This study indicates cruciferous vegetables are protective for hormone-sensitive cancers. Recent reports, like one from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, indicate a higher intake of cruciferous vegetables is associated with a lower risk of prostate cancer. What benefits can DIM offer?Ī: It’s all about the quantity required. Therefore, this dangerous form of estrogen dominance can result from genetics, diet, and environmental chemicals. Overproduction of 16-hydroxy estrogen is also seen in obesity, high-fat diets, and exposure to a host of “estrogenic” environmental chemicals. 16-hydroxy estrogens can result in mutations, abnormal growth (as in cervical dysplasia), and an increased risk of future breast cancer. Since 16-hydroxy is an unregulated form of estrogen prone to behave like “super-estrogen,” higher levels create a particularly unhealthy form of estrogen dominance. Leon Bradlow, Ph.D., a renowned breast cancer investigator, discovered women with breast and uterine cancer made too little of the 2-hydroxy or “good” metabolite of estrogen and too much of the 16-hydroxy or “bad” variety. Acquired estrogen imbalance affects both men and women. Estrogen is believed to contribute to benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH).Īcquired Estrogen Imbalance: This important form of estrogen dominance has to do with inherited problems in estrogen metabolism and influences of diet and chemicals on beneficial metabolite production. This corresponds to a time during which estrogen accumulates in the prostate gland. In overweight men, testosterone is increasingly converted into estrogen by aromatase and rising estrogen also competes with falling testosterone. In Periandropausal Men: Rising estrogen also becomes a problem for men during their 50s and 60s. Additionally, progesterone levels fall during perimenopause, resulting in a rising estrogen-to-progesterone ratio. Faltering estrogen metabolism often occurs in women during perimenopause, the years before menopause, and is characterized by higher monthly estrogen levels prior to estrogen’s dramatic fall at menopause. In Perimenopausal Women: In women, slower hormone metabolism in midlife can mean higher-than-normal levels of estrogen and a deficiency in its healthy metabolites. There are three basic forms of this common imbalance known as estrogen dominance… What is estrogen dominance?Ī: Middle-aged men and women experience changes in hormone production and metabolism resulting in excess estrogen action. Stated simply, supplementing the diet with DIM specifically promotes beneficial estrogen metabolism and helps restore a healthy hormonal balance. This special metabolic pathway for DIM, and the enzymes involved, precisely overlap with the pathway needed for healthy estrogen metabolism. It turns out that DIM, when consumed in food or in absorbable formulations, encourages its own metabolism. And like estrogen, DIM can be metabolized only by a special class of cytochrome enzymes that reside in cell membranes in the non-water part of cells. DIM is not an estrogen or a hormone, but like estrogen it shares the common characteristic of being poorly soluble in water. The connection between DIM and hormones like estrogen has to do with similar characteristics between them at the molecular level. These plants have been cultivated for thousands of years and were initially used for their medicinal benefits. These include cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, rutabaga, and turnip. A: DIM is a phytonutrient (plant nutrient) found in cruciferous vegetables.
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