← BETTER! Muscle, Metabolism, Meals, & Mindset in (Peri) Menopause with Dr. Stephanie Estima
BETTER! Muscle, Metabolism, Meals, & Mindset in (Peri) Menopause with Dr. Stephanie Estima
"You Have 5 Years Left." She Proved Them Wrong - Twice! with Leslie Kenny
01:26:10
What if signs of aging—grey hair, brittle nails, and skin changes—are actually cellular signals we can address? Leslie Kenny went from an autoimmune diagnosis in her 30s and a five-year prognosis to being 60, autoimmune-disease-free, and giving birth at 43. Her search led her to Oxford scientists and spermidine, a food-derived longevity compound that activates autophagy and targets nine of the twelve hallmarks of aging. Watch the full episode at https://youtu.be/pFKQ3xAdSCs
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- [00:00]
Leslie Kenney
One of the most important things it does is it activates a cell renewal process called autophagy. And that just means self eating in Greek. But I like to think of it as Marie Kondo for your cells sparking joy everywhere. We often go to the doctor. The doctor will say, yeah, that's just a sign of aging. You know, get used to it. Oh, you don't like your gray hair? You know, I've got some, too. Well, you know, I have news for you. I don't want to be like you. The insulin response is really not good anymore. And as a result, you know, you're constantly hungry. You need to grab the donut. The ho ho, the pop Tart, the Cheetos.
- [00:43]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
First symptom of perimenopause is not hot flashes and night sweats, although it can be for some people. It's mood changes affect, brain fog. Where did I leave my keys? Where did I leave my phone? Why did I walk into this room again? I have the word in my head, but I can't actually get it to my mouth. You know, there's a little bit of that.
- [01:00]
Leslie Kenney
She was quiet, and then she shook her head and said, I wouldn't do the IVF if I were you. You've only got a good five years left.
- [01:09]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Really? You only have a good five years left of what? Your life?
- [01:12]
Leslie Kenney
Of my life.
- [01:18]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of better with Dr. Stephanie tis me, your host, Dr. Stephanie esteema. If you have ever looked at your gray hair or maybe the fine lines and wrinkles that are starting to creep up and have thought, damn, things are changing, and I don't want to be vain about this, but I also really don't like this. This is the episode for you. We are talking today with Leslie Kenney, and we are talking about the hallmarks of aging. There are 12 of them. And most importantly, what we can do to improve and reverse, including your gray hairs and your fine lines and wrinkles, how we can reduce some of those sign signs of aging. And it's okay to be vain. Like I have said before, I am a vain woman. And whenever I say that, I don't know, I always feel like I sound like I'm from the South. But I am a vain woman, and it's okay to be vain. One of the things that we talk about is that aesthetics are not just about vanity, but they are also. It is a sign of internal physiological processes. And that's what we talk about today. So we talk about how to reverse some of these hallmarks of Aging naturally with a compound called spermidine. And you are going to be blown away by some of the science today. I'm speaking to Leslie Kenney. She in her 30s was diagnosed with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and Hashimoto's three really big autoimmune diseases. And she was told that she had five years to live and she had to give up on her hope of having children. She refused the prognosis like a true Betty, eliminated inflammatory triggers and supported her body's healing. And now she's 60 years old. She she reports a biological age of 21, autoimmune disease free and has naturally conceived one child at 43 and she's the mother of two. And this is what we are talking about today. We are talking about how we can reverse some of the natural, call it entropy or disorder that happens as we age if we are not taking the right compounds or moving the right way. And we are talking specifically about a compound called spermidine today and how that can reverse nine of the 12 hallmarks of aging. And we go through this in our conversation and after speaking with her and knowing her for several years, really do also believe that this compound can really help. Something that we discuss in the show called Fem Span. So there's your little Easter egg to listen out for that. So without further delay, I hope that you enjoy my conversation with Leslie Kenney. If you've accepted bloating, cravings and that post meal energetic crash after eating as your new normal, I am challenging you with love to feel better. And I am giving you the cheat code. The Just Thrive Gut essentials bundle. It pairs two clinically proven gut superstars, Just Thrive Probiotic and their digestive bitters. Just Thrive Probiotic is the only probiotic clinically proven to arrive 100% alive in your gut for a difference that you will actually feel. We are talking less bloating, better energy and even clearer skin. And then there's the digestive bitters. It packs 12 science based herbs into one tasteless capsule that jumpstarts your digestion and supports your GLP1 production so that you control your cravings. Your cravings don't control you. Together they'll transform the health of your gut so that you can feel like your best self and fast. And there's a hundred percent money back guarantee so you have literally nothing to lose. For over a decade Just Thrive has been helping thousands of people take control of their health with science backed solutions that you can trust. From their award winning probiotic to their full line of gut, immune and brain health supplements. Just Thrive is ready to help you live your healthiest life. Take the Just Thrive, Feel Better challenge today and save 20% on your first gut essentials bundle. Visit justthrive health.com better and save 20% with promo code better at checkout and see the difference for yourself or get a full product refund, no questions asked. That's justthrive health.com forward slash better. All right, Leslie, welcome back to the show. I'm so happy to have you here today.
- [05:28]
Leslie Kenney
Oh, I'm so thrilled to be back. It's so good to see you. Stephanie.
- [05:33]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Let's talk a little bit about spermidine. I mean, the name is, I think, you know, from a marketing perspective is not the best, but it, you know, it's like spermidine. Where does it come from? Well, think of the name, but it's present everywhere. So talk to us about what this compound is, how it, do we get it in our diet? Do we, we naturally produce it? Like, is it in the colostrum? Tell us how and where this comes from.
- [05:56]
Leslie Kenney
Sure. So spermidine was first identified in semen by 17th century Dutch biologist, but actually all women make it in breast milk. When we are feeding our babies, we give them copious amounts of spermidine in their breast milk to their babies because it has a very important function, sealing up the tight junctions of the gut lining. And it also instructs the 60 to 70% of the immune system that resides in the gut to have an appropriate response to food that is about to come, solid food that will come after breast milk. When we get older, sort of in our late 20s, we ourselves, because we make it all infants make it in their tissues, teenagers make it. But around our late 20s, we stop manufacturing it in our tissues. We can still make it in our gut biome, assuming we've not been exposed to broad spectrum antibiotics and assuming that we have a good diet where we're actually eating not just for ourselves, but we are putting in some undigestible fiber into our diet to feed the gut biota that can actually make more spermidine for us.
- [07:20]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So as somebody who's taken multiple rounds of antibiotics for ear infections when she was 4, 5, 6, I probably stopped making it in the gut. If I'm, if I'm following your logic, like, you know, stop making it in the gut at a very early age.
- [07:36]
Leslie Kenney
Yes.
- [07:36]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
And then at 20, you're saying that we stopped making it in tissue sort of systemically. But if you haven't had These multiple rounds of the, you know, I remember the flavor. It was like there was a banana flavor and then there was this pink pulp bubblegum flavor. There's like the pink stuff and the yellow stuff that I would take is like amoxicillin. So if you haven't been exposed to those multiple rounds for whatever reason, you can still manufacture in the gut. But if you're someone like myself who had multiple ear infections as a young child, do we stop, we stop making it? Like we destroy the bacteria, I'm assuming, and the flora that are, that are creating it.
- [08:08]
Leslie Kenney
You would. It kind of depends on the strains, you know, the types of antibiotics you're taking. So were they broad spectrum and really, you know, like Agent Orange, getting rid of everything in the gut. And like I said, we have the opportunity to make it in our tissues until our late twenties. But the third source of it is in plants. And all plants manufacture spermidine. And as a matter of fact, in the endosperm of all seeds like wheat germ or rice bran, you will find a high amount of spermidine. And it is there to actually help feed the next generation of the plant. And we can actually take that spermidine and use it to our benefit. And all of the healthy centenarian populations around the world have high amounts of spermidine. So there have been epidemiological studies that show that these individuals have high spermidine rich diets.
- [09:09]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay, so tell us what spermidine does then. So we know it helps with cell growth in the child, it helps with closing up tight junctions with the baby, which of course we know they have a very immature gut barrier and immune system at large. But what happens when we are making it? What are there other protective effects? Like it obviously helps with like the hyper permeability of the gut, but what else does it do?
