← Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Biohacking Beauty: The Anti-Aging Skincare Podcast
Karen Martel: The Truth About HRT, Beauty, and Aging —What Doctors Don’t Tell You
01:09:34
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- [00:00]
Emitai
Foreign Biohacking Beauty, the show where we simplify the science of looking and feeling young. Brought to you by Young Goose, the biohacking skincare company helping you optimize how you age from the inside out. Today's episode is a wake up call from for anyone trying to fight aging from the outside. Only because the truth is we're biologically wired to care about beauty. Youthful features like glowing skin, thick hair and balanced fat distribution aren't just cultural preferences. They're hormonal signals of vitality and health. And when those hormones start to decline in your 30s, 40s, and obviously beyond those visual cues decline as well. Visual vibrance and youthful states. Our guest today, Karen Martell, is here to flip the script on aging. She's a certified hormone specialist, CEO of Hormone Solutions, and host of the hormone solution podcast, Karen's breaking down why hrt, which stands for hormone replacement therapy, may be the most underused beauty tool available to women. And how both internal and topical hormones can help you look and feel yourself again. In this episode, you will learn why the medical system is failing women when it comes to hormone optimization. How estrogen and testosterone impact your skin's elasticity, hydration and even tone. And why prioritizing your hormones might be the smartest anti aging move you'll ever make. This podcast, as I said, brought to you by Yungoos. If you are interested in Young Goose products, head over to younggoose.com use promo code podcast10 to get 10% off your order. And now let's get into it. Hello, Karen. Welcome to the Biohacking Beauty podcast.
- [02:37]
Karen Martell
Hello, Emit. I.
- [02:40]
Emitai
Obviously a lot is happening and it is fantastic to have you here. And where I want to start this, you know, I'm actually listening. We're watching Anastasia and I were watching Parks and Recreation.
- [02:54]
Karen Martell
Yeah. Okay.
- [02:55]
Emitai
That's our guilty, guilty pleasure. And my favorite, my favorite character is this news anchor. It's called Bert, Bert Hapley. And he said, and he says what we're going to be talking about now is the thing that we're going to be talking about. And that is. And then it starts that. I kind of did that outside. But what I want to start with actually is something. It's a kind of a. It's a legit pet peeve of mine.
- [03:23]
Karen Martell
Okay.
- [03:24]
Emitai
And that is why we are wired for beauty. So I want to start by maybe like talking about evolutionary biology a little bit like.
- [03:34]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. Because what I think a lot of women don't understand is that, that we are hardwired men. Are hardwired. Women are hardwired to hold onto beauty, and men hold on to being attracted to beauty. Doesn't matter what age they are. And yes, so much of it is, of course, from our environment, what we see on tv, social media. Like, we're constantly being told as women, hold on to youth, hold on to youth. Look as young as possible, do whatever you have to do. Cut your face open, cut your body open, do not age, whatever you do, because then you're not revered anymore. And it can be very, like, discouraging and hard on us. And it's like, man, this is tough. But when you start to look at what we're actually hardwired for, which I always do, I always look to, you know, why do we do the things that we do? And we always have to go back to with everything that we are hardwired to procreate and to survive. That's it. And your body doesn't know that you're in 2025 and that you've got all these things and that you're cold, plunging and fasting and taking all the products to help you live longer. It doesn't know that we're hardwired for survival and to procreate.
- [04:53]
Emitai
Yes. And I think we are talking about. We're blending two things and our society, the conversation is blending two things that for the sake of this kind of deep dive kind of discussion, I think we should separate them and make sure we kind of respect both of them separately, which first is the social hierarchy, which is very important for survival. And that is why we're. Anyone that says, hey, women in the age of the Renaissance were depicted in a certain way and that was, you know, the standard of beauty and things like that. It is 100% correct. There is a social input that we process within, you know, within the output that we get that in the end is called beauty. Right. Or the attraction or skew for again, like social hierarchical type cue that we're looking for, as in a mate. Yeah, the other. And that is, you know, we say in Hebrew, it is the respect for it is positioned in its place, you know, like, you don't touch it. I don't know if I translated it. But anyway, the second thing, and I think something that it's less comfortable to talk about, but I think it's very important to understand the grand scheme of things is the hormonal cues that are. That are behind beauty as far as maybe like glowing skin, full hair, body composition or ratios. Like, all of those things within the context of Skin, by the way, there's many aspects, but that aspect of youthful functioning looking skin, these are cues that were communicating to the environment. Hey, we are of reproductive age.
- [06:52]
Karen Martell
Exactly, exactly. And when I started to dive into the research of it and I, and I asked, you know, I asked research like through the perplexity and what have you, I was googling it and trying to figure out is there a connection between pheromones and our hormones. And of course there is. There's not a ton yet. But you know, with some preliminary studies they have shown that pheromones, which for those of you that don't know this is our natural smell that we give off to attract a mate. And when a woman is ovulating, she's going to let out a smell that can't be actually smelt, but you will let out a smell that will attract a mate and then it tells your male counterparts and that you are fertile and you are ready to go. And it's, we are driven to have sex by these pheromones. And you can think of it as, you know, if you've ever met somebody where maybe you don't think they're like super good looking or they don't check all the boxes, but there's just something about them where you're super drawn by into like, oh wow, I don't know what it is about that guy or that woman, but they've got something that's pheromones. And so I wanted to know like, do we lose this as well when we age? And sure enough, we do. And there is some research showing that estradiol and testosterone can drive pheromones production.
- [08:24]
Emitai
To the extent that we are the detractors of birth control pills.
- [08:30]
Karen Martell
I was gonna say that.
- [08:31]
Emitai
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
- [08:33]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. So they have studied women on birth control pills will not let out the same pheromones nor will they be attracted to the same mate that they would have been attracted to per like not in all circumstances, but they wouldn't be attracted to that same person if they weren't on birth control. And so some women come off birth control and then realize, oh my gosh, I'm not attracted to my partner, which is terrible. But. And I said, and I don't think it happens to every single person on birth control. But if you read your mind on birth control, is it called do you.
- [09:12]
Emitai
Know, I can recommend a book called.
- [09:14]
Karen Martell
Brain on Birth Control.
- [09:15]
Emitai
Your Brain on Birth Control. And I can also recommend a book called Anastasia recommends it a lot. So pardon my it's called Moody Bitches.
- [09:24]
Karen Martell
Okay.
- [09:24]
Emitai
It's a really good book and is by a female. Incredible female. I think she's a D. O, but she's like, incredible. And she talks a lot about it as well.
