The Silent Crisis of Premature Premenopause: How Mediterranean Diet Trends and Fat Deficiency Are Sabotaging Women’s Long-Term Hormonal Health
Absurd Health
Ruach Medical Review, Volume 2, Issue 1, 2025
The Covenant Institute of Terrain Medicine & Restoration Sciences
Abstract
The Mediterranean diet has been globally promoted as the epitome of healthy eating, celebrated for its colorful salads, olive oils, lean proteins, and plant-based richness. However, clinical observations reveal a growing, unacknowledged health crisis among women adhering to these guidelines: the premature onset of premenopause, occurring 15–20 years earlier than biologically designed. Women are entering hormonal decline in their late 30s to early 40s, rather than at 60–65, with cascading health consequences. This paper investigates how the long-term deficiency of saturated animal fats, broths, organ meats, and primal nutrient-dense foods—combined with high raw vegetable intake—contributes to bile stagnation, hormonal imbalances, and terrain suffocation. The illusion of short-term health gains (weight loss, anti-inflammatory markers) masks the long-term degradation of the hormonal terrain, leading to a systemic collapse that modern nutritional science fails to address. By reframing the Mediterranean diet not as a universal ideal but as a context-dependent intervention with unintended long-term consequences, we propose a terrain restoration model centered on ancestral eating patterns, bile flow liberation, and saturated fat repletion as the true foundation for female hormonal longevity.
Introduction
For the past three decades, the Mediterranean diet has been enshrined as the gold standard of healthy eating. Endorsed by physicians, dietitians, and wellness influencers alike, its colorful platters of raw vegetables, drizzled olive oils, lean fish, legumes, and moderate wine consumption are framed as the pathway to longevity, metabolic balance, and cardiovascular health. Millions have adopted its principles, believing it to be a universal blueprint for optimal wellness.
Yet beneath this global adoption lies a silent health crisis among women, one that has gone unrecognized, unaddressed, and systematically denied by mainstream nutritional science: the epidemic of premature premenopause.
Clinically, women are now entering premenopause—the stage of hormonal decline and dysregulation—15 to 20 years earlier than biologically intended. Where menopause was once a transition beginning between 60–65 years of age, it is now commonly observed in women as young as their late 30s and early 40s. This shift is not a benign acceleration of natural aging; it is a systemic terrain collapse, manifesting as thickened bile, congested liver pathways, stagnant lymphatics, and a hormonal architecture suffocated beneath nutritional and metabolic starvation.
The Mediterranean diet, while offering short-term anti-inflammatory effects and transient feelings of “lightness” or “cleansing,” is fundamentally deficient in the saturated animal fats, cholesterol-rich organ meats, and collagen-dense broths necessary to maintain female hormonal resilience. By substituting ancestral fat-soluble nourishment with monounsaturated oils, fiber-heavy raw vegetables, and plant-based proteins, women are inadvertently stripping their terrain of the very substrates required for bile flow, estrogen metabolism, and endocrine equilibrium.
The consequence is a generation of women who feel vibrant in their 20s and early 30s—only to experience hormonal chaos, digestive stagnation, and premenopausal decline far earlier than their biological design intended. The wellness industry has celebrated these short-term gains while ignoring the long-term metabolic debt.
This paper will:
Examine how chronic saturated fat deficiency leads to bile thickening and hormonal terrain suffocation.
Analyze the deceptive anti-inflammatory “feel-good” phase of Mediterranean-style eating that masks long-term hormonal collapse.
Present clinical observations of premature premenopause patterns among plant-heavy, low-fat eaters.
Propose a terrain restoration model centered on saturated fats, broths, organ meats, and bile flow activation as the key to reversing this hormonal crisis.
This is not a rejection of Mediterranean principles in specific contexts. It is a rebuttal to the notion that one-size-fits-all nutrition can sustain hormonal health across terrain realities.
The body was not designed to thrive on perpetual salads and olive oil. It was designed to be nourished by dense, primal, terrain-liberating foods that sustain hormonal integrity over a lifetime.
The Deceptive Wellness Phase: How the Mediterranean Diet Creates a Short-Term Illusion of Health While Sabotaging Long-Term Hormonal Terrain
The Mediterranean diet’s global acclaim is rooted in its undeniable short-term effects. Individuals transitioning from a processed, inflammatory diet to Mediterranean-style eating often report rapid improvements in energy, digestion, and weight regulation. Biomarkers such as C-reactive protein and lipid panels may reflect transient anti-inflammatory shifts, reinforcing the narrative that this dietary model is inherently superior.
