Ep 1203 ｜ The Secret to Fixing Your Period ｜ Guest： Dr. Lara Briden
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
178.07755
Summary
Dr. Laura Bryden is a naturopathic doctor with a focus on women s health. She has written several books, including The Period Repair Manual and The Hormone Repair Manual. She is here to talk about why ovulation matters for women, not just to make babies but also for our brain health, for our metabolic health, and how this relates to perimenopause and menopause. I learned so much from Dr. Bryden today, and you will too.
Transcript
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Dr. Laura Bryden is a naturopathic doctor with a focus on women's health.
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She has written several books, including the Period Repair Manual, the Hormone Repair Manual.
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She is here today to talk about why ovulation in our cycle matters for women, not just to
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make babies, but also for our brain health, for our metabolic health, and how this relates
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to perimenopause and menopause. I learned so much from Dr. Bryden today, and you will
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too. If you're like a women's cycle nerd like I am, I want to know as much as possible.
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This episode is for you. Get out your notes app, get out a pen and paper, take notes so
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you understand everything that she's saying. It is so enlightening. This episode is brought
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Dr. Bryden, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. If you could just tell everyone
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Hi, Ali. Yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Laura Bryden. I'm a naturopathic doctor. I'm Canadian
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originally. That's the accent, but I live in New Zealand currently. And a naturopathic doctor means
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that I treat people with diet changes, nutritional supplements, herbal medicines. Through my 30 years
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of practice, I've also used what are called body identical hormones or bioidentical hormones to
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treat women's health problems. I've had a very strong women's health focus in my almost 30 years
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of practice. So I treat women with PCOS, endometriosis, perimenopause. And out of all of
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that work have come so far, three books on women's health that have, I'm very grateful,
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have seemed to have reached people in all parts of the world. So that's been a great opportunity.
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Yes, they have. Okay. Can you define for us what is a naturopath doctor?
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Yeah, fair enough. Good question. So a naturopathic doctor is a doctor who uses natural medicine
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in North America, where I trained. So it's a registered, accredited profession. There are,
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I think it's about, I think at the moment, like four colleges, naturopathic medicine colleges in the
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US and two in Canada. And we go through a very, it's a parallel training. It's similar to medical
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doctors, but it's, you know, done separately. So we learn, you know, physiology, anatomy, pathology,
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we do a, you know, an internship and, but rather than prescribing only medicines, we also learn to
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treat the whole person. And yeah, so it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's a, it's a great profession to be
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part of. And yeah, as I said, it's given me an opportunity to do things very differently in some,
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for some conditions. Yes, I can imagine. You said that you've been practicing for over 30 years and
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what interested you specifically in women's health? Why did you go into that specialty?
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Yeah. Not quite 30 years, but I think I'm about 28 years practice. So it all started just on the
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ground. When I first started practicing in Canada, I was in rural, I was actually just south of Calgary.
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So I was in a small town in rural Canada. Many of my patients were just ranchers and teachers and just
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really ordinary people, which is great to get a chance to work with them. And obviously when I first
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started practicing, a lot of my patients were women. And I think I did treat some men back then
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too, but I think part of it was just back in the nineties, there were women just didn't have a lot
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of other options. So I was seeing women who were facing surgeries, who were on high dose hormonal birth
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control, who were really struggling with those approaches and wanted something different. And I was,
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as you do, and you learn on the ground, you know, stakes are high. I was just very grateful
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to discover early on that some of the tools I'd been given for nutrition, diet, herbal medicines
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actually worked quite well for women's health conditions. And so I was excited by that. So then
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when I moved down, I first moved to Sydney, Australia for quite a number of years, I opened up a much
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busier clinic there, an urban clinic where I was pretty much only focused on women's hormones. I had
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other doctors working, naturopaths working under me. And so I got an opportunity, again, to learn on
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the ground, to just see, you know, thousands of patients and learn what works for them.
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So you wrote this book, Period Repair Manual. And for a lot of people, that title alone may be
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confusing. What is there to repair about a period? What does it mean to repair your period? How can you
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have a manual that gives you a guide on how to repair your period? Because for so long,
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we've just, you know, we've been told that you take hormonal birth control that will regulate your
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hormones, that'll regulate your period, it'll stop your cramps, it'll heal your endometriosis.
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And then as soon as you want to have a baby one day, you get off your birth control, no big deal,
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life goes on. But it doesn't seem like that is your approach or your thought process about women's
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menstrual cycles. Yeah, well, let's start with that. You take the pill to regulate your period.
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I'm just going to start with that, because it's such a weird idea. It's one of these kind of strange
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narratives that got locked in about it feels like forever, but it's really only about 60 years since
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we've had the pill. And to be clear, most, almost all methods of hormonal birth control
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shut down the menstrual cycle. Like they switch off ovarian, temporarily switch off ovarian
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function, and they therefore flatten ovarian female hormones. And for example, if you were to measure
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female hormones while on the pill or other, most other methods of hormonal birth control, you would
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find in a young woman, you would find close to menopausal levels. So ovaries are switched off.
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And then as some of your viewers probably know on the pill, the kind of the drug induced bleed or the
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withdrawal bleed that women get, it's time to be monthly, but it's only mimicking a menstrual cycle.
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It's not a menstrual cycle. There's no medical reason to bleed monthly on the pill. So in that sense,
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obviously, yeah, a good place to start, the pill cannot regulate the menstrual cycle. That's been a,
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that's very clear in my book. And I will, I have found that actually that in my communication with
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women all over the world and on social media, and when I do presentations, when that finally,
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sort of when the penny drops on that for women, they, a lot of them do feel a sense of,
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you know, sort of confusion and betrayal, especially if that's what they were,
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the pill was prescribed for. So, yeah, I just want to make sure that people understand what
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you're saying is that when you are on hormonal birth control, for the most part, you are not
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having a period. You said there's no medical reason to bleed while you're on the birth control pill.
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So why do hormonal birth control pills have that week, maybe it's white pills or whatever,
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where you are going through that withdrawal bleed? What's actually going on?
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Yeah, this is a very good question. So, well, first of all, I mean, it usually is necessary to
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bleed sometimes while you're on the pill, just so you don't get, you know, the uterine lining is
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going to let go at some point and sort of, so sometimes, I mean, yeah, the induced bleed,
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it's a withdrawal bleed. So the white pills, as you say, are the sugar pills, they're the non,
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they don't contain the contraceptive medication. So they do, they will, whenever they're timed,
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they will allow a bleed to happen. But there's no medical reason for it to be monthly. The whole
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monthly thing, it sounds weird to think about, you know, 60, 70 years on, but it was really just
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kind of a cover story for, so, I mean, there's, there's always history. I'm a bit of a history
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buff. So it's always interesting to think about, you know, medical history and how things came about.
