March 29, 2017 • 25 mins
Estrogen comes up ALL the time in the podcast, so what's the science behind the hormone? Does estrogen really turn women into emotional chocolate-eaters? Listen in to learn more about estrogen's myriad health benefits.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we are finally talking a
little bit more in depth about something that comes up
(00:23):
all of the time, and stuff Mom never told you sandwiches, Well,
sand man, I wish it was I wish that we
were talking about sandwich is a little bit because sandwiches
are a little less complicated in the hormone group estrogen. Um.
We figured since estrogen comes up so much when we're
(00:45):
talking about women, when we're even talking about gender differences
and behavior, I feel like estrogen has become almost a
shorthand for things like we be emotions, hysterical, You do
I that float around your body? Yeah, And so we
decided that we would look a little deeper into what
(01:07):
estrogen really is and offer more of a broad brush
one oh one, this is how estrogen works, and also
get into whether or not that leap frog from estrogen
to women have the craziest motion swings is valid or not.
So first up, let's get to let's let's get in
(01:29):
front of our imaginary podcast chalkboard. Who can it be
a white board? Though? I don't like a son of chalk. Okay,
So we're on one of those white boards, thankfully, very
very quiet white board, and we're going to talk about
what estrogen is because a lot of times we talked
about it as though it's a singular hormone, but in fact, no,
estrogen is a group of hormones. It's like a get together. Yeah.
(01:53):
I imagine them as as the cool girls in the
corner of the lunch room. Yeah. That sow. And that's
how I learned science. I like it and I like
it well. So, first of all, hormones, as we have
talked about, our chemical messengers secreted by one tissue that
travel via body fluid to affect another tissue. Sex hormones
(02:15):
estrogen and testosterone, which we are talking about in these
two very special back to back hormone episodes, are secreted
in short bursts that vary throughout the day, the night,
your minstrel cycle, et ceteras. So, as Christian was saying,
estrogen is a group of hormones that get together and
have pizza parties. And those hormones include estriol, which is
(02:36):
made from the placenta and is produced during pregnancy, an estrone,
which is widespread throughout the body and happens to be
the only estrogen present after a menopause. And then we
have one left, Christian, what is it? It's estra dial
and estra dial is the main hormone in this group.
She's sort of the alpha dog, Okay in this this
(02:59):
mythical like endocrine click that I have in my brain
and it's produced in the ovaries. And you can thank
estradiol for you boobs, your hips, your strong bones. And
it also predisposes us to things like endometrios is and fibroids.
(03:20):
I thinks a lot estradie me girl. Yeah, but but
these these three hormones do all sorts of things around
both the male and female body. It's not just limited
to women. Um, and it helps out in our bones,
our brain are uterie uterus is. I always still I
still say ter, I've got to stop that is that? Well?
I like it, but it's grammatically incorrect in our uterus
(03:47):
is and in our hearts, our blood vessels, our skin,
and our lungs. So it's a very important group of hormones. Yeah,
and in men, I mean men, Folks out there, don't
think that you don't have any estrogen. Uh, you do,
as a man, make a small amount in your sex
organs and adrenal glands, and it helps regulate the fluid
(04:08):
in your reproductive tract. Yeah. And when it comes to
the potency of estrogen versus testosterone, Um, I thought it
was interesting that men produce more testosterone and women produce estrogen.
But that's because estrogen is far more potent than testosterone.
(04:31):
So what's up. Yeah, we're potent um And at one
thing though about us studying estrogen because it does so
much around our body, and also because there has been
a longstanding scientific bias towards studying things like exclusively male
(04:53):
rats and male bodies because they don't have these complicated
things like menstrual cycles. And sciences starting to catch up,
but there's still a lot of questions about what exactly
estrogen does in our body. But we do obviously have
have some knowledge of what's going on. Okay. So one
(05:14):
of the reasons that we know all that we know
about estrogen today is due in part to or do
mostly to Edward Soycy Christens. That's correct. Yeah, he actually
extracted the female sex hormones estrone and estriol from urine
from lots of urine, Yes, lots of They figured out
(05:34):
basically that uh, that there was a lot of estrogen
in pregnant women's urine. And so Edward Adelberg, Deussey enterprising
man that he was at a St. Louis University medical school,
said Hey, you know what, I really want to isolate
these compounds, So I'm gonna need a lot of urine.
(05:59):
And there was this anecdote that we found in the
paper the Discovery of estro and Estriol and estra dial
and the Biochemical Study of Reproduction, the work of Edward Aidelbert,
publishing the Journal of Biologic Chemistry in two thousand two,
that talked about how this poor driver had to bring
over these vats of urine, and um, I'm just gonna
(06:21):
I'm just gonna read from the paper. While making collections
of urine, he committed a traffic violation, and the policeman
who glanced in the back of the car and saw
the bottles with amber fluid, thought that he had caught
a bootlegger. Obviously this s happening during prohibition. He couldn't
he would not believe the driver, so he was invited
to get in to sample the amber fluid. After pulling
the cork and sniffing, the cops said, my god, it
(06:44):
is urine. Your job is bad enough without getting pinched
for it. Drive on so urine not only helped us isolate.
