I hear a familiar story whilst consulting with women who are exhausted by their struggle with fibroids [benign smooth muscle tumours, also known as neoplasms]. They tell me they have done everything, yet, their tumours continue to grow, while the heavy bleeding feels like someone turned the tap on full and it got stuck there.

The Common Narrative, or the outer vision most of us are given, suggests that fibroids are simply the result of too much oestrogen, but if you have tried everything and nothing changes - that is a big problem. Hearing this over and over again and experiencing this for myself, left me with a sense of unease. It didn’t sit right with me. So when I started looking into what the research actually shows, I found myself down a rabbit hole I didn’t expect. The typical medical explanation wasn’t matching what I was seeing. The biochemical reality of fibroids being just an oestrogen problem is a red herring.

What is rarely discussed is how your liver chooses to metabolise [the biochemical process of breaking down and transforming substances] the hormones you already have. When you focus on pathways rather than just levels, you stop viewing your body as a mindless machine and start seeing it as an intelligent, communicative network.

The Liver’s Metabolic Crossroads

Now… imagine your liver as a sophisticated metabolic factory that transforms oestrogen into different metabolites [substances formed during the metabolic process]. At this point, your liver chooses between two distinct pathways based on the resources it has available:

The Safe Pathway (CYP1A1): This route produces 2-hydroxyestrone. Research calls this the Good Metabolite because it’s safe and protective, hormones are easily cleared and it does not stimulate abnormal tissue growth.

The Dangerous Pathway (CYP1B1): This route produces 4-hydroxyestrone. This is the Bad Metabolite, which is the toxic, DNA-damaging, and mutagenic [capable of causing genetic mutations] pathway.

This explains why you can have normal oestrogen levels on a blood test but still suffer from oestrogen overload. If your liver prioritises the CYP1B1 pathway, your system is flooded with mutagenic signals that encourage fibroid growth, regardless of the total amount of hormone present.

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What Tips the Balance?

The shift toward the Dangerous Pathway is mainly down to a biological adaptation to the chronic loads many of us have on our systems. Several factors tilt the scales:

Stress and Hypertension: Chronic stress keeps cortisol levels high, which steals the metabolic resources needed for safe detoxification. There is a staggering connection with hypertension [high blood pressure], which is associated with an almost fivefold increased risk of fibroids.

The Weathering Connection: For Black women in particular, the risk of developing fibroids is two to three times higher than for white women. Through my research, I came across a term known as Weathering, which is the biological erosion caused by chronic stress and the Superwoman complex. This is a survival adaptation where your body prioritises immediate stress-response over long-term hormonal balance. No matter how much someone else might not see it, weathering is real and has a major impact on your body.

Toxins and Food Additives: Exposure to food additives in processed or preserved foods increases risk by 3.17 times. These act as xenoestrogens [synthetic or environmental chemicals that mimic oestrogen], forcing your liver to prioritise emergency detoxification over safe oestrogen processing.

Age and Gut Health: Age is the most significant demographic factor; women aged 41–60 are 10 times more likely to have fibroids than those in their 20s. Further, if your gut is sluggish, oestrogen is reabsorbed and sent back to the liver, where it is often forced through the dangerous pathway a second time.

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The Fibroid Connection: Why This Matters

Imagine your uterus as a sensitive node in a body-wide network. As Dr Candace Pert explored in her work, Molecules of Emotion, our bodies are a mobile brain where information is carried by neuropeptides [protein-based chemical messengers that carry information between cells].

When your liver favours the CYP1B1 pathway, the 4-hydroxyestrone acts as a ligand [a molecule that binds specifically to a receptor to trigger a response]. This specific ligand docks onto the receptors of the uterine smooth muscle, delivering a potent grow signal to the fibroids. The tissue therefore is doing nothing more than simply responding to the biochemical information it has been given. That is its design.

The Domino Effect

• Your Liver is overwhelmed by stress, xenoestrogens, or hypertension etc.

• The CYP1B1 pathway is activated as an emergency metabolic route.

• Toxic metabolites (4-hydroxyestrone) are produced, creating a DNA-damaging environment.

• Fibroid tissue receives a continuous grow signal via the body-wide information network.

• Symptoms worsen, resulting in anaemia from heavy bleeding, bloating, and pelvic pain.

Actionable Steps for the Way Forward

Your goal is not to try and suppress oestrogen, which you need for bone and brain health, but rather shifting the balance back toward the safe CYP1A1 pathway.

