Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz on Demystifying Menopause: How to Flourish as You Age EP 201

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz joins me on Passion Struck to discuss why she is passionate about demystifying menopause and teaching women how to flourish as they age, optimize their health, the truth about hormones, deal with hot flashes, and so much more.  Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, MD, is deeply connected to her work as an OB-GYN. She is an enthusiastic science nerd with a profound respect for holistic health and life. She earned degrees from the Southern California School of Medicine and California College of Ayurveda and completed a residency at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She is the author of the newly released Menopause Bootcamp: Optimize Your Health, Empower Yourself, and Flourish as You Age (Harper Wave October 11, 2022). --►Purchase Menopause Bootcamp: https://amzn.to/3SYDOFV (Amazon) --► Get the resources and all links related to this episode here: Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz on Demystifying Menopause and Flourishing (passionstruck.com) --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/GfbPTGIRiCs  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the Passion Struck Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283  Thank you, Amazon Pharmacy, Indeed, and MasterClass, For Your Support Amazon Pharmacy -  Just Click https://amazon.com/passionstruck Indeed - Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. MasterClass - Get 15% off at https://www.masterclass.com/passionstruck  Where to Follow Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz Website: https://thedrsuzanne.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askdrsuzanne/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/askdrsuzanne  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/askdrsuzanne/  -- John R. Miles is the CEO, and Founder of PASSION STRUCK®, the first-of-its-kind company, focused on impacting real change by teaching people how to live Intentionally. He is on a mission to help people live a no-regrets life that exalts their victories and lets them know they matter in the world. For over two decades, he built his own career applying his research of passion-struck leadership, first becoming a Fortune 50 CIO and then a multi-industry CEO. He is the executive producer and host of the top-ranked Passion Struck Podcast, selected as one of the Top 50 most inspirational podcasts in 2022. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  ===== FOLLOW JOHN ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/ * Blog: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast  

Coming up next on the PassionStruck podcast. So sex doesn't need to be over. It just needs to be reinvented. And I think the other thing is like, look, it's really sex for connection and joy and intimacy only. I mean, it's fantastic. It can really be a wonderful intimacy building experience with a partner or with yourself just to get to know yourself.

And I will say this, it is use it or lose it. It is use it or lose it it is use it or lose it so if we don't use it we are going to lose it. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi I'm your host John Armiles and on the show we decipher the secrets tips and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.

We have long form interviews, the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 201 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked as one of the top 50

most inspirational podcasts in the world. And thank you to each and every one of you who come back weekly. A listen and learn how to live better, be better and impact the world. And if you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. If you're already a listener and you're not familiar with our YouTube channel, you can find it at John Armiles, and we have well over 400 different videos that you can check

out, both long-form content like today's, but also exclusive content that you will only find there. Please go to John Armiles, check it out, and subscribe. In case you missed it, earlier this week, I interviewed Maltine New York Times best selling author, Laura Vandercam, and we discussed her new book which released this week, Prank Willity by Tuesday. My solo episode in case you missed it from last week, and you want to check it out, was on why experiencing pain is so important to becoming a pathway to our growth. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your continued ratings and reviews, which goes such a long way

to improving the popularity and reach of this podcast. They mean so much to us, and I know our guests love them too. Now let's talk about today's episode. Dr. Suzanne Gilbert Gleens is deeply connected to her work as an OB-GYN. Her passion stems from one place, a start of her career coincided with the birth of her first child, though she wanted natural birth. Her own wishes were ignored during delivery. That dehumanizing disregard lit a fire in her to create a safe place for women at her practice to be heard. 20 years later, as she herself enters Menopause, she uplifts women around the world by bringing her popular Menopause Bootcamp to the masses.

She is the author of the brand new book which released earlier this week, also titled Menopause Bootcamp, Optimize Health, Empower Yourself, and Flourish as you age. And in our interview, we discuss why we need to destigmatize the aging process. Why menopause is not publicly talked about and why it should be.

We go into why menopause shouldn't be considered an ending, but instead a new beginning. We go into the symptoms of perme menopause, how long it can last, and the impact it could have on a woman. We discuss hormone therapy and Suzanne gives some of her best recommendations on this topic. How menopause impacts sex and the things that you should look out for. The factors about lifestyle and diet that both influence her amenopause as well as menopause. And lastly, we discuss how husbands and partners can support those who are going through menopause. This and so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide

on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so excited to welcome Dr. Suzanne Gilbert-Glens to the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Suzanne. Hi, thanks for having me. Well, I'm excited to have you on the show and we're discussing a topic that I have to tell you when I started this podcast, I'm not sure

I would have ever picked it, but I think when you think of menopause, you often think that it is something that just affects females, but haven't been exposed myself to two people, one my mother, one an ex-girlfriend who went through it very early in life, she was 35. I lived on the other side of it. So I think there's some key learning here for everyone in this audience on what we're going to unpack today. But before we dive into that, I always like to give the audience a chance to get to know the guests on the show better. So I'd like to open up with this question that we all have moments that define us. What's a moment that defined who you are today?

Wow. I've been around on the planet for a couple of decades. I would say I think when I look at my trajectory in both my personal and professional life, I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 47. And that was that changed everything. It changed everything, which I think anybody who's gone through any serious medical trauma or issue, I'll tell you how I experienced it. I felt like I had the opportunity to stop because I had to, because I had to pay attention to what was going on with my health and my body and make decisions not just about my care, like who did I want to be and how did I want to live

going forward because I wanted to live. And I was aware going into that period of my life that there were a lot of things that really weren't working well for me, but I was like, I'm a high achiever, I'm a hard worker, I'm a team player. And I think I was very attached to those labels. And I really had to start focusing on myself and really expressing truly who I was in order to be healthy and whole after that experience. And I made some huge changes. I really developed the capacity to have boundaries. I really just hadn't had them. And there's so many reasons for that. I could do five podcasts on why we don't have boundaries.