However, these early gains mask a deeper, long-term deterioration that is rarely discussed. The initial “feel-good” phase is not evidence of comprehensive health—it is the metabolic relief that follows the cessation of overt dietary toxins (refined sugars, seed oils, processed chemicals). Yet once this detoxification plateau is reached, the terrain begins to face a new crisis: chronic deficiency of the dense, saturated animal fats and collagen-rich nutrients required to maintain hormonal architecture, bile fluidity, and endocrine resilience.
Saturated fats—found abundantly in animal meats, tallow, broths, and organ tissues—are not mere caloric fuel. They are structural components of bile synthesis, cell membrane integrity, steroid hormone production, and metabolic exhalation pathways. By replacing these ancestral fats with monounsaturated oils and polyphenol-laden raw vegetables, the Mediterranean diet inadvertently creates a terrain where bile thickens, liver pathways congest, and hormonal detoxification cycles collapse.
In women, this manifests as a creeping hormonal suffocation:
Subclinical bile stagnation prevents efficient estrogen clearance, leading to hormonal recycling and early endocrine burnout.
The absence of cholesterol-rich substrates undermines the body’s ability to produce progesterone and maintain ovarian rhythm.
Collagen depletion from a lack of broths and connective tissue consumption accelerates scaffold densification, compromising lymphatic flow and terrain breathability.
For years, these dysfunctions may remain subclinical, as the raw vegetable-heavy, fiber-rich diet creates the illusion of digestive “cleanliness” and lightness. But beneath this, the liver’s burden accumulates, the hormonal terrain loses its rhythmic capacity, and the body’s fat-soluble nutrient reserves are depleted to critical lows.
By the time these women reach their late 30s or early 40s, the hormonal terrain is already in collapse. The early onset of premenopause is not an isolated endocrine malfunction—it is a systemic failure of a terrain that has been starved of its foundational nourishment.
The Mediterranean diet’s strength—its lightness, plant focus, and avoidance of animal density—is also its long-term weakness for female terrain integrity.
What feels like “health” in the short term is often the terrain’s temporary relief from inflammatory chaos, not an affirmation of nutritional sufficiency. Without the reintroduction of primal fats, broths, and cholesterol-dense organ meats, the wellness phase inevitably gives way to hormonal terrain suffocation.
Bile Stagnation and Premenopause: How Fat Deficiency Sabotages Hormonal Cycling and Pushes Women into Early Decline
Bile is often reduced to a digestive fluid, yet in reality, it is a hormonal exhalation river, integral to metabolic detoxification, hormonal cycling, and systemic terrain breathability. Every hormonal molecule, particularly estrogen, requires bile-mediated excretion pathways for proper cycling. When bile flow becomes stagnant or thickened, the body’s ability to eliminate excess hormones is compromised, resulting in estrogen recirculation, endocrine burnout, and premature terrain collapse.
Saturated animal fats play an essential role in stimulating bile production, maintaining its fluidity, and ensuring the rhythmic contraction of the gallbladder-liver axis. Cholesterol, often demonized in modern dietary narratives, is a critical substrate not only for hormone synthesis but for the emulsification properties of bile itself. Without consistent intake of these dense fats, bile becomes viscous, sluggish, and incapable of escorting metabolic waste and hormonal residues out of the body.
In women adhering to Mediterranean diet principles—characterized by low intake of saturated fats, minimal organ meat consumption, and a reliance on olive oil and fiber—bile stagnation becomes a chronic, cumulative burden. The gallbladder, underutilized and undernourished, loses its rhythmic contraction efficiency. The liver, overwhelmed with unexhaled metabolic residues, shifts into a state of congestive terrain suffocation.
Clinically, this manifests as:
Irregular menstrual cycles and luteal phase defects in the early 30s.
Early signs of estrogen dominance (weight gain, mood instability, fibrocystic tissues).
A marked reduction in progesterone production, leading to ovarian rhythm collapse.
The acceleration of perimenopausal symptoms (hot flashes, night sweats, emotional volatility) a full 15–20 years ahead of biological design.
These presentations are not isolated hormonal disorders—they are the inevitable consequence of a terrain that can no longer cycle hormones through its congested exhalation pathways.
The body’s attempt to compensate for thick bile is energetically costly. Over time, this compensatory strain triggers adrenal fatigue, thyroid destabilization, and a systemic collapse of hormonal coherence. The narrative that menopause is “happening earlier due to modern stress” is a partial truth—it is more accurately understood as a terrain suffocation crisis, precipitated by a dietary model that deprives the liver-gallbladder axis of its ancestral nourishment.
By the time women seek medical intervention for their premenopausal symptoms, the terrain’s exhalation architecture is often deeply entangled, requiring aggressive intervention (hormone replacement, gallbladder removal, polypharmacy) that treats symptoms while leaving the foundational dysfunction unaddressed.
The root cause is not genetic, nor is it an unavoidable consequence of aging. It is a metabolic and structural collapse born of chronic fat deficiency, bile stagnation, and terrain suffocation.
