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CHAPTERFemale
Reproductive
Disor der s
T
here is an ongoing struggle in the body between such stress-
promoting hormones as cortisol, adrenaline, epinephrine, and
estrogen and life-enhancing hormones like progesterone, pregnenolone,
and DHEA. When the stress hormones are chronically elevated—they
increase with age, during times of mental stress, and as the result of a
bad diet—they endanger life. They do so by lowering the levels of the
life-promoting hormones.
Nowhere is this struggle for power between the life-promoting and
death-promoting hormones more evident than in the female reproduc-
tive system. The antagonists are estrogen and progesterone, the sys-
tem’s two principal regulating hormones. When they are balanced they
help maintain the equilibrium of the blood’s pH. Estrogen increases
blood acid levels and stimulates the production of lactic acid, while
progesterone, by putting a break on estrogen’s overproduction of acid,
increases the blood’s alkalinity.
Both hormones are generated by the cuplike follicle in which egg
cells are encapsulated in the ovaries, but they function in opposite ways.
Estrogen engineers the release of the egg into the fallopian tube (ovula-
tion) and triggers the growth of nutrient-rich tissues in the uterus for
the support of the anticipated entry of the fertilized egg into the uterus.
Progesterone, referred to as the pregnancy hormone, maintains the
nutritional needs of the fertilized egg (embryo) after it is attached to the
uterine wall.
When estrogen and progesterone levels are normal, they act as a
brake on each other to ensure balanced function. If progesterone, in an