# Estrogen dominance

Category: Conditions

Also known as: estrogen excess

Estrogen dominance is a condition Ray Peat identified as the biochemical and tissue-level equivalent of aging itself, driven by an absolute excess of estrogen or a deficiency of its opposing hormones. Peat argued that the fibrotic changes, accelerated accumulation of age…

10 passages · 2 authors · 1997–2022 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/estrogen-dominance

## Synthesis

**Estrogen dominance** is a condition Ray Peat identified as the biochemical and tissue-level equivalent of aging itself, driven by an absolute excess of estrogen or a deficiency of its opposing hormones. [Source 1] Peat argued that the fibrotic changes, accelerated accumulation of age pigment, and degenerative organ changes seen in aging are identical to the effects produced by estrogenic excess, a perspective confirmed by later measurements showing that the ratio of estrogen to antiestrogens increases with age in both sexes, including humans. [Source 1] This state is not confined to women; Peat noted that old men typically have more estrogen than women because their *testosterone is being massively converted to estrogen* by **aromatase** as they age. [Source 4] The condition creates a self-reinforcing **vicious circle**: excess estrogen blocks thyroid secretion, and the resulting hypothyroidism impairs the liver's ability to inactivate estrogen, allowing it to accumulate to even higher levels. [Source 2]

The systemic effects of estrogen dominance stem from its fundamental action on cellular energetics. Estrogen acts as an excitatory agent, temporarily increasing alertness by acting on the same enzymes as cocaine, but this excitation is ultimately *excitotoxic* to nerves, leading to conditions like epilepsy and chorea. [Source 5] At the cellular level, this unsustainable excitation causes oxygen deficiency, leading the cell to take up water, which makes blood vessels leaky and forces the adrenal cortex to compensate by increasing sodium retention, potentially shifting a person from low blood pressure and edema to high blood pressure. [Source 5] In the heart, estrogen exerts a negative inotropic and lusitropic action, decreasing the muscle's pumping strength and its ability to fully relax, a state analogous to diastolic heart failure. [Source 6] Peat emphasized that a tiny, uninterrupted dose of estrogen was shown to produce cancer in every tissue, whereas periodic interruption with progesterone was profoundly protective. [Source 4]

The liver is the primary organ for detoxifying estrogen, a process that requires adequate thyroid hormone, protein, and B vitamins to function. [Source 10] When functioning correctly, the liver inactivates estrogen for secretion, but hypothyroidism—often caused by stress, protein deficiency, or diets high in unsaturated fats and goitrogenic vegetables—cripples this process. [Source 2] Progesterone is the central antagonist to estrogen dominance, and Peat detailed its multi-faceted anti-estrogen actions: it inhibits the **aromatase** enzyme that produces estrogen, inactivates estrogen receptors, and promotes the addition of glucuronic and sulfuric acid to the estrogen molecule, detoxifying it directly within the cell before it even enters the bloodstream. [Source 3, 5] Because stress activates the estrogen receptor and diverts the precursor **pregnenolone** toward cortisol production, a stressed state inherently bypasses progesterone synthesis, deepening the dominance of estrogen. [Source 5]

The clinical manifestations of estrogen dominance are extensive and often misattributed. Peat linked it directly to the development of cystic ovaries, prostate enlargement and cancer in testosterone-deficient men, and the soft tissue calcification seen in scleroderma, which he observed could reverse rapidly upon cessation of estrogen supplementation. [Source 2, 5, 10] Contrary to the claim that estrogen prevents osteoporosis, Peat cited evidence that estrogen causes calcium retention in *soft tissues*, not bones, and that the appearance of increased bone density on x-ray tests is an artifact of estrogen altering the fat and water content of tissues. [Source 7] He argued that estrogen actually promotes bone loss through its synergy with prolactin, serotonin, and parathyroid hormone. [Source 8] The water retention, gynecomastia, and abdominal fat accumulation seen in aging males are outward expressions of this underlying hormonal imbalance. [Source 4] Danny Roddy has extended this framework by noting that the stress conditions often assumed to cause an estrogen deficiency—such as low-carb dieting, over-exercise, and hypothyroidism—actually increase tissue estrogen levels because **prostaglandins** synthesized from released free fatty acids activate aromatase. [Source 8]

