Q&A. Should I Take Calcium-D-Glucarate Whilst On HRT Oestrogen?

Can you take Calcium-D-Glucarate while on HRT estrogen during menopause? In this short Q&A episode of The Histamine Well Podcast, Joanne explores the relationship between estrogen detoxification, hormone replacement therapy (HRT), menopause, gut health, and histamine-related symptoms.

Many women are advised to take supplements that support estrogen detox, but is this always the right approach when using bioidentical hormones or estrogen therapy? Joanne explains why Calcium-D-Glucarate may not be beneficial for menopausal women on HRT, how estrogen balance works during menopause, and why understanding your hormone dose matters for symptom relief and long-term wellbeing.

This episode also covers:

•  The role of estrogen during menopause and HRT 
•  Why over-detoxifying estrogen may worsen symptoms 
•  The connection between beta-glucuronidase, the estrobolome, and gut microbiome health 
•  Histamine intolerance, hormone imbalance, and menopause symptoms 
•  Natural considerations for estrogen metabolism and hormone support 
•  Why gut health may be more important than estrogen detox supplements 

If you're navigating menopause, hormone replacement therapy, estrogen dominance symptoms, histamine intolerance, or gut-related hormone imbalance, this episode offers practical clarity backed by clinical naturopathic insight. 

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Transcript

0:00

Hi everyone. Today's question is, can I take calcium d glucarate when I'm in menopause and taking hormone replacement therapy ie estrogen? The general answer is you shouldn't. It's not gonna be helpful for you, and I'll walk you through why. Calcium d glucarate is very efficacious at reducing estrogen. When you're in menopause and taking your hormones, you want the estrogen in your body. And in my opinion, getting the steady state of the HRT, so whether it be the estrogen patch or the gel or the vaginal estrogen, is just so helpful. Like once you know your dose, you're kind of set most of the time. Especially if you haven't had a bleed for a while and you get your levels right. Once you get your estrogen right, you'll get your progesterone to follow and that will balance out. And then if you need testosterone, that will become apparent and you get that in and you should feel really good. So working with these bioidentical hormones,'cause you know, essentially they're powerful. And they work. And so you just wanna make sure you know your dose. Am I one pump, two pumps, three pumps? You wanna know your dose of estrogen and what makes you feel good. So you don't wanna be like putting it in and then trying to over detoxify it. It's just generally not that helpful. And I've seen a lot of women put on HRT and then put on calcium d glucarate as well. It just does not make sense. If you are having issues with excessive bleeding on hormone replacement therapy then you'd need to see your doctor about that, but potentially you just need iodine. Iodine just helps desensitize estrogen receptors. It can just really help reduce any kind of over estrogenic activity. What Often happens is people come back with high beta glucuronidase enzyme in a gut test, in a stool test, and the doctor or the naturopath, often males, I hate to say it, will just put menopausal women on calcium d glucarate, especially if they're even not even on estrogen, and it just reduces your estrogen way too much. The beta glucuronidase enzyme does deconjugate toxins, which is not healthy. But what you need to do is work on the gut microbiome. So taking prebiotic fibers to help balance out the bacteria. The bacteria in the gut can produce beta glucuronidase enzyme. It's called the estrobolome. I've actually got a friend of mine doing a whole book on this. I will get her on the podcast once it's done. It's really, really interesting field of study. But, you'd just be working on gut function and to sort of reduce the beta glucuronidase enzyme activity gently. If you did think it was an issue with the over deconjugation of toxins. Because women need estrogen in their body. They don't need it out. They don't need it to be over detoxified. And they need to understand what the steady state is for them. Now, if you're on HRT and you are taking calcium D glucarate and you find that that works for you, fantastic. I'm just letting women know that it's not a good idea, unless you've got a really good reason to be in menopause and have no estrogen and not take any estrogen and beyond calcium d glucarate, that's particularly bad. Or in menopause and taking estrogen. And then taking something to reduce the estrogen. It's just not the best way to approach it. If your HRT is making you wanna detoxify your estrogen, you're probably on the wrong dose. You might have a lot of histamine in your body that needs to be dealt with separately. You could have iodine deficiency. So if this sounds like you're obviously here to help, I do see patients online globally. You can easily book an appointment to see me via my website, joanne kennedy naturopathy.com. So thank you for joining me. I hope you found this episode beneficial. Be sure to subscribe to the histamine well so you don't miss an episode. Leave a review and you can also share this episode with someone who could benefit. If you have any questions you'd like answered or have a topic you'd like me to discuss, please go to my website, joanne kennedy naturopathy.com, where you can provide us with that information. Until next time, take care and be well.