The Truth About Menopause & Hormones with Dr. Betty Murray

Good morning, everyone. This is Michelle Hughes from Ageless and Timeless. Well, you know

that we're what we stand for. It's all about living the best version of ourselves and using

the most contemporary cutting-edge biohacks. That's kind of a slang word these days, but anyway,

but we try to find all the ways that we can live better and longer. And so today my guest is Dr.

Betty Murray and she exemplifies exactly what I just said. So we're going to talk a lot today about

how we maximize our opportunity to live better and longer. So Betty, welcome to Ageless and

Timeless. Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Well, Betty is Dr.

Betty Murray is from, well, you're from Dallas. I mean, is that where you grew up Betty? I've

actually lived all over the country. I'm originally from Northern California, but that's right.

You told me that. Right. So we were neighbors. Where, which town was it?

Walnut Creek. So I was born in Walnut Creek. I remember you telling me, okay, so you're transplant

down to Texas. That's like so many Californians these days. So Betty, why don't you start us off by

telling us your journey in as simple, you know, concise the ways possible. How did you go from there

to here? Yeah, I moved around a lot as a kid, but you know, my journey into healthcare really came

out of my own illness. You know, I hate to say that, you know, so many of us that sort of go into

the functional medicine arena longevity biohacking. It's because the current conventional medicine sort

of failed us. And, you know, I was actually swept into the technology boom in the early 90s.

So I was, you know, early early 90s. And so while I was working for a company as a first female

hired by the CTO, you know, it was 100 hours a week, a very brutal environment, I was diagnosed

with colitis. So what was once kind of an episodic digestive problem became much worse.

And I remember when I was sitting in the room and the doctor, you know, I was asking the doctor

if I could change my diet because I didn't want to go on the medications. I was like, these are

really harsh. And he barked this laugh in my face and said it had nothing to do with what I ate.

Oh. And of course, you know, you'll get to know me. I had some choice words. I was a little bit

colorful. And I walked out of that. And I, you know, I spent my time, you know, weight training.

And I was in the diet nutrition. That's what I read about all the time. And so I just started

taking nutrition classes first at a kind of a community college that I've found a university

online and ended up going in back and getting a certification in a master's in human,

basically nutrition science. And I opened our clinic. So I've had a clinic for 21 years in

Texas and in North Texas. And we really helped predominantly women, especially in the very

beginning with complex health problems. And then when I really entered into, that was my mid-30s.

I entered into my late-30s. I started having a lot of hormonal problems. At the time,

even though I was connected in the functional medicine community, I had access to the luminaries.

I'm an OG in that community. You know, what it was really going on is I was in very early

perimenopause after a tubal and some other stuff. We can go into it. But at the time, I was told

it was everything else. It's your dream, it's your thyroid, it's your this, it's your that.

And what I really recognized very quickly is, you know, all of the chronic disease that really

affects people early in life is very, very expensive and also very, very disruptive or predominantly

female. Right? If we look at autoimmune disease, it's, you know, 10 to 1 female to male. And if we

look at kind of chronic disease, women tend to live longer about poor health span. And so in my

late 40s, I decided to go back and get another master's in PhD, really the PhD, but you have to get

the master's just in case you don't finish the paper. So I got another one of those and I was

really studying hormone metabolism, so higher body processes hormones and the impact on disease

and longevity. And then I specifically looked at the impact at IBS for women. And so everything I

do now is really to move women's health forward, particularly for the midlife woman, because we get

less than 1% of research dollars. And, and so we have a huge gap there. So that's that's my kind of

place. And it was because my perimenopause was so terrible, despite being highly connected. You

know, I kept looking at it and saying, God, if I feel this bad, how does it feel? Right. So what

happened with the colitis first and then the hormones? Yeah. So the colitis, you know, for me,

several things were triggers for me. So I ended up later on being diagnosed with celiac, so I'm

a celiac, and, and I have some other foods that really, really trigger me. You know, the microbiome

was kind of out of whack. So through nutrition, supplementation, and, you know, really, really

being clean, I've been able to control my colitis. I don't have to be on medications and, and I,

and for the most part, I'm in remission. And then, you know, for me, I ended up getting a

tubal because I didn't want to be on birth control, but I wanted to control my fertility. I wanted

to control that risk. And I had to fight for it, you know, doctors were like, you don't want to

do that. I'm, I am in Texas. And so there, you know, somebody else feels like they can tell you

what your fertility journey should be. And so when I finally had it done, you know, they said,

nothing will happen to you. Like, it's just we're just going to cauterize those fallopian tubes.

Well, low and behold, within about six months, my hair started falling out, my period started

coming closer together. I again, I literally gained like 30, 35 pounds. I used to hang, I used to live

in the bodybuilding community. So I know how to manipulate body composition. And that's the nutrition

professional. That was just hard spot, right? Oh, absolutely. And you couldn't, and nothing you did

would change it, right? Because it was phenomenal. Right, right. And so now at 56, I had no visible

ovaries. And I've never had them removed. My body reabsorbed them. So what we went to get told

is when they go in and whether it's a hysterectomy or and they leave the ovaries or they go in and

cauterize or you have any kind of surgical intervention, a lot of times the blood supply in the

nerves to those organs will get damaged. And your body will reabsorb them. They dry up like a

walnut and get reabsorbed. So, you know, I think what happened is that pushed me into a very early

period of menopause. I looked more estrogen dominant if you've ever heard that sort of conversation.

Of course. And so, you know, I was on this journey. And I think a lot of it was, I was being told and

managed as if I was very estrogen dominant. And I think there was a lot of chaos there. But

I think I should have started estrogen a lot earlier. But I went into basically early menopause

despite having all my parts, you know. And so, you know, and so I understand when women are like,

I don't understand what's happening to my body. So, so, define for the people that are watching

today to find estrogen dominance. Yeah. So, we have, we have three major hormone groups. So,

we have, when we're talking about sex hormones, we have estrogen. Of estrogen, we make three.

