Blog Posts and Articles

This is the third post in a three-part series on the critical association between gut and hormonal health.

Here’s the first article in the series >

And here’s the second >

(As of this writing, the next round of the Gut + Hormone Intensive is opening soon, where I can help you look into any of this in detail.)

There a section on the GI panel that all of my private coaching clients and Intensive participants receive called ‘Dysbiotic and Overgrowth Bacteria.’ Now, we all have a little dysbiotic bacteria in the gut, right? What matters is if it’s flagged as high (overgrowth).

If someone has a history of allergies, there are two markers in that section that are almost always a slam dunk—I assume they’re going to be elevated even before the client has sent their stool sample in.

Those markers are: staphylococcus and streptococcus.
Now, we’re not just looking at an infection here—these two are usually joined at the hip and almost always point to mast cell activation in the gut lining. 

I learned about mast cells well over a decade ago because it was a primary trigger for my alopecia. Once I stabilized my mast cells (which isn’t that difficult to do), my hair loss came to a screeching halt and I grew half a head of hair back. Yes, I was literally half bald.

The topic of mast cells has gotten a ton of attention these last several years and while I’m no medical expert, I think it can get unnecessarily overcomplicated.

What are mast cells?

Mast cells are immune cells embedded throughout the intestinal mucosa and they’re first responders to perceived threats: microbes, toxins, allergens, and inflammatory signals. When activated, they can release a cascade of mediators including histamine (what we release during an allergic response), tryptase, prostaglandins, and inflammatory cytokines.

This release is called degranulation. And when mast cells repeatedly degranulate, the gut environment changes—histamine and inflammatory mediators alter the terrain.

And those opportunistic organisms called staphylococcus and streptococcus tend to thrive in a histamine-rich environment.

In other words, elevated staph and strep on a stool test are usually markers of a mast cell driven immune environment, not simply a pathogen problem.

(Keep in mind, under normal circumstances, histamines are protective. Case in point: bug bites. When you get bitten, the body releases histamines as a protective response. But is the magnitude of the response disproportionate to the trigger? Do you experience major swelling, intense itching, and prolonged redness? That’s very likely a hyperreactive mast cell response.)

What does this have to do with hormones?

When you think of allergies, do you think of the association with circadian rhythm and cortisol disruption? Most don’t.

Get this: histamine is a wake-promoting neurotransmitter. And it can remain elevated at night.

Many reading this likely know that cortisol, an adrenal hormone, is “the boss of our circadian rhythm.” If I’ve uttered that phrase once, I’ve uttered it a thousand times over the years.

But mast cells follow their own circadian rhythm—their activity waxes and wanes across the 24-hour cycle because they contain “clock genes” and respond to signals like melatonin and…cortisol.

In short, mast cell activity is synchronized with the circadian clock. Crazy, right?

If you’re experiencing:

• Difficulty falling asleep
• Frequent nighttime waking
• Vivid dreams
• Night sweats
• Nighttime itching
• Flushing
• Heart palpitations when you should be sleeping
• Early morning anxiety (including palpitations)

…you may want to consider mast cells.

Yes, cortisol is intimately tied to our sleep cycle. And when there’s a mast cell issue in the mix and sleep is fragmented, our cortisol rhythm begins to lose its normal distribution and it can negatively impact sleep—truly an unwanted feed-forward cycle.

Once cortisol signaling becomes dysregulated, mast cells are more easily triggered. The result: mast cell activation disrupts sleep, poor sleep further destabilizes cortisol regulation, and impaired cortisol regulation allows even more mast cell activity.

Connecting these dots is important because sometimes the path back to stable sleep and cortisol regulation starts in the gut.

If you’ve been working on your sleep and things aren’t improving, you may want to consider mast cells.

This isn’t meant to be overwhelming. This is NOT a difficult hack. We just have to know what we’re dealing with. There’s a whole component in my Sleep Reset Blueprint class on this topic and it hit home with many people.

We’d cover this in depth in a Gut + Hormone Intensive session or in a full, private coaching program, but below are some basics.

• Address other gut dysbiosis (do the same GI panel that measures staphylococcus and streptococcus)
• Reduce the overall histamine burden by temporarily reducing high-histamine foods—the goal isn’t lifelong restriction, it’s giving the system a chance to calm down
• Support mast cell stability with quercetin, vitamin C, black seed oil, or PEA (go here to set up an account and get 15% off retail)
• Stabilize your blood sugar—glucose swings can make mast cells more reactive
• Do everything you can to otherwise support your adrenals, and thus your cortisol cycle
• Protect the sleep–cortisol rhythm like your life depends on it: a consistent sleep schedule, morning light exposure, and minimizing late-night stimulation

Speaking of sleep, the cause of sleep disruption for many is their mattress. And not just the fact that it’s an old, broken down, lumpy mattress.

Fact: a conventional mattress leaves you face-down in a cloud of chemical exposures (flame retardants, stain-repelling solvents, and pesticides) that can trigger mast cell degranulation. This is why so many experience itching, anxiety, and heart palpitations at night and wake with anxiety. I’ve worked with so many clients who wake with that horrible, early-morning jolt where their eyes open and their nervous system is already in overdrive. No obvious thought or nightmare triggered it—it’s just a surge of unease, a racing mind, and a body that feels like it’s bracing for something that isn’t even happening yet. It’s not a great way to start the day. 

One of the single best things that any of us can do for our health, mast cell issue or no mast cell issue, is to sleep on a nontoxic mattress (affiliate link). I go into detail about the atrocities of conventional mattresses in this post.  

Again, the Gut + Hormone Intensive is opening soon. It will be limited to a certain number of participants and you can stay tuned by subscribing to my newsletter if you’re not already (scroll up on this page and look to the left—the form is under the image of the cookbook).