And maybe perhaps you who've done that, I don't know. I had to actually learn how to have boundaries, and I had to relearn what those boundaries were that were to be healthy and protective. You know, as a physician and a mom and a woman, I derive a lot of satisfaction from giving and taking care of other people, but I really truly wasn't taking care of myself. I know this sounds so, like, such as stereotypical experience. And it is for a reason. I think it happens to a lot of people. So after that, I knew that in order to be healthy, I needed to focus on myself more.

And I made a lot of changes in terms of how I practiced medicine. I ended my marriage to be perfectly honest. He's a good guy, he's a decent human and we had a great run and we were not happy. That was really giving me a lot of stress. And I said to myself, if I don't, I'm going to kill myself for stress. And here I was a proponent of wellness. I wasn't being authentic. How could I go out there and speak and teach and talk to patients about this? And I wasn't doing it myself. It was BS.

I just went through this with my sister and she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Oh, wow. And three months after she found out it was stage one, they came back and said it's at stage four. But the whole time she was going through this, she never gave up the desire to just live this incredible life. She actually started a second masters because she wanted to get back to people.

So while she's going through all these treatments and everything else, and eventually, she found a way through lifestyle choices and reducing stress and homeopathics to reverse the stage four to stage one. They did Whipple surgery and she's two years cancer-free. But it was even more amazing, yeah. It was even more amazing to me that during this whole time of caring for her son, she's two years cancer-free. But it was even more amazing, yeah. It was even more amazing to me that during this whole time of caring for her son,

she's a single mom, going through all these treatments, everything else, she kept going to school and is now a social worker. So, that's beautiful. I think that really speaks to us finding what really gives us joy and is for ourselves and for a lot of us, something that is for ourselves is also for you. Like, I don't see myself ever as not continuing to be educating, caring for people. That gives me so much joy and I'm a really curious person. Like,

I love hearing people's stories all day long. Actually, that's one of my favorite things that I get to do is I get to hear your stories. To me, it's also like sometimes there's a mystery involved and I'm trying to solve it, right? You know, I'm trying to diagnose something and help figure out what the solution is. There's something in it for me too, but I do love that. I think when we can connect with something that is truly an expression of who we are, to me, that's really its optimal health. You can make a listicle of the super foods you should be doing in the five, then about it, whatever.

But the truth is, if you're not connecting in a joyful man or in an authentic manner with yourself and the people around you, what are you doing? Honestly, in a lot of ways, that's the message of the book, which might surprise people. But I think one of the great things about getting to this point in life, I wanted the things that I would love for your listeners and viewers to understand,

especially because they may feel like outsiders and like one of my awkward and this person's acting really difficult or they're who are they, they are different, they're changing. But I think understanding it's really like a rebirth. And I mean, I think if you do it, I don't want to say the right way. There's an right way. Let me put it this way. For me, it's been a like a rebirth. And I mean, I think if you do it, I don't wanna say the right way. There's an right way. Let me put it this way. For me, it's been a lot of rebirth.

And a lot of the people that I work with that are going through menopause, it's just another opportunity for transformation and growth and to dive more deeply into your authentic you and to find what your passion is. Again, it does not need to be an ending, it does not need to be a time of disappearance and visibility. That narrative is definitely out there. Really, the more I talk about

this, honestly, and having written about it now of 300 pages and dealing with it all day, every day, for decades, we can choose to accept that narrative or not. I don't have to do that. I find that my experience and the experience of many of the people I'm working with is difficult and it's painful because you are so different, you're having a different experience physically, you're having a different experience with your hormones, your experience with your body has changed for people who menstruate for women, we are very tied to our cycles and now they become very unpredictable. That's paramanopause, the time leading up to menopause, which could take up to a decade. And then it stops, right? So just to get the definition out there, menopause is the cessation for 12 consecutive months of menstruation without any other medical reason over the age of 45. There are a lot of different fine, no one's points we're not

going to get into. So while you're going through it, you don't know exactly even when it's going to end. You don't know until that year is over. But once you get there now, who are you if you're not tied to your cycle? So there's a lot of confusion and even grief around that. However, if you come through that, if you have the tools, if you have solutions, if you have community, if you have information, if you have education, you can say the word out loud. If the people around you are not afraid to say the word out loud, it's a time of passion, joy, and connection. Not you're done, go in the corner and see a never. I would not, that's not what I would, obviously, if someone I'm doing.

We'll be right back to my interview with Dr. Suzanne Gilbert-Lens. With Masterclass, you can learn from the world's best minds. Anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace, you can learn how to become a better writer from legendary authors like Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson, Dan Brown, Amy Tan, and Amanda Gorman. Improve your business skills from Dan Pink, who is just on this show, Sarah Blakely, Bob Woodard, or Richard Branson, or learn Sleep and wellness from the legendary sleep expert himself, Matthew Walker. With over 150 classes from a range of world-class instructors, the thing you've always wanted to do is closer than you think.

I recently checked out Malcolm Gladwell's writing class. I was blown away by the depth of knowledge and how, in 24 lessons, he taught me how to research and write stories that capture big ideas. This is so useful for me, is I capture ideas for my next new book and the weekly podcast solo episodes that I do. I highly recommend you check it out. Unlimited access to every class, and as a passion struck listener, you get 15% off an annual membership.

