All right , welcome back . It's the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with Dr Philip Ovadia , and our guest today is I believe this is the first time we've ever had a guest in Dubai . Phil , Introduce our guest for us .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYes , indeed , we are rapidly expanding our international presence as well . So really excited today to talk with Dr Kyrin Dunston . She is a traditionally trained OB- GYN and , like so many of the guests we've had on here , has taken a different path to health and is helping people in new and innovative ways . So really excited to talk with her and I'm going to turn it over to Kyrin , let her give a little bit more of her background and then really excited to kind of talk about some women's health issues and , you know , metabolism , which she focuses on as well .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSure . So yes , I am traditionally trained OB GYN . I've been board certified for 30 years in the United States and had a very traditional OB GYN practice , delivered thousands of beautiful babies and worked with many , many women on their health . And then my own health started faltering and at one point I was morbidly obese weight 243 pounds and had myriad health problems like depression , anxiety . My hair was falling out , I had irritable bowel gastritis .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI looked and felt 20 years older than I was , and all the tools that I had been trained in my traditional OB-GYN training couldn't fix me , nor could they really help my aging patients who were also in their 40s at the time and who suffered with what I call midlife metabolic mayhem, the 60 or so symptoms that women start experiencing , sometimes as early as in their 30s or 20s , but usually by the time they're in their 40s or 50s and that really mainstream medicine doesn't have answers for it . We're told it's normal for our age to want to nap in the afternoon, to lose energy . It's normal for our age not to have a sex drive , to be losing hair , and that wasn't really acceptable to me . But the toolbox that I had of drugs and surgery couldn't fix my problems or my patients' problems , and then one day it was actually a patient who taught me about there is another way you can look for the root cause of these problems . She had gone to a provider somewhere else who helped her with the midlife metabolic mayhem symptoms she was having by doing tests I never heard of and treatments I never heard of to find the underlying root causes and address them . And she had lost all the weight she wanted to lose , had her energy back , her hair back , the light was back on in her eyes . She was smiling and had a pep in her step .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAfter I saw her after , when I couldn't fix those things with all my prescriptions and I said , oh my gosh , maybe I don't know everything as a board certified OBGYN, about women's health . Let me see what else there is to learn . And I started on this seven year journey of a fellowship training in anti-aging , metabolic and functional medicine and learned how to reverse my symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem , all my patients , and how to really help people to heal and achieve the health that they deserve . I work only with women , but this works for men too , and so it's transformed not only my personal health but my professional life too , because now this is all I do with women from a global perspective , mostly in the United States , but also in Canada and other areas as well .
Dr. Philip OvadiaExcellent . So I'm going to jump right into a big question first , no easing into it here . We have now heard a similar story to yours so many times the doctor who's unhealthy , whether it's a patient that initially prompts them , or they do their own research , they start coming across the alternative information , get different training than we all got in medical school and set down this pathway . It's my story . It's so many other stories of the guests that we've had on here . What do you think is the key for physicians to make that transition ? Why do we see so many of our colleagues that are just as unhealthy and getting the same poor results with their patients , who don't start asking those questions and don't get curious about this and just keep their nose down and keep doing what they're doing ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYeah , that's a great question and what I will say is it's our belief system and it's actually . We have these problems because of the main issue that's not addressed in medicine and that is our minds . In medicine , we really ignore consciousness and how our minds work and belief . But what we don't understand as physicians is and all of them are just like you and me, they're bright , they want to help people , they're very altruistic people . That's who we are . We want the biggest toolbox in order to help people . So we go through our medical training because when I was looking around , I knew I wanted to work with women's health . I said , well , how can I help them to the greatest of my ability ? Oh , I need to get my MD . That's the biggest toolbox . That's our belief because that's what we've been trained .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut that's actually not true . It is a belief system in a particular business of medicine that is a for profit industry that actually has created the yardsticks by which its tools are measured so that it proves that the tools of drugs and surgery work . And if you only have a belief system that health is created by these tools, pharmaceuticals and surgical intervention, then and you create your yardsticks of double blind , placebo , controlled trials that will only prove what I'll call Newtonian type of interactions , whether they're biochemical in the body or anatomical in the body with surgery , then that's all that can ever be proven work . I don't know if this is making sense . And so we go into the the field , and then we are indoctrinated , aka brainwashed , but indoctrinated into a belief system of a business of delivering health care . And it's not only us as physicians who are indoctrinated into that , but it's the entire society is brainwashed from being a child going through the health care system that the doctor is the authority on your body . The doctor is the one who delivers quote unquote health . If you're not healthy , it's the doctor's fault . The doctor is responsible for your health , right ? There are all these underlying layered beliefs that go along with it , that abdicate people's own personal responsibility and understanding for their body and really guides them away from that . And then the doctor who delivers the prescription for pharmaceuticals or surgical intervention is the expert . And so back to your question . We're all in this delusional kind of creation of this belief system about what health is and how it's administered . That is faulty , it's not based on reality and it's not our fault as doctors going into it . We really do have good intentions , but when we become indoctrinated into this and you're told by the highest certifying board in the world that you know more about X topic and health than anyone else , you have no reason to investigate anything else or believe that anything else is valid . And so I call it .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonWe get contempt prior to investigation . There's nothing possibly about women's health that I don't know . That is valid , right , and it's funny because , Philip , when I look back to my journey , I discovered this kind of root cause resolution about 15 years ago . But even 10 years before that , there was a doctor in our town who practiced this type of medicine . But when I learned about it , did I investigate and look into ? Is it valid ? No , we all just talked about him behind his back . We said he was a charlatan . He didn't know what he was talking about , but not one of us actually took the time to investigate the validity of what he did . Now , fast forward , when I did my fellowship and I said , oh my gosh , he knew so much more than I did .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut I think that's what most of us physicians believe is no , the American Board of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said I know more about women's health than anyone else .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonTherefore , if they say hormone testing , there's no standard of care for it , it's invalid , then it must be true , so I'm not even going to look into it .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIf they say bio identical hormones are harmful and that compounded hormones are inadequately dosed on a consistent basis correctly , well then I don't need to look into that .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut what we don't step back and look at is these things are extremely valid and extremely accurate and extremely useful and actually helping people to heal getting out of midlife metabolic mayhem , avoiding disease and actually premature death . When it comes to women , because what I call hormonal poverty is associated with all three of these consequences the 60 or so symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem , increased risk of disease like Alzheimer's dementia which my mother suffers from , I believe primarily because she had untreated menopause for over three decades because her doctor didn't believe quote unquote in hormone replacement therapy and then premature death . Most women are not aware that their lifespan is decreased when they go into hormonal poverty of menopause and it's not treated , their lifespan shortened . So I don't think it's anyone's fault that we're in the situation we're in , but I think it is incumbent upon physicians like you and me to really start sounding the alarm bell and waking people up to the reality .
