dave: today’s cool fact of the day is thatresearchers have discovered a citrus scented pheromone in male goat hair. this is a primarystimulator of the female goat’s ovulation and reproductive system. specifically it’scalled 4-ethyl-octinol which turns into that well known chemical responsible for goatysmells. according to this new research, since goats and humans have many similarities, therecould be a correlation to male pheromone smells
green mountain coffee french roast, as well. because of that the new bulletproof“eau de goat hair†should be on shelf soon.today’s guest is dr. sara gottfried, md who has been on the show before. dr. sarais a friend and she’s also a harvard educated physician, a speaker, a yoga teacher, a wife,a mom and author of the new york times bestselling
book the hormone cure. she’s also a boardcertified gynecologist and has a new online program called mission ignition: the energycure, and i love talking with her because she’s like a girl biohacker.dr. sara, welcome to the show. i’ve invited you on today specifically becauseyou’ve got a new book coming out, and anytime one of my friends and fellow biohackers islaunching a new book, it’s always cool to talk about it because you’ve spent a lotof time writing, and doing research about something that hasn’t been written aboutbefore, or at least that’s what we hope. tell me about the new book. what’s in it?what’s new? dr. sara: this is the new book. i’m goingto show it for those who are watching the
video. it’s the hormone cure. i added almost50 pages of new content on top of the hardcover that i released last year. i just took thetop questions that women were asking me about their hormones.what do i do preconception? actually i send them to your book for that one but i’vegot a great protocol for them. what do i do postpartum? what do i do during pregnancy?what do i do if i’m a breast cancer survivor? what do i do if nothing i try after the ageof 35, 40 works in terms of getting lean? which i hope we’ll talk about today. whatdo i do if i’m in menopause? do the same protocols apply? that’s the idea. i tookthe top questions. women deserve to have their questions answered so i’ve answered themwith this new book.
dave: dr. sara you are on sabbatical fromseeing patients because after what you just said you probably just generated 1000 peoplewanting to see you. i would like to offer if you’re interested in someone who knowsa thing or 2 about hormones particularly around pregnancy. my wife, dr. lana at betterbabybook.comis taking patients so people are available. you guys have slightly different sets of expertisebut they are definitely related. that’s available. i think people should go to yourwebsite because your website is awesome and your book is awesome.dr. sara: thank you sir. dave: you’ve got some other things in there.you’ve got breast cancer. you’ve got a bunch of women focusing on … is there anage rage for women who should read this book?
dr. sara: definitely. it’s 18 to 108.dave: my 109 year old great grandmother is really bummed right now.dr. sara: oh no, no, no. let me raise the upper limit. the idea here is … oh my goshwe’ve got to manage our hormones through the entire life cycle whether your male orfemale. i’ve got lots of gems for the guys today too. it’s so important to realizethat your hormones drive what you’re interested in. they’re not the be all and all. i don’twant to be overly reductionistic but it’s really important to realize … oh my gosh!they are controlling so much in your body. fat storage, how happy you are, how stressedout and crazy pants you are, your mood, depression. there’s so much that’s controlled by it.dave: if you are a guy, and you’re listening
to this going, “gee maybe i should fastforward because this is going to be about gynecology stuff.†understanding your partner’shormone cycles is primary skill for a guy because that way you can be just like, “ohthis is like, that week, and i should schedule my business trip for that week.†or whateverelse but just having a basic understanding there helps me understand, with lana, normalmonthly fluctuations in behavior and attention and even intelligence.there’s some interesting things around iq and ovulation that come out. i actually thinkit’s worth it for guys in relationships to just understand a little bit about this.if you can tweak it and you can help tweak it, your life as a guy will be easier too,and your partner will be happier which means
you’ll be happier and vice versa.dr. sara: such a good point. i think i’ve told you before that my husband is makingan app for the guys where he thinks it’s so important to be tracking your woman’smenstrual cycle. just as you describe, green light for going on a business trip becauseyou’re 1 week before a period or its ovulation you might get some if you play your cardsright so i … dave: yeah or you might want to run away soyou don’t actually have another baby. dr. sara: exactly depends on how many kidsyou have but this is such an important point. i think guys are simpler in many ways whenit comes to hormones. the conversation is still really rich and fun but it’s importantto realize that women are complicated. when
you’re cycling, you have a different levelof estrogen, progesterone, testosterone on a daily basis. the more that you can leveragethat as you’re describing, you’re the ultimate leverager dave asprey, and be masterfulabout it. be skillful. have it work to your advantage. it’s going to be a win-win foreverybody. dave: i love how you’re thinking about that.one of the things missing in the whole bio hacking community, even in paleo, i’ve hada series of women on the show lately to talk about women, and high fat diets in general,not just the bulletproof diet, and it goes from extreme where we have olympic winnerswho literally shut down their cycle for 7 or 8 months using nutrition because like,“i know my cycle makes my performance fluctuate
and i don’t really care about fluctuating.i care about kicking ass.†all the way to, “how do i do the anti aging thing after40?†and there needs to be more books written about this.a lot of the studies out there are specific to men. intermittent fasting, i wrote a postwhen we’ve talked about on email a while back about when women do intermittent fastingfor longer periods of time, they lose their sleep. they adrenal fatigue but you add proteinback into the morning and it’s a different effect or you add more carbs and it’s adifferent effect. i would love to see … even rat studies were like “oh the girl miceare different than the men mice.†although mice are not rats. we all get that for peoplelistening.
