Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 28 - How synthetic hormones can rewire the female brain

Transcript

28 - How synthetic hormones can rewire the female brain · The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

0:00
I hope some of you will be able to join me at my 2 remaining
0:03
theatre dates for World Menopause Month in October.
0:07
I'm going to be at Birmingham Town Hall with Liz Earl on the
0:11
12th of October and on the 19th of October I'm going to be with
0:15
Emma Barnett at the Rose Theatre in Kingston near London.
0:20
They're live Q&A's. I'm going to be questioned and
0:23
then your questions in the audience are going to be
0:26
answered by me. I'm really looking forward to
0:29
meeting some of you there. Doctor Sarah Hill is the guest
0:34
on my podcast today. She is a researcher, she's a
0:37
psychologist, and she's also an author.
0:40
We talk a lot about the differences between synthetic
0:43
and natural hormones and the impact that they can have on our
0:47
brains, how contraceptives can have negative effects, but also
0:53
how important progesterone is in our body and brains.
0:57
Progesterone is still an underrated hormone, and so she
1:01
talks a lot about it. So it's a great conversation
1:04
that I just hope opens your mind a little bit more to the very
1:08
beneficial effects of hormones. So Sarah, I have been stalking
1:15
you for longer than you realise, actually.
1:17
And you know, your work is, is wonderful.
1:20
Obviously, you're a scientist, you're an academic and a
1:24
researcher. And this book how the pill
1:28
changes everything and capital P for pill, by the way.
1:32
So this is the contraceptive pill, which has become so common
1:36
and even quite soon after it, it was launched, people was called
1:39
just calling it the pill like, and people know it's the pill,
1:43
but actually do people know what it is and what it contains?
1:46
And, and the, the, you know, it's called birth control, but
1:51
it's not just given to prevent pregnancies.
1:54
So there's a lot really that really resonated when I read
1:58
this book with the way that I think.
2:00
And I'm very interested in the role of hormones on our brains.
2:05
I'm very interested in neurophysiology,
2:07
neuropharmacology, neuropathology, the whole
2:12
function of our brains, because as humans, our brain is the most
2:16
important organ, without a shadow of a doubt.
2:18
But it can be altered quite significantly by very small
2:23
changes. And this is really what your
2:27
your book really talks about really eloquently, doesn't it?
2:31
Oh, thank you. Yeah.
2:32
You know, our brain, it is, I mean, it's like it's what
2:37
creates the experience of being the person that we are, right.
2:40
And, and one of the things that it takes in to create that
2:43
experience is our hormones. And so our hormones are, even
2:48
though there is this tendency for us to think of them as
2:51
something that happens to us, like, oh, you know, like
2:54
hormonal or whatever, they're a key part of what our brain uses
2:59
to create the experience being the person we are.
3:02
And so when we change our hormones, that means that we
3:05
change women. And, and this is something that
3:08
I don't think that, you know, most people really had any
3:12
awareness of, you know, because it's like when you take the
3:15
birth control pill, a lot of times you're taking it for some
3:17
specific end, whether it is contraception or whether it is
3:21
to clear up acne. I know that it gets prescribed
3:24
for that reason. Sometimes it gets prescribed for
3:29
managing or or trying to, you know, stop the symptoms of
3:32
things like endometriosis and PCOS.
3:37
But so it's like you take it for whatever the purposes that it's
3:40
being prescribed and, but you don't think about the fact that
3:43
you're shutting down your hormone production, right?
3:47
So it it shuts us down women's own hormone production and then
3:50
it replaces it with the synthetic and, and, and of
3:55
course that causes sweeping changes throughout the body,
3:58
including the brain. And how did you first get into
4:02
thinking about this and doing your research and writing about
4:05
it? Yeah, it's funny because I spent
4:08
most of my career just studying women and women's motivational
4:12
state. So I'm, I'm a psychologist and
4:16
one of the things that I had done research on and had
4:18
published research on is, you know, the effects of women's
4:22
naturally cycling hormones on motivational States and
4:26
attraction and those sorts of things.
4:29
And so I had an awareness of the fact that our hormones matter,
4:33
right? And that women's hormones
4:35
influence how they think and feel and experience the world.
