Taking estrogen, often via Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for menopause, significantly reduces hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal symptoms (dryness, itching, pain), while also protecting against osteoporosis (bone loss) and potentially lowering risks for heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers, plus improving mood, sleep, brain function, and muscle strength, especially if menopause occurs early. It replaces declining hormone levels, alleviating many disruptive menopausal symptoms and improving long-term health, but requires a doctor's guidance due to individual risks and benefits.
Estrogen may protect women from cardiovascular disease in part through modification of the lipid profile. Premenopausal women have reduced LDL and elevated HDL cholesterol compared with men.
What are the symptoms of low estrogen levels?
Estrogen therapy may help lower your risk of some health conditions caused by low estrogen, such as osteoporosis, heart disease, dementia and mood changes.
Research has shown that HRT can help reduce how much belly fat you build up (a side effect of the drop in estrogen), but the way it helps you lose weight is often indirect by improving your sleep, mood, and joint pain.
Most people lose weight on HRT between 3 and 6 months, with earlier changes (sleep, mood, energy) often starting in weeks. These early improvements make weight loss more achievable and more sustainable long term.
What does a hormonal belly look like? A hormonal belly typically appears as accumulated fat around your waist, typically towards your lower waist. There are a few tell-tale signs that this excess weight is due to hormonal causes: You're only gaining weight around your abdomen.
Side effects of taking oestrogen can include: headaches. breast pain or tenderness. unexpected vaginal bleeding or spotting.
The fall in the amount of oestrogen your body produces can cause symptoms including hot flushes, low mood and vaginal dryness or irritation. Taking oestrogen as a form of HRT restores your levels of oestrogen and helps to relieve these symptoms.
These lower hormone levels cause a number of health issues throughout your body: Brain and nervous system – You experience a mix of physical and emotional symptoms like mood swings, memory loss, irritability, hot flashes, fatigue, night sweats, anxiety, and depression.
Thinning: The skin becomes visibly thinner, making blood vessels more apparent and you might even notice that you bruise more easily. Wrinkles: Fine lines appear more pronounced, especially around the eyes and mouth.. Sagging: Loss of firmness in the jawline and cheeks.
If you have low estrogen, you may experience symptoms including hot flashes and night sweats, mood swings, brain fog and memory problems, vaginal dryness, and more.
If estrogen levels are low, it is possible to increase them without taking hormones. Natural ways to increase estrogen include adding more vitamin D, magnesium, phytoestrogens, and boron to your diet, managing stress, exercising regularly, and getting enough quality sleep.
Estrogen is often considered the “beauty hormone” due to its positive effects on skin. It plays a vital role in: Collagen production: Estrogen helps maintain skin thickness and elasticity by stimulating collagen production, which keeps skin firm and youthful.
In the first two weeks of your cycle (follicular phase and ovulation), your oestrogen levels increase, associated with higher energy levels. In the third week of your cycle (luteal phase), your oestrogen levels drop, so it's associated with lower energy levels.
As a girl approaches her teen years, the first visible signs of breast development begin. When the ovaries start to make and release (secrete) estrogen, fat in the connective tissue starts to collect. This causes the breasts to enlarge.
Dopamine, the hormone responsible for making us feel good. If we are able to achieve our body shape or weight goals, this hormone will be produced in greater quantities.
You may experience some breast tenderness, vaginal bleeding or spotting, or some abdominal bloating in the first few weeks after starting estrogen and progesterone treatments. If taking progesterone, you may also notice a dip or change in your mood initially.
Estrogen reduces feelings of warmth in the upper body and periods of sweating and heat (hot flashes), vaginal symptoms (itching, burning, and dryness) and difficulty with urination. Progestin is added to estrogen in hormone replacement therapy to reduce the risk of uterine cancer in women who still have their uterus.
But sometimes, they think not prescribing hormone replacement therapy is the right decision, due to outdated research. “The most common reason doctors are hesitant to prescribe HRT is that in 2002, the Women's Health Initiative released a study citing a link between HRT and breast cancer,” says Dr. Carothers.
Scientific research confirms that we do age faster when estrogen levels decline, particularly during menopause. Studies show that lower estrogen accelerates biological aging by approximately 6%, with early menopause adding up to one extra biological year.
As you get older, and particularly after the age of 60, the risks of HRT may start to outweigh the benefits. This is because you'll usually find that menopause symptoms improve as you get older, so you're less likely to need HRT to help with symptoms.
Mood swings are another effect of low estrogen. You may feel sad, anxious, or frustrated. Shifting hormone levels and night sweats may disrupt your sleep. This can cause fatigue, which may make mood swings worse.
“Menopause hormone therapy (MHT) does not cause weight gain and can, in an indirect way, help with weight loss. MHT can help women sleep better, have more energy and fewer negative mood changes and less joint pain – all of which support weight loss efforts.
Here are 9 signs your hormones may be out of whack: