On Display with Melissa Gorga - East Meets West (w/ Dr. Michaela Robbins)

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Melissa is all about health and hormones, and why it’s important to speak up when things just don’t feel right. This week she has the perfect guest that can lend her own expertise.This week, Melissa welcomes Dr. Michaela Robbins onto the show to discuss how she pairs eastern and western medicine with her approach to treatment, why it’s important to detect the early signs of perimenopause, how treatment for PCOS is often about mitigating the symptoms instead of addressing the underlying cause, and what NAD’s are and how they can help the aging process.This is a great episode with a doctor whose mission is to find the root cause of hormonal imbalances, how to combat the symptoms of those imbalances, and what can be done long term to help everyone live their best, healthy life.This week's sponsors:Apartments.com - The Place to Find a Place: www.Apartments.comBooking.com - Find the Stay That's Ridiculously Right for You: www.Booking.comHappy Mammoth - Feel Like Yourself Again: www.HappyMammoth.com , promo code: MELISSA (15% off)Pluto.TV - Streaming TV: www.Pluto.TV (Free!)Progressive - "Name-Your-Price" Tool: www.Progressive.com Smalls Cat Food - Protein Packed and Preservative Free: www.Smalls.com , promo code: MELISSA (50% off first order)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode of on display is brought to you by booking.com booking. Yeah Every time I use booking.com to find a place to stay in the US I know they'll have exactly what I'm looking for They have a huge variety of options from hotels to vacation rentals and I'm always able to find something that fits my specific needs I've found that booking.com has something for everyone find exactly what you're looking for on booking.com booking. Yeah Hey guys, welcome to another episode of on Display. I hope you guys had an amazing week. I know that you guys are gonna be

so in love with this episode today. I know that you say all the time how much you love my health-focused episodes. And today I have someone who is an expert in the field. She is redefining the way we look at our medicine, hormones, our bodies, so that we can all feel our best selves, especially for all us women out there. She is a doctor of nursing practice that specializes in hormone and longevity medicine. Ladies and gentlemen,

I'm so excited to welcome the wonderful Dr. Michaela Robbins. Hi, so happy to be here. I am so excited to have you here and pick your brain because you're just so great with me. And I thought to myself, there is no way that I cannot share this with my listeners because you just give the absolute, like everything you say makes sense

because I always have so many questions when it comes to hormones and all of this. First off, I wanna talk to you about yourself. You graduated from Columbia University, right? Yep, yep. I got my bachelor's of nursing there, my master's and my doctorate. So I did the whole kit and caboodle there.

Amazing. So explain to me really like East meets West medicine, because that's what it's all about, right? That's really what you specialize in. Yeah. So the reason I transitioned into my own practice is because I have found that traditional medicine has really failed women and we've become too disease focused. It's you know, as if we don't feel so great. We're feeling off, especially as we're getting older.

And if we don't check off all of these boxes, it's as if we're fine and forget about it. We're not going to do anything about it. And I just don't think that we're, you know, being as wellness focused and proactive as we can be versus being reactive. So I just think that medicine needs to be more personalized. But at the same time, functional medicine has,

to some extent, been failing us too. Where the amount of times that I'm seeing supplement ads that are just pure snake oil, or there's just no evidence behind it working, is concerning. So we just need more of a middle ground that meets the patient where they're at and provides personalized medicine that just uses good medical judgment to guide each other through the BS.

For sure. I feel like that's really what sets you apart from other healthcare experts. And I've said this to you before, because Dr. Robbins helps me all the time. She's also helping Antonia with her PCOS, but it's one of those things where you go to the gyno with some of these issues you're having, or even just your regular doctor, right? Your practitioner, whatever it is. And they just don't, I feel like it

kind of gets dismissed a little bit with anyone who doesn't study this as much as someone like you does, right? Because it kind of, I just feel like they make it like it's no big deal. And I always say this as well. I don't know how my mother, our aunts, like before Instagram and all of these ads and it pops up now to explain things like perimenopause, PCOS, thyroid issues, all of these things, the GLP wants all these things that they kind of explain and we understand a little bit better now because of Instagram, as sad as it is, but as true as it is. Like how did our parents, I don't know how my mother got through life when she started to get all the brain fog and all of these feelings and the hormones and all of these things. They didn't know anything. No one talked about it. No one really studied it.

These doctors, they really don't study this, right? Yeah. You know, it's so common to hear of other Yeah, you know, it's so common to hear of other medical providers saying that they really received virtually zero framing and hormone care. And then if they received any at all, it was extremely cookie cutter. It was, you know, a one size fits all approach. Like here's an estrogen pill or estrogen cream if you have vaginal dryness take it or leave it and what we are finding is that there's just so much variation in how these hormones affect our bodies and how they manifest and that there really isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to it there are so

many ways to address menopause, perimenopause, PCOS, low testosterone in women. And really we need to tailor these approaches so that we get the best results. Right. I mean, how do you feel that traditional medicine kind of failed at taking like hormonal conditions seriously. It's basically what you're saying. Yeah. I mean, even still, it's interesting because it feels like perimenopause and menopause is having this glow up moment, but we're not talking about all of the other hormones that can happen or shift way before that. Like testosterone in women, like we never talk about that even in some of these newer, more progressive

hormone spaces, when we start losing as women our natural production of testosterone in our 30s, we think of it as a male hormone, but it's not. We produce testosterone too, and we produce it for a reason. It doesn't just sit around and do nothing. So when this happens, this can be the starting point of some of those changes in how your body is feeling. And we think that we're in like early menopause or maybe we think that there's just no way that something is going on because we're younger. When in reality,

There's just no way that something is going on because we're younger when in reality, what we need to be doing in the medical field is doing a 360 approach on anything and everything that's hormonally shifting as we get older and addressing things proactively. Right. Can you tell me maybe what are some of the pros and the cons of Eastern and Western medicine? Are there pros and cons to it? I wouldn't necessarily say that there's just a general overview of pros and cons. It's really specific to the person. For example, like naturopathic therapies, where we are taking like herbal supplements that are evidence-based to help manage our symptoms

or our hormonal shifts, sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. And we really have to do a good thorough assessment on the specific individual to really back up whether it's a good fit for them. So that's probably the biggest con that I see with, with, um, with Eastern medicine is that sometimes it's just not effective, but really it's more so because it's either just not right for the person or not

the right dose or amount. And Western medicine, the pros and cons have more to do with if the patient really understands what the risk benefit profile is for them. Birth control, for example, birth control can be an absolutely amazing thing for women, but I think that there's just not enough education in terms of whether it makes sense or whether it's going to properly achieve the goals that the individual wants. And so I think that there just needs to be more of a conversation between the practitioner and the patient in terms of what is the best pathway for you.

And that's why I wouldn't say that I'm strictly traditional or Western medicine or strictly functional or Eastern medicine. It's a hybrid because we really want to curate the best plan for the person. Right. And I think the special part about this is how individualized it is, right? It's not just like a blanket thing like, hey, oh, you're in your 40s, this is probably happening and do this. It's so much more individualized even when I spoke to you about things that I was feeling and everything. It feels like a direct approach to what's happening in your body and just how you're able to take all the levels.

I'm comfortable with you explaining to my listeners. So I've come to you basically complaining of the brain fog, the feeling different, a little bit of mood swings, hormonally, little things like that, which is probably the dreaded word, right, that everybody just gets like nervous about, which is like a perimenopause situation. I just needed to know what's going on inside my body. Can you explain what I did, what kind of testing that was and how... I feel like you knew what I ate for breakfast that day from this testing. It's insane. Go ahead. Yeah. We did a really deep dive and you know, it all starts with an initial assessment where we're really getting into the nitty gritties

of anything and everything, you know, hormonally related, even metabolically related, because all of that is so interconnected. And then based off of that, we made some customized testing approaches. I wanted to know what exactly was going on throughout your menstrual cycle. We also looked at a whole series of hormones, including testosterone, cortisol. We looked at thyroid. We sometimes think of thyroid disease states, but there

is this subset of women that produce on the lower end of normal thyroid levels but are still manifesting those symptoms of an underactive thyroid. We call it functional hypothyroidism. And so we really took a deep dive into pretty much all of the different hormones that could be contributing to how you're feeling just to see how they all interplay to create

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when you head to Smalls.com and use promo code Melissa. Again, that's an additional 50% off when you head to Smalls.com and use promo code Melissa. Now, you had said there were certain times that you were able to see, is it my cortisol levels like spiked up? Explain to me because I do see this word a lot, even on Instagram, with people always discussing that and how your levels go high and go low and all of that. Explain to me what that does to your body. Yeah.

So I get so many women who come to me saying that they're feeling hormonally off and they're like, am I in early menopause? And it's actually their cortisol. So cortisol is considered a stress hormone. It's really good for survival. So let's say you're getting chased by a bear, your cortisol levels spike and what happens? Your survival functions kick in.

Your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up. You may even feel a little bit anxious or experience mood swings, but that's a good thing when it comes to survival because feeling on edge is important to survive. But what else happens? More sugar gets sent into the bloodstream and more fat gets stored as long-term energy. So these are some of those negative consequences when cortisol is spiked. But what also can happen is that while certain functions

for survival start to get activated, some functions that are not so important for survival get suppressed. So your digestion slows down, your immune system slows down, but also your fertility gets suppressed. So when there's a cortisol spike, it tells the body that getting pregnant is not so important.

So what happens is your sex hormones get suppressed and it can block them from working. And that's sometimes the reason why women who experience chronic stress, whether it's, you know, a breakup, but or just even traveling or being sick, they might notice that their that their period is a little bit wonky. They even skip their period altogether. And that's because of that cortisol level, in part, suppressing all of that from functioning properly. So one thing that I noticed was

that during high intensity exercise, your cortisol levels spiked. And that's again, because you're activating those parts of your body in order to really get your activity level going. So that's a bad thing when your cortisol level spikes? Is that a bad thing? So in a acute situation, it's a good thing because again, you know, we want some of these functions to be turned on or off in acute high stress situations. The problem is when it's always happening and you have this chronically elevated

cortisol and you know that over time can lead to consequences. So, you know, chronically elevated blood pressure, you know, feeling chronically anxious. We don't want you to always feel anxious. We don't want you to feel anxious when you're not being chased by a bear. But sometimes also over time, it can just chronically suppress some of those other hormones that do have really important functions. So you know, just singular scenarios of it being high is totally fine, but we want to start addressing it when we're seeing that it's persistently elevated.

And is that what could cause weight gain and things like that? Is that what ends up happening when it's elevated like that for a long period of time? Yeah, that can absolutely happen with chronically elevated cortisol levels because you're getting more of that sugar into the bloodstream for immediate energy. But if you don't really need that excess sugar and excess sugar sustained over time, that can be problematic for the body, especially when it comes to weight. And then again, that final energy reserve is stored as fat. So if you're chronically spiking your

cortisol levels you're chronically holding on to more fat because we use that like if you're in hibernation and you don't know when your next meal is going to be like sometimes we hold it a little bit more as fat because of that cortisol spike. So definitely cortisol management is something that we want to consider if one of your main concerns is chronic weight gain. Right. So the test that I took basically checks your hormones each day for about 30 days, right? Is that basically what I was doing? Yeah.

We're testing your hormone levels, particularly your estrogen, your progesterone throughout your menstrual cycle. We did some other hormone testing with your blood work, but we wanted to really track out what was happening throughout your cycle to see if it follows the expected trajectory. Like, are we seeing that your estrogen is elevating to the correct range around the time of ovulation. Is it plummeting very quickly afterwards? Sometimes that can be related to like mood swings and not feeling so great.

Progesterone, we also wanna see, you know, rise and fall appropriately as well. And sometimes if we don't see any of these things, then we get concerned about perimenopause, menopause. Sometimes even on the opposite end of the spectrum, we see estrogen dominance and we oftentimes think that the only thing that happens with women in estrogen is that we start losing it.

But some women, especially some of my younger patients, do just really have an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone and then that is what is making them not feel so great. So we were looking to see and plot out exactly what was going on and making sure that it was within what we consider an optimal range. Got it. Well, let me just say this, guys. She said she can tell I'm still ovulating. So I'm able to have more children if I wanted to, but I don't. We're good there. I tied my tubes a long time ago, by the way.

Yeah. Okay. So what do you think? Talk to me a little bit about perimenopause, because I feel like a lot of my audience, seeing as it starts as early as your mid-30s, right, usually, and it can go to mid-40s, right, usually. And it can go to mid 40s is where perimenopause kind of enters the building and makes everyone feel all of these feelings. And I swear, I'm like, your parents and my aunts, I'm like, how did they not all get divorces? Everyone just gets crazy, their mood swings, nobody knows what's happening. And now we're just so much more aware. But what is the top thing that your patients come to you and complain about, and they know,

and you get a feeling right away, you're like, I know what's happening here, and you can call out perimenopause on that? Yeah. So one thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the evidence is showing that perimenopause can start as early as in your 30s. And you don't have to have irregular menstrual cycles or grossly abnormal blood tests to show that you're in the early phases of perimenopause. And the manifestations are very different than what we traditionally have thought. We oftentimes think that it's this severe vaginal dryness and your period stops and you have hot flashes

and night sweats and it all happens overnight and then you're done. But more often than not, it's this very slow burn. So when people come to me with some of these early signs of perimenopause, a lot of it is about, you know, like the mood changes, sometimes like lack of motivation, a little bit of brain fog. And then of course, you know, as it progresses,

we see even like some weight gain and then, you know, irregular periods, hot flashes, night sweats and, you know, dryness all over, like not just vaginal dryness, but skin, mouth, nasal mucosa, definitely a lot more to the picture than what people used to think. Right. Yeah.

For me, what I felt the most was brain fog. I didn't have any of this dryness stuff or the sweats. I don't have any of that stuff. I just was feeling very like, my gosh, I can't focus. I can't focus. I'm a really hard worker. I'm always running around. I'm always juggling a million things. But all of a sudden, I was like, my God, I can't focus. And the fog would just come in. And that was, I would say one of my biggest complaints. And I guess I would say motivation along with that as well. And I would feel a little bit snappy.

I would say like I'm starting to get like a little snappy, but I have none of the other symptoms. And that's really when I reached out to you and I was like, listen, what's happening to me here? And that's kind of when we went through everything. One of the most interesting things that we found with my testing to me is, and very interesting to my husband, Joe, is the fact that I was extremely low on testosterone, which you just think of a man when you think of testosterone. I don't even think that I needed it. Or can you explain that in testosterone in women? I thought that was so interesting.

Yeah. It's something that is just not taught in any form of clinical preparation or medical school. We think that testosterone is a male hormone because they just produce so much more of it than us, but we do produce it. And so we start losing that production in our 30s way before we're menopausal. And sometimes it can be exacerbated by other factors like cortisol I mentioned. Sometimes women are just a little bit more sensitive to that decline, so they manifest more symptoms.

But testosterone is super important for drive. So sex drive, energy, mood, motivation, like the drive to do things is very much linked to testosterone. And oftentimes, you know, when we're working up for some of these shifts as we get older, testosterone is one of the first things I think about looking at Sometimes when we're working up for some of these shifts as we get older, testosterone is one of the first things I think about looking at because it almost always is at least in

part part of the picture. I think a lot of women don't realize that this is something that can be addressed way before menopause and it can be life-changing. I certainly was shocked when you said that to me. And if you pinpoint it like that, because you said, what is the average number? I forget what you said. It was like the average number that you should be in with the testosterone level. Yeah.

