← The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
The Thyroid (and Hormone) Fixer Podcast: Thyropause, Menopause, Metabolism and How to Fix It
638. The Get Sh*t Done Hormone: Why Testosterone Matters More Than You Think
01:13:17
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- [00:01]
A
This isn't about turning women into men or creating some superhuman version of yourself. It's about restoring what your body was designed to have in the first place. Welcome to the Thyroid and Hormone Fixer Podcast. If you've been told everything is fine, but you're gaining weight despite doing all the right things, struggling with brain fog, mood swings, low libido, or feeling like a stranger in your own body, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Amy the Thyroid Fixer. And I want you to know right now, I see you, I believe you, and you don't have to figure this out alone anymore. We're going to do this together. But I'm also not here to play nice with bad medicine or empty promises. This show is meant to disrupt the entire health space. We're going to challenge the status quo, connect all the dots other providers miss and give you real, practical, science backed tools you can use. Today, you're not going to get any more recycled biohacking advice, just truth, strategy and hope. Let's get you back to feeling like the badass human you're meant to be. Do you want to burn fat while just sitting around? Do you have extra weight to lose? Do you want less inflammation? Do you want to reduce your oxidative stress? Do you want to improve your lipid panel? Maybe become more insulin sensitive? And once again burn fat while you're sitting there at rest at your desk or on your couch watching Netflix? Well, now you can, with the power of T2 that is in Thyroid Fixer. Now, Thyroid Fixer is not just for those with a thyroid problem. It's for anyone looking to lose body fat to improve their metabolism to have better energy. Thyroid Fixer actually works at your mitochondrial level, so it is stimulating your metabolism. It's also activating ATP, which gives you more energy, nice and steady through the day. Here's the other really cool thing that Thyroid Fixer does. It turns on a gene that prevents fat from accumulating all over your body. So that means, yeah, if you slip up and you have the Oreo cookie or the sweet potato fries, which are my two favorite, they're my downfalls. That is not going to put extra fat on your butt, your hips, your thighs and your abs. Oh, and your arms, you don't want those jiggly arms. So why don't you just improve your fat burning potential and actually turn on a gene that prevents fat from accumulating on your body with the power of Thyroid Fixer. So as a listener of the Thyroid Fixer Podcast, your first Time purchase. You can use the code listen 20L I s t n 2 0. We'll put that down in the show notes. And if you've already purchased it, but you just want to save a little something, something extra, then use the code listen 10L I s t e n 10 and grab some thyroid fixer. Stock up today because it will help you burn extra body fat and who doesn't want that? If you're over 40, which many of you are, and managing a thyroid or hormone issue, you know this feeling you're doing everything right, but your energy is low, your strength might be slipping at the gym, the scale definitely won't move and you've hit just this wall, you just can't push through. So that was me. And what finally changed wasn't another energy drink, it was starting essential amino acids. So here's the simple version. These are nine building blocks that your body can't make on its own. They're what protein breaks down into, except your body absorbs them almost instantly. So no heavy digestion required. They go straight to work. Feeding your muscle, building your muscle, supporting your metabolism. And that's what we all need. So since I started taking them every day, sometimes two, three times a day, I've noticed better energy, faster recovery, muscle building, yes, at the age of 52, alongside my hormones, way more consistency in my workouts and I genuinely feel leaner and stronger. I really do. I have more muscle now than I had in my 20s when I was competing in bodybuilding competitions. More muscle now because I'm feeding it the right way. So even on rest days, especially when I'm eating maybe a little bit less, I still take them to stay on track. The brand I choose and have been using now for four years is Kion. They are sugar free, non gmo, vegan, easy to digest and they taste amazing. That's why I put them in my water all day long. So if you're trying to lose fat without losing muscle, if you're on a glp, you better, you had better, better be taking these every single day. So you want to go to get Keon.com thyroid for 20% off. That's G K I O N.com T H Y R O I D thyroid for 20% off. Get the mango, get the, the berry. They're just all good. They're all good. You will love it. Testosterone, my second favorite hormone, the get down hormone. It's the hormone that makes you want to take action on things. It gives you drive, ambition, confidence, motivation, competitiveness, strength, focus, Resilience, and, yes, a healthy sex drive. It's the one hormone that helps you build muscle, burn fat, think clearly, and feel like yourself, all tied up in a bow, all in one. And yet, it is one of the most misunderstood and underutilized hormones in medicine today. I can't tell you how many women come to me exhausted, unmotivated, struggling to lose weight, watching their muscles literally disappear, dealing with brain fog, low libido, and basically feeling disconnected from who they used to be. And then there's my guys. Oh, the men. They're being told their testosterone is normal while they're literally dragging their butts through the day, losing strength, gaining belly fat, and wondering why they don't have a libido anymore and just don't want to participate. Here is the truth for all of you, male and female. You don't get a trophy for suffering. You don't get extra points for feeling tired and flat and uninspired and running on empty. When testosterone is optimized, you feel powerful, you feel capable, you feel driven. You just walk into a room differently. You just show up differently in your relationships, your business, your workouts, your life. So, no, this isn't about turning women into men or creating some superhuman version of yourself. It's about restoring what your body was designed to have in the first place. It's replacing hormones that are just no longer being properly made in your body, whether that's driven by thyroid dysfunction or you're just getting older. And that's just what happens. So testosterone, way more than just about sex. It is about life and quality of life. So you don't want to miss this episode that summarizes all of the beautiful things that testosterone does for us and gives to us for our health, for our life, our vitality. Go, go enjoy this episode. All right, first thing, sleep. Sleep is so vital. We anchor our health on sleep so often. And I feel even if I have a sleep expert on, I feel like the point just is not driven home enough. At least that's. That's my opinion. That's my experience, because I myself have to continuously come back to the topic of sleep and remind myself how vital sleep is for all aspects of health. If you're not sleeping, you're going to be inflamed. You're more prone to insulin resistance. You're more prone to type 2 diabetes. You're more prone to low hormones and a lowered immune system and all the things sleep. And inside of sleep, we have sleep hours. We have sleep quality, we have the depth, we have the rem, we have the light sleep. We have the time that you're going to sleep. So in a nutshell, again, this isn't a sleep episode, but we want to go to bed by 10pm because our rest, repair, restore deep sleep hours are between 10pm and 2am and you'll find that if you track your sleep and you go to bed late one night, you go to bed at midnight or one, your deep sleep is crap. You're barely getting any. So in order to get that deep sleep, we have to go to bed on time. And then we have to do things like the blue light blocking glasses and stopping eating before bed and shutting down electronics and winding down and maybe taking things to help support our sleep. Low dose melatonin, a little bit of GABA, magnesium, 5 HTP, all of those things. I actually put those in my sleep fixer because I have a horrendous time sleeping. Well, I did until I found this stack. So getting deeper sleep imperative. I actually was wearing my soul tech, which I have an episode on that. If you're like, what's the soul tech? The sleep device, it tracks it. It helps get you back into sleep and back into a deep sleep through different frequencies. And I tracked it when I take sleep, thanks, sir. I can get a hundred in my depth and that's what I know. I am resting, repairing, restoring. So everything goes together very nicely. Sleep fixer ends up helping me to get deeper sleep unless I override it and go to bed late, which we can all override our sleep. So sleep is vital, males and females for optimizing your hormones, optimizing your testosterone. Lifting heavy shit. Well, it's funny how this kind of circles back around, right? So we know that testosterone and strength are correlated. So is muscle mass and, and body composition and testosterone, right? So we need one for the other. We need adequate testosterone in order to lift heavy, and we need to be lifting heavy in order to have optimal testosterone. So it kind of works, you know, in conjunction. But then you go, well, what do I do? First, you start lifting. Because even if your testosterone's in the toilet, that weight training, that resistance training increases your testosterone levels. Now, this does not mean doing a Zumba class. This is not walking. This is all about lifting, weight lifting and resistance training. So lifting a little bit heavier weights, more than what you're used to, more than just lifting lighter weights for more reps, more lifting heavier weights, maybe you drop down in your repetitions of how many you do because your muscles are hitting failure. That is going to trigger your Body, it's going to stimulate the production of testosterone compound movements. So your squat, your deadlifts, bench presses, that was the core of my workout, still is to this day. But when I was powerlifting, oh my gosh, there would be a squat day, a deadlift day, a bench day. Now what that can look like for you is you might do a leg day with squats, you might do a back day with deadlifts. I'm not talking about killing yourself. We're not talking about lifting three times the amount that you already do. We're talking about going up £5, £10, £20, maybe if it's a big compound movement and pushing yourself a little bit more. Bench press can be an a full upper body day. That can be your shoulders and arms, but where you do a heavier bench press, where you do a heavier shoulder press. And that is going to stimulate your body to produce more testosterone. So I want to show you one study, I want to talk about one study, very, very interesting. This one showed that men with obesity, so obesity is already working against you for your testosterone production. Because our fat holds estrogen and our fat actually produces estrogen. We have to remember that fat is an organ, so fat will produce more estrogen. So when we take people that are obese, we have a higher estrogen level already. And again, talking about things feeding each other, back to what I said about the demasculinization of America. We have the xenoestrogens, the chemicals, the pesticides, the body wash, the body lotion, increasing estrogen levels in men, which then causes fat deposition. So now we have this cycle where men are getting fatter, producing more estrogen, they're being exposed to more estrogen, that estrogen is making them more fat. And that's outside of all the other things out here, like are they sleeping, are they eating enough protein? Is her thyroid jacked up? All of that. But we can see that cycle just with the estrogen and fat deposition and obesity. So it makes it much more difficult to increase your testosterone levels when your estrogen is high, because high estrogen in men will push down testosterone. So a 2016 study showed that men with obesity that lifted heavy on the regular increased their testosterone and it increased more than just them losing weight. So what did I just say? Ah, obesity. Having an excess body fat is going to produce more estrogen that's going to keep the weight on. Oh, but wait, if these dudes just go out and lift, they're going to produce more testosterone, which is going to push down their estrogen. Unless they aromatize to it, so they're going to produce more testosterone. And then they should probably be taking an aromatization blocker, estrogen fixer. If you're estrogen dominant, if you're on a prescription, an ostrozole so that you don't aromatize that testosterone to estrogen. However, most of the time we're just worried about that with our TRT patients. If you're doing this naturally, you don't have to worry about it as much, guys. But if you do have high estrogen levels, add in estrogen fixer for sure. Next study showed that and this was comparing men who didn't even exercise beforehand versus men that were pretty regular exercisers for about a year. You know, they, they did like the four or five days a week of getting to the gym and they weren't just running on a treadmill. Dramatic, dramatic differences in the group's testosterone levels. So we take this group, guys that don't exercise at all. Again, demasculization, guys, you gotta work out, for God's sake, low, low, low testosterone levels. In the men that did not work out, the men that worked out on the regular four or five days a week had significantly higher testosterone levels than the group that didn't exercise at all. Now the question is, and I would love to get into this data and see the numbers. Did the men who worked out on the regular, even though they had higher testosterone levels than the men who didn't work out at all, were they optimal levels? Don't know. We just don't know. But in general we can say, okay, this at least tells us something. You gotta be working out, lifting heavy for a variety of different beneficial reasons, but specifically for your testosterone. Now here's exercises that won't increase testosterone. High intensity interval training. It's great for cardiovascular fitness and for fat loss, but that is not going to increase testosterone levels. In fact, the 2016 study found that a 20 minute interval exercise containing of 8 seconds of cycling and 12 seconds of rest lowered testosterone levels and, and women. So ladies, again hit. High intensity interval training is very similar to cardio. You throw it in every once in a while. There's nothing wrong with it, but you better be lifting heavy. In addition to that, the next exercise that, I mean, it can actually be more harm than good. Like we're not even just saying it does nothing, we're actually saying that these exercises can lower your testosterone levels. Cardio. There's no evidence that cardio has any impact on your testosterone levels. No matter what your sex Is in fact, too much cardio may reduce your T levels. This is why we want you to get off the treadmill, get off the elliptical, go into the weight section of the gym and pick up some weights. Or even if this, if you're just starting, do the machines because you want that resistance. Resistance, okay. Other things that we can do to increase our testosterone naturally, get out in the sun. Vitamin D. You need vitamin. Vitamin D is a hormone as well. So I just dropped a couple of bombs on you today. Did you know that fat is an organ that produces hormones? Did you know that vitamin D is not a vitamin, it's a hormone. And hormones are messengers. They signal the body to do something. They send a message. So when we take vitamin D, if we can't get out in the sun, if you're living where I used to live, in Erie, Pennsylvania or Seattle, where you get like 100 days of sun out of the year, you can't get out in the sun. Now, that being said, there are other things that we can do to mimic the sun. Like my favorite red light is the mito lux red light. We have coupon codes everywhere for that. We'll stick it in the show. Notes Vitalux Red light has UVA and uvb so you can mimic the sun. So not only does it have the healing infrared red, you can mimic the sun. So you could do that. You can get out into the sun. It's free out there. And you can take vitamin D supplementation and get your vitamin D levels optimal. Because vitamin D is a what hormone and will help your hormones, will help your testosterone. What you eat matters. So again, we're kind of going back to this tie between testosterone and exercise. Like when we lift heavy, we help our testosterone. Testosterone helps us lift heavy. If you don't eat enough protein, you are not going to have adequate testosterone levels and you're probably going to lose muscle on both ends, right? So if you're not eating enough protein, you're not giving your body the building blocks of amino acids that it needs to build lean muscle tissue and protect your lean muscle tissue. And if you're not eating enough protein, that's also going to affect your testosterone levels. So I'm going to say at the very, very, very top, right, under sleep, under sleep, we're going to put eat enough protein because it is that vital to your whole being, from keeping your muscle to growing your hair, to producing enough testosterone and having energy and all the fun things that come with getting in enough amino acids, reducing stress, reducing cortisol, cortisol will crush any hormone. I mean, it just will. It just destroys it. Cortisol crushes our thyroid core, Cortisol crushes our testosterone, our whole hormonal cascade, however we can. And I know this is not an easy task. We have to control our stress levels one way or another. There are meditation apps, there's yoga, there's breathing modules. Go on YouTube, for God's sake. And you will find that there's 528Hz music that's on Spotify. Like you can just play that and it's going to reduce your stress levels. If you don't believe me, try it. Because Natalie Jill told me about it and I played it and I was like, oh my God. It's like immediate. Reduces your stress levels. There's so many different things you can do. The soul tech device that I talked about has a, A, a de stress frequency mode that you can put that on at any point in time during the day. It's not just going to put you to sleep. It's going to help de stress you too, because stress will kill your sleep. So do we put stress at the top or do we keep sleep at the top? I don't know. But stress is up there and controlling stress is up there. To the ability that you can like to, to your best ability. I get it that life happens. I get it that you can't control all stressors. I get that. But you got to do your best and do what you can because all those little things that you do, getting better sleep, helps with stress, helps your adrenals, meditating, listening to music, deep breathing, all of those things. Even if you can give your body 5 or 10%, that's 5 or 10% less stress. When we're talking about muscle gains in women, even when you start testosterone replacement therapy, ladies, it takes a while for us to put on any amount of muscle. Unless you're one of those easy gainers, which I've seen some of you genetic freaks out there. I'm so jealous that you can breathe and put on muscle. That's fantastic. But most of us ladies, we have to really bust our ass. Lhsing. We have to be pounding the protein and then maybe, just maybe, we'll put on a couple pounds of muscle. Now when you add on testosterone, what testosterone does, and I like to stack my testosterone with Hormone Fixer. And this is not a shameless plug, this is a report because Hormone Fixer tends to give me that pump and the, the fullness on the muscle when I'm at the gym. I won't get that with just testosterone because I've tried this before. I've tried to just do testosterone only. And then I've also tried to do hormone fixer only. And then I'll do hormone fixer and testosterone. And then I've also tried oxandrilone, which I'll get to in a moment. I've tried that on its own and I've tried oxandrolone versus hormone fixer and the results that we see at the gym. So let me go through that with you and here's the reports on that. Testosterone alone is fantastic for putting on muscle, but you really want to give it about six months to a year to honestly see those changes in your body. Now, men are different. Men will respond and react and, and get swole and look amazing when they're on testosterone for two months, three months. Women, it just takes us longer because we are not, we don't genetically have the high amounts of testosterone that men do. And that is why when you look at a female bodybuilder who's taking a male dose, if not more of testosterone, she starts to look like a dude. Her jawline will change. Her muscles are as big or bigger than like your brothers, right? That's an astronomically high amount of testosterone. And it's usually other anabolic steroids stacked on top of that. When I was in bodybuilding, in that whole world I'll never forget, I walked back and my friend was doing spray tanning and I knew that she always spray tan the women and her husband would spray tan the guys. And I walked back to bring her food because she was doing this all day long. And I walked in and for a second I was like, why is she spray tanning a man standing there, I mean, stark naked? Because that's, you know what you do? You stand there and get spray tan because you don't want bikini lines when you're up on stage posing. And this person full on looked like a male with a clatinas. And that is what large and high and exorbitant and too much testosterone anabolic steroids will do now 1 20th that. And that's what we're doing to get optimized, ladies. We're taking just enough anywhere really. If you're doing injectable between 10mg to 40mg a week intramuscular or subcutaneous of testosterone sipionate, or you may be using a testosterone cream. Now I will tell you if you're using a testosterone cream and it's Anything less than really 5 milligrams a day. I mean, that would be the low, low, lowest, lowest, lowest dose. I would go for someone who super sensitive to testosterone. More likely. We want you on 10-20mg daily of the cream. So a little bit different dosing from injectable to cream. We would want you on 10-20mg daily of the cream, and then it's still a crapshoot. One thing that you have to remember when we're talking about injectable and cream, this is like a little side note here worth mentioning. The cream will convert more to DHT dihydrotestosterone more so than the injectable. Now, some of you might have to be on the cream because of your age or because you just don't want to try the, the injectable. Even though it's a teeny tiny insulin needle, that's fine. But just realize that you may get more hair growth and acne, those DHT symptoms. You may get those faster than if you just use the injectable. So if you are doing the cream or really the injectable, I like adding in my DHT fixer. I like doing DHT Fixer first for like a week or two before I start anyone on the cream since cream converts more to dht. So testosterone, ladies, just testosterone alone, it takes a while. Now when you snack Testosterone and hormone Fixer. What hormone fixer does is it just gives you that better pump. You're also supporting your testosterone and your growth hormone levels naturally. And you can take that daily where you're doing the, let's say you're doing the injectable testosterone sibionate once a week. You can do hormone Fixer daily. And I always do that in the morning and then go to the gym. And then I'm like, yay, look at my arms. They're looking so good. They look better now than they did when I was competing in my 20s and 30s. And I attribute that to having optimal levels of testosterone, because I don't think I did back then. No one was testing me. And in fact I had pcos, so everyone assumed that I had high levels of testosterone and dhea, high levels of androgens. That was not the case. I put on muscle way easier now than I did when I was young. And my muscle structure, my body composition just looks better. So I stack testosterone and hormone Fixer. Now let me talk to you about oxandrolone because I mentioned that oxandrolone is an anabolic steroid known in the bodybuilding world as Anavar, but is actually a compound of medication or prescribed medication. And where we use this in medicine is helping patients regain weight after surgery, illness, trauma, any kind of caxia from, from cancer, any kind of sarcopenia, the loss of muscle as people age. And it just helps the body recover from the side effects, even from long term corticosteroid use. If you have been on corticosteroids for an inflammatory disease, takes a toll on the body, it really takes a toll on your muscles as well. So you can end up losing muscle because of that corticosteroid use. That's where oxandrilone will come in. It also helps treat bone pain, cause osteoporosis and yes, it will inadvertently push up your testosterone. Even if you're not on testosterone, it has a little bit of a lower androgenic side effect profile than testosterone does. So if I have a patient, female, cannot tolerate testosterone, injectable, cannot tolerate testosterone cream, pushes over to dht, she's on DHT fixer, we add in dudasteride. Nothing is working. She can't take it. She's breaking out like crazy. Cystic acne, growing a full beard. Then we will bring in Oxandalone and see how she does with that because that's going to help with muscle strength, muscle endurance, body composition and it helps with libido A little bit. A little bit. It's not as direct as testosterone, but please, ladies, another side note, bear with me. If you think that just taking testosterone is enough to improve your libido, please go back and listen to the all about libido episode. We can link to it in the show notes as well. So it's easy to find. That is important because there are so many different factors with libido. So many. I keep digressing. Bear with me. When I did a scent of just oxandrolone versus just hormone fixer, no testosterone. This is, this is during the time where my practitioner wanted me off the testosterone. And this was for a while, even before I I tested and found out I was a 13 when I did just the cinemaxandrolone and I tested my testosterone actually went up into the 60s. So it does have an effect on your T levels 100%. It will not as potent, not as strong, not as much of a punch to your T levels as let's say a cream or injectable, but it will have an effect. So I did that stint and what I found was when I took hormone Fixer before a workout, I got A better pump, I look better, better striations, better look, more strength. I could do more push ups, I could do more weight than when I just did oxandrolone alone. Kind of interesting because like I said, that's the girly steroid. Back when I was competing, that's what all the women were taking who wanted to stay feminine because like I said, it has a very low androgenic profile, meaning androgen, testosterone, male features, male male pattern, baldness, acne, hair growth. Anabolic is what we want to improve muscle, to grow muscle. That's the anabolism. And as opposed to catabolism, where your body is eating away its own muscle tissue, we don't want that, don't want that. We only want anabolism, anabolic, we don't want androgenic. So when the androgenic side effects start to occur, despite what you're on, that is when you want to add in DHT fixer. Because those androgenic side effects are either from you being on too high of a dose, you converting over to dht, or you're just taking too much of everything. I don't, I mean, if you're tiptoeing into that bodybuilding world, then yeah, you're going androgenic because you're on too much. It's very interesting to me to note how different women will respond to testosterone replacement therapy in different ways. I, over time will get a random cystic acne, little outburst burst here and there, couple dark hairs on my chin that I have to pluck out, but it's not intolerable. And then you have the subset of women that have no side effects whatsoever.
- [32:34]
B
You know, in testosterone therapy it has a diurnal rhythm. I don't think ours is as erratic, meaning that you know the rhythm throughout the day, up and down. I don't think ours is erratic, as erratic as men. I didn't see any studies looking at, you know, I do know it's highest in the morning. So women, if your husbands are complaining, if you're married or anybody's significant partner that they're not getting any booty in the evening, you tell them our testosterone is high in the morning after a good night's sleep. So you know, you need to set aside the morning time because it's probably better. So there's a, there is a peak there. But I don't know, I haven't really seen a lot about. If ours fluctuate as wildly. So on the pellet therapy, you don't get those diurnal fluctuations but you're more consistent, you know, because you're transdermal. You do have to worry about transference to your pets and your kids and your significant other while you're absorbing it. And then I, I have to say, some people just don't do well depending on the medium in which the testosterone is in. So the carrier lotions and things are all, you know, a little suspect. So sometimes they may not do as well as that. And then you have the injectable. And, you know, some people are just nervous about injecting things. Things, even though it's tiny, it's like an insulin needle. So that's. It's that too. So I, I think, you know, everybody. I've been on kind of all versions, you know, because I, I'm, I'm a guinea pig. I'm like, what would that feel like?
- [33:50]
A
Exactly.
- [33:51]
B
We tried ourselves, you know, and in disclosure, I have pellets today, mostly because I'm, I'm the, I'm. The thing I have to fight the most about my own self care is I'm the shoemaker. Right? And it's, you know, the old adage like, I'll look around and be like, oh, I forgot all about that. Oh, I just did that not too long ago, you know, and they're like, oh, that was three months ago, Betty. I'm like, oh, really? So I, for me, it's a convenience thing, you know, but I have to be very careful because if I push my testosterone too high, I will lose hair because I, I lose hair for everything. Doesn't matter. Stressed, thyroid, whatever.
- [34:24]
A
My hair falls out. Oh, yeah, Change of weather, you know, my hair is going thin and straw like. Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
- [34:31]
B
Now, have you used a bunch of different methodology as well, personally?
- [34:35]
A
So personally, I have never tried the pellets. I have only done the injectable with the cream. Even with my patients that, like you said, maybe they're a little bit skittish with the needles and they want to start with the cream, or maybe their testosterone is. It's almost right there. We're so darn close and we just need something to push it over the top. Will do the cream. But like you said, there are so many variables. I have seen women go from a Test level of a 10 to a 125 with the cream. And I have seen women go from a 20 to a 23 with the cream. So I mean, literally, it's, it's so widely varied. Definitely dependent on the carrier base that the compounding pharmacies use. How the, the Patient themselves applies it. Are they rubbing it in for two minutes? Are they putting it on the right location? All of that factors in. And then are they even given the right dose of the cream? If they're working with somebody else, you know, and they come to me and they're like, yeah, I've been on a test cream. Okay, are you on like 2 milligrams, 1 milligram a day? That's not even enough. I've only used the injectable. I prefer it because it is so easy to do and I feel like it keeps me at the level that I need to be at and it keeps me steady. I don't get really any kind of high peaks and valleys. But again, it's just so individualized. You have to find what's going to work for you as a person.
- [35:58]
B
Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, and you and I are big advocates for testing.
- [36:03]
A
Right.
- [36:03]
B
Test before you start, test while you're on it, test when you're doing a, you know, symptoms change so you can actually monitor what's going on. And I was very happy about that particular article, really going, hey, you should test sex hormone binding globus and globulin and total testosterone and before you initiate therapy in both men and women so you can really watch and see it. And then of course, you know, why don't you give your take on oral testosterone, as we both know.
- [36:27]
A
Yeah, no, oral testosterone just, I mean, it pounds the liver. So most orals are. Most orals are from the bodybuilding world and they are going to be way more androgenic than anabolic. So you're going to get a lot more of the side effects in addition to most do a double path of the liver. So that's where we'll see, you know, severe liver issues, elevated liver enzymes, just all kinds of problems from the oral. Now, the only oral, like I mentioned earlier, that I will use personally and with patients is oxandrolone. But what I will have them do is do a sublingual, so dissolve it under the tongue. Then that way it's not really going. I mean, yes, some of it is still getting processed through the liver. Absolutely. But by doing it sublingually you are kind of saving a little bit of that pass. I haven't seen any studies to say, like doing it sublingually will be just a one pass the liver instead of double pass. But we see much better liver profiles and blood work profiles when done sublingually. And you don't really need that much. I mean, when we're Looking at, again, kind of going back to my roots, the bodybuilding world, women athletes, female athletes would be using somewhere between 25 and 50, maybe even up to 100 milligrams a day. I'm talking about using 5 milligrams a day, maybe 10, just to have that muscle protection to get a little bit. And this is great too, for women who maybe they can't tolerate testosterone, they do push down the 5 alpha reductase pathway. My assistant, man, she cannot tolerate. You give her a drop of testosterone and it's cystic acne city. But with, and we haven't tried this on her yet, we will trying Oxandalone, which doesn't have that same really strong and anabolic property to it. That actually might save her. She might get the benefits. She's going to get the anabolic side, but without the androgenic side effects. So that's what I, that's my $0.02 on the oral versions.
- [38:29]
B
Yeah, again, DHEA, obviously we can give oral, but you don't need a ton of it, you know.
- [38:33]
A
Right.
- [38:34]
B
You know, and that one's easy to do. So. So I agree with you on that one. I think there's. I, you know, and I had really ever thought about using some of those other medications in somebody that hadn't really handled testosterone well as women.
- [38:45]
A
Right, right.
- [38:46]
B
To just thank you for that because that, that is a brand new thought for me.
- [38:50]
A
Now, there are troches too. I didn't mention that because I, I don't use them. So I totally glossed over the trochees. But one of my health coaches is using a trochee and she's using like eight. I think she, maybe she just bumped up to 16 milligrams a day because she does better with a little bit higher testosterone level and that works just fine for her. So if you can use troches, that's fine. It's a little bit safer than just a normal oral because again, you're getting that sublingual absorption.
- [39:16]
B
Yes, yes. So, yeah. And you know, we don't do troches in Texas because most of the time you can't ship them, you know, when it's hot because they just come in, it's like, like gums. Yeah, yeah. So they come together like a gumball. So you can't really, you can't control the dose, you know, and so, you know, so if you were to wrap this up and sort of give a general recommendation for the women out there that are maybe thinking about testosterone therapy and, you know, do I need it and should I do it and when should I do it? What would be your like, here's the five things that you need to really know as a take home message from this.
- [39:50]
A
Okay, so first of all, you have to know the importance of testosterone. Don't gloss it over, don't categorize it as a bodybuilding drug, don't categorize it as a male hormone. It is vital for you ladies on so many different levels. And we kind of went over that about all the different protective mechanisms aspects of testosterone. So just know that it is vital. Then we have to move on to testing now. Just start with serum tests, start with blood, get a free and total testosterone, get well, get a full hormone panel is really what you should be doing. But when we're talking testosterone three in total testosterone and shbg, sex hormone binding globulin, let's take a look at those and see where you land. Let's throw in a DHEA as well. Let's check that out. And then beyond that, now you have to decide, okay, where are your levels as compared to your symptoms? So if you're coming in at a total Testosterone of a 45 and you say, well, Dr. Amy said that it should be above 50, right, but how do you feel? So if you're right on that cusp, maybe you're going to be okay. Maybe you don't have to do anything right now and you just have to watch and monitor. But if you're loaded down with symptoms, you're like, oh my gosh, yeah, I'm losing muscle left and right. I've lost strength at the gym, I'm putting on body fat like crazy. It literally feels like I'm cannibalizing my own muscle. My libido's in the tank, I got brain fog out the wazoo, I have no motivation whatsoever to do anything. Then, yeah, let's look at testosterone replacement and find what path is best for you. Because just like Betty and I just talked about, there are so many different ways to treat this and we can really customize a program and a protocol that works for you and your lifestyle and you know, who's in your house and do you want to inject? Do you want a pellet, do you want to rub in a cream? All of that? I mean, it's all customizable. So I guess those are only three points, but those are the top three points we have to look at. I guess point number four and five. Let's check the other things that contribute to low testosterone. Let's check Your thyroid function. Let's check all the other hormones and then let's check your lifestyle. Now, nowhere in the literature have I ever seen, maybe Betty has. Nowhere in the literature have I ever seen that getting eight hours of sleep and lifting heavy will raise your testosterone. There's a couple studies out that show, okay, if you go to the gym and you lift heavy, we can kind of measure this little bit of a boost in testosterone. But to my knowledge, those studies were done on dudes. Women's health lacks attention in the, in the studies. I mean, we just, we, we are seen as little men and that's just not the case. So I haven't seen anything that shows directly that if a woman really focuses on getting eight hours of sleep and goes to the gym and lifts heavy and gets all her protein in that, we can take her Testosterone from a 3 to a 50. Probably not. That's probably going to require some testosterone replacement therapy. But you can't discount the lifestyle changes that you need to be doing too. Because we can't just give you TRT and then you be sleeping for five hours and you know, not sitting on your ass, not lifting a weight. Like, no, that's not going to work at all. And eating 50 grams of protein a day, that's not going to work. But when it's all done together, then it works beautifully.
- [43:17]
B
Yeah, I, I agree with you completely. I agree, you know, I, I have seen a few studies and I've seen it even in my own male clients. Like if I get a 35 year old man that's like I'm got low T, I'm like, you know, what do you do? I work. I mean, what do you do when you get home? I sit on the camera couch, I drink a beer, have pizza, and then I play World of Warcraft or whatever game they're playing. Like their physical activity is just getting to work. I'm like, okay, I need you to go lift heavy in the gym for three months. You know, get some fit. I don't even care if you change your diet. Like, let's just start with the basics and then let's see what your real number is. Because you will see an increase, particularly if it's a younger man. But there's at some point, it's the point of no return, you know. In the study they looked at women that were between 20 and 49 that had gone through oophorectomy. So they've had their ovaries removed. And what they found is even the 20 year olds, because 90% of our testosterone is made in our, in our ovaries. The 20 year old had levels that were equivalent to the 50 to 70 year olds.
- [44:13]
A
Right.
- [44:14]
B
So all of the early ovarian failure and all these other things that we see are probably indicating that we're seeing hormonal decline, particularly, probably. I haven't seen any studies on this, but I would bet that we're seeing extraordinary changes in testosterone, you know, probably going into it, but it's a lot, you know, that's happening afterwards. So it's, it's something that needs to be addressed earlier rather than later. So it's not. I'm going to wait until my period stops and I'm going to think about testosterone therapy. I probably need it in my 40s, right? You know, absolutely. And then probably the only other thing I would say is, you know, testosterone is an anabolic hormone, so it tells the body to grow and it has an intimate relationship, relationship with growth hormone, IGF1 and insulin. So in men, I've seen it work in men where they get leaner. But in women, right, if a woman's got, she's overweight and she's got some metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, if it is not timed correctly with adequate, which I know in your program, like, okay, we're gonna do all this stuff, you can't just inject or take a hormone because it doesn't work that way. But if you're not metabolically sound and those metabolic hormones aren't in synchrony, you'll see weight gain in some women when they take testosterone. And it's very frustrating because it gets marketed as, oh, you can lose weight. And I'm like, well, not always.
- [45:30]
A
Right.
- [45:30]
B
You know, so, so sometimes if you're not, if we're working with a practitioner and you know, you're kind of insulin resistance and you're gaining weight or whatever. Testosterone's not your panacea for everything. As a woman, you may need to double down on the sleep, the weightlifting, the diet, dialing in the thyroid and all that other stuff. Then add testosterone once your metabolic hormones are safer because it's easy to gain 5, 10 pounds, you know, pretty quickly.