- [09:30]
Leslie Kenney
Well, it decreases inflammation, for instance, it helps with stem cell function, it helps with mitochondrial function, it protects our telomeres, it helps with intracellular communication, it helps with protein folding inside the cell. All in all, it inhibits nine of the 12 so called hallmarks of aging. But one of the most important things it does is it activates a cell renewal process called autophagy. Some people call it autophagy tomato, tomato, and that just means self eating in Greek. But I like to think of it as Marie Kondo for your cells sparking joy everywhere, decluttering all of your old clothes, you know, inside the cell and making way for new cells, recycling where it can, taking old parts and turning them into shiny New parts. And it also activates something called mitophagy, which is sparking joy in your mitochondria, the energy houses in your cell. So these are kind of the, you know, the big, the big concepts, the things that spermidine does that are really amazing. And the team at Oxford was really focused on the immune system. But the more I dug into spermidine, the more convinced I was that people needed to know about this and needed to get more of it in their diet. And if they weren't able to get more of it in their diet, then take a trustworthy, food derived version of it to supplement. And so all of those fancy words aside, what a perimenopausal or menopausal or postmenopausal woman would then experience when you. So let's say we just turn autophagy back on. You have new shiny cells in your ovaries, you have new shiny cells in your uterus, you have new shiny cells in your brain, your bone, your hair follicles, your skin, your nails. All of these things systemically are improving. And let's just look at ovarian reserve. There are a lot of people who say that healthspan for women should really be called fem span, that the longer we're fertile, the longer we're going to live. And there have been studies done. These are preclinical studies on animals that have gone through the menopause. And if you give them more spermidine, they actually produce more eggs and of better quality. For me, as a former IVF patient, I'm always thinking, I think that's a good thing, right? That indicates better overall health of the host, of the mother, and, and it's very exciting. But you know, when we look in the mirror and we see our hair color changing, the texture of our hair changing, or our nails becoming brittle and fragile, or our skin becoming dry, these are telltale signs that we always try to intervene on. Let's get the new cream, let's get the new ceramide or whatever it is. And I'm not saying that those are bad, but I remember watching my mother spend a lot of money on Elizabeth Arden products around menopause. And I think that's so funny.
- [13:07]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I think my mom used the same stuff.
- [13:09]
Leslie Kenney
The stuff you break into.
- [13:11]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
The little pills.
- [13:12]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, the little pills. Yeah, exactly.
- [13:15]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I remember those things.
- [13:17]
Leslie Kenney
I heard them from my mother, said, these are so expensive, but I need them. And the amazing thing, I'm a big advocate for hrt. If that's the path you want to Go down. But I really want all women to feel they deserve to be able to speak to their practitioner about this. But also spermidine will help. And so there was a Canadian study that used wheat germ derived spermidine, which comes with the associated polyamines of spermine and the delightfully named putrescine. And over
- [13:56]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
future scene, please, all name
- [14:00]
Leslie Kenney
by men, over a 30 day period, estrogen went up, progesterone went up, cortisol went down. DHEA and pregnenolone, the mother hormone to all of these others, all went up. And in the male cohort, testosterone went up by almost 50%. In the female, the older female cohort, 2/3 of them reported less nocturnal waking to go to the loo. And again, that's another telltale sign. Why am I waking up? Why do I have to go to the loo in the middle of the night? Can I just not sleep through the night? And these are all signs of aging. And when we often go to the doctor, the doctor will say, yeah, that's just a sign of aging. You know, get used to it. Oh, you don't like your gray hair? You know, I've got some too. Well, you know, I have news for you. I don't want to be like you. I know. I really, I really want to, I want to stay young for as long as possible. And what spermidine does is it helps with that with bone protection, hair follicle protection. And I think, Stephanie, when you first started taking this around five years ago, you noticed the reversal of some gray hairs, right?
- [15:18]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Yes, some grays. I had the obviously brown hair and then some, you know, gray and then that there was a couple of strands, well, more than a couple strands, like a clump of hair where it was, I had like, if I pulled it, it was at the ends, it was brown and then there was gray and then it was brown again. So it was really, really interesting. Yeah. And this is kind of. Oh, it's an overarching. I think that people talk about beauty as just a vein or aesthetic pursuit. And certainly it can be, and there's nothing wrong with that. But it can also be an indicator of physiological status. Right. So I love that you're talking about skin, hair and nails, because I think a lot of women, especially in perimenopause, like 40s and 50s, will notice changes in their hairline, changes in the amount of shedding and the thickness and the density of their hair. Dry, very dry skin or skin that has a different texture than it, than it once did. And to Your point? Like the cracking of the nails, cracking of the nail beds, that kind of stuff. So I really like this almost reframing, if you will. And it very much aligns with my philosophy around this idea of beauty. Everybody's beautiful, everybody has the capacity to express beauty, but it's an expression of their physiology, like physiological state, rather than a comment on, you know, how big your lips are or, you know, whatever. Right. I mean, and certainly if you. Any surgical intervention, like all that, like you do, you. We love you anyway. But also in tandem and in step with that, there can be things that you can be taking, like spermidine, let's say, that are going to help keep your cells younger for longer. And that's not an aesthetic pursuit, it's a physiological one.
- [17:00]
Leslie Kenney
Exactly, exactly. And in, you know, in Asia, in Eastern medicine, hair is actually part of a dashboard that traditional Chinese or Japanese or South Korean practitioners will look at. They will look at your nails and for signs, they will look at your tongue. But with hair, you know, in the corners, we have little kids. You know how they have all those little baby hairs on the fringe? Yeah, they're so cute. Well, that is an indication of high spermidine content. And one of the first things people notice when they start taking Primidine again is, oh, my gosh, I'm getting these little, you know, these little baby hairs at the, you know, the corners of my forehead. And I will be 61 in June. I do have some gray that you can probably see here, but I don't dye my hair, which is great, and I want to keep it like that.
- [17:49]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
My goodness, your hair is so shiny. That's the one thing I notice about you. Every time I see, I'm like, damn. Yeah, it's really good.
- [17:56]
Leslie Kenney
And it's about the age of the hair follicle. So I will give credit to spermidine and to. To HRT here.
- [18:07]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So what I wanted to do here, Leslie, is I wanted to talk about the 12 different hallmarks of aging. And then we can specifically highlight. So I know you were mentioning it's like, decrease inflammation, stem cell mitophagy, telomere. We can go through each of them and then maybe also try to relate them to each of the. Each of the. Like, to. To our Betty's, to our. To our demographic.
- [18:25]
Leslie Kenney
Okay, I'm going to start with impaired autophagy. So these. There are three new hallmarks. And the first one is impaired autophagy, because unfortunately, women will experience this earlier than men. When we go through menopause at age 50 with less estrogen, you have less autophagy, unfortunately. So that is one of the ways that you will notice this. Another hallmark is inflammation. And I think that women talk about the muffin top and that being inflammatory, you know, the mid life weight gain that we get, which is inflammatory, that is another hallmark. Gut dysbiosis is a third one. And a lot of women struggle with this. There are so many responsibilities. We have the temptation to not sit and make food for ourselves, but to just grab some ultra processed food or some more caffeine in the form of a Pepsi or a Coke means.
- [19:30]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Or an energy drink. The energy.
- [19:31]
Leslie Kenney
An energy drink, right. A Red Bull. Exactly. Then we go to the classic nine original hallmarks of aging which include epigenetic changes. So that would be, you know, are the good genes on, the bad genes off. And of course when we're stressed, the opposite happens. When we are aging prematurely, you know, that doesn't happen. Another one is something called impaired proteostasis. It's protein folding. Again, I like the Marie Kondo analogy. Think of it as your, really your linen closet after you tidy it up and all the towels are folded perfectly. And then when it's not functioning, it's when you're a teenager gets in there and just pulls the towel from the middle of the side.
- [20:16]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
From the bottom?
- [20:17]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, from the bottom. It's a bottom pile. Yeah. It just all falls apart. Like nothing functions well. You can't find anything in there.
- [20:25]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So that's like the brain fog though. That's where we get like that loss of proteostasis I think is where we have that, I mean some of that brain fog that a lot of women. Because the first, the first symptom of perimenopause is not hot flashes and night sweats, although it can be for some people. But a lot of times it's a bit more subtle than that. It's mood changes affect brain fog. Where did I leave my keys? Where did I leave my phone? Why did I walk into this room Again? I can't remember that. Like I have the word in my head, but I can't actually get it to my mouth. You know, the, there's, there's a little bit of that, which I think certainly the loss of proteostasis, that protein folding or that Marie Kondo and I like, I like the reframe on that. The Marie Kondo of everything. Putting everything in order and finding joy in your, in your protein cells for sure. But, but just to kind of tie it to some of the real Symptoms that a woman might not necessarily associate with her age or those hallmarks of aging. Brain fog. And then, of course, the later, you know, the increased disease risk like Alzheimer's, et cetera, I think is. Is where we see that loss of proteostasis really shine.
- [21:22]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, we've all talked about not just I can't find my keys, but I'm so tired, I don't think I have the energy to look for my keys in the fridge or in the car or in my coat. And that's due to mitochondrial dysfunction. Our battery packs in our cells are simply not up to. They're not up to snuff anymore. Stem cell dysfunction is another one. So the. We need those stem cells to repair, restore function. Impaired intercellular communication, so communication within the cell itself between, you know, I'll let you do the geeking out here. The endoplasmic reticulum, the proteins, you know, the mitochondria, all of these things that happen inside the cell. Kind of like inside a household. In order to function, things have got to work right.
- [22:19]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I love the way you explain things. It's so. It's so. I would never think to talk about autophagy like the Marie Kondo of your life. It's so good. The one I actually wanted to highlight because I think a lot of Betty's will find some. Maybe some comfort in this, is like this dysregulated nutrient sensing. I think a lot of women start to get more munchy, like they get a little bit more snacky, like they'll eat something, and then 45 minutes later, they're searching the pantry for something. Is there talk to us about sort of what's happening there with that dysregulated nutrient sensing and rapid. And with insulin, like insulin resistance as a function of aging too.
- [22:52]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah. So that is. That's really. It is that the insulin response is really not good anymore. And as a result, you know, you're constantly hungry, looking for that. Next thing, trying to take that hit, and you're getting more and more spikes, inflammatory spikes when you shouldn't be. So that is. That is an example of the nutrient sensing constantly feeling you need to grab the. The donut, the Ho Ho, the Pop Tart, the Cheetos, and. And even if you are not, Even if you are eating better, just the insulin response is not what it should be. It was. Is not what it was when you were younger. You're not able to deal with the toxins, an energy hit like. Like, say a Twinkie, can we talk about mtor?
- [23:41]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Can we stop, can we pause here and just talk about MTOR for a minute too? Because I think that this dysregulated nutrient sensing is important as it relates to spermidine. So I'm happy. So for those of you that have never heard of mtor, mechanistic target of rapamycin, what was, what did they used to call it? Mammalian target of mammalian target.
- [23:58]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah.
- [23:59]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So mechanistic is. I don't, for whatever reason they changed the name. But anyway, that's what it stands for for those of you that want the, want the full name. But it's basically a protein or proteins, I should say, acting inside cells, acting like a master switch for either growth or metabolism. Right. So when your nutrients, particularly protein, is really high, MTOR is going to turn on to build. So it's going to build muscle, it's going to build new cells when nutrients are low. So let's say when you're fasting or maybe you're restricting a certain group, like let's say a ketogenic diet where you're restricting carbohydrates, your MTOR turns off and this is when the body will enter that autophagy that you've been the Marie Kondoing. Right. So we're getting rid of these old cells that don't bring us joy anymore and making room for the cells that are working properly and potentially even new cells. So that's sort of the back of the envelope explanation of what MTOR is. If you're looking to sleep better, recover faster, improve your skin's appearance and thicken your hair, you are going to love the BON Charge red light therapy panels. Red light stimulates something called cytochrome C C oxidase is a protein that enhances energy production in human cells. This essentially boosts mitochondrial efficiency in breaking down nitric oxide and generating more energy that helps the body's healing process. Red light therapy has been shown in peer reviewed clinical trials to help with improved collagen and elastin production in the skin, thereby reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improving skin blemishes, roughness and reducing scars, supporting recovery for better sleep, promoting muscle relaxation, AKA soreness and stiffness. And this is also FDA approved for hair loss, which is something that many women in their 40s and 50s deal with. The bon charge red light therapy device uses the most bioactive frequencies of red and near infrared light at 630nm, 660 and 850nm. I personally use the Full length panel. After a long bike ride, I typically like to do my mobility and stretches in front of the full length panel for about 10 minutes a day. If you want to get these benefits, head over to boncharge.com better and use code better at checkout for 15% off your purchase. Few things are as traumatic to women than losing our hair. As we age, we get hair thinning, hair shedding and hair breakage. It's the worst as we move through perimenopause and menopause. The hair thinning is not just cosmetic. It's a signal, right? So it's declining estrogen that is going to affect circulation to the scalp, the mitochondrial energy, the hair follicle and cellular repair. Hair follicles are metabolically active tissue and they require energy to grow. And this is where red light therapy comes in. It works by delivering specific wavelengths of light to the hair follicle that will stimulate mitochondrial function. So more cellular energy means better support for the hair growth cycle. So this is not about forcing growth, but it's about improving the environment so that your hair growth can happen. Higher Dose Red light therapy is a FDA approved red light therapy device for promoting hair growth and treating pattern hair loss. It stimulates the hair follicles and it improves density and reduces shedding. It's a hat that I use while I'm reading or answering emails. It's 10 minutes. There's no side effects, no recovery time. It's super easy to be consistent so that I can restore hair follicle health as I age. If you're interested in trying red light therapy for hair and scalp health, I've partnered with Higher Dose to offer my BE 15% off of their red light hat. So just head over to their website higherdose.com and use code better at checkout. That's higherdose.com and use code B E T T E R at checkout. But as it relates to spermidine, talk to us about how spermidine specifically works on mtor because I think it's a little bit. My understanding is a little bit different than how I just explained it.
- [28:04]
Leslie Kenney
It is. I'm so glad you brought this up. I like to think of MTOR as tor the door to muscle. M is the muscle. And there's so many things like fasting, metformin, rapamycin that activate autophagy by inhibiting that doorway to muscle. But the problem is, and why bodybuilders don't like this, is that you will sacrifice muscle. So yes, you get shiny new cells but you're not going to, you're not going to get swell. And with very, very frail people. For instance, My mother, who's 85 pounds and 86 years old, said, I've heard all about fasting. I really want to fast. I think it will be good for me. I've had to say, please do not do that because you have hardly any muscle left. And if you fast, you will lose your muscle because the first, first thing that the body will do in a fasted state is it's going to go straight for the muscle. And this is also what happens if you are taking rapamycin and you're taking, say, metformin. But the beauty of.
- [29:12]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Or you're not eating enough or you're.
- [29:14]
Leslie Kenney
Or you're not eating enough.
- [29:15]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Yeah, just generally.
- [29:17]
Leslie Kenney
But the beauty of spermidine is that you can activate autophagy by not inhibiting mtor. It uses a different pathway to activate that cell renewal process. So it's almost like Marie Kondo has a special back door into the house. She's got the key to the garden door. She can go in and clean the house for you and you can continue to build muscle. And that's why I love it, because it is one of those things that people take for granted in midlife is muscle. But we are losing muscle every single year and we do not want to get frail. We do not want to lose our independence. Right. The fastest way to the nursing home is not being able to sit down and stand up from the loo. That's what my colleague Samuel Gray always says. And he has been writing textbooks about preventive medicine for GPs in Britain for 40 years. And he always talks about this. It is as simple as, as that if you cannot sit down and get up, you are going to the nursing home. And I think that we've got to do everything we can to preserve our muscle so we can preserve our independence.
- [30:36]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay, so, so well said. Well, you mentioned earlier, I wrote it down in my notes, that spermidine affects nine of the 12 hallmarks of aging, which in and of itself is a pretty remarkable claim because most interventions, even pharmaceutical ones, like the rapamycin that you ment, they usually just will target a single pathway. Like they're just, it's very, you know, in and out. Right. So we're trying to get one thing right in a very complex system. So maybe my question here is explaining to myself and the Bettys how this food derived molecule can influence so, like it's a panacea, like how it can influence so Many aging mechanisms at all at once. Like, why is spermidine so different than any other intervention that we've seen that's trying to, that's trying to reduce or slow down or reverse aging?
- [31:29]
Leslie Kenney
Well, I, you know, I hate to say that it does so much because then people think, oh, how can this be possible? It's too good to be true. I will just make one correction. Rapamycin is neck and neck with spermidine. The only thing is that rapamycin does not occur in plants. We don't make it in our bodies, and we don't have safety studies done in humans for aging. We use rapamycin as an immune suppressant, like a very powerful immune suppressant in organ transplant patients. So they do not reject the donated organs that they've been given. And the dose for rapamycin, it's a kind of unique Goldilocks zone for you. Everybody is a different weight, has a different, you know, ethnic background, it has a different epigenome, There are different sexes. And you have to take all of these things into, into mind when you think of what the right dose is. And I meet so many biohackers who tried it like a street drug because it's not available for us to just take safely. And I think 5 milligrams is the amount that they say to take. And so many people tell me, oh, all my hair fell out, or I got these open mouth sores, or my libido went down. And I keep thinking, I don't think that's right. And there are no, there are no side effects like this with spermidine. In fact, it's the opposite that happens. And the body has co evolved with plants over millennia. Plants have spermidine. Let's eat more plants. Or if we want to supplement, let's get them from plants and supplement that way. Because there are no safety or efficacy trials in synthetic spermidine yet. I think there's one safety study only in men for 28 days, which is crazy to me that this stuff is all over the market. Just like rapamycin. Synthetic spermidine is everywhere. Counterfeits are rife. There are loads of companies that are selling teeny tiny amount of wheat germ and then they cut with synthetic spermidine and you can see it in their lab test because they have no presence of spermine or putrescine. Or maybe they have added in some synthetic spermine and there's zero putrescine, which is not how it occurs in nature. Or they are using AI to counterfeit their lab Test, which is also terrible.
- [34:04]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Oh, that's the next big problem with AI, isn't it? Hey, is, like the counter like the lab results? I didn't even think of that.
- [34:12]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, it's really. It's really tragic. Sorry to. To get on my soapbox there for a minute.
- [34:18]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
No, it's fine. Well, I mean, before we even talk about supplementing, where can we get it in our diet? So you mentioned wheat germs. There was a Canadian study. You mentioned wheat germ. Where can we get it in our regular diet so that we're getting the whole form of it? And then, of course, we can talk about supplementation as well.
- [34:33]
Leslie Kenney
Legumes, mushrooms, whole grains, like. Like whole wheat, leafy greens. And you can get it in fermented foods like cheese, aged cheeses, Assuming you don't have a problem with histamine load, because some people might have a mast cell activation with that.
- [34:52]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
It's like a Parmesan. Like a Parmesan. Like a Parmigiano Reggiano. That kind of.
- [34:56]
Leslie Kenney
Exactly, exactly. So you can make a really nice risotto. It could be a resistant starch risotto where you've, you know, cooled it overnight, cooled the rice overnight. And then you add in shiitake or oyster mushrooms. They have really high amounts. And you could add in some peas, and then take the Parmesan closer to the rind, and that is where the higher spermidine levels will be. And that would be a really nice spermidine rich dish. And one of my favorite snacks is actually sprout. So I love sprouted beans. And I'll just take them, maybe add some olive oil, some really good extra virgin olive oil, some salt, maybe a little bit of olive tapenade. Just kind of depends on how salty I want it. And that will have a lot of naturally occurring spermidine, too.
- [35:48]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
And is there a dosage that we're trying to consume daily? So if we had that beautiful risotto that you just, just described, approximately how much of this are we getting in spermidine? And if. If it's impossible to tell, like, what is. What is an optimal or recommended dosage that we're taking in daily?
- [36:05]
Leslie Kenney
So it, you know, it really. It really depends because if you look at those foods and you take the average of what they should be. So let's just say peas up in Scotland, mushy peas is a, you know, delicacy and would be a good source of spermidine. You might say that having a serving of mushy peas might give you 10 milligrams. And they say you would want to have a dosage closer to, say, 30 or 35. But the reality is you're not going to necessarily absorb all of that once it goes through the digestive tract. And that's where it gets a little bit murky. We don't have the test kits to diagnose what somebody's spermidine level or evaluate what someone's spermidine levels are at home or in the lab, easily. It's still very convoluted. We know it's important. We can kind of guess what the amount is in the daily diet. So in the US and in the UK, I think people get around 8mg of spermidine every day if they eat, sort of. Okay. But you would ideally want, you know, you would want to have more plants with more sources. The problem then becomes absorbability, and that's where supplementation can help.
- [37:35]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay, and before, just before we get to supplementation, because I. I just had a thought as you were talking. Some of the. Some of the hallmarks of aging, we see those also improved with lifestyle. Right. So are there other ways that we can potentially augment or help some of these hallmarks of aging in addition to what we're talking about with the spermidine?
- [37:54]
Leslie Kenney
100%. So I'm going to focus in on sleep. When we sleep and we get deep sleep, that's when the glymphatic system works and we take toxins out of the brain. But we will get deep autophagy then if we can get into that state. And one of the good ways to do this is by exposing ourselves to light. And a fascinating fact that I learned from a very cool professor at a medical school in Germany named Angela Relogio is that the photoreceptors in our eyes that are just there to sync our pituitary with daylight. And by the way, even if it's an overcast day in Canada or the uk, you will get more lux light exposure outside than inside. So still go outside, please. Those photoreceptors get older and less functional as we age. And women, unfortunately, when we go through menopause, those photoreceptors really go off a cliff in terms of function. HRT can help rescue that. But we need more sunlight exposure. And the more our daylight exposure, let's call it just daylight exposure, the more daylight exposure we get, then the greater the likelihood of us producing more melatonin at the right time in the evening so that we are set up for that nice Glide path to sleep. And of course, block the light, the blue light from your devices, your TV set. I don't know about you, if I've been watching Vladimir on Netflix, I'm like, oh, you know, I really don't want to have to like cut off the color here, but okay, I'll do it because you need to make sure that you're able to produce the melatonin, have a good deep sleep and get some natural autophagy that way.
- [40:01]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay, let's come back to supplementation. So you've mentioned that there's lots of counterfeits that we see the spermidine, not with the spermine and the putresine. If we're thinking, yes, we want to supplement with spermidine, we don't know if we're getting enough in the diet. You're someone who lives in the United States or Canada, the UK, you're probably getting an average of 8mgs a day when we want it to be much higher. How do we know how to choose the right brand?
- [40:22]
Leslie Kenney
You want to look and see if it is number one food derived. If it is synthetic, it might say spermidine H Cl hydrochloric acid or spermidine TCl trichloride or 3Cl is the same thing. And sometimes I see really clever labels where it says wheat germ with spermidine and that actually is wheat germ with synthetic spermidine. But they don't actually disclose it. So then you have to look at their lab test and you're looking for, especially if it's wheat germ and you want to make sure you see putrescine and spermine. So I happened to see we are always testing competitors. And one came back, some results came back from Eurofins today and they had spermine, they had zero putrescine. And I thought, I'm really surprised because normally you have more putrescine and less spermine. So what they've done is they've added some synthetic spermine to pop it up. But there's, this is evidence that this is not actually a food derived product. And again, because there are no safety studies or efficacy studies for these synthetic products for women, I just, I would not feel comfortable recommending them. And it's the reason why I went down the holy plant derived route.
- [41:52]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
It's so interesting to me because you went to Oxford, trained scientists to understand your own recovery. And you not a doctor, you know, it was you who connected the idea between spermidine and women's longevity, you know, commercially. So what happens when A woman decides not to believe what she's been told about her body. And I'm talking, of course, about you. And I would love for you to share with the audience the diagnosis the diagnosees. Is that a plural? The diagnoses that you received, the multiples, and what you did in that moment when you were receiving that horrible news and what you decided to do about it. Sure, a lot of the women I work with aren't tired because they're lazy or they're unmotivated. They're tired because their brains are overloaded. They're juggling work and family and health and hormones and constant decision making. And somewhere along the way, mental clarity just starts slipping. Focus gets harder, brain fog creeps in, sleep feels lighter, and even caffeine stops helping. Or in some cases, it makes it even worse. That's why I want to share something that I have been personally using and loving. It's called kinetic. And kinetic isn't just an energy drink. It's brain fuel. It's designed to support calm clarity, mental performance and focus without caffeine jitters and without caffeine crashes. And what I love is that it works with your biology and not against it. So instead of forcing stimulation, Kinetics provides your brain with a clean fuel source it already knows how to use, which is why the energy feels so steady, focused and calm without disrupting sleep later on that night. And yes, it's powered by ketones, but you don't need to follow a keto diet or change how you eat at all. This is just about supporting brain energy, especially during midlife when that glucose based energy can become much less efficient to the perimenopausal and menopausal brain. If you're doing all the right things, but your mind still feels fried, this may be the missing piece for you. You can learn more about kinetic and try it out for yourself by going to drinkkinetic.com better and use code better for 15% off of your purchase. That's Drink Kinetic. K-E-N-E-T-I K.com better and use code better For 15% off a checkout.
