Did you know women on average use nine personal care products each day containing 126 different chemicals? Does this sound like someone you know if so read on…
Common personal care products such as sun cream, lotions, potions, shampoo and makeup contain chemicals that can disrupt your hormones. Have you heard of phthalates, paraben or BPA? Well, some of these are listed as the worst chemical offenders by the Environmental Working Group and can also found in cleaning products, non-stick cookware, plastics, pesticides, herbicides, and meat of congenitally farmed animals.
These sneaky chemicals mimic your naturally occurring hormones. They occupy hormone receptor sites on cells – so your own hormones can’t – potentially causing overproduction or underproduction of actual hormones. You might have heard of the word Xenoestrogen. “Xeno” means foreign so it makes sense that you have a chemical imposter that is on a mission to increase your “bad” estrogen leading to estrogen dominance.
These chemicals are stored in your fat cells and can hang around for a long time wreaking havoc with your hormones. More than 85% of women experience estrogen dominance especially in menopause, when levels of estrogen can be much higher relative to progesterone. It’s one of the main reasons why you could be going crazy with PMS, mood swings, skin problems, painful breasts and excessive waist gain. Alarmingly, oestrogen dominance are implicated in fibroids, endometriosis, fibrocystic breast disease and breast cancer.
Put simply, excess estrogen comes from faulty metabolism and elimination of the bad type of oestrogen plus absorbing chemicals from air, food, water, our soil, and what we put on our skin with catastrophic consequences for our weight and health. The more estrogen we have the more fat we store and the more fat we carry the more estrogen we produce – a vicious cycle.
So let’s break the cycle and reduce your chemical body burden by choosing cleaner, greener consumer products and organic food whenever possible.