Hormones and your health

While you may have only heard of a few hormones – melatonin, adrenaline, or serotonin sound familiar? – there are actually around 50 different hormones in our body each playing a unique role in bodily processes. These 50 hormones work together to make up your endocrine system.

Hormones are your body’s messengers, passing instructions to cells throughout your body and telling them when to carry out key processes, like growing, reproducing, expressing emotions, and more. While not all hormones are crucial to health on their own, if one hormone is out of balance, it can throw the entire system out of whack, leading to inefficiencies and sometimes uncomfortable symptoms.

Luckily, hormone replacement therapy is an up-and-coming treatment to help rebalance specifically sex hormones in the body to help both women and men feel and look younger.

What is hormone replacement therapy?

Hormone replacement therapy – often abbreviated HRT – is a treatment mostly used to treat symptoms of menopause in women. As they age, women’s natural levels of estrogen decline, which is what causes menopause and brings some of the classic menopausal symptoms, like hot flashes and dryness. 

Hormone replacement therapy can be administered in a few different ways, but oral supplements are the most popular, as they are the easiest for women to take on their own at home.

What is hormone replacement therapy used for?

HRT is most often prescribed and used for women who are experiencing uncomfortable menopausal symptoms, but HRT can also be used for men in the form of testosterone replacement therapy (or TRT). 

For women, HRT is an excellent option to manage menopause symptoms and help them feel and look younger. 

For men, TRT has a load of other benefits, not just in the management of symptoms, but in the improvement of overall lifestyle, look, and feel. By normalizing testosterone levels to fall within a more normal range, men who do TRT can see benefits like improved energy levels, weight loss, and enhanced sexual performance.

When do you need hormone replacement therapy?

While it’s generally true that hormone levels decrease over time for everyone, there’s not a single age where hormone levels are low enough to need HRT, and not every person will be a fit for HRT. In fact, even relatively younger folks – as early as 30 years old – can experience the early onset of some of these symptoms, and starting treatment early can be more effective over time.

Experiencing specific symptoms – like hot flashes or lack of bone density in women and low libido or weight gain in men – is often a pretty good indication that hormone levels may be below optimal and HRT may be able to assist in the management of those symptoms. But many people who may benefit from HRT may not even be aware that their hormones are unbalanced, and conducting testing is the best way to identify these cases.

With a comprehensive blood and gene test from 10X Health, we can not only provide a full hormone panel to identify imbalances in key hormones, but we can also create a customized treatment plan to get hormones back to a normalized level in your system.

Many women enter menopause without knowing HRT is an option to help manage their symptoms, and 10X Health is dedicated to supporting women through the entire process of HRT – from initial hormone testing to treatment.

If you think HRT may help you optimize your health and want to learn more, why not start with a comprehensive blood or gene test from 10X Health and let our team create a customized health plan? Learn more today

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