Are You Feeling Blah? Exploring Testosterone in Women with Dr. Amy Killen

Dr. Mindy Pelz
On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Doctor Amy Killen. Oh, this is a juicy one. I am so excited to bring this conversation to you because it's all around, of course, hormones, but specifically testosterone. We're gonna dive into everything you need to know about testosterone. Haven't done a full podcast episode on that.

Then we move into everything I hope you need to know about navigating bio identicals. This is such a hot topic right now, and I wanted to dive in with Amy and talk about creams versus trochees versus patches versus pellets, like dosage. What do we need to know about leaning into bioidentical hormones? And then we landed on skin health and slowing down the aging process and longevity. Seriously, this was such a juicy conversation about the journey from pretty much 35 all the way into the back half of our life, all the hormonal changes that are happening, all the symptoms that are happening, and what can we do about it?

So I really look at this as a go to episode for you all to answer those kind of questions. So let me tell you a little bit. If you're not familiar with Doctor Killen, let me tell you a little bit about her. So, she's an international speaker. She does have a clinical practice.

You'll hear us talk about it at the end. She is very much into regenerative medicine, integrative medicine, and lifestyle, which is what I love. I love that she brings lifestyle into the conversation. She was a former emergency physician, and she is now in practices in Utah, in Park City, where she has pioneered a full body stem cell makeover, which is one of the most innovative regenerative treatments currently. So she has, this brings this really interesting perspective of the cutting edge longevity therapy that we have, mixed with this deep hormonal knowledge of what's actually changing in our body during these different phases of our life, mixed with an appreciation for an important lifestyle.

So this is why I wanted to bring her to you as she just had this very holistic approach that I think we all can benefit from. So here you go. If you want to know about testosterone, you're curious about creams and trochees and patches, and how do you navigate that? And you're wanting to slow down the aging process. This is the episode for you.

Doctor Amy Killen. Enjoy. Welcome to the Resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself again. If you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you.

As a menopausal woman, I have been mildly, maybe deeply obsessed with hacking my way to better sleep. I promise you, any product out there for sleep, I have tested it and either decided I love it or thrown it out. And one of the products that has not reached my trash can and is one of my favorites is cured nutrition sleep products. So I love taking their Zen product about an hour or two before bed, and then I pair that with my PMF mat to allow my body and nervous system to wind down and relax. They also, they didn't just stop at Zen.

There's something about the word zen that I love when I take it, reminds myself like it's time to be Zen now. But they also have other products that help the nervous system calm down, help your body move into sleep much quicker. And it's a CBN night oil. And you compare it with Zen with their night caps, which is a CBD mix with MCT oil. And that combo has been like a tranquilizer for me.

And I don't wake up groggy. It puts me to sleep, keeps me asleep, and it's definitely become my go to for my nighttime routine. So super grateful for cured nutrition. And if you want to try their products, you just have to go to curednutrition.com pels and you can save 20% off, which is really awesome. So it's curednutrition, curednutrition.com pelsp and I hope you love it as much as I do.

Give it a whirl. I recommend you give it a month. When you get the bottle, give it a month. Get it some consistency to start to build in your system and you will start to sleep as well as I am. So I hope you enjoy it and cheers to a good night's rest.

So let me start by welcoming you to the resetter podcast. Thank you. Yeah. So excited to have you here. I'm excited as well.

Dr. Amy Killen
It's going to be a good talk. Yeah. You know, it's funny, I have to tell you that I have an affinity for certain instagrams. And I have certain instagrams. I don't love when it comes to hormonal, but I love yours.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Like when I go through and I look, I'm like, what is she going to say now? What is she doing now? Like, you already, you've taken this concept of hormones and have brought in some life to it on your instagram. So thank you for keeping it entertaining for all of us. Oh, thank you.

Dr. Amy Killen
That means a lot coming from you. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Of course. Here's where I want to start this conversation today, because we've never done this before, and I think my audience really needs a deep dive into testosterone.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And it's interesting because I've had multiple conversations with many functional medicine doctors about, is testosterone supposed to deplete as you go through menopause? You know, what, what's the difference between the aging testosterone of a man and an aging testosterone of a woman? And I think, more importantly, we tend to attach testosterone as this, this hormone that affects libido, but it does so much more. And I can tell you as a post menopausal woman, like, whoa. When I started to lose it, it was a lot more than libido, and I want to talk about why that is and what that.

What are the other symptoms? So let's start off. Enlighten us about testosterone. Yeah, I mean, testosterone is. It's fabulous.

Dr. Amy Killen
It's obviously, we all have testosterone. Women have about a 10th as much as men in general. So it's, it. But interestingly enough, women have more testosterone in their bodies than they do estrogen. So even though we think of it as being a, you know, a male hormone, it's.

It's an everyone hormone. And it is made by the, you know, the ovaries in women, women and testes in men, as well as the adrenal glands and some peripheral tissues. So you have testosterone that's kind of just like marching downward as you get older, men and women. So it's like kind of the slow, you know, march starts, especially around 35 or 40 for men and women. And there are some circumstances where levels can go down more abruptly.

Menopause is one of them. So you do have a little bit of a dip because you lose ovarian function, although you still have adrenal function of testosterone. But, yeah, I mean, just like you said. I mean, it's libido, yes. It's interest in sex, for sure, but it's also sexual function.

So it's also arousal, you know, getting erections, men and women. But it's also motivation, like getting off the couch, go to the gym. Like, it's. It's building muscle, which, as we know, for women especially, is more important as we get older. It's getting rid of fat, like burning visceral fat, and like, you know, getting rid of your.

The tube around your belly. And it's also brain health. There's so many things to testosterone beyond just libido. And I think that, especially as women, we don't hear about it a lot for us because there are no FDA approved testosterones for women still. And so that's something else to talk about.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So, on that note, I'll tell you my own personal experience going through my perimenopausal years. So my background was as a competitive athlete. I played at the University of Kansas on a college tennis scholarship, and I've just been athletic my whole life. I have literally craved exercise the majority of my life. Somewhere in my late forties, that craving completely went away, and I was having to, like, force myself to go out and work out.

And one day, I was sitting in a, you know, a conference on testosterone, all hormones, but they were talking specifically about testosterone and how it relates to DHEA, and that talked about how when DHEA makes cortisol, progesterone and testosterone, so when your stress is high, you lose that DHEA, you lose your testosterone. So I know you know, all this I'm just bringing to the conversation. What shocked me was it wasn't just the process of perimenopause that was causing my testosterone to tank, but it was actually my stressed out life. And the combination of those two, would you agree? And can you give me more context for that?

Because that shocked me. It's. That's completely true, and it goes even beyond that. So imagine you're in perimenopause or menopause. You're not sleeping well for various reasons.

Dr. Amy Killen
Progesterone is low, you're having hot flashes, et cetera. And, of course, men as well. If you're not sleeping well, a lot of testosterone is made at night. It's like growth hormone, so it's made at night. So if you're not sleeping well, then you're not making testosterone.

So then that is making you even, like, more stressed out. So it's like this vicious loop. So, you know, between the high cortisol of stress, between the not sleeping well and not making testosterone that way, and the fact that you're also going through all these changes where your body is just not making as much testosterone. It's like all these things come together in the perfect storm that lead to, you know, lack of motivation, like you said. And I also see a lot of just kind of mood being.

