Transcription
Sunday, man. Menopause. That's what I'm going to talk about today. Menopause, pre-menopause. How it's not an HRT issue. It's not an estrogen issue. It's not a progesterone issue. It's a metabolic issue. And a lot of these guys have been lying to you. And if you're going to get in my comments and get all upset, save your time. I don't read them. I'm out here to help you. I'm not trying to sell you anything.
Maybe you guys should think about that when you're starting to take advice from people and go, "Is it a best-selling author, some doc that has some book that is trying to combat menopause that really knows nothing, but they think they do? Is it a supplement company trying to tell you their black cohosh is the answer? Or is it some... It doesn't matter what it is. Is it a hormone expert, a diet expert? None of that matters.
I'm not trying to sell you a thing. Like what do I say all the time? You want to buy from Elite Biogenics? Great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for supporting my company. If you don't, that's okay. I'm still out here. You want to join the black card? Send a message, an email that says, "I want to join the black card to apply at unlockthecard.com." And one of my assistants will get in touch with you and send you the wire transfer information. It is still at last year's price briefly, which is just shy of 10 grand for the year for one person. And you get access to my live private Q&A that I actually answer questions and solve your problems on. And you get access to the VIP community that's private and you can actually ask me questions in there. 24 to 72 hours. I'll answer your questions and I'll help you out. I'll look at your labs. I'll do whatever it is you need. I'm here to help you. That's my job. I'm just not going to do it for free in my community. And I give you all this information so you can make some educated decisions. But whether you join the black card or buy from Elite or not, I still show up here 'cause I actually care. I'm not trying to sell you something. So maybe take that into consideration before you start running your mouth in my comments and getting upset and doing clips and taking my videos.
And by the way, for all of you guys stealing my stuff, stealing my videos and chopping them up and then using them to market your crap, how about number one, you give me credit for the decades and decades of research I've done. And the hours I work, 16-hour days, and you guys spinning off of my research disgust me because you've never done a dime. And if you sat in front of me and we went toe-to-toe with knowledge, I would smoke you because I actually know what I'm talking about 'cause I read all this stuff 'cause I care. You're doing it because you want to sell something. I'm not doing this because I want to sell something. Where in here do I promote? I don't. Where do I... I constantly beat you down with an affiliate code or an advertisement or a percentage or some links or anything. Nothing. The link to to join everything is in my comments or in my write-up and the link to buy from Elite is in my write-up. But that's it. This is the only time I market and it's my company. It's my house. So, of course, I'm going to talk about my stuff, but at the same time, I don't push it. I just want you guys to get the information. So, listen. Menopause, pre-menopause, all the freaking facts. Okay, we ready? Let's do this. I'm going to drink some coffee and then I'm going to tear a hole in all this and put a lot of people in a bad mood because I'm going to knock down all their lies that they're telling you and I'll back it all up with peer-reviewed research, too. By the way, baby, I told you I'm the doctor out here who wants you to win. I want you to win. I want you to have it all. I want you to have 100, 125 years of health. If you go, listen to this guy, 125. Listen, you want to sit there and be happy at 65 years? I don't. I want to... I promise my wife at least 100. I love Brandy so much. What's wild? Bry is 46. She's going through menopause. She barely notices. That's normal. You guys with these catastrophic symptoms and aggressive symptoms, that's not normal. It's a pathology. And they're trying to sell you on the fact that... I'll get into it. It drives me crazy.
Listen, so for all the women that are listening to this, and the smart guys who are listening to this, by the way, cut the [ __ ]. How about we just cut the [ __ ]? Menopause is not some phase of life or some right of passage wrapped in estrogen envy. It's a physiological hijacking of your body's command center. Listen to me. That's what this is. So, if you're sweating through your sheets 20 times a night and up every 6 minutes, and 3:00 a.m. you're staring at the ceiling, gripping your bed, wondering whether you want to use your pillow to smother who's sleeping next to you, or why your brain feels like it's marinating in fog. Good. This isn't going to be a bunch of Hallmark quotes. This is to diagnose the enemy that's screwing up your life and break down the science so you actually understand what's going on and actually give... I will solve the problem. I will give you the answer. If you're like, "Let's just get to it then." See, that's the problem is you don't understand the physiology behind it. So, you just grab something. If it doesn't work instantly, you blame the thing instead of the idiot using the thing, which would be you. Low estrogen is not the villain in menopause. I'll say it again. Low estrogen is not the damn problem. It is the crime scene evidence. Calling it the cause is like blaming smoke for a fire. It gets you nowhere. It doesn't help you. Your body just... It doesn't just run out of estrogen. Ovaries don't just go, "Oh, I think I'm going to stop making it around 45 or 50 years old." That is the most ridiculous, ignorant. I said it in my podcast, in my Instagram post. It's the most ignorant oversimplification that keeps women anchored to these symptom management knuckleheads that read that write best-selling books that sell you on their clinic and their magic hormone herb concoction and their laundry list of pharmaceuticals instead of root cause demolition of what the hell's causing the problem.
So, how about I just dissect the snot out of this physiology, human biology, all of it, biochem, and just give you the data from peer-reviewed studies that prove where I'm coming from and I'll make it very clear because your brain, your body, your physiology, your biology deserves better than medical fairy tales that you're being sold. Look at the basic, just look at the basics of ovarian machinery. Your ovaries, listen you guys, your ovaries are not these passive little hormone factories. They're dynamic endocrine organs run by a symphony of cells. There's two key players to be honest. Theca cells and granulosa cells in the ovarian follicles. Theca produce androgens like testosterone precursors, etc. That stuff right under the influence of something called luteinizing hormone (LH) from the pituitary. Granulosa cells then grab those androgens and convert them to estradiol, which is the key player, the heavy hitter estrogen. They do it through something called aromatase. It doesn't matter the gene that encodes it because I was going to get into that but it... that's just too fancy. This whole process demands an exorbitant amount of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the funding source for everything that happens in your body. It also demands that you have a balanced inflammatory signaling system and an insulin sensitivity to keep the cellular assembly line actually humming. Did you just catch what I said? Three biological failures: systemic inflammation, insulin resistance, ATP shortage. They affect this 100%. Where's my Nobel Prize? Where's my Nobel Prize? I deserve it. I really do. It sounds... Somebody's going to be like, "That's really arrogant." No, it's not. I solved the problem of every single disease. But you know why somebody's not going to hand me a Nobel Prize? Because it's unwinding all the money that people are making off of your suffering.
Estrogen isn't spontaneously generated, you guys. It is the downstream product of a very healthy metabolic environment, ecosystem, right? It's your ecosystem. So menopause happens when this ecosystem just disintegrates. Low estrogen is that... it's like the check engine light on your dash. It's not the failure of the engine. The primary driver is ovarian reserve depletion. Fewer follicles. Just follow me. And I realize you're... see, just buckle up because it's going to be bumpy for you if you're stopping right now. Fewer follicles means less raw material for hormone production. However, now this is where you should be paying attention. What accelerates that depletion so rapidly that it hits a crisis level? Because it's just... look at something like... flip the script. Just so you remember when I talked about nicotine. I'm going to do a whole podcast on that, by the way. Nicotine, where I have so much research it's going to obliterate the FDA. So nicotine as a standalone substance is... doesn't have... on its own is not addictive. It's the delivery method that makes it addictive. Rapid, heavy-hitting, high bolus, right? Just smash you with this giant bolus and then all of a sudden it floods your brain and dopamine and like the pyroinesois, right? These things are so bad for you, but it's the delivery that causes you to crash and burn. It's not the product. That's where I'm going with this. Understand the primary reserve or the primary driver of this is reserve depletion. But what is accelerating it to this so fast that it's causing this catastrophe? Stream sabotage. Look at mitochondrial dysfunction. I'll prove it. Mitochondrial dysfunction, chronic inflammation, and insulin resistance. And these aren't age-related wear and tear because you know what? My grandma never had crazy menopause symptoms. And if you go, "Mine did." Okay, then argue. But you're still wrong because most grandparents didn't. They didn't. It's not age-related wear and tear, you guys. They're biochemical assaults that destroy the ovaries' ability to synthesize estrogen long before your calendar is saying the word menopause.
So, biochemically, I talked about this yesterday. Zoom into aromatase. This enzyme demands zinc, iron co-factor cluster in a very steady supply of something called NADPH. It's from the pentose phosphate pathway. That's just biochemistry. It does. It needs this to catalyze the aromatization reaction. So when you disrupt the whole cellular environment and aromatase expression tanks, there's your problem. Inflammation, just, you know, plays a very key role in this because it's the one with the blowtorch shutting everything down. Pro-inflammatory cytokines. Which ones do you think? TNF alpha, IL6, all of them. They produce... here's how this is how you get them, by the way: activated macrophages and spilling from systemic sources like your gut, adipose tissue, all the stuff that's not going right. They infiltrate the ovarian stroma through disrupted blood-brain barriers. Then they up-regulate and up-regulate NF-kappa B transcription factors, which suppresses this promoter activity and the result is granulosa cells can't convert androgens to estrogen even if the precursors are there. It doesn't work. So estrogen nose-dives into the ground as a symptom of this inflammatory siege that's going on in your body. You're treating the inflammation afterwards. You're treating the... I'm not talking about night sweats. That's not the inflammation. That's vasodilation as a result of, not a cause of. A 2019 study in the Journal of Endocrinology provides this irrefutable proof. Researchers from UVic conducted ovarian biopsies on hundreds and hundreds of perimenopausal women correlating tissue inflammatory markers. They found that elevated TNF alpha and IL6 directly down-regulated the messenger RNA 45 to 60% independent of follicular count. So what that means here is that women with higher inflammation had the problem. And here's where it gets even better. They had estrogen levels 30% lower than age-matched controls with minimal cytokine activity. Proving that the drop is a consequence of the biochemical attack. It's not the initiating event, you guys. It's not. Inflammation doesn't cause menopause by depleting eggs. It hastens something called follicular atresia, programmed cell death, by oxidizing mitochondrial DNA. But the estrogen crash is that's the fallout. That's what shows up afterwards.
