Are Ultra Processed Foods Destroying Your Hormones?

70% of the Standard American Diet is made up of processed and ultra-processed foods.

In today's society, it is prevalent to see every 1 in 10 people struggle with hormonal imbalance. However, people with hormone imbalances do not consider how food affects their body's endocrine system, which is the communicator for your body's cells to know where to go and how to respond to specific bodily functions. In today's article, I will explain how processed foods can destroy your hormones.

What about ultra-processed foods so bad?

The main components of processed food are extracts, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, hydrogenated seed oils, sugar, gluten, soy, food coloring, and more. The problem with these ingredients is that they are not recognizable in your body, creating an inflammatory response that raises your blood pressure and blood sugar, leading to plaque buildup and a slowed metabolism. When this is repeated over time, it leads to weight gain, insulin resistance, and more. In addition, eating ultra-processed foods exhausts your digestive system because it does not feed the good bacteria in your gut, so it just leads to destroying the bacteria in there, making it harder for your body to digest food and absorb nutrients, which can lead to leaky gut, food sensitivities, depression, and more.

How does this affect our brains?

Processed foods contain ingredients that affect our brain's ability to retain information and disable our brain's dopamine receptors. These ingredients also cause dysfunction in our insulin hormone, putting our hunger and satiety hormones out of balance and causing us to eat more than we should. This leads to problems like weight gain, diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

A study was conducted where they collected data on nearly 11,000 men and women with a mean age of 52 who took part in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health. During a median follow-up of eight years, participants who ate more than 20% of their daily calories from Ultra-processed foods had a 28% faster decline in global cognition and a 25% decline in executive function.

Over time when we consume foods that contain ingredients that can destroy our brain's ability to think, process, retain, and grow, we begin to open the door for chronic diseases. What ingredients are the worst for our brains? Artificial sweeteners, preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, gluten, refined sugar, and seed oils. The main reason why ultra-processed foods destroy our brain is not all due to the ingredients. It's also because of our mental state when we buy and consume them. Most of the U.S. is emotionally driven towards foods as a stress reliever. These processed foods are marketed to evoke emotion, making them easier to buy when stressed.

So how stressed are you daily, and how much do you base a decision on emotion rather than logic? Put it on a scale of 1-10.

How does it affect our reproductive system?

Ultra-processed foods do not contain the correct nutrients for our bodies to function correctly. Food is meant to provide your body with vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, fiber, and antioxidants; when we do not get enough nutrients, we start to experience hormonal imbalances and vitamin deficiencies.

For fertility and a healthy reproductive system, we must consider what these ingredients can do to a female's cycle and affect a man's testosterone levels. Processed foods contain ingredients that affect our insulin hormone and digestive tract, which correlate with how food is processed in the body. When we consume too much-processed food, it gets switched to Estrogen, especially when it is too much sugar. This produces more visceral fat in men and women, and when Estrogen is too high in men, it kills the integrity of the sperm, and the weight gain for women can cause the ovaries not to function like they need to.

There was a study conducted in 2017 on the correlation between processed foods, weight gain, and neonatal outcomes. The studies concluded that the more weight you put on, the more stress it could put on your body to conceive a baby. In addition, when pregnant, when you do not provide the baby with adequate nutrients, it can be an issue for the baby's metabolism and brain health after it is born. However, we know of no correlation between congenital disabilities with processed foods.

The best scenario for fertility and hormone balance is to focus your energy on whole foods and proper supplementation. The healthier our reproductive system is, the longer we live.

How does this affect our energy?

Our body gets sustainable energy from food, such as amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals. In processed foods, there are no nutrients that will give you the correct amount of nutrients for your function. Processed foods contain mostly refined sugar and seed oils that over-stimulate your insulin hormone, creating insulin resistance. Over time, this raises the risk of diabetes, but it also decreases your body's energy because it slows down the function of your pancreas and floods the brain with too much sugar. The pancreas's job is to get power from food and get it into your body.

How do we know if our hormones are out of balance?

There are a lot of signs and symptoms that will let you know if you are struggling with hormonal imbalances. These hormones can be difficult to pin, but if you catch them early on, they can be much easier to control. If you struggle with any of the following, have your doctor order the correct tests and see if your hormone levels are balanced.

