Estrogen is a natural hormone found in both sexes. Keeping estrogen at a healthy level is important for everyone, but cisgender women need more estrogen to maintain fertility and menstrual cycles. Estrogen naturally fluctuates in your child-bearing years and decreases during menopause, which can negatively affect your mood, sexual desire, bone health, and more. In this article, we’ll explore natural ways you can boost your estrogen to help reduce menopause symptoms or boost fertility. We’ll also discuss the medical treatment options available for women with low estrogen.
Things You Should Know
Eat a healthy, balanced diet and include foods that are high in phytoestrogens like flax seeds, soy products, cranberries, and broccoli.
Exercise regularly to maintain a healthy weight and always exercise in moderation. Too much exercise can negatively affect estrogen levels.
Consider trying supplements like chasteberry, dong quai, black cohosh, and red clover, which have been linked to increased estrogen levels.
Method
Food & Lifestyle Changes
Choose foods that are high in phytoestrogens. Phytoestrogens act like an estrogen substitute in the body and occur naturally in several plants and herbs. Consider using phytoestrogens in moderation to alleviate symptoms of low estrogen levels, or menopause. Avoid phytoestrogens if you’re trying to conceive; they’ve been linked to infertility and developmental problems. Foods and herbs that contain phytoestrogens include:
- Legumes: soybeans, peas, pinto and lima beans
- Fruits: cranberries, prunes, apricots
- Veggies: broccoli and cauliflower
- Herbs: oregano, sage, licorice
- Whole grains
- Black and green tea
Maintain a healthy and balanced diet. Your endocrine system needs nutritious fuel in order to work properly and produce normal levels of estrogen. Eating a variety of healthy foods gives your endocrine system the best chance to naturally produce estrogen.
Since sugar can lead to a hormone imbalance in the body, try to reduce your overall sugar intake. Switching from simple carbs to a lower-carb, whole-grain diet is a great place to start! For example, instead of white flour, opt for whole grain flour. Use whole grain pasta or brown rice.
Eat soy and drink soy milk. Soybean products, especially tofu, contain genistein, which is a plant product that mimics the effects of estrogen. In large quantities, these may be able to lessen menopausal symptoms, but soy may not make a significant difference in hormone levels. If you want to try incorporating soy products into your diet, you may try the following:
- Edamame
- Miso, in small amounts
- Soy nuts
- Tempeh
- Textured Soy Product (TSP), or foods made from textured soy flour
Incorporate flax seeds into your diet. Flax seeds have one of the highest concentrations of phytoestrogens, so try to find ways to work them into your daily meals. Adding flax seed to your breakfast cereal or in healthy smoothies is a good way to easily eat the seed.
Flax seeds are also high in omega-3 fatty acids, which may reduce your risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.
Drink more coffee. Women who drink more than 2 cups of coffee (200 mg of caffeine) per day may have higher estrogen levels than women who don’t. While caffeine may increase estrogen levels, it does not seem to increase fertility. If you’re trying to increase estrogen in order to ovulate, coffee and caffeine may not help much.
The link between caffeine and estrogen is still unclear, but there’s no harm in trying this. Avoid consuming more than 400mg of caffeine per day.
Go with organic coffee to reduce your exposure to herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers. Many white coffee filters contain bleach that can leach out into the final product, so try to find unbleached coffee filters for a safer brew.
Exercise regularly and in moderation. Regular exercise is great for you and helps you maintain a healthy weight (which can boost estrogen), but too much exercise has been linked to a drop in estrogen levels. Avoid excessive exercising, but get regular exercise in!
Women athletes may experience a drop in estrogen levels due to low levels of body fat. If you’re an athlete or have low body fat levels, see your doctor for a good way to replenish your estrogen.
Not only is moderate exercise healthy, it may also decrease the risk of breast cancer in women and increase overall longevity.
Quit smoking. Smoking may have negative effects on the endocrine system, limiting the body’s ability to produce estrogen effectively. Smoking in pre-menopausal women has been linked with menstrual dysfunction, infertility, and earlier menopause.
Consume vitamins and minerals that boost estrogen production and absorption. Snack on foods that are rich in boron, like legumes and fruit, as this nutrient helps hormones like estrogen function in your body. Load up on foods rich in vitamin E, too, like peanut butter, sunflower seeds, and red bell pepper. According to some research, vitamin E can help with some postmenopausal symptoms, like hot flashes.
Some studies indicate that vitamin D can help increase estrogen production. Proteins like cod, tuna, salmon, and sardines are all great sources of this nutrient.