Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Mitochondria, Fertility, Menopause, and The Hidden Biology of Hormones with Dr Leah Hechtman

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Mitochondria, Fertility, Menopause, and The Hidden Biology of Hormones with Dr Leah Hechtman · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:08
Speaker 1: Dr. Leah Hitchman, welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
0:14
Speaker 3: Now, I have seen you at a couple of conferences,
0:18
Speaker 3: one we were presenting together with, another one that I
0:20
Speaker 3: was emceeing, and you are a gun, absolute gun, when
0:24
Speaker 3: it comes to all things mitochondria, but also... fertility as
0:29
Speaker 3: well and a bit of aging stuff. So give our
0:32
Speaker 3: listeners a bit of an overview about your journey and
0:36
Speaker 3: what you kind of do now. So your educational background,
0:39
Speaker 3: how you get into this space and your sort of
0:41
Speaker 3: areas of expertise.
0:43
Speaker 2: Okay. I originally started as a naturopath and then did
0:49
Speaker 2: another bachelor in health science and master's in genetics and
0:53
Speaker 2: reproductive medicine, then decided I wanted to keep going. So
0:56
Speaker 2: I did a PhD in ovarian biology. I still see patients,
1:01
Speaker 2: it's the heart and soul of everything that I do.
1:03
Speaker 2: And it always directs where I go with education and
1:05
Speaker 2: with research. But I was really passionate about fertility and
1:09
Speaker 2: they were the patients that I really wanted to see.
1:11
Speaker 2: And then the longer I was working with patients, the
1:14
Speaker 2: more I was realizing that we were giving them very
1:16
Speaker 2: strict guidelines around what was and wasn't happening for them
1:19
Speaker 2: with not enough understanding as to what was really going on.
1:23
Speaker 2: And my brain is the type of brain that really
1:25
Speaker 2: likes to find the answers before I accept fact. So
1:28
Speaker 2: I like piecing together pieces of the equation. And I mean,
1:33
Speaker 2: I lecture all the time now and I've got training
1:35
Speaker 2: courses and all that stuff. But I do it because
1:38
Speaker 2: then I can sit in the room with the patient
1:40
Speaker 2: and have the answers for them or at least know
1:41
Speaker 2: where to look. It always is my driver. It's how
1:44
Speaker 2: do I find the answer for them and how do
1:46
Speaker 2: I help them understand? But for me, fertility, I don't
1:50
Speaker 2: mind ruffling feathers. I don't mind ruffling protocols and trying
1:54
Speaker 2: to really understand really what's going on. and trying to
1:56
Speaker 2: push the envelope. I really like that. And I'm a
1:58
Speaker 2: little bit of a fighter for patients. So I fight
2:01
Speaker 2: to get them what they need. And that invariably means
2:04
Speaker 2: I fight to find the answers.
2:06
Speaker 1: That's very cool.
2:07
Speaker 3: Let's talk, before we dive into the topics here, Let's
2:11
Speaker 3: talk about naturopaths because there's different levels, right?
2:16
Speaker 1: I'm not sure.
2:17
Speaker 3: I know when I came here 20 years ago, you
2:19
Speaker 3: could do a pretty short, naughty course and be a naturopath.
2:23
Speaker 1: You could also do a degree and be a naturopath.
2:25
Speaker 1: You could do a PhD and be a naturopath.
2:27
Speaker 3: So what is the status in terms of certification levels
2:32
Speaker 3: and registration? And how do people know that they're getting
2:35
Speaker 3: a good naturopath who's really well-trained versus somebody who's done
2:40
Speaker 3: a bloody short, naughty course from some dodgy training organization.
2:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. With naturopathy, we're sort of at this
2:49
Speaker 2: place where you can still get a degree, qualified naturopath,
2:52
Speaker 2: and you can also get a diploma, qualified naturopath. But
2:54
Speaker 2: it's the duration of training and where there are memberships
2:57
Speaker 2: with associations that delineate who is and isn't effective. So
3:01
Speaker 2: when I did it, it was a diploma level. So
3:03
Speaker 2: it was an advanced diploma level, and then you upgraded
3:05
Speaker 2: and got various degrees and things like that. but the
3:08
Speaker 2: associations are still what are governing who is and isn't
3:11
Speaker 2: well qualified because like paramedics, we're not registered yet. We've
3:15
Speaker 2: been fighting for God knows how long, but we're not
3:18
Speaker 2: quite there yet. So it's one of those ones where
3:21
Speaker 2: it can be someone like me that's kept going and
3:23
Speaker 2: training for 20 odd years or whatever it is, or
3:25
Speaker 2: it can be someone that does do a four-year course
3:28
Speaker 2: and still qualifies, but you know when you see someone.
3:31
Speaker 2: So you know that when you sit with someone, the
3:32
Speaker 2: breadth of their knowledge and how they can understand what
3:34
Speaker 2: is and isn't happening. But As soon as someone uses
3:39
Speaker 2: that word, there technically isn't protection of title. So for
3:42
Speaker 2: the general population, try and work out where they have
3:44
Speaker 2: memberships and who's governing and managing their training.
3:47
Speaker 1: But the minimum qualification now is a diploma?
3:51
Speaker 2: Advanced diploma, which is three or four years of bachelor degree.
3:55
Speaker 1: They're the minimums. Okay.
3:56
Speaker 3: So that was a bit wrong saying naughty courses. I
3:59
Speaker 3: was thinking, I don't know if I've confused it with
4:01
Speaker 3: something that there used to be people that could do
4:04
Speaker 3: a six-month course, but that's clearly not a diploma.
4:07
Speaker 2: Well, they can use the title though. They can use
4:09
Speaker 2: the title. That's the problem because the title gets protected
4:12
Speaker 2: with registration and that's where it gets blurry. Right. Okay. Cool. Okay.
4:16
Speaker 2: All right.
4:17
Speaker 3: Well, you're one of the guru naturopaths and there's many
4:20
Speaker 3: great naturopaths here right there. I want to start by
4:25
Speaker 3: talking about mitochondria because I've heard you talk very eloquently
4:29
Speaker 3: about the mitochondria.
4:31
Speaker 1: I know they have a big role.
4:32
Speaker 3: Infertility which we'll get into but let's widen the lens
4:36
Speaker 3: and talk about mitochondria in general I mean people will
4:40
Speaker 3: have heard the old thing that they are the powerhouse
4:43
Speaker 3: or the generator of the cell and that kind of
4:46
Speaker 3: does them a bit of a disservice right it's yes
4:49
Speaker 3: they are but there's so much more aren't they.
4:53
Speaker 2: Where what I've been reading of late you know is
4:57
Speaker 2: the magnificence of the mitochondria so we've got the science
4:59
Speaker 2: now where we understand that it's You know, we get
5:02
Speaker 2: all of our mitochondria from our mother. So we get
5:04
Speaker 2: all of this DNA information. We get these phenomenal components
5:09
Speaker 2: of all of ourselves that not only do they generate
5:11
Speaker 2: energy in a powerhouse and all this sort of stuff,
5:13
Speaker 2: they regulate almost every feature of our physiology and they
5:17
Speaker 2: direct every feature of our physiology. So we end up
5:20
Speaker 2: having this input, this generational input that directs how our
5:25
Speaker 2: body does and doesn't behave. And it directs whether or
5:28
Speaker 2: not we acquire certain conditions or disease states. whether or
5:31
Speaker 2: not we recover from certain things, whether or not we
5:34
Speaker 2: can process nutrients, whether or not we can physiologically become
5:38
Speaker 2: something beyond ourselves. But the newest research is that the
5:41
Speaker 2: mitochondria is how we transmit emotional patterns, neurological patterns, trauma patterns,
5:47
Speaker 2: how we energetically exchange, literally the spiritual energetic, how we
5:52
Speaker 2: energetically exchange between others is through our mitochondrial communication. So
5:56
Speaker 2: it's incredibly powerful and incredibly important and definitely a watch
6:00
Speaker 2: this space because it underpins everything that we do. So
6:04
Speaker 2: every time your heart beats or every time you have
6:05
Speaker 2: an emotion, your mitochondria is directing and responsible for it. Yeah.
6:10
Speaker 3: And you said something very quickly there that some people
6:13
Speaker 3: may have missed, which was we get all of our
6:16
Speaker 3: mitochondria from our mother, right? So everybody knows that mom
6:21
Speaker 3: and dad pass on genes, but mitochondria have their own
6:25
Speaker 3: genes and And it's only mum who gives it. So really,
6:29
Speaker 3: now that we're understanding the huge role that mitochondria play
6:36
Speaker 3: in not just physical health, but mental health as well,
6:39
Speaker 3: what is very clear is that mum has a much
6:43
Speaker 3: bigger impact. And I hate to say this. As a dad,
6:49
Speaker 3: like Carly, has had much greater impact on our kids'
6:54
Speaker 3: health than I have had on our kids' health, right?
6:57
Speaker 1: That's, I think, all the blokes just need to go.
6:59
Speaker 2: Oh, bugger.
7:00
Speaker 3: Well, there's that, and she gave birth as well. So
7:05
Speaker 3: dad's a real kind of just sort of backseat player
7:07
Speaker 3: in all of this, really, isn't he?