When I ask people, they describe their mood as being like, blah. Like, I'm like, how are you feeling? And when they have low testosterone, men and women, they describe their mood as being like, eh, like, eh. Like, I'm not necessarily super depressed, but I'm also not feeling very good. Like, I'm just kind of in a space where I don't really enjoy that much.

I don't feel that much. So that's something else that I see as well as kind of an early indicator that maybe testosterone is a problem. What is it supposed to do through menopause? Is it supposed to decline? I mean, if supposed to, yes.

I mean, we are designed to lose a lot of good hormones at menopause, whether that design was a good one or not. I'd like to go back to the maker and have a conversation. Yeah, I think we weren't designed to live beyond 50 or 55 or so. And so now that we are, we're spending half of our lives in this post, you know, this menopausal state. Obviously, we wish we had those hormones back, and I think we both agree on that.

But, yeah, it goes down. It's supposed to go down with age, and that's what happens with men and women. But I think that we both agree that there's, there's not a lot of good that comes from testosterone going down with age. Like, I can't think of anything good that comes from it. No, I can't think of anything good either.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So. So is there any way we can slow that decline down? Like, if. You know, I always think my big plea in life is to turn around and tell all the 30 year olds and, and people going into their forties, like, oh, you got to know what's coming because. And, but I say it with, with love, because I feel like if we knew what was coming, we could change our lifestyle to soften the ride.

So is there anything we can do to make sure that testosterone doesn't tank? Yeah, I mean, the research is more in men than women, and so in men, and I think it's probably, it probably a lot of it probably holds true for women as well, but we just don't have as much. But, you know, lifting heavy weights, for instance, we know if you lift heavy weights and using a lot of those big muscle groups and keep it. But that will help boost testosterone, limiting, you know, a lot of sugar and kind of getting rid of belly fat, visceral fat, that will help as well. There are some vitamins, like vitamin d three.

Dr. Amy Killen
So, you know, get out, get a little sun if you can cover your face, but get some body sun. That can help testosterone again, sleeping, reducing stress, you know, all the things that we know are healthy for us in general can help you be able to make testosterone. But even with the best of intentions and the best lifestyle, there does come a point usually, usually for both men and women. But I think especially in women where your levels just kind of keep marching down and you may need some help. So are there foods we can eat to stimulate testosterone?

I don't know if I've seen anything, and maybe you have. I haven't seen any, like, studies on specific foods. I mean, there are some nutrients like selenium and zinc and vitamin D and some of these things that, you know, if you're, if you're deficient in those and you take them, then they may help. But, you know, most people aren't deficient usually, you know, for the basic building blocks of testosterone. But yeah, I mean, you can try some, some of those, you can eat some Brazil nuts and see what happens.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Right. Well, it's, it's funny because Doctor Carrie Jones and I have had this conversation multiple times and I always come back to her and I think there has to be a food like strategy for testosterone because what I can find is there's a strategy for estrogen and progesterone. Why would there not be a food strategy to testosterone other than the fact that you want to keep your microbiome healthy so you can break down all of these hormones? And she claims, no. I'm like, what's the oyster?

What about the oyster? And she's like, well, the only reason is because it's high in zinc, so people think of it as an aphrodisiac. Do we know any other thing about the oyster? I would think I can only, I mean, I think making sure you get enough protein so you can build the muscle, you know, to, because that is part of being able to make testosterone, is if you have a lot of muscle and you're working out, that can be helpful. But I don't know of any other, like, foods that are going to really be super helpful, unfortunately.

Right. Okay. And then I'm going to ask you, I don't know if you know the answer to this, but it's one that I've been just curious about, is the effects of fasting on testosterone in women. There's interesting new science, conflicting science about fasting in men for testosterone, which is conflicting of what we learned years ago. We know that fasting can help growth hormone and we know that where growth hormone spikes, other hormones tend to follow.

But I'm curious if you have an opinion on fasting for testosterone. Yeah, I haven't seen anything about fasting and testosterone in women myself. I do think that fasting is beneficial in a lot of cases, but I also think, especially as we get older, and especially as we lose muscle mass, we have to be a little careful with, with that. Depending on the person. That's why we cycle it.

That's why we. Yeah, like, it's so funny, you know, I don't know if you see this on socials, but everybody wants to go into absolutes, like, you have to do this, don't do that. And you miss the whole premise of hormones. Hormones, the way I look at them is they're always adapting to your environment. And so when the environment changes, the hormones are going to change and there's always going to be a need for different tools at different times.

So I think that's where we get lost, is looking for the one magic bullet that's going to ease all of this. Would you agree that you just need a big toolbox? Yeah, absolutely. And I think, as you know, hormones are just so nuanced. Like, you know, people ask all the time, like, how do I, how much estrogens should I take?

Dr. Amy Killen
Or, you know, it's like these questions. I'm like, I don't know you. Like, there are so many different things that go into this. I wish that we had, like, little, you know, one line sound bites that we could use to explain this. And I try on social media, but it's.

This is all very complicated stuff. Agreed. Agreed. So one of the things I like to do is look at, like, the way that we are primally designed. And one of the things that shocked me about testosterone as I started to study it, is the first thing is that we get the most testosterone during ovulation.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Obviously, that's to reproduce. But why do you think it comes in, in this one moment and then it goes away? You know, it's still present, but not to that degree at the rest of our cycle. Do you think it's purely around reproduction? I do.

Dr. Amy Killen
I think it's just, it's, you know, you get the surge, like you said, of testosterone right before you ovulate, and it's because. And you, you know, if you've taken testosterone, especially if you've overdosed yourself ever, which I have, like, it really does increase your libido, and all of a sudden, your brain is like, it, like, turns your brain from, like, I could care less. And then all of a. And you're like, oh, my gosh, I need to have sex. Like, it's, it's a very, like, specific thing.

If you haven't done it, I highly recommend trying. I highly recommend it, too. Yes, well said. So I think it's just your body. Your body is like, trying to.

It wants to have babies. And so that's, that's the way it thinks about it. But the thing, once I started to understand hormones, I was like, but wait, this explains why I appear at times to be a mismatch with my partner, who is getting testosterone into his system dripped in throughout the day. I'm getting it dripped in one, at one part of the month. And I think that part of the conversation would be so helpful for so many women.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Which leads me to that question of when you're dealing with men and women. I know there's lots of variations of relationships at this point, but when we're dealing with men and women, our libidos are a mismatch just based off of testosterone. Yeah. Yeah. And in men, you also have higher levels in the morning.

Dr. Amy Killen
So, like, when you first wake up, those levels are going to be higher than they are the rest of the day. So knowing that, of course, everyone has their own preferences, but that's something to take advantage of if you are in a relationship and your partner has morning desires. But, yeah, I mean, it is interesting, I think, that we continue to reproduce and to have sex and it keeps working out somehow. Yes, it does mismatches, like you said. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So let's, let's take that idea, because one thing that I've been trying to figure out is to how to help not just, you know, perimenopausal, menopausal women, but the cycling woman. Like, once you realize, oh, wait, I only get test. I get this big surge of testosterone during ovulation. But my male partner, if you're in a heterosexual relationship, is getting this all day long, how do we create a congruent sexual relationship with mismatched testosterone? Are there strategies to be able to improve that part of our relationships despite we have vastly different times testosterone comes in?

