[missboobshirt]

Hey loves,

I am interested in taking PM, fennugreek or goatsrue, maybe fennu or saw palmetto. I was wondering if any of these besides PM have to be cycled?

also, if anyone while taking these had issues with acne? or any weird or bad side effects?

I was reading the bottle of saw palmetto, how it helps the bladder or something? These herbs are used for other things-- So I am just wondering if anyone had any stories or side effects I should know before taking them? Someone on the forum told me fennu lowered blood sugar and to drink juice at least once a day.

Much appreciated lovelies

[missboobshirt]

can someone at least let me know if fennugreek or goats rue at least have to be cycled like PM?

[Lotus]

can someone at least let me know if fennugreek or goats rue at least have to be cycled like PM?

Everything in NBE needs to be cycled.

[missboobshirt]

can someone at least let me know if fennugreek or goats rue at least have to be cycled like PM?

Everything in NBE needs to be cycled.

Oh okay. I didn't know that, I figured with something like fennugreek you could just take it everyday as you would a supplement or a vitamin. I've never cycled my maca.

[Lotus]

can someone at least let me know if fennugreek or goats rue at least have to be cycled like PM?

Everything in NBE needs to be cycled.

Oh okay. I didn't know that, I figured with something like fennugreek you could just take it everyday as you would a supplement or a vitamin. I've never cycled my maca.

It's a poor analogy here, but hey, I'm a dude, so....and a car lover.

We change our oil every 3000 miles right? So, same principal. Cycling allows the receptors to fine tune or unclog with excess E and xenoestrogens. If we don't cycle the E it gets re-absorbed back into our system and possibly becoming carcinogenic.

DIM, vitex, lemon water, cabbage, broccoli, avocados are just a few tools we have at our disposal for healthly E metabolism. (Exercise, massage and filtered water too).

Only don't wait for that 3000 miles.

[ruch]

Since I started taking herbs, I have been getting regular acne. So after a month or two, I stopped everything but the PM.. but I still get acne. I am trying to deal with it in the hopes my boobs will grow and the acne will stop when I can finally stop taking herbs. We'll see. I am tempte to stop the herbs altogether and jst noogle and massage though as the acne is really bad (cystic and constantly have 1-2 on my face)

[Candace]

It's a poor analogy here, but hey, I'm a dude, so....and a car lover.

We change our oil every 3000 miles right? So, same principal. Cycling allows the receptors to fine tune or unclog with excess E and xenoestrogens. If we don't cycle the E it gets re-absorbed back into our system and possibly becoming carcinogenic.

DIM, vitex, lemon water, cabbage, broccoli, avocados are just a few tools we have at our disposal for healthly E metabolism. (Exercise, massage and filtered water too).

Cycling oil in your car would entail driving around with no oil for part of the time and damage the engine. Receptors don't get clogged by high estrogen, they get desensitized. Cycling restores receptor sensitivity. It's the same principle as why pirates wore eye patches. The covered eye becomes more sensitive to light and has great vision for when they go below decks into darkness and flip up the patch.

Cycling will not prevent enterohepatic reabsorption of estrogens. For that you need calcium D-glucarate. The liver conjugates estrogens with glucuronic acid and excretes them into the intestine with the bile. Intestinal bacteria can make the enzyme beta-glucuronidase which unconjugates the estrogen and allows it to be reabsorbed. D-glucarate inhibits beta glucuronidase and thus prevents estrogen reabsorption.

DIM is for ensuring that estrogen metabolism follows the C2 pathway and not the C16 pathway which makes carcinogens.

[Lotus]

It's a poor analogy here, but hey, I'm a dude, so....and a car lover.

We change our oil every 3000 miles right? So, same principal. Cycling allows the receptors to fine tune or unclog with excess E and xenoestrogens. If we don't cycle the E it gets re-absorbed back into our system and possibly becoming carcinogenic.

DIM, vitex, lemon water, cabbage, broccoli, avocados are just a few tools we have at our disposal for healthly E metabolism. (Exercise, massage and filtered water too).

Cycling oil in your car would entail driving around with no oil for part of the time and damage the engine. Receptors don't get clogged by high estrogen, they get desensitized. Cycling restores receptor sensitivity. It's the same principle as why pirates wore eye patches. The covered eye becomes more sensitive to light and has great vision for when they go below decks into darkness and flip up the patch.