7:10
Speaker 2: They are and they aren't. But I mean, if we
7:12
Speaker 2: go into the nitty gritty, and let me know if
7:13
Speaker 2: you want to get out of fertility and come back
7:15
Speaker 2: to it. But if we get into the nitty gritty,
7:17
Speaker 2: so the mother produces eggs, which are called oocytes. And
7:20
Speaker 2: the oocyte, chooses the sperm. And so it chooses the
7:24
Speaker 2: sperm and the sperm contains a small amount of mitochondria,
7:27
Speaker 2: different papers say 20 to 75 mitochondria per sperm. They
7:31
Speaker 2: lose it just to go and find the egg, but
7:33
Speaker 2: the egg is sending a signal for it to come towards,
7:37
Speaker 2: but then the egg has to tidy up any of
7:39
Speaker 2: the garbage that the sperm gives. And it's the mitochondria
7:42
Speaker 2: that direct whether or not she can or can't tidy
7:44
Speaker 2: it up. So yes, you haven't influenced your kid's health,
7:47
Speaker 2: but if you presented your wife with unhealthy mitochondria, it
7:51
Speaker 2: gave her more work to do in her egg, which
7:54
Speaker 2: then influences the health of the child. So it's at
7:57
Speaker 2: every single step. So this is when a guy sits
8:00
Speaker 2: in front of me with his partner and they talk
8:02
Speaker 2: about wanting to make a baby and I go, I
8:04
Speaker 2: don't need to make you aware that smoking is bad
8:07
Speaker 2: or drinking too much alcohol is bad. The biggest thing
8:10
Speaker 2: you've got to be mindful of is that the sperm
8:12
Speaker 2: that's affected by the alcohol or the cigarette or whatever
8:15
Speaker 2: choice you're making is It's the egg that loses mitochondrial
8:19
Speaker 2: efficiency and loses its own energy and protection and antioxidant
8:23
Speaker 2: capacity to fix up the garbage that you pass on. Wow.
8:27
Speaker 3: So it is basically, it's having to use a lot
8:30
Speaker 3: of those really early resources just to fix the dysfunctional sperm.
8:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, to make it the best that it can be.
8:40
Speaker 2: Because we now understand that the oocyte chooses the sperm,
8:44
Speaker 2: chooses the sex from the sperm, chooses the qualities, the genetics.
8:48
Speaker 2: It has all of these different signaling aspects and then decides,
8:51
Speaker 2: I want that sperm and you're giving me this combination,
8:55
Speaker 2: but I'll fix what you're giving me and then I'll
8:56
Speaker 2: make it the best.
8:58
Speaker 3: Just double click on that. Again, the oocyte chooses the sperm, right?
9:03
Speaker 3: This will be mind blowing for people. So just take
9:07
Speaker 3: us into that in a little bit more detail.
9:10
Speaker 2: I've done a PhD in ovarian biology. How much detail
9:13
Speaker 2: do you want? I'll keep it accessible. On the outside
9:18
Speaker 2: of the oocyte, we've got all these multiple layers of cells,
9:21
Speaker 2: but we've got all of these channels that secrete virtually
9:23
Speaker 2: like pheromones and they secrete these signals that go through
9:28
Speaker 2: all of the reproductive system of the female and through
9:31
Speaker 2: the cervical fluid that she produces that the sperm is
9:34
Speaker 2: swimming in to weed out and feed out which type
9:37
Speaker 2: of sperm she wants. Right. And the sperm sends its
9:40
Speaker 2: signal from the head of the sperm. And the egg goes, no,
9:43
Speaker 2: I don't like you. No, I don't like you. Yet,
9:45
Speaker 2: do like you. And it knows the sex that it's picked.
9:49
Speaker 2: It knows the genetic makeup that it's picked. It knows
9:52
Speaker 2: the nutritional status, the mitochondrial health. It knows everything that
9:55
Speaker 2: it's picked. It draws it to itself through all of
9:58
Speaker 2: the electrolyte charge that the mitochondria in the egg directs.
10:03
Speaker 2: And then it draws it to itself, gets rid of
10:05
Speaker 2: the swimsuit of the sperm, takes the DNA from in
10:08
Speaker 2: the head of the sperm and accepts it and fertilizes,
10:11
Speaker 2: tidies up all the stuff that it gives it, makes
10:14
Speaker 2: sure that the egg is still stable, fertilizes, and then
10:17
Speaker 2: it grows into a child. And then it does all
10:20
Speaker 2: the most other amazing things after that. But it's like
10:22
Speaker 2: we're in this society where we underestimate the importance of
10:26
Speaker 2: taking care of women. Again, I'm not misandrist and I
10:30
Speaker 2: have two sons and I love males. But it's this
10:32
Speaker 2: idea of the women's body does so much repair, even
10:36
Speaker 2: at that immediate moment.
10:38
Speaker 1: Even just at the moment of conception.
10:40
Speaker 3: I mean, if anybody was watching YouTube, they'd see my
10:42
Speaker 3: mouth hanging open as you were talking about that.
10:45
Speaker 1: And it's the mitochondria.
10:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. that governs it. Yeah. So if she's got good
10:52
Speaker 2: mitochondrial health, then she has better efficiency at picking the
10:56
Speaker 2: best sperm and then picks the best qualities and then
10:59
Speaker 2: ensures that the health of the child for the rest
11:02
Speaker 2: of its life is even better.
11:04
Speaker 3: Do we know anything about sperm fitness as in, you know,
11:08
Speaker 3: from a genetic fitness perspective? Like what would an oocyte
11:13
Speaker 3: be looking for in a sperm? Is it just the
11:18
Speaker 3: quality of its mitochondria that's picking up from the electrons or?
11:23
Speaker 2: Well, sperm have a charge as well. And so there's
11:25
Speaker 2: some really cool papers that have been coming up lately
11:28
Speaker 2: that my team and I were trying to map a
11:30
Speaker 2: few different equations around it. But So if a male ejaculates, yeah,
11:33
Speaker 2: so he hopefully is really healthy and hopefully he ejaculates
11:37
Speaker 2: roughly about three mils of sperm. There's about 60 million
11:40
Speaker 2: sperm per mil. So there's about 180 sperm in that ejaculate.
11:44
Speaker 3: And is that drop, sorry Leah, has that been dropping
11:46
Speaker 3: over the last few decades?
11:48
Speaker 1: That's been dropping.
11:48
Speaker 2: So that's a huge thing, yeah? So in the last 50,
11:52
Speaker 2: 60 years, they think that sperm counts have dropped 60%.
11:55
Speaker 2: When you dive into the data, it gets a little
11:58
Speaker 2: bit tricky because assay technology has changed and evolved.
12:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, measurement techniques.
12:03
Speaker 2: It's how have we evolved and are we looking at
12:05
Speaker 2: the same thing and da-da-da. But even when you adjust
12:08
Speaker 2: for all of those outliers and you go, let's look
12:11
Speaker 2: at this year's sperm versus 2000, each time the WHO
12:16
Speaker 2: guidelines are coming out, they're accepting poorer and poorer quality
12:19
Speaker 2: reference ranges because the quality is declining and the number
12:22
Speaker 2: is declining so much. So we do really need to
12:25
Speaker 2: worry about that.
12:26
Speaker 3: But what happens with changing reference ranges, because reference ranges
12:29
Speaker 3: change all the time, right? Because they're based on population averages.
12:33
Speaker 3: So even though you may look like you're fine, you're
12:37
Speaker 3: within reference range, but 20 years ago, you wouldn't be fine.
12:41
Speaker 2: No, you wouldn't. And you would be advised to wait
12:44
Speaker 2: to get healthier to make a baby. But we're pushing
12:47
Speaker 2: on and making babies with that sperm. And if we
12:50
Speaker 2: really make sure that men and just humanity at large
12:54
Speaker 2: are aware that sperm is one of the best longevity
12:57
Speaker 2: markers a male can look at. So if he does
12:59
Speaker 2: a semen analysis as a routine health check on a
13:02
Speaker 2: yearly basis, he'll pick up things well before most other
13:06
Speaker 2: markers start to show abnormalities. And if a 35-year-old guy
13:11
Speaker 2: collects his semen sample and looks at his sperm and goes, oh,
13:15
Speaker 2: there are some outliers here and this doesn't look so great.
13:17
Speaker 2: and addresses it, his longevity improvement from there is enormous.
13:21
Speaker 2: Because fertility is a reflection of our optimal health.
13:24
Speaker 3: Oh, I suppose it's a reflection of your genetic fitness
13:28
Speaker 3: and of the moment. So even somebody like me who's 55,
13:32
Speaker 3: would my sperm analysis tell me anything about my health?
13:36
Speaker 3: It would.
13:37
Speaker 1: Yes.
13:37
Speaker 2: Wow.
13:37
Speaker 1: Yes.
13:38
Speaker 2: And you'd compare and contrast it to any of the
13:40
Speaker 2: longevity assessments that are now available. And a lot of
13:43
Speaker 2: it would be most accurate in the semen analysis.
13:46
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, because some of those biological age tests that
13:49
Speaker 3: are out there that a lot of people are doing
13:50
Speaker 3: are a little.
13:53
Speaker 1: Bit dodgy, shall we say. Yes.
13:55
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're aware, but Matt Chamberlain, who
13:58
Speaker 3: I think is one of the top longevity researchers, I
14:01
Speaker 3: think it was maybe a year or two years ago,
14:04
Speaker 3: he ordered, it was either four.
14:06
Speaker 1: Or six of those different biological age tests that are
14:10
Speaker 1: on the market.
14:11
Speaker 3: And he ordered two copies of each one. And they
14:15
Speaker 3: came to them. He did them all within an hour,
14:17
Speaker 3: and he got eight different biological ages from those eight
14:21
Speaker 3: different assessments. So even the same product, two ones of it,
14:26
Speaker 3: done at the same time, gave him a different biological age.
14:29
Speaker 3: So anybody who's using those biological age things, I think
14:32
Speaker 3: they're certainly.
14:34
Speaker 1: Not great right now. Not yet. Not yet.
14:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
14:38
Speaker 1: They're getting better, for sure, on a yearly basis. But for...