Look at insulin resistance. This is like a bad accomplice for this entire thing. Like this is the... you're guilty by association. I've been drinking coffee. If you're listening to the audio of this, I haven't posted a real podcast for so long. I just keep putting them on YouTube. So, if you guys want my podcast to go start cranking, let me know. I just... I'm busy. Ovaries are incredibly insulin-sensitive tissues. Insulin normally amplifies FSH, follicular stimulating hormone signaling to boost aromatase in granulosa cells. But in insulin resistance, that high circulating glucose and FFAs, the free fatty acids, impair the pathway required. So, it starves the cells of the energy needed for something called steroidogenesis biochemically. Follow along. This reduces glucose uptake. It's a GLUT4 transporter problem and it just demolishes ATP for the electron transport chain that powers aromatase. So with... watch, without ATP, without the funding source, without the bank giving you the money, which is the ATP you need, the enzyme stalls, estrogen output craters and it now becomes... this gets even worse. It becomes this vicious loop. Watch. Low est... this is how the human body works. This is why you have to understand physiology. Low estrogen then worsens whole-body insulin resistance by reducing adipocyte estrogen receptors, which normally sensitize insulin signaling. So it becomes this problem that becomes self-propagating and they blame something that doesn't have anything to do with it. I slap estrogen down your throat or I put a patch on you. It does not solve this problem. The proof is there. Real human data backs this 100%. A 2018 study of diabetes care was part of the study of women's health across the nation. In the SWAN study, thousands and thousands of women, they tracked insulin sensitivity via home IR, insulin resistance scores along and greater than 2.5, by the way, if you want to know the number, alongside ovarian function. They discovered, watch, they discovered that women with insulin resistance entered pre-menopause usually half a decade earlier with 40% lower estradiol levels because of suppressed aromatase activity in granulosa cells. It's not the follicles. They did an autopsy and they confirmed ovarian tissue showed insulin resistance, fibrosis, and reduced theca cell viability. The estrogen deficiency is a symptom of metabolic gridlock. It's not the origin of the problem. And yet, what do they do? They treat you with HRT, which, by the way, they had to stop an experiment. 16,000 women, I'll tell you the study, because the risk of stroke was so high. Cancer, stroke, bone... there's the... it's astronomical. And yet you guys go, "Yeah, but I don't have hot flashes anymore." Yeah, but you're going to freaking die. You're not supposed to have these aggressive symptoms for menopause. It really concerns me because they're selling you on this fear and then of course these shills come out of the woodwork with their best-selling hardcover and their "I'm an MD and you should trust me and I'm smart." You know what? Listen, I went to med... I went to Cairo. I got more degrees than an eye chart. And none of it matters. None of it matters because if you aren't actually deploying the information to help mankind, you're a piece of [ __ ] because you're taking from other people, lying to them that what you're giving them is going to solve their problem. I'm not trying to... I'm not trying to sell. I'm giving you the information. Do what you want with it.
Listen, tie in the energy problem. ATP shortage, ovarian steroid production. It just swallows adenosine triphosphate like it's like a keg party. 20% of the cell's output is required for cholesterol side-chain cleavage and aromatization. That's it. So much mitochondria in granulosa cells are these power hubs, right? It's like a... just a major power supply. Aging and toxins and nutrient deficiencies and incredibly stupid decisions damage their DNA leading to an inefficient something called oxidative phosphorylation. How it works. Low ATP means the steroidogenic acute regulatory protein, it's called STAR protein, it can't shuttle. This makes me so angry because I see so many women suffering and I get so many messages from you guys. I wish I could take every single one of you as a patient and a client and help you. I really do. There's just not enough Dr. Trevor to go around, but I'm trying. Like, that's why I tell people about the black card. This isn't marketing. It allows me to see a ton of people and help you. But that protein can't shuttle cholesterol into the mitochondria for precursor synthesis. So, it bottlenecks the entire pathway. And estrogen is collateral damage to this entire train wreck. A 2021 Cell Metabolism. This was Oregon Health and Science University used human... produced human organoids, ovarian organoids, and patient-derived cells to prove this. They induced mild mito... listen to this, this is wild. They induced mild mitochondrial stress in an effort, and they did to mimic chronic insulin resistance and inflammation. And they watched ATP tank, buckle up, 50%. It gets better. This was followed by a 40% disaster plunge in estradiol secretion. Here's the part that I told you. It's not the follicles. All of this despite intact follicles. You know how they solved this? They rescued the mitochondria, which restored estrogen. Watch. They rescued the mitochondria, which... this is why I'm talking about this. Listen to me. That's why I'm talking about things like Mottz and SS and reatatory tide and all these things. This restored estrogen without adding exogenous hormones. It... which means it confirmed the des... the deficit as causal to low estrogen, the mitochondrial deficit, not vice versa. Listen to me. This information isn't for me. I don't have a uterus or ovaries. This information is for you because I give a [ __ ] about you.
Physiologically, it all loops back to the HPO, the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. Low estrogen is the feedback signal that is freaking out, screaming, "Help!" It spikes FSH. Just follow the system. It spikes FSH as the pituitary cranks harder to stimulate failing ovaries. Right? But the damage is already done downstream, right? Do you understand that? It's already done. Listen, evolutionary biology underscores this. In... Listen, I could just do this all day. In hunter-gatherer women with low inflammation and optimal metabolic health, which is how they were designed, menopause was virtually non-existent because it had gradual estrogen tapering. And this is all per anthropological studies. Like a 2015 evolutionary anthropology review had women showed 25 to 50% less symptom severity due to better insulin sensitivity from active lifestyles. So sitting on your butt eating milk duds and Doritos and drinking wine every Tuesday with your girls or if you've seen Playdate, the Mama Mafia every morning until 10:00 and then going to Chili's to get ripped up. Like, that doesn't help anybody. It's in fact, you're not... you're trying to escape and you're causing more problems. I'm trying to help you, man. I'm the only doctor out here. Just because I cuss doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about. Listen, the takeaway is this because it's already 20 minutes and I was trying to make these podcasts shorter, but when I get lit, look out. It's like pulling a string out of my chest. The takeaway is this. Low estrogen is your body's... it's like a diagnostic code, right? Like an E-code from... I have a programmer on my diesel on my 2500. It's this edge monitor, right? And it... it'll reset codes, but it gives me E-codes like E1, E, whatever it is. So that's what this is. It's a diagnostic code. That's what estrogen is. Low estrogen. It's the code that says "upstream metabolic failure detected." Right? Treat it as the cause and you're going to chase shadows with patches and pills and injections and suppositories and pellets and everything else that mask but don't do a damn thing. Attack the inflammation, reverse the insulin resistance, and solve the ATP issue and estrogen production rebounds on its own. A 2022 Menopause Journal intervention trial on hundreds and hundreds of women used metabolic optimization only, only showed 45% estrogen recovery without HRT. Like this. And the symptoms were gone in 6 months. But you keep going on and slapping patches on you or rubbing a cream on your vag. You need to do... knock yourself out. But I'm trying to help you. If you're taking oral estrogen, by the way, the list of things that you're doing wrong is so catastrophically wrong.