The one that's most protective is estradiol. That's the one your ovaries makes. And then we have

a counterbalance hormone called progesterone. And progesterone's job is to sort of fluctuate with

estrogen and prepare the uterine lining for implantation if you happen to fertilize an egg.

But progesterone has impact on the brain and other things. And those two hormones fluctuate

throughout your cycle and throughout your month. And then there's also testosterone. It doesn't

fluctuate as much. And it does decline, but declines more slowly sort of over time. And often,

when a woman gets into her forties, when she starts in that sort of perimenopausal journey,

progesterone is the first hormone to decline. So, it starts to decline because you do not always

ovulate. So, the egg doesn't always fly out. And that is required in order to make progesterone.

And so, by default, many women in their midlife in their forties is they're going to be estrogen

dominant relative to their progesterone. And then as you get into sort of late stage menopause,

you start to have wild fluctuations of estrogen, then estrogen starts to decline.

Here's the thing, Michelle, that no one tells you is you could still be having a cycle

and still have low estrogen. Really? Why is that? Explain that sign, typically.

Yeah. So, essentially, we have two hormones that come from the brain. One's called FSH,

follicular stimulating hormone, and the other one's called luteinizing hormone. And

there, I think of those as the coaches or the instruction manuals that tell the ovaries,

hey, we're going to shoot an egg out. So, FSH and LH in particular causes the ovary to swell,

like to create a little follicle, and then to shoot the egg out. What happens is we don't get

appropriate signaling there, and then we don't always have an egg come out. That can be because we

are running out of eggs, and so we're a little bit low, or they don't fully develop. So, we're

born with our eggs, but they go through so this dormancy phase into a live phase each month.

And so, if that happens, we don't necessarily have an egg fly out, we don't get progesterone,

so we don't have as much rise. So, in any cases, women in their late 40s are having the estrogen

fluctuations that are being driven by FSH and LH, but they're not really ovulating, but they'll

still have a cycle because their estrogen is still fluctuating. And really, I don't think we

understand that well enough. We haven't done enough research. So, a lot of women are sort of waiting

until their periods stop before they intervene, but the reality is their overall levels of estrogen

throughout the month are likely low compared to... The symptoms of that, if they were just looking

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products. So, it can be, you know, obviously that most people think of what that we call the

vasomotor things, the hot flashes and night sweats. However, that's not the first ones that show up.

I would say the most common symptom you'll hear is I don't feel like myself, right? It's this sort of

gray, not quite sure, but when we look at the studies, the most prevalent symptoms are brain fog,

anxiety, depression, sleep issues, fatigue. And what about weight gain too, right?

Yeah, weight gain doesn't get its fair due. You know, you've got a lot of the other kind of

science side that it's like it's all about calories in, calories out. But we know that the loss of

estrogen affects insulin sensitivity, that affects your powerhouses, your mitochondria,

it affects your body's ability to burn fat and sugar. I mean, so weight gain is a big part of that

too in many, many cases. Yeah, because the A1C levels, the insulin levels and glucose

tend to increase, right? Because of the estrogen is not helping to keep them at a normal level.

So the low estrogen causes more insulin sensitivity is what you were saying. Okay, so go on.

I mean, just tell us more. Yeah, so actually it's, you know, think of your hormones as kind of

like the three little bears. We want the porridge just right, you know? So too much estrogen can

cause insulin resistance to little estrogen can cause insulin resistance. It's about kind of that,

having that right range. And so for a lot of women, we experience that sort of weight increase

in all those other pieces. You know, the other thing that I think is most insidious is women will

start to experience the mood issues. So anxiety and depression, like three out of five, you know,

four out of five will experience some period of depression and or anxiety. And I think what we

don't realize is how much that impacts how we feel about ourselves. And then how we show up in

relationships and work, you know, we have this huge brain drain that also happens in entrepreneurship

and corporate America because women are now at the kind of pinnacle of their success. And they're

starting to have all these symptoms. And there's a significant portion of them that will walk away

from, you know, advancement because they just, they're like, I'm not, my brain's not working, you know?

Right. So, so what did you, what did you do about it? And what do you recommend others do if they're

facing that right now? Yeah. So I think, I think the thing that women need to understand is that

the average woman experienced the symptoms of menopause for eight years. And that's really happening

in perimenopause, right? Because menopause technically is one day. It's one year from the last time

you had your cycle. So the average woman's going to experience that for eight years. You know,

for me, what really helped me was getting my hormones balanced and actually putting estrogen in,

despite the fact that I fit this sort of position or experience of what everybody thought estrogen

dominance would look like. So getting estrogen on board dialed in and also having less of my own

natural fluctuation. When you're in that second half of the cycle, your ovaries, I like to call them

like a bungee cord. Today it's high. Today it's low. Today it's high. It's low. So your your ovarian

function and your production of estrogen is so volatile. A lot of times you might feel good one

day and not the next. When you put estrogen in and you even out those peaks and valleys because you've

got like a low level that you're also supporting, you create less of that and you get less chaos in

that zone. We don't have really great research. I mean, that's why we're building manurva is because

we want to be able to get the research to really be able to to do that with precision. You know,

so hormone replacement, I think every woman regardless of age should consider and be evaluated

as an individual for hormone replacement. The fact that women would benefit regardless of age.

We have women that put on hormones 20 years ago, they're in their 80s and they're rocking and

rolling. So what about, okay, so with estrogen, let's dissect it a little bit more. All right,

you said esterinal, but go ahead and talk about the three estrogens and what they each mean and how

they each influence the overall effect of the outcome. Sure, sure. So, so esterinal is the one that's

most protective. So that's the one that's made by your ovaries. We also have another form of estrogen

that is made by your fat cells predominantly called esterone. Anestrone in your tissues can be converted

to estradiol. So if I have estrone in my breast tissues, my abdomen, my belly fat, my body can

convert it if necessary to estradiol. When would the body know to convert? It's going to do that on

its own. You know, I would say we don't necessarily understand exactly what triggers that activity.