why don’t women lose weight on a typicaldiet that works? you know - i look great! my man boobs are a little small but all right.what’s the deal here? what did you come up with in your book?dr. sara: this is the million dollar question. i’m super curious about this because i similarlyfound in my practice. i’ve seen about 20,000 women about 5000 men in the past 20 yearsand what i found especially with the paleo revolution of the past 5 to 10 years is thatwomen don’t fare as well especially after a certain age like 35 to 40. that the transitionwhere hormone starts to fall of a cliff. for women between 35 and 40 that’s whenprogesterone drops. you start to run out of ripe eggs. you can’t be soothed as well.you have growth hormone drop and there’s
also an issue with your … for a lot of womentheir thyroid starts to get wonky. they have issues with reverse t3 which i think is akey player when you go to low carb as a female of a certain age. those are some of the issuesthat i see. why is this? i’m asking all of the thought leaders thisvery question because i’m not finding a great answer in the literature but i can tellyou from experience that i’m seeing something similar. for the women who go on paleo, there’seven a study done by terry wahls. she put folks on the wahls protocol and once womenhit a body mass index of 23, they don’t lose weight on paleo anymore.it’s curious to me. i think it has to do with a carb threshold that’s particularto women of a certain age and what i’d love
to talk about with you dave is a bit about… if you look at the low carb movement like where is it not a good idea? where is it potentiallyharmful or might cause issues with sleeping or work against you as you try to heal adrenaldysregulation. what do you think about that? shall we talk about low carb?dave: let’s zoom in on it. it’s really important that we talk about low carb. it’sjust like a low fat or high protein or whatever else. high soy protein specially hydrolyzedsoy is totally different than high egg. it’s totally different than high collagen justto talk about a protein or a fat or a carb. the difference between a low carb diet anda low sugar diet is you’re going to have a high carb, low sugar diet.one of my goals in bulletproof is to help
people understand that it’s too simplisticto say carbs, protein, fat. it’s actually almost meaningless. it’s slightly less meaninglessthan saying calories which is just not a great way to measure nutrition but even on top ofthose things. now you got to the right kind of … you’re on collagen protein but wheredid it come from and what are the di- and tripeptide forms? are you kidding me? yougo to mcdonald’s and say, “i’d like an order of side of dipeptides?†you don’t.you want to understand what are the molecular and biological and gut biomechanisms of thesethings. when you get down to that level, quality becomes the most important thing you lookat after you get your macronutrient ratios right maybe even before you look at otherthings. when you’re talking about …
dr. sara: amen! i just want to say amen rightthere. you asked about intermittent fasting. i just want to say i’m loving your collagenman. i’m having my bulletproof coffee with my mct oil and my collagen in the morningand i am so happy. i think you’re on to something with that particular formula.dave: i designed it using a whole bunch of different things including a lot of serendipityand some luck and some biochemistry but a new study just came out looking at somethingi’ve hypothesized for the past 2 years about what bulletproof coffee does to your buttgiome. your butt giome has serious problems dr. sara.dr. sara: my butt giome, oh my gosh. i didn’t even know.dave: i can’t believe i said that on the
air. all right your gut biome.dr. sara: after that and the goat pheromones, man i’m ovulating over here.dave: i’m so twittering that. so one of the things that’s going on there is a shiftingof the bacteria in your gut because the phenols feed … the phenol which is basically antioxidantsin the coffee, at least one of the antioxidants. it feeds a kind of bacteria in your gut thatthin people have more of than fat people have less of. when you look at what the brain octaneoil does specifically is it puts a stress on the bacterial population. you’re like,“wait a minute, this fat puts a stress on what’s happening inside the gut.†allthe bacteria are like, “hey i don’t really like that.†but then you feed the ones youwant.
in very rapid order you’re basically suppressingfat people bacteria and you’re increasing thin people bacteria by feeding the ones youwanted. so i don’t know if it’s soon enough to say coffee is a probiotic but i can tellyou with absolute certainty that phenols in foods … there are phenols in lots of foodslike blueberries and wine and coffee and chocolate but phenols in … funnily enough on the wahlsprotocol and terry has been a guest on the show a couple of times, terry wahls who curedher ms using a high colored food diet, what do you think makes vegetables colorful? dr.sarah, it’s phenols, right? dr. sara: right.dave: we’ve got a lot of polyphenols in coffee and whatever else. when you take brainoctane and you mix it with your red bell peppers,
when you mix it with your hot chocolate, whenyou mix whatever it is, you’re basically feeding the good biome and you’re maybemaking life a little tougher on the other stuff in your gut. you still need those things.those are lactobacilli. but if you’re free basing yogurt to try and change your gut biome,maybe that’s not what you wanted to do. i can tell you yogurt and a lot of the so-calledgood bacteria they cause brain fog in a substantial number of people including women over 40 andunder 40. i’ve written about that and i tested it just last week. i had 2 days ofbeing a total zombie after i took a very well respected probiotic formula, one that workedgreat for a family member by the way. so how do you know? you’ll have to be a bio hackerand measure.
dr. sara: you have to measure ... you haveto pay attention to this individual variation that we see person to person. i think that’sa crucial piece. and i love this idea … i wrote this down. feed the bacteria you want.it reminds me a bit of that line, love the one your with. it’s really important. that’sour new theme song i think dave for 2014 is we want to feed the bacteria that we want.that’s like the next 10 years medicine. dave: it seems like it. do you cover resistantstarch? i’m just not remembering. i have a copy of the hormone cure floating aroundhere but i read a lot. do you talk about basically the types of fiber that feed bacteria as well?dr. sara: i don’t talk a ton about the different types of fiber. i’d love to get into itnow in the book but i feel like fiber is the
unsung hero of hormone balance especiallyfor the global experience that we’re all having of estrogen dominance and estrogenpressure from 700 known xenoestrogens. i think of the fiber as being the way that we reallyupgrade the liver so that phase 1 detox where you’re generating the garbage and then thephase 2 detox where you’re picking up the garbage, the garbage collection. fiber reallyhelps you with that. i think it’s so crucial that women get around 35 to 40 grams a day.guys get 40 to 45 grams a day but do you want to say something specific about fiber andmaybe prebiotics? dave: there’s a bunch of different prebioticsyou can take and there are different types of fiber. lately the reason i was thinkingabout this is because the latest rage in a
lot of the paleo discussions … i frequentlyhad mark from mark’s daily apple on. we talked about this a little bit and he’ssaying, “i wish i had paid more attention to resistant starch.†which is one typeof call it prebiotic. the problem is that different fibers irritate the gut differently.so taking wheat bran which is what i took as a kid, which didn’t benefit me at alland probably caused more harm than good is different than psyllium husk which is alsopretty rough on the gut but is widely touted in herbalist and raw circles all the way tothings like resistant corn starch which is a manufactured product that appears to workpretty well in some people but not others. so it feels that’s part of the equationbut what do you talk about in the book?
you’re mentioning now some prebiotics. whatdo you talk about specifically when women are trying to lose weight? you know aboutthis 23 bmi thing, what do you tell them to do then? do they eat more fiber? do they eatmore starch? do they eat more i don’t know, carrots? what’s the magic food here?dr. sara: how to answer this question, 1 strategy is to do some genetic testing and just seewhat some of your tendencies are like what the pparg gene, and what’s happening withyour dance with fat. do you respond better to moofas? how do you respond to pufas? howdo you respond to saturated fat? i agree with you that there’s this macronutrient conversationabout carbs, protein, fat and then there’s also drilling it down much further which ilove that you do in your info graphic for
the bulletproof diet.the piece that i’ve been really working with right now is the carbs because i seeso many women who are at a plateau. they’re pushing their total percentage of caloriesif you still calculate that down to about 10% 15% with their carbohydrates. and i justsee such a backlash from the body. i wanted to talk about that today. why is it that womenare hitting this plateau especially over 35, 40? what’s going on? i’ve got a few theories.i’m going to float this one by you. dave: do share.dr. sara: i’ve got a little pneumonic. this is how i survive medical school atapis. mydaughter is reading to kill a mockingbird so it’s an honor of atapis, a-t-a-p-i-s.dave: my 4 year old will be laughing right
now.dr. sara: you like that? these are the folks who really have to have some caution aroundpushing the carb envelope too low. atapis. a is athletes. t is thyroid. p is … 3 psactually, preconception, pregnancy and postpartum. we can go into more detail there and the othera was adrenal dysregulation. so it’s atapis. athletes, thyroid, adrenal dysregulation,preconception, pregnancy, postpartum, insomnia and then stress like really high perceivedstress. what do you think dave? dave: i’m not sure that i like the acronym.when you put in scrabble and rearrange it to something that sounds cooler than atapisbecause i can spell it. but i’m just joking. those are the cases when i’m working withcoaching clients for performance where like
well here’s a simple experiment. have morecarbs. it’s not just more carbs because that means more apple turnovers. some of thesepeople were talking about eat carbs like an orangutan or something. what we’re talkingabout here is, we’re talking about eating carbs that don’t contain a lot of the carbdefense systems that plants put in place to keep from getting eaten.so i recommend white rice and sweet potatoes. if you are not one of those people that hasproblems with normal potatoes, maybe the inside of a normal potato but not the skin, and forthe most part sticking with clean forms of starch versus say a ton of fructose is a goodidea and then you play with it but don’t eat it for breakfast. who was it who was juston a show who said breakfast is the most important
meal of the day to not screw up? if you’rehaving sugar and carbs in the morning, it’s probably not going to benefit you. if you’regoing to do it, have it at dinner or maybe in the afternoon.to start out the day especially with fructose or even with a lot of starch, it just setsyou up for that hyperglycemic thing. if you’re looking at your body weight, it’s okay tonot have carbs in the morning. you’re not going to die and i think that can build resilienceeven in people on the atapis thing. but then night time comes and you’re like, “okayi’m going to have me some rice.†it’s okay. you can just go for the starch and enjoyit. even if you get a little bit of blood sugar crash you’ll be asleep anyway.and you can use the honey sleep trick that
i talk about on the bulletproof site abouttaking maybe a couple of teaspoons maybe a tablespoon of raw honey long after a mealbut right before bed to get your blood glucose up and stable for 6 to 8 hours. if you findyou wake up at night with low blood sugar then you need to hack that and sometimes collagenbefore sleep does it and sometimes you can do it with the honey trick. i don’t knowif you want to mix the 2 though. dr. sara: i love that. let’s back up a stepbecause i want to talk a bit about how to measure your response to these things especiallyif you don’t want to spend a grand or more on some genetic testing. for me and this particularmatrix of my female body, if i have white rice or the inside of a potato, my blood sugaris going to be 130 fasting in the morning.
