boo!🎃hemian on Nostr: I had been wondering about sex hormones and keto/carnivore for months and wasn't able ...

I had been wondering about sex hormones and keto/carnivore for months and wasn't able to find a good answer, until now. Thanks, doc! #ketostr #healthstr #carnivore

quoting nevent1q…tm2q

Hey, no problem, ask away. There aren't any studies that I'm aware of that look into the effects of the carnivore diet long term in relation to sex hormones. But generally, ketogenic diets have shown to reduce the level of estrogens circulating in the blood, most likely due to the loss of adipose tissue (a source of estrogen production), therefore resulting in a lowering of aromatase activity in fat tissue (aromatase is an enzyme that converts androgens to estrogens).

So it seems excess estrogen isn't a problem while on a carnivore diet, for both men and women, it's actually a way of reversing gynecomastia in men. The liver metabolizes estrogens into conjugated estrogens, making them more watersoluble and then eliminating them mainly through the kidneys but also through biliary excretion. Some of the conjugated estrogens in the bile can then be deconjugated by bacterial enzymes in the gut and reabsorbed. Fiber can help reduce some of this reabsorbtion, but that might be "helpful" for people on a SAD diet, where they might actually have excess estrogen. That doesn't seem to be the case on carnivore. Cheers!

TLDR: It doesn't seem excess estrogen is a problem on a ketogenic diet, therefore it would probably be even less of a problem on carnivore. Also, most of estrogens are eliminated through the kidneys and not the bile, so no worries about reabsorption there.