How to Hormone Detox: 6 Simple Steps for Your Liver + Digestive System

It’s time to get hormone-smart! Hormone detox is a process that starts in your liver and digestive system, and is key to supporting estrogen metabolism that influences estrogen dominance and other hormonal imbalances. We’ll discuss six simple steps for hormone detoxification to promote healthy estrogen levels and optimize hormone metabolism. These steps include eating foods which promote hormone detoxification, getting adequate sleep every night, drinking plenty of water each day, and leveraging the right supplements to reduce estrogen excess and hormone imbalance. 

Boost Breakdown of Excess Hormones (and Avoid Estrogen Dominance!)

A healthy liver is essential as it helps package up and process estrogen and its byproducts. The liver needs plenty of nutrients to perform estrogen detoxification (like magnesium and DIM), but is also influenced by hydration status and can be slowed by high toxic load or exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. 

Healthy bowel movements help clear excess estrogen in the digestive system, as does a diverse, healthy gut microbiome. An efficient hormone metabolism helps keep estrogen levels within a healthy range, but it’s still heavily dependent upon estrogen detoxification in the liver. If either of these systems aren’t working optimally, it could impact estrogen levels and you’ll likely notice symptoms of estrogen dominance.

To completely reset your gut and support hormone balance, learn more about the 21-Day Belly Fix to improve a host of issues including hormone imbalance, bloating, and even skin issues like acne breakouts.

For 7 basic tips for any good hormone detox, keep reading!

1. Add probiotics to your diet, such as yogurt or fermented vegetables

Probiotics are great for hormone detox. They support the digestive bacteria in your gut that make up what’s called the estrobolome. These bacteria help process and metabolize excess estrogen and other hormones.

One study found that women with high estrogen levels, but reduced beneficial bacteria had a greater breast cancer risk (1). Another study showed that hormone-sensitive endometrial tumors were more likely to grow in the presence of elevated estrogen levels (2). 

My favorite probiotic-rich foods are kefir, yogurt, veggies or beets, and kombucha. Some of these flavors can take a while to get used to for some of my patients, so sometimes a high-quality probiotic supplement is the way to go.

It’s important to take care of your beneficial gut bacteria at every stage of life, but especially for estrogen detoxification. Check out this article to learn more about how to support healthy estrogen metabolism with beneficial bacteria.

2. Avoid processed foods that are high in endocrine-disrupting chemicals and low in essential nutrients

Processed foods (and a lot of restaurant foods) are full of hormone-disrupting compounds including xenoestrogens and low-quality, oxidized fats. Xenoestrogens are synthetic compounds that mimic estrogen but that don’t actually perform the same in your body. They can make it harder to lose weight, and contribute to symptoms of estrogen dominance.

The liver has to work harder when these are present, and some data suggests they might even contribute to impaired detox function. Environmental toxins clog up the ability to process excess estrogen and other hormones efficiently which can lead to more problems down the line.

Sugar and processed carbohydrates also add to hormone imbalance because of its impact on the hormone insulin, which controls blood sugar and plays a key role in overall wellness.

Related: These ‘Obesogens’ Make It Harder to Lose Weight

3. Eat more broccoli and fiber-rich foods to move excess estrogen through your digestive tract

Broccoli–and even more so broccoli sprouts–contain a compound called indole-3-carbinol (I3C) which helps the body break down excess estrogen. I love adding both broccoli and broccoli sprouts for liver detoxification and gut health. They’re powerful hormone-balancing foods that also provide prebiotic fiber for beneficial gut bacteria.

You can also take indole-3-carbinol directly if you don’t eat broccoli or other cruciferous vegetables on a regular basis. I3C might also improve improve your skin, moods, and energy levels.

I also recommend anti-inflammatory foods like healthy fats high in omega-3s and plenty of leafy greens if you’re working on estrogen detoxification.

Read more: 9 Easy Anti-Inflammatory Recipes Worth Trying

4. Drink filtered water

Staying hydrated is a key piece of the hormone balance puzzle, and hormone detox is no different. Many of my female patients complain about estrogen dominance and hormonal imbalance symptoms while drinking diet soda or lots of coffee, both of which can dehydrate you and make estrogen excess issues so much worse.

Staying hydrated supports digestion and promotes liver detoxification. This keeps estrogen levels in check. What you can do to make hydration even more effective, is filter out any endocrine-disrupting chemicals that you might be ingesting along with the water. 

Activated carbon filters remove hundreds of contaminants like pesticides and other agricultural chemicals, heavy metals, and other impurities. They’re popular in both counter-top filters and can be installed beneath your sink.

Reverse osmosis filters are also effective at removing a high percentage of toxins, bacteria, and harmful contaminants. These types of water filters are often installed beneath your sink.

