I am wondering about hormones from a TCM perspective. Can you think of any good reference materials to research this? Thank you, Jessa

Andrew said: I am not sure I can truly answer this question. What do you mean by hormones? My thoughts are that testosterone is a very yang-type hormone and estrogen and progesterone are yin-type hormones. Thyroid stimulating hormone is also yang in nature. So that is a big question- thousands of hormones to be discussed! There is no accurate way to make a hormone-to-TCM principle translation. For example, in some women progesterone can increase energy level, therefore it has a qi tonic function. In other women, I will often prescribe progesterone for insomnia, therefore the function was to root the shen in the blood. In many women it causes breast swelling premenstrually, therefore we see it caused qi stagnation and fluid overload as a pattern. So, the moral of the story is ignore the western terms of testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, sex hormone binding globulin etc. Instead, look at what the hormone DOES TO THE INDIVIDUAL! You can make some predictions on how a hormone MIGHT act based upon what the hormone does in general. However, TCM only looks at the manifestation of symptoms - focus on those.