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The Neuro Experience
What Actually Happens to Your Brain When You Start Fasting | Dr Mindy Pelz
01:10:06
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- [00:00]
A
It's a controversial topic, fasting, especially for women.
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B
I was teaching these women to fast primarily because they wanted to lose weight. But what I was witnessing was women say things like, I lost weight, but my hair is falling out. I don't have a period anymore. And that's when I was like, oh, like the problem is.
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Meet Dr. Mindy Pals, best selling author, hormone expert, and the voice redefining fasting for women. Because doing it wrong can wreck your health.
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B
70% of divorces are initiated by women after 40.
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A
Oh, my God.
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B
I think the women wake up and they're like, wow, this home I'm living in, I'm so anxious in it, I don't know what's wrong with me. And that's because her nervous system got an upgrade and got really finely tuned.
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A
I didn't think about it like that.
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B
So back in the primal days, we needed to protect the clan in case a tiger was coming. Grandmother was taking care of the tribe while the men were away. But now put that in terms of, like, today, we still have that sensitive nervous system, but we're not running from tigers. And this is why.
- [01:02]
A
I'm Louise Nicola and this is the neuro experience. Dr. Mindy Peltz. Welcome.
- [01:07]
B
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this.
- [01:10]
A
I'm so excited because I've been watching you for so long and you've really put out so much information on females, especially women in midlife. And that transition that we're all hearing about, that sense of seems to be causing this havoc on our immune system, our metabolic health and our brain. So we're gonna talk about all of that today and we're gonna touch on your new book, which goes into the hormonal stage of women. So before I get into it, what really put you on the map? Was it metabolism? Was it fasting?
- [01:43]
B
Nobody's ever asked me that. It was fasting for sure. But let me tell you, what happened was I had a lifestyle clinic. I was teaching my patients how to eat, how to move, how to sleep. And there was a ton of education. I always say I was in the trenches with them, trying to help people customize their personal lifestyle. And I had a group of women in my practice that were. I call them the mama bears. And they were like, you know how women are. They're like, oh, my God, I'm learning so much. My friend in Wisconsin wants to know what I'm learning. My friend in Florida would love to know how she can attend one of the classes you give. So I just started doing all my educational stuff. You know, Facebook Live had shown up and YouTube was out there. I just started recording these classes and I put them on my YouTube channel. And one day one of those videos took off. And that video was on autophagy.
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A
Oh yes.
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B
I was deep into studying fasting at the time and I was like spending about 20 hours on PubMed every week looking at all the fasting research. And I created something called the fasting timeline benefits chart. And, and I showed on a chart what happens when you go a certain amount of time without food. And then you click into this other metabolism, all the healing that would happen. That video took off and it's interesting.
- [03:03]
A
Because it's a controversial topic, fasting, especially for women. And I think it's misunderstood. And I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between intermittent fasting and fasting. And there's windows around it. So what's the definition of fasting?
- [03:20]
B
Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. Because in Fast Like a Girl, I put out six different level fasts all based off time. And I really wanted people to see them as tools, not as have to's. Like if you go this time, you'll get this, you'll get that. So here's what people don't understand is that we have really, in basic principle, we have two metabolic systems. One that we ignite when we eat, and I call it the sugar burner system, is when glucose goes up, all of a sudden we start burning glucose and use that as energy. But we have a whole nother system. It's the ketogenic energy system, I call it fat burner, just to make it easy for people. And when you go eight hours with your glucose not going up, so glucose is either staying the same or going down, your brain and body start to coordinate a switch over into this ketogenic energy system. The fasting research started at 12 hours. So 12 hours without glucose going up is going to allow your body to switch over into the ketogenic fat burning system. Everybody's gonna be a little different. And it really, of course there's all these variables that start, but it's a certain amount of time without your glucose.
- [04:36]
A
Going up, that's generally 12 hours.
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B
Generally 12 hours. So most people then are like, well, what if I drink my coffee? Or what if I do that? These things become important. When you're looking at it as a trigger, you're signaling to your body, take me over to this other system. Burn fat, change hormonal production. You're literally sending A chemical message to your body to switch to this other system.
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A
So now you see this. You said fat burning, and we'll talk about that. I take all of this from a brain first perspective, and because I know that the primary fuel source for the brain is glucose. But when glucose isn't present, it does need ketones. And what happens is, and I'm not sure if you know this, but when the brain doesn't have adequate glucose or when it goes through glucose metabolism reduction during perimenopause and menopause, it starts to catabolize the myelin sheath of the neuron to create ketone bodies to use that as fuel.
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B
I did not know that.
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A
And Dr. Roberta Brinton actually was the one who did this research. And it's crazy because then you can say, oh, my gosh, when a woman experiences a 20% reduction in brain glucose metabolism, it starts to catabolize its own white matter of the brain to use that as ketones. So then you could hypothesize, then would fasting or exogenous ketones be effective for the brain?
- [06:04]
B
Oh, my God. I feel like you and I needed to meet about 10 years ago, because what I started seeing in my clinic is that I was teaching these women to fast primarily because they wanted to lose weight. But what I was witnessing was the perimenopause, menopause, post menopause age range. Something was igniting in their brain. And all of a sudden they would come to me on these, like, whatever. It didn't have to be a long fast, but they'd be like, my memory's coming, my focus is coming back. Why do I feel so calm when I haven't eaten for two days? So I started looking at this ketone and was like, what is the ketone doing to the brain? Had a really beautiful discussion with Lisa Moscone, and when her book came out and we talked about, okay, what happens if the brain can't use glucose as it moves through menopause? And we're looking at Alzheimer's as diabetes type 3. Where's the ketone in this?
- [06:59]
A
There you go. Well, if you don't have the ketone bodies available, this is what's happening. It's going to start. And I hate this, because actually, Kelly Kasperson and myself did a podcast which went viral, and it was taken the wrong way. We used the word the brain eats itself instead of catabolizing. But essentially, that's what the brain is pretty much doing. People didn't like it, and it's like, but okay, well we just say the word catabolize from now on, which is pretty much the same thing.
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C
But it does.
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A
And it's really made me interested in beta hydroxybutyrate. I don't know too much about ketone bodies themselves, but I do know right now with the available products, talk to us about what ketones are actually.
- [07:40]
B
Yeah. So what happens and the reason it's such a win win for menopausal women is that when you switch over into this energy system, the way you make a ketone is the liver starts to burn fat in order to make a ketone to go up into the brain.
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A
And that crosses the blood brain barrier.
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B
Not only does it cross the blood brain barrier, but we also have, remember that you've got tons of mitochondria in the brain and they all have a bilipid membrane that can also block out anything. But ketones can get past anything. They can get past a inflamed cellular membrane, they can get past any kind of damage of the membrane of the mitochondria. Like they can go where nothing else can go. And when you look at the ketone, so it brings with it a whole array of neurotransmitters. So when ketones get to a certain level in the body, it stimulates gaba, it stimulates dopamine, it starts to get serotonin going, it can stimulate bdnf. And when you look at that, you're like, oh my gosh. Well, estrogen goes away and she brought all these neurotransmitters with her, but now she's leaving because you're in menopause, but the ketone can bring em back.
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C
Oh, fantastic.