Midlife Metabolic Mayhem and Hormonal Imbalance Jack HealdSo I wanted, two different questions . One I want you to expand on this idea of midlife metabolic mayhem . I realize that's focused primarily on women , but hey , we got a lot of women listening to this show .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIt's men too really .
Jack HealdWell , that was my follow up question . And how does that affect men ? But let's start with you first .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSure . So as a practicing OB-GYN, I delivered lots of babies and those women were primarily in their 20s and 30s and as they aged and I aged , then we got into our 40s . There are these myriad complaints I could list 60 or more of them that women suffer with, weight gain right , and the statistics show that 60% of us by the age of 50 are overweight or obese , and 10 years later , three out of four of us are overweight or obese . It's more prevalent in women . We have greater problems with our weight than men , but men have it too . Men tend to have it a little later when they get antropause . So weight gain , fatigue right ? Being tired throughout the day , tired in the afternoon , eating coffee , caffeine , sleeping all night and waking up and not feeling rested , decrease in sex drive , decrease in fertility rates . Fertility rates have gone down astronomically globally in both men and women , and this is also associated with a decrease in libido . We've got memory problems . We have cognitive problems , we have mood problems , depression and anxiety . One of the, some of the highest cost centers in medicine pharmaceuticals are for antidepressants and anxiolytics . We have people with hair loss , skin problems , gastrointestinal disease , autoimmune disease . The list goes on right ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnybody listening . Think of 10 symptoms that you've had in the past 10 days, Right ? I'm sure you could list them like this . Right ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIt's the topic at every book club you go to, at your church meeting . Everybody's in the corner , especially particularly for women . I don't know what the men are talking about . This is what we're talking about . Oh , my hair is falling out . My hairdresser says it's not a problem . My doctor doesn't have any answers . My relationship's on the rocks because I don't want to have intimacy with my partner , and what's wrong with me ? And my doctor doesn't have any answers . Right ? This is the problem . And we're all on Google looking for Dr . Google's answers to our problems . Why ? Because doctors don't have the answers . We don't have the answers for these everyday maladies that are signs of not disease , but just not optimum health . Right ? That we don't have the answers . So we're looking elsewhere , and that's why there are blogs , health blogs everywhere , and podcasts trying to answer these questions and people are trying to figure out for themselves .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd American College of OB-GYN only acknowledges three symptoms of menopause . And now these symptoms start earlier in perimenopause for women , usually by 35 or 40 . Three symptoms they acknowledge . Eurogenital atrophy , or vaginal and urinary dryness , which can include urinary leakage or vaginal dryness , hot flashes and night sweats . That's it , and that's just not true . You talk to any woman who's in menopause or in perimenopause and she will give you a laundry list of symptoms .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIt's documented that all the things we're talking about are symptomatology of hormonal imbalance and dysfunction . That is by design . Our ovaries are delivered with a certain number of eggs to us when we're born . They start maturing when we go through puberty and then every month we might mature one or two eggs , but thousands more disintegrate , so that by the time we're 35 , we have such a low number of eggs . And that's where our sex hormones estrogen , progesterone and half of our testosterone as women comes from . It's programmed obsolescence . We don't have enough eggs to make enough of these hormones . So , by design , at 35 to 40 , we're in hormonal poverty . So financial poverty is when you don't have the financial resources to meet your living needs , and hormonal poverty is when you don't have the hormonal resources to meet your body's hormonal needs .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYour hormones are one of the most important factors in how your body functions . They are communicators and they originate in your mainframe computer , your central nervous system , your brain , and so your brain regulates everything . It has two branches . It has the wired branch , just like when the internet comes in your house , you can plug your computer into it . That's your wired branch . Your body has the wired nervous system , where nerves originate in your brain and go to all parts of your body . And that's why you can snap your fingers , because your brain tells your fingers to move those muscles . And then you have the wireless internet in your house where you can use your computer wirelessly . You also have that from your brain and that's your hormonal system that controls your metabolic functions . So in any system , the most important factor of that system is communication for it to function optimally .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo let me give you an example . When there was a hurricane like there was Hurricane Katrina several years ago in Louisiana , what was the first thing that had to happen to restore functionality to that area ? You had to get communication back up . You had to get the phone lines up so that people could know well , how many hospital beds do you need ? How many people are injured ? What kind of supplies do you need ? Do you have water ? I know for women a big issue during that crisis was they didn't have sanitary products . So they would have never known that if there hadn't been communication . So they had to get the phone lines up and then get the roads open . So communication and then transportation .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd in your body the communication system comes from your brain , mainframe computer, wired and wireless . Wired nervous system is way hardier and can withstand more problems . That's why a lot of the nervous system problems that you can encounter will happen much later . It requires a lot of insult , like ALS for instance . But the wireless internet, I don't know about in your house , but in mine it goes out when there's a rainstorm or electrical blip, right, or cannot connect .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYou get those spinning wheels . It's the same with your hormones . So they start in your brain and then they have to be delivered to other places through the bloodstream and secondary messengers deploy . So it's kind of like that game telephone used to play when you were kids and remember how distorted the message would be from the first person who delivered the message and delivered the message and delivered the message to the last . By the time it got to the last person the message is distorted . There's so many problems that can go wrong that it's the same with your hormonal system . So by design women are programmed to have hormonal problems at midlife . It's just how we're designed . But in mainstream medicine , we stick our heads in the sand and we go blah , blah , blah , it's not happening . It's not happening . I mean , if you ask me why we do that , which would be a great question , I think because the answer actually is so simple . Number one , it's so cost-effective . Number two , but number three ,
Biologically Identical Hormones Can’t Be Patented Dr. Kyrin Dunstonit flies in the face of the for-profit health industry , because they can't get patents they can't get patents
