How balancing blood sugar is key to healthy hormone balance
Women who eat a high sugar or processed carbohydrate diet may notice more PMS symptoms such as cravings and anxiety. Blood sugar and cortisol fluctuations also have a more long-term effect by affecting the quality of your sex hormones because our bodies are using pregnenolone to make all our stress and sex hormones.
We make pregnenolone from cholesterol, which is why we need healthy HDL or good cholesterol levels. If we use all our pregnenolone to make stress hormones, we divert a lot of pregnenolone away from sex hormone production, which then has a knock on effect of causing hormonal imbalances which in turn affects fertility and contributes to PMS and other hormone-related symptoms.
How does poor blood sugar control affect sleep?
Our circadian rhythm is our 24-hour cycle body clock and is governed by cortisol and melatonin release. This tells us when we should be waking up or winding down for bed. Our circadian rhythm also regulates many other of the body’s physiological processes so any disruption has a profound impact on our bodies and brains. Blood sugar fluctuations at night can really disrupt sleep, which is why I always tell people not to have anything starchy or sugary late at night. Alcohol is basically pure sugar which is why you might sleep badly after a night out.
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Carolina Brooks
Carolina is a registered nutritionist, naturopath, herbalist & functional medicine practitioner practising in London.