Listen, women, I do. I love you all for listening and giving me your time. I really do. And sincerely, it might come across that I'm gritty and I'm callous, but I'm not. I care and I'm frustrated at all the shills taking advantage of you guys. I'm frustrated at all the people that are claiming to be experts that couldn't... they couldn't solve their way out of a basic math equation. Like, they just don't know anything. But they come out with their ChatGPT answers and they come out with their best-selling hardcover book and their 7 million followers and people go, "Yeah, they're an expert. I have to. They made me feel great." Why? Because you took some herbs and then they told you to go get a prescription. Listen, I saw a doc who I used to respect who I don't have any respect for whatsoever anymore because she told a friend of mine to go on statins. If you're a doctor and you're telling somebody to go on statins and then they tell you that they have brain fog and they don't feel well and they're looking at cholesterol as too high, you're not a doctor. You're a sellout. Take it how you want. I don't care. I'm still right. I have no respect for this woman anymore. None. And my wife can't stand her. And we used to go, "Oh man, she's great." Nope. Nothing. Why? Because that's just yet another sellout. Listen, women, you're not doomed to this estrogen, low estrogen, problematic, hot flash, moody, fatigue, no sex drive wasteland. You're not. That's the symptoms talking. Listen to the physiology. Listen to the biochemistry and fix the fire. I'll tell you instead of your candy, just listen. Just follow along. Your ovaries can still get in the ring with Tyson and give them a knockout.
Listen, let's just go through the symptoms because some of you guys don't even know that this is... you've been lied to. Here are the five. I got five that I've seen in all the people I've dealt with and they're horrific. I don't know because I'm a dude. But to me, it's the equivalent of standing there getting kicked in the balls repeatedly for the entire day. So, I don't... I don't ever sit there and go, "It can't be that bad. What do you got? PMS? Take a Midol." I'm not like that. I do think that a lot of the symptomatology that's being portrayed on social media where everybody's having a sad day. Listen, sack up a little bit because grandma and grandpa when they had to get things done didn't call in sad. They got it done. They were uncomfortable. They got it done. But you know what? My grandparents lived into their 90s and they are tough as hell. My mom is in her 80s. I can promise you this. My mom will go toe-to-toe with anybody. She is. She might seem quiet. My mom is as tough as they get. I promise you. She's in her 80s and she's still walking and moving and hanging out and she's feisty and moody and set in her ways. And I love the [ __ ] out of my mother because you know why? She is the real deal. She's the real deal. So if you're clinging to your symptoms, it's because you want a drug to make them go away. But you didn't solve the problem.
So look at the first, look at hot flashes, right? It's hot flashes and night sweats and when that vasodilation kicks in. I've seen it. I've seen people turn virtually purple. But these aren't power surges. It's called... it's something called vasomotor instability. So estrogen normally stabilizes the thermoregulatory center in your hypothalamus. I've gone over this before, but I'll go real light. When it dips, that center goes nuts. It just goes tits up and it just misfires. So it causes the blood vessels to dilate so wildly. So you get flushing, heat from your core. That's... it's desperate. It's trying to do it because it's got a mixed-up signal. A 2015 JAMA Internal Medicine showed 75% experienced this and it's linked to reduced nitric oxide signaling and vascular endothelium. Pure, watch. It has nothing to do with anything else. This is pure biochemistry gone vastly awry, right?
Mood swings, brain fog. You could probably put them together. I guess it could be separate, but mood swings and brain fog. Brain fog. Just stick them together because when your brain is foggy, your mood is... Prefrontal cortex relies on, listen to me, this is why this estrogen thing is important, but it's not the cause, it's the symptom. So, you saw the cause and this stuff goes away. Prefrontal cortex relies on estrogen to fuel dopamine and serotonin pathways. So, when there's low, just trust me. Yes. So, low levels, neurological short circuit. A 2019 Neurology study, Women's Health Initiative, post-menopausal women, 20 to 25% reduced hippocampal volume due to estrogen's absence. Slapping a patch on though doesn't solve the problem. If anything, it causes desensitization and screws up the rest of your brain chemistry and sets you up for all kinds of other problems. But this is the issue. It impairs memory consolidation because of impaired long-term potentiation. But you're not crazy. Your neurons are underfed. Man, didn't think of that. Right? Remember what I talked about Alzheimer's, dementia, right? They're swimming in the sea of plenty, but they can't absorb it because they have insulin resistance. Remember what I just said, insulin resistance, right? Just remember this.
Look at the sleep disruption. Progesterone is your natural GABA agonist. Yes, it is. It calms the brain like a benzodiazepine, right? Valium without the hangover or the addiction or the screw-up if you stop. Its drop ramps up cortisol and it fragments your REM sleep. A 2021 Sleep Medicine Reviews progesterone decline correlates with 50% more awakenings driven by hypothalamic overdrive. That's why I said I can give you the research to show this and I'm not slanting the research to make it look good for me. Excuse me. I'm giving you the research so it makes... so it looks good for you so you can actually make the right decision. I'm lit today, huh?