- [44:19]
Leslie Kenney
In 2004, at age 39, I was in the middle of trying to start a family and I had already done five rounds of ivf. My doctors had essentially told me I was infertile, my eggs were no longer viable and so I would need to find a donor. And then at the same time, I noticed some terrible pain in my hand and thought, well, I'd better get that looked into I think we women are pretty good at checking things out.
- [44:53]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
And we're the original biohackers.
- [44:56]
Leslie Kenney
We're the original biohackers. We women really are. And I got that phone call nobody wants to get, which is not from the receptionist at the doctor's office saying, your blood tests are back and they're fine, but the call from the doctor saying, your results are in and I'd like you to come in to have a chat. And so I went in, still thinking about this IVF round, this fifth IVF round, using donor eggs and having a baby. And my doctor sits me down and says, you've got rheumatoid arthritis and your immune system is so strong it's attacking your organs, your joints. And I, of course, say, wait a second, aren't we supposed to have really strong immune systems? Isn't that, like, a good thing? And I want it to fight cancer, right? And she says, no, actually, in this case, it looks like you're fighting cancer, but you're directing all of that firepower at destroying your joints, and that's where you're getting this pain from. But don't worry, we've got a solution, which is immune suppressants which you can inject yourself with, and that pain is going to go away and we'll be able to halt the damage before it gets too bad. So I'm thinking, how is this going to affect this IVF round? This can't be good. And while I'm thinking this, she moves on to something else that I have. You also have lupus and I've never heard of this, so I want to know what it is. And she says, well, this is where it's not just destroying your joints, it's going after your organs and tissues. And I said, all right, well, what's the solution for that? And she said, unfortunately, there is no treatment, there is no cure, and you should expect this to get worse over time. And I'm thinking, hold on a second, I am. I've got this embryo transfer coming up. You're telling me to inject myself with immune suppressants and then you're telling me that I've got something else that's only going to get worse over time. How is this going to affect me getting pregnant? And this isn't really acceptable. You're the doctor, you have all these certificates lined up behind you on the wall. I need you to get on board here and fix this, because that's how I think a lot of Americans view doctors. When the wheels fall off, they will put the wheels back on, and they will fix us, and it's a transaction. We pay them. And I really pushed her hard, saying, look, here's how it is. I'm paying you to fix my problem. And now you had better do it, because I've got this embryo transfer coming up. And to her credit, she took it all in without my little angry tirade. She didn't flinch, but she was quiet. And then she shook her head and said, I wouldn't do the IVF if I were you. You've only got a good five years left. And those words, really, you only have
- [48:31]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
a good five years left of what? Your life?
- [48:33]
Leslie Kenney
Of my life. And I really. I really had no comeback and kind of staggered out of the doctor's office thinking, what does this mean? What does this mean? What about my baby? And I was very lucky that in that moment, the voice of my no nonsense Midwestern grandmother, who had sadly passed away, came to me and I heard her say, let's throw the kitchen sink at it. And I decided in that moment that I would just become the absolute best patient there was. And so I started delving into the science. And the first place that I went was the patient chat rooms that I had relied on heavily for ivf. I think a lot of us women who have been through ivf, we all go to the chat boards, we all cycle together, we get to know each other, we share tips and console each other when it doesn't work out. I did the same with the rheumatoid arthritis boards and the lupus boards, and on the RA boards, I met a lot of patients who said, you know, we've been on these immune suppressing drugs for years, and this is 2004, by the way. So I think things may have moved on, but at that time, that was the gold standard. And they were noticing that it only worked for around 18 months, and then they would just fail and they'd be put on new immune suppressing drugs, and it was like a merry go round. So it seemed to me, as the casual observer, that the body did not like these drugs and was doing everything it could to get around them. Then over on the lupus boards, I was meeting patients who were very excited because although there was no treatment, they had heard about a protocol, a therapy that had been used in Germany a few years before called intravenous immunoglobulin, and that had improved all 13 lupus patients to whom it had been given. And this was really great news for me because it was proof that my doctor was Wrong. She had said I should expect things to get worse over time. But this was clearly not true. If these 13 patients were, every single one was improving. So I went back to my doctor, I said, hey, there's this 13 patients. And of course, as you know, As a doctor, 13 patients does not give definitive proof. It's too small of a cohort. And she refused to give it to me. But back to the patient boards where people said, look, there's this guy in San Francisco who will do it. And so I went to him, got the transfusions, and at the same time, I completely changed my lifestyle. I used the work of Dr. Barry Sears. He had a book out called the Anti Aging Zone. It came out in 2005, and it was all about how autoimmune patients, among other patients, were prematurely aging themselves through inflammation. This was what Italian scientist Claudio Franceschi called inflammaging. And so we might be chronologically 39, but biologically we were a lot older. And so the series book was all about bringing in foods that are anti inflammatory and getting rid of the things that are inflammatory. So he suggested an allergy test. I took it. Gluten, dairy, eggs, all no go's. And it was really hard at the time to think of a diet. You know, gluten free stuff is everywhere now. Dairy free options are everywhere.
- [52:40]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Yeah, but 2004, you know, you're not going to have. That's not going to be widespread as it is today.
- [52:45]
Leslie Kenney
It wasn't widespread. And I was living in Boulder, Colorado, which has a really big health food culture, and it was still so hard. And I remembered, I remember asking at restaurants, do you have gluten free or dairy free? And people still looking at me like I had two heads.
- [53:00]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
What? Yeah, yeah.
- [53:01]
Leslie Kenney
The other thing that I forgot to mention is that that saying that Brene Brown always asks us to ask, is that really true? And I think more and more women are realizing they shouldn't silence their voice. And you know, whether it's a thought, a negative thought that pops in their head, or a negative thought that somebody else plants, there's. Is that really true? Is powerful for us.
- [53:25]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Yeah, I agree. Because I know we're describing 2004, but even today in 2026, I have so many women. We see it in our help desk, in our support inbox. Doctors are refusing to run blood tests. There's no, you know, like my. The one that comes up a lot is thyroid. Right? My doctor is not gonna. Yes. Like they will not run the antibody test. They just wanna look at TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone, maybe some free and T3, but literally that's it. Like, they will not look at reverse T3. They will not look at any of these other markers that might be a bit more diagnostic for Hashimoto's thyroiditis or even just hypothyroidism.
- [54:06]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah.
- [54:07]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So we still have that today where you can have these chat boards like Reddit or wherever. You have these chat boards where people are sharing information and then you take it to your doctor and they will just bold face, straight face. Like there's no evidence, like your doctor did it too. Like there's no evidence to support that. Like, we're not giving you that IV immunoglobulin treatment because it's an end of 13. That's not enough to justify it. I'm not willing to take that risk with my own license or my own practice habits. So I'm just not going to do it. And we see that even today. And I. There's another thing that I often talk about which is like this idea of infobesity, right, where it's like we are almost inundated with too much information in 26, where maybe in 2004 you were just like, we were just starving for it. And so I think it's really hard for women to sort of parse through even. I mean, I see this all the time on social media, what is true and what isn't true. Right. I still have people that are scared of carbohydrates. You know, they will not eat kale because they think that kale is out to get them. We're not gonna, we're not gonna name the people who kind of propagate that because it's not necessary. But there's people that think that plants are trying to kill them. So how do we as women when we are so desperate for information and we're so desperate for people to just believe us and believe our stories? What were some of the things that you were able to parse through that maybe felt like they were true for you or that you felt worth exploring? Because I'm sure you came across things that were. You're like, well, I don't know, I'm not going to try that. Like, that doesn't, you know, I'm not going to do a. I don't know, I'm just making stuff up, like a colon cleanse or whatever for. For my lupus, you know, like, what were some, like, what was your decision tree? Like, how did you deduce whether things were worth exploring? Or not. What was your thought process there?
