From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Best Of The Duffys: Is Your Birth Control Making You Sad, Fat & Attracted To Beta Males?

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

On this episode, Rachel looks back at one of her favorite episodes with her daughter, Evita Duffy and award-winning research psychologist and professor with expertise in women, health, and sexual psychology, Dr. Sarah E. Hill to discuss the staggering number of young women who have been prescribed birth control without any conversation or warning about the potential side effects. They look at how these side effects can affect everything from hormones to personality, and even who someone is attracted to.   Plus, they mention why this could be one of the many factors contributing to worsened relations between men and women in the modern dating era.   Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm here today with my daughter Evita, who's filling in for Sean, because we have a guest that she's really interested in, and I am too. And so we're going to do this together. We have a very special guest. Her name is Dr. Sarah Hill. I've been fascinated with her for a long time, listening to everything she's doing and her book. Her book is called This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences.

So with no further ado, Dr. Hill, thanks for joining us at the kitchen table. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So I'm so fascinated by this entire topic. By the way, we're mother-daughter. I'm 52. I'm perimen by this entire topic. By the way, we're mother-daughter. I'm 52. I'm perimenopausal right now. I've had nine kids. Evita is my first, and she is 24, and she's been married, what, almost two years?

Almost two years. Almost two years. So she's never been pregnant, though. But this topic, obviously, super interesting, super important. And so let's just start with this. The pill was approved by the FDA in 1960. And I look at your book and I look at your research and I'm scratching my head going, why hasn't this research been done before?

So could you answer that? And then we'll get into the nitty gritty, because actually, the most shocking part of this is that you're the first person to talk about this. Yeah, no, I found that I found that to be true myself. I was like, am I really the first person to have this conversation? And, you know, I mean, originally, like, I think that this conversation wasn't being had just because, you know, I mean, originally, like, I think that this conversation wasn't being had just because, you know, when medicine sort of came out on the scene, we were still in the era where people believe that the mind and the body were two totally separate entities. And I don't think anybody ever thought to ask ourselves the question about like, what happens when you put medication in your body?

What does that do to your brain? You know, when we think about medication, we just think, oh oh yeah, well, I'm taking this to prevent ovulation. And we don't think about the fact that, you know, when you're preventing ovulation, that's preventing the production of female sex hormones, and then that's going to cause all these other issues. And so I think that it's a lot of it is just the result of a blind spot that we've all had. And, you know, I had it too. I think about the fact that I was on hormonal birth control for more than 10 years. I was on it for about 12 years. More or less consistently, I just took pauses when I was having, when I had my kids and when I was breastfeeding. But other than that,

I was on it pretty much nonstop. And all during this time, I was doing research on women's brains and, you know, the effects of women's hormones on our motivational states and behavior, I never put two and two together. I never, I mean, it was just a total blind spot. It was like, I know that hormones affect brains. I know that my birth control pills are affecting my hormones. It just never even occurred to me that, well, duh, that means that your pill is going to be changing that your behavior and your motivational states and so on. And it wasn't until I went off of it and then experienced that feeling so different that I had the epiphany that was so embarrassing for a psychologist to realize so late in her

career. Dr. Hill. So I super happy to have you here. I actually was listening in preparation for this conversation to your interview with Jordan Peterson. And in the middle of listening to this on YouTube, I got an ad for birth control. And so I'm 24, right? So I get, that's a very normal algorithm for somebody in my age demographic. And usually when you see a medical ad, right, you get at the end,

you get all of the complications that you could get from taking whatever medication that is. And this birth control pill, there was no side effects at the end. They just said, take this awesome birth control pill, and then that was it. So I was wondering if we could just start to get into the actual side effects of birth control that women really don't know. I mean, I never learned about it. I remember going to the doctor as a young girl and them saying, you know, are you on the pill?

Do you want to be on the pill? There was no discussion of the consequences or side effects. Same with this ad. So what would you want to talk to us a little bit about what those are and what your research has found? transparent. So because I am a psychologist and my background is all the brain and the interaction between hormones and brain, in terms of the side effects from, as I always say, the neck down, the cardiovascular side effects and the changes in cancer risk and that sort of thing, all of that has been pretty well. And I think that that stuff is usually pretty well communicated to women where the doctor will say that this can increase your risk of cardiovascular events because anything that has estrogen will, and it can change your cancer risk. So for example, we know that the pill decreases your risk of ovarian cancer, but it is associated with a slight increase in your risk of breast cancer. And so those are things that we know and are pretty well communicated. But what's not communicated and sort of where I

focus my work has been on the psychological and behavioral effects of the birth control pill. And just to give you sort of the lay of the land, because in a lot of ways, these things will seem really disorganized and not make a whole lot of sense until it lets me take a step back and just think about and talk know, and talk for a moment about what hormones do and like what their role is in the body. And, you know, our hormones, even though we tend to think about them just in terms of like puberty and like, you know, growing hair in places that there wasn't hair before and, and sexual desire and, you know, in the menstrual cycle and pregnancy, um, our hormones do a whole lot more than just that. And so they're actually part of the communication process

or the communication network that our brain uses to create the experience of being the person that we are. So part of the way that we feel, like our energy level and our libido and how sexy we feel and how engaged we feel in our motivational states, all of these things are influenced by our hormones and the nature of our stress response and even things like our immune functioning and the type of inflammatory response that we have. Those things are impacted in a really profound way by our circulating sex hormones. And just

the reason for this, and you'll appreciate this, Rachel, as somebody who's had so many kiddos, you know, it's like our bodies are wired to be so sensitive to hormones and all of the different systems in our body are sensitive to our sex hormones because everything in our body has to rewire itself for pregnancy. And so because of that, all the cells in our body, well, not all of them, but the majority of cells in our body have receptors for sex hormones and because they have to change what they're doing depending on what sex hormone, what our sex hormones. And because they have to change what they're doing, depending on what sex hormone, what our sex hormones are doing. And so, you know, what I was really interested in is what does this do to us psychologically? Like, because we know that all of the major structures in our brain

