Can hormonal balance improve allergies or asthma?
If your allergies or asthma seem to get worse at certain times of the month or with age, it may be your hormones to blame.
Research has shown that allergies are often triggered or intensified by the body’s natural transitions and cycles, such as puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. Hormonal fluctuations also cause more severe asthma attacks in many women, especially older women, usually before or at the beginning of menstruation, and the risk of severe asthma attacks quadruples at menopause.
Progesterone levels rise just before the start of menstruation and remain high until it ends, and are linked to a worsening of asthma in up to 40% of women. One study linked the development of allergies and asthma to irregular menstrual cycles.
During menopause, a woman’s ovaries decrease the production of estrogen and progesterone, and this has also been linked to worsening allergies. Some women, however, experience a decrease in asthma and allergy symptoms with menopause. It seems that women’s bodies can react differently to estrogen and progesterone, so hormonal fluctuations can affect existing allergies or asthma differently.
Research also shows that autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, celiac disease, Chron’s disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and insulin-dependent diabetes are also affected by hormone levels. They are three times more frequent in premenopausal women than in the rest of the population.
One of the reasons for hormonal fluctuations in allergies and asthma is the reduction in cortisol. When this happens, the body tries to compensate by producing more adrenaline, which causes inflammation and, therefore, an increase in allergic and asthma symptoms.
Low progesterone levels can also aggravate allergies and asthma, as can excess estrogen (estrogen predominance). That is why estrogen therapy and the pill are of little help and actually exacerbate asthma. A 2004 Harvard study showed that women on hormone replacement therapy (which increases estrogen levels) were twice as likely to develop asthma as women who did not take estrogen. In a 2004 Norwegian study it was found that oral contraceptives, which contain estrogen, increase the risk of asthma by 50%.
Therefore, natural hormonal balance should be considered a key element of allergy and asthma solutions. Patients whose hormones are naturally balanced are often surprised to find that their allergy and asthma symptoms are significantly alleviated as well.
However, it is not surprising. Hormones play such an important role in the health of our body and immune system that they are inevitably involved in allergies and asthma, either increasing their severity or helping to provide relief.