How Minerals Impact Hormones
We’ve talked about how the gut influences your hormones and how minerals can impact gut health, but did you know your minerals play a role in hormone balance too?
In practice, we see the same hormonal symptoms show up over and over again and more often than not, mineral imbalances are part of the root cause. Common hormone symptoms that can be tied to mineral status include:
Painful or heavy periods
PMS and mood swings
Breast tenderness
Irregular cycles
Fatigue
Your nutrient and mineral status directly affects how your body regulates, produces, and detoxifies hormones. Below are some of the most common mineral patterns we see on HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis) with clients struggling with hormone related symptoms.
1. Low Copper
Copper helps the body clear out histamines. As estrogen rises this stimulates our mast cells to produce more histamines and more histamines stimulate the ovaries to produce estrogens. When copper is low the body can struggle to clear histamines and lead to a vicious cycle of histamine + estrogen. This can show up as estrogen dominant symptoms around ovulation and the beginning of your period. Symptoms can look like:
Ovulation pain and cramping
Breast tenderness
PMS
Cyclical migraines
Brain fog
2. Low Selenium
Selenium is a key nutrient needed for thyroid function. It plays a role in T4 synthesis which is our inactive thyroid hormone. Low levels of selenium can also look like hypothyroid symptoms such as brain fog and fatigue.
A great way to support selenium status is by consuming 2-3 brazil nuts a day!
3. High Calcium
When calcium is elevated relative to other minerals, metabolism slows down. Calcium can also block thyroid hormone uptake in our cells causing cellular hypothyroidism. You might feel:
Fatigued
Cold
Constipated
Stuck in “stress mode”
PMS
This pattern can interfere with hormone uptake and make you feel more sluggish. Support for high calcium can look like nervous system support and helping to direct calcium out of the tissues and into your bones and teeth (where it belongs) by supporting overall mineral balance.
4. Low Potassium
Potassium plays a key role in supporting thyroid hormone uptake. A common pattern we see on the HTMA is a high calcium to potassium ratio, meaning more calcium and less potassium. This is known as the thyroid ratio because of the way calcium blocks thyroid hormone uptake and potassium helps to support thyroid hormone uptake. Low potassium can look like:
Slower motility
Fluid retention
Low blood pressure
Brain fog
Fatigue
5. Low Magnesium
This is one of the most common imbalances we see since magnesium is used in so many different processes in the body. Magnesium is crucial for:
Relaxing muscles and easing cramps
Supporting blood sugar balance
Balancing estrogen and progesterone
Calming the nervous system
When magnesium is low, PMS, migraines, cramps, anxiety, and poor sleep before your period are much more likely. It’s also quickly depleted by stress, caffeine, and blood sugar swings.
6. Low Sulfur
Sulfur supports phase 2 liver detoxification, through a pathway called sulfation. This is one of the key pathways your body uses to clear out excess estrogen. When sulfur is low, your body can’t process hormones efficiently leading to:
Heavier periods
More PMS symptoms
Higher inflammation
Sulfur-rich foods like garlic, onions, eggs, and cruciferous vegetables can help, but it’s also important to address why sulfur might be depleted (think chronic stress, poor protein digestion, or toxic burden).
Bringing It All Together
Hormonal symptoms don’t just “happen.” They’re your body’s way of signaling imbalance. When we see mineral imbalances on testing, we don’t just look at what’s low or high. We ask why.
Is stress depleting key nutrients?
Is digestion impaired?
Are detox pathways overloaded?
By rebalancing minerals and supporting the systems that influence them like the gut, liver, adrenals, and thyroid we can help improve hormones too.
If you’ve recently done an HTMA or are curious about how your mineral status could be impacting your hormones, our 1:1 Functional C.A.R.E Method™ is the next step. We’ll help you interpret your mineral results, uncover what’s driving imbalances, and create a personalized plan to restore balance from the ground up.
