Hormones in Perimenopause and Menopause - All About Estrogen, Progesterone and Testosterone

As I said, we're mostly talking about what are called your sex hormones, which are estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

But before we dive into that, we're going to talk about what hormones actually are.

So you have over 50 distinct hormones in your body.

You have many hormones, and I think that's important to understand hormones off the bat.

You have so many hormones, and hormones are vital to our well-being.

So hormones are chemical messengers that travel throughout your blood to organs, muscles, and other tissues, and they help coordinate different functions in your body.

They are made and released by glands, and all of that makes up your endocrine system.

So glands that produce them, the hormones themselves, this is your endocrine system.

And hormones literally tell your body what to do and when to do it.

They control important processes such as metabolism, your growth, your development, reproduction, sexual function, sleep, mood, digestion, nervous system, blood sugar, blood pressure, and more.

I really want to nail down this fact today.

that your body is comprised of hormones and it truly runs efficiently because of our hormones.

So we talk about these three main sexual hormones because they have so much to do with our lives as aging women.

But truly, they are just part of a vast system of hormones that our body has and uses to work and function optimally.

So it's different glands in your body that make specific hormones.

So for example, your thyroid, one that most people have heard of, right? Your thyroid makes thyroxine.

Your pancreas creates insulin.

Your adrenal glands produce adrenaline and cortisol.

And it's your ovaries, and if you're a man, your testes, that create your sex hormones.

So again, it's just a part of a very big system happening in your body.

So various glands are creating these hormones.

And the way they work is the hormones are created and then they float around your body and they are looking for receptor sites.

So it's specific cells have receptors for very specific hormones.

Think of it as a lock and a key.

And so it's various cells that have different locks and that specific hormone would have the key to unlock that and then activate the cell and the process that needs to be happening.