The therapeutic approach to estrogen dominance centers on restoring oxidative metabolism and directly opposing estrogen's effects. Because thyroid function is essential for liver detoxification of estrogen and for the synthesis of progesterone from cholesterol, normalizing thyroid function is often the foundational step to bring estrogen levels down. [Source 2] Progesterone can break the vicious cycle, even in a single dose, by blocking estrogen's effects and allowing a return to a more normal temperature set point, simultaneously lowering stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. [Source 2, 9] Peat also identified that eliminating **polyunsaturated fats** is crucial, as they are the substrate for the cyclooxygenase enzyme that produces the prostaglandins which keep aromatase active, creating a local inflammatory loop that sustains estrogen production in stressed tissues. [Source 9]

## People also ask

### How does estrogen dominance create a self-reinforcing cycle in the body?

Peat described a vicious circle where excess estrogen blocks thyroid secretion, and the resulting hypothyroidism impairs the liver's ability to inactivate estrogen, allowing it to accumulate to even higher levels.

### Why did Peat believe progesterone is central to opposing estrogen dominance?

Peat detailed that progesterone inhibits the aromatase enzyme that produces estrogen, inactivates estrogen receptors, and promotes the detoxification of estrogen within cells before it enters the bloodstream.

### What role do polyunsaturated fats play in sustaining estrogen dominance?

The corpus explains that polyunsaturated fats are the substrate for producing prostaglandins, which keep aromatase active and create a local inflammatory loop that sustains estrogen production in stressed tissues.

## Related concepts

- [Estradiol](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/estradiol/index.md)
- [Cori Cycle](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cori-cycle/index.md)
- [Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/dehydroepiandrosterone-dhea/index.md)
- [Methionine](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/methionine/index.md)
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- [Albumin](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/albumin/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Aging, Estrogen, and Progesterone

Ray Peat · Newsletter · Aug 10, 2006

> Many people studying estrogen's biological effects observed that certain of its effects resembled the changes seen in aging, such as fibrotic changes of connective tissues, accelerated accumulation of age pigment, a tendency to miscarry, or the production of degenerative changes in various organs. But as far as I know, I was the first one to suggest that aging itself involves increased estrogen dominance. (Taking this perspective suggests many specific things to do for aging. And, if radiation injury, and stress, are “estrogenic,” it suggests that specific anti-estrogenic treatments could be appropriate.) I based my argument on the identity of the biochemical and tissue effects produced by aging and by estrogenic excess. At that time, techniques for the accurate measurement of very small amounts of estrogen hadn't been fully developed. I felt that the situation should have been clear, because of the previous decades of research, and I used that as the context for arguing that the reason for age-related infertility was the same as for estrogen-induced infertility or stress-related infertility, namely, the inability to deliver oxygen to the embryo. I thought of the developing embryo as a sensitive indicator of processes that occur throughout the body during aging and stress, and that the destruction of the embryo by the excessive estrogen of the birth control pill was closely analogous to the progressive loss of function that occurs in so many tissues during normal aging.
>
> After I wrote my dissertation, Terry Parkening, who had worked in the same lab, sent me data from rats, showing that his measurements confirmed the increase of estrogen with aging. Since then, many others have shown that either the absolute levels of estrogen, or the ratio of estrogen to the antiestrogens, increases with aging in a wide variety of organisms of both sexes, including humans.
>
> In the 1970s, the claims about estrogen curing osteoporosis apparently had been debunked. At the time, that appeared to be the last of the major claims for the therapeutic properties of estrogen. Studies in dogs were starting to show that estrogen was an important cause of degenerative bone disease, as well as kidney disease, liver disease, thyroid disease, etc. Hormones used in contraceptives were producing cancer in dogs, as well as many other diseases, so dog research was widely abandoned by the drug industry/FDA, in favor of animals that were less sensitive, or differently sensitive, to the hormones.

