Saliva Hormone

Saliva Hormone Testing is an accurate way to assess the current levels of steroid hormones (e.g. estradiol, progesterone, testosterone) in your body. Saliva hormone tests are available for general adrenal function, female panels and male panels.

What are the benefits of saliva hormone testing?

• Saliva hormone testing is most useful for uncovering hormone imbalance. For example: discovering a woman has insufficient progesterone to balance high estradiol levels or; that high cortisol levels are interfering with the action of progesterone and testosterone. Once a hormone imbalance has been uncovered, homeopathic treatment can be instituted.
• Saliva testing can be used to approximate whether hormone levels are too high or too low as a result of supplementation, but the actual dosage adjustment will still be symptom driven.
• Saliva collection is painless and more convenient for the patient, particularly when multiple samples are required.
• Saliva measures hormone that actually made it into tissue, because hormones pass through saliva gland tissue before getting into saliva. Blood measures hormones that might eventually get to the tissue.

Which hormones are tested?

• Cortisol, DHEAS, Estradiol, Estriol, Estrone, Progesterone and Testosterone

Steroid Hormones in saliva reflect the portion of circulating hormones in the bloodstream that are unbound by serum binding proteins (free or bio-available) and therefore are able to enter tissues throughout the body. The salivary hormone values, therefore, reflect the biologically active (the unbound) portion available to target cells. Blood hormone assays reflect both bound and free forms of hormones and do not provide information about the bio-available fraction of hormone, which can vary depending on the level of blood hormone binding proteins. Simply put, Saliva Hormone Testing tells us the amount of hormones in our body that are actually usable by our cells; where as blood testing evaluates all circulating hormones regardless of their availability to our cells.