Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions
with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.
Now, here's Dr. Todd.
Good afternoon.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified doctor of non-force chiropractic and practitioner
of functional medicine.
I identify conditions that other doctors miss by doing tests that most doctors don't do,
like saliva hormone tests.
This is the third in a series of episodes on hormones.
The first one I talked about a really surprising article that came out in the medical press
with two medical experts talking about hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women and
a widespread problem that family physicians are just not treating women who are coming
into their offices with symptoms of menopause.
They're not being properly treated because they're worried about the side effects of
conventional hormone replacement therapy.
So there are other alternatives, more plant-based hormones, natural alternatives to the standard
PremPro and Premarin, horse urine hormones that were standard hormone replacement therapy
for several decades.
Last week, I focused on estrogen, the problems of low estrogen, some of the alternatives
to standard hormone replacement therapy for resolving the issue when women present with
low estrogen, especially on salivary hormone testing.
So when you test saliva instead of blood for hormones, you get an average throughout the
day instead of just a snapshot in time of something that's constantly going up and down.
So last week, it was all about estrogen.
This week, I'm going to focus on progesterone, the other major hormone that we're concerned
about for menopausal women.
I'm also going to talk about a really exciting case study about a 62-year-old woman who came
to see me with headaches, low thyroid symptoms, disappointing results with the therapy that
she was getting.
So she was going to another functional medicine doctor, and she still wasn't feeling right.
So she had good testing done, and she was getting some therapy, but she still didn't
feel like herself.
So she also had thinning hair and sugar cravings, low blood pressure, lightheadedness.
So we'll come back to that.
First, let's talk about progesterone.
What is the function of progesterone?
So pro to promote gestate in addition to its role in menstruation, pregnancy, and the formation
of embryos, progesterone balances estrogen.
It's anti-inflammatory.
Progesterone acts as a diuretic.
It enhances GABA, G-A-B-A, the calming neurotransmitter for people that have anxiety.
Progesterone enhances thyroid function.
It improves sleep.
It helps build bone.
It helps maintain bladder function.
Progesterone can help reduce anxiety, irritability, and mood swings.
It helps the body eliminate fats, increases metabolic rate, improves hair growth, lowers
bad cholesterol, protects breast health, and supports the immune system, among many other
things.
It's becoming clear that hopefully that progesterone has many effects throughout the body.
And that's why it's so important that if you're not feeling like yourself or you know someone
who is not feeling the way they should to get testing if they have these types of symptoms.
So symptoms of insufficient progesterone are anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings,
insomnia, pain and inflammation.
Losing progesterone contributes to osteoporosis and excessive menstruation and hypersensitivity,
nervousness, migraine headaches, weight gain, decreased libido, and decreased good cholesterol
are all signs symptoms of insufficient progesterone.
So what causes low progesterone?
Well, menopause, obviously, but also stress is a huge cause of low progesterone.
Loss and taking antidepressant medications, excess sugar consumption and saturated fat,
deficiency of several vitamins, especially vitamins A, B6, vitamin C, and zinc, and also
having low thyroid can contribute to low and result in low progesterone levels.
I decided to start doing this series on hormones when I read this just really surprising article
that came out about where Dr. Stephanie Fabian, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Women's
Health and medical director of the Menopause Society was speaking out against the fact
that most practicing physicians have been scared off prescribing hormone replacement
therapy for the past 20 odd years because a huge study called the Women's Health Initiative
showed that conventional hormone replacement therapy can increase the risk of breast cancer
and heart disease.
So what they don't tell you or what you don't usually hear about, I don't think that wasn't
even mentioned.
So even Dr. Fabian didn't mention this.
She sort of alluded to it later in the article.
But much of this increased risk for breast cancer and heart disease was caused by synthetic
progestins.
So the hormone replacement therapy that women have been taking for decades, PremPro and
Premarin, PremPro is, so Premarin is horse urine estrogen and PremPro is Premarin with
progestin, synthetic progesterone.
And this is well documented now that the synthetic progestins are carcinogenic and they have
an entirely different function to the natural progesterone that your body makes and to natural
progesterone that you can get from plant-based sources to fix the problem of if you test
low in progesterone.
So synthetic progestins have a whole bunch of horrible side effects which may be familiar
to women that were taking these things for many years.
Synthetic progestins, not natural progestin, but synthetic progestins cause increased appetite,
weight gain, fluid retention, irritability, depression, headache, decreased energy, breast
tenderness, decreased sexual interest, acne, hair loss, insomnia, nausea, spasm of the
coronary arteries and worst of all, they interfere with your body's own production of natural
progesterone and they don't help balance estrogen which is really important.