Vaginal dryness, sexual disinterest, dysfunction. Now listen, I'm going to tell you some of you dudes, if you're like, "Oh, this is the one. This is what I got to give this for my wife. She has no interest in sex." Do you ever look at yourself? If you're fat and hairy and gross and stinky and embarrassing and lazy and you have no common sense, you don't help, you're not kind, you're not caring, you're not protective, they don't feel safe with you, I promise you it ain't the menopause, it's you. Don't get offended. Listen, I don't care if somebody is incredibly overweight and they're working to change that. I don't. I'm proud of you if that's what you're doing. But if you're justifying and going, "My dad was fat, so I'm fat. My dad was fat and I'm not. So what? It's not genetics." There's no such thing. Not that. Not like that. Genetics is eye color, right? Hair color, things like that. But listen to me. It's not always going to be that. If your wife doesn't want to climb on you and ride you like a rodeo, it might just be the fact that you're a dick. You ever think of that? Now, I'm not saying women use that as a weapon to go out and say, "Yeah, you hear Dr. Trevor, he says you're a dick. You should be better." Maybe both of you guys need to be better. But when you're both on point and your relationship's killing it, you just have no interest. You got sexual dysfunction. Your vagina is like the Sahara. Listen, estrogen maintains epithelial integrity in vaginal tissue via something called collagen synthesis and lubrication from glycogen breakdown. Okay, just follow me. Loss leads to atrophy. A 2017 Menopause Journal they quantified it. 50% of women report dyspareunia due to thinned mucus and pH shifts from... I can even give you the numbers, 4.5 to 6, which invites infections, by the way, just so you know. Your pH is designed for a purpose. Keeps you immune is the best way to say it. Keeps you inhospitable to pathology, right? It's like my three biological failures. Solve those. Your entire ecosystem is inhospitable to pathology. Just like this. Remember, these symptoms are a pathology. You're not supposed to have them like this. You've been conditioned and indoctrinated to think that symptoms are normal. How is being sick and feeling like crap normal? They've normalized you being dysfunctional. And then they go, "But don't worry, we have an answer for it. Sign up here. Manage decline." Next thing you know, you're getting femur breaks. I'll get into how they solve this problem. This is a lot longer than I wanted it to be, but I just... I really give a crap and it's a touchy subject for me because I get messages by the thousands and I'm trying to help you.
Look at bone loss, weight gain. Estrogen inhibits osteoclasts. These are the bone-breaking cells. So osteoblasts, osteoclasts, right? So estrogen inhibits osteoclasts. It's... there's some signaling that goes on. It doesn't really matter what it is, but without it, resorption outpaces formation. A 2014 Framingham Heart Study follow-up in Osteoporosis International showed this. So if you remember the Framingham Heart Study, designed to dis... or to prove that high cholesterol causes heart attacks and strokes and all they managed to do is prove that high cholesterol actually prevents heart attacks and strokes and prevents Alzheimer's and high cholesterol had a radically larger safety rate than anything else. That in fact, when your cholesterol was high, you had less of a chance of dying. And yet people are still taking statins. Here's your sign. Goes right back to that person that was a doc. She is a doctor, but she's a coconut. No respect. None. None. Because you're a sellout. Telling somebody to take statins, you're a sellout. You're a sellout. Unless you have hypercholesterolemia, which is very rare, by the way. 2 to 3% annual bone density drop post-menopause. 2 to 3% is a lot. It's more than you think 'cause it's annual, right? So, it's compounding like interest. And weight. Insulin resistance from estrogen loss promotes visceral fat storage. It's just the way it works. No, you can't run on... get on tesopenine or tamarellin. There's more to it than that. This is even 2022 endocrinology data on adipocyte estrogen storage receptors or adipocyte estrogen receptors. It showed this. This is all real data. Real human data.
Menopause is not hormonal change. Think about it. How many of you men have been told that you have andropause if you're a man and you're listening to this? But that's not a thing. I guarantee you grandpa could still get wood at 75. It's normal. Testosterone levels are plummeting. It's not because of your genetics. It's because of what you're being exposed to, what you're eating, drinking, swallowing, putting on you, breathing in, rubbing on you, taking showers in, taking voluntarily, because of managed decline, and you're going, "No, it's got to be my genetics." No, it's not. But your next generation's going to suffer if you do that because epigenetics is changing your gene expression. What's going to happen to little Timmy when you decide to have a baby and little Timmy is your child and you brought a child into the world and you were screwed? You ever think of that? I could get into that if you want. It'll just make this podcast incredibly long. Menopause isn't a hormonal change. It's the culmination of three biological failures. Please listen to me. Systemic inflammation, insulin resistance, and ATP shortage, every single time.
Inflammation, right? Chronic low-grade fire from gut dysbiosis or poor diet activities and all that stuff, stupid decisions. It activates the same thing every time, NF-kappa B pathways. It spills cytokines like IL6 into circulation. Causes this problem and these breach the blood-ovary barrier. That's what I was talking about at the beginning and accelerates what did I call... what did I say? Follicular atresia. A 2020 Nature Reviews Endocrinology tied elevated CRP, C-reactive protein, it's an inflammation marker if you want to look at labs, to radically earlier menopause onset by four to five years in 3,000 women. So it wasn't five people or your neighbor.
