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Detox Nation with Sinclair Kennally
Teens on the Pill: How Birth Control May Be Sabotaging Hormone Health | Nat Kringoudis
00:25:40
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- [00:00]
A
If you're prescribing birth control and using birth control in teen years, you're halting the maturation of sex hormones. Any hormone imbalance that existed before you went on birth control is going to be there when you're not on birth control any longer. To me, it's a disservice and it's lazy medicine. Instead of all the lies that we tell our children, that is the number one thing that we need to be doing.
- [00:20]
B
Okay, so I'm going to get right into it as a Chinese medicine expert and also an expert on women's health. What do you want to make sure we cover today about teen health and what we're getting wrong in taking care of our teens?
- [00:32]
A
I think the biggest pressing issue I see is teens being prescribed birth control and the long term implications that we think that has.
- [00:42]
B
Okay, these are fighting words. You need to explain what you mean.
- [00:45]
A
What we know is that the maturity of sex hormones doesn't really happen till around the age of 21. So effectively, if you're prescribing birth control and using birth control in teen years, you're halting the maturation of sex hormones. Which means that for so many women, and we've all heard this, girls are prescribed birth control for so many reasons, missing periods, which is ridiculous, but everything from acne to mood swings to anxiety to, you name it, it's a solution at this point in time, medically. What that means, however, is that these women come off birth control 10, 20 years later when they want children, only to discover that those problems are still there. But because their hormones haven't gone through that maturation, they pick up where they left off. So effectively, someone who was starting birth control at 16 comes off birth control at 36, but they're going back to their 16 year old self so that process can then effectively continue. So it's a problem. And what research shows is that the later someone uses birth control, the less of an issue it is long term. So allowing that maturation to happen is important. Now, I personally don't advocate for birth control, generally speaking, for lots of reasons. Contraception is one thing, but using it to solve a problem is another.
- [02:02]
B
Right? You mean an unrelated health problem?
- [02:04]
A
Correct. I'm not here to say you shouldn't use it. I'm here to say be informed, understand what it does, understand what that means, and then make a decision based on that. But what we see is a range of problems that could have been avoided and had that 16 year old, that health been addressed in the first place. No One's looking at the root cause at that point in time. And that's also because the solution isn't necessarily a medical problem. It's not a druggable problem. It's actually a lifestyle issue or something that's inherited, but it's still treatable. It's just not medically treatable.
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B
Can you give some examples of what you see as the major lifestyle driven root causes for kids today?
- [02:41]
A
Well, we're seeing teens go through puberty earlier and that's a result of endocrine disruptors that we know are in our chemicals, in our body products, our cleaning products, our shampoos, conditioners, anything we effectively put on us and in us, we absorb that and we know that that disrupts our hormones. So I would say that's probably the number one. And that's not necessarily just that can be inherited. It's not just the child themselves. We don't even know this. We only know a little bit about this information. But it's a reason enough for us to go what's different to 50 years ago and what are we seeing? And that is what? One big difference. When I first started talking about teen health, I think it's important to say the reason I started doing this is because I made my splash into the industry, infertility. And I was writing books about fertility and one day I was like, half of the problems we're seeing are avoidable. Had the teen, had there been conversation around teen health and had the teen been addressed at that point in time, I wouldn't need to write fertility books because we wouldn't be in this situation. And to your point, the second reason that I see is modern lifestyle, our pace of lifestyle. A lot of us live in cities. There's pollutants, the water quality, it's environmental at that point, but also environmental in terms of our stress levels as well. We're living fast paced lives. What we even see, the pressure that we even see teens under is incredible. To perform, to get the grades, to know where they're going next. Like this has not really been our life until now.
- [04:14]
B
Yeah, I think about this from the perspective too. Just the nervous system in us. So the brain is developing as well as the reproductive system. We know they need so much more time to do that. They need all the way till 24. And they're getting stimulated 247 by the blue light, which is disrupting their circadian rhythms, which can't be great for hormones. But they're also always one text away from their bully, from the friend that's talking behind their back, you know, feeling the social pressure to be on all the time and there's no away from anymore.
- [04:42]
A
I agree with this. I also think that we're having children later. The relevance becomes a gap. That means how relevant am I to my child in terms of just knowing how to interact with them? I see a lot of people and I hate to say this but I see a lot of people that I don't even. It's like did you really want to have children or did you do that? Just because that's what society tells us that we need to do. But we're delaying that as well. We're having children later now. There's nothing wrong with that, but we have to stay relevant to our children as well. And how do we do that? What we. And how we were parented was very interesting because there was a big gap between. Right. We were. You're laughing but we were sneaking out of the house and we would. Teens.
- [05:27]
B
I'll go duff. Yeah.
- [05:28]
A
And how do we even stay relevant? How do we connect with our teenagers? I think this is a big part of the conversation. I'm not out of it yet. I've got a 17 year old and a 13 year old. But one thing I was always adamant was that I was going to have a relationship and the teen years were going to be the best years because also everyone was telling me how they're the worst and you expected a teenager to misbehave and it's their God given right to sneak out of the house. And maybe it is. But also if we continue to have conversations with our children and I think this is an important thing to talk about, then we can stay somewhat relevant. We can have our finger on the pulse. They can have a relationship with us that's not just a mother and a daughter, it's actually a relationship and there's connection. And I think for my generation that was missing. Things are changing. It's, it's. The landscape is different. Teenagers now, they are far more socially aware. If you look at even I was speaking to someone yesterday and they were talking about alcohol event that they were hosting and they're like these kids aren't drinking anymore. What's wrong with them?
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B
Right?
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A
And I'm like how great is that? That that's the problem that we're seeing. They are far more socially aware. They are healthier than ever. So there's an opportunity really to bridge this gap right now and the education is better but it's still not great. There's still a long Way to go on that.
- [06:50]
B
So what would you tell your fellow parents who are navigating that 12 to 17? Cause that's you're right in puberty and you're right in that identity maturation where it's a new, a new exploration, everybody.
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A
I would actually take it further back than that. I would take it back to the moment that your child says to you, hey, Mum, where did I come from? Instead of all the lies that we tell our children, the stork brought you. That's horrendous. Like, imagine flying through the air and then landing on someone's doorstep. No, you know, ask your father. That's a great one. That often people would say, that's what my mum used to say. Or ask your father, he'll tell you. As if that's going to happen. That's a conversation. I think that it's really important. I mean, it doesn't matter who has the conversation, but I think it's about having it there then and there. Yeah. Children are not attached. When you say mum has eggs, dad has sperm, that comes together, that's conception, that's what makes a baby. A three or four year old generally will accept that, go, oh yeah, okay, that makes sense. They're not asking how and when and what happens. They just, they need just the facts. Now if they're ready to ask the next question, they'll start asking the next question. And I think children, when they're ready to learn, they'll ask, right. If we are having these conversations and it's an evolving conversation throughout the younger years, by the time we get to the teens, it's not some big conversation that needs to happen.
- [08:12]
B
It's just scary. Now we're gonna finally address this thing that you're not allowed to talk about with.
- [08:16]
A
That's right. So I think it actually starts when we're parenting small children to have these right conversations then to make it easier in the teen years. And then I think the teen years, what I, in my experience and what I've seen, we cannot make anyone do anything. We cannot make our teenagers behave the way we want to. We A, need to lead by example and we b, need to have an open, continual conversation. The door is always open. I want my children, I want to be the first person they call when there's a problem, not the last. For me, my parents probably would have been the last person. So I want that conversation to, to continue to evolve. Not just about my reproductive health and, and having sexual experiences and those sorts of things, but just in generally speaking. Across the board, I think it's not. This is not just an issue about sexual health. This is a broader issue about everything. When it comes to teens, because they're going through what they're going through. And we joke about it as adults. We're like, oh, to be 17 again, all the worries of the world on your shoulders. But to them, it's their first experiences of a lot of feelings and emotions. So I think we've got to have that awareness as well and not kind of segregate them at the same time. So it's an open conversation that we get to continue to have. And finally, it's leading by example. If you're sitting there as an adult and you have horrendous menstrual cycles, you have every health problem that you can think of and you're sitting there hating on that, why is your teenager going to want to subscribe to that?