- [09:36]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. It messes with the pheromones and what you're being attracted to because it's shutting down ovulation and it's shutting down your own hormone production. And so our hormones are driving a lot of this. And so as we age, we're not only changing in body composition and our visual, how we look, the outward appearance, but things are changing on the inside that also make you feel less attractive because you're not having those surges of hormones. I mean, right before we ovulate, our estradiol levels triple.
- [10:11]
Emitai
Triple.
- [10:12]
Karen Martell
We have an estrogen spike and a testosterone spike right before we ovulate. What does this do? It makes us want to have sex. All that estrogen lubricates the vaginal tissue so that you can have sex. And then the testosterone is what drives you to go out and get it. It gives you that oomph, like, okay, I'm going to go out and get some. Right. It's all biology. And then men, on the other hand, you guys, you're really raring to go at all times, and you should be anyways, like, with your testosterone, you guys don't cycle because your job in evolution is to spread your seed far and wide. And you are wired to go after those pheromones as well as you are wired to look for. For hips, breasts. You look for symmetry in the face. You know, you look for plump, plump skin, plump lips, plump body. You are wired to be attracted to that because that says fertility and it says health. Health. That person could carry a child for you.
- [11:18]
Emitai
Yeah. And I feel like within the longevity biohacking sphere, we're always going, like, you know, to two extremes. That the. The really clinical extreme, where we're saying, hey, now we can use an app to analyze your appearances and predict disease because of that.
- [11:39]
Karen Martell
Wow.
- [11:40]
Emitai
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Because, again, like, the way that we look, especially statistically, the way we look over time can predict disease, obviously, stress responses, et cetera. And of course, we then, you know, swing to the other extreme, which is like, what we're talking about here is like, oh, what, what happened when we lived in caves. Right. Or, by the way, even looking at earlier species, like, we know that anything from crustaceans to mammals, where there is a hierarchical type response, like a feedback loop where someone gets, you know, higher on the totem pole and vice versa. The testosterone changes in men because when you're higher on the totem pole evolutionarily, that means that you should be spreading your seed more again from an evolutionary kind of cue. That means you are more successful, whatever. So, yeah, I think it's like a really cool way to paint the picture here and reaffirm that beauty is a health signal, not only a superficial type.
- [12:51]
Karen Martell
Yes.
- [12:51]
Emitai
You know, depiction.
- [12:53]
Karen Martell
Yeah. And it can just almost it for. If you can think about it in the right way, it does relieve some of the pressure, I think, from us or some of the judgment we might have actually on men. Right. Because we have it. A lot of women will think, well, men are just attracted to younger women and. Or whatever, you know, like just, we can cut you guys down, honestly, because you're going for the younger women.
- [13:19]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [13:20]
Karen Martell
And so when you kind of hear like, wow, biology makes it drives a lot of men to be looking at that. But what it also tells us is if we can stay on top of these things as we're aging, that that's another piece to this puzzle where you can hold on to that visceral attraction that we can hold, that we can carry on well into, I think, for the rest of our life, really, with our partner, if we can, you know, still feel sexy in our bodies. Doesn't matter what age we are, that we still have a sex drive even though we're 60 or 70 or 80 years old. And then we have to circle then back to hormones and hormone replacement therapy. And of course, all the other things always have to stay, stay in this picture. You know, these aren't. That's not always the quick fix. You can't just slap on hormones and have a poor diet and, you know, not work out. And I always find, I always reassure people that I'm. I don't think that HRT is the answer to everything, but I do think it's a massive piece to this puzzle that women really have to like, look into and educate themselves about. Because we see that if we start replacing our hormones at a younger age, not when we're full blown in menopause and we're already 20 pounds overweight Los our hair, our skin's already loose and wrinkly. And if we can catch it beforehand, as the hormones are depleting, we can really hold on to youth a lot longer. And then not only that, we might still, of course we're still going to age. We're always going to still age. But you'll feel good. You feel sexier you know, you're. I, I had a woman actually even write me once, like a week into using estrogen. She said, well, oh my gosh, my vagina has come back to life. It's like, there you go. Like, you don't want to have sex if your poor vagina is dried up and hurts and you can't. Right. And you certainly don't feel sexy.
- [15:17]
Emitai
Yeah, I agree. And I think there are a lot of correlations between vaginal health and skin health. I think when people, when I lose people there, I tell them, you know, hey, red light therapy was used for, you know, a decade on the membrane that comprises the inner inside of your mouth and the vagina before anyone used it in skin health. So there, there is that.
- [15:43]
Karen Martell
Yeah. I always say we got to put the anti aging cream on these lips and those lips. Exactly right. We got to take care of both 100%.
- [15:53]
Emitai
But, but I think it's, it's undeniable. Or we, obviously it's undeniable, but we should bear in mind that really, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and testosterone, which are the three kind of mega players in this hormonal dance, really influence anything from skin thickness to hydration, elasticity, and even pigmentation. When, you know, I did a episode once, like for, I think it was for Father's Day, like last year or whatever, and I was like, there is so much discussion around, you know, skincare for men. There are companies that built their, their entire ethos on skincare for men. And like, really there's no, the only difference is more testosterone makes your skin thicker. That's kind of the only difference. But these are the kind of major players in, in, in skin health.
- [16:43]
Karen Martell
But when women, women should be using testosterone too, for that reason, it does keep your skin thicker. And, and also testosterone is so important for muscle. And we start getting sarcopenia and everybody thinks of sarcopenia happening from the neck down. But you guys, we've got muscle in our face. And so women that replace their testosterone actually can hold the structure of their face for longer. Like their muscles in the face stay strong.
- [17:12]
Emitai
Yeah. And not only muscle, but really the balance of those three is also ideal. The balance, I think, is important here, but the balance of all three is important for fat distribution.
- [17:24]
Karen Martell
Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Yes. And I was going to say too is there's adult, I'm sure you get this a lot is adult acne. And for women that hit menopause and they're like, like, I feel like I'm a 14 year old teenager. My emotions are going up and down. I've got pizza face suddenly like, why am I getting acne at 50 years old? And this because we become testosterone dominant. And as the estrogen goes down, all estradiol in the ovaries comes from testosterone. It's converted from testosterone to estradiol. As our estradiol starts to go down, testosterone will actually go up. It's going to get the signal, hey, we need more estrogen, so produce more testosterone. But the enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen start, starts to become faulty. And so now we start getting too much testosterone in comparison to the estradiol. And then whammo, you can start breaking out in acne at 50, which, who wants that? Like no, thank you. But yes, the three together. I think that that's such an important thing for everybody to hear because in this industry I really see a lot of different camps. Like you're going to get the pellets. People that are like every, every woman needs to be loaded with testosterone and they'll give them things to lower their estrogen and, and maybe they'll get some progesterone. But they're doing this like super high, high dose of testosterone.
- [18:50]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [18:51]
Karen Martell
Which is not meant for women. And we start to, we feel good on it. Sex drive goes way up. We feel like we've got a lot of energy. It's a steroid. It's like woo hoo. But then they start losing their head hair, they start getting acne, they start growing whiskers. And so that's not good. Right. And then you'll have the camps where maybe they're doing super high doses of estrogen and that's not good either. And then we have the camp of everybody, every woman needs to be on super, super high doses of progesterone. And it's progesterone that's the most important. That's not true either. And we have to be very careful. These hormones work very synergistically together and they will impact each other and it will impact them negatively if you're out of balance on them.
- [19:33]
Emitai
And I think there's also the camp still that, the camp that is stuck from like 30 or 20 years ago, which is the fear based camp around HRT. Like in general think there is a huge, huge sect that is still, that still has like an outdated approach to hrt.
- [19:52]
Karen Martell
Well, most women are still being told by their primary physician that they will not give them HRT because it will cause cancer. And we hear this every day in our, in our practice from Women. And, and some of the stories are horrifying. Like these women are being it. It's such gaslighting. Like I can't even like people, women being told like get out of my office, I will not prescribe you hrt. If you want hrt, go see somebody else. Like that's how harsh I've heard like.
- [20:24]
Emitai
So let's, so let's start with like kind of dispelling that notion that HRT promotes cancer or anything like that. Maybe we'll go over that seminal study that started, started it all and why it's not, you know, it's negligible, the, the effects there.
- [20:42]
Karen Martell
Yes. And I always start with saying if hormones caused cancer. Well, number one, who, whatever you believe in, if you believe there's God or a maker up there, why would that being give us hormones that would give, that help us to produce life cause cancer? Why would those same chemicals cause cancer? That makes no sense. Okay. Also if estrogen caused cancer, which is always the one, it's always estrogen that if everybody fears if estrogen caused cancer, every 25 year old, 25 year old woman would be dead from cancer. And when do we see the highest rates of cancer in menopause, breast cancer included? Where do we see it? It's always in menopause and after.
- [21:32]
Emitai
Yeah, right.
- [21:32]
Karen Martell
So, so just like really, I want everybody just to get really clear and like really think about that. Now the, the myths come from the WHI study which was done, you know, in the late 1990s. And prior to that, estrogen was the number one prescribed medication in, in America. Yep. And so you can imagine, most women were on it. It was Premarin, which came from pregnant horses urine. They set out to do this study to prove that HRT helped reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. That was their whole intention. They started the study, had a couple different arms of the study. Of course, it was one of the largest studies of its kind. So there was a lot of people in it. One arm of the study, the women had their uterus, so they put them on Premarin with, with a synthetic oral progestin, which is what's what you'll find in many birth control pills. The other arm of the study, the women had had a hysterectomy. So they only put them on the prem rib. All right. So years into this study, they saw an increase in breast cancer. Not a lot. There was one, not even. It was 0.8 extra of cases out of every 1,000 increased risk of breast cancer. So what did they do? They sent out to the world, get women off hrt, it increases their risk of breast cancer. This is dangerous. All doctors stop prescribing it and boom. And that is literally what happened. It dropped down to something like 4% of women on were on H some form of HRT after that study came out. Now, years later, the same people that held that study study have now come out to say several times, actually, let's just clarify that it was the arm of the study where the women were taking the progestin and the arm of the study that the women had had a hysterectomy and were on Premarin, only had a reduction of breast cancer cases by 23%. Not only that, they had a reduction in all causes of mortality by over 30%. So all causes of death. And so the study showed everything across the board. The cancer went down, cardiovascular risk went down, diabetes went down, osteoporosis went down. And there was less reoccurrence of breast cancer if somebody did end up getting breast cancer. That if the wom woman had been on estrogen and it was very specific to estrogen, she had less risk of reoccurrence of getting that breast cancer. And so what does that tell us? It's estrogen helps reduce your risk of breast cancer, ladies. And that birth control pill that doctors hand out like Candy to your 16 year old daughter and say, oh, you can stay on this for 10 years, is the exact same chemical in some of them that showed an increased risk of breast cancer. And they do say that now they're starting to study it more where they're showing that birth control in general increases a woman's risk of breast cancer. But we don't see doctors freaking out and telling women, you know, get out of my office. If they ask for birth control, we hand it out.
- [24:46]
Emitai
And I think this is a good place to also talk about the difference between synthetic and bioidentical hormones and why it matters for, you know, overall health, like you've just mentioned, or you know, like we've alluded to as far as, like Premarin, but also for skin health specifically. And what we know as far as like, the benefits of bioidentical hormones and skin health.
- [25:10]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. And so when it comes to beauty and hormones, we do want to be on the bioidenticals because oral estrogen does increase your risk of heart attack and stroke. It can be very inflammatory because it converts primarily to estrone, which is an inflammatory estrogen that is more linked to being proliferative and if you've got cancer cells, it can make that grow. And that's the connection with breast, breast cancer. And so taking it transdermally, it doesn't do, it doesn't convert as highly to that estrone. And so transdermal bioidentical is exactly, it's body identical, it's exactly, exactly the same makeup as what you produce in your own body. And it comes from plant, originally from plants, it's chemically synthesized in a lab, but it comes originally from a chemical coming from the yam and the soy plant and which is I think such a cool thing that we really, we need to remember Mother Earth has given us this. And I keep, I always remind women of that is it comes from Mother Earth and that makes it just feel that much better that so many, so many of the medications nowadays have come from something in nature.
- [26:21]
Emitai
Yeah. And I think and, and, and let's make a distinction, like a positive distinction between what you just said, which are transdermal creams for kind of whole body HRT and topical estrogen, estriol, estradiol creams that are specifically, you know, whether it is like face, neck or, or vaginal skin.
