Why Thyroid Meds Don’t Work for Most Women | Thyroid & Weight Loss Expert

25:27And if we try to treat and handle the thyroid in isolation, we're not really helping these people. We're not truly giving them back their lives. Yeah. I mean, one of the things to your point is, and this is something I try and do very early, is address the adrenal issues. Because if somebody's energy is in the tank, you have to fix that. And so really looking at how can we support the adrenals? How can we support the mitochondria? How can we start getting that energy up? Because, you know, I think for myself, you know, outside of, I mean, I think the two things that probably plague people the most that keep them from enjoying time with their family and a number of those things.

26:01I mean, energy is high chronic pain would be another one too. But you know, those can ruin your life. I mean, they're going to affect everything, everything. So that makes a lot of sense. Are there any favorites you have or things that you like to do to support adrenal function specifically? Oh, if I'm going to get very specific, I absolutely love orthomolecular's adrenal as a supplement for it. For whatever reason, it seems to work so well. I mean, obviously, it has some micronutrients and herbs to help nourish, kind of restore adrenals, but it also has cow adrenal gland in it. So we're like supplementing what these people are missing.

26:36And again, for me, it's all about what can I do to give these people a little energy so that they can take that energy, pour it back into their lifestyle and create more. Right. And adrenal is a powerful, powerful way of doing that. Yeah. You know, I was mentioning Chinese medicine earlier. One of the things that they would do is, you know, if we would go into an ancient apothecary in China, they tended to have herbs and spices, mushrooms, and then glands, you know, and organs. And so they would tend to do a combination of thyroid gland, thymus gland, and adrenal gland for, you know, for treating hypothyroidism.

27:14But it's interesting because, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. So by far the most prescribed medications, right, are Synthroid and Levothyroxine in terms of, you know, those T4, focusing on hypothyroidism. But there are a number of people taking things like Nature Throid and Armor and taking them like that. Now, historically, before those around, people would take thyroid glandular. But one of the issues was, you know, every different gland you got from porcine or from bovine, from cow or pig, had different levels of active T3 and T4 in them. And of course, the medical community is like, well, I don't want to have to take the time to dial it in for people.

27:53And that's too much work. And so we're going to kind of, you know, synthetically make it or create a standardized extract. What are your thoughts on all that? Do you tend to like to use more of the, you know, mainstream? Do you like to use Nature Throid or Armour? Like, what do you personally like to use with patients in order to from a from a medication standpoint? Yeah, this is a great question. Thanks for asking. you know, armor thyroid is the oldest thyroid medication that's been out. It was around half of the century before levothyroxine synthroid. Okay. So that was our only option for a really long time.

28:27It started about 1920. And at first, just as you said, it wasn't stable. It wasn't predictable. It wasn't controllable. So medicine kind of completely abandoned it when levothyroxine came out. Well, in 1983, it might've been a 84. We were able to really standardize armor and the dosing. We were really able to like hone in and create stability, consistency with potency, et cetera. Medicine has not adopted its viewpoint or re-adopted its viewpoint of armor since 1980s. So we've had this access to this stable glandular based hormone for decades, yet we're taught in medicine, do not ever use armor, desiccated thyroid.

29:14It's horrible. It's unstable. It's dangerous. You'll kill people. You'll give them a heart attack. And first off, the thing I would say is how many people have ever died from taking desiccated thyroid? Right. One in, you know, 500 years. How many people have probably died as a side effect of taking Synthroid? I have an opinion on that, but it's more than that. it, right? I mean, the data, I was reading a study from 2022, but I just ran across it a couple of weeks ago that literally looked at the comparison of health outcomes with people on higher levels of T3 with higher levels still within the confines of what would be normal or close to normal.

