W AY S TO B O O S T YO U R HORMONE HEALTH
From resistance training to eating more leafy greens, this is what you should do to stay in balance, says Peta Bee.
Dr Nicky Keay is on a quest to get us better acquainted with our hormones. We need to nourish and nurture them, exercise to enhance them and limit the kind of “extreme lifestyle habits” – by that she means too much drinking, too little activity and faddy diet practices – that hamper our hormonal health. “We each have hormones working magic inside us,” she says of the body’s chemical messengers. “And they have these powerful and far-reaching effects on every single system in the body – the brain, the reproductive system, muscles and bone – yet most people have little idea how to harness their hormones to benefit wellbeing.”
A prolific author of dozens of published clinical papers, Keay offers advice that is grounded in sound science. It was after studying medicine at Cambridge 30 years ago that she became interested in exercise endocrinology, which looks at the hormonal response to exercise, and started working with elite athletes and professional dancers at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, where her research was supported by the International Olympic Committee.
Now an honorary clinical lecturer at University College London’s school of medicine, she contributes regularly to the British Journal of Sports Medicine and has written a book, Hormones, Health and Human Performance, which she hopes will empower people to achieve better hormonal health. “Your hormones will do their utmost to maintain balance within your body, but if you are challenging them with too many extreme or detrimental lifestyle habits, their job becomes impossible,” she says. “Making even one small lifestyle change could be the tipping point to improved health and longevity.”
Dance, play tennis and run
Bone is an active tissue (about 10% of the skeleton is replaced every year), and its strength is dependent on a nurturing cocktail of hormones. “A lot of hormones, including calcitonin, that are produced in endocrine glands a long way from bone tissue play a part in bone health,” Keay says. “Even gut hormones play a role in calcium absorption and bone turnover.”
Oestradiol, the most active type of oestrogen, is another hormone essential for bone health.
In men, testosterone is converted to its sister hormone, oestradiol. And the effect exercise has on strengthening the bones is reinforced by growth hormones that flood through the body when we are active. “When it comes to bone-boosting, the ideal exercise is one that involves both changes in direction and some resistance effort. Dance is great, as are sports like tennis, rugby and football, while running is good for strengthening leg and hip bones and rowing for strengthening the legs and spine.”
Swimming does not load the skeleton in the same way but involves the whole body, with muscle pulling on the bone to help with bone strength.
“It is not the best for bone health, but neither is it the worst,” Keay says. “As with cycling – another activity that is not the best at bone-building – it is strongly recommended that you add resistance training to your weekly regimen if these are your main forms of exercise.” Too much of any exercise is not good for the hormones that support bone health. “There is a paradoxical effect of exercise on bone,” Keay says. “More is not better.”
Eat apples, greens and lentils
Our gut microbiome plays an important role in hormonal health.
“Food and the gut microbiome influence hormones such as insulin, which regulates metabolism and weight control. The so-called gut-brain axis helps with the regulation of immune and inflammatory responses that determine cardiometabolic health and are also factors in kidney and musculoskeletal health.”
The first step to prepare the gut is to eat prebiotic fibrous food. Dark-green leafy vegetables and fermentable fibre found in fruit and vegetables – garlic, onion, leeks, chickpeas, beans, lentils, artichoke and asparagus – are important. “The cellulose found in the cell walls of many of these plants can’t be fermented but does help to keep the gut moving and prevent ‘unfriendly’ gut microbiota from proliferating,” Keay says.
Inulin, found in wheat, onion and bananas, is also effective as a prebiotic. “Once you’ve been eating these prebiotic foods for a few weeks, it’s time to ‘fertilise’ your gut bacteria with probiotics found in fermented foods such as kefir, sourdough bread, sauerkraut, yoghurt, kimchi and kombucha,” Keay says.