### Source 2 — From PMS to Menopause: Female Hormones in Context

Ray Peat · Book · 1997

> **Ray Peat:** Thyroid function stimulates the liver to inactivate estrogen for secretion, so estrogen dominance can create a vicious circle, in which excess estrogen (or deficient progesterone) blocks thyroid secretion, causing the liver to allow estrogen to accumulate to even higher levels. Progesterone (even one dose, in some cases) can break the cycle. However, if the gland is very big, the person can experience a few months of hyperthyroidism, as the gland returns to normal. It is better to allow the enlarged gland to shrink more slowly by using a thyroid supplement. If an enlarged gland does begin to secrete too much thyroid hormone, it can be controlled with tablets of propylthiouracil, or even with raw cabbage or cabbage juice, and cysteine-rich meats, including liver. Besides fasting, or chronic protein deficiency, the common causes of hypothyroidism are excessive stress or "aerobic" (i.e., anaerobic) exercise, and diets containing beans, lentils, nuts, unsaturated fats (including carotene), and undercooked broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, or mustard greens. Many health conscious people become hypothyroid with a synergistic program of undercooked vegetables, legumes instead of animal proteins, oils instead of butter, carotene instead of vitamin A, and breathless exercise instead of a stimulating life. A good diet, plus a supplement of either thyroid or progesterone, can often break the cycle of hormonal imbalance. If a person has at least a normal level of cholesterol, it is very likely that a progesterone deficiency can be corrected by normalizing the thyroid function, since thyroid, vitamin A, and cholesterol are the main factors in the synthesis of progesterone. If the problem is that the ratio of estrogen to progesterone is too high, though progesterone might itself be at a reasonable level, thyroid becomes crucial, to bring the estrogen level down to normal.

### Source 3 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — May 16, 2022

Ray Peat · Interview · May 16, 2022

> **Patrick Timpone:** Rachel writes in for Dr. Peat on this Monday, the 16th of May. We're live here. Could you please ask Dr. Peat what happens if progesterone is not taken in sufficient quantity since it draws estrogen out of the tissues? Will it cause a temporary estrogen dominance until it is cleared from the body? And what happens if the liver is unable to detoxify it?
>
> **Ray Peat:** No, the progesterone... detoxifies the estrogen in the cell. It inhibits aromatase production of estrogen. It inactivates estrogen receptors. And it promotes the addition of glucuronic acid and sulfuric acid to the estrogen molecule, making it water-soluble. right in any cell where it's both experiencing estrogen excess and experiencing the effects of progesterone. So you have detoxified it before it even leaves the affected cells. And once it's detoxified and in the bloodstream, It has no estrogen effects. And being water-soluble, it leaves through the kidneys without further processing.
>
> **Patrick Timpone:** Dr. Peat, what could be going on, I don't know, big picture for humans or evolutionary-wise, why a little bit of this progestes that you recommend, just a dab, is good? How did we create this situation? Can you theorize?

### Source 4 — Ask the Herb Doctor - February 2022

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 17, 2022

> ## Estrogen as a Cancer Initiator
>
> **Andrew Murray:** The other thing I just want to remind people that are listening—I don't want to be too obvious, but most people's misconception surrounding estrogen is that it's a female hormone, which is completely untrue. Males are also subject to the effects of estrogen, especially with aging. And in England, obviously from the kind of pub culture of drinking beer being firmly entrenched socially, as males get older you have this gynecomastia, which is a term given to male breast enlargement or male breast tissue enlargement, as well as the kind of belly fat which most people would look at as a sign of poor health. But this is very much an outward expression in a male of estrogen dominance.
>
> **Ray Peat:** And old men typically have more estrogen than women, not just the ratio, but their testosterone is being massively converted to estrogen by the time they're 65 or 70.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So the fact that this enzyme aromatase, which converts testosterone to estrogen, is expressed in many different cells in the body—not just in the liver, the placenta, in female bones and in breast tissue—this itself can convert testosterone to estrone. Blocking this enzyme can be so important in reducing the potential of estrogen dominance.