29:52Higher levels of T3 was associated with less cardiac mortality, which is exact medicine says T3 equals cardiac issues, heart issues, stroke, heart attack. No, it was inversely proportional. So the higher T3, the lower risk for heart disease, cancer. What was the other one? Stroke, which falls under heart disease, even related to higher socioeconomic status and longer employment in your life. Higher levels of TO and osteoporosis, osteopenia levels were or risk was reduced on higher doses of T4, which is what everyone is on. I'm love with the Roxane Synthroid. The higher the dose, the higher risk for heart disease, heart attack, stroke, osteoporosis, lower socioeconomic status, and higher rates of unemployment.

30:40Yeah. And you know, the thing here is that if somebody is really a practitioner that understands what's going on in people's hormones today, and so much of it is an issue where T4 is not being converted to T3, if you're going to do a medication, of course you want something that's going to have more T3. Right. I mean, or at least... Some. Some, at least some. Right. Now, it's not the way that I tend to recommend things, though I do like it much better than the conventional medicine. Yeah. I do appreciate you focusing on helping relieve, and I'm sure patients appreciate it, getting that relief very quickly.

31:15Because again, people are so tired and so frustrated with sort of where their health is at. So that makes total sense to me. You know, one of the things I mentioned, too, and the thing that I like about the desiccated thyroid tissue that's been used for so long throughout history is that it not only has those active hormones, they also have peptides in there. You know, and one of those peptides in particular, well, let me just say this. I'm a fan of peptides. I had a spinal issue, and I used BPC-157, TB-500, CHK-CU. and saw great results, I mean, in helping me heal. And then I've recommended these to a number of people, different thyroid hormones over time.

32:01But there's some studies around TB500 for thyroid health and it being really, really good for specifically Hashimoto's because it helps dampen the autoimmune, the antibody response. And so I think we're going to see, I think over the next five to 10 years, a big part of the future of medicine, what we're going to see is peptide therapy. I think we're going to just see it just grow through the roof. Now, one of the things I know that I think we are probably fairly well aligned on, but I know that you have recommended GLP-1. Now, listen, if people go back and look at my shows, they'll see I have hammered GLP-1.

32:34And I've done loads of posts on it because there's a couple studies in particular, one showing the average person lost. And by the way, this is such a short period of time. But some people lost 20 pounds of muscle, 40 % of their muscle by being on GLP-1. There's another study showing around 50 % of the total weight lost was muscle. And so those early studies, I've been vehemently against generally GLP-1. However, GLP-1 is a peptide. And sometimes when you do things in the wrong dosage, there are unwanted side effects. And this could be said for, you know, if I overdose somebody with vitamin C for a really long time, it can cause loose stool, can disrupt their kidneys and even irritate their gut.

33:21I mean, there's a number of things there. So that can happen with even natural compounds. You do GLP-1 a little different. You do micro dosing. Okay. Share with me your philosophy, your results, some things, because you specialize in thyroid issues. But your secondary area of expertise is weight loss. So talk to me about your philosophy and thoughts around GLP-1. Feel free to share some of the things I, you know, share your opinion on some of the things I said. And then, yeah, I'd love to hear. Yeah, I love that we get to talk about this. So, you know, at the core, the poison is in the dose, right?

33:59And I think what's happened in medicine is we have tried to oversimplify and create, to a fault, a protocol that fits everyone that is based on people with diabetes. And so now we are applying the doses that historically we have used to treat diabetics to people who do not have diabetes to simply lose weight. Okay. When I started this journey three and a half years ago, specifically for my thyroid patients, I figured out very quickly that these people were getting over medicated. They were sick. They were not eating food. Right. They were just hardly eating at all. They were losing hair. They were losing too much weight too quickly.

34:38And so we adopted microdosing before the word microdosing was ever applied for GLP. So we're very, very far into this journey. It shouldn't be called microdosing. It should be called therapeutic or normal dosing. Right, right. It shouldn't be the alternative. Every other doctor out there is just overdosing their patients with GLP-1. Absolutely. Like, I think essentially there is no place for the dosing protocols that are happening to be almost with anyone. I think everyone is grossly medically negligently overdosed on these meds. And, you know, people do lose muscle. They do lose collagen. They do lose hair when they're not eating any food.