Look at insulin resistance. Ovaries have insulin receptors. Just... I realize this is redundant, but I need you to understand this. Resistance impairs. Remember I told you the GLUT4 transporters. It impairs glucose uptake, starving those granulosa cells of energy for steroidogenesis. Estrogen just tanks. All as a result. A 2018 Diabetes Care study on polycystic ovarian syndrome overlap showed insulin resistance. Women enter menopause. You ready for this one? A half a decade early with a 40% higher HbA1c correlating to symptom severity. Now, I'm not a huge fan of HbA1C as a diagnostic. It's just a number because metformin can change it and you're still sick. You still have a problem. You still have a metabolic issue. But as a marker, as a hard line, very easy right here.
Look at the ATP shortage. Mitochondria in ovarian cells produce the energy for hormone synthesis. It's just basic biology. Oxidative stress from aging, toxins, alcohol, bad lifestyle, sitting at the park getting ripped up 'cause you watched Playdate and decided to be part of the Mama Mafia. By the way, I keep talking about it 'cause that movie is freaking hilarious. I think Playdate is probably one of the funniest movies. That is my top three. I realize this has nothing to do with this podcast, but Alan Ritchson, he's just a cool cat. I would totally hang with that guy. He is such a cool cat because he seems genuine and he's funny and yet he's also a monster human being. Like, he's just like a well-rounded dude. But in that movie, holy [ __ ] is he funny. You can go from Reacher to Playdate, back to Reacher to Playdate, all in the same movie. And the Mama Mafia. Oh, that lady. She's the lady from... I'd find you if... by the way, hilarious. The Wedding Crashers. I think that's where she was. And I think if I understood this, somebody helped me out on this one. Is she British? Because all of a sudden she says, "Hey guys, I made my own boop sound. That's bad for even my acting." And I was like, "Wait, she's freaking British." I'm not trying to... If you criticize my British accent, I don't really care. If you like, you sound Australian. I also don't care. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying she doesn't sound like she's from California. So, I don't know which side of the equation it is because what's his name? Holland. Spider-Man is as British as it gets. So is that other Spider-Man, to be honest. And then he said he had to learn how to speak like a California guy. That's pretty wild. And yet we think everybody else has an accent. Yet to everybody else, we have an accent. Interesting. Listen. So oxidative stress from all of this stuff, right? Bad decisions, drinking, toxins, etc. Stuff you're breathing, drinking, rubbing on you damages the DNA and it... what did I say? Kills ATP 50%. A 2021 Cell Metabolism showed ATP deficits, ready for this? Precede. That means before ovarian reserve loss. Explains why exhausted cells can't pump out estrogen because he proved it can't. Like low estrogen. This just bugs me. It's not... it's a symptom. It's the smoke, not the fire. It's what I said at the beginning. It's not the cause. The real culprits are those three failures. Damage ovarian theca and granulosa cells, halting aromatase conversion of androgens to estrogen. Problem. A 2019 Journal of Endocrinology study used ovarian biopsies. I said this already, proving inflammation and insulin resistance suppress the enzyme expression required to cause... to to cause aromatase to function and the downstream effect. Estrogen tanks. Treat the fire. The smoke clears. And by the way, just to help you out for some lifestyle choices, if you're like, "I really don't know about peptides." I don't care if you take peptides or not. Solve the emotional or solve the biological failures. I don't care how you do it. It won't be with a drug. That's all I know. 'Cause drugs are wrecking balls. Peptides are signals. Listen, if you subscribe and you spoon-feed yourself with Gary Brecka's nonsense, knock yourself out. I'm just giving you the answer. If it solves the three biological failures and you ride off into the sunset like a juggernaut, you made me happy. I don't care how you did it. I just want you to be healthy. But I want you to have the real information, not the one going, "Hey, I keep trying all these things and it's not working."
Look at the lifestyle choices that are fueling this wonderful inferno. Top three: ultra-processed diets and stupid decisions that you shove into your barco hole. High omega-6 fats drive arachidonic acid cascades. Think about that. This amplifies something called prostaglandins that inflame your ovaries. 2022 British Journal of Nutrition cohort. 2022 British Journal of Nutrition, 10,000 women found processed food, the intake of processed food doubled symptoms because of one thing, one cytokine, IL6, interleukin 6. That's it.
Chronic stress is the second lifestyle problem. And if you go, "Well, we can't get rid of stress. We got dogs." Hey, I got an Aussie, 85 pounds, big old crazy dog, it's awesome. And these two Shih Tzus and my son has a... They're not stressed. You know why? Because they get a bunch of love in my house. I play with my dogs and I love my dogs. I don't get all jerky and weird around my dogs. I don't beat the [ __ ] out of my dogs. I don't yell and scream at my dogs. I don't make this a hostile environment for my dogs. And they don't have a bad life. Let me explain something about stress. P. Chopra said this. He said, "Stress is not in you. It's not in the environment. It is your perception to physical or psychological threat." He's right. I have a lot of respect for that guy. He's incredibly intelligent man. Chronologist. Brilliant man. So if you have chronic stress, stop it. But here's the problem it's causing. You're doing it to yourself. Cortisol from HPA axis overdrive. Here's how it works. Endocrinologically, it competes with progesterone synthesis. So it shunts pregnenolone. A 2017 Psychoneuroendocrinology showed stressed women, 25%... this is a huge number, by the way. 25% lower progesterone, which worsened all the symptoms through glucocorticoid receptor upregulation. So the problem is what you're thinking, what you're stressed out about is causing the problem downstream. And if you don't think 25% is a huge number, go to your bank account, whatever that is, take 25% out, send it to somebody that you love and care about that needs that money. Most of you guys won't do it. And what's crazy is if you have a hundred million spread around, if you have that in a bank, you're an idiot. But if you have that spread around, that's 25 million bucks. But if you have a $100, that's $25. And just so you know, it's the same amount. Stop thinking that 25 and 25 million are any different when it comes to being 25%. If all the two talents, read the story. If it's all you've got, it's all you've got. It's like that, you guys. I've been broke. I lived in my car. I've had nothing. I've been able to... I've struggled to provide for my family. I'm very transparent about that. It sucked. I love my wife and kids. I love my people that hang out in my black card. I want to make sure that they're successful, powerful, happy, loving, which is why I also have a no [ __ ] policy. So, if you're an [ __ ] in my black card, you ain't going to last long, son. But I will keep your money and I'll just distribute it to all them 'cause they matter.