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B
Do you see where my brain like this is why I love this conversation with you.
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A
And the fact that it goes inside and penetrates the mitochondria, which is the site of ATP production, you can feel more energized. But I know that there's different types.
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C
Of ketones, is that correct?
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B
Well, your body's gonna make a primary type and there's ketone esters, there's beta hydroxybutyrate, there's salts, ketone salts. So I think one of the things to realize is that the one that your body makes, which is bhb, that's the one that's healthiest. When we go to do exogenous ketones, the biggest problem that we have is that the ketone esters don't always connect. They're not the same for everybody. That's about where my exogenous understanding goes. But there is a big difference between the different products that are out there.
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C
Yeah.
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B
I don't know if you've experimented with any.
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C
Yeah.
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A
And I've heard that some products come with an alcohol based. And that's not the best thing to have. So I'm experimenting as well. But my question is, is you mentioned autophagy. Not only are we getting fasting, we're getting the brain benefits and then the fat loss benefits, but we're inducing mitophagy. What is mitophagy?
- [10:07]
B
Right, right. Thank you. And I love that you're going to mitophagy. It's like. Yes, you get it.
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A
Autophagy, mitophagy.
- [10:14]
B
I mean, well, there's lots of autophagies. Right. There's a lot of different versions of the way the body repairs itself. So I think what's so exciting about it, I really put so much effort into the chapter in this book on ketones, because I was. I want to make the ketone the menopausal hero. If women understood that this could bring your brain back on, like right away, you would start to realize you have more control than you think you have. So it's obviously made by the liver. The liver burns fat, sends it up to the brain. Now, here's what people need to know, is that once you have ketones in your system, it turns off the hunger hormone, so ghrelin goes away. So now you're not hungry, but you haven't eaten, you're burning fat. It stimulates all these neurotransmitters, and then it crosses any dysfunction that's going on the cellular level. So if you're packed with heavy metals, if you've got all the bad fats you've been eating for years and years and years that have that bilipid membrane messed up, the ketone can go across that, then it can get into the cell and it can do mitophagy. It can go past any dysfunctional cellular of the mitochondria and it can go in there and it can get the mitochondria to make more ATP. So now the mitochondria is making more ATP, you have more brain energy. The mitochondria also makes more glutathione. So all of a sudden, the mitochondria is cleaning that cell up. And you didn't spend a dime.
- [11:48]
A
Yes.
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B
You just learned to fast. You're burning fat and repairing your brain at the same time.
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A
So mitophagy is the cleaning up of mitochondria.
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B
That's right.
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A
Oh, I love that.
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C
One of the most fasc things that I have come across over the last 12 months is the use of exogenous ketones. Your brain uses ketones more effectively than what it does. Glucose. Now, the glucose is the primary fuel source of the brain, but it doesn't use it as well as what it uses with ketones. Now it's so hard to get into a ketogenic state. So I take exogenous ketones, I use ketone iq. And this is because it delivers the most efficient fuel to my brain. And this is the best thing I can do when I'm traveling long hours and when I'm working so many hours during the day, I use it for recording days, travel days, whenever I want.
- [12:43]
A
My brain to stay sharp for long periods of time.
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C
If you've been wanting to try exogenous ketones, you don't know which one, try Ketone IQ. Just go to ketone.com neuro to get 30% off your subscription. And if you do sign up using this code, you'll get a free gift with your second shipment. That is ketone.com neuro for 30% off.
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B
And I can't remember, it was like 10 different types of autophagy in the body. The endocrine system has a whole. It's like, it was like called endocrophagy, you know. But there are. Autophagy is a term that I think we cannot lose sight of because it is the body's ability to repair itself.
- [13:29]
A
And then autophagy, it would be the same, but in the cells of the body. So cleaning up dead cells.
- [13:34]
B
That's right. When you stimulate autophagy in a cell, what you're asking that cell to do is to become a better version of itself.
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A
Oh, wow.
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B
So when the ketone gets in there, it powers up that mitochondria. Then you've got the sensor within the cell that's like, wait, we haven't had ketones here. So I know, because that's what a ketone will actually indicate is that glucose has gone down and we've switched over and it will start to repair the inner part of the cell. It gets crazy when you understand autophagy because when like a bacteria or a virus comes into a cell in a state of autophagy, it can't replicate.
- [14:14]
A
Oh, wow.
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B
So like I studied all this during COVID I studied so many interesting articles that were showing that if you induce Covid into a person, if their cells are in a state of glucose metabolism, in this sugar burner metabolism that Virus will catch that glucose, eat it, and energize and replicate. If a virus goes into a cell that's in a state of autophagy, it can't replicate. So it literally shuts down viral replication.
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A
No way.
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B
So in my practice during this time, we got everybody fasting and we started to see that people that were getting affected by it, it would only last a day or two. People were around other people that were sick in their household. They weren't getting it because they put their cells in this state of autophagy.
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A
So technically you're saying if I stop eating at 9pm and then I start eating at 9am, is that considered at fast?
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B
Yeah. So you would be 12 hours in.
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C
That's 12 hours.
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B
Right. So now you get to decide do you want to stay there? If you go to that, this was the six different level fast. Fast like a girl is like, yes, you stop eating at nine, you eat again at nine. Now you are in this fat burning place. But what if you want more healing? What if you want more fat burning? Okay, well, if you go to 17 hours, you're now really stimulating autophagy. So autophagy, cellular autophagy will be its best between 17 hours and 72 hours without food. Let's say I have a patient who's pre dementia, seen signs of Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment. Yeah. What if I start putting them and we did this in my clinic and it was really profound. What if I put them in a 48 hour fast? What if I could teach them to go all the way to a 72 hour fast and you would see their brains and their cognitive ability come back online? Like, not completely, but like.
- [16:13]
A
Yeah, evolutionarily, when we did go through these fasts and we had to, our brain had to switch to a ketone level. That was because we needed to be focused, we needed to be switched on because we need to look for food and we need to scare off the predators. Here's my counter argument.
- [16:28]
B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah. Okay, let's go for it. Because in, in biology there's always like a seesaw, right? So I experimented with a GLP1 and at like the lowest dose possible. And it really affected me. I couldn't stand the sight of food. I couldn't even walk past. I live in New York. I couldn't walk past vendors. Like it was really bad. So I essentially didn't eat for about. I mean, I tried to eat, but it lasted. That lasted about a week. And then my cycle just went out of whack and I was fasting. Obviously, but I didn't mean to. And then my cycle, instead of every. It comes every 28 days and I'm not perimenopausal yet. And then it just. I skipped a week and then it went two weeks. I thought, is there something wrong with me? And my doctor said it's because you didn't eat. And so my argument is, well, where does it, where is it bad? Cause a 72 hour fast, would that knock off a woman's cycle?
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B
Well, so this was fast like a girl was. I created something called the fasting cycle, where I showed women where they should fast in their menstrual cycle and where they shouldn't.
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A
Interesting.
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B
And here's the outlier is that progesterone needs glucose, a lot of it. So this is why we crave carbs the week before our period. And the other thing about progesterone is she doesn't like cortisol. So when cortisol shows up, she's like, peace out. So you take your situation and we're seeing this a lot where on my YouTube channel, we're having all these conversations about GLP1s because there's so many benefits and there's a lot of side effects. But what we have to understand is that if you, the female body needs progesterone for a lot of reasons, but the most important is to let the uterine lining shed. So if you don't have enough glucose and your cortisol is high, you're not gonna make progesterone. And that's probably what happened to you.