How’s your toxic load? Take the quiz!

5. Get at least 7 hours of sleep each night 

Sleep helps balance hormone levels, especially cortisol and melatonin. When many of my patients describe hormone excess symptoms like anxiety and weight gain, I always find out how well they’re sleeping. Most of the time–it’s not enough.

Sleep regulates the level of cortisol, a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. It’s also known as the stress hormone (3). Cortisol helps regulate other hormones in the body, and excess can negatively impact progesterone production. This is especially important if you’re still having a menstrual cycle.

When you sleep well. you should wake up feeling rested. This allows cortisol to reach a ‘peak’ about 30 minutes after you wake up, which impacts all of your other hormones, including thyroid hormone and estrogen.

How women can optimize sleep

I recommend using a blue light filter on your devices, as well as getting outside during the day to get natural sunlight exposure. 

You should also try to keep it cool in your bedroom with either black out curtains or an eye mask.

I like to recommend hormone-balancing, sleep support supplements for my hormone imbalance in my patients including magnolia bark, magnesium (check out this post on the importance of magnesium), ashwagandha, L-theanine, vitamin D at night time, and GABA.

Sleep Savior contains both magnesium and magnolia bark to help turn off a busy mind and get some rest.

6. Take a sauna bath for 15 minutes every day, or take a hot shower with Epsom salts for 10 minutes

Baths are a great way to relax, sure, but they’re also a hormone detox powerhouse. Once you step out of the steamy bathroom, your skin will be loaded with sweat and toxins that have been drawn out through pores. The heat from saunas or hot showers can actually help improve overall detoxification pathways too (4). 

And if you want to balance your hormones, support your adrenals, and reduce stress, Epsom salt baths should become your go to. 

Epsom salt is made of magnesium sulfate, which is a combination of magnesium, sulfur, and oxygen. These beneficial compounds are especially helpful if you’re experiencing high stress or anxiety, but still working on healing your gut. An unhealthy gut has a harder time absorbing nutrients.

And because Epsom salt baths naturally contain magnesium, they may help you sleep better as well by helping to produce melatonin.  

7. Consider taking supplements such as DIM or calcium D-glucarate

These supplements can help balance estrogen hormone levels by supporting the liver’s ability to break down excess hormones including estrogen that may be circulating in your bloodstream. 

As explained in this post, breaking down hormones in your gut is very important. 

Calcium D-glucarate increases estrogen elimination in the gut. It works by inhibiting an enzyme in the gut that prevents estrogen from being packaged up for detoxification (5).     

DIM is a naturally occurring substance found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage that helps promote hormone detox by supporting healthy estrogen metabolism. This supplement can be especially helpful if you have estrogen dominance, and want to promote a more favorable balance of progesterone and estrogen. 

Read more: Signs You Have Estrogen Dominance (+ 6 Steps to Balance Hormones)

Other things to do for better hormone detox:

Spend 30 minutes practicing yoga or strength training. Exercise can improve hormone levels and burn off excess stress hormones that interfere with estrogen metabolism. As a bonus, breaking a sweat helps toxins leave your body via perspiration, decreasing your toxic load and helping your body deal with any excess hormones. 

Swap your coffee for green tea. Green tea contains an antioxidant called epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Catechins have been shown to help your body eliminate excess estrogen, and may even reduce the risk of some cancers, including hormone-sensitive cancers like breast cancer (6). 

Signs and Symptoms that indicate You Need a Hormone Detox

Some common signs of a hormonal imbalance include difficulty losing weight, irregular menstrual cycles, heavy bleeding during periods, or worsening PMS symptoms like mood swings or breakouts. 

Other signs include:

• Constipation
• Anxiety or depression
• Weight gain or bloating
• Difficulty sleeping or insomnia
• Chronic stress
• Worsening ADHD symptoms
• Hair loss or thinning hair

How to Start a Holistic Hormone Detox

If you’ve been feeling sluggish, overweight, or just not yourself lately, it may be time to do a hormone detox. A good detox will help your body get rid of the excess estrogen that is making you feel so bad and can reduce your risk for chronic illnesses including breast cancer. 

Fortunately, a hormone detox doesn’t have to be complicated, and you can begin with incorporating more probiotic-rich foods, hormone-balancing nutrients, and supporting detox function in the liver. This helps metabolize excess estrogen with the right supplements to help. 

Join us on this 21-Day Belly Fix to learn how to clean up your hormones naturally with food!

Resources

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5017946/ 
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6542701/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4377487/
4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5941775/
5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030438359090138N
6. https://www.breastcancer.org/tips/nutrition/supplements/known/green_tea