- [26:46]
Karen Martell
Yeah, we, we really like the idea of oh, let's put some estrogen on our face. That's great. I carry one. And it does do, it's miraculous on the face for sure. Love it. Research is great behind what it shows behind it. And I know you've talked about this on your show before, but we really need to get the systemic levels up at the same time. We can't just apply to the face. It actually doesn't typically go systemic. When you put the amount that you're putting on your face isn't going to raise your systemic levels high enough for you to get the benefits from them. Things like, you know, vaginal dryness, like, yeah, you can put it topical there too. But guess what? It hasn't have a great increase in systemic levels. And so taking it systemically, you're going to have better blood sugar control estradiols needed to control body weight. I always say that, you know, too much estrogen, sure it's going to make you gain weight. And a lot of women think that they've got estrogen dominance and they might and that that's what makes them fat is this estrogen. But the lack of estrogen actually causes you to gain more weight than too much. And we, when we start losing this estrogen, we become insulin resistant almost across the board. Like if you don't for the longer You're. You go without estrogen, the higher the A1C goes. You don't have to change your diet, your workouts, Nothing. We see A1C and cholesterol going up in any woman that is not on estradiol. And estradiol, we need to get it to a certain level in our. In our. In our blood in order to get the protection from it. Things like bones, you know, talking about beauty, well, we all start to shrink, right? Our bones start to become brittle. We start to get osteopenia and osteoporosis. We start getting the hunchback. And that is a very classic, you know, it's called kyphosis, but it's a curvature of the spine. Hunchback old lady syndrome. You know, where you're. You see all these old, little old ladies with their canes. This is, you know, without these hormones, testosterone, progesterone, estrogen, your bones start to go. And that creates, you know, not a sight that we want to be seen for, you know, for ourselves. We don't want to have a hunchback. Not only that, our hair, like estradiol, is needed for hair growth. It actually, as we start losing estrogen, we start going into the. We stay in the shedding stage longer than the growth phase in hair. So that's why some women will start losing their hair.
- [29:22]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [29:23]
Karen Martell
Old lady voice. Yeah, we need estradiol. We have estradiol receptors in the folds of our vocal cords so we can. That old lady. Croaky voice. Yeah, Estrogen deficiency. So these are all things that affect how you feel about yourself.
- [29:39]
Emitai
I just want to say.
- [29:40]
Karen Martell
What?
- [29:41]
Emitai
No. About kyphosis.
- [29:42]
Karen Martell
Yep.
- [29:43]
Emitai
That my grandma used to blame us. She said, hey, you don't speak loud enough. I need to lean forward. I need to lean forward to hear what you're saying. And you're causing me the hunchback, so speak up.
- [29:55]
Karen Martell
Okay.
- [29:56]
Emitai
Yeah. And mentioning, you know, blood sugar, glyco. Basically, one of the things that happens if something. Someone becomes testosterone dominant is that testosterone's job is to pack glyco. Glycogen to improve glycogen packing mainly into muscles. But if you have too much of that, basically, if you. If the muscles are full, it's going to start to pack them in. Things like, you know, live the liver, for example, or internal organs. So you're going to. You're also risking, you know, fatty liver. And that's mainly what you see with, as far as, like, internal organ and how testosterone dominance affects them. Aside from things like, you know, you know, kind of face swelling, things like that. So there's, there is a lot there as far as like hormone balance.
- [30:47]
Karen Martell
Yes.
- [30:48]
Emitai
And of course, like just longevity in general. Just like keeping a youthful functioning body well, that's it.
- [30:55]
Karen Martell
Right. Like we need estrogen for muscle growth, not just testosterone, but to keep the muscle. We need estrogen. We need testosterone to keep our brain healthy and vibrant. And so we don't lose our words, we have estrogen. Our brain is rich with estrogen receptors. We have estrogen receptors in the hunger centers of our brain. So we can get dysregulated eating patterns as we start to lose estrogen. And that's one of the reasons we start gaining weight and we start to get that, that menno belly that every woman dreads. That seems, seems to happen to almost like, I would say a good 75% of women nowadays. You can tell when women have hit menopause because it's like they just get square in their midsection. I did when I went, I hit menopause early. I gained 15 pounds, was all right in my stomach. It was like, oh, what just happened? And this is, you know, this can be to people that are super healthy. I was super healthy. I am super healthy. I eat perf. I eat great. I don't drink, I don't, you know, I exercise. I do all the things. And it still happened. And so we gotta catch this as they start to deplete so we can hold on to the beauty not only on the outside, but also on the inside. And how we're feeling and how, you know, if, how vibrant we feel and how sexy we feel, we lose, like, this is kind of a funny one, but we, we can lose what looks like we lose a part of our vagina. It's called the labia minora. And it's the little skin folds in the vagina that if without the estrogen, they can get dry and actually look like they disappear. So I just did a podcast that was called the Disappearing Labia because it's like, oh my gosh, we're going to lose part of our vagina. What the heck? These are all things that women, we're not getting taught, that's not getting talked about that really affect a woman's self esteem and confidence. And, and like I said, it's not just about our outward looks. It's about how you feel and what you're exuding out to the world and you want to feel good and you want to age. Well, there was a study done on biological aging that showed women in menopause within six months. Aged, biologically, nine years.
- [33:12]
Emitai
Wow.
- [33:13]
Karen Martell
And estrogen will impact telomere length as well, which is a sign of aging. Our telomeres get shorter as we age.
- [33:21]
Emitai
And.
- [33:21]
Karen Martell
And you can look at telomere length to see, like, biologically how old you are. Well, estrogen helps keep them longer, you know, mitochondrial health. I mean, I could go on and on, but you, like. Point being is hormones are a really important part of the puzzle. And a lot of women will say, well, it's not natural for us to replace our. Like, it's natural for us to go into menopause. Yeah. But it's also. It was natural for us to die at menopause. Yeah. Up until a hundred years ago. Right. We didn't live this long before your.
- [33:52]
Emitai
Body goes into hibernation. That is what menopause really is. It is the. Our body saying, hey, my job now in the tribe is preserving my knowledge. Extremely important. I mean, I don't want to get too much into it because it's going to become a completely different podcast here, but one of the things that have propagated the human species across time and geographically is the ability to hold on to knowledge and pass it from one generation to another. And one of the areas that have been added to a species life that don't exist really in nature is that hibernation stage, which is the later stage of our life where we become like wise elders. And especially, especially in both sexes, but especially in females, it is then taking care of the offsprings and kind of passing on the knowledge of being a effective caretaker and obviously dealing with different issues, diseases, et cetera, that are. That affect young ones. And obviously then you can affect anything from, you know, successful births to obviously, like, infants not dying, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that's something extremely important therapy that evolutionarily, we really need it. So there is a. There is an evolutionary.
- [35:13]
Karen Martell
We still need it.
- [35:14]
Emitai
Yeah, 100%.
- [35:16]
Karen Martell
Yeah.
- [35:16]
Emitai
By the way. 100%. But we don't need to feel. We don't need to. We don't need to hibernate to do that. Right. Like, there is.
- [35:23]
Karen Martell
No. We don't.
- [35:24]
Emitai
I would argue your brain actually works better if you are. If you're sexually viable.
- [35:31]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's. I think that that's an important thing to hear too, because we're talking so much about beauty and looks. It's women. We also have to embrace our age and not fight it as much as we do. I think that, yes, let's take advantage of all the things that we have on, you know, in our toolkits, like hrt, like Young Goose Skincare, you know, like, I'm drowning myself in that every day and I'm doing all these things to help, you know, stay youthful looking as long as possible. But at the same time, I always remind myself that this is another chapter in life that we, we need to revere, we need to be super excited that we're going into this stage in life and we are going to be, we can become the wise women, we can become the, you know, the person that our, our grandkids can look up to and our kids can look up to and listen to. And I, there's so much to be said about this time. You know, I definitely feel more myself than I ever have. And I think that this is a time in women's life where we really do start to look inward and start to go, okay, what do I want? Like, my kids are growing up, they're not, they don't need me as much anymore. And I've, you know, I've picked my partner, I've got the job down, so what, what do I want? Yeah, you know, and it can be this great time to actually like, pay attention to yourself. And we need, we can't keep fighting that. And I think that there, there has to be that level of acceptance and go, yeah, I think I'm going to embrace getting older and really live it up in a completely different way than I have till this point.
- [37:07]
Emitai
I can't agree more. Hey there.
- [37:13]
C
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- [39:16]
Emitai
I want to get a little bit like, technical as far as, like, so how does it work? Let's say someone came to you within the context of perimenopause or menopause. So first of all, you run a blood panel and kind of see where their hormones are at. And let's say how do you target multiple factors such as, you know, progesterone, estrogen and, and testosterone? Is it one compounded solution that then is then applied topically? Do they need to use multiple products within. I definitely would love, I'm keeping for, for my second question, like, how do we combine it with topical estrogen based skincare? But how do we target those many layers?
- [39:57]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and we do. We do it a very specific, specific way in our clinic because I really do try to stay as close as I can to mother Nature because mother nature does nothing by accident. And naturally we only produce progesterone in the second half of our cycle after, after we ovulate and you know, testosterone, it's pretty, it doesn't swing too much. It stays the very, you know, same doses. It does go up before ovulation, what have you, but it's a pretty steady dose. But there's ways that your body takes it in better than others. And same with progesterone and same with estrogen. We want estradiol. We don't want this combination estriol and estradiol systemically, which is very common, in case you didn't know. It's very common for women to be prescribed mostly estriol with a little bit of estradiol because of that fear around estrogen. Estriol is a very weak hormone. It's what we produce when we're pregnant. That's when we produce the most of it in, in any other time besides pregnancy. We get a little conversion of estrone and estradiol down to estriol for what your body needs. And so we we do follow that and we know that estradiol is the most important of all the hormones for women. It's being refused to them until they're in menopause. So we're change, we change that too. If somebody comes to us in perimenopause, that shows signs that they're starting to lose their estradiol, you know, that's from the blood work and from symptoms. We put the two together, and if an FSH is elevated and the estradiol is a little bit lower than it should, that kind of thing. Or for that woman, maybe her labs look good, but she has all the symptoms, then it's like, okay, well, we'll give you a baby dose of estradiol because we don't want her to keep suffering. And then progesterone, same thing. We, we, we want to cycle it. Estradiol's given daily. We do triple it. For some women that want to kind of try to mimic it even more, we will triple it on day 12. Because when we triple estrogen, you do get an upregulation of a tumor suppressing enzyme. Great, right? Like I said, mother nature does not do things by accident. So we do try to cover those things. And then testosterone, some women lose it, some don't.
- [42:10]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [42:10]
Karen Martell
And some women are high converters to something called dht, which does cause the acne and the hair loss. So we are very careful with testosterone. We come in at a very small dose. And even with estradiol, we also come in at a small dose because too much can you start to get symptoms, of course, of too much estrogen. That's not true.
- [42:29]
Emitai
I'll give you a tip, a woo woo holistic tip for high converters, men and women both is high dose mega dose cordyceps mushrooms, megadose cordyceps, lower conversion to dht. So there you go. But if you're a low converter, you might want to kind of scale back your.
- [42:50]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. Because we do want some dht. Yeah, for sure. Men definitely want it. But although it can make you lose.
- [42:58]
Emitai
Your hair, so it's, it's called, it's called the Chad hormone. It's. You become a bro. Like, you know, you get a square jaw.
- [43:08]
Karen Martell
Okay. Very masculine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. Okay. So we do try to get levels up to what we call physiologic dosing, which is where we see the benefits kicking in. So when you look at the research and really go through it all, you see that estrogen needs, estradiol needs to be at a certain level in the body in order to get these benefits. The beauty benefits, the brain benefits, the heart benefits, the vaginal benefits, we need it to be at a certain level. And that level actually can usually cause women to have a period. So you could be 60 on HRT, no longer ovulating, and actually continue to have a cycle. And for some women, they're like, no way, I do not want a period. And if that's the case, then we'll tell them, okay, well, then you'll probably have to use progesterone daily if you order to get your estrogen that high. But not to bleed. But if you're cycling progesterone, which is what we see working best, and you get your estradiol level high enough.
- [44:14]
Emitai
What do you mean by working best as far as like these end kind of downstream results?
- [44:19]
Karen Martell
Yep. Because they all work synergistically together. If you start using progesterone every day, especially in high doses, you will start to suppress your estrogen. We need estradiol to make progesterone receptors to upregulate them. And then progesterone upregulates estradiol receptors. And so if you start squashing estradiol now, your progesterone doesn't work as well, and then your estrogen starts to lower and you don't get the benefits. And so we see this happening a lot in mainstream kind of HRT clinics where they're giving these super high doses of progesterone, barely any estrogen or bias, and the women are not getting the benefits. They on labs, they're showing like less than 10 on their estradiol. And we know that like volumization of the brain, it takes up to 2mg of estradiol, HRT daily to volumize the brain. So yes, we all want our brain to be volumized. You know, that's a great thing.
- [45:18]
Emitai
Well, I'll tell you another joke from my family. That's not my grandma. Now this is her son, my uncle, who lost his hair very early. And he said it's because his brain was too big, it was pushing the hair out. Oh, I mean, that might be an issue.
