The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 19. How to Balance Women’s Hormones Naturally - A Guide to Fertility, Menopause and Beyond with Dr. Carrie Carda MD

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Join our FREE 3 Day Water Fast: https://fast.garybrecka.com/go-1 Get weekly tips from Gary Brecka on how to optimize your health and lifestyle routines - go to https://www.theultimatehuman.com/ For more info on Gary, please click here: https://linktr.ee/thegarybrecka ECHO GO PLUS HYDROGEN WATER BOTTLE https://echoh2o.com/?oid=19&affid=236 BODY HEALTH - USE CODE ULTIMATE10 for 10% OFF YOUR ORDER https://bodyhealth.com/ultimate Today’s episode is all about women’s health, and to help us cover this topic we have brought on one of our favorite experts, Dr. Carrie Lynn Carda MD, Board certified OBGYN, FACOG, MMS MHS Functional Medicine / Nutrition, to help us answer your top questions about women's health! Dr. Carda is a board certified OBGYN and regenerative medicine physician who has delivered over 8,000 babies and specializes in bio-identical hormone therapy. She joins Gary Brecka and Sage Workinger to share her expertise on balancing hormones naturally and helping women through menopause. Together they answer questions about estrogen dominance, progesterone deficiency, fertility struggles, and more - all while bringing humor and hope to these sensitive subjects. Listen in to learn Dr. Carda's insights on achieving balance and peace through every stage of a woman's life! 0:00 - Who is Dr. Carrie Carda? 03:40 - What is menopause and how do you get through it? 05:00 - When do women typically hit menopause and what are the main symptoms? 07:45 - What are the impacts of estrogen dominance? 13:00 - Do women need to get rid of estrogen as they go? 16:45 - What’s the difference between bio-identical and synthetic hormones? 20:00 - How to eat to balance your hormones. 22:00 - Why do women have hot flashes? 24:45 - How the gut impacts your thyroid hormones. 29:45 - What test should women have done to check their hormones? 33:00 - How much iron do women need and why is it important? 34:30 - What’s the difference between folic acid and folate?  39:00 - Why are rates of miscarriages going up? 42:30 - Why you should be taking Celtic sea salt. 45:30 - What to do if you’re struggling with fertility. Gary Brecka: @garybrecka The Ultimate Human: @ultimatehumanpod Connect with Dr. Carrie Carda: https://www.drcarda.com/ Subscribe on YouTube: @ultimatehumanpodcast Disclaimer: The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Putting on weight, you're tired, you're not sleeping, mood swings, loss of sex drive, go get your hormones fixed. We get so many questions saying I've had either repeated miscarriages or a difficult time getting pregnant. I recommend that they're immediately on a methylated multivitamin, do a whole assessment of their diet, pull out the folic acid component. You gotta get away from the sugar. I'm not sleeping, I'm depressed, I have hot clashes, I'm in interest in sex, and I cannot lose weight no matter what I do. I recommend. Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast, where we go

down the road, everything anti-aging, longevity, bio-optimization, and everything in between. This is an episode that lots and lots and lots of our followers and listeners and watchers have been begging for. They said, Gary, do you ever work with women? Do you do anything for women? Because we seem to be male-dominated on our podcast. So ladies, listen up. This podcast is for you um lots of estrogen in the room today and very little testosterone between the estrogen sandwich um we are absolutely blessed to have our clinic director a mentor of mine someone that has worked in our clinics now with me for more than eight years she's a board certified ob-YN. She's a regenerative medicine physician. She's also a gynecological surgeon. She has two master's degrees in functional medicine and at

least an ozone certification, a peptide certification that I'm aware of that she got during her tenure with us. And she is a phenomenal, phenomenal doctor practicing regenerative medicine, although her degree is a medical degree. Welcome Dr. Keri Sarda to the podcast. Yay. And I'd like to add, I think you've delivered over 8,000 babies. Yes, I have. I forgot to also introduce my wife, Sage Workinger. Welcome, Sage Workinger to the podcast.

So what Sage did was she combed through all of the questions and there were hundreds and hundreds of them. And she tried to sort of count up what was the most commonly asked question. And we thought we'd target the podcast to some of our listeners' questions. And then we can always do additional podcasts. I love the feedback that we're getting from you guys.

You can go to theultimatehuman.com and you can not only sign up for my free newsletter, but you can also submit questions there. And we'll do podcast episodes on just the topics that you guys are fascinated by or interested in getting more information so so i read through there are so many female questions because as females we got a lot going on no a lot going on no don't be so hard on yourself so this episode is to make the men out there have a little bit more patience for

us into men versus women it is though i mean it's just you know this would be good for everybody just understand what we go through and i'd also like to to point out that a lot of the problems in female lives start with the beginning m e n wow There's not much that Dr. Sarda can do about that. We're going to start with menopause. Can't fix that. Oh, wow. Did you just make a funny menopause? So yes, menopause was one of the main ones.

