Problems already surfacing in the teenage years

Hormone dysfunction exhibited in our teenagers is indeed a growing concern.

Painful periods, embarassing acne, unexplained weight gain, aggression and moodiness, emotional instability, depression, girls with excessive body hair, reproductive disorders such as endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, cycles that fluctuate every month, 15 years old girls with severe PMS, girls coming into their menses age 10 years or earlier, cranky, irritable sons who can’t seem to find any joy in the world.

Hormone disruption is physically and emotionally crippling our teenage children. And we ought to be extremely concerned.

Mum’s are contacting our Network desperate for answers, and unable to find appropriate guidance for their daughter’s problems that don’t involve strong medication, synthetic HRT, the oral contraceptive Pill, anti-depressants, or antibiotics. There appears to be no satisfactory explanations forthcoming that would explain such bizarre hormonal disruption and abnormal behavior patterns.

We’ve observed a range of sad cases from girls as young as 12 years of age having experienced a couple of years of menstrual problems. Girls as young as 14 with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) undiagnosed and yet so obvious when you look at the array of symptoms they present (later confirmed with high testosterone levels and ultrasounds revealing ovarian cysts).

Another extreme where an 18 year old girl has only experienced one period since her menstruation commenced at 12 years old. And no endocrinologist can offer an explanation other than low estrogen levels.

In much the same way as we encourage women to assist themselves, mums and dads can help their teenager children establish healthy habits that will foster optimal hormonal balance during adolescence and beyond.

Strategies to help correct hormone imbalance in teenagers:

Basically, if you want to help your children correct hormone imbalance, you want to teach them about being healthy. Discuss what that means to them, and what strategies they ought to employ to get on top of their problems.