You know, if we think about what estradiol really is, as estradiol has the primary function

of metabolic function, so like driving mitochondrial function, driving, you know, brain cell function.

And so, but the challenge is, is esterone, if we're heavier, let's say, will make more esterone.

When we go through menopause, esterone is the primary hormone that we make and it's more pro-inflammatory.

So it doesn't have, so think of your hormones as keys and every single cell has like a lock and key.

Esterol is the perfect key and it makes everything work perfectly. Esterone is kind of like a broken

key and you should have to give me the lock. It can attach to receptors but it attaches to these,

to some of the receptors that are less favorable. So you don't want a ton of esterone.

There's another one called esterol and that one is made through the detoxification pathways in

the liver. So it's part of your body's sort of packaging of these hormones once your body's done

with them to go into the trash. Esterol is generally not very high unless we're pregnant

but it preferentially attaches to a receptor called estrogen receptor B and that one is considered

cancer protective, right? So we want some esterol circulating and then you've got esteridial that

attaches to both estrogen receptor A and estrogen receptor B, right? So it's never one or the other.

So when you're replacing hormones we usually do an esterol and in our world we also do esterol

because we want some of that estrogen receptor B attachment basically. Yeah, you don't want

esterone. You don't want to add esterone. So when I was first learning I remember there was like

a one, two and three and three I think was the esterone, right? You never wanted to add the three.

Only the one and the two. Yes. So in the in the formulations just to take it one step further.

In the bio-identical world, the BHRT, what form of esterol, which is the most common one?

Let's just take both of them, okay? One and two. What form do you prefer for absorption and

out, you know, the other outcome of effectiveness? Yeah, we use, so we use for our company,

Minerva, some Minerva is the telemedicine company in all 50 states. We use a bio-identical

hormone in oil and so we use a combination called biest. So biest is a combination of esteridial

and esterol. Right. And the good thing is because it's compounded we can change the composition

of the amount of both of those so we can both receptors. Now if you look at the bio-identical

forms that are often used by other practitioners like the patch, it's solely an esteridial, right?

Yeah. And so at a minimum, you know, we have to have esteridial because that's the one that

provides the primary function systemically, but I'm a strong believer because of the biochemistry

that we also need esterial. So okay, so when you say in oil, how do you take that? Is it something

that you put under your tongue or how is it used? Yeah, so it's topical. So it's a topical,

almost like a cream and it's in an organic, jojoba oil. So it's this company, yeah, it's patented.

So it's a patented, all organic, prescriptive, hormone and jojoba oil are the only ingredients.

And, and baby, why did you choose that over, let's say sublingual trokeys or injections or,

you know, other forms of, of application? How did, why did you choose the topical?

You know, we've used all of them. So, and I will say even myself, I'm kind of a human guinea pig,

I've used pellets, I've done it all because I'll do it and then I'll run labs and see what happens,

like, right. And you know, here's the thing is most all of whether it's injectable or whether it's

the patch or even compounded creams have endocrine disrupting ingredients in it, there's solvents

to keep them in suspension. And so to me, it was always odd and, and, and less than favorable to go,

oh, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a bioidentical hormone, but I'm going to give you an endocrine

disruptor at the same time because those things disrupt your sex hormones. And so I went on a search

to find a cleaner source, right. And so when I found this company bright, which is the pharmaceutical

company that produces this, they literally had just the jojoba oil and the hormones. So I was like,

okay, they're patented internationally worldwide to deliver hormones and oil. They're the only

company patented to do that. And I was like, this is fantastic because the other thing is a lot of

your creams don't absorb very well. Depends on what the base is. So a person like from one company,

and it works great in the non-nother, jojoba oil is a waxy oil. So it, it sits on the skin

and absorbs very rapidly. And so it has a very uniform absorption. And so we tested it for two

years in our clinic against, you know, other forms, whether it was compounded or patch or whatever,

and really found it to be very, very effective and the cleanest form. So that's our primary hormone

that we use. And where is the estrogen derived? Is it from the ams? It is, I mean, it is going to be,

it is a vegetarian form. So it is a vegetarian. What is traditionally used in almost all compounding?

You know, from a chemical standpoint, I everybody uses roughly the same derivative.

Right. So, okay, so how often do you use it and how much?

Yeah, so it depends on the woman, right? You know, so one of the things that was always frustrating

to me when I, even when I started our clinic back in 2005, you know, I sat down with the physician

Somap HD. I'm the science side of the medical side. And I was like, I was very excited that we

were going to be doing bioidentical hormone replacement. And I sat down, I was like, okay, tell me how we

calculate this because we're compounding it. And I was really frustrated because it was like, well,

we started a low dose and then we checked symptoms. And, you know, thankfully, we look at labs,

a lot of clinicians do not. And then we sort of guest our way into the right dose. And I can tell

you this Michelle, that hasn't changed in 22 years. I know, it's happening in a way. And so here's

what we do know. So this is why we're building the technology platform. We're going to capture this

for each individual woman so we can actually be predictive, right? But so in most cases, we, we apply

estrogen twice a day, right? So in the morning and at night, and it's because estrogen has a relatively

short half-life. It's not as short as progesterone, which is extremely short, which we still do

poorly, but it has a short half-life. So a lot of times, if you take it in the morning, it may be the

dose may be worn off by night and it might affect your sleep. And so we do this a little bit in the

morning and a little bit at night. We do progesterone a lot of times at night or all micronized because

it helps sleep. And then testosterone, we will usually dose in the morning because it has a much

longer life. And, and in most cases, you're using it like on the forearm and then the inner thigh.

