Hormone Testing Blog

Hormones are chemical messengers that manage many bodily functions. Balanced hormones help you maintain good health, but shifting or unbalanced hormones can negatively affect your health. Hormone testing can identify hormonal imbalances to provide insight as to whether hormone therapy to balance your hormone levels could improve your health, vitality, and quality of life.

The Role of Hormones

Hormones are responsible for crucial bodily functions as well as major changes that occur over your lifetime. They are essential for fertility, libido, muscle tone, skin tone, bone health, energy levels, and weight management, among other functions. Additionally, hormone levels shift at various points to induce life stages such as puberty, reproduction, pregnancy, and menopause. Imbalanced hormone levels are part of the reason why young people going through puberty often develop facial acne and why women going through menopause typically experience hot flashes.

Imbalanced hormones can cause many health issues, including:

• Osteoporosis
• Heart disease
• Prostate cancer
• Breast cancer
• Endometrial cancer
• Endometriosis
• Polycystic ovary disease
• Weight gain
• Hair loss
• Fatigue
• Anxiety
• Mood instability
• Brain fog
• Low libido and poor sexual performance
• Reduced immune system function
• Hot flashes
• Loss of muscle mass loss
• Muscle weakness
• Joint and muscle pain
• Premature aging

The Benefits of Hormone Testing

While conventional hormone testing measures blood samples, at Vitality Medical & Wellness Center, we use the Complete Hormones™ comprehensive urinary test. This form of testing allows for convenient sample collection and provides more comprehensive indicators of hormone metabolism for more extensive and useful results. The Complete Hormones™ test measures parent hormones, their metabolites, and key metabolic pathways.

Hormone testing may be right for you if you have observed any of the following health concerns in yourself:

• Diminished sex drive
• Reduced sexual performance
• Unexplained weight gain
• Infertility
• Irritability and mood swings, especially in the week before menstruation
• Hot flashes
• Changes in sleep patterns
• Vaginal dryness
• Urinary incontinence
• Signs of premature aging
• Headaches
• Periods that are painful or irregular in some fashion

Hormone testing is also recommended for individuals who have a greater risk of developing certain diseases or conditions, such as heart disease or breast cancer, due to personal or family history. With your test results, a customized hormone and/or nutritional therapy program can be put in place. Such personalized information helps determine which treatments are best for your needs. Treatment with hormone therapy can improve your symptoms and quality of life and may reduce your risk of certain diseases. In short, it can lead to the eradication of most (if not all) of the symptoms listed above as well as other symptoms related to hormonal imbalances.

Hormone testing can reveal essential information regarding shifting hormone levels in men and women so that an appropriate treatment plan can be enacted to improve health and quality of life. To learn more, call (702) 731-1200or fill out our online contact form to book your appointment with us today.