Glad you are taking the time to think about menopause. I'm 70. I went through early menopause at the age of 38 after having a fallopian and ovary removed (and being told that I would continue to have periods. I never had another one.) . I figured I could handle menopause 'naturally', and attempted to do so for 10 years with supplements and herbs. When my skin, hair and bones showed signs of extreme aging (already Osteoporosis) and I had zero libido, I decided that my body was not asking for Black Cohosh. My body wanted the missing hormones estradiol, progesterone and testosterone. I remember my doctor telling me "You ladies got a rough deal from Mother Nature. You were not expected to live past 35 so you were never built to manufacture hormones much past that age." He was right. It hasn't been perfect, but it's nearly perfect... it took many years to put that bone back (I no longer have Osteoporosis), regain some vaginal strength and sensation, and to feel ok again. I'm a rock climber today. There is no way I would be doing this if my tank was completely empty of hormones.
Looking forward to your thoughts on menopause. I don’t know how, after 47 years of being around women, no one quite prepared me for how debilitating hot flashes can be. I don’t want HRT. I want to be 47, act 47, and feel 47. Still quite a shock though!
I had cervical cancer at 44 and they removed ovaries too. They put me on estradiol patch and I used for years then about 3 years ago got on bio identicals with estradiol, progesterone and testerone in low dose. I felt so much better. I am now 53 and don’t want breast cancer so tried to come off but felt horrible. I recently learned I have Double mutation of MTHFR 677. What are your thoughts about bio identicals for someone with this and in menopause. Thank you so much for your research!
Fantastic Chris, you are so far ahead of the pack in your critical thinking here - fascinating stuff! I always tell my clients that you have to work with your body instead of fighting against it - which sounds a bit 'woo' - until you read something like this!
No I was just giving an example. You can have nutrient deficiencies or metabolic impairments in clearing hormones, or in regulating whether they are too high or too low.
Endocrine Disruptors and xenoestrogens are causing the problems seen in women both for menopause and most female diseases. I agree you need to fix the metabolic problems and nutritional deficiencies. However, for the vast majority of my patients, if you are able to get rid of exogenous Endocrine Disruptors, the patient becomes well and all the disease goes away. No need to give hormones. No need to correct basic nutritional supplements (with a few exceptions, iodine being the most salient).
What has been the best framework to work with this in your experience?
I'm starting to see this and environmental pollutants in general as possibly the biggest health risk to tackle. The question with the most upvotes in the latest round of Q&A submissions here was also related so I'm excited to hopefully see Chris tackle it.
Why does stress cause cortisol levels to decrease (drop, fall) in some people?
Some older studies show that people with psoriasis have a reversed stress-cortisol response, and have both a immediate and long-term reduction in cortisol in response to stress. This is especially true for patients that state that their psoriasis gets worse with stress, and it suggest that low cortisol is contributing to their psoriasis.
If I read the literature correctly, these patient's adrenals respond normally to ACTH (the hormone that tells the adrenals to make cortisol) in unstressed situations, but during stress, their ability to make cortisol is temporally lost, suggesting maybe a lack of substrate in stressed conditions.
I also suspect that this problem is not limited to people with psoriasis, and that whatever is causing this may be the same mysterious force that is playing havoc with abnormal circadian rhythms in general. These studies also suggest that "adrenal fatigue" could really just be a temporally inability to produce cortisol in certain conditions, which is very different from the way it is normally presented, and it would also suggest that such a problem would not be detectable by normal lab test.
(I apologize in advance for inaccurate info in this comment. It was written in a rush and I didn't have time to properly analyse these studies.) (Also, Chris M, if you don't have time to respond to this question I fully understand. I know you are busy.)
I don’t know for sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a downregulation due to chronic false alarms. The fight or flight system is designed for acute stress requiring quick decisions that in turn require dramatically higher brain glucose. It isn’t designed to be chronically activated by low-level worry.
I would love to know what you think for an oddity like me. I have low cholesterol but high sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone more so, DHEA, even Testosterone), I have atypical diabetes (not metabolic syndrome other than glucose), my insulin is weird (low, but no antibodies for type 1). I've not had trouble conceiving and my cycle is regular as one might otherwise think first pass with high DHEA/T. I eat a fairly nutrient dense diet, otherwise I might look more typical as far as metabolic syndrome components are concerned.
