General Female Health

Progesterone is naturally produced by the ovaries once ovulation has occurred to prepare the lining of the uterus for implantation. If the released egg doesn’t create a pregnancy, then the progesterone levels drop, and the woman has a period. Progesterone is essential for the maintenance of pregnancy and for normal cycle regulation. In most ladies it is typically regarded as the calming, anxiety-relieving hormone. This is because progesterone is converted to a neurotransmitter called Allopregnanolone which interacts with GABA receptors, and GABA is considered the bodies ‘off switch’.

Having variances on the genes which prevent or slow the conversion of progesterone to this calming neurotransmitter can lead to lower levels and hence side effects. Instead, the progesterone might be preferentially converted to cortisol, oestrogen or testosterone, resulting in higher levels of these other hormones in the body, and causing symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, aggression, restlessness, panic attacks, low mood, poor concentration, forgetfulness, heightened emotions, acne, greasy skin, abdominal cramping or bloating, fluid retention, fatigue, headaches, dizziness, and breast tenderness. Knowing your genetic tendency as to how you process progesterone and therefore how you can support this process, will allow you to ease your symptoms.

Some ladies struggle with heavy periods from puberty and for other women it comes at different stages of their life. There are multiple causes of heavy periods but generally it is because there is an imbalance in the female hormones, either in the way they are produced, or processed and excreted. The subsequent consequences of these imbalances can cause cysts, fibroids, endometriosis or adenomyosis.

Our genetic predispositions can make us more vulnerable to this happening but once you know what your vulnerabilities are, you can optimise your lifestyle and nutrition to help alleviate your symptoms and prevent years of unnecessary gynaecological issues.

For periods to be regular there must be the correct balance of hormones to allow the menstrual cycle to perform appropriately. The balance of hormones is needed to achieve ovulation, and for the appropriate thickening of the lining of the womb to support fertilization and implantation. If a pregnancy doesn’t occur, the body needs to be able to expel this lining completely, ready for the process to recur the following month.

The most likely reason for an irregular menstrual cycle or the absence of periods is that ovulation isn’t happening every month. Cycle lengths depend on the individual and can vary from 21- 35 days with some teenagers having ovulatory cycles of up to 45 days.

There are a variety of reasons why hormones might be unbalanced or have become unbalanced. Knowing your DNA tendencies as to how your body preferentially produces, metabolises, and detoxifies your Sex Hormones (oestrogen, progesterone & testosterone) and Neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine, adrenaline and GABA) will allow you to optimise this situation through lifestyle and nutritional changes, thereby allowing the bodies hormones to work more harmoniously.

Breast tissue is sensitive to female sex hormones, the levels of our hormones or the metabolites produced from our partially metabolised hormones can affect the density of breast tissue. The way your body processes and detoxifies hormones is the cause of this. Having breast cysts is both uncomfortable and worrying for ladies, having dense breast tissue makes mammogram screening more difficult and less reliable at picking up early stage breast cancers.

Knowing your DNA variances which affect how you process your hormones and more importantly what simple measures you can take to allow this process to work more optimally, I’m sure you will agree makes absolute sense.

We are sorry to hear this and sadly you aren’t alone, endometriosis affects approximately 10% of women and girls worldwide. Symptoms can vary and as I’m sure you are aware include pain, bleeding or spotting, digestive problems, depression and can cause fertility issues.

We know that certain genetic tendencies make a diagnosis of endometriosis more likely. The ability to detoxify and utilise your sex hormones appropriately, so that they are in the body for the correct amount of time, at the correct dose is essential to help prevent this debilitating systemic disease. The increase in Xenoestrogens (external oestrogens) that our bodies are now also needing to process is greatly adding to the hormone burden and one of the likely reasons why the incidence of endometriosis is increasing.

The body works hard to try and keep all our hormones working in harmony, however, there is often an imbalance between sex hormones and nervous system hormones in ladies suffering with endometriosis. Knowing your DNA variances which affect how you process your hormones and more importantly what simple measures you can take to allow this process to work more optimally, could help you prevent years of unnecessary gynaecological heartache.