4:38
But I never thought twice about the birth control pills that I
4:42
was taking every day and took for more within a decade of my
4:46
life because I was on hormonal birth control for probably 11 or
4:50
12 years, give or take. And I didn't really spend any
4:55
time thinking about them at all until I went off of them.
4:59
And then within a couple of months of going off of them, all
5:02
of a sudden, you know, I started to recognize that I was feeling
5:07
different. Like I was like, you know, I, I,
5:10
I, I had been downloading new music for the first time in a
5:14
really long time on my phone. I was going to the gym again.
5:18
I started growing my hair out again.
5:21
I had more energy. I was like, more interested in
5:24
sex again. I just felt like I was
5:26
everything felt deeper and richer and more thrusting to me.
5:30
And I thought, oh, my goodness, like the pill.
5:35
Yeah, you know, and, and, and it was it was my experiences where
5:41
it was like all of a sudden I had everything click into place
5:45
where it was like, of course, you know, I feel different when
5:48
I go off, when I went off the pill because of course I was
5:51
different when I was on it. And so I finally was able to put
5:55
two and two together. And I realized that if I had a
5:58
blind spot with a birth control pill, right?
6:00
Being somebody who studies women's hormones and how they
6:02
influence motivational States, and the fact that it never even
6:06
occurred to me that my birth control would be influencing how
6:09
I feel and experience the world, I knew that most women probably
6:14
also didn't know this information.
6:16
And so I went to the research literature and I dug up
6:20
everything that had been published on the relationship
6:24
between birth control use and women's brains and.
6:29
And yeah, and that was the the birth of the book.
6:33
It's, it's so interesting and, you know, like you, I took the
6:36
pill for many years as a medical student and junior doctor.
6:40
I didn't even think about what it was doing to my own hormones.
6:43
And I prescribed it for many years.
6:45
And obviously I knew that it stopped ovulation because it
6:48
was, you know, to a contraception, but I didn't
6:51
think that it's suppressing our own hormones.
6:54
And so many people even now just think about, you know, women and
6:59
periods, women in the womb, women and the hormones and our
7:04
ovaries. And, you know, even gynecologist
7:07
sometimes is so focused on our pelvic organs, they forget that
7:12
hormones, including progesterone, estradiol,
7:15
testosterone, go in our bloodstream, go to our brain,
7:17
but they're also made in our brain as well.
7:20
You know, they have really important roles in our brains,
7:23
so blocking them is one thing, but then also giving a synthetic
7:28
hormone is for some women, give gives others sort of more
7:32
detrimental effects or side effects that can really affect
7:36
their mood and their cognition and motivation and everything
7:40
content. Yeah, for sure.
7:41
I mean, you know, when you look at the birth control pill and
7:44
the different types of side effects that are related to it,
7:46
whether it's, you know, differences that we see in
7:49
mental health because we see that women on the pill have an
7:51
increased risk of developing depression and anxiety.
7:55
We also see that women on the pill have a greater risk of
7:59
hypoactive sexual desire disorder and some of these other
8:02
things. When it changes sexual desire
8:05
and it can change cognition and so on and so forth.
8:08
In a lot of these changes, you know, it's like when we look at
8:12
why it is that women experience these side effects, it seems
8:14
that there's kind of two big answers, right?
8:17
The first answer is just by shutting down a woman's hormone
8:21
production, which is what we do when we shut down ovulation,
8:24
because that's how female bodies make hormones is, is that causes
8:29
its own set of side effects. Because, you know, when you shut
8:32
down ovulation and you shut down the production of estrogen and
8:36
progesterone, this doesn't generally feel very natural to
8:41
women. Like it's not our bodies are
8:44
experienced as you know, experiencing these beautiful
8:48
rise and fall of our two primary sex hormones, estrogen and
8:51
progesterone. And, and not experiencing that
8:54
doesn't it's, it's a weird state to be in.
8:57
And it can be related to things like low libido, for example,
9:01
which is related to having relatively low levels of
9:03
estrogen and low levels of testosterone, because
9:07
testosterone also changes in response to the birth control
9:11
pill. So that's like 1, you know, so
9:14
like some of the side effects that you get are related to the
9:16
fact that you're shutting down your own hormone production.