Dr. Kyrin Dunstonon Biologically identical hormones that are the same as what . You can't get a patent on something that's exactly the same as a body substance like, I can't go get a patent on potassium and then say that I own potassium . No one else can make potassium and sell it to people for their health . Now if I make a unique delivery system for potassium or right like some time-release capsule and I think some of those are available then I can get a patent on that .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo when it comes to women's hormones , so what happened originally was years ago when our lifespan started increasing in the early 1900s . Right before then we didn't live any length of time in menopause , so it wasn't an issue quality of life for women in menopause . We died , you know , in the 1800s , pretty much before we went into menopause or at menopause . So average age of menopause in the Western world is 51 . We didn't live that long .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut then , as women started living longer , with the advent of antibiotics and surgical procedures that actually could prolong life , it became an issue with women , it was known , lost there what they call femininity at the time , and I've seen some ads for hormones that were given to women back in the early 1900s . So somebody who was astute said oh , women don't feel like themselves , they're having all these climactic symptoms , it's because of lack of hormones . Let's give them hormones . But instead of saying oh , women , kind dominant , predominantly have estradiol that's the most powerful estrogen in the body that makes women feel good . Right , instead of giving them that , because if they just manufactured human estradiol , they couldn't get a patent on it .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonHmm to recoup the funds that it cost them to do the trials and research to prove that it was safe and effective . So most drug companies won't ever do that . So they said let's get an estrogen that's similar to human estrogen , but that's different enough we can get a patent on it . So what they did is they looked to , and I don't know why this was . I would love to hear that story one day . I imagine it was a bunch of people sitting around drinking cocktails and someone said let's give them horse estrogen from pregnant horses . And somebody thought that was a good idea , which now I look back and I said that's insane . But that's what they did . And so they said well , horses are mammals and we can capture, you know , keep these pregnant horses and we can get equilin , which is horse estrogen . They have it in high amounts and then we'll purify it and give it to women . And they did . And guess what ? Women felt better . Right , because it was similar enough to hit some of those receptors that they felt better . So they got an approval for it , and this is way back before the FDA had such stringent requirements as they do today , was much more lax , and so this started being marketed .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIt was a very successful drug and I can't . It might have been Eli Lilly , but don't quote me on that . It might have been a different drug company , um , who did this . But then after a few years , what they started noticing is that women were getting uterine cancer at an increasing rate . Who used the horse Estrogen . And they said , oh my gosh , alarm . Well , it makes sense that that was happening , because estrogen is the driver of growth in female sensitive hormone tissues like breast and uterus , so it was causing this proliferation of tissue that then became unbridled and turned cancerous . When it's not opposed and balanced by the other main female hormone , progesterone . Progesterone is the balancer to the estrogen . So they recognized oh my gosh , we're doing this artificially , we're giving them too much estrogen , we need to balance it out and we need to give them progesterone . But again , they're probably sitting at a cocktail party talking about this problem . Nobody says oh well , we should manufacture human progesterone to counteract the estrogen effects . No , because they can't get a patent on it . So they send their chemist to the lab and say okay , chemically alter progesterone , so it's different enough that the FDA will give us a patent on it and it will still have the effects of bouncing out the estrogen , but it won't cause any problems and we can get our patents . So that's what they did .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo they applied different groups and what they came up with was medroxy progesterone acetate , which is not progesterone , human female progesterone . It's a chemically altered progestin that's just like equilin . It's similar enough to stimulate the receptors . But who knows what all those other chemical differences are doing ? And to let you know how big a problem that is , if you think that one chemical group doesn't make a difference , the difference between creating a male or a female in utero is one chemical change between estrogen and testosterone . One change . That's how powerful you can, you make one change , you get a male . You make a . You change it back , you get a female .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo this idea that we're going to tinker with these human hormones and make them a little different to get a patent but we don't think it's really going to be that different is insane . And that's what they did . So then they had Premarin , which was equilin , and they had medroxy progesterone acetate , which was marketed as Prevera , Premarin and Prevera . And then they gave them together and they said we've solved the problem of the uterine cancer . Now women don't get uterine cancer , and that was the standard of care for decades until I came through my training in the 1980s and we gave women Premarin and Provera and it was pretty much taken as the gospel that this reduced your risk of heart attack and heart diseases , women number one killer over age 50 , and had myriad health benefits on our mood , cognition , weight , etc . And then I'll never forget the day that in my office they were doing the women's health initiative trial in California and they stopped the trial early because of an increased risk of breast cancer and other complications with Premarin and Provera combination and they did not prove the benefit health benefits that had previously been touted and the headlines in the news .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonHormones caused breast cancer . All women came off their hormones , ached cog , retracted all previous statements and said basically , there are only three symptoms of menopause . You should only treat Uh oh , I forgot , osteoporosis was one of them . You should only treat in the shortest amount of time , lowest dose possible , with hormones . All these myriad symptoms that women have been suffering with for decades were basically thrown out the door like that's not a thing . You don't have those problems , we were told . So we were gaslit and ever since then it's, I don't know if I can curse on here , but it's been a shit show when it comes to women's hormones .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah and um yeah . So much to get into there , the rabbit hole of the women's health initiative study and all of that . But before we , uh , before we get to some of that , I just want to ask a pretty simple question . Um , is the age of menopause changing ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThat's a great question and not to my knowledge , on average I mean over the past century has increased right as our quality of life has increased . But to my knowledge it's been pretty steady since I've been through my training in the 1980s at 51 . Okay .