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But back in the 50s and 60s, when they were, you know, bringing the pill to market, there,
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you know, there were, the pill, taking a medication to avoid pregnancy was not legal. So they had to
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kind of, like, you know, wink, wink, it was really just to, it's not to avoid pregnancy, it's like to,
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you know, air quotes, air quotes, regulate the cycle. But at the time, the doctors back then,
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and the scientists back then knew that wasn't really what it was for. But then weirdly,
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we've had this, as I said, this sort of strange narrative that's taken hold. And, and now it's
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prescribed for that. And to be clear, I mean, the pill can hormonal birth control can relieve
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period symptoms. So I'm definitely not saying that it has, you know, no place medically,
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it's someone, it can, you know, relieve symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome, that's a condition of high
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testosterone in women, it can relieve pain. But it can't regulate, it can't fix the menstrual cycle,
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it really relieves symptoms by shutting down the natural menstrual cycle. And a big part of my work
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is that I, well, believe, you know, based on several lines of evidence that a natural menstrual
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cycle is beneficial for women, because it's how we make hormones. So men are, I always phrase it this
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way, men are kind of quirky, they make their hormone, testosterone every day, whereas women,
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we make it on a monthly pattern. But that doesn't mean those hormones are not important. They're
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actually our own estrogen and progesterone are important for healthy bones, for example, for
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healthy brain for metabolism, metabolic health, for heart health. And we need those hormones over all
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of, you know, the decades of our menstruating years, just like men need testosterone. And so the very,
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I would say somewhat reckless approach that we've had for the last three or three or four generations
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of just shutting it all down, and replacing women's own hormones with contraceptive medication has has,
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it's, it's been quite a startling thing to happen. Yeah. And another thing to just point out,
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yeah, is that the medications in the pill are not natural hormones, they do not have the same
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Let's go through the cycle. And you shouldn't, you shouldn't fear it like sounding too scientific.
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I mean, not everyone, myself included, will understand everything. But a lot of my audience
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has been kind of paying attention to this subject and they would love to hear it broken down from a
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scientific expert doctor perspective. So in order for us to understand why the cycle is important,
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I think we need to understand what is actually happening in the cycle. So can we go through,
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starting on day one, what is day one of the menstrual cycle?
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Yeah, I love talking about this. I'm a cheerleader for menstrual cycles and hormones. So it gives me a
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great opportunity. And it's not that complicated. So people don't need to worry. It's not that
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sciencey. So on day one of the, when you're counting your cycle, and I'll just say if people are using a
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period app or charting their cycle, day one of the cycle is the first day of the proper flow,
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if there's a bit of spotting pre menstrual spotting, a light flow before the flow actually
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starts, that's actually part of the previous cycle. So it's, it's quite important to get the
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day right. So day one would be the day of the first day of proper flow. Hormones are very low at
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that point. That's like a reset for the whole cycle. If you were to, again, if you were to measure,
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do a blood test for estrogen, our main estrogen, estradiol on that day, they would be menopausal
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levels, even in a young woman, that's normal. That's actually, that's just something I like
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to communicate. So people, because sometimes people have a blood test at that time, and then
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they feel a little frightened that they see such low levels of hormones. So that's normal.
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So both hormones, sorry, is progesterone low too? Or are we just talking about estrogen?
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Both hormones are baseline, very low at that time. That's, it's kind of dang. So we get this
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sort of just, our hormones, I mean, our hormone cycle, like we're not like men, we don't make our
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hormones every day. We make them on this monthly pattern, if everything is going well. And so yeah,
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hormone, both estrogen and progesterone are flatlined. That's kind of our baseline. And then
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as we move through the first phase of our cycle, which is called the follicular phase, for anybody who
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is already knows about this, I guarantee some of your listeners or viewers are chart cycles,
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or do something called fertility awareness method, which is, it's like, I love it. Like, you know,
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and when you meet women who do it, or have been doing it for years, they're also, they share my
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enthusiasm for the menstrual cycle usually. So that first, yeah, pre ovulation phase is when the ovaries
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start making estrogen, quite a lot of estrogen by just before ovulation, that'll be peak estrogen,
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and it increases by about four times, you know, baseline. And that estrogen is highly beneficial
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for, for example, bones is the most well known that we really need that estrogen to build, you
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know, to have strong bones, especially as a young woman. And then, you know, it's good for brain and
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metabolism and all sorts of other things. We're usually great for mood, although some women do get
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some negative mood effects from that high estrogen, but most of us feel great with it. I say us, I mean,
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I'm now menopausal. So this is all behind me. But I, I kind of miss it. I do. I do miss that pre
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ovulation. Almost sort of not I won't say euphoria, but a lot of women get like really get quite an
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outgoing high confidence. Yeah, I was about to say confidence for sure. I think that there's a lot of
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confidence. And you just kind of think you're like, why am I in such a good mood? Why do I feel like I
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just kind of want to go out and see people and talk to people? And then a lot of people who don't
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know their cycles, they might not connect it to that. They might just think, oh, I'm just in a
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good mood. But a lot of times it's connected to that, like pre ovulation phase. It is and people
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who women who chart their cycles kind of harness that they'll be like, oh, I've got this public
00:16:28.060
speaking thing coming up and I'll be pre ovulatory. That's going to be great. We also get a little
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bump up in a tiny increase in testosterone at that time as well. It's not very much at all,
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like a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what men have, but it's still enough for women to feel
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it feels quite good. And to be clear, ovulation, you know, the mean or the average is that it happens
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on day 14. But I just really want to be very clear. It doesn't have to happen on day 14. There's
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a range of normal for the menstrual cycle, the duration, the length of it, and counting from
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day one to day one of the next cycle that can in an adult woman that can range from anywhere from 21
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days to 35 days, that's considered normal. Teenagers will be longer because younger women
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have longer cycles, so up to 45 days in total for that cycle. So and it's the follicular phase,
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it's the first part of the phase, the first part of the cycle that varies in duration. So if someone,
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for example, has a 35 day cycle, that's their natural cycle, then they're actually not going
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to ovulate until around day 21, rather than this classic day 14. So because it's that, again,
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it's that first phase that kind of moves around quite a bit. So then you get to ovulation, which is
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obviously the release of an egg, which is important if you're trying to make a baby. But it's not only
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for that, it's also the main hormonal event of the menstrual cycle, I call it the engine of the
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menstrual cycle. That's how everything works, that determines the timing of the menstrual cycle.