Cycling will not prevent enterohepatic reabsorption of estrogens. For that you need calcium D-glucarate. The liver conjugates estrogens with glucuronic acid and excretes them into the intestine with the bile. Intestinal bacteria can make the enzyme beta-glucuronidase which unconjugates the estrogen and allows it to be reabsorbed. D-glucarate inhibits beta glucuronidase and thus prevents estrogen reabsorption.

DIM is for ensuring that estrogen metabolism follows the C2 pathway and not the C16 pathway which makes carcinogens.

I said change the oil, not run without it. Which would obviously signal the lack of understanding of what a maintenance plan is. It's just an simple analogy for the OP, NOT for YOU, get over yourself.

[Lotus]

It's a poor analogy here, but hey, I'm a dude, so....and a car lover.

We change our oil every 3000 miles right? So, same principal. Cycling allows the receptors to fine tune or unclog with excess E and xenoestrogens. If we don't cycle the E it gets re-absorbed back into our system and possibly becoming carcinogenic.

DIM, vitex, lemon water, cabbage, broccoli, avocados are just a few tools we have at our disposal for healthly E metabolism. (Exercise, massage and filtered water too).

Cycling oil in your car would entail driving around with no oil for part of the time and damage the engine. Receptors don't get clogged by high estrogen, they get desensitized. Cycling restores receptor sensitivity. It's the same principle as why pirates wore eye patches. The covered eye becomes more sensitive to light and has great vision for when they go below decks into darkness and flip up the patch.

Cycling will not prevent enterohepatic reabsorption of estrogens. For that you need calcium D-glucarate. The liver conjugates estrogens with glucuronic acid and excretes them into the intestine with the bile. Intestinal bacteria can make the enzyme beta-glucuronidase which unconjugates the estrogen and allows it to be reabsorbed. D-glucarate inhibits beta glucuronidase and thus prevents estrogen reabsorption.

DIM is for ensuring that estrogen metabolism follows the C2 pathway and not the C16 pathway which makes carcinogens.

I said change the oil, not run without it. Which would obviously signal the lack of understanding of what a maintenance plan is. It's just an simple analogy for the OP, NOT for YOU, get over yourself.

Why improving receptor sensitivity is important for NBE,


Regulation of hormone receptors is very important for a normal functioning cell. There are several ways a cell regulates its hormone receptors. Below is an outline of such regulatory functions:

Regulating the expression of receptors - changing the number of receptors on the plasma membrane.
1. Up regulation - increasing the number of receptors
2. Down regulation - decreasing the number of receptors

Mechanism:
-internalization - endocytosis of receptors
-modify transcription - inhibiting or stimulating transcription factors
-modify receptor half-life - adding groups to the receptors which will degrade them faster


Downregulation is the process by which a cell decreases the quantity of a cellular component, such as RNA or protein, in response to an external variable. An increase of a cellular component is called upregulation.

An example of downregulation is the cellular decrease in the number of receptors to a molecule, such as a hormone or neurotransmitter, which reduces the cell's sensitivity to the molecule. This phenomenon is an example of a locally acting negative feedback mechanism.

An example of upregulation is the increased number of cytochrome P450 enzymes in liver cells when xenobiotic molecules such as dioxin are administered (resulting in greater degradation of these molecules).

Most receptor agonists downregulate their respective receptor(s), while most receptor antagonists upregulate their respective receptor(s). The disequilibrium caused by these changes often causes withdrawal when the long-term use of a medication or drug is discontinued. However, the chronic use of certain receptor antagonists may also damage receptors faster than they upregulate.

Upregulation and downregulation can also happen as a response to toxins or hormones. An example of upregulation in pregnancy is hormones that cause cells in the uterus to become more sensitive to oxytocin.

An agonist is a chemical that binds to a receptor and activates the receptor to produce a biological response. Whereas an agonist causes an action, an antagonist blocks the action of the agonist and an inverse agonist causes an action opposite to that of the agonist.





Downregulation and upregulation
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Downregulation...regulation

Any questions?,

Question- what triggers tissue growth in order for NBE to work?