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah, I mean, a couple of things. I mean, one thing I think is important to think about is the role of birth control pills on testosterone in women. And that's something that, it hasn't been talked about too much. But we know that when you take oral birth control pills, you're increasing shBg, which is serum hormone binding globulin, which is going to bind up more of your free testosterone. So in women on birth control, you have lower free testosterone than you would otherwise.

And so that's one thing. So even just being on birth control, you can see a big dip in your desire because of that low testosterone. But if you're not on birth control, I think you look at other things that make for a good relationship or a good interaction. And for women especially, a lot of times it's, there's a lot of stress and there's a lot of, like, long to do lists. And I can't get this, you can't get my mind to quiet down.

So I talk a lot about this idea of, you know, we have the sympathetic nervous system and we have the parasympathetic, and the sympathetic, of course, is like the go, do, you know, be, you know, do this, all the things. And the parasympathetic is like rest and digest, which I think of it as being rest and receive. So how can we activate that rest and receive? And I think that's hard for women, but, like, be in a space where you're able to receive compliments and touch and adoration and massage and pleasure and all of these things. And if we can activate that parasympathetic, that in women, I think, goes a long way, even if testosterone isn't where it needs to be.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. You know, years ago, like, when I first started this podcast, one of my first guests was Zach Bush, and he gave us a list of things that we could talk about or to talk to him about, and one of them was about sexual health. And so we started talking about the differences between men and women. And he brought up a really interesting point. He said, foreplay for a woman begins at breakfast.

If you want to get with a woman at night, you're going to need to start at breakfast to be able. Yeah. And I think it ties into what you're saying, which is, if we're stressed out, don't touch us. I have a friend of mine who tells what she told me the story, which I think is hilarious. She and her husband had been kind of fighting a little bit, weren't seeing each other very often, you know, just not really getting along.

Dr. Amy Killen
And one day she came back from work, and her husband met her at the door, and he said, honey, I have done the laundry for the entire week. I have washed everything. I folded, I put everything away. It's all done. And now I want to give you a 15 minutes clitoral massage.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Wow. And my friend, these had never happened. Either of these things had never happened before. And so she was like, oh, my gosh. And so later I was talking to her, and she said, amy, I don't know what turned me on more.

It's so true. I hope that the men listening get this. It's so true. So what is it about the female brain. Like, it's really true.

Like, if you do the dishes, you clean up. Like, you do things that feel in service to us, our libido goes up. Like, is that all parasympathetic? We're just moving. We're not stressed out about our to do list.

Dr. Amy Killen
I think it's part of it. I think there's that there's. I don't know. I mean, I think there's a lot of questions. I think there's the security piece of it and, you know, feeling more secure so that you can kind of let go, because if you're not.

If you don't feel like you're secure in terms of, like, you've done all that you need to do for the house and the kids and the, you know, all the things, and you just don't. You're not able to really relax. And I think, you know, it's different for men and women. Like, we both need parasympathetic and sympathetic, you know, to have to have sex in general. But I think for women especially, it's a lot harder to, you know, to reach the climax or to reach kind of where you want to go if you're not able to get into that parasympathetic, like, really relaxed, trusting, secure, and not thinking about a thousand other things.

Headspace. Yeah. Yeah. It probably worked out better in the cave days. Right now, we have too much to think about.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah, exactly. I think our brains are a little overwhelmed, so. Okay, so that leads me to the other question I have about testosterone that I haven't been able to answer. Is, what if. If it's declining for both men and women as we age, does that decline also need to.

Is that going to match a decline in libido? Because I've heard a lot of women going through the menopausal experience will tell me, like, oh, my God, my libido went through the roof now. And I know a lot of women that are, like, I could be not interested at all. So I want to know, like, primally, I don't think we're designed to just lose our libido into those post menopausal years. But if we lose testosterone, are there other hormones that kick in that give us that libido?

Dr. Amy Killen
You know? I don't know. I mean, yeah, the estrogen is involved in libido also, but, of course, that goes away as well as with menopause. And interesting, I know women with. With testosterone.

Some people. Some women seem very sensitive to testosterone. You know, when their levels go down, they they notice it. And when we replace testosterone, they notice it. But then some women aren't really that sensitive.

Like, I have some patients who have low testosterone, and they. They have good libido and vice versa. I think that's different than men. And men, I see, you know, when you have low testosterone, almost all of them feel it, and when we. When we replace it, almost all of them feel it.

But, you know, women are a little bit trickier that way. It doesn't always work as well in women as it does in men, in my experience. Do you think there's a toxic piece to the decline of testosterone? One of the women that I had on here was Shawna. Oh, my God.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I can't remember her last name. She wrote countdown. Amazing book. She's a researcher about how just in general, as the human population, our testosterone levels are going down, and she specifically equated it to phthalates high in our system. Is there a toxic piece to the changes in testosterone from the lens you look at this?

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah, I think definitely. I don't know. Again, I haven't seen it in women studied, but we've certainly seen in men, because people aren't even measuring women's testosterone. Right, right. Very few doctors even measure it, and even when they do, they don't know what to do with it, so they just.

So. But in men's testosterone, we've definitely seen, you know, 40% or so reduction in the last 50 years. And I think part of it is environmental, so I think it's part of it and part of its toxins, like you said. And then the other part is lifestyle. You know, we're bigger, we're lifting less, we're outside less, we're stressed out more.

So I think it's both of those things. And it makes sense that if it's affecting men that way, it probably is women. But I just. I don't know. Right, right.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And I've heard you say this now three or four times. It's like, yeah, we don't know because we don't study on women. Yeah. Who needs to know about women? They're right.

Exactly. Oh, my God. I just had Lisa Moscone on the podcast, and we talked about some of the research she's doing. And she was even talking about how difficult it's been to get her research published in journals because they tell her she's too niched, and she's like, oh, I'm studying 50% of the population, and that's too niched. It's so crazy.

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah, I was trying to get into a study. There was a growth hormone study that was going on. It was like the trim x, like the next phase of that. And I was talking to the researchers and they were like, oh, you're a good candidate, but, you know, but you're a woman and you're a premenopausal. Because I'm still pre menopausal.

They're like, yeah, we don't, we're not going to deal with all those hormones, so we're not taking any women, you know, unless they're menopausal. And I was like, yeah, that's kind of like a lot of, that's what a lot of people think as they're doing research. The hormones are so complicated that they don't want to have to, like, you know, deal with them or control for them or whatever, and so they just don't include us. That's so crazy. I hope I live to see the day that all changes.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So it's so crazy. I know. So, okay, so if we are losing testosterone, we have certain things like stress and toxins that can accelerate the loss. Is there a time you would recommend that women add testosterone in? Like, you know, there's a lot of conversation right now that we should be adding these hormones ones in before we lose them too much and there's too much damage.

And on the same lines of that is, gosh, with testosterone, there's trochees, there's pellets, there's creams, like, and believe me, I've tried them all. So I'll share with you what I've noticed a difference. But I'm just curious, like, how we would look at bioidenticals and where do we put that into the perimenopausal journey. Yeah, I think testosterone and progesterone are the two that I start replace the earliest in most women, I estrogen a little later because that's, you know, it's going down, but it's not going down in relation to progesterone as much. But, yeah, I think perimenopause, you know, 40 ish, you know, it depends on the person, obviously, depends on symptoms, what else is going on, as well as lab tests.