So I mean, it is really a wide spectrum for testosterone. I have some women whose total testosterone levels are 20 and feel okay. And then I have some women who have testosterone levels at 20 and feel absolutely miserable. But very often I'm having women come to me with testosterone levels that are next to nothing. That are like less, like it comes up in my lab report

as being less than three. It like doesn't even give a number, just says that are like less, like it comes up in my lab report as being less than three. Like doesn't even give a number, just says that it's less. So it's super common in women to, you know, as you approach a certain age to just naturally be completely depleted of testosterone and really feel it. Well that completely explains, right? Because my number was pretty low, I believe. I was like a three or something like that, right? So that would explain literally everything that I was complaining about. So it's not so much the perimenopause as much as it is the testosterone level, right?

Because everything you just explained, which is like lack of motivation, I mean, lack of libido. Wow. Joe is so excited that you want to, you know, prescribe this to me now as a little lotion or the cream that I have to put on. But that's very interesting to me. Like, and it really does, I feel like by doing that testing with you, it explained everything. And what if I didn't do that? Right. And you just keep going and you don't do these tests and you don't know what's going on inside

your body. And you do start to get a little depressed, right? Because you just keep going and you don't do these tests and you don't know what's going on inside your body. And you do start to get a little depressed, right? Because you're like, I am not right. What is wrong with me? I have no will for sex or I have brain fog or I'm not motivated. I don't feel like leaving the house. I don't feel like doing this. I don't when really if you can do these testing and like find things out, look, it really told me a lot by just doing this test with you. And I just wonder like how many people out there are not doing that and really are confused and wondering like what's going on in their bodies.

I feel like it's probably tons of women. And so that's another reason I wanted to do this podcast with you because it's really about awareness at this point. And I'm seeing so many more and more celebrities get out there and speak about it. I know Holly Berry is big into it right now talking about it and there's plenty of people,

but to me it's just about awareness because I do feel that women, a lot of women were lacking awareness of this or we're getting more aware now, but I feel like it's so important to spread this news because it really has a lot to do with your day-to-day life and your mood and your feelings and just how you feel about yourself.

And finally, there's like answers out there for all of this. And there really wasn't for so long. And there wasn't a lot of doctors like you that came in and said, listen, I'm gonna to sit here and I'm going to specialize on how like your hormones and, and how you're feeling and your moods and why you're feeling this way. I just think it's, it's so special. And it's like genius that you, that you guys are out there.

Like I'm so grateful for it. You know, one of the hardest parts of getting older is feeling like something's wrong with your body, but not really knowing what. Everything just feels off and I've come to realize it's not just aging, it's hormones. Women's hormones are so complex and if anything goes off balance, the whole body suffers. That's why I want to tell you about Happy Mamas Hormone Harmony. Hormone Harmony is a herbal formula that fine tunes the hormonal system like a musician tunes a guitar.

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by state law, not available in all states. There's so many different facets to this. There's also PCOS, which I know a lot of women suffer for. Can you explain that to me a little bit or maybe someone's going through or having some of these symptoms and they might have PCOS and they don't even know that's what's happening? Yeah, yeah. So PCOS, it's the number one hormonal condition in women who still have a menstrual cycle. Yet I find all the time women who are coming to me,

who we are finding PCOS in, who are saying that they went to their gynecologist or they went to their primary care and they were told that everything is fine. So it's pretty crazy to me that that's still happening. But PCOS or polycystic ovarian syndrome is a condition that, it starts with insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction, but what that insulin resistance is causing

is a hormonal dysregulation. And that's why these women can have really high levels of testosterone and experience like a lot of acne, hair loss, or even hair growth in unwanted areas, irregular periods. Sometimes they get like a lot of irritability or mood swings. And these are all, you know, conditions that, again,

can get like completely brushed off as just being part of being like a young woman. So it does get dismissed very often, but usually the best approach is to is to attack it in many different ways. We want to correct the insulin resistance and we also want to correct the hormones directly. So I oftentimes will put patients on a protocol that will address the insulin resistance that can range from like naturopathics like inositol and berberine to GLP-1 therapy. And then I would address the hormones

with certain naturopathics or prescriptive therapies as well like chase barrier and licorice. But I think the biggest thing is again, tailoring this to the patient. I get women with PCOS all the time telling me that all their gynecologist did was just, put them on birth control and send them on their way or put them on that foreman.

