* Transcription of the words of Jonathan Léger Raymond, herbalist and Ayurvedic therapist, during a meeting with him.
Ayurveda has advantages, strengths in natural approaches. It is not the only way; it is a path, pleasant and relatively easy to walk, facilitating.
It is working as much as possible on what is around, and then, having an intervention at the more hormonal level whether it be with hormone regulators - plants - which will work from the master glands. It is an infinitely subtle work and with the body.
The detox aspect
The detox aspect is important, because before wanting to help the hormones, you have to help the liver. Every day, the liver must "deconjugate" hormones, get rid of old hormones that age badly and quickly.
This will already remove a layer of problems. It will also give less heat because toxins often translate into heat - as if the water left at 20 degrees instead of 60 degrees; it will reach the boiling point less quickly! Thus, before getting caught up in the idea of boiling, we can remove some heat from the body through detox.
There are several ways to detox. The liver is an absolutely central organ. The kidneys too, but the liver stands out a bit. Over the decades, we end up accumulating a certain delay.
There are medicinal plants, but in food, there are also bitter plants that are neglected in the diet. There is only one people I know that values them, and that is the Italians. There are no other cultures that feature bitter plants as much.
Bitterness is good for the liver. Over generations, we have reduced the amount we consume and today, there are several plants that we no longer consume.
Liver cleanse
It is always the time and in the changes of season, even more. We can do liver cleanses anytime.
There are certain plants that we can take all year round. Normally, we ate them every day.
At this time of year, 200 years ago, most farmers, people who had land, dug up burdock.
Burdock
Burdock, everyone knows it, they are the "prickles" that stick (the ancestor of velcro!). This plant has a root that tastes very good. It is eaten a bit like a beet. It is eaten raw, but it is better grated. It is a bit tough. Otherwise, cooked, it tastes very good. It has a rather sweet bitterness. There was a time when it was very common.
Burdock has several other known & studied effects:
- Good for the kidneys
- An alterative plant that goes after toxins in the corners and brings them to the surface
- Prebiotic
- Chelator that chelates heavy metals
- For women who have hot flashes, it is a cooling plant
Which plants daily?
All year round, I take 6 to 8 plants, including Andrographis.
Andrographis
It is a plant that is better known in China and India. It is a tincture. It is also very good against colds and flus. It is the king of bitters, the most bitter plant I know.
Taste the bitterness; it is important to get used to it. There is a part of the effect that goes through the brain. About 50% of the effect. So, it is important to taste. You end up getting used to it. The idea is to expose yourself often, a little bit.
Ayurveda offers a qualitative look, a qualitative analysis.
In herbalism and science, we look at medicinal properties. We also look at the energetic in Ayurveda.
Perimenopause and hormones - the importance of the estrogen/progesterone ratio
By taking care of our liver, it will prepare the ground. Hormone management will be better.
In perimenopause, there are many variations, so we end up with hormone excesses. Even if there is a drop in hormones over time, it is a bit like the stock market, we can draw a line, to know if it went up or down in the long run, but there can be great variations, great volatility.
There is therefore a great volatility of hormones at the perimenopause level. Levels drop, but for example all of a sudden progesterone will drop much more than estrogen,
What happens is that women will still secrete estrogen, but sometimes they will not ovulate. If they do not ovulate, there is no corpus luteum. If there is no corpus luteum, there is no progesterone. So, estrogen drops, but there is a gap where, since there was no ovulation, there is no progesterone. At that moment, estrogen becomes overpowering because normally, these two hormones balance each other. It is always a question of ratio more than anything else. There are other important notions, but there is a question of ratio. The ratio can be disturbed.
I have an ovulation, so estrogen and progesterone follow each other closely. The next month, I do not have an ovulation. Thus, even if estrogen has dropped, progesterone has plummeted. I therefore find myself in hyper-osteogenesis and that is where there are the worst hot flashes. That is where perimenopause "hits us!".
When it hits us, it is because we are in hyper-osteogenesis, that is where there are the big symptoms. We must therefore balance all this.
These hormones stay in the blood. So, if I have the estrogens from the previous cycle that were not eliminated, not only do they stay in the blood and continue to unbalance the normal levels, but also, they become altered and their chemical message is not as good. This creates distortions.
So, the liver aspect is important. It will come to soften the ground. Sometimes, it is enough.
Then, we move on to the next steps. There is another step that you talk a lot about at Maison Jacynthe, it is the adrenal gland adaptogen side. It is the other big chapter.