Dr. Amy Killen
But that's a good time to at least check levels and see how you're doing. And if nothing else, you can follow, you know, follow total and free testosterone over time because it's, you know, it's pretty easy to replace, even though there are a lot of options. But that's, that's good. It's good and bad. Traditional doctors won't replace it because they don't.

There's no FDA approved options. So they're. They're just like, oh, it's. It's illegal to give testosterone to women, which I think is obviously wrong, but. And it's crazy that they would say that, but they do.

But once they. You'd think they want to keep us horny. I'm just saying, like, it might be to the patriarch's advantage if they would just keep us horny for a hot moment. But go ahead. The doctors.

Yeah, I think they're just like, yeah, I don't know. Learn about that. But there are all you can do, obviously, lots of, there's compounded options. You can. You can take some of the male testosterone versions and just use small, lower doses.

So I think that, you know, I've tried various forms as well, and we can just discuss which ones we like the best. But, you know, pellets, which have some downsides, but women love them for testosterone as well as creams that can be compounded. You can do injectables. What's great about that is you can use, you know, just some regular sort of men's testosterone cypionate or enanthate, and you just use a little insulin needle, and you can just draw up a little tiny amount, inject it a couple of times a week. And it's a very, very simple way to do it.

And then there's trochees that dissolve in your mouth, and there's various forms of those. And there's even oral pills, like oral micronized testosterone pills that you can do that some. That some pharmacies will do. So there's. There's a thousand ways to get testosterone into your body.

Yeah. So I did. I did trochees for a while and really liked it. Like, definitely started getting my motivation back for working out. Definitely helped with libido.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I definitely noticed the fat loss that you were talking about. So I became a big fan of it. What I noticed was I needed to come up with a pattern where if the dose got too high, I got aggressive. Like, I got irritable and angry, and, like, I didn't recognize myself is there. And so it took me a couple of months to realize, like, oh, my God, this might be the rage that men feel.

Like, I don't. I've never been so angry. And then a friend of mine said, well, if you. When I was taking the trochees, I was also in a cortisol saturated state. And she was like, the minute you have cortisol up and testosterone up, you've got rage.

So I switched to the creams, which has been a lot better, and I just do a small bit once a week or a couple times a week. So is there. What are your thoughts on that, and is there a better way? Is it all very unique? Like, some of us like it this way and some of us like it that way?

Dr. Amy Killen
Yes. I mean, the short answer is yes. It's very unique. I mean, certainly you always want to work on stress and always work on, you know, the cortisol response, and you know that the adrenal kind of, when you look at the pyramid of hormones, you know, the adrenal gland and then the thyroid gland, then you kind of have the sex hormones. As you're approaching that, getting those.

Those foundational pieces established is important for whatever hormones we're replacing. You know, one of my favorite ways to do testosterone is I, as a cream, applied to the labia in women, and because you can use half the dose, like, you know, the concentration can be much less, or you can just use less of it, and it works great. And the problem with testosterone creams is, wherever you put them, if you do it over and over again, you. You will usually see increased hair growth in that area or darkening of hair. So, like, if you put it on your forearm every day, then you might see darkening of the hair in that area on your forearm.

And so we tell people, you know, put it in areas where you don't have a lot of hair, like maybe your upper inner arm or like, your inner thighs, where maybe you. You just don't care as much if, you know, you have a little extra hair growth there, or the laby is great because hardly anyone's seeing it, right? I was going to say, if it darkens, who cares? Yeah, exactly. I am so excited to announce something really cool that we are launching from my social media, my podcast from my doctor Mindy universe, and it is the give like a girl project.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I have come to understand that what I am seeing so many of you get from learning how to fast like a girl is there's this feeling of empowerment that you are grabbing onto, and then I project that out into the world. And I think there are so many women that are feeling disempowered right now. There are so many places where we have lost our way, and there's so many non profits out there that are supporting these women in a variety of ways. So you're gonna see, in the coming months, I will be profiling some of these incredible nonprofits that are raising up women that really need some extra support. And what I'm going to ask is that if you're moved by any of the nonprofits that I bring you, if it touches your heart, I'm going to ask that you donate to these nonprofits so that together we can use our power as women to raise the women that are in so much in need right now and are feeling so disempowered.

It's called give like a girl. We're launching it here. So give like a girl is all about raising up women together. We are more powerful together. And I'm so excited to announce this project to you.

So I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. I have literally tried several different health modalities over the years. We might even say thousands of health modalities over the years. And I definitely have some favorites. And one of my absolute favorites is Juve red light therapy.

So you've probably heard me talk about Juve before. I use my device daily to support exceptional, healthy cellular function. And here's what you have to know about having really good cellular function is that not only does it give you peace of mind, which, let's just be honest, aren't we all going for joy and peace of mind, but it also keeps my body working at the level that I need to have the energy to get through a really busy day. There are so many crazy benefits to red light therapy when you start diving into the research, but some of my favorites are improving skin. Yes, it improves collagen production, faster muscle recovery, which is increasing.

Incredible for those of us that are pushing our bodies in our workouts. It also will reduce pain and inflammation. And remember, you need red light to be able to get more melatonin, which is going to help with your sleep. I've also recently been been testing it on my thyroid, which is really interesting. I just ran a whole blood panel on my thyroid, and at 53 years old, every single marker of my thyroid health was on point.

And I contribute a lot of that to the daily use of my juv red light. So remember, healthy cells equal a happier you. And I cannot recommend red light therapy enough. So what's really beautiful about Juv is that they're offering all my listeners an exclusive discount on your first order. So all you got to do is go to joof.com pels and use the code resetter on your order to get a discount.

So let me spell that for you. It's joov joov.com pelz and use resetter as a code to get your discount. And please, I love bringing you these exceptional products, but probably what I love more is hearing the results you get with them. So, as always, let me know how it works for you. I'm so excited to share this product with you.

So. And is it, I always thought that we did it on the labia because it's so porous and like it. And there's, you could just get. Is that another reason? Yes.

Dr. Amy Killen
It's absorbed very well. You just get a little tiny amount. You do have to make sure that the formulation that you have is, it doesn't, it doesn't cause irritation. There are certain types of bases that they use when they compound it, that are, that are better for that area versus, like, you wouldn't want to put like an alcohol gel in that area. You know, that would be a bad idea.

Like, you have to make sure that you talk to your doctor and it all works. But that's one of my favorite ways to give it to women because it's just super simple. You know, you put it on before bed and you just need a little tiny. A little tiny bit. And is there a, there are dosage that you would recommend or is this.

I mean, everyone is pretty different. Yeah, I mean, it ranges from, you know, a couple of milligrams a day to, you know, ten or more milligrams a day. And again, depending on your route, like, each route is going to have different dosing. But I like to get the free testosterone levels up into the higher end of the range. And there's actually some interesting work.

I don't know if you are familiar with doctor Rebecca Glaser, who is a, she's a surgeon and she's a breast surgeon. So she does a lot of surgery for breast cancer patients. And she's published some very interesting studies over the years using testosterone pellets, primarily. But she treats menopausal women who have had a history of breast cancer who can't take estrogen. She treats them with testosterone and like an estrogen blocker.