Sedentary living is the big one. I know I'm dragging on, but I don't know. I just feel like yapping here. It's my house, so I'm just going to talk. Sedentary living, no exercise means, it's very simple, actually. No AMPK activation, which perpetuates insulin resistance in ovarian tissue. A 2020 Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise trial, 1500 participants linked less than 150 minutes a week of activity, which is not very much, by the way. If you guys are only training 150 minutes a week and if you go, "I have kids, I have responsibilities, I have a job. We own... we're going on six companies and we're working on our seventh. We work 16-hour days, 7 days a week. All our kids work for our company. We have employees, we have people, we have teams. I have a business partner who is also like my little other and pretty much my best friend outside of my wife and we all work together. His wife works, too. They work their face off. We don't even live in the same freaking town. Sure, it'd be [ __ ] easier." Pardon my language, but it doesn't matter. The point is, we're all working our faces off and we still find time to train. We still find time to make sure the machine that allows us to do all the things we love to do works. You're being convinced that 7-minute abs is real. So, less than 150 minutes a week activity is embarrassing. But they linked it to 35% higher hot flash frequency. You know why? Impaired GLUT4 translocation. Doesn't come to the surface of the cell. Can't absorb insulin. Can't... you're sitting in a sea of plenty, can't absorb the fuel. It's the easiest way.
Look at the conventional treatments for this stuff, by the way. HRT, synthetic estrogen. Here's why it doesn't work for everybody. It doesn't because it ignores the root cause. And most... I people in my group, they're like, "Oh, I was told to take it orally." Are you nuts? Oral HRT hits the liver first-pass effect. Bomb. Does not work. By the way, it spikes clotting factors like fibrinogen by over 20%. 2002, listen to this. This is mind-blowing. They... this is why they stopped this. So, why I was talking about this at the beginning, 16,000 women, okay? 2002, Women's Health Initiative in JAMA stopped estrogens after a radical increased stroke risk in 16,000 women. It patches symptoms. It doesn't fix ovarian signaling and it causes more problems in you. SSRIs, they give these things, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. They give these for hot flashes. What? They tweak serotonin, okay, to blunt bases. Remember I told you it's a motor issue when you have a hot flash. There's a signaling problem with the hypothalamus. A 2019 Annals of Internal Medicine meta-analysis found, you ready for this? This is not a very big number. It sounds big, but it's not when you look at the problems and whether or not it's solving the issue. I'm... I realize the 25% thing I just talked about, but I'm talking about solutions. 50% relief and side effects like sexual dysfunction, increased menopause issues. So they give you something to solve menopause problems that aggravates the menopause problems and physiologically they don't touch the hypothalamic instability whatsoever. Not at all. We're talking, like, less than zero.
Bisphosphonates, that's another one for bones. So that... remember I talked about osteoclast, osteoblast, right? So they block osteoclasts, but accumulate in the bones. They cause fractures. A 2023 New England Journal of Medicine showed 30% on bisphosphonates had 30%... that means three out of every 10 have an atypical femoral break after 5 years. You broke your femur, the strongest bone that they make weapons out of back in caveman days. Biochemically, they disrupt normal remodeling without addressing estrogen's absence upstream. You've never solved the problem.
And listen, doctors screw this up because they manage symptoms, not the machine. They slap on an estrogen patch like duct tape on the leaky engine, wondering why it doesn't work. They ignore the fact that 70% of cases stem from metabolic roots. Proven 2021 Menopause Critique in JAMA highlighted how 80... This is nuts. 80%... Oh, you doctors. This is why you guys piss me off. 80% of docs prescribe prescribed symptomatically. That doesn't solve a problem. An endocrine practice study proved root cause intervention more than halved recurrence. Physiology 101. Docs, pay attention right here. Come on. Don't get mad because I know more than you. Pay attention. Take notes and do it for your patients so you can help treat them better. Physiology 101. Fix the input, outputs normalized every single time, 100% of the time.
Oral estradiol disaster. Said this first-pass metabolism conjugates it in the liver, producing estrone sulfate, less bioactive and it spikes SHBG. So, it binds free estrogen, worsens symptoms, and side effects like bloating, clots. You know, here's the problem, though. Here's the problem. You guys blame this on menopause. A 2004 WHI follow-up in Circulation linked oral forms to a 2.5 to five times thrombosis risk via hepatic protein induction. Those menopause headaches, they're from estrogen spikes, crashing the [ __ ] out of serotonin. Yeah, I realize I cursed. It's okay. You'll survive. Endogenous hormones have to be transdermal or injected to bypass the liver. It's the same thing as peptides. You guys taking oral peptides, take your fist, ball it up, punch yourself in the face or in the sack if you're a dude. Stop arguing in my comments that they worked for you. They did not. Biology is not different for you. God made us all the same. Your biology does not work with oral peptides. There's no magic coding they can have. They cannot work. It is absolutely impossible. Never mind the fact that they can't even pass.
