The Menopause Morning Episode 14 - Menopause and Your Brain

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[00:00:00]It's 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning, so you know what that means. That means it's time for your menopause morning chat. And today we're talking about a very, very important subject with menopause, and it's basically uh looking at the connection between your brain and cognitive health and menopause. Now, this is a very personal subject for me as well, because uh menopause uh well, not not even as much specific about menopause, but with brain and cognitive health, because it's this uh a very significant uh issue with my family.

[00:00:35]There's been a lot of neurodegenerative disease in my family. Um my my grandmother died with severe dementia. I remember being very young and you know, Grandma moved into the house with us, but I was too young to try to explain dementia to, but I I remember one morning, like 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, waking up and I hear a rustling in the hall, and I go into the hallway, and there's there's Grandma standing there, honestly, completely naked. Had no idea who where she was. Had no idea who I was.

[00:01:04]And I later in life found out that Grandma passed with severe dementia.

[00:01:08]And then my mother my mother actually was diagnosed with dementia. And my mom spent the last 13 months of her life living in a hospital bed with my father feeding her baby food and changing her diapers, and she died with dementia.

[00:01:23]And my older brother, he ended up getting diagnosed with ALS.

[00:01:29]And he lived maybe about 2 years after that diagnosis before he also died with a neurodegenerative disorder. You know, so I'll I'll be very candid with this. I I very selfishly research brain health. I have a whole protocol [clears throat] that I use that's tied into not just supporting my brain, but also really with what's going on from a hormonal perspective, the whole gut brain immune connection, and every aspect that I need to do to keep this happy and healthy and that's what I'm going to help you with today.

[00:02:01]Because you've probably been told if you have menopause, you know, menopause is the reason why you have brain and cognitive decline.

[00:02:09]And there's some truth to that, but that's not really the depth of it. Yeah, because you're often told that when you have low estrogen due to going through menopause, which you've if you've list listened to my other uh my other videos and the other menopause morning chats, you'll recognize is that just because you have to go through menopause does not mean you have low estrogen. Remember, 15% of the women who enter menopause every year and that's 15% of 2 million women don't [clears throat] have problems with low estrogen because they're still they're still utilizing whole system how the brain, the hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenals all work collectively to keep you in perfect hormone balance.

[00:02:48]You know, so who I'm really talking to is if you're part of the 85% where you do have menopause symptoms. And then the reality is if you have >> [clears throat] >> an expression of low estrogen going through menopause, yes, you are at a significant risk factor for brain and cognitive health.

[00:03:03]And and it was even it was a couple years ago I did a survey and I and I I did a like a paid survey that went out on social media and I only sent this one single question to women who lived in the in the US who were between 45 and 55 and that one question was what is you what is that you fear most about aging?

[00:03:25]And it was it was kind of an interesting thing for me because I literally thought I was going to get a whole host of different responses, you know, anything from you know, retiring too young or too soon, retiring too late, you know, not having enough money in retirement, you know, having you know, getting disconnected from my my children or maybe growing older and not really being involved with your husband or your significant other. I just thought they were going to be all these things, you know, like graying hair or weight gain, like all these different things I thought were potentially what the answers were going to be and I couldn't have been more wrong. The The single biggest thing that was brought up, I just saw the word dementia, dementia, dementia, dementia, dementia. It was really one of the biggest factors of of what that survey told me that women are concerned about with aging. And and man, I totally get it. You know, watching a grandmother, a mother, and a brother go through this.

[00:04:17]You know, to you know, the last thing you want to do is get to the later years of your life that are supposed to be the golden years and you don't even really recommend or recognize people in your life anymore. You can't remember the things you want to remember.

[00:04:29]And when you're told that this is low estrogen. Now, here's here's kind of the you know, the putting this all together.

[00:04:35]You're told that if you have low estrogen, this will create things like cognitive decline, which uh you probably most notably know as brain fog. You just don't remember like you used to, you can't comprehend like you used to.

[00:04:47]And >> [clears throat] >> like now you're you're walking into the room, you forget why you walked in there, you pick up your phone, you forget why you picked it up. You know, it's just it's any cascade of things that could be going on.

[00:04:57]And you know, overall with that cognitive decline, as I said, there's a memory impairment. Uh there's also a very often when you have low estrogen, there's also decrease in serotonin and dopamine levels. You know, you might you know, that's going to definitely affect your moods. And and from a serotonin perspective, you might know serotonin to help you with sleep, but did you know serotonin is actually nicknamed your happy neurotransmitter? So, for you to be happy, you have to have enough serotonin and and and estrogen plays a role in again, serotonin and dopamine, which are both two of the two of the primary four amino neurotransmitters that you need really healthy in your body for everything else to work correctly.

[00:05:37]You know, also dropping estrogen affects sleep. It affects neurological vulnerability. Yeah, so it it really basically the less estrogen you have, the more this is a problem, the more reduced of the gray matter between the two hemispheres of the brain. So you've got that right and left hemisphere and that gray matter allows them to communicate with each other properly.

[00:05:59]And then also recognizing that there's there's a neuroprotection that your body has, you know, due to your brain's ability to create a healthy inflammatory response and to release toxins every day, which plays a role also in a really good night's sleep. And really the biggest, you know, the other things to look at this is, you know, the common, like what's really going on in your brain. You know, so there could be, you know, there could be many different issues and it could be mostly hippocampus, which is the hippocampus part of your brain is really crucial for memory and learning. So if you're right recognizing that cognitive decline where you don't remember like you used to or you can't even comprehend or learn like you used to, that would be tied directly into the hippocampus. Or the prefrontal cortex. And this is really essential for high-level level thinking and planning and so on. You know, so for your brain to reach that deep level of that thinking ability. And and and it's also the your estrogen overall, it does impact your neurotransmitter system specifically.

[00:07:12]So it's again really involved in memory and attention, mood, motivation, focus and and these are the things that you are told is just because of low estrogen.

[00:07:25]I know that is true. But what but but that's not the answer though because what I want you to think about is, yes, if it's low estrogen, well why is your estrogen low?

[00:07:37]You know, and why is it that 15% of the 2 million women that enter into perimenopause and menopause every year do not have this decline. They do not have this brain and cognitive decline, and it's because their system is working.

[00:07:55]You know, and when I talk about the system, let me even pull this up even a little bit uh bigger for this picture for you.

[00:08:02]Yeah, so when we're looking at this this slide right here, you can see where estrogens are on this picture.

[00:08:10]And the estrogens are all the way at the bottom. So, I and and really the the way that not just conventional medicine, but all even also most uh holistic practitioners, the way they treat menopause symptoms and the and the brain and cognitive decline of of of tied into what they think is menopause, is they treat it by giving you estrogens. And hopefully, if they are giving you estrogens, they're giving you progesterone with that, which is important. But here's the kicker though.

[00:08:39]This still doesn't fix the problem. It might help alleviate some of your symptoms because you're supporting the estrogen production or well, not even production at this point.

[00:08:49]You're just like giving an external estrogen. But it's not fixing the problem because the problem is up in the top. Because this is this is a a very um a brief version of what's going on in your body from a hormonal perspective, and this is so essential to be working correctly when you go from the childbearing years into perimenopause, menopause, and postmenopause.

[00:09:13]And if this system here is working correctly, you don't have symptoms of menopause.

[00:09:18]You don't have the brain and cognitive decline. You you know, you're at least impacted by what's going on with with estrogens. And and the key though is not just about getting estrogen.

[00:09:30]The key is you have to fix the system.

[00:09:33]So, the system is basically how your brain, your hypothalamus, your pituitary, and your adrenals all work collectively. And when that's in proper order, when you enter into perimenopause, >> [clears throat] >> your body still has the ability to maintain perfect hormone production for you.

[00:09:49]And with recognizing when you go from childbearing years to perimenopause, you don't need to produce the same amount of estrogen.

[00:09:56]Cuz you no longer have the ability to to basically to to conceive and you're not going to have a monthly cycle. So, the level of estrogens and progesterone you need at that point are much lower.

[00:10:07]You know, and your adrenal glands are already designed like if if if you believe in God or a higher power, God designed your body to go through this transition from childbearing years to perimenopause, menopause, postmenopausal as barely even a speed bump in the road.

[00:10:25]You know, because you're going to make that transition from the production of these hormones from your ovaries into the production of these hormones through your adrenal glands.

[00:10:34]Yeah, now now the challenge though is is that for most people and most women, by the time you enter perimenopause, you've probably spent the last 30 years before that being overwhelmed, overworked, and overstressed.

[00:10:45]Yeah, so you enter perimenopause with this system not working well.

[00:10:51]Yeah, so if the system isn't working well, so this is the very system that should maintain your perfect hormone balance and it just doesn't have the function anymore.

[00:10:58]You know, and really fixing the problem is is really addressing deficiencies in vitamin B5. This is sometimes pantothenic acid or pantothenine.

[00:11:08]And really supporting the production of pregnenolone, which is your mother hormone of every other hormone that you need for this system.

[00:11:17]And it because everything else is just a conversion from pregnenolone.

[00:11:21]And if you look at that pathway going straight down into estrogens, again, it starts with B5. The B5 converts it converts into a coenzyme called acetyl-CoA. And your body uses the the combination as the two most uh uh uh uh really notable raw materials of that acetyl-CoA and cholesterol to produce that first mother hormone, the pregnenolone. And then everything is a conversion from there. Then pregnenolone converts into DHEA, DHEA converts into testosterone, testosterone converts into estrogens, and then you live that balanced hormonal life that you're looking for.

[00:11:54]Recognizing that there's a pathway on the other side that goes from pregnenolone to progesterone, cortisone, and cortisol.

[00:12:00]Yeah, and it's all working collectively and together. And that's how you improve this, not not just what's going on hormonally. This is how you make the biggest difference with your brain and cognitive function. Yeah, because when we think of of this it when when you're told that just about low estrogen, what I want you to recognize when this system that you're looking at right here is not functioning correctly, this plays a direct role in your neural connectivity. So, it's basically it tied directly into your quality sleep and mood, your ability to memorize and learn, and your overall neuronal connectivity, which is how your brain and your nervous system communicates through your entire body.

[00:12:45]And and even on a deeper level, when you when you get proper sleep, a lot of people don't know this, but your your brain actually shrinks when you're sleeping. And and think of a sponge. Like if you have a sponge and a sponge is is full of water, and it's just sitting there, and then you squeeze that sponge, well, what happens to the sponge? Your or the contents of the sponge. Once you squeeze the sponge, that water comes out. Well, your brain will build up toxins through the day, and when you fall asleep, your brain shrinks a bit, which is like squeezing the sponge, and what it does is it squeezes the toxins out of your brain.

[00:13:20]Yeah, but but you need a you need a a healthy sleep cycle to achieve that.

[00:13:24]Yeah, and and as I mentioned how this is all really impacting, like I said, the the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and it's affecting you on so many different levels.

[00:13:34]So, what I want you to understand is that if there's a concern with any kind of neurodegenerative risk factor for a neurodegenerative disease, anything like dementia or or Alzheimer's or ALS or Parkinson's, and and really the the list goes on, you've got to get the system working well. It's not just about the estrogen, but we can actually create a we could we can kind of almost piece together the puzzles to understand if your estrogens are low, your estrogens are low because the system isn't working well, and the system has a direct impact on so many different levels of brain function that you would still be missing even if you give yourself estrogen.

[00:14:18]And I want to be clear, if you take estrogen, if you're doing if you're on a combination of estrogen and progesterone, that will still provide you a bit of support from a brain and cognitive perspective.

[00:14:29]Yet, it still isn't fixing the problem, so even though you might feel a little bit of symptom relief and a little bit improvement, you've got to recognize that there's still something deeper going on, and there's likely going to be a deeper level of decline in your brain and cognitive function.

[00:14:45]And then the other thing I want to bring up that's so important for you is to also recognize that like even when I'm looking at hormones with my clients, and I look at at hormones much differently than than most doctors, and even and definitely different than most conventional doctors or really probably all conventional doctors, and really even different than most holistic practitioners because most are looking at hormones through blood, which is very incomplete. Blood doesn't really tell you the whole story of hormones cuz blood only looks at the amount of specific hormones in your blood in that moment. It doesn't give you a recognition through the day, and it has no recognition of anything that's potentially built up in your tissue. You know, so really the only way that I'm going to look at hormones to help make a and provide [clears throat] an option for you to bring things into balance is I'm going to look at a 24-hour urine collection, and I'm not going to just look at one estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. I'm literally going to look at 32 different hormones to really understand deeply what is going on.

[00:15:44]Where are the imbalances in your hormonal system that you can start to help support naturally.

[00:15:49]>> [clears throat] >> I also excuse me. I also want you to understand is that your hormonal system is a response system.

[00:15:57]You know, so so what that means is that you know, when something's wrong with your hormonal system, it's usually not a problem with your hormonal system. It's it's whatever is causing that response.

[00:16:07]You know, so this could be tied into food sensitivities. It could be infections uh most notably in the gut.

[00:16:13]It could be uh tied into toxicity. It could be tied into uh into anything that's driving an inflammatory condition. It could be tied into you know, poor fundamentals of health. There's all these different things that would be the the triggers for this.

[00:16:27]And and again, into a brain and cognitive function.

[00:16:30]Like if you have a trigger of a gut infection, if you have a gut infection in your gut, let's recognize that 90% of your brain output goes right down the vagus nerve through the spinal column into the nervous system tissue in your gut and it comes right back up. So, whatever's going on in your gut is going on in your brain. So, if you have a gut problem, you're going to have a brain problem.

[00:16:48]You can't separate those.

[00:16:50]And [clears throat] also understanding if you have food sensitivities that you're unaware of and and that's a high likelihood because 86% of the people who have food sensitivities are asymptomatic. So, it's not like you the eat the food and you feel like crap right away. It's but you eat the food, it drives a level of inflammatory response in your gut, which then has a negative impact on your hormones and will then impact your brain and your immune system function as well.

[00:17:14]Or even a story about uh one of my clients whose mother had uh significant cognitive decline. You know, wasn't remembering things anymore, very confused a lot. And she brought her mother into into my office. And what was interesting about it is she initially went to one of the best uh neurological doctors here in Orange County.

[00:17:36]And and from what she told me when she came into my office, they literally had a 5-minute conversation about her her mother's uh symptoms.

[00:17:45]And the doctor, with no testing, no nothing, just said, "Oh, well, she's she's got Alzheimer's, and I'm going to write a prescription for this prescription, and you know, let's just try to slow down as much as we can, but we can't we can't get rid of it. You know, we can't There's nothing you can really do for Alzheimer's except for slow down the progression."

[00:18:02]And they walked out of the office literally in less than 10 minutes with no testing and a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and a prescription for a drug for Alzheimer's.

[00:18:11]And then she brought her mom into my office. She explained that whole thing, and I paid attention to what the body tells us, and it was easy to recognize that there was significant liver congestion, and liver congestion was probably tied into uh heavy heavy metals, which are known neurotoxins. And sure enough, we did that test, and her mother was really very high in in mercury, which is a known neurotoxin.

[00:18:34]It's poison to the brain. And [clears throat] what was so interesting about it, you know, I just made a recommendation to help her body naturally support detoxification, and eventually recommending a supplement that actually helps to helps the body to naturally pull the metals out of the brain.

[00:18:50]And guess what?

[00:18:52]Her cognitive function improved.

[00:18:54]Yeah, so So, I I want you to really understand with this is that yes, it's it's so often all you hear is the your brain and cognitive decline is low estrogen.

[00:19:06]Yeah, that's a part of it, but it's not the problem.

[00:19:09]You know, the problem is is that this system that I'm talking about right here isn't working properly. And deeper than that, there's things that are triggering that that you're just not addressing.

[00:19:22]Yeah, so so I wanted today to be that opportunity for you to recognize truly what's going on.

[00:19:29]And if you're already on estrogen and progesterone, uh that it's it's still you still have to fix the system. And sometimes women will ask me and perhaps you're thinking this yourself right now, well if I'm already on estrogen and progesterone, you know, do I really need to do a test like you're discussing? And And my very candid answer is it's even more important that. Because if you're using an estrogen cream or an estrogen patch or pellets under your skin, you want to make sure [clears throat] you know where the estrogen is going.

[00:20:01]Yeah, because what I've seen too far often in my clinic is that women are using patches, creams, or pellets and they're not the the hormone is not getting into the blood, which is where it needs to go to actually make a difference in your body. But then the question you have to ask yourself, if the hormone is not making it into blood, where is it going?

[00:20:20]And the reality of that most of the time is if it's not making it in the blood, it's building up in your tissue.

[00:20:26]Yeah, and then if it's building up in the tissue, you never see it on a blood result, so you can actually have what looks like low estrogen in your blood yet an estrogen dominance in your tissue, which is then a risk factor for breast cancer, for other cancers, for other chronic ailments, of course. Yeah, so uh the cool thing though is is that this is all recognizable.

[00:20:49]You can do a 24-hour, you know, urine collection. You can see what's really going on. You can see the build-up of the estrogens. You can see where your system is failing you because of low progesterone or or or I'm sorry, low pregnenolone or low DHEA, or you can see that you're not getting the proper conversion or you could see that maybe your liver isn't working well enough to to really process your estrogens correctly.

[00:21:16]So there's so much that you can learn just by doing that simple test and really getting to the bottom of what's going on for you. Yeah, so want to share this because I feel like this is very important and and as I mentioned earlier, this is very personal to me because of a strong family history of neurodegeneration.

[00:21:34]You know, if you if you miss the beginning, I had a grandmother that died with severe dementia, my mother died with severe dementia, my older brother died with ALS.

[00:21:42]And so I want you to really you know, so I get it. You know, I've seen what neurodegenerative disease does to people. I've seen how it affects families. I've seen how it affects the individuals with it and >> [clears throat] >> this is something that I want you I want you to keep your brain happy and healthy for the rest of your life just as I'm committed to and I want you to recognize it's not only about menopause. It's much deeper than that. So now you've got some answers and it's up to you what you do with it. You can and and actually really quick what I'd like you to just do for yourself is write down any symptoms that you have that you think are any kind of neurodegenerative decline, you know, brain and cognitive decline. Yeah, so if you feel like your memory isn't what it used to be or you're not as quick on your feet with your thoughts anymore or if [clears throat] it's harder to regulate your moods, if if these are different things that are going on for you, I want you to write those down and maybe circle the one that really concerns you the most.

[00:22:51]Yeah, and then the big question is is what you know, it's kind of like a a what if, you know, what if you do nothing, what if you just keep going going along or you know, and if and if you do nothing you know, or if you only depend on taking estrogen and you never fix the system and you never get to your triggers, unfortunately, it's still going to get worse, even if you're taking estrogen, because it's not only about estrogen.

[00:23:13]It's so much deeper than that.

[00:23:15]And then the other question is, well, what if you do something about this?

[00:23:18]What if you do look at your hormones on a very comprehensive level to understand really what's going on? And what if you do support your your mother hormone?

[00:23:27]What if you support all this conversion?

[00:23:29]What if you get to the bottom of all the triggers for really your hormonal expression?

[00:23:34]Well, you know what?

[00:23:36]Then you get to turn back the clock and feel young again. You get to be If you're part of the 85% that's symptomatic with menopause, you can then become a part of the 15% where the only two symptoms you have is you no longer have a monthly cycle and can't conceive, and that's it.

[00:23:50]So, um thank you for >> [clears throat] >> whether you're watching this live or if you watching this as a as a replay.

[00:23:58]If you have any questions, uh please, wherever you're watching this, put those questions below and I will address them um personally. And then also, uh two different things in the below this this video, I will put a link to uh the menopause morning, uh you know, list, uh and when you join the menopause morning list, you will get a free copy of my book. It's called Fat, Fatigued, and Frustrated, which is the the underlying foundational factors of what you want to do in your lifestyle to help turn this around. Recognizing lifestyle enough doesn't do the whole job, but you have to have the lifestyle aspects to be really strong for yourself. And also, below in this video, I will put a link to that test that I'm referring to. It's actually uh from a test company called Meridian Labs. It's a plus hormone profile number 4080. This is where we're going to look at 32 two different hormones. We're going to look at how your kidneys affect your hormones, how two different levels of your liver function affect your hormones. We're going to look at uh inflammation. We're going to look at chronic disease states tied into either inflammation or gut problems hindering your ability to utilize proteins in your body and so much more. So I'll provide those both for you and by [clears throat] joining the menopause morning list what you do every week either on Monday morning or I'm sorry either Monday night or Tuesday morning I send out an email letting you know what is the next subject and and reminder of the menopause morning coming up because I really do encourage people to be on live and I do this live so you can ask questions live and and and put in your comments.

[00:25:33]And so join that menopause morning morning list get your book fat fatigued and frustrated and start your foundational aspects of your hormone balance and with that said everybody have a fantastic day and I look forward to next Tuesday 9:00 a.m. Pacific time for your next menopause morning. Have a great day.