High Estrogen Symptoms, Causes & Holistic Ways To Get Levels In Check

Estrogen is most often categorized as a sex hormone—and it is. But this steroid hormone is involved in so much more than reproduction. It controls many aspects of health1 in both women and men, including glucose balance, lipid homeostasis, brain function, and bone metabolism. It's also partially responsible for ovulation.W hen estrogen levels get high enough, this triggers a release of luteinizing hormone which causes ovulation

In an ideal world, your body can effectively balance levels of estrogen and progesterone, another steroid hormone that prepares the uterus for pregnancy. If estrogen levels get too high, or progesterone levels fall too low, it can lead to estrogen dominance.

The modern world can be a toxic place. We're exposed to environmental toxins and toxins in our food supply on a daily basis. And all of this gets processed through your liver. The liver is also where estrogen is eliminated from the body.

There are a handful of ways your gut can contribute to estrogen dominance, but one is an imbalance in gut bacteria that produces an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. 

According to Trubow, beta-glucuronidase divides the estrogen3 that's bound for excretion. "When this happens, the estrogen goes back to being a free radical and is also no longer water-soluble, so it is brought out of the intestines (a water-soluble area) and back into the bloodstream (fat-soluble). Then, it is either reprocessed or stored in the fat," she says.

Constipation can also contribute to estrogen dominance. Eliminating your bowels is one of the three main ways your body detoxifies. Proper gut function and daily, well-formed stools help reduce the reabsorption of waste products, like excess estrogen. When you're constipated, it increases the chance that estrogen will be cleaved by the beta-glucuronidase, and then the estrogen has nowhere to go but back into your bloodstream.

Having obesity or a particularly high body fat percentage can also contribute to elevated estrogen levels in men5 and women6.

This could be due to the fact that cells are responsible for converting circulating androgens (male sex hormones, the most common of which is testosterone) into estrogen.

Abnormal menstruation is one of the main clinical signs of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This can create a cascade effect that goes on to cause high estrogen levels.

"PCOS can lead to imbalanced estrogen8 since women [with PCOS] aren't regularly ovulating (that's when progesterone gets created)," says Trubow. Missing periods due to stress, illness, travel, etc., can also throw off estrogen levels.

Many of these symptoms are not exclusive to estrogen dominance and can also be a sign of other issues. If you suspect you have high estrogen levels, you'll need to consult with your doctor to know for sure.

While there are at-home tests you can take to measure hormones, like the Veracity Hormone Test, Trubow says these aren't always accurate. Testing can be tricky since estrogen varies throughout the menstrual cycle, and there can be a wide range of what's considered "normal." Some women, like those going through menopause, will also have intrinsically lower levels of estrogen than younger women. 

If you have symptoms of high estrogen but don't actually have elevated levels, Trubow says there are likely two things to blame: toxicity from environmental toxins or endocrine-mimicking plastics (or both).

Environmental toxins can overload your liver and cause numerous symptoms, from reproductive dysfunction to autoimmunity. They have also been connected to PCOS and endometriosis10.

Regular exposure to endocrine-mimicking plastics and other endocrine disrupters, like some of the chemicals found in personal care and cleaning products, can also cause similar symptoms to high estrogen levels (including fatigue, weight gain, and fertility challenges).

Estrogen levels start to naturally decline during perimenopause (the period of time right before menopause) and then continue to drop postmenopause. However, some women may have symptoms of high estrogen even during this transition. 

"It's not so much that the estrogen is intrinsically high—more that it is imbalanced since women aren't regularly ovulating, which produces the progesterone to balance out the estrogen," says Trubow. And because there's no period of ovulation, there's no resulting withdrawal bleeding, so the uterine lining builds up (from the estrogen) and then doesn't shed regularly.

To mitigate these risks, and any potential uncomfortable symptoms, Trubow often recommends perimenopausal women look into progesterone therapy to help regulate the cycle through the transition and balance out estrogen. Progesterone has also been shown to improve sleep quality11 during the perimenopausal period. 

While the cause of PCOS is unknown, women with PCOS seem to produce excess estrogen8. PCOS occurs when the ovaries produce too many androgens, which then causes an imbalance in all hormones.

Another severely underdiagnosed condition affecting women, endometriosis occurs when tissues similar to the endometrial lining in the uterus grow outside of the uterus. The tissue thickens and breaks down with each menstrual cycle. This can cause irregular periods, abdominal pain, fatigue, and fertility challenges. 

While high estrogen levels can have several undesirable outcomes, Trubow says it's important to remember that estrogen also plays many protective roles in the body. "It's only when the system is imbalanced that estrogen can be damaging," she says, adding that a lack of estrogen is also harmful to tissues, brain health, and sexual health.

With this in mind, the goal isn't to get your estrogen levels as low as possible; it's to regulate estrogen and progesterone levels so they are properly balanced.

High estrogen can cause many uncomfortable symptoms in women and those assigned female at birth—such as irregular bleeding, breast tenderness, insomnia, mood swings, low libido, and more. High estrogen symptoms may look different depending on a woman's age. An estrogen imbalance may worsen the side effects of menopause in older women, for example.

While you'll want to work with a doctor to diagnose and treat hormone imbalances like high estrogen, certain lifestyle changes may be able to help, too. In particular, we recommend limiting alcohol consumption, exercising regularly, eating a varied whole-food diet, avoiding environmental toxins when possible, limiting single-use plastics, and supplementing appropriately.