Chris, thank you for all this content. So for someone with Hashimotos, with LOW t3, T4, low TSH, Low leptin ( 3.9 ), Low insulin ( 3) there is a great probability for not enough ATP and some significant nutrient deficiencies. And the person is possibly underfed however is at at normal weight. So interesting and so curious if energy bottlenecks are a big issues in this case.
Certainly sounds like underfed across the board. If the puzzle is calorie intake, carb intake, and body fat all seem adequate, then inefficiency of ATP extraction from food makes sense.
I’m sorry, I’m confused. Please help me understand what you are saying, Chris.
I experiment with bioidentical hormones for my PCOS, and I always notice direct and distinct responses to these and other hormones. I can, by choice, use them to alter my mood states. Doesn’t this demonstrate that hormones do cause things like excessive crying, rage, irritability, anxiety, depression, sudden abundance of loving feelings, and more?
I couldn’t locate the references you mentioned in the video. Where were they posted, please? Thank you, sir.
I have spent the last 23 years trying to find out where the xenoestrogens enter into our lives. I have 35,000 patient/customers. Essentially, I just eliminate the xenoestrogens from the patient's environment. The vast majority get radically better and do quite well, IF they are diligent about getting rid of xenoestrogens. I am a Medical Doctor. The framework is covered in my video: https://youtu.be/CnJ6Dv88ZYI?si=UkexOrb_uJO41PbW
Chris, thinking about this more, hormones and vitamins etc ...does food sensitivities even make sense for thyroid health? Hashimotos? Or its more an imbalance in nutrients ?potential mutations ?
How does NAFLD play into this? Setting aside for a sec the fact that some combination of factors created the ectopic fat, what would NAFLD mechanically do? Reduce liver absorption of nutrients causing higher insulin perhaps?
Glad you are taking the time to think about menopause. I'm 70. I went through early menopause at the age of 38 after having a fallopian and ovary removed (and being told that I would continue to have periods. I never had another one.) . I figured I could handle menopause 'naturally', and attempted to do so for 10 years with supplements and herbs. When my skin, hair and bones showed signs of extreme aging (already Osteoporosis) and I had zero libido, I decided that my body was not asking for Black Cohosh. My body wanted the missing hormones estradiol, progesterone and testosterone. I remember my doctor telling me "You ladies got a rough deal from Mother Nature. You were not expected to live past 35 so you were never built to manufacture hormones much past that age." He was right. It hasn't been perfect, but it's nearly perfect... it took many years to put that bone back (I no longer have Osteoporosis), regain some vaginal strength and sensation, and to feel ok again. I'm a rock climber today. There is no way I would be doing this if my tank was completely empty of hormones.
Looking forward to your thoughts on menopause. I don’t know how, after 47 years of being around women, no one quite prepared me for how debilitating hot flashes can be. I don’t want HRT. I want to be 47, act 47, and feel 47. Still quite a shock though!
I had cervical cancer at 44 and they removed ovaries too. They put me on estradiol patch and I used for years then about 3 years ago got on bio identicals with estradiol, progesterone and testerone in low dose. I felt so much better. I am now 53 and don’t want breast cancer so tried to come off but felt horrible. I recently learned I have Double mutation of MTHFR 677. What are your thoughts about bio identicals for someone with this and in menopause. Thank you so much for your research!
Fantastic Chris, you are so far ahead of the pack in your critical thinking here - fascinating stuff! I always tell my clients that you have to work with your body instead of fighting against it - which sounds a bit 'woo' - until you read something like this!
You seem to be addressing the issue of hormones that are too low. I'd be interested on your take when hormones are too high e.g. estrogen
No I was just giving an example. You can have nutrient deficiencies or metabolic impairments in clearing hormones, or in regulating whether they are too high or too low.
I am a guest lecturer for Family Practice Residents to teach them to treat female disease. Here is the lecture : https://youtu.be/CnJ6Dv88ZYI?si=3L-BuR11iGNCk6wi
It is an hour long, let me know what you think.
You are missing the elephant in the room.
Endocrine Disruptors and xenoestrogens are causing the problems seen in women both for menopause and most female diseases. I agree you need to fix the metabolic problems and nutritional deficiencies. However, for the vast majority of my patients, if you are able to get rid of exogenous Endocrine Disruptors, the patient becomes well and all the disease goes away. No need to give hormones. No need to correct basic nutritional supplements (with a few exceptions, iodine being the most salient).