Like all these females are like, all the questions. What is it? What does it mean? What are the symptoms? How am I going to feel? How do I get is it? What does it mean? What are the symptoms? How am I going to feel? How do I get through it? So I also would like to know this because I'm 45 years old and I'm terrified of it. And I think that you have such great knowledge of it in calming our patients down and helping

these women get through this miserable time in our lives to make it not so uncomfortable and awful. No, exactly. I think if I want to say anything, it's, it just, it doesn't have to be that way. No longer are the days you're just getting older, or this is just what happens, or you're past your prime. It's terrible. And it's terrible. And they, so they don't have to deal with it. I mean, there's things that we can do to treat it. Absolutely not. You, you, you do, you do not. There are ways to eat. There are hormones that you can take. It's all about balance. So I think if I could sum it all up in one word, as long as you're in balance, this isn't going to be a miserable process. And as long as people around you are helping you recognize maybe that these

men, maybe recognizing that you're different or that something is out of balance rather than get so frustrated with it. Let's go figure out balance. I like that. And where do they start? Do they start with a blood test and what kind of things are you looking at? So I think we have to understand that before menopause is perimenopause and which just means around menopause. That's what the definition is. And that generally is about 45 to 50, and it's getting younger and younger as time goes on because we're so out of balance.

Our diet, our weight, all those things affect our hormones. And I think that we need to know that every organ system in our body has receptor sites and cellular sites for hormones, right? And hormones are not just estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. There's also thyroid. You have to understand that it all has to match. And so I think first it's going to be diet. I think nutritional deficiencies are going to be one of the biggest things that you can do to help yourself. And then probably the number one cause is going to be stress. So if I had to list the top 10 causes of perimenopause, is probably top five right we're not going to be

able to avoid that we age that's the one we can't do anything about but we sure can go down fighting yeah you've helped so many of my girlfriends i mean literally their feedback is that when they talk to their girlfriends where they got on a good protocol with you they talk to their girlfriends who are going through it and they're like, why? Why go and suffer? I feel great. I'm not having the hot flashes. I'm not having the anger or the temper issues. So what are some of the corrections?

So pretty much you can guarantee about 85% of women are going to have the hot flashes. That's your first tall tale sign. Sleep disorders, depression, and I don't even like to use and call it depression because it's really hormone imbalance. But I think in general, they feel like they're getting depressed or just lack of luster, certainly loss of interest in their libido. That just goes out the window. So if you're having hot flashes, if your sex drive is down, if you find that you're not sleeping as well, if you're more irritable, then please check your hormones. Please, please do that. at each and every one of them. And you can kind of see where a woman goes out of balance. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm so shocked at how that age is getting younger

and younger and younger. And you know, I know that from working with you and seeing you treat so many patients, some of the fixes are relatively simple. You know, we have so many women that come in and they're either pre or perimenopausal um or they're just even before that stage and weight gain has been a huge issue for them yes middle that belly middle weight gain or or how many women have told us they just feel like they're

retaining fluid yeah right right that's that's a that's generally that it's not that they're drinking more it's not that they're vo more, it's not that they're voiding less, it's that they're literally collecting fluid, mostly in their gut, in that middle belly area. And a lot of that has to do with the estrogen dominance, right? Absolutely. And I know when we look at labs very often, when you get a hormone panel, your hormones could be in the right range,

meaning it's perfectly normal for women, depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle, to have estrogen, let's be in the right range, but meaning it's perfectly normal for women, depending on where they are in their menstrual cycle, to have estrogen, let's say in the teens, and it's perfectly normal in other parts of their cycle to be in the 400s. But it's when it gets out of ratio and out of balance, which is I think what you're referring to. Correct. Or that estrogen dominance like we talk about. And that's what you'll generally see. I see just terrible progesterone levels and I see these high estrogen levels at the wrong time of the cycle. And we have to remember that estrogen is a hormone of growth. It's a hormone of stimulation.

It's a hormone of holding on to water and feeding the fat. Where progesterone is the opposite. They're yin and yangs to each other. And then you have your testosterone coming over. And women need testosterone. We always think of that as men, right? And that's the, and the first thing that goes in women is their testosterone and their progesterone.

It's the first thing. And generally because you're shuttling it all over to adrenaline and cortisol and dealing with, you know, getting up in the middle of the night or no sleep or things like that. So, so we sacrifice our progesterone and we sacrifice our testosterone. Right. And what's left a ton of estrogen. Plus if you start as we age, our weight ratios do tend to change. Um, and we know our society, our weight ratios do tend to change and we know our society our weight ratio is tending to change a little more adipose tissue and and that that feeds that estrogen even more you know i've noticed that um i've had personal experience working with clients with you with you managing their case and i've seen miracles with simple changes i'm not saying this is the change this is the simple

change to all estrogen dominance but i've i've seen you know women changes. I'm not saying this is the simple change to all estrogen dominance, but I've seen women come into the clinic and say, I just don't get it, Dr. Sarda. I wake up in the morning, I'm fasted. I go to the gym. I do Orange Theory five days a week. I've been watching my diet and I've been doing this for three or four months

and I haven't lost a single pound. And then you look at their hormone levels and you see that their estrogen is way out of whack to their progesterone and i've watched these women that um take simple things like dim diandolomethane and the progesterone capsules you put them on at night and within a few weeks sleep's restored and the water retention is off. So it's not always a massive intervention with hormones and a complete sort of takeover of their system. Sometimes it's just little guardrails. Little adjustments.