Does it just testosterone is also a cream? It's a it's an oil. Yeah, so it's an oil.

The same thing. And what's the name of the compounding pharmacy that you?

It's so it's a it's an exclusive pharmacy. It's called Bright. Right. Like B-R-I-G-H-G.

Or P-R-I-T-E. Oh, T-E. Right. Okay. And so they're you're saying that the only one that you could

find that had the yeah they have yeah they have an exclusive worldwide patent on delivering hormones

and oil on the on the with the hohova oil. Would you why? I don't understand why how anybody could

anybody can go get hohova oil and put it in their formula. So how do they start? How do they

happen? So they're in patent. If somebody goes and does that, they're violating their patent,

which means they'll end up. That's incredible that they would get a patent on a yeah they've had

it for a while. Yeah, they matter. Yeah, I was surprised. But you know, I I have been looking for

the cleanest possible you know delivery and so A, the delivery is great and B, we saw really

really great results in lab work and also symptoms better than creams because creams are kind of

all over the place. Injectibles you know sometimes you get peaks and valleys and you know and I'm

pellets are very easy to get too high and hard to control. And so my my my functional medicine doctor

and Beverly Hills, he does not like the patches. What what did you come up with as far as

conclude conclusions about the patch? I mean the patches like if we looked at your menopause

society trained physicians, that's their go-to. But here's what we have found is you know, most of

these are all generics. The generics change all the time. The absorption is radically different

between brands. Some of them are just horrible, right? You can get you know patch adhesive

interactions so some people get rashes and things like that. You know, I will say some people

really like them, right? You know, so our product may not be perfect for them. But we have found

that it really depends on the brand and those pharmacies are constantly changing brands because it's

whoever gave them the lowest price this month. And so we you know and right now we have a patch

shortage. You know. Oh, because it's life-changing. Yeah. Is that because it's coming from China?

Well, it was it was occurring before everything that's happening right now. But

a all of so all of our pharmaceutical drugs, almost every every form of generic drug is actually

made in India and a few that are made in China. And so our supply chain is 100% outside of the

United States in most cases. And so we are subject to what's going on. So between tariffs and

you know, the chaos of world wars and all of that, you know, that does it. But I think the other

part is I think they failed to pay attention to the FDA lifting the warning.

And so how do you integrate the other hormones, DHEA, pregnant alone, thyroid, you know, how do you

how do you get it all to be in balance? It's like a it's like being the conductor of a

a big orchestra. You have all these individual instruments and they're all playing, you know,

they have to play together in order to be a symphony, right? So how do you manage to get all of that

in balance with with individual customization? Yeah. So I you know, I think this is where a lot of

people miss the boat, right? You know, when they start looking for hormone replacement therapy,

a lot of clinicians out there just go, oh, you just need sex hormones and soon as you're hot

flashes go away, you're perfect. And I'm like, these aren't magic, right? And here's the thing,

we have a we have a great quiz that we're developing that helps a woman understand because nine

times out of 10, the analogy you gave is perfect. If your sex hormones, all of a sudden showed up

and the orchestra thought they were playing a waltz and all of a sudden they're playing jazz,

the other hormone systems start to freak out and they're trying to mallets to try to bring

harmony. So most of the time there's other hormones that are at a balance, the thyroid or the

adrenals or the insulin hormones. So we've got an inflammatory response. And if we ignore that,

we miss it. And so we test for all of it, we look at all of it and we're adjusting for all of it.

So we also are very, very precise about replacing thyroid when necessary with the right

combinations for that person to get the right levels and addressing the diet and lifestyle

to make sure those things are dialed in. You know, adrenal function and cortisol is a big part

of that because menopause is a high cortisol time period. Like we have no recovery hormones.

And so if you automatically already have other things contributing to that, you're never going

to feel awesome even if you get sex hormones on board. And do you get a lot of resistance from

people from women to take and taking testosterone? You know, I think we've done a really good job

of explaining the necessity of testosterone and just the the the myopic view of the FDA that

it's not necessary for women. Most of our women really want testosterone, you know, because they

recognize that it's a that's it's a brain hormone first and foremost, right? And so and so we don't

get a lot of pushback there, you know. Well, and also with the GLP ones, you know, in the

sarcopenia threat muscle loss, more and more people have realized more and more women are realizing

they need to get testosterone because that helps with not only with their libido, which often

you have is a negative impact in menopause, but but really with the muscle building and maintenance

of muscle. But the muscle loss is probably one of the biggest causes of aging. And the GLP ones,

you know, have only accelerated that potential. So protein, protein, protein, you know,

so pregnant alone. So pregnant alone, I don't think that sits fair do, right? So pregnant alone

for everybody, that is the parent hormone or the precursor hormone for all of our other hormones.

I know. And why is it that it gets so little attention? I think a lot of it's because we really

haven't done the due diligence on studying it. You know, it's highly concentrated in the brain.

It's the precursor. You know, it really deserves a bigger due, right? Because even when you look

at what's an optimal level, I don't, I wouldn't say that we have really great research to say it,

right? Like from even a functional standpoint, we always like it on the higher end, but could we

pot, you know, could we possibly point to and say, this is why we don't have that, but it gets,

it does get missed. And you know, DHA also, the thing is, that would be my next point. Yeah,

so go ahead on DHA because that again, it's, you know, oftentimes not even tested. And then they,

you know, there's always this distinction between seven keto DHA, regular DHA, regular DHAs,

what helps with the sex hormones, but oftentimes doctors give you the seven keto form,

which doesn't do anything for that. So I think there's so much confusion, but just talk about

DHA. Yeah, so DHA, DHA is really a counterbalance hormone, and it's your, it's your primary

antibiotic hormone to offset cortisol. Yeah. So it's job is to really support responding to

stressors and getting back to an antibiotic state. And it is the precursor for testosterone and

angestine diet. Seven keto, seven keto has been shown in early studies in the 90s to help a little

bit with lean body mass. But it is not, it is not a precursor to your other hormones. However,

what I also want to say is, as a lot of especially telemedicine companies that haven't gone down the

road to prescribe testosterone, like we do it in all 50 states. Yeah. You know, but they will lie

to women and say DHA is equivalent. And we can help you raise your endrogens. And I'm like,

I have yet to see that raised testosterone enough to be any bit functional without causing

hair loss and and acne and a bunch of other things. Like they act independently and they are

different. We look at it. We look at DHE sulfate. We look at the levels. We restore it. And for

the most part, women don't need really high levels. We just need consistent levels.

