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Estrogen Dominance (part 2): What Causes Low Progesterone?
Last week I wrote about estrogen dominance and the basics of how the female cycle works. If you missed this, just click here. Today I want to focus on progesterone. As I discussed there, in the luteal phase of cycling women, progesterone usually rises high. But what does progesterone do again?- It helps to prepare a good environment for the implementation by a fertilized egg.
- It has a calming effect on women.
- Regulates Blood pressure.
- Supports bone health.
- Supports cognition
If for some reason progesterone doesn’t rise high enough, symptoms of estrogen dominance can appear. So due for what reasons can progesterone decrease?Why does progesterone production decrease?
- Stress
- Age – Not only menopause but in research, they can see a decline happening years before menopause
- Inflammation in the ovaries (the primary mode of action of the copper IUD)
- Taking NSAID medication around ovulation (PMID: 16493584)
- Removed Ovaries (Hysterectomy)
- Poor follicle development.
- Poor circulation
- Poor quality of the corpus luteum (See Estrogen Dominance – Part 1)
- Extreme exercise or training.
- Being underweight
- Anorexia/disordered eating
- Low Leptin – a hormone made by fat cells to tell your brain there are enough energy reserves
- Infections: low-grade simmering infections or overt
- Hypogonadism (ovaries don’t function)
- Hypopituitarism (pituitary not telling the ovaries to work)
- Hypothyroidism (slow thyroid)
- Birth Control (pill, patch, ring, implant, injection, etc)
- Diabetes
- Opioid pain medications (in the last 6 months)
- PCOS
- Breastfeeding – or high prolactin in general
- Low cholesterol – since progesterone is made of cholesterol
- Irregular or skipped cycles
As you can see, there are a lot of different reasons why progesterone can decrease. Lots of them are related to some form of stress.I would like to test progesterone. When should I test in my cycle?
In the first half of your cycle progesterone is low. Why? Because it is supposed to be low! It is the corpus luteum that produces the progesterone (see part 1!). If you are cycling and would like to evaluate your progesterone, test in the second half of your cycle.What can I do to raise progesterone naturally?
Of course, address the root cause!Do you suffer from poor blood circulation?
Check your iron, vitamin B12, B6 and B9 levels.Are you hypothyroid?
Check the B Better folder “Monthly Courses“ for the Thyroid Balance course. Is your cholesterol low? Focus on healthy fats!Are you diabetic or experiencing insulin resistance?
Take a look at the Blood Sugar Regulation course!Are you inflamed?
Search in the B Better library for the videos:
As you can see, a lot of the lifestyle-related reasons why progesterone can decrease, have already been talked about on B Better!Stay Healthy,
Daniel
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4 Replies
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Love this Daniel I coach women to improve their health and focus on female physiology lots, great post
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Thanks! I see you are a coach and personal trainer as well. Feel free to give the platform some tips as well some day
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Thanks for this informative post! I’ve heard of cyclic progesterone therapy for those with PCOS (specifically very long cycles, 3+ months) by Dr. Lara Briden (see https://www.larabriden.com/cyclic-progesterone-therapy-for-pcos/). What are your thoughts on it?
Do you know if the same effect can be achieved with topic progesterone as well?
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Hey
I believe something like this can be helpful for the right person. With functional medicine, we assume that identical health issues in 2 different persons can have other root causes.
I believe it can help. I also believe it can be a good solution for one person (for example, with brain trauma) while for another it is like a bandage (for example, when insulin resistance can be a big player in PCOS causing conversion of female hormones to testosterone by upregulating 5 alpha-reductase activity).
Some lifestyle factors (see the list above) can also lead to low progesterone. Some people might benefit from such an approach while working on these lifestyle factors (if possible of course). Others prefer to work on their lifestyle factors and hope that progesterone comes up.
My personal choice would be to work through lifestyle factors for younger women. Topical progesterone is harder to dose. The amount of hormone cream that is absorbed varies from person to person and is depended on where you apply them and how much fat tissue someone has.
It needs to be done under the guidance of a doctor.
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