9:19
And the other set, as you noted, is the result of the fact that
9:22
these synthetic hormones are a little bit funky.
9:26
And in particular the the progestins that are in hormonal
9:32
birth control are not biologically identical to
9:35
progesterone. And progesterone has a number of
9:40
qualities that are really lovely to the brain and and to the rest
9:46
of the body. And when progesterone is being
9:49
metabolized and broken down in the body, it releases this
9:52
really powerful neuro steroid called allopregnanolone.
9:57
And it does things like help increase neuroplasticity.
10:01
It helps to stabilize mood. It's anti it, it's like anti
10:06
anxiety because it has this really calming effect on the
10:09
brain. It it's, it's part of how the
10:11
brain is able to regulate emotional states.
10:15
And naturally cycling women when they release progesterone are
10:20
able to get all these really beautiful benefits of
10:23
allopurignanolone because again, when this is something that's
10:27
released when progesterones being broken down in the body
10:31
and when you're taking the birth control pill, which contains
10:34
these progestins, which are most of which are synthesized from
10:39
testosterone, right? So they're not synthesized from
10:41
progesterone. They're made out of
10:43
testosterone. When they get broken down in the
10:45
body, they don't release allopurganolone because they,
10:48
they, you know, they're not, that's, they're not, that's not
10:50
what they're made of. And in SO research finds that,
10:55
for example, that women who are on the pill have much lower
10:58
levels of allopurinolone, which is probably also then, you know,
11:02
contributing to some of these side effects like mental health
11:04
problems, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and unable to
11:08
regulate stress. And so like you, you get some
11:12
side effects like those, for example, that are the results of
11:14
the fact that these progestins are not biologically identical
11:19
to to progesterone. And you also get some weird
11:24
things where, you know, these progestins because they're
11:27
synthesized from testosterone and they're just kind of
11:30
monkeyed with. So that way they'll also get
11:32
picked up by progesterone receptors.
11:35
Sometimes these hormones will still continue to stimulate
11:39
testosterone receptors. So it can lead women to
11:42
experience things like hair growth, like facial hair growth
11:46
and some other types of side of or losing their hair because of
11:50
their testosterone receptors being stimulated by these
11:53
progestins. And they've also found that some
11:56
of these progestins like to stimulate glucocorticoid
11:59
receptors. And so these are cortisol
12:01
receptors, which essentially makes your body think that
12:04
you're going through a stressful event because it's it's
12:07
activating that cortisol pathway.
12:09
And, and so this also can contribute to feelings of
12:13
extreme anxiety and, and overwhelm and ultimately mental
12:18
health, you know, mental health related issues.
12:20
Yeah, and it's so important. I did a recorded a podcast
12:24
recently with my middle daughter and she talks a lot about her
12:28
friends. And I see it a lot.
12:30
And I've seen it a lot over the years as AGP as well, that
12:33
people have started on contraception, whether it's the
12:36
the pill or whether it's an injection or an implant of a
12:41
synthetic progestogen. And then they'd go on
12:44
antidepressants. And, you know, it's this
12:47
downward spiral and no one sort of really associates the two
12:50
together, but it can really have such an effect.
12:54
And, and a lot of people just feel very flat, very joyless,
12:57
very demotivated. And then, you know, I see so
13:01
many women who've tried 345 different types of contraception
13:06
and they all have different side effects and no one's really
13:10
thinking about what's going on. And, and I certainly didn't
13:14
either. I mean, I was taught at medical
13:15
school that the contraceptive pill can reduce libido, but
13:18
don't worry about that because young girls have high libido
13:21
anyway, which is like, it's just awful actually.
13:24
Like why can't they enjoy their high libido?
13:27
Like, it just seems like really terrible.
13:30
But then if they're on an SSRI, an antidepressant, they're
13:34
likely to have even more problems with low libido, which
13:38
is like a double whammy for these poor people.
13:41
And so I think there's one thing like not having your hormones,
13:46
but there's another thing having a synthetic hormone that's
13:50
altering the way that your brain and body and stress response
13:53
work because it's hard enough for a lot of people just growing
13:58
up, but to have these chemicals and then people aren't aren't
14:01
putting the two and two together.