35:15And they truly are not. I mean, people will eat two, three, 400 calories a day. They're so sick they want to only eat carbohydrates. They're not getting any protein, micronutrients. And so my philosophy is microdosing, tailored dosing. These people do not need to be increasing their dose every four weeks because the box like tells them to. No, if the tiny bit of medication is working, you're still having an appetite. You're still getting enough protein. You're still getting enough micronutrients. Wonderful. There's no reason to increase. And inherently, GLPs have muscle protective effects. They actually have a built-in mechanism to keep us from losing muscle.

35:56but we are overriding that mechanism by not nourishing and feeding our body what it needs to actually function yeah i i am that's interesting you say that because i haven't heard that before i don't know if don't take this the wrong way no i don't know if i fully believe it yeah for here's why i say this you know it's not that i don't believe it it's that uh the this again the studies are showing now this isn't micro dosing right but people are losing a lot more muscle than they are fat so so they're and maybe that is just from doing the high dose now there are obviously glp1 is something your own body manufactures right right there are even foods and supplements certain types of fiber higher protein certain even types of probiotics like like archimansia like there are there are studies showing there are things berberine there are things showing that there are things that can support your body in producing more glp1 so i um let me tell you how i like to typically handle this one i my general philosophy as a practitioner has always been first do no harm yeah and do things as naturally lifestyle driven as possible i truly believe and this might sound like a really bold statement.

37:11I believe if we did completely away with all conventional medical offices, not hospitals, but every other medical office in the country, and we got rid of 90 % of medication prescriptions, maybe even probably 95, we would be radically healthier. Like I'm talking about as a country, so much healthier. Because one of the things that happens today, if you go into a practitioner, and by the way, this is conventional or natural. If you go into a conventional doctor and they're like, here's Synthroid, here's Levothyroxine, or let's say it's another person and they're saying, here is Armor or Naturethroid, or here's some Selenium and some Ashwagandha, but that's all they do and they don't change your diet and lifestyle.

37:58You're truly not getting better in addressing what is causing that thing in the first place. I would say the same thing with diabetics. let's say that insulin for type 2 diabetics let's say insulin and metformin did not exist whatsoever and there weren't even any herbs or supplements that person would have to change their diet they would have to exercise because that's the only other option available by giving people the options of something that's actually truly unhealthy for them we're a lot unhealthier for it and so i part of me wishes a lot of these options were never invented and they weren't because because overall it's, it's, yeah, it's making us sicker.

38:36Can I tell you a follow-up thing about GLPs in line with that? And, and this wasn't just about GLP. Right, right, right. This is in general. And I, I so appreciate that. But as to portray a picture to you. So obviously, like I told you, the people that come to see us are super invested in their health. Where they like do all the things, not all of them, but the vast majority of them, right? It's a big investment to come to Modern Thyroid Clinic. And so they, they make it worthwhile. the whole reason I ended up getting into GLPs is because I had all these women and I completely was able to transform their lives I was able to give them back their energy their vitality their libido their ability to show up as a mom and a wife and all the things but I could not fix their metabolism I couldn't yeah and I mean and these are people who did everything like I mean I remember one of my patients right leading up to when we started our program she's like I've been on whole 30 since 2017.

39:32And I'm like, Oh, dear Lord, you know, they exercise, they eat well, they eat a low inflammatory diet, but they were so metabolically disadvantaged by the time we fixed their thyroid. They couldn't lifestyle their way out of that. They couldn't, you know, and so at that point, and those are truly my favorite people to use GLPs with, if people can influence their weight on their own, they don't really need it. It's the people that can't, And then it gives them the ability to do that, even when they come off, because our goal is always to get people off of them, is not to be on them forever, to create that metabolic healing and reverse metabolic dysfunction.