But she uses pretty high doses where your testosterone, your total testosterone range is in the 200 to 300 or more range, whereas normally for women, it's like less than 70 or something, but is able to get rid of menopause symptoms almost entirely. And testosterone is also anti breast cancer. And so she's used it and shown some interesting studies on, in using it in people who have active breast cancer to reduce the tumor itself. So lots of glaser. Glaser if you want to look her up.

Really? I will definitely look her up. Do you think that when we take an exogenous hormone that it slows down the production of our own endogenous hormones? Like, if our body goes, oh, I'm getting testosterone from this outside source, I don't need to make as much. Like, once you're on that cream, now you're on it.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So because of that, I have to be doing full transparency. I delayed going into bio identicals a really long time.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And it was actually Carrie Jones that at one point said to me, we need to keep your mind sharp, Mindy. Let's look at some options here. So it wasn't until my early fifties that I was actually willing to look at this, and now the conversation's changed quite a bit. But my number one concern was exactly that. Like, once you're in, like now you gotta go in because the body is expecting it to come from this exogenous source.

So if we give it to a 35 year old, if we give it to a 40 year old, is that too, like, is there an age at which we want to be prudent to not give it too young so they don't tank their own stores? Yeah, I mean, I just definitely think less than 35. You don't? For testosterone, that's kind of like my mental. For men and women, it's kind of like my mental cutoff of, like, I don't really want to be treating younger people with this.

Dr. Amy Killen
Certainly there are ways to do it. You can do low doses, you can do kind of like you're doing like, you know, every other day or, you know, like, kind of pulsed on and off doses. Um, and in, in theory, when you stop taking these hormones, like testosterone, for instance, in men and women, your production will continue, will go back to where it was, but it can take several months and so that you do want to be a little bit careful. And obviously also with, with, with men, especially with fertility, you don't. You know, testosterone can reduce fertility when you're on it.

And there have been a few cases where it seems like it continues even after you've stopped it. So there are pluses and minuses. I think, with regards to things like estrogen and progesterone, I don't see a worry with starting those again. Not early, early, but 35 ish progesterone can be given earlier than that because you're not making. We give it because you're not making it because of perimenopause or other reasons.

And so it's not. And you're not going to just snap into making those hormones after menopause, right? Like, unfortunately, there's not much we can do. It's just. They're just gone.

Like, they're just gone. So I think that it's a little different than testosterone. Yeah, I would agree on that. So which leads me to progesterone. So I, you know, mid forties, late forties, I start experimenting with all these bioidenticals.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And, you know, when we get to estrogen, I'll share my experience there. But the one that was, like, the hero for me was progesterone. I swear, like, the first time I took a progesterone pill, I was like, oh, my God. I remember what this felt like. I could actually relax my body.

I could sleep. Like it was miraculous. So I would also agree these earlier on doing progesterone, but what you've been talking about on Instagram, which I think is really interesting, is the cream versus the pill, and that there may be a difference in how your body absorbs both of those. Can you speak on that? Yeah.

Dr. Amy Killen
So, first of all, I'm a big fan of progesterone. I think it is the unsung hero of the hormones. And progesterone is something where even if you are, you're a 30 year old, you're a premenopausal, but maybe you have PM's symptoms. You're getting a lot of pain or heavy bleeding or migraines or anxiety or all these things before your period. A lot of times, that's because you don't have enough progesterone.

And so you can give progesterone just during that second half of your cycle or before your period. And that can make a huge difference in how you're feeling and how you are able to go through your period. And then just a side note on that. I encourage everyone who's still cycling, especially if you're irregular, to get checked to see if you have polycystic ovarian syndrome, because that's something that, if you don't diagnose it. So basically, that's something where you're not ovulating regularly, you're ovulating sporadically, which means you don't have progesterone during half of the month because the progesterone is made from the egg, essentially, or the follicle.

And so that's something that we can, you know, we give progesterone. It makes a huge difference, not just in fertility, but also in reducing your breast cancer risk later on. Also, in reducing your uterine cancer, all these things that we can do. But progesterone is a key piece of that. And then to answer your question, I am, I like to start with, you know, if you're, if you're perimenopausal, I don't.

You can do any type kind of progesterone you want. You can do pills, you can do trochees, you can do creams. You know, it doesn't matter as much. Just kind of based on your symptoms, see what works, and that's fine. But if you're menopausal and you're taking estrogen, I think it's really important not to rely on progesterone creams for your uterine protection from the estrogen because the creams are, they don't get in the blood reliably and they don't protect the uterus reliably.

And you need to have that uterine protection if you're taking estrogen. So creams are fine if you're not relying on them, like if you're premenopausal, perimenopausal. But after menopause, I think that just an oral micronized progesterone pill is probably my first choice. Yeah. And that was the one that I really, when I started taking that, I was like, oh, I feel like myself again.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Like, it really, I would, I would, you know, anecdotally, it was really great. So. Okay, then that leads me to the other question that I've thought about with all of these hormones, is if we look at progesterone at 35, she's just going down, going down, going down. So would it be that at 35 you would take one dosage and at 40 you're going to up your dosage and at 45 you're going to up your dosage a little more and at 55, you up at, like, do we need as to be looking at the dosage increase over time because our natural stores are going down? Yeah, to some degree.

Dr. Amy Killen
I mean, I think in my mind, there's just kind of a, you can think of like maybe essentially two, two primary doses and two primary ways of taking it. So there's, there's cycled taking it, which is basically means you take it from day like 14 to 28. So just that second half of your cycle, if you're having regular periods but you're having like PM's or, you know, anxiety or those kind of things, then the cycled progesterone is perfect. Like, you don't need it every day, just in those two weeks. And then the dose is most commonly going to be 100 or 200 milligrams capsules.

And so there are other doses, like, there's other things you can do. But if you want to keep it simple, which I do, then, you know, one to 200, somewhere in that range, either cycled if you're having regular periods or if you're not having regular periods, daily. And that's pretty much it. Okay. And so here's an interesting byproduct that I've noticed of progesterone, as I've been playing with the dosage, is if I go up too hot the next day, I'm really depressed.

Yeah. What is that? So, I mean, progesterone works on your brain. This is one of the reasons we give it so, you know, we give it to any woman, even whether you have a uterus or not, because it works in your brain and it has several, especially oral progesterone. So the pill, the pill form is going to help with sleep because it's going to kind of help relax you.

The other form, the test of progesterone, won't do that, by the way, just the oral form. But it's also going to kind of bring, you know, it's bringing you down a little bit. Like, it's like this, like, it's like the opposite of estrogen. So it's like bringing you down. And so if you get brought down essentially too much, you can feel depressed or you can feel very tired.

A lot of women, if they get too much oral progesterone, are just, like, groggy the next day, versus some women can take hundreds of milligrams and it doesn't even phase them. So it's very different from woman to woman. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I've noticed now I'm a year and a half without a cycle, and I notice that it doesn't have, as happened, as much.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And I've been actually increasing my dosage a little bit because the only reason to not increase it is because I didn't want the depression and low energy the next day. So I kind of use that as my gauge of where did I go and how much should I do. So, so it's, yeah, it's interesting to hear put words to it. Okay, we gotta talk about estrogens. This was the hardest for me to say, and I'm still trying to find my right path with it, so.