What has been the best framework to work with this in your experience?
I'm starting to see this and environmental pollutants in general as possibly the biggest health risk to tackle. The question with the most upvotes in the latest round of Q&A submissions here was also related so I'm excited to hopefully see Chris tackle it.
Why does stress cause cortisol levels to decrease (drop, fall) in some people?
Some older studies show that people with psoriasis have a reversed stress-cortisol response, and have both a immediate and long-term reduction in cortisol in response to stress. This is especially true for patients that state that their psoriasis gets worse with stress, and it suggest that low cortisol is contributing to their psoriasis.
If I read the literature correctly, these patient's adrenals respond normally to ACTH (the hormone that tells the adrenals to make cortisol) in unstressed situations, but during stress, their ability to make cortisol is temporally lost, suggesting maybe a lack of substrate in stressed conditions.
I also suspect that this problem is not limited to people with psoriasis, and that whatever is causing this may be the same mysterious force that is playing havoc with abnormal circadian rhythms in general. These studies also suggest that "adrenal fatigue" could really just be a temporally inability to produce cortisol in certain conditions, which is very different from the way it is normally presented, and it would also suggest that such a problem would not be detectable by normal lab test.
(I apologize in advance for inaccurate info in this comment. It was written in a rush and I didn't have time to properly analyse these studies.) (Also, Chris M, if you don't have time to respond to this question I fully understand. I know you are busy.)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4070523/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4423403/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20716227/
https://acta.tums.ac.ir/index.php/acta/article/view/3525/3501
I don’t know for sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a downregulation due to chronic false alarms. The fight or flight system is designed for acute stress requiring quick decisions that in turn require dramatically higher brain glucose. It isn’t designed to be chronically activated by low-level worry.
I would love to know what you think for an oddity like me. I have low cholesterol but high sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone more so, DHEA, even Testosterone), I have atypical diabetes (not metabolic syndrome other than glucose), my insulin is weird (low, but no antibodies for type 1). I've not had trouble conceiving and my cycle is regular as one might otherwise think first pass with high DHEA/T. I eat a fairly nutrient dense diet, otherwise I might look more typical as far as metabolic syndrome components are concerned.
I guess I wonder how high they are. I mean you largely sound healthy.
Chris, thank you for all this content. So for someone with Hashimotos, with LOW t3, T4, low TSH, Low leptin ( 3.9 ), Low insulin ( 3) there is a great probability for not enough ATP and some significant nutrient deficiencies. And the person is possibly underfed however is at at normal weight. So interesting and so curious if energy bottlenecks are a big issues in this case.
Certainly sounds like underfed across the board. If the puzzle is calorie intake, carb intake, and body fat all seem adequate, then inefficiency of ATP extraction from food makes sense.
I’m sorry, I’m confused. Please help me understand what you are saying, Chris.
I experiment with bioidentical hormones for my PCOS, and I always notice direct and distinct responses to these and other hormones. I can, by choice, use them to alter my mood states. Doesn’t this demonstrate that hormones do cause things like excessive crying, rage, irritability, anxiety, depression, sudden abundance of loving feelings, and more?
I couldn’t locate the references you mentioned in the video. Where were they posted, please? Thank you, sir.
Yes, they do. That doesn't make them in charge.
I have spent the last 23 years trying to find out where the xenoestrogens enter into our lives. I have 35,000 patient/customers. Essentially, I just eliminate the xenoestrogens from the patient's environment. The vast majority get radically better and do quite well, IF they are diligent about getting rid of xenoestrogens. I am a Medical Doctor. The framework is covered in my video: https://youtu.be/CnJ6Dv88ZYI?si=UkexOrb_uJO41PbW
Chris, thinking about this more, hormones and vitamins etc ...does food sensitivities even make sense for thyroid health? Hashimotos? Or its more an imbalance in nutrients ?potential mutations ?
I'll be waiting for the menopause address.
I'm on HRT. Wouldn't want to live without it. Literally!
How does NAFLD play into this? Setting aside for a sec the fact that some combination of factors created the ectopic fat, what would NAFLD mechanically do? Reduce liver absorption of nutrients causing higher insulin perhaps?
Check Youtube “create a menopause recovery “. HRT hormones do 120 things in the body.