14:44
Speaker 1: I don't think they're quite there yet for tracking acute changes,
14:48
Speaker 1: even though I've done a study with Denise Furness. We
14:52
Speaker 1: pulled out some.
14:52
Speaker 3: Of the more stable markers in those, but there's a
14:56
Speaker 3: lot of them that, and what we're starting to see,
14:58
Speaker 3: the time of day that you do it can give
15:00
Speaker 3: a different input, particularly the epigenetic stuff, right? There's so
15:04
Speaker 3: much stuff in this. But so sperm quality would be
15:08
Speaker 3: more stable or is that influenced by time of day?
15:12
Speaker 2: Everything as well. So part of my PhD was in
15:17
Speaker 2: assay development. And so the rule of thumb with all
15:21
Speaker 2: assay development is that you can have a 10% inter-assay
15:24
Speaker 2: variability allowance. Jesus, 10%? And we made these massive clinical
15:29
Speaker 2: decisions when if you collect a sperm sample from a guy,
15:34
Speaker 2: two samples, even if you split it and you look
15:37
Speaker 2: at it through two different analyses, you accept a 10%
15:40
Speaker 2: inter-assay variability allowance. So we've got to be mindful of
15:43
Speaker 2: that when we're looking at a test that that's the factor.
15:46
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing with guys is if they do
15:49
Speaker 2: a semen analysis, it's reflective of their health from two
15:52
Speaker 2: and a half to three months prior. Because for full
15:54
Speaker 2: sperm generation.
15:55
Speaker 1: A bit like rare blood cells, turn it over every three... Yeah, exactly, exactly.
15:59
Speaker 2: But also, if he doesn't drink enough water the day before,
16:02
Speaker 2: most of his markers tank when he does the sample.
16:05
Speaker 2: So even just the subtleties of just hydration with his exercise...
16:10
Speaker 2: A lot of research coming out now saying to men,
16:12
Speaker 2: only analyze it if you ejaculate on a daily basis.
16:15
Speaker 2: Most of the treatment is ejaculated on a daily basis,
16:17
Speaker 2: like all that sort of stuff, because we recognize that
16:20
Speaker 2: anything that's stagnant in the body deteriorates.
16:24
Speaker 1: Interesting. I mean, that opens the wider question, right?
16:28
Speaker 3: Because we know, now we're seeing even something like blood
16:31
Speaker 3: glucose fluctuates on a daily basis, depending on what sleep
16:35
Speaker 3: you've had. But then if there's a 10% measurement error, right?
16:39
Speaker 3: I could get a result back that is, I'm fine.
16:44
Speaker 3: I'm at the upper limit of normal, say 5.4. But
16:48
Speaker 3: if there's a 10% error, that could actually be six,
16:51
Speaker 3: which tells me it's pre-diabetes. It's really interesting because they're
16:58
Speaker 3: a snapshot in and of the moment of And they're
17:01
Speaker 3: influenced by so many things that have happened in the
17:03
Speaker 3: last days and weeks, right?
17:05
Speaker 1: Okay. Let's get back to the mitochondria.
17:09
Speaker 3: So dad has a not insignificant role we're now establishing,
17:16
Speaker 3: but it's about the delivery.
17:18
Speaker 1: Dad is important in the delivery.
17:20
Speaker 2: Yes.
17:21
Speaker 3: Of the sperm that's for his mitochondria his mom gives
17:24
Speaker 3: all the genes for the mitochondria and then let's talk
17:28
Speaker 3: about what happens our mitochondrial health as we age you
17:33
Speaker 3: know as we grow up and as we start to
17:35
Speaker 3: get older and is there any differences in the trajectory
17:39
Speaker 3: of of mitochondrial aging from males to females first of
17:43
Speaker 3: all and then we'll get into some other things that
17:45
Speaker 3: influence it.
17:47
Speaker 2: So there's a massive difference between men and women. So
17:50
Speaker 2: because women, so in the egg or the oocyte, she contains,
17:54
Speaker 2: depending on which research paper you look at, more mitochondria
17:57
Speaker 2: per cell than any other cell in the body. So
17:59
Speaker 2: every time a woman ovulates, that oocyte contains, current research
18:03
Speaker 2: says 600,000 mitochondria per oocyte.
18:06
Speaker 3: And sorry, Leah, is that because that oocyte has to
18:11
Speaker 3: generate so much energy?
18:12
Speaker 1: Like it's a seed.
18:13
Speaker 2: To create life.
18:14
Speaker 1: You know, you think like a seed is so full
18:16
Speaker 1: of nutrients.
18:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. So it's just packed full of energy density
18:21
Speaker 3: because it needs to create life force.
18:23
Speaker 2: Life, yeah.
18:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
18:25
Speaker 2: But it does so many things as it's doing it.
18:27
Speaker 2: So in a woman that chooses not to have children
18:29
Speaker 2: in that month and not to fertilize that oocyte, it
18:32
Speaker 2: still offers her an enormous amount of hormone production. and
18:35
Speaker 2: an enormous amount of signaling to regulate all the systems
18:38
Speaker 2: of her body. So she loses mitochondria, but as she
18:42
Speaker 2: loses mitochondria over time, the current research and what I
18:46
Speaker 2: was talking about at that conference that we were both
18:48
Speaker 2: at was this mitochondrial arc that the crossover point is
18:51
Speaker 2: where menopause starts. So when she loses enough of her
18:54
Speaker 2: oocytes and enough of that mitochondria, she can then go
18:57
Speaker 2: into that aging trajectory, which is a massive turning point
19:01
Speaker 2: because the ovary pretty much changes how it works. Versus
19:05
Speaker 2: a male, his is just this steady decline over time.
19:09
Speaker 2: But a big thing, and I'm sure we'll get into
19:10
Speaker 2: it as we keep going, a big thing with men
19:12
Speaker 2: is no one's talking about some of the big points
19:15
Speaker 2: of where he declines. But as he ages, he reduces
19:19
Speaker 2: cells within his testes called ladig cells. And those ladig
19:23
Speaker 2: cells are how he generates the mitochondria in his sperm
19:26
Speaker 2: and how he has an enormous amount of day-to-day generation
19:30
Speaker 2: of mitochondria. And so each of his ejaculate is an
19:33
Speaker 2: enormous amount of mitochondria. almost equivalent to an oocyte. If
19:36
Speaker 2: we think about that average guy, 160 million sperm, let's
19:42
Speaker 2: give him a really nice number, 50 mitochondria per sperm,
19:46
Speaker 2: there's a fairly substantial amount of mitochondria there to then
19:50
Speaker 2: almost equal the oocyte. Sort of get the maths there
19:53
Speaker 2: with me. So it's like we're still losing similar sorts
19:56
Speaker 2: of volumes. It's just that the oocyte stays and does
19:59
Speaker 2: a lot more and he loses almost all of that
20:02
Speaker 2: sperm regularly.
20:04
Speaker 1: And is there any impact of that? I mean, why
20:07
Speaker 1: are men.
20:07
Speaker 3: Told to ejaculate regularly to improve their fertility? Is it
20:12
Speaker 3: just lubricating the system or is it more complicated than that?
20:16
Speaker 2: There's that vascular part of it, but we know that
20:18
Speaker 2: it lowers DNA fragmentation rate. So in sperm, you've got
20:22
Speaker 2: the head, neck, talia. And so I call it with
20:24
Speaker 2: my patients, I'm like, that's your swimsuit. And then within
20:27
Speaker 2: the head of the sperm, you've got all the DNA.
20:29
Speaker 2: And that quality of that DNA can either fragment or
20:32
Speaker 2: look really good. And it's dependent on the mitochondrial health
20:35
Speaker 2: of the body, the level of oxidation and longevity aspects
20:39
Speaker 2: of the body that determine if that fragmentation rate is
20:42
Speaker 2: good or bad. And if it's bad, if you ejaculate regularly,
20:45
Speaker 2: you kind of enliven the sperm and lower that DNA
20:49
Speaker 2: fragmentation rate because it's a faster turn through. Okay.
20:53
Speaker 1: All right.
20:53
Speaker 2: Okay.
20:53
Speaker 1: Gotcha. And a little sidestep, and we'll come back to this.
20:59
Speaker 3: What impact does um the pill have on all of
21:05
Speaker 3: this so so young young women who are on the
21:08
Speaker 3: pill what impact does that have on their fertility on
21:13
Speaker 3: their hormones also i know this could be a podcast
21:17
Speaker 3: in itself it could be a podcast on its own
21:19
Speaker 3: but just give us give us the give us the
21:21
Speaker 3: the kind of big ticket items.
21:23
Speaker 2: The big ticket so the worst case scenario is when
21:27
Speaker 2: a female or someone born females put on the contraceptive
21:31
Speaker 2: pill too early. So the female body needs at least
21:34
Speaker 2: two years of regular menstrual cycles so that the brain
21:37
Speaker 2: ovarian axis can form appropriately. So there's actually what we're
21:41
Speaker 2: discovering now, an enormous amount of neurological network that goes
21:45
Speaker 2: between her ovaries and her brain, and it becomes kind
21:48
Speaker 2: of like a highway, a neurological highway for her whole life.
21:51
Speaker 2: So when she gets stressed, when she has children, when
21:53
Speaker 2: she has nutritional deficiencies, whatever, that highway gets intercepted, which
21:57
Speaker 2: is why her hormones, her ovarian function and her brain
22:00
Speaker 2: function are so intricately connected.
22:03
Speaker 1: Holy shit, I'm just going.