- [09:47]
B
Absolutely. My mom used to say in front of strangers or, you know, they would. They're. They would comment on my body as if I wasn't standing there. It was very weird. Like, oh, you got so tall. She go, yep, she's all legs. Didn't get those from me. And then she would say about her, my sister, she unfortunately got my legs. She got the short end of the stick. Like, just commenting on this is in a way that's very shaming and bizarre. So of course I'm not going to go to her for the. The deeper, scarier stuff, you know, or watching her hate on her body. And I definitely learned from my parents the American dream, which is push through till you're dead. You are weak. If you slow down and ask what's wrong? You just gotta work till you literally can't even walk anymore. Right. Because it happened to my dad.
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A
So I think this is all relevant when it comes to health.
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B
Yeah.
- [10:31]
A
In terms of the. What that does to our stress hormones and sex hormones and how they really interplay with each other. And if these teenagers are already confused about how things unfold and where they need to be and what's their place in the world, and then they don't get the communication, I think that's a really big problem. And I think that we can change that just through awareness. It's not even like taking a supplement or doing something else. It's actually, let's have these conversations, let's lighten the load. Let's be responsible in the sense of, what kind of example am I setting? And that comes down to, am I taking care of myself? What supplements am I taking what, how do I eat? Like what I call that is home base. How do you create a home base for your teen that they're going to stray, that's what they do. But that home base is where they come back to. And I had this experience, I did have, despite what we're talking about, an extremely healthy upbringing. And so when I moved away and I ate fast food every night and I burnt the candle at both ends at one point in time, something in my mind went, hang on, this doesn't feel right. And I returned to what I call home base. And that was what I knew to be a healthy foundation. So I think these things are really important to set up long term health, long term fertil and beyond fertility.
- [11:44]
B
Yeah, they're watching what you do and not what you say. So with that foundation in place, when it's time to have these difficult conversations and when they get pressure from their GP or whoever you're taking them to, to just go on the pill early, you know, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, to resolve, to have a quick fix for the skin issue or the mood issue, what is in the parent's toolkit at that point?
- [12:07]
A
I think the first really important thing to know is that around the age of 16, it's extremely normal for woman young girls hormones to kind of go a little bit wonky, a little bit sideways. And this is the time where periods will become irregular, that the body mimics a polycystic ovarian syndrome pattern for a little while. A lot of mums don't know this and so we panic because that looks like potentially missing periods or irregular cycles. A little bit of weight gain, acne, this is where those changes are really seen. And they're temporary. No one talks about the fact that they're temporary. So if at 16, a young woman starts to experience these changes, the mother panics, we go to the doctor. And this is when birth control is often. What's the recommendation at that point in
- [12:54]
B
time, especially for a teen, it's like a whole week of that, let alone three months is the end of the world.
- [13:00]
A
Absolutely. So knowing that it's very normal for cycles to become irregular around the age of 16 for a couple of years, I think is extremely important. It's also where we start to see a little bit more stress from outside. You know, we're looking at our studies and what we're, what our career might look like. There's a lot of pressure at that time that also will contribute to the issue. So I think just knowing that alone means that you can take a breather, you don't need to panic. It's not necessarily a permanent situation where there are no periods or missing periods or irregular cycles. I understand the convenience of knowing when you're period is coming for. It's stressful for young girls as well. But I think at the same time teaching them about their bodies, teaching them about their menstrual cycles, about their ovulation patterns, when they're fertile, when they're not. And also the other thing at this point in time is a lot of mothers panic because their daughters become sexually active. So it's another reason that they're prescribed birth control. And I think this piece of education becomes extremely important to help them understand when I'm fertile, potentially only three days of the cycle are you fertile for. Why would we flatline hormones with birth
- [14:15]
B
control stop sexual maturity?
- [14:16]
A
Absolutely. We know unfortunately that the pill is considered a type 1 carcinogen. Like there are long term issues. And so I think just knowing that allows you to make good choices. I have been asked many times, okay, Nat, well, if my daughter's not going on birth control, what is she doing? I really think first and foremost, her understanding her body and her menstrual cycle is the most important thing anyone can give their teen. The second thing is if she knows when she's fertile and when she's not, and should she be intimate with somebody in a time where she's fertile, that's where I would say, okay, well that's where you would use plan B. But that's not an ongoing contraceptive method. That's something that you can use in an emergency. But I think knowing if you know your cycle, then a lot of these issues become null and void because you don't need to panic, you cannot fall pregnant every day. So teaching her that I think is really important. And so knowing that when you go to a GP or a medical provider that's prescribing birth control at that point in time, if you know these things, then you can be more equipped and better armed to make better long term choices.
