high HRT dose: Nausea and vomiting. Breast tenderness and enlargement. Spotting or heavy bleeding.
After menopause, the ovaries no longer produce much estrogen and estrogens mainly come from fat tissue. After menopause, higher amounts of estrogen in the blood are linked to an increased risk of breast cancer in women [21]. Researchers are studying a possible link to breast cancer before menopause.
Unfortunately, estrogen dominance can cause fatigue. This symptom can occur whether or not you have insomnia. If you experience persistent tiredness or feel more drained of energy than usual, talk to your doctor about being tested for hormonal issues.
Recent studies show that menopausal women on hormone therapy tend to have less body fat, especially visceral belly fat. Because estrogen affects how your body distributes fat, low estrogen levels can contribute to gaining fat in your belly area.
Many women also notice an increase in belly fat as they get older — even if they aren't gaining weight. This is likely due to a decreasing level of estrogen, which appears to influence where fat is distributed in the body.
A combination of diet and exercise may help symptoms. A person can perform exercises that burn fat, such as running, walking, and other aerobic activity. Reducing the calories a person consumes can also help.
HRT is also known to help women maintain softer, smoother skin, resulting in a younger look. In addition to—and, often, as a result of—these physical changes, HRT often changes how you see yourself.
The breasts can enlarge after menopause due to the hormone oestrogen levels going down. When the breasts go through an " involution " process, the milk glands shut down, and the tissue is replaced with fat.
As you reach the age of 40 years and approach perimenopause, hormonal changes will cause changes to your breasts. Besides noting changes in your breasts' size, shape, and elasticity, you might also notice more bumps and lumps. Aging comes with an increased risk of breast cancer.
Your eyes and face will begin to develop a more feminine appearance as the fat under the skin increases and shifts.
Estrogen helps to stimulate collagen, elastin, and hyaluronic acid production that helps the skin to stay plump and firm. Progesterone stimulates the production of sebum or the oil glands in the skin. It can cause the skin to swell, and compress the look of pores. Too much of it, however, can lead to oil build up.
Many people take estrogen specifically to change the shape of their body. Taking estrogen can affect your weight. It can also shift where your body fat settles on your body. For example, if you have narrower hips and a round belly, some of your belly fat might move into your hips and upper thighs.
“Women also become more estrogen-dominant as we move into perimenopause and beyond. Estrogen dominance promotes insulin resistance, which causes the belly fat build-up,” she says.
The hormones leptin and insulin, sex hormones and growth hormone influence our appetite, metabolism (the rate at which our body burns kilojoules for energy), and body fat distribution. People who are obese have levels of these hormones that encourage abnormal metabolism and the accumulation of body fat.
Additionally, improving dietary choices, increasing physical activity, getting more sleep, managing stress levels effectively, quitting smoking, and limiting alcohol are all ways to decrease and avoid hormonal weight gain.