Take your time touring alternative health spaces, and you’re sure to come across seed cycling. This popular method is aimed at “balancing women’s hormones” and helps to solve all problems related to hormones and the menstrual cycle. Proponents use the seed cycle for everything from PMS symptoms, menstrual pain (dysmenorrhea) and irregular periods to PCOS, infertility, ovarian cysts, and menopausal symptoms like hot flashes fire and night sweats.
There are many testimonials from women who claim that riding a seed bike will change their lives. There is no shortage of holistic doctors, naturopathic doctors, nutritionists and bloggers promoting it as a useful tool or even a miracle cure for women. There are also many skeptics.
While it’s nice to keep an open mind, we also want interventions that really work. No one wants to throw away precious time and money after remedies that do nothing or, worse, cause harm. When you dive into the claims, they seem a little too good to be true, but they’re not. Let’s see the evidence.
What is Seed Cycling?
A nut cycle is a program where you eat certain nuts during different phases of your menstrual cycle. According to proponents, if you diligently follow the process for several months, you can expect to see an improvement in any symptom or condition you hope to resolve.
The seed rotation is as follows:
- During the follicular phase (first day of your menstrual cycle until ovulation), consume one tablespoon of flaxseed and one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds per day.
- During the luteal phase (the day after ovulation to the day before your period), consume one tablespoon of sunflower seeds and one teaspoon of sesame seeds every day.
Not sure when you ovulate? That’s okay, you can eat flaxseed and pumpkin for the first half of your cycle (around day 1 to 14) and sunflower and sesame for the second half (day 15 to 28, or how long your cycle is). Women who are not menstruating should use the lunar cycle as a guide. New moon to full moon corresponds to the follicular phase, full moon to new moon is the luteal phase.
For digestibility, it is important to grind flax and sesame seeds. Usually, a bean grinder will grind all the seeds with a spice grinder or coffee grinder, or you can buy a pre-ground blend. Sprinkle ground seeds over yogurt or salads, blend into smoothies or soups, or just make a little granule juice.
How does seed cycling (supposedly) work?
Menstrual cycle advocates claim that it balances your hormones, which means sex hormones (mainly estrogen and progesterone) are at the appropriate levels at different times of the menstrual cycle. . As sex hormones plummet during menopause, seed cycling helps to mitigate those effects as well. Granted, this works for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, the seeds contain compounds known as lignan precursors. When you eat them, the bacteria in your gut metabolize them to produce lignans. Lignans are phytoestrogens, like isoflavones in soy. Because their chemical structure is similar to the estrogen that the body produces naturally, lignans can bind to estrogen receptors and mimic the effects of estrogen. Proponents say that lignans help create the ideal balance of estrogen and progesterone in the body, boosting estrogen when it’s too low and binding it to facilitate detoxification when it’s too high. (We’ll come back to this claim later.)
Other benefits are thought to come from the vitamins and minerals in the seeds. Especially:
- Zinc, mainly from pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds, helps the body produce progesterone.
- The vitamin E in sunflower seeds also promotes progesterone synthesis.
- Selenium from sunflower seeds is thought to help remove (or “detox”) excess estrogen in the body.
But does it actually work like that?
That’s the million dollar question.
As health-conscious consumers, we need to understand that a theory can be “mechanistically sound,” which means that when you explain why it might work, it absolutely does. physical. However, it still may not be true. In science, hypotheses often begin with ideas that are mechanically sound, but then those hypotheses must be tested. Some hypotheses that appear to be perfectly valid and reasonable have not been scrutinized. That’s why empirical research is so important.
The rotation of the seed is mechanically reasonable. Lignans to be Phytoestrogens, flaxseeds and sesame seeds are all important dietary sources of lignans. Zinc To be important for reproductive health. Selenium do promotes glutathione synthesis. Glutathione is an important antioxidant and an important component of the body’s natural detoxification system. Body do excrete excess estrogen.
So you can see where ideas for this protocol might come from. The thing is, there really isn’t any solid evidence that seed cycling actually does what it wants.
