← The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
The Dylan Gemelli Podcast
Episode #38 featuring Menopause EXPERT Zora Benhamou! The Menopause Episode!! WHAT IS MENOPAUSE answered, symptoms, the role and importance of hormones, testosterone, progesterone, estradiol, stress management, overcoming side effects and more!
00:58:51
Loading summary
Transcript57 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign.
- [00:18]
B
Everybody. Welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. I am your host, Dylan Gemelli, and I am extremely excited today with my guest. So when I found my guest, I started to watch her information and I realized, wow, I am not well versed on this and I need to talk to her and I need to get her on my podcast so I can share it with each and every one of you. So she is the founder of the Hack My Age podcast and she is a wealth of information. My friends, this is Zora Benimu.
- [00:46]
A
Hey. Thank you. What a great intro.
- [00:49]
B
It's a well deserved, trust me. So, first of all, thank you for taking the time because I know our time zones are way off and I really appreciate you making this work for me and thank you for the, the information that you put out because it has been certainly enlightening and it's been helpful to me in a multitude of ways. So thank you.
- [01:04]
A
Well, thank you for getting on the topic. That's kudos to you. You get brownie points.
- [01:09]
B
I want to be as versatile as I can. And this is extremely. The things you talk about are so important and I really want to get into them. And sorry in advance if you see blue. I had methylene blue this morning, so.
- [01:21]
A
I decided not to take mine because I thought you'd see my big blue tongue.
- [01:25]
B
I thought I took it early enough, but I guess I didn't. So anybody watching? It's methyle blue.
- [01:31]
A
It's not blueberry candy?
- [01:33]
B
No, I wasn't eating blueberry suckers, I promise. All right, so while I've got you here, let's just get right in first, everybody. Zora talks a lot about menopause, and that was something that really hit home to me. I've, I've watched, like, my mom go through it and certain family members that I'm really close to, and I know that it's going to hit my wife at some time. And, and it's, it's something that I get questions about that I just am not versatile on. So first of all, let's get into your background a little bit. But why, why did you choose this route? What drew you there? Because everybody's always got a story as to why they're into something. A lot of biohackers, it's because, you know, they had some health issues or some family members, something along those lines. So give me your background and tell us why that you. You chose menopause is one of your main focuses.
- [02:20]
A
Well, menopause kind of shows me anyone who has ovaries is just going to eventually go through menopause if you're lucky to live that long. Honestly, I had my podcast started in 2020 and I was 50 years old at the time. And I called it just, you know, it's all about biohacking for women, 50 plus. And so that's my. Was my jam the whole time until my audience said, look, we want to hear more about menopause. We want to hear about hormones. Can you please invite guests to talk about these topics? And I thought, well, you know, actually, I should probably learn something about this myself, because I'm surely at that age now that I didn't have these sort of typical outward symptoms that people generally have. So I was a little bit ignorant in that sense. And many women are. I mean, most women just, all we know is your periods stop and then you may get a hot flash. Most women, honestly. And so you're not alone. You know, this is. This women themselves. So I started to invite the guests and I thought, oh my gosh, this is absolutely relevant to me. And then the more information you find out about, about it and how there is so much good things going backwards in this. There's so much misinformation and there's, there's just a lot of old information and there's not enough research. And women's health has been ignored for so long. And when you're older, who cares if you're still reproductive age? Well, at least, you know, you get covered with that and women's health. But once you're into menopause, you just are lost and, and you're ignored and, and it kind of enrages women who are at this age. And, and you think, what do you mean? There's, there's nothing really out there for me. I should just pull up my pants and knuckle through this. And it's just a natural part of life and get on with it. It's, there's no options, especially if you are suffering. And I was one of those people who didn't have the very heavy symptoms or many of the symptoms. And that's, you know, I always say I'm always most worried about the asymptomatic woman because there's silent killers that happen as well, and they're not really on it. But if you do have symptoms, at least you're going to try to go to your doctor and go, okay, look, and try to find some, some things that, that you can correct. If, if you, you are feeling a lot of these symptoms, it's not doom and Gloom. And I always say menopause is inevitable. We're all going to go through it. If you got some ovaries or, or if you've taken them out, you're going to go in early menopause. It's suffering is optional. We, we can suffer if you want. I mean there's again, if you want to do it that way, that's totally your, your jam and that's fine. But if you don't want to, we have so many solutions now that I wasn't aw. Feel completely unaware of. And I travel around the world, I ask women questions of many different cultures and socioeconomic status and different backgrounds. And there's a lot of, of the same old taboo. You don't really talk about this and just not enough information out there.
- [05:09]
B
Okay. So one of the reasons that I even started to kind of think about this like in terms of my work, I have one of my really close friends, he actually married another one of my close friends. This is my age and I'm 42, going on 43. And he said, you know, they come to me for a lot of health questions. And he said to me, he's like, man, I'm not gonna say her name, but she's, she's starting to get menopause really, really early. Like, I need your help. Like, help me out here. And I'm sitting here, you know, I'm the go to guy for the info, for, for most everything. And I'm, I'm like, let me look into some things because I just, I don't know. And I didn't like that feeling. I just didn't like not knowing. And then I started to think, man, how much of my audience knowing the ages of women that are coming to me for help are going through this and I don't have anything to offer. So one of the things that I'm wondering from you is what's the age range on where you generally see this? Because I know for her at 42, early 40s, that that's not normal. But it certainly can happen the more that I've read into it. But you're obviously the expert on this. What's your general age range on where you see this for the most part happen? But what are the extremes, like, what are some extremes you've seen for low end and high end for women that it's hitting late or hitting her, hitting early? And is there some sort of trigger that causes this or is it just mother nature?
- [06:29]
A
So yeah, the average age in the western world is about 51 and what is menopause? It's just a one day event. We use this word menopause so broadly. We use it for the perimenopause phase, which is just before that menopause birth date and we may use it for post menopause. So menopause is really 12 consecutive months without a period and anything before that is either perimenopause or even before that premenopause. Right. Premenopause is just being of childbearing years. The perimenopause is the time around that, before that menopause birth date. On average, you know, you find all different kinds of numbers, but let's just say it's five years before you hit that menopause date. That when you have those 12 consecutive months without a period, but it can be up to 10 years. It's not, it's. And that wouldn't be completely unusual. So if, if, let's say 50 to make the number round, if 50 is the average age, then at 40 you're going to start having these menopause symptoms when your hormones are fluctuating and you're having this fluctuation which is a natural part of being a human being, of being a woman. It's not, it's, that's just the way we're programmed. Whether it's partly genes, it's partly lifestyle and diet as well. And this course there you can go into early menopause because of surgery, of cancer treatments, hysterectomies and things like that. So you, if you take out the ovaries, then you're going to be in an early menopause.
- [07:56]
B
Right.
- [07:57]
A
But if you're in India, for example, I think the Average age is 48, more or less. So it's, it's earlier. So it depends on where you are in the world. Yeah, so it's, it's, it is totally, I mean again, it's, it's a natural thing. It's nothing gone wrong. You didn't do anything wrong. You can be the healthiest person on the planet doing all the right things and you will still go into menopause. You may delay it, you may keep the ovarian life going, so you can keep, keep them going. So, but you, they will eventually pitter out and you're eventually going to lose all those estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, mainly of those sex hormones that we're talking about. You have other hormones that we should definitely be looking at as well in menopause or perimenop. But I, I always say the most important time is that perimenopause because that's when we're really suffering the most. If we're having some symptoms, once they're all sort of gone, they tend to balance out. But I have met women who are in their 70s, still hot flashing, still poor sleep. And then of course we have all the things that are happening under the hood like osteoporosis and heart disease and sarcopenia, loss of muscle mass and all these things. When you lose the estrogen mainly, or the progesterone, testosterone, you lose the capability of. It's not that you lose the capability altogether. You can still build muscle, for example, build your bones. There's a lot of things we can do, but it's just a lot harder, right? We, we age a lot. It's accelerated aging when we go through this, this transition. So we're really, I'm really focused on that transition. How do we make that transition as smooth as possible so that we come out the other end bigger, better, stronger, faster. Because as a gerontologist I'm also not only concerned about, let's just feel better now. I want to look at my 70 and 80 year old self and make sure that she's in a good condition. And it's not going to happen when I'm turned 70. It happens when you're as young as possible. Longevity starts in childhood and I always say menopause also starts in childhood. It's what you do along the way.
- [09:57]
B
So I have a ton of questions. We're going to get to all of these. Yeah, exactly. No, I, trust me, I've got them all right up here. So if someone does go through it really young, is there some sort of thing that causes the, and aside from certain circumstances, like you were talking like loss, like removing ovaries or something like that, what would just cause a general, normal, everyday woman that starts early? Is it, is it just random or is there some sort of trigger that causes that and is it some sort of behavioral like diet related or something that they're lacking, you know, internally, Some sort of hormone lack or something there?
- [10:36]
A
Yeah. So. Well the, definitely surgery can, can stop the, the periods from coming on. Now whether it puts her into a menopause or not, is, is. Well, everyone's a little bit different. It depends how traumatic it is. It's because the body has just had a major trauma. If you're going through a surgery. I just had a total hip replacement and my period, I was pretty regular until this hip replacement three months ago. And then I'm like, oh, is this coming back? Because my body is not ready to make babies. It's not ready to like shut, shut this factory down because we need to use our energy for rebuilding and repairing. It's very, very normal, totally normal. Now, whether it comes back or not, some people it will, some people it won't. And then of course, if you go through a hysterectomy and you're, you're, you're obviously removing the ovaries. Ovaries. You can't, you can't make these, these hormones anymore. Yeah, of course, some people I've met, some women who said, look, I, I just had some major trauma, major stress in my life that just tipped me over. And you do have stress as it will, it can exacerbate some of these symptoms. So it can be a trigger for some of the symptoms of menopause. If you have someone who's really bothering you, it was a really negative, toxic person in your life, or you have a car accident, or you have some kind of a stress and that plays with all your hormones. Imagine your cortisol goes up, all those stress hormones and then they all interact with each other. It's not like you isolate these, these sex hormones and they don't influence the, your insulin or your, or your cortisol. So you, they do influence the other. Now for some women, they'll go through a stressful period and then their, their menstruation stops and then life just gets better or they start taking better care of their health and they may reactivate their, their period again. We just come right back and we're not talking about replenishing the hormones yet with bioidentical hormones or anything. We're just talking about diet and lifestyle. And certainly diet and lifestyle can have a better, big impact on the symptoms that you're having is that you're feeling. But also under the hood as well, when we're talking about your bones and your heart and your vagina and everything is just all, all intertwined. So they do, it does have a big impact. So I always encourage, as big of a fan of I as I am of hormones. I always say you can't out hormone a bad diet and lifestyle. You need to have that done and your transition is going to be so, so much better. But it's really hard sometimes when they know what to do, they know they gotta eat right, they know they have to exercise, they know how they have to manage the stress and sleep well. But if you got the hot flashes and you're so tired and you're feeling like crap. How are you getting yourself to the gym? And when you don't go to the gym, you don't have the energy. You're not going to be eating the broccoli, the salmon that you should be eating. You're probably making other choices. Sometimes you do need the hormones just to get, get you some good sleep so that you have more energy so that you can go to the gym and that you can start eating healthily. See what I mean? So they all, they, they go together and it's, it's really hard to ask a woman to be doing all these things when she's really, really suffering. And that's why, you know, I said, look, let's just get some support with some hormones and then she can, you know, start doing all the things that she knows you need to be doing and, and vice versa. Does that even answer your question? I'm sure if I even deviated.
- [13:41]
B
Oh, no, it does, it does. You know what I realized, though, that I need to ask you before I even go any further, let's just define menopause, because the way I'm looking at it in essentially, in short form, it's just loss of menstrual cycle. Now you tell me what, in reality, you know, expound on that, please, so that, that I can get a better understanding and everybody can, because you. In life, we hear terms, we just, we never really know what they are. Sometimes we just assume what they are and that's. That is what it is. But can you breakdown what. What it, what is it? What does it mean?
- [14:15]
A
Say so. Yeah, just like you said. Okay, our periods stop. But why? Well, that's because our hormone production factory, our ovaries are mainly, are shutting down the production of estrogen and progesterone and testosterone. It's a part, It's a natural part of life. Now it's. We also are losing our. We're using all of our eggs up. We need to be making more babies. And so the body is essentially shutting down. It sounds kind of morbid like it is shutting down, but it's also shutting down to give us another phase of life so that we can. If we were to have babies all the time, then how in the world we're going to make room for the younger generation? How are we going to be able to have grandmothers if I'm busy with a kid? How am I supposed to help my daughter with her own kids? It's just. Would be chaos. So I really believe that there's a There is a reason why we are going into this menopause transition and not. And having our periods go on forever and ever. So it is when. And then when we, when we lose our hormones again, then we are much more susceptible to diseases of all diseases of aging. So age is the biggest risk factor for all diseases. And so we've got that on and women living longer, but we're also having more diseases. And you add that on and, and why is that? Right? We're. We're not. You know, there's no magic answer for everything, but there's certainly hormone loss has, Has a big function when you don't have the hormones. Every single cel, practically every single cell in the body has estrogen receptors. And when you don't have those receptors, then the body just doesn't function so much anymore. Your brain needs estrogen. Why do so many women, much more women get Alzheimer's and. Than men. There's something to this. And so you. You. It. I don't want women to think it's a really horrible thing. It's got such a stigma. It's such a, you know, it's like you're, you're getting older and nobody wants to get older, but we are. And it can be some of the most beautiful parts of our lives, wonderful stage of life if we just know how to manage it and then get through this transition with ease and with grace. But menopause, yes, it's just when. When everything just your. Your body is. Is just shutting down. The, the manufacturer of. Of our sex hormones. And again, why, it's always, always debatable, but I think it's. It's just one of those things that we, we need to understand our hormones and that we need to know how to. What to look out for in order if you want to age well, if you want to age, if you want to live longer, happier, healthier, then we need to look at our hormones and I personally believe we need to replenish them if we. If we want to have. It's just a better quality of life. That's all you can get through great quality of life. You got to do a lot of things. You got to be really, really diligent. And most people aren't with their health and their diet and their lifestyle. So having a little bit of hormone support is. Is going to go a long, long way.
- [17:06]
B
Okay, I smile because that's right where I was going. But first I do want to point out, just to everybody listening, every single topic that I talk about, I don't care what it is. It all revolves back around to diet. Every single thing we talk about when it relates to health, I don't care what it is, it's all going to go back to diet at some point. I just want to point that out. That, and I do this, I've struggled with this with like fitness, like bodybuilders. Diet is like always the biggest portion of everything and if that's off, everything else is going to be off. So I just want to throw that out there for everybody to listen. Now I want to do a little comparison with you, especially for a lot of my audience, to a man that is suffering from hypogonadism, low testosterone, for anybody that is not aware of that. So we're looking at different factors and a lot of these, it's revolving around hormones. And there's a, there's going to be some similar side effects for a man and a woman. There's some differences. But as, as you know, and a lot of the bodybuilders know, but not everybody knows testosterone is the male dominant sex hormone and estrogen for the female. But females need testosterone just like men need estrogen. Now, obviously much smaller levels. But like if I tank my estrogen, I got issues, I got problems, like big problems. Depression, lack of ability to gain muscle, blood pressure could have issues. There could be a lot of problems. So when you say for a woman that, you know, these hormones kind of shut off or shut down, what would the benefit be to have some HRT for a woman, some hormone replacement therapy? Do women get progesterone? Do they take that? Do they take estrogen to help? Is there benefits there? Because I know a lot of women that I've had to help that are suffering from low testosterone, that never had a clue, that were never aware that find major benefit with TRT now. And, and if this is something that is going to be helpful or beneficial, are there any longer term issues with women that you find that are on it or do you find it much more helpful than anything?
- [19:04]
A
Well, the research shows the benefits there are and everybody has to talk to their own doctor about the benefits versus the risk because everybody's different. But in, in my training I went to the Institute of Bioidentical Medicine. It's a, it's a program that teaches all about menopause and hormones. And there's, there's, there are very few women who are not able to take hormone therapy. And it's not that. But hormone therapy is such a broad term because you can get, read the research, you can Read articles that say hormones are good and then you'll find the other ones that say hormones are bad. And that's because right now we have a huge spectrum of choice when it comes to hormones. We have synthetic ones, we have, you know, you have birth control, which is the most synthetic hormones ever. Nobody has a problem taking that, despite the risks of blood clotting for example. And in hormone therapy is much less, much less risk blood clotting. And we're talking about the oral stuff. If you're talking about transdermal or something you put on your skin, then, then there is literally there's very, very little risk out of anything. And then when you think about just getting pregnant, I mean pregnant has, is itself is even a bigger risk than birth control of blood clotting. But no one tells you to stop getting pregnant. So it's like, and nobody says, and usually doctors like here passing out birth controls if it's candy. But yet when it comes to hormones for menopause, oops, you gotta be careful with that. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, none of, no sense at all. So in fact hormones are, it's never one size fits all and you're going to find everything under the sun. It's the most confusing topic for a woman going through this transition and she's scared because of the whs, the Women's Health Initiative Initiative study. That was a huge study, the biggest study ever done on women and hormones made. Unfortunately it was full of holes and it had wrong information that came out and headlines were grabbed that were not supposed to be headlines, they came out too early and just the big message everybody got was estrogen causes cancer. And it's just, could there's be nothing further than the truth than that? And unfortunately this is why women are just scared. We're not sure, we don't know that study was done on synthetic hormones. And there were some really good things that actually came out but those didn't really make headlines. But, but because of all the errors that came from that and unfortunately it seems like most Doctors the last 20 years have not read the actual study or not followed up and have not looked at the 10 year follow up study that shows that actually decreases of risk in breast cancer and heart disease and all these things that, that for some reason just didn't make headlines. And that's why there's this huge backlash. The pendulum is swinging completely the other way to try to get people, women doctors, health practitioners, anyone to understand that hormones are not bad and if they were, well when we're full of them in our 20s and 30s, like, why aren't we having problems then? Why do we have problems when we start losing them?
- [22:00]
B
That's exactly, that's my point. Yeah, I mean, why, why all the problems when you start to lose them and you have low this or low that, then. Then how are they bad? They're bad if you abuse them like anything else. But I mean, that goes without saying.
- [22:13]
A
Yeah. Or you get them out of balance or you have them, you know, you've taken too much of one and out not enough of the other. And then you're just, you know, estrogen, progesterone, are, are. They need to be in balance. And so if they're not, you can, you know, estrogen, as great as it is, if it's too much, it's too much. If it's too little, it's too little. And, and it's gotta have the progesterone in order to balance it out. Because estrogen is the one, it's the, it's the one that energizes us, the one that gives us focus, the one that gives us energy. And then, and then progesterone is the great calmer so it makes us feel relaxed and at ease. So you can imagine if you get too much energy and too focused, you too, too just chew on. Then that's probably not a good thing. You may just be, you know, really kind of stressed out. And if you have too low estrogen, you're just going to be like a zombie. Like, I don't have energy, I'm just kind of just want to sit in bed all day. Right. And so that's why some women who are in hormone therapy, they, they can feel worse. And you're like, well, because you just didn't find the right dosage or the right delivery method or maybe you're not absorbing them at all because you could be taking something. It's not what you take, it's what you absorb. Just like supplements, right?
- [23:22]
B
Absolutely. So, okay, we got a lot to. There's several ways I want to go here first. Let's do this though, because most people are kind of familiar with testosterone and estrogen. Just in simple terms. For people listening, what is progesterone exactly? And why is it so important?
- [23:39]
A
So progesterone is, is a hormone that's produced in ovaries and, and it's just again a natural part of our body. It just like estrogen in the, this, the menstrual cycle of a woman. And we have ebbs and flows just like we do estrogen. And it gets at its peak as we are just at around day 14, more or less, and then it starts to really increase. But it's funny because when you see these graphs of estrogen and progesterone, you'll see a rise in estrogen at the very beginning and then, and then a smaller rise towards the end of the, of the menstrual cycle and then you'll see progesterone kind of the similar rise. But if you were to actually look at the numbers of progesterone, progesterone isn't just kind of around the same curve, around the same height as estrogen. It actually would probably go off the charts because it goes so high mid cycle. And so we kind of underestimate the power of progesterone and how much we really need. It's just that they have to convert it in the same, you know, sort of picograms per milliliter. Progesterone has to be in a, in a, has to be measured in a different way because it's just, just too high. So progesterone is a really important hormone that makes us feel calm, relaxed. But it also, if you're talking about a bone remodeling and bone building and bone breakdown, you know, you have the estrogen building it up and you have the progesterone help breaking it down. So we need them, them both. And that's not the only thing. Testosterone also plays a role. We have some, so many other things that play a role in bone remodeling. But progesterone does have its role. And, and this is why women, when you are taking progesterone, because it makes us feel, feel so calm and relaxed, we tend to take it in the evening. For most women do prefer taking the evening because you sleep better. And this is, this is a, an incredible hormone that is able to, to, to really help us feel balanced. But again, if it's not in balance and you don't know until you actually, unfortunately we need to like self titrate. Your doctors can't give you a one size fits all. And so we would love to just say, okay, take this. They may, you know, doctors may decide to get a starting dose kind of similar to most women. But you got to be in really close contact with your doctor and say, you know, in the first week or two I feel nothing and that's not working or I'm feeling really awful or I've gained some kilos, or I, you know, I Don't know what's going on. I'm feeling off. So that they go, okay, let's like take this down a notch. And let's take this up a notch. They, they should be trained in how to titrate, how to teach the women how to self titrate. And if they don't know, then, you know, they come to me and we have a membership group and we help them through this. But it's really, it's surprising to a lot of women. You think that you just get your hormones and you go home and you start taking this, you should be feeling better and then you see your doctor the next, the next year. It doesn't work like that. Only 25% of the women who are prescribed hormones for menopause get it spot on where they're not only feeling great, but also if you were to test the urine metabolites, if you were to test their, their, their blood, they're at the rate sort of that gold post of the great, great optimal levels. But that happens 25% of the time. So when you think about 75% of the time, we don't get it right. If you're aware of that, that's okay because too many women start, they think supposed to work right away and it's not. And then they give up. And you're like, well, you just didn't find the right dosage and the right formula. And you may have to change from a transdermal to an oral. You may have to change from a patch to a cream. You may need to get compounded hormones because for some reason you need a specific dosage or you're allergic to the peanut oil and the progesterone, or, you know, thank God we have compounding pharmacies to be able to make in a sort of a more precise dosage or to accommodate and give us a more precision medicine. If you want to, you want to say that, right? One thing, one thing about progesterone I really should mention to you is that generally women at around age 35, let's say mid-30s, that's when they start to lose progesterone, okay? And progesterone takes a real steep dive. It's estrogen, we lose estrogen, but it starts more in your 40s. And then it's, it's more gradual. It's much more gradual. So if you're feeling menopausal, if you feel like some of these symptoms at 35, that's not unusual. Especially if you're, if you're gonna have perimenopausal symptoms for 10 years or 7 years or 5 years even. It's not unusual. So and I was in my 30s. It was no way I was thinking about menopause. It was like that's for when I'm over 50. You wouldn't think about it. But that's why if you are feeling a little bit off and women know when they're off, they know that something's not right and they go to the doctor. And most doctors are not thinking about testing their hormones and or asking you about your hormones. So if you are feeling a little off, especially in that, that mood or anxiety or stress department, consider looking at your progesterone. And if it's really low, just a little bit of topical progesterone is probably all you need at that phase and that early perimenopausal phase. And then once you get into your phase then you may have other symptoms and, and that's perfectly normal. It's, it's again most women in their 30s and 40s going to their doctors with, with menopausal symptoms. They're put on antidepressants, they're giving slit medications, they're given things that doctors know, okay, this is the dosage, that's what I know and I didn't give it to them when in fact you know, maybe they do need that. I don't know. But the low hanging fruit and the easy thing to do. So if a woman in our therapist to fees look at her hormones, maybe she's perimenopausal in such a simple easy solution rather than going down the drug route that has a lot of side effects.
- [29:10]
B
I agree. Look, one of the things that I do want to point out is the importance of blood work. Like you've mentioned now multiple times I stress this. Don't just guess, don't just assume. Get the actual real data so that you know and that if you come to somebody like Zor and what I tell all of my people, people, I don't make assumptions. I don't go based on you how, how you feel. Because how you feel could have a multitude of different reasons. I could theoretically try to address it. Guess wrong based on symptoms that could coincide with multiple other issues and then maybe exacerbate a problem that you have or make the situation worse. So data is important. Real numbers are important.
- [29:48]
A
That's what biohacking is. Test, don't guess. But there is a point. There is an argument that doctors have and it's, it is true is that when you're in perimenopause especially, and you're in the middle of it, not so much when you're at the beginning and definitely when you're not post menopause, your hormones fluctuate so much. You're not having this normal cycle, you're not having your period. Like clockwork, you may have test estrogen in the morning and it's super high. And then you test it in the evening, it's super low. You test it the next day, it's somewhere in the middle. It's so wonky and it's so, so hard to track. That's why some doctors are saying, look, let's just go by symptoms. Right now you're feeling so bad, you're feeling anxious, you're feeling moody, you have low libido and you have joint pain and you're having hot flashes and you're waking up in the middle of the night and you're, you know, stressed out, depressed. Let's just try a little bit. You're in that age category, you're likely, your hormones are all over the place. Let's just try a little bit of, of hormone therapy and let's see where your gat you're at. And then, then we can test to see where you're at. And so that, that to me is a perfectly fine approach if you're really just feeling all the symptoms. Just, just started, see if this helps. And then you can test. What we would normally test in the functional medicine space is they test your metabolites through urine. So you, you, some people like the 24 hour urine test, some people like the dried urine test. The Dutch test is one of those dried urine tests. And then you can see, see how your hormones are metabolizing. It's because actually if you, whether you are on hormone therapy or not, because you have your own estrogen, if you're in perimenopause still, but if you are taking hormones, you want to make sure that estrogen is going into the safe pathways. There's three pathways of est, of estrogen. It's the o, the 2. Oh the 4 oh, the 16. Oh, you know, there's a good pathway, bad pathway. And then I'm like, not so great pathway but it's, you know, you want to make sure most of your hormones are going down a really good pathway. So if a doctor sees that you're, you're on hormone therapy and let's, we tested your urine but you're not really going down the right pathway. They're just Giving you some supplements, like dim, depending on, you know, the person, right? Estrogen levels, maybe they'll give you some calcium deglucarate, maybe they'll give you some nac. Every doctor has their own, you know, formulas they like. And then they retest you again and just make sure you're just pushing down the good pathway. That's all they really, really want, want and that your symptoms are cleared up. And then if you want to get into blood testing, then every doctor again has their opinion on whether they do or don't. If you feel like you do and you want to look at it, then go find a doctor who knows what they're looking at. Because usually these really good menopause doctors, they're not just looking at your sex hormones. They know everything's intertwined. And they're just going to look at your insulin, they're going to look at your cholesterol, they're going to look at your triglycerides, they're going to look at your question cortisol, they're going to look at thyroid. There's a lot more tests. And when we say testing, it's. It's so much more than just testing your estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.
- [32:39]
B
Yes, I love that. And that's one of the things with trt, for example, that guys will do this, well, I'm tired. Well, I'm this. Well, I'm that, or my testosterone number is low. But sometimes there's a reason why it's low. It's not just because you're just, you know, habit that, that it happens at this certain age or time. Sometimes there's an underlying cause that if we fix it, then that'll fix the issue altogether and then you don't have to put yourself on certain therapies. And that's why it's so important to try everything and learn everything. Now, I. One thing you brought up earlier, we, when we, we were going is that I love that you brought up was you said, you mentioned the estrogen progesterone ratio and you saw me shaking my head and smiling because ratios are so important and balance is so vital. That's one of the things, like when I have somebody using, like a steroid cycle and they're using a certain compound and it's like they're addressing estrogen, but this same compound can cause a prolactin issue and they're, they're getting unbalanced and they're not understanding why they're still having issues. And I have to explain, like, you're unbalanced. Same with sodium, potassium. If those are off like with H juice, you can have severe water retention and people always think it's this big anomaly as I'm getting water retention, but it's because you're slamming sodium and not taking in enough potassium and they're all out of balance. So I'm glad that you brought that up because it's, it's, it's so true and so important. Now I will ask you this. So with testosterone, when you take testosterone, generally speaking, if I was to give you a hundred milligrams a week, your number should indicate five to seven times that value for most people. Now some people have a severe issue. They're not metabolizing properly. So you should be 500 to 700 on your, your number. How does that, does that hold true or is there any sort of formula when it comes to protection progesterone that you're taking?
- [34:20]
A
So there are optimal levels are, are kind of quite a wide range depending on the doctor you're speaking to. The, A woman who is feeling, let's say she's, her estrogen is okay, 20 which is very, very low. Okay, it's really low. She needs to get her estrogen and she takes some hormone therapy and she's like oh, I feel great at 100. Okay, well then maybe 100 is her, is her dosage. Now some women are like no, I need it to be closer to 200. So in some doctors be like whoa, that's too much. Some people need it more. And there's, there's quite a wide range of, of estradiol we're saying. So every woman, their optimal range is, is maybe slightly different. That's why we want to kind of look at the metabolites because if you're really kind of running high in your blood, you just want to make sure you're going down the good path ways. And because how, why would we want to lower your dosage and make you feel worse? And this is actually just had a conversation with my sister in law and she's sick. 4 and, and or 60. Yeah, 64 ish. And, and her doctor's like now we're going to start lowering the dosage. And so I said how do you feel? She's like I feel worse. Like well sure, then go back to your doctor and get back on your other original dosage. It's like it's one of these doctors like oof. You know, we don't want to go too long with this because she's been on it for 10 years. But, you know, I just send her a bunch of information, say, look, why don't you just start reading? But you should. You should feel good. And so. So that range will be different. And I think. But, you know, again, other doctors will have other things. So if you talk to, say, Dr. Lindsay Berksen, I'm not sure if you know her, but she's a menopause specialist, and she's been working with women in menopause for, I think, four decades now. And she would say, well, wait a second. Your estradiol is important, but let's look at your LH in your glutenizing hormone. And if that's. She wants it to be under 20. And she. Herself. And she's like 70 now. She's like 5. Okay? Because that's where your brain is protected. Okay? So even if you're feeling good, you're like, oh, but my LH is okay. It's 60 or 70. It's like high. But she'd be like, okay, that's fine. You're feeling good. You're taking away your hormones. But like, you. If you were concerned about Alzheimer's because your mom just had Alzheimer's, that you want to maybe start taking a little bit more estradiol and to get that LH number down. So, again, these are, you know, your normal average doctors are not looking at this, but menopause doctors are, and they know your concern. You know, if your dad died of a heart attack, if your mom had Alzheimer's. And so they are looking at some of these numbers, and they're going to try to get you at these optimal level. They're what they consider optimal levels. And they have. Again, every doctor has a different range. And some doctors say, I don't care. I just want you to feel better. And that's already something. Okay. To get you to feel better, that's huge. If you're sleeping better, we obviously know how big of something sleep impact impacts your health in general and longevity. Um, but it's. It's, you know, if you are concerned about your future self, then you maybe want to make sure you're in a more of an optimal range. So your bone is protected, your. Your brain is protected, your heart, your vagina, your. Everything is. Is. Is I. And I. I. I have to retract to that word, protected, because that's misleading thinking that, oh, if you take hormones, you're protected. No, there's no guarantee in life. You're just lowering the risk of the diseases. Because I just don't want women to be like, oh, I'm on hormones and yay, I don't need to exercise or I need to wear the weight vest or I know, yeah, you just got to monitor. That's why we got to be the biohacker and we gotta test, measure and assess. We have to look at what's working for us. Maybe we heard on this podcast that, you know, some technique that you're doing is really great, a certain diet. Is it going to work for you? I don't know. I mean, you just try it and I don't care. If a study of Finnish men that were 50 years old and there was a hundred of them and they all, I don't know, lived longer by seven years because they did 20 minutes of sauna five times a week. Is that going to work on you and your Chinese 35 year old woman? I don't know, it's a, these are, these are different people, right? And they're. Maybe it's true, I don't know. But you're going to have to try it out and if you feel good and it works for you and, and you measure and test and everything looks great, then keep going. But if you feel like, I don't care what the study says, just the.
- [38:29]
B
Studies are there, they're good sometimes, sometimes they're not because they can be controlled, they can be altered, they can be used however somebody wants to manipulate them. Truly animal studies don't guarantee it's going to be like that on a human. Like you said, DNA can determine a lot of this because we're all different based on that and, and diet. It all goes hand in hand. I just had a DNA test, I'm waiting for the results to, to see what kind of foods supposedly you know, are supposed to have an impact. So there's so many factors like you said. I have a kind of a two part question here for you. So we're, we're, let's just talk about how one would feel like menopause is coming on. So what are some symptoms that you would start to see in somebody that is starting to maybe enter into that realm? And what are some blood markers that could be indicative that you may be on your way? And I understand that they could have multiple meanings, I get that. But is there anything that you find that like, and I'm just not saying this is one of them, but like they start to get elevated liver numbers or something. Like what, what would, what would be something like a biomarker that we would see that would maybe Indicate. I think this is. Might be coming on.
- [39:35]
A
I think the two big ones are cholesterol and thyroid or your, your lipid markers in general.
- [39:40]
B
What are you saying? Cholesterol, like what, what do you, what do you.
- [39:43]
A
So women's HDL tends to go down. The LDL tends to, to go up. Triglycerides tend to go up. And you're like, well, wait, nothing's changed. I'm eating the same or I'm exercising the same. This is what I'm seeing, at least in my community. So it's almost hard to find a woman who doesn't have, you know, who's got really good blood. Lipid panel. And that's something. And also the thyroid starts to go off. And these are. I'm not a hormone expert, so I can't explain the whole, you know, pathways. But, but the thyroid and the cholesterol always go hand in hand there. Or not always, but they often go hand in hand. So historically, this is. I Learned this from Dr. Carrie Jones. She's a great, she's a fabulous hormone expert who I connect you to because she can talk hormones all day. And she said through a podcast interview I did with her is that historically, before there was stat, there were statins and, you know, cholesterol lowering medication. Doctors would prescribe thyroid hormone to lower those cholesterol numbers.
- [40:38]
B
Really?
- [40:39]
A
So, yeah. So that's why it's interesting when you see a woman going through this perimenopause phase that her lipid panel starts to get all wonky and the thyroid very often gets wonky. Not everyone, but, you know, many, many times. And I've seen this in my community as well. And so you may, I would certainly, before you go on a statin, make sure it's like, you know, so many other things that we can do and other options and you can take deeper dives. And I learned so much with Dr. Luthiworth, who you just interviewed. She was, she from Boulder Longevity. Her and her team were monitoring me and looking at my lipid panel. And so I had crazy high total cholesterol. It was like 300. And. And I was like, well, what's going on? But both HDL and ALDL were really high. Both of them triglycerides were perfect. And then she said, look, let's look at your in apo apob and the apo little A. I was. And look at the. She looked at the ratios. She looked at NPO oxidized ldl. She looked at all these things and she's like, you know what Wouldn't worry at all. And because it's not. And I. And I was panicking. I was like, oh, my gosh. You know, my dad died of heart disease. So.
- [41:43]
B
Yeah.
- [41:44]
A
Is this. Is this, Is this. Yeah, something. And I've had a doctor, you know, originally, when I was probably 45, when. When this first test happened, I was 45, I had no clue. I was like, I always got a. When I'd go to the doctor. And I was loved going to the doctor to just like. Like, I get an A and then I don't get an A. Tells me my cholesterol's off. I'm like, but wait, what's going on? And that was. He didn't know. Now I know. Starting to lose my hormones. I had no clue. And. And so that's. That's when I started watching this thing, and I just got. Watched it worse and worse and worse. And then you get worried and you're like. And I looked at him, I was like, do I look like I'm gonna have a heart attack? You know, because that's all I care about. I don't care about a number. I just want to make sure I heart attack. And he's like, I know. I knew because he knew me. And he's like, I should be prescribe you statins. But knowing you, it just. It feels wrong because he knows I'm doing all the right things, unfortunately. Yeah. So that's what one wants to look at for sure. Especially, you know, if you're thinking, I'm feeling tired. Oh, I got to get on the hormones. Well, maybe it's your thyroid. Maybe you're lacking some minerals. And why. If you're lacking some B vitamins, for example, or some minerals, like, why are you lacking that? You know, is it your gut? Is your gut health? Maybe, you know, you gotta dig. Dig a little deeper to figure that out. Sometimes in a hormone, you know, menopause space, we love to just jump on the hormones. Like, that's the easy solution. But I think we gotta look at the whole picture and. And there's. It could be. Maybe it's something else. And again, they all kind of play around with each other. And even when we. When a woman starts taking hormones, like bioidentical hormones, she. At least the way I was trained through, through these doctors, they were saying, look, it's better to get her on estrogen progesterone first. If she's early perimenopause, maybe she just needs progesterone done because it's not enough estrogen it's just progesterone is too low. But if you usually want to, you know, a woman who's going is getting in the middle of perimenopause or end of it, you'd want to get her on estrogen, progesterone first, and then add in the testosterone piece. Because very often women's testosterone, this is again, the way I learned it through the Biotech Institute of Bioidentical Medicine, is that we can very often have high testosterone level, at least normal testosterone levels, all throughout our 50s, which is really menopause. You know, this is the middle of menopause, and it'll eventually decline, it'll eventually go away. But it seems to hang around a little bit post menopause before it takes a deep dive. And so that's why it's always good to test your testosterone. The testosterone panel, it's not just testing your total testosterone, right? So you gotta test everything in your testosterone and see where you're at. And again, once you get regular, you figure out your form formula with progesterone, estrogen, then if you need it, then you added the testosterone. And then we have to be understanding that testosterone can convert into estrogen as well. So if it's aromatizing into estrogen, then you're like, oh, you may become estrogen dominant just because of testosterone, not because the estrogen that you're taking. So this is why we need doctors who are really well versed in hormones and understand menopause hormones. You know, not just hormones in general. They. They gotta look at the whole picture that a whole woman, a woman going through this menopause transition, there's just not enough research, there's not enough education. Doctors are definitely not getting any education in school. If they are, it's just, you know, one hour. It's something very, very little. And so they don't really know what to do with the menopausal woman. And it's just so much easier just to give her antidepressants and, you know, sleep medicines and, and tell her to just, yeah, grin and bear it. It's so sad. It is so, so sad. It's so sad. And it's sad actually, because also, doctors may deny, they may go, okay, I can get, I'm. I can prescribe some hormones. I know how to do some of that, but I won't do it until you've actually hit that menopause birth date. So you're suffering all throughout perimenopause in your 30s and 50s, and you gotta wait until you're 50 until you can finally start to feel better. I mean, that's just so wrong.
- [45:33]
B
So when you said about the thyroid, I'm assuming like the TSH levels go up, T3, T4 goes down. Does that sound about right?
- [45:40]
A
Yeah. Well, again, your TSH can be perfectly normal. That's this thyroid stimulating hormone. And you can say, I feel like shit. And your doctor, usually the only panel they'll do is TSH, maybe, maybe a T3, T4. But it's really the free T3 and the free T4 that you want to look at. And if you want to go an extra mile, then you'd want to do your anti tpo. Anti thyroid globulin hormone. Yes. And maybe reverse T. Reverse T3. Doctor. Different doctors have different ways of reading their labs.
- [46:12]
B
Right.
- [46:12]
A
And. But you definitely want to get more than a tsh. Like you've got a ban for at least the minimum TSH, free T3, free T4 at minimum. But you want to make sure you're not getting hypothyroid or you don't have Hashimoto's or something like that. And, and then if you do, I mean, I've had women come to me and say, look, my doctor said, I've got Hashimoto's. And I said, well, what you do, what is, what do they tell you to do? Nothing.
- [46:37]
B
Nothing.
- [46:37]
A
No change in diet or lifestyle? No, I'm, I'm like, well, geez, well, no wonder you're feeling bad. And there's no, you know, no remedy. And, and again, when it comes to fixing the thyroid, again, we want to optimize the thyroid to make sure it's in a good condition. I think those are markers. Definitely a woman in perimenopause needs to keep an eye on, make sure you're at good levels. And then if you. There's different approaches on how to fix it. And actually, you just interviewed or you were on Dr. Amy Horneman's @ the podcast. She is called the Thyroid Fixer. She is my go to when I want to learn anything about the thyroid. She's so knowledgeable. And I think if anybody's concerned about their thyroid, definitely go listen to her because she's brilliant and, you know, a lot of stuff that I share with my community come come from her, from her knowledge and her experience. Yeah, but you want to look at those. Those are probably the two biggest ones that I see in terms of your, your, your blood work. And cortisol, I have to say, is probably another thing to look at. And when you get a dried urine test, you can see the cortisol levels rise and fall over 24 hours. Because some women get a cortisol test, whether it's blood or saliva or whatever it is, and they're kind of stressed when they're getting the blood test. And so of course the cortisol is going to be high. But is that representative? I mean, we do want to cortisol to go high in the morning, right? We want it to go up, not crazy high, but we want it to be elevated and come down in the evening. That's why I love these 24 hour tests because you can see the cortisol rise and fall and if it's in the right curve, great. If it's backwards, then, you know, there's, you're probably wired and tired and need to, to sort out your cortisol.
- [48:14]
B
And that's why they indicate when you take it, there's a certain level that it should be in the morning or evening. So you'll see that on most tests and labs will do that depending on where you go.
- [48:23]
A
But you know what was interesting? I had one client who, she was fairly young, she was about 35 and she saw a doctor at the time I was seeing the same doctor in Hong Kong and she had the hormones of a postmenopausal woman. I was like, this is nuts. And so what the doctor did, she gave her, she actually had flatlined cortisol. Now, if you know what that means, flatlined, it's just there's no cortisol response because it's so overloaded, it's been so stressed, it's just kind of dead. And so what the doctor did, gave her a teeny tiny dose of cortisol. And then the cortisol came back to normal levels and her estrogen and progesterone came back to normal levels of a 35 year old. And I was impressed. So, you know, everybody says thyroid's the master hormone or you know, cortisol is the master hormone, but in this case, cortisol was certainly the master hormone and regulated a lot of things for her. So it was pretty amazing to watch that.
- [49:21]
B
That's amazing. Sweet. So I got one more question for you and it's just a quick what do you, do you have any like biohacking things that could help? Like for instance, women going through menopause? Is there a certain food that you would recommend? I have discussed multiple times now the use of creatine for many reasons with the woman I have found and I've studied this quite a lot just in my dives on creatine that it helps with, as you mentioned, like osteoporosis or breaking down of bones that that will happen with menopause and it certainly helps strengthen bones, sarcopenia like you brought up, it will help to increase muscle mass, but then cognitive help and just some almost. It's not a stress reliever but it does help to maybe relieve a little bit of that. That's one of the things that I've noticed. Is there anything else or any foods that you would recommend that could possibly.
- [50:10]
A
Help to possibly help with which, which menopause symptoms?
- [50:14]
B
Like sort of anything?
- [50:15]
A
There are 103 of them. Right? Well, yeah, that we're going to talk about.
- [50:20]
B
My wife had read about sweet potatoes before and using that and it had helped, you know, doing that has helped with certain like emotional symptoms, I guess is, you know, one of the things.
- [50:30]
A
Yes. So yeah, I mean it would be, it would be great if we had sort of one supplement that did it all. But whenever women come to me, at least on social media, they're like, what do I tell me the supplement to take? My next question is what symptom that you're having? Because different supplements for different symptoms. But one of them that I recently found out that was pretty cool was called Pycnogenol and that's. I think it's a French pine bark, French pine tree bark, something like that. And it is actually quite, quite effective and it's been around for a long time. For me I was like, oh, this is a new supplement. So that would be. Be for hot flashes, let's say. And then you can say if you were having a lot of stress and anxiety, then I would take Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen. And that's really good to help us keep a little bit more calm and relaxed and then, and it, because it can adapt to things maybe we need a little bit more energy, we may need a little bit less. And so that's why I love these, these things like ashwagandha. Rhodiola is also another really good one. Black cohosh is a, it's a typical one. But I would say, you know, when, when it comes to just general menopause, you know, that's, that's when it comes to the research actually for supplements, it's. You'll find all kinds of stuff. It works, it doesn't work and it's just, there's no consistency like say with hrt for example. It works in most Women for hot flashes and that's why it's prescribed. But, but I always say to women, when you want to get, you know, really want to hit all bases, try to get the base of that biohacking pyramid. And I look at biohacking as a pyramid and we have the base which is the diet and the nutrition. The nutrition, the exercise and the sleep and the stress in our community and our purpose in life. And these kinds of things are very basic. We all know what we need to do, we just don't do it. But we try to get that done. And then the middle part of the base is all the cool stuff, the hacks, the supplements, the red light therapy, the ice bathing, things that you don't need, need a doctor for. And then the top tier of that pyramid would be things that you probably need a doctor for like PRP injections and regenerative medicine and stuff that doctor your does or hormone therapy. So women or humans in general, we always want the middle and the top tier because those are the easy, you know, fast hacks. But they don't work as well or at all if we don't have the base. And if we can try to cover the base of that pyramid through, through, not. And I say diet, you know, whatever diet works for you. I mean, I've seen so many people with so many different diets thriving and I'm not, I'm diagnostic. I just want people to find something that works for them. When we get those things right, you may not need that middle or the top tier. And but I have seen women do everything at all at the bottom and they still do need those tops. They need to supercharge with the middle of the top tier. So probably I, I would say one of the, out of that bottom tier. I know nutrition is really, really important, important. But what I see, at least in my community that's having a huge impact is stress is if they can manage the stress and they can control a little bit their environment in order to manage it, then they may have a smoother transition. And as a gerontologist, we know so many diseases of aging are related to stress. And I'm not just saying stress like I'm stressed out. It's more, there's stress on the body, right? The foods that we eat and the pollution that's happening and the plastics in our environment, you know, this is a stress on, on the body. But, but generally if we can manage the stress because you can have, you know, eat the great diet and be on the treadmill all day, Long and eat your broccoli. But if you're stressed, it's going to have a huge impact. All of that is almost meaningless. So for me, the most important is. Is the stress. And I do see that in the community. And you are. I mean, you had all these symptoms. Imagine all these symptoms that I listed is if you had all of these. Some women have all of them, and they are. They are very impactful. They're very significant. How are you even waking up in the morning? How are you even feeling? Like, it's. It's just. It's. It's a nightmare. It's really, really hard to move on with life when you're feeling it all and feeling so much pressure and no one can walk in that person's shoes. You don't really understand what it's like to feel like that. But if they can find a solution and that, you know, they have it. They're obviously stressed. They're obviously very stressed because they're in pain, they're tired, they vagina hurts. When they're having sex, they're like, everything is. Is like, on fire. And they are trying to manage all this, and it's not easy. Life in general is not easy. But when you've lost your hormones, you are less resilient. I hear a lot of times women saying, gosh, you know, you know, I'm feeling really horrible. Is it the hormones or. Or something else? And I said, well, what's going on in your life? And they said, oh, my God, I lost my job and my husband left me. And this. I'm like, well, hormones are no hormones. Like, I'd be depressed, too. This is a stress. This is a. This is a normal stress. However, when you don't have the hormones on board, you're less resilient. You're. You're just. You're able to handle these things a lot better when you had them, because, you know. Yeah, you're right. You know, when I was younger, I was. That kind of stuff didn't really ruffle my feathers. But now it's just really hard. That's. Yeah, we want to get the hormones balanced. I want to get them, you know, on board if you. If you're open to that and life. I've just heard so, you know, it's. I hate to sound like those, you know, you know, people like, who just, I don't know, stick with a diet. Like, it's the diet and everybody should be on it. You know, I sound like that with the hormones, but I've seen so Many women that it's hard for me to stay quiet about it because I get so, so many women had come to me and say, oh my God, my life is so much better and thank you for you know, bringing this up or tell me about it or I, I'm just, I, I love women to just at least give it a try. Hormones are just the kind of thing that you, you can try it. If you don't like it, you, you can stop. Nothing can go wrong. We need them, we need to, we, we would usually we take hormone therapy most of the time as a cream or a gel. We take it every day. They go away. Right. It's not like you take it once a week and you, and you top up and you wait for this to build up. No, it works or it doesn't work. So otherwise we would need to take it every day.
- [56:34]
B
That's right. Awesome. Well, I thank you so much for all of that breakdown. It's so, so helpful. And just the whole wealth of information you provided today, it was really awesome. I know I took a ton from it. I'm going to utilize if you don't mind and some of the things that I do. But I really, really appreciate it. And you're wealth of knowledge and your podcast is amazing and I really want people to get your info, to follow you, to listen, to learn. So if you would. And I'll link all of this in the description. Just tell people the best ways to follow you and find you.
- [57:06]
A
If you can remember the word hack my age, I've got hackmyage.com on the website and then you can find my Instagram, my Twitter, my LinkedIn, my X now TikTok, YouTube, everything is always hacked my age. And if you can't remember that Zora the Explorer, I'm, you know, instead of Dora the Explorer, I'm Zora the Explorer. You can always. I still pop up like that so you can find me there.
- [57:27]
B
I love it. Well, thank you, like I said for making the time. I know the time difference is there and just for coming and educating my audience and what you do for your audience and everybody. It is truly, truly helpful, commendable and everybody owes you a big debt of gratitude and thank you so much. Well, well appreciated and I just want to make sure that everybody knows that you're the one to go to for all of the help here.
- [57:52]
A
No, thank you, thank you. And I just, I will connect you to everyone else who's bigger and better. It's there, there are a lot of great people out there. Great doctors, great podcast hosts, great women, great educators. There's. There's so much information out there, and I just. I love connecting people, too. So thank you so much, Dylan, for this opportunity.
- [58:11]
B
You're welcome. And I will take it all. Because like I always say, you could never know too much, but you can always know too little. And I always feel like no matter how much I learn, it's never enough. So thank you. I appreciate it. And that is it again today for another amazing episode, everybody. So stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and hack your age, Ms. Zora signing off by.
- [58:40]
A
SA.