And it's not forever either. If you can get somebody balanced, and usually, realistically, probably four to six months. If you've messed your pattern up it's going to take you a second but it's not forever so if you just bathe the body with a little bit of progesterone especially at night it helps you sleep it's very calming very very calming it just slows the brain down slows the mind down i love to use you well know to use progesterone at night and notice also i a lot of women won't talk about this but they

have terrible vaginal dryness and terrible trouble with with intercourse and and if you just add in a little bit of that progesterone at night and and sometimes even more but a little bit of even estrogen too but but in general if i just get the progesterone up, I use the DIM to make sure that they're breaking their hormones down correctly. They feel great. Yeah. They feel great. Hey guys, I think the most important website you may ever go to is theultimatehuman.com.

That's theultimatehuman.com. Because on this website, we can directly interact with one another. You can give me suggestions for podcast guests and topics that you'd like to see me cover. You can ask me any question that you'd like. More importantly, you can sign up for my entirely free newsletter. It comes out every single week.

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theultimatehuman.com i promise you that information will help change the trajectory of your life and now back to the ultimate human podcast you know i notice sometimes you have these women you'll do a basic hormone panel and then sometimes you'll take a deeper dive and you'll do something called a dutch panel a dutch test which is a 24 hour or 48 hour urine test and you'll really look at the cycle and an interesting crossroad between dr sarda and myself is you know i've really dedicated the balance of my lifetime to studying genetic methylation you've dedicated your entire lifetime to studying you know the female female body and delivering babies but interestingly there's an intersection here because there's a gene mutation called comp t c-o-m-t catechol-o-methyltransferase and it appears on the on the dutch test and it's part of this estrogen metabolism. I think it sends estrogen down the E2 pathway.

And if that gene mutation is present and you're not supplementing for it, isn't this a part of the reason for the rise, the accumulation of estrogen not being rid from the body? Right. So if you do not get rid of your estrogen, you will literally reabsorb it and recycle it. So you also, even more important than that probably is the fact that if you don't go down that right pathway you will go down a more dangerous pathway in estrogen so in other words we start worrying about estrogens that change dna

estrogen dominance and then you start worrying about breast cancer, uterine cancer, estrogen needs to clear the healthy pathway and it needs to be eliminated. Right. And when you have that COMT SNP, that COMT gene, you need to pay special attention to that, you need to make sure you have your nutrients, your B vitamins and things like that because you need to help clear estrogen and you also need to watch what kind of estrogen you're consuming right you mean if they're taking a hormone a big thing that you helped me with and this was three years ago when i dealt with my methylation imbalance was um i have the comp t

break i was supplementing with the vitamin that had folic acid and cyano cabalmin both synthetic vitamins i cannot process and my estrogen levels and when i look back at the lab values i'm like shocked by it but it was 700 estrogen dominant i was a crazy person and i remember i did i had that little gut i actually vividly remember this i know you do um it was a beautiful moment in our relationship um but you truly helped me get through that because and it was it was just a short course of a little progesterone and dim dim diendolomethane yeah and it got me through it cruciferous vegetables by the way yeah so that. Remember you can also eat to this too, your vegetables.

And we kind of laugh about that time that you were going through. But unfortunately... You too laugh about that. Let's just clarify. Unfortunately, there's so many... It happens to so many people. Every day, all day long. And it's just, we can fix this.

Yes. Which is why I like to talk about it and lay my crazy out for everybody, because I know that if I share that story, somebody else is going to raise their hand and go, well, that's happening to me too. I'm not crazy. Let me get my labs checked. Let me talk to my doctor about it. And I think it's also important to know that if you don't fix this, you guys, it's dangerous. It is dangerous. It's dangerous for dementia, your relationships, your inflammation. And we all know what inflammation, you could get cancer. Yeah, and your mental well-being.

Absolutely. And, of course, your sexual wellness is important. It's so directly related to your hormones. So it's been a big focus of mine to, um, balance hormones. I, I use bioidentical hormones. So in other words, I use it and we're, we're pretty strict about that because we want hormones that your body can recognize. Um, it, it's hard on the body when, when it doesn't really know what to do with a substance or it's like mimicking something. You already have to detox and process so much. So we do like to do bioidentical hormones.

And there is bioidentical estrogen and there is bioidentical progesterone. And so that would be my recommendation. And bioidentical testosterone. Correct. And I've also noticed that sometimes you'll use, as a part of this balancing process, getting progesterone and estrogen into balance, using things like DIM from cruciferous vegetables and progesterone at night,

but also looking at their testosterone levels, because remember you telling me that when women get very deficient in testosterone we've seen this on hundreds and hundreds of labs um their red blood cell production tends to decline their hemoglobin levels tend to decline not to the point where they're anemic but to the point where they're tired and they have brain fog and they're not sleeping deeply and i've watched what you've been able to do with minimal amounts of intervention, just balancing testosterone alone, moving that back into the optimal range for a woman, which I think a lot of women are, you know, resident about thinking about taking testosterone.