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So it takes, depending on the woman, it'll take, you know, two to three weeks, or one to three weeks
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to kind of get to ovulation. And then ovulation is a brief event. And then a temporary gland after
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ovulation, the, the, the sack that released the egg reef, you know, reconfigures, it's quite an
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amazing thing. It goes from just being quite tiny to almost it can be up to four centimeters. I don't
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know what that is in inches, like, it's like half an inch or something structure. And it, it, it, it
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just forms over a few days. And it forms this temporary gland, hormonal gland that releases
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progesterone. And it releases, if all is going well, it releases a huge amount of progesterone,
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like enormous amount compared to estrogen. Actually, progesterone goes up it from its baseline,
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it goes up about 14 times, not, not three or four times like estrogen. So we're actually at peak
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progesterone will be a hundred times higher than peak estrogen. We always see them as if you see
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the hormones depicted on a menstrual cycle, they always look like they're about the same,
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but equal, but we make way more progesterone than estrogen. And we only make it for two weeks
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because mainly because that little gland in the ovary has a, in my book, I call it the lifespan of
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a butterfly. It's, it doesn't stick around unless conception happens with pregnancy, then that little
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gland will be rescued and it will, you know, keep, it'll stay there. It'll be responsible for making
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progesterone for the first three months of pregnancy until the placenta starts, takes over that job.
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But for a menstrual, if there's no pregnancy, then the end of the menstrual cycle will be when that
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little temporary gland reaches its end and progesterone drops and estrogen drops. That's all
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happening at the end of the menstrual cycle. And then a bleed is induced. Now I will just say,
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that's the common story. And most people know that story. It isn't really important to know
00:20:03.520
the fact about the body or what's called body literacy, that it is also possible to get a bleed
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without having ovulated. So that's not to get too technical. That's called an an ovulatory cycle.
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People don't have to remember that. It just means there's a cycle where there was no ovulation.
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And that's not uncommon. That would, there's various situations when that would happen.
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And just to, you know, a classic sign of a cycle where ovulation didn't happen is that the bleed
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could be a little funny, like the bleed could be longer or kind of stop and start bleeding rather
00:20:36.940
than just the proper, you know, three to five day flow that you'll get with proper menstrual cycle
00:20:43.940
where there was progesterone and yeah, the two weeks of progesterone.
00:20:49.760
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Okay. So that follicular stage, can you tell us what does that word mean? It's referring to
00:22:08.340
the follicle, right? Where the egg is. And that's why it's called the follicular stage because the
00:22:14.040
egg is maturing within the follicle. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Exactly right. Yeah. So it's the
00:22:20.120
follicular phase because that's the egg is maturing in the ovaries. While it's maturing,
00:22:24.020
its little sac or follicle is releasing estrogen. So that's the follicular phase. And then I didn't
00:22:29.900
say the name of this. The second phase is called the luteal phase. Yeah. The word luteal is making
00:22:35.440
it into sort of a common conversation a bit more, which is fun for me. It's named after the corpus
00:22:43.340
luteum, which is the temporary gland that forms. So if people see the luteal phase, that just means
00:22:49.380
that's it's the progesterone phase. And I'll just give a little plug for progesterone as well. It
00:22:55.220
has a kind of a bad reputation. Definitely medicine is very scornful of progesterone. They see it as
00:23:00.380
like collect generally, obviously doctors, subdoctors recognize that it has good sides. But
00:23:06.400
I think part of the, I would call the, you know, the paradigm or the era of contraceptive
00:23:14.800
medication that we've had for the last 60, 70 years, part of that came from this idea that,
00:23:19.800
well, we don't really need our own hormones. You know, they don't, these medications in hormonal
00:23:24.000
birth control will be good enough. And part of that would be this idea that the progestins,
00:23:29.040
which are in hormonal birth control are somehow good enough for health, but progestins are not
00:23:34.980
progesterone. They're very, actually very different from progesterone in some ways opposite.
00:23:39.320
And so one of the big costs for women of, you know, potentially decades on hormonal birth control
00:23:46.220
is not having an opportunity to make any of their own progesterone. And one of the things that
00:23:50.740
progesterone does, it has, it has many benefits, has some downsides too, but many benefits. It's one
00:23:55.200
of its main benefits is it, it's really good for the brain. It makes this, it metabolizes to,
00:24:00.500
well, they call it a neurosteroid. It's kind of like a neurotransmitter. It's like that it's,
00:24:05.420
but it's a hormone. So it interacts with, not to get too technical, but it's calm. It's generally
00:24:10.460
calming for the brain. It interacts with GABA receptors in the brain. It's very nourishing
00:24:14.640
for the brain. And yeah, so that's, that's part of my love of hormones is progesterone is,
00:24:20.960
I call it the Cinderella hormone. It's been misunderstood. It's been kind of just
00:24:24.340
pushed aside and it actually has many benefits.
00:24:28.560
Many benefits, especially if you get pregnant, right? That's what, okay. So after,
00:24:33.420
if conception happens and on that day of ovulation and ovulation is only one day, right? And that's
00:24:38.900
kind of the star of the cycle. Yes. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. Ovulation is the star,
00:24:44.760
is the engine of the cycle, but the event itself, the release of the egg is quite, yeah, the ovary
00:24:51.700
gets its final kind of stimulation and then it just really all takes place over about 24 hours. And
00:24:56.240
then the, there's, there's been some video footage circulating of actually the egg coming out,
00:25:01.340
which is astounding. They managed to capture that somehow on a video and it's, yeah, it's quite a
00:25:07.360
beautiful event. It ruptures out the side. It sounds a little violent actually. Like it does,
00:25:12.400
it does kind of rupture tissue, push out the side, but, and then if, if, if people are interested,
00:25:19.040
just one little thing about ovulation, because the human body is so amazing and beautiful. It's just,
00:25:24.680
the egg is just put out into the, the pelvis basically. It's just put out into space really.
00:25:29.880
And then the tubes, the fallopian tubes gather it up. They kind of sweep around looking for it.