Yeah. So what do you consider to be a good level of DHA? Depends on how, where you're looking at it.

I prefer it in urine. I prefer looking at DHE sulfate in urine. And if we look at like the

Dutch tests, you know, their reference range goes for a midlife woman goes from like 30 to I think

750, you know, which is crazy. I like it. And if you look in blood, I like it in the, you know, 150s.

And that's where I am. I'm 160, I think. But what about, okay, so let's talk about the big teeth,

thyroid. That's probably one of the most underdiagnosed conditions in our medical world,

the alopathic side. But even the functional medicine people still miss a lot about, you know,

oh, you're just, you're just aging. But yet, you know, I feel, I feel badly. I have my hands

and feet are cold. I'm gaining weight. I have bad moods. And, and, and then your thyroid gets tested

and it's normal. But yet, it isn't really normal. So what, how do you deal with that? I'm sure

that you face this in our frequently. Yeah. And I think, you know, if we look at conventional

medicine, they just look at TSH, which isn't even a thyroid hormone. It's a pituitary. I know.

I know. And then if, and then if they look further, they look at T4, which again is not an

active hormone, it must have iodine molecule removed. So the first thing is testing all the way

to free T3 and antibodies, right? And reverse, right? And reverse T3, because reverse T3 is sort of

a fake version that blocked the real hormone. So it's very important to see that and adjust

accordingly to make sure that we get that T3 level up into a therapeutic range. Because a lot

of people get prescribed things like your, you know, your centroid, levothoroxin, which never raises

their T3, right? So it's like T4. Yeah. And so that depends on the IDO gene and whether you can

actually convert very well. Like, I have mutations on all of them. I don't convert T3 very well. So

I actually, personally, I take an NP thyroid plus side amel or compounded T3, I take twice a day.

Wow. Because T3, T3 is a very fast-acting hormone. And so it's half-life is short. So you might

then dose it twice. So what I do, I take the NB as well, the natural, I never take any pharmaceutical

compounds if I can help it. But I've been on two grains now, is that? Do you think that's

a little too high for, I mean, my thyroid, my T3 was like 2.25, I think, on the last test.

That's a little bit low, isn't that borderline low? Yeah, that's low. Yeah, that's still low.

You know, the thing is, so like if we look at NP thyroid or in armor, they're done in grain size.

So what I would say is it depends on how much you need to get into your right amount, because you

could be on one grain, two grain, three, four. What may be more important is NP thyroid has basically

a little bit of T4 and a little bit of T3, except you still may not convert your own very well,

right? So if you're on that and it doesn't seem to braze it, that's where it might make sense to

put some just separate T3 in. Because that's where the rubber hits the road, is truly getting that

T3 level into a range that works. And Betty, what about T2? Yeah, it talks about that. Yeah, yeah,

you know, my friend Dr. Amy Horniman, I would say is probably one of the experts in this arena,

but T2 is also metabolically active, but we don't prescribe it. You know, she's a really good friend

of mine, too. And I knew we had her in common. I remembered that when we first talked, but she

just this morning had an email out. You probably got it about, you know, how to recognize T2,

and how to supplement for it if you need it. But how do you know if you need it, if it doesn't get

tested on blood work? No. How do you know if you need to add T2 to your program? Yeah, you know,

what I think about is if we're doing like if we've done armorer or nature thrower or NP thyroid

and we're not getting better, then we look at T3, right, and we're not getting better, then

then a lot of times at that point, it might be worthwhile to try a T2, you know, and you know,

that I think the hardest thing is whether the FDA is going to come down on that being over the

counter. You know, but she has a supplement in the herfixer formula. I already fixed her. Yeah,

to T2, and she actually touts it for weight management quite a bit, which, you know, I think gets a

lot of attention from a lot of people, but may not be the only reason you would ever want to take T2,

but I think the most important thing that we have to let people understand is that T4, which is

normally what these drugs are of ingredients are T4, is a passive hormone. I mean, it doesn't do

anything. It's just a reserve. And if you don't convert T4 to T3, which is the active form,

then you're not going to have the results with your symptoms being reduced. And then you've got

the TSH, which like you said, it's a pituitary. It's not even a thyroid. So why? Why? Now, have they

come to measure only that to look at your thyroid and not the rest of the picture? Why do you think

that happened? You know, I think, you know, if we look at how medicine sort of evolved, you know,

most of our what we would consider Western medicine or conventional medicine came out of warfare

and infection. And then it came out of drug development. You know, it was really Kellogg that

did that. You know, they did the Flexner report and sort of, you know, ended a homeopathic and

chiropractic and other schools that rival the amount of medical schools we had back in the early

1900s. But essentially what happened is drug discovery and pharmaceutical companies really took

hold of the medical community at that point. And so, and so, you know, for instance,

armor thyroid was grandfathered by the FDA because it existed before the FDA. Well, long-come

centroid, right? Synthetic patented. Now it's generic. But so there's always been this pushback

because pharmaceutical companies want control. And because of that, they control the education,

they control the testing paradigm. So, you know, what gets told the doctors that has considered

standard of care. And so it really leaves the personalization out, which is inappropriate

at this point. We have the capacity to personalize medicine to the biochemistry of the individual

in front of us. So when you put the hormones into the big picture of your overall health and

wellness well-being, how do you how do you integrate that? How do you describe to your patients

where the hormones fit in all of this? Because there's so many other aspects of good health.

