Hormones have quickly become the center of today’s wellness conversation. From fatigue and brain fog to weight changes and mood shifts, hormone balance is often presented as the missing link. While the topic is sometimes oversimplified, hormones do play a central role in how the body functions day to day.
These chemical messengers help regulate your metabolism, stress response, sleep, and energy production. When your hormones become imbalanced, the effects also rarely remain confined to a single system. Instead, symptoms tend to overlap and evolve, which can make hormone-related concerns difficult to identify and address, especially through symptom-focused care alone.
What are hormones?
Hormones are chemical messengers produced by your endocrine glands that travel through your bloodstream to regulate everything, including growth, metabolism, mood, and reproduction. When it comes to energy, resilience, and overall vitality, the thyroid hormones, testosterone, and cortisol play prominent roles. Below, we take a closer look.
The Thyroid Hormones
Your thyroid gland produces hormones (T3 and T4) that set your metabolic pace. When thyroid function dips, your entire system slows—energy plummets, weight creeps up, and mental clarity fades. TSH (thyroid-stimulating hormone) serves as a key biomarker here, signaling how hard your pituitary gland is working to keep thyroid output adequate.
Testosterone
Testosterone, though often associated primarily with men, plays critical roles in both sexes. It supports muscle mass, bone density, libido, and cognitive function. Low testosterone can contribute to fatigue, decreased motivation, and reduced well-being.
However, looking at testosterone in isolation can be misleading. Total testosterone reflects overall production. Meanwhile, free testosterone reflects what’s biologically active. And SHBG influences how much of that hormone is accessible to your tissues.
Cortisol
Lastly, cortisol is your primary stress hormone, released by your adrenal glands in response to perceived threats. In healthy individuals, cortisol peaks in the morning to help you wake and tapers through the day.
Yet, chronic stress may disrupt this rhythm, leading to elevated cortisol that suppresses thyroid function, depletes testosterone, and leaves you feeling simultaneously wired and exhausted.
Overall, these three hormonal systems communicate constantly. High cortisol inhibits TSH production, slowing your thyroid. It also interferes with testosterone synthesis and accelerates its breakdown.
Meanwhile, low thyroid function impairs your body’s ability to produce and utilize testosterone effectively. This is why addressing a single hormone without considering the others rarely yields lasting results—and why comprehensive testing is essential.
How D3, K2, and Sensoril® ashwagandha can help balance hormones
When biomarker testing reveals a hormonal imbalance, the default response is often to replace the missing hormone. Functional medicine takes a different approach by asking why the body is struggling to produce or regulate that hormone in the first place. In many cases, addressing underlying nutrient status and stress physiology helps restore normal signaling.
For instance, vitamin D3, vitamin K2, and Sensoril® ashwagandha support adrenal and endocrine health in different but complementary ways. Instead of targeting a single hormone, they help support the systems that influence how hormones are produced, regulated, and respond to stress.
Vitamin D3
Vitamin D functions more like a hormone than a traditional vitamin, and its receptors appear in tissues throughout your body—including your thyroid, adrenal glands, and reproductive organs. Research consistently links vitamin D deficiency to hypothyroidism, low testosterone, and dysregulated cortisol patterns.
For thyroid health, adequate vitamin D supports the conversion of T4 (the inactive form) to T3 (the active form) and helps modulate the autoimmune processes that underlie conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
Studies show that men with sufficient vitamin D levels maintain significantly higher testosterone than those who are deficient, likely because vitamin D supports the Leydig cells responsible for testosterone production. Some research suggests that vitamin D supplementation may be associated with reduced cortisol levels and more balanced stress responses.
In fact, Welle tests 25-hydroxy vitamin D as part of our comprehensive panel, allowing practitioners to identify deficiencies and track optimization over time. In turn, this may support overall hormonal health.
Vitamin K2
Vitamin K2 often flies under the radar in hormonal health discussions, yet it plays essential roles that complement D3 and support endocrine function. While vitamin D enhances calcium absorption, vitamin K2 directs that calcium into bones and teeth, which may protect cardiovascular health.
Beyond calcium trafficking, K2 supports testosterone production through its effects on the testes and helps maintain a healthy inflammatory response throughout the endocrine system.
Emerging research suggests vitamin K2 may also support thyroid function by reducing oxidative stress in thyroid tissue. Additionally, because K2 and D3 act synergistically, optimizing both nutrients together yields better outcomes than addressing either nutrient alone.
Sensoril® ashwagandha
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) has been used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine to combat stress and restore vitality. Sensoril® represents a standardized, clinically studied extract that delivers consistent levels of the plant’s active compounds—bioactive withanolides that help your body adapt to stress more effectively.
In clinical trials, Sensoril® ashwagandha has been shown to significantly reduce stress-related biomarkers, including serum cortisol, and to improve stress and mood scores in chronically stressed adults.
Research also shows direct benefits for thyroid health, with studies documenting improvements in TSH, T3, and T4 levels in individuals with subclinical hypothyroidism. Additionally, several studies have linked ashwagandha supplementation to increases in testosterone and related hormonal markers in men. These effects likely stem from ashwagandha’s ability to reduce cortisol-driven suppression and to support the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, which governs hormone production.
Supporting the whole system
Hormonal imbalances rarely have single causes—and they rarely respond to single solutions. The interplay between thyroid function, testosterone levels, and cortisol patterns demands an approach that considers the whole system rather than isolated symptoms.
Welle’s comprehensive biomarker testing helps pinpoint where hormone signaling may be breaking down. By measuring markers such as TSH, free T3 and T4, total and free testosterone, DHEA sulfate, cortisol, and vitamin D—alongside other indicators of endocrine health—practitioners gain a clearer picture of how your hormone systems are functioning together.
With that insight, care can be tailored to address the root drivers of imbalance with targeted nutrients such as vitamin D3 and K2, along with adaptogens such as Sensoril® ashwagandha. And when you support the body’s ability to produce and regulate hormones on its own, you promote more stable, resilient long-term health.
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