22:05
Speaker 2: Holy shit is right. So you put the girl on
22:08
Speaker 2: the pill at like 12 years of age when she's
22:10
Speaker 2: only had a few periods, they're heavy or they're painful
22:13
Speaker 2: and everyone wants to do the right thing by people,
22:16
Speaker 2: but you put her on it too early and then
22:18
Speaker 2: the brain ovarian connection gets disrupted. The Most scary thing
22:22
Speaker 2: is the change in shape of the amygdala within her brain.
22:25
Speaker 2: So her perception of the world, let alone her perception
22:29
Speaker 2: of herself, is changed.
22:31
Speaker 1: And so each month … Whoa, whoa, whoa.
22:34
Speaker 3: Let's take a step back here because I'm a … Yeah.
22:38
Speaker 1: We like all the bits.
22:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, particularly the amygdala because … The amygdala, as you said,
22:44
Speaker 3: perception of the world, perception of stress, hypervigilance, all of that.
22:48
Speaker 3: The amygdala is central to the emotional brain and the
22:51
Speaker 3: stress response system. So how does going on the pill
22:56
Speaker 3: change the function of the amygdala?
22:58
Speaker 1: It's through that axis.
23:00
Speaker 2: There's two theories. Right.
23:01
Speaker 1: There's two theories.
23:02
Speaker 2: So one theory is the axis, the neurological axis. And
23:05
Speaker 2: bear in mind that the neurological axis, we're really only
23:08
Speaker 2: getting some good data in the last two years. And
23:11
Speaker 2: they're starting as mouse studies and then in human studies.
23:13
Speaker 2: But we're realizing that we can see all these other
23:16
Speaker 2: parts of the ovaries that we basically just ignored.
23:19
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right.
23:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the main thing is the brain changes. So
23:23
Speaker 2: women go through enormous brain changes at pivotal points in
23:26
Speaker 2: their life. And it reorganizes and restructure itself. And obviously,
23:31
Speaker 2: you know, being a baby, toddler years.
23:33
Speaker 1: Teenage years are huge. Huge for brain development.
23:37
Speaker 2: Four years of age is huge, just so you know.
23:39
Speaker 2: There's a mini puberty at four. Teenage years is massive.
23:42
Speaker 2: And we all know our teens all need to sleep lots,
23:44
Speaker 2: like it's massive. And then each time she has a pregnancy,
23:47
Speaker 2: her brain restructures each time. She has mini brain restructures
23:51
Speaker 2: with each period. And then menopause, she completely reconfigures her
23:55
Speaker 2: brain all over again.
23:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:58
Speaker 2: And so the pill comes in and interfaces and interrupts
24:03
Speaker 2: the brain reorganization. Like there's a paper that came out
24:05
Speaker 2: 10 days ago, two weeks ago, that with every pregnancy
24:09
Speaker 2: that a woman has, she restructures different parts of her
24:11
Speaker 2: brain and each restructure makes her a nicer, more service-oriented person.
24:17
Speaker 2: The pill changes the amygdala so that she becomes higher
24:21
Speaker 2: rates of OCD, insecurity, depression, suicidality, because she doesn't have
24:26
Speaker 2: the hormones from the ovaries, let alone the opportunity for
24:30
Speaker 2: her brain to change from her natural hormone production.
24:34
Speaker 1: I did not even know that there was a brain
24:37
Speaker 1: ovarian axis. It's all new stuff.
24:40
Speaker 2: It's all new.
24:41
Speaker 3: But as soon as you said it, I'm like, well,
24:43
Speaker 3: that makes perfect sense because there's a gut brain axis
24:48
Speaker 3: and we're only really starting to see how important the
24:52
Speaker 3: gut brain axis is. I mean, I was just reading
24:54
Speaker 3: a research paper yesterday that treating Parkinson's disease with red
24:59
Speaker 3: and near interfered red light on the gut is actually
25:03
Speaker 3: affecting the brain so so I think more and more
25:07
Speaker 3: people are getting the gut brain axis but as soon
25:11
Speaker 3: as you said that I'm like of course there's a
25:12
Speaker 3: freaking brain ovarian axis and of course the pill is
25:15
Speaker 3: going to interfere this uh affect it and and it
25:19
Speaker 3: makes perfect sense then that that every time that the
25:22
Speaker 3: woman has a baby that it would affect it but Jeez,
25:25
Speaker 3: you start to mess with the amygdala.
25:26
Speaker 1: That changes so many things. It changes who they are.
25:30
Speaker 3: It changes your perception of the world, your level of
25:33
Speaker 3: vigilance or hypervigilance.
25:35
Speaker 1: It's emotional regulation. It's like, oh, my freaking God. Do
25:40
Speaker 1: we even know what we're doing here?
25:42
Speaker 2: No. And the thing I always remind people is, you know,
25:45
Speaker 2: everyone has good intentions usually, hopefully, underneath it all. But
25:49
Speaker 2: the pill, there is one type of pill that is
25:52
Speaker 2: a bioidentical hormone, which is less problematic. So the hormone
25:56
Speaker 2: molecules themselves resemble what our bodies would create. But invariably,
25:59
Speaker 2: they're synthetic analogs that do not resemble what the body
26:03
Speaker 2: would usually produce.
26:04
Speaker 1: What's the bioidentical one? What's the brand name of that?
26:07
Speaker 2: Zoli. Zoli.
26:08
Speaker 1: How do you spell that?
26:09
Speaker 2: Z-O-E-L-Y. So Zoli is probably the only one that I'm like, yes, okay,
26:15
Speaker 2: if you need to try something. But even... contraceptive IUDs
26:19
Speaker 2: that are progesterone. Contraceptive IUDs contain progestin, which is not progesterone.
26:24
Speaker 2: And progesterone, which a woman would usually produce, men do
26:27
Speaker 2: as well, we'll get to him after, usually produce to
26:31
Speaker 2: hold a pregnancy, so the second half of her menstrual cycle,
26:34
Speaker 2: that progesterone is neuroplastic and it repairs our brain. It
26:38
Speaker 2: lowers anxiety. It makes us repair and restore our glymphatic network,
26:43
Speaker 2: so the lymph around our brain. So we repair and
26:45
Speaker 2: regenerate our whole nervous system. And if we put girls
26:48
Speaker 2: on synthetic progestin, or women for that matter, they just
26:52
Speaker 2: neurologically don't get to repair and regenerate the way that
26:56
Speaker 2: they usually would. So then, of course, their personality changes further.
26:59
Speaker 1: So if a female has an IUD in, that's obviously
27:04
Speaker 1: releasing progestin.
27:05
Speaker 2: If it's a hormone one, yes.
27:07
Speaker 1: If it's a hormone, and that's affecting the brain chemistry.
27:11
Speaker 2: Yes. And one of the worst side effects that everyone
27:14
Speaker 2: kind of hushes about, but it's in the literature and
27:16
Speaker 2: it's in the product, is the association of the progesterone
27:21
Speaker 2: secreting IEDs. So the progestin secreting IEDs with suicidality and depression.
27:26
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:27
Speaker 2: It just blunts their emotions so much that they can't
27:31
Speaker 2: even feel like themselves. I mean, the fun stuff with
27:34
Speaker 2: the pill is fun and the literature fun, but You know,
27:37
Speaker 2: like all of the t-shirt studies, you know, like the
27:39
Speaker 2: women that get to smell a t-shirt of a male
27:42
Speaker 2: when they're on the pill versus when they're off it.
27:44
Speaker 2: And their sense of smell and interest in the opposite
27:46
Speaker 2: sex changes. So when they're on the pill, they're attracted
27:49
Speaker 2: to different people.
27:50
Speaker 1: Wow.
27:50
Speaker 2: And that gets really interesting.
27:52
Speaker 3: And that is interesting, right? Because that becomes about mate selection.
27:57
Speaker 1: It is.
27:58
Speaker 2: And the mate selection piece, the thing that I always remind,
28:00
Speaker 2: particularly because I work in fertility, is your partner has
28:03
Speaker 2: to smell good to you so that you can discern
28:05
Speaker 2: their genetics. Because we've got a lot of studies that
28:08
Speaker 2: go that how our partner smells and whether or not
28:11
Speaker 2: we're attracted to them enables us to choose the best
28:14
Speaker 2: genetic dissimilar pool so that we don't have genetic overlap.
28:18
Speaker 2: So we actually have survivability of humanity.
28:20
Speaker 1: Don't have sex with your brother or sister, right? Exactly.
28:23
Speaker 1: And you can smell it. Exactly.
28:26
Speaker 2: And I think you can. I think you can. You know,
28:29
Speaker 2: if someone smells good to you, there's a reason they
28:31
Speaker 2: smell good to you.
28:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, there's so much that's under the hood,
28:36
Speaker 3: isn't there? There's so many ways we could go in
28:38
Speaker 3: this podcast. But let's keep it on the mitochondria. We'll try.
28:44
Speaker 3: I'm happy to do offshoots because they're so bloody interesting.
28:47
Speaker 3: Let's accelerate for, because you've mentioned it, menopause. Let's talk
28:51
Speaker 3: about menopause and andropause, right? So male and female. Pick
28:57
Speaker 3: whichever one you want first. What's going on in the
29:00
Speaker 3: mitochondria and more broadly?
29:04
Speaker 2: So menopause is definitely having its moment. Everyone has a
29:08
Speaker 2: lot of information about it. I think women are incredibly
29:11
Speaker 2: well informed. Healthcare providers are really well informed. We understand
29:15
Speaker 2: that at the moment, based on science, a woman goes
29:17
Speaker 2: through menopause when essentially she, in theory, runs out of eggs.