These hormones also got this driver out of a traffic violation.
Maybe that is uh, maybe that's a notice. Well, yeah,
that takes care of a lot of things on long
(07:06):
road trips. Yeah, take care of you don't have to
stop for bathroom breaks and you can get yourself out
of a ticket. Yeah, the things that we learn so um,
different levels of estrogen and our bodies affect us differently.
So what happens when estrogen levels fall? Why? What causes
estrogen levels to fall in women? And I mean they
(07:28):
differ from you know, as we get older, especially as
we enter menopause. But there are also particular conditions that
can lead to lower levels of the hormone, such as hypogonadism,
hypo pituit terrorism, that's that's hard, that's hard, pregnancy failure, paramenopause,
and menopause. The paramenopause is leading to menopause, uh, polycystic
(07:51):
ovarian syndrome and orexia. Extreme exercise, certain drugs, and it's
your levels of estrogen change postper and during breastfeeding. So
there's a lot that's going on with your hormones all
throughout your life, right, And that's a good point to
to bring up the perimenopause and menopause because obviously that
is when the body stops producing the estra die all
(08:15):
and the estra will also be gone, but like we mentioned,
the estrone will stick around post menopause. And one thing
that we're not going to get into on this episode
just because it is it is such a large topic,
almost too big to tackle um in this episode is
hormone replacement therapy that has come under a lot of
scientific scrutiny because when women were going through menopause, because
(08:39):
of that drop off and estrogen, uh, there were a
lot of negative side effects. So hormone replacement therapy was
giving women um this uh, these jolts of estrogen to too,
I guess to what the like alleviate mood swings and
hot flashes and help ease them through the great transition.
And they've actually found that because of things like increased
(09:01):
risk for heart disease and breast cancer that can come
along with elevated levels of estrogen, that the hormone replacement
therapy is not as common as it used to be.
Has it been faced out completely? No, My, I just
remember when my mother was on hormone replacement therapy, estrogen therapy,
(09:22):
and I just remember when all of that stuff hit
the news because her doctor took her off of it
and tried to find some different different methods. But she's
she's always hot, like she just never stopped having hot
flashes after menopause, which must be miserable. I know that
whenever I go home, I have to put on a sweater.
I'll tell you that much. Because it's chili. Because it's chili. Um. Now,
(09:43):
one thing that I mentioned as far as estrogen levels
dropping that I thought was interesting, um, was the whole
like working out and losing weight thing can really throw
your hormones into a tailspin, whether you're a man or
a woman, depending on estrogen, testosterone, whatever. But women with
low body fat often don't produce suffic amounts of sex hormones.
And so many elite athletes, you know, like you, I've
(10:05):
heard about this with gymnasts in particular, But like many
elite athletes experience a cessation of menstruation and end up
developing osteoporosis. Well, it makes sense because on that on
that end of the spectrum, because estrogen, some estrogens are
are stored in our body fat. When you don't have
body fat, that can tinker with things. But then on
(10:26):
the opposite end, when you're dealing with obesity, you have
an excess of you can't have an excess of estrogen production.
That will also throw things out of whack. The balancing
act of these hormones airline it is. Well. An article
in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in May found that
weight loss among overweight and obese women could help lower
(10:48):
circulating estrogen levels linked with increased breast cancer risk. Why,
just because what Christian was saying, fat cells secrete estrogen,
and so the more weight we're carrying around, the more
estrogen is being really east. Yeah. And the and that
breast cancer risk um is so so tied to estrogen
because the estrogen actually stimulates or canstimulate too much cell
(11:10):
division in the breast, therefore increasing the chances of cancerous
mutations like tumors. And since we're also talking about some
of the downsides of estrogen exposure, we often hear about
osteoporosis risk and increasing in menopausal and post menopausal woman.
And that's because estrogen has protective effects on bone health.
(11:34):
But then when that drops off with paramenopause and menopause, Uh,
then that heightens your risk of of bone of bone loss.
Oh dear, I'm clutching my bones. Now, drink your milk.