I don't want to be, I don't want to get male characteristics and big muscles and facial hair and aggression, but putting their own testosterone back into the normal range. Absolutely. And you know, the biggest thing with that, my push for that and my demand for testosterone being a part of it is your brain, cognition is so important to protect it with. And testosterone is how you're going to do that. So I definitely consider all three hormones.

And I think that doesn't happen often in the traditional model that I was trained in. It was the lowest amount of hormones for the shortest amount of time. And all the studies, the big studies, women's health initiative back in the mid 2000s, they, all those studies were based again on synthetic hormones. Studies have long since shown that if we stick with these bioidenticals, since about 2017, it's generally been more accepted that hormones are good and there's not an age limit. It doesn't matter if you're 65 or if you're 70. If you don't have hormones, let's give you hormones.

Let's give you testosterone. Let's give you estrogen. Let's give you progester let's we're not going to do it at pharmacologic levels we want to do it at physiologic levels yes right that's what that's what we're so big about is restoring physiology yeah in our lab work we we trend right we follow trends we don't want to wait till you're there right so that's all i'm asking is that women don't wait till you get all those symptoms. The second you get them, you might be 35. You might be 30. If putting on weight, you're tired, you're not sleeping, you have mood swings, loss of sex drive, go get your hormones fixed.

And is there a way to better eat for hormone balancing? Yes, absolutely. I mean, hands down, you've got to get away from the sugar. Is there a way to better eat for hormone balancing? Yes, absolutely. I mean, hands down, you got to get away from the sugar. Just hands down. And for many reasons besides even just hormones. And you have lots of podcasts about that, your gut health and sugar. But sugar just makes your brain and your hormones crazy.

They just do. I think the part we're missing is we're not getting enough fats. Our omega-3, especially for women. So for food-wise, avocados, fish. Coconut oil. Coconut oil, wonderful. Olive oil, nuts. Lots of nuts, yes.

But you know what? If you're not going to do it, then take some omega-3. So I think nutrients are, I think we would be not fair to women if we didn't at least address that we're short on our omega-3, we're generally short on our vitamin D, our B12. Sometimes DHEA. Correct, DHEA, that's over the counter. DHEA is a great way, It's a pro-hormone. It's before the hormones.

And if you don't have the pro-hormone, how are you going to make the hormone? Right. And then I also really, in my practice in the last few years, I've been doing a little bit more iodine just to make sure. I do that in the form of Celtic sea salt or you can do the Himalayan sea salts. But I do, that's all interplayed. Because as soon as you mess up your traditional female hormones you're thinking of, what do you think's next?

Your thyroid. And everybody always wonders, because they're connected. It's your thermostat. And it's connected. Well, the pituitary regulates all of those, right? It's kind of the master puppeteer regulating a woman's menstrual cycle, regulating a woman's thyroid level, regulating your body temperature, your metabolic rate. So is that why hot flashes happen?

Yes, it has to do with having an abnormal feedback. And so you literally don't... it's that progesterone estrogen imbalance that does it and that's where you get what are called basal motor symptoms or just changes in your changes in your blood vessels and things like that and we have to um it we pay a lot of attention to hot flashes what i don't like like is people think, oh, I got through that. I don't have hot flashes anymore. So they're over with that. All that means is that you don't even have the ability to mount that response anymore.

You're just sicker. So I spend a lot of my day explaining to people, you don't really get through being deficient. You either correct it or you don't. And if you don't correct it, it gets worse. So I think the biggest fallacy that has somehow been created, and I think it came to the traditional model, because I remember how I was taught, was, okay, so 50 to 55 or something like that. But again, it's because you're not flashing anymore, it just means you're sicker. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you've gotten through it. It doesn't mean. You don't get through menopause.

You have to fix it. Is it funny that I actually look forward to menopause because I run so cold? Like my hands are so cold right now. They are. Always. And it always has been that way. And so I laugh. I'm like, I feel like I'm going to look forward to hot flashes.

Like not being freezing all the time. I still think you could make an argument for the fact that if you are abnormally cold, or I think, again, you have to go back to what is it about your internal clock? What is it about your homeostasis that keeps you cold? For you, you don't have a lot of thermal regulation. You don't have a lot of fat. But also, we have to look at your thyroid, right? Because that's controlling your temperature.

Thyroid I think is good. I always wondered if I had Raynaud's syndrome. You could. I don't know. I think, again, though, you still have to look at am I balanced? Where am I balanced? Do you have enough iodine? Do you have enough selenium?

Are you supporting your thyroid enough? Are you converting from inactive, even though your thyroid might look okay yeah is it is it do you really going from inactive to active you know we talk a lot about folic acid going to folate it's that same concept do you have the good stuff do you have the active stuff right okay your body doesn't recognize that stuff it has to activate it. The T4 into T3. Right. The thyroid hormone T4. Right. Because T4 is just a reserve. It's T3. Every cell in the body has a T3 receptor. Remember, we said it's your regulator, right?