29:21
Speaker 2: Her ovaries, she has a reserve. She then has menstrual
29:24
Speaker 2: cycles and she theoretically runs out of them. A postmenopausal
29:28
Speaker 2: ovary still has eggs in it, still has oocytes. It's
29:32
Speaker 2: just that we don't understand how to access them. Park
29:35
Speaker 2: that for a second. But it's at a certain point
29:37
Speaker 2: and she stops menstruating, you know, so she knows what happens.
29:40
Speaker 2: a year after she stopped menstruating and then she goes
29:42
Speaker 2: into what's classed as menopause. Men, on the other hand,
29:46
Speaker 2: the term andropause goes in and out of acceptance assigned
29:50
Speaker 2: to the community because they think it's too simplistic. But
29:53
Speaker 2: the thing is, is that no one's really talking about
29:56
Speaker 2: that men essentially go through a process very similar to menopause.
30:00
Speaker 2: So in the testes, they have these two main cell types.
30:02
Speaker 2: They have Leydig cells and Sotoli cells. And the Leydig
30:05
Speaker 2: cells are what produce your testosterone. And men lose Leydig
30:10
Speaker 2: cells as they age, just like women lose oocytes. And
30:14
Speaker 2: so they're losing these cells. They're losing their hormone production.
30:17
Speaker 2: And essentially, they're losing the quality of their sperm to
30:20
Speaker 2: an extent as well. And in doing that, they eventually
30:23
Speaker 2: get to a point where they can still ejaculate. They
30:26
Speaker 2: can still have some testosterone. So it's not exactly the
30:29
Speaker 2: same as menopause, but they hardly have any.
30:32
Speaker 3: Yeah. And the implications for that for men with that
30:37
Speaker 3: lower testosterone, which often comes hand in hand with lower
30:40
Speaker 3: growth hormone and lower DHEA.
30:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. They age enormously fast. And so every system of
30:46
Speaker 2: their body is ageing. So our hormones are messengers and signals,
30:51
Speaker 2: but they're also, I always refer to them as gatekeepers.
30:54
Speaker 2: So if you look at a male with andropause or
30:57
Speaker 2: a female with menopause, when their main sex hormones start declining,
31:01
Speaker 2: the gates of their genetics open. So if you've got
31:04
Speaker 2: a family history of cardiovascular disease or a family history
31:06
Speaker 2: of autoimmune disease, without the optimal levels of testosterone in
31:11
Speaker 2: men or estrogen in women, The gates start opening and
31:13
Speaker 2: then you move towards those diseases because they're protective. Right.
31:18
Speaker 1: Okay.
31:19
Speaker 3: I get what you're saying. They're kind of a gatekeeper
31:21
Speaker 3: that keeps you protecting. I mean, all of this is
31:25
Speaker 3: kind of pointing to evolution going, you guys are done.
31:32
Speaker 3: You've served your purpose. You've procreated. You've lived long enough
31:36
Speaker 3: to probably raise them. Now you're not much use to
31:40
Speaker 3: the tribe and the human race anymore. So we don't
31:42
Speaker 3: care anymore. I sort of say to people, we have
31:45
Speaker 3: a pact with our genes and our genes kind of say,
31:49
Speaker 3: I will keep you alive and healthy, brackets, until you've
31:53
Speaker 3: passed optimal childbearing age and then all better off you're
31:56
Speaker 3: on your own. It kind of seems a little bit like.
32:00
Speaker 1: That, right?
32:03
Speaker 2: I think it means from an evolutionary perspective, we don't
32:05
Speaker 2: want you to procreate though. but your role is still
32:08
Speaker 2: going to be good. We don't want children from you.
32:10
Speaker 3: But why does it then coincide with such deteriorations in
32:17
Speaker 3: both physical and mental health? Is it just that the
32:21
Speaker 3: major driver of the genome is around that optimal health
32:25
Speaker 3: while there's childbearing age and maybe rearing them to a
32:28
Speaker 3: certain point where they can leave the SNN? It's just like, okay,
32:32
Speaker 3: it's not so much I don't care anymore, but all
32:34
Speaker 3: my energy's gone. I've done the best that I can.
32:37
Speaker 3: But now, you know, now it's nature to rot you
32:41
Speaker 3: away slowly.
32:43
Speaker 2: Maybe, maybe. One of my things that I like researching,
32:47
Speaker 2: we all have our little interests, but I do think
32:50
Speaker 2: in women, we're starting to discover what the uterus and
32:54
Speaker 2: the ovaries do after menopause and what it does to
32:57
Speaker 2: the body. And if you actually see them as longevity organs,
33:00
Speaker 2: you can actually see how to optimize health. and similarly
33:04
Speaker 2: with men. So if you think about the ovaries, we
33:07
Speaker 2: now see that the ovaries end up becoming immune regulators
33:10
Speaker 2: for women, or they become secondary hormone synthesis regulators, or
33:15
Speaker 2: they become brain regulators if they're optimally cared for. So
33:19
Speaker 2: there's this idea theoretically that they should still be able
33:22
Speaker 2: to be nurtured.
33:24
Speaker 1: Ah, okay. Interesting. And let's then talk about HRT for females. Oh, yeah.
33:33
Speaker 1: And males.
33:34
Speaker 3: Let's get into both of those things. So, you know, obviously,
33:39
Speaker 3: and I was just actually speaking to somebody quite recently.
33:41
Speaker 3: He was like, oh, isn't the HRT bad for you?
33:44
Speaker 1: Doesn't it cause breast cancer?
33:46
Speaker 3: I mean, that rumor is still around, despite it being
33:48
Speaker 3: completely and utterly debunked, hasn't it?
33:51
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:52
Speaker 2: Completely debunked.
33:53
Speaker 3: So talk our listeners just quickly through that because wasn't
33:56
Speaker 3: that from horses or stuff that they.
33:58
Speaker 2: Were using back then? It's non-body identical forms, yeah? So
34:03
Speaker 2: they're synthetic forms and original, like contraceptive pill originally comes
34:06
Speaker 2: from horses or equine urine forms of hormones. pregnant men, really.
34:12
Speaker 2: But equally, they're based on the nurses' studies where the
34:15
Speaker 2: doses were given to people that hadn't had hormones for
34:18
Speaker 2: long periods of time or 80-year-old women. The design of
34:21
Speaker 2: the studies was so fraught with error. What we're talking
34:26
Speaker 2: about now and what is believed to be entirely safe
34:28
Speaker 2: is the introduction of hormones around the perimenopausal journey or
34:32
Speaker 2: the periandropause journey for men, where their body is still
34:36
Speaker 2: used to it, the receptors are still awake enough to
34:38
Speaker 2: pick up the hormone molecules, and the use of the
34:41
Speaker 2: hormones where it's a body-identical form.
34:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my kind of understanding. I'm glad you confirmed that.
34:46
Speaker 3: You should do it, the earlier you do it, the
34:49
Speaker 3: more effective it is, and the longer you wait, the
34:52
Speaker 3: less effective. I mean, is there a point where, even
34:56
Speaker 3: now with bioidentical hormones, that the gate has shut, and
35:00
Speaker 3: that if you then start... 15 or 20 years past
35:03
Speaker 3: menopause or underpose, you might start to do more harm
35:07
Speaker 3: or is it just it's less good or do we
35:09
Speaker 3: not have the studies?
35:11
Speaker 2: We don't have a lot of studies around it. Clinically, though,
35:13
Speaker 2: I have a lot of women that will come to
35:15
Speaker 2: me and I don't see a lot of women in
35:16
Speaker 2: this age group. So bear in mind, my dad is
35:19
Speaker 2: smaller and they're in their late 50s, early 60s where
35:22
Speaker 2: it was not considered good to take anything. And they're like,
35:25
Speaker 2: I feel like I've missed out. Should I do it?
35:27
Speaker 2: And they start it and they just have to start
35:30
Speaker 2: very slowly and get their body's recovery to be able
35:33
Speaker 2: to take it on again and then it can work
35:35
Speaker 2: really well for them but we're in this place at
35:38
Speaker 2: the moment where we're understanding it as we're giving it
35:41
Speaker 2: we don't have the long-term data i think it's safe
35:45
Speaker 2: i take it myself but i'm conscious that we don't
35:48
Speaker 2: have data 30 years into the future of what that
35:50
Speaker 2: does look like what it will invariably do though is
35:54
Speaker 2: keep us younger yeah yeah and the implications of that
35:57
Speaker 2: we're going to have to understand you know Yeah.
35:59
Speaker 1: And then females. So estrogen, progesterone, testosterone.
36:04
Speaker 3: Do you think that that should definitely be part of
36:07
Speaker 3: the mix for everybody? Or is it, is there a specific?
36:10
Speaker 2: Everyone's different. So where we're at at the minute is
36:13
Speaker 2: that we understand that women post-menopause produce their own testosterone
36:17
Speaker 2: more readily than the others. So everyone can still produce
36:20
Speaker 2: hormones after andropause or menopause. It's just that it goes
36:24
Speaker 2: through what's called secondary stereogenesis. So a secondary pathway uses
36:28
Speaker 2: body fat predominantly and cholesterol molecules to convert it. The
36:31
Speaker 2: form of the hormone might be slightly different depending on
36:34
Speaker 2: the person and the amount is always much lower. But
36:38
Speaker 2: when women are in reproductive years, they produce testosterone from
36:42
Speaker 2: certain cells around their eggs or oocytes. and estrogen from
36:46
Speaker 2: certain cells and progesterone from both of them. So when
36:48
Speaker 2: you actually look at an oocyte that eventually could make
36:50
Speaker 2: a child, they've got two different layers of cells. They've
36:53
Speaker 2: got what's called the granulosa cells and the theca cells.
36:56
Speaker 2: The theca cells produce testosterone first, which gets converted into
37:01
Speaker 2: estradiol or a form of estrogen, and then both of
37:04
Speaker 2: them collapse, release what could be the child, collapse into
37:07
Speaker 2: something called a corpus uterum, and then that produces progesterone.