But so tell us how you describe and help your patients to understand the importance of hormones.

Yeah. So we have to remember that our entire body runs on hormones. So I like to think of it

this way. So if we all remember Katrina, right? So Katrina was catastrophic, massive destruction.

What's the first thing that they put in when they started to like recover Katrina? It was

communications, right? They restored line communications, cellular communications,

Baki-Taki, all that stuff. Your hormones are the communicators in your body. So they communicate

between cells, they communicate between organs, and they're the ones that tell things to do things.

And so when we lose those primary sex hormones that are because of aging, right? We weren't

designed to live 35 years postmenopausally. We just weren't, right? Our life expectancy is far exceeded

our ovarian age. And when we lose those, what happens is all of the messengers that say, hey,

stay vital, keep the mitochondria cooking, keep everything moving at high speed and keep me young

in fertile, goes to sleep. And then all the other messenger systems like insulin as a messenger

and as a communicator, all of them start to go sideways. So when you restore hormone function,

not back to a 20 year old, but physiological, right? You get enough in there so the body can do

what it needs to do and gets the right messages. That then allows for all the other stuff, right?

I also hear practitioners all the time will say, well, they have to earn their hormones.

Like, I won't put you on hormones until you do XYZ. I'm like, put them on hormones so they can

go to sleep, get to the children, not want to scream at their children. You know, like the hormones

are so important. Every single cell but two has an estrogen receptor, right? What is a two that

don't? There's a single cell in the brain, like one of the, I can't remember, it's not the

glial cell, but there's a single brain cell that doesn't have a receptor and red blood cells.

Everything else does. Oh, I didn't know about the red blood cells. So how do you, I always say,

the hormones have the superhighway of your body. So you, you know, you just cannot function if your

hormones are out of balance. So to me, it's like the foundational step to, well, first getting

your genetics tested. So you know, like you said, you're a slow converter. And so you, you know,

that helps you to know how to then dose for that deficiency. So I always say, you know, say that

your genetics tests are like, it's like building a house. I was telling my girlfriend that I was

referring to you yesterday. I was telling her, you know, you wouldn't build a house without a

foundation. Well, okay, so know your genetics because they don't change. Right. Now,

epigenetics means that you can, you know, live, you can, like, like I have the obesity gene and I'm

like a size 6 way 115 and 5 foot 6. So, yeah, it might have been in my family, but I've been disciplined

enough. So epigenetics is your, how you make your choices for your lifestyle. So, but anyway,

the point I was making is so many doctors, alopathic, do not even ask you to test for your hormones.

That's, it's just like it's to me that's such a crime against humanity. So well, then talk a

little bit about stress because today's world is so stressful and everybody is talking about

the gut brain access and how peptides are changing the, the, you know, the mitochondria and the

metabolic drain, but, but yet still people stress is still the killer. So, I know you deal a lot

with it because and you're dealing with women who are, you know, hormone deficient. So, stress is

going to be one of the big complaints. So, what are some of the conclusions and some of the protocols

that you use for stress management? Yeah, you know, if we look at, because we do genetics and then we,

we look at your epigenetics, so your phenotype, the combination of those two things, and we would

look at it from a hormonal sort of phenotype. You know, I would say 60% of the time, there's,

there's a cortisol issue, right? It's just, you know, because none of us had the last three or four

decades that weren't stressful. And so, but the challenge is, and I'll, and I'll tell you from my own

experience, I'm, I'm a type A hard driving. I'm not type A necessarily with my family, but I am

frighteningly driven. And so, I was very much one of those people when I was younger that I'll

sleep when I'm dead, right? I was like, I don't sleep well anyway. Who cares? I'm just gonna keep going.

But here's the thing. There's not a supplement. I don't care. I don't care what somebody sells you.

There is not a supplement on the planet. There's not a drug on the planet that can override your

body's need for rest and restoration. Right. And so, you know, I, we have to look at it, so we have

to identify what's going on, your metabolized cortisol, the free cortisol, but we have to ingrain

the, the lifestyle on top of it to help, right? So we have to, like one of the things that I see

me show all the time is like boundaries, right? That's like one of those powerful things for a

woman to do is to finally say no. There's set boundaries, right? And the willingness to say no,

like you're so right. You're so right. Yeah. And so we look at all of that. So we have, you know,

the women that work with our telemedicine company, we do the hormones, we do the thyroid, we look

at the adrenals, we look at the gut, we look at the genetics, we look at all of that. And then we

also have, we have community, we have health coaches. And part of the health coaches job is to help

you get through enabling yourself to get better, right? Because we have to often get better in an

environment that makes us sick, right? And so, and so I think that's so important is that we have

to understand. And, and I think some of the beauty of midlife is, you know, we are less

accommodating of other people's BS anymore, which is beautiful. I'm like, I was like pull on that

cord, right? And put yourself first a couple times, right? So we can start feeling better because

this is, this is really the time period of life where we have agency, we have more agency than we

ever had, our ability to make decisions about our own life. We have access in many cases where we

didn't have it before to things. And with the assets. And this is the time in which to use the

assets to do the things that we want to do. And so we say, if you need any answer to a question,

just go on chat GBT. You're going to get at least one version of after they, you know,

source the whole internet. But it comes in the nanoseconds. So, you know, your, your impatience to

get answers is completely quelled because all, you know, no sooner have the question on the page

than you're having the answer. It's just kind of amazing. Well, does Minerva use all of this AI?