Weight gain if you notice that you consistently have been putting on weight even though you have not changed anything in your diet or exercise, then you could be struggling with a hormonal imbalance. This happens because sometimes, when our body is mentally stressed physically, it will process more Estrogen as a response to the inflammation. In addition, Estrogen is secreted more in pregnant women for the baby's growth. However, even after pregnancy, Estrogen can remain high and drive more weight gain if it is not checked and taken care of healthily.

For men, your testosterone could decrease and be replaced with Estrogen so your body can find balance. I recommend getting your testosterone tested and then asking your health coach or doctor what the best approach is to get your testosterone boosted naturally.

Menstrual cycle out of balance- Each month, women go through a process of phases with their bodies. When it is out of balance, the number of days their cycles run gets off track. For example, a woman may say that their cycle is 28 days one month and then the next it is 35 days. This means that your body cycle is out of balance, which generally means that your hormones are a little out of whack. If you notice particular mood swings, depression, anxiety, and heavy bleeding, that can also tell your hormones are out of whack. I recommend checking with your gynecologist or functional medicine doctor about getting your hormones checked.

Fatigue is a symptom of almost every sickness or problem with the human body, but it is a sign that your hormones can be unbalanced. If you notice that you are noticeably tired throughout the day, even if you get adequate sleep each night, it could be a hormonal imbalance.

Emotional eating- Emotional eating is riven by stress, and when we feel stressed all the time, It drains our adrenal hormones and harms our insulin hormone. So when we notice ourselves eating more emotionally, it could mean that our adrenals and insulin hormone are out of balance.

Constipation- Our gut health is the first place I start with hormones because that is where everything enters and exits the body we consume. When we cannot eliminate toxins or unnecessary energy, it creates a list of issues down the road. When constipates, our body runs off toxic gut bacteria. That leads to conditions like leaky gut, which spill toxins over into our bloodstream leading to infection, SIBO, and many more harmful illnesses and diseases.

How do we Avoid the effects of Ultra Processed foods?

The best way to avoid the effects of processed foods is to avoid them altogether. But if you are on a budget and your family is not easily convincible some of the things that you can do to mitigate the adverse effects of processed foods are the following;

Slowly make changes- When it comes to families, it can be challenging, especially if you are the only one making changes and no one else is putting in the effort. But you can slowly introduce healthier alternatives to their everyday foods. For example, let's say your kids are eating fruity pebbles for breakfast, and you want to change their cereal; you could always switch to magic spoon, a gluten-free, high-protein cereal for kids.

Over time, you can make small incremental changes until you feel your family is consuming quality nutrients in their diet.

Implement cleansing foods- We all enjoy ourselves now and again with good-tasting food. After enjoying ourselves, we have to have a way to cleanse our system and get us back to normal. I always recommend cleansing the important parts of the body. Which include our adrenals, liver, kidneys, pancreas, and digestive system. The best medicine out there is nutrient-dense whole foods; some of the most cleansing foods are as follows:

- Cucumbers (Digestion)

- Celery (Digestion)

- Dandelion root (Digestion)

- Ginger(Digestion)

- Cayenne (All)

- Kale (Digestion)

- Asparagus (Kidney/Liver)

- Beets(Kidney/Liver)

- Turmeric (All)

- Milk thistle (Liver)

- Ashwagandha (Adrenals)

- Rhodiola (Adrenals)

- Maca (Adrenals)

- Holy Basil (Adrenals)

I recommend every three months implement a juice cleanse for 3-5 days to give your body a chance to recover and cleanse itself. After any cleanse, I recommend implementing a good probiotic to help restore any gut bacteria damaged by the processed foods you have been consuming. Also, adding some of these foods and herbs into your daily diet can prevent some of the damage caused by processed foods and set you up for success later. *Any food or herb highlighted are what I would include in your daily diet.

**This is not medical advice; you should consult your doctor before taking any new herbs.

Hormones are challenging to keep in balance especially living in western civilization. There is so much room for error with how our food is made. This is why it is so important just to read labels, stick to the outskirts of the grocery store and minimize your exposure to these harmful foods. The more self-awareness we have, the easier it will be for you and your family to navigate.