00:25:36.380
They just, these like these tendrils and then they obviously the, hopefully they find it and
00:25:40.600
then they, you know, bring it into the tube and that's, but the ovaries and the uterus are not
00:25:44.460
actually connect. Well, they're connected in other places by connective tissue, but like the,
00:25:49.220
between the ovary and the place where the, you know, the, the opening where the egg then goes in
00:25:54.320
to reach the uterus is there's a gap there and it's, it's just quite an amazing, that's a bit
00:25:59.800
of a segue, but I mean, just a little, like sort of, that is amazing. That's yeah, it is amazing.
00:26:05.220
Yeah. And so it's really beautiful. It is so beautiful. And if conception happens,
00:26:09.720
which that whole process is fascinating and beautiful too, just the whole thing that the
00:26:14.440
body does to try to like select the right sperm and all of that. Um, it's so interesting, but
00:26:22.000
progesterone increases every day, right? After conception, is that true that progesterone is
00:26:29.160
really important for keeping that pregnancy alive? Yeah, well, that's where it got its name pro
00:26:34.800
gestation. So yes, it really does promote a healthy pregnancy. You can't have, you cannot have a
00:26:40.160
pregnancy without progesterone. Well, without, you can't really have a pregnancy without any of the
00:26:43.860
parts that we've just been describing. Um, but yeah, it's, so it, um, progesterone starts as soon
00:26:50.720
as the corporate, that little temporary gland forms. So it'll actually start progesterone starts
00:26:55.580
before conception. Well, conception is going to happen in the fallopian tubes. So conception will,
00:27:00.180
you know, be pretty quick actually. So it's kind of all happening at the same time. And then the
00:27:03.540
fertilized egg kind of continues down the journey. And by the time it reaches the uterine lining,
00:27:08.460
progesterone will have worked some of its magic on the uterine lining, make it as receptive as
00:27:14.100
possible. I mean, one of the things that progesterone is doing all sorts of things,
00:27:17.940
it is affecting the woman's nervous system kind of one of the reasons, just as your listeners might
00:27:23.900
find this interesting, but one of the reasons progesterone has a bad reputation, it is, um,
00:27:29.420
somewhat tranquilizing. So it does, it is calming the nervous system. And that's to do with that
00:27:37.340
neurosteroid that I talked about earlier. It's, and some women, depending on the woman,
00:27:41.480
they can experience that in different ways. It can sometimes feel not great. It's very different
00:27:44.460
from that euphoria that you get. Estrogen is very stimulating. And as you say, it makes you very
00:27:48.820
outgoing and want to get out and explore the world. Um, progesterone makes you want to just kind of stay
00:27:55.040
home sometimes. And, but that's, that makes sense, right? There's like the wisdom of the body,
00:27:59.720
like the, it's because if you, you might be pregnant, so you probably just need to like eat,
00:28:03.760
well, you eat more progesterone stimulates appetites. You need to eat more, rest more,
00:28:07.620
and that's kicking in every menstrual cycle. The body's in the early phases of preparing
00:28:13.540
for pregnancy. Um, so, and also, it also slightly suppresses immune function, which is,
00:28:20.500
it has to, because the immune system has to, women's immune system is so fascinating. It's quite
00:28:25.780
different from men's. Our women's immune system has to do some, quite a miraculous thing to allow
00:28:30.880
another human being to like take up, to live in the body. It's actually quite a difficult thing for
00:28:38.820
the immune system to, um, defend again against everything else, but be able to accommodate
00:28:43.640
what is essentially foreign tissue to start growing. So the immune system, that's one of
00:28:48.540
the reasons progesterone will slightly modulate or suppress immune function, but that can be good
00:28:52.440
actually, because that can help to prevent autoimmune conditions, for example.
00:28:56.540
It also makes sense why you're so, I'm just thinking back, like you're so tired at the
00:29:00.980
beginning of pregnancy. I remember all my pregnancies, that was the first indicator, like
00:29:06.040
I am so tired. And then you get the positive pregnancy test and you're like, oh, I have another
00:29:11.700
human being that is like taking on energy from my immune system. But I didn't know, I didn't think
00:29:17.080
about that. It also could be the increased progesterone that is kind of tranquilizing you and
00:29:21.760
almost telling your body, hey, you've got this new fragile life inside you. Maybe you should stay
00:29:26.920
inside and take a seat. Exactly. And well, part of it is, um, the mismatch between women and society,
00:29:34.280
right? So society, I, I mean, it, it, well, for different reasons, I mean, it's kind of built for
00:29:39.920
men, but I mean, um, that's changing, but like there is this, it's sort of, it's not, society is
00:29:45.300
not cyclical or is it's not. So there's always this, like you're on, on, on, like you have to kind of
00:29:49.520
be the same every day. And, um, women are going to have times when they're, you know, our energy
00:29:56.360
goes down. And I, I think, so again, just referring to, I'm sure there are people in your audience who
00:30:02.400
are charting or kind of know about this. This will be something women can embrace. It doesn't mean
00:30:08.340
that during your luteal phase or, or when progesterone is high or during the early phases
00:30:13.760
of progesterone, it doesn't mean you can't do your work. I mean, if it's that, if it's that severe,
00:30:17.680
then that's a, you know, a symptom that can be helped by natural treatments or different ways.
00:30:22.960
But I mean, that subtle kind of downshifting in energy and feeling a little more introverted,
00:30:29.760
I think it can be worked with and kind of harnessed if, if with a little bit more self-forgiveness
00:30:34.360
and just be like self-understanding. It's like, I'm not broken. There's nothing wrong with the
00:30:39.040
female body. It's, this is just a natural part of it. You know, I'm in my luteal phase now, so I'm
00:30:44.200
a little bit more introverted and hungrier. You just embrace it.
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00:32:15.800
A little bit more about progesterone just to make sure that I'm understanding because I've kind of
00:32:21.320
gone through, I mean, as I've had like my three pregnancies over the past few years, but also just
00:32:26.300
over the past year, like really trying to understand the cycle for almost the first time in my life,
00:32:32.460
like independent of tracking a pregnancy, just really trying to understand it. And so with
00:32:38.340
progesterone, if so, is it also rising before you ovulate? Like what is progesterone at its peak
00:32:47.540
if there's no pregnancy? Yeah. Okay. Great question. Um, it's at its peak about five to
00:32:55.860
seven days after ovulation. Okay. So again, it depends on the length of the cycle. So with a
00:33:00.700
classic 28 day cycle, it's at its peak on day 21, which is why doctors roll off and order a day 21
00:33:06.920
progesterone. Um, but just to go back, circle back to what I was saying before cycles come in
00:33:13.140
different lengths. So with a healthy ovulatory as an ovulation is occurring, you know, 35 day cycle,
00:33:20.360
which is normal peak progesterone will be on day 28. And I do mention that I talk about this in my
00:33:26.440
book and I have a, I have a article about this on my, um, website on my site called the right way to
00:33:32.040
test progesterone. People can, it's free access. People can just Google that. Um, because it can be,
00:33:37.420
again, it can be quite frightening if the doctor orders a day 21 progesterone and it comes back
00:33:41.400
super low. That's because that just, that just means that could just mean, well, it could mean
00:33:47.820
you're not ovulating. So that could mean that. Cause like I said, that can happen, but there are
00:33:51.620
different reasons why women don't ovulate, but still have periods, but it could also mean it was
00:33:57.280
just tested at the wrong time. Like namely if it was tested, if someone went on to have a 35 day cycle
00:34:02.240
and they had a 21 day, 21 progesterone test, it's going to be low. That's normal for them. So yeah,
00:34:08.520
it, it peaks about five to seven days after progesterone. It peaks during the high temperature
00:34:13.240
phase. So again, anyone who's charting their cycle, um, the luteal phase, the progesterone phase,
00:34:18.720
it correlates with body temperature going up by about half a degree Fahrenheit and it's measurable.
00:34:25.320
You just, it's an under the tongue temperature first thing in the morning before you get out of bed.
00:34:29.860
It, there's also different wearables that you can, that can track your temperature for you. And it's
00:34:34.960
not rocket science. Like it's, it's a noticeable shift. So temperature will go up and stay up for
00:34:40.320
the 12 to 14, 12 to 14 days of the luteal phase. And then when your temperature drops,
00:34:45.100
it's quite a handy thing. Cause if you know, when you ovulated and then you see your temperature
00:34:48.800
going down, you know, to put menstrual supplies into your bag because your period is coming
00:34:53.180
that day or the next day. Like it, it, it takes a lot of the mystery out of it. Like the female body
00:34:58.540
is not that complicated, you know? Um, and this is where body literacy or cycle charting can be
00:35:04.480
quite empowering to sort of know exactly what's happening.
00:35:08.680
So that's your basal body temperature, right? That people are taking. And so that's just the
00:35:13.720
temperature that you can take first thing in the morning. And when it goes up, that indicates the
00:35:22.820
Correct. Exactly. Yeah. If it, and if you're, if you're using it for trying for pregnancy and some of your,
00:35:28.540
viewers might've done this. Yeah. Temperature can not, by the time, by the time temperature goes up,
00:35:35.520
it's too late to conceive. Like ovulation's already happened. And as soon as progesterone kicks in,
00:35:42.260
um, conception is no longer possible. Like, sorry, I mean, sorry, I don't mean to say that.
00:35:47.680
Progesterone, I mean, if, if conception has happened and progesterone is kicking in, that's good. That means,
00:35:52.820
you know, the pregnancy is going to proceed, but the, the fertile window, the open window,
00:35:57.840
when sperm can get into the fallopian tubes and when, you know, they need to be there just before the egg
00:36:04.240
is released. Basically, they need to be there just before ovulation. That's the, that's how the system
00:36:08.660
works. So, um, they, they sperm, if sperm had to swim all the way from the cervix, like up into the fallopian
00:36:16.960
tubes, it would take them days, but they actually, some of your viewers may know this, this, we make
00:36:22.240
something called cervical fluid or fertile mucus. It's like a little sperm escalator. It brings the
00:36:27.760
sperm straight up to where they're supposed to be like in just minutes. Right. So, um, that needs to
00:36:33.040
be, that's, and that type of mucus or fertile fluid, cervical fluid is made, um, under the influence of
00:36:39.540
estrogen. So as, and progesterone dries that up. So as soon as progesterone's on the scene,
00:36:44.740
there's no more fertile mucus and the door is closed for, um, sperm. So yeah. So, um, this is
00:36:51.860
conversely, so if you're trying for pregnancy, you want to have sex before your temperatures go up. Um,
00:36:57.540
if you're, if you're using fertility awareness method to avoid pregnancy, which a lot of people do,
00:37:04.000
which it's a great method because it's natural. It doesn't suppress ovulation. It doesn't harm the body
00:37:08.940
in any way. It's just tracking what your body's doing. Then, um, after temperatures go up and
00:37:15.020
you're confident they've gone up. So most methods would say they need to be up for a few days just
00:37:18.680
so you really know that's what's happening and not just like a little, you know, quirky high
00:37:23.160
temperature day. Um, once temperatures go, go up, there's literally no chance of, um, conception
00:37:29.920
again, that cycle for that cycle. Because pregnancy conception is, yeah, it totally makes sense to me.
00:37:36.900
Pregnancy is possible on the ovulation day, but also if you have sex the few days before your actual
00:37:44.780
ovulation conception is also possible because of that cervical fluid, which keeps the sperm alive
00:37:52.540
long enough for the star of the show to show up, which is that released egg. It's not that you're
00:37:57.880
ovulating all of those days. It's just that the cervical fluid is making it possible for that sperm to
00:38:03.180
stay alive. After that, you said the progesterone shows up that, you know, shuts off the cervical
00:38:08.340
fluid. The egg is already gone. If you have sex after that, there's just no way that you'll get
00:38:13.540
pregnant. Exactly. Yeah. No, you've just, you've summed it up, um, beautifully. Yeah. And one thing,
00:38:20.400
just one thing, again, was sort of men are quirky in that they're fertile every day, whereas women are
00:38:26.380
only fertile. It works out to about five or six days of fertility. Um, it's really, it's technically
00:38:33.180
only one day, but, um, but it's five or six because as exactly, as you said, the cervical fluid keeps
00:38:39.260
sperm alive. Sperm sits kind of, it's a good thing. It's quite hardy. It, you know, sits there for a
00:38:43.340
little while, um, waiting. So that effectively makes it five or six, five or six days of fertility
00:38:49.560
every cycle, which when you think about it historically, if you just really think, I mean,
00:38:54.320
through my lens, I'm like, you know, the medications, the concept of medications,
00:38:59.240
you know, why target women? We're not even fertile every day. I feel like from the beginning,
00:39:03.200
they should have been kind of aimed at men who are fertile every day, but, um, you know, that's a
00:39:08.600
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alley. Okay. Tell me a little bit more about the difference between progestins and progesterone.
00:40:57.920
I think I've seen you say that progesterones actually help lower your risk of things like
00:41:03.520
breast cancer, whereas progestins could raise the risk of breast cancer. Is that right?
00:41:07.700
Yeah. So that's, yeah, very good questions. Yeah. And it's, it's a delight talking to you. This is,
00:41:14.560
you know, so much about this already, but it's, um, you're teaching me a lot, so I appreciate it.
00:41:20.900
Um, yeah. So as I said earlier, the medications in hormone, in hormonal birth control are not
00:41:27.020
our own hormones. They're not what's called body identical. They're not like they have different
00:41:32.980
molecular structures and they're quite obviously different. And as the body was, we've said the
00:41:37.020
body is smart. The body can tell the difference. It's expecting a hormone of a particular configuration.
00:41:43.040
And when it gets a molecule, that's a little bit the same, but actually quite different.
00:41:47.940
Logically, that's going to have different effects in the body. And we know that now it was,
00:41:53.320
I think it was wishful thinking 70, 60, 50, 60 years ago when they thought, oh, this will be,
00:41:59.020
it was kind of like this wishful thinking, oh, this will be good enough for women. I mean,
00:42:02.520
they knew they were shutting off women's own hormones. It's like, we're just going to give
00:42:05.180
them back these molecules and we're just going to hope for the best basically. And that is turning
00:42:11.000
out to have not been a good idea. So the synthetic estrogen is also, is also different from our own
00:42:17.780
estrogen, but less, less so. So the synthetic estrogen in hormonal birth control is a little
00:42:24.540
more similar to our own estrogen. So we get some of the same, but some of the same benefits, but not
00:42:29.300
all. For estrogen, a really classic example is our own estrogen is so powerful for building bones
00:42:36.520
and synthetic estrogen just doesn't do the job. And this is why we have studies now showing that
00:42:41.360
if girls are putting on hormonal birth control young, whichever a lot are now,
00:42:48.020
they do not reach what's called peak bone density. So they don't, we're supposed to have
00:42:52.440
the healthy, the strongest bones we're ever going to have by about age 25. And hormonal birth control
00:42:57.680
stops that from happening, which is concerning because that's going to then play out, you know,
00:43:01.720
in another 30 years when they go through menopause and they're going to potentially be at higher risk
00:43:05.420
of osteoporosis. But in answer to your question, the progestins in hormonal birth control, of which
00:43:11.760
there are like a dozen, at least different types, they are, they're all different from each other.
00:43:19.180
And they're all very different from progesterone. Like they don't share, the only similarity they
00:43:25.020
share is that they thin the uterine lining. Like they, they kind of act on the uterine lining to
00:43:30.160
prevent its thickening, but that's about it. That's where the difference stops. And yeah, that can have a
00:43:37.420
big difference in the brain because none of the progestins convert to that kind of calming
00:43:43.020
neurosteroid that I mentioned before. None of them do that. So none of them, this is why we see women
00:43:48.380
on the, on hormonal birth control have altered brain structures compared to women who have natural
00:43:53.180
menstrual cycles. But in answer to your question about breast cancer, yeah, it's obviously the science
00:43:58.080
is still working it out. So I'll, what I'll say is what I can confidently say is what the evidence
00:44:05.000
currently shows is that all progestins slightly increase the risk of breast cancer, not dramatically.
00:44:13.840
Like, so most women who take progestins will not get breast cancer, which is good,
00:44:17.020
but they slightly increase the base, the risk from baseline. Whereas progesterone, as far as we know,
00:44:23.820
does, well, it makes sense, right? Our body's own hormone does not increase the risk of, progesterone
00:44:28.600
does not increase the risk of breast cancer, as far as we can tell. And take, also you get,
00:44:32.480
it is possible to take progesterone as natural progesterone or body identical progesterone.
00:44:37.000
And as far as we know, that does not also not increase the risk of breast cancer. And that's,
00:44:41.260
that's really good. That's why natural progesterone is now used as part of
00:44:44.800
menopausal hormone therapy, because it's safer for the breasts than progestins.
00:44:50.620
Right. That makes sense. Okay, gosh, there's so many things that I want to ask you just in like the
00:44:55.100
little time that we have left. So in your book about repairing your period, a lot of women,
00:45:01.360
they're either coming off the birth control and their birth control pill, and they're trying to
00:45:06.020
figure out what their natural cycle even looks like. Or maybe some women have endometriosis,
00:45:11.760
some women have PCOS, or some women, they don't know what they have. But I definitely have friends
00:45:15.680
who say, I just have horrible periods. They're really heavy. I have horrible debilitating cramps.
00:45:21.060
And, you know, as we said in the beginning, a lot of doctors will say the only remedy is birth
00:45:25.040
control, but you have a natural approach to that. So where should women start if they're in any of those
00:45:30.840
boats? Yeah. And it's really good to finish the interview on this, this point, because obviously,
00:45:37.960
right from the beginning, when I wrote my first book, Period of Paramanuel, I,
00:45:43.360
and it grew out of my work with, with women. So I mean, you can't really, I can't, you know,
00:45:49.400
criticize hormonal birth control without being able to offer some kind of alternative. Because as I said,
00:45:53.920
at the beginning, yeah, it is true that hormonal birth control can relieve period symptoms. It doesn't
00:45:59.000
always work, to be fair, it's not like it fixes everything, but it can relieve pain. And certainly
00:46:04.060
it can relieve heavy bleeding. But there are other ways to do that. And the actual approach,
00:46:11.480
I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear, you know, there's not one size fits all recipe for a perfect
00:46:17.500
period. It really is, it involves troubleshooting as to what the problem is, whether it's irregular
00:46:24.140
periods that could be caused by different mechanisms, you sort of have to consider what's
00:46:29.720
going on with that woman, what the explanation is, you know, pain and heavy bleeding, depending on what
00:46:36.060
it is, you sort of, it's not complicated. I mean, my book, as you, my book is a manual, it's like a
00:46:40.440
troubleshooting manual to figure what is your, you know, what is your symptom? What did the doctor
00:46:44.240
say? What is the likely cause? Then this is, you know, what you would take, but I'll give you an
00:46:48.480
example, which is not a one size fits all, but it's just kind of, I'll give you two examples,
00:46:53.900
which are kind of my favorite ones, because they can really move the needle on symptoms, especially
00:46:58.300
I'll add for teenagers, young women's bodies just respond, well, young people's in general,
00:47:04.860
bodies respond quite quickly, which is just because they're young, I think. So, you know, the super,
00:47:11.020
