Hormonal%20Balance%20The%20Impact%20of%20Diet%20and%20Exercise

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Hormonal BalanceThe Impact of Diet and Exercise

• Robyn W. Jacobs, MD
• 24 January 2007

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The What, Why and How of Hormones
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What are Hormones?

• Hormones are Chemical Messengers
• They direct the biochemical reactions which
  happen inside of our body (our metabolism)
• These reactions can be Building
• i.e. making enzymes, building muscle, repairing
  DNA
• Or Using
• Breaking down fat, protein and carbohydrate
  stores for energy

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What are Hormones?

• Chemical Messengers
• Our hormones translate our environment into
  chemical messages which tell our bodies whether
  they should be in building mode or using mode
• We spend most of our waking hours in using mode
• Building mode generally feels uncomfortable

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Why are Hormones Important?

• Our hormones allow us to move between using and
  building modes
• We cant keep our metabolism constant because our
  environment is always changing
• Sometimes its hot, sometimes its cold
• Sometimes food is plentiful, sometimes its scarce
• Sometimes we are under stress, sometimes we are
  not
• Without hormonal balance we lose the ability to
  adapt to our environment

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How do our hormones regulate our metabolism?

• Hormones work by a variety of mechanisms
• Direct the creation/destruction of certain
  enzymes
• Control the rate of action of enzymes
• Control the ratio of activity of enzymes
• i.e. which direction the enzyme moves our energy

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How do our Hormones control our Metabolism?

• Many hormones throughout our body interact with
  one another to send messages to our cells
• The ratio of one hormone to another plays a role
  in cellular function
• The amount of one hormone can up or down regulate
  the amount of another hormone

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The Major Hormones

• Major Hormones are those which are immediately
  necessary for life
• We would not be able to survive if any one of
  these hormones was missing.
• INSULIN Building, Our digesting hormone
• ADRENALINE Using, Our saber tooth tiger
  hormone
• CORTISOL Mostly using (builds fat), Our
  chronic stress hormone.

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The Minor Hormones

• These hormones are not immediately essential for
  life but work to help keep the metabolism
  balanced for our health
• Examples
• Human Growth Hormone, Estradiol, Testosterone,
  DHEAS, Thyroid Hormone

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Because our hormones keep us responsive to our
environment, our hormonal balance changes based
upon our environment. Therefore, we can utilize
our environment to control our hormonal balance
and subsequently our health.Diet and Exercise
are two environmental inputs which significantly
effect our hormonal balance.
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The Dual Role of Food

• Building Blocks/ Nutrients
• Chemical messengers

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Food as Building Blocks

• Macronutrients
• CHO immediate energy, only energy source for
  the brain
• Proteins lean body mass, enzymes, energy
• Fats cell membrane, steroid hormones, energy,
  nerve conduction

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Food as Building Blocks

• Micronutrients
• Vitamins important in generation of energy and
  production of enzymes
• Minerals necessary for many enzymes and carrier
  proteins to function properly
• Phytochemicals compounds which interact with
  our hormonal receptors

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Food as Chemical Messengers

• Total and relative amount of macronutrients
  signals body as to availability and quality of
  food in our environment.
• Macronutrient balance has significant effect on
  INSULIN
• Total and relative amount of micronutrients
  determines which enzymes are functioning
  optimally and which are not
• Lack of adequate micronutrients prevents body
  from going into building mode or impairs
  efficiency of building mode.

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How we eat effects our metabolism

• Consuming food too low in CHO robs our body of
  energy and forces us into a using mode even
  when we are trying to build
• This is the premise of ultra-low carbohydrate
  diets which do cause weight loss but cause loss
  of lean body mass as well as fat mass. INSULIN
  is necessary to build muscle.

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How we eat affects our metabolism

• Consuming food to which we are sensitive causes
  inflammation in the GI tract and stimulates
  ADRENALINE release
• Consuming foods high in refined CHO causes sudden
  steep rises in INSULIN
• Chronic fluctuations in INSULIN or repeatedly
  elevated ADRENALINE lead to excess CORTISOL
  production

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The Hormonally Balanced Diet

• Frequent Small Meals
• Ideally 3 meals and 2 snacks each day
• Each meal/snack should have CHO and Protein in an
  approximately 21 ratio
• Each meal/snack should have healthy fat
• Each meal/snack should have a non-starchy
  vegetable
• One ounce of pure water for each Kg of Body
  Weight (dehydration increases stress hormones)

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When we eat correctly

• We use carbohydrates for brain fuel
• We use protein to build hormones,
  neurotransmitters and enzymes
• We use fat to build hormones, cellular structures
  and nerve sheaths
• We rebuild and restore (building side of
  metabolism) the biochemicals which were utilized
  (using side of metabolism) during the day.

