Here's How Hormones Affect Your Weight

Have you noticed you’ve gained weight even though you’re trying to eat a healthy diet? Perhaps you’ve been overweight for a long time and just can’t shed the extra pounds. You might have a hormonal imbalance. 

Hormones regulate a number of vital processes in your body, including your metabolism, digestion, and appetite. 

Board-certified internist Dr. Dheeraj Kamra and our Ample Health team look for the cause of unexplained weight gain (or loss) when you come in for an exam. Dr. Kamra explains that there are several reasons your hormones may be out of balance. 

Your weight

Hormones have an effect on your eating patterns and, thus, your weight. Researchers have discovered that being overweight or obese can change hormone activity in your body. Excess body fat can cause hormones that control appetite to become dysregulated.  

When you feel hungry, it’s because the hormone ghrelin sends a hunger message to your brain. If you’re significantly overweight or obese, you may have an overactive ghrelin receptor or be more sensitive to this hormone, which increases your hunger to the point that you overeat. 

Just as you have a hormone that regulates hunger, you also have a hormone called leptin, which regulates satiety. 

If you’ve been overweight or obese for some time, your body may produce too much leptin, or your body may have developed leptin resistance, which means that your body doesn’t respond to the hormone. 

When your body produces leptin, it helps you feel full when you’ve eaten enough. If your body no longer responds to leptin, you consume many more calories than you need because your body doesn’t feel full. 

Medical conditions 

If you’re gaining weight but your eating patterns haven’t changed and you don’t think you’re overeating, we order tests to determine whether you could have an undiagnosed medical condition. Some medical conditions can result in weight gain. 

If your thyroid doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone, you could develop hypothyroidism. This condition slows your metabolism and you gain weight, sometimes rapidly. 

We can provide medication to replace the missing hormone. Conversely, if your body produces too much thyroid hormone, you could start losing weight and experience hyperthyroidism. Medication or surgery can bring your body back into balance. 

Sometimes women develop a condition called polycystic ovary syndrome from overproduction of androgen, a male sex hormone. Your body may also be unable to regulate your insulin production, resulting in weight gain. 

Being significantly overweight or obese places you at risk of metabolic syndrome, meaning you have several conditions — such as high blood pressure and high blood sugar, which place you at high risk of heart disease and diabetes. 

Age 

Menopause is a time in a woman’s life when you’re more likely to gain weight even though your eating patterns haven’t changed. The female hormone estrogen plummets during menopause. Your body tends to change to a pear shape, with fat accumulation around the waist. This is part of natural aging. 

Likewise, as men age and lose some of the male hormone testosterone, your metabolism slows, you lose some muscle mass, and it’s easy to gain too much weight. 

Whether you’re a man or woman, we can advise you on dietary changes and exercises to help minimize the effects of aging. 

We perform a thorough physical exam and order blood tests to determine if you have a hormonal imbalance that is contributing to weight gain or loss, and then we develop a treatment plan. 

Call us at Ample Health in Carmichael, California, or book an appointment online for all of your health care needs. Our experienced team includes Dr. Kamra, Dr. Mythili Nagaraj, Yelena Popova, PA-C, and Alice Phillips, FNP. We can help.