So worst of all, progestins, synthetic progestins, not natural progesterone, but synthetic progestins
increased breast cancer growth as was shown in several studies which is why so many doctors
have just thrown up their hands and said, well, if you don't want to increase your risk
of breast cancer then you'll just have to deal with the symptoms of menopause because
it's too dangerous to take the drugs that we would otherwise give you.
Well, that is not the only option.
Before we get to the natural options that are available that I've been using that many
other doctors use now, more on synthetic progestins.
So synthetic progestins also stop the protective effects of estrogen on the heart.
Estrogen is actually, natural estrogen and progestone are protective on the heart.
They increase, but the synthetic progestins increase bad cholesterol, decrease good cholesterol
and they counter-effect many of the positive effects of estrogen on serotonin and therefore
mood.
So natural progesterone that is produced by your ovaries before menstruation and your
adrenal glands after menstruation as well as plant-based.
So if you come into me, test low or you go to any functional practitioner these days,
hopefully and you test low and progesterone, we're going to recommend a natural plant-based
progesterone therapy which helps balance estrogen, improves sleep, has a natural calming effect,
it lowers your blood pressure, helps the body use and eliminate fats, lowers cholesterol,
increases metabolic rate, it's a natural diuretic, a natural antidepressant and an anti-inflammatory.
Natural progesterone also stimulates the production of new bone and enhances the effect of thyroid
hormones, improves libido and helps protect nerves in the brain and throughout your body.
So most importantly, not only does it not increase your risk of breast cancer, natural
progesterone reduces the risk of developing breast cancer.
One study of 6,000 premenopausal women who's those with regular cycles and the highest
levels of progesterone had an 88% reduction in the risk of developing breast cancer.
I've mentioned it before, that progesterone balances estrogen.
So what does that mean?
All the benefits that I've listed for natural progesterone only occur in the presence of
adequate estrogen.
Progesterone cream has been available over the counter for many years and some women
are afraid, so many women are afraid to take estrogen that they just take progesterone.
But too much progesterone, like so many things, can cause problems.
Among them, too much progesterone can elevate stressful cortisol levels.
Too much progesterone can increase insulin resistance, which is basically becomes diabetes.
It can also increase appetite and carbohydrate cravings and relax the muscles of the gut,
causing bloating and constipation.
Too much progesterone can contribute to gallstones and incontinence and it can decrease growth
hormone and also suppress the immune system and cause ligaments to become lax, causing
achy backs and hips and legs.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.
You're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to almost any health challenge.
We're talking about hormones, specifically mostly progesterone today.
And I've got an exciting case study about a 62-year-old woman that came to me with headaches,
low thyroid, disappointing.
She was going to another functional endocrinologist, functionally oriented endocrinologist who
was doing a great job, giving her some really good products, treating her with mostly natural
therapies.
But she still wasn't feeling good.
She wasn't getting the results that she had hoped for.
Her hair was getting thinner and she had intense sugar cravings.
Even though she was really good about not eating, she had an excellent diet.
She did not eat much grains, starch or sugar at all, but she still just really, really
craved it and didn't understand why.
She had low blood pressure, not on any medications for it, but she was aware of it and wanted
to do something about it.
Didn't want to need to become dependent on medication for that.
And she had, she didn't get lightheaded when she'd stand quickly.
That's a common sign of low blood pressure.
She had swelling, fatigue after eating and loose bowel movements and was getting bruising
that she'd never had before.
So I tested her, did the hormone, saliva hormone test on her and it showed that she had very
low cortisol levels throughout the day.
So she had extreme adrenal fatigue.
She's a successful businesswoman.
She's got a busy life.
This is part of life if you're a busy person a lot of times and she didn't seem particularly
stressed when I asked her, oh no, I don't, I mean, I just have the normal stress of life,
quote unquote.
But it was having a significant toll on her body, especially her adrenal glands and her
progesterone level and DHEA levels, which we'll talk more about that later, but these,
her progesterone was actually high as well as DHEA, which is a precursor for estrogen
testosterone.
So those were actually higher than normal.
So she was taking a little bit too much of that from what she was getting from her other
doctor.
I also did some blood work and her blood tests showed that she had pre-diabetes.
Again, even with that excellent diet, she had pre-diabetes and low protein levels.
She was really surprised about this.
How could she have low protein?
She eats a really good diet.
She eats quite a, for her weight and age, a sufficient, more than sufficient amount of
fish and chicken, good quality protein, but she still had low protein in her serum.
Well, I explained to her that most of the time when that happens, very common actually,
I see it all the time.