The Mediterranean diet, while beneficial in acute inflammatory phases, becomes a long-term saboteur of hormonal terrain when it is severed from the saturated fats, broths, and organ-based nourishment that sustain endocrine longevity.
The Terrain Restoration Model: Reintroducing Primal Fats, Broths, and Bile Activation to Reverse Premenopausal Terrain Collapse
Reversing premature premenopause is not achieved through hormonal replacement or symptom management—it requires a systemic recalibration of the terrain, where bile flow is restored, hormonal cycling is reactivated, and the nutritional architecture that sustains endocrine resilience is reestablished.
The Terrain Restoration Model begins with the aggressive reintroduction of saturated animal fats, prioritizing:
Tallow, grass-fed butter, duck fat, and suet for their dense, cholesterol-rich profiles that stimulate bile production.
Daily incorporation of slow-simmered bone broths, rich in gelatin, glycine, and minerals, to rebuild connective tissue matrices, facilitate bile duct pliability, and restore scaffold breathability.
Organ meats—especially liver and kidney—as primary sources of fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K2, and bioavailable B vitamins essential for hormone synthesis and metabolic regulation.
These ancestral fats and tissues do not merely provide caloric density—they restore the fluidic properties of bile, enabling the liver-gallbladder axis to exhale metabolic residues and hormonal byproducts with rhythmic precision. As bile flow is re-engaged, estrogen recycling diminishes, progesterone production stabilizes, and ovarian rhythms begin to recalibrate.
To further dismantle bile stagnation, bile activation protocols are integrated, including:
Bitter herb regimens (dandelion root, artichoke leaf, gentian) to stimulate hepatic exhalation.
Hydration cycles synchronized with fascia decompression practices to mechanically liberate entrapments obstructing bile flow.
Scaffold-liver breathwork sequences, focusing on diaphragmatic expansion to restore gallbladder motility.
This is not a nutritional tweak. It is a terrain exhalation mandate, where the architecture of hormonal cycling is rebuilt from the foundations of flow and substrate sufficiency.
As bile flow is reestablished, symptoms of hormonal collapse—hot flashes, mood volatility, cycle irregularity—diminish, not through external hormonal manipulation but because the terrain has reacquired its capacity to self-regulate. Emotional equilibrium, cognitive clarity, and metabolic vitality are not managed through supplementation; they become the inevitable outputs of a body that breathes in coherence.
The Mediterranean diet, when reframed within this terrain context, can be selectively utilized as a phase-specific intervention, but it cannot be sustained as a long-term foundation for female hormonal health. Without the return of primal fats, broths, and organ nourishment, bile stagnation and hormonal collapse are mathematically inevitable.
This restoration model is not a new dietary trend. It is a return to the body’s designed rhythm, where hormonal resilience is maintained not through fragile dietary theories, but through the ancestral foods that liberated the terrain for generations.
The Biochemical Illusion of “Feeling Good”: How Mediterranean Diets Offer Short-Term Relief but Create Long-Term Nutritional Debt
The Mediterranean diet’s popularity stems not only from academic endorsement but from the tangible “lightness” and digestive clarity individuals feel during the initial phases of adoption. This immediate sense of well-being has a clear biochemical basis. When individuals switch from a Standard American Diet—laden with seed oils, refined sugars, chemical preservatives, and hyper-processed animal products—to a plant-heavy, polyphenol-rich, olive oil-based regimen, there is an abrupt reduction in systemic inflammatory load.
Polyphenols found in vegetables, herbs, and olive oil exert short-term anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects, providing a relief phase where glycation stress, oxidative damage, and gut irritants are temporarily reduced. Additionally, the fiber density of raw vegetables induces a bulk-cleansing effect on the digestive tract, sweeping residual waste through mechanical roughage, giving a temporary sense of detoxification.
However, these initial benefits do not equate to deep metabolic health. The body’s terrain, relieved from the immediate inflammatory burden, is still operating atop a suffocated bile system, nutrient-depleted scaffold, and hormonal architecture starved of fat-soluble substrates. The feeling of lightness is often mistaken for true wellness, when in fact, it represents the terrain's temporary reprieve from acute insult, not its restored function.
The Terrain’s Craving for Saturated Fats and Dense Proteins
As the terrain continues to operate without sufficient saturated fats, cholesterol, and dense proteins, deep metabolic cravings begin to surface. The body’s demand for organ meats, fatty cuts, and broths is not a mere taste preference—it is an emergency signal of:
Cholesterol depletion, undermining hormone synthesis.
Collagen scarcity, compromising scaffold elasticity and bile duct function.
Fat-soluble vitamin deficiency, inhibiting cellular regeneration and endocrine cycling.