- [15:23]
B
And if you've developed your relationship with your child to talk about sexual maturity and being responsible for your body, like if you're old enough to have sex, then you're old enough to track your cycle and be responsible for your choices.
- [15:34]
A
Absolutely. But this all starts from even a younger age, when a woman first starts menstruating, to have that awareness come in to learn that piece, to learn that piece then and there. Absolutely.
- [15:44]
B
I know it's a really tough and Complex conversation. What I want to fully lay out the landscape for is somebody's considering delaying birth control. From that first time you get pressure to get put on it, you know, until as far into sexual maturity as possible. What are some of the other consequences of being on birth control long term? Like we know there's a lot of like a toxicant inflammatory cascade. How does that show up?
- [16:09]
A
There are so many ways that that shows up and we're learning more and more. I can't. And like I said before, we know it's a type one carcinogen. So I think it's not the only thing that's going to trigger problems down the track. But it is certainly a contributing factor. We know that it also takes a really big toll on the liver and when it comes to our detox pathways, it can really mess things up there as well.
- [16:34]
B
Also the prevalence of candida overgrowth and the presence. So you get lots of long term gut issues and that can contribute to depression in and of itself.
- [16:41]
A
Birth control, unfortunately, the pill especially, it absolutely upsets the microbiome. It absolutely robs the body of essential vitamins and minerals. The only, the only vitamin and mineral it doesn't seem to deplete is iron. And even then though, if the gut's not absorbing properly anymore, you're going to end up iron deficient for other reasons. So we know that there's that gut piece for sure with the gut integrity on the whole. But that's all, that's all medications. That's unfortunately that's the implications. So we know that that is definitely a factor. We know that this can contribute to things like irregular cycles down the track, infertility, pcos, post pill. PCOS is a real issue that we see. There's pretty much any hormone imbalance that existed before you went on birth control is going to be there when you're not on birth control any longer. And some because of all of these things that we're talking about, it really does deplete the body on every level. And to your point also, that inflammatory piece is also something that, you know, we need to consider when someone's coming off birth control. So if somebody is on it, setting themselves up, taking, you know, a great minerals and vitamins and things that are really supportive, probiotics, prebiotics. Knowing, however, that that's not necessarily a license that you can, you know, freely do whatever you like, you can't. The birth control, the effect that that has is bigger than any of these things, but it's still being proactive at the Same time I used to save patient came to me and they were on birth control. I used to say, I can't help you until you're not taking birth control anymore. And I've changed my stance on that. I can of course support people and meet them where they're at, but very often their problems don't go away until they cease taking it because it is more controlling than a lot of the things that we can offer them. So I think just knowing these things is very important. But any hormone imbalance that was pre existing will still be there. It cannot solve that problem.
- [18:42]
B
Right. Let's talk too about the birth control detox problem. Because we know whenever we stop taking a medication, the body has to go through a whole process of starting to mobilize out those residues from the tissues. And that's hard on the liver, it's hard on the endocrine system, it's hard on the gut for any medication. And I think that we're still in this gray zone, like wilderness of what happens to women after they come off of birth control.
- [19:04]
A
It's really important to start that whole process straight away. Like some women will wait. We often see that they will, their skin will flare around six months later, their hair will start to fall out potentially. So don't wait. If you're coming off birth control, then be proactive from the absolute beginning. This is where you and I look at every way that I can help someone to support their detox pathways at this point in time to eliminate this as quickly as possible. Nothing crazy. The normal things that we would think about. How do I support my lymphatics, how do I start to sweat more, how do I support the liver? With certain supplements?
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B
Make sure you're moving your bowel because otherwise we absorb that as well.
- [19:42]
A
One thing, if someone says to me, how do I fix my teens health? I'm like, just make sure they're moving their bowels every day. Like that is the number one thing that we need to be doing.
- [19:52]
B
That's the number one thing I say to parents too. If they're not moving their bowels every day, expect an increase in behavior issues. Like it's just gonna happen.