And here's why. Every frickin time I do estrogen cream, I gain weight, and every time I get off of it, the weight drops. And, and so I finally narrow. I do the same kind of thing where I do a, like a low dose every couple of days. Got off alcohol, started supporting my liver, started really working on upping my fiber for my gut because I just figured my body's not clearing it, so it's storing it.

And I hear this from a lot of women, and it's the thing where it is so frustrating, where you're like, I'm sleeping better, I'm happy my motivation has gone up, and yet I've now gained 15 pounds around my belly. It's like a decision that so many women are having to make. How do we avoid that when it comes to. And I, I just narrowed it to estrogen. Maybe you'll tell me it's the other ones, too, or maybe it's the balance of all of them, but that's the one that trips me up every time.

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah, it's interesting. So, yes, I definitely hear this from women that estrogen will, will feel like, you know, it'll make them gain weight, but when we look at the large amount, like the large data sets, estrogen is actually, I get, once you get on a dose that works for you, estrogen is actually, is actually going to help you burn visceral fat, and it's going to reduce your, you know, your, at least your fat, your fat mass over time. So it has a lot of benefits. I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One, it's important to start low and just super slowly increase because your body gets used to it.

But, like, if you started a high dose, you'll, you could gain weight. Your breasts are super sore, your pelvic floor is, like, hurting. Like, you feel full, like it's a whole bunch of stuff. So you, you know, you do want to start at a pretty low dose and then just let your body get used to it. Make sure that you have enough progesterone on board so you want to have in post menopause or menopause.

I'm usually doing about 200 milligrams orally before bed because we know that's a good amount to protect your uterus, but it's also enough to counteract the estrogen effects. So you make sure that you have those two things in balance. And then I think that everything else you said is really important, too. Really looking at what else is going on in my lifestyle, what am I eating? Moving all of that.

But if you start low and have progesterone on board and testosterone if you need it, and then go really, really slowly, you can get to a good dose that shouldn't cause those symptoms. Is there a dose number like, I like how you're explaining progesterone. Like we want to get to 200 post menopausal. Is there a dose for. And it's.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And a combination. Cause you're doing estradiol, you know, to estriol. Yeah, I think, right? Yeah. So I mean, I'll tell you my, my doses, I don't, I will say that this is not agreed upon by other doctors, not something where people are like, this is the dose I for, for brain, heart and bone protection for estrogen.

Dr. Amy Killen
I like that serum estradiol blood test to be over 75. And you know, the normal level in menopause is less than 30. Just to give you an idea, like what that range. But the normal level when you're cycling it can go up to 300, 400, you know, it's going up and down. But if we keep it over about 75, that seems to be where you need it for, especially for heart cardiovascular disease protection.

For bone protection, that dose is going to be lower, probably more like 50, 60. You don't have to get it as high just for bone protection. And then for progesterone, I like to be over ten for again, blood tests for progesterone because we know that's going to be offering you uterine protection. So if you decide, for instance, that you want to use a cream for progesterone because you're just like that doctor Amy doesn't know anything. You want to use a cream, that's fine, but you still have to get your serum blood progesterone levels to ten, which is very hard to do with the cream because then we know you're protecting your uterus.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Okay. So that leads me to the question of once you get into these bio identicals, then we now need some regular testing to see where you're going, would that be helpful? Yeah, it's helpful. And you don't have to do it all the time, but at least in the beginning, you know, maybe testing every three months or so as you're kind of figuring a lot of this out because you're very, you're right. I mean, estrogen especially, there are so many forms of estrogen and so many doses of estrogen and everyone is very different.

Dr. Amy Killen
So it does take some time to get into the place where you're like, okay, this is working. I feel good, my labs look good. Like there's I'm not yelling at my children and I'm not gaining weight. And all these things. Once you get to where you feel pretty good and your labs look good, then we can space the testing out to maybe every six months or even longer versus, you know, three months at first.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And what do you feel the difference between blood and, like, a urinary test, like a dutch test? What are your feeling? I'm most familiar with blood testing and the reason I've chosen to do blood testing. I have in the past done urinary testing and saliva testing. That's how first started doing it back eleven years ago.

Dr. Amy Killen
But my concern with those tests are I just don't find that they're as clinically validated as the blood tests. Like, we have large studies in good journals, you know, mainstream journals, you know, that. That look at blood testing. And so I, and I usually with most patients, can learn enough from blood. I do think that there's probably some value in, in, like, the dutch test, if you have a complicated patient or you're not tolerating estrogen or you don't know what's going on and figuring out those, you know, metabolic pathways.

But I think for most people, at least occasionally, getting blood is an easy enough thing to do. Yeah, I've done both. And the thing I love about the dutch test is those, the breakdown of the metabolites, I think is really helpful, so you can see what your estrogen is breaking down into. So, and I've made recommendations that as women get on the bio identicals, they do the Dutch, you know, at least a couple times a year to sort of see what that breakdown is. Although I know there's a lot, a lot of our fear around breast cancer and these things have, is starting to go away, which is really good.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
It's like, wow, how did we end up here? Like, how did we get to 2024? And we're finally having the discussion of maybe it's okay for women to do. HRT by identical 22 years after the women's health initiative. I mean, I will, but.

Dr. Amy Killen
Although I will say if I ask a poll, does, does estrogen cause breast cancer? I guarantee at least 70% of people would say yes, like, just out in the world. So it's still very. My own mother still thinks it does, even though I've convinced her it doesn't. But we're doing work to do still.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yes. Yes, we do. This is my phrasing is that we've gone from a cultural hush around menopause to are in cultural chaos now. Which is a big reason I wanted to have this discussion, because finally, people are like, oh, I can take something to make this better. Well, what do I take?

And then it's like, nobody knows. So do you feel like we'll ever find a one size fits all? Or do you feel like this journey with bio identicals and HRT is always going to be an individual one? I think it's always going to be individual, but I do think it's possible to create algorithms that can be more helpful than they are, than we have right now. One of the projects I'm doing is I'm working on building out some longevity clinics, and we're opening, starting in Texas.

Dr. Amy Killen
And I'm the chief medical officer. And so I'm in charge of all these, you know, these protocols and algorithms and then being able to scale that and teach it to, you know, all the different providers wherever we go. And I do think that even though it's complicated, if we sit down and have, you know, flow charts and if this, then this, you know, it is possible to do a lot of this stuff in a better way than we're doing it and hopefully get that information out to all the different doctors out there who. Because you're. You're.

I mean, everyone does hormones differently. You know, if I follow ten hormone accounts and every single one is saying different things, and I. And I understand this stuff, and I still am. I still am learning new things every day. And so it's hard to be a woman in this Angus.

Like, how do you know who to believe? Yep. That's why you have to learn to be your own doctor. You know, you have to, like, find doctors like you that will, like, partner with you and, like, help you figure it out. But.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
But I think one of the damages that our healthcare society has done to us is really say that there's one problem and there's one solution, but when it comes to hormones, we're never gonna find one. And we have to bring. My passion is bringing lifestyle into the conversation, because that has to be brought in. You can't just put a patch on and all your problems are gonna go away. The way I've seen it, every once while I meet a woman who's like, oh, I just put a patch on, and then it was all good.

