The Top 5 High Estrogen Foods to Avoid

Hey, guys. Dr. Axe here. In this video, I'm going to talk about high estrogen foods you must avoid and also estrogen-rich foods that can destroy your health and really cause major hormonal issues. There are a lot of things that people are eating today that are disrupting their hormones, causing estrogen to be high, causing progesterone to be low. Some of the side effects are, for men, having more feminine characteristics, and for women, increased issues like hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, and even ovarian cancer are some side effects of consuming too many estrogen-rich foods. I'm going to talk about the five estrogen-based foods and products you absolutely want to avoid, and then talk about a food here at the very end that you'll want to add into your diet to help your body detox the excess estrogen. So the first food that you want to avoid that contains way too much estrogen, or what are called xenoestrogens, is soy. We know soy products today, especially processed soy, most of it is genetically modified. And consuming soy, again, a very high estrogen-based food. Whether it be soy milk, soy protein powder, or just regular soy beans, this is something you want to avoid. Now, soy started being consumed in large amounts years ago because it was so popular in Okinawa, Japan, but they consumed a different type of soy. It wasn't the genetically modified soy that we consume today. It was a type of soy called natto, which is fermented soy beans. So it was loaded with probiotics, vitamin K2. It didn't have the same estrogen effects. The reason why these estrogen foods are an issue is because they're called xenoestrogens. They increase estrogen in your body, or they act like estrogen, which again increases your risk of breast cancer and cervical cancer in women. And for men, major testosterone issues, impotence and other health issues. So again, soy: number one estrogen-rich food you've got to stay away from. Number two food is too much sugar. Too many sugars and carbohydrates can increase estrogen in your body and lower progesterone. So eliminate the processed sugar. Get rid of grains in large amounts. If you're consuming large grains, switch over to doing more fruits, vegetables. Or if you need to do grains, sprouted grains are a better option. But really balancing out those ratios, lowering your carb intake. Increasing your intake of healthy fats will also help naturally balance out and decrease excess estrogen in your body. Now, maybe the biggest offender of excess estrogen in your diet is consuming conventional meat and dairy products. In fact, I read a study recently out of Spain, and they found that your average milk today contains 20 different chemicals and medications, including growth hormones like RBGH, as well as estradiol and other hormone-based medications. So again, think about this. You go, your regular grocery store, pick up a gallon of milk. That milk contains over 20 different medications and chemicals, which is going to increase your estrogen. This is why in my family practice in Nashville, I had young girls coming in, hitting their menstrual cycle closer to 9 and 10 years old, rather than 13 and 14, because of all of these extra hormones and steroids in the milk supply, and the same goes for the meat you eat. If you are shopping on a budget, and you don't have a lot of extra money to spend, if you're going to invest in your health anywhere, make sure it's on your meat. So doing grass-fed organic meat and raw organic dairy products, because if you're doing those and they're not organic, we know they've got steroids and estrogen in them. That's going to increase your risk of all the things we talked about, from cancer to autoimmune disease to other neurological issues. Then last but not least, again, we talked about getting rid of soy, getting rid of sugar, getting rid of the conventional meat and dairy. Then the last one here is a product, but stop drinking out of or eating a lot of things out of plastic containers that contain BPA. BPA stands for bisphenol-A. It's a compound in plastics that's known as an estrogen-mimicker or a phyto or a xenoestrogen. So staying away from the plastic bottles, especially when they're heated. If you leave a plastic bottle of water out in the sun, actually by about 90 to 100 times of those plastics will leach into the water. When you're drinking those, those will get into your system, causing these hormonal-based problems. Another thing along with plastic are teflon pans. In fact, when you heat up teflon pans, that heat actually increases what are called PFLAs, which are also estrogen mimickers, by 400 times. So again, heating teflon pans, doing things out of plastic bottles, another big no-no in things you absolutely want to avoid if you want to decrease estrogen. Here's my last tip. Obviously, we want to get rid of those foods and products. If you want to start detoxing your body of estrogen, there is a substance found in cruciferous vegetables called indole-3-carbinol. It starts out as a form of sulfur in your body. Sulfur has powerful . . . or sulfurane has powerful detoxification properties. So if you can eliminate those foods and start consuming more cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussel sprouts, kale, collard greens, these cruciferous vegetables will absolutely help your body detox with indole-3-carbinole, as well as a few other things you may consider for detox. There's supplementing with milk thistle and dandelion, two other great things. So cruciferous vegetables, milk thistle are great to support your body, detoxifying from excess estrogen. Hey, guys. Get those estrogen-rich foods out of your diet. Hey, this has been Dr. Axe.