DIM Supplement Estrogen-Balancing Benefits

The DIM supplement benefits include relieving hot flashes, night sweats and other symptoms of hormonal imbalance. DIM might even prevent cancer and acne.

Getting enough DIM in your diet? It can help you both balance your hormones and prevent hormone-related cancers.

You may be wondering… What is DIM? 

No, DIM isn’t short for Dim Sum, those delicious dumplings you eat at Asian restaurants. Rather, DIM stands for “Diindolylmethane.” Obviously, that’s a mouthful. So, DIM it is.

Speaking of mouthfuls, if you eat lots of cruciferous veggies you’re consuming DIM. All the veggies in the cabbage family—kale, brussel sprouts, turnip, mustard greens, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, etc.—are loaded with DIM.

DIM isn’t a vitamin or mineral. Rather, it’s a compound that encourages “good” estrogen balance in the body.

In light of this, should you be eating a ton of cruciferous veggies every day?

Is Supplementing with DIM better than whole foods?

Actually, some health experts believe that DIM supplements are better. At least better than relying on whole foods as your main source of it.

Consider it a rare case of when a supplement might just be better than a whole food source.

There are three reasons for this.

First, cooking your veggies or nuking them in a microwave might negatively alter DIM compounds. (More accurately, the compounds that convert into Diindolylmethane. But the explanation would make your head spin.)

Second, if you eat huge salads every day with raw veggies, you might actually be doing yourself more harm than good. This is especially true if you have a sluggish thyroid.

Raw cabbage and its cruciferous cousins bind to the mineral, iodine. A sluggish thyroid has difficulty uptaking iodine in the first place. Thus, all those raw veggies might make it more difficult for your underfunctioning thyroid.

Does this mean if you have hypothyroidism you shouldn’t eat salads? No. But you might want to limit the amount of raw cruciferous veggies. 

Moreover, you would need to eat a huge amounts of raw veggies to reap the maximum hormone-balancing benefits of DIM. This is a third reason why taking a supplement might be advantageous.

DIM Supplement Benefits

Taking DIM in pill form has been receiving more notoriety. And if you’re female in your 30s and beyond, you just might consider taking one.

That is because studies like this one demonstrates that DIM may prevent cancer. Especially, estrogen-driven cancers. Estrogen-driven cancers include breast and cervical.  

DIM supplements encourage a healthy balance between estrogen and testosterone. If you suffer from hot flashes or night sweats, a supplement can help.

How does DIM do it? It helps your body have a more beneficial balance of good estrogen. And how does Diindolylmethane exactly magically transform bad estrogen into good? Estrogen hormones produce metabolites. Metabolites are breakdown products of metabolism. Every biological function of cells requires proper metabolite breakdown.

A good DIM supplement encourages optimal estrogen metabolite breakdown. And by doing this, DIM prevents the overproduction of bad estrogen metabolites. An overproduction of harmful estrogen metabolites leads to estrogen dominance. Too much of anything is never good. This is especially true of hormones. For example, estrogen dominance can lead to tumors in the uterus and endometriosis.

In addition to encouraging the production of good estrogen, there are other DIM supplement benefits. Diindolylmethane compounds contain potent antioxidant activity. This antioxidant activity may help prevent chronic disease.

And as you’ll see below, DIM might even encourage weight loss.

DIM side effects

But are the possible benefits worth the risk? After all, any supplement, even if it’s all natural, may have negative side effects. In light of this, are there any DIM adverse consequences?

WebMd.com claims DIM is most likely safe. However, since DIM might mimic estrogen, even so-called ‘good’ estrogen, it might make certain conditions worse. Though this is not 100% certain, mainstream medicine cautions against taking a DIM supplement if you already have an estrogen-dominance cancer.

There are minor adverse reports of DIM supplementation. These side effects include headaches and nausea. The headaches might be attributable to your body getting back in balance. This is similar to suddenly switching to a high-fat low-carb diet after years of eating a high carb diet.

Again, it’s worth repeating that DIM is likely safe for most people.

DIM the lights on cancer

Do you use or have used lots of non-organic brand-name conventional household cleansers or cosmetics? Then you may have estrogen dominance. That’s because these products contain harsh chemicals. Some of these chemicals contain xenoestrogens.

Xenoestrogens are compounds that mimic and intensify the effects of estrogen. DIM comes to the rescue by essentially mutating these harmful estrogens into good estrogens. Or at the very least, DIM negates the harmful effects of xenoestrogens.

Even men might benefit from taking a DIM supplement. This is because DIM limits the effect of DHT. DHT is a byproduct of testosterone. Too much DHT can lead to prostate cancer (and also hair loss).

Moreover, DIM can negate the potential dangers of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The cancer-causing side effects of HRT are well documented.

There are other reasons why a DIM supplement may help prevent cancer. DIM may encourage apoptosis. Apoptosis is programmed cell death. All cells are programmed to die. However, cancer cells don’t die, eventually mutating. DIM encourages the death of cancer cells. This may be because DIM deprives cancer cells of fresh blood supply. In addition, DIM may help repair damaged DNA. A DIM supplement may also boost the immune system by activating natural killer white blood cells.

Finally, DIM might even help with chemotherapy recovery. Although the data on DIM isn’t clear cut in cancer-prevention, it is promising….

DIM supplement weight loss

Accumulating more bodyfat is one consequence of estrogen dominance. Thus, it stands to reason that if you take a good DIM supplement, you might avoid putting on as much weight.

If you have more ‘good’ estrogen and balanced hormones in general, your metabolism will be higher. In fact, you won’t store as much fat. This is because having more of the good kind of estrogen ensures you also have adequate testosterone.

Although women have much lower testosterone than men, women need an adequate amount of testosterone for lean muscle tissue.

Best DIM supplement

There are many different brands selling DIM. As with all other supplements, not all are equal. How do you know what’s the best one to take?

According to Dr. Ronald Homman, a complementary medicine practitioner, researchers prefer standardized BioResponse DIM. This product is micro-encapsulated to aid in absorption.

Other good quality DIM products also include adaptogenic herbs. Adaptogens are herbs that help the body adapt to stress. They do this by controlling the amount of stress hormones your body produces. One product contain the adaptogenic herb, maca.

DIM supplement acne

Here’s another great DIM benefit: it may help clear acne. While there are different causes of acne, one thing’s for certain. Hormone imbalance is one culprit. Hormonal acne is a consequence of bad estrogen metabolites. And as you see above, diindolylmethane transforms bad estrogen metabolites into good ones. It’s no wonder, more women are using DIM supplements not just for its potential anti-cancer properties, but for hormonal acne as well.

A final note on diindolylmethane supplements. If you are menopausal or postmenopausal, you may be deficient in estrogen. Yes, it’s good to have healthy estrogen metabolites. DIM can help in this department. However, DIM will not increase your total estrogen level. (Click here to see some natural hormone balancing methods.)