Have you ever wondered what your hormones are actually doing to your health?
Persistent belly fat, depression and mood swings, sleep issues, PMS, irregular periods, fatigue, brain fog and low motivation could indicate that your hormones are out of whack. But rather than guessing your hormone status, functional hormone test could help to identify what’s really going on with the hormones and what impact these could have on your health.
There are many hormone tests available, blood, saliva and urine.
Blood Test- Measures the hormones present in the serum. It does not measure bio-available hormones and the metabolites. It provides a snapshot view.
Saliva - Easy to do and can be useful to test free cortisol (stress hormone) however doesn’t measure bound hormones. It also doesn’t measure metabolised cortisol or how much your body is actually making cortisol.
Dried Urine test – 24-hour urine test is one of the most reliable methods to evaluate the production of steroid hormones and their metabolites. Choose 24-hour urine test rather than one single urine test because the latter doesn’t measure individual differences in hormone secretion and only provides a snapshot view.
I recently had my own hormones tested with DUTCH test and got some interesting results. Now it’s not a language test but stands for Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones. DUTCH test is a simple yet advanced which analyses 35 different hormones (sex and adrenal hormones and their metabolites), giving a comprehensive picture of your current hormonal health.
Benefits of the DUTCH test:
1. For women who show signs of hormonal imbalance; do you suffer from irregular or painful periods, PMS, fatigue, mood swings, weight gain, chronic stress or going through perimenopause or menopause, the test is beneficial as it gives a full picture of your hormone levels and how your body is processing these.
2. Gives a comprehensive look at your cortisol and shows a detailed cortisol pattern; free cortisol, diurnal pattern and its metabolites. Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands in response to stressors (emotional, mental and physical stressors). Chronically elevated cortisol can suppress immune system, increase anxiety, insomnia, contribute to weight gain around the belly, inflammation, skin issues and increases the risk of chronic disease.
3. It measures how you are processing oestrogen. The body has to eliminate its used oestrogen which is done primarily by liver via 2-hydroxylation and 4- and 16-hydroxylation pathways. 2-OH pathway metabolites were associated with reduced breast cancer risk (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5313342/) while 4-OH metabolites have been associated with an increase risk of breast cancer.
I also use other functional tests at my practice to analyse - food intolerances, heavy metals, mineral & vitamin deficiencies and gut issues (stool analysis).
Click here if you would like more information about the tests: