"Can GLP-1 Help My Hormones?" (Obesity Doctor FAQ)

[00:00:00]Could I be a candidate for hormone replacement therapy now or do I need to wait for a certain BMI? Welcome to Frequently Asked Questions. I'm Dr. Megan. I'm a board-certified obesity medicine physician and weight loss coach helping you cut through the pseudocience and confusion in weight care. My approach combines evidence-based medicine with real behavioral change so you don't just take medication, you actually transform your health. Today's question is, "My PCP would not prescribe hormone replacement therapy for my crazy pmenopause. I'm assuming because of high blood pressure. She did prescribe Zepbound for my stage three obesity.

[00:00:36]I've been on Zepbound for three and a half months, down 35 lbs." Well, congrats. Um, blood pressure is now in a good range. Could I be a candidate for hormone replacement therapy now, or do I need to wait for a certain BMI? Okay, this is a great question. Um, of course I can't answer personally for this uh for this commenter, but [snorts] um the really nice thing about starting with uh Zepbound first is that it lets you kind of separate what symptoms are weight related and what symptoms are not weight related. So, a lot of times when people have excess weight, they have fatigue, they may have brain fog, they may have blood sugar fluctuations, they likely have joint pain. Like, there's a lot of day-to-day kind of subtle symptoms that you may not even notice you're having until they're gone. So, and then when people go on this medication, they lose the weight, they feel lighter, they can do more things, right? they they like the world opens up for them. Um that can be very helpful in terms of oh maybe some of the symptoms also like temperature regulation like a lot of people who if they have excess weight they can feel like hot all the time and then when they lose weight they feel like oh actually that sweating went away or now they are feeling like more on the cold side. So a lot of that is it's very helpful if somebody is a candidate for both. It's very helpful to see what's going to go away with the weight. So if someone is also looking if so if they're having what they feel like are menopause symptoms um and they have extra weight uh I think it's overall a good strategy to start addressing the weight first and see what goes away. Now, um, hormone replacement therapy can work really well with the weight medication. Now, it depends on what type of hormone replacement therapy. Um, I don't prescribe it. I always have my patients see a gynecologist. I think hormone replacement therapy is another area where you can go online and get a a lot of stuff, but it doesn't mean you necessarily should, and a lot of that is not regulated, and it can have serious consequences. So, I always want my patients to be monitored by a gynecologist who can really walk them through the pros and the cons, how long they should be on this medication for.

[00:03:02]That's really important to know what the risk factors are, um, who should not be on these medications. So, um, but overall, um, we're seeing more and more that that hormone replacement therapy, while it doesn't cause weight loss traditionally, it can be very effective when combined with a weight loss medication in terms of helping patients get good results. And it's certainly it's certainly not in terms of like estrogen and progesterone hormone replacement therapy. It's certainly not fighting the weight in a way that other medications do. It is if somebody is on um estrogen, you do have to be careful of blood pressure. That the nice thing about weight loss is blood pressure also tends to go down. So I can't answer personally in terms of are you a good candidate, but I can say that in general they do work well together. Uh, I think it's good to have whenever you're changing medications, you want to do things scientifically so you know what's causing what. So, for me, if I had a patient and I'm looking at both of these things, I want to um get them going on the Zepbound and make sure I know like what the side effects are, how it's affecting them first for a while before I would think about adding the hormone replacement therapy because also like be great if they didn't need it. Like a lot of these symptoms overlap with permenopausal or menopausal symptoms.

[00:04:30]So, it's possible that if they lose weight, a lot of those symptoms can go away. Again, great if you don't have to add medication to, but in general, there is no specific BMI that somebody would need to be for hormone replacement therapy. Um, and but it blood pressure is something that I want to make sure is well controlled before starting it. So, uh, great question. Very interesting question. Thank you. and let me know if you want me to make more content about hormone replacement therapy and uh weight loss medications and all that. Um leave leave a comment if you do. Um always these questions come from the community. So if you have a question you can leave it on this channel or you can leave it on this video or another video and I'll add it to the list. Um, if you want to work one-on-one with me, if you're like, I need some more uh up close and personal guidance with my relationship with food, how I'm exercising, what do I do with this food noise. Um, click on the link below, schedule a discovery call. I will tell you all about how I help people just like you. I love to talk about this. I do this all day, every day. I love to help people figure out all the other things that go along with weight loss in addition to the medication because we really can't rely on the medication to do everything. And I want you to be getting the most out of your medication.

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