And I have found that the best results come from attacking this at all angles and not just, you know, masking the symptoms per se. Right. And I do, that's the biggest piece of it is that it's so like individualized for each person and what their symptoms are and their levels. Do you have any advice for anyone out there that knows there, is there something, is there something in food that can help?

Is there certain foods they can eat? What do you genuinely say for that? Yeah, definitely. We definitely want our PCOS patients to be extremely mindful of their sugar intake just because of that natural insulin resistance. So following like a diet that is well balanced with low healthy carbohydrates paired with fats and protein, but foods that are really good include like cruciferous vegetables like broccoli that can also help with the detoxification of some of these excess hormones. So there's definitely foods that you can eat that will help either re-regulate the hormones

or re-regulate the insulin resistance that will in turn help your hormones. Right. I mean, that it's definitely something that we feel Antonia suffers from and she's working on that now. So I feel like it's very common. We went to her, where did we go?

We were at, I had to go to her school and it was like a back to school with the moms and the girls. We were all sitting together and there had to be at least four girls at the table that were talking to Antonia about PCOS and how they have PCOS and little treatments that they do. So it's extremely common. Is that what you said it's number one? It's the most common?

Yeah. Most, the number one hormonal imbalance in women who are cycling and still getting menstrual cycles. Right. Can they grow out of that or they're never going to grow out of PCOS? It's typically chronic, but there's, So it usually does require some sort of chronic management, but sometimes some women with proper lifestyle and proper management can control it, but it oftentimes doesn't just naturally go away. But I think it's important to destigmatize hormonal conditions as, you know, being, you

know, conditions that are strictly related to, you know, lifestyle, because it really is just a piece of the puzzle. When there is this chronic element to it that is science based and medical. So we need some medical intervention to control it. And that's okay. Everybody's bodies has different qualities to it that sometimes need a little bit of fine tuning. And if that means that it can help us live a better, longer life and feel good, then I think that

that's wonderful. So I think it's really important to talk about more often than not the benefits of some of these therapies that really have a lot of promising results that come with it. Right. And I think at the end of the day, it's all about feeling your best self with whatever is going on in your body. You just want to have the best day possible. With that said, I wanted to ask you a little bit about this. I know it's probably a little bit out of your field of expertise, but I think it's all related

in a way. As far as fertility treatments, what are your thoughts on that? Is there any approaches that you recommend, or any hormone tests or treatments that you've heard that are good for helping increase fertility? Yeah. So my approach is, of course, seeing if there are any imbalances to begin with that are creating barriers for you hormonally. So I would want to do a deep dive into how your hormones are evolving like throughout your cycles if you are having you know expected cycles ovulating and then depending on what we see there we would try to correct the imbalance directly either through

naturopathic therapies or more intensive interventions. I definitely, when we see anything that's gravely concerning, we do want to work very closely with a fertility specialist to optimize on your care because sometimes natu only go so far. But I thing for women who are c fertility is to be proact wait until you have your just taking over your min that you need. That depen

but oftentimes we're just going to do a 360 look at your hormones and what is going on throughout your menstrual cycle and see if you're over or under producing anything that can be fine tuned. Right. What are your thoughts about acupuncture? What do you feel about that? I love acupuncture for the right person. Depending on what your concerns are, it can be extremely life-changing. I'll never forget my first experience with acupuncture. I was going because I think even I was having a cortisol imbalance, you know, many, many years ago. And I remember

that in the middle of the session, just one spot on my back was getting super hot and activated. And I was like, what's going on? Is the needle lodged in the wrong place? And, you know, I spoke to the acupuncturist and they even mentioned that that area is an area that can get activated by your nervous system. So it was really crazy to me to see how on point it was. That it always baffles me because Gino, I've seen it, I've never had it myself, but I've given it to my son. He was going to a chiropractor because he's a wrestler and he

