There is a link between the health of your gut microbiome and hormones. When gut health isn't optimal, hormones become imbalanced. For example, there is new research showing that the microbiome plays a big role in estrogen regulation.

What is a microbiome influenced by?

There are several factors that can change gut microbiota, including host genetic, diet, age (Odamaki et al., 2016; Jandhyala et al., 2015), mode of birth (Nagpal et al., 2017; Wen & Duffy, 2017) and antibiotics (Goodrich et al., 2014; Ley et al., 2005; Turnbaugh et al., 2009) (Fig. 1A).

Do hormones affect bacteria?

Besides, sex hormones can also affect the metabolism, growth, or virulence of pathogenic bacteria. In turn, pathogenic, microbiota, and environmental bacteria are able to metabolize and degrade steroid hormones and their related compounds.