1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,360 Tell me about your vision. 2 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:04,720 I'm passionate about women's health 3 00:00:04,720 --> 00:00:08,040 and normalizing male physiology 4 00:00:08,040 --> 00:00:11,120 as the standard default version of physiology. 5 00:00:11,120 --> 00:00:14,120 Because for so long in medicine and science, 6 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:16,400 male physiology has been treated as the normal 7 00:00:16,400 --> 00:00:19,160 and then female as sort of the side issue. 8 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:21,560 But through my background as a biologist 9 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:23,500 and then a naturopathic doctor, 10 00:00:23,500 --> 00:00:26,880 I've just come to reframe that 11 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:28,920 as female physiology as normal. 12 00:00:28,920 --> 00:00:31,560 And that has given me a lot of traction 13 00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:33,520 over the decades with my patients 14 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:36,360 and of course with my audiences, with my book, 15 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:41,360 just discussing in detail how different aspects of health 16 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:44,640 are different for women. 17 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:47,020 Yeah, thank you for sharing that. 18 00:00:47,020 --> 00:00:49,640 This field, Lara, is unique. 19 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:52,680 I mean, I've seen a lot of medicine doctor 20 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:53,720 be in that field. 21 00:00:53,720 --> 00:00:55,880 I mean, that's very common. 22 00:00:55,880 --> 00:00:59,720 But going out of the way and using natural remedies 23 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:03,760 to help women in this area, how did that come about? 24 00:01:03,760 --> 00:01:05,560 And what was the journey like? 25 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:07,120 Where did you choose that path? 26 00:01:08,280 --> 00:01:09,120 Yeah, good question. 27 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:11,200 Actually, I started out as a biologist. 28 00:01:11,200 --> 00:01:14,040 So I always see everything through that lens. 29 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:15,920 And then as I was on the path 30 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:17,720 to become a research biologist, 31 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,520 I decided I wanted to work more with people. 32 00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:25,160 So I entered the program of naturopathic medicine in Canada, 33 00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:28,120 which is very similar to normal medicine, 34 00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:32,840 but using nutrition, herbal medicine, lifestyle changes. 35 00:01:32,840 --> 00:01:35,060 And yeah, from the beginning, 36 00:01:35,060 --> 00:01:38,160 I found that approach can work very well for lots of things, 37 00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:39,540 not for everything, of course, 38 00:01:39,540 --> 00:01:42,400 but it can work very well for many kinds of conditions, 39 00:01:42,400 --> 00:01:44,880 especially a lot of the women's health, 40 00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,480 menstrual conditions that I started to see 41 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:49,940 when I entered practice. 42 00:01:49,940 --> 00:01:54,000 So did you ever go to med school at all? 43 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:55,320 Was that part of your journey? 44 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:57,760 Well, it's a parallel training program. 45 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,840 So in North America, naturopathic medicine, 46 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,960 it is a medical school, but it's a different path 47 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:07,480 than traditional medical school. 48 00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:08,680 That makes sense. 49 00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:09,660 Yeah. 50 00:02:09,660 --> 00:02:14,660 So what would you say, Lara, is your why? 51 00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:18,540 Like why this specific field? 52 00:02:18,540 --> 00:02:23,540 My main goal is to have better periods, 53 00:02:25,540 --> 00:02:27,740 better hormones, in many cases, 54 00:02:27,740 --> 00:02:29,660 without the use of hormonal birth control. 55 00:02:29,660 --> 00:02:32,780 So that has been a big part of my work, of my books, 56 00:02:32,780 --> 00:02:34,460 challenging the narrative around that 57 00:02:34,460 --> 00:02:37,940 and establishing what I feel is the truth, 58 00:02:37,940 --> 00:02:40,820 that women's hormones are beneficial 59 00:02:40,820 --> 00:02:45,020 and not something to be routinely switched off 60 00:02:45,020 --> 00:02:48,100 with medication, as in the case of hormonal birth control. 61 00:02:48,100 --> 00:02:50,740 So that's been a big driving force. 62 00:02:50,740 --> 00:02:53,460 And a lot of my patients have wanted over the years. 63 00:02:53,460 --> 00:02:58,340 So I've been happy to be able to deliver effective strategies 64 00:02:58,340 --> 00:02:59,700 that work for that. 65 00:02:59,700 --> 00:03:00,540 Yeah. 66 00:03:01,940 --> 00:03:05,540 So can you tell me more about that a little bit? 67 00:03:05,540 --> 00:03:06,820 Yeah. 68 00:03:06,820 --> 00:03:11,180 So the current narrative, it's been about, I guess, 69 00:03:11,180 --> 00:03:15,220 50 or 60 years has been this idea that it's okay 70 00:03:15,220 --> 00:03:16,960 to switch off women's hormones 71 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:18,220 with hormonal birth control 72 00:03:18,220 --> 00:03:21,780 and then replace those hormones with medications 73 00:03:21,780 --> 00:03:24,380 that are kind of similar to estrogen and progesterone, 74 00:03:24,380 --> 00:03:27,660 but really in lots of ways quite different, 75 00:03:27,660 --> 00:03:29,820 especially in their effects on the brain 76 00:03:29,820 --> 00:03:33,600 and metabolism and cardiovascular health. 77 00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:36,220 The medications and hormonal birth control 78 00:03:36,220 --> 00:03:38,820 are not as beneficial as estrogen and progesterone 79 00:03:38,820 --> 00:03:40,220 for all of those things. 80 00:03:40,220 --> 00:03:43,980 And so, seeing that through my biologist lens, 81 00:03:43,980 --> 00:03:46,000 I just realized this doesn't make any sense. 82 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:50,140 This would be like saying to men, young men, 83 00:03:50,140 --> 00:03:52,260 hundreds of millions of young men around the world, 84 00:03:52,260 --> 00:03:53,940 we're just gonna give you this medication 85 00:03:53,940 --> 00:03:57,060 that switches off your hormonal functions, 86 00:03:57,060 --> 00:03:58,300 which is off your testosterone, 87 00:03:58,300 --> 00:04:01,140 and we're gonna then give back this medication 88 00:04:01,140 --> 00:04:03,580 that's kind of like testosterone, but not really. 89 00:04:03,580 --> 00:04:06,460 And that obviously would be crazy 90 00:04:06,460 --> 00:04:08,100 if we talked about doing that for men, 91 00:04:08,100 --> 00:04:10,820 but that's essentially what's happened for women. 92 00:04:10,820 --> 00:04:15,500 So that's been a big part of my work. 93 00:04:15,500 --> 00:04:18,020 And it's interesting to see over the decades, 94 00:04:18,020 --> 00:04:22,620 the attitude in the world change around that. 95 00:04:22,620 --> 00:04:24,940 Even 10 years ago, it was very taboo 96 00:04:24,940 --> 00:04:26,940 to say anything about hormonal birth control. 97 00:04:26,940 --> 00:04:31,940 Now, in 2025, it's a lot more known 98 00:04:33,220 --> 00:04:35,220 and a lot more people are talking about it. 99 00:04:35,220 --> 00:04:38,540 So for me, it's been kind of great to be part of that change 100 00:04:38,540 --> 00:04:40,780 and I would say growing awareness 101 00:04:40,780 --> 00:04:45,780 of the possibility of doing things differently for women. 102 00:04:48,740 --> 00:04:51,940 What would you say that along the lines 103 00:04:51,940 --> 00:04:55,700 of the hormonal birth control, 104 00:04:55,700 --> 00:04:59,140 what are the negative side effects of that? 105 00:04:59,140 --> 00:04:59,980 Because I wanna know, 106 00:04:59,980 --> 00:05:02,940 because I think that relates to the why of like, 107 00:05:02,940 --> 00:05:05,660 I'm assuming gonna avoid that for women 108 00:05:05,660 --> 00:05:09,020 and also them have healthier life. 109 00:05:09,020 --> 00:05:11,020 What is that? 110 00:05:11,020 --> 00:05:15,700 Well, that's my why is to hopefully deliver, 111 00:05:15,700 --> 00:05:19,900 help women be healthy in their own bodies 112 00:05:19,900 --> 00:05:21,300 and have their own hormones. 113 00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:24,020 You could do sort of a laundry list of side effects, 114 00:05:24,020 --> 00:05:25,620 potentially of hormonal birth control. 115 00:05:25,620 --> 00:05:27,260 A lot of people talked about it in those terms, 116 00:05:27,260 --> 00:05:29,340 but for me, again, as a biologist, 117 00:05:29,340 --> 00:05:33,420 the main thing is that it's a medication 118 00:05:33,420 --> 00:05:35,060 that switches off ovarian function. 119 00:05:35,060 --> 00:05:38,220 And women actually need their ovaries 120 00:05:38,220 --> 00:05:39,780 to be producing hormones. 121 00:05:39,780 --> 00:05:42,540 It seems kind of obvious when it's stated in those terms, 122 00:05:42,540 --> 00:05:45,060 but that's unfortunately, 123 00:05:45,060 --> 00:05:47,740 the sort of strange paradigm that we've had 124 00:05:47,740 --> 00:05:49,700 over the last three or four generations 125 00:05:49,700 --> 00:05:51,380 that maybe women don't need those. 126 00:05:51,380 --> 00:05:53,380 It's sort of idea that you don't need your ovaries 127 00:05:53,380 --> 00:05:54,900 or you don't need a progesterone 128 00:05:54,900 --> 00:05:56,780 until you're ready to make a baby. 129 00:05:56,780 --> 00:05:58,780 But again, to give you an analogy for men, 130 00:05:58,780 --> 00:06:00,820 that would be like saying to men, 131 00:06:00,820 --> 00:06:02,100 you don't need your testicles 132 00:06:02,100 --> 00:06:03,220 or you don't need testosterone 133 00:06:03,220 --> 00:06:05,020 until you're ready to make a baby. 134 00:06:05,020 --> 00:06:07,860 And obviously that would be crazy. 135 00:06:07,860 --> 00:06:11,980 So that's, yeah, I feel like that's the same for women. 136 00:06:11,980 --> 00:06:14,140 I mean, so just to give some concrete examples, 137 00:06:14,140 --> 00:06:17,100 we do know that the pill affects mood long-term, 138 00:06:17,100 --> 00:06:18,860 not just while you're taking it potentially, 139 00:06:18,860 --> 00:06:22,540 but because it potentially alters the shape of the brain, 140 00:06:22,540 --> 00:06:25,540 which makes sense because hormones act on the brain. 141 00:06:25,540 --> 00:06:28,340 And also we do know what science we have, 142 00:06:28,340 --> 00:06:29,340 which is not as much science 143 00:06:29,340 --> 00:06:30,700 as we should have on this topic, 144 00:06:30,700 --> 00:06:32,580 but we do know that young women 145 00:06:32,580 --> 00:06:34,420 who take hormonal birth control 146 00:06:34,420 --> 00:06:37,660 don't reach what's called peak bone density. 147 00:06:37,660 --> 00:06:41,180 So around, normally if everything's going well 148 00:06:41,180 --> 00:06:44,540 and puberty is going well and hormones are there, 149 00:06:44,540 --> 00:06:46,860 then women should have the strongest bones 150 00:06:46,860 --> 00:06:49,180 they're ever gonna have by about their, 151 00:06:49,180 --> 00:06:51,860 you know, mid to early to mid 20s. 152 00:06:51,860 --> 00:06:53,180 That's called peak bone density. 153 00:06:53,180 --> 00:06:54,980 And then, you know, from that point, 154 00:06:54,980 --> 00:06:57,940 we just slowly lose bone over the decades, 155 00:06:57,940 --> 00:06:59,340 that's true for men as well. 156 00:06:59,340 --> 00:07:03,100 But with these medications in place, 157 00:07:03,100 --> 00:07:04,100 hormonal birth control, 158 00:07:04,100 --> 00:07:06,180 women are reaching a lower peak bone density. 159 00:07:06,180 --> 00:07:07,900 So they're potentially gonna have a higher risk 160 00:07:07,900 --> 00:07:10,580 of osteoporosis decades later, 161 00:07:10,580 --> 00:07:14,500 which a lot of young women don't maybe care about that much. 162 00:07:14,500 --> 00:07:16,860 A lot of the time when I'm speaking with my patients 163 00:07:16,860 --> 00:07:18,340 and my followers, 164 00:07:18,340 --> 00:07:20,260 they're more concerned about some of the mood side effects 165 00:07:20,260 --> 00:07:22,460 and some of the side effects around metabolic health 166 00:07:22,460 --> 00:07:24,900 and sports performance, things like that, 167 00:07:24,900 --> 00:07:27,900 that are also affected by hormonal birth control. 168 00:07:29,660 --> 00:07:31,540 Who would you say, Lara, 169 00:07:31,540 --> 00:07:36,540 that is there a story that pertains to your why 170 00:07:37,100 --> 00:07:38,780 that you'd like to share today? 171 00:07:39,900 --> 00:07:44,140 Yeah, I think for me, it was, I mean, 172 00:07:44,140 --> 00:07:47,460 early on in my practice, so coming at this, 173 00:07:47,460 --> 00:07:49,700 I started off in small town in Canada, actually, 174 00:07:49,700 --> 00:07:52,740 just in a little tiny town of about 4,000 people 175 00:07:52,740 --> 00:07:57,620 treating just people with all sorts of different conditions. 176 00:07:57,620 --> 00:07:58,820 I didn't realize at first 177 00:07:58,820 --> 00:08:00,540 and I was gonna be working so much with women, 178 00:08:00,540 --> 00:08:02,460 but then of course it's women who were coming to me, 179 00:08:02,460 --> 00:08:04,180 that was back in the 90s, 180 00:08:04,180 --> 00:08:06,540 back when there was a lot more surgery 181 00:08:06,540 --> 00:08:08,980 and higher dose birth control 182 00:08:08,980 --> 00:08:13,500 and they were really wanting other answers. 183 00:08:13,500 --> 00:08:17,540 And so I think my story was learning on the ground, 184 00:08:17,540 --> 00:08:19,500 as you do in a lot of professions, I think. 185 00:08:19,500 --> 00:08:22,220 I had some tools from my training as a naturopathic doctor, 186 00:08:22,220 --> 00:08:25,540 but then I just got to see early on 187 00:08:25,540 --> 00:08:30,500 that some simple interventions work for periods, 188 00:08:30,500 --> 00:08:32,260 work for women. 189 00:08:32,260 --> 00:08:36,140 And I was very gratified, I'm still very grateful 190 00:08:36,140 --> 00:08:38,060 to all the patients over the decades 191 00:08:38,060 --> 00:08:40,140 that came, put their trust in me 192 00:08:40,140 --> 00:08:44,140 and were willing to do things a little bit differently. 193 00:08:44,140 --> 00:08:46,140 There's one of my favorite Amazon reviews 194 00:08:46,140 --> 00:08:48,140 on my first book, Period of Perimanual, 195 00:08:49,340 --> 00:08:51,900 that I still remember and kind of hold there is, 196 00:08:51,900 --> 00:08:55,860 she said, I had no idea that what you eat 197 00:08:55,860 --> 00:08:57,500 can affect your period. 198 00:08:57,500 --> 00:08:58,540 And I thought, that's it, 199 00:08:58,540 --> 00:09:01,740 that's what I'm trying to communicate to women everywhere, 200 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:06,180 that menstruation and to a large extent, 201 00:09:06,180 --> 00:09:08,460 female hormones and metabolic hormones 202 00:09:08,460 --> 00:09:10,100 and thyroid hormone health, 203 00:09:10,100 --> 00:09:12,620 all of that is an extension of general health. 204 00:09:12,620 --> 00:09:15,500 It's not in a separate category. 205 00:09:15,500 --> 00:09:18,580 I think for too long, before this, 206 00:09:18,580 --> 00:09:20,220 women's hormones and menstruation 207 00:09:20,220 --> 00:09:22,660 had kind of been put in the too hard box 208 00:09:22,660 --> 00:09:24,540 and just thought, well, we'll just, 209 00:09:24,540 --> 00:09:27,740 that's really kind of an annoying part of female physiology, 210 00:09:27,740 --> 00:09:29,300 we'll just switch that, 211 00:09:29,300 --> 00:09:32,740 shut that all down with hormonal birth control, 212 00:09:32,740 --> 00:09:34,220 with contraceptive medication. 213 00:09:34,220 --> 00:09:37,500 And instead we can work with the body 214 00:09:37,500 --> 00:09:41,900 and change the expression of that entire aspect 215 00:09:41,900 --> 00:09:43,580 of women's health. 216 00:09:43,580 --> 00:09:45,340 And it's a reframing, 217 00:09:45,340 --> 00:09:48,660 it's quite fundamentally a paradigm shift 218 00:09:48,660 --> 00:09:53,660 in how we view women's biology and what is possible. 219 00:09:53,660 --> 00:09:58,540 Yeah, you're absolutely right because it is ludicrous to me 220 00:09:58,540 --> 00:10:01,060 when, like, if you would take the same example 221 00:10:01,060 --> 00:10:02,460 and put it in men's microbiology, 222 00:10:02,460 --> 00:10:03,620 that would obviously make sense 223 00:10:03,620 --> 00:10:07,460 because how would you go to the gym, 224 00:10:07,460 --> 00:10:09,460 workout, do something, you know what I mean? 225 00:10:09,460 --> 00:10:12,940 You're just not gonna have the chemicals 226 00:10:12,940 --> 00:10:15,740 bodily necessary to do. 227 00:10:15,740 --> 00:10:17,180 And that absolutely makes sense. 228 00:10:17,180 --> 00:10:19,020 And it's been going on for a while. 229 00:10:19,020 --> 00:10:21,100 Like it's, and in America, 230 00:10:21,100 --> 00:10:24,540 like I don't even think that most women 231 00:10:24,540 --> 00:10:25,740 are probably not even aware, 232 00:10:25,740 --> 00:10:28,300 like they could do something differently 233 00:10:28,300 --> 00:10:29,620 if that's the same cause, 234 00:10:29,620 --> 00:10:31,900 they just go on their life 235 00:10:31,900 --> 00:10:34,660 with side effects living throughout 236 00:10:34,660 --> 00:10:37,340 and they have no idea this is all related. 237 00:10:37,340 --> 00:10:38,300 Yeah, it's changing. 238 00:10:38,300 --> 00:10:41,020 There's a bit of a revolution right now around this. 239 00:10:41,020 --> 00:10:43,100 There's more growing awareness. 240 00:10:43,100 --> 00:10:46,340 And actually, yeah, the first chapter of my book, 241 00:10:46,340 --> 00:10:48,420 Periodic Permanently is called Period Revolution, 242 00:10:48,420 --> 00:10:50,500 just realizing, you know, women thinking, 243 00:10:50,500 --> 00:10:52,380 yeah, we can actually do this. 244 00:10:52,380 --> 00:10:54,540 We can have our own menstrual cycles. 245 00:10:54,540 --> 00:10:55,700 We can make our own hormones. 246 00:10:55,700 --> 00:10:57,180 I mean, I guess one of my other takeaways, 247 00:10:57,180 --> 00:11:00,100 and I know this from decades of speaking with women, 248 00:11:00,100 --> 00:11:02,580 is to sort of challenge the narrative 249 00:11:02,580 --> 00:11:07,260 that the bleeds, the kind of monthly bleeds 250 00:11:07,260 --> 00:11:09,660 on the combined oral contraceptive, 251 00:11:09,660 --> 00:11:12,780 just to point out that those are not menstrual cycles. 252 00:11:12,780 --> 00:11:15,780 Those are just induced withdrawal bleeds. 253 00:11:15,780 --> 00:11:16,980 There's actually no medical reason 254 00:11:16,980 --> 00:11:18,540 to bleed monthly on the pill 255 00:11:18,540 --> 00:11:20,980 because the entire hormonal system is shut down 256 00:11:20,980 --> 00:11:23,740 and that's just sort of a, it's mimicking a cycle. 257 00:11:23,740 --> 00:11:27,980 But when women's hormones are working properly, 258 00:11:27,980 --> 00:11:30,140 which is very possible for most women 259 00:11:30,140 --> 00:11:32,180 to get back to that place, 260 00:11:32,180 --> 00:11:34,220 then a menstrual cycle is monthly 261 00:11:34,220 --> 00:11:37,340 because that's how long it takes to ovulate, 262 00:11:37,340 --> 00:11:41,300 to make both hormones, for the ovaries to do their thing. 263 00:11:41,300 --> 00:11:44,020 Men are, this is again my reframing, 264 00:11:44,020 --> 00:11:45,980 if you normalize female physiology, 265 00:11:45,980 --> 00:11:48,420 hormonal physiology is monthly. 266 00:11:48,420 --> 00:11:51,980 It's like males are, men are kind of quirky 267 00:11:51,980 --> 00:11:54,340 and that they make testosterone every day, 268 00:11:54,340 --> 00:11:55,940 which is through my lens, 269 00:11:55,940 --> 00:11:59,060 just a different way of doing things. 270 00:11:59,060 --> 00:12:01,780 So yeah, my work has been a celebration 271 00:12:01,780 --> 00:12:05,660 of female physiology of the body 272 00:12:05,660 --> 00:12:08,620 and just I hope communicating to women 273 00:12:08,620 --> 00:12:11,380 that women's health is not as mysterious or complicated 274 00:12:11,380 --> 00:12:12,620 as we've been led to believe. 275 00:12:12,620 --> 00:12:15,940 There's a logic to it and it will respond 276 00:12:15,940 --> 00:12:18,900 to lifestyle changes in many cases, 277 00:12:18,900 --> 00:12:21,260 to diet changes in many cases. 278 00:12:21,260 --> 00:12:22,620 Thank you for being here today. 279 00:12:22,620 --> 00:12:25,100 I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. 280 00:12:25,100 --> 00:12:27,740 I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions 281 00:12:27,740 --> 00:12:30,020 as these episodes continue to move forward. 282 00:12:30,020 --> 00:12:31,740 This is gonna get more and more fun. 283 00:12:31,740 --> 00:12:33,540 We'll have more and more engagement as well. 284 00:12:33,540 --> 00:12:35,660 We'll invite people to participate in the show 285 00:12:35,660 --> 00:12:38,020 and thank you for giving us your time and attention. 286 00:12:38,020 --> 00:12:40,740 Have an excellent time building out your vision 287 00:12:40,740 --> 00:12:45,740 and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.