hurt his back and he's a football player. It's always something with the sports. And nothing seemed to be really helping him. And then we took him for acupuncture. It was like three sessions later. He was like, I'm good. My back's fine. I'm going over. And I just thought it was so, it's so crazy to me because I just don't, I never could understand how it goes into your skin, it touches the nerves, whatever it might be. But to me, it's pretty crazy how that works. To me, that's fantasized. I'm like, wow, it's pretty nuts that that actually works.

It's sometimes feels like magic. It's right. That's how I looked at it. I felt like it was like magic that it happened. Also, it's great for fertility then too, right? Do you recommend that also? Yeah, definitely. You know, I, with my patients

who have concerns about fertility, it's really about pulling from all of these different areas. And you know, whether it's active therapy that's done with me or, with me or pulling in other specialists, we really want to tailor it to them. So I have many patients that do acupuncture for fertility and have seen amazing results. I do have some patients that require additional types of therapy to kind of get to the root of what exactly is going on. So I think it definitely, I've definitely seen it work wonders on people

with trying to get pregnant and or just boosting their fertility in general. But I always stress us doing an initial workup first to really see what, get a good picture of what your biomarkers are telling us. And what's going on. I love that you practice what you preach. You literally practice what you preach from Eastern meets Western medicine right there, right? It's like you do, so you believe in it. This episode of On Display is brought to you by Booking.com.

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something very exciting to me, which I think my listeners want to talk to about too. And I just started these guys. Let's talk about NADs for a minute. I have been hesitant and thinking about it and hearing about it. I feel like the Kardashians kind of put it out there to everyone and started taking them and everyone was hearing like, oh my God, they're a fountain of youth. They keep you young. They rejuvenate you, all of these things. And I'm not going to lie, I was also extremely interested. So when I did ask you about them, I was very excited and I just so my listeners know out there, I did just start them. So I will keep you guys up to date with how I feel. I'm just starting it all.

But can you explain NADs a little bit to us? Because to me, they're just the most interesting thing, but I don't really understand how they work. Yeah. So NAD has been trendy for some time. Uh, but re my patients have been com it to me. So a lot of ath use it as you know, and N

naturally produced in the a lot of functions, espec and metabolic processes. cool about it is that it helps with intracellular DNA repair. So as we age, our NAD levels start to decline. And without that additional support, we start experiencing some of the consequences of that, like accelerated aging process, fatigue, cognitive decline,

and an increased risk for chronic conditions and even like chronic inflammatory states. So NAD therapy is meant to restore those natural NAD levels and improve on those areas that we may be showing signs that we're deficient in. So why do people call it the fountain of youth? Like does it literally, does it make people appear younger or is it just repairing what's going on inside? So it's a little bit of both. I always say that when we work on the aging process, we're working on the inside out. And I always say that we're slowing down the aging process. I really don't love the anti-aging token that

people use on drugs because we can't anti-age, but we can slow down aspects of aging. And NAD therapy can be utilized for that. So while the number one results that I see in my patients who do NAD therapy are more energy, mental clarity, like a pep in their step, or what some people like to call vitality. It definitely can help with some of these other more aesthetic related concerns like skin health and metabolism. But more often than not, it's all about just, you know, feeling younger and feeling that more, feeling more energetic and just, you know, feeling like it is, it's almost like looking into the future

that the NAD is going to hopefully, you know, help preserve our health for a little bit longer had we not done NAD therapy. Wow, yeah, I wanna be the Benjamin Button of the crew that just, we never grow old, and I want the NADs to just solve all those problems. I'm kidding, but I'm not. Like, I actually, listen, and I know they're, you know,

