A hormonal imbalance can be a difficult concept to grasp–even and especially to those suffering from one.

Hormonal changes occur from the moment we’re born to the moment we die, with more pronounced shifts taking place in the teenage years, and for women in their 40s and 50s. While we chalk up certain physiological shifts as a result of our aging bodies (and minds), they may actually have nothing to do with the natural changes of aging and everything to do with a hormonal imbalance–regardless of age or other naturally occurring hormonal changes.

Calling something a hormonal imbalance is an easy explanation for just about everything–from otherwise inexplicable irritability to the sweat-soaked nights. Meanwhile, a hormonal imbalance also seems to be a result of just about everything–from diet to pollution, to stress. So, it’s no wonder why hormones are left so little understood; the scope of being influenced and influencing other things is just too wide.

And while a lot of the mood-related symptoms are commonly understood, far too few people are accustomed to the telltale physical signs that they have a hormonal imbalance, especially when multiple signs occur at the same time.

Here are five signs you have a hormonal imbalance.

Hormonal Imbalance Signs

1. Weight Gain

The adrenal glands are endocrine glands that produce hormones, including adrenaline, aldosterone, and cortisol. A hormone imbalance can exhaust the adrenal system, which in effect makes it harder to lose weight or even maintain one’s regular weight. It can also lead to weight gain, without changing diet at all.

2. Sweating

A common symptom of premenopausal women, hot flashes and night sweats can occur at a younger age if a hormonal imbalance is present. If you repeatedly wake up sweaty or experience hot flashes during the day, without necessarily being in a hot climate, then a hormonal balance may be to blame.

3. Persistent Acne

A lot of women break out whenever they have their period due to normal hormonal shifts. However, if the acne persists, you may have high testosterone levels in your body. Testosterone stimulates the excess production of sebum oil, which gets stuck under the skin with acne-causing bacteria and dead skin cells. This leads to clogged pores, pimples, and blemishes.

4. Vaginal Dryness

Vaginal dryness tends to occur when menopause approaches. However, a reduction of estrogen levels at any age can cause changes in the vaginal walls. Vaginal dryness makes sex uncomfortable.

5. Excessive or Unwanted Hair

High levels of testosterone in the body can cause women to develop excessive body or facial hair. All females produce androgens (male hormones), but the levels are normally low. Producing too many androgens lead to male-pattern hair growth and other unwanted male characteristics, such as a deep voice.

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Fighting with your beau could cause an uptick in your emotional eating habits.

If you and your guy aren’t fans of the whole choosing your battles thing, your relationship woes could be doing a number on your waistline, according to a recent study published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science.

Researchers from Ohio State University and the University of Delaware found that getting into a spat effs with your bod’s ability to regulate your appetite: Fighting causes a surge in the hormone ghrelin, which is basically your hunger alarm. What’s worse, you’re also more likely to make poor food choices post-argument—and the results were consistent, regardless of gender.

Forty-three couples who’d been married for at least three years were recruited to participate in the study. They attended two nine-hour sessions, where they were asked to hang with their partner, eat a meal together, and try to resolve one or more conflicts in their relationship. They were also asked to answer questions and agree to blood tests and other pertinent data collection.

The sessions were videotaped, and researchers later analyzed footage for signs of conflicted communication, hostility, and an overall disconnect between spouses. Meanwhile, their hormone levels were tested at four different times: Once before the meal, and three times after it—at two, four, and seven hours after-the-fact.

The blood tests revealed hostile couples had significantly higher amounts of the appetite-triggering hormone after fighting—which doesn’t mean fighting is a direct cause of hunger pangs and poor eating habits, just that there’s a strong link, Lisa Jaremka, study author and assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Delaware, said in a statement.

The study broke new ground by exploring how an unhappy relationship can trigger emotional eating and make our comfort food cravings—which typically involve unhealthy eats—that much stronger. I mean, seriously: When was the last time you got into a blowout with your guy and turned to a bowl of steamed veggies for support?

While the study was small, hopefully it will encourage clinicians to ditch the one-size-fits-all diet and exercise mentality when helping patients reach their weight loss goals. “I hope this will help us start to tailor interventions,” Jeremka said. “These studies suggest people have difficulty controlling appetite and with specific types of foods… A personalized approach would be beneficial in the long run.”

How does your relationship impact your emotional eating habits?

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Emotional eating image via Shutterstock

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The frappuccino gets a major health revamp.

While it is high in calories, sodium, and cholesterol, it’s really the sugar content that blows one of Starbucks’s beloved beverages out of the water. Starbucks’s Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino Blended Smoothie contains 310 calories per 16-ounce serving, in addition to 3 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 220 milligrams of sodium, and 67 grams of sugar.

Sugar will go straight to your head, give you a short-term high, and then leave you lethargic and glum. It spikes your blood sugar levels, leads to weight gain, is nutritionally empty, contributes to candida, and, to put simply, is actively bad for you. If you are going to consume sugar, get it from something a bit more decadent and lasting than a down-in-a-hot-second drink, regardless of how delicious it may be!

