A Simple Guide to a DUTCH Test Reveals About Your Hormones
If you have been feeling out of sorts, and you think it’s your hormones, but your blood tests keep coming back “normal” — it’s time to look a little deeper.
The problem lies in the testing, because a standard blood test only shows one moment in time. It’s a single reading, taken at a single point in the day, on a single day of your cycle.
Female hormones work on a 28-day cycle and at times of hormonal change, they can fluctuate from hour to hour or day to day. So, a single snapshot in time can miss almost everything that matters. This is where a DUTCH test can be far more useful.
What is a DUTCH test?
DUTCH stands for Dried Urine Test for Comprehensive Hormones. It’s exactly what it sounds like — a comprehensive look at your hormones, done through a series of dried urine samples collected at home over a 24-hour period, at a certain point in your cycle.
Not only does the DUTCH look at individual hormone levels, it also tells us how well your endocrine system is functioning as a whole by looking at:
- Your sex hormones – oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA
- Your stress and sleep hormones – cortisol and melatonin
- Hormone metabolites and nutritional biomarkers
What does a DUTCH test actually measure?
The DUTCH test gives a full picture across three main areas:
- Adrenal and Stress Patterns
Gives an insight into fatigue, energy, adrenals by looking at your stress pattern over a 24-hour period, giving insight into whether you are coping well with stress, and if your body is clearing cortisol metabolites.This matters because ongoing stress is one of the most common, and most overlooked, drivers of hormone imbalance — so understanding your pattern here often explains symptoms that don’t seem to have anything to do with stress on the surface, like disrupted sleep or a cycle that’s gone off track.
- Sex hormones and detoxification pathways
Looking at how oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHEA are being produced and, just as importantly, how they’re being broken down and cleared through your liver’s detox pathways. This matters because hormones don’t just need to be made in the right amounts, they need to leave the body properly too. If clearance is sluggish, oestrogen and its by-products can recirculate rather than clear out, which is often what’s behind symptoms like heavy or painful periods, breast tenderness, or a mood that tracks with your cycle.
- Nutrient levels and oxidative stress
This shows whether your body has the raw materials — vitamins, minerals and antioxidants — it needs to actually make and process hormones properly. Without them, even a well-functioning system runs out of steam. This is often where brain fog, low mood, or a general sense of running on empty come from, even when your diet looks healthy on paper.
What can a DUTCH test tell you about your hormonal health?
What’s behind your cycle changes
Hormones are about balance. It’s not just about how much oestrogen, progesterone or testosterone is being made, but rather that they are in the correct ratios. And it’s also about how hormones, specifically oestrogen, gets broken down, and whether it is being cleared properly or whether the system is backing up. Looking at these patterns can help with PMOS, endometriosis, fertility challenges and changes to your cycle in perimenopause.
Why you’re struggling with energy, mood and sleep issues
Your cortisol rhythm is meant to follow a curve. It should be higher in the morning to help you wake and get going, tapering down through the day and be at its lowest by bedtime so you can switch off. When that rhythm is disrupted, it can show up as sluggishness on waking, an energy crash mid-afternoon, or a second wind right when you’re trying to go to sleep. DUTCH maps this whole curve, so rather than guessing at what your energy is doing and how that is impacting mood and sleep, we can actually see it.
Why you’re still struggling with hormonal acne
The DUTCH measures your androgen hormones, testosterone and DHEA-S plus their metabolites. When these are out of balance you may experience hormonal acne, hair loss or excess body hair, low libido or symptoms of PMOS.
What happens after my DUTCH results?
Once we have your results, I use the full pattern — not just individual numbers — to build a plan that’s specific to what your body needs. This can include personalised nutritional and supplement recommendations alongside homeopathic remedies designed to support your body’s own ability to find balance. No more guessing which supplement. No more cutting out foods just in case. Just a real plan, built for you and your results.
How to get a DUTCH test
A DUTCH test often gives answers where standard testing falls short — not because standard testing is wrong, but because it’s only looking at a single moment in time. When we look at your hormonal profile alongside your history, your symptoms and what’s actually going on in your life, we’re not just managing symptoms one at a time. We’re working with the patterns underneath them.
If you’ve been told everything looks fine, but you don’t feel fine, this is often where the missing piece is.
Want to understand what’s really going on? Book a discovery call and we can talk through whether a DUTCH test is the right next step for you.