And for energy, metabolism, temperature, brain. So we have to make sure that those cells get full. And that happens in the gut mostly. And where is it that we have to make sure that those cells get full. And that happens in the gut mostly. And where is it that we have all the trouble? Gut, right? And what's that from? Diet, right? And when we say gut, it's the gut region.

A lot of it is converted in the liver, T4 into T3, some of it in the gut, the actual intestinal tract, and then some of the periphery just to be hyper specific. But that gut region, you know, meaning that it occurs outside of the thyroid, right? So I think a lot of times when you look at panels in your blood work and you see, oh, I have low thyroid hormone, and you immediately think thyroid. But the truth is that 80% of that thyroid hormone is actually converted outside of the thyroid. Right.

Liver, periphery. Right. And also the gut, which is why gut dysbiosis can lead to thyroid problems. Right. And the two seem so disconnected. There was actually an amazing book written by Dr. Ron Perlmutter called The Gut-Brain Connection and The Gut-Brain Axis. Dave Perlmutter? Dave Perlmutter. Sorry. Dave Perlmutter.mutter sorry he's from Naples where we started our clinic and it's a great read if if

you haven't read that book but I mean he really goes deep into the science of the gut biome and what happens in the gut region and its impact on hormones and and what have you so I love this whole systemic approach that you have because it's not always going straight to hormones. Sometimes it's putting up the guardrails, you know, DIM, DHEA, selenium, you know, the things that your body needs to do its job on its own. And then we also have the capacity to intervene with bioidentical hormones when things are not responding, right? Right. And you will reach an age, all of us will eventually,

where your ovaries aren't putting out hormones anymore. Now, I think the misconception about the ovaries is they will continue to eke out a little bit of testosterone. That's kind of chronic. That doesn't really ever go away. And that's kind of what's supposed to be there for you in your menopause years, although we just traumatize our bodies too much and we don't always get that production. But you do continually make a little bit of testosterone throughout your life, even at menopause. And then in general, your diet, your periphery, your fat cells, your adrenal glands, they're supposed to take over for the

hormones that your ovaries aren't making anymore and that's kind of where the big mishap happens is we just don't do that well anymore we're we're under too much stress we're exposed to too much toxin in in our diet and in just in our environment and in so much of what we are around acts like estrogen. We call them mimickers. Oh, yeah. No, estrogen mimickers. In our meats. In our bisphenols.

Right. Or BPAs. Plastics. Right. What about soy? Soy. So soy, for a long time, was consumed organic and in the right amounts, did a beautiful job. Okay.

Unfortunately, so much of our soy is not so good and, and we're getting too much and, and, um, yam, things like that, you know, or other, or, um, other things that, that can kind of give you an estrogen boost. Yams can too. Yams can too. It's the, the problem is, is we've just altered our food source so much. And, and, um, I do, I do think that it is hard to get menopause, to eat enough, to make up your hormone difference. I do think it's time to, to get help. Hey guys, if you've been watching the ultimate human podcast for any length of time, you know, that one thing I do not do is push products I do not just let any advertiser into this space because I believe that the products that appear on the ultimate

human podcast should be things that I use every day in my life to improve my own physiology one of them is something called the echo go plus the echo go plus is a hydrogen water generator that you can take on the go. You essentially take the top off of this bottle, you pour bottled water in this, and repeatedly it will make high part per million hydrogen water. You press this little button, you'll see these bubbles going up in the water, that's hydrogen being created in the water. There are all kinds of peer-reviewed published clinical studies on the benefits of hydrogen water including reduced inflammation better absorption of your supplements better absorption of your foods better balance of the

stomach acid and it feeds an entire class of bacteria in your gut hydrogen water in my opinion is the most beneficial water that you can drink and now you can take it wherever you go you can go to echo e-c-h-o h2o.com that's echo e-c-h-o h2o.com enter the code ultimate 10 for a discount echo h2o enter the code ultimate 10 for a discount and now back to the ultimate human podcast so if somebody wants to um if they're going to go talk to their doctor about having a hormone panel done what hormones are they looking at i mean most physicians would they know primary care doctor would they know what hormones to pull on a female because i know they're not a part of a standard blood panel right they generally have to be extra and a lot of times you'll see estrogen and progesterones and you don't see testosterone drawn. And you don't see the sex hormone binding globulin drawn.

And that's important because it is what it says it is, sex hormone binding. So you might have an okay level on your hormones and it's all bound up. It can't get to that cellular receptor. So SHBG or sex hormone binding globulin is another one and i noticed that sometimes you'll you'll specifically address the shbg level in a way to address the hormone level so when people are not converting testosterone into free testosterone for example, this binding protein, which is a sex hormone binding globulin as a protein,

and when it rises in the blood and gets to a certain level, it's relatively easy to push back down into the normal range, and then their hormone levels have a tendency to come back on their own. I've seen you do it thousands of times. I use a lot of long jack. I like to use that. We've had medications over the years, but I think we all would rather maybe do it a little more natural. I've seen you use boron to bring down the CHPG.