Yes, lignans are phytoestrogens, but scientists are still working to understand exactly how lignans affect sex hormone levels. They may be estrogenic or anti-estrogenic, but it remains unclear how and when they exert different effects. There’s certainly no concrete evidence that they work like smart drugs, increasing or decreasing estrogen on an as-needed basis to create optimal hormone balance.
Proponents of seed cycling rely heavily on a small study from 1993 that asked 18 women to consume flaxseed for three months. In this study, flaxseed consumption resulted in fewer menstrual cycles (non-ovulatory cycles as expected) and a more favorable progesterone-estradiol ratio during the luteal phase. However, most effects on sex hormone levels are insignificant. To be clear, this study has never been replicated, which means the findings cannot be replicated with more robust studies or other researchers don’t think this is important enough to follow.
Overall, there is scant evidence that lignans directly affect sex hormone levels. Many studies show that they do not. Furthermore, remember that lignans are made in the gut. Not everyone has the micro-organisms needed to convert high levels of lignans. So even if seed rotation doesn’t work as proponents claim, we expect that some will benefit more than others.
Zinc, vitamin E and selenium are certainly important for overall health and reproductive health in particular. However, there is still so much to learn about how supplements affect the results that we are interested in here. For example, a 2020 review titled “Role of Zinc in Selected Female Reproductive System Disorders” concluded that zinc supplementation can help treat PCOS and menstrual pain, but there is little evidence evidence when it comes to issues like endometriosis and menopause. Similarly, a 2016 review of antioxidants concluded, “Due to the complexity of liver processing and the contribution of diet and lipoprotein metabolism, additional research is needed to further explore potential relationships and mechanisms between specific vitamin E concentrations and reproductive outcomes.”
In short, we still have a lot to learn about all these processes. Furthermore, the seed rotation hypothesis based on mechanistic pathways (A leading to B) is currently not well supported by the data.
Seed Cycling was never really put to the test (empirical)
The bottom line is that this protocol has never been rigorously tested. I couldn’t find any studies in which participants followed this exact regimen, and scientists compared their results with a control group. Even if the evidence for all mechanistic pathways is strong – and it is not – the entire protocol still needs to be put to the test.
For now, all the evidence is anecdotal. Just to be clear, I don’t discount reports from women who feel like cycling has worked for them. Anecdotes can provide information, but we cannot rely solely on them. They leave too many questions unanswered.
- For those who have had success with the seed cycle, is it because lignans, vitamins, minerals and fatty acids are optimizing hormone balance? Probably. Or it could be due to other compounds or different mechanisms such as reducing inflammation.
- Could it be a placebo effect? Probably (and you can be fine with that as long as you get the results you want).
- Is there a better way to use the seeds and/or compounds containing them to achieve the same goals? We do not know.
These are all questions that well-designed, well-controlled laboratory studies can answer. Studies that we currently do not have.
Verdict: Is Seed Cycling Worth a Try?
On the one hand, I’d say it can’t hurt, can help. Seeds bring so many other benefits. They are a good source of nutrients like B vitamins, magnesium, manganese and copper, as well as fiber and vitamin E, zinc, selenium and the aforementioned fatty acids. Lignans have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. Flax and sesame seeds appear to have cardioprotective effects. Pumpkin seeds can improve blood sugar levels.
On the other hand, many women turn to things like seed cycling after conventional doctors are unable, or even unwilling, to help them. People with PCOS and endometriosis are notoriously struggling to get the right diagnosis and treatment. We don’t have a great solution for menopausal women dealing with common symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, and depression. These women have been disappointed so many times. Therefore, I reluctantly agree to something without solid evidence behind it. There is also the risk of delaying or avoiding medical treatment in order to switch to alternative therapies that ultimately aren’t what you need.
While the risks of the seeding cycle may seem low, there are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Seeds are high in phytates and can cause allergies, so they don’t work for everyone.
- They are also rich in fiber, which leads to gastrointestinal problems for some people.
- Seeds are not allowed during the elimination phase of the AIP plan.
- If your doctor has advised you to limit your phytoestrogen consumption, make sure you talk to them first.
Ultimately, if hormone health is your goal, the first step is to make sure you’re preparing for the important goals: nutrition, sleep, stress management, and healthy movement.
So what is YOUR verdict? Are you interested in seed cycling? Have you tried it yet?
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