Through the interasites. Like all of it doesn't work. But you keep arguing and chattering away. What about for this is the worst part when I go oral peptides do not work and you go what about for gut problems did you hear what I said oral peptides don't work but if and then you'll argue but BPC is made in the gut it has to work in the gut doesn't work like that.
I've explained the physiology. I'm not going to explain it in this one because it's a lot. Patches deliver this steady. This is yeah, patches are probably one of the best. They deliver this steady beta estradiol mimicking natural pulses without any conjugation. 2017 Climacteric RCT, 400 women showed transdermal 50% better, better 50% better symptom relief than oral with 80% lower VTE risk. Biochemistry wins 100% when you respect pharmacokinetics. Biochemistry wins when you respect pharmacokinetics. Always does.
Yeah. I'll even help you with some vitamin deficiencies cuz I said it would solve the problem. So let's solve this. Okay. Vitamin deficiencies that exacerbate this one. Vitamin D. It modulates ovarian FSH receptors. Low levels accelerate atresia. Right? The Apoptosis 2019 Journal of Steroid Biochemistry Biochemistry deficient women had two times symptom severity. That's a big deal, by the way, because two times the money in your bank account would be a lot, right? So look at magnesium. It's a co-factor for ATP synthesis and GABA deficiency ramps up anxiety. 2020 Nutrients trial, 300 milligrams a day cut hot flashes by 40%.
If you ask what kind, there's about a dozen different kinds. Pick one. Stay with it. If you don't see a change in 12 to 14 days, change the type. Stop gambling and going, "This doctor said this one." No doctor is right. Your physiology might acclimate to a different magnesium. I know some people that get sick on magnesium. I know some people, so they have to change it, but they don't. They cut off magnesium altogether and say, "It didn't work for me." There are so many different kinds. So, just pick one. If it doesn't work, take another one and just make a note that you don't go back to that one. Stupid is stupid does. So, smart is as smart does.
Look at omega-3s. They shut down the inflammation via something called resolvins. Low EPA DHA correlates with a whole bunch of vasomotor issues. 2018 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition supplementation reduced IL-6, remember what I talked about IL-6, interleukin-6, 25 to 35%. B vitamins, specifically B6, B12, essential for methylation and hormone detox. Deficits cause a ton of estrogen dominance, both men and women, by the way. 2022 Frontiers in Endocrinology. B vitamins low. 60% of the severe cases. So 60% of those people with severe cases and bad issues with menopause, they were low. Imagine if all you had to do is change your B vitamins. I'm not saying that's the solution, but if imagine imagine that would take the edge off and you go from being miserable and uncomfortable to going, "Wow, actually I can tolerate this. This is not a big deal."
Zinc supports aromatase. Remember what I went right all the way up to the top of this podcast where I talked about aromatase when it doesn't do its job. No estrogen. So zinc deficiency supports aromatase. Deficiency tanks. What do you think? Estrogen 2016 Biological Trace Element Research zinc supplements boosted levels 30%. It's a big number.
Listen you guys, pharma rakes in 20 billion a year from HRT and symptom meds. That's from the 2024 IQVIA report. By the way, it's real numbers. 21 Nature Reviews Endocrinology showed metabolic approaches, listen to me, this is a big number, 80% of cases durably, by the way, versus 20% for hormonal management alone. Told you I'd help you. So pay attention.
Miy, let me explain Matzi because people hear this. You guys are all you guys are using it wrong. Most of you guys, I take it every day. I microdose. My stop microdosing. Number one, you're tickling receptors. Number two, as you're megadosing, you're taking 10 every day. I'm not going to put any more into that because otherwise I'm going to get my video pinched. But you're taking 10 every day. That's ridiculous. You're taking it every day. Also ridiculous. Don't need it. You're taking it minus something else. You're just taking it as a standalone. Or you think SS needs to be taken before Mod C and all these instabro bodybuilders keep arguing that's how it's done because they want to be right, but they're wrong. Why? Because their biology and their biochemistry came from a puzzle. I don't have anything to gain when I give you the information. Do you know that? I don't know if you understand that. But I don't have any. It's not like I get a trophy every time I'm right. I'm just trying to help you.
MC. So listen, how does it boost hormones is the question you should ask, right? Because you're like, "Isn't that for AMPK?" Yeah. And a bunch of other things. Makes you violently insulin sensitive too, by the way. So watch using that. It enhances insulin sensitivity in ovarian cells. Restores ATP for steroid production. It upregulates something called PGC1 alpha. So it improves mitochondrial biogenesis, more mitochondria, more power plants, and estrogen synthesis as a subsequent follow-up to that. Right?
Look at retatrutide. This is part two. Retatrutide demolishes insulin resistance by enhancing beta cell function and ovarian sensitivity. 2023 New England Journal of Medicine phase 2 trials showed this. Listen to me. This is great. 25% weight loss and normalized insulin markers in perimenopausal women. This is with retatrutide and M hypothetically for a kangaroo. If you see my head nodding up and down, yes, that's what it's for. It slashed inflammation via adipokine reduction and symptoms dropped.
You ready for this? Where are you on that one? You guys are taking these big fancy treatments and reading books and spending days and months and weeks and years trying to solve menopause, attacking the symptoms instead of attacking the underlying physiology and dysfunction that's causing the symptoms. I gave you a solution. Most of you guys aren't going to do it. But I said yesterday, if you fix the code, the symptoms delete themselves. Listen, I'm going to go Sunday. I got stuff to do. Hope you got something out of this. Never miss.