37:10
Speaker 2: So it's all in the maker, yeah. Wow.
37:14
Speaker 1: That's freaking fascinating. So talk to me about the meals then.
37:18
Speaker 2: Yeah. So they produce the bulk of their testosterone in
37:23
Speaker 2: their Leydig cells, in their testes. So both testes have
37:27
Speaker 2: two different cell types, Leydig and Sertoli. Sertoli mainly generates
37:31
Speaker 2: sperm and Leydig cells mainly produces testosterone. But in that testes,
37:36
Speaker 2: that testosterone still converts into estrogen and progesterone as well,
37:40
Speaker 2: just lower amounts. So men produce all the different types
37:43
Speaker 2: of hormones, but testosterone, they obviously have usually more in
37:47
Speaker 2: them than a female will. But interestingly, both men and
37:51
Speaker 2: women have more testosterone than any other hormone, regardless. And
37:55
Speaker 2: lots of research looking at testosterone for both of them
37:57
Speaker 2: being the main driver for bone health, not estrogen as
38:01
Speaker 2: we originally thought for women, for example, because testosterone is
38:05
Speaker 2: in both and converts to estrogen.
38:08
Speaker 3: So when you talked about... hormone replacement therapy for males.
38:13
Speaker 3: What does that look like right now? What is kind
38:17
Speaker 3: of best practice as we currently know it? And we
38:19
Speaker 3: probably know less, I'm guessing, about that than we do
38:23
Speaker 3: about women just because, you know, it's a bit newer. But,
38:28
Speaker 3: you know, you're listening to all the longevity people that say, oh,
38:31
Speaker 3: you need to be on T. What's the difference between
38:36
Speaker 3: the Instagram noise and what the researchers actually say it?
38:41
Speaker 2: The research is testosterone is declining for men and that
38:44
Speaker 2: they should be taking it. The number one thing all
38:47
Speaker 2: men need to be mindful of is if you take testosterone,
38:50
Speaker 2: it does lower your sperm count. So a lot of
38:52
Speaker 2: men will take it. They forget that it's affecting their
38:55
Speaker 2: sperm count. They don't want to make a baby or whatever.
38:57
Speaker 2: The implications of that need to be there. So a
38:59
Speaker 2: lot of people will use an aromatase inhibitor where they'll
39:04
Speaker 2: take testosterone and then they'll use an aromatase inhibitor to
39:07
Speaker 2: basically reduce the amount of estrogen and that it will
39:10
Speaker 2: convert into to then have that regulation of it. But
39:14
Speaker 2: any guy that I give testosterone to feels phenomenally different
39:18
Speaker 2: when they have it. Cognitive function is better. Obviously, performance
39:21
Speaker 2: is better. Libido being a marker of general health is stronger,
39:25
Speaker 2: but bone health is better. Heart health is better. Everything
39:28
Speaker 2: is better. And testosterone, regulates the male physiology the way
39:32
Speaker 2: estrogen does in women. So everything from your gut microbiome
39:36
Speaker 2: to your fingernail strength is regulated by your testosterone. So
39:40
Speaker 2: you can either age and have a decline or bring
39:43
Speaker 2: it in before the gate opens and protect yourself from
39:46
Speaker 2: developing different things. And you know, like the cardiovascular risk
39:50
Speaker 2: for everyone. Everyone's very conscious. I don't want high cholesterol
39:53
Speaker 2: and I don't want cardiovascular risk. Remember that cholesterol is
39:56
Speaker 2: the building block that we make hormones from. So as
40:00
Speaker 2: hormone levels decline, cholesterol naturally goes up for everybody.
40:04
Speaker 3: And if your stress cholesterol goes up to re-extress hormones,
40:07
Speaker 3: it's like fucking hell.
40:09
Speaker 2: So the most important thing is not do I or
40:11
Speaker 2: don't I need a statin? It's is it going up
40:14
Speaker 2: because I'm stressed or is it going up because I
40:16
Speaker 2: just need testosterone? or estrogen or whatever it might be.
40:19
Speaker 1: And that's what... Sorry, I was going to say, what
40:23
Speaker 1: age generally for males should they start be thinking about
40:28
Speaker 1: testosterone replacement?
40:33
Speaker 2: At the moment, they're saying about 35. Because sperm counts... Yeah.
40:36
Speaker 2: Because sperm counts are dropping so fast, men are coming
40:42
Speaker 2: in with colon cancer and polyp growth because they don't
40:45
Speaker 2: have the gut microbiome resilience. because testosterone is tanking, or
40:49
Speaker 2: they're being told to go on statins because their cholesterol
40:51
Speaker 2: is spiking. And if they were just put on testosterone
40:55
Speaker 2: and educated around the fertility implications, most of those processes
40:58
Speaker 2: would be halted.
41:00
Speaker 3: Is the thinking still that once you go on testosterone
41:04
Speaker 3: as a bloke, that's pretty much you're on testosterone for
41:07
Speaker 3: the rest of your life? Because you kind of suppress
41:09
Speaker 3: your own production when you introduce it, don't you?
41:13
Speaker 2: It's kind of that. It's a tricky one because it's
41:15
Speaker 2: the same with women. So let's say a woman, and
41:17
Speaker 2: I need to put her on a hormone earlier, it's
41:20
Speaker 2: a choice that either your body isn't producing it or
41:23
Speaker 2: life is too tricky and you can't produce it yourself
41:25
Speaker 2: or you're aging. But most people, when they're introducing these
41:30
Speaker 2: exogenous hormones, they are choosing to be on them until
41:33
Speaker 2: something better comes along. And whether or not in a
41:35
Speaker 2: decade we understand a different peptide molecule that can enable
41:39
Speaker 2: the body to be able to produce it, maybe we'll
41:41
Speaker 2: move to that.
41:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you're probably right in the timing
41:46
Speaker 3: of a decade with a peptide molecule. There's a massive
41:49
Speaker 3: rush of people just going headbang into peptides right now
41:54
Speaker 3: when we don't know anything about long-term safety, efficacy, impacts,
41:59
Speaker 3: those sorts of things.
42:00
Speaker 1: We know more about the hormones for sure. And what
42:04
Speaker 1: role does DHEA play in this for males particularly?
42:11
Speaker 2: So when you're looking at hormones and if you go, okay,
42:13
Speaker 2: so the liver produces cholesterol, cholesterol converts into the precursor
42:17
Speaker 2: hormone called pregnenolone. One little thing just to link it
42:20
Speaker 2: fully in the podcast, we use mitochondria for each of
42:23
Speaker 2: the steps. Every time we convert a hormone, mitochondria is used,
42:27
Speaker 2: but pregnenolone converts into DHEA, which converts into testosterone. So
42:31
Speaker 2: DHEA is a really fascinating hormone because it's a little
42:36
Speaker 2: bit different in how it orchestrates because it has such
42:38
Speaker 2: a flow on effect. It's incredibly responsible for energy fatigue,
42:44
Speaker 2: incredibly affected by stress. I have a lot of patients
42:48
Speaker 2: where you've always got to go higher up in the
42:50
Speaker 2: order of hormones and be like, where's the fallout? And
42:54
Speaker 2: if DHEA is tanked, nothing works. You can give them
42:57
Speaker 2: all the testosterone you want, but you still got to
42:59
Speaker 2: get the DHEA right. DHEA is very influenced by sleep, stress, trauma,
43:04
Speaker 2: all the things. And immune infection is massive.
43:08
Speaker 1: I just had a thought.
43:10
Speaker 3: So the andropause and menopause thing, we know they have
43:13
Speaker 3: a big impact on aging. I don't know if you
43:16
Speaker 3: saw the research paper that was out quite recently.
43:20
Speaker 1: I did a podcast on it about the waves of
43:24
Speaker 1: aging that we actually don't age linearly. I used to
43:28
Speaker 1: think 40 to 41 was the same as 45 to 46.
43:31
Speaker 3: And it appears to be, I think the first wave
43:35
Speaker 3: of aging is around 40 to 44 and the second
43:39
Speaker 3: one is around 60. How does this interact with A,
43:44
Speaker 3: mitochondria and B, hormones, andropause, menopause?
43:49
Speaker 2: I think for everyone, anyone that's older than 44 remembers
43:54
Speaker 2: the time, whether or not it's 44 exactly for them
43:57
Speaker 2: or whether or not it's 42 or even 38. So
43:59
Speaker 2: if you think about, you know, the person's genetics might
44:02
Speaker 2: be for a female that it's premature ovarian insufficiency or
44:05
Speaker 2: for a male premature aging or whatever, that might start younger.
44:08
Speaker 2: And that will be in the genetics that mom gave,
44:11
Speaker 2: but they're aware of those turning points and they feel it.
44:14
Speaker 2: So it's like, Everyone should be testing and getting their
44:18
Speaker 2: baseline of their optimal hormones around 35 before that cliff starts.
44:23
Speaker 2: So understanding what am I at my optimal before things
44:26
Speaker 2: start to change. And that's why with women and men,
44:29
Speaker 2: that conversation of 35 considering hormones needs to be met,
44:33
Speaker 2: but at least you need to assess it and understand, actually,
44:36
Speaker 2: you've probably got another five years, you're looking pretty good
44:38
Speaker 2: or not. And so women, is it that they test
44:41
Speaker 2: their hormones and have a look at an AMH and
44:43
Speaker 2: things like that? And men, what are we testing for them?
44:45
Speaker 2: Which is why I think the semen analysis needs to
44:47
Speaker 2: be there when they're younger, regardless of if they want kids.