My mom was always very insistent about me drinking my
milk as a child because because of those things, because
of being a lady. Yeah. Well, I don't actually like
(11:57):
milk too much honestly anymore. I don't drink it anymore,
but I drank it every night with dinner. Yeah, so
maybe my bones are just like paper now I don't
know paper tubes inside my skin. Um. There's also a
lot of research going on to look at estrogen's role
in the brain, specifically with our working memory, because some
(12:20):
doctors want to know why Alzheimer's tends to affect women
more often than men, and they wonder if it has
to do with estrogen. Again, kind of like that with
the osteoporosis effect. As we age, um, estrogen being good
for our working memory. There have actually been some studies
saying that like attributing estrogen to women perhaps being a
(12:41):
little bit better multitasking, also comparing it to uh substances
like riddling me. Yeah, math, Yeah, we're a little meth
meth machines in here. It's like breaking bad inside of
our bodies. Um. And so they're wondering what the drop
off and strogen production if perhaps that might have to
(13:02):
do with the gender difference in Alzheimer's, which is something
we have not talked about on the podcast. Hopefully I
can remember to put that on our to do list. So, yeah, this,
Kristen sent me this, this article talking about estrogen affecting
our concentration or memory or moods, et cetera. It was
in Scientific American. Couldn't start reading it. Actually, try to
(13:23):
send it to some other people in the office. They
didn't care. But so in this article, you see Berkeley
researchers were found that women with lower levels of dopamine
struggled with memory tasks, but when the test was repeated
during ovulation, when estrogen levels are higher, these women did
much better. Those with naturally hyd dopamine, however, did worse
(13:47):
during ovulation. So it like pushes people over the edge
into a different concentration category. But it's again it sounds
like it's uh. The study would suggest that again we
have that issue of alans where it's like too little
and too much is not optimal. Right. So Emily Jacobs,
who's one of the study authors, said that for women
(14:09):
with the highest dopamine levels, ovulation seems to take them
beyond a threshold and impair thinking. And so that's what
I'm going to blame my space out moments on. I'm sorry,
I just have I'm ovulating. I have way too much
dopamine right now. We just can't even listen to what
you're saying. But I do know that I, for some reason,
you want to baby right now, a baby and a brownie.
(14:32):
Now speaking of we're making some fun of the latest,
but crazy on the babies. Um, it's so estrogen and emotions.
This was one thing that I did want to look into,
and it's actually the behavioral impact of estrogen is something
that scientists have been looking into for over a century.
(14:54):
So we've had this notion in our head that there's
got to be so something inside, ladies, let's make this
just be be our selves. We are wonderful, are wonderful cells. Um,
And so the notion is that you know that that
estrogen makes women crazy, but that's actually crazy because when
(15:14):
you think about how estrogen is released, both estrogen antestosterone
is released in the body in UM. It's produced in
these periodic bursts that vary from hour to hour day today.
So it's not like we have a sudden onslaught of
estrogen that just waterfall that there's everything out of whack.
(15:35):
And there was a study published earlier in UM in
the study title is Estrogen Impacts on Emotion, Psychological, Neuroscience
and Endocrine Studies, And the conclusion of the study looking
into the correlations between estrogen and emotions and women specifically
(15:56):
is that it's complicated. Yeah, there seemed to be a
just a lot of attributes as far as estrogen treatments
and depression and how it affects all of the stuff
going on in your brain. And a Chinese analysis of
a whole bunch of studies UH found that estrogen can
influence emotional behavior and processing, but it varies depending on
(16:19):
the person. So self freighted depression scores among women with
depressive symptoms are reduced, they found by administration of estrogen. Yeah,
a lot of times they'll find that the typically like estrogen,
will a surge of it. If you give someone some estrogen,
then it tends to temper your mood in a good way.
(16:41):
So why is it some people have wondered when girls
go through puberty and obviously like the body starts producing
this sex hormone, does the rate of anxiety and clinical
depression skyrocket for girls and women? And if this is
going to come up to in our episode that we're
(17:02):
gonna do after this on testosterone, is that the relationship
that we have between estrogen and depression the same way
that we think about testosterone fueling aggression is often a
little bit backwards in our brains. It's not the estrogen
that is necessarily causing that kind of emotional downslope. It
(17:22):
is most likely because estrogen tends to increase our sensitivity
to cortisol, the stress hormone, so we're a little more
primed in a way too negatively react. Yeah, it actually
interferes with serotonin, and researchers found, you know, shortages of
(17:43):
serotonin during that stage in life can lead to fatigue, anxiety,
and other symptoms of depression. And I thought it was interesting, Um,
there's a study in a journal that I can't pronounce, Kristen.
What is it? Psycho neuro Oh yeah, okay, psycho anarrow
into chronology. It just looks so long, But I got it,
(18:04):
got it, I got it all right. This is back
In two thousand and eight, researchers found that S S
R eyes might work better in the presence of estrogen.
So depending on if you have more estrogen or testosterone,
different antidepressant or anti anxiety medications might work better for you.
They found that zolof for instance, produced no effect on
(18:25):
female rats that didn't produce estrogen. It helped depression like symptoms, however,
if it was accompanied by estrogen treatment. Psychologists Susan Cornstein
in addition, found that men and post menopausal women, so
people with a lower estrogen level, respond better to antidepressants
that target dopamine and nora epenefron, which no peneffron always
(18:49):
makes me think of nora efron, But anyway, that's it
regulates that nor efron in your brain. Um well, speaking
though of of Mag's feel like we've covered a lot
of our estrogen basis. Basically, estrogen is a group of hormones.
