Why Hormone Health Starts with Your Liver and Brain: A New Approach to True Healing

If you’re struggling with chronic fatigue, weight gain, poor sleep, mood swings, infertility, or feeling like you’ve lost your energy and identity, the issue might not be "just hormones."
According to Dr. Brian Rodgers, DO and CIRS-certified expert at Provo Health, the real culprits often lie deeper: in your brain health, liver function, mitochondria, and gut integrity.

In this powerful episode of the Gutsy Health Podcast, Juanique Grover and Dr. Rodgers break down why hormone problems are rarely "hormone problems" alone—and why true healing has to follow a very specific order of operations​.

The Symphony of Hormones: Why Balance Matters

Hormones are your body’s symphony.
When balanced, they create energy, mood stability, fertility, vibrant skin, strong hair, and mental clarity.
When unbalanced, you feel exhausted, disconnected, irritable, and stuck​.

But hormones don't operate in a vacuum. They rely on a healthy brain, a functioning liver, and strong mitochondria to be produced, metabolized, and used correctly.

The Real Order of Healing (And Why Most Hormone Clinics Skip It)

Juanique and Dr. Rodgers outline the critical healing sequence:

1. Mindset and Nervous System Regulation

• Brainwave patterns control hormone production. Chronic stress, trauma, and "fight or flight" dominance directly impair the hypothalamus and pituitary—the master conductors of hormone signaling​.

1. Mitochondrial Health

• Your mitochondria provide the ATP (energy) that powers every organ, including the liver and glands that make hormones.

1. Gut Health

• Without proper nutrient absorption from the gut, the liver doesn’t get the raw materials it needs to produce and detoxify hormones.

1. Liver Function

• The liver is responsible for converting, metabolizing, detoxifying, and recycling your hormones.
• If the liver is burdened with toxins, poor diet, high fructose intake, or infections, hormone levels will never balance sustainably​.

1. Hormones

• Only after the first four steps are optimized should bioidentical hormone therapy even be considered—and only in balanced, customized doses.

Why Focusing Only on Hormones Can Make Things Worse

Many hormone replacement clinics prescribe "hero doses" of testosterone, estrogen, or progesterone based only on labs—without addressing the upstream dysfunctions.
This can lead to:

• Overburdened liver and detoxification pathways
• Worsened estrogen dominance
• Increased inflammation and toxin load
• More hormone imbalances over time​

As Dr. Rodgers explains:

“When clinics ignore the bigger picture, they’re just shooting hormones at a broken system and calling it good. It’s not healing. It’s masking.”

Your Liver: The Unsung Hero of Hormone Health

Your liver does much more than detoxify alcohol and drugs. It:

• Converts inactive thyroid hormone (T4) into active T3
• Metabolizes estrogen safely (or unsafely if liver function is poor)
• Creates cholesterol, the raw material for all sex hormones
• Filters inflammatory estrogens that can lead to breast cancer if not properly processed​

If your liver isn’t functioning optimally, hormone replacement will backfire—or worse, lead to cancer risks, autoimmune flares, or neurological decline.

How Sugar, Fructose, and Insulin Resistance Wreck Liver Health

A key insight from this episode:
The American lifestyle is drowning the liver in sugar and processed carbs.

• Fructose (even from excess fruit or juices) overloads the liver, creating toxic byproducts like methylglyoxal that trigger inflammation​.
• Insulin resistance—common in people consuming high-fructose diets—leads to fatty liver, sluggish detoxification, and disrupted hormone production​.
• High LDL cholesterol often signals liver distress, yet is frequently mismanaged with statins that further impair liver function.

The takeaway: Fix your diet, not just your lab numbers.

Gallbladder Health: Another Missing Link

The liver creates bile to eliminate toxins and digest fats, but the gallbladder stores and releases it at mealtimes.

Without healthy bile flow:

• Fats aren’t properly digested.
• Hormone production (which relies on cholesterol and fat metabolism) suffers.
• Brain health declines, as the brain needs high-quality fats to function​.

If you've had your gallbladder removed, supplementing with ox bile and digestive enzymes is essential for ongoing health​.

Signs Your Liver and Hormones Are Struggling

According to Juanique’s Root Cause Quiz and clinical observations, signs of liver-hormone dysfunction include:

• Fatigue, low energy, or brain fog
• Chemical sensitivities (perfumes, cleaners, etc.)
• Acne, eczema, skin rashes
• Heavy, painful periods
• Mood swings and depression
• Weight gain resistant to diet and exercise
• Dark circles under the eyes​

If you resonate with several of these symptoms, it's time to address your healing from the root—not just patch it with hormones.

Special Offer: Free Root Cause Testing at Provo Health

For a limited time, if you’re local to Orem, Utah, Provo Health is offering:

• Free F-scan analysis
• Free Hair Mineral Analysis
• Consultation with our holistic health coaches

That’s almost $200 worth of functional testing, FREE, when you schedule your consultation.

Find out what's really driving your symptoms—and finally start healing the right way.

Call 801-691-1765 or visit provohealth.com to book.

If you’ve been chasing hormone fixes without success, it’s time to change your strategy.
True healing requires honoring the order of operations your body demands: mindset first, mitochondria second, gut third, liver fourth—and then, and only then, fine-tuning your hormones.

At Provo Health, we don’t guess.
We test, assess, and design healing plans that work.

Because when your body’s symphony plays in harmony again, you don’t just survive—you thrive.