Targeted Nutrition: Support the safe pathway with cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts). These foods contain DIM and I3C, the molecular tools that nudge the liver toward the protective 2-hydroxyestrone route.

Liver Support as Fuel: The CYP1A1 pathway is actually quite expensive for your body to run. You can mitigate this by giving your body the fuel it requires, specifically Magnesium and B-vitamins, whilst maintaining consistent hydration to ensure metabolites are moved out of the system efficiently.

Managing the Load: Reducing exposure to processed foods, food additives and addressing hypertension through stress management can stop the emergency metabolic shift that triggers the bad pathway effect.

Empowerment You Through Understanding

For far too long, women have been told that their fibroids are a matter of bad luck or bad genes and there is nothing you can do. But we now know otherwise. You are not a victim of your hormone levels.

By understanding your metabolic environment and how your liver processes these molecules, you can begin to listen to what your body is telling you. When you support the liver’s safe metabolic pathway, you take back control from the growth signal and move toward a state of balance.

Do you know what is happening internally? Is it metabolic, cellular, environmental? Undoing this is not a quick fix. It involves a complete system reset.

I’m always examining the root causes of fibroid recurrence, and I want to make sure I’m focusing on the exact transformation that matters most to women like you.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about your journey with fibroids, beyond just the physical symptoms that is, what would it be?

Is it the fear of surgery? The exhaustion? The feeling of not being heard by doctors?

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You’ve spent years dealing with heavy bleeding, the bone-deep fatigue of anaemia, and the literal weight of pelvic pressure, then you are well versed on the fibroid treadmill. It usually goes like this: your doctor finds several growths, tells you to monitor it, and when the symptoms become unbearable, suggests surgery. But then, a few years later, you’re right back in that same office, staring at a new ultrasound.

I want you to take a deep breath and hear me:

your fibroids are not the problem. Yes indeed. They are the smoke. Or better yet, they are the fire alarm. In our lovely medical system, they are very good at silencing the alarm by removing the fibroids, but they rarely look upstream at the fire itself. As in, what is causing the fibroids to grow in the first place. If the metabolic factors are not addressed, as in the environment that allows the fibroids to grow, your body is simply doing nothing more than what it’s being signalled to do: that is to grow more. Let’s look at the science of why this happens and how we can finally turn things around.

Understanding Your Body’s Natural Hormone Traffic Controller

To understand how fibroids grow, it’s important to understand your body’s most important hormone: Sex Hormone Binding Globulin or SHBG. SHBG is produced by your liver and acts like a sponge, absorbing excess hormones and parking them so they are less likely to cause trouble.

But SHBG has a biological bully called Insulin. You likely know Insulin as the hormone that manages your blood sugar, but in the liver, it wears a different hat. When insulin levels stay high (due to a diet high in processed food or high amounts of stress), it essentially tells the liver to stop making SHBG.

This leads to a hidden danger: Low SHBG = High Free Oestrogen. You might have a blood test that shows your oestrogen levels as “normal”, but if your SHBG levels are low, you have a massive amount of free or biologically active oestrogen circulating. This is the fuel that your uterine tissue is soaking up.

Why Fibroids are Like High-Sensitivity Hormone Antennas

Fibroids are uniquely hypersensitive to hormones. Think of normal uterine tissue as having a standard radio antenna, but a fibroid is like a massive, high-powered satellite dish.

Research shows that fibroid tissue contains significantly more receptors for oestrogen and progesterone than the healthy tissue surrounding it. These hormone receptors catch even the smallest signals to grow. When you have high levels of free, un-bound oestrogen circulating because your SHBG is low, these receptors catch every bit of it, translating that signal into rapid cell proliferation. So the growth rate of fibroids correlates directly to how much of that free, un-bound hormone is available in your system.

How Insulin Drives Fibroid Growth

While oestrogen usually gets the blame for fibroids, Insulin Resistance is often the mastermind working in the background. High insulin drives growth through three specific fertilizer effects:

1. It stops your liver from producing SHBG.

2. It turns on an enzyme called Aromatase, which acts like a factory, converting other hormones into even more oestrogen.

