Tired, anxious, gaining weight? It could be your hormones | Dr Helen O’Neill

Welcome to ZOE Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health. Every second of your life, there's an invisible orchestra in your body whose music is coordinating every aspect of your health. That orchestra consists of over 50 hormones. Each one is an unseen but constantly changing chemical signal. Together, they make beautiful music that helps us wake up ready to go, tells us we're hungry, or psyches us up for an argument. They shape your energy, your metabolism, and over the course of a lifetime, your health itself. However, if just one instrument in the orchestra drifts out of balance, everything can feel wrong. In the modern world, many of us are living in ways that quietly but persistently disturb that music. Stress, disrupted sleep, highly processed food, everyday chemical exposures, over time, they can all interfere with how our hormones work. And often, we don't realize this is happening. We just live with the symptoms and assume it's normal. The good news? It doesn't have to be this way. Misbehaving hormones can be identified, and lifestyle changes can have a profound impact on hormones, even returning the whole orchestra into tune. In this episode, I'm joined by doctor Helen O'Neil, a lecturer in reproductive and molecular genetics at University College London, who has measured reproductive hormones in over a 100,000 people. And I'm also joined by doctor Federica Amati, Zoe's head nutritionist. Together, we explore the incredible power of hormones, how modern life leads them to misbehave, and what the science says about restoring balance, from fertility and PCOS to gut hormones and testosterone injections. By the end of this episode, you'll you'll have a clearer understanding of what may be influencing your hormones and what matters most if something feels wrong, so you're empowered to take charge of your hormonal health. Helen, thank you for joining me today. Pleasure to be here. And Frederica, wonderful to see you again. Excited to be here, Jonathan. So, Helen, we have a tradition here at ZOE where we always start with a quick fire round of questions from our listeners. And with these very strict rules for scientists, you can only say yes or no or one sentence if you absolutely have to. Willing to give it a go? Challenge accepted. Alright. Are there any parts of the body that aren't influenced by hormones? No. Do women have testosterone? Yes. Do men have estrogen? Yes. Federica, does what you eat change your hormones? Yes. Can body fat influence a man's testosterone levels? Yep. And, Helen, what's your favorite fact about hormones that still blows your mind? I would say that the gut itself is like a hormone factory. That's amazing. I'm still coming to terms with the fact that men have estrogen, which tells you how little that I understand hormones. So I think we should start at the beginning because we've already established that I have no idea what hormones are. What …