Dr. Amy Killen
I'm like, really well. And, you know, one of the things I say is, I liked the kind of reframe of that. You're actually, as a woman, you're actually lucky if you have pretty bad menopause symptoms, because it's telling you that you need to take action and you need to find a provider and get on some hormones and stop this from happening, because it's your body screaming out and saying all of your organ systems need estrogen and progesterone, testosterone. And so it's the women who don't have symptoms that I worry about because then they go, you know, they're, they're ten or 15 or 20 years into menopause. They've never been on hormones because why would they?

And now they've got heart disease and osteoporosis and dementia and, you know, and all this visceral fat and all these problems that, you know, some of which could have been prevented if we had started hormones earlier. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. So, okay, then I have to, since I've got a longevity expert here, I've got to go into some of the long, I don't want to call them side effects because they're just part of the process of aging and that, let's start with skin health. So, you know, the loss of, as everybody, hopefully people know, the loss of estrogen creates a loss of collagen, and then all of a sudden, all of the wrinkles show up.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
So I know in your clinic in Utah, are you still in your clinic in Utah? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you do a lot of anti aging tricks and techniques. What my question on skin is really twofold. Is there anything we can do to prevent the wrinkles as estrogen and collagen go down?

And then once we've hit this spot where all of a sudden the wrinkles and everything are showing up, what do we have that's safe and effective to be able to change the aging face? I mean, unfortunately, we can't prevent it yet. I wish we could. And you can't totally reverse it. But I do think that starting hormones early can be helpful for sure.

Dr. Amy Killen
Like you said, like a lot of people, when they lose estrogen, a lot of women, like, in those couple of years after they notice a huge increase in loss of elasticity, loss of hydration, you know, structure of the skin is just like, so if you, if you never lose that estrogen and you just kind of maintain it, then that is super helpful. There are some things that we can do. Like you can apply a low dose topical estrogen to the skin separate from what you're doing for the rest of your body. You know, whether you're taking estrogen, you could do that because it doesn't get absorbed. It doesn't get absorbed systemically.

So that's something that's pretty much safe for most people. There are some kind of cool, like other, you know, peptides for skin. Like GHK. Copper is great for skin that's been around for forever, but it's in some of the creams. Now there's some interesting studies looking at rapamycin for skin, which is a, which is a longevity drug.

Well, it's being touted as a longevity drug and being repurposed potentially for that purpose. So there's some, there's some interesting topical formulations out there. And then I, you know, I also am a big fan of doing like lasers and, you know, there's just. I do stem cell procedures. Yeah.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
And don't you do like, didn't you do vampire facials and things like that? We do, I do kind of a modified vampire. It's basically injections and microneedling. But instead of using platelet rich plasma, which comes from your blood, we use like placental stem cells or exosomes, these sort of growth factors that are coming from stem cells. And so they're more potent form.

Dr. Amy Killen
But you're going to get still. You're still going to very natural effect. You're not going to get, you know, it's not anything that you're, that you're putting in your face that makes you look crazy and it's not stopping your muscles from moving, but it's helping your skin to continue to make collagen and elastin. So we do that in my park city clinic also. Yeah, I mean, for me, I think that would be the smarter thing to do and go in with.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I do. It does bring up the conversation of Botox and fillers and all of that. And I've heard both sides of the equation. I'm personally against any toxin you put in your body. I'm just not going to do it.

I'm also personally against freezing my face because then there's no emotional. You lose that emotional connection to other humans. But I mean, that's a personal, just a personal ethos. Where do you stand clinically on looking at some of these? Is there a safe way to use them?

What do we know about some of those? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think I'm kind of the opposite. It's cool, that's fine. And I think that I respect everyone's ability to do, to choose what they want to do and how they want to. You know, I don't think anyone should be pressured into any of this stuff.

Dr. Amy Killen
But I do think that that Botox and other neuro, you know, other toxins like that can be beneficial. I do think you have to use them lightly. Like, you don't want it crazy because you can stop the muscles from being able to move. And that, you're right, is not, it's not great. You look crazy and you're not moving your eye, your, your forehead at all.

I think that, you know, fillers, like hyaluronic acid fillers and things like that can be used, uh, safely as well. But that's something especially that. If you're going to do that, you want to have a doctor who is very well versed in that because those can actually cause some pretty serious side effects if you do them wrong. Botox, not usually. You may have like a drop brow for like a few months, which looks bad, but it's not going to hurt you like that.

But fillers, if you do them incorrectly, you can, you know, can cause blindness. It can cause your skin to necrose and a lot, like, there's some serious stuff that can happen. So just be careful when you choose providers. So if, if a woman came to you who is postmenopausal and she's like, okay, I'm tired of the wrinkles. Is there a door in?

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Like, don't give me the big stuff first. I just need sort of a small dose of, let me slow this down. Is there a Doran procedure that you like? Yeah, I mean, like, micro needling is a great, is a great, like, door in procedure. So, you know, a little device that has ten or so little needles, they just go up and down really quickly and they don't go more than about 2 mm deep.

Dr. Amy Killen
So they create these little channels and then you can apply whatever you apply to your skin afterwards, it gets sucked into those channels and it works better. So you can apply hyaluronic acid or vitamin C, but also, you know, stem cells or regenerative therapies. So that's something super easy. You're never going to look insane for more than a day or two afterwards. And I like to do that a couple of times a year for myself and for patients.

And then the other thing I'm really a big fan of is taking nutrients, ingredients that can be helpful for skin, taking them orally. So, you know, I have, so I have a supplement company called Hop and we have a formulation that's 19 ingredients and it's, several of those are specifically for skin health. So like, astaxanthin is great for skin and dihydroburberine keeps your blood sugar down, which is going to improve your skin health and your collagen over time. Spermaidine is really good for skin. So there's several things that we can take, even oral hyaluronic acid.

Hyaluronic acid is traditionally given as a, you know, as a gel or a serum, but doesn't get absorbed very well. And so there's. It's actually better to take it as a pill, and it ends up going to your skin eventually. And you can make hyaluronic acid, which is what gives your skin that dewy, plump, like, I just got out of the shower kind of look. So, but so I think, you know, aside from healthy diet and all the things that you want to do with that, adding in some key ingredients can be helpful as well.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah, I love that. And talk a little bit more, because you did. You and I chatted about this before we popped on about the, your hot box. And, and the idea behind it is that it's anti aging, or is it also to help with the hormonal swings that we go through? Can you.

Dr. Amy Killen
I say that it's my, it's like a longevity stack in a pack. So it's, you know, little tiny packs like, they. They're just these, like, little packs like this. They're super pretty. It's like my personality in a box.

Thank you for. Thank you for using bright colors. I appreciate it. But I chose 19 different ingredients that are not typically found in high enough doses in food. So it's not a multivitamin, but things that can potentially get to the root causes of what's causing the aging process, we're looking at targeting stem cell exhaustion and mitochondrial dysfunction, telomere shortening and inflammation, and all the things that are causing you to age.

With the idea being that instead of treating every symptom that we have individually, our joint pain, our skin, our drooping skin, whatever it is, all these symptoms are because we're aging. So instead of treating each symptom separately, what if we just treated the root cause of the aging and tried to slow down the aging process? And so it's, you know, I formulated kind of for myself, and because I was getting tired of taking all these pills all the time, and then all of a sudden, you know, friends and family were like, what are you doing? Like, what are you taking? But, so, yeah, to answer your question, it's not going to replace lost hormones, but there are a lot of ingredients that are very beneficial for helping your.