have receptors for these sex hormones. And so like, what does it mean when we take the usual messaging that women's bodies get when they're naturally cycling, which for a woman who's got a natural cycle, just meaning that she's not on hormonal birth control and that she is somebody who's still menstruating, what you get is during the first half of the cycle, you get this rise in estrogen. And during this time, this is the time in women's cycle when pregnancy is starting to become possible, where We have this little window of time that occurs right near ovulation. So about five days prior to ovulation. And ovulation generally happens on day 14 of the cycle. So if day one is the day you get your period, which it is, hormone levels are pretty low. And then estrogen levels start to

climb as you're starting to mature egg follicles. And then as one gets ready to be released, estrogen levels are really high. And because this is a period of time when pregnancy is possible from sex, estrogen is something that sensitizes our brain for sex. And it makes us more sexually desirous. We're thinking about sex more. We want to have sex more. We feel sexier. We look, smell, and act sexier. Our voices sound sexier. So there's been research showing that men prefer the scent of women. They prefer the voices of women. They prefer even the walk. They've looked at gait and just looking at women's gait, depending on whether estrogen, they're in an estrogen dominant phase of the cycle or not. And our gait changes a little bit. The way we move is a little bit different. And all of that stuff is, it increases when estrogen is increasing because

our body is like getting ready for, you know, procreation, which is the things that our body's wired to do. And, um, and so when for a naturally cycling woman, you have this big rise in estrogen and then estrogen falls. And then the second hormone that gets released in the second half of the cycle is progesterone and progesterone gets released during a time in the cycle when sex is no longer going to lead to conception, right? And it's actually a time when the body starts to take all of those resources that it was investing in sexiness and energy and going out and doing things to inmates. And it takes those resources and redirects them into preparing the body for the possibility of pregnancy.

And so that's a totally different set of things that our bodies are doing, right? They're acquiring energy. So we get hungrier during that time. We get sleepier because essentially our brain is trying to keep us home and safe, right? And away from things like pathogens and things that can make us sick and also keeping us out of harm's way. And so estrogen is like about sex and going out there and having energy and progesterone is more about taking that energy and turning it inward and preparing the body for pregnancy. And so for a naturally cycling woman, you get these waxing and waning of these two hormones, which then leads to a waxing and

waning of motivational states. So we find, for example, that women, when they're at the high fertile point in the cycle, so when estrogen is high, that they feel sexier, they have more energy, they actually move more, they're less hungry, they eat less. And it's because that's not what they're prioritizing at that time. And then during the progestogenic phase of the cycle, when the body's preparing for implantation and pregnancy, this is when you get women being hungrier and sleepier and they're feeling less adventurous and they want to stay in. And so this is generally what we see that goes on.

And there's been a lot of research that's been going on for the last 20 years that's really shown that women's fluctuating sex hormones do have a profound impact on how women feel and experience the world. And so then the question becomes, and I'm sorry, did you, did you want to ask me a question? No, no, go ahead. Keep going. Yeah. So then the question is, well, what happens on the pill, right? So cycling woman, you have this waxing and waning of these two hormones. And you have women sort of, you know, going through this little dance with their hormones, where they feel like sexy and energized, and they feel a little bit sleepier.

And we kind of, you know, go through that. But when women are on the birth control pill, what it does is it shuts down our production of our own sex hormones. And it does this by giving women a daily dose of a synthetic form of progesterone called a progestin. And this progestin, because progesterone is only released during the half of the cycle when pregnancy is not possible. And the reason it's not possible is because the body's not maturing new egg follicles to release because it's waiting to see what that happens to the one that just got released. These progestins tell the brain not to stimulate the ovaries to produce a new egg because it's like, hey, we just ovulated, or at least that's what the body thinks. And so this daily dose of the same synthetic hormone, essentially what it does

is it tricks the body into thinking that it's in the luteal phase of the cycle. So the second half of the cycle, so it's not maturing egg follicles. And, um, but of course, if we're not maturing egg follicles, we're not, we're not producing our own hormones because that's how we produce our hormones. And so every day, you know, we replace this dynamic cycle between these two hormones and women who are on a hormonal birth control, get the same hormonal message every day. And it's one that is dominated by the synthetic form of progesterone and then relatively low levels of estradiol. Wait right there. We'll have more of this conversation next.

Streaming now on Fox Nation. You believe you were sent by God? Yes. An exclusive new series hosted and narrated by Martin Scorsese. These are stories of the saints. Martin Scorsese presents The Saints, streaming now on Fox Nation. Go to foxnation.com and sign up today. Well, I mean, it's just, it's so much to even think about because I look at it from so many different angles. I look at it for myself and then I also look at it as a mother, right? So for the record, never been on birth control. I'm Catholic. I have nine kids, big, you know, Fox news alert. I have

nine kids. I'm not on birth control, but, um, my reason was not just religious, uh, Dr. Sarah, it was also that I'm very averse to anything that's unnatural. So the second you said synthetic hormone, my little thing went up because I would be really nervous about putting something in my body that was synthetic like that. I'm sorry, go ahead. Well, no, I was just going to say, you know, with these synthetic progestins, they're not the same as progesterone. And that's the thing. I'll say this, the synthetic estradiol or estrogen that's in hormonal birth control is pretty good. It's like it's body identical. And so our bodies can't really tell the difference.

But progestins are a totally different ballgame because progesterone, that beautiful hormone that our bodies release after an egg has been released, that empty egg follicle actually becomes an endocrine structure that lasts for two weeks if you don't get pregnant. And it releases this hormone progesterone that when it's being broken down in the body, one of the metabolites, it's a neurosteroid that gets released from just breaking down progesterone in the body. It's something that's incredibly neuroprotective. It increases things like our neuroplasticity. It's associated with positive mental health outcomes. And you don't get any of that from these progestins. Progestins aren't made out of progesterone. They're made out of testosterone. And they just

manipulate the molecules. So that way they'll stimulate our progesterone receptors. So that way they do the progesterone things in the body, but they're not, they're not body identical. They also will stimulate testosterone receptors. They don't have good binding, binding specificity or affinity. So they'll fall off the receptors too early. And so then you have to have higher doses of them. I mean, they're just not, it's not right.