14:03
Yeah, no, totally. And increasingly, you know,
14:05
they're being used like you say, for for acne.
14:09
Now, there are lots of other reasons why people get acne.
14:12
It's not just their hormones. And if it is a hormonal
14:14
imbalance, then we should be thinking about the natural
14:17
hormone imbalance, not giving some something synthetic as
14:20
well. So I just think it's really
14:24
important that we know this difference and and look at the
14:27
science because there is a lot of science and evidence.
14:30
It's just been ignored actually for for many years.
14:33
But also thinking about humans being ignored like you talked
14:37
about progesterone and how important progesterone is.
14:42
And I think this is a really, really under recognised under
14:46
spoken about hormone because people always think that
14:50
estrogen is the female hormone, testosterone is the male
14:53
hormone, which absolutely is wrong.
14:55
But progesterone is just something to protect the lining
14:58
of the womb if you're on estrogen.
15:00
And I didn't really know too much about progesterone and when
15:04
I was like growing up as a junior doctor, But it's so
15:08
important because it's actually progesterone is the precursor,
15:13
if you like, for testosterone and estradiol, but also for our
15:18
cortisone and cortisol. So you know, that help with
15:21
inflammation, but like you said before, stress.
15:24
So I know you've written a lot. I've got a copy.
15:27
I haven't got the beautiful copy, but I've I've because
15:29
it's, it hasn't come out yet. It will when we do the put the
15:33
podcast out the period brain, which is your your other book.
15:37
And you talk a lot about the power of progesterone in this
15:42
book and it, you know, just to explain a bit about why
15:46
progesterone is so important. As you noted, culturally we tend
15:52
to think about women and, and that their sex hormone is
15:55
estrogen, right? It's like men have testosterone,
15:58
women have estrogen, and then that's the only hormones that
16:02
matter. But that's just not true.
16:05
As noted, you know, it's women have two primary sex hormones,
16:09
right? We have estrogen and
16:10
progesterone. And the reason that we have two
16:13
primary sex hormones is because our bodies have to do 2
16:16
different jobs to reproduce, right?
16:18
So men's men only need to do one job for reproduction and that's
16:21
have sex, right? And so they've got one sex
16:24
hormone. Women have to have sex, right?
16:26
And we have a hormone for that and that's estrogen.
16:29
And when we are at a point in the cycle when sex can lead to
16:33
conception and estrogen is being released, it orients our brain
16:37
and our body to do all the things that are necessary in
16:40
order to attract mates and have sex, right?
16:43
It increases libido. It makes us smell better, sound
16:48
better, look better to men. It makes us more sexually
16:52
interested. And it it sort of gets all of
16:54
our body marching, you know, in the direction of wanting to do
16:58
things that are going to lead to conception, right?
17:01
And so that's what estrogen does.
17:03
But women's bodies also have to do a second thing to reproduce,
17:06
and that is get pregnant, right? And so allow for an embryo to
17:09
implant and then get pregnant. And so we need a second sex
17:13
hormone that whose job it is to coordinate the body and get
17:17
everything marching together in that direction.
17:20
And that's what progesterone does.
17:21
It shifts our body and our brain from being in, you know, in a,
17:26
in a state that's optimized for sex and attraction.
17:32
And it shifts us into a state that is optimized for
17:35
implantation and pregnancy. And this, you know, creates a
17:39
whole cascade of changes within the body and within the brain.
17:42
And so it does things like, for example, because we're having to
17:47
build and differentiate the cells in the endometrial layer,
17:51
this raises our metabolism, right?
17:53
So women's metabolism increases by like 8 to 11%, which means
17:57
that we need more calories during this part of our cycle
18:01
than we do during other parts of the cycle.
18:03
It shifts our immune system away from a pro inflammatory to an
18:08
anti-inflammatory state to help allow implantation of
18:13
implantation of an embryo without having the immune system
18:16
go crazy and try to attack it, right?
18:18
It changes the threshold by which our brain sort of detects
18:23
danger and makes us more cautious.
18:26
So it's like our brain is quicker to alert danger signals
18:29
because, again, this is a hormone that's getting our body
18:33
and our brain oriented toward, you know, things that will help
18:38
promote a successful pregnancy. And because pregnant pregnancy
18:42
is a time that's very vulnerable for women, they're more
18:44
vulnerable to their environments.
18:47
It does make us more alert to the possibility of social
18:50
dangers and also physical dangers.
18:52
And so women tend to notice more things that can potentially be
18:57
threatening even within the context of their relationships
19:00
and sometimes even especially in the context of their
19:03
relationships. Because, of course,
19:04
historically, women have been very dependent on men in their
19:08
provisioning ability to promote a successful pregnancy.
19:11
And so women are attuned to threats so that way they can be
19:14
able to better address them. Right?
19:16
We experience changes in libido where libido actually decreases
19:20
in that phase in the cycle because we, you know, pregnancy
19:24
is not possible from sex or conception is not possible from
19:28
sex. And sex is, you know, it creates
19:31
A physiological inflammatory response in the, you know,
19:35
cervix and, and vaginal area in response to foreign material.
19:39
And that can be suboptimal for implantation.
19:42
And so, you know, women experience this whole shift that
19:46
that occurs as we as our bodies are transitioning from the state
19:50
optimized for attraction and sex and then moving into the state
19:53
that's optimized for implantation and pregnancy.
19:56
And not really having any discussion of this, right?
20:01
And not understanding what progesterone does.
20:05
And you know, and it does have these like really beautiful
20:08
anti-inflammatory effects within the body.
20:11
It's got anti-inflammatory effects within the brain.
20:13
It increases neuroplasticity. It does all kinds of really
20:17
wonderful things. Not, but not having, you know,
20:21
any awareness of the fact that our body is shifting gears.
20:27
In that sometimes the things that we need to do, like we need
20:30
to change the way that we treat ourselves.
20:31
Like for example, we do need more calories in the second-half
20:35
of the cycle than the first because our metabolism increases
20:40
that can make us feel awful. And so a lot of, you know, what
20:43
women tend to think of as like, you know, PMS and, and feeling
20:47
bad in the second-half of the cycle.
20:49
A lot of that is the result of, you know, just not acknowledging
20:55
that like our bodies needs change, right?
20:57
So, for example, if you're not eating enough because because
21:00
you've been told you should have X number of calories in a given
21:03
day, and then you're in the second-half of the cycle when
21:06
your calorie needs are higher, you're going to feel like you
21:09
have food cravings and that you're hungry and in that you're
21:12
grumpy and that you're tired because you're not eating
21:15
enough, right? And that if we understand that
21:18
the rules for our bodies change and then we treat ourselves, you
21:22
know, we do the things that we need to do to best take care of
21:24
ourselves during this time, I think that a lot of women can
21:26
feel a lot better. And then the other answer is,
21:29
you know, kind of getting at something that you had touched
21:31
on, and that is that in our current environment where people
21:36
do have more sedentary lifestyles and they're eating
21:39
more processed foods and they don't have the large social
21:42
support networks that humans really thrive under.
21:46
All of these things can erode our, our, like our cellular
21:53
plasticity and our resilience to hormonal changes because, you
21:58
know, as we experienced big hormonal changes, it can, some
22:03
women, women are very sensitive to those hormonal changes and it
22:06
makes them feel terrible. And these are the women who have
22:10
really severe PMS and PMDB often times because the luteal phase,
22:15
which is the, you know, the second two weeks of the cycle,
22:17
it's characterized by larger hormonal swings than what we see
22:21
in the first half of the cycle. And so women who are sensitive
22:25
to hormonal changes, it can make them feel out of sorts.
22:30
And in, in one of the reasons that we see so many women with
22:34
hormonal sensitivity is because there are a lot of things in our
22:38
environment that really do erode our, our resilience to those
22:43
hormonal changes. Because it shouldn't feel like
22:46
falling off a Cliff, you know, as your hormones are changing.
22:50
Instead, it should feel more like riding a wave.
22:52
Yeah. And some people are just a lot
22:55
more sensitive to these changing hormone levels.
22:58
Like you say, in the luteal phase, the second-half of the
23:00
cycle, we get a really big peak in progesterone, far higher than
23:04
estadiol. And then it does drop quite
23:06
quickly before people have their periods and some people really
23:11
very sensitive to the changing levels.
23:14
And we see that a lot obviously in perimenopause as well, when
23:17
hormones can shift a lot. And a lot of people think it's
23:21
all Easter dial that's shifting and changing, but aren't
23:25
thinking about the progesterone as well.
23:27
Yeah, No, it will. It's what's kind of interesting
23:30
is that when you look at the research literature, it seems to
23:33
show that, you know, people who are sensitive to hormonal
23:36
changes in within their cycle are also the ones that are at a
23:41
greater risk of developing depression.
23:44
And they're also the ones who are at, at, at the greatest risk
23:47
of experiencing depression during perimenopause.
23:51
And so, you know, there are people, right?
23:54
If you're one of those people who has that sensitivity to
23:58
hormonal changes, that's like really important to know because
24:01
you do need to build an extra support for those big transition
24:05
times like postpartum and and paramenopausally.
24:11
Yeah. And we we see this a lot.
24:12
Obviously I I see a lot of perimenopause that are
24:15
menopausal women, but I'm increasingly see lots of younger
24:18
women in my clinic. But what really saddens me is
24:21
that I see a lot of women with quite severe, often very severe
24:25
mental health history who've been under psychiatrists for
24:28
many years. And when I take a really
24:30
detailed history from them, and these are now menopausal women.
24:34
When I say to them, how did you feel when you were having your
24:37
periods? Did you feel any difference
24:40
throughout your, your menstrual cycle?
24:41
They'll say, Oh yeah, just before my period.
24:44
It was just awful. And then my period came and I
24:46
would just get a bit of break and it would be like night and
24:49
day the difference. And then I, if they've had
24:53
babies, I always say to them, how did you feel when you were
24:56
pregnant? And they would grin from ear to
24:58
ear and say, do you know what? It would be the best time.
25:01
I would wish I could have that time again.
25:04
But then they've often had post Natal depression or psychosis
25:09
and often didn't want to talk about it to anyone because they
25:12
were scared their babies would be taken away from them, so
25:15
they'd often not gone for treatment at all.
25:18
And then when you realise these big hormonal shifts that occur,
25:21
especially postpartum, it's so obvious that it's related to
25:25
hormones, especially progesterone.
25:27
But I can't find any guidelines that say that we should be
25:30
giving progesterone to women who have post Natal depression.
25:34
It's always the antidepressants and it just doesn't feel right.
25:38
Right. No, I mean, and, and there is
25:40
some research now because of course they've found a
25:44
patentable product that is, that is, it's, it's essentially
25:50
alopregnanolone. It's, it's like A and, and, and
25:53
so they're, they're using that for, for post Natal depression
25:57
and, and it seems to be working pretty well.
26:00
And but, you know, that's like the end product of progesterone.
26:04
And it's a lot more expensive, right?
26:06
And like, why not just give the hormone?
26:08
Right, Exactly. Yeah, Like yes, yeah, no
26:11
progesterone is it is. It's so funny because it's so
26:15
underappreciated. And I just learned for the very
26:18
first time that most women or most doctors who treat women and
26:23
are giving them hormones for, for perimenopause and menopause,
26:30
that they only give them like progesterone if they have a
26:34
uterus. And then and that they're doing
26:36
it because, you know, they they want them not to get over
26:40
proliferation within the uterus. But and and and it floored me to
26:46
learn that and and so. Did you not realize that?
26:48
That's really interesting. No, I didn't.
26:51
No, I had no idea. I'm like, how in the world?
26:53
Like why in the world would a doctor think that this only
26:57
matters for the uterus? What?
26:58
Isn't it interesting? Yeah.
27:00
Somehow estrogen effects everything but that.
27:03
Progesterone only affects the uterus.
27:06
I mean, it's like. Yeah.
27:08
Well, you see, this is where like as doctors, we're blinded
27:11
because because I was always taught that.
27:13
I was taught you only give progesterone if a woman has a
27:15
womb. And so if you, if you're taught
27:17
it, that's it. You don't question it, you just
27:19
do it. And that's what a lot of the
27:21
pathways and guidelines say. But then recently, obviously,
27:24
I've read a lot more about progesterone.