3. Insulin directly stimulates the cells in the fibroid to divide and multiply.

This is why you see such a massive overlap between Metabolic Syndrome: which is a cluster of conditions like high blood pressure and blood sugar and fibroid risk. The data is clear:

“Eleven other factors affected Uterine Fibroid risk to a magnitude similar to or greater than race. Age, premenopausal state, hypertension, family history... increased UF risk.” — Stewart et al., Epidemiology of Uterine Fibroids

In fact, women with hypertension have an almost fivefold increased risk of fibroids. Your blood pressure and blood sugar are part of the same metabolic fire fueling the growth in your uterus. They are not separate issues.

Why Cutting Them Out Isn’t a Permanent Fix

Surgery can be a lifesaver for immediate relief, but we have to recognise that this becomes our ‘Surgery Trap’. Clinical observations show that recurrence rates following a myomectomy are frustratingly high. The reason for this is clear: a surgeon can remove fibroids, but they cannot simply remove your metabolic environment.

If the conditions that create fibroids remain high in insulin and low in SHBG, your body is still receiving the growth command. It’s like pulling a weed but leaving the fertilizer-soaked soil behind. Without changing your internal environment, your body is essentially programmed to regrow what was taken. This is why approximately 25% of women with fibroids find their symptoms are severe enough to require repeated treatments.

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The Silent Hero of Hormone Balance

Your liver is the engine of hormone health, and it performs a beautiful two-step dance to keep you balanced.

In Phase I, your liver unlocks and prepares used hormones and toxins for exit. In Phase II Detox, the liver packages up these toxins tightly so they can be sent to your gut for evacuation. If your liver is sluggish, perhaps due to a diet high in the food additives the Stewart study identifies as a 3.17x risk factor, the detox sequence breaks down. Used oestrogen ends up being recycled back into your bloodstream, adding more fuel fibroid growth.

How Your Gut Influences Your Uterus

The final step of hormone clearance happens in your gut. There is a specific colony of bacteria called the estrobolome that is responsible for making sure oestrogen actually leaves your body in your stool.

When you have Dysbiosis (an imbalance of gut bacteria), these bacteria produce an enzyme that un-packages the oestrogen your liver worked so hard to bundle up. This un-packaged oestrogen is then reabsorbed into your bloodstream. It’s a loop of prolonged exposure that keeps your levels high, even if your body is trying to get rid of it. That is why supporting your gut is just as vital as supporting your liver.

Shifting the Paradigm

Treating a fibroid while ignoring your metabolism is like walking into a burning kitchen and turning off the smoke detector because the noise is annoying. This is why it’s important to look beyond the treatment model where the uterus is looked at in isolation.

Your body is a Bodymind: an intelligent, interconnected network. As Dr. Candace Pert explains in Molecules of Emotion:

“The body and mind are one... [Our] biochemical messengers act with intelligence by communicating information, orchestrating a vast complex of conscious and unconscious activities at any one moment... This bodywide information network is ever changing and dynamic.”

A fibroid is a physical message in that network. It is your body’s way of communicating that something is out of sync.

The True Cost of the Quick Fix Mentality

When you only look for a quick fix, you ignore the escalating costs to your health:

• Short-term: Repeated invasive surgeries, the constant drag of anaemia-driven fatigue, and the anxiety of wondering when the symptoms will return.

• Long-term: Ignoring the insulin connection increases the risk of Type 2 Diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFLD). Furthermore, the Stewart study shows that women aged 41–60 have a tenfold increased risk of fibroids. If you don’t fix your metabolism, the transition into perimenopause can become a hormonal storm.

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A New Way Forward

Research shows us that while factors like race (a 2-3x risk) and family history play a role, we have incredible power over our body. To stop the cycle, its super important address the Mastermind factors:

• Watch the Additives. Processed food additives are linked to a 3.17x higher risk.Anti-inflammatory foods are key.

• Rethink Soya. The Stewart study noted soybean milk consumption as a 2.52x risk factor.

• Manage the Pressure. High blood pressure is a massive metabolic red flag.

• Support your liver. Give your liver and gut the nutrients they need for Phase II Detox.

If you have fibroids, that is your body telling you something is off. Are you ready to stop silencing the alarm and start putting out the fire?

If you found this powerful, here are three more articles you can explore next:

• The Lymphatic System’s Hidden Role in Fibroid Growth

• Fibroids: The Unexplored Meaning

• Why Every Woman with Fibroids Needs a Proper Assessment First

This space is where I teach the real truths about fibroids, womb health, and healing: the things women are never told. Stay connected as I continue to share the frameworks, insights, and root‑cause teachings that shape my work.