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Additional Tips

• Avoid food allergens to minimize adrenaline
  spikes and inflammation.
• Chew food thoroughly to prevent partially
  digested food particles from causing irritation
  to the GI tract and to maximize nutrient
  delivery.
• SIT while you eat eating is a building phase
  activity. We confuse our metabolism when we try
  to use and build simultaneously.

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Additional Tips

• Never skip a meal metabolism becomes unbalanced
  if we fail to nourish ourselves adequately.
• Avoid artificial sweeteners and preservatives
  our body wasnt designed to break these down
  efficiently
• Eat organic or natural as much as possible
• Avoid processed foods
• Shop the periphery of the food store

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Hormonally Balanced Exercise
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Exercise

• What is exercise
• The American Heritage Dictionary, 1985
• 1. An act of employing or putting in to play use
• 3. Activity that requires physical or mental
  exertion, esp. when performed to develop or
  maintain fitness
• Exercise using our bodies
• What side of our metabolism are we on here?

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Three General Categories of Exercise

• Aerobic/Endurance/Cardiovascular
• Strength
• Flexibility
• See Table

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Potential Benefits of Aerobic Exercise

• Decreases risk of all-cause mortality by 30
• Improves Cardiovascular Function
• Improves Endocrine Function
• Improves Immune Function
• Reduces Stress
• Improves Sleep
• Reduces risk of colon, breast and prostate cancers

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Potential Benefits of Resistance Exercise

• Builds more lean body mass
• Improves metabolic rate
• Aids in weight loss
• Decreases risk of falls and injuries
• Improves balance

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Potential Benefits of Stretching Exercises

• Helps to Maintain Range of Motion
• Helps to Maintain Strength
• Lowers Adrenaline

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Impact of Exercise on Hormonal Balance

• A focus on the Major Hormones
• Insulin
• Adrenaline
• Cortisol

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Impact of Exercise on Insulin

• Light to moderate exercise
• Insulin levels unaffected
• Prolonged (gt40 minutes) or intense exercise
• Insulin levels decline
• Does not impact blood sugar levels in the short
  term due to alteration in counter-regulatory
  hormones

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Impact of Exercise on Insulin

• Training leads to decreased basal insulin levels
• Training leads to increased sensitivity to
  insulin increasing V02 by 15-20 can increase
  insulin sensitivity by 20-30
• Increased tissue binding of insulin
• Rapidly reversed when exercise is stopped even
  for a few days
• Not modified by acute exercise
• May not be seen in obese men with high
  triglycerides and insulin resistance

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Impact of Exercise on Adrenaline

• Adrenaline increases with the onset of exercise
  and (with noradrenaline) is responsible for
• Increase in heart rate (E)
• Redistribution of blood flow (NE)
• Glycogenolysis/lipolysis (breaking down fat and
  glycogen for energy) (E)

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Impact of Exercise on Adrenaline

• Mild Exercise
• Little or no Adrenaline response
• Moderate Exercise
• Signficant noradrenaline response (hemodynamics)
• Minimal adrenaline response
• Intense or prolonged exercise
• Adrenaline increases significantly

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Impact of Exercise on Adrenaline

• Exercise induced changes in adrenaline levels
  persist for 24 hours
• After the anaerobic threshold is reached
  adrenaline increases out of proportion to
  additional work load

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Impact of Exercise on Cortisol

• Low intensity exercise (lt50 VO2 max) decreases
  Cortisol levels
• Prolonged or high intensity exercise increases
  Cortisol
• Ultra endurance exercises abolish the normal
  circadian rhythm of Cortisol
• Cortisol can increase in ANTICIPATION of exercise

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Impact of Exercise on Cortisol

• For Women, Cortisol changes which occur during
  training will persist for some time after
  training stops (ie post season for seasonal
  athletes)
• For Men, changes in Cortisol response to regular
  exercise return to baseline at the completion of
  the training season.
• Training blunts the Cortisol response to exercise

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Why are you working out?

• Exercise fitness, health, well being
• Training competition, goal oriented

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Training

• When we train we are choosing to stress (use) our
  bodies in order to reach a goal. This is OK but
  we must be sensitive to our bodies need to
  rebuild. Impeccable attention to diet and
  sleep/stress management is essential in order to
  keep our metabolism balanced while training.

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Exercise

• Exercising for fitness, health and well-being is
  important for all of us. In order to reap the
  benefits, without allowing our exercise to become
  an additional stressor we must remain cognizant
  of how exercise impacts our metabolism. Focus
  should be on low intensity exercise most of the
  time with moderate intensity exercise a few times
  a week. There is really NO ROLE for high
  intensity exercise in a wellness oriented routine.

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Summary

• Our Hormones are critical to our health and
  well-being
• Hormonal Balance allows us to remain responsive
  to our environment
• We can control our environment to maximize our
  hormonal balance and therefore our physiologic
  flexibility

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Eat well, sleep peacefully, play joyfully