I recently started a blog series on balancing hormones naturally. I have five simple solutions I recommend to women who have issues with hormone health. I like to call these Hormone Helpers, and I want to discuss the first one with you today.
Hormone Helper #1: CONSUME FRESH BERRIES EVERYDAY.
Did you know berries (such as blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries) are rich sources of vitamin C? And what’s great about that is research has shown that vitamin C can help regulate your progesterone levels, particularly during the luteal (PMS) phase of your cycle [1]. If you have especially rough PMS, which would occur during your luteal phase, it could be a progesterone imbalance [2].
The solution?
Try doubling down on berries in the days leading up to your period. The vitamin C may help relieve your symptoms. Seems pretty simple, right? You probably won’t find too many people who don’t enjoy berries so adding those to your diet would be easy.
This next helper may not be for everybody, but it could really help improve your hormone health.
And I’ll share it with you next time.
**If you want to know more about nutrition and hormone health, I go in much more detail in my program, Best of You. What you eat has such a profound effect on your body, and especially your hormones, that I spend much more time going over the solutions to better hormone health inside my program.
[1] Henmi, H., Endo, T., Kitajima, Y., Manase, K., Hata, H., & Kudo, R. (2003). Effects of ascorbic acid supplementation on serum progesterone levels in patients with a luteal phase defect. Fertility and sterility, 80(2), 459-461. https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(03)00657-5/fulltext [2] Kolatorova L, Vitku J, Suchopar J, Hill M, Parizek A. Progesterone: A Steroid with Wide Range of Effects in Physiology as Well as Human Medicine. Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Jul 20;23(14):7989. doi: 10.3390/ijms23147989. PMID: 35887338; PMCID: PMC9322133.
