A good definition of an “estrogenic”—and the one I will be using throughout
this book—is “something that binds or ‘sticks’ to estrogen receptors in your
body”. Simple.
But, wait. Estrogen receptor? Let’s define “estrogen receptor” and look at the
80/20 Principle to understand how an estrogen receptor works.
Estrogen and estrogenics function within the steroid hormone system. I
parallel this steroid hormone system to a radio broadcasting system.
Radio broadcasting works like this: a radio tower sends out a signal. For this
example, let’s say the song is “I’m Gonna Miss Her” by Brad Paisley on Gator
Country, 101.9 FM. A current Florida radio station and a fishing song. Perfect.
If you tune-in to 101.9 at the proper time, you’ll pick-up that broadcast and
hear Paisley’s piece. By tuning-in, you act as a receptor. Really, your radio acts
as the receptor. And “I’m Gonna Miss Her” is the estrogen or hormone in this
example.
Again: it’s all very simple. The song is sent out from one location and picked
up at another location. That is the essence of the hormone concept: your body
creates hormones in one place and sends them out into your blood. They—the
hormones—are picked up by receptors in other locations. The key phrase here is
“other locations”.
For a fun, real-life example, let’s look at a hormone named “leptin”. Your
body creates and secretes this snazzy hormone every day within your fat cells.
__________________________
We Interrupt this broadcast to give you a quick side-story and trivia winner.
Since fat cells secrete leptin hormone, this means fat cells are scientifically
classified as an “endocrine organ”—an organ that secretes hormones.
Therefore, people’s skin, in certain cases, is not their largest “organ”. Fat is.
Fat being the largest “organ” is contrary to what most people think. For
example, here is a scene from the TV show, The Office:
Michael Scott: We think a lot alike [Dwight]. Sometimes you will think something and I will
say what you’re thinking.
Dwight Schrute: OK, what am I thinking right now?
Michael Scott: Umm, nacho chips.
Dwight Schrute: No. . . How skin is the largest organ of the body.
Sorry, Dwight—this is science. There are always exceptions. And, by the way, did
I just get nerdier than Dwight Schrute? Daaang.
The truth is, with the current rate of obesity over 30% throughout America
and rising, many people have more fat cell volume than skin cell volume. Of
course, we’ll just keep that factoid quietly to ourselves and try to fix the
underlying issues. Oh, and we will spend almost an entire chapter—Chapter 5—
talking about how estrogenics are literally stored for years inside your fat cells
and how they are also causing your body to create more fat cells! Yuck. There is
even a correlation between rising rates of obesity and rising rates of estrogenics
in our global environment but we’ll arrive there soon.
__________________________
So, let’s get back to the hormone leptin. Understanding leptin will help you
understand all other hormones.
When leptin hormone enters your bloodstream, all the cells throughout your
body that have a “leptin receptor” will be affected by leptins. Those cells will
snatch out the leptin from your blood and the leptins will change those cells.
Take your brain, for instance. Your brain is an organ with leptin receptors. So
when leptin is in your blood, coursing around, leptin enters the brain and binds
receptors and “tells” you to stop eating. “You are full,” it signals. Leptin,
therefore, is known as the communicator of the feeling of satiety (in your brain)
or fullness.
On the other hand, your tongue apparently has no leptin receptors. Therefore,
leptin just comes and goes in blood circulating around your tongue. It carries no
lingual impact. Weird thought but a true story.
So in essence, no radio = no 101.9 FM tunes. No receptor = no hormonal
actions at that particular location in your body. This is a key concept. If
organs / tissues in your body have receptors, they can pick up the hormone.
Conversely, no receptors equal no response from your body.
Why is this information so darned important? Well, because the estrogen
receptors are pretty much spread all throughout your body. They are far more
prevalent than leptin and most other hormone receptors. In fact, estrogen
receptors are practically in every cell of your body! So, when you tamper with
your body’s estrogen levels by “using” estrogenics (even if it is not on purpose
—I realize that you are not “injecting” estrogenics), this causes problems all
throughout your body. Estrogenics will not just change your brain, not just
change your fat, not just change your muscles, not just change your reproductive
organs, not just. . . well, you get the point. Estrogenics change most of your cells
because most of your cells have estrogen receptors. This is similar in wild
mammals and in fish, too, by the way. This is why artificial estrogenics—those
items we discuss throughout this book—can cause such diverse problems and
such major problems. Estrogenics act all throughout your body, systemically, on
estrogen receptors that are. . . all throughout your body.

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