40:11And then they can continue to lose weight and influence their metabolism in a healthy way with effort. But in true transparency, there are a huge percentage of people, especially women, I think, in the country, that they can't lifestyle their way out of it anymore. Yeah, it's very hard. I don't know if it's impossible, but I think that maybe their level of stress or where they're at currently makes it not possible. And here's how I like to approach this. So if I have a patient come in, let's say they have hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's and they're overweight. They want to lose 30 pounds, okay, something like that.

40:47What I will try and do first is get them on a diet that's very, very healing. I'll try and recommend supplements. We'll recommend herbs. I'll recommend walking. I'll recommend weights. let's get outside more all of those things infrared sun let's do all these things together and then as we go if we get a few months in and things aren't moving i'm actually okay at that point with a glp1 a hormone replacement therapy yeah but but my philosophy has always been first do no harm and let's do everything we can to truly change someone's lifestyle and then if we need to plug something in like that um then then let's do it again my biggest problem with doctors is laziness and not believing patients are capable.

41:28Yeah. Because it's not what's best long-term. You know, the principle of success is do what's best long-term, not in the short-term, do what's best long-term. And most doctors aren't doing that. Now, again, and I think you're doing a great job. I think what you're doing is very, it's slightly different, but very, you know, I think there's a lot of alignment in terms of the way we practice. And not to say I'm the perfect practitioner. I mean, you're getting amazing results with your patients. Amazing. So I like what you're doing. But I think that personalized touch is probably maybe the single biggest thing we're missing today, along with focusing on helping people physically, mentally, and spiritually.

42:04You know, there are so many patients, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, that are struggling with their identity, with their faith, not having a purpose, having abusive relationships. I mean, is that something that you're aware of in your practice, anything you do to try and help people with stress and some of these other issues that may be more, you know, mindset related? Absolutely. Strangely, my journey to thyroid was via psychiatry. Really? And this whole thyroid thing almost happened randomly. Like I ended up treating enough treatment-resistant depression patients that actually had a thyroid issue, gave them back their lives, and then they just took my information and spread it all over the internet on thyroid advocacy platforms.

42:43They actually created Modern Thyroid Clinic while I was practicing psychiatry and never had marketed myself as a thyroid person. So totally. I mean, I so appreciate what is going on in your mind, in your heart, in your soul, grossly impacts how you feel and show up in the world. Right. And so that part is not detached. And it's so cool because I get to practice this kind of medicine where I am like deeply, intricately involved in the lives of my patients in terms of our vulnerability. I can't, this might be too personal. I can't tell you how many women have told me they've caught their husband having an affair.

43:21And I'm the first person to know that they have never told anyone that's happened more times than I can count on one hand. So there is so much healing involved in going deeper in those aspects, but also being able to share with your clinician openly and have those conversations so that they can help direct you and where to go to get the help you need, whether it's spiritual, mindset, therapy even. Those are vastly, vastly important and obviously neglected in the conventional approach. You know, I think about my first few years in practice, and one of the things that happened continually is, you know, and you're like this too, most of the time by the time people see you or I, they've already been to several other doctors.

44:08And then they'll come in and I'll ask them, what did your other doctor have you do? And they'll say things like, I remember, again, this happens so often, it still happens. And they'll say, well, my doctor's more holistic. He told me to reduce stress. Yeah, that's so great. That's so great. What did he tell you to do? Or she told you to do? Well, they didn't. They just told me I needed to reduce stress. It's like, so they created more stress because you don't know how to reduce it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, So I mean, think about how crazy that is. If you would go to see a doctor, let's just say with whatever you have going on, you should eat better.