you know, if young women or teenagers are having very heavy periods, painful periods, one of the
00:47:17.360
things I learned early on, and then I've just seen in practice again and again, is that it can improve
00:47:23.800
by switching the kind of dairy, cow's dairy they're eating. So normal, anyway, without getting too deep
00:47:32.860
into it, but like this, there's something called A1 casein, it's a particular dairy protein that seems
00:47:38.000
to be quite inflammatory for some people, not everyone. And part of that inflammation can manifest as
00:47:43.880
heavier flow or more painful flow or premenstrual mood symptoms. So just switching to it's really
00:47:49.840
about switching to Jersey cow, or I don't know if you have it in the States, but like we call it A2
00:47:54.900
milk here. So they're cows that don't have the A1 casein. So it's, it's becoming more and more
00:48:00.140
accessible. Also goat and cheap dairy do not have that inflammatory casein protein. So that that's,
00:48:07.040
that's just a quite of a simple change. A lot of my patients are well able to do that. And it's still,
00:48:13.160
you know, nutritious, it's still nutritious dairy. It's just not the inflammatory kind. So that that
00:48:19.340
can make, that can really make a big difference. And the great thing about it is it can, it can
00:48:22.420
happen quite quickly. So usually within two or three cycles, a woman can see if that's going to make a
00:48:26.680
difference or not. And then another just really simple one, a lot, as you know, from my book,
00:48:32.660
a lot of the treatments are, I try to keep them simple and easy to access and inexpensive because I
00:48:38.420
didn't want this to become, it shouldn't have to be a complicated thing to treat periods. So another
00:48:42.540
example is the nutrient zinc, a zinc supplement can relieve period pain. And to the point that
00:48:50.720
there, and there's a citation in the book, they, there's been at least one clinical trial where
00:48:56.360
they tested zinc in direct comparison to the pill for period pain. And they found that zinc worked as
00:49:03.880
well. And as the pill and I was, and then they make this funny comment in this, in the study,
00:49:09.060
I just never forget when I read this where they're like, but the advantage of zinc is it less, you
00:49:14.400
know, it's, it's cheaper than the pill. And then, but in my brain, I'm like, Oh, and the other
00:49:18.300
advantage is it doesn't shut down the menstrual cycle. Like it lets women, you know, it doesn't
00:49:22.820
shut down hormones to relieve period pain. If people are going to try zinc though, I always have to make
00:49:28.840
sure I say this. Don't let a girl don't take it or don't let your daughter take it on an empty
00:49:33.400
stomach because zinc on an empty stomach can make you feel sick, like nausea. But if you take it with
00:49:38.620
food and around the 30 milligram dose, it's quite safe. So obviously I wouldn't want to recommend
00:49:44.340
things today that are not safe to try, but it's, it's one of those sort of safer, highly effective
00:49:49.580
ones, inexpensive. So it sounds like there are a lot of potential natural remedies for the menstrual
00:49:57.080
issues that people have that aren't suppressing someone's very necessary ovulatory cycle.
00:50:05.360
Because like you said, all of the different hormones and how they're produced and when they're
00:50:10.200
produced, how much is produced during the cycle, it's not just affecting ovulation. It's affecting
00:50:15.100
our brain. It's defect. It's affecting our moods. It's affecting our decision-making so many different
00:50:20.820
things that we're completely shutting down when we just have these artificial hormones that we're
00:50:25.580
pumping in our bodies. I know. So well put. An analogy I sometimes give, it's one of these
00:50:32.120
things, again, from a historical perspective, it's kind of a head scratching, like what were,
00:50:36.860
what just happened here over the last, you know, 60 to 70 years? You know, what's happened to young,
00:50:42.060
to women would be like saying to men, you know, we're going to give you this medication that switches
00:50:47.260
off your testicular function and it's going to switch off your own testosterone. And instead of
00:50:52.280
testosterone, you're going to have this other molecule that's kind of like testosterone,
00:50:55.320
but not really. And it's going to affect your brain and it's, you know, going to affect your
00:50:59.100
metabolism. But don't worry because that's what we do. You know, that's what all the other men are
00:51:03.280
doing. Like it just, if you see it through that lens, it's, it's actually crazy. I mean, I, so I,
00:51:10.140
obviously I feel I'm quite passionate about it. I mean, I think I'm confident there are going to be
00:51:14.260
better options coming for, we haven't even really talked about that, but there's other options coming
00:51:18.920
for avoiding pregnancy. Like it's 2025. We don't have to shut down women's entire hormonal systems
00:51:26.240
just to avoid pregnancy. Like there's other ways.
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00:52:53.700
I know that we have to close out soon, but just a couple other quick things I wanted to ask you
00:52:58.380
about that I have written down. Another possible side effect of these hormonal contraceptives is a
00:53:05.480
possible increase in visceral fat and a reduction of insulin sensitivity. So it sounds like it could
00:53:13.180
actually affect our metabolism. When I've heard in the past, people say, no, birth control can just
00:53:18.260
kind of like, I don't know, make you more tired and so you don't want to work out. But it sounds like
00:53:22.560
it does actually affect our metabolism. Is that right?
00:53:25.480
Absolutely. Depending on the type, that will very much depend on which progestin. So this is where
00:53:34.660
we have to get into the kind of, which we won't today, but like, you know, get into the details of
00:53:38.040
like nutting out like which progestin, because some progestins probably are fine. Some promote
00:53:44.760
metabolic dysfunction, as you've said, visceral fat, insulin resistance. And, you know, the, and my third
00:53:50.500
book is actually all around metabolic health and insulin resistance. So I have a whole chapter called
00:53:54.560
the female hormone side of things and looking, looking at all the different effects of our own
00:53:59.880
hormones versus hormonal birth control and metabolism. But one thing I just want to sort of end by saying
00:54:04.200
is almost from the beginning of hormonal birth control, women were saying, oh, it's affecting my
00:54:12.400
mood. It's, I gained weight, you know, it's affected my sex drive. Like, you know, these observations
00:54:19.460
were coming and even, even more serious ones, like there was, you know, the blood clots that were
00:54:23.840
the fatal blood clots that can happen on hormonal birth control. Those were at first dismissed. It's
00:54:28.320
like, oh, that's not a thing. You know, that's not a thing where you're imagining that, that link.
00:54:32.280
And then, but over the, you know, decades now we are getting, yeah, there's, as you say,
00:54:39.500
there's been this old narrative. Oh no, it's just that you're, you just need to, you know, eat less.