Well, our body doesn't deal with it the same way. And so some of the side effects that we see with hormonal birth controls, which we can get into, you know, things like, you know, and changing attraction and those kinds of things that's related to the fact that our estrogen levels are just kept super duper low constantly. So that's one thing, but then those synthetic progestins, um, you know, not only do we get side effects from being kept in the state of progestin dominance, but we also get side effects that are related to the fact that these chemicals are not body identical. And side effects that we get are just like oddball things,

like, for example, the overwhelming of the stress response, like research finds that women who are on hormonal birth control have like super high cortisol levels, but then they have no cortisol response to stress. And so it's essentially like their body is in a state of chronic stress. And that's because at least the leading theory about why that is, is that these synthetic progestins, in addition to stimulating progesterone receptors, are also stimulating our stress hormone receptors. And so essentially

making our bodies feel like we're going through a traumatic event in birth control pills. And so, yeah, you can get a whole cornucopia of these effects that are the result of, you know, just shutting down our own hormones. And then these, you know, funky monkey progestins. And so what's interesting to me is, so I've seen more and more young girls, um, daughters of friends of mine who are going on birth control at a very young age, often before they're even sexually active because of acne, obviously, you know, your hormones are going crazy, period cramps, period cramps. Exactly. So, so my, my question then is if, if, and I'd love to know what the average age of going

on birth control is, but I imagine it's probably fairly young in this country. It sounds like all of these, all of this birth control and the changing of the hormones can actually, it sounds like change your personality. Do you ever get to know who you really are if you're on birth control um from the moment you know from from your teens um you know on and off you know and preteens yeah even preteens until perimenopause or or whatever yeah i mean the thing is you know when you're taking a hormone i mean hormones have systemic effects right meaning that they affect your body from head to toe and this is because hormones get into the bloodstream and they go everywhere that blood travels in the body, which is everywhere. And then they get picked up by the cells in the body that have receptors for the hormone,

which are everywhere. And so when you take something like hormonal birth control for something like acne, or because you have bad cramps, you're causing the systemic effect. bad cramps, you're causing the systemic effect. And I don't think that, you know, that's, that's something a, that doctors aren't communicating to girls and their mothers. Do they know that? Do they know that? Is that the problem that you're doing this research, but it's not communicating down to the pediatricians and the doctors who are prescribing this? What's really interesting about this is yes, I know it is not being communicated and no i don't think that the physicians know it it's like on the one level they have to know it because if you there's no way you can take you know the classes in human anatomy and and physiology and

and understand how hormones work and then put girls on hormones and think that they're going to have a local effect on their skin or on their ovaries. I mean, it's going to affect brain development and everything else, but it's, I don't think anyone's pieces together for them. I mean, honestly, I don't think that most doctors think, well, you know, I'm going to go and pull the wool over their eyes and give them this thing to clear up their acne and then affect their brain development long-term. I don't think that they're thinking about it that way, but if they sat and with all the information that they have and everything that they know about how hormones work and how post-pubertal brain development works, which is all organized and coordinated by our sex hormones, they would put two and two together and say, oh my goodness, this could actually be influencing brain development

even because our brain is still developing until we're in our early twenties. And, you know, in a lot of that, the changes in brain as our brain is remodeling itself from our child brain into our grownup brain, a lot of those changes are being coordinated by sex hormones. I mean, that's what puberty is all about is sex hormones, kicking things into gear and then transitioning ourselves into the adult version of ourselves. And so when we replace our normal hormonal fluctuations that women are supposed to be experiencing during this time, and you blunt it by giving them a pill that shuts down their ovaries and then replaces it with the synthetic, what does that mean for brain development? Like we don't know.

And honestly, what's crazy to me and the thing that gets me all fired up is that nobody's asking the question. I've seen a handful, I can count on one hand, the number of studies that I've seen looking at the long-term developmental effects of adolescent birth control use. And, um, and that is that because birth control is taboo that it's been so linked to women's rights and the women's movement that anyone who even dares to touch it. And that it was very hard to get research money because there's something sort of sacrosanct in the women's movement about the pill that makes it difficult for anyone either to get funding or even talk about it without seeming like they're, you know, trying to repress women. And it's a weird thing, too, Dr. Sarah, because the whole women's movement is about, you know, empowering women. The whole women's movement is about, you know, empowering women. And so empowering women with information, transparency and information seems like the ultimate form of empowerment.

Give women all the information, the good, the bad, the ugly. Let them decide. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And I think that there is I mean, there definitely is that sacros um, sort of halo around, uh, hormonal birth control. And, you know, and I think that it's one of these things, especially with, uh, um, generations like before us, um, where they didn't have it. And, and, and then all of a sudden they did and they realized how much of a game changer it is to be able to have control over your fertility and to be able to regulate your fertility in a way that allows you to make predictions about when you're going to have children and when you're not.

And because it has been so good for women, I mean, just in terms of being able to make plans and to achieve economic and political independence for men, I think that there's been a tendency to then just say, well, you know, don't criticize it because there's this fear that if we are too critical about it, that it'll get taken away. But I think that we need to, you know, I think that, and I see this with younger women, it seems like people are willing to have the conversation now in a way that they used to not be willing to have the conversation where we can hold that there, that there are two truths that can be true at the same time. Right. And that is that on the one hand, having access to the birth control pill is something that is positive.