It is three of them. We have these receptors and
(19:10):
our bodies that receive the hormones that will do things
like stimulate secondary sex characteristics such as boobs. And also, uh,
it has an influence on our emotions, but maybe not
as directly as we think stereotypically of you know, the
whole like roller coaster thing. And there are also some
(19:32):
some downsides and some upsides because these hormones, you know,
need a nice balance inside of the body. And as
we mentioned at the top of the podcast, men, estrogen
is not just for for women. You make it too
estradiale coming out them test these and your adrenal gland.
(19:53):
So that's what it does. That's how estrogen works. And
like giant road brushes. Yeah, well, you know, we wanted
to bring it up just because we reference sex hormones
all of the time, so just to just to give
you a little overview. Yeah, and um, we didn't talk
about very much, was um. Also the association between estrogen, testosterone,
(20:17):
these secondary or these sex hormones excuse me, and gender constructs.
But that is something that we're going to get into
more in our next episode in which we're going to
tackle how testosterone works. Does it really turn us into
aggro bulldozing, muscle machines find out on the next episode
(20:42):
of Stuff Mom Never Told You, and um, if there's
something about estrogen, Like, like I said, we didn't really
go in depth on menopause mormon replacement therapy. That is
something that we will revisit in the future in uh
in depth a little bit more. But if there's anything
regarding estrogen that we didn't touch on or that you
would like to know more about or have some experience with,
(21:02):
let us know. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot Com is
where you can send your letters. And before we get
to our letters in this listener male segment, well, we've
got a couple of letters here in response to our
episode on the friend zone, because they just keep coming.
(21:25):
The friend zone. It's just it's happening everywhere. And this
first one is from Keegan, who writes, it's taken a while,
but I have to say I'm finally figuring out how
to talk to girls personally. I feel like I've gone
through many of those types of friend zones. For the longest,
I couldn't figure out why I had so much trouble
with relationships with a lack thereof, and after talking with
(21:48):
some girls. I came to the conclusion that I was
that guy who took too long to make my intentions clear. Unfortunately,
by this point, and he's in college now, I'm friends
with the girls on campus, so any chance for a
relationship is dead and gone. As for that one percent,
I hate to say, it's the one girl that I
am friend zoned with, and I just can't seem to
(22:09):
figure out what to do. We met during a weekend
field trip and I have hung out consistently since then,
Yet she's had no intention of dating me. Like you
said in the podcast, she was completely oblivious to my feelings,
and when I finally confronted her about them, she brought
a swift hammer down to crush them. As she said,
she simply didn't find me attractive. Many closer friends say
(22:34):
she's not worth it and I shouldn't bother, But I
try to see the good in people. So here I
am asking for your advice. Should I even bother? If so,
is there anything I can do? The feelings were strong,
but they're gone now and I just want my friendship back.
So he's saying that he wants to repair the friendship.
(22:54):
It's fine not dating her. What do you do well.
You said that she cry to you like with a hammer,
So that doesn't sound very friendship e. So I mean,
you know, I think you and I have been on
both sides of a friend zone equation, and you have
(23:17):
to decide if it's worth it. I guess, uh yeah,
And I think you have to be real honest with
yourself about why you want that friendship back. Is it
because you really want that friendship or because you missed
their company in that way that made your heart flutter
a little bit when you saw them. And if that's
(23:38):
the case, then you got to give yourself more time.
I think it sounds like it's still fresh. And if
all he says that all of his friends are saying
that she's not worth it, then you also should listen
to your friends. Your friends. You Yeah, I'll say nine
times out of ten when my friends have said don't
do it, and I've done it anyway, I should not
have done it. Yep. So yep, the hard true. So
(24:01):
that's that's what we got for you, Keegan. I know
it's not it's not super easy, but hey, you know what,
they're always they're always new people, new friends to make.
That's right. So when you do that. Yeah, Well, here's
a letter from Adam and he's here to say that
friend zoning is equal opportunity. All right, as far as
sex roles go, let's hear it. So Adam said, I
(24:22):
loved your podcast on the friend zone, and I'm here
to say men do indeed put people in the friend zone.
I also think I can give some advice for friends zoning.
Almost immediately after I sense romantic attraction, whether it's really
there or not, I try to spend less time with
that person. While this may seem harsh, it helps create
emotional distance to ensure the appeal doesn't intensify, and also
(24:43):
to avoid the hurt feelings that can occur from a
friendship damaged by one side of attraction. Even though losing
a friend is always tough, I believe it is a
better option than expecting a platonic relationship from someone who
wants more. I hope he says this helps anyone who
has felt alienated by such messy cross gender interactions. And
I have to say, I think it's funny that this
(25:03):
is his advice, because so many of those dumb advice
columns on the internet were like distance yourself to make
yourself more attractive, So be careful what you wish for.