[Lotus]

This next post is a pretty important step in NBE, by not eliminating the 'bad E's' on a regular basis you run the risk of stalling:

We also know that too much E turns off those receptors and feedback is locked, so what to do?.

Well you have to think in terms of reactivating those receptors, you know!!, clear them out to start the process over,

I have often wondered the same thing! I think its crucial to metabolize these active hormones efficiently or they will build up in the liver much sooner than they normally do, causing the receptors to shut down/ feedback loop effect. For ex, as much as DIM is apart of men's formulas and women's to rid E excess, I think the most important part of what we need from it is actually being able to use these hormones as they flush out of the system. The liver is so important in nbe and metabolizing hormones. The abundance of free running hormones in the blood can be from poor liver function.

I think that is why the Cycling of "hormones" format is so important. It creates the re sensitivity factor consistently. I'm starting to think this is why plateaus happen after a while, loaded receptors and acute poor functioning of the liver.

This totally explained why my first attempt in nbe went detrimental. I had blood tests confirm free high estrogen and testosterone ( from high DHEA) and progesterone (though lowest of them all). And of course, I got some serious androgen conversion. I had no nbe success at all and the worst bumpy skin after months of taking all sorts of herbs (mainly estrogenic).So one can have high levels of E hormones and have no breast developmental effects at all, yet have mild masculating effects . I sadly developed some nice little stray hairs on my areola that were never there before
They were gone thankfully after cleansing months in.

Im convinced, that DHT is the little devil that breaks nbe success. I would personally like to raise my T levels as I am naturally low, but I am so sensitive to DHT conversion from my wonky adrenals.

Hi Tibetan,

Thank you-Brilliant!!,

I wish we focused on what you just posted more often, there's so many things out there that's robbing breast growth these days. Xeno-hormones comes to mind, but this statement struck me, matter of fact the whole article did.

The good estrogen causes no damage and drives immediately to the colon or to the bladder where it leaves the body. The bad estrogen backfires, gets stuck in reverse, and speeds back to the breast where it wreaks havoc. If this bad estrogen finds a parking spot on a breast cell, it will rapidly speed up cell division. If you have a lot of bad estrogen in your body, your risk of breast cancer goes up significantly.

Okay, with this understanding of all the different kinds of estrogen, lets look at how estrogen is processed within the body. Understanding how estrogen is produced, used, broken down and eliminated by your body – the estrogen pathway - is important. It will help you to understand the protocol better and make choices that support your optimum level of wellness.

I am going to quote Christine Horner, M.D. directly, from her book, Waking the Warrior Goddess, (which I highly recommend.) She has an analogy that is very simple and easy to understand.

"To understand the estrogen pathway better, lets use the analogy of a car ride. Your trip begins in the ovaries where estrogen is made and then is released into the blood. The blood vessels are like highways and estrogen flows through these blood vessel highways to get to its target destinations. When estrogen travels in the blood, it either travels alone or is attached to a substance called a "protein binder" (HSBG, Human Sex Binding Globulin), -the difference between driving alone and carpooling. When you carpool in certain cities, you can use a special high-speed lane, usually on the far left. In this lane, you can't exit from the highway. If you're driving alone, you can't use these high-speed lanes. You must travel in lanes that have access to exit lanes. Like the person driving alone, only the estrogen that travels alone – without a protein binder, SHBG – can exit from the blood-vessel highway. In this case, we are concerned about the off-ramp for only one destination: the breast tissue.

When estrogen reaches the breast, it looks for a place to "park". Parking spaces represent the "estrogen receptors", which estrogen binds to on the breast cell membranes. There are estrogen receptors all over your body, but the highest concentrations are found in the uterus and breast. Because of the relatively large number of estrogen receptors in these tissues, they respond more to estrogen than the other tissues in the body do.

When estrogen binds to an estrogen receptor, it "turns it on". A turned-on receptor causes cells to start dividing. Estrogen receptors don't turn on like a simple on/off switch. Instead, they turn on like a rheostat, a light switch with a dimmer.

The rate at which cells divide in response to estrogen is affected by many factors. First, the rate depends on the strength of the estrogen. There are strong estrogens (ESTRADIOL, ESTRONE, XENOHORMONES) and weak estrogens (ESTRIOL, PHYTOESTROGENS). Strong estrogens speed up cell division and therefore, increase the risk of cancer. Weak estrogens slow down cell division, therefore reducing the risk for cancer.