It is therefore likely you are struggling with your periods, whether that be the lack of them or very heavy periods. There are also a wealth of other debilitating symptoms ladies may experience with this condition, including facial hair, acne, tiredness, bowel issues, joint pains, and trouble regulating blood sugar levels, meaning weight gain and cravings. There are several causes for this diagnosis, but the result is that ladies have too many male hormones (androgens/ testosterone) in their blood stream. Often having PCOS doesn’t even involve having ‘cysts’ in your ovaries; for those ladies that do, they aren’t really cysts in the ovaries, they are follicles that haven’t had the correct hormone balance in the body to mature and ovulate and be released.

How your body is wired to produce and process your hormones is the likely cause of PCOS, but insulin resistance often plays a part as well as cellular inflammation. Knowing which DNA tendencies have caused this imbalance in your hormones is invaluable. Once you know the cause of your PCOS, diet and lifestyle changes can make a huge difference in reducing your androgen levels, improving your periods, improving your chances of fertility and reducing your risk of Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease in the future.

Sadly approx. 15% of couples struggle with infertility, and the causes and risk factors are multiple as I am sure you are aware. In the absence of male causes (poor sperm motility and function, which account for over 50% of cases) and the absence of female causes such as problems with ovulation, fibroids, endometriosis, Pelvic Inflammatory Disease or cervical mucus issues, then infertility is deemed unexplained. Early miscarriages can also lead to a diagnosis of infertility.

In the absence of any of the above conditions, infertility can be down to less easily recognisable causes including subtle hormone imbalances or reduced nutrients which can occur because of your gene tendencies and mean less ability to synthesise DNA. A process called Methylation can play a key role in our fertility, and therefore optimising any genetic tendencies you may have with nutrition and lifestyle changes could be the missing piece of your fertility struggles.

As you are aware this situation can bring with it a wealth of emotions and heartache and currently in most areas the NHS doesn’t investigate any potential causes until you have had 3 consecutive miscarriages, meaning that heartache can last several years even before any potential causes are considered. With no apparent cause found, it is now important to focus on a potential root cause that the NHS doesn’t necessarily test for, and it is also important to make sure that you are looking at these considerations for both you and your partner.

The nutritional status of both partners is very important at the time you conceive to produce an embryo that has the best chance of survival. Knowing if you have genetic tendencies that mean you require higher levels of certain vitamins, such as Vitamin D, could be key. Methylation is a process that occurs in every cell in the body a billion times a day and amongst other things is crucial for making DNA. Inefficient methylation is often the root cause of many chronic illnesses and can also play a major part in infertility and recurrent miscarriage. Knowing if you have methylation issues can be life-changing as it is relatively easy through optimising nutrition and lifestyle to rectify this situation.

Imbalances in hormones can also play their part. These hormonal imbalances could be the reason for not maintaining a pregnancy, for example by causing structural changes to the womb lining, which could mean implantation is more difficult to achieve.

Your thyroid function will have been checked and you may have even been prescribed low-dose levothyroxine. However, if you have genetic tendencies meaning that you need support to be able to convert levothyroxine into T3 (the thyroid hormone needed in the cells), optimising this process might just make that difference, and beyond helping fertility this can also optimise your general health. If this information is new to you, or if you have been aware of these facts but struggled to find anybody to help you investigate your situation, we will do our best to try and help you on this journey.

Having suffered with gestational diabetes gives you the ‘heads up’ that you are far more likely to be at risk of Type 2 Diabetes in the future. The health implications of being diabetic are often not properly understood and it is absolutely a disease you do not want to have. The inability to properly regulate your blood sugar levels means that the body is more likely to have higher sugar levels which ultimately lead to inflammation. Inflammation is one of the biggest causes of chronic disease and subsequently poor aging and ill health.