And thank you Adam, Thanks Adam, and thanks to everyone
who's written into moms Stuff at Discovery dot com. And
you can also head over to Facebook and start a
(25:23):
conversation there like us. While you're at it, follow us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. You can also have
fun on our Tumbler page. You can follow us It's
stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com. And
if you would like to get a little smarter about
estrogen and all sorts of that fun science e stuff,
why don't you head over to our website, It's how
(25:43):
Stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and we are finally talking a
little bit more in depth about something that comes up
(00:23):
all of the time, and stuff Mom never told you sandwiches, Well,
sand man, I wish it was I wish that we
were talking about sandwich is a little bit because sandwiches
are a little less complicated in the hormone group estrogen. Um.
We figured since estrogen comes up so much when we're
(00:45):
talking about women, when we're even talking about gender differences
and behavior, I feel like estrogen has become almost a
shorthand for things like we be emotions, hysterical, You do
I that float around your body? Yeah, And so we
decided that we would look a little deeper into what
(01:07):
estrogen really is and offer more of a broad brush
one oh one, this is how estrogen works, and also
get into whether or not that leap frog from estrogen
to women have the craziest motion swings is valid or not.
So first up, let's get to let's let's get in
(01:29):
front of our imaginary podcast chalkboard. Who can it be
a white board? Though? I don't like a son of chalk. Okay,
So we're on one of those white boards, thankfully, very
very quiet white board, and we're going to talk about
what estrogen is because a lot of times we talked
about it as though it's a singular hormone, but in fact, no,
estrogen is a group of hormones. It's like a get together. Yeah.
(01:53):
I imagine them as as the cool girls in the
corner of the lunch room. Yeah. That sow. And that's
how I learned science. I like it and I like
it well. So, first of all, hormones, as we have
talked about, our chemical messengers secreted by one tissue that
travel via body fluid to affect another tissue. Sex hormones
(02:15):
estrogen and testosterone, which we are talking about in these
two very special back to back hormone episodes, are secreted
in short bursts that vary throughout the day, the night,
your minstrel cycle, et ceteras. So, as Christian was saying,
estrogen is a group of hormones that get together and
have pizza parties. And those hormones include estriol, which is
(02:36):
made from the placenta and is produced during pregnancy, an estrone,
which is widespread throughout the body and happens to be
the only estrogen present after a menopause. And then we
have one left, Christian, what is it? It's estra dial
and estra dial is the main hormone in this group.
She's sort of the alpha dog, Okay in this this
(02:59):
mythical like endocrine click that I have in my brain
and it's produced in the ovaries. And you can thank
estradiol for you boobs, your hips, your strong bones. And
it also predisposes us to things like endometrios is and fibroids.
(03:20):
I thinks a lot estradie me girl. Yeah, but but
these these three hormones do all sorts of things around
both the male and female body. It's not just limited
to women. Um, and it helps out in our bones,
our brain are uterie uterus is. I always still I
still say ter, I've got to stop that is that? Well?
I like it, but it's grammatically incorrect in our uterus
(03:47):
is and in our hearts, our blood vessels, our skin,
and our lungs. So it's a very important group of hormones. Yeah,
and in men, I mean men, Folks out there, don't
think that you don't have any estrogen. Uh, you do,
as a man, make a small amount in your sex
organs and adrenal glands, and it helps regulate the fluid
(04:08):
in your reproductive tract. Yeah. And when it comes to
the potency of estrogen versus testosterone, Um, I thought it
was interesting that men produce more testosterone and women produce estrogen.
But that's because estrogen is far more potent than testosterone.
(04:31):
So what's up. Yeah, we're potent um And at one
thing though about us studying estrogen because it does so
much around our body, and also because there has been
a longstanding scientific bias towards studying things like exclusively male
(04:53):
rats and male bodies because they don't have these complicated
things like menstrual cycles. And sciences starting to catch up,
but there's still a lot of questions about what exactly
estrogen does in our body. But we do obviously have
have some knowledge of what's going on. Okay. So one
(05:14):
of the reasons that we know all that we know
about estrogen today is due in part to or do
mostly to Edward Soycy Christens. That's correct. Yeah, he actually
extracted the female sex hormones estrone and estriol from urine
from lots of urine, Yes, lots of They figured out
(05:34):
basically that uh, that there was a lot of estrogen
in pregnant women's urine. And so Edward Adelberg, Deussey enterprising
man that he was at a St. Louis University medical school,
said Hey, you know what, I really want to isolate
these compounds, So I'm gonna need a lot of urine.
(05:59):
And there was this anecdote that we found in the
paper the Discovery of estro and Estriol and estra dial
and the Biochemical Study of Reproduction, the work of Edward Aidelbert,
publishing the Journal of Biologic Chemistry in two thousand two,
that talked about how this poor driver had to bring
over these vats of urine, and um, I'm just gonna
(06:21):
I'm just gonna read from the paper. While making collections
of urine, he committed a traffic violation, and the policeman
who glanced in the back of the car and saw
the bottles with amber fluid, thought that he had caught
a bootlegger. Obviously this s happening during prohibition. He couldn't
he would not believe the driver, so he was invited
to get in to sample the amber fluid. After pulling
the cork and sniffing, the cops said, my god, it
(06:44):
is urine. Your job is bad enough without getting pinched
for it. Drive on so urine not only helped us isolate.
