Estrogen is a hormone produced by women's bodies to serve several purposes, the most important of which is enabling women to bear children. Maintaining a good estrogen balance is crucial for a woman's overall health, and can impact your risk of infertility, hair loss, osteoporosis and cancer. You should aim to keep your hormone levels even by eating a well-rounded diet, and avoiding fatty and sugary foods.
Fertility
Estrogen is primarily produced in the ovaries, but almost a third is produced in fat cells. Your body uses fat cells to process male hormones into estrogen, a necessary hormone for successful conception. It is important to maintain a healthy weight, since women who are overweight produce too much estrogen, while those who are underweight produce too little. Too much or too little estrogen can lead to infertility. To help maintain a healthy weight and avoid estrogen overproduction, make sure you are consuming a balanced diet, low in trans and saturated fats, with plenty of fruits and vegetables. However, to ensure you are able to produce sufficient estrogen, do consume some good fats, particularly healthy, unsaturated fats, like those in olive oil and fish.
Hair Loss Prevention
The American Academy of Family Physicians reports that women who do not have the proper balance between the hormones androgen and estrogen may experience excessive hair loss. Many women experience hair loss post-pregnancy. During pregnancy, your body maintains higher-than-normal levels of hormones, leading your body to keep hair that it would normally shed. When your estrogen level returns to normal after pregnancy, your extra hair falls out. However, an imbalance in estrogen levels can also cause hair loss in other women, which hormonal treatments may help prevent.
Osteoporosis Prevention
Your estrogen balance contributes to your bone health. When your body goes through menopause, it begins to greatly reduce estrogen production. This lack of estrogen can cause your bones to begin losing mass, causing osteoporosis, or thinning bone density. Your bones weaken, and your risk of fractures and breakages -- and the complications accompanying broken bones -- are greatly increased. One prevention and treatment method for osteoporosis is hormone replacement therapy, in which doctors administer estrogen through a pill or patch to balance out your hormone levels.
Cancer Prevention
The balance of estrogen in your body also impacts your risk of endometrial cancer. Your ovaries actually produce two hormones, estrogen and progesterone, and the balance of these two hormones contributes to the health of your endometrium, the lining of your uterus. After menopause, you no longer produce progesterone, but your fat cells still produce slight amounts of estrogen. In addition, estrogen therapies that treat menopause symptoms raise your estrogen levels, while your progesterone levels remain low. Either of these causes leads to an imbalance in estrogen, raising the risk of endometrial cancer.