44:43You should take something for that. Okay, I'll see you later. It's absolutely crazy. And so, you know, one of the things I try and do, and I'm curious if you have maybe like, you know, feel free to share one thing or multiple things, but I try to be very practical. So like one thing I have patients do with stress is, and this is a simple exercise, but I think that's effective is I will have them get out a piece of paper or they can use it word doc on their computer, whatever it is. And I'll have them write down what are the things truly stressing you out? Yeah, let's let's identify those things.

45:15On another side, I want you to write down what are things you love to do? What are your hobbies? What builds? Is it reading a novel? Lunch with a best friend hiking playing pickleball? What is it? And then I say, let's go through and I want you to maybe even work with somebody who you trust on this, let's go through and figure out how to deal, what things can you totally get out of your life here? Can you address some of these things? You need to get some things off your plate, maybe give some things to God. Let's do that. And then I want you to go and schedule out several hours a week where you're doing these things you love.

45:47So my point is, and there's other things too, right? I love if somebody is dealing with trauma, there's some works by Dr. James Pennebaker, which is just writing, you know, writing about your trauma, seeing it in a different light. So there's a lot of benefits. Is there anything that you like to have patients do for building peace, working on some of these issues that are more of the mind and spirit? Yeah. I think getting in nature is huge. I love too that you brought up the concept of adults doing things that make us joyful, right? We lose the appreciation for that as we age and we exit it completely in a lot of cases.

46:23And that connects us to our humanity, to ourselves, to our family, to our kids, when we can experience these things that truly create joy. So doing more of those is really powerful. And then like a tangible thing. And this isn't like sponsored or an ad or anything. I've never even spoken to these people, but when people are really stressed and they can't meditate on their own, it's even myself. And I'm an experienced person of meditation. I'll use new calm. Have you heard of this app? No, no, I've done, I've done apps like um like headspace and things like pray and and more uh what is the what is the app hallo yeah so i've used praying hallo but i've not not used uh the one you're referring to it's like it's passive you put on headphones it plays music and behind the music is something that takes your brain waves and kind of slows them down and it takes them out of the stress state so i find when people are in that stress cycle and they can't quiet their body enough to meditate or really hone in and connect and pray, this is a way they can kind of passively do it that I found useful myself and for my patients, actually.

47:26It's been something I've been referring to for the last couple of years. It's really neat. You'll have to check it out. I love that. You know, I have something, and this was from years ago. There was a practitioner online and he sold this, it was a, I don't know if it's a company anymore, but it was called Holosync. And basically it was, they did like theta brainwaves and other brainwaves of, you your noises. But I would listen to this when I would pray and meditate oftentimes. And it really, it's powerful. So anyways, I love that. I think that's a great idea. It's great. Do you have unexplainable illness, hormone dysfunction, weight loss resistance, brain fog, and you're tired of being dismissed when you know something isn't right?

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48:42Just go to mybloodwork.com now. When you think about nutritional deficiencies that people have when it comes to their thyroid, weight loss, Hashimoto's, what are some of the biggest nutritional deficiencies you see in practice? You know, honestly, I think to broad brush it, nutrient deficiencies are pervasive, right? If people are not extremely intentional about eating a wide variety of nutrient dense foods of all the colors of the rainbow. It's honestly a problem, but obviously vitamin D, right? Vitamin D is pervasive. I think I've ever seen two people that aren't vitamin D deficient that aren't supplementing, you know, so trying to get out in the sun, really important.

49:24Checking your vitamin D, especially, I mean, even in Texas, like I'm in Texas and everyone's vitamin D deficient. Zinc, selenium's huge. I know you mentioned that when we were chatting before this, selenium's a huge issue with Hashimoto's, with hypothyroidism. It helps convert your hormones. It helps in a lot of studies reverse Hashimoto's antibodies and reduce the severity of them. Another big one, B vitamins, huge, especially when you get into the adrenal piece of things. So really, I think focusing on your diet, creating a plan that allows you to get a lot of nutrients is very, very important.

