What Hormone Causes Bloating?

bloating Jan 06, 2026

woman sitting on a couch with her hand over her stomach area

Bloating is a common and frustrating symptom many women experience, often linked to hormonal changes throughout the menstrual cycle, perimenopause, or menopause. If you've ever wondered, What hormone causes bloating? then this blog post will help you gain some clarity. Hormones like estrogen and progesterone play key roles in how your body retains fluid, processes food, and reacts to digestive changes. Understanding this gut-hormone connection can help you manage bloating, reduce abdominal discomfort, and support a healthy digestive system. In this article, we'll explore how hormonal fluctuations impact bloating and share insights into balancing your hormones for better digestive health.

Estrogen: The Water Retention Hormone

Estrogen levels fluctuate throughout your menstrual cycle and play a significant role in causing abdominal bloating. In the first half of the cycle, estrogen rises to support ovulation. When estrogen levels are too high or not properly balanced with progesterone, it can lead to fluid retention and water retention, making you feel bloated, puffy, and uncomfortable. This water retention is a key factor in why many women experience bloating as a common symptom of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and other hormone changes.

Interestingly, estrogen also directly impacts the digestive tract. Estrogen receptors are found throughout the gastrointestinal tract, influencing how your body senses fullness, pressure, and even stomach pain. Elevated estrogen levels can increase sensitivity to normal digestive processes, causing mild bloating or intestinal gas to feel like severe pain or major discomfort. This sensitivity can contribute to persistent bloating and abdominal discomfort during the menstrual cycle.

Moreover, fluctuating estrogen levels during the menopausal transition can lead to chronic bloating and other menopause symptoms such as mood swings, night sweats, and vaginal dryness. Estrogen’s effect on bile production also plays a role; low estrogen can reduce bile production, impairing proper digestion and contributing to constipation and bloating.

Understanding how estrogen influences bloating can help women manage their digestive health better and improve their overall well-being during hormonal fluctuations.

Progesterone: The Slowing-Things-Down Hormone

Progesterone rises after ovulation and peaks during the second half of your menstrual cycle (the luteal phase). High progesterone levels slow down digestion and gut motility, causing food to move more slowly through your digestive system. This sluggish digestive process can lead to constipation, gas buildup, and abdominal bloating.

In addition to its digestive effects, progesterone contributes to many premenstrual symptoms women experience, including increased appetite, salt cravings, and fluid retention. These factors combined make bloating especially common in the days leading up to your period. Progesterone’s influence on water retention and slowed digestion highlights how female hormones directly affect digestive health and contribute to bloating.

Understanding how progesterone levels fluctuate and affect your digestive system can help you manage bloating and related symptoms more effectively during your menstrual cycle and other hormonal changes.

Other Hormonal Shifts That Cause Bloating

Hormonal bloating isn’t limited to the menstrual cycle. In perimenopause and menopause, fluctuating or declining estrogen and progesterone levels can lead to increased bloating, weight gain, and changes in body composition. These hormonal imbalances often cause fluid retention and digestive slowdowns, contributing to persistent abdominal bloating. Similarly, early pregnancy—when progesterone levels surge—can cause slowed digestion, gas buildup, and constipation.

Low estrogen levels can reduce bile production, impairing fat digestion and leading to constipation and bloating. Additionally, women with hormone imbalances such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) may experience persistent bloating due to insulin resistance, inflammation, and disrupted ovulatory patterns. Chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels, the body’s stress hormone secreted by the adrenal glands, can further disrupt digestive enzymes and stomach acid production, worsening bloating symptoms.

Understanding these hormonal shifts and their impact on digestive health is crucial for managing bloating effectively, especially for postmenopausal women and those experiencing menopause-related bloating. Lifestyle changes, including dietary adjustments and regular physical activity, can help support a healthy gut microbiome, aid digestion, and reduce bloating caused by hormonal fluctuations.

Gut Health and Hormonal Bloating: It’s All Connected

Hormones and the gut are in constant communication, and a healthy gut microbiome is essential for maintaining balanced hormone levels. In fact, the gut microbiome, particularly the estrobolome—a group of gut bacteria—helps metabolize and eliminate estrogen. When gut bacteria are imbalanced, estrogen may recirculate rather than be excreted, leading to estrogen dominance and bloating and other symptoms.

This connection means that food sensitivities, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and other digestive issues can worsen hormonal bloating by disrupting gut health. To support your gut and reduce bloating, consider dietary changes such as avoiding artificial sweeteners and carbonated beverages, which can increase intestinal gas and discomfort. Incorporating regular exercise, managing stress (which affects the stress hormone cortisol), and using herbal teas like ginger, peppermint, and fennel can also promote digestive health and ease bloating.

In my blog post on Natural Ways to Reduce Bloating, I share practical, daily strategies to address this—such as eating slowly, managing stress, and incorporating gentle movement. And in this article on herbs for bloating, I highlight powerful plants like ginger, peppermint, and fennel that can help calm digestive discomfort and support your gut health.

When to Dig Deeper

If your bloating is persistent, painful, or accompanied by other symptoms such as irregular menstrual cycles, acne, fatigue, or mood changes, it may be a sign of underlying hormonal imbalances or digestive system issues that require further investigation.

In my practice, I often recommend functional stool testing to better understand the gut-hormone connection. This testing evaluates inflammation, microbial diversity, and estrogen metabolism to identify the root causes of abdominal bloating and other related symptoms. By pinpointing these factors, we can develop a personalized plan to restore hormone balance, improve digestive health, and reduce persistent bloating effectively.

Book a discovery call to uncover the root causes of your bloating and create a tailored plan to restore hormonal balance and digestive wellness.