- [18:25]
A
Yeah, well, as soon as I started eating again and normally and normal, I.
- [18:28]
B
Went back to normal. But that was. You went back to like, how did this all take off? For me, that was the concept that launched me because I too, when I got so excited about fasting, I was doing it with my patients, I was teaching my online community, and I started to see women say things like, I lost weight, but my hair is falling out. I lost weight, but my anxiety is through the roof. I lost weight, but all of a sudden I don't have a period anymore. And so I literally sat back and I'm like, okay, wait, maybe the sex hormones all play by a different set of rules. And that's when I was like, oh, like, estrogen wants our glucose system to be really in balance. Look at like, pcos and infertility at the heart. And the root of some of those conditions is insulin resistance. But then progesterone wants the exact opposite because you've got to have glucose high in order to make enough progesterone to let that uterine lining shed. So I started off with just every. Nobody fasts the week before their period. Just stop that. But then I had to go to the perimenopausal women and say, the minute you start spotting or you're now 60 days without a cycle, we need to get you to stop fasting.
- [19:43]
A
Okay. Yeah.
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B
Because your body needs glucose.
- [19:46]
A
Yes.
- [19:47]
C
Yeah.
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B
So that's the nuance.
- [19:48]
A
Okay. So that's where you. And then you, you did all this study and now you're. You're speaking to women maybe a bit older who are maybe postmenopausal.
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B
Yeah. Well, then the post. This is where age, like a girl came from. I love having this conversation with you because this just excites me because your body makes these ketones. But I noticed because we fasted so many people, like last week, I just led 100,000 people worldwide through a three day water fast. And we've been doing this on a regular basis. And then we get all the data from this. Most of it is anecdotal, but just sort of seen what's there. Men and postmenopausal women can fast easier than your woman that has a menstrual cycle.
- [20:31]
A
Well, that makes sense to me because you need a lot of energy, you know, for fertility.
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B
Really.
- [20:37]
A
Yeah.
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B
But. But we don't talk enough about that. Like, I'm three years postmenopausal. You know, it wasn't like when I ovulated. I was like, hold on everybody. It's going to take a lot of energy right now to let an egg out. Yeah, we just. I think this is the thing about, as women that I'm so protective of how we look at ourselves. And I think we've been taught to push through our menstrual cycle. And we don't realize that actually it does take a lot of energy.
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A
Oh, God.
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B
And we need some lifestyle shifts at different markers of the cycle.
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A
Yeah, correct. Do you know much about lactate? Because.
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B
Little bit.
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A
Yeah. I've just become a big fan of it. So lactate is the byproduct of when you are exercising at a very high intensity. Okay. You know, muscle breakdown when we can't use ATP within the mitochondria.
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C
Okay.
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A
And that's usually zone two. And we move out as a byproduct. We end up creating lactate. And people used to think that lactate was the, you know, lactic acid burning in your muscles. And we now know that lactate is this Phenomenal myokine. So when it's produced in that high intensity state, it can also go up to the brain. And the brain utilizes lactate as a fuel source.
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B
Okay, so how many fuel sources does the brain have then?
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A
Well, I mean, look, it's got glucose, it's got ketones, it's got lactate, but I'm unsure of any others.
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B
I feel like estrogen could be considered a fuel source too. It's just a different type. It just initiates a bunch of.
- [22:06]
A
Well, it helps shuttle in lactate. Yeah, it's an assistant. It's like an assistant. It basically helps the cell open up and allows glucose to go in. And this is why it's got the receptors all over the brain. Brain and in the brain stem. And this is why when we don't use the receptors during menopause, because there's no need, there's no estrogen around, it closes its gates and the glucose just sits there in the cerebral spinal fluid, causing what we call di. Pre diabetes, if you will, because it can't get shuttled into the cell properly.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah, that's crazy. So this is why one of the pleas that I've been having for women recently is at. At 40, we should be obsessed on hemoglobin A1C.
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A
Yeah. And have you done homa IR?
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B
Is that the home test?
- [22:50]
A
Well, no, it's the calculation between your fasting insulin. So if you look at your homer H O M A I R. It's a calculation where you divide your HBA1C. Okay, I don't know the correct equation. By the fasting insulin. And you divide it as well. You get this number, and mine was 0.4. I just did it a month ago. But if it's over 1, then that's a clear shot of you are being insulin resistant.
- [23:16]
B
But from like a brain perspective, I think what most people don't realize is that if that number is off, that you're not only giving your brain a fuel source, it doesn't know how to use as efficiently because you're in your menopausal years. All that extra glucose starts gumming up those red blood cells. And for people listening, it's called glycation. And now you're not getting as much oxygen to your tissues as well.
- [23:46]
A
I didn't think about it like that.
- [23:47]
B
So, like, that's what I. When I look at that A1C, I get this visual in my mind of a red blood cell with a bunch of glucose gumming it up so it can't deliver oxygen, which is why I've literally become obsessed on a 1C. Let's see what happens to everybody if they got their A1C. But now you've given me even deeper.
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A
Go and do the home.
- [24:07]
C
Yeah.
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A
So let's talk about a 1C. So obviously, is it over five?
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B
Is that what everything that I've seen says around five is good? I will tell you that the longevity experts will say between 4.5 and 5.0 is for longevity. You want to get it really nice and low. Now that can be a little controversial, but I think we have a really sloppy measurement of it. From like I looked up, what is the menopause society think they're saying that your A1C should be 5.8 or below or below.
- [24:46]
A
Yes. Okay, well that's, that's a bit high because even the. Isn't the American Heart association even saying below that is. Yeah, much too high. Yeah.
- [24:54]
B
I mean, from what the work I did in my clinic, 5.0 that like get 5.1, 5.2, fine. 4.95, fine. But the minute we start going over 5.5, we. I started to see symptomatic expression.
- [25:06]
A
And what are you seeing? So for everyone listening, you can go. It's a simple blood test that you can get done from your doctor. Just say include. They should usually include in your yearly physical, I think a hemoglobin A1C.
- [25:17]
B
Yeah.
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A
And so when you get this, what's it measuring? The amount of glucose?
- [25:22]
B
It's. Yeah, so it's your glucose and insulin. The relationship between glucose and insulin for 90 days.
- [25:28]
A
Okay, great. Yeah.
- [25:29]
B
That's why it's spectacular because what we started doing is we did so many the finger prick tests, doing glucose and ketones. I mean, I tried everything in my clinic. We had a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. And I was like, okay, let's take a reading on you and then put you in the chamber and then come out. And we were like constantly looking at this or these CGMs that are really popular. But the problem is, is there a snapshot of a moment?
- [25:57]
C
Yeah.
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B
The 90 day reading tells me what you have been eating and doing and how you've been moving for 90 days. So it's a. In this particular measurement, we need a wider lens.
- [26:07]
A
Yeah. And so when you get that. And then you also do fasting insulin.
- [26:11]
B
Yes, yes. Fasting insulin's important too. But I could go on a 24 hour fast and change my fasting insulin tomorrow, but that's not my normal fasting insulin.
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A
So then how do you know that's.
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B
Why I like a 1C best.
- [26:24]
A
Okay, great.
- [26:25]
B
Because it's not day to day dependent. Okay.
- [26:28]
C
Hands down, one of the best things I did in 2025 was replace all of my cookware with caraway.
- [26:36]
A
That is not a joke.
- [26:37]
C
Because when we talk about longevity, we focus on what we add, supplements, routines, protocols. But just as important is what we remove. And most nonstick cookware still contains pfas, the chemicals that accumulate in the body over time and are linked to metabolic and neurological issues. I've switched everything into caraway and it's taken away and get all of that from me. Their ceramic cookware is completely non toxic and I use it every single day. It's one of those quiet upgrades that lowers your lifetime exposure to things that your brain and hormones don't need. So if you're thinking long term about your health, this is a meaningful place to start. Visit caraway.comneuro to get 20% off your next purchase. Caraway.comneuro to get 20% off.
- [27:26]
A
You know, CGMs. So here's the thing. I think they're, they're great, right? But you need to understand what it is because you can wear a CGM and you can be in a certain range. I don't know if you wear one or if you set a range.
- [27:39]
B
Not anymore. Because I've learned what I need to learn from it.
- [27:41]
A
Yeah, but you know, I was wearing one and then I go and do Zone 5 training on the Stairmaster and your glucose just shuts up. And anybody who doesn't really understand the mechanism of glucose would think, oh my God, what is going on here? But of course it's needed because you need glucose for energy.
- [27:56]
B
But that's why I think they're helpful. So again, you have to understand, like my practice was built around helping people make lifestyle changes. So if I put a CGM on somebody, what I would do is the first couple of days is I said, just live, just eat and then send me your readings at the end of every day. And there were several things that I noticed. One is working out people. Everybody freaks out. Everybody's like, oh my God, I went to the gym and it shot up to 160. What have I done wrong? Yeah. So then it was an educational tool. I could say, hey, you know what? So that's because your body had to release glucose to be able to perform the workout. How quickly did it come down? And they'd be, oh, it was down within 20 minutes. I'm like, you're fine. That's fine. Stress. I'll never forget the first CGM I ever put on. Before they were even accessible, my teenage daughter came in and yelled something at me. I was in. Like, I hadn't eaten in a day. It was like 24 hours into a fast. She left. I looked down at my cgm and my blood sugar's through the roof. And I started to see. Oh. Because I got stressed.
- [29:02]
A
Also. Cortisol is driving it up. Oh, gosh.
- [29:05]
B
So you can start. And then I've used it with patients to start to say, okay, did you notice it's coming? It's taking two plus hours for your glucose to come down. Can we go back to that meal? What was at that meal? And now I could, you know, oh, I had a bowl of pasta. Okay, how about we put some drizzle, some olive oil on it? Now tell me how quickly it comes down. So I was able to use the CGM to teach what they need to know about their lifestyle. But I don't think just a regular person can just put it on and have that same experience.
- [29:37]
A
Yeah. And it's a starting point, I think, also. So when I wore mine, I had it to beep. Okay. Beep if it goes too low. And it woke me up in the middle of the night. Because, of course, during, you know, smack, bam, in the middle of the night, my glucose went way down.
- [29:51]
B
Yeah.
- [29:51]
A
And I was like, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. You're hyperglycemic. I thought, oh, my God, what's going on? So that was really interesting, too. I. I think these tools are great. Right. And this is where I want to switch the conversation. When a woman is in that stage of parent. Let's say she's 48.
- [30:10]
B
Right.
- [30:10]
A
She starts to experience a lot of symptoms, as you mentioned. Where does she even start? Where are you getting them to start? Because it's such a. Like, it's so hard for women to really know. What do I do? And now we've got estrogen patches, and we've got testosterone cream.
- [30:27]
B
It's gotten complicated.
- [30:28]
A
It's getting complicated. But we still have, you know, 5% of the female population in this world is taking hormone replacement therapy. What's happening to the other 95% of them? Are you pro HRT?
- [30:40]
B
I think we need to look at it as a personal decision. Is it working for you or not working for you? Because my experience has been that some women get on HRT and they're like, oh, my God, my life is so much better now. And other women get on and they gain weight and other women get on and they're like, nothing's happening to me. So, like, I can tell you what I've done with my OB that I love is that we every 90 days do my blood work and we figured out I do better with the gel than I do with the patch. That took a year of four different blood tests really to figure out what was the best one for me and where I was in the journey. So I love that we've opened the conversation up, but we also need to let women know there's a learning curve and you might need to find the right dose. Second thing that I would say that I'm concerned about with the HRT conversation is that so many women are like, finally a pill or a patch for this horrible phase I'm in. And I think in all the research I've seen and all the clinical experience that I've seen with women, you've gotta change your lifestyle too. It's not a free pass.
- [31:51]
A
Of course not. No, it's, you know how I describe it? You're right, it's not a free pass. Estrogen is there as a supportive mechanism. It's not a supplement. No, but you think about, I think about creatine. Okay. Creatine is phenomenal, but you have to lift the weights. You're not just going to grow, you know, you're not just going to go hypertrophy without the creatine. So it's supporting you to maybe eliminate some brain fog, support you to get up and go to the gym.
- [32:16]
B
Right, right. And Kelly and I talked about this when she came on my podcast. We were debating, not really debating, but we were talking about testosterone. And, you know, you can go to the gym and you can lift heavy weights, like incredibly heavy weights. Break muscle down, make bdnf. Like when you break muscle down, you make bdnf. And as you build muscle, you increase testosterone. We also know with testosterone that we don't want too much cortisol because then it starts robbing your body of dhea, which is a precursor for testosterone. So Kelly and I are having this conversation and she says, well, this is why I want to put somebody on testosterone, so that they then go and get the experience at the gym that you're talking about. So it was a really beautiful way to look at it because some of us are going to go on these replacement therapies and we're going to have a life changing experience that's going to allow us to now have the motivation to make the Lifestyle changes that are going to support, support this process.
- [33:21]
A
Funny that you said the word motivation because testosterone really is the motivation. You know, it really helps. And I actually, in Australia, it's actually our version of FDA approved. In America we don't have an FDA approved testosterone product for women, but in Australia we do. So I got a tube of it and for the first time when I put it on I was like, I could start a business right now, I.
- [33:44]
C
Could take over the world.
- [33:45]
A
And my life changed. I mean I did it because I was like, I got low testosterone because I flew in from Australia, you know, America. I was sleep deprived. Cortisol tried it and it was just, I thought, oh my God, this thing here is the, the future. It is, it was unbelievable. So I hope every woman can experience that. What are some other things that you're finding?
- [34:05]
C
Because you've, you've written a book which.
- [34:07]
A
Means that you've got a lot of information. I want to extract it all from you.
- [34:11]
B
Yeah. And this one was a ten year research. Like I really spent a lot of time in these principles trying to understand them. So. Okay, so we talked about a 1C. I just think that one is so important. Okay, here's some other ones that I think don't get enough credit. We have to look at our nervous system because so many women are coming into their 40s and their perimenopausal years where they are sympathetic dominant and they are so maxed out. And so now they're dealing with the massive neurochemical shift. So estrogen from my research stimulated over about 12, most of them neurochemicals. Creatine and collagen obviously aren't neurochemicals, but I lumped them into that. So when estrogen goes away, we now have the potential to lose dopamine, serotonin, gaba, oxytocin, bdnf, glutamate. Like you throw the GABA glutamate system off, there's a whole neurochemical shift. And if you're already frazzled, you're already so stressed out that is going to feel really raw. Like you're gonna feel stress. Like a lot of women would tell me, you know what, I just can't handle the little stresses anymore. Like all of a sudden I just couldn't take it. And so I don't know what's wrong with me. And that's because there is this massive shift. So you have to prioritize your parasympathetic nervous system system a little more. Now in this modern world, I Don't know very many women who have a parasympathetic nervous system that has been given attention to.
- [35:46]
A
No, we don't think about that.
- [35:48]
B
No, not at all. So, like, this is something I'm doing at 56 now. I've, like, really gone into parasympathetic training. I'm trying to move a little slower. So, like, when I'm at home, I don't, like, hurry up to get to the next thing. I've moved from hot yoga to yin yoga.
- [36:06]
A
Yeah.
- [36:07]
B
I've looked at where in my workouts am I overdoing cortisol? Like, can I do weightlifting a little different way? So I've switched to rucking. So I really like that. Of course, I still lift the heavy weights. I prioritize sleep, like, what time I go into bed. I've learned to say no a lot more to social engagements because all I want to do is build up my parasympathetic nervous system. And every time I do that, what ends up happening is I don't have the symptoms that flare up.
- [36:39]
A
Being kind to yourself, really? Yeah. It's funny you mentioned that. My mother, she's 71 and she was never spoken to about, you know, 20 years ago about estrogen therapy. But I noticed when she was, you know, 20 years ago, I didn't really know about what this all was either. But if I talk to her now, I'm like, I know exactly when you were in menopause. She's like, why? I'm like, because all of a sudden, the smallest things was stressing her to the point where she catastrophized the small. And I remember I used to think, what is she going on? My mom is crazy. She's going crazy. She was crying and hyperventilated and then she was fine the next day. And I'm like, I didn't know back then. I'm like, oh, no, something. But now I know that that's what she was going through.
- [37:17]
B
So a really good thing for women in that moment is to ask yourself, am I doing too much? Do I need more downtime?
- [37:27]
C
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- [38:37]
B
You know, one of the things I found in my research is that our whole system with this neurochemical upgrade becomes very sensitive. And I actually think there's an evolutionary reason for this. I went back and I had some really cool discussions with Kristin Hawkes, who came was really the modern day champion of the grandmother hypothesis.
- [39:00]
A
Oh, wonderful.
- [39:01]
B
And she actually lived with the Hadza tribe in Tanzania and witnessed the postmenopausal women. And she said the men go off and hunt. You know, it's a very sexist story. The men go off to get a big animal kill and they would only come back with an animal kill 3% of the time, which is one day out of 30.
- [39:23]
A
Oh my God.
- [39:24]
B
So it was. And then the women that were pregnant or nursing or had babies, they couldn't go out and forage for food. So they would stay around the cave and manage the children. And so it was the grandmother who would go trek. And I dove into this research and seven hour walk every day. These grandmothers, way back in the primal days, but they're doing it in Tanzania and they go out and get food, specifically they go to look, forage for tubers and they bring food back to feed the tribe. Now during this whole experience, they're also protectors. So I have a philosophy that the part of why we go through this neurochemical experience is to become more sensitive and to our surroundings. Because back in the primal days, we needed to protect the clan in case a tiger was coming or some kind of weather system. The grandmother was taking care of the tribe while the men were away.
- [40:24]
A
Oh my God, that's beautiful.
- [40:26]
B
But now put that in terms of like today we still have that sensitive nervous system, but we're not running from tigers. So I believe what happens as we go through this is we have to honor that we become more tolerant and intolerant of our environments. So I looked at the statistic that 70% of divorces are initiated by women after 40. I think a woman wakes up, the menopause Divorce. Yeah. I think the women wake up and they're like, wow, this home I'm living in, I'm so anxious in it. Because her nervous system got an upgrade and got really finely tuned. All of a sudden she has to change her workload or has to change what she's doing at the gym. That's because you have a beautiful, sentient being here that has become highly intuitive. And her nervous system is constantly looking for a threat. And this is why I think we're struggling through this process.
- [41:30]
A
Yes.
- [41:31]
B
Do you see where I'm going?
- [41:32]
A
I've heard a lot of women say at this time, they're like, what I used to be able to handle in my 20s and 30s. I'm not doing it anymore. I'm just simply not. And that's probably the reason why for the initiation of these. Divorce, menopause, divorce.
- [41:47]
B
It's like, when this book came out, somebody said to me, I think it was Kelly. Kelly's like, are you going on book tour? I'm like, fuck, no. Hope I can swear on your thing. Yeah, you can. I'm like, no. I'm like. And she's like, you're not. I'm like, I put three books out in three years. Yeah. I'm 56 years old.
- [42:03]
A
I'm like, mind blowing, by the way, if anyone's, like, watching on YouTube, like, I thought for sure, like, very much, like, 40s. No, I didn't think that you were 56.
- [42:12]
B
Oh, thank you. And so I realized I don't want to do that. My nervous system doesn't want to be on planes. My nervous system doesn't want to be in hotels. So I'm looking. I want to do this a different way. I'm launching a book like a Girl. Like a post menopausal woman who is very in tune with her nervous system, and I don't want to grind it anymore. There's other ways to do this.
- [42:34]
A
So for a woman listening who wants to maybe decompress and take her nervous system into play, would you say just focus on what's driving your stress and try and eliminate it? I mean, most women listening to this are probably like, I've got a husband.
- [42:46]
B
I've got kids, I've got a job.
- [42:48]
A
Like, of course, of course. You know, it's crazy, but this is.
- [42:51]
B
Why I think books are so beautiful and podcasts like this at opening conversations. And this is, you know, my whole purpose of age like a girl was how do we open this conversation up? So couples, instead of women turning to their Husband and saying, you're doing this wrong, and you're doing this wrong. How can we help her understand this process? So then she turns and she looks at him and says, you know, I'm just really sensitive. I know I used to be able to handle that, but I can't handle that anymore. Here's what I need. I did this during COVID I was in the thick of my almost. Almost going into post menopausal years. So I was deep into perimenopause, and I was living at home with my husband and my son. My daughter was off at college, and the kitchen kept getting messier and messier and messier. And I was like, hey, I know that in the past, I've been fine with the messy kitchen where I am in perimenopause right now. I can't wake up to a messy kitchen.
- [43:56]
A
No.
- [43:56]
B
But instead of being like, oh, my God, you guys are just leaving, like, instead of that kind of relationship, I could go to them and say, I'm the one changing, so I need this to be. To look a little different.
- [44:08]
A
Yeah.
- [44:09]
B
That brought them into the conversation as opposed to took them out of the relationship.
- [44:15]
A
Communication, ladies and gentlemen. That's what they say. Okay, we have to talk about dementia.
- [44:20]
B
Yes.
- [44:21]
A
Even though we've touched on it just a little bit, now, 55 million people worldwide have Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's dementia, which is the most prominent type of dementia. That number is going to triple by the year 2050. 165 million people. 2/3 of all of those patients will be female. So 70% of all Alzheimer's disease patients are women. We used to think it's because we lived longer. We on an average, live around 4.5 to 5 years longer than men. But we now have substantial evidence to suggest that that's not just the only reason. It is also because of this hormonal transition that occurs.
- [44:55]
B
Right.
- [44:56]
A
What are you seeing and what have you put in your book to let women know how to best prevent this?
- [45:02]
B
Yeah. So this is. This is another fun one to have with you. I think we have to look at, again, a more holistic point of view of, like, what is driving thought, what neurochemicals are driving thought, what neurochemicals are driving memory, and what neurochemicals are driving behaviors. And this is why I look at what estrogen stimulated. I call it estrogen's girl gang. It's like she brought all these neurochemicals. So when we look at a brain that's going through the menopause experience, this is where I love the HRT discussion, because what we are seeing is that, okay, if we can keep estrogen in the brain longer, really, what you're also doing is keeping these neurochemicals in there longer. But at some point, these neurochemicals are going to start to deplete with her. So let's use dopamine as an example. Dopamine, of course, is the molecule of more. It is a motivation molecule. Dopamine loves novelty. So how, as women are moving into this aging experience, do we get her doing new activities? Now we've brought dopamine in because we know dopamine is going to be effective because estrogen is supposed to decline. But let's teach her how to do some new and novel activities. Okay. What happens when you do a new and novel activity? You start to spark neuroplasticity.
- [46:30]
A
Yeah.
- [46:32]
B
So, like, for me, this is. At 56, this is where I'm going. I learned to surf this year for the first time.
- [46:37]
A
Oh, that's phenomenal.
- [46:38]
B
And do you know all the research on cold water and trauma?
- [46:42]
A
Yes, and we're gonna talk about that. Not cold water and trauma, but just.
- [46:45]
B
Cold water, emotion, cold water. It literally has changed my brain to be in the water because of norepinephrine. And I think I'm also getting dopamine. Cause the ride of the wave, you're bringing cortisol down because you have to watch the wave coming in. So you're looking at out over the horizon. Salt water has the same mineral content as human blood. I mean, I just saw. And I have to go into this research, but I saw 11 seconds. If your face is exposed to cold water, it rewires trauma. Yes.
- [47:17]
A
I have been doing just. Sorry to cut you off, but every morning I have actually been putting my head in a cold in an ice bucket with water every single morning. Mainly because I was like, this is just amazing. This is like a free facial every morning.
- [47:30]
B
Yeah, it's smart.
- [47:31]
A
But in terms of trauma, I didn't know that.
- [47:34]
B
So I experienced it first. Then I went to go find the research on it.
- [47:39]
A
Wow.
- [47:40]
B
So I've been like, I won't go into this part of it, but I was here in the LA fires when it happened. I had to evacuate three times. I was running from fire for two days. It was horrible. And then I was diagnosed with acute ptsd. And with acute ptsd, which I think also happens through the perimenopausal journey, we have a little bit of. Everybody has a little bit of PTSD as They go through this. But one of the things that happens is you get hypervigilant thoughts. And now everybody listening. I am sure OCD hypervigilance is a very common menopausal experience. When I got in the water every day and got my ankles, I would put my wrists. Cause I also saw that if you get your wrists and in cold water every single day, all of a sudden the hyper vigilance stopped. I'm not joking. Like, if there was somebody up there, it just stopped telling me all the worst case scenarios that could happen. And the only thing I changed is I went into cold water every single day. That was the only thing I did. So then I picked up a book called Blue Mind and I was like, what's going on in water? And then I started looking at how cold water rewires trauma. And I remember last October, sitting with my husband one day and going, if you like. I'm all of a sudden being told best case scenarios by my brain.
- [49:03]
A
Oh, my God. Listen, every Greek woman needs to get into some cold water. We are so. We always jump to, like, the worst conclusions. And you know what I realized? Like, you have the ability to stop the rumination of the negative thoughts.
- [49:16]
B
But that's.
- [49:17]
A
But that takes a lot of energy, Mindy. Like it. It does. It really. You know, people don't realize, like, your brain is wired straight away for negativity.
- [49:25]
C
It's actually hard to be happy.
- [49:27]
A
Takes a lot of energy. And it takes a lot of energy and thought to think positively. So if you can find a way to stop those negative thoughts and stop ruminating on them, then that's powerful.
- [49:37]
B
But I didn't. The thing is, it wasn't like I sat through all this therapy and that helped it. It was getting into cold water every day.
- [49:47]
C
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- [50:14]
A
And by the way, for those of.
- [50:15]
C
You who follow me on Instagram, I get so many questions about what is your skincare routine? I never thought about doing one because that's not my forte. But let me tell you, the real Louisa Nicola cares about her skin so freaking much. I take so much pride and care on my skincare routine that I will probably do a real talking about this because I am obsessed with this product. Jones Road Beauty has completely transformed the way that I view skin health. I use it every single morning and every single night because healthy aging isn't about doing more. It's about supporting the systems that protect you. If you want to check out Jones Road Beauty, go to JonesRoadBeauty.com use code NEURO. You'll get a gift with your purchase. You will get money off. I just want you to go to this and read more about them. You will not be sorry. Jonesroadbeauty.com use code NEURO.
- [51:12]
A
Now there is this consensus, a popular scientist put out saying that cold water is actually not good for women because of the cortisol spike.
- [51:22]
B
Right.
- [51:22]
A
And because of again menstrual cycles. And so are we taking that into.
- [51:27]
B
Yeah, okay, so let's, let's go with cortisol and hormones. So if I'm a cycling woman, I'm going to avoid cortisol the week before my period.
- [51:36]
A
Okay.
- [51:36]
B
We also get a little progesterone at ovulation. So wherever progesterone shows up. Yes. Women should not have too much cortisol because if cortisol goes high, progesterone.
- [51:47]
A
And when does progesterone show up?
- [51:49]
B
Usually around day 20 until you bleed. Okay, great. That's progesterone's moment. So as long as we're not doing cold water during that time and during ovulation day 10 to day 15, you get a little bit of progesterone. So maybe don't do as much during that time. It's very much like I did with fasting. And then the second thing I would say, and again, I'm hoping people are gathering a holistic point of view. If I am completely stressed out at work, I am barely holding on to my menopause symptoms. I'm dealing with a very over scheduled family. Yeah, dipping your face in cold water is not a great idea. But where I am at 56, my kids are out of the house. I'm creating a different pace to my life. I'm not, of course, I'm not in cortisol. So when I got in the water, yes, it could have made cortisol go high, but I got all the other benefits because I wasn't in a stress state in my life.
- [52:52]
A
I love that.
- [52:53]
B
That's the nuance. This is the part that I think I'm really worried about with social media is we're grabbing little reels yet and.
- [53:02]
A
Not getting the full conversation welcome to my life, Mindy. Welcome to. Like. I spent, you know, I told you I had to do a. They gave me 30 minutes to do a keynote, and I said, how am I gonna distill, like, 15 years of knowledge into 30 minutes? And it got to the end and it said zero. And I had like 15 slides left. I was like, ah. And so it's hard and it's just like, like reels as well. You have to be proactive with your reading, with your research.
- [53:26]
B
Like I always say, if you see a reel of a podcast you love, go listen to the whole podcast.
- [53:31]
A
Correct. Yeah.
- [53:32]
B
So you get all of it.
- [53:33]
A
And so back to dementia. You mentioned that we've got, you know, the loss of estrogen creates the loss of all of these neurochemicals. These neurochemicals help us be happy, motivated, creating memories in the hippocampus. And do you talk about exercise much?
- [53:47]
B
Oh, yeah, because, you know. Well, a. You can't turn away from the fact that exercise and longevity, of course, are a thing together. But bdnf, I mean, I think there's two things. I think lifting weights, I love to look at it through a brain perspective. And I think, yeah, go. You want to lift weights so that you're sore because that tells you you broke down the muscle. And the breakdown of the muscle creates a metabolite, goes up to the brain and start. Stimulates bdnf. And BDNF is like. Is like fertilizer for the brain.
- [54:15]
A
Yeah.
- [54:15]
B
So, yeah, I think that's amazing. I. There's also incredible studies on exercise in nature because nature brings cortisol down. So this is what I mean. When we look at dementia, we have to look at the whole picture.
- [54:31]
A
You have to look at gene, like, genetic history as well. Even though it's, you know, it's not a foregone conclusion that you're going to get the disease if you've got the apoe. But it does mean you'll have to modify your cholesterol and lipid panel, because that's what's responsible for carrying cholesterol through the brain. And so then you'd have to become more aggressive in this aspect. But other than that, your genes are not your destiny.
- [54:55]
B
Right, Right. So then you have things like serotonin, estrogen stimulated the 5HT2, a serotonin receptor site. I geeked out on that for a while. I was like, what else stimulates that receptor site? Actually, psilocybin stimulates that receptor site.
- [55:11]
A
Really?
- [55:12]
B
That research was fascinating. So I was like, well, if you're losing estrogen and you're not stimulating this receptor site and you're not getting enough serotonin, then you're gonna be a little sad potentially. I mean, not everybody with low serotonin is sad. Where else can we get serotonin from? Well, our eyes have receptor sites for serotonin. And when we go out in the middle of the day in full spectrum light with. Without sunglasses, sunglasses on our eyes can take that light, turn it into serotonin.
- [55:44]
C
What?
- [55:45]
B
Right.
- [55:46]
A
Wow. Where are they? Is that like with the suprachiasmatic nucleus? Yeah.
- [55:50]
B
Where is it in the eye? It's a great question. I can't. I don't. Yeah. You know, in the book, it doesn't even matter.
- [55:55]
A
I'm just thinking, I'm going so scientific now. I'm like, where? No. So you go out.
- [55:59]
B
Is it.
- [55:59]
A
Is it between the hours of like 8am to 12, or is it the.
- [56:02]
B
Middle of the day you want the most the full spectrum light you can get, which is about the middle of the day.
- [56:07]
A
Yeah, you get all of the.
- [56:09]
B
But then let's continue on with light. So I know one of the biggest challenges to dementia or the precursors to dementia is trouble sleeping. Okay, So a woman goes into her menopausal years, she's maybe on the patch, but she still has less estrogen than she's ever had. Estrogen stimulated the suprachosmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus, which is the timekeeper of the brain. Right. So without estrogen, the timekeeper doesn't know where you are in the day. So it doesn't know to signal to the pituitary gland to. Or the pineal gland to actually make melatonin. So you have to tell it in a different way. And how you can tell it one is through light.
- [56:56]
A
Yes.
- [56:56]
B
See sunrise. See sunset. See full spectrum light. Now you've told the timekeeper. Here we are in the 24 hour day.
- [57:04]
C
Yes.
- [57:05]
B
So, like in my house, I have a whole red light room. And when it gets dark, I go in there and I read and I just. To marinate in the red light. I bought the bulbs off of Amazon. They're not expensive.
- [57:19]
A
It's not doing anything special. It's just red.
- [57:21]
B
It's just red.
- [57:23]
A
What's that doing?
- [57:24]
B
So it's simulating sunset to tell my brain, hey, we're at the end of the day, you need to start making melatonin. So once I understood what the brain needed because it didn't have estrogen to tell my brain when to make melatonin. Then I started using light. That way our temperature is supposed to go down at least 2 degrees by the time we get into bed. And that signals to the timekeeper, hey, make sure we make some melatonin.
- [57:55]
A
And that's actually interesting. So I wear blue light, like blocking glasses, and they've got orange frames. But I've also started supplementing. I don't know if you've tried this with glycine.
- [58:04]
B
Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
- [58:05]
A
Yeah.
- [58:05]
B
Okay. But you know, where else you. You can.
- [58:07]
A
Where do you get glycine from? Where?
- [58:09]
B
I. I feel like I. Like, I. I want to be your best friend because I have been, like, in a silo studying this stuff.
- [58:16]
A
Really? Tell us about it.
- [58:17]
B
So glycine stimulates gaba? Yes.
- [58:19]
A
And doesn't it bring down body temperature? That's what I read. Yeah, I read that. And that's why I was like, oh, not that I suffer. I don't have any sleep problems, but I am always trying to optimize. And so I took it specifically for gaba, because I was also taking gaba. Okay. So I thought, let's take glycine. And then I saw all of these reports on glycine actually improving and extending lifespan.
- [58:42]
C
Yeah.
- [58:43]
A
It's got phenomenal correlations with longevity, and you should look that up. But I took it specifically before I do it, an hour before sleep.
- [58:50]
B
Okay, so what. You know what food has the biggest glycine in it is bone broth.
- [58:55]
A
Oh, gelatin.
- [58:56]
B
Yeah.
- [58:57]
A
Is that the same thing?
- [58:58]
B
Yeah. So now let's go back to the hunter gatherer days. Like, when they made an animal kill, they didn't go, oh, I just want this part. I want the rib eye. They took all of the animal and used all of the animal. And now I didn't look to see, like, if they were making bone broth every night. But they definitely had more of the glycine that came from the bones. I'm sure they boiled them well. Yeah.
- [59:22]
A
Okay.
- [59:23]
C
And so they.
- [59:23]
A
And so having this can help you sleep better.
- [59:26]
B
Yeah. The other thing glycine does is it repairs the inner lining of the gut, the mucosal lining of the gut. So it has been used for leaky gut forever. And so I started having my community break their fast with bone broth. Because when you go into a fast, all those microbes reorganize themselves. The bad ones go away, the good ones start to proliferate. And I was like, what if I have them break their fast with something that's rich in glycine Would it set the microbial change that had happened? Sure enough, I had all these supplements for gut health in my clinic. And once I understood, okay, all I need to do is have them fast, have them break their fast with bone broth, add in some fermented foods. I didn't need any of those supplements anymore.
- [60:15]
A
Doesn't bone broth also have collagen? It's good for your skin. Interesting, because the breakdown of your skin is also a result of loss of estrogen as well, right?
- [60:25]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [60:26]
A
Actually, I've seen women putting like vaginal estrogen now on their skin and I'm like, oh my God. And I was like, can I get some of that? They're like, no, you're not allowed.
- [60:34]
B
Oh, that's so funny.
- [60:35]
A
Yeah, I'm like, give it to me.
- [60:36]
B
I've had people put their estrogen cream on a musculoskeletal injury.
- [60:41]
C
Wow.
- [60:42]
B
So like if you have a frozen shoulder, put it, put the cream or the gel on the, the injured area because you have receptor sites for estrogen there. And so you're now giving the, the actual location what it needs.
- [60:56]
A
That's like a, a better version of BPC157.
- [60:59]
B
Oh, yeah, right. Well, I do like BPC157 too.
- [61:02]
C
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- [61:30]
A
You drinking water, water, water, but I.
- [61:32]
C
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- [62:05]
A
So we've gone through everything to support a woman throughout this transition. But you know, you've mentioned before that women still don't understand how much they need to support themselves during this transition. Because I don't think a lot of. You know, I feel like I speak to a lot of women. And I'm, I'm one of the young speakers because I, you know, I'm in my mid-30s and I'm not there yet, but I see all of these women saying that it just came and hit me like a bus and they're not prepared for it.
- [62:31]
B
I wish if I could just get into every woman brain that what you ate, how you moved, how you slept, the stress levels you were able to tolerate, they might have worked at 35, but they're not going to work at 45. And I don't mean that as doomsday. I mean that as. Okay, let's talk about what you need to know around food movement, your behaviors, your sleep. Like, there's so much that if you just make some little changes. I'm not talking about big changes. Little tiny changes, then you can navigate this phase so much easier.
- [63:09]
A
Yeah, I'm already preparing for. I know exactly what's going on. I'm like, I cannot wait.
- [63:15]
C
But it is.
- [63:15]
A
You do have to prepare for it in every aspect, even, like, financially, spiritually. Because your marriage, your marriage, like, we've got to talk about what we're like, yeah, am I going to kill you or am I not going to kill you?
- [63:27]
B
Right.
- [63:27]
A
Yeah.
- [63:28]
B
I had a good friend who's a therapist. When our kids left the house, I was like, it's really weird, just my husband and I at home. And she said, oh, what was your empty nest plan? And I was like, ah, I was supposed to have a plan for empty nest life. Like, nobody told me that. And she's like, yeah, because that's a really big transition. This is what I'm talking about. We need a lifestyle plan so you can get on your hrt. You hopefully have a great relationship with your object. And we still need to talk about how you're eating, when you're eating. We need to talk about your exposure to light. Let's talk about, like, unresolved traumas that might come bubbling up. We need a better support system for women to change their lifestyle through the process.
- [64:12]
A
And they can start by educating themselves first and foremost with your book. With. You've got an amazing YouTube channel. Can I tell you the one place that I fell a bit in love with you? It was a reel that went viral and I. And I was like, need to know this woman. And it was probably clipped from some podcasts, but you said, if you want to age a person faster, get them having the same conversations with the same people, surrounding themselves with the same people, doing the same thing every day, not going Traveling, that's how you will age a person faster. And I got to tell you that that is completely in line with neuroscience. Because the moment that you retire and you stop using your brain and your cognition, that is when you start the biggest risk factor for dementia because your brain needs stimulation. And you get that from traveling and seeing new things that you've never seen before in your life. You know, I took my parents on a trip last year and we went to. They're like, why are we going to Rome? I said, no, you are going to stare at the buildings, you are going to go around. And then I brought them to, they came to New York as well. And then my dad was like this.
- [65:18]
B
He's.
- [65:18]
A
His brain was white. He just couldn't stop looking around. I was like, I was so happy to see that because they are improving the health of their brain. I love when you said that.
- [65:28]
B
Thank you. Because I've tried to find as many ways to say that we have to do this different. So let's look at all of it. You know, what we haven't talked about that I'd love to know your opinion on is I did a ton of research on acetylcholine. And for people don't know, it contributes to memory. And one of the things that I saw was storytelling. Storytelling causes your brain to make acetylcholine because it's trying to dip back into that hippocampus to figure out like, oh, what actually did happen. And so in the remembering of a memory and talking about it, you are encouraging your own brain to make acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that estrogen stimulated. So just like we used the example, you can make your own dopamine, you can make your own acetylcholine through storytelling. So my 86 year old mom, this changed everything with her because every time she'd tell us that story, she would always tell us. And every time we were like, mom, you tell us that story every time. Now I ask her, you know what, you've mentioned that before, but you know what part of the story you didn't tell me what happened with blah, blah, blah, blah. Because I'm trying to get her brain to go back into the hippocampus and grab more and make more acetylcholine in that, that process.
- [66:46]
A
Oh, my God, that is. I just learned something new. That's so beautiful. I'm going to make my parents do that. It's interesting because, you know, people ask me, well, Louisa, how come, you know, we've got patients who come in and they, they don't know who I am, for God's sake. But they'll remember, you know, Something that happened 40 or 50 years ago, it's because your hippocampus makes those memories, okay? It's involved in memory consolidation and formation.
- [67:11]
C
But after a while, it actually protrudes.
- [67:13]
A
Them into the, into the neocortex, so into the cortex of the brain and your long term memories can live there. So you're not only stimulating the acetylcholine, but you're also getting the neural network to fire up again as well.
- [67:25]
B
And it's storytelling. So go research storytelling. Because I really dove into. I'm like, oh, my God. We just. And this is the thing about women. Women are so scared of becoming invisible as we age. And I'm like, no, where are the wise elders? We need the wise elders to stand up and to start to give us their experiences. The Okinawa women, the Okinawa women that we always put on a pedestal because they live so long. What they do is they create moais. And moais are gathering of women. And they share resources, they share a home, they share food. And everybody in the town knows if you want advice, you go to the Moai.
- [68:08]
A
Yes.
- [68:09]
B
So the kids, the people go and they ask the wise elders for advice. That's helping their acetylcholine pathways of the elders.
- [68:17]
A
And we actually have a national. People don't have enough choline. Actually, this was a. Yeah, this was documented because we were talking about the risk factors of dementia and choline deficiency. Is one of them eggs?
- [68:31]
B
Right?
- [68:31]
A
This is why eggs are not bad, ladies and gentlemen. But, yeah, agreed.
- [68:36]
B
And. And eggs, you got such a bad rap for cholesterol, but, like your brain needs cholesterol too. Correct.
- [68:43]
A
So even though I must say, dietary cholesterol doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. Okay, so you can eat as many eggs as you want. Your brain makes its own cholesterol. That's another myth that I plan to demystify. But, Dr. Mindy Peltz, I can't wait to have you on again for another episode. I think we could definitely talk for five or six hours.
- [69:01]
B
Yeah, I really enjoyed this. In fact, I'd love to just keep talking because, like I said, I spent 10 years thinking about the menopausal brain from a lifestyle angle, trying to understand, again, dementia and Alzheimer's, how do we prevent this? Maybe there's a shift in lifestyle. And that's what I've discovered so far. I put in age like a girl, but you're gonna take that information and probably learn even more.
- [69:24]
A
So thank you so much.
- [69:25]
B
Yeah. Thank you. It.