Encourage your teenage children to eliminate carbonated, fizzy drinks from their diet. Teenagers don’t appreciate that they are, in fact, laying down bone mass that will determine bone integrity when they’re older. And these drinks literally leach calcium from their bones.
Weight control is essential for metabolic health and hormone balance. And there’s growing evidence that a diet high in carbohydrates is not necessarily good for you. More attention should be given to our protein-carbohydrates-fats ratio to eliminate obesity and any likelihood of Diabetes Type II which is on the rise in Western cultures.
In a world where the ‘remote control’ rules, getting off our backside is a chore. Clearly, we’re not getting the daily physical workout of yesteryear when physical exertion was a part of just about everything we did growing up. That’s why it’s imperative our kids exercise in some shape or form for good bone building, to naturally control weight, to improve mental alertness, to feel good about themselves, and get on top of dark moods and stressful situations.
As parents, we can help significantly by providing nutritious, organic meals and snacks wherever possible. Think RAW foods, including vegetables, fruit and greens such a salads daily. Get your family into juicing every day. Reform them slowly, and make it a way of life so they don’t see it as being forced upon them and depriving them of their comfort foods.
Rule of Thumb - avoid packaged and deep-fried food where you can. Essential oils (omega 3-6) are the building blocks of the body and as the term applies they are essential to the body for good health. So serve your children the right oils (cold compressed) and avoid polyunsaturated fats and oils (including margarine). Avoid processed fatty meats, these include most deli foods, ie., salami.
Eating is a sociable occasion, so encourage your children to sit with you at the dinner table and share of themselves. This is a perfect opportunity for kids to develop a positive association with food and family. A healthy, appetising meal prepared with love and shared with the family should be something our kids look forward to on a regular basis. It’s an opportunity also to assess signs of a possible eating disorder and the attitudes associated with the foods you might serve. Social pressure will influence young girls regarding fear of weight gain, and/or being a (selective) vegetarian to be seen as ‘cool’, but not getting a balanced vegetarian diet.
Explain the importance of clean (filtered) water in their diet each day - aim for at least 8 glasses. Invest in a water filter to encourage a higher intake of H2O. Tap water is often laced with chemicals and fluorides which puts more work on the liver to filter. And foul-tasting water discourages drinking.
Stress can be productive or destructive. And it can shift the balance of our hormones if it goes unaddressed. We need to teach our children how stress fits into their lives. How to harness & channel stress to reach for and achieve life-long pursuits. Parents need to look at their own stress levels and how it may be rebounding on their children.
Provide them with a safe place where open communication, honesty and freedom of expression can take place without fear of punishment, disapproval or rejection. Their self-esteem, self-worth and self-image are very fragile, and suppression through an inability to correctly express themselves reflects in their mental wellbeing and may come out in the form of ill health and imbalance. Parents often don’t recognise stress and the pressure their teenage son or daughter is under (which may be of an external nature - peers) until it masquerades as a physiological symptoms (such as depression or period problems).
Where possible, stay away from high sugar/refined foods, including white flour. Easier said that done in this day and age. Nonetheless, when it’s pointed out how the body interrupts these foods and the burden it places on our metabolism, we think you’ll find your teenage children surprisingly receptive to changes in their diet. Avoid that trap that we all fall into as parents of picking up those convenient, much loved fast-food meals … and large bottle of coke.
Milk is not the only source of calcium. Look to other non-dairy sources of calcium such as soy products, green juice drinks like barley grass, wheat grass, seaweed, kelp, brown rice. Calcium is derived from many sources, although the general public believe it is comes strictly from dairy intake. You’d be surprise just how many foods are calcium rich minus the saturated fats. Maybe you’d like to visit www.notmilk.com to learn more.
Don’t be fooled by low-calorie diet drinks, they still have the same impact on the body as does refined sugars with the added lacing of aspartame which is a neuro-genic disruptor. More abuse on the developing body, liver and reproductive organs. We encourage you to visit www.dorway.com for more info on artificial sweetners.
Teach your children to identify products that contain caffeine. Many people are unaware that coke contains caffeine, particularly the older generation. The market pitches caffeine laced ‘pick me up’ soda drinks stimulants at our kids in the form of harmless fizzy drinks. Little wonder Diabetes Type II is on the rise, aggravated by this high daily consumption of refined sugars. Adrenal exhaustion can result further down the track.
Nicotine, alcohol, and drugs generally are toxic to the body. And many of the drugs or medications that the kids are experimenting with (cocktails that include speed, amphetamines, ecstasy, marijuana, to name a few) are more harmful than they realise. Not only do they accumulate in the body, and often store in fatty organs such as the brain when the (overworked) liver is unable to break these toxins down, but it also breaks down their immunity system and compromises other bodily functions perhaps leading to psychotic, digestive or reproductive disorders.
Our website highlights to parents how children too readily rely on headache tablets and household analgesics, and think nothing of the ramifications. When it comes to popping the headache tablet or period pain fix, teenagers do not think beyond the moment. A vicious cycle is establish because they take the tablets to fix the headache which is often caused by toxicity and/or allergies, withdrawal from stimulants, and ebbs of sugar imbalances in the blood. Many of these painkiller tables are codeine-based which are addictive, and withdrawal may trigger more pain.

