Hormones are confusing and downright irritating little devils. You know you have them, and you know they wreak havoc on your sexual health and emotional wellness, but do hormones get given the blame too often? Over the years, hormones have been blamed for everything from causing cancer to encouraging homosexuality, but contrary to popular belief, hormones might not have as much influence over your wellbeing as you think, and the influence they do have is not so scary. Let’s take a look at some of the more ridiculous myths associated with hormones.
1. Hormones in food can make you turn homosexual: Award-winning wellness writer Hope Gillette notes, ‘Contrary to the some people’s belief female hormones used to promote chicken growth will turn a man homosexual, the fact is there are no studies supporting this theory…All in all, the only issues ever examined for a link to hormone use in poultry were those related to early onset of puberty, and no substantial evidence was ever found.’ According to CornellUniversity, ‘Steroid hormones in food were suspected to cause early puberty in girls in some reports. However, exposure to higher than natural levels of steroid hormones through hormone-treated meat or poultry has never been documented. Large epidemiological studies have not been done to see whether or not early puberty in developing girls is associated with having eaten growth hormone-treated foods.’
2. Hormones lower your sex drive: While Andrew Goldstein, MD, director of the Centres for Vulvovaginal Disorders in Washington, DC, admits that hormones do have an impact on your libido, he argues that relationship or emotional issues – not hormones – are often the primary driving force behind a lack of libido. Other contributing factors include stress, depression, poor body image, and lack of sleep. When it comes to a low sex drive, your underlying causes may be different to other peoples’. However, if you’re an older woman going through menopause, hormones do have quite a bit of influence on your libido. Gillette explains, ‘Decreasing levels of oestrogen can cause vaginal dryness, making intercourse uncomfortable. A loss of female hormones can also desensitise a woman’s female organs, making arousal difficult and thus leading to a lack of sexual desire. Some post-menopausal women actually experience an increase in libido, but this is attributed to a lack of pregnancy anxiety rather than hormonal fluctuations.’
3. Hormones lead to mood swings: Gillette details, ‘PMS, the condition attributed to drastic mood swings during hormone fluctuations, only affects approximately 15% of women. For the rest of the population, emotional changes are probably just the result of a bad day or a cumulative response to a series of bad days. This doesn’t mean that hormones won’t cause mood swings; it just means not every mood swing is hormone-related.’ Nanette Santoro, MD, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Montefiore Medical Centre and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, adds, ‘Every study done on women with PMS shows their circulating levels of hormones are normal, but some researchers believe that certain hormone metabolites in the brain cause the mood changes – or that some women just metabolise hormones differently. No one knows for sure.’
4. Urinary tract infections cause hormone fluctuations: Lauren F. Streicher, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at NorthwesternUniversity’s Feinberg School of Medicine, asserts that true urinary tract infections (UTIs) occur due to bacteria in your urinary tract system that usually builds up due to sex or lack of hygiene. Gillette weighs in, ‘Hormone fluctuations will have no direct effect on bacterial growth.’
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