Dr. Philip OvadiaBecause I think we do have fairly good data suggesting that puberty is coming on earlier in girls these days and it just seems and maybe it's kind of the more awareness of the free or the perimenopause it seems that you even mentioned it yourself that this isn't , it's not 50 year olds that are really presenting with these symptoms , it's 30 year olds that are starting to present with these symptoms .
Menopause, Hormonal Replacement, and Metabolic Health Dr. Philip OvadiaSo , you know , some would say that , okay , this , like you said , this is sort of a pre-programmed thing in women's bodies . You know why mess with it ? Like you know , nature should have , you know , probably designed this pretty well . Why go messing with it to start with ? And then , you know , perhaps touch a little bit on . Are there , what are some of the factors that maybe affect how severely certain women are affected by this ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonRight , okay , so the first part of your question , it's the way nature designed us . Why mess with it ? Well , you know , look at our health . Before we started any of our modern health care practices , we were designed to die when we are reproductive capacity ceased . Why did we do any of the things we've done to improve our health , our cardiovascular health , any any aspects of our health ? Why didn't we just leave it at oh well , we're going to reproduce and then we're going to die and that's good enough for us . So that would be the question I would ask . The other thing is , you know , we are tampering with nature and our health all the time ever , trying to increase our quality of life and improve our standard of living , so that we not only live longer , but that our vitality span not just our life span has increased , where we're more vital and alive and can experience things more fully and participate more fully . And you know that's kind of a philosophical question . There are some people who say , well , I want to do menopause naturally , because that's the way I was , nature designed me . So if nature designed that , I'm done with my ovaries and my heart , sex hormones , I'm fine with that . And I say that's fine , just make sure you're educated on the consequences of making that choice . I've never met a woman who , when properly educated about the three consequences of hormonal poverty , midlife , metabolic mayhem , disease, and premature death , didn't immediately say oh , I didn't know that . I don't want to choose that . I do want to replace my hormones . And so I think this idea of blissful ignorance or I'll say willful ignorance , that that's the way nature designed it . I'm going to just do it naturally comes out of lack of information and understanding , and you'll find that most doctors aren't even aware . They've been in the system so long that they don't, they really start to believe their own dogma . And tiredness is just normal for your age , because they too are tired and as they age and they think that it's normal . And to drink coffee every day , right , we have this national addiction and obsession with caffeine and it's so much a part of our culture that we don't even question it anymore . But if you step outside the matrix and you start questioning , no , it's rather that's , it is that normal , is that right ? Okay , so we're gonna say this is a normal part of life and we're most women at midlife and beyond . You'll see them .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThere's a musical called Menopause The Musical and a friend of had asked me one day I was planning to do a summit for women at menopause and I was trying to decide what to call it and she's in the health care field , so we were batting around titles and she said well , did you see Menopause , The Musical ? And I said no , why ? She said every musical number is about making fun of some aspect of a symptom health symptom that women have at menopause , like hot flashes or no sex drive . And you walk in and they give you your program and they give you a fan , and all these women are fanning themselves as if they're having hot flashes and laughing and laughing . And every musical number is making fun of us how we medicate with caffeine and coffee in the morning and wine at night because we're so miserable , and how we're sexless and we eat chocolate to numb ourselves . And they're laughing and laughing . And she says I'm looking around and tears are rolling down my face , thinking that women have accepted that this is the best we can do at midlife and beyond is make fun of ourselves and medicate ourselves with caffeine , wine, and chocolate . And that's really what we've accepted . And it's all because of lack of understanding and lack of knowledge . I did a TED talk last year on the effects of the three effects of hormonal poverty that we've been discussing , and most women who hear it, it's on my YouTube channel, are appalled to learn .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThey say how come I never doctor never told me that there's an over 70% reduction in the incidence of Alzheimer's dementia in women who receive hormone replacement therapy ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonHow come my doctor never told me that multiple multi-center trials have demonstrated the health benefits in preventing heart disease and heart attack , the number one killer of women over age 50 ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonHow come my doctor never sat me down and talked to me about my risk of osteoporosis as I age and how , if I do get bone thinning , how come I've never been tested , many of them with a proper test , the central bone density and that if I do get a hip fracture , that I have a one in three chance of dying from it or a one in three chance of becoming disabled where I can no longer live independently , and that hormone replacement therapy could help prevent and reverse this right ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonHow come nobody told me during the COVID epidemic that I'm a woman in menopause and that when I , if I do get COVID first off , my risk for getting COVID as severe infection is higher if I'm not on hormone replacement and I have a higher risk of dying from it if I'm not on hormone replacement . Why was that never discussed ? So I find that when you educate women about this topic , they say , oh , nevermind , I don't wanna do it the way nature made me . I want to use naturally occurring hormones that are the same as what my body had, to replace and get me from hormonal poverty to hormonal prosperity , so that I can live the next half or even two thirds of my life , right ? Our average age span is 82 . So we're gonna live a third or so or more of our lives in menopause , and that time will be longer if we're on hormone replacement therapy . So it's really . Someone would only say that if they're not properly informed is what I find .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , great . Yeah , that was just a powerhouse of information , but one of the things that struck me as you were going through those statistics is all of them are pretty similar for addressing your underlying metabolic health issues , your insulin resistance . So what's the relationship there that you've seen and how much do you think of mitigating these effects is reliant on improving your insulin resistance and your metabolic health , versus replacing the hormones with bio-identical hormones .
Hormonal Poverty Dr. Kyrin DunstonRight , and yeah , that's a great question because it's not only about sex hormones and you had asked earlier about why is it more severe at an earlier age for some women ? And this gets to exactly what you're asking me about insulin and the other hormones . So I say there are seven main metabolic hormones that need to be addressed . It's not just estrogen , progesterone , testosterone in hormonal poverty , but a lot of women have problems with the other metabolic hormones insulin , thyroid , cortisol and DHEA . Insulin in particular , which I say is it's the mother , she's the most important hormone , and insulin resistance goes up and then therefore pre-diabetes and diabetes in women who have hormonal poverty of their sex hormones , and so one of the reasons is because of the estrogen , progesterone , testosterone help with the insulin regulation , but there's so many insulin problems , primarily because of our diet and lifestyle , our sedentary lifestyle and our high processed food and sugar content diet , that we have dysregulated insulin and then , because of those problems , our cortisol is often unbalanced and add on to it stress in our lives , psychosocial stress , but also inflammatory stress in our bodies , and these , combined with the sex hormone imbalances , are what produce most of the symptoms for women , and this is where you'll see women really early on , sometimes even teenagers .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI've had a girl comes to mind whose mother took impeccable care of herself and her daughter was in high school , 16 and having period problems and fatigue and acne and gut problems and all kinds of symptoms . She brought her to me and she already was having sex hormone imbalances because she had insulin problems and she had cortisol problems . And your body considers reproductive hormones estrogen , progesterone and testosterone they're important , but reproduction is secondary to survival and insulin , thyroid , cortisol , DHEA speak to your survival and when you start having problems with those , your body says nevermind reproduction , nevermind periods and getting pregnant , we've got to deal with survival here . We've got to deal with the cortisol , the insulin . So she was already in that state at 16 years old , looking like a menopausal or perimenopausal woman . That was the symptom . But the underlying cause was her diet was a crazy teenager, sugar-laden , processed food diet . Her schedule as an honor roll student was insane and the responsibilities and expectations on her . So she looked like a perimenopausal woman . And this is where you see teenagers getting it 20 year olds , 30 year olds , way earlier .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd the sad thing is that at her mainstream doctors who her mother had originally taken her to , they just put her on birth control pills . And that's what I did for thousands of women in my career , because that's what I was taught . Symptom of crazy periods in a young girl give birth control pill and all that does is shut down the female hormone system and then you basically override the periods . You create an artificial period every month and you claim victory because you fixed the periods , the symptom of irregular periods problem solved . Meanwhile that girl , if she had stayed just on the birth control pill, excuse me, would have had continue to have insulin disruption , cortisol , DHEA , thyroid problems that would have never been addressed . For who knows , some women stay on these pills for decades and then , when the time came , when maybe she wanted to get pregnant , she would get off of them . She wouldn't be able to get pregnant and then she'd go through all kinds of fertility treatment and no one might have ever looked at the underlying cause . Thank goodness that her mother brought her to me at 16 . So we could identify this .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut this is why you really have an epidemic of women with unresolved health problems , that just they just change form and morph their symptomatology .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBecause I always teach my women that symptoms are not the problem , I know that every woman thinks the symptom of I can't sleep all night and I wake up at one o'clock in the morning and lay there in bed for two hours , looking at the clock is the problem . But it's not . It's the signpost pointing to what the problem is . And so if you don't follow the signposts and look at why you can't sleep and figure out , oh , is there a cortisol problem ? Is there a thyroid problem ? Insulin problem ? Is there toxicity ? Is the lymphatic system overworked at night ? What is the problem and fix it . You never will fix the underlying cause . But mainstream medicine is very clear . When we fix the symptom , like the symptom of high blood pressure , when we bring the blood pressure down by giving a medicine to relax the blood vessels and we claim victory , right , nope , but no one's looking at what's causing the blood vessels to be constricted in the first place , right ? So anyway , I was very grateful that this woman brought her 16 year olds so that we could take a look at that .
Jack HealdWow , this reminds me of my own health crisis , I guess 18 years ago now . I had a serious GERD and the physician prescribed something oh , you've got too much acid in your stomach . Well , let's just make sure the acid in your stomach . He literally prescribed a symptom reducer and there was something about it that just hit him or asked why is my stomach producing too much acid ? It was just oh , here's a pill to make the acid go away .
Jack HealdAnd I know my story isn't unique . I know that anybody who's been on earth four or five or six decades has run into something like this and , honest to God , I would . I want to just sit and listen . This is one of the most fascinating conversations . Actually , I'm loving it . Phil , I'm sorry I'm not asking good questions . I'm totally fanboying right here , because this is . Kyrin, you're so , so articulately explaining what my journey through the allopathic health care system was as a patient , and you know I'm grateful to have found a functional medical doctor who was able to heal me . But I just want to say yes , more , please go more , more , more .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , definitely . So I think it would be great to maybe get into it a little bit , and I know it's a very complex topic . But , you know , for the woman that does want to pursue this and do the bioidentical hormones , you know what are some of the key things that they should be aware of , because one of the things that I've certainly observed , you know , many of my patients and many of the people that are coming to you know our community , some of them are doing it , but it's not being done well and that leads to its own host of problems . There are so many options out there now . You know there are a number of options of ways to do this , and so what are some of the key points that women should know about to be able to kind of navigate that world of bioidentical hormones ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYeah , that is such a great question and such a great point , Philip , that because the people who should be leading the cause and really regulating and setting up how hormone replacement is done are just not doing it . You have people all over of different training and background and qualifications doing it and it is not always done well or properly and in fact , can be harmful . So it makes it very hard for the consumer . So what are my tips on that ? And I'll say this goes for men too , because increasingly , with andropause and testosterone deficiency , testosterone poverty is an issue for men at younger and younger ages . So they need to know about this too , and it's the same situation
Testing, Investing, and Your Health Dr. Kyrin Dunston.
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo number one is you need to test , not guess . You need to get the proper tests and have them read the proper way . And you know , like I said , there's I've never met an educated , intelligent woman who , when she had this discussion and understood all the consequences of the choices she was making , didn't say wow , I want my seven main metabolic hormones properly tested and properly read well , and I want to address them . Naturally , they all say that , but then the next thing they want to know is does my insurance cover it ? And I say wrong question . The quality of your life will only ever rise to the level of the quality of the questions that you ask . And if your question for your health is always does my insurance cover it ? You will only have health insurance level health .
Jack HealdYep .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd that is not health . That is managed disease . So you will have diseases that are managed with medications and surgery and you'll be like the average 50 year old who's on . Half of us are on five or more prescription medications by the age of 50 . Right , so that will be , and I don't call that health . I don't know about you , but that's just controlled disease .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd if you want vitality , you better ask better questions . And the question number one question you need to stop asking is does my insurance cover it ? Right ? Just like we've been trained to believe who are the experts on our health and what health is and how do we get it and who's the authority on it, the doctor, we've been trained to believe that our health is something provided to us by insurance and our employer and that it is an expense to be minimized . Right , when we do our finances with our accounting , we put all our health care costs in the expense column , not in the investment column with our mortgage payments , but your mortgage payments on your house , the house that you live in . If it burns down , you've got insurance that will replace your house and you'll have a home to live in , but this is your first home , your human body . What are you going to do when it burns down ? Your health insurance is not going to give you a new one . You know , it doesn't matter how much money you have . Steve Jobs had more money than most humans on the earth and when he got pancreatic cancer , all that money could not add one minute or one second to his life . So we're putting our health care expenditures in the wrong column . They are not expenses . They are investments in your most valuable asset , which is your human home , which is your body . Stop asking does your health insurance cover it ? And start asking how can I invest in my most , most valuable asset to the best of my ability , for it to give me the best returns for the longest vitality span and life , to live the highest quality of life .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo you've got to get the right tests and have them read the right way . This is not a blood test . Now , some of them are blood tests , but people want to say , okay , great , Karen , tell me what tests I need . I'm going to go to my $30 HMO co-pay doctor around the corner and get them done . No , you're not , because they're not going to order the right tests and when the tests come , they're not going to know how to read them . So you've got to find someone who's qualified , who has a training , like we've had to know what tests to do .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo for the sex hormones , my favorite test that I think is the standard of care is the precision analytical DUTCH test dried urine hormone test and then you can do thyroid . So the precision analytical test does cortisol and all your sex hormones . It also looks at how you metabolize your estrogens , which is a vital importance . Right In mainstream medicine , doctors aren't looking at that and a lot of people worry about breast cancer . If you're worried about that which every woman should , you need to have urinary metabolites and can see how you're detoxifying . So the DUTCH test does that . You can do thyroid testing in blood and insulin .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut you need to do the right tests , and the test that your mainstream doctor is going to tell you to get and write for you in order is not everything you need . There are other things you need and then you need to know how to read them . And they don't know how to read them . It's not their fault , they're good people . It's just their training is looking for disease and can I manage disease with medications and if that's the type of health you want that your health insurance will provide that's great for your HMO PPO doctor . But if you want vitality and you want to stop having midlife metabolic mayhem , the only way you're going to do that is to get the root cause tests and then have them read for optimal health and target optimal values , and you're going to have to pay for that out of pocket as an investment .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYou know it's funny . I was such a died in the wool $30 HMO copay doctor . I was on all the plans as a provider and in my own health care I wanted to go to the cheapest copay doctor . I wanted the cheapest copay medicine , Right . So that's what I had was copay health . I had a copay level of health . Now I've upgraded to an investment level of health , Right . So , uh , test , don't guess . Get the right test , get them read the right way .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonInvest in your health is number one . Um , and then number two , you've got to make a decision about the two prescriptions that you need for your hormones . One might be a written prescription to get out of hormonal poverty with your sex hormones estrogen , progesterone , testosterone . Find someone who is properly trained and it's very hard to discern with all the myriad types of training available , and I wouldn't want to be a consumer navigating that . And it's funny because sometimes I say , well , maybe I had to go through all my training and experience to help myself , but I'm grateful for it . So if someone has had a board certification , um , particularly in a female specialty like OBGYN , they know it from the traditional perspective . And then if they have a fellowship training and anti aging , metabolic functional medicine or just functional medicine , you could be pretty sure that they know what they're doing and they know what they're talking about .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut if someone is a health coach or if someone you know , I always say to patients don't check your brain at the door , don't check your common sense . We get this white code syndrome where we think that the quote unquote expert is the expert and our opinion doesn't matter and we throw out our thinking process of does this make sense ? So , for example , there are three female sex hormones estrogen , progesterone , testosterone . Notice , testosterone is one of those . We women have it and we need it , just like men . But in mainstream medicine I'll say , no female hormone is as disrespected and disregarded as testosterone and many doctors will just say women don't need that . The only reason they could possibly need it is for sex drive , so don't worry about it , you don't need it . You can't check your brain at the door and go oh well , they said it , they're the experts , so it makes sense . No , that doesn't make sense .