49:57And then targeting and supplementing where you're missing can be powerful. Yeah, I totally agree. Is there any blood workouts that you mentioned a hormone panel? Yeah. Is there any other are there any other tests that you like to run with patients? Absolutely. we check everyone's hormones. So estradiol, sex hormone, binding globulin, testosterone, progesterone, DHEA sulfate. And then for men, obviously we check a slew of other things. We do full metabolic panels, leptin, insulin, obviously hemoglobin A1C, kidney function, liver function, red blood cells, white blood cell analysis. So we try and look deep.

50:33We have a narrow niche, but we also want to cover the things that are driving women's health down. And if it was as simple as like just fixing their thyroid and Oh, here's a quick prescription for thyroid medication. Our jobs would be very, very easy. It's not that simple. You know that there's so many other pieces that have to be addressed from a lifestyle, nutritional stress, supplementation, hormones, all of it. And then when women have thyroid dysfunction, they often have hormone imbalances. and those two go hand in hand in addition to the adrenal piece. So I know you're very well aware of that.

51:08So approaching women from a global standpoint of health and vitality is necessary and so, so important in helping them on their journey. Yeah. One of the things that I know that I've seen over the years too, is I remember I was, I was doing a, an interview with actually Allie Bestucki and I mentioned this to her and I think she, she found it pretty surprising. It was this, is that there was a study that came out a few years back, and it was a 10-year study. And they found that women that have taken birth control pills long-term have nearly a 300 % increased risk of having hypothyroidism. Yep. Crazy.

51:46Yeah. And we wonder why it's almost ubiquitous, right? Like these girls are getting put on birth control at 12 or 13 for heavy periods, and And literally, they're on it until they're ready to have children when they're 34. And then they come off and they're like, I'm ready to get pregnant. Why don't I have periods? And a lot of them are on continuous birth control where they don't have periods for 15 or 20 years. And one of the things it's doing, according to the literature, it is just sucking the B vitamins right out of your body and selenium. And then good bacteria. Those are the main things depleted.

52:24And of course, that's just a recipe for hypothyroidism. Absolutely. And poor fertility, all of it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I don't think people realize how certain drugs, you know, whether it's an aspirin or an antibiotic or birth control is affecting their hormones. It's affecting their nutrients and causing a lot of these, you know, a lot of these thyroid issues. It's, you know, it's pretty frequently. So one of the other things I've been pretty outspoken about is hormone replacement therapy. And I know I've been injecting my opinion because one of the things I want to do is I truly do want to understand the nature of because you're getting great results of how you view this.

53:03My my view of hormone replacement therapy has been it's OK to do, but don't do it first. Like, again, the whole mentality people have today of just take a pill, just take hormone replacement therapy, just take GLP one, just take Synthroid is not helping them long term. truly. It's not going to help them heal. And there are side effects of anything you put in exogenously for most of the time, even though sometimes the benefit outweighs the side effect. What are your thoughts on hormone replacement therapy? How often do you utilize that in your practice? Oh, all day, every day. Okay. Yeah. So I have kind of a different approach.

53:42And again, it's like, what works for my people isn't necessarily extrapolated to society at large, I serve this certain type of person. And by the time they come to see me, they've had usually 10, 15, 20 years of a thyroid issue that has impacted their adrenals, which has impacted their hormones. And they end up in a depleted state, particularly, honestly, mostly with testosterone and progesterone. They show up and they don't have hardly any testosterone. And their progesterone is wildly imbalanced compared to their estrogen, which for women is so uncomfortable. It makes us feel extremely agitated and anxious and we can't sleep.

54:20It's awful. So a lot of what I do is for women with low progesterone, I'll work on supplementing their progesterone. And I think about estrogen, progesterone like a seesaw. When the seesaw is so heavy to estrogen, it's hard to create more balance again, even with lifestyle modifications, etc. If I can create balance of that seesaw and then remove the progesterone after we've done work on their adrenals, their thyroid, a lot of those women can maintain that balance. But creating it is difficult. Obviously, with testosterone, you want to build muscle mass, right? Like that's an important thing in your lifestyle to produce more testosterone.