And how does that all work? Yeah. So, so right now, Minerva, Minerva is really two sides. So,

Minerva on one side is the telemedicine. So we have menopause method trained of physicians and

clinicians in all 50 states that provide bioidentical hormone replacement. And we work, they work together

with our nutritionists and health coaches. And we help somebody get and stay well looking at

genetics and hormone testing and all of that so we get that dialed in. And on the other side,

this is the technology we're building. So we raised capital and we're still raising capital,

we raised capital. And so this we are hoping to be out by September. The first stage of it will

be an app. So imagine you download an app and you're going to capture some information about your own

symptoms. If you're wearing wearables, right, you can capture all that information, you can connect

all of them. If you're like me, I have multiples, though I have bunches of those doing that. And what

it starts to do is it's using AI and it's constantly reading what you what you experience is,

what responses you have, what do you what do your wearables say? If you took a picture of your

food, what's your macros that you're eating? And it's giving feedback. So it's giving feedback to

you and also giving feedback if you're working with one of our clinicians. So your your provider

knows exactly what's going on. But ultimately what it allows a woman to do is order her own labs,

look at her own wearable data and CGM and all that stuff and understand her own body as an end

of one, right? And and we can get predictive, proactive and preventative, right? We can start

telling you, we can get in front of it and we can say, hey, Michelle, we've seen this trend happen

and these three things are going on. So here's what you should do next, right? We can get to you

before it becomes a problem. And then ultimately if somebody is working with our telemedicine team,

as we build this technology, we're also going to capture what are you taking medically and supplementally,

how do you metabolize those hormones? Because that's where my PhD research resided. And then how

are you taking your hormones? So what dose did you start at? What dose did you end up at? So we can

actually collapse that gap and be able to say based on all this data, we know the dose that you

should be on, right? And we can get closer instead of guessing. And so we're building that technology

right now. So we'll essentially be able to, you know, privatize health to women from the comfort

of their own hand, right? In their own. You know, you say 50 states, but that's not a small task.

How do you ever get certified by a type-day personality? So how did you do that?

Yeah, so I, so personally, I'm a PhD. So I'm the science behind the entire thing. So obviously,

I have clinicians that work for me and my clinic in Dallas. So we have a clinician team. So we

have a team of providers that are licensed because each state that has different licensing.

So they're licensed in all 50 states. So we have a team of medical providers. I don't actually see

patients anymore. But we have a team that are all trained, certified. They know exactly how our

method works. And so, and so that allows us to then deliver. But then when we have the technology,

we can hyper-personalize for every, for every woman. So how many patients do you have throughout

the 50 states? Yeah, so we, so this last year. So we built the the telemedicine side first. So we

brought on 100 patients as sort of our co first cohort. And then we are launching kind of the

newest version of our our systems and products and and the new pharmaceutical. We're launching that

in the next month. And so that will be the new one. And we're going to start bringing on a lot more

patients. So, so let me be sure I understand this very simple for everybody else too. Maybe it sounds

redundant. But you're saying that you when you had the vision to build a maneuver, you

saw that 50 states was your your universe. That's where you're starting. It's not international.

It's 50 states. But you then went and hired clinicians in each state that were certified or

certified. Licensed in those states. So, so you had to look at 50 different states and find the

right person to come in to be part of this team. Yeah, am I right on that? Yeah, we had to make sure

they were trained in the methods and the ways that we have identified to treat. It took two and a

half years. It took two and a half years to build our municipal team. Couldn't have been a one

month effort. No, this is this is a long haul. Great, great. And so now and the vision is now to

to get more patients is not to add more places, locations in right now. Right, yeah, right now. So,

yeah, right now we will be bringing on new patients, right? So, we were bringing on new patients.

We have clinicians that are getting trained so we can definitely flex and grow. And we're building

the technology. And so we're staying in the United States right now. Now, personally, I would love

to take this international, but each country has an even even like Canada. Canada is not all the

same. Quebec is different than the rest is so they all have different life sensors. We would love

to be international at some point, at least our technology at a minimum, right? You know, if we could

get our technology and our training out there, that would be awesome. But really starting in all 50

states was kind of our first major hurdle. So, then how does maneuver fit with living well,

you know, the clinic that you started in Dallas? Yeah, yeah. So, the clinic, so the clinic, we

actually do a lot more than what we can do on in telemedicine, right? So, I have a DEXA device,

I have a functional QEG. We have psychiatry. So, we are a multi-specialty clinic. And so,

living well Dallas is a separate entity, but it has been the think tank and sort of the center

of excellence where we've developed our methods and really did the work, right? So, the 21 years

and the tens of thousands of patients that we've helped over the years, helped create basically the

framework in which to bring maneuver to the masses. So, living well Dallas means you have to come

and be physically present to be a patient there. Yeah, we do get people that fly in, so we have

people that fly in. So, they have to establish care by coming to Texas or being in Texas.

And then we'll do a lot of virtual outside of that. They just have to establish care and do physical

visits from time to time, just to continue to be able to be seen. So, what are some of the biggest

challenges that are facing you right now? You know, I would say, you know, it's always funding.

Funding is very difficult for female-founded companies. We get less than 1%, you know,

occasionally 1 to 3%, depending on what you're looking at, but we get almost no investible dollars,

despite the fact that we usually outperform male-founded companies. And so, you know, that's the biggest

challenge is having the right resources at the right time to build things, right? So, that's been

challenging, although we had a really successful friends and family round and we're now, you know,

getting ready to go out and get another round of pre-seed investment. We are going to self-fund

most of what's happening now. So, we're going to use our own revenue to grow so we can grow

organically and provide better value to our shareholders. You know, so I'd say that's the

challenge because, of course, I want to see it out there. I'm one of those people that I already

see the end point. Like, I'm like, I know what it's going to look like 10 years. I want 10 years

today. So, I've been, but if you've listened to Ben Hardy, I don't know if you know Ben

already. Yeah, so he's been on my podcast and I adore him. And, you know, he always says, if you

think about what you want 10 years from now, it can be today. You just have to scale it.