- [55:54]
Leslie Kenney
When I went to the chat rooms, what I noticed first off was the empathy. I saw other patients who were devastated, who were so fatigued, in so much pain, no longer able to work, not sure where they would get the money to make the rent. And I saw all of these other compassionate, to be honest, women, because 80% of autoimmune patients are women. These other women rushing in to say, hey, look, what about this? Or, I know where you're coming from. I hear you. I see you and other people saying, try this, Doctor. So there was a lot of emotional support, compassion, as well as practical information. And I would notice that over and over again there were certain voices that were coming in with a lot of calm and a lot of reasons saying, have you looked at this? Look at this study. This is inspiring for us. This could be the chance that we've all been waiting for. And you get to know voices. And that was my approach. I can't speak to how it is today with AI bots and things, but that's how it was for me. And the evidence wore itself out. You know, I was able to find the study. It wasn't easy. And that's when I was able to take that printed document and take it to my doctor and say, what about this? Can't we do something? What do you think of this? And like I said, it wasn't surprising that she said no, because I also spoke to a lot of immunologists in the uk, in the US who all said, hey, this is so risky, because it's a transfusion of antibodies from anywhere from three to 10,000 people, and any one of them could have mad cow disease or hepatitis c. And in 2004, 2005, there was no cure for hep C. And we didn't really know how to effectively find prions which make, you know, Creutzfeldt Jakob disease. So I do recognize that it was a risk, but maybe I'm a bit of a risk taker. And in my case, it worked out.
- [58:16]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Yeah, I mean, I definitely feel your pain. And I feel the pain of women who are searching for answers where they have, you know, essentially delegated the decision making to their doctor. Right. And if their doctor is on board with them or their doctor is willing to explore things with them, great. But if their doctor is like the original doctor that you came across, where they're like, it's risky. I'm not sure, I don't know. And then they plant those seeds of doubt into the patient, it can make it that really, really difficult for the patient to say, okay, I am going to now go essentially against what my doctor's recommendation is like. So I really feel for the women like I feel for you. I'm obviously thrilled that it worked out for you, but I know that there's people listening and maybe that this podcast is being forwarded to where there are women who are trying to find answers, and the cultural authority, the doctor, is saying, there's nothing we can do for you. And so they have to somehow either find it with themselves. Thank God for your grandmother. Thank God for grandmothers in general. But, you know that voice of the grandmother saying, let's throw everything at it, you know, it could be your grandmother. It could just be like the, you know, the ancestors, like, you know, your foremothers from before. That little whisper of intuition. I would just say I would encourage anybody to try and listen to that whisper. To try. If there's something that doesn't feel right, it's probably not right. You know, it's probably not right. And that means, unfortunately, that you have to put on your big girl pants and you have to find these chat forums and you have to go on social media and sift through what can seem like endless amount of information. But I think that that pursuit is worthy of doing. I think that that energy output, that time, that effort, that focus, potentially money, I think that that's. That is an investment well spent because it can lead to the outcome that you're describing, where you found this, like, very niche study, you know, very potentially dangerous intervention that ended up being the right decision for you.
- [60:26]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah.
- [60:27]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay, so you take this. This IV immunoglobulin. And then I think you mentioned at the same time you were following, I guess, the. The recommendation of Dr. Sears in his book, and he was talking about premature aging. So tell me specifically, what are some of the pearls? Like, what are some of the things that you implemented from that book? And then, I mean, I know you're a mom, so I know that there's a happy ending.
- [60:49]
Leslie Kenney
So worked out, yeah, there's the result.
- [60:52]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So tell us. Yeah, so tell us. Tell us the process there.
- [60:55]
Leslie Kenney
So, yes, while I was arranging to get the ivig, I thought, well, that will reset my immune system. So what they noticed was that IVIG is in. It modulates the immune system. You know, we're used to adaptogens like Ashwagandha for hormones, but for the immune system, you can modulate the immune system, calm it down. So it wasn't just providing antibodies for people who couldn't make them to strengthen their immune systems, but in people who were overactive, it would tamp down that overactivity. And I thought, right, if I'm resetting, I need to make sure I never introduce triggers ever again. So what are my triggers? And Dr. Barry Sears book the anti aging zone, recommended getting allergy testing to identify those triggers, which I did. Dairy, gluten, and eggs were all offenders, and I eliminated all of those and came up with substitutes for everything. People say it's so hard, but you know when you want to live. And in my case, I still desperately wanted to have a baby. I didn't want to let go of that dream. I was willing to be incredibly disciplined. And at the same time, Sears argued that there are other triggers to the immune system that we might not necessarily think of, like stress and poor sleep and lack of movement and lack of social connection. Trauma could also be something. And if any of your listeners have come across the ace scoring system for, you know, for childhood trauma, you, you know, you can identify whether or not you're sort of in the potentially affected by trauma category. So I not only overhauled my diet, sleep, movement, but I did trauma therapy, too. And when you let go of all of that, it can be incredibly freeing, but it can actually get your vagus nerve back to a place of equilibrium where you're able to actually rest and repair. So all of those things were happening while I was getting the ivig transfusions lined up, and I was still injecting myself with different times. I was doing Enbrel or Humira. And when I finished my second IVIg treatment, I and I had explored so many different alternative therapies, and I was open to everything. But I hated the injections of the immune suppressants because philosophically, the idea of suppressing my immune system made zero sense to me. So I stopped under supervision. I stopped taking the, you know, doing the injections of the. The umbral humira, which I can't remember which one it was at that point in time.
- [63:58]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
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- [65:23]
Leslie Kenney
I went back in for a routine test with my doctor while routine appointment, and she opened my file and had clearly not taken a look at it before she sat down. And she just looked at it and said, well, look at that. You don't have lupus or ra. And I was like, just like flippant like that, right? Yeah.
- [65:45]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Like you have five years to live and then the next appointment. Oh, look at that. You're good. Yeah.
- [65:49]
Leslie Kenney
And I'm thinking. I was like, excuse me, am I thinking? Am I in the right appointment room here? What did you just say? And she didn't even look up at me. She just said, all your labs have returned to normal. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's so amazing. I was so excited.
- [66:08]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I hear that. And I get enraged. I hear it's like, oh, really? Yeah. I did all this work. You did not. I had to go to San Francisco. I did all this stuff. And just a flippant, like, I mean, I know you have a better attitude than I do. Well, you're like, yay. And I'm like, like, damn you, woman.
- [66:24]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, Well, I was excited because of the outcome, but then I said in my excitement and enthusiasm, do you want to know what I did? She didn't even look up. She just. She was like, no, that's okay. And I thought, that is. That's a lost opportunity. And it goes back to this idea of the sisterhood. Wait a second. You are the node for potentially thousands of patients, 80% of whom are going to be women. And I don't want these women to end up on the chatboards. I want you to be the node of knowledge, and I need to transfer this knowledge to you. But in her world, the system does not give her the opportunity to process that knowledge. And she probably gets people who are like, you know, I went under a crystal and I cured myself. Some aliens came down and cured me. Right. There could be that. But I still have always felt like that was a travesty of justice. This should not have happened.
- [67:33]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I think it stings more, too, that she was a female doctor, too. Like, you almost. I mean. I mean, for me, this is. You can come at me at the comments here, but I almost feel like you would expect that more from a. A male doctor who's, like, seen it all, done it all, full of hubris, knows what he knows. You know, it's unfortunate that you hear that with. With female doctors. So it's like, you know, male and female, we're all. We're all guilty of it sometimes. We have blind. You know, we're blinded. But for her to have just, like, no interest in your story or even. Just some of the things that you did, even. Even just from a nutritional perspective, like, forget the. Forget the iv. Forget. Forget that. Just from the. I found that I was triggering and flaring up my immune system when I had these. I think could have been. Yeah, the missed opportunity for sure. Yeah.
- [68:21]
Leslie Kenney
So after. After that, I. I confess that while I did tell other patients on the lupus boards that it had worked for me, I honestly wanted to forget everything that had happened to me before. And during this time, I had learned that my fifth IVF had failed, and I really had to let go of my dreams of becoming a biological mother and just. I just wanted to let all of it go. The failure of my body to conceive a baby, the failure of my body to do the right thing and instead attack me. So I focused entirely on becoming a mother. I just wanted to have a baby at the end of it. So I became an adoptive mother, and everything was, please, just get me back to normal. I want to be normal. I don't want to be that small percentage of people for whom everything bad happens, because that's what's happening. I'm infertile. What percentage of women at this age are that? I'm always in that category. So that's really where I was. And, you know, fast forward a few years and 20 and 7, I'm noticing that I am really, really, really tired. And I see other mothers with their kids. They've got three or four kids. They've got a dog, They've got a scout troop. They have an allotment. They're on the pta. And I'm thinking, how do these women do it? And again, I Go back to the chat boards and put in, first of all, I go to Dr. Google, I put in every symptom I can think of. Cold hands, cold feet, brain fog, constant fatigue, faintness, dizziness, and it spits out hypothyroid, hypothyroid, hypothyroid. I go to my GP who says, nope, your thyroid levels are normal. That's based on TSH and T4. I then pay for expensive hard eye roll here, yeah, Hard eye roll, yeah,
- [70:32]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Hard eye roll here, yeah.