Go to masterclass.com slash passion struct now. That's masterclass.com slash passion struct for 15% off masterclass. When I need to go to the drugstore, I always seem to wait to the last minute. Hoping they'll be open, dreading that I get stuck in a line. That's why I love Amazon Pharmacy. Yes, that Amazon. Amazon Pharmacy delivers a better pharmacy experience that delivers directly to your door and works with most insurance plans.

Amazon Pharmacy helps you save time, money, and stay healthy. There's transparent pricing so you know what you'll pay before you pay it. And prime members can save up to 80% off their prescriptions. And check this out. If you ever have any questions or problems, real pharmacists are always available at Amazon Pharmacy, no matter what time of day or night, your medication gets delivered to your door.

So there's no more rushing out to the store, hoping to get there before they close. A pharmacy that works for your life with meds delivered to your door, it doesn't get any better than that. Switch to Amazon Pharmacy and save time, save money, and stay healthy. Learn more at Amazon.com slash passion struct. That's Amazon.com slash passion struct.

Amazon.com slash passion struct. Average savings based on usage and inside RX data, as compared to cash prices, average savings for all generics are 78%, 37% for selected brand medications, restrictions apply. Please consider those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. Evertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Now, back to my interview with Dr. Suzanne Gilbert-Glens. I'm glad you brought that aspect up and before I go further, I did want to show the audience

your book and on the YouTube video, we'll make a bigger cut out of it. Congratulations on its launch today. And thank you so much for honoring the show with being one of your launch partners to get the word out there. I really appreciate it. It's exciting for me. I love it.

I love it. Well, the question I was going to ask you is, when I went to do research for this, I found that there's not a lot of information out there about menopause. There's things you can go to that say, kind of this is what paramenopause is, this is what menopause is. But why do you find in the public domain, it's not something that people are talking about or have talked about in the past? That's a great question.

I think it's a combination, honestly, John, of I like to say that it's like ageism and misogyny had a baby. The ugly stepchild, people are, we have a lot of issues with aging in our culture. There's a lot of, there's fear around it and there's misunderstanding and I think culturally as we've moved away from maybe more of our ancestral origins and indigenous cultures that all of us actually come from, there's been a loss of community and tribalism in some ways that are not really healthy. So if you don't have examples of people around you who are aging and who there's a lot of respect for, if there's not that like built-in respect for and reverence for elders,

then aging is going to seem like something that's bad. And if we're only going to show images of youth, and even when we talk about like 50s, the new 30, I mean, I get where that's coming from, but that's also still diminishing aging. Like it's bad. Like you don't want to be 50, you want to be 30, isn't it great that I look like? I don't look like your grandma looked when she was 56.

Like there's some mixed messaging there. We don't embrace aging. And then we have a lot of issues with our images around women. So you put the two together, women are justified, sexualized in ways that aren't necessarily coming from within them. It's complicated. And I think men go through a lot of this stuff too, but clearly there is a structure in our culture, in this country, that is biased in certain ways. People become afraid to admit their age,

afraid to age themselves, and then we don't have examples of it. So I think it's not discussed. And then I think when you add in just like medical research, people are always very surprised to hear this. But a lot of the studies that you guys are looking at and reading are only recently including women. And a lot of the bigger studies in lifestyle medicine, especially around nutrition, really didn't even include women at all. So like

intermittent fasting, keto, and I'm not here to discuss the benefits or not to be perfectly honest. Most of that stuff is not even looking at women, let alone men and puzzle women, who have changes in their body and changes in their physiology. So, I think there's just been a lack of interest, a lack of money put into it. The FDA did not require inclusion of women in trials for medicines until 1993. I was in medical school at the time. That's crazy. The victim bias against women is it's just it's just there We don't have the data if you don't have it put attention In positive focus just like what we are doing in our own lives The things we put attention and focus on are the things that are gonna flourish or grow or change

Well, if we're not putting money into research into some of these areas, then we're not going to learn as much about it. We're not going to share as much about it. It's complex. Yeah, it sure is. And I just wanted the audience to know since you brought up Cotosis that episode 182 of the podcast I had on Dr. Dominic Dogostino, who may be the foremost expert in the world. And he is studying it at the University of South Florida, but he does it with his wife who is also herself part of the experimentation and other things that they're doing. And they're looking at it through hyperbonic

Oxygen therapy chambers. Yeah, he partners with the military, especially special forces. He studies a lot of astronauts all looking at How does this affect us under extreme conditions? But also what can you use it for to impact chronic conditions and other things. It's fascinating. It's really, really interesting. I love seeing the changes that we are experiencing right now because we are talking about things and we are asking for changes. One of the things that I have really noticed in medicine is that medicine by its very nature is very conservative meaning that they're going to do what seems the safest to do first. I'm really boiling it down here and simplifying it. But what I've noticed is when you look at changes,

and when we talk about men and plasas or women's health in general, what I've noticed that a lot of those changes have been grassroots changes. They come from the grassroots. They come from people like your viewers and your listeners demanding changes saying, I have this question and it's not being answered. You need to give me the answer.

You need to partner with me on the answer. I saw it on labor and delivery and obstetrics in terms of bringing in more family centered and physiologic birth practices that didn't come from the medical community. No, no, no, no. That came from the community members saying, we're not having a positive experience here in your hospital. This is Cedar Sinai Medical Center. This is not a small hospital. I think it was just ranked number two in the nation by US News and World Report and number one in the state of California. This is a massive medical

institution with affiliation with UCLA and all sorts of scientific endeavors, tons of training programs, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you think that we have a Roma therapy and birthing balls to aid in more physiologic birth because the medical community decided to study that no. That's not how that happened. So that's okay. This is why I've really devoted a lot of my time to educating the public. So I just feel like that's where I'm better why I've really devoted a lot of my time to educating the public. So I just feel like that's where I'm better. I'm better at kind of translating the two and being a bridge.