I mean, just for women's, you know, reproductive health and sort of women's rights and the ability to achieve economic and political independence for men. But then at the same time, it's not perfect. And that we need to be, we need to be critical of it. And we need to be very transparent about what the benefits and trade-offs are that we're making when we go on it. So that way women have all of the information because as you said,

Rachel and I, and you said it so beautifully, it's all about information, you know, and, and, and empowered choices and the idea that it's somehow better for women to stick their head in the sand and not know, you know, what they're putting into their bodies seems crazy to me. And it seems like the least empowered thing that you can possibly do for women is to have to have them completely beholden to their doctor and to just say, yes, sir, or yes, ma'am, to whatever their doctor recommends for them without actually, you know, asking the questions and having the additional

information. And I don't think that that's right. So I, you know, I'm being in college and well, now I'm out of college, but when I was in college, you know, and talking with my girlfriends, there's a lot of dissatisfaction with men. I think women just, it just, maybe it's always been like that, but, but it seems to be even more pronounced. There was a video that went viral recently where they asked a bunch of girls, you know, do you need a man? Do women need men? And the answer was just no. And there's a lot of tension between the sexes. Do you think that birth control and sort of the way that you've talked about how it's impacted their attraction to men and just the way that we perceive men in

general has had an impact on that? Or is that more social? Do you think that that the hormone changes in women's bodies is actually impacting us socially? Well, maybe you could also break down Dr. Hill that because that's actually one of the most fascinating and interesting parts of your discussion. Because you know, you study psychology, but you study relationships. You're proposing that being on the pill actually changes who you are attracted to. Yeah. So it can. So I'll talk about that first. And then I really want to, and then I love the, I love being able to get to that other question too. It's so fascinating. And I think that the, what's going on right now with, um, women, especially women looking for partners,

you know, it's like, yeah, it's just a mess. And there is broad scale dissatisfaction with men. And I'm excited to talk about that. But so there's been research that has been done now for, I don't know, it's been around for like 25 years or so. But this largely comes from evolutionary biology is where it all originated. And essentially, what you see in non-human animals is that when it's estrous, which is essentially the fertile time in the cycle, you get a real increase among females in their

discrimination between mates, right? It's because pregnancy is possible, right? So all of a sudden, the females become real picky about who they might consider an attractive partner or not an attractive partner. And that research has been out there forever. And then about 20 years ago, researchers started to think about applying these same ideas to humans and look at whether women during the fertile period in their cycle, so when estrogen is dominant and an egg is getting ready to be released and sex can actually lead to conception, you know, is it true that human females might also experience a shift in their mating related psychology where they become more discriminating between

prospective mates? And might they really focus in on cues that are related to things like genetic compatibility and genetic quality. And in particular, one of the sort of most popular ideas that's been looked at in this research has been with looking at women's levels of sex hormone and what we call the fertile window, which is that period of time in the cycle when pregnancy is possible and its relationship with women's preference for things like testosterone-related cues. And testosterone is so-called, we call it a good genes marker. And the reason that it's a good genes marker is because men who have high levels of testosterone and have masculinized features and masculinized voices and masculinized behaviors, that is an honest

indicator that their immune system is sufficiently robust to be able to withstand the immunosuppressive effects of testosterone because testosterone actually dampens our ability to fight off germs. And if our body is releasing high levels of testosterone during development, allowing us to develop these really androgenic types of features like the strong brow ridge and like the, you know, the sort of manly jaw and broad shoulders. And if you're able to have musculature and you've got a deep voice and you've got signs of behavioral masculinity, which are things like social dominance, that is saying that during development, your immune system is so good that it was able to produce all

these levels of testosterone, despite the fact able to produce all these levels of testosterone, despite the fact that the body will lower levels of testosterone if it can't fight off germs and that sort of thing. And so essentially, it's an indicator of having good immune genes. And so what researchers were interested in, just to flip this back to women's hormones, is whether when estrogen is high in the cycle and pregnancy is possible, do women exhibit sort of an uptick in their interest in testosterone related cues? And are they more attracted to cues of sort of social dominance and physical markers of masculinity, masculine voices, masculine faces, and so on. And researchers have found now for a long time, and there's been a lot of really

compelling research showing that women, when you're at high fertility in the cycle, when estrogen is high, that women exhibit an uptick in their preference for partners with testosterone cues. So like masculine, it says masculine, nice voices, social dominance, and so on. So this, of course, again, the question then becomes what happens when you put women on the birth control pill? Because when you put women on the birth control pill, it shuts down their ovaries. They're not producing estrogen. They're not cycling. And instead, they're just consistently getting this daily dose of low estrogen and then relatively high levels of progestin. And so the researchers predicted that women who are on the pill because of this shift in their hormonal profile, that this will be related to a decreased

preference for cues of facial, vocal, and behavioral masculinity. And lo and behold, that's exactly what they find. And that is that men who are on hormonal birth control prefer less masculinized male faces. They seem to choose partners that have less masculinized male faces. Like they've done studies where they've looked at the faces of men who were chosen by women who were on or off the pill, evaluated for masculinity. Lo and behold, the women who chose their partners while they were naturally cycling chose the more masculinized, their partners had more masculinized faces than the pill taking women. They've done studies then looking at what happens if you chose your partner when you were on the pill and then you go off of it, because then that suggests that you could get this shift,

right? You might not like your husband anymore, right? Yeah. Because if you chose your partner when you're on the pill and you're not really prioritizing these cues and then all of a sudden you're off of it and you're naturally cycling and you're interested in these cues you might look at your partner and say shoot you know like this was a bad what was i doing and um and there's been a really cool longitudinal study that was done by now it must have been done like eight years ago now but they followed married couples over time and what they found is that women who chose their partners when they were on the pill and then they discontinued it this was associated this this shift in their hormonal status was related to changes in sexual satisfaction

attraction to their partner and relationship satisfaction. And whether that became more positive or more negative depended on how hot their partner was. If they chose a sexy partner, what they found is that when women were off the pill, they were like, yeah, you know, like this, but I'm sure glad I have it. The less sexy partners, they have the opposite relationship where all of a sudden they were like, I married a beta. Um, and so that, um, that was that shift. And so, you know, what I always tell to women, cause this can be really alarming is that for most women, it's not like this big, huge shift, right? But it can happen. And we know that it can happen because research documents it happening, but it doesn't always