- [70:34]
Leslie Kenney
I then go to a fancy private London endocrinologist, Cambridge grad, and same thing, you're fine. Tsh, T4, totally fine. I go back to the chat boards, everybody says, you are being fobbed off. There's only one man in Britain who can help you. So at this point, I've moved from Colorado to London, and it was a fellow who had almost been struck off, but who had successfully worked as a gp, treating thyroid conditions with natural desiccated thyroid and also levothyroxine and T3 for decades. So I went to see him. He had me do a cortisol test ahead of time and he looked at my cortisol numbers and said he had never seen such low cortisol. He had no idea how I had even taken the train to get to him, to the appointment. He didn't know how I was able to stand up. And, you know, my hands were so cold to the touch when he. When he shook my hand, my reflexes were terrible. My standing blood pressure was very, very low, much lower than my sitting blood pressure. And he basically said, I'm going to tell you what you can do. I've given up my medical license, but I'm a nutritionist now and I can tell you how you can get, get the treatment you need online. So he showed me how to get the arm or thyroid and how to essentially take my pulse and my basal body temperature in the morning before rising so that I could check how much I needed and when it was too high a dose. And he said as I left the appointment, now, if you don't want to have more children because you're so tired taking care of the child you have already, you need to take precautions because you're now going to be hyper fertile, all of your hormones are going to be aligned. And I just thought, you've got to be kidding me. Like, I've spent over US$100,000 on IVF treatments, on donor eggs, on acupuncture and wheatgrass shots, and just everything to make myself better. I don't believe you. Long story short, a few weeks later I'm on his protocol and a full moon comes along to your full moon point. And I had noticed that, you know, my cycle would always come either at a full moon or at a half moon. And I thought, this is really weird. Why has my cycle not come and it's a full moon? And I took a pregnancy test and sure enough I was pregnant. And that man was right. And what it showed me was that. But again, as a patient we go and we say, we have these symptoms. My symptoms were rheumatology symptoms, arthritis, pain in my hands. So a rheumatologist looks at me and stays in his or her lane and says, right, the diseases I know about are lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but never looks at the other normally co occurring diseases that come with those two. And a big one is Hashimoto's thyroiditis. So when they actually come to ultrasound my thyroid, whoa, guess what? There's about an eighth of it left. So now we know what has happened. And you know, I've got. I then give birth to my wonderful second daughter and I'm fully enjoying my life now in Oxford, England, on the school playground and talking to lots of other parents and, and end up through meeting these scientists at the school gates, end up meeting some amazing scientists at the University of Oxford who are working in rheumatology on the immune system and how to reverse elderly immune senescence. So zombie cells, zombie immune cells, dysfunctional immune cells in the elderly. But the reality is that at 39, my immune cells were dysfunctional and were elderly. So that piqued my interest and that's when I started diving deep on this weirdly named compound called spermidine that we all produce when we're young. And that's in all plants and, and yes, it is in sperm and it is in breast milk. It is that important to the success of the next generation.
- [75:17]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
I mean, I have to say I love your story for so many reasons. One, your perseverance. I think there is something with women who decide, like, I didn't have the same fertility challenges that you're describing. But I remember when I wanted to have a baby, it was like, I need to get pregnant now, Like, I need a ba. I need this shop to be open for business now. And I remember the first month that we were trying, it didn't work. And I mean, I can't even imagine the amount of stress and grief and rage and all of the things that you're describing as you're talking about your journey, but I also just want to applaud you for your perseverance. I want to applaud your grandmother who came to talk to you in some way, way that was like, we're gonna throw everything at this because at the end of the day it was worth it. Right? So again, coming back to this idea of like, yes, it's like the chat, you know, the chat boards and the, you know, the weird stuff that you're going to come across, all of that, you know, you have to have this North Star, which is in your case, I want to be a mother. And you were able to be a mother two times over. Like, what a blessing for your first child, you know, I mean, you wouldn't have your first child if you weren't like, okay, I'm just gonna, I gotta just fix my body and then find out that you have, you know, a third autoimmune condition, the Hashimoto's, and then conceive naturally for your second child. So I just love that for you and I hope that, you know, for someone who's listening, who's had fertility issues, that this provides or maybe now, because we know that women are having babies later and later and later. You know, I have women on my team, first baby at 42. Right. And you were describing a woman who is 50, right. Still holding space for that, for that opportunity. So I just love that for you and I hope that it can land with some, someone who's listening or maybe this is shared with someone who is on her own fertility journey to just not give up and to keep, and just to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until, you know, you're pushing on
- [77:23]
Leslie Kenney
the delivery table, pushing the baby, you're
- [77:26]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
pushing the baby out. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I would love for you to talk about why should we trust, why should we trust primadine over, like, is there a way for us to say, okay, I know there's enough putresine, enough spermine, like, what, what should we be looking for on the label that tells us that this is going to be doing all the things that we've been talking about today?
- [77:45]
Leslie Kenney
Well, in addition to looking out for the synthetic versions, I think, you know, look at the trouble the founders go to, right? We go to Japan. I go to Japan with our gluten free version. I work with three different sets of farmers. I have to specially commission the gluten free version of chlorella that we use for that spermidine. And I go and I inspect the fields of the turmeric farmers and the Okinawan lime peel orchard farmers and the. I have a very young farmer who does the turmeric named Hero and very sweet, married to a Polish girl. They've got like six adorable children. But he always is so proud of the weeds in his fields because it shows that there are no pesticides on his crops. And the reason why is after the Americans went into Okinawa after the Second World War, they not only brought the soldiers, but they brought glyphosate. Glyphosate with Monsanto, with the seeds. And he always says that those farmers got a lot of cancer. And so the young farmers have refused to use glyphosate. And it's a really. It's a point of pride to use soil that has been rehabilitated that doesn't have the glyphosate. And this is volcanically rich soil, is made up of not only volcanic material, but also coral. It's so unique and makes it really, really rich and nutrient dense. And then, you know, when we are growing the chlorella in the pond, I have actually gone to visit the. The source of the water, which is mineral water from a mountain, where it all comes through a volcanic. A natural volcanic purification process, and then is brought to these. These ponds that, you know, have been built where we actually grow the chlorella. So, you know, it's steps like that that I think inspire trust in other people who are like, okay, this person has actually done their homework. They have actually gone to visit where this is from. They are not just buying street drugs in bags from China, or they're not just taking street drugs in China and having somebody encapsulate bottle and label in China, which I have had a lot
- [80:23]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
of people put it up on Amazon. Yeah, yeah.
- [80:26]
Leslie Kenney
And say that it's something that it isn't. The same thing goes with the wheat germ. So there are a lot of opportunities to get wheat germ derived spermidine. But are you actually removing the omega 6 fatty acids that go rancid so quickly in that spermidine, which is what we do. And the reason that I want to do it is because the outer layer of the cell is made up of lipids or fats. And guess where those fats come from. Well, what you eat. And if you're eating a lot of omega 6 fatty acids, which we tend to get a lot of anyway, and imbalance with omega 3s because of their existence in processed foods, if you are getting not just more Omega 6, but it's rancid, and some of These capsules, you can actually see they begin to form a gelatinous plug in the capsule. And some of those manufacturers color the capsules so you can't see the gelatinous plug. But you know, we actually take the extra step to remove those fatty acids that go rancid on exposure to oxygen. So I would look for things like that. It's kind of like, you know, when you want to buy a really well made piece of clothing from, from a designer, right, you're looking at the stitching, you're looking not just the design, but you're, you're looking at the quality of the material. And that's what I hope I'm doing for everybody out there.
- [81:59]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
And I think there's some good news, if I'm not mistaken, for Canadians who always seem to get the short end of the stick, unfortunately, Canadian.