44:51
Speaker 1: And do hormones levels, do they fluctuate on a daily,
44:55
Speaker 1: hourly basis? You know, if we're talking about getting these
44:59
Speaker 1: measured or tested to make a decision whether to go
45:03
Speaker 1: on replacement therapy, is there an optimal... time to.
45:10
Speaker 3: To be able to do that like what is your
45:12
Speaker 3: last week need to look like um does the sleep
45:16
Speaker 3: the night before affect it because these can be really
45:19
Speaker 3: significant decisions right that you could come in one day
45:23
Speaker 3: or come in six hours later and it's come and
45:25
Speaker 3: it might be slightly different.
45:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely um generally the most important is where you get
45:33
Speaker 2: it collected So there's all these really fascinating studies that
45:37
Speaker 2: look at if the phlebotomist, the person that draws the blood,
45:40
Speaker 2: really annoyed you and you didn't like them, your hormone
45:42
Speaker 2: levels will look different. If you had a waiting room.
45:46
Speaker 3: It's kind of like how the animal dies affects the
45:49
Speaker 3: quality of the meat, right?
45:51
Speaker 2: It's literally that. It's an interesting analogy, but yes.
45:56
Speaker 1: But you know, it's the stress hormones at the time.
45:58
Speaker 2: It's the stress hormone. It totally is, you know. And
46:01
Speaker 2: because these are hormones, you know, that are brain influencing,
46:06
Speaker 2: you know, like is it the ovary or the test
46:07
Speaker 2: you're talking to the brain or are we looking at
46:09
Speaker 2: a brain hormone? Because remember the dialogue in men and
46:12
Speaker 2: women is the same, the neural pathway is the same
46:14
Speaker 2: and it starts here. But if you don't like the
46:17
Speaker 2: person that collects your blood or if they botch it,
46:19
Speaker 2: you know, and they jab you about 15 times, it
46:22
Speaker 2: produces a completely different picture for every marker but especially
46:26
Speaker 2: for hormones. And so you want to make sure that
46:29
Speaker 2: the setting is really good And you want to make
46:31
Speaker 2: sure that you're rested and you're hydrated and fasted and
46:34
Speaker 2: all that.
46:35
Speaker 1: Sorry to interrupt.
46:37
Speaker 3: Just with hydration, I read a very cool paper that
46:41
Speaker 3: looked at two different sets of people, one who were
46:45
Speaker 3: very well hydrated, the others who were dehydrated. And they
46:49
Speaker 3: went through something called the Trier stress test, which is
46:52
Speaker 3: a 30 minute known psychological stress battery that we use
46:56
Speaker 3: in laboratory settings to test people's reactions with cortisol.
47:01
Speaker 1: When they were dehydrated, cortisol increased.
47:03
Speaker 3: By 55% to that social stressor, right? Like that's massive.
47:09
Speaker 3: So as you're saying, I go to get blood in
47:11
Speaker 3: the morning, it's fasted.
47:13
Speaker 1: I haven't drank.
47:14
Speaker 3: I'm massively dehydrated. I might've had a couple of drinks
47:16
Speaker 3: the night before. I'm even more dehydrated. Then I get
47:21
Speaker 3: in there. I might be running late. I'm a bit stressed.
47:24
Speaker 3: The phlebotomist has pissed me off. All of a sudden
47:27
Speaker 3: my cortisol is up over 100%, right? That's then affecting
47:32
Speaker 3: all the other hormones that I'm getting tested. And then
47:36
Speaker 3: we're making a decision as to whether I go on
47:38
Speaker 3: hormone replacement therapy based on that.
47:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And the thing I sort of always remind
47:44
Speaker 2: people is it's, These hormones are signals from your brain
47:48
Speaker 2: to your ovaries and your testes. So there's signals between
47:51
Speaker 2: the two. So honestly, anything that we think while it's
47:55
Speaker 2: happening will also influence it. So, you know, there's always
47:58
Speaker 2: important counseling for different people. Like let's say you have
48:01
Speaker 2: the 35-year-old guy and his first testosterone comes back at 10.
48:04
Speaker 2: And you're like, okay, so let's work out what this
48:06
Speaker 2: could look like. And he redoes it and then at 60,
48:08
Speaker 2: it's a very different trajectory.
48:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
48:14
Speaker 3: I've heard you say in talks that both sexes start
48:17
Speaker 3: losing a sex chromosome.
48:20
Speaker 1: So what do you mean by that?
48:23
Speaker 2: So if we go into chromosomes, so males are XY,
48:26
Speaker 2: females are XX. So the Y chromosome, there's quite a
48:29
Speaker 2: lot of data now that shows that it shrinks over time.
48:33
Speaker 2: So when he's close to 70 years of age, the
48:35
Speaker 2: Y chromosome is no longer really functioning and he's relying
48:39
Speaker 2: on the X chromosome for his makeup.
48:42
Speaker 3: So what are the implications of that?
48:47
Speaker 2: That he's aging and feminizing as he gets older.
48:49
Speaker 1: Wow.
48:51
Speaker 2: And the X chromosome from the mother, the X chromosome
48:55
Speaker 2: from the mother is enabling him to stay alive. The theory,
48:59
Speaker 2: and I read a few other papers, is that the
49:00
Speaker 2: X chromosome that was acquired from the father's sperm for
49:03
Speaker 2: the girl also declines, which means that the sperm chromosome
49:07
Speaker 2: is what declines, but the mother's X chromosome is the
49:10
Speaker 2: stabilizing factor.
49:11
Speaker 1: Us males, we are the inferior race, aren't we?
49:17
Speaker 2: Sorry.
49:17
Speaker 3: I remember that because you were talking about that and
49:20
Speaker 3: I was emceeing and I think I used that theme
49:23
Speaker 3: for the rest of the day of the males being
49:25
Speaker 3: the inferior race because clearly we are when it comes
49:28
Speaker 3: to genetics, longevity, mitochondria.
49:32
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. It's just different. But they're really seeing how
49:35
Speaker 2: that's influencing things and why it's making males have certain
49:38
Speaker 2: conditions more readily. Even the X chromosome from the dad
49:43
Speaker 2: has better survivability than the Y chromosome from the dad,
49:46
Speaker 2: but just visually, it's shorter. Do you know what I mean?
49:48
Speaker 2: It's just like it's wild when you really think about it.
49:50
Speaker 3: So as males are aging and we're feminizing as we're aging,
49:56
Speaker 3: if we go on hormone replacement therapy, does that attenuate
50:01
Speaker 3: the move towards feminization?
50:05
Speaker 1: Hopefully.
50:06
Speaker 2: Hopefully, because testosterone... And all the other hormones, but testosterone
50:11
Speaker 2: has longevity benefits. And if you keep using the gatekeeper
50:14
Speaker 2: analogy and it stops you from developing all these diseases,
50:18
Speaker 2: then you're not aging in quite the same way. You're
50:22
Speaker 2: getting wisdom, but maybe not heart disease.
50:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about then optimizing for fertility.
50:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
50:36
Speaker 1: First of all, let's talk about blokes.
50:38
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the meal ticking clock and other things
50:43
Speaker 3: that will influence our genetic fitness, our sperm, our mitochondria,
50:50
Speaker 3: to ensure that we are delivering the best version of
50:54
Speaker 3: us to the next generation, however limited that input may be.
51:01
Speaker 2: Every single thing that he is exposed to will influence it.
51:05
Speaker 2: So remember that semen is a byproduct of the body
51:07
Speaker 2: like urine and feces and saliva and sweat. So anything
51:11
Speaker 2: that that sperm is swimming in and what it's exposed
51:14
Speaker 2: to will potentially negatively influence the sperm. So anything environmental.
51:20
Speaker 2: And that's part of why sperm counts are declining. They
51:23
Speaker 2: think that the main reasons around are the environmental things
51:27
Speaker 2: that we're exposed to, be it pesticides, herbicides, whatever.
51:30
Speaker 1: Pollution, plastics. All of it.
51:33
Speaker 2: Everything. All of it. And it's just getting worse. That's
51:36
Speaker 2: the reality of it. So you look at any environmental
51:39
Speaker 2: medicine paper and the recommendations in most of Northern Europe
51:45
Speaker 2: is men and women of reproductive age shouldn't consume anything
51:48
Speaker 2: from the ocean because it's so full of rubbish. Because
51:51
Speaker 2: it affects their sperm and their eggs so significantly that
51:55
Speaker 2: no portion is better than anything now. It's not, can
51:58
Speaker 2: I have it once a week? It's not, just don't
51:59
Speaker 2: eat it. So we're at this point where whatever we're
52:02
Speaker 2: exposed to is concentrated in all those reproductive areas. So
52:06
Speaker 2: the flame retardant or the mercury or the lead or
52:10
Speaker 2: the whatever it might be, all of those substances exist
52:14
Speaker 2: in fatty tissue in the body, i.e. the testes or
52:16
Speaker 2: the ovaries or the brain or whatever it might be,
52:19
Speaker 2: because that's how they survive in the body. Otherwise, they
52:21
Speaker 2: kill us if they're just in that bloodstream. So then
52:23
Speaker 2: the sperm is exposed to this in the testes, and
52:26
Speaker 2: then that's making it an absolute disaster. In addition to that,
52:31
Speaker 2: we've got just the basics of proper food. A lot
52:34
Speaker 2: of people don't really eat very well, getting good nutrition,
52:38
Speaker 2: trying to make it organic, obviously. But good nutrition makes
52:41
Speaker 2: good sperm, just the basics of it.
52:44
Speaker 1: And poor nutrition makes poor sperm. And this is what
52:47
Speaker 1: I say to people, when you're eating a diet high in.
