Having too much oestrogen can lead to a small increase in your risk of some serious conditions such as blood clots, stroke and gallbladder inflammation. Having too little oestrogen can cause problems such as osteoporosis and symptoms of menopause. Speak to your doctor if you are concerned about any of these conditions.
Estrogen helps protect the heart from disease, potentially by maintaining higher levels of good cholesterol, called high-density lipoprotein (HDL), in your blood. Lower estrogen levels, especially during menopause, can increase your risk of developing heart disease.
Too little estrogen can lead to a low sex drive. Too much of it can cause infertility and erectile dysfunction. Excessive estrogen can cause gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts.
Summary. High estrogen levels can cause symptoms such as irregular or heavy periods, weight gain, fatigue, and fibroids in females. In males, they can cause breast tissue growth, erectile dysfunction, and infertility.
Estrogen therapy can help decrease your risk of certain health conditions, including osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, dementia and mood changes.
When estrogen is balanced, the right amount of fat helps carry out female reproductive functions. However, when there's too little or too much estrogen, weight gain often results. Overweight women typically have high amounts of estrogen, as do women in the first half of pregnancy.
Estrogen can reduce menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. If you have a uterus, you'll likely need to take progesterone along with the estrogen. Estrogen without progesterone increases the risk of uterine cancer.
And changes in these hormones can sometimes result in unexpected — and uncontrollable — weight gain. A few examples include: Estrogen shifts. During menopause, a decrease in estrogen is linked to lower muscle mass and increased fat stores for women, usually around the midsection.
Studies have found that a pear-shaped body is related to excessive oestrogen. This condition is called oestrogen dominance. Too much oestrogen has been linked to fat accumulation in the abdominal area, leading to more weight at the hips and, thus, a pear-shaped body.
30 to 400 pg/mL for premenopausal women. 0 to 30 pg/mL for postmenopausal women. 10 to 50 pg/mL for men.
Estrogen acts everywhere in the body, including the parts of the brain that control emotion. Some of estrogen's effects include: Increasing serotonin, and the number of serotonin receptors in the brain. Modifying the production and the effects of endorphins, the "feel-good" chemicals in the brain.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center study involving postmenopausal, overweight, and obese women who took 2,000 IUs of vitamin D daily for a year found that those whose vitamin D blood levels increased the most had the greatest reductions in blood estrogens, which are a known risk factor for breast cancer.
Fatigue and Sleep Issues
Estrogen is intimately linked to serotonin, and serotonin makes melatonin. Melatonin is the primary sleep hormone. This means, if you've been sleeping less and feeling fatigued, you could have low estrogen.
Unopposed estrogen is called estrogen dominance in some medical literature. Without progesterone's balancing influence, estrogen can work overtime in your body and cause cell overgrowths, like tumors in your uterine lining.
How Estrogen Replacement Therapy Can Help with Belly Fat During Menopause. Recent studies show that menopausal women on hormone therapy tend to have less body fat, especially visceral belly fat. Because estrogen affects how your body distributes fat, low estrogen levels can contribute to gaining fat in your belly area.
“Women also become more estrogen-dominant as we move into perimenopause and beyond. Estrogen dominance promotes insulin resistance, which causes the belly fat build-up,” she says.
Many women also notice an increase in belly fat as they get older — even if they aren't gaining weight. This is likely due to a decreasing level of estrogen, which appears to influence where fat is distributed in the body.
Estrogen is related to hair growth — and hair loss. During pregnancy, for example, a woman's estrogen levels are higher than normal, which signals more hair follicles to "grow" and fewer to "rest." While estrogen levels are high, women have full, thick hair.
Depletion of estrogen can increase the risk of cardiovascular issues, such as heart attacks, strokes, or other heart-related problems. Other issues can interfere with organ function, skin, urinary, bone and reproductive organs, and may cause serious problems if left untreated.
Estrogen appears to aid in the prevention of skin aging in several ways. This reproductive hormone prevents a decrease in skin collagen in postmenopausal women; topical and systemic estrogen therapy can increase the skin collagen content and therefore maintain skin thickness.
“High-estradiol women were considered significantly more physically attractive by themselves and others,” Durante and colleagues wrote. The high-estrogen women also reported more sexual behavior -- especially outside of a relationship, although it was not linked to one-night stands.