Some women do not make enough progesterone, one of the dominant female hormones, to achieve and maintain a pregnancy. They may take progesterone supplements to increase progesterone levels before and during early pregnancy. Others take progesterone as part of hormone replacement therapy.

Estrogen and progesterone play a critical role in the health of women. Levels of these sex steroids must remain in perfect balance to ensure reproductive fertility. The two hormones also affect bone health, cancer risk and emotional stability.

Before you reach for another cream claiming to be made from wild yams and to be a “natural” progesterone, think again. Although yams are highly nutritious, you aren’t going to adjust your hormones, prevent pregnancy or soothe menopausal symptoms from eating them.

Getting pregnant, a complicated hormonal event, requires an interplay of hormones released at exactly the right time to develop, mature and release an egg from the ovary, and then to implant it in the uterus.

Drinking moderate amounts of alcohol keeps your heart healthy, reports the Harvard School of Public Health. However, the benefits of drinking alcohol evaporate when a person's drinking crosses the line from moderate to excessive.

If you’re currently taking progesterone and you develop diarrhea and heartburn, you should call your doctor and rest assured that these are common side effects of this medication. Progesterone commonly is used as part of hormone replacement therapy in women who are post-menopausal.

The kidneys and adrenal glands are intimately related, both in terms of location and certain functions. However, patients with kidney disease or adrenal disorders often focus upon one organ at the expense of the other.

An underactive thyroid, also known as hypothyroidism, is a condition in which the thyroid gland fails to produce necessary levels of hormones needed by the body to function properly. In the long term, hypothyroidism can cause obesity, joint pain, infertility and heart disease.

Medications like Thyroid, Cytomel, T3 and T4 are used to manage thyroid conditions, particularly an under-functioning thyroid. While they do cause weight loss, these drugs should not be used to help you lose weight if you have normal thyroid function.

Testosterone is a naturally occurring hormone that is usually found in high levels in men and lower levels in women. Testosterone replacement therapy is one option to treat low testosterone levels due to aging or medical conditions.

Cortisol is a hormone produced by the body, and is intimately involved with the adrenal and pituitary systems of the body. Normal levels of cortisol, when measured at the beginning of the day, are between 6 and 23 mcg/dL, though these numbers can rise and fall throughout the day.

Estrogen dominance occurs when estrogen is in the body at a much higher level than other sex hormones, mainly progesterone. The increased level can be the result of excess estrogen production or storage, or a drop in the level of progesterone.