People who are eating adequate amounts of protein still end up with insufficient protein
in their serum because of low acid in their stomach.
To absorb the protein that you eat, you must have sufficient hydrochloric acid in your
stomach to break that protein down and absorb and assimilate it to get it into your cells
where it can help rebuild and repair tissues throughout your body.
It's so important.
And especially as you get older, if you're over in your 60s or 70s or older, it's really
important to get that checked, maintain adequate protein levels.
And oftentimes it's not because you need to eat more, but mostly often, most frequently
in my experience, because your stomach stops making enough acid to break that protein down
so that it becomes assemblable.
So she had low protein, she has stress on her liver.
It's a 62 year old woman, stress on her liver, high cholesterol, low thyroid.
She was being medicated for that folate and B12 deficiency and vitamin D deficiency.
So she was significantly deficient in two B vitamins, folate and B12, as well as vitamin
D. So she was eating a good nutrient, she was eating a good diet, but not absorbing
the nutrients from the food because she was eating some good sources of these B vitamins
even, but wasn't absorbing them.
And so I gave her some basic nutrient support, a good multivitamin, which is always a four
capsule a day multivitamin with minerals that your body can actually absorb and use, a fairly
high dose of fish oil, vitamin D with vitamin K and some digestive enzymes and that hydrochloric
acid that was missing from her stomach so that she can absorb the nutrients from her
food.
Then we added some folate and B12 to fix those deficiencies and some adrenal support.
So when somebody's adrenal glands are as fatigued as hers were, my first step is to give adrenal
glandulars, which are basically just ground up adrenal glands from healthy young animals
that have all the components of cells that your body needs to make new adrenal functioning,
healthy adrenal gland cells that will restore your adrenal function very quickly.
And then eventually we only do those short term, usually four to six months typically,
and then move you over to support for keeping your adrenal glands functioning normally with
adaptogenic herbs.
So often start with both actually, but long term, you don't need to take the glandulars,
just some support to deal with the normal daily stress.
So the upshot is four months later, almost all of her symptoms had dramatically improved
and many were gone completely.
She was really excited.
She said, I'm starting to feel like myself again.
The sugar cravings were gone.
Her lightheadedness was gone.
The fatigue after eating is gone.
Her stools are normal and she's getting the bruising, still getting a little bit of bruising,
but much less than she was.
She had more energy and her headaches were almost gone, very, very much less frequently
than they had been before.
So she was really excited about that.
And I've had so many similar cases.
It's really sad that so many women are suffering from symptoms like this that can be helped
and they just are convinced that there's no option out there.
So please tell people, if you know someone who's having menopausal symptoms, things like
we've been talking about, that there are options out there and you need to do the proper testing
to identify the proper solution and it need not involve heavy side effects, latent pharmaceuticals
or anything else that has side effects or increases your risk of cancer, et cetera.
So how do I keep myself abreast of all the latest information about this?
I go to a conference every year, the Lens Conference Laboratory Endocrine and Neurotransmitter
Symposium, and they have just the top experts in the field there every year, among them,
Pamela Smith.
So if you want to educate yourself about this, Pamela Smith is not only a fantastic physician
and speaker and educator, but she writes books for the public as well.
And this is one I recommend, probably the best single book if you want to educate yourself
about these things that I've been talking about.
Pamela Smith, MD, the title of the book is What You Must Know About Women's Hormones.
And Dr. Pamela Smith is a diplomat of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Physicians
and a director of the master's program in medical sciences with a concentration in metabolic
and nutritional medicine at the University of South Florida School of Medicine.
She has practices in Florida and Michigan.
And her book is divided up into three parts.
The first part describes your own, your body, how your body makes its own hormones and the
functions and the side effects that can occur if they're not at optimal levels.
And part two focuses on the most common problems that arise from hormonal imbalances, PMS,
hot flashes, the common stuff, but also some lesser common disorders that you may not realize
are related to hormones, osteoporosis.
And in part three, she focuses on hormone replacement therapy, focusing on the difference
between natural and synthetic hormones.
So again, the book is titled What You Must Know About Women's Hormones by Pamela Warteyan
Smith, MD.
It's an excellent book to educate yourself and also arm yourself if you're getting treatment
from a doctor currently and not getting the results you want.
I'd love an opportunity to help you, but if you want to educate yourself a little bit
more before you make a change or even perhaps just continue with the doctor that you're
seeing but be able to ask them educated questions, this is a great resource to educate yourself.
One of the most common questions I've got this past week is how much does it cost to
get this salivary hormone test I'm talking about?