- [45:33]
Karen Martell
Maybe he was on a lot of estrogen.
- [45:35]
Emitai
Shout out to Dr. Ted Weitz, one of the smartest people in the world. So here's the million dollar question. In kind of what you are known for really is the combination of. Or. Yeah, the combination of both topical. And I, and I, I, I just want to make sure some people's eyes zone in and out all the time when I hear podcasts. So although we're talking about so so by the way, like let's. Before we do that. So our, our. Let's assume we talk. Someone was supplementing on one or even all three of the. Of the HRT hormones. So related are all of them now kind of used as a transdermal application for the most part.
- [46:23]
Karen Martell
Testosterone. We prefer to do injectable. Many women like oral progesterone, but it is better in my eyes to do topical progesterone. More natural to the body. Not as many metabolites which can cause problems. But there's still, I would say majority of women actually on HRT are on oral progesterone.
- [46:44]
Emitai
Got it.
- [46:44]
Karen Martell
Topical estrogen. Some are being given oral estrogen. So no, like in our practice, we like injectable testosterone because it converts less to DHT than topical cream. And we've actually had women that use topical testosterone and actually will grow hair where they put it, which look at your face. Like, that's nice. Yeah, yeah, I saw my friend, like she had to think a patch of hair. So we'll actually tell women if they're going to use testosterone cream to put it actually on their labia. There's already hair there in some cases. So. But, so that's why we like injector.
- [47:22]
Emitai
Or be like really funny or you know, put it like in a very specific shape and then at least you have like your logo somewhere or something. Got it.
- [47:32]
Karen Martell
Yes. You could do that too.
- [47:34]
Emitai
Yes. So to refine my question, cool. What is. What are you guys, you know, preferred way. So the preferred ways are injectable testosterone and then both estrogen or estradiol and, and progesterone. Topical. Topical transdermal.
- [47:56]
Karen Martell
Transdermal. We love progesterone suppositories, love the oils. Progesterone oil, estrogen oil, DHEA and estrogen. Vaginal moisturizer. It works like really, really well. Amazing. So yeah, we have, we have our specific things that we lean more towards for sure. We never do oral estrogen. Even if it's bioidentical, it's still going to raise your risk of heart attack and stroke. And then besides that, there's a few other variations. We'll get some women that need injectable estrogen because their skin's thicker and it doesn't absorb the transdermal very well. Some women just like doing suppository, you know, so we, we try to work with, with what, whatever's working best for that person and we will fine tune it and see everybody as an individual. I think that that's really important with hrt and I think more practitioners need to be open minded to that. And then when it comes to combining it with topical. Yes, because you're gonna get all, you know, all those hormones that I just talked about, plus growth hormone melatonin, like dhea, all of these hormones will help you build collagen, help you with elastin. So not only from the inside, because we need collagen all over the place, but also when you put it on topically, it will produce more. I think it was type three collagen in the face.
- [49:23]
Emitai
Type one and three. Correct.
- [49:24]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it also topically, you're going to get pore shrinkage, which was why I first, first started using it was my pores. I started getting that testosterone dominant thing happening. My skin got greasy. I was getting large pores. And as I was going into menopause and so I started using estrogen on my face and it shrunk all my pores back to normal. And I had never had that problem. I had always had good skin. So I was mortified. I'm like, what is this?
- [49:53]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [49:53]
Karen Martell
You know, and, and it really did work. And in this research, it showed within six, six months there was 63 to 100% pore shrinkage in the women that were using it and a decrease in the wrinkle depth. So increase in collagen, decrease in wrinkle depth and a decrease in pore size, which, that's, that's pretty powerful stuff. And then you get like things like the DHEA and testosterone topically actually helps to thicken the skin, helps with the collagen, Melatonin because it's such a strong antioxidant. Awesome. For the face, it's great. You know, you don't want to put it on in the daytime because it actually will make you tired. I remember watching our friend Nat Knittham when we were at this Airbnb together and she got, we got this cream from a friend of ours that had just made it and it had a whole bunch of melatonin in it and she rubbed it on her face and she's just sitting in the corner, she's like, oh, my God, the melatonin cream. She's like falling asleep. So I was someone like, don't use it unless you're going to like, ready for bed.
- [50:53]
Emitai
So funny. So actually I'm going to tell you two cool things. So. Okay, I'm going to shout out the company. So I use. I Used to use oral dutasteride and minoxidil and stuff like that for hair loss. Yeah, Anesthesia made me and, you know, obviously monitor my, monitoring my hormone, making sure that I am, that I'm not a person that would, that it would lower their systemic free testosterone, et cetera. Having said that, I did not like the idea of playing with my hormones. And again, so DHT is actually something important that you, you suppress DHT holistically when, when you do that. So I didn't want to do that. So I started a, a, a topical version with a company called Roots. Roots by Genetic Arts. It's called Shout out to them. It's definitely not sponsored. I pay for good money. And they do a genetic swap, like a mouth swap. They do a genetic test which they try to correlate to things that you would respond to better. But mine actually has, aside from testeride, I think, and again, like minoxidil, it has a few other things and a couple of them are caffeine and melatonin. So looking into their formulation, I've learned that a lot of, you know, we specifically believe that there are for the skin, there are antioxidants that are better. Having said that, good chemists sometimes would actually combine the two in a topical formulation to kind of off balance that, that effect. And there are obviously benefits to both.
- [52:36]
Karen Martell
Ah, very cool. I've seen the caffeine in there before and like saw palmetto and hair serums and stuff, but I've never heard of melatonin being in there to help with hair growth. So that's interesting. Yeah. Melatonin is a very misunderstood hormone. Everyone just thinks it's for sleep and it's like, oh, my God, we got melatonin receptors on our ovaries and it does influence fertility. Yeah, it's crazy.
- [53:03]
Emitai
Well, you know, that is a very, you know, when I am on a panel or when I. Let's just say when I try to sound cool and interesting.
- [53:13]
Karen Martell
Yep. Which is all the time. Come on.
- [53:16]
Emitai
That's what I'm trying to. Yes, that is correct. Especially with people, with strangers, people who don't know how boring and nerdy I am. So what I try to do, if anyone asks me, hey, you know what is to debunk something or talk about something people don't know or anything like that. I talk about the fact that if you want to do something to affect your general health, you know, do you know, movement, sleep, blah, blah, but also like, interact with temperatures, cold plunges, saunas, things like that. The Reason is if you are trying to self science hormones, that's going to go wrong. Because hormones, the same hormone will do completely different things in completely different areas of, of your body.