so i just don’t respond well to that. i’mgoing to have to try your collagen before i go to bed and just see what happens.i agree with you that you don’t want to march forward first thing in the morning towardthe fructose. we know that our food has really changed over time. the food that my greatgrandmother had, an apple back in her day had a lot less fructose than an apple today.we want to be really careful. what i recommend for women who are trying to lose weight isto keep your fructose less than 20 grams a day and that’s not very much.dave: i’m at 25. dr. sara: you’re 25. okay.dave: we totally agree on that sort of thing. too much fructose is just bad for you. whatare the reasons that you believe it’s bad?
i have my theories but let’s see if theymatch. dr. sara: this is like pure gary taubes. thisidea that what happens is your turning on the fat storage in your liver with fructose.and i think that we have been hammering our poor bodies with fructose for way too long.i think it definitely accounts for some of this epidemic that we’ve seen with the obesityproblem in the us that’s it’s tripled in the past 50 years. food, the exercise situation,the calories that we’re eating they don’t account for the obesity epidemic. we haveto look beyond it. i think fructose is part of the story. i also think that endocrinedisruptors are a major player when it comes to leptin resistance, insulin resistance,these hormone resistances that we’re seeing.
dave: let’s talk some more about endocrinedisruptors. you talk about top foods that hijack any woman’s hormones. are those foodscontaining endocrine disruptors or are these other sources like cosmetics or something?what do you think about when you think about hormone disruption?dr. sara: i think of a lot of different things. we know from quite rigorous data that womenare more vulnerable to hormone disruption than men. even as recent as a year ago therewas a harvard study looking at phthalate exposure and women with the highest thallium exposurehad more problems getting pregnant. they also had more endometriosis. they had lesser eggquality based on some studies that were done with ivf.the way i think about endocrine disruptors,
i think as broadly as possibly because i feelwe are exposed to toxins on a daily basis and detoxification is no longer a luxury.it’s something that we all need to take on. so when it comes to foods, i think ofthose endocrine disruptors as well but i think the persistent organic pollutants are wherewe have the best data but i think it extends far beyond just the pops.dave: are you concerned about things like roundup, the organophosphate weed killer thatis just being used by millions of gallons? what does that do to hormones?dr. sara: it’s interesting. this is another place where the data is not as robust as iwould like it to be. i wish we have randomized trials of animals on roundup versus not, andtracked for really long time. i wish we had
some human data but i think the data is ata point where you don’t want to do randomized trials on humans with roundup. the studiesthat have been done ... there was a study from france looking at the effect of i believeit was in rodents. they found that female rodents became moremale. basically it raised testosterone levels. it lowered estradiol levels. then the malerats become more female. it raised their estradiol levels and lowered their testosterone levels.there’s this reversal in sex hormones that i think is really important to pay attentionto. we also know that farm workers who are exposed to roundup have higher rates of miscarriage.they have more issues with infertility and i think we have enough of a consensus to say,“oh my gosh, don’t eat gmo food.â€
dave: it’s frightening because you get thedirect hormone effects and you also get the effects on the soil biome. that soil biomeis what affects your gut biome. if you think you can separate your body …dr. sara: i like how you carefully said it dave.dave: was i careful enough? dr. sara: i still like butt giome. i’m goingto use that more. dave: i can’t believe that that was thebest freudian slip ever. i don’t know if its freudian, it was just a slip, but anywayif it was freudian i have deeper issues. so we tend to agree gmos are a bad idea. if there’sa direct problem with roundup residue that’s measurable on say gmo corn but on top of thatthe biome there is wrong and it also does
this thing. corn almost all of it like 98%of it in the field grows mold on it. the species fusarium is the problem in corn,first and foremost there are other ones. fusarium makes endocrine disrupting mycotoxins thatare thousands of times stronger than normal female estrogen. so if that happens and there’sa presence of roundup that stresses fungus which makes it even more of a toxin, you’rebasically getting something that ought not be food. i don’t give my dogs gmo corn orif i had chickens, i wouldn’t give it to them either. i don’t have any chickens.i will, give me time. dr. sara: i agree with you. i think there’s… when it comes to mycotoxins, i think this is a fascinating conversation. you and i havetalked about coffee and mycotoxins. i think
that’s one of the reasons why cortisol levelsgo up and some of the older studies that we have coffee. you and i still need to do thatstudy where we look at bulletproof and compare it to some toxic coffee that has mycotoxinsand look at our cortisol levels. dave: i can’t wait to do that sara becausei’ve done a study. i want to actually do a confirming study before i release it butthere is a few people saying “ah, there’s no differenceâ€. but i’m probably goingto release that study before i would prefer to. but it looks at executive function, atcognitive function on my coffee versus a selection of other coffees and oh my goodness the differenceis so big. that study is the basis for a lot of the claims that i can legally make aboutcoffee for human performance. no, it’s real.