they're more of an expensive approach, correct, too? They're something that insurance usually does not cover. Is that right? Yeah, yeah, I mean's something that insurance usually does not cover. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's the unfortunate thing is that we're really not good with being supportive when it comes to insurance for a lot of these longevity therapies. You can get NAD in a whole slew of forms. Like it comes in an oral supplement, even though that's not really my preferred route because it doesn't have the same bioavailability, but you can also do it as an IV therapy, which is like the other end of the spectrum. But my favorite form of NAD that I prescribe for

my patients include the nasal sprays or the self injections, just because the absorption rate is much better and you can do it from home. Well, I'm going to keep everyone up to date on how I feel because I'm very excited to start that journey. I'm very excited. But also speaking of GLP-1s, I know that you said you're using GLP-1s as an anti-aging treatment as well? Can you talk to me about that? Yeah. So obviously everyone is talking about GLP-1 therapies like semaglutide and terzepatide and its impact on weight loss if you're overweight or you're obese, but there's been a lot of emerging

reports, especially in the longevity space, of GL-1s in smaller doses, helping people with a wide array of health concerns. So I talk about this a lot in my mini course on GLP-1 therapy that I taught, but there's this massive amount of people, especially my women who are experiencing a hormonal shift like perimenopause, postmenopause, even my younger patients with PCOS,

or even my young adults who are experiencing low testosterone, who are stuck in this weird gray area where they are experiencing this hormonal shift and it's causing them to gain weight. But the amount of weight gained is not enough to classify them as obese or overweight. And because of that, they're just suddenly dismissed as not having a problem or that couldn't or shouldn't be addressed when we all know

that lifestyle is just a piece of the puzzle. So mild metabolic dysfunction and inflammation is a really real thing that can be addressed. So I have seen micro-dosed GLP1s help with what we call mild metabolic dysfunction, with mild weight gain, to even issues outside of that that are more, you know, longevity related, including reducing chronic inflammation and pain, to even helping with brain health, to even helping with some of these other people experience, especia

like impulsive behaviors, media. So we're seeing a for micro dose glp ones. I've been prescribing it some time. They love it and they're seeing really good results on it that are making them to some extent feel young again. I mean, listen, I'm all for it. If it helps and it's making your life better and it's helping you from the inside out,

I'm all for it. But are you also seeing that we're like in this epidemic of people who shouldn't be using them but are using them? Definitely. And I think the important thing to take home is that it's not a therapy that is touted as being a longevity therapy for everybody. All of these therapies for that matter

really need to come from a well seasoned practitioner who's doing a Appropriate assessment to make sure it's the right Therapy for you that means what we are finding is that at these extremely low doses We are seeing a lot of the benefits that a longevity therapy has the benefits that a longevity therapy has with less of the side effect risks that you sometimes see with traditional dosing of GLP-1 therapies. And that's the thing that we take home from this is that we're not giving you the same amount that somebody who is on Ozempic for being significantly overweight is receiving, we're giving them little tiny bits

of the therapy to achieve the results we want while minimizing any of the risks that can be associated with these therapies. So with proper monitoring and proper management, we're seeing these great results, but these things have to be critically used in the right setting and at the right dosing. So it's another type of longevity therapy that we tailor to the patient to make sure it's exactly what their body needs.

Wow. Of course. Well, listen, this has been so informative today and I hope all my listeners out there are loving this because I always have so many questions and I can literally listen to you speak all day about all of this. This is the way I am. Like when I have, when I want to know something, I need to know detail for detail. I want to know all the parts of it. I want to know everything about it. Okay, so can you let all my listeners know where they can find you out there?

Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on Instagram at drrobbins.np and Facebook at EastXWestMed. And you can come to my website at eastxwestmed.com. Beautiful. Ladies, make sure you book your consultation with her. She's pretty amazing and so informative. I've loved my time with you.

Thank you so much for coming on display today and we will see you soon. Great. Absolutely. Thank you. Ciao. I'm not going to lie. Podcasting isn't just about talking, it's about growing, engaging, and monetizing. And that's where Podcast One Pro comes in. Whether you're an independent creator or a major brand, Podcast One Pro gives you the tools you need to take your podcast to the next level.

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