I tons of respect for the academic medical community, but they move at a pace that doesn't work for me personally. It's too slow for me. Well, one thing I wanted to go into about your background was you have an interesting element in that you're both a medical doctor as well as a natural path. And can you talk a little bit about why you took that approach to becoming a natural path as well and specifically what type of natural pathic studies you immersed yourself into? Okay, so I'm going to correct you. I'm not actually a

natural path that is a specific field and they have their own medical Okay, so I'm going to correct you. I'm not actually a natural path. That is a specific field and they have their own medical training, but I am an Ayurvedic practitioner. So I understand it's right. It is a form of natural or holistic medicine. So I am, as I'm a doctor, I'm born certified in obstetrics and gynecology. So I went to medical school, conventional alopathic medical school, I did a four-year residency, specialty, and OBGYN, I'm a surgeon, I see patients all day in the office, I delivered babies for 22 years, I just stopped six months ago actually, and I have all of that, and I work in a very conventional office in Beverly Hills, California, and I do straight-up of Beverly Hills gynecology.

However, very early on, I felt like there was something else going on with my patients. And actually, I met a patient, a clinic patient as a resident who was coming from more of the traditional, natural, holistic healing world. And she had an issue that eventually required conventional intervention. She needed surgery. She had done everything to avoid it. And it was clear that she needed surgery. And I met her and she introduced me to Ayurveda, which is the ancient Indian medical system,

the subcontinent of India. So it's similar. I think people are more familiar with Chinese medicine. They grew up around the same time, somewhere between three and five thousand years ago. They have a very, very systematic paradigm, how they look at both physiology, anatomy, disease, progression, but it's a mind-body spirit approach. Some of the oldest surgical texts on the planet

were actually produced by Ayurvedic Physicians 3000 years ago. Shushu Chacha, look it up, it's wild. And so it's amazing to me that people were doing surgeries like that, but they did them. But they also use local seasonal products, your diet, botanical medicine, lifestyle, yoga and meditation. Your yoga practices actually are branch of Ayurveda.

Everything from how much you sleep to when it's very, very unique based on the individual and extensive. And I became fascinated with both the history and a way of the practice of medicine and that there were so many things that really made sense to us, even now 6,000 years later in modern society. But I was also really stressed out. I was a young mom. I had just finished residency, starting my practice.

And I recognized for my own health, I needed to slow it down and I was started to meditate in yoga and I saw the benefits for myself and I thought let me just explore this and I wound up really diving in and doing a whole certification program. I'm known in the community for having that background. I don't necessarily practice I or Veda in an orthodox manner, but I have a much bigger toolkit and I have a much more open perspective. And that really has enhanced my ability to see sort of big picture items and also have a different toolkit. I'm not afraid of botanicals. I'm not afraid of, I mean lifestyle medicine is all the thing that I've been doing this for more than 20 years.

When I started doing it, I was like, I didn't want to get in trouble. Now it's like, oh, everybody's telling you to meditate. But in the beginning, I was like, am I going to get out of it? And people are going to be mad. It's changed a lot. So that, and I eventually did get bored, certified in Integrative and Holistic Medicine because the American College of Medical Education

does have, they do have some fellowship training programs. This is where we do our sub-specialty. So it is recognized. Even though a lot of my conventional colleagues don't like it and don't want to recognize it, it is a recognized sub-specialty in conventional medicine that might surprise people. It's a different way of looking at things and I think it's just, to me, it's common sense. Rarely is there one way to do things. Now I agree with you and as we talked about the beginning of the podcast before we came on, I'm a huge believer and alternative health and different ways of dealing with things because I believe if

nature is created, many of the conditions that we have, then nature can also help us to address them. And that's the approach I've taken. It's why I always try to go to a nurse practitioner or a DO typically because they tend to do more functional or holistic medicine in their approach because I really believe that supplements and your diet and other things play a huge role. In fact, I recently had on Dr. Katie Melkman, who's a behavioral scientist at the University of Pennsylvania and something that she said during our interview just has stuck with me. And that's based on her research and that of others, 40% of premature deaths are caused by lifestyle choices.

And I think it also impacts probably the experience and menopause as well. Oh, yeah. Of course. We know now so much more about epigenetics. So I think coming in, we arrive with a certain set of chromosomes and genes. But the reality is that the impact of our lifestyle is to alter the expression of those genes, to turn certain things on, turn certain things off. I mean, the idea that you're going to control everything is an illusion, and that's a spiritual

question and a spiritual issue as far as I'm concerned. And I think it's important to address that. There's something probably about being in your middle life where you are more open to that because you're like, what's this last half going to be or this last third or whatever it is? And you've been through enough to realize like you're not in control of everything. However, there are things that you can do to impact your health today. And I think you're right that the focus on prevention is really lacking in general and conventional

alopathic medicine. I certainly don't want to pile on my colleagues, especially after the last two and a half years of just total crisis. But a lot of what the way we're trained is like putting out fire. And the truth is by the time you have contact with somebody often when you're in your training in the hospital setting, they're way off the rails. Let's like help them not die today.