Adrenal gland adaptogens
The adrenals, at perimenopause, must increase their estrogen production in the perspective that overall, everything will decrease. The adrenals must compensate so that the woman does not end up with practically zero estrogen at the end of the story.
This will also help to soften all the symptoms.
We do not call it an adaptogen for nothing! They are plants that help to adapt. They generate adaptation, but it is us who adapt. It will help to negotiate the perimenopause turn in general, but also specifically with estrogen production.
There is a directly inverse relationship, in opposition, between stress and the production of sex hormones because literally, the adrenals must choose at a certain point between making cortisol or estrogen. The more we are in stress and the more they will "choose" to make cortisol. With that, we age faster.
Making cortisol constantly makes us age and prevents us from negotiating. By lowering estrogen levels too much, the skin will be affected, because estrogens are good for the flesh and for keeping its hydration.
There are liver cleanses, but outside of a cleanse, you need to have strategies to support it long term.
How to take adaptogens?
In principle, an adaptogen can be taken permanently. I take one permanently. Sometimes, in the adaptogens, there are stimulating aspects. Some are stronger like ashwagandha and licorice. It is not the adaptogen aspect itself, but the stimulating aspect that is also there, it is stimulating for the adrenals. It is very true for licorice, for example, of which we could make an excess.
So, some adaptogens could lead to a plateau where we would have more energy, and then eventually we could abuse them.
However, in general, it just gives us a margin of maneuver. I have a little more energy and I use it to be comfortable.
If right now I push my limit further... The expression I say to my clients: "There, I give you a little rope with the adaptogens, but do not hang yourself with it!"
For me, adaptogens can be kept very long term. You have to find the adaptogens that go with us.
Sometimes, when you take a formula, there is a balance in it, an average that is made. In Ayurveda, we will give for example ashwagandha and shatavari which have very different profiles. So often, the formulas will balance out a bit.
Sometimes, it will be interesting to cut them into pieces and go take certain plants more specific to marry to our needs. That is where Ayurveda comes into play more, where it becomes a little more complicated.
Adaptogens and sports performance
We can use adaptogens in an optic of increasing performance. Athletes can increase their performance by about 10% with that.
Shatavari
Fascinating plant! It is a plant that is better for people who have a more vata and pitta nature, more slender, and who at the limit could lose a little too much weight.
People who have to eat often because they do not have much reserve.
We are far from the people who have Kapa excesses who are in a slightly fuller body for whom perimenopause is likely to go a little better because they have more reserves, exceed their limits less, their skin is more hydrated. With this profile, we have a kind of abundance that is there in the body, reserves.
I imagine shatavari as a kind of Japanese goddess, a goddess of femininity with all kinds of fabrics floating around her in white and pink, Little Bo Peep style.
Shatavari, it is almost a caricature of feminine femininity.
Its name is interesting. It means having 100 husbands.
It is also a plant that gives a kind of abundance at the sexual level, it is a plant that is excellent for recovering libido. Because exhausted people no longer have libido. People who do not have reserves no longer have libido.
It is a plant that is very effective for vaginal dryness and lubrication.
It is also a hormone regulator that goes through the master glands, that is to say that it comes to harmonize the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland.
It is so refined. It works with the body without necessarily directing the body somewhere, just gently inviting it.
It can help with conceiving. In fact, it can be used during the whole pregnancy, from beginning to end.
Phytoestrogens
There are basic things about them that are unknown. For example, the protective role of phytoestrogens.
The only way to have an excess is to eat a block of tofu a day and drink 1 liter of soy milk a day. Soy, it is maybe in the plant world what I know that is the richest in phytoestrogens. Otherwise, we find marginal doses.
These doses will have a protective effect because they will occupy an estrogen receptor site (on the cell). The phytoestrogen attaches there, and the estrogen passes there and cannot attach to the cell. So, the overall estrogenic stimulation decreases, which normalizes. If there is a lack of estrogen, the body is capable of transforming phytoestrogens into active estrogen. It would therefore really be necessary to invade the body with a quantity of phytoestrogen so that it gives more estrogenic effect, because normally, it modulates the estrogenic effect.
Bibliographic references:
Aviva Romm, MD, Botanical medicine for women's health, Éditions Elsevier Canada, March 29, 2017, 672 p., ISBN-978-0702061936
Sarah-Maria LeBlanc - J'aime mes hormones, Éditions Jouvence, May 31, 2022, 128 p., ISBN-978-2889536092
Jonathan's webinar:
https://ayurvedarevolution.mykajabi.com/
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