You to be able to navigate perimenopause and menopause, you know, keeping your insulin down so you're not getting extra visceral fat, and your metabolism stays, you know, faster and things like that. I love this. I can't wait to try it. I haven't, you know, full transparency. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm.

And we're sending you one. I think we're sending. Thank you. I can't wait to try it. I'm really excited about it because, again, I slant towards the natural stuff.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
It's just my personal belief system, so. But I love that you've already done the research on this, and I. And I think you're. You have, like, a. We'll leave a code for you all for people to order, and they can find it directly.

Dr. Amy Killen
So. So I'll make sure in the notes that we do that. But I think you. Was there, like, a website that people could find it at? Yeah, it's just hopbox, so.

Hopbox life. And your code is pels, p E l z. So if you use pels, you get a discount. And, you know, you can also find me on Instagram. And if you have any questions about it, I'm happy to answer those questions.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I love that. I love that. Okay, before I ask you my last question, here's just sort of a. Literally something that I've thought a lot about, and I don't really have an answer, so I'd be curious. Your answer on it.

What I'm seeing trending in the hormonal world right now is there is this desire to a not suffer, which I agree with. Like, you don't. As we start to transition through the perimenopausal years, all the discussion we've had about creams and things like that is like, okay, we can minimize the suffering. We can slow down the aging with some of the strategies that you mentioned. But I think a bigger question is, where are we going?

What are we supposed to look like and act like. And be like, at 80 and 90, and I'm planning on living to 100. Like, we. At some point, there's. We can't slow it all down.

You know, there's going to be a point that we age. So what do you think's going to happen or what needs to happen to our mindset? Because right now, everybody anti aging slow aging down. Everybody's trying to put the brakes on that, but it's still happening. It's still happening.

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, we don't have a. We still don't have a good way to stop aging like that. We might in 510, 15 years, there's a lot of research, but we don't actually have a good way to stop it.

We may be able to slow it, but we can't stop it. I think the more important thing to think about right now is how can I increase my health span? How can I increase those number of years that I feel healthy and vibrant and I'm out hiking with my kids, playing in the yard and those kind of things. I heard. I heard doctor Marie Claire today on an interview.

She says, I want to die like a man. I want to just work out in the fields and, like, be super strong and then have a heart attack and die. Like, I don't want to be in my bed for ten years and weak. And my boat, I broken a hip, and now I can't walk. And, like, you know, some of these, these things.

And so I like that idea. We don't have to be like a man, but I like the idea of just being super healthy, healthy, healthy. And then at some point, you know, we die. And that's. That's natural.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Yeah. And then what will we look like? The other thing that I really do love are those pictures of the indigenous women with all the wrinkles. Because when you see that, you're like, there's a story there. And I.

So I do fear if we totally smooth out our faces and we prevent all the aging, like, where will the stories come from? And, you know, I've been in conversations with people whose faces are frozen. And I'm like, are you? You know, are you understanding what I'm saying? Because I'm using that emotional connection.

So I like your approach where it's like, let's do it. You know, let's do a bit of it so that we can slow it down. But I also love this idea of the wise elder who, you look at her face and you're like, teach me. Like, that's what I see when I see those indigenous people. Tell me what you know.

Dr. Amy Killen
Those. Those people. Those people are amazing. You know, I don't think that we're anywhere close to actually being able to stop your face from wrinkling as you get older. Like, there, we have some tools, but there is no doubt that when you or I are 80 years old, we will look like we're 80 years old.

Even if we look a little bit better than we could have in the past, at that age, we're still going to look like we've been on the earth for 80 years. That's my goal. I like. I like where Mary Claire is going with this. But my goal also is to die looking like my age, too, so I can die in the field looking like my age.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I've accomplished it. So we have goals now. That's right. That's right. So, anyways, this was.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate this discussion. I know a lot of my audience is going to love this. This is really a conversation that we've been wanting to have and really make sense of this cultural chaotic moment and what we can do. So.

Dr. Amy Killen
Yeah, this is so fun. Thank you. I loved it. Really appreciate it. Okay, my last question, and this one also is a personal curiosity.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
One of the things I feel like about health is we don't have a good definition of it, and so everybody's chasing something we haven't been able to collectively define or is a personal definition. So do you have a definition of health for yourself and where you sit today in your life journey? Do you have a health goal that you're shooting for? Oh, I love that question. You know, to me, it's.

Dr. Amy Killen
It's super simple. It's just waking up without pain, having a lot of. Having enough energy and desire motivation to do all the things I want to do and then being able to do them without hurting myself or being in pain afterwards and continuing to do that, you know, day after day. And I have a lot of things that I, for. My personal goal for this year is to build more muscle.

And I feel like I just keep trying, and I'm just like, I have this, like, little, he's like, skinny little muscles, so I need to increase my protein legitimately and, you know, continue to increase my weightlifting and all of that. So I want to, like, have, like, some arms that, like, my. My daughters, who are 16, and they. They rock climb, and so they've got these, like, awesome arms, and they're always kind of teasing me and being like, you have skeleton arms. So I want them to stop teasing me and I want to beat them in some arm wrestling contests.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Oh, my God, I love that I have a 24 year old daughter that's super buff, and I'm like, I used to be like that. I could look at a weight. I didn't even have to pick it up, and I built muscle, so I do. It is a really interesting phenomenon, but it leaves me very curious as to, if we get to the other side of menopause, when we get to the other side of menopause, if there's a fitness rebound and there's ability to build muscle that we are not seeing in those perimenopausal years. Do you have.

Do you have a thought? I love the idea. I haven't seen it. I mean, certainly there are women who can build muscle after menopause and they are badass, but in general, after 50 or so, we lose the ability. But I love the idea.

Dr. Amy Killen
But there's a secret button somewhere that I can just push on myself and all of a sudden and I get strong. Yes. I'm gonna find it. I'll let you know when I find the secret button. You'll be the first one I call, so.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
Well, this was awesome. How do people find you so they can go stalk you? I already promoted your Instagram, which is where I love to follow you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very active on Instagram.

Dr. Amy Killen
It's dramybkillen. I'm also on other things as well. But Instagram is kind of where I play the most. And then my website is dramykillen.com and that will have link to. I have a couple of different clinics and a couple of different brands that I work with that are my brands and companies and things.

So kind of has, like a link to all of that stuff. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you for everything you're doing in the world. Let's just start off there.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I think the more voices that are out there and expressing what you're seeing as a helpful resource or helpful resources for the menopausal process, we need more of our voices screaming this. So thank you for doing that. And thank you for creating all the anti aging products that will make sure that we enjoy looking in the mirror as the years go on. Appreciate you and appreciate your time, too. I know you're really busy, so thank you for coming on.

Dr. Amy Killen
No, this is fantastic. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode.

Dr. Mindy Pelz
I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is. Is.

Are You Feeling Blah? Exploring Testosterone in Women with Dr. Amy Killen

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1. Introduction to the Topic

2. Testosterone Basics

3. Effects of Menopause

4. Treatment Options

5. Lifestyle and Testosterone

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript