Should You Consider Hormone Therapy? How HRT Fits Into Menopause & Longevity

So, do I need to consider hormone replacement therapies and things like that to >> It might >> and that will help me fend off what the sleep issues the >> It'll slow the rate of change, >> okay? >> But it doesn't stop it. You still have to put in your lifestyle modifications

>> okay? >> But it doesn't stop it. You still have to put in your lifestyle modifications to improve andor stop the circenia and the bone density loss and all the things that people associate with postmenopause. >> And did any of you have menopause hormone therapy?

>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Mhm. and what was the decision and what what impact has it had?

>> So, I think what Stacy just said in framing where we're going with this conversation is so now we're permenopausal. It's a new physiology. What used to work for all of our

exercising if we even did because we know it at least in this country that 60 to 80% of people aren't intentional with their lifestyle. So to frame this next part of the conversation, I'm sure we're going to talk a lot about hormones, and

I'll tell you my hormone decision-making, but uh I think it's important to all of us. It's only one of the building blocks to rebuilding a

great life, right? It's interesting that the five steps of fertility that you went over are actually >> exactly the same. >> Curious, isn't it? >> It is. It's it's great protein and anti-inflammatory nutrition. It's a cardiovascular fitness life. It's a

anti-inflammatory nutrition. It's a cardiovascular fitness life. It's a

lifting life. It's a stress detox whether it's environmental or relational. And >> sleep, >> sleep, >> sleep. >> And then yes, hormones are really uh a critical building block. But as we enter

>> sleep. >> And then yes, hormones are really uh a critical building block. But as we enter the conversation, women are sentient beings and we get to decide and we get to make the changes because we have agency. So what we're going to

describe is not a one-sizefits-all. >> It is >> it's all the tools on the >> tools. Put the tools on the table. >> So I choose if I'm going to work my

>> tools. Put the tools on the table. >> So I choose if I'm going to work my proverbial rear end off to be the best I can be for the rest of my life. I choose

to use all the tools. Not everybody does that. But to choose one tool and think that's going to be enough, it never is. >> Never. >> Right. So when I decided to and I've

been pretty public about my journey in this because you think I would have known after 22 years of formal education and all this and being an aging a muscularkeeletal aging researcher, you would have think thought I would have

known, but I honestly looking back maybe thought I was never going to age because I was so healthy, right? So I have a baby at 40. I breastfeed

till almost 41 and a half, 42. And then I'm back at my very quickly 5 weeks, my high power, high capacity to career. But things were getting really different

about 45 for me. And I think I went right from postpartum to pmenopause with very little downtime.

So chaotic hormones to almost and so I suffered for a while at 47. Uh I I talk about it like I I went from this really high capacity to thinking I was

going to die not only because of night sweats, brain fog, the thing that lots of women have. But I started having heart palpitations. And I call my cardiology friend because I worked at a university. I'm like Ricky Ricky I think

I'm dying. So he did put me on a stress test and my heart was perfect right at

I'm dying. So he did put me on a stress test and my heart was perfect right at that point. And then I had arthralgia which is total body pain. It's part of

that point. And then I had arthralgia which is total body pain. It's part of the inflammatory response of not having estrogen. It's part of the

muscularkeeletal syndrome of menopause uh assembly of symptoms. So much that I go from training to almost not being able to get out of bed. And these my experience of not

knowing what was coming and hitting a wall is not uncommon, >> right? And so I started educating myself and being uh an acquired expert, I read

>> right? And so I started educating myself and being uh an acquired expert, I read what I consider the world's data on safety of hormone optimization, as I

like to call it. And I made the decision that I was going to do all the tools. I

was going to learn to lift heavy again, which I hadn't done since high school because I was a runner and I changed the way I do my cardio and I changed my diet and I am so committed to sleep. Do not call me after 9:30 at night cuz I am

going to be in bed and just the the quiet times of de-stress. But I also decided to um augment or to optimize my hormones with estradiol, with progesterone because I have a

uterus. And after I felt comfortable with those with very small doses of

uterus. And after I felt comfortable with those with very small doses of testosterone and that makes me feel like myself again, not just one because I

think sometimes people think that you can just make a hormone decision and feel like yourself again. It takes lifestyle >> plus or minus this decision.

>> Is there a stigma associated with that decision? um >> taking hormones.

>> Taking the hormones, but also I guess just more broadly with entering >> menopause. >> Yeah.

>> Um >> I think there is >> there is absolutely I mean you can just look at popular media. You can look at the representation. Go right now and give me an image.

>> It's decreasing because of you though. Like we have to acknowledge you are decreasing the stigma.

>> True. >> And you're sitting at the table with us. I say that I think because there's a woman in my life who was telling me about her decision to start taking menopause hormone therapy and she described the moment with her husband when she was looking at the box >> and she was staring at the box and

staring at the box and staring at the box and mulling it and there was clearly something emotional going on there that this decision to take this marks something >> which is interesting because no one really questions OC's

>> exactly oral contraceptive birth go and I treat both men and women. And when a man comes into my clinic with low energy, popping all the tendons all over his body, everything hurts, we very quickly test his testosterone and send

him with no judgment because he's trying to be viral. And I think it goes with the general compos conversation about aging women.