I mean, not to be too dramatic, but like that does happen a lot. And I think that has a really lasting impact on the way you view your patients when you come out into practice. I mean, obviously, if you're a trauma surgeon, that's literally what you are doing for a living. But if you're doing a more of a general practice,

I'm a general obstetrician and gynecologist, I always try to focus on lifestyle and long-term health and longevity. And one of the great things about menopause medicine is I talk about that a lot. Like people come in and they have questions about their hormones and the most obvious things. But you know, I remind them that the number one killer of women is still heart disease. And did the guy, did your brother or your partner or your neighbor who's the same

age? I'm guessing he's had a lot of cardiac evaluations. Has anybody offered you that? I bet not. This is a great thing for your male listeners to be aware of and make sure that they're encouraging the people in their lives who are going through menopause to be aware of. The fear of hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer, for instance,

which is a complex conversation, but honestly to boil it down, it's just there's so much misinformation out there. The reality is that I'm a breast cancer survivor. I have skin in that game. The data is very clear. The vast majority of women who get breast cancer are going to be diagnosed at early stage.

So I'm not talking about late stage. I'm not talking about a 35-year-old breast cancer. That's a whole other conversation. It's difficult for them to have to be outliers in this conversation, but we got to do we got to do right. Most women who are diagnosed with breast cancer are not going to die of breast cancer. They're going to die of heart disease. So this is a great example of lifestyle having an important impact. What are we doing right now? Okay, whatever we did before we can change that What are we doing right now to not only live our best lives but to decrease our risk of mortality and be healthy in that moment I mean, these are things we all know stress sleep exercise diet like it's not rocket science I don't have anything to offer that you didn't already hear, but I have specific

ideas of what you can do for those things. How those needs are going to change as we age. We can dive in if you want, but so I think the thing that people don't necessarily realize is that hormone therapy is more complicated than we probably have time for, but it is not some evil thing that is going to kill you. And in fact, it's probably going to help you. The reality is that even as a breast cancer survivor, I can share with you that most of us are diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, and we are more likely to die of heart disease than breast cancer.

So we really need to be looking at the low hanging fruit there, the lifestyle medicine. What are the things that we can do to people understandably are very fearful of the potential relationship between hormone replacement or what we call menopausal hormone therapy and cancer development. It's a much more complex conversation than we have time for. There's a lot of misinformation and there's a lot of misinterpretation of data out there. But what I can tell you is that most breast cancer survivors are early stage survivors. They were diagnosed early in the disease and they are much more likely to die of heart disease than they

are breast cancer. What does that tell you? If we want to optimize our aging process and optimize our today, we've got to do lifestyle stuff. It's the epigenetics, it's the mitigation of risk factors right now. And worrying about what you did in the past, I'm not a fan of that, that's only going to increase one of those risk factors stress. So looking at the things you already know, stress, sleep, exercise and movement, and specifically adding and weight training and resistance training as we age to increase lean body mass, to increase bone strength, to increase blood flow, to increase sexual health. If you don't have blood flowing to areas, those areas are not going to get attention and

the tissue is going to be impacted negatively. Well, so I wanted to do a deeper dive on the hormones in case listeners want more information on this. And so one of the things that you outly in the book are the big four, I think you call them steroid sex hormones. So I was hoping maybe we could start there. And you can explain those. And then I have a couple of follow-on questions from the audience. Amazing. So first of all, it's very important to understand that these hormones...

We'll be right back to my interview with Dr. Suzanne Gilbert-Lens. Your business can't keep waiting for your dream hire to sweep you off your feet. How do you find them right now? You need indeed, which is the hiring platform where you can attract interview and hire all in one place. Don't spend hours on multiple job sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all with indeed. Find top talent fast with indeed sweet, powerful hiring tools like Indeed Instant Match, Assessments,

and especially with virtual interviews, Indeed saves you time. You can message Schedule and Interview top talent all in one place and also join over three million businesses worldwide using indeed to hire great talent fast. Indeed knows when you're growing your business, you have to make every dollar count. That's why when you sponsor a job, you only pay for quality applications from resumes and our database matching your job description. Visit indeed.com slash passion struct to start hiring now. Just go to Indeed.com slash passion struct. Indeed.com slash passion struct terms and

conditions apply cost per application price and not available for everyone need to hire you need indeed. Now back to my interview with Dr. Suzanne Gilbert Gleens. Everybody has them and I think we identify them as male and female hormones, and that's really wrong. In fact, women during their menstrual period of their life, their so-called reproductive part of their life, have more testosterone than any other hormone. They don't have more than men, but they have more testosterone than estrogen. I think estrogen is identified as sort of the typical, like, female hormone, right? Pregestrone and estrogen work in concert, and as sort of the typical female hormone, progesterone and estrogen work in concert, and they sort of alternate roles. They keep each other in balance.

I don't love the word balance. Here's my pitch on terminology. I feel like it's really important to speak the same language as the people I'm talking to. So if people are going to use what are really marketing terms like bioidentical hormones, biologically identical to what our body makes, but made in a manufacturing plant.

I'm not having a fight. I'm not here to bully people. I'm not here to shame them. That's the language they understand. I'm going to use that language. I think it's craziness and it's actually just not nice when my colleagues out there are like, that's a predator and like, whoa,

can we just like talk to each other? We can't, let's just talk talk and try to figure some stuff out. Like, why don't we do that? So I can't talk about hormones that stepping in it in a little bit. And balance is another one of those things. Like hormone balance, what is that? I don't even know what that is,

but I understand what people mean. So when you're menstruating, estrogen dominates the first half of the cycle, you release an egg, you do or don't get pregnant as The egg, the overeat starts making progesterone. That dominates the second half of your cycle. You don't get pregnant. You shed the lining of your uterus, that's the blood, and you start it over again. DHEA and testosterone are made largely in the adrenal glands. The little guys that sit on top of the kidneys, and that's where stress hormones and things like that also generally come from. DHEA is a, what we call a precursor, so it can be turned into either estrogen or testosterone based on your enzyme pathways and your body and the tissue that you're in.

So, and then there's testosterone, right? So these all are acting in different ways on different parts of our body, and I think it's very important to understand something like estrogen. There are estrogen receptors, not just in the obvious places, the reproductive tract, the vagina, the breast. It's everywhere. Your brain, your bones, your muscles, all of your organs. So this is why as we get into parimenoplasm and that cycle,

that cycle starts getting unpredictable. And then eventually it stops completely. Those hormones are not being produced by your ovaries primarily. You are having effects widely. That's why people's heart disease risk change. We're really starting to very much understand that brain function is very much affected. So it's not just the moods that we notice and the cognitive changes in that brain fog, but we are at risk for Alzheimer's and dementia. Women have more

Alzheimer's and dementia than men, two to three times more of the risk once we get into menopause. estrogen is definitely part of that. It's important to understand what has changed and what are we trying to replicate to assist people in two ways? This is the way I always look at it. First of all, there's the symptoms, the disruption. You might be having hot flushes and they're not really that bothersome. She might be having hot flushes that are literally keeping her up all night. That's disruptive in a way that is really altering her life in a negative way.

So these are things we need to address. The other thing is primary prevention of medical conditions. So I already kind of alluded to that. Part disease, dementia, osteoporosis, very, very important and we do have very, very solid decades of data indicating that hormone therapy in the right person, in the right way, can diminish that risk. And we know it can diminish the risk of what we call all cause mortality.

So I think people need to be reeducated and the approach needs to be more individualized so that they understand what is available, what is safe, and not just sweep it all off the table and say, this is bad for you. You can't do this, you shouldn't do this. This is going to kill you. I think there's fear out there that is really from a huge study that was done by the NIH in the early 2000s, late 90s, that has been walked back for 25 years and so many problems with it. And it scared people. That's okay because when we get scared and we have a loss, we get to reinvent. And I think that's what we're doing right now. I think we're really at an amazing time

where we're talking about stuff where I'm talking with you about this. And you told me that your audience is largely men. I mean, amazing. What an opportunity, what an honor. So we're at a moment in time where we want to talk to each other. We want to be curious. We want to learn. Well, one of the questions I got from a listener as a follow on to this is, and I'd like you to answer this if you can, maybe from a female lens and a male lens, but this listener is a female and they happen to be getting testosterone treatments. And they're hearing different guidance from different people that they're talking to. They're currently getting it in pellet form, but their question was there's pellet form, there's topical, there's oral, and there's shots. What is research showing is the most

effective of those different ones? I'm so glad somebody brought this up because this is a really great example of what we were talking about earlier, John, that like, why don't we know more about this because we don't study it? The FDA in all its wisdom has not approved testosterone therapy for women for sexual function because it's really what we have the data on. I think we also have seen anecdotally, the data is not nearly as strong, but there's a sense of energy that returns well-being, that kind of stuff. I'm not a fan of pilots. They need to prove to us that what they're doing and why they're doing it, because it's looking a lot like a cash cow to be perfectly honest. And my partner is a former bodybuilder, so I can tell you from personal experience. Of course, you feel amazing if you use a ton of steroids, including testosterone. Then you also, we're gonna kill your gut,

to be perfectly honest, and you're gonna be a crazy person. And it's gonna cause increased risk. So the problem with pellets is, it's a little rice-sized pellet that's shot in your butt. And now it's in your body. And it's absorbed very erratically. We don't have good data on absorption.

So I've had patients come to me whose testosterone levels are so, so high. It's dangerous and it can cause problems. I think sure you feel great, but I want you guys to feel good, but just because you feel good doesn't mean it's good for you. So here's where it gets thorny

because the FDA refuses to approve the use of testosterone. So now I'm kind of playing, like I'm telling you two things like what we got to follow the rules, but also the rules literally make no sense. And this is why I live in the middle, John. This is why I've spent 20 plus years doing both because I see the force for the trees. The FDA is what we got. Do they do a lot of things wrong?

Yeah, they do. Do I bow, do I worship at the altar of the FDA? No, I don't. Okay. I try to think critically. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I am not anti-authoritarian completely, but I question everything. I really do. So the North American men and women's society actually has guidelines out there that are available to the public. My personal and professional use is with topicals. This is where I do use a compounding pharmacy. Most of my patients, most people aren't going to want to shoot it. You can get it in the injection form, but it's a lot more complicated. Women need to use literally a tenth of a dose of men, and it just makes no sense. So the absorption is pretty good when you do it topically, either on the vulva or vaginally for dryness and sexual function.

It can work very, very well. We have a lot of testosterone receptors in that area and those diminished, I just explained how that's happening, those diminished as we age. And sexuality is very important, but also just dryness, urinary tract infections, infections, discomfort, that's important. And I think also for that libido and sense of well-being and energy and for strength, it definitely can be helpful. The data is mostly in sexual function in libido, though, and can't get behind the pellets right now.

Okay. Well, I know another thing that a lot of women experience his hot flashes, and then the book, you say it impacts 85% of women, which is virtually everyone. My question is, are they dangerous and what can you do about them? That is a great question. I mean, the research does indicate that women who are having more severe hot flashes and more disruptive hot flashes also have an increased risk of heart disease. So I think we should use this as an indicator of who really should be paying attention to their general health. And it's bleeding you back to something that I was already talking about.