Parking at an estrogen receptor causes a lot of wear and tear on the estrogen. After awhile, it needs to go in for service. So, the estrogen leaves the estrogen receptor and heads for the liver (service station). The liver is the great detoxifier of the body. It breaks down toxins and other natural substances to prepare them for elimination.

Estrogen is broken down in the liver, and is influenced by the presence of certain chemicals. It is either broken down into a "good" kind of estrogen (Technically known as 2-hydroxyestrone) or a "bad" kind of estrogen (16-alpha hydroxyestrone). For instance substances in cruciferous vegetables and flax create more of the good kind, while environmental toxins (xenohormones) create more of the bad kind. The difference between good and bad estrogen is that good estrogen causes the cells to divide very slowly, whereas bad estrogen causes them to divide rapidly. Bad estrogen can also cause mutations or mistakes in how the cells grow that increase your risk of cancer even more.

The good estrogen causes no damage and drives immediately to the colon or to the bladder where it leaves the body. The bad estrogen backfires, gets stuck in reverse, and speeds back to the breast where it wreaks havoc. If this bad estrogen finds a parking spot on a breast cell, it will rapidly speed up cell division. If you have a lot of bad estrogen in your body, your risk of breast cancer goes up significantly.

In the colon, estrogen is either eliminated or absorbed back into the blood. If it is absorbed back into the blood, it adds to the total amount of estrogen in your body, and therefore, adds to your risk. There is a simple solution: eat more fiber. Fiber binds to the estrogen in your colon and eliminates it."

I would like to add a little bit here to Dr. Horner's reference to the "protein binder" sex hormone-binding globulin- SHBG. Understanding this protein can make a big difference in your understanding of the "big picture" of hormone health and balance. It is a critical player with a big impact on all our hormones.

As Dr. Horner mentioned, estrogen (and other hormones) that are bound to SHBG are in the "carpool lane" and cannot make random exits from the bloodstream. Only "free" (unbound) estrogen can roam through various tissues of the body searching for estrogen receptor sites to lock on to. In terms of our risk for breast cancer, it is only the free estrogen that concerns us. However, there is more to the story.

The inner intelligence of the body doesn't want hormones running wild or falling below a certain level. It wants normalcy, hormonal law and order. To achieve this, your body utilizes these sex hormone-binding globulins, which are produced by the liver.

These proteins chaperone individual hormone molecules though the blood. Should the hormones reach too high a level, the protein binds and inactivates them – sort of like a handcuffing effect. The protein not only transports but also regulates and assists in the access process at target cell sites.

If the estrogen level goes too high, an alarm goes off in the liver, the body's master chemical factory. It pumps out extra SHBG. In reaction to a high tide of estrogen, your liver can produce up to three times the normal amount of SHBG.

The problem is that this special protein doesn't just bind up some of the excess estrogen. It binds up – and inactivates – some of the other important hormones, such as thyroid hormone, growth hormone and testosterone (which is more important for women than you might think!)

You may have heard of a condition referred to as "Estrogen Dominance". This is where the body is flooded with higher than necessary levels of estrogens, which might be produced by your own body, or come from a toxic source, xenoestrogens. Usually it is a combination of both.

In addition to the deleterious effects we have already discussed in regards to excess estrogen in the body, there is now a complicating factor. High levels of estrogen in the body trigger the release of sex hormone-binding globulin, as the body tries to maintain balance by inactivating some of the excess estrogen. But, at the same time the estrogen is being inactivated, the release of high amounts of SHBG causes other important hormones to become bound and inactive as well.

In this way estrogen dominance not only raises our risk for breast cancer, but can cause a cascade effect on other important hormones as well.

The effect on you is not immediate. It takes about six weeks before you usually start to experience the fallout from the lowered hormonal activity. Quantities of your important anti-aging hormones have now been taken out of commission. In essence, the available amount of these hormones falls to levels you might have when you are years older. The body becomes less "alive". Perhaps the skin becomes less radiant, the vagina drier. Lowered thyroid, for instance, can cause weight gain, fatigue, coldness and dry skin. These are all signs of a thyroid deficiency. Elevated SHBG can cause such multiple effects.