54:57That's very hard to do when you don't have testosterone. It's hard to build your endurance. It's hard to physically build muscle mass. So supplementing them with that while they increase their activity, build muscle mass, remove it so they can produce their own testosterone works really well in so many cases. So for me, it's so much about the edge, right? I want to give these people the edge to improve their lifestyle, to create more health and longevity without medications or whatever that might look like for them. But supplying them with the support up front can be helpful. So what you're doing, and the way you're using HRT is actually less common than other people from this standpoint.

55:36Most of the time, predominantly, not always, of course, but predominantly when women are on hormone replacement therapy, it's during peri - and menopause, right? But a lot of your patients are going to be in their 30s. They're going to be premenopausal. And so how is what you're recommending going to be different in terms of are you saying that you're going to not do any or lower estrogen and more progesterone with most of these women and maybe some testosterone in their compound in what you're doing? Totally. So a lot of my women, especially younger, premenopausal, perimenopausal even have too much estrogen compared to progesterone.

56:12So it's almost like we want to help them detox their estrogen with liver support, with targeted supplementation, with removing plastics, etc. to create that balance too. So that's a little different. I think what does make a modern thyroid clinic a little unique in this situation is what's become, you've probably seen this, what's become normalized in medicine is putting women on these crazy supranormal levels of testosterone, of estrogen. I mean, I have had women transfer to me with a testosterone over 2 ,000, 1 ,200, 800, 600. Just so everyone knows. That's crazy. A high man's levels, like 1 ,000.

56:53Is 1 ,000 per man. Yeah. We're normalizing this in medicine. People are not being held accountable. This is becoming strangely standard of care and it is dangerous, can be permanent in terms of side effects. So in a lot of ways, I agree with you. Absolutely. But targeted and lower doses, I think can be really beneficial. Yeah. Yeah. Again, one of the things in some of it has to do with probably training. Again, I've studied a lot of herbalism. And so what I try and do is I try and do it with herbs, you know, initially in diet, you know, yam is good for progesterone. You know, certain types of even hemp seeds are good.

57:34There's a number of things actually chickpeas. So I try and do it with food and then I'll try and do for progesterone things like time and again, other herbals do actually yam extract. And then for the progesterone, I try and do black cohosh, red clover, shatavari, and try and bring it up that way for the most part. And then for the testosterone, fenugreek, tonkatali, deer antler, I mean, there's some things, Panex ginseng, that'll help there as well. So I try and do with herbs at first. And if it doesn't, I'm okay with HRT for a period of time, but I really don't like it long term from this standpoint, this is a Chinese medicine philosophy.

58:12When you take a hormone exogenously, like testosterone, your body stops producing on its own. We know that. Now, I know people can mess around with HCG and maybe change the feedback, reverse feedback loop a little bit, but there's still, when you turn off your own internal tap in Chinese medicine, that creates chi stagnation in the area. And they believe that is the cause of cancer. And so there are some long-term studies on, now by the way, it's more estrogen for what I'm about to say. But there are some studies on increasing the risk of certain types of cancer in women when they're doing HRT that tends to be more estrogen-based in that way.

58:52But again, overall, but here's also my opinion. Exogenously, there's a side effect. Whether people know it or not, there's some studies on it. However, if you have a man or a woman and their energy is absolutely in the tank, and I'm I think about this as a male. And because of it, they're not working out. They're not motivated. They're not doing anything. And they get on a little bit of hormone of testosterone. And then they start working out. They start pursuing their wife. They start feeling like a man again. The side effect that they're going to have of that stagnation probably is going to be at least less than the side effect that they would have of having low testosterone.