Knowing if you have a genetic variant that can lower your insulin response to ingested glucose by up to 5 times is invaluable information. People with this gene variant often have the potential to become more fat on the inside, rather than appearing typically overweight as is usually associated with Type 2 Diabetes. Having this gene variant however doesn’t mean that Diabetes is your destiny, knowledge is powerful and either report option will advise you if you have the main causative gene variant. The Metabolics report will also advise you how your body uses and processes fats and sugars and hence how you can optimise your general metabolism, help to regulate this gene and, will empower you to keep Type 2 Diabetes at bay.

Acne can hugely affect people’s self-esteem and cause long term scarring. It can be triggered by hormone imbalances, stress, diet and certain medications. It often presents for the first time in puberty but can also occur at other times in life when there are hormonal fluctuations including the peri/menopausal years in women.

The body works hard to try to keep all our hormones working in harmony but an imbalance in any one of them, sex hormones, cortisol, insulin or adrenaline can affect the others. Specific gene tendencies that directly cause higher circulating cortisol levels or more potent testosterone levels have been linked to acne, but we must remember that cortisol levels can also be affected by stress, blood sugar and anxiety. Consequently, an accumulation of these factors in some people can make their acne more severe and difficult to treat. Knowing which elements of your biochemistry you need to focus on, giving you direction as to which nutritional and lifestyle changes you can focus on will be empowering and could prevent years of unnecessary anguish.

There is not one known singular cause of eczema, but the biggest association is family history and hence the obvious consideration is that genes are playing a part in your tendency to suffer with eczema. The skin offers a protective barrier so any breaks in that barrier with dryness and cracking will then make you more vulnerable to environmental toxins or products that you may have previously tolerated. Disturbances in the gut microbiome often flares skin conditions and Vitamins A, B’s, C & D are all necessary for healthy skin, aiding repair, and synthesis of new skin cells. Histamine overload can aggravate skin and there are various reasons that this could be happening, including issues with a process called Methylation or an enzyme called DAO found in the gut wall. Stress can play a huge part in eczema as can hormonal imbalances, hence why individuals often struggle at such times as puberty, pregnancy, or the menopause. Often it is a combination of factors but by knowing your DNA tendencies you can optimise your nutrition and lifestyle to your situation. As well as improving your eczema, addressing these fundamental issues will also optimise your general wellbeing.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune condition and as such there are many genes which we can look into to help support the body and improve the condition or prevent it from occurring. Although we don’t test for specific psoriasis genes, we test for several genes involved in the immune system function and inflammation, variants on these genes increase the risk of developing autoimmune conditions including psoriasis.

Autoimmune disease occurs when the body’s immune system becomes over active and starts to launch an immune cascade against itself. In the case of psoriasis, this shows up as an increase in the speed of skin turnover which causes thick plaques, itching and flaking.

It is so important to reduce body inflammation in people suffering with psoriasis and one of the first places to start is the gut and making sure that the microbiome is optimised as well as making sure that the strength of our gut lining is strong to stop any further gut imbalances. We also need to make sure that the foods we are eating aren’t adding to our body inflammation, dairy and gluten can both be inflammatory, we test for intolerances to both of these. Cortisol can lead to inflammation, so managing stress levels and blood glucose levels (both of which can lead to high cortisol) is so important. If you have any genetic predispositions to inflammation, it is even more important that the body is able to perform to the best of its ability to counteract this, by making it’s own antioxidants and has good supplies of the necessary vitamins. The fat soluble vitamins and Omega 3 are also important to help keep the skin moisturised. Good bile flow is needed to absorb Vit A, K & D, so knowing if you have cholesterol predispositions is important. If you are vegetarian, you might not be able to convert plant based Vit A into the form needed to be used in the body.

Many women also get psoriasis flares in sync with their periods, or during pregnancy or ovulation. Looking at hormone genetics can help to support any imbalances contributing to this, for example if oestrogen is becoming too dominant or our bodies are not detoxifying or removing the hormones well. Both issues can add to inflammation in the body, or overload the liver, which can reflect on the skin. Higher oestrogen and lower progesterone can also lead to higher histamine levels, which can increase itching and skin flares.

