Your Gut and Your Hormones Are the Same Conversation

By Tina Chagoury, Clinical Dietitian · 5 min read · 2026-09-07

You cannot treat hormones and ignore the gut. One of the body's main routes for clearing used hormones runs straight through it.

Women often come to me wanting to work on hormones and treating digestion as a separate, lesser issue. In practice they are the same conversation.

Here is why.

Your gut clears used hormones

Once your body has finished with a hormone, oestrogen in particular, it has to be removed. The liver processes it, packages it, and sends it into the digestive tract for elimination.

That is the exit route. If the exit route is congested, the load does not simply disappear. It can be reabsorbed and re-enter circulation.

This is the reason chronic constipation is a hormonal issue and not only a digestive one. Regular elimination is one of the body's primary clearance mechanisms, and when it is not working, everything upstream is affected.

Gut inflammation is body inflammation

Inflammation in the gut does not stay in the gut. It raises the inflammatory load across the whole body, and inflammation interferes with insulin signalling, with immune regulation and with hormonal balance.

The two are not separable, which is why I assess both together.

Absorption

The third link is the most straightforward. If the gut lining is inflamed, you do not absorb what you eat properly. Iron, B12, vitamin D, minerals. You can take excellent supplements and still be deficient.

This is a common explanation for the woman whose iron never improves no matter what she takes.

What hormones do to the gut, in return

The relationship runs both ways.

Progesterone slows gut motility. This is a genuine physiological effect. It is why constipation is common in the luteal phase, in the second half of the cycle, and during pregnancy.

Oestrogen and progesterone shifts affect fluid balance and gut function together, which is why so many women experience bloating, water retention and sometimes loose stools in a predictable pattern before their period.

Cortisol changes digestion directly. Eating in a stressed state is not the same as eating in a settled one.

So the cycle explains a great deal of what women assume is random.

What actually helps

• Three structured meals, no grazing. The gut runs cleaning cycles between meals, and constant snacking interrupts them.
• Enough fibre. Fibre is genuinely essential, and in some respects more foundational than the protein we discuss constantly.
• Reduce the inflammatory load. Processed food, refined oils, fried food, excess sugar.
• Hydration. Elimination requires water.
• Movement, which supports gut motility and lymphatic drainage.
• Fermented food, where tolerated, and bone broth, which many women find settling.
• Address stress, because you cannot digest properly in a state of sustained stress.

When to look further

If you have daily bloating, chronic constipation, or symptoms that persist despite all of the above, it is worth investigating properly rather than continuing to guess. Conditions such as SIBO and irritable bowel syndrome need a specific approach, and a low FODMAP protocol can help in the short term when it is used deliberately and for a defined period.

What I would not do is remain in a restrictive protocol indefinitely. The aim is to identify the trigger and then widen the diet again, not to shrink it permanently.

This article is nutrition education, not medical advice. Persistent digestive symptoms should be assessed by a doctor.

Tina Chagoury is a licensed clinical dietitian specialising in women's hormonal health and gut health, and the creator of the Hormone Reset Method™. Learn more and start here.