getting lab data, i would be interested incortisol as well as other inflammatory things because i suspect we’d find some inflammatorymarkers go down. the problem is that as a coffee company, i’m not allowed to talkabout what a food does to inflammation because then the food will become a drug and we’dhave to go through a 100 million dollars of clinical trials on coffee. so if coffee does… dr. sara: well, i can talk about it. so we’llhave to do the study. what are your favorite inflammatory markers? you want to look athigh sensitivity c-reactive protein, homocysteine, what else would you like to look at?dave: the different cytokines. dr. sara: so il6.dave: yeah. i’d actually want to look … there’s
2 of them that we know that different oilsfrom coffee have an effect on from some studies. so i would want to read, check those studiesand just look at, ok … so the study believes it does that so does that, but does it dothat? but maybe that could be stacking the deck because there’s already science aboutit. it’s just science that if i link to it then i’m making claims. so anyone whowants to consider coffee inflammation and find wow there’s some huge impacts hereand it turns out how you process the beans, how you roast them and then even how you brewmatters. i don’t want it to turn into a coffee thing. everyone who listens to thiswants to pick your brain. sorry. going off on coffee.dr. sara: we’re talking about some of these
key hormones that really affect women. i wanteveryone to listen to this particular piece because if you’re women in your 20s or you’rea guys in your 20s or your 30s, i don’t want you to fall down a hormonal flight ofstairs. an when you actually manage these hormones that we’re talking about like cortisoland what kind of coffee you drink, it’s going to help you not fall down that hormonalflight of stairs. it’s really important. i’m a big fan of building out a dashboard.to be honest dave, i’m going to go like totally transparent here. i don’t like theterm bio hack. i feel like it is so masculine. i need a more feminine term.dave: we have a bio hackete. it totally … sorry. dr. sara: we’re going to dig a little deeperbefore the end of the show. but i think this
piece is so important. what are the metricsthat you need to be watching? if you’re trying to get more lean or if you’re tryingto get along better with your spouse or get your woman to have more sex with you, theseare really important metrics to be tracking. what do you think?dave: i could not agree more. the whole idea of bio hacking … it’s funny there area bunch of women who have embraced it because it’s empowering. they’re like, “i’min charge.†the younger you get, the easier it is because any popular media like halfthe time the hackers the girl although if you go to computer science program it’sstill 80% males. i don’t know why that is probably incidence of asperger’s in menversus women. i say that as a guy who studied
computer science by the way.dr. sara: i was an engineer dave but there’s like a slight rwanda quality to the term biohacker. dave: rwanda?dr. sara: there’s like a hacking quality to it that it feels a little violent.dave: yeah, it’s a tough thing like if you want to talk about like hack your skin likethat’s where you to go a surgeon for. i hear you there. it’s just a question ofco-opting. you’re an engineer so you know what a hacker does. but i get it. i couldn’tfind a better one and the idea … i’m a health enthusiast is so not feminine or masculine.it’s just boring. i’m a wellness person. you look at me, and mr. rogers is like myidol. it just doesn’t work. how do we tell
people that? i’m taking charge and honestlyi don’t care if i’m not supposed to because that’s what a hacker does. i worked in computersecurity for half of my career. that’s where i come from. if you come up with a betterword for girl hackers, girl bio hackers. dr. sara: let’s crowd source it. if you’relistening, give us some comments. give us some ideas on a feminine term for bio hackerplease. it would help move the cause. empower more women.dave: we can have meet ups between bio hackers and bio hack girls or whatever.dr. sara: yeah. dave: i like this dr. sara. so let’s talkabout women’s brains since we’re talking about bio hacking.dr. sara: cool.
dave: what do hormones do to the brain? givepeople in their cars that rundown from your neuro-hormonal dashboard. what are the top5 hormones … dr. sara: what are the key players?dave: … that are going to make you crazy or make you calm?dr. sara: i think about this. i’m an engineer so i think of this in terms of modules. ithink of the female brain according to age and there’s the pre-puberty. there’s thepubertal age. there’s the reproductive years then everything goes crazy and perimenopausewhich is puberty in reverse and then there’s menopause where you have just a direct currentinstead of an alternating current. i think about it in those modules and i imagine it’sthe reproductive years and maybe perimenopause
that’s of most interest to our listenerstoday. although i have to tell you i’ve got a 14year old daughter and we got perimenopause right out next to puberty and she’s gotestrogen firing her brain like crazy and oxytocin. all she wants to do is go to the mall withher girlfriends and all i want to do is wear my yoga pants and i can’t even rememberif i brushed my hair today. so it’s… dave: does she listen to your podcast?dr. sara: no she … let me tell you. she listened to abel james yesterday because shefeels like he looks like ryan reynolds so that was her reason for listening. i’m goingto have to get an angle. maybe you can help me with this to make her listen to my podcastwith you dave. more on that. more will be
revealed.dave: all right. dr. sara: when it comes to the brain, a coupleof things that i think are important especially during the reproductive years and also perimenpause,menopause. women have half the serotonin that men have and so this is a really key pointbecause serotonin is a gatekeeper. it’s not like all these happy brain chemicals likebdnf and dopamine. it’s not like these are all created equal. serotonin is a really importantgatekeeper. we have half what men have about 52%. i think it’s part of the reason whywe run into more problems around restricting carbohydrates.we need to be really wise and smart about how we are bio hacking our food and designingthat food plan each day so that we are topping
off the tank with serotonin and not with thelatest antidepressant because oh by the way those are linked to a higher risk of breastcancer and ovarian cancer that was shown in 2011. serotonin is a really important piece.you want to be mindful of that and estrogen of course is involved in the control of serotonin,the way that we move serotonin around. there’s kind of a threesome here. i alwayshave the sexual innuendos when i’m around you. i don’t know why these come out ofmy mouth. there’s a threesome and it’s serotonin and estrogen and oxytocin. you wantall 3 of those really working on your team and not working against you. gaba is in theretoo and allopregnanolone but i’m going to go with the threesome for now.dave: okay. got it.
dr. sara: those are important. the other onethat’s really important for the female brain through reproductive years and also perimenopauseis progesterone. also important in menopause and progesterone is also … it’s kind oflike fiber. it’s like the poor relation that nobody pays attention to. we’ve gota lot of fascinating data on progesterone. we know that when you have low progesterone,this is chapter 5 of my book, what happens is you’re more likely to have heavy periods.they may come closer together and the answer is not to go on the birth control pill. believeme that is not the answer. shrinks your clitoris by 20%. it robs you of testosterone and thatis a serious problem. we got to talk about testosterone too.dave: for guys, do you see why you want to
know about this? i have for the past 20 years,every woman that i’ve dated or whatever, i would say, “get off the pill.†they’relike, “do you want me to get pregnant?†i’m like, “no i don’t. trust me on that.i just want you healthy and normal.†do you talk about pheromones and the birth controlpill on your book at all? do you mention that study?dr. sara: i should. i don’t talk about it in the book. maybe we could link to it withour podcast. dave: okay. we’ll link to it. the reallyshort version of that for guys and women to understand is that if you’re on the pill,it changes your smell receptors so that your partner’s pheromones smell good to you.when you go off the pill, when you decide
to have kids, you may be sexually unattractedto your partner because their pheromones smell different and that’s a bad thing. you justmaybe got married and you’re going to start a family and like, “eww, that guy’s gross.â€this is one reason while you’re dating you might not want to be on the pill other thanthe little breast cancer thing. anyway we don’t have to go down that path.dr. sara: well i do want to go down the path. can we do a tangent on testosterone? because…dave: yeah. let’s do testosterone it’s awesome.dr. sara: oh my gosh! i love this point you made. we’re always trying to figure out.what is it with mating in captivity? why is it that sex becomes less interesting for somany of us after you’ve been married for
a while? so i love it …dave: did you just equate marriage with captivity? dr. sara: yeah. marriage in captivity. it’sa book by esther perel. finding these reasons, pheromones i don’t know any women who didn’tgo on the birth control pill. maybe there’s a few here in berkeley but most of us didnot escape. i want to just say there’s a great way to think about your testosteronereceptor. i’m hoping we can talk about molecular sex here for a moment. really when it comesto hormones, it all comes down to molecular sex. are you having good sex or bad sex? thesex of course is between the hormone and the receptor.with testosterone, when you go on the birth control pill, it’s not just this problemwith the pheromones and the increased risk
of breast cancer. it’s also that it reducesyour free testosterone dramatically. so i flippantly said it can shrink your clitorisup to 20% but even more concerning to me is that 20% to 25% of women on the pill havevaginal dryness and they’re all of 22 to 25 years old. they’re like, “why do ihave this dry vagina?†they’re not asking their doctors about it because they’re embarrassedand then they don’t want to have sex because it hurts.and the problem there if you look at the receptors is that some of us have what andrew goldstein,i love his analogy here, we have the prius receptor. we have the super efficient androgenreceptor where we can go really far on a low tank of testosterone gas. and then the restof us have the hummer receptor for androgens.
when your testosterone is low, you just can’tgo very far and so you have vaginal dryness maybe even pain. i feel like the birth controlpill is the largest endocrinopathy that we are imposing on women in the world. i feellike i’m getting on the soapbox. that’s my little thing on testosterone.dave: it’s really important that you say that. we did the same thing and the betterbaby book. look, the pill is not good for women. it is bad for all these different reasonsand if you want to have children later it’s not in your best interest to do this. i knowit’s convenient. we’re fans of women’s liberation and rights of women. that said,denying your biology isn’t going to make you live a long time and is going to makeyou have a healthier family or a have a healthier
sex life but there’s …dr. sara: i’m going to give you a fist bump for that one.dave: first bump it is. dr. sara: there we go.dave: there’s two other things that you said though around testosterone and vaginaldryness. guys, you can hack your partner’s vagina. did you pick this up?dr. sara: see the use of hack in the same sentence as vagina.dave: i knew that would bother you. seriously, you can modify your vaginal receptors. no,no that is even worse. here’s the deal. by encouraging healthy behaviors, you canbasically improve the health and quality of your partner. see this is all just too medicalfor me. here’s the deal. you can improve
your sex life by improving your partner’shealth. now there’s another thing. i don’t know if you ever tried this. i’m guessingprobably. have you ever tried topical application of very low doses of testosterone directlyto the clitoris? dr. sara: oh, hell yes. in fact i have …dave: this is like the unknown bio hack and it’s amazing.dr. sara: i have my vulva right here. hold on.dave: okay. you all want to turn on your video now. oh my god! you have to see this on itunesor on youtube. you’re holding a giant vagina. dr. sara: it’s a velvet vulva. it’s notmy vulva. it’s a vulva of color and there’s the clitoris. a lot of women think especiallyin perimenopause when they start to get dry,
they think they need to start frosting themselveswith estrogen but it turns out your androgens are way more important. so you are right.the testosterone … you’ve got to be careful. you don’t have to have cliteromegaly whereyou start to grow a penis but putting it on especially where you have the androgen receptorson the clitoris. can you see that dave? dave: oh totally.dr. sara: the labia minora and ... dave: it’s a great big clitoris.dr. sara: it’s a great … you can’t miss it and there’s the g spot. see the rufflypink stuff. don’t forget the g spot and then right here the opening, the introitus,that’s where you have a ton of androgen receptors based on embryology. that’s whereyou got to put it. you don’t want to … and
dhea. there’s some new interesting dataon dhea. dave: topically?dr. sara: yes and that it helps the full thickness of the vagina not just the surface like estrogendoes. oh my gosh! so many clinical pearls today. they’re just like dripping out ofus today. dave: you and your innuendos good god. youare the first in the more than 100 shows, the first person to actively show a vaginaon the air. so congratulations dr. sara gottfried. dr. sara: thank you. i’m happy to have thatposition. dave: what is interesting is that if you takea low dose testosterone cream, a very tiny amount of it and you apply it topically, youget a very sudden effect. are you familiar
with that effect?dr. sara: i want you to say more. of course i want to see the data but i think the … thisis actually where we’re going. i think you’re talking about where we’re going where we’retalking about very small doses of bio-identical hormones and how to use them strategicallyso i wanted to call that out. dave: this will be more along the lines offemale viagra. based on the stuff that i use, it’s a 5% in a cream base and you take avanishingly small amount. if i applied it on my armpit normally what would be left onmy finger is enough and you swipe it over the labia and the clitoris and within 5 minutesyou get amazing amounts of blood flow. huge amounts of blood flow like nothing you’veever seen, and its repeatable. and it completely
changes the whole sexual response and it’sdifferent than raising testosterone in the body say through supplementation or diet orexercise or even applying it on an armpit. you use armpits because it absorbs well there.but if you put it on a woman there, sex drive goes up but if you put it topically on a vaginaimmediate … a reckless abandon desire for sex goes up a lot more. so you can use lesstestosterone and get a bigger benefit. guys you shouldn’t do this without her permissionbut it is an amazing result. dr. sara: well i have to be a little bit carefulabout medical advice when it comes to testosterone especially your testosterone being appliedto a female. so you got be cautious about that. work with your physician and ...dave: of course. you can’t get it without
a physician.dr. sara: and i’m thing 1/3 of the us public, the females have polycystic ovarian syndrome,and so we have to be a little bit careful about testosterone balance. but i appreciatethe point that you’re making. i think most of us are in short supply of testosteronein our lady garden. dave: yeah, i’m not saying do it everydayfor god’s sake especially. i’m just saying that this is a relatively unknown effect oftestosterone in that region especially if a woman if deficient that might be a greatway to apply it. there i said it as politely as i could.dr. sara: that was good dave. it’s like you talking about coffee. so i was talkingabout progesterone in the brain. honestly
it’s a little hard to follow the testosteroneclitoris conversation with progesterone on the brain. but we give progesterone now topeople who have had traumatic brain injury. women need it. it really helps us. men needit too and you need it to have this really good dance with your estrogen.dave: even in pregnancy. there’s the progesterone baby studies that we’ve covered in the betterbaby book where we look at intelligence of kids who had extra progesterone in the womband the studies. there’s been some questions about them because they’re done in the 60sbut the studies were kind of amazing and the effects that came out. so its’ not justfor women. it’s not even just for men. its for like babies too. go ahead.dr. sara: there’s all these new studies
not from the 1960s showing that it reducespreterm labor. in fact, there was a study i just looked at about a month ago showingthat women who have the lowest progesterone levels, we know that they have a higher rateof miscarriage. they have a higher rate of other problems in their pregnancy and nowwe know that they have a higher rate of preterm labor. so progesterone is really important.i’m not saying start frosting yourself in progesterone cream but that should be oneof the items on your dashboard. your managing your cortisol, your estrogen, your growthhormone, your thyroid, your testosterone. dave: that is so cool and to do this you shouldwork with a doctor. you can get your numbers and bring them to your doctor if you wantusing a wellness effects panel. your doctor