These hormones also got this driver out of a traffic violation.
Maybe that is uh, maybe that's a notice. Well, yeah,
that takes care of a lot of things on long
(07:06):
road trips. Yeah, take care of you don't have to
stop for bathroom breaks and you can get yourself out
of a ticket. Yeah, the things that we learn so um,
different levels of estrogen and our bodies affect us differently.
So what happens when estrogen levels fall? Why? What causes
estrogen levels to fall in women? And I mean they
(07:28):
differ from you know, as we get older, especially as
we enter menopause. But there are also particular conditions that
can lead to lower levels of the hormone, such as hypogonadism,
hypo pituit terrorism, that's that's hard, that's hard, pregnancy failure, paramenopause,
and menopause. The paramenopause is leading to menopause, uh, polycystic
(07:51):
ovarian syndrome and orexia. Extreme exercise, certain drugs, and it's
your levels of estrogen change postper and during breastfeeding. So
there's a lot that's going on with your hormones all
throughout your life, right, And that's a good point to
to bring up the perimenopause and menopause because obviously that
is when the body stops producing the estra die all
(08:15):
and the estra will also be gone, but like we mentioned,
the estrone will stick around post menopause. And one thing
that we're not going to get into on this episode
just because it is it is such a large topic,
almost too big to tackle um in this episode is
hormone replacement therapy that has come under a lot of
scientific scrutiny because when women were going through menopause, because
(08:39):
of that drop off and estrogen, uh, there were a
lot of negative side effects. So hormone replacement therapy was
giving women um this uh, these jolts of estrogen to too,
I guess to what the like alleviate mood swings and
hot flashes and help ease them through the great transition.
And they've actually found that because of things like increased
(09:01):
risk for heart disease and breast cancer that can come
along with elevated levels of estrogen, that the hormone replacement
therapy is not as common as it used to be.
Has it been faced out completely? No, My, I just
remember when my mother was on hormone replacement therapy, estrogen therapy,
(09:22):
and I just remember when all of that stuff hit
the news because her doctor took her off of it
and tried to find some different different methods. But she's
she's always hot, like she just never stopped having hot
flashes after menopause, which must be miserable. I know that
whenever I go home, I have to put on a sweater.
I'll tell you that much. Because it's chili. Because it's chili. Um. Now,
(09:43):
one thing that I mentioned as far as estrogen levels
dropping that I thought was interesting, um, was the whole
like working out and losing weight thing can really throw
your hormones into a tailspin, whether you're a man or
a woman, depending on estrogen, testosterone, whatever. But women with
low body fat often don't produce suffic amounts of sex hormones.
And so many elite athletes, you know, like you, I've
(10:05):
heard about this with gymnasts in particular, But like many
elite athletes experience a cessation of menstruation and end up
developing osteoporosis. Well, it makes sense because on that on
that end of the spectrum, because estrogen, some estrogens are
are stored in our body fat. When you don't have
body fat, that can tinker with things. But then on
(10:26):
the opposite end, when you're dealing with obesity, you have
an excess of you can't have an excess of estrogen production.
That will also throw things out of whack. The balancing
act of these hormones airline it is. Well. An article
in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in May found that
weight loss among overweight and obese women could help lower
(10:48):
circulating estrogen levels linked with increased breast cancer risk. Why,
just because what Christian was saying, fat cells secrete estrogen,
and so the more weight we're carrying around, the more
estrogen is being really east. Yeah. And the and that
breast cancer risk um is so so tied to estrogen
because the estrogen actually stimulates or canstimulate too much cell
(11:10):
division in the breast, therefore increasing the chances of cancerous
mutations like tumors. And since we're also talking about some
of the downsides of estrogen exposure, we often hear about
osteoporosis risk and increasing in menopausal and post menopausal woman.
And that's because estrogen has protective effects on bone health.
(11:34):
But then when that drops off with paramenopause and menopause, Uh,
then that heightens your risk of of bone of bone loss.
Oh dear, I'm clutching my bones. Now, drink your milk.
