Hormones

Carrying information and instructions from one set of cells to another, the body's chemical messengers have a potent effect on our health.

“Combining some protein with complex carbohydrate is a good strategy to replenish glycogen stores and provide some of the nutritional building blocks for hormone-driven muscle repair and synthesis,” Keay says. “There’s also an increase in leptin, the satiety hormone, during sleep which prevents you from waking up ravenously hungry,” she says. Keay says when this happens, the SCN prompts the pineal gland located deep in the brain to release the hormone melatonin, which prepares us for sleep by lowering body temperature and blood pressure. “It’s when you are sleeping that your hormones work their magic of supporting health.” Growth hormones produced when you sleep are important for muscle and bone repair, as well as metabolism. “In an attempt to ‘save energy’, the body shuts down processes that are less essential, including reproduction and fertility.” “Fasting on some days but eating normally on others causes the circadian mis-alignment that is just very bad for our hormones as they struggle to adapt and maintain some sort of balance.” “It happens because of a gradual drop in sex steroid hormones and growth hormones,” Keay says. “Although intense exercise later in the evening has been shown to disrupt sleep patterns which has a negative effect on hormone secretion patterns at night.” “Any kind of stop-start diet or extremes of eating really confuse the hormones and their biological clocks,” Keay says. Inulin, found in wheat, onion and bananas, is also particularly effective as a prebiotic. The first step to prepare the gut for prime hormonal health is to eat prebiotic fibrous food.