- [82:07]
Leslie Kenney
The good news is that, you know, already five years ago we knew we wanted to be in Canada because we had so many fans there. And we looked at manufacturing and warehousing in Canada, but the problem was we needed to meet the stringent requirements of Health Canada and it took us three years to get that. And so now we have it for Primadine Original, our wheat room derived production, and that's in capsules. But we just got our Health Canada approval for the powder. So the powder pouch has three months of just powder and you can mix it in with yogurt or acai bowls or, you know, porridge or, you know, your chia seed pudding on top of your wheat germ. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's a really great way to. People are so tired of pills, right? And it's a really easy way to take it. And you know, if you put it into fizzy water, it fizzes, you know, so it disperses more easily. Or you could put it in with like an effervescent tablet. If you're taking it, say with the first food of the morning, I always say bookend it. Take it with the last food of the evening to kickstart autophagy overnight, or take it with the first food of the morning to extend the benefits of overnight autophagy. And so, you know, there are lots of different ways that you can, that you can take it. I've mixed it with everything from matcha to, you know, to. I like it with my acai bowl.
- [83:43]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Match is a good idea. I didn't think of that. Okay, sorry, go on. Like, I'm going to use it with my Matcha. Okay, go on.
- [83:48]
Leslie Kenney
Yeah, yeah. So the thing about matcha is it's, you know, it's in a shallow bowl so it cools down relatively quickly and you're whisking it. Right. So because of the fact that this is a very sensitive, is heat sensitive, we have to make sure that you're not putting it into a liquid that is over 41 degrees Celsius. Can't remember what that is in Fahrenheit. I want to say 105 roundabout there.
- [84:14]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Okay. So nothing over 105 Fahrenheit or 41 Celsius.
- [84:20]
Leslie Kenney
Yes, exactly, exactly.
- [84:22]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So don't put in your coffee in the morning. Morning.
- [84:23]
Leslie Kenney
No, but you can put it in your smoothie. Right. And it tasted, actually tastes great. And we are just waiting for Health Canada to approve our gluten free application which I think has been in there for about a year and a half.
- [84:37]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So it's one of the toughest places in the world to get a product approved. I can't tell you how many even just American brands that want to come into Canada and just don't because of, I mean, you know, this firsthand of what you have, like the hoops that they make you jump through. So as we're kind of winding this down here, if you, what do you see like, what do you see next in terms of like the next five years of research for, for spermidine?
- [85:03]
Leslie Kenney
Well, there is some super exciting research out of, out of Japan from a Nobel laureate named Tesuko Honjo. He won the Nobel Prize in physiology or Medicine in 2018 for his work on immunotherapy and checkpoint inhibitors for cancer. And he actually has co authored several papers in the last few years on spermidine for potentiating immune surveillance. Basically the papers are wild. They have great names like an old molecule with a new anti aging immune function. That's a great title. I couldn't write better myself. And he really, he's done a lot of preclinical work showing that this together, spermidine together with say immunotherapy is really potent for cancer in elderly mice. Now this is pre clinical so I want, you know, I hasten to add for any layperson who doesn't know, we can't say that this is going to work for humans because preclinical is, you know, it's animal research but it, it looks good. And I've never heard of an oncologist that said please stop eating plants. You're not allowed to eat plants while you're doing cancer therapy. I think that this is, this is just incredibly exciting. And then of course, the research at Oxford on how it reverses immune senescence. So the nine hallmarks of aging that I touched on, on, I didn't include senescent cells, but certainly with immune cells. Spermidine has been shown to reverse zombie immune cells and it could potentially do that in other systems of the body as well. So I am excited for that. And this whole idea around staying younger or let's say, let's say staying younger for longer, it's not just necessarily about younger. It's just staying healthier for longer. I guess I want it. I want my wisdom from being around the planet 60 years. But yeah, I just want to stay. Stay youthful or healthy.
- [87:18]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Femme span.
- [87:19]
Leslie Kenney
That's fem span. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- [87:23]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
So people want to find out more about you. They want to find out more about primadine. Where can we. Where can we send them?
- [87:30]
Leslie Kenney
Oxford Health span. All one word. And of course, especially for all the buddies out there. If you go to oxfordhealthspan.com DoctorStephane you will get 20% off. So some savings are especially for Canadian buddies. No tariffs and. And a little discount there for you too.
- [87:51]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
Thank you. That is very, very generous. We will make sure to have all of those links in the show. Notes, notes. Leslie, it is such a delight. I love the way that you make science so easy to understand. I would never. I mean, when I was explaining mtor, you're like, well, think about it. The door to muscle. I'm like, why is that so simple? The best way. That is the best way to explain it. I mean, it takes a lot of intelligence to simplify things in an elegant way that everybody can understand. So I just want to acknowledge that in you. And thank you so much for sharing a very personal and, and vulnerable story with us. And I know that you're going to inspire lots of Betty's who are listening who are also on a similar journey to continue on with that as well as giving us a tool, it seems like the Swiss army knife, really, for aging in spermidine and how we can increase our femme span and stay better and younger for longer. So thank you so much for joining today.
- [88:49]
Leslie Kenney
Thank you so much for inviting me.
- [88:52]
Dr. Stephanie Estima
All right, friends, welcome to the after party where I tell you what I really thought of this episode. And I always. I mean, this is Leslie's second time coming on the show. We talked about spermidine on the first show and I really appreciate. I mean, I said it to her right at the end, but I really appreciate how she breaks very complex science into very easy to understand terms so everybody can be included in the conversation. Like, I really don't like this idea that you have to have some sort of medical degree to be able to participate in your own healthcare like that. So I really want to give her kudos to that. I think that the concept of autophagy, like Maria conduy Marie conduing yourselves is fantastic. And the way that she explained mtor is just, you know, the. The door to muscle. Like, bravo, Leslie. Really well done. I think that, I mean, overall her story is just one of essentially like grit and hope, which I hope it is my hope in hearing that that that also gives you some fortitude and maybe some cellular grit and some hope as well in your own life. And whatever you're trying to. To achieve it might not necessarily be a baby, but it could be just a really big goal that you're working towards. I loved a couple things that I really like. I loved the idea of a fem span. I think that there's a lot of people that use the word span. Like we've heard, health span, lifespan, sex span, this span. That's. I love fem span. I. It just sits really well with me and this idea that we are just. We're not trying to stay. We're not trying to be able to have babies when we're 70. Like, that's not the deal. The deal is that we're just trying to extend our. Our youthfulness of ourselves for as long as possible, which is kind of, you know, a really big principle that I have in terms of beauty is not just like how much surgical interventions or injections or whatever you've had. I mean, all those are good if you choose to have them, but it's more of a comment on your physiological status. So really enjoyed, really enjoyed that. And I loved the. The other thing that just piques my nerves, my nerdy self, is the research that they're looking at right now. So again, she clarified clinical trials, we can make absolutely no conclusions right now. But looking at how spermidine not only affects all of these, the nine of the 12 hallmarks of aging that we talked about, but some of these other ideas like cancer and, and mitigating and potentially helping our immune system respond to and seek out and destroy cancer cells, I thought that that was really phenomenal as well. Well, overall, I think that this is probably a compound that we all should consider taking, especially since it seems like the Swiss army knife, it kind of does a little bit of everything and it's really hard to overdo it. That's another thing. When we. Whenever we look at sort of pharmacological interventions, you really have to get the dosing and the titration right. Like, she was talking about this with rapamycin as well. But if we. If we stick to our plants, we stick to sort of, you know, the natural world, let's say. It's really hard to go wrong. So with that, I want to know what you thought of this episode. And Canadians. My Canadian Betty's, my maple syrup Betties. What are we thinking about having her, I mean, five years ago, what vision, right? To set up distribution and to be able to sell, you know, something in Canada to Canadians. I really love that because like I said to her on the show, it's so common for Canadian women to say, I listened to the show. I really want to try this product. But it either doesn't ship to Canada at all or the shipping is like $4 million, right? Which is like US$7. But when you convert it, it ends up being like a house. So really, really happy to be able to offer that to Canadians. I love to gift. I love to gift my homeland with stuff whenever I can. Okay, so want to hear what you thought of the episode. Until next time, I bid you adieu, and we'll see you next time. All right. All right. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and I must give you the obligatory legal and medical disclaimer here. This podcast, Better with Dr. Stephanie, is for general information only and the advice recommendations we discuss. Do not replace medicine, chiropractic, or any other primary healthcare provider's advice, treatment, or care in the consumption of this podcast. There is no doctor patient relationship that has been formed and. And the use and implementation of the information discussed are at the sole discretion of the listener. The information and opinions shared on this podcast are not intended to be a substitute for primary care diagnosis or treatment. In other words, guys, be smart about this. Take it with a grain of salt. Take this information to your primary healthcare provider and have a discussion with him or her to make the best choice. Choice, that is for you. Remember, I am a doctor, but I am not your doctor, and these conversations are meant for educational purposes only.