Most of us can probably relate to occasionally feeling out of sorts, moody, foggy, emotional, or not sleeping deeply. And for the ladies, those symptoms might seem to come and go according to monthly cycles or as those cycles start to change. Or if you've been following our blog posts and have been reading about stress and cortisol, you might be wondering about how you can get a handle on yours so you can feel more calm and in control, avoid getting a muffin top, and keep your mind and memory clear and sharp.
So, what do these "hormonal" symptoms and the whole stress and cortisol connection have in common? Well, for one thing, everything in your body and mind is connected, and very often imbalances in one system are significantly affected by or can cause significant effects and imbalances in another. But looking at it a little differently, these systems — your sex hormones (estradiol, estrone, estriol, progesterone, testosterone), your stress hormones (cortisol and DHEA), and your sleep hormone, melatonin — can all be evaluated in one simple test, and you don't even have to open a vein for it. Drum roll… saliva testing.
Saliva testing has been around for a while, but most conventional doctors don't utilize it because it hasn't commonly been part of conventional medical school education. However, in functional medicine, whatever test is best for looking at what might give us clues to the root causes of symptoms is the test worth using. The National Institutes of Health estimates that about 75% of all visits to the doctor are in some way connected to stress, and research cited in the Harvard Business Review has stated that as high as 90% of doctor's visits are stress-related.
Besides stress, hormone imbalances are increasingly common problems as we become more aware of such issues as the rise in endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastics, pesticides and many of the most commonly used personal care and household cleaning products we use every day. In related news, we hear more and more about estrogen dominance all the time, and if you're tuned in, these are ideas you might be considering about your own hormone balance. In addition, many women experience irregular periods or are in the transition between the childbearing years and the menopausal years, with all kinds of symptoms they might associate with hormones fluctuating.
Saliva testing can give a lot of information about what sex hormone balance (or imbalances) might be, as well as what stress hormones are doing over the course of a day. It's an easy test done at home by simply collecting saliva in test tubes at certain times of the day and then submitting the kit in a pre-paid mailer to a lab.
The results typically take about a month to come back, and a follow-up visit with a qualified provider can help interpret what's going on hormonally — both adrenal hormones and sex steroid hormones. Finding out and making changes to lifestyle, diet, targeted nutritional supplements, and (if indicated) bioidentical hormones can make a big difference in how you feel and in reducing your risks for further problems down the road.