Yes, boron does as well, long jack. And it does it very quickly, 14 to 30 days, 45 days. It'll drop down. It'll just free up more hormone. And they always say their libido came back like a freight train. Yes. Yes. Well, one time I did, my testosterone was low. So we tried to do a shot and it, it actually messed my methylation up. And so it didn't work for me. Um,

which is why I think it's important to, to like, I've never promoted anybody to do the, um the pellets because i've seen so many women where it was like the testosterone was too much or you know and then you're stuck with it for six months or whatever so i like the idea that you could do an injection or you could do a pill or a cream or dissolve under the tongue yes so that you can definitely go through it definitely with those short-term methods you can you can control and have pretty good control of the dosing and you can adjust accordingly so that's the nice thing about doing those those methods over the pellets you are at least four months you're you're pretty much going to be yeah right stuck with your dose they

are getting a little better i think think, at looking at labs and formulas and trying not to just pound these women with levels. But if you have extra testosterone, you can get a little void rage here. Yeah. I love it. So the alpha or the long jack that you're talking about, so that's something females could try too? Yes. Yes, it is. Because really it works for both males and females because by just lowering the binding up,

you're going to just free up hormones. So in men, that tends to free up their testosterone, and women, that tends to free up their progesterone and their testosterone. What were some of the specific questions that they had um i had another question about you touched on it a little bit earlier anemia and um but maybe like talk about heavy menstrual cycles yes yes i'm so glad you brought that up because i think that i think that's forgotten too uh that's why iron becomes such an important and eating foods with iron in it your leafy green vegetables, things like that.

Grass-fed meats. Right. We want to, if you're especially menstruating, there's a lot of people, and there's some pretty decent data around menstruating women should all just be on iron, or at least during the time that you're menstruating, about 30 milligrams of elemental iron is what you're looking at. We like the iron bisglycinate because it just absorbs so nicely. And you've got less reports of stomach upset, less reports of constipation. It was iron bisglycinate.

Right. Right. That's what I love too. That 30 milligrams at least of elemental. And you can take that during your menstrual cycle. That works well. And at the time where you start to lose your menstrual cycle, you still have to remember that you still need oxygen and you still need iron. And with that, we need our folate, right? So we would be folate and iron and, again, our vitamin D. The nutrient supplements are going to be, if we can't eat it, you're going to have to supplement with it. Right. And touching on that, if you could kind of go over the differences between folic acid, folate, and folinic acid. So they're different forms of vitamin B9,

right? Vitamin B9, they're different forms. And it has to do with their availability or their bioavailability. So we know that the folic acid, for many of us, at least 25%, we think, percent or more of the population. And I think that's really underestimated. We actually, when we were doing some research for the book, we found studies as low as 44 44 and as high as 60 percent right right that you see those it's it's definitely they just can't they just can't process and you know honestly even for those that um that can it it's still just extra work yeah it's extra work

on the body right we kind of have enough we got to do. So I remember sending you both an article that I read. It was on the CDC website. And in the same article, and I actually love where you find this, in the same article, it admitted that people with MTHFR gene mutation cannot process folic acid, and it would be better for them to just take five methylfolate. But in the same article, it then said, but if you're pregnant or nursing, then you should, even with an MTHFR gene break, take folic acid instead of folate. Why in the world would they say that? Why not just recommend folate?

I think anybody out here with common sense is going, what? But it's what the studies have been done on. Studies have been done on folic acid. There's quite a bit out there for the benefit that occurs in pregnancy if you have, but it's folate. Yeah. Right? At the end of the day, they really talk about folate. It's just whether or not your body- The studies have not really been done on methylated B9.

And so I think they just kind of copped out there a little. I get a lot of people that fight us on the folic acid thing, like especially, and I hate to say this, but my nurses, friends of ours, your daughter and son are both in nursing school and they just push heavily on the folic acid thing. And we all just kind of laugh and she literally has to, Madison will take a test and she knows she has to answer how they want her to answer it. Look at the cost difference in folic acid and folate. Look at the, especially in the traditional model, it's all the studies are based on that. it's and i think that's i think that needs to

change i think it is changing i think so too i i think that it makes sense if i have to do the extra job to activate something and geez i might not even have the ability to do that very well maybe only 40 percent or or so in other words take the methylfolate rather than the folic acid it's so easy to do it's it to do. It's getting easier and easier. It was hard to find methylated multivitamins. And that was a big issue. I remember when we first started eight years ago, we couldn't find it anywhere.

Even when we went to manufacture our own vitamin. They tried to push. They really did. The manufacturer really pushed us to not use it. And he said, you know, I can get cyanocobalamin so much cheaper. It's so much more bioavailable. It'll lower your per capsule cost. can get folic acid that's what everybody else is doing that's what they told us and we're like yeah that's precisely we like why we don't

want to use it exactly now there's lots of good brands that have methylated folate and and and don't have the cyanocobalamin they have the methylcobalamin um but we've also had patients that when we go through their medicine cabinets and they have an mthfr gene break and some of the other ones too i've been shocked that literally we had a patient who was prescribed a pharmaceutical prescription grade folic acid and cyanocobalamin folic acid cyanocobalamin combo i'm like no wonder you're nuts and she would take it in the morning and she had to take um xanax or valium by the afternoon because her anxiety was so rampant and the recommendation was just to get off that hate to think about it but i did it for years

in my early training i i knew we needed b vitamins i knew they were missing i just didn't have the i just didn't have uh the the knowledge base or the experience. And when we got into this gene testing and this methylation, especially if you have several breaks, or you have influence from both parents coming at you, it's just night and day difference. So I want to get to this, because I know that we're trying to keep this to 45, 60 minutes. I want to get to some of the questions that you specifically got on that.

I do have specific. So leading into that is, you know, as an OBGYN and, you know, sadly seeing so many women going through miscarriages and infertility issues. Do you think that that has something to do with methylation and being prescribed or told to take different types of vitamins they can't process? We know that it is now. So the MTHFR and not, and not having the right methylated vitamins. And it's one of the easiest ways. And honestly, at the end of the day, it was recurrent miscarriages that brought the whole MTHFR thing to light. That was something that we were working on a decade ago. We get so many questions from young women that are saying,

I've had either repeated miscarriages or a difficult time getting pregnant. And for those, you'd recommend that they take methylated? I recommend that they're immediately on a methylated multivitamin. And then also that they do a whole assessment of their diet. You've got to pull out the folic acid component in your diet. Which is foods that are fortified or enriched. Right. Sugars, baked goods tend to be processed food.

I tend to kind of, if it's white, it's not right kind of thing. If someone says, what can I not eat? I'm like, let's just start with flour. Let's just pull, my two big things always are, let's pull out flour, let's pull out soda. Let's start you on a vitamin and make sure their vitamin D is included in that. And let me see in a month. And that right there, it changes their ovulation. It changes their menstrual cycle, their their mood as simple as that and women oftentimes

especially with heavy menstrual cycles i will add in the iron and i at least during their menstrual cycle and i oftentimes will make sure that they're on some kind of iodine uh Celtic sea salt or some kind of extra substitute there. And that seems to be the secret. And then we look at their cycle and decide then, okay, do we need progesterone? Do we need to balance you? People tend to come to me at this point, they've tried a lot of things. So I'm getting some pretty sick people. So I kind of got to dive right in with a lot of

people but in general if you're just set if you're just at home going i'm not sleeping i'm depressed i have hot clashes and i'm an interest in sex and i cannot lose weight no matter what i do i i recommend your b vitamins your omega-3 vitamin d and, and getting extra salt, like a Celtic sea salt. We don't want table salt. Remember, Celtic sea salt, and there's a lot of good ones out there, it retains about 76% of its mineral content in this one. And in comparison, table salt's about 1%, so no wonder it's not very good. And we've used that.

We've used Baja salt, Celtic salt. And then we were recommending pink Himalayan sea salt for a while, but then we started reading all these studies about the level of heavy metals, especially in the sea salt coming out of China. So we kind of tried to steer clear of the… Yeah. That took a lot of shit on Instagram for that. Yeah, you sure did.

But the video went viral because it does help people with migraines. Because if you're severely dehydrated, you were one of the, you taught us the sea salt soleil trick. Can you tell us about that? So what I like to do, just simple, easy, one quarter teaspoon of Celtic sea salt in the morning. You can put it on food. It's just easy, really, just to throw it in some water and drink it in the morning.

It's so good for your hydration status. It's good. It's lots of minerals. It helps you re because we forget that we're thirsty. We don't even know what it is to be thirsty anymore. It kind of resets your thirst. It really helps those adrenal glands get you up and get you going, um, in the morning. And, and again, that whole balance we're talking about. Okay, I love that. Hey guys, as you know, I do not push products on my podcast or my social media unless I use them in my everyday life.

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ultimate and now back to the ultimate human podcast those were the ones i had for today i mean this was um a huge wow i really ripped through a lot i know we actually got through and i survived being the only male on the panel in the estrogen sandwich i think the only piece that since we did touch on infertility and miscarriages, maybe a little bit more on that. I know people will kind of, they'll hear the menopause and they'll hear, you know, infertility or miscarriages. Any other advice that you have for women that are suffering with that? Yes. So if you're not cycling normal and if you're having symptoms, it is really hard to get pregnant. So, so back up and start there.

Those nutrients I was talking about in those food changes, get your cycles back to normal. There's ovulation kits out there. If you're not passing your ovulation kit, those are easy. You can pick them up anywhere. You check them days 11 of your cycle. So day, if you even spot or bleed, that's day one of your cycle. And then day 11 through 14 check you know check those ovulation kits and if you're not ovulating you're not gonna get pregnant right so for the infertility people it's making sure you're ovulating you can do that on your own make sure you're taking those those few nutrients that we talked about and then um symptom wise you know if you're having symptoms you still probably need to see your your ob-gy. And for the miscarriage person, it's traumatic.