happen. And one of the most frequent things that happens when women are on the pill and then they go off of the pill is that they just get this big uptick in sexual desire generally, because one thing that the pill does because it's keeping estrogen levels low, which again is this hormone that's like all about sex and energy and sexiness and attraction is, is in keeping that low makes you, but generally it can be a real killer of sexual desire. And, and there's a lot of indicating that hormonal birth. I've never heard that either i mean how is it possible that since 1960 this has been around and i've never heard that um i've heard

about waking it can make you a little you know making make you more hungry or make you fatter or i mean i've heard that but i've never heard you know that i could pick the wrong partner or you know be attracted to the wrong partner potentially or a less masculine partner and that my sexual desire would decrease. So now back to Evita's question, what is it doing to the relationships between the sexes? I mean, I found that fascinating what she just said, that there's a really deep dissatisfaction between the sexes. I mean, I found that fascinating what she just said, that there's a really deep dissatisfaction between the sexes. Yeah, no, I think that there is, you know, and, and I don't, so let me just preface this by saying, I don't, I don't have the full answer to this. Um, but I do, I do think that there is sort of an interesting dynamic going on right now where, you know, so one thing that the pill has done, like, we just sort of like,

look at the progression of, you know, over time, um, the way that society has changed in response to the pill, the pill has allowed women, um, to go into the workforce in numbers that we couldn't before and get education and do all of these things that we couldn't do before. Right. And we could do it, but it was just a lot more difficult, right. Because it's really hard, for example, to go to law school or get, you know, go to medical school or like I, you know, getting my PhD, I didn't finish till I was 29. And if I wouldn't have, and at that point I was, you know, I got married and I was 25. Um, and, and I, I wanted to wait to have children. And if I didn't have reliable contraception, it would have been a lot harder for me to finish.

Um, and, and so you have women who are now able to plan and educate themselves and this is, and this is great. Um, and, uh, but it, it has created a set of expectations for women where, um, women are expected to be both women and then also men. Right. And so, um, I think that, that the, I think that women in a lot of ways are resentful because they have all of this piled on them right where they're expected to be both women and men and what this then does is it also creates then for women they feel like men need to be men and women right because it's like well i'm doing all this stuff then you need to help me and women, right? Because it's like, well, I'm doing all this stuff, then you need to help me. But then it's like, that's not sexy to women. No, it's like on the one hand, you want your partner to empty the dishwasher. On the other hand, if that's really

what he's doing, it's like, that's not sexy. You really want him chopping wood outside. I want you to help and care for the kids. Right. Thank you. Unattractive to me. I mean, you know, I think that there's so many contradictions that are set up just because of the way that society is changing and in part because of the changes in birth control. So I think that's like one piece of it, which is, you know, but another piece of it is,

you know, and gosh, and there is, you know, gosh, and there's so much research trying to figure this out. Nobody has the answer yet, but, you know, we've got this big achievement gap with men, right? So men are just not performing like, um, and you know, as somebody, I, one of my children, I've got two children and one of them is a son. And, you know, it's something that I really worry about with, I mean, boys are languishing. They're languishing at school. They're not, I mean, they're just, they're languishing. And I think that a lot of, you know, what we're seeing with women being dissatisfied is that women are, you know, historically, and this is true, you know, like we, our brains are wired to be what anthropologists call hyper, hypergamous.

our brains are wired to be what anthropologists call hyper hypergamous. And that means that we mate up like women like to mate with somebody who is, um, has more status and resources than they do. Um, and so we have a, you know, hyper-educated women, which we are, are now and we're able to do that and achieve all of these things in part because of the ability to regulate our fertility and to be able to make plans, um, which, you know, is, is, is very good for us. But then when you have these languishing men, it creates this mating crisis where you have a bunch of really highly educated and accomplished women who have a lot to offer. And then they're looking up because that's what women do. Like we're hypergamous and we like to mate up. Um,

and there's not a lot of men. And so women are angry. We actually had a conversation about this and it's hyperventilating built into us. I'm sorry. Is that, that's sort of like, that's part of, that's like women will, that's just how we're built. Yeah, no, it is. I mean, look, there's, there's, right. Some women are more tolerant of that than others, but I mean, it's kind of like preferring, you know, it's like on average, women prefer men who are taller than themselves, right? Is that true? Most women. And that's part of our mating psychology that we've inherited from our successful ancestors because women who preferred partners who are taller than themselves would have done better than women who preferred partners

who are smaller because they would have been better able to protect them and their children. Same with hypergamy, right? If you prefer somebody who's got access to resources and those sorts of things, and the way that you metric that is against what you currently have. Those women who had that preference probably would have passed it on to a greater number of successful children because those children would have done a lot better than women who were like, Oh, okay, no, I'll take this guy who doesn't have a whole lot. Got it. So that's part of our inherited mating psychology.

We'll have more of this conversation after this. I was just going to ask, because we had had a conversation recently about, literally, men and women, young men and women, they're not really getting married, or if they are, it's much later. They're not even really having sex with one another. I mean, like the sex of people in the West has gone down even just casually. And so we had a conversation about maybe women should start to, if you have a college degree or you have a graduate's degree, don't just date people with a graduate's degree or an undergrad degree. Maybe start to look at men who are in the trades, in a

blue collar job and open yourself up to those relationships. That was her perspective. And I kind of said, I don't know if those relationships would actually work out just psychologically for women. And I'm really curious on your take with that because you have so many women who are educated. So many men are dropping out. For every one woman that drops out of college, men drop out so they're not they're not graduating

at the same rates as young women so we have this disparity and women aren't but the problem is women just don't seem to be attracted to men who aren't as credentialized as they are not necessarily as smart but as credentialized what are your thoughts on that what should women do is that environmental or does that have to do with some of the stuff we're talking about here? Yeah, no. So I think it's, I think that's really, I think that's really interesting. So I, you know, I think so one, it's like, it would be great. And you know, like, I love the idea of being able to open your horizons in terms of your partner choice. Right. And like, oh, okay, we should be open-minded and not, you know, this and that and the other thing. But on the other hand, you know, it's like most of us, we are wired in a way that we generally