I don't want people to get the impression that the hot flesh in and of itself is dangerous. It's super uncomfortable. The hot flesh itself is not going to kill you. You may feel like you're gonna die. But I think it is important for people to understand that there are solutions. And so for me, as a breast cancer survivor, I choose not to use systemic hormone therapy,

because I had a tumor that has receptors that have estrogen and progesterone. So that's a whole other conversation of some interesting data that may contradict that, actually. But in general, I would say that's a no. However, I've had terrible hot plashes. And I have definitely done the research and looked at the data in botanicals. And in other life, stuff, there's cooling blankets,

and there's wearables. I think those work OK. I think you can never get the same strength or power in your data sets with botanicals, because they don't have a billion dollars like the NIH to study. And they're not going to do that. But I'm honest with my patients and my recommendations

and saying, I have more data on hormone therapy than I do on black co-hush or on picnoginol, marine pine bark, but I see them working and the data that exists is decent and it is promising. It's good to have other tools in the kit. We know that lifestyle fixes like exercise, sleep, and stress reduction do have a positive impact on hot flash reduction.

So I could go on and on about hot flashes. There are a lot of things you can do. I think the biggest mistake people make is thinking and people get dismissed with their doctors, by the way. It's normal, it's part of aging, just suck it up. You'll be fine. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not an answer. Okay, and another section of the book, you talk about the lifestyle changes that we were talking about before.

This is another great resource that I've picked up recently. I'm not sure if you know Dr. Carifid's Gerald, but I know she's great. Yeah, she's great. And I know you both know Mark Hyman. What I liked is that some of the recommendations that she gave are the same ones or similar ones that you give about diet. So I was hoping you could touch on diet exercise and then some things like CBD, alcohol, like as you're approaching Manipaz, what do you do with all this stuff?

I mean, it's so confusing and people are understandably overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. The one thing I want to say is I want people to give themselves some grace and be nice to themselves because it is true that your body is changing. There's all these big studies that have come out recently saying like, no, you don't gain weight in menopause. I mean, there's no menopause of woman who's going to be like, what? That's the reality is when you look at these large data sets, the number may not change in a lot of people. It's the distribution. And that is true.

That's hormonal. So we start getting this chunk in the midsection that we didn't have and is very uncomfortable. We're also having other physiologic changes of aging and undergo this too. We're having, we don't build muscle and we're not building lean body mass the same way. We're not certainly not building bone anymore. We have to change it up. I think a couple of things that are

really important to think about is for someone who's had like a lifelong fitness practice, you're probably going to have to change it up. You're going to have to, as I mentioned, increase weight bearing and resistance training. But you're also going to have to increase active recovery. People make a big mistake when they over train because they're going to increase their cortisol and that's going to kill all of it. And they're also going to get injured. So I've had to learn to slow it down and everybody's body is not the same. So that's the other thing. Now, if you're coming into this part of your life and you've done no fitness, this

is a great, this is easy. Just start moving. I mean, even just walking is going to have a positive impact on not just blood flow and cardio, but on insulin resistance. And we're seeing this just come out more and more and more. And we do see as we age, we have more insulin resistance. We have changes in the way we are metabolizing lipids. I'm like my book, like my cholesterol shot up like 70 points in the last year and a half.

The pandemic didn't help. But it is definitely my hormones. It's wild to me. So it is very frustrating because I am like doing all the things. So I really get how people feel. But changing it up, active recovery, lean body mass. In terms of diet, I'm not a subscriber to any particular diet. Well, it is true that plant-based Mediterranean-style diets seem to have the most

data to support their health benefits. I think when you look at weight maintenance or weight reduction, we really are not eating enough protein, especially as we eat. Portion size, sorry, not restricting, not making your life miserable. You got to do some of these sustainable. But like, do we really need to eat as much as we're eating? I was eating way more than I need to be. Very healthy, but too much. Too much.

I'm not going to burn all that. I'm active, but I'm not that active. I'm not a bodybuilder. And I do think that intermittent fasting is interesting. Some of the data is a little questionable, because some of it may just be calorie restriction if you're time restricting, but I think in terms of insulin resistance, there's pretty great data to support sort of that more narrow window of eating in eight hours, six to eight hours. But again, if it's not sustainable, you're not going to do it. And dieting is not worth that. Restricting is not worth that. You've got to find the thing that you can do.

Yeah, I think there's definitely a happy place for food consumption. You don't want to eat too little, but you don't obviously want to eat too much. Right. And this is on, I'm constantly for myself trying to find. And I do do intermittent fasting probably more than I should, but my body has become so adapted to it that I don't even feel the need to eat breakfast anymore.

I'm not against it. I'm not against it. I never was really a breakfast eater. I didn't really like eating breakfast very much. If I have a really intense workout, I'm hungry. I listen to my body. I think the anti-diet culture is really kind of where it's to act in a lot of ways like combining. And I think that we're all really subjected to a lot of images that we grew up with and the way we're supposed to look and things like that. And it's very hard to unwind aging, beauty, diet culture, misogyny, patriarchy for all of us, and but focus on health. It's definitely a dance. And I think we just have to admit

that we're doing the best we can, but I try to really incorporate that listening to my body thing because naturally, I'd say probably three, four, five days a week, I'm not hungry till 11 or 12. So that kind of works for me. So one of the things I have experienced directly is I have been around two people who have gone

through menopause and paramenopause. And one of the things that I saw is that their emotions, at least from my perspective, got really out of whack. And so one of the things I thought was an important question to ask is if you are a partner of someone who's going through this, what are some things that you can do on your part, the lesson, the impact or help support your loved one? It's really hard because the reality is that I mean like so many things and so many relationships, we have to be patient, we have to not take things personally. But we also have to have our own personal

boundaries and respect. I think giving a book like this to be perfectly honest would be helpful because the reality is that if somebody can come into this process not scared and educated with a toolkit, they can say to you, I am going through this thing. And this is what I need from you. Because a lot of times people don't even know what they need. But I do think initiating conversations, creating space, having your own boundaries, saying, look, I know you're going to this thing. This is what I need from you. What do you need from me? I think it's the stuff that we all need to do in relationships anyways. But understanding that a lot of what's going on is scary and uncomfortable and really not about you, it can be helpful because at least you're not going to personalize