- [54:02]
Karen Martell
Of the body.
- [54:03]
Emitai
Yeah. And melatonin, obviously, is it.
- [54:05]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. And we, we just put them all in a silo. It's like everyone thinks, oh, estrogen, progesterone, fertility, testosterone's a man's hormone. Melatonin's for sleep. You know, oxytocin's for, for love making it there. There's so many different purposes to these hormones. We have to stop saying that they're sex hormones, that they're fertility hormones. These are whole body hormones. Got receptors for estradiol on every organ in the body. So it helps every organ function better.
- [54:33]
Emitai
And you mentioned oxytocin. I remember A4M were obsessed. A4M American Academy for Anti Aging Medicine is really the place that someone like myself would go to know what your like, anti aging doctor is going to like. Hormone balancing doctor, whatever that is. We'll talk with you for the next like 24 months. 12 to 24 months. And they were obsessed with oxytocin for a while, but then, I mean, everyone got kind of a little bit off the bandwagon because oxytocin taken orally or even through an iv, by the way, so whatever you would want to do doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. To the point, by the way, that just as an example, the pitocin which you give pregnant women to induce.
- [55:22]
Karen Martell
Synthetic oxytocin.
- [55:24]
Emitai
Yeah, it's a synthetic oxytocin. Yeah. So, you know, I think we're, we're, we're kind of saying the same thing. I do want, look, we don't have a lot of time, so I do want to talk about kind of combining HRT and topical estradiol.
- [55:43]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. Timing wise too.
- [55:45]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [55:45]
Karen Martell
Like a lot of women.
- [55:48]
Emitai
Not only timing, I'm also curious as far as like percentage, because as far as I know, as far as I know, most studies were done with 2%, like topical 2% estradiol and even 2% estradiol are specifically looking at like crow's feet as far as what, what I've read. And I am curious as far as like, you know, do different creams, as far as like where you apply them have different percentages that work? Well, timing, does it fluctuate from person to person? Maybe one person is better with 1%, one and the other with 3%. How do you kind of combine the two?
- [56:27]
Karen Martell
Yeah, I think in the one, the one big study that was done, it was a 3%. I think you're. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think of what ours is. I think my estriol estradiol combo is a 5%. I want to say it's per, per dose is 1 milligram estradiol with 4 milligrams of estriol and it's that, that's quite concentrated. And so it is for the more mature skin. And I tell women, you know, you, you could use our biased if you're in perimenopause, but you have to use it cautiously. The research showed that there was no increase in systemic levels when used on the face. But now that I've had my creams for the last year and a half out on the market, I was first saying like, oh, you know, the research shows it's not going to raise systemic levels. But I didn't think about the fact that women would take this and freaking run with it and be like, I'm going to shower myself in her cream so I can have the anti aging benefits of it, which you don't have to do. But they were using like a whole dose, which I don't even understand how they were applying that to their face, that much cream. But we did see that if you were using more than what was recommended, then levels could go up systemically. And so you only need a little pea size, which would be the equivalent of about 0.25 milligrams of estradiol per day on the face. Now if you're in menopause for sure, you can do that a couple times a day, like in the morning and at night and without a problem because you need the estrogen. But you do want to watch your levels and you want to monitor and make sure that if you start getting signs of too much estrogen, well then topping up your systemic estrogen with face cream, that you have to maybe cut back on the systemic levels if you're going to want to use that much on your face, neck and chest. And so you do want to watch. I always say you should be doing labs, no matter. The thing is, most women need more estrogen anyways than what they're getting from their doctors. Right. Because doctors really hold back on estrogen. So if you're in your late perimenopause and menopause phase, yeah, you're gonna have, no, you likely are not gonna have a problem with it as far as, oh yeah, it might bump up your level a little tiny bit. But that's probably gonna be a good thing if you weren't getting up in those levels that I was talking about earlier. That's gonna give you all that protection, right?
- [58:57]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [58:57]
Karen Martell
So watching it, if you are in early perimenopause, then you're gonna wanna be a little bit more careful, use even less, and maybe combine it with a topical progesterone cream. Because that's the hormone that drops first in women is progesterone. And that will happen usually late 30s, early 40s. It takes a serious dive because we don't ovulate as often. And so using progesterone topically, Melatonin topically can, can help with the building of the collagen. And from the. So if you're using it systemically and topically, no problems. We don't see women overdoing that ever. And then if you're using the estrogen on your face, no matter what, you should be counterbalancing it with progesterone on.
- [59:39]
Emitai
The face as well. Is that a product that you.
- [59:41]
Karen Martell
No, no, not on the face, systemically.
- [59:42]
Emitai
Got it, Got it. Now, I do have a question about if someone were to use it once daily. Is there a difference as far as like, results if you use it during the day or at night?
- [59:54]
Karen Martell
I haven't seen it. I personally, because I use my young goose, to be honest, during the day I do. I use the serum. I have a copper serum too that I use. So I use the serum with your day cream. I switch in between the pro care and the other one that I've got. And then at nighttime I usually will do a serum and then I will put my bias cream before bed because it is a little bit heavier of a cream. And so I do like to put it on at nighttime and then it helps me sleep too. And so I'll put. Put face, neck and chest at bedtime.
- [60:31]
Emitai
So let me ask you a question. If someone is. Cause that's a lot of real estate to put it on. So 0.25ml, just to give someone a reference. That's with our bottles, that's like one. One pump, one full pump. So normally to cover like the face and neck and chest, we're almost looking at like a 0.75 that someone would feel comfortable with. It's super, super obviously personal, etc. But that's how people normally use it, like 0.5 to 0.75. So two to three pumps. So for that person not wanting to use, not to overuse the bias, for example, or any type of Estrel. Estradiol cream. It. Could they mix it into a, you know, let's say do 0.25 of this +2 pumps of, you know, shameless plug use daily or any other thing that they use.
- [61:37]
Karen Martell
Yes, yes. And I've. And I have done that many times too. Like I'll use the oxygen face mask that you guys have. Right. And that's. So then that's quite a bit of moisture on the face. And so I won't use as much. We have a precision pump bottle. And so I usually. To get the face, the neck, the chest, you're looking at almost. Yeah, two pumps, I would say of that, which would give you 0.5 milligrams of estradiol in there and. And 2 milligrams estriol. So it's quite. It is concentrated.
- [62:06]
Emitai
Sounds like it's.