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonLet's see what are the symptoms in men when their testosterone starts going down . Well , their dopamine neurotransmitter starts going down . They lose their drive , they lose their edge . They start gaining body fat , particularly around the midsection and breast section . Some of them start looking like women . They get depression and anxiety . They lose muscle mass and gain weight . They don't fit their clothes properly . And everyone knows a guy who's older , who's gone through andropause , and you can spot these symptoms . Well , this testosterone does the same thing for women . We need that . So we need our dopamine , we need our muscle mass . You know , go down the list . So to disregard it and say you don't need it is wrong . But a lot of doctors they won't even touch when it goes to testosterone for women . In fact , this might be the litmus test I would tell people to use with the provider that they're addressing . Do you understand the importance of testosterone for women and do you test it and do you replace it ? And if the answers are no to those, that person does not know what they're talking about .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI think that would be the best .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThere , you go , because I see people with all qualifications and I know that one thing, if you discount the need for testosterone testing and replacement in women , you're disqualified . So , yeah , look at the two prescriptions you need . One might be written , and then the other is the lifestyle prescription for insulin , thyroid , cortisol , DHEA , you and that's really where the work comes in , because for most of us , there's no medication we need for those four hormones . It's changing the way we live , changing how we eat , changing how we live , changing our thoughts . A lot of times it is uncovering , though , occult viral mold infections , parasitic infections , inflammation causes in the body , which is a whole other conversation . So you really have to get a partner who will be your co- detective in ferreting out your underlying root causes of inflammation and cortisol activation and insulin disruption , who will be your partner on the road .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd you have to educate yourself . Right , gone are the days that you can just say the doctors expert on my health , I don't have to worry about it , my vehicle is a car , I just need to put some type of calories in it and lay myself down horizontal for a little bit each day . Right , that's just . That's not going to cut it anymore . You really have to understand this beautiful vehicle that you've been given by God . What does it need to thrive , what does it need to function, and learn how to nurture it properly so that you can address the four hormones that you need a life prescription for ? And I'd say , find someone who walks the walk .
Jack HealdYeah , I like that .
Dr. Philip OvadiaYeah , no , definitely . And again , it's amazing how much that parallels , you know , the advice that I give people who are looking for , you know , their heart health improvement . You know , it just never ceases to amaze me now how I see all of these different practitioners coming at it from . You know all of their different angles and we all pretty much arrive at the same place . And so , you know , I think it's great advice and that will really help women to start to navigate this , men to start to navigate this for themselves and , you know , for both of those to be helping each other navigate this because , like you said , it really does apply to both . What are , I guess , just you know , kind of following up on that, what are some of the , you know , high level mistakes that you see practitioners making ? You know , or people suffering from the mistakes that their practitioners are making ? In terms of this , probably it sounds like the testosterone one for women is a big one . Not addressing that .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonRight . Yeah , that's huge and I'd say that's that's probably . Most practitioners are not getting that right .
Challenges in Hormonal Healthcare Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut you've got the whole gamut , Philip , because you actually have some traditionally trained practitioners who are getting it that there's some problem with how we're serving or not serving women with their hormones , and they're doing the best they can with what they have , but they're prescribing synthetic hormone birth control pills or Depo-Provera shots or giving implants or progestin IUDs to women with hormonal problems .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThey're still telling women we don't test hormones . That's just not true . If a practitioner tells you that they don't know what they're talking about . We do test women's hormones , but your HMO is not going to pay for it and your HMO doctor is not going to know that . So if you're being told that testing is not a thing , go somewhere else .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonIf you're , if you have symptoms , and your doctor so at some point a contest said in their guidance literature that whatever the patient wants is what's right to do for them regarding their hormones , believe it or not . So the patients will go and say , well , I heard that you could test my hormones . And the doctors will say , well , no , we don't . And they'll say , well , I read it on this blog and I want it done , so the doctors will do it , but they don't order the right test and the patient doesn't know what test to order . And then they get the test back and the doctor looks at it and looks over and says , oh , it's within the reference range or normal range . Your labs are normal , there's nothing wrong with you and this is where the real gaslighting for women comes in is that we have millions of women being told that your hormones are normal , quote unquote . There's nothing wrong with you . And that's not true . The doctors aren't trained in how to read it and they don't know . You know what's normal on your lab comes from . Why the bell curve of population measures that says what 95% of the population has is normal . 60% of Americans are overweight or obese . So that's normal for an American to be overweight or obese . So you're normal for an obese person . Like does that make sense ? No , so you need to find someone who's going to read it for optimal values . And if you say optimal values and they don't know what you're talking about , you need to go somewhere else . So and then , in terms of the treatments , synthetic hormones really don't have a place there .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonLike I said , one one chemical change between testosterone and estrogen and you make a male person human being or a female human being in utero . It's that important , the little details . So you really want biologically identical hormones , and that means estradiol , which is the main , strongest female hormone . But you also want estriol , which is one of the three types of estrogen that helps prevent breast cancer . And this is where some people will get it wrong . They'll say well , my patient , we want to save her money on her health because it's an expense to be mitigated , so I'm going to give her this commercially available patch of estradiol that comes in only two strengths one size fits all . Right , one of two sizes and we're not going to give her estriol because we don't want to have her have the expense of a compounded hormone , and that's again doing that person a disservice . So then they're missing out on getting estriol , which helps protect her breat , and most women feel best when they have the estriol too , and it's also not allowing her to have a custom dose for what her body particularly needs .