So, he calls it the 10X or something like that. Yeah. So, you're writing his camp. You're the perfect

poster child for what he's preaching. Absolutely. Yeah, I love Ben.

Yeah. So, and we also have Tracy, Tracy Wood is what is our common connection, right?

No, yeah. I've known Tracy for quite a while. She's so fun. So, check out top doctor magazine.

She was just featured in one of, I write a column monthly there for top doctor and she,

we just featured her. We featured Kosh, you know, Kosh a couple of years ago and that's how I got

to meet Tracy. But so, Tracy Wood for everybody that doesn't know is the CEO,

currency, CEO of the DNA company, which is the genetics company that I tell everybody, you know,

that Kim Russeller at SNP, Nutrition Note Nutronomics. Those two companies are the ones that I

recommend for getting your baseline foundation of your home and your health home, which is your

genetics test. So, yeah, those are two good ones. So, where do you see the future of health care?

I think, you know, you can't open the internet without seeing the different biohackers.

This is the best time to ever be alive. Don't die in the next 10 years because the next 10

years, like the last 10 years will be like the prior 100 years. So, there's so much happening

technologically. So, what do you see personally for the future of health care?

Yeah. So, I think, I mean, I think it's several things. You know, obviously bio regulators,

peptides, I'm getting involved with a group that's going to be doing an IRB, so an institutional

review board FDA research on peptides in our clinic. You know, the reality is is we have a lot of

opportunity through technology to advance human health span. That's what's important to me.

I don't want to live a long time unless I'm healthy. You know, and so the beauty is I think,

I think, with all the different technologies that we have, we're going to advance human health

for a lot longer health span. And I think it's a blending of the natural and the very cutting edge

science, you know, things like David St. Clair's work. You know, we can't just look at and go,

I'm going to go get hemlock and some, you know, holy basil, and that's going to make me live to 120.

We're at other side of the technology. And so, I think this is a beautiful time. And I think it's

jumping in there and getting educated and being open to new opportunities on both sides of that

fence. And you know, one of the things that gets me concerned is, with all this technology,

if people's attitudes towards coexistence, towards loving each other, towards being,

you know, whether you have a different opinion or not, that you're still willing to listen and

tolerate and respect. And the connectedness is the, you know, the fifth leg of that stool

that they talk about with, you know, when you talk about what are the influences on your longevity?

Well, you know, the connectedness is often one that doesn't get mentioned as much as your diet

and your exercise and your sleep and stuff. But it's really important when they look at the blue

zones, you know, the fact that people are, you know, 100 years old, still socializing and they still,

you know, go out and walk together and stuff like that. These are, this is something that I think

our world today being so divisive is going to really hurt itself from an individual to a collective

standpoint because we're not getting along. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. And I mean, I just wish

there were more and more emphasis on that. Yeah. And I agree. Yeah. I completely agree.

Are you familiar with Dr. Bill Lawrence? No. Okay. So he's doing, he's Dr. Cabinson's protege.

He went to St. Petersburg, knocked on their door. They took him in. They trained him and they made

him the US representative for the peptide bio-regulators. I don't think so. He's the man to know if you're

going to start getting into and I'm happy to introduce you if you like. Yeah. So I mean his

clinical trials. I've been in him for three years because he was on my podcast through Filmmickins,

who, you know, you can get a lot of peptides out of Filmmickins company, anti-aging systems,

but he introduced me to Bill Lawrence because he's doing the science behind all of this.

And that's fantastic. So anyway, I really respect him and that, you know, a lot of people don't

understand that you can get peptides orally if you don't like to inject. Yeah. And the peptide bio-regulators

have been in Russia for over 40 years. They've been selling them on in pharmacy, so over the

counter. So they're in Russia. They're considered just a regular pill, whereas here, you know,

they're still under a lot of scrutiny. But all those peptides that you get to inject,

you can also take orally if you prefer that. So anyway, but he does a lot of focus on

ones like Epitalin, which helps because he does his baseline test is to test your telomeres.

And along with that, your biological age. So let's talk about that for a moment because that's

always an interesting topic is your biological versus your chronological. I think, honestly, Betty,

I think if people ask you your age, you should tell them only your biological age. I agree. I agree.

Yes. The biological age is the aging of your system, not the chronological. Yeah. No, I

agree completely. You know, at the end of the day, that's the one that matters, right? Exactly.

Because your chronological age, I mean, yeah, you've been around the sun a few times. But if your

biological age is 10 or 15 or 20 years younger, that's far more descriptive of who you are as a

functioning human being than how many times you've been around the sun. So have you tested your

biological age? It's been a while. Yeah, it's been a while. My biological age, last

I tested it was like 48 and I'm 56. Wow. Yeah. So I was like, probably depends on the year,

last year was a crazy year. So it might not be as great this year. Yeah. But still, you know, it's

at least 20 years younger than your chronological. So Betty, I was just signaled by Tony that we

have to end because he has to go to another podcast. So I'm going to say goodbye to you, but I just

want before we go. I know you said you wanted to offer something to our viewers. So why don't you

tell us what that is and how thank you very much for for your generosity. So could you just give

us a quicky on that? Sure. It's a ebook. It's called the fierce female method for long for

longevity. And the URL is fierce. So the word fierce dot hormones help dot com. And you can

download it. And he RCE for anyone that doesn't know. I always have to write it down and look at it.

Yeah. But yeah. So it's got a lot of the information that we kind of covered today and a little

bit about how to biohack aging. And so thank you. Did they need to use the HLIS code to get

those? No, they can go straight there. Yeah. Okay. So they'll get it regardless. Okay, perfect.

Well, I so enjoyed having you on Betty. I've been waiting for this. I guess it's been like nine

months. Yeah, it's been a long time.