### Source 5 — EastWest Healing: Estrogen vs Progesterone

Ray Peat · Interview · Mar 15, 2011

> ## Symptoms of Estrogen Dominance
>
> **Josh Rubin:** What are some of the symptoms people might see if they are estrogen dominant?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Since it is excitatory, it can temporarily increase alertness. It acts on the same enzymes that cocaine acts on to increase adrenaline action in the brain. It increases verbal activity. However, carried on for a long time, it is excitotoxic to the nerves. Acute effects in the brain can include chorea—uncontrolled movements—and epilepsy. Water retention is the first action of estrogen on the cell. The excitation moves the cell's requirements to a level that can't be sustained, so oxygen becomes deficient, and the cell takes up water. This makes the blood vessels leaky. The adrenal cortex tries to compensate for that leakiness by increasing sodium retention. You can shift from low blood pressure and swollen feet to high blood pressure. At an extreme, you can get gangrene and calcification of soft tissues. Hans Selye called this "calciphylaxis," where excited blood vessels constrict and load up on calcium. I've seen people recover from scleroderma in just a couple of weeks when they stopped using an estrogen supplement.

### Source 6 — Heart and hormones

Ray Peat · Article · 2015 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/heart-hormones.shtml

> Because of the staircase interaction of frequency and force, there has been some confusion in classifying drugs according to chronotropism. In a state of shock or estrogen dominance, an inotropic drug will slow the heart rate by increasing the amount of blood pumped. This relationship caused digitalis' effect to be thought of as primarily slowing the rate of contraction (Willins and Keys, 1941), though its main effect is positively inotropic. It was traditionally used to treat edema, by stimulating diuresis, which is largely the result of its inotropic action. Progesterone and testosterone's inotropic action can also slow the heart beat by strengthening it.
>
> I think it was a little before Szent-Gyorgyi's heart experiment that Hans Selye had discovered that a large dose of estrogen created a shock-like state. Shock and stress cause estrogen to increase, and decrease progesterone and testosterone.
>
> About 30 years after Szent-Gyorgyi's work, people began to realize that digoxin and other heart stimulating molecules can be found in animals and humans, as metabolites of progesterone and possibly DHEA (Somogyi, et al., 2004).
>
> The regulatory proteins that are involved in estrogen's negative lusi- and inotropic actions (decreasing pumping action) have been known for over 20 years to be regulated by the thyroid hormone to produce positive lusi- and inotropic actions on the heart (increasing its pumping action), and thyroid's beneficial effects on heart and skeletal muscle have been known empirically for 100 years. However, drug centered cardiologists, reviewing the currently available drugs approved by the FDA, have typically concluded that "drugs targeted to achieve these objectives are not available" (Chatterjee, 2002).
>
> When a muscle or nerve is fatigued, it swells, retaining water. When the swelling is extreme, its ability to contract is limited. Excess water content resembles a partly excited state, in which increased amounts of sodium and calcium are free in the cytoplasm. Energy is needed to eliminate the sodium and calcium, or to bind calcium, allowing the cell to extrude excess water and return to the resting state. Thyroid hormone allows cells' mitochondria to efficiently produce energy, and it also regulates the synthesis of the proteins (phospholamban and calcisequestrin) that control the binding of calcium.

