Christina Najjar

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7 Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Hormone Disruptors

February 7, 2017 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

In last week’s post, I talked about how we’re surrounded by hormone disruptors called xenoestrogens. These hormone disruptors can be your worst enemy if you struggle with PMS, PCOS, endometriosis, or infertility.

Main sources of xenoestrogens include plastic, pesticides, and parabens (preservatives for cosmetics and household products). Thankfully, there are all kinds of things you can do to reduce your exposure to these hormone disruptors.

7 Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Hormone Disruptors (Xenoestrogens)

7 Ways to Reduce Your Exposure to Hormone Disruptors

Switch to glass

Are you drinking out of plastic bottles, or storing your food in plastic containers? The softer the plastic, the more it leaches into your food and water. Consider using mason jars. They’re great storage for soups, curries and stews. They can also double as a water bottle, so no need to buy a fancy bottle!

For more solid foods, consider getting glass storage containers that can also double as oven cookware. If glass is too heavy for your needs, try stainless steel containers.

Use cloth produce bags

How many produce bags do you use per grocery trip? As your produce sits in these bags, it picks up some of the unwanted particles in the plastic. Try bringing your own cloth or mesh bags to the grocery store. As an added bonus, it’s also more environmentally friendly.

Buy organic

Pesticides are one of the worst offenders, when it comes to hormone disruptors. The best way to avoid or reduce pesticides is to buy organic. But when that fails, refer to the EWG’s Clean Fifteen and Dirty Dozen to decide on which produce you can safely eat conventional, and where you really should invest in organic.

Make your own hair products

Think of all the products you use on your skin and scalp. Between shampoos, conditioners, soaps, hair gels, deodorants, facial cleansers, moisturisers, night creams… Without even discussing makeup, you may already be using a wide variety of products that are less than friendly to your hormones.

The good news is that most hair products can be made quite easily with natural ingredients you just may already have in your home. Try recipes for flax hair gel, facial cleanser, or shampoo. If you want to make your hair care routine easier, you can also try the baking soda and apple cider vinegar method.

Switch to cleaner makeup

Most people know that clean makeup brands exist. The challenge is figuring out which brands of natural makeup actually make products you’ll want to use. There’s no way I’m going to walk around looking like a raccoon because my natural mascara can’t stay on all day.

Some of my favourite brands include Pacifica, Mineral Fusion, and Earth’s Beauty. And trust me, I’ve tried A LOT of different brands of natural makeup.

Clean with vinegar and essential oils

Rather than spending lots of money on cleaning products that are completely loaded with hormone disruptors, you can easily make your own for much cheaper.

All you need is water, white vinegar, and essential oils. Using these three ingredients in different concentrations, you can make cleaners for most surfaces.

Drink clean water

Did you know that tap water only filters out certain contaminants? Several thousands of contaminants could potentially be in the water. The City of Ottawa (where I live) only checks for 300 contaminants.

While some decent filters like Mavea and Santevia exist, they still don’t manage to filter out all contaminants. And don’t waste your money on a Brita filter, because it doesn’t do much that your city’s filtration system doesn’t already do. That is, if you live somewhere where the water is safe to drink.

To ensure that you have access to really clean water, consider installing a reverse osmosis filter in your home or choosing distilled water. However, make sure that you’re remineralizing that water, or you may end up with mineral deficiencies.

Disclaimer: The provided links may be affiliate links. Opinions are all my own. Any money received through these links will go back into this website to support the hours of work that go into weekly posts. Thank you for your support.

How do you reduce your exposure to hormone disruptors? Tell us in the comments!

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: endometriosis, hormonal health, hormones, infertility, inflammation, menstruation, PCOS, PMS, women's health

All About PCOS: Testing, Root Causes, and Management

January 3, 2017 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

You may have noticed that on this website, I gear many posts toward PMS and PCOS. I recently realized I had never really talked about these issues on their own. While most of the menstruating population is familiar with PMS, PCOS or Polycystic Ovary Syndrome is a bit of a lesser known issue.