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonCompounded means , yes , custom dose for your particular body based on your testing . That can be adjusted in fanatom right to be perfect for you . And so they try to take some of the principles of what we're talking about with root cause resolution and make it fit a mainstream model . And that , and then the patients happy thinking , because they're still in that paradigm of my expenditures on my health , are expenses to be minimized . Right , that's the mantra . Reduce healthcare costs , reduce healthcare costs instead of right . So now , actually , one of my biggest expenditures at the end of each year when I do my finances for my taxes , is my health care . Like I go , look how much I got to invest in my health this year to improve my physical home that I live in and my quality of life, and my vitality and my vitality span . And so we need to get out of that mindset . So if , if your practitioner is trying to craft the solution to fit your belief system of disease , then that's probably not good whether you might think you like that , but in the end you're not , you're not . I'm sure Steve Jobs at the end wasn't thinking I'm so glad that I saved money on my health Right and I didn't spend . You know , I went to a HMO doctor . I don't think those were his last thoughts . He's thinking why did I invest in my health like I invested in everything else ? That was a value , lasting value to me in my life and I don't want that to be the person listening . So practitioners there are some who are trying , but they're really and I'll even say this to patients sometimes like I know you want me to say , oh , go to your $30 HMO co pay doctor , and that they can serve your needs , but it's just not that way right now . But what will serve you is do this $500 test invest in bio-identical hormones . You know this is so eventually did that conference that I was talking about with my friend when we were talking about Menopause the Musical, it was called Stop the Menopause Madness Summit . So we've done it three years in a row . The last year we had 100 practitioners and then that's found in the Midlife Metabolism Institute where I do this work with women in the United States and now starting in Canada . And I also founded Her Hormone Club to service women with all in one end to end solution with a club membership where they can get these tests and get the hormones prescribed by board- certified doctors licensed in their states . Doing Zoom like we're doing now is because it is hard for the consumer to discern . And after the summit where thousands of women attended , they said we get it here and we want to address our hormones , but where can we do this ? Because they were going to their co pay doctors and they weren't getting serviced properly . So I created that solution and then people from Europe reach out in Australia well , what about us ? And unfortunately I , you know , navigating these laws is hard enough from state to state in the US and then in Canada that I haven't been able to figure out yet how to do it globally in all countries .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonBut look for the people who have had fellowship , further training . Also look for the people who have had a path similar to maybe yours . So I always tell people why should they listen to me ? Well , one , I do have the credentials right . I have a medical doctorate , I have board certification and obstetrician gynecology for 30 years . I have fellowship training in anti aging , metabolic and functional medicine . So I've got the credentials . But more than that , I've been there .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI've been that 40 something year old who was 100 pounds overweight , couldn't sleep and , you know , didn't want to have sex in her , but was married and that was a big problem and who was on five anti depressants and anti anxiety medications and had guest , right it's and was losing her hair , and I mean , I was a hot mess and who couldn't find the answers . So I know what it feels like to be gaslit . Even my own doctor told me there was nothing wrong with me Right , you just eat too much . That's just not the case . So I know what it feels like .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonSo find somebody who's been where you are right , because I know when you're there , you're hopeless and you're feeling like I had started to believe that I was crazy .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI wasn't even able to tell you what it is that I'm going to do .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonI'm going to be able to tell you that I have a lot of experience with the medical care and that I'm not going to be medically with me and that every doctor I even had the possibility of going to who might be able to help me . My biggest fear was oh my gosh , they're going to do more tests and they're going to tell me and I find this is true with every woman I ever work with she's even afraid to say how bad it is and that I need help . And I feel hopeless because she's so afraid . She's been told so many times there's nothing wrong with you , your labs look great , you look great on paper, you should be feeling like a spring chicken and inside she's going, I feel like I'm 85 years old and it's not you is what I want to say to that woman or man right , it's not you , it's the system , and you have been gaslit and you need to find someone who understands where you are , who maybe has been there themselves , who has the credentials to get you out of there .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonAnd you also have to start recognizing that your health is your most valuable asset to be invested in .
Jack HealdI love that message Wow .
Dr. Philip OvadiaI think that's our mic drop right there . Yeah , just simply amazing . So Midlife Metabolism Institute , any place else that people should look to connect with you ?
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYeah , Midlife Metabolism Institute , and then everything's at Kyrin Dunston MD . I'll spell that , because it's spelled a little differently it's K Y R I N D U N S T O N M D . com . So we're on Facebook at Kyrin Dunston MD , on Instagram at Kyrin Dunston MD , and then also on YouTube , and Her Hormone Club is the telemedicine club for women to get their bio identical hormones by board certified doctors licensed in their state , and that's her hormone clubcom .
Dr. Philip OvadiaAwesome , Good Well yeah , this was , this was really an amazing , you know introduction to this world and I think we'll definitely have to have you on again to dig a little deeper sometime .
Advocating for Patient Health Dr. Philip OvadiaBut just you know , and like Jack said , the way you articulate some of these issues with the medical system that we've been talking about so much now on this podcast and , like I said it , just we're hearing it more and more from different aspects , different specialties . So we got to keep practitioners who are aware and have woken up to this . We got to keep working together to change that for the patients .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonYes , absolutely , and thank you so much for the work you're doing , spreading the word and getting people off your operating table Right , I mean , that's really . We should be working ourselves out of a job . This is what we should be doing as doctors .
Jack HealdI have nothing to say . This has been fantastic . Dr . Dunston, thank you so much . I don't know that we have had a more articulate advocate for patient health and you're going to get , we're going to generate a lot of interest in in your work . Well , for Dr . Kyrin Dunston , Dr . Philip Ovadia , I'm Jack Heald . This is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast and if you subscribe , we drop a new episode every Tuesday and we'll talk to you next time .
Dr. Kyrin DunstonThank you .