- [20:00]
A
So to that point, teenagers, I think are the probably the most temperamental that we're going to see. And at least as our responsibility as adults to take care of. Some might argue toddlers might be temperamental. But I think teens, there's a whole lot more going on for a teenager. Right Again, what's the very least that I can get someone to do? To at least have an impact. So this is where the, I think moving the bows is really important because it's just one thing. If you present to a teenager, we're going to do all of these things, they're going to be like, oh, hell no, I don't have. I don't. Why are you doing this to me for? Why can't I live my best life like my best friend does? So starting with that and how do I mean, to me there's a gut piece to that and a liver piece to that. That is super important. So it's a good measure, however, for someone that's just learning about their body to be able to go, okay, have I moved my bowels today? It's the one thing that I need to know. And I also say to teenagers as well, if you are doing that, your skin will clear up because they don't actually care about the mechanics, they care about how they look. So I think being able to use the vanity piece of that actually moves the needle for them. They'll do it because they're going to have clearer skin. They'll do it because they're going to have healthier hair, less oily hair. These sorts of things that we see when there are hormone imbalances. And again, these hormone imbalances are temporary at that time. So we just want to support them through that. It's not like we have to fix them necessarily at that point in time. It's about supporting them through these changes and so that their body can regulate things more quickly.
- [21:32]
B
I think we talked so much about the birth control used for suppressing skin issues that we have to also mention Accutane because like Michael, my husband, as you know, well, he was put on Accutane as a teenager and absolutely ruined his cognitive abilities and set his liver up for really long term suffering. And it has taken him decades. It was absolutely his on ramp to MCAS to not being able to deal with the mold that he was exposed to. And so we have to stop looking at these drugs as short term band aids for our teens and work with them, you know, whatever they're willing to do, like you say, so that we don't set them up for decades of suffering afterwards.
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A
It's so true. And it's not. It's so much easier to do that when they're a teenager than at any other time. The longer these things are left unattended to, the bigger the problem becomes. And absolutely, acne is just a sign that there's a lot going on inside that needs to be addressed. But we're very good at treating the symptom without looking at the root cause. And it's how do we come back to what's actually happening here? Where are the imbalances? And obviously starting with the gut is a really great first step, but I think doing it in the right way, I think so often we go in with the gut really gung ho, we flare more and then we give up. Because also we're probably trying to do things on our own when we maybe need to actually seek some guidance.
- [22:55]
B
I want to give you a chance as we wrap up today to speak directly to your colleagues who are hormone specialists, fertility specialists, and are putting teens on these drugs. What would you like to say to them right now?
- [23:07]
A
I mean, I think I would like to say let's get back to root cause medicine and really be able to ask questions as to why would somebody be presenting with irregular periods or acne or painful periods or whatever it is the presentation is, and really get back to the fundamentals. It's a brilliant opportunity to set them up for long term health. So using the feedback rather than just being quick to prescribe something. Now, I know also that many of my colleagues might have 10 minutes at best with their patients. So how do you have these conversations to educate them that symptoms are just signs and clues for what's actually happening in the internal landscape of the body? And let's start to treat this from that level rather than being reactive to a problem. And I think if we can just really start to come back to that and remember that the later we delay birth control, the longer we delay birth control rather the less implications there are. I think that's such an important message for everybody to really take home. And I know we've talked about it already, but I think that is actually the most important thing. It's, to me, it's a disservice and it's lazy medicine if we're not looking at why a problem is happening.
- [24:17]
B
That's a great point. And also the informed consent piece, right? So I almost went on Accutane. I went into the health center in college and I went in asking for it. I know so many of my friends went in asking for birth control. Put me on it. Here's the one I want. They'd already made a decision based on what their friends were doing. And I came in asking for Accutane and the way the nurse sat me down and walked me through the side effects made me say, you know what, I'm going to take a little longer and I'm so grateful that I got I actually got that informed consent. So thanks so much for doing that.
- [24:47]
A
It comes down to education and having these conversations and talking more about it, but ultimately it comes out to always asking why.
- [24:53]
B
Beautifully said. Thanks for all your advocacy work in this space, Nat.
- [24:57]
A
Thank you so much for having me today.
- [24:59]
C
Thanks for spending this time with us today. I know these conversations can bring up a lot and I want you to have room to sit with what you learned and let it land in your own body. If you want more support or you're curious about the next step on your healing path, you can always connect with me. Find me on Instagram hedetoxnation and explore resources mentioned in this episode@detoxnation.com this conversation is shared for education and personal reflection and isn't medical advice. Please always work with your trusted healthcare providers for your care. I'm really glad you're here and I'll see you in the next episode.