Hormones in our food

[manijhe]

Women in my country are born with beautiful hair and skin. But slowly after our teens and even 14 years of age, we start developing thick body and facial hair, along with acne.

We are prone to irregular menstruation cycles and I want to understand each thing one by one that is related to this: starting with food. How can we avoid this by understanding our food as one of the many reasons that make our skin and hair not the way they should be?

We eat a lot of meat. Our people don't believe that eating less meat or being vegetarian can help the hormonal balance to make our periods' cycle regular, our skin healthy, and body hair normal. I want to know if meat eaters should be looking out for hormone injected animals or is it the same if we were to grow up eating vegetables?

How can we help this hormonal imbalance?

[chemistry_freako]

Hmm, thick body and facial hair?

Not sure how to answer your questions, but i'm interested in finding out where you hail from though.

[Dr.Stein]

Hair growth, acne, and mestrual cycle are regulated by gonad hormones with a feed back to gonadotropin. Steroid including fat and cholesterol is the source for biosynthesis of gonad hormones, while certain protein is the source for biosynthesis gonadotropin. Another nutrients, could be protein or lipid, work to facilitate these biosynthesis.

[victor]

Besides, I think that certain food product have a chemically structured molecules that resemble those sex hormone.....so, even though our body could maintain a constant level of those sex hormones, a big supply of sex-hormone-like-molecules in every ingestion must've causing some kinda hormonal "excecss" in our body..

[manijhe]

My skin specialist suggested that my body is producing more male hormones than female hormones. I am female.. so I don't understand what this means..what do gonad hormones have to do with female/male hormones production or balance?

Dr.Stein, are you saying that fat and cholesterol should be included in women's diet for the biosynthesis of gonad hormones and protein for the biosynthesis of gonadotropin?

Should women look for a special women's diet to ensure all these foods are being taken in correct proportion? Where can we find such a diet?

[manijhe]

Chemistry-freako, I'm a south asian woman.

[Dr.Stein]

My skin specialist suggested that my body is producing more male hormones than female hormones. I am female.. so I don't understand what this means..what do gonad hormones have to do with female/male hormones production or balance?

Hmm... You can check your androgen level in lab clinic to make sure this statement. If you got positive result (your androgen level is significantly higher than normal), please check your LH & FSH level too. The high level of gonadal hormone(s) can be caused by the excessive production within gonad itself or due to feedback from pituitary. If both androgen and LH & FSH are normal, then check your aromatase. It could be your body produces normal androgen but less enzyme to convert it into estradiol.

Dr.Stein, are you saying that fat and cholesterol should be included in women's diet for the biosynthesis of gonad hormones and protein for the biosynthesis of gonadotropin?

Yes.

Should women look for a special women's diet to ensure all these foods are being taken in correct proportion? Where can we find such a diet?

ABSOLUTELY! What should be avoid is excessive LDL or "bad cholesterol", which can disturb body system. This is NOT just for female, but also male. Please don't do special diet without consultation to expert. Do diet by avoiding carbohydrate and fat just for beautiful body performance is NONSENSE! You undoubfully need those nutrients, the only thing you need is to keep the proportion to anticipate extra storage within your body. I can't stand to see a skinny female only eats three spoonfuls of rice and some veggies, avoiding milk and meat because want to be sexy. Or females eat much but then (sorry) throw it up again in bathroom. That's stupid, very.

[keef]

wait. i thought hormone=proteins? and if so, wouldn't it be digested when we eat them?

[MrMistery]

sexual hormones are not proteins. not all hormones are proteins. some are peptides, glycoproteins, amino acid derivatives, fatty acid derivatives and steroids.
sex hormones are steroids so...

[Dr.Stein]

Yeah, Andrei is correct, he explains the nature of hormones in detail. Basically, hormones can be classified into two main groups: steroid (alcohol soluble) and protein (water soluble).

[MrMistery]

grr doc.. where do you put prostaglandins?

[Dr.Stein]

Prostaglandin is NOT hormone. It is hormone-like, which is secreted NOT by endocrine glands.

We have three kinds of "hormone":
1. True-hormone, which is secreted by endocrine glands
2. Neurohormone, which is secreted by neurons
3. Hormone-like, which is secreted by neither endocrine glands nor neurons.