The two syndromes are often grouped together because they tend to stem from the same roots. In fact, there is a big overlap of symptoms in the two conditions. For instance, acne, mood swings, and cramping are common in both. However, with PCOS, it’s not uncommon to see worse cramps, uncontrollable weight gain, hair growth on atypical places like the face or belly, missed periods, and infertility.

All About PCOS: testing, root causes, and management

Testing for PCOS

To be diagnosed with PCOS, you must present with at least two of these three characteristics:

1. High levels of androgens, the hormones that males typically produce in higher amounts than females (such as testosterone)
2. Irregular ovulation or lack of ovulation
3. Ovarian cysts

You may have noticed that this means that you can be diagnosed with a condition whose name implies ovarian cysts, without actually having cysts. This is because back in the day, as soon as doctors found ovarian cysts, the diagnosis was slapped on. And you can have ovarian cysts without having PCOS.

Unfortunately, some doctors still jump to a diagnosis as soon as they find cysts without further investigating. And conversely, if they don’t find cysts, some may decide that everything is normal.

Before anything can be determined, a hormonal panel should be carried out through a blood test or saliva test, and an ultrasound should be scheduled to look for ovarian cysts.

Root causes

PCOS can develop for many different reasons. While this is still under research, a few possible causes have already been determined.

Insulin resistance

You’ve probably heard of insulin before. It’s that hormone that tells your cells to take in sugar when there’s too much sugar in your blood. However, when insulin has to knock on the cell’s door day-in and day-out, the cell becomes desensitized to insulin. Your body responds by secreting more and more insulin so that your cells can continue to respond.

High levels of insulin actually send a message to your ovaries to produce more testosterone and stop ovulating normally. Those whose PCOS is rooted in insulin resistance tend to be the ones who experience uncontrollable weight gain, acne, and facial hair growth.

Inflammation

Chronic inflammation can also interfere with normal ovulation. Inflammation uses up a lot of your body’s resources. When there aren’t enough resources to go around, the body becomes choosy in how it spends those resources.

Because the reproductive system isn’t needed for immediate survival, it’s the first system to be cut. Your body especially doesn’t want to share limited resources with a second human life. Therefore, your body makes it difficult to conceive.

Hormonal birth control

When stopping birth control pill, many people notice that it takes several months for their period to come back. Others find that their period doesn’t start again on its own.

This happens because when taking synthetic hormones for years on end, your body “forgets” how to get your hormones back on track.

Hormone disruptors

Our environment is loaded with hormone disruptors. Tap water, plastics, cleaning products, and cosmetics all contain compounds that can mess with hormones. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that that’s bad for you.

As hormone levels become wonky, cysts can develop, and periods can become less and less frequent.

Odds are that those with PCOS don’t only have a single one of these factors. All of these factors can combine in different ways to create different types of PCOS. These different types all manifest themselves differently. This can make PCOS particularly difficult to identify in some cases.

Management of PCOS

Typical mainstream treatment of PCOS involves taking hormonal birth control to mask symptoms. However, these symptoms return when coming off the birth control. In fact, quite often, they are worse than before starting birth control methods.

In cases of insulin resistance, many doctors prescribe Metformin, a medication for Type 2 Diabetes.

An often overlooked component of PCOS management is diet. Diet impacts how our bodies produce hormones, and how we react to the hormones in our bodies. Additionally, in cases of insulin resistance, changing the diet can make a world of difference. And finally, while it may not be possible to fully eliminate hormone disruptors from your environment, your diet can affect how your body processes them.

While there is no one-size-fits all diet for PCOS, certain changes seem to show consistent results. Gluten, dairy, and sugar are the most inflammatory components of the Standard American Diet. By eliminating these 3 ingredients, your body is better equipped to do some repairs to reduce inflammation.