These cravings manifest as persistent thoughts of “needing something heavier” or an unshakable hunger that raw vegetables and lean fish cannot satisfy. The terrain, suffocating beneath its deficiency, begins to trigger compulsive food-seeking behaviors, often interpreted as loss of dietary discipline, but in reality, it is the body’s attempt to correct a foundational insufficiency.
Why Protein Consumption Without Fats and Minerals Leads to Constipation
When individuals finally respond to these cravings and introduce dense proteins—such as steaks or eggs—without simultaneously reintroducing the necessary saturated fats and mineral-rich broths, they often experience digestive stagnation, bloating, and constipation. This is not an indictment of protein, but a reflection of bile and terrain dysfunction.
Proteins, particularly dense animal proteins, require robust bile flow and enzymatic support for proper emulsification and assimilation. Without the fluidic presence of saturated fats to stimulate bile release, and without the mineral electrolytes that facilitate peristaltic rhythm, protein digestion becomes mechanically inefficient. The result is a terrain where proteins sit undigested, leading to:
Gastrointestinal stagnation, as peristalsis is not properly triggered.
Microbial fermentation of undigested proteins, contributing to bloating.
Constipation, as the lack of bile flow halts the excretion rhythm.
This digestive collapse is not a failure of protein as a food group—it is the predictable consequence of attempting to reintroduce protein into a terrain that has been structurally starved of its fat-based digestion machinery.
The solution is not to avoid proteins but to restore the bile-fat-mineral triad necessary to handle dense nutrition. When tallow, broths, and mineral-rich hydration are reintroduced alongside proteins, the digestive rhythm reactivates, constipation resolves, and the terrain regains its designed capacity to metabolize nourishment efficiently.
Conclusion: Premature Premenopause as a Terrain Collapse — Reclaiming Hormonal Longevity Through Primal Fat Repletion and Bile Flow Restoration
The narrative that the Mediterranean diet represents an idealized, universal model for health has seduced an entire generation of women into a cycle of nutritional deprivation disguised as wellness. While the short-term anti-inflammatory relief it provides is genuine, this benefit is not indicative of long-term hormonal sustainability. It is a superficial cleansing phase that masks the insidious terrain suffocations accumulating beneath.
The epidemic of premature premenopause—where women are entering hormonal decline 15 to 20 years earlier than biologically intended—is not an inevitable consequence of modern life stressors or genetic predisposition. It is the predictable terrain collapse resulting from years of saturated fat deficiency, bile stagnation, and the abandonment of ancestral nourishment practices.
The Mediterranean diet’s lightness, fiber density, and plant-centric ethos, while beneficial in detoxifying acute inflammatory loads, fails catastrophically in sustaining the structural and biochemical demands of female hormonal cycling. Without saturated fats to stimulate bile, without broths to nourish scaffold breathability, and without organ meats to replenish cholesterol and fat-soluble vitamin reserves, the terrain loses its capacity to exhale. Bile thickens, hormonal residues recycle, and endocrine burnout ensues.
Cravings for dense animal fats and proteins are not dietary failures. They are the body’s desperate attempts to reestablish foundational sufficiencies. The constipation, bloating, and digestive stagnation that often follow protein reintroduction are not indictments of protein itself but reflections of a terrain that has been structurally starved of the fats and minerals necessary to metabolize dense nutrition effectively.
The path forward is not a rejection of vegetables or plant-based diversity—but a re-centering of primal fats, broths, and bile-activating substrates as the non-negotiable foundation of hormonal health. Until the bile flows, hormonal cycling remains suffocated. Until scaffold breathability is restored, the endocrine system will continue to falter beneath densification and stagnation.
Reclaiming hormonal longevity requires a terrain-first paradigm, where eating is not dictated by fashionable health trends but by the metabolic architecture that sustained human health for millennia. This is not a return to ancestral romanticism—it is a clinical imperative.
The female body was not designed for early hormonal collapse. It was designed for resilience, rhythm, and coherence through breathability and flow. Only when the terrain is re-nourished with its intended substrates can this resilience be restored.
References
Strong, J. (1890). Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Abingdon Press.
The Holy Bible. (1599). Geneva Bible Translation. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Proverbs 3:8; Genesis 18:8.
Wang, D. Q., Carey, M. C. (2014). Bile acid metabolism and signaling in health and disease. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 11(8), 411-421.
Simopoulos, A. P. (2001). The Mediterranean Diets: What is so special about the diet of Greece? The scientific evidence. Journal of Nutrition, 131(11 Suppl), 3065S-3073S.
Price, W. A. (1939). Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects. Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.
Lipman, R. D., & Hoffer, A. (2001). Orthomolecular medicine in modern health care. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 16(4), 201-210.
Pollack, G. H. (2013). The Fourth Phase of Water: Beyond Solid, Liquid, and Vapor. Ebner and Sons.