it. And also take it on like, I don't think it's the partner's responsibility other than to be supportive and loving, but it's not your responsibility to fix it. Again, helping somebody locate their own agency when they're in a difficult situation, no matter what it is, especially something like this, is going to be very helpful. Valating, like, look, this is a rough time. So we'll get through it. I don't, whatever the language would be that feels comfortable. But I really, people need to not take it personally

because it's just not about them. Okay, and what would be your advice to a female listener about starting their own menopause boot camp? Oh my God, what a great question. So So first of all, the book does have some tools to use. And the cool thing is that in the next year, I am going to be launching a certification program because I do feel like this is a grassroots community-based opportunity. I know my community. I don't know your community, John. And I think what I found when I started doing the boot camps was

people definitely were coming for the information, but they left with community. They didn't feel alone. They didn't feel isolated. They didn't feel so afraid and now they had friends and buddies and partners to get through it with and accountability partners, which we know is really helpful when we're looking at lifestyle change. So that more to come follow me because I will have a certification process available sometime this spring, probably of 2023, where people can get access to the information and training on how to create your own bootcamp and how to manage the groups, so that people can move through this with better information and better support. Okay, well that's great. And the last question I got from the listeners was a lot of people are worried about menopause

because they think it's gonna affect sex drive and that quality of emotional connection. What cheer advice on that and what should they expect? Stay open, stay curious and communicate because it is going to change. Things are going to change. That doesn't mean it's going to be bad. If you don't do anything about it and you phone it in, that's going to be bad and that's not intimacy. You need authenticity in order to have intimacy. I think not being attached to something being a certain way and being open to guessing what new things we can be doing, but also not being afraid of hormone therapy because even for someone like

me who can't and doesn't use systemic therapy because of my medical history, I can use vaginal therapy. I can use direct topicals to help lubricate and bring that tissue back to life. There are what we call energy-based procedures, both radio frequency and carbon dioxide lasers, which can be used to help replenish and remodel that tissue and bring collagen and blood flow. So sex doesn't need to be over. It just needs to be reinvented. And I think the other thing is like, look, it's really sex for connection and joy and intimacy only. I mean, it's fantastic. It can really be a wonderful intimacy building experience with a partner or with yourself just to get to know yourself. And it is, I

will say this, it is use it or lose it. It is use it or lose it. So if we don't use it, we are going to lose it. The other thing I want to say is like, I had someone come in yesterday and she was seeing somebody who, I just don't think was a great menopause person or a man person. And I think there's a lot of people like this. So this person was pushing test out thrown on her for libido. Meanwhile, this person didn't even look at her vagina. She's not a gynecologist. And this person's vagina is killing her sex hurts.

So this makes no sense. This is why it's very important to get good information and advocate for yourself and work with a person who knows what they're talking about. How are you going to fix libido, but you're not going to fix the vagina? And no one's going to want to have sex with a vagina that hurts. And I think people deserve better than that. So, all of it's connected. Okay. And you mentioned the things that you're going to be doing in the future. What are some great ways that a listener who wants to know more information. Obviously, I'll have links to the book in the show notes, but how can they get to know you if they are interested?

Follow me on the socials. So I'm on Instagram at Ask Dr. Susie and we'll get those tags to you. And also at the Metapos boot camp. I think that's the best way. Instagram, TikTok, my website will have all my information. And that's a great way to communicate with me directly and get more information about how we can plan events

together, what's coming next, certification, just what is the latest data that I'm, what are my thoughts? I love my community. It's a very engaged community and I learn a lot from from them all the time. Well, Suzanne, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today and congratulations again on your book. I know at the in your acknowledgments you made the point that you've always wanted to write a book and be an author. So congratulations on that childhood dream coming true for you. Oh, thank you. You read that. Wow, thanks. Thank you so much again and best of luck on this book tour and everything that goes along with it.

Thanks so much, Donna. I really appreciate your support. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Suzanne Gilbert Lenz. And I wanted to thank Suzanne and Alyssa Fortinato for giving me the privilege and honor of interviewing Suzanne on the podcast today. Links to all things Suzanne will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links that you'll find in the show notes. If you'd like to purchase any of the books from the featured guests on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show and making it free for our listeners. Avertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.

Please support those who support the show. If you'd prefer to watch this, like I said at the beginning, you can go to our YouTube channel at JohnRMiles. And if you're new to the show or you would like to introduce this to a friend or family member, we now have episode starter packs,

both at passionstruck.com, slash starter packs, and Spotify. And these are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topics to give you a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. I'm at John Armiles at both Instagram and Twitter, and you can also find me on LinkedIn. And if you want to know how I find incredible guests like Suzanne, it's because of my network. Go out there and build yours before you need it. You are about to hear a preview of the Passion Stark podcast interview. I did with NYU professor and New York Times best-selling author, Dolly Chug. And we discuss her brand new book, which releases next week, a more justified future. I really am invested in this being

the greatest country on earth. I'm really invested in us being the good guys. So I consider myself a proud patriot. The dilemma though is when I hold onto that image in a very brittle way, like either it is true or it's not, it puts me in an awkward position when you start poking holes. So the Patriots dilemma is if I'm wedded to that very clean narrative,

then the complications, the contradictions, and the nuances are just going to shatter me. The fee for this show is that you share it with family and friends when you find something useful, where that you care about. If you know someone who's going through Paramount of Pause or Menopause and needs some advice on the topic, definitely share this episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.

And until next time, live life passion struck. you