Genetic testing can make sure that you have all of these functions working well, any weaknesses can then be supported through diet and lifestyle. Working alongside your predispositions in these areas can make a huge difference not only to your psoriasis but to your general health - Knowledge in powerful.

Sex hormones are processed and detoxified through the same pathway as our nervous system hormones. Until Puberty our body therefore only needs to cope with those nervous system hormones, if this system already wasn’t working efficiently, it can cause low level anxiety, mood issues or behavioural problems in children. These conditions can then become more obvious once sex hormones come into the equation at puberty. Knowing what genetic predispositions, you might have not only puts all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together but allows you to manage these vulnerabilities and optimise your wellbeing with nutrition and lifestyle changes that can help.

Genetics can play a major role in our susceptibility to low energy states including Fibromyalgia, CFS and Long COVID. This susceptibly can also be exacerbated further in some ladies due to hormonal imbalances. A process called Methylation is needed for so many aspects of a healthy life – it produces products that support our mitochondria to make energy, it helps us sleep, it is responsible for making serotonin, it supports detoxification, and it aids metabolism. If this process isn’t working efficiently we may struggle to produce optimal energy levels, can be more sensitive to pain and more vulnerable to stress.

Inflammatory tendencies and cytokines play a huge role in our predisposition and the severity of these conditions. Hence, inflammation impacts how our bodies react and are able to recover after any infection, including COVID.

Genetic variances in our Nervous System can also make us more sensitive to pain, along with pre-dispositions to low mood, energy, and fatigue.We can look at your gene tendencies and teach you how you can support these genes through diet, lifestyle and potentially supplements when we know where the weak spots are.

Contrary to popular belief, weight gain/loss is not a simple case of calories in versus calories out. There are many other factors at play and genetic testing can give us some useful insight into genetic predispositions and which dietary and lifestyle modifications can help our bodies get back into balance to regain our body’s natural weight.

Stress can play a part, and if you are genetically prone to be more sensitive to adrenaline and cortisol you will feel more stress and your body will store more fat for fuel. Chronic stress and persistently elevated cortisol levels can ultimately slow metabolism, which causes less energy to be used. Hormonal imbalances can lead to weight gain as a protective measure. For example, around the time of menopause, our bodies increase adipose (fatty) tissue to help the body create more oestrogen to compensate for the reduced levels being produced by the ovaries. Other hormonal imbalances can be affected by insulin resistance, which will then cause weight gain. Imbalances in Thyroid hormones can also lead to weight gain. Genetic testing can show our predisposition to thyroid issues and can also show our body’s capacity to use the vitamins we need to support thyroid hormone production. The way our bodies produce, utilise, and detoxify hormones can be measured genetically so that we can best support any weaknesses.

Appetite/hunger is also genetically pre-determined. By knowing our genetics, we can support these pathways with appropriate eating plans for you to help regulate appetite and hunger and advise if specific diets including fasting or keto would be beneficial. Certain food intolerances, such as lactose and gluten, can lead to water retention and weight gain – we can test whether you are genetically predisposed to these intolerances.

Sleep disturbance can also affect weight gain, melatonin (our sleep hormone) production is genetically determined and if we know there are weaknesses here, we can use nutrients and lifestyle to support sleep.

If you have tried every fad diet and feel frustrated that you are up against it, then knowing your DNA and how you can get to the root cause of your problem will be life-changing.

The Gall Bladder stores bile which is produced by the liver. Bile has multiple roles in the body and hence a lack of it can cause gastrointestinal symptoms as well as general health symptoms. Bile is released in response to us eating fatty foods so that nutrients can be more easily absorbed through the gut lining. It is needed for the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E & K which are important for immunity and reducing inflammation. Bile helps to eliminate toxins from the body and supports the microbiome, so a poorly functioning Gall Bladder (or if the Gall Bladder has been removed), will mean that the body could be left vulnerable, especially if you have underlying genetic predispositions that also make you more at risk of the consequences of inflammation or reduced immunity. Other genetic predispositions can mean that your bile could be thicker and hence will flow less easily, making you more at risk of gallstones and gall bladder inflammation. Knowing if you have a higher need for fat-soluble vitamins, how you process cholesterol and bile, and if you have a higher need for the constituents that make bile, will allow you to optimise your situation which will ultimately help you reduce your risk of inflammation and chronic disease, as well as alleviate any gastrointestinal discomfort.

Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin which is best known for its role in bone health, it is however also involved in muscle metabolism, neurological function, cardiovascular health and immunity. It is called the `sunshine vitamin` because the body can make its own vitamin D when skin is exposed to sunlight. Whilst sunlight is the best source, vitamin D is also present in a few foods and can be obtained from supplements. Vitamin D deficiency can result in lower bone density, rickets, osteomalacia and osteoporosis. Other symptoms of vitamin D deficiency include muscle weakness, difficulty thinking clearly and unexplained fatigue.

Vitamin D isn’t just about the levels in your blood stream it is about how sensitive your Vit D receptors are and how efficient your body is at transporting the Vit D to where it needs to be. Variants on your Vit D transport and receptor genes can have a huge impact on the levels of Vit D that you need in your body. This in turn will affect how your body responds to infection, how your thyroid will work and how efficient you will be at making neurotransmitters including dopamine. The nutrient core report gives a really good over view of your genetic tendencies with regard to lots of vitamins not just Vitamin D, it covers Vit A, B9 (folate), B12, C, D, K, your ability to make the bodies main antioxidant glutathione and will also advise you on how you metabolise - sugar and fat, and any predispositions you may have to inflammation, blood pressure.

Both of these nutrients are imperative for good methylation to occur. This is a biochemical process that occurs in every cell of our bodies a billion times a day. Methylation is needed for so many aspects of healthy life, it produces products that support our mitochondria which makes energy, it helps us sleep, is responsible for making serotonin, if allows detoxification and aids metabolism, it is no wonder that people suffering with low levels of these can feel generally unwell or suffer with mental health issues. Deficiencies can occur through lack of dietary intake but for some people despite eating a diet rich in these nutrients their body isn’t able to absorb or process them efficiently. For some people taking synthetic folic acid as is prescribed on the NHS can make the situation worse. Knowing your genetic variants that can affect your ability to methylate is integral to healthy life and ageing.

If you feel well then it is likely to be a suitable diet for you. The body is pretty good at telling us if things aren’t right. However, we see lots of ladies who don’t feel themselves during this time in their lives and look at making lifestyle changes including changes to their diet. They often decide to follow the latest advice that plant-based diets are best, and sadly often it can worsen their symptoms, albeit they don’t realise their diet is the reason

Most people following a vegan/vegetarian diet know they should supplement with B12 and iron, as these nutrients are more difficult to get in the required amounts from this diet. However, they are less aware that genetic variants could mean that they may also struggle to get enough Vitamin A which is vital for immunity, appropriate anti-inflammatory responses, eye health and for the thyroid to function efficiently.

For some ladies who have genetic variants affecting methylation, the lack of choline in their bodies from a vegan diet can have profound effects, causing amongst other things brain fog, poor mucus membranes, reduced energy levels and anxiety. Knowing how efficient you are at methylating and whether your natural tendency for this to slow down with age could be heightened due to your change in hormones, will also allow you to choose the correct diet or most appropriate supplements to optimise your health.

The nutrient core report amongst other things gives a really good overview of your genetic tendencies with regard to vitamins, which will allow you to make a more informed choice about the diet you choose to follow or how you can appropriately supplement.

This is the ultimate health MOT for you at this stage in your life. The information from these reports will help you make diet and lifestyle choices to optimise your future health and wellbeing

Don’t worry, we know this is an investment in your health and wellbeing and are happy to offer you the opportunity of completing a Discovery Questionnaire. Should you proceed with any of our suggested reports within 3 months, we will deduct half of the cost ( £100) from your order.