### Source 7 — Estrogen and Osteoporosis

Ray Peat · Article · 2006 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/estrogen-osteoporosis.shtml

> Both thyroid and progesterone improve magnesium retention. Estrogen dominance is often associated with magnesium deficiency, which can be an important factor in osteoporosis (Abraham and Grewal, 1990; Muneyyirci-Delale, et al., 1999).
>
> As part of the campaign to get women to use estrogen, an x-ray (bone density) test was devised which can supposedly measure changes in the mineral content of bone. However, it happens that fat and water interfere with the measurements. Estrogen changes the fat and water content of tissues. By chance, the distortions produced by fat and water happen to be such that estrogen could appear to be increasing the density of a bone, when it is really just altering the soft tissues. Ultrasound measurements can provide very accurate measurements of bone density, without the fat and water artifacts that can produce misleading results in the x-ray procedure, and don't expose the patient to radiation, but the ultrasound method is seldom used.
>
> In recent years, there has been quite a lot of research into the effects of the macrophage cytokines. Immune therapy for cancer was considered quackery when Lawrence Burton identified some substances in blood serum that could cause massive tumors in rodents to disappear in just a few hours. One of the serum factors was called Tumor Necrosis Factor, TNF. An official committee was formed to evaluate his work, but it reported that there was nothing to it. A member of the committee later became known as "the authority" on tumor necrosis factor, which was thought to have great potential as an anticancer drug. However, used by itself, TNF killed only a few cancers, but it damaged every organ of the body, usually causing the tissues to waste away. Other names, lymphotoxin and cachectin, reflected its toxic actions on healthy tissues. Aging involves many changes that tend to increase the inflammatory reaction, and generally the level of TNF increases with aging.
>
> Although cancer, heart failure, AIDS, and extreme hormone deficiency (from loss of the pituitary or thyroid gland, for example) can cause cachexia of an extreme and rapid sort, ordinary aging is itself a type of cachexia. Progeria, or premature aging, is a kind of wasting disease that causes a child's tissues (including bones) to atrophy, and to change in many of the ways that would normally occur in extreme old age.

### Source 8 — Reader Comment Q&A — Estrogen: The Shit Show Hormone

Danny Roddy · Forum Q&A · May 14, 2012 · http://www.dannyroddy.com:80/main/2012/5/14/estrogen-the-shit-show-hormone.html

> **Stefani Ruper:** (2012-05-14) Hey Danny, What an excellent exposition of the dangers of estrogen dominance. I, like the wonderful health practitioners who have posted before me, am also upset by estrogen supplementation, particularly by how much doctors push estrogen during menopause, even when the women aren't experiencing symptoms. All that said, there are a whole lot of women out there who don't have enough estrogen in their systems. Women who are very thin, women who exercise a lot, women who don't sleep enough, women with low HPA axis activity either from stress, adrenal fatigue, or poor leptin sensitivity, women who eat a very low carb diet, and women with hypothyroidism. this isn't to say that all of the women with these problems have estrogen deficiencies, but many do. There are definitive benefits for increasing estrogen levels in these women. Estrogen deficiency is a real problem. While it plays an inflammatory role, it's important to remember that inflammation is still an important, live-giving and life-protecting phenomenon. Another example of a positive role of estrogen is moving nutrients into tissues. This prevents osteoporosis, as well as enables people to fall asleep more easily since estrogen is necessary for moving magnesium, a "sedative" of sorts, into tissues. All that being said, I know you don't think women should run their estrogen levels into the ground. I just want to throw the obligate estrogen defense into the mix. If I, personally, could get my ovaries to produce estrogen, I would be a much happier, much healthier woman. I want to be careful not to demonize estrogen. Rather, you articulated a great exposition of estrogen's inflammatory role, particularly in men, and I want to move forward with estrogen in its right place as a reproductive but still also very important hormone in proper balance. Stefani
>
> **Danny Roddy:** (2012-05-15) Hey Stefani, thanks for commenting, my responses in bold. Hey Danny, What an excellent exposition of the dangers of estrogen dominance. I, like the wonderful health practitioners who have posted before me, am also upset by estrogen supplementation, particularly by how much doctors push estrogen during menopause, even when the women aren't experiencing symptoms. All that said, there are a whole lot of women out there who don't have enough estrogen in their systems. Women who are very thin, women who exercise a lot, women who don't sleep enough, women with low HPA axis activity either from stress, adrenal fatigue, or poor leptin sensitivity, women who eat a very low carb diet, and women with hypothyroidism. this isn't to say that all of the women with these problems have estrogen deficiencies, but many do. Estrogen deficiency probably doesn’t happen too often, as estrogen increases in the tissue as we age, as Rosenfeltc pointed out above. http://www.functionalps.com/blog/2012/03/21/estrogen-levels-increase-with-age/ Estrogen is increased, not decreased, in those conditions you listed. Inflammation and stress both increase levels of estrogen. Prostaglandins that are synthesized from free fatty acids increase aromatase. Free fatty acids are released during stress by adrenaline when liver glycogen is inadequate. The liver, which stores glycogen and detoxifies estrogen in the body, is suppressed during chronic stress and especially in hypothyroidism. I believe that estrogen, as Selye and Peat have pointed out, is a stress hormone through and through. There are definitive benefits for increasing estrogen levels in these women. Estrogen deficiency is a real problem. While it plays an inflammatory role, it's important to remember that inflammation is still an important, live-giving and life-protecting phenomenon. Another example of a positive role of estrogen is moving nutrients into tissues.

