A good place to start is by assessing your HCL levels; this can be done with a functional medicine test that I describe in my forth coming book – The Little Book of Nutrition Tips. HCL is important for numerous reasons:
1. HCL helps to join molecules of Indole 3 Carbinol in the stomach to form Diindolylmethane (DIM) a powerful oestrogen detoxifier that improves the E2 to E16 ratio and is cancer protective.
2. It helps to digest proteins properly so that amino acids can be better absorbed – remember how the liver phase 2 pathways run on amino acids.
3. It helps to extract nutrients such as magnesium, B12 and B6 out of the food for absorption – remember how these nutrients are needed for methylation.
The next step would be to take a multivitamin and mineral with the active form of folic acid – L-5 MTHF. This activated form of folic acid helps people overcome a defect in the MTHFR gene that is present in roughly 60% of the population. This again aids methylation.
Now depending on whether you are a male or female, and regardless of how you measure body fat, you will store fat in different places but the ratio of fat stored on the pec, triceps, quads and hamstrings can predict how oestrogenic you are. More and more males are growing man boobs – a sign of oestrogen toxicity, whereas females tend to become very pear shaped with excess fat on the butt and thighs.
If you have fat legs you can try taking a combination of these supplements to help oestrogen detoxification, the exact supplement protocols are beyond the scope of this article but the first 3 supplements are very important:
• Calcium d glucurate 2 capsules 3 times a day
• DIM 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Uber sulphurophane 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Omega 3 6-10g per day
• Fibre 15g a.m. and p.m.
• Green tea extract 2 capsules 3 times a day
If you have fat pecs or man boobs you can try taking a combination of these supplements to help oestrogen detoxification, again the exact supplement protocols are beyond the scope of this article:
• Calcium d glucurate 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Fibre 15g a.m. and p.m.
• DIM 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Uber sulphurophane 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Green tea extract 2 capsules 3 times a day
• Grape seed extract 1 capsule 3 times a day
• Resveratrol 1-2 capsules 3 times a day
Jeffery Bland has developed a host of powdered medical foods that Bob Rakowski uses in his cleanses. I have written about these nutritional cleanses elsewhere, but one of the medical foods is an oestrogen based detoxifier that can be used on a daily basis as a meal replacement or snack or during one of these nutrition cleanses.
Finally ensuring gut health is key to prevent beta glucuronidase from recycling “old” oestrogens and taking a probiotic supplement can be very useful.