52:50
Speaker 3: Ultra-processed food, it's not just the shit that you're putting
52:53
Speaker 3: into the body, but it's the crowding out of nutrient-dense.
52:57
Speaker 1: Food as well.
52:58
Speaker 3: So it's actually a double whammy when you're eating poor food,
53:01
Speaker 3: because it's not like you're eating the shit food and
53:03
Speaker 3: you're eating lots of vegetables and good stuff at the
53:06
Speaker 3: same time. It's actually crowding it out. So does the
53:12
Speaker 3: kind of protocols for getting rid of toxins in your body.
53:17
Speaker 3: So plenty of sauna. So I mean, sweating is one
53:21
Speaker 3: of the most efficient ways of getting rid of that.
53:22
Speaker 3: So So doing sauna and for the gentleman, putting a
53:26
Speaker 3: cold pack or ice on your balls when you're in
53:28
Speaker 3: the sauna, I think is critical. Not so important for
53:31
Speaker 3: me at 55, but bloody important for Oscar, who's 16,
53:34
Speaker 3: that he goes in there with a cold pack around his,
53:38
Speaker 3: his ghoulies. I think that that's important, but sweating exercise,
53:43
Speaker 3: maybe a bit of charcoal to sort of, to help it.
53:46
Speaker 3: But then lots of, lots of water hydration to flush
53:52
Speaker 3: it out. And then I think, supporting phase one and
53:55
Speaker 3: phase two detox processes with onions, garlics, leeks, broccoli, cabbage,
53:59
Speaker 3: those whole families help with the detoxification. Presumably that would
54:04
Speaker 3: help with sperm health as well and oocytes, the health
54:11
Speaker 3: of oocytes as well, right? Yeah, absolutely. Anything else specifically
54:17
Speaker 3: for males and females?
54:19
Speaker 2: I can go anywhere that you want.
54:21
Speaker 3: No sorry I meant in terms of in terms of
54:24
Speaker 3: helping um for that that health um so we're talking
54:29
Speaker 3: about um so maybe there's two things that there's one
54:32
Speaker 3: in the waste removal which we've just talked about and
54:36
Speaker 3: then other things that can support whether it's lifestyle practices
54:40
Speaker 3: nutrition that will support as well.
54:42
Speaker 1: As the waste removal I think that's what I'm getting at.
54:46
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah for sure not to go over a thing,
54:49
Speaker 2: but the microbiome part's really important. And we've got a
54:51
Speaker 2: lot of research around reproductive microbiomes and their influence. And
54:56
Speaker 2: so remember that a non-organic diet is non-organic in the
55:00
Speaker 2: pesticides to clear the bugs from the food. It also
55:03
Speaker 2: clears our bugs in our body. Or if you drink
55:06
Speaker 2: unfiltered water, the chemicals in the lack of filtration then
55:10
Speaker 2: clear out all the things out of you. But the
55:12
Speaker 2: microbiome is what enables the immune system to accept sperm
55:16
Speaker 2: to conceive in a female and or enables implantation or
55:19
Speaker 2: enables the sperm to not basically kill themselves. Like they
55:22
Speaker 2: end up getting sticky and clumpy and not being able
55:24
Speaker 2: to actually swim through when they don't have an optimal
55:27
Speaker 2: seminal microbiome. And then you've got all the infections, increasing
55:30
Speaker 2: miscarriage rates and all that sort of stuff.
55:32
Speaker 1: So is there a microbiome ovarian axis as well?
55:37
Speaker 2: So there's an ovarian microbiome and then there's a peritoneal microbiome.
55:42
Speaker 2: So there's a fluid in the abdomen of the female.
55:44
Speaker 2: And then we've identified fallopian tube microbiome, uterus microbiome, whatever,
55:49
Speaker 2: like all of the bits have microbiomes. But the vagina
55:52
Speaker 2: microbiome is the second most well-studied microbiome after the gut.
55:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's hugely important.
55:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day
56:01
Speaker 3: that Melbourne is one, it is right up there in
56:07
Speaker 3: terms of the caesarean section, capital of the word. Do
56:10
Speaker 3: you know that in private hospitals in Melbourne, birth caesarean
56:15
Speaker 3: section rates are about 50%. And in public hospitals, I
56:20
Speaker 3: think it's at about 35% or 38%. And we're the
56:24
Speaker 3: allergy capital of the world as well. And that is
56:27
Speaker 3: no coincidence, is it?
56:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
56:30
Speaker 3: Yeah.
56:31
Speaker 2: I think we just need to remember that the microbiome,
56:33
Speaker 2: like so mitochondria come from bacteria, they come from the
56:37
Speaker 2: microbiome as well. So just making sure that the microbiome
56:40
Speaker 2: of the mother is to give the best mitochondria is
56:43
Speaker 2: also going to have a dual property. And we interact
56:47
Speaker 2: through bugs. So we interact through the smell part through bugs.
56:51
Speaker 2: Like everything about us is optimal microbiomes to enable it.
56:54
Speaker 2: And then if we deliver a child in a sterile
56:56
Speaker 2: environment and they don't get that initial microbiome exposure through cesarean,
57:01
Speaker 2: it changes their health completely.
57:02
Speaker 3: It does. And what has been shown is I think
57:06
Speaker 3: that babies often have– Their gut microbiome is more, in
57:10
Speaker 3: cesarean section ones, is more influenced by the skin microbiome
57:15
Speaker 3: of the nurses, which is just.
57:17
Speaker 1: Crazy, right? That's just bonkers. Is there an interaction between
57:22
Speaker 1: the gut microbiome and the ovarian microbiome, or are they
57:27
Speaker 1: completely separate, standalone?
57:30
Speaker 2: There definitely is. I'm just trying to work out if
57:31
Speaker 2: I've seen any papers on it. No one's that interested
57:34
Speaker 2: in the ovarian microbiome yet. But the seminal microbiome, so
57:38
Speaker 2: male semen, everything is gut microbiome. So if the gut
57:42
Speaker 2: microbiome has any disruption, the seminal microbiome is rubbish. Jesus.
57:46
Speaker 2: It logically will be for women. It's just that no one's,
57:49
Speaker 2: not that I've seen, people have looked at it yet.
57:52
Speaker 2: It has to be. It's everything. It's all the same.
57:55
Speaker 3: Wow.
57:57
Speaker 1: What are you excited about in the future in your field?
58:01
Speaker 2: Everything. I get excited about all of it. I think
58:07
Speaker 2: we just get more understanding. I'm excited for men's health
58:10
Speaker 2: because I'm excited that men will invariably be the next
58:13
Speaker 2: ones to be focusing on. I don't want us to
58:16
Speaker 2: just purely be focusing on the stem cells so that
58:18
Speaker 2: we no longer need men, that we can generate sperm
58:20
Speaker 2: in a lab. It's about men understanding their longevity, health,
58:23
Speaker 2: and things like that. But I think that women, we're
58:26
Speaker 2: starting to get a lot of research for women because
58:28
Speaker 2: now we're researching them properly. There's this interesting thing that's
58:32
Speaker 2: coming out now that all the old textbooks identified all
58:35
Speaker 2: these different aspects of the testes and the ovaries and
58:37
Speaker 2: the uterus and the placenta that were written out of
58:40
Speaker 2: the textbooks that are all coming back. And we're really
58:42
Speaker 2: understanding embryology and how it manifests in men and women
58:47
Speaker 2: and where the similarities are like women still have prostate tissue,
58:50
Speaker 2: for example, and you can pick up various cancers in
58:53
Speaker 2: the ovaries looking at prostate-specific antigen. So we're starting to
58:57
Speaker 2: understand where we all come from being so similar and
59:01
Speaker 2: how that's being able to be, I guess, unifying us
59:05
Speaker 2: as men and women and helping us to understand how
59:07
Speaker 2: it all works. That's this week's excitement.
59:10
Speaker 1: Yes. You know how, guys. You're like me. You'll read
59:14
Speaker 1: a research paper and be like, oh, wow, look at this.
59:16
Speaker 1: This is it. Yeah, exactly. It's like I'm down in
59:20
Speaker 1: this tunnel for weeks.
59:22
Speaker 2: Pretty much.
59:23
Speaker 1: But it is very cool, isn't it? Leah, this has
59:26
Speaker 1: been bloody awesome.
59:27
Speaker 3: It has been a tour de force on everything to
59:31
Speaker 3: do with mitochondria, aging, reproductive health, and the really critical
59:36
Speaker 3: interactions between them.
59:38
Speaker 1: So thank you.
59:40
Speaker 3: Where can people go to find out more about you?
59:44
Speaker 1: Any resources, training courses? Are you still accepting patients? All
59:49
Speaker 1: of this sort of stuff.
59:51
Speaker 2: Website's probably the good hub and then social media, it's
59:53
Speaker 2: all Dr. Leigh Hitchman. Patients, yes, but there's a year
59:57
Speaker 2: wait list. I train clinicians.
59:59
Speaker 1: Of course there is.
1:00:00
Speaker 2: I train clinicians. So I've got all sorts of advanced
1:00:03
Speaker 2: training for them in obstetrics and gynecology and fertility and
1:00:07
Speaker 2: all those sorts of things. And then there's some public
1:00:09
Speaker 2: courses as well.
1:00:10
Speaker 1: But you do have public courses for lay people? Yeah.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: And they are around optimizing fertility or?
1:00:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. They're just fertility based at this point just because
1:00:19
Speaker 2: there's not enough hours in the day. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed.
1:00:24
Speaker 2: You know how it goes.
1:00:25
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. Leah, this has been bloody awesome. Thank you
1:00:28
Speaker 1: so much. Have a fantastic rest of your day.
1:00:31
Speaker 2: You too. Thank you for having me.