### Source 9 — EastWest Healing: Energy and Metabolism

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 17, 2013 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaF26fTAkWw

> ## Endometriosis and Inflammation
>
> **Ray Peat:** Even though estrogen turns on the stress hormones, and the stress hormones tend to protect the body temperature, at a certain point of estrogen dominance, even the adrenaline and cortisol aren't enough to keep your body warm. So your temperature falls after a certain total exposure to unopposed estrogen. Progesterone, all by itself, can drastically and quickly increase your temperature while at the same time lowering the stress hormones. Progesterone blocks the estrogen's effect, simply letting you return to a more normal set point. In doing that, it stops mechanisms that cause flushing, such as nitric oxide, which causes vasodilation and heat loss.

### Source 10 — Your Own Health And Fitness: Nutrition And The Endocrine System

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 11, 1997 · http://l-i-g-h-t.com/files/your-own-health-and-fitness-nutrition-and-the-endocrine-system.mp4

> **Ray Peat:** Yeah, this is very old information in the 60s, when I was starting my research. I saw that for decades, people have known that food is full of a vast number of estrogenic compounds. The same things which are carcinogenic in smoke have a very neat estrogenic function that’s why estrogen was such an easy thing to commercialize by the drug companies because you could find it everywhere.
>
> **Layna Berman:** I want to talk about progesterone, but before we talk about progesterone I would like you to describe what role the thyroid plays in restoring balance when estrogen is dominant.
>
> **Ray Peat:** The liver, this was work done by the Biscon in the early 1940s. The liver is the main thing that regulates and holds your estrogen in check and the liver to do its work requires adequate protein, nutrition essentially and a basic amount of the B vitamins, but these don't work unless you have adequate thyroid to make the liver able to metabolize the protein.
>
> **Layna Berman:** No, this would also explain why more women have trouble with thyroid function. I think the other things you mention is that we already have estrogen and have as you put it in the book Less Active Livers. Although, I'm really noticing that with increased alcohol consumption, use of pharmaceuticals and then what we just talked about the estrogenic environmental pollutants and the certain infectious diseases that men are getting, that men as well are quite estrogen dominant. So what it does seem that women tend to be the ones that are red flagged, the fastest for low thyroid symptoms, why is it hard to evaluate the adequacy of thyroid function with a blood test?

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