Cause of Symptoms
What causes Menopause Symptoms?
Losing the chemical substances (hormones) that were once natural and common throughout your body, which helped regulate and assist with daily body functioning, throws your body out of alignment. The hormonal shifts, imbalances, and fluctuations in menopause may cause all of the following signs and symptoms: weight gain, hot flushes, night sweats, lack of energy, insomnia, thinning hair, brittle nails, forgetfulness, mood swings, vaginal dryness and a loss of sex drive.
Why the weight gain? After menopause, fat cells become the main source of estrogen production so the body tries to hold onto fat. Weight gain also results from high levels of cortisol. This is because cortisol interferes with insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar levels. Additionally, when your cortisol levels overshadow your DHEA hormones, you lose energy and feel fatigued.
And why the insomnia? Sex hormones regulate melatonin, a hormone that controls your circadian rhythms and sleepwake cycles. When sex hormone levels drop, melatonin production increases, throwing off your sleep rhythms as well as encouraging depression.
Estrogen also has an effect on your body temperature regulation, since there are estrogen receptors inside the brain which increases neurotransmitter and synaptic connectivity. Fluctuations of estrogen can cause neurotransmitters to fire unpredictably, triggering hot flushes. The same is the explanation for seemingly unexplainable mood swings.
Because such hormonal imbalances can become increasingly complex, there are times when the level of a particular hormone is not as important as its ratio to the other hormones, leading to the concept of "balancing" hormones rather than merely increasing them.