have a desire for somebody who is bringing in and has access to resources beyond what we currently have or is accomplished and not even necessarily with the resources. A lot of times we match an ambition. And the reason I think it gets difficult is because of who women are, right? Because we are also, regardless of what other people will say, there's a lot of research to the contrary saying that women,

it's like we are more in tuned with our children. We are more in tuned with the space that we're in, right? Women are less tolerant, for example, from a messy house than men are. And there's just a lot. And that's absolutely true. Well, no, it is. And, you know, and so and so all these things are true. So what this means is that women, regardless of what they're accomplishing in the workplace are still going to be the ones where they feel the pull of children and the home. Okay. And, and, and it can really quickly lead to a situation where women are resentful if they're accomplishing all this stuff. And then they're with somebody who's less accomplished and ambitious than they are. And they're also doing all this house related stuff. And obviously there are workarounds for that.

If you have enough money, like if you're accomplished enough, right, you can hire people to come and somebody who comes and cleans the house and, and that's helpful. Um, you know, but it's like, not everybody can do that and it can create, you know, it can create these, um, these really, uh, difficult dynamics that, that make a relationship more challenging. And is it impossible? No. But like, does it make a relationship more challenging?

I think so. I think it does. You know, a lot of women too, when they're doing their profiles, when they're, you know, on dating apps, they'll say over, they want someone over six feet tall. I mean, they're expressing their desire, right? I think it's only like 14% of men are over six feet tall. So mean, they're expressing their desire, right? I think it's only like 14% of men are over six, over six feet tall. So they're closing themselves off. So that's kind of what I meant when I said, because, because the other thing is the guys in the trades, a lot of them are more masculine, right? And so it feeds that part of it. But then, but then there's that other

part, right? The security and the resources. Okay, so everything you're saying is just so mind-blowing because it feels super taboo to even be talking about it. I'm curious, like, and I know my daughter has some more questions about frogs. So we've got to get to that. But I'm just curious, what's been the reaction that you've gotten? I mean, I've seen you I I've been following you. Um, uh, I I've been listening to you on different podcasts, reading stuff of yours, your book, but what, like, what has been sort of the reaction you've gotten from your peers,

professionally speaking, especially from other women. So I'll say this, that, um, that the reception that I've received is a lot warmer than what I thought it was going to be. Um, and, and I think that it is because I don't take a, you know, there's nowhere in my book or in any of the interviews that I do where I try to tell people what to do. Um, I just really don't have an agenda except for to provide information. And I'm not trying to sell anything. I'm not, but your information is very inconvenient, very powerful set. And, and I even heard you on one podcast say, you know, it's getting trickier because of course, let's not, let's just like, let's just be honest here.

I mean, right. So you and I probably don't share the same political points of view. I don't know getting trickier because of course let's not let's just like let's just be honest here i mean right so you and i probably don't share the same political points of view i don't know yours per se but i can tell from some of the things you've said that maybe we're not we're not on the same front although i think we both are on the same page when it comes to women deserve information but the elephant in the room of course is, is the Supreme Court decision on Roe versus Wade. And the line from the political left and from feminists on the left is Roe versus Wade means they're going to also take away our birth control pills. And so then along comes Dr. Sarah Hill telling some very inconvenient truths about the birth control pill. And now this thing goes

from being, you know, we should all know what pharmaceuticals we're putting into our body. We have a right to know that and what their effects are now becomes political. And so I guess I'm not trying to get you political because I actually really love the fact that you're just laying out the facts. I'm just curious if you've gotten any pushback from, from, because of what's happening nationally and politically that we can't ignore. Right, right, right. Well, I don't think that there's anything that I present, um, in any of the work that I've done, uh, in, in, in based on the research that I've seen, um, that would make a solid case for not, or for restricting access to birth control to women. And I don't call for restricting it either. I just call for information

and that's what I like. Yeah. What you're doing. Yeah, no, I completely agree. Like I don't, um, and cause, and again, I don't, I don't, that's not my motivation, you know? And I think that I'm, I think that I'm pretty clear about that. And I think that, um, that my, my motivation is not to, um, to restrict access to the birth control pill. It is not to scare women into not taking it. I think I provide a very balanced approach to just like, here's what we need. Everything is a trade-off because I mean, the fact of the matter is like if I had to do it all over again and make the same decisions as a 22 year old getting a PhD, I'm knowing everything I know about hormonal birth control and the trade-offs

that I make being on it. I would make those trade-offs again, because it was better than the trade-off of having a baby that I wasn't ready for. Um, because I wouldn't have been, I was trying to get my degree and, um, and, and, and that's, you know, been really important to me. Um, and, and, and so it's like, it's just about providing information. And, um, and so I think that it, people can like, you know, try to politicize it. But I think that it's, I don't think that.

I'm so glad you've resisted that, Dr. Hill. I really am. Because I think that what I get from you is that you're very pro-woman. And so am I. And so is all of us and I think I just don't believe that if men were being encouraged in puberty to take a pharmaceutical that had this kind of impact maybe I'm being you know too critical here but I think we would know more about what that would do to men I feel like there's some disservice that was done to

women in the name and maybe it was other women. Maybe it was, you know, male doctors. I don't know who, who put the taboo curtain over this, but I just, I find it hard to believe that we would be as lackadaisical about the information and the transparency if it was men taking the pill. Absolutely. I mean, and one of the points I make in my book is like, I want you to contrast hormonal birth control and anabolic steroids, right? So anabolic steroids, which, you know, if you're taking steroids as an athlete, that's testosterone and it's illegal because of the cascading influence that it has on the entire body, right? Because the health consequences are drastic because it's a systemic drug

because hormones are systemic. So that's illegal, right? And if you're caught having it without some sort of doctor's care, you get a, you get a fine. Hormonal birth control is not going to be available over the counter for women without any consequences. I mean, it's just, it's completely, I mean, it's completely nonsensical. It's nonsensical. And, and, and to, to treat it as to be so cavalier with something that systemic and that affects us from head to toe, I think is totally irresponsible. And so I think that, you know, my, my position is, and it's always been

access, access, access, but we need to be responsible about it. And it's like, we need to make sure, especially like with teenagers, for example, you know, there's a ton of research that shows that when teens are going on hormonal birth control, it drastically increases their risk of developing anxiety and depression. It increases their risk of death by suicide, 600%. it increases their risk of death by suicide 600% and, and that, that this isn't being communicated like,

Hey, okay. So you can put your daughter on this for acne, but just so you know, here are some of the things, even 600% sadder. Like that's just insane. And that is not being cute.