In order to keep blood sugar levels stable to reduce insulin resistance, it’s important to eat healthy fats and good quality protein with each meal. And finally, make sure to eat a generous portion of vegetables with every meal. Yes, even breakfast. You’ll find tips on including vegetables with breakfast here.

Do you struggle with menstrual issues? Click the button below to join the FREE Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis group on Facebook.
Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: hormonal health, hormones, inflammation, insulin resistance, PCOS, PMS

7 Easy Ways to Eat More Healthy Fats

November 29, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

Almost everyone would benefit from adding more healthy fats to their diet. This is especially true for those with conditions where blood sugar levels fluctuate a lot, such as PCOS and diabetes. Fats from healthy sources help slow down your body’s absorption of sugars in your food. They also help your cells better listen to your hormones.

Use the following tips to increase your intake of healthy fats. And don’t worry about possibly gaining weight. Healthy fats have too many functions in your body to simply be stored as fat for future energy (unlike unhealthy fats).

7 Easy ways to eat more healthy fats

Add nut butters to smoothies

Are you making smoothies for breakfast or after workouts? Use a chocolate protein powder and add a tablespoon of nut butter to make it nut butter cup flavoured. Alternatively, you can add a tablespoon of chia seeds, hemp hearts, or coconut oil to your smoothies to boost the fat content.

Put a dollop of coconut oil or sesame oil to your food

Planning to make a stir fry or steam some vegetables? Sauté or steam your dish with water, and add some coconut oil or sesame oil at the end for extra flavour. Waiting until the end to add the fats will keep them in their healthy form.

Include some avocado on your plate

Making a meal that just doesn’t require fat? Add some avocado slices to your plate as a side. Some vitamins can only be absorbed when consumed with fat. Because avocados can be expensive, all you need is 1/4 or 1/2 of an avocado.

Yolks have healthy fats!

Are you eating egg white omelettes to boost your protein while keeping cholesterol down? Eating more cholesterol won’t increase your cholesterol levels. Your body produces most of its cholesterol for hormones, and as a protective mechanism. Egg yolks not only have healthy fats, but they’re also incredibly nutrient dense.

Eat a handful of almonds

If you’re looking at your plate and see nothing but vegetables, lean protein, and/or grains, save a bit of room for a handful of almonds. You don’t need much – 10 almonds or so will do.

Take a fish oil

A good quality fish oil is a great supplement for most people. It’s an anti-inflammatory, it helps anxiety, depression concentration, diabetes, hormonal issues, and makes skin and hair healthier. It’s also a natural blood thinner, so it should be avoided if already taking blood thinners. If your meal is lacking healthy fats, take a teaspoon of fish oil with your meal.

Make a dip for vegetables

Are you eating vegetables without fats? As previously mentioned, some nutrients can only be absorbed into your body if eaten with fats. Make an easy dip for your vegetables by combining tahini with lemon, or make hummus or a curry dip.

Which strategies are you using to boost the healthy fat content of your meals?

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, blood sugar balance, candida, diabetes, digestion, healthy fats, inflammation, PCOS, PMS, weight loss

You Absolutely Should Not Ignore Your PMS Symptoms

November 15, 2016 by Christina Najjar Leave a Comment

When you spend a lot of time studying a subject, it’s easy to think that everyone knows what you know about that subject. I find PMS fascinating because you can learn a lot about a person’s health simply by looking at their PMS symptoms. I had forgotten that most of those who experience PMS simply see it as an inconvenience or a dreaded time of the month.

Why you shouldn't ignore PMS symptoms

In reality, PMS is so much more than a pain or an inconvenience. It’s actually a red flag for health. This is easy to forget because according to the latest estimates, as many as 85% of the menstruating population experiences PMS symptoms of some kind.

This figure is alarming, especially when you think of what PMS can indicate. But it should come as no surprise as the rates of infertility, cancer, and autoimmune diseases rise.

I’ve mentioned before how PMS is highly connected to adrenal fatigue and digestive issues. However, I feel that it’s important to talk about what happens if these two main roots of PMS aren’t addressed.