- [45:55]
A
Yes, yes. And that's where I, I disagree with like the hormone clinics that are out there in abundance that just throw testosterone at women and it's like, no, no, you have to do it all. And especially in the menopausal population where we're seeing estrogen and progesterone decline, if you just load that woman with more testosterone, she's going to become more boxy than she already is. She's already lost the estrogen that gives us as women those the curves and the suppleness, and now you become a boxy dude because all you're doing is throwing on testosterone. It really has to be the complete picture. You have to be addressing thyroid function that if low will actually will drive low hormones. And then you have to be addressing the estrogen and the progesterone piece so that all hormones are in that synchronicity. You can't just do one without the other. So if you've been listening to me for a while, or hey, even if you're new, you will soon learn that I am just brutally honest and very, very straightforward. So here goes. Are you ready for this? If you are struggling with your doctor, if you can't get your doctor to order the labs, much less even listen to you, about the fact that you now know that your thyroid needs T3, you now know that you have to look at the master gland because the thyroid literally determines whether or not you're going to lose weight or lose your hair or gain weight or have energy or even be able to use your brain on a day to day basis. That's the thyroid. It's not your gut, it's not your adrenals. You don't need another detox. You need to fix the master gland. And oh, by the way, those beautiful hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, yeah, they play in the same sandbox as the thyroid. So if you ignore those and you say, well, I'm just going to age gracefully, then you're just going to get disease sooner. When your thyroid is low and your hormones are low, the bottom line is not only are you more set up for weight gain, constipation, fatigue, hair loss, brain fog, but you're also set up for a greater risk of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, cancer and heart disease. You can prevent all that and live an amazing life at the same time. So what are you exactly waiting for? I'm just curious, are you waiting for next year to feel better maybe two years from now? Why don't you just do something about it right now? We prescribe to all 50 states. We do it the right way. We are specialists, true, honest to God, functional medicine, specialists in thyroid and hormones. You don't just go to functional medicine practitioner who's a jack of all trades, of masters of none and is going to sprinkle adrenal fairy dust on you. You're going to be highly disappointed and you're going to be out of money. Go to dramy.com, click the big button at the top that says become a patient and just book a free call to find out what you can actually do to get better. We can do it for you. We do it every single day. We have helped tens of thousands of people live their best life ever and oh yeah, that's right, prevent diseases that will kill them. Don't wait another day. We don't know how long we have on this planet. We better take life by the reins and live it and live it to its fullest. And we can't do that when we're sick. So it is your choice. Continue being sick and be set up for disease or make a call to literally change your life. Now stop waiting. Okay, first question. Have you ever had someone who just can't handle any estrogen, like their body rejects it and is better off without it? So she is talking about estrad replacement therapy. So bhrt now. And this is from Michelle. So Michelle, whenever you are on a hormonal regimen, number one with estrad, it's important that your prescriber is pairing that up with progesterone because you want that balance. Estrogen, estradiol promotes growth and that's good because we want cell turnover, we wanna protect our brain, we wanna protect our bones and our heart and our muscles. But we don't want too much growth because that's where abnormal cells can kind of spark off and start to grow. We want that progesterone, which is anti proliferative to come in. Because progesterone significantly helps you protect against cancer, it's anti proliferative. So we want that balance first and foremost. We also want that balance because you can become estrogen dominant even in menopause if you're taking estradiol without balancing it with progesterone. Progesterone will ultimately drop low, low, low and estrogen will be high. And then you're at, you're completely out of balance. You're in that estrogen dominant state and that's where you will get very uncomfortable side effects such as bloating and water retention and potentially weight gain from being in that estrogen dominant state. So that leads me to what would be my next question for you? If you were standing in front of me, I would ask, are you on enough progesterone? So the first thing that I would want to do would be to kind of, instead of pulling you off estradiol completely because there's so many benefits, why don't we drop that dose down and increase your progesterone. Because remember progesterone. If you haven't listened to the episode I did with Carol Peterson, my God, that was gold. Go back and listen to it. We'll put the link in the show notes even, and make it easy for you. Click that. Listen to it. Amazing. Progesterone also helps with hot flashes. Progesterone helps with mood swings and sleep. It has a laundry list of benefits. So adding in progesterone and increasing that dose can benefit a woman while we keep that estradiol at a lower dose for you, maybe that's the key. And it's all about personalization. So even as you age, maybe you were optimized on hormones two years ago, but your body's a different body today, and you most likely need an adjustment or a tweak. Now, is there the possibility that estradiol just isn't for you? I struggle with that. Because you have estradiol, you have estrogen, you were born with it, you had a lot of it in your 20s. You still had some in your 30s, right? If you're totally menopausal now, your. Your adrenal glands still make some estradiol, your ovaries will still produce some estradiol. So you're making your own. And obviously you're not having an anaphylactic shock reaction to that, your own estradiol. All we're doing when we use BHRT is bumping up that level a little bit, giving you some that your body isn't making, because obviously production goes down as we move into perimenopause, menopause. So adding in that estrad brings that level back up to a nice, healthy pro. Not what you were in your 20s, but it brings it back up to a nice healthy level. And estrad numbers above a 50 are important. So 50 is that that bare bones number that you have to be above to get the bone, brain, breast and heart protection? Most women do their best, I would say closer to 100, maybe a little bit over where estradiol is, in that really sweet spot. That's where you'll get the vaginal lubrication, help with vaginal atrophy, helping with hot flashes, helping with hair loss, brain fog, cognition, thinking, libido, all of those things. And then what you're not seeing is the brain protection, that 67% reduction in Alzheimer's, bone protection, significant reduction in osteoporosis and osteopenia, heart protection out the wazoo as it's combined with testosterone and progesterone. So, Michelle, I don't know that your body just, it's not rejecting estrogen because it would rejected it when you were young. And I've never heard of or seen a case of a person's body rejecting their own hormone. So I think it's just a balancing act for you. Little a few tweaks to get it just right. Okay. Rachel says, is it true that testosterone levels need to be higher than optimal if it's DHEA that gave you the boost? Or is optimal the same whether it's achieved with supplements or not? Great question, Rachel. So whether you're using VHEA or hormone Fixer or any supplemental form to support your testosterone levels, the optimal range is the same. So when you look at that total testosterone, we want it above a 50. And again, for testosterone, testosterone and estradiol are the same baseline number. Remember that? 50, 50, 50 total testosterone, estradiol, not total estrogen, estradiol, more than 50. Now, again, I mean, some women do their best when their total Testosterone is between 100 and 200. So where you fall, don't know. But we have to kind of find that maybe you're feeling amazing and you're coming in at a 55 total. Beautiful. But now we want to look at the free. So we always want to look at that free testosterone. Now, free testosterone should be mid range of that standard lab value range, middle of the road or higher. I have seen plenty of women with total testosterone levels. Beautiful. 70, 800, 120. And their free testosterone's in the toilet. 1.52. So then we go down to SHBG and we look at sex hormone binding globulin and see maybe that's why your free testosterone is bound up. It's better bound to that SHBG molecule, which is like a sticky train. I've said this before, SHBG is a sticky train that drives around and drops off your hormones at their selected depots where they have to get off of the train to do their work. Get to the receptor site at the cell level. If the train is too sticky, meaning your SHBG is above an 80, then your free testosterone is stuck on the train. So you could have a really beautiful total and a not so pretty free. That would be where you would add in SHBG fixer to lower the SHBG or at least keep it from going too high, like above a 200. That's craziness. Keep it from going too high and help some of that testosterone get off the train. Now in the case of, like, you're saying I'm, I'm optimal with dhea, then look at your free testosterone and go by how you feel. You know, are you feeling like you can get shit done? Are you lifting heavy? Are you strong? Do you have a libido? Is your brain lit up and functioning again? So just because you're over that 50 total, the free might be low? Or just because you're over that 50 total, the supplements aren't quite cutting it. You need to be maybe closer to a hundred. And that would be where bioidentical testosterone replacement would come in. But to your question, it doesn't matter what you're using to bump that level up, you would still use the same optimal markers in looking at your labs. Okay, Linda, this fits beautifully. Following the last question. Is it okay to take Hormone Fixer even though I don't test my testosterone? Yes. Listen, as a woman, you know your body. Men you met, you're not so good at listening to your bodies. Some of you are, some of you aren't. My husband's not one of them. But no, women are so good at listening to their bodies and really tuning into their symptoms. So, you know, if you have low GSD hormone, you know, if you're dragging, if you're losing muscle, if you're lifting and you're like, oh my gosh, why are these 15, 20s heavy? Right? Your libido's in the toilet, body composition is changing, fat's coming on, muscles going down. If that's happening, you can pretty much assume that you have a low testosterone level. And here's the other thing, really, if you are above the age of 40, chances are really good that your testosterone is not optimal because progesterone is what falls off the cliff first in a woman's 30s, definitely 40s. But testosterone is really close behind in that drop off. So 30s and 40s, that's where we see the testosterone levels just plummet. They just plummet. So you can assume as well based on your age and paired up with your symptoms. Now, Hormone Fixer will raise your testosterone and you may get a 10 to 30 point raise with it. 30 would be the max high. I've seen it, I've seen it in patients labs before, but it's not normal. I would say 10 to 20 point bump with Hormone Fixer, if you need more of a bump. If you're one of these ladies that, okay, if we tested your testosterone, you'd be coming in non existent, less than 3, 3, 10. I mean, just ridiculously Low numbers. Then I would pair up Hormone Fixer with your testosterone replacement therapy and let both be on board for a while to really get your testosterone level up. So to answer your question, yeah, you can absolutely take Hormone Fixer and then, but eventually get tested. Testosterone, which is a hormone, a sex hormone, is very protective. Again, it can actually improve your immune system and it can calm down that autoimmune attack. So. So it can tell your soldiers, listen, I know you're there and I know you want to beat up the fire and I know you think that it's an invader, but why don't you just chill out in your barracks, have some beer, watch some tv? Chill out. You don't need to go out and attack the thyroid gland. Now testosterone comes in and it helps that it starts to talk to the soldiers and it's like, listen. Especially when you have enough testosterone. Like, listen, guys, today is not the day to start a war. Today is the day to just chill, leave the thyroid alone. The person isn't even eating gluten, so just leave it alone. And it mounts up your immune system to actually be protective against an autoimmune attack. Now let's say you don't even know if you have Hashimoto's or not. Well, guess what? Having property amounts of testosterone can help prevent that switch. So you say, okay, wait, my mom and my grandma and my aunt and my sister all have autoimmune and three of them have Hashimoto. Well, you're pretty much next in line. But what can you do to prevent that? Keep your immune system strong and make sure your testosterone levels are optimal. Okay, so now the next question obviously is going to be, how do I know? And what are those optimal levels if you get free and total testosterone done? So there are two tests that you have to ask for. Don't go in and ask for a full thyroid or full hormone panel because most of the time if you're a woman, your doctor is going to test estrogen because they think for some odd reason that that's the only hormone that you have. And then you'll get follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. They'll throw those in. I know because this happened to me. So believe me, and this happened recently to me. This was just my pcp, but I know I, I know who I can go to to get a full panel. But I was in, oh, gosh, actually this was probably like a year or two ago. I was in just for, you know, routine, blah, blah, blah. Have to get it on the books. And I said, you know, I, I just want a full hormone pan. You know, I didn't want to pay for it myself, let's run it through insurance. And I walked out with a script, the lab script, and it had estrogen. Lh. Fsh. I threw it in the trash. So since then I have gotten mine full hormone panel done, but you got to be specific. So you have to say, I want estrogen, progesterone, free and total testosterone and dhea. Now when we're looking at free and total testosterone, I like to look at the total. Now the free, obviously when we're talking thyroid, the free is always better because that is free, bioavailable, ready to be taken up by your cells. But with testosterone, I, I mean, I like to look at the free. Absolutely. But I really love looking at that total because that just gives us that instant snapshot boom right there. And the bottom line is if your testosterone, your total testosterone as a male or female is coming in low, then the free is going to be low as well. So when I look at that total testosterone for a woman, I really like it to be now I've changed my stance a little bit on this. I've actually gone higher. I used to say 40 and above. Then I interviewed Dr. Anthony J. And he's like, oh, I like my females at 50 or above. I was like, oh, dude, you might be on to something there. Because most of the women that I talk to that are patients of mine who, let's say they come and we're working together one on one and they're, they've already gone through the gamut, they're on pellets, which I'm not a fan of, or they're on injectables, which I am a fan of. And we'll test their testosterone and their total will be 100, 120. They're like, don't you dare lower my testosterone. This is where I feel my best. Now if you feel great at a higher level of testosterone and you don't have androgenic side effects, meaning you are not getting abnormal amounts of facial, you're not growing a beard and you don't have acne like a 14 year old boy, then okay, let's ride that higher testosterone, that's fine because that's going to be very protective. It's going to help you build muscle, it's going to help you burn fat, it's going to give you a libido because how many of you ladies say you just don't want it anymore? You got no libido left, no drive. Not even the feeling of like, hey, honey, let's go in the bedroom. Nothing, nothing, nothing is happening. Now, vaginal dryness is estrogen. Low libido is testosterone. So I digress. Back to the total 40, 50 or above. Can I tell you the amount of women that I see coming in at a 5, 13, 19, 25. I mean, literally all the way up to that 40ish, I would accept 40. If someone's like, yeah, I'm a rock star, I feel awesome. Otherwise, let's push it to 50. Let's get you to 50. I don't care if the standard lab value cuts you off at 41 and then you're flagged high at a 45, at a 49, at a 50, at a 55, I don't care. I want you 40 to 50 or above. Or like we say with the thyroid in that upper, and I'm not even going to say quadrant. I mean, you better be up in that 10%, the upper 10% of the standard lab value range, or over. Because I know some labs will cut a woman off at 30, some labs will cut a woman off at 50. So you better be in that upper little nook or you better be over. Because preferably, I'd like you to see you right at that upper limit or over, because that's where you're going to feel your best. So 4050 or above or over, as long as you are not experiencing androgenic side effects. Now, I have seen also patients with absolutely no testosterone. There are a couple of you, and you know who you are because I told you, you won a prize, who are literally like, there's no testosterone at all. It's not even registering on the labs. It says less than three. It can't even register the amount of testosterone in your body. And let me just tell you, if you are there, maybe you're not even my patient, but you're sitting there with your labs right now and you're going, oh, my God, I have no testosterone. You need to grab some patience. P, A, T, I, E, N, C. Patience. You need to grab hold of some patience because when you have no sex hormones whatsoever, it is going to be a long, long journey to build up your metabolism. It can be done. It absolutely can be done. Now, we can get into different supplements, herbs that we can add in male and female that will help with increasing our testosterone naturally. I have two favorite ones for women. First one up is Tribulus terrestris. And not only does this help with testosterone levels. It also helps improve sexual desire and function, particularly in postmenopausal women. So some research on tribulus is actually showing that it may help alleviate symptoms of hypoactive sexual desire disorder. We actually have a disorder for not wanting to have sex. It's called hsdd. I don't know if we necessarily need a disorder on this people, but okay. But there are many, many women out there that are like, I really want to have sex and I'm just not feeling it. There is no desire whatsoever. So how it helps is it increases your testosterone levels in the body. Now, is testosterone the bl end all for libido ladies? No. Your estrogen is important. Your thyroid's important. How you feel about yourself on the dayto day is important as well. But testosterone definitely plays a role. We can't leave it in the dumpster. We got to bring that level up. Now, I mentioned DHEA earlier. I don't like DHEA straight up. Meaning you're going to take DHEA and it'll increase your testosterone because it can also increase your estrogen. So if you can nudge the body's DHEA up a little bit without over production, and believe me, many women will break out from dhea. It's just not a, not always a good fit and it definitely does not always increase testosterone. I do have some women that came into the practice on DHA previously and they're like, you know, okay, I went from like a 17 to a 27. So you get maybe a 10.5, 10 point, not been that. But DHEA alone is not enough. But tribulus will help the body increase its own production of dha. That way you're not putting this big bomb of DHA on your body, possibly sending yourself into an estrogen dominant state. The other ingredient that I love is tonkat ali. Tongkat ali or Eurycoma longifolia. We're going to just say tonkata Lee. What this supplement does is it will increase total Testosterone by about 48% and it will increase free testosterone by about 122%. This is in women. So that's what's really kind of cool about it. So we haven't even gotten into the guys yet with the tongcat. This is in women. So tribulus definitely more for women can cross over into some dude supplements. But we have better things for the guys and tongcat ali both sexes. But tonk at ali alone for guys not going to be enough. So this study that was done, oh, this is just, it's so it's so interesting. So this was comparing the effects of Tongkat Ali on elderly individuals. As an ergonomic supplement, 25 test subjects consisting of 13 physically active male and 12 physically active female seniors were supplemented with 400mg of Tongcat Ali daily for five weeks. Here's what it found. Significant increases in total and free testosterone and muscular force in both men and women. Women recorded the increase of total Testosterone by the 40.38percent, free by 122percent, and muscular hand grip force by 13.7% after five weeks. The study confirms the ergogenic benefit of Tongkat Ali in enhancing muscle strength for women. Tongkat Ali supplementation improved aging symptoms in women with a reduction in adrenal fatigue syndrome after tonk out. Ali supplementation. Pretty cool. I like that a lot. I like that study. Now, kind of going back to the cortisol end of things. Remember we talked about stress? Ton can also help with stress. How? Okay, so this was one of the Mac Daddy studies. Randomized double blind placebo controlled study investigating the effects of 200 mig of tons for four weeks on 63 people. 32 men, 31 women. They're moderately stressed. Test subjects. Now what does that mean? I don't know. We'd have to dig deep in the study and find out what, what parameters they used. Aren't we all moderately stressed? Can't we all fit in there? Yeah. So the results showed that after taking the Tonkan Ali for four weeks, they showed a reduction of symptoms of stress while improving testosterone levels and lowering cortisol levels in both men and women. Decrease in tension. They're using the word tension. I think of tension as like a headache, but okay, tension by 11%. Decrease in anger by 12%. Decrease in confusion by 15%. Improvement of stress hormone profile. So testosterone levels went higher by 3,37%. This is men and women. Cortisol levels went lower by 16%. This is controlling. Comparing to the placebo, 62% of subjects reported an increased libido. And that's the other thing with Tonkat Ali is that it will act an as an aphrodisiac as well. Ton Ali's been around for centuries. I did research on it. I do have a separate podcast on Ton at Ali where I dive deep, deep into all of these studies. But bottom line is it's. It's ancient. It is an ancient extract that has been used for many, many, many years and shows a lot of great potential. The other thing that Tongkat Ali will do is it will help to lower shbg, that's a whole other podcast. But sex hormone binding globulin, when it's high, when it's above an 8 80, it will bind to your free testosterone. So even if you have enough total, if the free is bound to shbg, you're not going to get all of that free unbound, ready to be taken up by your cells. Beautiful testosterone. So we want to look at your SHBG as well. Okay, so that is. Those are my two faves for my ladies. Yeah, I mean, zinc is important there many different things. Saw palmetto helps block dht. So I have tribulus tressis and ton catali and hormone fixer. That was one of the first supplements ever released in my line because testosterone in women. Vital, vital, vital, vital for women to have optimal testosterone levels. Now, guys, I got your back too. But I was building the fixer supplement line off of what I see in my practice daily. And low testosterone levels in women. Absolutely huge. Absolutely huge. So for my guys, like, you heard Tongkat Ali, very, very beneficial. But we have to do a little bit more with you. And this is where Turkesterone comes into play. This would be my favorite supplement for men because Turkestrone is a little bit more power. It's a lot more powerful. I actually had a friend of mine who's a woman get sucked into one of those booths at a trade show, you know, a health show, and she bought Turkestrone. I'm like, girlfriend, why didn't you ask me about this? Exactly. And it shot her levels through the roof. She developed all kinds of androgenic symptoms. Tresterin is not for women. It is for men. I suppose Turkestern in a tiny, tiny amount, like a lower dose, maybe if we put Turkestrone, like in a cream base at a very lower dose, that would be good for women. But the Turkestrone out on the market right now is a higher dose. My tergesterone by the fixer is for men. It is for men. So teresterone, it's a concentrated type of an ectosteroid or phyto. Ectosteroid. It's a compound that's naturally found in insects and plants. These ectosteroids have anabolic and adaptogenic effects. So they're anabolic in that they will boost muscle growth, athletic performance, all the things beneficial to testosterone. And they are also adaptogenic, meaning that they will help your body adapt and balance. Basically all adaptogens are about creating balance. So you can find Turkestrons or you can find ectosteroids in foods like spinach, quinoa, yams, but not really abundant. You can't eat your way to a higher trone level or eat your way to a higher testosterone level per se. Like even if you ate enough protein it's that's one isolated behavior is not going to be enough to drive your testosterone up. So back to Turkesterone. Teresterone will actually help you with that androgenic anabolic effect put on muscle mass so it increases muscle growth which is fantastic for all sexes. Anti obesity and metabolic boosting effects. It lowers lipid absorption, possibly shifting glucose metabolism, fighting insulin resistance, supporting muscle synthesis. The rebuilding of muscle helps to boost uptake of the amino acid leucine, which is the important amino acid for building muscle helps enhance exercise performance increasing ATP production assists in muscle and exercise recovery the adaptogenic effects stress fighting so Turkestrone can be kind of compared to like an Ashwagandha a rhodiola where it helps support mental health by helping the body cope with stress and fatigue. Some people find that it improves sleep, reduces anxiety and brain fog, feelings of burnout, low motivation. You can also stack Turkesterone with beta ectosterone or Fidosia Agresta. So what I would stack for a man would be the tergesterone by the fixer and either the beta ectosterone or the FIA aggress by the fixer because both of those will absolutely just pack a a natural supplemental punch to all the different aspects of low testosterone for men. The information shared on the Thyroid Fixer Podcast is intended solely for informational and educational purposes. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition, treatment or before making changes to your healthcare regimen, including medications, supplements or other therapies. 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