00:54:42.920
And it's, you're imagining this effect, metabolic effect, but it's now, yeah, the research is sort
00:54:49.760
of proving that that, that is there. And it's, it's changed a lot because, so I've been, as I've
00:54:55.540
been practicing a long time, I've been trying to talk about this for literally decades, even 10 years
00:55:00.420
ago, especially around mood, especially around the possibility of negative mood effects from hormonal
00:55:07.040
birth control. Even 10 years ago, it was not really possible in social media. I was on Twitter at that
00:55:12.700
time. Like I would occasionally say, you know, I think the pill, well, any clinician would tell
00:55:17.880
you that the pill or hormonal birth control can, can not in everyone, but can cause anxiety and
00:55:23.600
depression. And there was this immediate like slap down. It's like, no, you know, that's not been
00:55:28.000
proven or it's been proven that that's not true. It's like, but then in 2016 was a watershed moment.
00:55:34.260
Actually, there was a huge Danish study in 2016 that pretty much definitively proved that there is a
00:55:41.620
link with negative mood side effects. And from that point on the conversation has changed. And now
00:55:47.520
even on social media, certainly speaking with other doctors, more mainstream doctors, it's like, yeah,
00:55:52.520
you know, I have heard about that. They're, they're now like after decades of saying to women,
00:55:57.260
you're imagining it, they're not like, yeah, that's, that's the thing. It could affect your mood. So,
00:56:02.680
Hmm. Yes. Okay. Can I ask you one last question? Because there are women out there who are going
00:56:07.840
through perimenopause and menopause who feel very alone, who feel like no one understands their
00:56:13.840
symptoms and there's no help for their symptoms. You mentioned at the beginning bioidentical hormone
00:56:18.460
therapy, and I've heard women talk about that when it, in relation to perimenopause and menopause,
00:56:24.500
and I don't know very much about it, but what would you tell the woman who is about to go through or is
00:56:29.540
going through some of these menopausal symptoms? How can they seek helpful natural relief?
00:56:34.460
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great question. So my second book, Hormone or Perimenopause is all about
00:56:41.820
perimenopause. I didn't put the title perimenopause. I didn't put the word perimenopause in the title
00:56:47.300
because even just three or four years ago when that, when I wrote that book, it, perimenopause
00:56:52.100
wasn't in the common, this conversation, but now, I mean, a lot of women have heard that word and know
00:56:58.580
that it's the years leading up to menopause. So perimenopause happens while you're still having
00:57:02.420
regular periods, potentially. If a woman's in her forties, she almost by definition is
00:57:08.600
in perimenopause. It's not a bad thing. It's not a medical condition. It's, I call it second puberty.
00:57:14.300
It's the transition. So we have the transition into our ovarian hormones, and then we have the
00:57:19.720
transition out of them, and it's a natural life event. One thing I just want to say at the outset is
00:57:25.960
menopause or the cessation of the stopping of periods is not an accident of living too long.
00:57:32.020
Our body, I'm very confident in this, like we are adapted. We are meant to live two or three decades
00:57:38.940
past the end of periods. So our body knows how to do that. So it's not a, it's not a, you know,
00:57:44.820
medical condition that needs treating. That said, women, a lot of women can experience symptoms and
00:57:49.180
some women can get benefit from hormone therapy. There's, and I'm not against hormone therapy at
00:57:55.700
all. But there are, not everyone needs it, to be fair. Like, so my second book has all the different
00:58:00.800
natural strategies that can improve night sweats and hot flashes and mood, you know, sleep, actually
00:58:07.140
the number one complaint is usually sleep disturbance. So there's lots of strategies for that. And then
00:58:12.380
just briefly on the bio-identical thing. So as I mentioned, at the moment in 2025, thank goodness,
00:58:20.520
we are finally at the point where body identical or hormones, hormone therapy that is exactly identical
00:58:28.280
to human hormones is pretty much the standard. It's not, you have to still read the label and see what
00:58:34.060
your doctor gave you. But unlike hormonal birth control, which is not body identical at all, which is
00:58:38.740
totally different thing. Most hormone menopausal hormone therapy is natural. These days it is
00:58:46.060
natural estrogen and progesterone, which is great in the U S natural progesterone is called one of the
00:58:51.680
main brands is Prometrium. So that might've been prescribed to some of your listeners. So just think,
00:58:58.080
I mean, I have, I've written about this in my book and on my again, on my site, they can, people can find
00:59:03.200
like a list of, they actually list the medications and whether they're the hormonal therapy type,
00:59:08.740
brands and whether they're body identical or not. So it's great. But like the history of it is over
00:59:15.260
the last few decades, like when I started my career in the nineties, my, with my women in
00:59:20.620
perimenopause or menopause who were coming to me, one of the main things I was doing at that time was
00:59:24.920
taking them off the old school type of HRT and switching them to the natural, like body identical
00:59:30.880
type, because mainly because of what we said right at the outset, that natural or body identical was
00:59:39.360
just means identical to the body. Progesterone does not increase the risk of breast cancer the
00:59:43.200
way progesterones do. So that was, the writing was on the wall for that decades ago. So that's why
00:59:48.700
naturopathic doctors were a lot of our job at that time was switching people to a better type of hormone
00:59:54.260
therapy, which has now finally become mainstream, which is great. Yes. Well, thank you so much for
01:00:00.800
that information. That was super helpful in clarifying and we'll have to have you back. I
01:00:05.200
know it's, you know, difficult, the time differences between New Zealand and here, but I appreciate you
01:00:10.480
making the time and we'll make it work hopefully to do a part two, because there's so much that we
01:00:15.340
didn't get to cover. Dr. Laura Bryden, where can people find you if they want to find your stuff
01:00:20.600
and learn more from you? Yeah, great. And thanks again so much for having me, Ali. It was really
01:00:25.340
great talking with you. I'm easy to find. So everything is at larabryden.com. From there,
01:00:30.920
all my social media is at larabryden. I have a newsletter as well, where I just share, you know,
01:00:35.520
tidbits of research on women's periods. And I'm a writer. So actually, my newsletter is kind of one of
01:00:41.360
my favorite offerings to the world. But yeah, so everything is there. And my books, of course,
01:00:49.640
period of prayer manual, hormone or prayer manual. And my latest book is Metabolism Repair for Women,
01:00:56.000
which is all about, it's kind of about weight loss, but it's more broadly, like deeper,
01:01:00.200
it's about metabolic health and insulin resistance and quite an important topic.
01:01:05.640
Yes, very much so. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Bryden. I really appreciate it.