Oestrogen Dominance and your Estrobolome

Diet, gut bacteria and the health of your microbiome are totally linked to ostrogen levels, certain cancers, PCOS, endometriosis and even some cases of cardiovascular disease.

Oestrogen - dominance and deficiency

Do you have oestrogen dominance - high levels of oestrogen in your body?

Perhaps you have PCOS, or endometriosis, or Er+ve Breast, Endometrial or Ovarian cancer. You may even have cardiovascular disease,

The origins, for women and men, could well lie in your microbiome. The gut microbiome, or as I call it ‘Your Health Control Centre’, is the biggest endocrine organ in your body.

There is a group of bacteria, led by the families Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria that regulate your blood oestrogen levels. And it doesn’t help that what started out when you were just a couple of months old as 96 per cent of your total gut bacteria dwindles through poor diet, stress, drugs and other factors to just 3-4% by the time you are 50.

When this microbiome becomes imbalanced (dysbiosis), the group regulating your oestrogen can also become ‘unbalanced’ and this can lead to oestrogen dominance, a condition where excess oestrogen is reabsorbed into the bloodstream rather than being excreted (1). Or it can lead to the reverse - oestrogen deficiency, where few bacteria that cause reabsorption are present.

What’s the Estrobolome?

Welcome to the Estroblome - a collection of gut bacteria and their genes, which are responsible for regulating estrogen levels in your body by helping denature active oestrogen and expelling it; or by reabsorption when levels seem low.

Of course, membership is not just confined to those two leading families. Other members include families and strains from Clostridiaceae, Ruminococcaceae,, Clostridium, Bacteroides, and Escherichia. 

These gut bacteria and their genes are capable of metabolising oestrogen, primarily through the production of enzymes such as beta-glucuronidase, beta-glucosidase, and sulfatase.

So. put simply, there’s a group of bacteria that can denature oestrogen and expel it from your body, or they can reabsorb it. Thus they regulate your oestrogen levels. You don’t, except by encouraging member numbers or damaging them.

The action of denaturing oestrogen (conjugation) largely occurs in the liver (some also occurs in the breasts). These denatured oestrogens then pass via the bile to the gut, where gut bacteria, depending upon their presence, can expel or reabsorb them.  

Studies of women injected with radiolabeled oestrogen showed that about 65% of oestradiol, 48% of oestrone and 23% of estriol were found in the bile, whereas only 11-15% is found in the faeces (2). So the recovery role seems far greater than the denaturing role.

With cardiovascular disease in women, the cause may well be the opposite of oestrogen dominance - oestrogen provides significant cardiovascular protection in premenopausal women by improving lipid profiles, promoting vasodilation, and reducing inflammation.  Specifically, estrogen increases HDL (good cholesterol) and decreases LDL (bad cholesterol) while enhancing nitric oxide production to maintain vascular elasticity and prevent atherosclerosis. 

It’s a two way process. The loss of estrogen post-menopause accelerates dysbiosis in the microbiome and the inability of bacteria to reabsorb oestrogen because of a lowered Estrobolome (3).

An example - The Microbiome, your diet and ER+ve cancer

All people with cancer have been found to have lowered levels of good gut bacteria, with some good bacteria strains missing completely. As a result the pathogens are less restricted and increase their numbers. These imbalance is called dysbiosis.

Of course, drugs and antibiotics (and stress, and poor diet) make this worse. 

You are what you eat (or rather, what your microbiome eats). We have previously covered a study linking the foods you consume to bacteria promoting good or bad health via inflammation or the production of anti-inflammatory molecules. (4).

In May 2019 we covered research that strains of Lactobacillus are missing in breasts with cancer - and that the Rainbow Diet alone could increase levels (5), We also know that even just taking a Lactobacillus probiotic increases their presence directly in the breasts lowering oestrogen levels, reduces BMI, body fat and waist measurement in women with breast cancer  It also lowered TNF-α which causes inflammation, reduces host immune response and drives metastases. 

Bifidobacterium strains have much the same benefits. Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains work synergistically. You should have both in your probiotic.

If you don’t have any Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium members, you are not going to be managing your oestrogen very well.. 

Go to: How to fix your microbiome

***********

References

1. Gut microbial beta-glucuronidase: a vital regulator in female estrogen metabolism; Shiwan Hu et al; Gut Microbes. 2023 Aug 9;15(1):2236749.

2. Assay of estrogens in human feces. Adlercreutz H, Järvenpää P.J;  Steroid Biochem. 1982;17(6):639–645. 

3. Estrogen–gut microbiome axis: Physiological and clinical implications; James M. Baker et al; Maturitas, Volume 103, September 2017, Pages 45-53

4. Foods and microbiome linked to good or bad health - Rainbow Diet 

5. Mediterranean Diet lowers breast cancer risk - The Rainbow Diet