Blog — estrogen

How Hormones Influence Your Mood

Posted by Behcet Bicakci on

Hormones are like the body's messengers, orchestrating various physiological processes. While they play essential roles in growth, metabolism, and reproduction, they also have a profound impact on your mood and emotions. The delicate balance of hormones can sway your emotional state, leading to mood swings, irritability, or even mood disorders. In this blog, we'll explore the intricate relationship between hormones and mood changes. 1. The Key Mood-Modulating Hormones Several hormones have a direct influence on your mood:a. Serotonin: Often referred to as the "feel-good" hormone, serotonin plays a crucial role in regulating mood. Low serotonin levels are associated with depression,...

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Perimenopause, Symptoms and Treatment

Posted by Ben White on

Perimenopause, also known as the menopausal transition, is a natural and normal part of a woman's life. It refers to the years leading up to menopause, which is defined as the point at which a woman has not had a menstrual period for 12 consecutive months. Perimenopause typically begins in a woman's 40s but can start as early as the mid-30s. During perimenopause, the body's production of estrogen and progesterone, two hormones essential to a woman's reproductive system, begins to decline. This decline can cause a range of symptoms, including hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, sleep disturbances, vaginal dryness,...

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When Labs Aren’t Everything

Posted by Ben White on

Written By Dr Allison McAllister It’s an everyday occurrence when someone calls the doc line at the lab and wants to know how they can change the labs to improve their patients’ symptoms. However, it’s important to take a step back and look at what labs can tell us. While it’s true that abnormal lab findings can contribute to symptoms – high thyroid-stimulating hormone reflects hypothyroidism, high testosterone reflects polycystic ovary syndrome, and hyperandrogenism or low cortisol may contribute to fatigue. Yet, in many other conditions, labs reflect the medical condition happening in that patient’s body and not a cause...

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How Your Hormones Affect Athletic Performance and Why You Need to Start Testing

Posted by Ben White on

By Dr. Zane Hauck, ZRT Laboratory Growing up, I never thought of myself as a runner, or really a good athlete in general. I played every sport possible as a kid, but I was never great and didn’t play high school sports. As an adult, I started playing team sports again and eventually was convinced to run a 5k. I ended up running the Warrior Dash and enjoyed it, so I continued doing 3.2-mile training runs. For the rest of my 20s I continued running 5k races with friends and played volleyball, softball, and some casual intramural sports, but was...

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Topical Progesterone, Not Synthetic Progestins or Oral Progesterone, Should Be Considered as a Companion for Estradiol Replacement Therapy

Posted by Ben White on

By Dr.David Zava, ZRT Laboratory In 2002 several large-scale clinical studies were published on the risks of breast cancer in postmenopausal women using conventional FDA-approved hormone therapy. These were the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) and Million Women’s studies of women using FDA-approved estrogens and progestogens in the United States and Great Britain, respectively [1,2]. Both studies came to the same conclusion – that estrogen therapy, mostly in the form of oral conjugated equine estrogens, by itself did not significantly increase the risk of breast cancer and, to the surprise of many, was associated with a lower risk. However, when estrogen was...

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