probably works with a specific lab and isfamiliar with the way they do their numbers and how they do their own quality control.it’s best if your going to work with a doctor, go to the doctor and say i’m interestedin optimizing these levels, help and you want to make sure the doctor gets it which meanswhat ifm, what other things should people look for in a doctor since you’re not practicingdr. sara. dr. sara: well i work with people online.you can check me out at saragottfriedmd.com and …dave: oh i didn’t know you’re still doing that. we’ll definitely put links to thatand everything. cool. dr. sara: awesome. i work with folks online.i also have been training practitioners. you
can go to functionalmedicine.org. go see afunctional medicine practitioner. i’m joining the faculty at ifm, the institute for functionalmedicine so i’m a big fan. i recommend in my book that you check out some of the scriptsthat i have for checking out doctors and seeing if they are collaborative. if they’re goingto partner with you that way that you deserve. i also think that it’s important to realizethat there’s this problem with mainstream medicine. i think you’ve noticed this davewhere many folks just are … it’s as if they don’t think that adrenal dysregulationexist or they think that there’s something wrong with people getting empowered and testingtheir own labs and taking ownership of their health. the patriarchal system doesn’t wantfor us to step into our power. there are some
folks who are resistant to this and you wantto not see those people. dave: exactly. i want to be conscious of yourcalendar and your schedule here. we have one more question that i have asked every guestthat i’m hoping that you have time to run through and that is your top three recommendationsfor people, men or women, who want to kick more ass.dr. sara: i love this. so i’m going to give you … what is top of the heap for me rightnow because i’m always taking on new stuff. number one chirunning. oh my gosh! i am sointo chirunning. it’s like backdoor spirituality. i always love these ways of finding your secretsauce which is really being able to rebalance your synthetic nervous system and your parasyntheticnervous system, your fight or flight rest
and digest. chirunning, totally love it.dave: what is chirunning? dr. sara: chirunning is where you basicallycombine qigong and these principles of retraining the mind with running.dave: oh okay. it’s kind of like a walking meditation but you’re running?dr. sara: kind of. you’re engaging your dantian. next time i see you dave we’llgo chirunning, okay? dave: all right. i’m excited. i’m goingto get my dan tian all warmed up. dr. sara: number two i’m totally groovingon my morning bulletproof coffee. guys, dave hasn’t paid me to say this. he makes mepay retail for all of my coffee and everything. there’s like no bias here. so i am lovingmy bulletproof coffee with my mct oil and
my collagen in the morning. i just think it’stotally cool. i need to study it more. i’m collecting the data more on that later. thennumber three, i’m going to have to say oxytocin. i feel like oxytocin …we’re just at thetip of the iceberg in terms of understanding about how oxytocin is involved in connection.it’s really the best hormone therapy out there. oxytocin, it lowers your cortisol.it raises your estradiol. it helps you make your thyroid work more efficiently. i loveoxytocin. there’s so many ways to get it. dave: as a drug or orgasms? what’s yourtop way to get it? dr. sara: i do have the vulva here so definitelyfemale orgasm. dave: stop waving your vagina on camera. sorryi’ve always wanted to say that on a podcast.
dr. sara: we might have to say this is formature audiences only. dave: i think it’s okay. this is educational.we’re not going to be playing in this your daughter’s class.dr. sara: i do bring this to the 8th grade class. they love it.dave: good for you. i love that too. dr. sara: but you can also hug, right? youcan keep your pants on and 8 hugs a day is what paul zak says based on the half lifeof oxytocin. you need 8 hugs a day. dave: more hugging i can do that. dr. saragottfried, give us your url. give us the title of your book where people can order it andthings like that so they can find you. we’ll put all these links on the show notes butjust make sure people can find you.
dr. sara: absolutely. the book is the hormonecure and you can find it at the hormonecurebook.com that’s the best place to go. we’ve gota free offer right now where you get this 39 page special report on how to rebalanceyour hormones in 8 steps. dave: awesome. thanks again dr. sara gottfriedfor being on bulletproof executive radio. the number one ranked health podcast itunesright now. wohoo! dr. sara: wohoo!dave: talk to you again soon and we’ll go chi running.dr. sara: thanks dave. absolutely! bye everybody. dave: one of the things you can do to makeyour brain work really, really well is you can remove toxins from your body. one of themost important antioxidants and toxin binding
substances in the body is called glutathione.glutathione has been available as a nutritional supplement for a long time. the only problemis that when you take it, it gets broken down in the stomach and you don’t get the benefitsof it. about 10 years ago, we started making somethey called liposomal glutathione which allows this precious molecule to pass through thelining of the gut and it works. the only problem is that you have to have very, very smallliposomes for it to work and there is varying results from using different liposomal forms.that’s why i created upgraded glutathione force. this is a radical innovation in theglutathione world small as it may be because we use a patented technology that binds anothermolecule onto a liposome. it’s liposomal
but it absorbs in studies using this formof molecule up to 8 times better than normal liposomes that don’t contain the added boost.that’s why it’s called glutathione force because it literally forces the glutathionepast your gut and into your blood where it can do the most benefit. if you look at thecomments on the forums or on the product page, you’ll find that a lot of people use itbecause it makes their brain feel crisper and clearer not to mention the other benefitsto your immunity and other systems in the body which always run better when your liveris able to detoxify substances really well and that’s not even talking about what itcan do to help you reduce the impacts of drinking too much alcohol. you’ll feel better thenext morning if your glutathione levels are
high enough before and after you drink. checkit out. upgraded glutathione force on upgradedself.com. featured “the hormone cure†saragottfriedmd.com resources functionalmedicine.org bulletproof upgraded collagen upgraded mct oil
upgraded coffee upgradedself.com upgraded glutathione forcebulletproof toolbox podcast #108, dr. sara gottfried
bulletproof toolboxpodcast #108, dr. sara gottfried 26 25 â© the bulletproof executive 2013