One mother was so concerned about the level at which her daughter was consuming painkillers for her headaches which, by the way, always followed a pattern, that she substituted the medication cupboard with bottles of magnesium. The outcome was quite remarkable. Her daughter, having experienced muscle relaxation, reduced stress and easing of her headaches, is now happy to resort to what she terms ‘hippy’ medicine. She’s also aware of her need to maintain hydration with water rather than fizzy drinks.
Introducing synthetic hormones into a teenagers body is going to create havoc, possibly leading to serious ramifications on breast and reproductive organs later on. So if your daughter is experiencing period problems, try natural alternatives before putting her on The Pill. The Pill might iron things out for a while, but problems can and do occur. For contraception and protection against STDs, using a condom is the safest option.
Exposure to xenoestrogens (foreign hormones that mimic estrogen in the body that are present in animal fats, particularly red meat and dairy fats, plastics, herbicides, pesticides, industrial by-products) can affect the reproductive organs of both teenage boys & girls. Xenoestrogens exaggerate the natural hormone surges at adolescence. For teenager girls suffering symptoms of estrogen dominance such as menstrual pain, early onset of menses, PMS, etc., the first line of defence is to eat foods rich in phytoestrogens to counteract these foreign hormones in the body.
Incorporate a daily liver tonic to help stimulate the liver into excreting some of the estrogen. Visit the The Liver Doctor website for more info.
Encourage kids to become ‘grazers’ snacking on protein rich foods (which helps balance their blood glucose and reduce their hunger pangs). For example, unsalted mixed nuts, seeds, hommus dips (chick peas) with celery or carrots. If your children are not getting enough protein intake per day, get them onto a high level spirulina - an excellent source of plant protein and iron. Offer the kids ‘health’ shakes that include raw eggs, protein, rice milk, bananas, without telling them what’s in it!
Teenage acne problems can be tackled with a wholefood diet, exercise, minimal dairy and a good liver cleansing tonic that will assist elimination of toxins from the body.
Nutritional and vitamin supplements are important if teenagers genuinely want to reach optimal health. And this can be encouraged through example. Get them to try one or two vitamins/minerals from your stock, see if they notice the difference. Vitamin C, a Multi B, and a Omega 3-6 are a great place to start in supporting the body. A morning glass of organic ‘Green’ juice is a power food worth considering. Once they’re sold on the concept, help your teenage children to individualise a daily intake of core multi vitamins and minerals that suits their specific needs. If need be, seek professional input. Get their health checked out, if they are not well make sure appropriate tests are run, eg., blood profile (iron levels).
Herbs have an incredibly powerful benefits in helping to balance and regulate hormone and menstrual cycles, addressing stress and sleeping disorders. Top of the list is the herb Vitex, also called Chaste Tree, which has the effect of stimulation and normalizing pituitary gland functions. The greatest use of Vitex lies in normalizing the activity of female sex hormones, and it is thus indicated for dysmenorrhoea, PMS stress and other disorders related to hormone function. We certainly encourage parents to seeks out a knowledgeable erbalist to guide and assist in this direction because often hormone balance is restored without the need for hormone replacement. For it is always best to let the body do what it can to resolve hormone imbalance naturally.
The question is often asked, what are the circumstances that would require natural hormone replacement therapy in teenagers? Our Network has witnessed favourable outcomes where natural progesterone has been incorporated in cases of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, period irregularities, anovulatory problems, cyclic acne, and severe PMS (which has failed to response to nutritional, herbal, and dietary methods). Mothers have adopted this approach, before undergoing stronger forms of hormone replacement therapy, because they are fearful of exposing their daughters at such a tender age until they feel satisfied they have given other options the full benefit of the doubt.

They are advised by their doctor that natural progesterone is not a standard form of treatment, that little is known about progesterone in the treatment of these diseases, suggesting these mothers are perhaps acting somewhat irresponsibly and/or irrationally. This places mothers in further conflict. We empathize with the emotional conflicts and issues faced by these mothers, nonetheless, we do make a point of clarifying that ‘natural’ progesterone is a form of hormone replacement therapy, and by supplementing their daughter’s progesterone levels they ARE, in fact, tampering with their endocrine system. So parents need appreciate this fact, and find a very supportive doctor who is willing to do regular tests, assessments and monitoring of their daughter’s progress on progesterone supplementation.

Note, if your teenage son or daughter is overweight, no solution will be long-term until weight reduction is addressed, and the underlying problem identified. If you daughter’s weight problems do not respond to dietary changes corresponding with hormone balancing, and you know she is not sneaking junk food, then we urge you to seek medical advice. Insist on a hormone profile testing all hormones, including progesterone because you daughter may not be ovulating. Ask to include blood profile, pelvic examination, ultrasound to assess the ovaries, further examinations should include bowels, breast, thyroid, liver function, blood sugar, likelihood of STDs. Don’t over-rule the possibility of glandular fever, candida, or bowel parasites.
To counteract the androgenic symptoms (excessive body hair) experienced by teenage girls, incorporate a quality phytoestrogen supplement and feminising foods. Natural progesterone supplementation may be required if hormone imbalance does not right itself. Eliminate all refined sugars and carbohydrates, and get on a weight reduction program. High levels of testosterone interferes with insulin and the manufacturing and metabolising of glucose, thereby causing further weight gain in the upper body, creating more testosterone which further interferes with ovarian function. Thus the vicious cycle.
Make sure your daughter is not on the Contraceptive Pill. We say this because we’ve had mothers contact us desperate for answers that might explain their daughter’s hormone imbalance, mood swings, depression, hair loss, weight gain, headaches, and so on. And upon further detective work, it has been discovered that these girls have been sexually active and placed themselves on the Pill without their parents’ knowledge.