So the comprehensive test, there are some different options, but the comprehensive test
that includes all of the things I've been talking about, all three estrogens, estrone,
estradiol, the most famous one, estriol, all three estrogens, four cortisol tests throughout
the day, progesterone, DHEA, and testosterone, that comprehensive salivary hormone test through
Doctors Data is $220.
So that's the money that goes to the lab for them to perform that test.
And you can check out that test on their website, doctorsdata.com.
You can go on their website and click on the test menu and endocrinology and under that
the comprehensive plus hormone profile saliva.
And you can see a sample report to see what your results might look like.
You can also just email me and I'll send you a sample report of this if you'd like.
Doctors Data is the premier lab in the country for doing this type of testing.
And it's really simple to do for people who are afraid or getting their blood taken or
reluctant to go in and get an eel stick.
The nice thing is it's just a kit that either I have the lab, if you come to me at the office,
I've got them in the office or I can have the lab ship a kit directly to you.
I have patients in many states around the country and I just have the lab ship the kit
directly to you and you open it, you read the instructions.
There's four little tubes and a straw that you use to spit in each of these four tubes.
You collect one first half hour after you wake up in the morning.
The second tube is around lunchtime, dinnertime and bedtime.
So half hour after you wake up, lunchtime, dinnertime, bedtime.
So that gets this nice range of cortisol levels throughout the day.
So your stress hormone that's produced by your adrenal glands, cortisol, varies throughout
the day on a normal curve.
So it starts out highest in the morning.
It's really high in the morning.
It drops down around midday and lower in the evening and the lowest at night.
But that curve, so it's always going to, if it's working normally, will always be in that
type of a curve, but it should also be within a certain range.
So we want to make sure that's why we need to do four tests and not just a while.
Some doctors just do a morning cortisol blood test and that doesn't tell you what it's
doing the rest of the day.
So you really need that.
You need to see those four results throughout the day.
And then the lab takes a little bit from each one of those four samples and makes a fifth
sample, which then gives them an average throughout the day to test all the other hormones, the
three estrogens, the progesterone, the testosterone and the DHEA.
That's how they get that average throughout the day versus a snapshot in time.
If you get a blood test, they get that average by taking those four tubes that you've collected
half hour after waking, lunchtime, dinnertime and bedtime.
And that allows you to see a more accurate result of what your hormones are doing throughout
the day.
So you just collect the four samples of saliva.
There's a little freeze frozen pack in the kit.
You put that in the freezer, you collect your four samples, put them in the freezer and
the next day or the day after even whenever it's convenient, there's a FedEx bag included.
And you just FedEx it back to the lab and I get the results in usually a week, sometimes
a little bit longer depending on how busy the lab is.
But the most important thing about this is you're going to find information that you're
not going to get anywhere else, especially by doing blood testing for hormones.
The saliva hormone test gives you information you can't get any other way.
And it's important because most of the time when the results come back and you have an
issue, what are we going to do?
The most common remedy, especially for estrogen and progesterone problems is to do a transdermal
cream or an oil.
But the bottom line is you're rubbing this on your skin and it's getting absorbed through
your tissues.
And that type of therapy, when you want to check your progress and check your dosages,
then that is not readily shown accurately on a blood test.
It's passing through your interstitial fluid.
It's bound up to red blood cells.
It doesn't show up in serum like most things on a blood test.
So they kind of go hand in hand.
And a lot of functional practitioners, even more progressive doctors, are becoming more
and more aware of this.
And of course, anyone can get progesterone cream over the counter.
A lot of women have been using that for years.
But if you really want to know what your status is, whether or not it's working, or if it
is or isn't, why, then you have to get tested and you have to use a test that fits the treatment.
So transdermal hormone therapies, very low dose, plant-based therapies with none of the
side effects of the traditional hormone, synthetic hormones that women were on for decades.
You want to use the transdermal therapies and saliva testing hand in hand because they're
the best way of assessing your progress.
So do you know someone who's struggling with this type of thing?
I'd love an opportunity to help them.
I've had so many, it's so exciting to see people feel better, especially when they've
been convinced for a long time that there really was nothing that could be done.
And there is.
There so often is something that can be done if you do the proper testing and the proper
therapies.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.
Thank you for listening.
Please send me your questions.
Email me.
You can text me at 805-218-3939.
I look forward to speaking with you right here next Friday at 4 p.m. on KDAR 98.3 FM.
Do something to be healthier this weekend than you were last weekend.
Have a fantastic weekend.
We'll see you right here next Friday.
You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.
If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to
drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.
Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved
ones because our health matters.
Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The Word,
KDAR.