59:29Because now they're actually active and feel well enough to do the thing. So I do understand the benefit of doing HRT for a period of time. Again, my problem is, and I've done videos on this, is that just to your point, they go in there and doctors are like, here is a whole heaping amount of hormones. We're not even going to try and let your body do anything. And by the way, we'll just probably keep you on this the rest of your life. Right. And then never even test you to see where your levels are at to adjust. Like that's also standard. No, I completely agree. And what I really love and admire about you and your work is, hey, there's not this like one road that fits everyone that everyone should do and works every time.

1:00:06It's like, I love that you appreciate, hey, let's look at the full picture and determine what's best for this unique person at this time. Yeah. That's powerful. Yeah. So obviously, in personalized medicine, we look at men and women very differently. In fact, when we look at the data on the nutrients men needs versus the nutrients women needs, there's a difference there. And there's a difference in conditions that men and women tend to struggle with. Generally speaking, why do you think far, far more women struggle with hypothyroidism than men do? I think it's a couple of things. It's multifaceted.

1:00:40But one is, generally speaking, women are at much greater risk for autoimmune disease than men. Right? And so if Hashimoto's statistically drives 80 % of hypothyroidism, obviously for women, that is a much more significant risk than it is for men. And I can vouch for that. I think 99.9 % of my patients or the patients at Modern Thyroid Clinic in general are women, right? The only men that are there are their wives drag them in kicking and screaming and are like, I think you need to get this looked at. And then the other thing is we have these hormone fluctuations that at certain times are very much tied to increased risk of hypothyroidism, postpartum, perimenopausally, and significantly postmenopausally.

1:01:18So hormone shifts directly relate to inflammation, which puts us at risk for Hashimoto's. They also directly relate to the function of our thyroid gland. And so I think the bulk of the reason is those. I think there's additional ones, but certainly the autoimmune piece is a significant risk factor. Yeah, I would totally agree. You know, when I think about one of the biggest, there was a survey done on what is your biggest health problem in terms of a symptom? Yeah. And I think the number one thing was fatigue for people generally. I mean, so many people are tired. And when I see it in women fatigue, it tends to be related to thyroid.

1:01:56When I see it in men, it tends to be due to low testosterone, some of those issues there. But there's obviously a lot of the same symptoms, but sometimes different reasons due to the difference in hormones there. I've really enjoyed this conversation. I think as a practitioner, I always really appreciate it when somebody, one, really cares about their patients. to when you have someone like yourself who's battled that condition yourself. You dealt with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's. You were stuck in that mainstream medical model like a lot of people were and broke yourself out to find answers for yourself.

1:02:29I found a lot of the best practitioners overcame a battle themselves or helped a family member do so. So I think it's great. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in around the way you're practicing. I know you're getting amazing results. And thanks so much for coming and sharing your wisdom with us today. Thank you. This conversation was informative and delightful. and just thank you for your work. I've followed your work for so, so long and appreciate the path that you've carved out for so many clinicians and patients in this sector of medicine. So keep doing what you're doing. Awesome. Thanks, McCall.

1:02:58Hey, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I hope you've enjoyed this conversation like I did with McCall McPherson. By the way, you can find out more about her and her incredible work at McCall McPherson PA on Instagram and TikTok as well. She also has a great podcast. Again, McCall McPherson. You can find her there on all the podcast channels as well. And hey, thanks so much for tuning in. There are millions upon millions of women today struggling with hypothyroidism, Hashimoto's, unwanted weight gain, hormone imbalance. And then you need to know the truth about how to use food-based medicine, how to do the right lab work, the truth about peptides like GLP-1 and how to have a personalized plan created for them.

1:03:43Again, there's so much power in personalized functional medicine. And hey, do us a favor, subscribe to the show. Do you know that's the number one thing you can do to support the show? That's how I can bring on some of the world's premier leaders in natural health care like McCall is because you're subscribed and because you share the show. Thank you, all of you that are on mission here with me to help heal the planet and transform the health of this nation. I'll see you on the next episode.

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