Cause it's like, then you could still make the choice for your daughter to be on it or your daughter. You know what to look out for because the fact of the matter is not everybody is going to have the same response to birth control. Some women go on it and it's smooth sailing. They feel great. And some women go on it and it is like absolutely despairing, you know, and they have no idea that that's what's causing it. And by the way, my son had terrible acne and we cured it topically. You know, it's not like there's no alternative to acne

or, you know, so anyway, I know if you wanted to ask them some. Oh, yeah. So I have just a couple of questions. One of them, I wonder if you just talk a little bit about the water. So there's this really, you know, viral Alex Jones, have just a couple of questions. One of them, I wonder if you just talk a little bit about the water. So there's this really viral Alex Jones kind of conspiracy theory. He says, oh, they're turning the frogs gay.

But then it actually I think it turned out that he's right. There are a lot of hormones in the water that are negatively impacting fish and frogs. And but then also it's it has to have an impact on people. So I'm wondering if you talk about the impact on people and then I have a second question first answer on the frogs I don't know that there's a bunch of gay frogs my understanding is that there may have been some hermaphroditic frogs yeah that's what I heard yeah yeah so they went from being male frogs to like non-gender I guess I don't know if the term

is i think that they were a little i think that they were a little a little um a little intersexed like where they look like a little like both ways males but i mean and and this again you know it so just to give you um the so I am not an expert on environmental hormones. So let me just preface that by that. So that way people don't go and quote things I'm saying here, because I don't really know. I have awareness of xenoestrogens and estrogens from women peeing birth control pills, essentially. And that gets it in the water also, is they get a lot of these synthetic hormones and, and, and, you know, with the xenoestrogens, so like in plastics and that sort of thing, we are getting, um, endocrine disruption for sure. Um, I, there's just,

there's no doubt about that. And, um, and that is what's responsible for the Asian of the frogs and that sort of thing is that sex hormones are absolutely powerful and, um, and they have an organizing effect on the body, meaning that they play a role in how our bodies organize themselves into a male or female. Um, and that includes body structures like our reproductive organs, but also includes our brain, um, and brain development. And so when we have hormones in the water that are affecting us during development, absolutely, it can affect the organization of the body and brain. I mean, there's just, there's no way around it. We can't, you know, pretend that that's not true.

So I was just, I was also going to ask you because, so some people might listen to this interview and they'll say, oh, well, then I just won't take, I'll just, I just won't take the pill. Right. But maybe I'll take a patch instead where they have that on your, on their arms or they'll do an IUD. Are we, are we, are there, have you looked into the other types of birth control and are there similar consequences if you don't take it orally? Really great question. I'm glad you asked because people know that. And so if I don't get it and I suddenly forget to say it. So if you're taking a form of hormonal birth control, you're pretty much getting it's all the same.

It doesn't matter how it gets into your body. So if it's a patch, if it's a vaginal ring, if it's an implant, if it's a shot, it's all works the same way. It shuts down your ovaries. So you're not producing sex hormones. And then you're getting this daily dose of the synthetic progestin. And then oftentimes also some synthetic estrogen. The only hormonal product that has a somewhat trickier answer is the hormonal IUD. And just

to start with, I just want to clarify that there's two types of IUDs. There's a copper IUD that does not have hormones. And this is not the one I'm talking about because that one is hormone-free. But then you have the hormone, the hormonal IUD, like Kylena and Mirena, and these release hormones. And the release of these hormones, and it's a synthetic progestin that gets released, it shuts down the brain ovary axis. So it prevents ovulation in the same way that a pill or patch does. But the thing about this that makes it tricky

is that once women are on it for a long time, like, so if you go on the hormonal IUD, like research finds that about 80% of women during the first year that they're on it, they're not ovulating, right? So they're not producing any hormones and they're just getting this daily dose of this synthetic progestin.

So they are effectively just like every other form of hormonal birth control. But what's, what makes it kind of funky is that, is that you get, after women are on it for a while, their brain kind of figures it out and it starts ovulating again. And once they start ovulating again, because about what they find is about 80% of women after they've been on it for five years are ovulating. So for those women who are ovulating again, the effects are going to be their experience on the IUD is going to be very different than women who aren't ovulating because part of the,

like I said, one of the big things that changes us when we're on hormonal birth control is that we're not ovulating and not producing our own hormones. And so for women who are producing hormones, when they're on the IUD, they are actually more like naturally cycling women. But for women who are not ovulating, when they're on the hormonal IUD, they're more like women who are on the pill or anything else. And so it's a tricky group to talk about because you could be a woman who's on it and you're ovulating the whole time you're on it. You could be a woman who's on it and you never ovulate. And there's just no way to know unless

you're testing your ovulation and following it. And so it's, it's a messy, messy one to talk about. So one of the things that I've loved about all the information that you've put out, all the research that you've done, which frankly, I mean, I don't say this to exaggerate. I think you're a national treasure in a lot of ways, because I think that you've done research in an area, not just because it was taboo, but it was necessary. When I listened to your podcast, Dr. Hill, I am reminded of how amazing the female body is. And that's why we were even talking about, you know, if men were given a birth control pill in their teenage years,

what would happen? Probably not as much as what happens to a woman, because our body is so incredible and so much more complex. And listening to, you know, you've had, and I encourage people to find out, you know, first of all, I encourage you to get the book. I'm going to say the book title again. This is Your Brain on Birth Control,

The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences. I encourage people to get the book. I encourage you to listen to all of her podcasts. They go in so many different directions. Some people interview you and it's much more medical. And I've listened to some of those. And when I've listened to them, I just, I'm in awe.