My mom was always very insistent about me drinking my
milk as a child because because of those things, because
of being a lady. Yeah. Well, I don't actually like
(11:57):
milk too much honestly anymore. I don't drink it anymore,
but I drank it every night with dinner. Yeah, so
maybe my bones are just like paper now I don't
know paper tubes inside my skin. Um. There's also a
lot of research going on to look at estrogen's role
in the brain, specifically with our working memory, because some
(12:20):
doctors want to know why Alzheimer's tends to affect women
more often than men, and they wonder if it has
to do with estrogen. Again, kind of like that with
the osteoporosis effect. As we age, um, estrogen being good
for our working memory. There have actually been some studies
saying that like attributing estrogen to women perhaps being a
(12:41):
little bit better multitasking, also comparing it to uh substances
like riddling me. Yeah, math, Yeah, we're a little meth
meth machines in here. It's like breaking bad inside of
our bodies. Um. And so they're wondering what the drop
off and strogen production if perhaps that might have to
(13:02):
do with the gender difference in Alzheimer's, which is something
we have not talked about on the podcast. Hopefully I
can remember to put that on our to do list. So, yeah, this,
Kristen sent me this, this article talking about estrogen affecting
our concentration or memory or moods, et cetera. It was
in Scientific American. Couldn't start reading it. Actually, try to
(13:23):
send it to some other people in the office. They
didn't care. But so in this article, you see Berkeley
researchers were found that women with lower levels of dopamine
struggled with memory tasks, but when the test was repeated
during ovulation, when estrogen levels are higher, these women did
much better. Those with naturally hyd dopamine, however, did worse
(13:47):
during ovulation. So it like pushes people over the edge
into a different concentration category. But it's again it sounds
like it's uh. The study would suggest that again we
have that issue of alans where it's like too little
and too much is not optimal. Right. So Emily Jacobs,
who's one of the study authors, said that for women
(14:09):
with the highest dopamine levels, ovulation seems to take them
beyond a threshold and impair thinking. And so that's what
I'm going to blame my space out moments on. I'm sorry,
I just have I'm ovulating. I have way too much
dopamine right now. We just can't even listen to what
you're saying. But I do know that I, for some reason,
you want to baby right now, a baby and a brownie.
(14:32):
Now speaking of we're making some fun of the latest,
but crazy on the babies. Um, it's so estrogen and emotions.
This was one thing that I did want to look into,
and it's actually the behavioral impact of estrogen is something
that scientists have been looking into for over a century.
(14:54):
So we've had this notion in our head that there's
got to be so something inside, ladies, let's make this
just be be our selves. We are wonderful, are wonderful cells. Um,
And so the notion is that you know that that
estrogen makes women crazy, but that's actually crazy because when
(15:14):
you think about how estrogen is released, both estrogen antestosterone
is released in the body in UM. It's produced in
these periodic bursts that vary from hour to hour day today.
So it's not like we have a sudden onslaught of
estrogen that just waterfall that there's everything out of whack.
(15:35):
And there was a study published earlier in UM in
the study title is Estrogen Impacts on Emotion, Psychological, Neuroscience
and Endocrine Studies, And the conclusion of the study looking
into the correlations between estrogen and emotions and women specifically
(15:56):
is that it's complicated. Yeah, there seemed to be a
just a lot of attributes as far as estrogen treatments
and depression and how it affects all of the stuff
going on in your brain. And a Chinese analysis of
a whole bunch of studies UH found that estrogen can
influence emotional behavior and processing, but it varies depending on
(16:19):
the person. So self freighted depression scores among women with
depressive symptoms are reduced, they found by administration of estrogen. Yeah,
a lot of times they'll find that the typically like estrogen,
will a surge of it. If you give someone some estrogen,
then it tends to temper your mood in a good way.
(16:41):
So why is it some people have wondered when girls
go through puberty and obviously like the body starts producing
this sex hormone, does the rate of anxiety and clinical
depression skyrocket for girls and women? And if this is
going to come up to in our episode that we're
(17:02):
gonna do after this on testosterone, is that the relationship
that we have between estrogen and depression the same way
that we think about testosterone fueling aggression is often a
little bit backwards in our brains. It's not the estrogen
that is necessarily causing that kind of emotional downslope. It
(17:22):
is most likely because estrogen tends to increase our sensitivity
to cortisol, the stress hormone, so we're a little more
primed in a way too negatively react. Yeah, it actually
interferes with serotonin, and researchers found, you know, shortages of
(17:43):
serotonin during that stage in life can lead to fatigue, anxiety,
and other symptoms of depression. And I thought it was interesting, Um,
there's a study in a journal that I can't pronounce, Kristen.
What is it? Psycho neuro Oh yeah, okay, psycho anarrow
into chronology. It just looks so long, But I got it,
(18:04):
got it, I got it all right. This is back
In two thousand and eight, researchers found that S S
R eyes might work better in the presence of estrogen.
So depending on if you have more estrogen or testosterone,
different antidepressant or anti anxiety medications might work better for you.
They found that zolof for instance, produced no effect on
(18:25):
female rats that didn't produce estrogen. It helped depression like symptoms, however,
if it was accompanied by estrogen treatment. Psychologists Susan Cornstein
in addition, found that men and post menopausal women, so
people with a lower estrogen level, respond better to antidepressants
that target dopamine and nora epenefron, which no peneffron always
(18:49):
makes me think of nora efron, But anyway, that's it
regulates that nor efron in your brain. Um well, speaking
though of of Mag's feel like we've covered a lot
of our estrogen basis. Basically, estrogen is a group of hormones.
It is three of them. We have these receptors and
(19:10):
our bodies that receive the hormones that will do things
like stimulate secondary sex characteristics such as boobs. And also, uh,
it has an influence on our emotions, but maybe not
as directly as we think stereotypically of you know, the
whole like roller coaster thing. And there are also some
(19:32):
some downsides and some upsides because these hormones, you know,
need a nice balance inside of the body. And as
we mentioned at the top of the podcast, men, estrogen
is not just for for women. You make it too
estradiale coming out them test these and your adrenal gland.