My version of a vanilla Frappuccino smoothie is sugar-free, save for the optional chocolate syrup glaze and whipped cream, using a few drops of zero-calorie, low-glycemic stevia instead. The recipe also goes a step further by replacing cow’s milk with almond milk. Almond milk is a mere 40 calories per 8-ounce serving and avoids the common issues that arise when ingesting dairy, such as hard-to-digest proteins, hormones, depletion of enzymes and vitamins through pasteurization, saturated fat, synthetic chemicals, and a boo-ing cow.

Cutting corners in so many other ways, it’s up to you whether you want to indulge with a topping of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. You can find vegan variations of both in your local health food store.

Enjoy!

Sugar-Free Vegan Vanilla Frappuccino

Ingredients:

• 1 cup coffee cooled
• 1 cup almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, or skim milk.
• 1 banana
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 handfuls of ice
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 4 drops of liquid stevia, or 2 packets of powdered stevia
• Whipped Cream (optional)
• Chocolate Syrup (optional)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a Vitamix and blend until smooth.

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Image: Starbucks

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As a shift worker, my eating habits leave a lot to be desired. Mealtimes are scheduled around a continually-changing work roster and I often end up snacking at the oddest of times, including 3 o’clock in the morning. And while I’d like to say it’s all healthy food, unfortunately it’s not. For some reason, an apple doesn’t seem as appealing as ice cream in the middle of the night just before I head for bed.

Habits like mine are not unusual for shift workers, or for that matter, a large percentage of the population. Recognizing this, researchers are starting to examine more closely how at our eating habits can affect weight gain. In particular, they are focusing on the relationship between the body’s natural circadian rhythm and related rest cycles (i.e. body clock), eating habits and weight gain.

Researchers at Northwestern University, interested what happens when eating habits conflict with natural body rhythms, set up a study to examine off-schedule eating. They divided lab mice into two groups, allowing one group to have unlimited access to high-fat foods during their normal rest periods and the other group unlimited access to the same foods during their normal activity periods. The results – those who snacked during rest periods increased in weight by 48%, over double that of those who snacked during normal activity periods.

This study, published in the journal Obesity, suggests that those who snack in the midnight hour and at other times of inactivity are at much higher risk of weight gain.

That being the case, could the answer to the current obesity epidemic be as simple as avoiding midnight snacking?

Image: Greencolander

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There are times when watching what my husband calls “the idiot box” is the only option for kids who can’t jump on a bike and go exploring outdoors. But it is an option with more health consequences than we thought, according to a new study on 111 children ages 3 to 8 published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

We all know kids tend to become obese watching too much TV due to the tendency to snack mindlessly, but these results found the more kids watched, the higher their blood pressure, no matter the weight of the kid. In fact, of all forms of inactivity examined by researchers in the U.S. and Spain, being glued to the tube was the worst.

“These results show that sedentary behavior, and more specifically television-viewing, is related to blood pressure independent of body fat or obesity level,” says Dr. Joey Eisenmann, a kinesiologist at Michigan State University and one of the study’s co-authors.

During the course of one week, the children tested wore accelerometers, instruments that record the body’s acceleration in a vertical plane – sitting results in a score of zero, and walking and running produce progressively higher scores.

Anything under a score of 50 per day was listed as sedentary. The children were sedentary for five hours each day, and 1.5 of those hours were spent in front of a TV, computer or video game, on average.

Researchers found when they broke down screen time by activity, TV-viewing had the strongest connection with higher blood pressure. Kids watching from two to five hours of television each day had systolic and diastolic blood-pressure readings (the two numbers that indicate pressure caused by blood pumping from the top and bottom chambers of the heart, respectively) that were five to seven points higher than those of children watching less than half an hour of television a day.

“These results show that TV-viewing really is the worst of all possible sedentary activities,” says Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, who was not part of the study. The American Academy of Pediatrics says children under two should not watch any television and that older children should limit their viewing to one to two hours per day.

So what makes TV less healthy than playing video games or surfing the Internet?

Among the explanations: children may be downing sweet and salty junk food while lying around and this can push up blood pressure readings; watching too close to bedtime can stimulate their brains, interfere with hormones and cause them to miss precious hours of sleep; missing sleep can lead to weight gain and hypertension because the metabolism doesn’t recharge and renew itself overnight; and content of commercials encourages overeating of the wrong types of food, which can be habit-forming throughout life.

In previous studies involving the same group of children, about 20% had developed prehypertension or hypertension – often because of weight gain.

So what is a healthy dose of television watching for children? Like everything else, moderation. One show after homework, a Saturday morning cartoon after a soccer game. And try to replace good movies with harmful commercial television packed with ads marketed to the most vulnerable viewers.

Image: Aaron Escobar

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