I'm in awe of my own body. I'm in awe of what my body, I'm not God. I'm in awe of what my body did nine times. You know, I've had nine births. I've had two miscarriages, which involves another set of all these hormonal things happening. I'm now perimenopausal. I'm just so much more aware because of your research and the research of other women into perimenopause as well, of just how complex and beautiful and amazing the female body is. When I sometimes hear men talking about, you know,

there are a lot of men that have children these days. It's just you can't do, you can have a child. You can never understand what it's like to go through a menstrual cycle, to have children, to have your hormones go crazy after you have children, while you're breastfeeding, when you're not breastfeeding. I mean, it is just, our body is so dynamic. And I just think what you've done in your research is such a service to humanity. I'm not exaggerating. I just, I'm very much in awe of you and what you've put out there. And I think it's taken a lot of courage and it's taken a lot of, I think, intelligence to present it in a way that is nonpolitical.

That I just think on the left and on the right, if you're a woman, we should all just rally around the idea of transparency, understanding the pharmaceuticals that are being put into our body and understanding, you know, as you said, the trade-offs. And so I can't say enough good stuff about you, about your book and about what you're putting out into the universe right now, because I think it's really, really important. And I think part of, you know, I don't think it's just that, Vito, what you said that, you know, young people, you mentioned it actually, Dr. Joe, that young people seem more aware of it or more open to hearing about it. And maybe it's there's a political angle to it, but maybe it's also just they've gone through a lot of the information that was withheld during COVID about, you know, people just wanted information. And there was a lot of censorship around around COVID and hurt your generation kind of experience that do you think maybe that's a part of it yeah I do actually um

Dr. L I'm so sorry because I know that we probably have to go in it but I I have a lot of questions for you it's like a lot and so I just I wanted to add one more just because um you know you're an evolutionary biologist and I this is like I I think you might have the answer for me. So there was a study I came across recently where they talked about women who, and obviously birth control has opened up the realm for women to sort of be really sexually active. I mean, frankly, sexually promiscuous in a way that they weren't before because, you know, the consequences of getting pregnant are suddenly gone now. the consequences of getting pregnant are suddenly gone now. So they did a study where they found that women who had an increase in sexual partners was more dissatisfied in marriage than ones who, in their real marriage, than ones who had less sexual partners.

And they didn't find it to be quite as pronounced in men. So meaning like women who had many sexual partners were more dissatisfied in their marriage than men who had many sexual partners. And as an, as a, you know, an evolutionary biologist, I'm just wondering if you had an idea of, of why that is now it's a study and there can be, there can be reasons why it couldn't potentially be off or not correct, but, um, just given that information, do you have any thoughts on that? That's, that's really interesting. So I'm not aware of this study. But if we just assume that it was well done and this is true, which who knows.

But it very well could be. And gosh, I think that that's really fascinating. And I don't have a good answer for it, honestly. that's, I think that that's really fascinating. And I don't, I don't have a good answer for it. Honestly. Like I, um, I could make one up, like, cause I'm wondering, I don't do that. I was like wondering, like, to men just feel like, cause I mean, obviously like one would assume, right. That the dissatisfaction comes from making comparisons. Because any time that we have a lot of options, it always... It's regret.

Right. It's dissatisfaction. It's like where you have a million cable channels and so nothing's on. Or you go to the grocery store and there's like a hundred boxes of cereal and you just, you're almost like paralyzed. You can't decide what you want. Anything that you choose, then you're like, you know, I chose that. Yeah. The other one. Yeah, exactly. And so I, but, so then the question, so if we assume that that's the process that's leading to dissatisfaction, which I would assume it would be, I mean, you know, it could be, I could be off, but it would

seem like comparison is probably the thing that decreases satisfaction. So then the question becomes not why are women feeling less satisfied? It's like, why are men protected from that? So why, you know, what would it be that that's making men not feel that dissatisfaction? And so then my brain is like, well, maybe the men are sort of assuming that they can, I mean, and like, almost like unconsciously, like, well, I could just get a side piece, you know what I mean? Or like, well, you know this, but because men are, I think that it's not that the, like the default state of men is to be polygynous or anything, or have multiple partners. of men is to be polygynous or anything or have multiple partners. But that is certainly something that has been more common for men than it has been for women, like in societies all around the world all throughout time. I'm just because of some of the differences in the cost related to reproduction between men and women. And so yeah, so I'm like wondering whether there's something sort of where there's part of men's brains where even when they're in a long-term relationship, whether they're still calculating the possibility of a short-term relationship,

that that's protecting them from the dissatisfaction. But I don't, you know, I don't, I don't know. I don't have an answer to that, but what a cool, what an interesting, what an interesting set of results. Yeah. Well, I hope, I hope evolutionary biologists and other scientists and psychologists keep digging into more of our hormones and connecting that with relationships, because I think ultimately, you know, what Evita said, it's kind of sad to see the sexes sort of, you know, dissatisfied with each other. And I think ultimately, we're meant to be together, we're meant to be complementary. And hopefully, we can start to, you know, unwind this mystery and start to understand each other better. And we can start to, you know, unwind this mystery and start and start to understand each other better.

And we can improve human relations and relationships with the kind of research you're doing. Dr. Hill, you are a brave, very smart lady. We're so honored that you came on to our podcast. Again, the book is This Is Your Brain on Birth Control, The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones and the Law of Unintended Consequences. Dr. Hill, thank you for joining women, hormones, and the law of unintended consequences. Dr. Hill, thank you for joining us at the kitchen table today. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts and Amazon

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