The Hormone Optimization Episode

Feeling energized, clear-headed, confident, it isn't a luxury, it's foundational help. This is the science of living better, feeling good, and looking great. Welcome to Dr. Heather Evans with The Bio-Beautiful Effect, board certified in family and neuromuscular medicine, and specializing in holistic wellness and medical aesthetics at Tempsegrity Health and Esthetics. Here's Dr. Heather Evans. Hi and welcome, my name is Sharon Gottlieb to it, joined by our founder of Tempsegrity Health and Esthetics, Dr. Heather Evans. Hi, Doc. Hey, Sharon. All right. So today, our topic is one that I am so excited about. It's hormones, health, and optimizing men and women's wellness. Hormone health affects almost every patient we see, men and women, and yet it's still wildly misunderstood. It's crazy. People come in every day, either staying I'm exhausted, I've gained weight, I just don't feel like myself, and they assume the solution is more coffee, or sometimes even just giving up entirely. Yeah, exactly, and very often hormones are at the root cause of these symptoms. So our goal today is to help people understand what hormones actually do, why they matter, and how optimizing hormones can change how you feel both now and long term. Okay, let's start at square one. What are hormones without taking us back to high school biology? You know I love biology. I know. So I promise no quizzes, but hormones, hormones are chemical messengers. We'll start there. So these messengers travel through the bloodstream and tell your body how to function, how you sleep, how you burn fat, how you think, how you feel, build muscle, even how your skin and hair behave. This is so crazy. When hormones are off, it's not just one thing falling apart. Exactly. So hormones work like an orchestra. When one instrument is out of tune, the whole performance sounds off. If our bodies are the orchestra, you feel fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, porcelain, weight gain, low sex drive, not great. Not great at all. If your body feels chaotic, it's not your imagination. It's the whole band orchestra, you got it. So one of the most common things that I hear is I thought this was just part of getting older, and that's exactly what I thought. So that's one of the biggest myths. Hormones do change with age, but suffering, that's not inevitable. We can do things about it. So feeling exhausted, gaining weight despite doing all the quote-unquote right things, losing motivation, losing confidence, those are signals, but they're not a life sentence anymore. And men are not exempt, even though they often think they are. They're not. Men think they're exempt from everything. Sorry, guys. But it's true. Testosterone can start declining in men as early as in their 30s or 40s, same thing for women, but we see things like irritability, belly fat, low energy, poor recovery, and they're often these things are blamed on stress or work or spider. I mean, this is just who I am now. Exactly. And it's not how it has to be. I see it and I hear it every single day. Oh my gosh, hormones. I literally could talk about hormones all day. Okay, I want to ask you another thing. Let's talk about estrogen. I've heard this word around the office. The hormone with the worst reputation. Oh, yes, estrogen has gotten a bad rep for good reason, though. I mean, let's just start by saying estrogen is essential for both women and men, plays an important role in supporting bone health, cardiovascular health, brain function, skin elasticity, mood, metabolism. You name it. It's involved. Yeah. So estrogen is basically doing everything quietly in the background. Or not so quietly sometimes, but yes. Oh, yeah, it's working hard. So in men, it helps maintain testosterone balance, which is also super important, especially for sex drive. And I don't think a lot of men really understand that. Okay. Wow. So even the guys need a little estrogen on the team. Absolutely. But so many women back then were told that estrogen is dangerous. Yes. So this is where that rep comes in, right? So that fear came from the Women's Health Initiative trial, which was a study done in the early 2000s. The problem is is that the study population and the hormone formulation that they used were very different from how we practice today. The women were older, often decades past menopause. And they were given synthetic hormones, not bioidentical hormones. Okay. And we understand now that there's something called the timing hypothesis. So it's when estrogen started earlier and used appropriately, if done in the right way with the right dose, it can actually protect the brain, the bones and protect the cardiovascular system. I love that so much. That's a pretty big shift from don't ever touch estrogen. That's honestly what I grew up in in my medical career. It started. This Women's Health Initiative started the year that I went into medical school. So that's I didn't know any better. And for generations of physicians, we were basically taught hormones bad or keep women on the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time that we possibly can and then take them right off. And it's not like that. The delivery method matters too, hugely actually. Transdermal estrogen, which transdermal means through the skin. So estrogen like patches, creams, gels, or pellets, they all bypass the liver, which is where the clotting factors are. So we're not at risk for things like clots when estrogen is delivered through the skin. When it's done correctly, estrogen can be truly life-changing. You've seen it. I felt it. I mean, all the people walking through our doors after they get treated. It's insane. I love it. I mean, hormones took my life from gray, I'll say, right, to all the brightest colors out there. It's so true. It's so true. The number of life-changing people that walk through our doors and say that same thing. It's unreal. Life-changing. There's another one I want to chat with you about because I love picking your brain. Sorry. Progesterone. You talk about it all the time. I hear it in the office, but it kind of feels underappreciated. Yes. Progesterone is the unsung hero of hormones. So it really is the calming hormone. It supports sleep. It reduces anxiety. It stabilizes mood. And it balances out estrogen. Okay. All right. Because I do hear a lot of this, I can't sleep. My mind won't turn off. I wake up at 3 a.m. ready to solve the world's problems. Oh my gosh. I know, right? Yes, many women, right? Yes. Men. I know. But that's classic low progesterone. It's usually the first hormone to decline in perimenopause. And without an estrogen, can feel overstimulating. Just simply overstimulating. Wow. So progesterone is basically your chill friend telling everyone to calm down. It's like me. Telling me to calm it. Yep. Okay. I'm telling you to calm down. Okay. That's what progesterone does. Wow. Okay. Love that. Can we talk about one more thing? I hope you're going to ask me. Oh, it begins with a tea. Yes. A lot of testosterone. Okay. All right. Most people think men only, but surprised. Women need it too. All right. That women need it too. I'll say that again and again. So testosterone supports energy, muscle mass, metabolism, confidence, motivation, and sex drive in both men and women. Wow. So what does low testosterone look like? In men, it looks like fatigue, muscle loss, belly fat, low sex drive, brain fog, in women, a lot of the same things, low energy, reduced strength. Like you go to the gym. How many times do women in perimenopause postmenopause say they go to the gym? They're trying to work out. They're trying to lift weights and they can't get anywhere. Yeah. All the time. So it's reduced strength. It's reduced sex drive. It's feeling flat. That's the word. That's the word that I hear a lot when clients come in and I'll say, how are you feeling? They just kind of look, you know, and they just say, yeah, you see that look? Yeah. And you can tell that they're going to say flat because I see it. And when testosterone is optimized, we feel sharper, stronger, improve strength, confidence, our body composition literally changes. Okay. I need to make a public announcement here. Testosterone is powerful, handled correctly. Yes. Of course. Right, doc? Absolutely. One thing that I love about our approach is that hormones aren't just symptom relief, although that's usually what gets people in the door. Absolutely. It's absolutely what gets people through the door. But I like to think of hormone optimization as preventative medicine. And that's where I come from. You know that that's my real house. Preventative care is my baby. It's what I believe in. And hormone optimization fits right in estrogen, supports bone density, brain health, testosterone, it's supporting muscle mass, metabolism, and overall longevity. So this isn't about vanity. It's about really aging well. Exactly. Wow. Strength, clarity, independence. That's the goal. I love that. So how do we actually do this? Right. At 10th century. So So every patient starts with a comprehensive blood panel that's revered by myself or Dr. Tom Dankos. And we look at the labs as a whole and we break them down and we will explain them line-by-line. We look at your symptoms, we look at your lifestyle, we look at your long-term goals. From there we see what do you need? It's not one size fits all. This is looking at your vitamins, your hormone levels, is your thyroid off? What can be optimized? And from there we come up with a specific plan for you. So you listen. You actually listen to what we have to say. We do. If someone listening is wondering if hormones might be part of their story. Then this is your sign to explore it. Feeling energized, clear-headed, confident. It isn't a luxury, it's foundational health. You have been listening to Dr. Heather Evans with the bio-beautiful effect. For more about the science of living better, feeling good and looking great, like and follow our podcast. And share your questions about health, wellness and medical aesthetics at 10segrityhealth.org. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical advice. Always consult your own healthcare provider regarding your health or medical decisions.