There's no doubt about it. No matter what week you are, it is traumatic. Whether people know you're pregnant or not know you're pregnant. And your hormones are all out of whack. It takes about 30 days to recover from a miscarriage from a hormone standpoint. So the methylated vitamins and vitamin D are probably the two biggest things that I would recommend. Methylated vitamins, vitamin D, good EPA, BHA, fish oil.

Right, the omega-3. Omega-3 fish oil. And to get the whites out of your diet and the sugars, white flour, white rice, white bread, white pasta, and that is fortified or enriched. And then see how things go over the next month. And if things are not getting better, then get your hormones checked. Is that kind of a good summary? Yes, it is. And remember, gluten-free junk food is still junk food, right? So I always have to kind of put that caveat in because you do have to

change your diet and you want it to be those good fats, really good fats. That's what women need. They need it to make hormones. They need it to make babies. They need it to get pregnant, good fats. One thing that I admire about you and always like I share this story with everybody that I introduce to you. You've been an OBGYN for 27 years. You've delivered over 8,000 babies, but you weren't able to have a baby yourself. And so you adopted four from your patients. I did. And I love that about you. You know what?

They are the four best things that the good Lord ever put on this planet. And they were exactly made for me. But I got to tell you, and maybe that's why I'm so passionate about this. They were tough years. And it was hard on my body. I had no direction. I mean, I'm a physician. I could get to anybody.

I had top specialists. And I had no direction on simple things like taking 5-methylfolate, omega-3. My vitamin D level was 9. I would beg to differ that I have probably some of the most years of education number-wise. Exactly. And have access to pretty much whatever I want. And there I was. And there I was. And it was miserable.

It was miserable. Now, luckily, it's not like that today. Right. But it definitely was in my error. And I'm just so thankful that I was able to help other women. And I was able to help the women that gave me my children. Yeah. I love that story.

It makes me love you more. She is an adoption magnet she's adopted dogs she's adopted cats true story she's adopted kids if you her sister has adopted children if you need a home just send to info at dr sarda.com she'll adopt you too i want to be adopted i love it every time i talk to her on a zoom call i'm like what is that she's like oh this is a new cat i'm like when did you get a new cat? Oh, it's a stray. I do rehome them, just for the record.

I'm not the cat lady running around with 50 cats. Okay. But I do bring a lot of them in, cats and dogs. And I nurse them back, and then we find really great homes for them. But you slow down on the humans. And sometimes I would like to do that with my children. Yeah. So if you're looking for a home,

Dr. Sarta may have the place for you. This has been amazing. You know, I'd really like to take some more questions from or inquiries from our audience. And, you know, we got a lot of interest in, you know, female hormone therapy and more about females that have been on this journey with us. So I'm gonna try to invite some of the women that have had a positive journey with us

on to talk about their experience. But if you guys are watching this podcast, you're enjoying this podcast or things that we missed or things that you would rather see us talk about with Dr. Sarda or some of our other doctors, neurologists or what have you, please submit those at theultimatehuman.com. And we'll try to

get a podcast episode surrounded by those. We end every podcast episode, this is a surprise question with the same question we ask every guest we have on the podcast. What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? To me, I would have to say the first thing that came to my mind was balance and peace. I like that. Wow. That's the first time somebody said that. That's amazing. Balance and peace.

I like that. Have you ever answered that question? Have I ever answered? I mean, I know you wrote a book called Becoming the Ultimate Human. I guess you could say it's a 128-page answer. I don't know that I have balance and peace in my life, though. It's a lot of chaos. That was amazing.

We really enjoyed having you on. And I definitely got to take a second to plug your guys' book, too. It's amazing. I've got the opportunity to have a little bit of a sneak peek at it. And it's definitely going to be a uh we definitely put our heart and soul into it and i have the utmost amount of respect for anybody who's ever written a book before because it is not and like you you get halfway through it and then you hate it and you start over and then you hit the beginning and you hate the story and then you you want it to change your mind

you want it to be educational and and then in our case, we have to cite references for every claim. Yeah, because people are going to try to rip us apart. Although, you know what? It'll be 98% of people I think will have good response. Very good response. But we used a lot of real-life stories from real patients. A lot of evidence-based. I think the thing, too, is I think in this day and age,

and lots of things are anecdotal, but you've got to have evidence-based medicine and evidence-based decisions now stories are personal patient stories that and a lot of them are your yeah they're your patients yeah because we don't we can't see patients so most of them are your patients so we should give you some credit too but i hope you enjoyed this podcast if you have any other questions you'd like to see us cover in a podcast go to theultimatehumanhuman.com. You can sign up for the newsletter there. You can actually pre-order our book. You can get the gene tests that Dr. Sartor was referring to. You can even get set up

for blood work, or we can give you some information on what you might want to be asking your doctor to do when they look at your blood or you look at your hormone panels. And back again with another episode soon. And as always, that's just science.