27:26
I've read Physiology, you know, basic things I should have known
27:29
for many years. And so now we do give
27:31
progesterone to women who've had a hysterectomy or if women have
27:34
a Marina coil in, you know, and an IUS that's a coil that
27:39
contains synthetic progesterone. I'll often give progesterone as
27:42
well because it will get into the blood and go to the brain.
27:45
Everything else. And most weeks I get letters
27:47
from doctors to my clinic to say, how dare you prescribe
27:50
progesterone. This isn't in the guidelines.
27:53
We don't have evidence. And it's like, well, hang on,
27:55
It's a basic hormone. It's it's really interesting
27:58
that common sense often than is forgotten in medicine.
28:02
Yeah, no, that's, that's crazy. And and I think that you're
28:05
ahead of your time on that. And I think, but I think it's,
28:07
it's smart. So we're actually doing this
28:09
study right now where we're going to be looking at
28:11
supplementing micronized progesterone to women on
28:15
hormonal birth control to see whether or not we can minimize
28:19
some of these unpleasant effects that women get from it.
28:22
Because I there. Is yes.
28:24
It's very interesting. I bet I.
28:26
Bet that that's true. Yeah, no, you're, you're ahead
28:29
of your time. I'm I'm, I'm impressed.
28:31
I think that's, I think that's great.
28:32
I love that you're doing that. Yeah, well, I just, you know, I
28:35
suppose in medicine I'm quite inquisitive, but you always just
28:38
look at the reason. And, you know, I don't want to
28:40
put sticking plaster on things for patients.
28:42
I don't want to be giving them antidepressants if they don't
28:45
need to. So I think, you know, working
28:48
with people who a scientist and thinking beyond the box is
28:52
really, really important. And you know, the birth control
28:55
has been out for decades, progesterone we've known about
29:00
for nearly 100 years. And I feel like the conversation
29:04
is only just beginning, really. So, so I'm really grateful just
29:08
have the opportunity to talk to you.
29:09
So and, and I really wish you a lot of luck with the book
29:12
because I think it's going to help people to understand a bit
29:14
more about our natural hormones and why we are who we are and
29:19
what shape us, but also what we can do if we're struggling.
29:22
The big message is really talk to someone who understands
29:24
hormones as well. But and so before I end, there's
29:28
always three take home tips, but I would just like to ask you
29:32
three things about progesterone that you think everybody and men
29:37
as well, because men produce progesterone.
29:39
So three things that we should all know about progesterone as a
29:42
hormone in our bodies. OK, so #1 is that it doesn't
29:46
make you feel bad. I think that a lot of people,
29:49
because progesters, those horrible, you know, those
29:53
synthetics and birth control make people feel so awful that
29:57
they assume that progesterone and, and, and because, you know,
30:00
women do sometimes experience PMS and PMDD, they think that
30:04
that progesterone is this like feel bad hormone and, and it's
30:07
just not. And so that's one.
30:10
Number 2 is that progesterone matters for cells in the body
30:14
that are outside the uterus, including the brain #3 is that
30:20
progesterone is beautifully, wonderfully anti-inflammatory
30:25
and neuroprotective. And so it has all of these
30:28
really wonderful, these wonderful characteristics in the
30:32
body in terms of being anti-inflammatory and sort of
30:35
orienting you more toward an anti-inflammatory response.
30:38
In fact, it's even been argued that one of the reason that
30:41
contemporary women have so much autoimmune disease is because
30:45
our ancestors spent so much time pregnant that they were
30:49
constantly having this really powerful break on the very
30:53
inflammatory female immune response.
30:55
And that lacking that break is the reason that we're seeing
30:58
this, these, these types of inflammatory diseases in women.
31:02
So it's beautifully power, beautifully anti-inflammatory
31:05
and it is neuroprotective. It's it's used in traumatic
31:09
brain injury to actually prevent people from getting brain damage
31:12
from excitotoxicity. And so it's like got these
31:15
really beautiful effects within the brain and the body.
31:18
Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing
31:21
some of your knowledge and it's been great connecting with you,
31:23
so thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for having me.