- [62:07]
Karen Martell
But yeah, you can. And I even say like you can mix in a little like I have a melatonin progesterone oil and I say just put a few drops in your nighttime cream, whatever, whatever it is that you use and put that on your face. It's great, great to add it in. So, yeah, there's many ways that you can. I find it really combines well with those other creams like Yung Goose. I will give you as many plugs as you want, but don't worry me to say this, you guys.
- [62:36]
Emitai
I would say one thing that's for the completely, completely other end of the spectrum. If anyone is sharing their products or, you know, potentially suspect that they share their products with their teenager, slash, like early 20 person. The way that our body staves off puberty is by having a full, like, have a continuous melatonin production in the body. So when that melatonin production kind of shifts to. To a circadian production, that is when puberty kind of kicks in. So just as like a super small caveat, if anyone is, you know, specifically, you know, having a. Have a melatonin product and they are, you know, it's an antioxidant. It's all fun and good. I wouldn't necessarily allow people that are going through that are interacting with puberty or ramping up of hormones to interact with melatonin. And that's, by the way, one man's fears and opinion.
- [63:46]
Karen Martell
I agree, though. I agree. I had my. I have a. A guy that does some of my marketing stuff for me and he's got two teenage daughters and he was. I sent him some of the. Because he has trouble sleeping. I sent him my progesterone Melatonin oil. So it's combined into one oil. And he was like, oh, my gosh, it helped me sleep. And he's like, so I gave it to my daughters, I gave it to my wife. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Down. Like, I understand it's great, but I'm like, you don't want to be giving that to your 16 year old daughters. You don't want to be messing with their hormones. Right. And I give it to my husband and he. I always just tell him, just a couple drops, like, you're a man. You don't produce that much. You produce progesterone, but not that much. And so he just rubs it on his neck before bed and it helps him sleep better and it helps him, you know, take, you know, Ben Greenfield. He uses it. He's like, yeah, I use it before my nap and it helps me fall asleep. Okay, great. You know?
- [64:45]
Emitai
Yeah.
- [64:45]
Karen Martell
So, yeah, you got to be careful.
- [64:48]
Emitai
Shout out to Ben. Ben is notorious for putting our product scrotally, so we're going to. He says it's great. Anyway, let's go, let's go. Kind of. Because we're. We're trying to keep it over under an hour. It never happens. But let's talk about some rapid fire questions. Obviously, we covered a lot of it, but one hormone women should start testing in their 40s.
- [65:17]
Karen Martell
Progesterone.
- [65:18]
Emitai
Biggest myth about HRT and aging.
- [65:22]
Karen Martell
Well, the myth is that it causes cancer.
- [65:24]
Emitai
Yeah. Yeah. I think probably that's the biggest myth by far.
- [65:27]
Karen Martell
But it is a aging. Yeah, because with age we get more cancer. So. No, it's the opposite. HRT helps reduce your cancer risk.
- [65:36]
Emitai
Top skincare ingredient to pair with hrt.
- [65:41]
Karen Martell
Anything that's in Young goose.
- [65:42]
Emitai
Okay, done. I'll take it. Maybe melatonin. We mentioned melatonin so much. We'll shout out melatonin here. Okay. Morning or evening, Best time to apply topical hormones. Okay.
- [65:54]
Karen Martell
In either one you can do it. Yes. I prefer night.
- [65:59]
Emitai
How about transdermal?
- [66:00]
Karen Martell
Yeah, either one you can do, like if you're doing a face cream for estrogen, you can do it both morning and night if you wanted to. If you're in menopause with the estrogen. Yeah. And progesterone makes you tired, so you don't. You might not want to use that on your face in the morning.
- [66:13]
Emitai
Yeah, true. One surprising beauty. Beauty change. Clients report post hrt.
- [66:21]
Karen Martell
Beauty change. Yep. Skin changes for sure. I've had everything from my skin. People think I'm tan. Like the color is Better, the texture's better, things like this and probably. Yep. Because it does plump the skin. It has to do with hyaluronic acid, the production of it. Estrogen. Mental health, though, is probably. Yeah, that's a big one, too. But you said beauty. Didn't you have to do with beauty?
- [66:47]
Emitai
Well, yeah, you know, the question said that we can break that.
- [66:51]
Karen Martell
Women feel sexier. Like they really, on the inside, feel, Feel more attractive.
- [66:57]
Emitai
The most important it is. That's what we're all here for. Should every woman use hormones or are there exceptions?
- [67:05]
Karen Martell
There's exceptions, yep. If you have a history of estrogen positive breast cancer, progesterone positive breast cancer, there's a few other things. Yep. So it's not for everyone, but for most it's safe and it's beneficial.
- [67:17]
Emitai
Yes, I agree. Yeah. So I. First of all, Karen, thank you for, for coming. I think my big takeaway is you're wired to care about beauty and your hormones are. Or they play a huge role, huge in maintaining it. You know, sometimes we go into like, literally, like how, you know, they prioritize collagen production in one area and not in another. But it's so like, we're not even like, fully understanding how big of a role they play. They're definitely, they're definitely the live. The levers that are called, you know.
- [67:57]
Karen Martell
Got it. Yes.
- [68:00]
Emitai
Another one I think is hrt, when done right, isn't just about health, but it really is about. Obviously it's about health, number one, but it's anything about anything from skin appearance to confidence, which I love that you put, put, put there a few times and then in the end. And longevity, as we mentioned.
- [68:20]
Karen Martell
Yeah, yeah. I mean, what do you know. Do you know of a single supplement that has those kind of stats behind it?
- [68:27]
Emitai
No.
- [68:27]
Karen Martell
You know, reducing your risk of all causes of death by 30%. No, there's nothing.
- [68:32]
Emitai
Well, there's one. There's one. Shout out to Benazadi and his do new book.
- [68:37]
Karen Martell
Yeah, I just interviewed him coming out on. Let me know in a couple days here. Metabolic Freedom.
- [68:43]
Emitai
Metabolic Freedom coming out May 13th. Shout out to Benazadi. And of course, he's one ingredient, which is the vitamin G for gratitude. So maybe vitamin C. Vitamin G, yeah.
- [68:57]
Karen Martell
That's great.
- [68:58]
Emitai
Anyway, Aaron, I love you and I can't wait to listen to this episode myself. It was so great, so great.
- [69:07]
Karen Martell
Always great to talk to you.
- [69:09]
Emitai
Yeah. I'm sure we're going to see each other soon.
- [69:11]
Karen Martell
I'm sure.
- [69:12]
Emitai
All right, bye, everyone.