Adrenal fatigue to PMS to cancer?

Adrenal fatigue is what happens to your body when you’ve been stressed for too long. Your adrenal glands produce many hormones in your body, including your stress hormones and sexual hormones.

When you’re consistently stressed, your body spends a lot of resources on stress hormones, especially cortisol. After a while, your body has to start choosing between producing cortisol and other hormones, such as progesterone. When cortisol and progesterone have to compete, cortisol tends to come out on top.

But even then, adrenal glands eventually run out of resources to support cortisol production. When adrenal fatigue has fully set in, both progesterone and cortisol levels can be too low.

Low progesterone is often behind PMS symptoms like cramps and dark blood at the beginning and/or the end of your period.

So how does that tie in to cancer?

Our cells use our DNA as instructions for everyday protein synthesis. Sometimes, mistakes pop up in our DNA, and that’s completely normal. Usually, the body fixes these mistakes when we relax. But when we are in a constant state of stress, the body cannot fix these mistakes. Our cells end up reading instructions to produce cancerous cells, instead.

PMS itself is not the cause of cancer. PMS warns us that something is malfunctioning somewhere. Popping a painkiller when your cramps hit will not address the potential adrenal fatigue. And, if that adrenal fatigue is ignored, the long term stress could just be the beginning of a tumour.

PMS and autoimmune diseases

The organisms in our gut play a large role in our overall health. In a healthy individual, the friendly organisms should highly outnumber the unfriendly organisms. But when they don’t, the unhealthy guys can takeover and cause just about any health issue you can think of.

When the liver deactivates excess estrogen, it needs to pass through the bowels to leave the body. When there are a lot of unfriendly organisms in the gut, they intercept that estrogen and reactivate it to pass it through the body again.

This is an issue because estrogen needs to be balanced out by progesterone. When there is too much estrogen, or what is called an estrogen dominance, it’s as if progesterone levels were too low. And as you know, low progesterone can equate to PMS symptoms.

So where do autoimmune diseases come in?

The disproportion of good to bad organisms in the gut can have all kinds of repercussions. An excess in unfriendly organisms can make the existing pores in the gut lining larger than they should be. These large pores then begin to let large particles into the bloodstream. Because those particles don’t belong there, the immune system has to launch repeated attacks.

An immune system that keeps having to work overtime can become very tired. Usually, the immune system knows how to recognize the body’s cells as its own. But, as it becomes tired, it starts to make mistakes, and can attack the body’s cells. This is what is known as autoimmunity.

So once again, PMS is not the cause of the bigger issue, but shares a root cause with that issue. So, while PMS is a pain in the butt, it’s a fantastic indicator of what’s going on in the body!

PMS symptoms as a warning sign of infertility

Your body has a lot of mechanisms that are necessary for immediate survival. In fact, the only body system that isn’t absolutely necessary to keep you alive is your reproductive system. When your body can’t come up with enough resources to run all its processes, the reproductive system is usually the first to misbehave.

As mentioned above, PMS is often a symptom of other important imbalances in the body. These imbalances often result in hormonal levels that are less than optimal. Because the female reproductive cycle is very delicate, it doesn’t take much to turn conception into a challenge.

As I keep repeating (like a broken record!), low progesterone levels are responsible for many PMS symptoms. In order to conceive naturally, you need to ovulate. Ovulation happens when progesterone levels begin to rise. But if your body can’t produce sufficient progesterone, it may struggle to ovulate.

I hope I’m helping you understand why you absolutely should not ignore your PMS symptoms. PMS is not just a monthly inconvenience. It’s a nice and loud message from your body.

Do you struggle with menstrual issues? Click the button below to join the FREE Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis group on Facebook.
Nutrition for PMS, PCOS, and endometriosis

Filed Under: Articles & Tips Tagged With: adrenal fatigue, cancer, digestion, IBS, infertility, inflammation, PCOS, PMS

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