Hormones play a major part in a woman´s life, altering at different ages and stages. Mother Nature designed us perfectly and the myriad of changes that take place throughout a woman´s life are (if all is in balance and your health is good) orchestrated to perfection for a body that is designed to reproduce. Yes, at times we may curse our hormones and their fluctuations may cause us some discomfort, but this is all part of a perfectly natural process and we can take perfectly natural steps to help us with it.

Even before a girl is born her ovaries contain around seven million egg-forming cells! This number drops to about two million at birth and decreases further still to an estimated 300,000 cells at puberty. Between puberty and menopause about 500 of these eggs mature and are released by the ovaries - approximately one per month. Puberty is a time when major changes take place in a young woman´s body and most of the changes are triggered by the body´s production of hormones.

This whole process begins when a part of the brain known as the hypothalamus (sometimes referred to as the conductor of our hormonal orchestra) sends a message to the pituitary gland (a small piece of tissue about as big as a cherry situated at the base of the brain), telling it that it is now time to start releasing hormones. Two of these hormones, FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinising hormone), then go on to stimulate the ovaries to start producing the hormones whose names you will be more familiar with: estrogen and progesterone. Estrogen comes first and is responsible for the enlargement of the ovaries; preparing them to start producing and releasing eggs. Progesterone encourages growth of blood vessels and glands so the womb is prepared to receive and support a fertilised egg. If conception does not take place, the lining of the womb is shed to produce the monthly period of vaginal bleeding. And so the amazing cycle of menstruation begins. It is something women simply have to learn to live with and is a big part of our lives for thirty-plus years.

It is hardly surprising then, hormonal influences apart, that when such a regular cycle starts to change it can have a major influence on us. Menstruation is just one event in the monthly hormonal cycle. There are a multitude of effects on other areas of the body that are also under the control of the hypothalamus. The familiarly named estrogen and progesterone do have roles other than reproductive ones. For instance, estrogen helps to maintain the body´s supply of collagen (vital for the maintenance of skin elasticity and hair thickness) and it also plays a role in maintaining healthy blood vessels. Progesterone plays a role in improving the functioning of the immune system and also helps to maintain the correct balance of salt and water in the body.

At the onset of menopause the production of estrogen decreases and the production of progesterone virtually halts altogether. The resulting shift in the fine balance between estrogen and progesterone (a balance your body has been attempting to maintain for years) can lead to the symptoms that may afflict some women during their menopausal years. Remember though, as mentioned earlier, in some countries women do not suffer so many symptoms, giving weight to the argument that lifestyle, diet and psychology (what we are programmed to expect!) are major players, too. In the healthy body, once the ovaries stop producing the female hormones, Mother Nature has something else up her sleeve: the adrenal glands produce a form of estrogen and take over production to maintain a comfortable balance. However, if the adrenal glands are stressed they may not work optimally and may fall short on compensating for the ovaries. Estrogen is also produced from fat cells, so this is no time to go on a crash diet and become skinny.