(19:53):
So that's what it does. That's how estrogen works. And
like giant road brushes. Yeah, well, you know, we wanted
to bring it up just because we reference sex hormones
all of the time, so just to just to give
you a little overview. Yeah, and um, we didn't talk
about very much, was um. Also the association between estrogen, testosterone,
(20:17):
these secondary or these sex hormones excuse me, and gender constructs.
But that is something that we're going to get into
more in our next episode in which we're going to
tackle how testosterone works. Does it really turn us into
aggro bulldozing, muscle machines find out on the next episode
(20:42):
of Stuff Mom Never Told You, and um, if there's
something about estrogen, Like, like I said, we didn't really
go in depth on menopause mormon replacement therapy. That is
something that we will revisit in the future in uh
in depth a little bit more. But if there's anything
regarding estrogen that we didn't touch on or that you
would like to know more about or have some experience with,
(21:02):
let us know. Mom. Stuff at Discovery dot Com is
where you can send your letters. And before we get
to our letters in this listener male segment, well, we've
got a couple of letters here in response to our
episode on the friend zone, because they just keep coming.
(21:25):
The friend zone. It's just it's happening everywhere. And this
first one is from Keegan, who writes, it's taken a while,
but I have to say I'm finally figuring out how
to talk to girls personally. I feel like I've gone
through many of those types of friend zones. For the longest,
I couldn't figure out why I had so much trouble
with relationships with a lack thereof, and after talking with
(21:48):
some girls. I came to the conclusion that I was
that guy who took too long to make my intentions clear. Unfortunately,
by this point, and he's in college now, I'm friends
with the girls on campus, so any chance for a
relationship is dead and gone. As for that one percent,
I hate to say, it's the one girl that I
am friend zoned with, and I just can't seem to
(22:09):
figure out what to do. We met during a weekend
field trip and I have hung out consistently since then,
Yet she's had no intention of dating me. Like you
said in the podcast, she was completely oblivious to my feelings,
and when I finally confronted her about them, she brought
a swift hammer down to crush them. As she said,
she simply didn't find me attractive. Many closer friends say
(22:34):
she's not worth it and I shouldn't bother, But I
try to see the good in people. So here I
am asking for your advice. Should I even bother? If so,
is there anything I can do? The feelings were strong,
but they're gone now and I just want my friendship back.
So he's saying that he wants to repair the friendship.
(22:54):
It's fine not dating her. What do you do well.
You said that she cry to you like with a hammer,
So that doesn't sound very friendship e. So I mean,
you know, I think you and I have been on
both sides of a friend zone equation, and you have
(23:17):
to decide if it's worth it. I guess, uh yeah,
And I think you have to be real honest with
yourself about why you want that friendship back. Is it
because you really want that friendship or because you missed
their company in that way that made your heart flutter
a little bit when you saw them. And if that's
(23:38):
the case, then you got to give yourself more time.
I think it sounds like it's still fresh. And if
all he says that all of his friends are saying
that she's not worth it, then you also should listen
to your friends. Your friends. You Yeah, I'll say nine
times out of ten when my friends have said don't
do it, and I've done it anyway, I should not
have done it. Yep. So yep, the hard true. So
(24:01):
that's that's what we got for you, Keegan. I know
it's not it's not super easy, but hey, you know what,
they're always they're always new people, new friends to make.
That's right. So when you do that. Yeah, Well, here's
a letter from Adam and he's here to say that
friend zoning is equal opportunity. All right, as far as
sex roles go, let's hear it. So Adam said, I
(24:22):
loved your podcast on the friend zone, and I'm here
to say men do indeed put people in the friend zone.
I also think I can give some advice for friends zoning.
Almost immediately after I sense romantic attraction, whether it's really
there or not, I try to spend less time with
that person. While this may seem harsh, it helps create
emotional distance to ensure the appeal doesn't intensify, and also
(24:43):
to avoid the hurt feelings that can occur from a
friendship damaged by one side of attraction. Even though losing
a friend is always tough, I believe it is a
better option than expecting a platonic relationship from someone who
wants more. I hope he says this helps anyone who
has felt alienated by such messy cross gender interactions. And
I have to say, I think it's funny that this
(25:03):
is his advice, because so many of those dumb advice
columns on the internet were like distance yourself to make
yourself more attractive, So be careful what you wish for.
And thank you Adam, Thanks Adam, and thanks to everyone
who's written into moms Stuff at Discovery dot com. And
you can also head over to Facebook and start a
(25:23):
conversation there like us. While you're at it, follow us
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. You can also have
fun on our Tumbler page. You can follow us It's
stuff Mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com. And
if you would like to get a little smarter about
estrogen and all sorts of that fun science e stuff,
why don't you head over to our website, It's how
(25:43):
Stuff Works dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works dot com.
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