Healthy Phase II metabolism methylates 2-hydroxy (2-OH) estrogens to the more cancer-protective 2-methoxy (2-MeO) forms, and neutralizes the potentially carcinogenic 4-OH estrogens to their 4-MeO forms.
Both 2- and 4-OH estrogens (often referred to as catechol estrogens) are inactivated by methylation with COMT (Catechol-Ortho-Methyl-Transferase) to form 2- and 4-methoxy estrogens (2-MeO-E1 and –E2 or 4-MeO-E1 and –E2). If methylation does not occur due to lack of COMT substrates (vitamins B6, B12, folate, betaine), or defective gene polymorphisms in COMT, the catechol estrogens can further oxidize to 2- and 4-estrogen quinones. Formation of these oxidized quinone estrogens occurs more readily in the presence of excessive oxidized lipids, such as trans-hydrogenated fats, and heavy metals. Under ideal situations the quinone estrogens react with glutathione, which inactivates them. In the absence of adequate cellular glutathione and glutathione transferase, these highly reactive and electrophilic estrogen quinones bind covalently to DNA forming adducts that can lead to mutations that increase risk for cancers in estrogen target tissues such as the breasts, uterus, ovaries, and prostate.
Low ratios 2-MeO E1/2-OH E1, 4-MeO E1/4-OH E1, and 4-MeO E2/4-OH E2 can indicate inadequate methylation and therefore may be associated with an increased breast cancer risk.
Understand and improve your laboratory results with our health dashboard.
Upload your lab reports and get your interpretation today.
Our technology helps to understand, combine, track, organize, and act on your medical lab test results.
Interpret Your Lab Results
Upload your lab report, and we'll interpret and provide you with recommendations today.
Get StartedMonthly plan
Annual plan
Own it for life
Our exclusive data entry service is a convenient way to get your results into your private dashboard. Simply attach an image or a file of your lab test results, and one of our qualified data entry team members will add the results for you. We support all sorts of files, whether PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is excellent whether you have a lot of reports to upload or are too busy to do the data entry yourself.
We strive to make the data entry process easy for you. Whether by offering dozens of templates to choose from that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels or by giving you instant feedback on the entered values. Our data entry forms are an easy, fast, and convenient way to enter the reports yourself. There is no limit on how many lab reports you can upload.
$15 /month
billed every month
Most popular
Data entry included
$79 /year
$6.60/month billed annually
Data entry included
$250 /once
own it for life
Are You a Health Professional?
Get started with our professional plan
Welcome to Healthmatters Pro.
Save time on interpreting lab results with the largest database of biomarkers online. In-depth research on any test at your fingertips, all stored and tracked in one place. Learn more
Pro Monthly Plus
for health professionals
$75 per month
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.