The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - The Hidden Impact of Birth Control + What You Should Do Instead ｜ Dr. Sarah E. Hill

00:00:00.000 Is it true that the birth control pill can change your perception of who you're attracted to for a woman? 0.85

00:00:05.420 Yeah.

00:00:06.100 That is concerning.

00:00:08.120 What they found was that when women who chose their partners on the pill discontinue the pill,

00:00:13.940 it is associated with changes in how attracted they are to their partner,

00:00:18.480 their sexual satisfaction, and their relationship satisfaction.

00:00:21.680 And what was really fascinating about it is that whether that got better or whether it got worse

00:00:26.700 depended on how attractive their partner was.

00:00:28.940 Lovely.

00:00:30.000 Okay. What about rates of depression and other side effects? And are there specific people who

00:00:36.180 are more prone to this? Research indicates that girls who go on it during their teenagers,

00:00:41.300 that this is something that can put them at risk for having major depressive disorder across their

00:00:46.300 lifetime, even after they go off of it. Nobody's really paying attention to this, which is kind

00:00:51.860 of BS. Yeah. I read some stories of women accidentally getting testosterone when they

00:00:57.860 didn't need it and experiencing wild heightened sexual arousal do you know anything about that

00:01:03.400 is that true this should be a good one welcome to my podcast thanks I'm excited to be here

00:01:12.960 yeah this should be a good one um I've been interested in having this conversation for a

00:01:17.920 while because I was on birth control from age 14 to 23 um originally for skin problems so I just

00:01:27.600 like went to the doctor and they're like you know your skin's not great here's a birth control pill

00:01:31.740 and I was like sweet no period that sounds fantastic um and then I think you talked to

00:01:38.040 my mom right you're on her podcast I did I did yes it was great she told me as soon as I started

00:01:44.640 taking it she said oh that pill made me really depressed and my response was I'm already really

00:01:50.900 depressed. So I don't care. The 14 year old naive response. So I think this, this should be a good

00:02:00.760 conversation. I've got a bunch of questions for you, but, um, I thought, yeah, I thought we should

00:02:07.120 start off with just, is it true that the birth control pill can change your perception of who

00:02:14.720 you're attracted to for a woman yeah you know it that is a possibility and this is something that

00:02:22.000 sort of is rooted in research that's been done for about three decades now researchers have been

00:02:28.780 finding that women's cycling their cyclically changing sex hormones play a role in who they're

00:02:35.780 attracted to and in particular what this research finds is that when estrogen is high across the

00:02:41.920 cycle that this is associated with an increased preference for cues related to testosterone

00:02:47.420 markers and like masculinity and so for example at high fertility across the cycle when estrogen is

00:02:55.560 high we find that women like deeper male voices they like more masculinized male faces they're 0.52

00:03:02.800 more likely to be attracted to cues of social dominance and so it's like women really sort of

00:03:08.240 like like zero in on masculinity markers when fertility is high and when estrogen is high

00:03:15.400 across the cycle and it was only more recently that researchers thought to ask you know what

00:03:21.560 happens when we suppress women's estrogen levels with the birth control pill because when you take

00:03:27.240 the birth control pill it prevents you from ovulating and it's that process of maturing

00:03:34.340 egg follicles and getting an egg ready to be released, that causes the release of estrogen.

00:03:40.300 That's one of the primary ways that our body produces estrogen. And the pill, by preventing

00:03:45.400 ovulation, keeps estrogen levels really low. And then the pill that you take has very low levels

00:03:51.780 of synthetic estrogen in it. And so researchers thought to ask, you know, do women who are on

00:03:58.040 hormonal birth control, because their estrogen levels are low, does this lead them to prefer

00:04:02.920 less masculinized male faces and voices and so on and so forth. And what they find is that that

00:04:08.860 does appear to be true and that women who are on hormonal birth control have a preference for a

00:04:14.640 less masculinized male face. They've done studies where they look at photographs of men who were

00:04:20.860 chosen as partners by women who are on hormonal birth control or off of it. And they put the

00:04:26.380 pictures of the men into two stacks and then they had them evaluated for masculinity as rated by

00:04:32.700 you know just an outside group of people who didn't know which men were in which condition

00:04:37.140 and then they also looked at more objective metrics of masculinity you can look at facial

00:04:43.300 masculinity by looking at things like facial width to height which are correlated with testosterone

00:04:47.760 levels and what they find is that the part the men who were chosen by women as partners that

00:04:53.620 were on hormonal birth control is that they had less masculine faces relative to the men who were

00:05:00.060 chosen by naturally cycling women, um, which is really mind blowing when you think about it.

00:05:06.240 Yeah. Do you think that, so do you know what percentage of women say that are of like child 0.75

00:05:12.620 bearing age are on hormonal birth control? Yeah. You know, I don't know. Um, in some, 0.84

00:05:20.280 so like with college samples, for example, it's almost like 40% of women are on hormonal birth

00:05:26.540 control because they're you know trying to get stay unpregnant while they're getting their

00:05:31.780 degrees and that sort of thing um but in terms of like the overall population i'm i'm not sure

00:05:37.640 but it's a sizable number i mean this is the number one demographic of women who are on it

00:05:42.880 are women in their 20s and this is usually when women are choosing partners um and so that's you

00:05:48.420 know potentially something that could be really consequential for women guys i wanted to talk to

00:05:53.400 briefly about air purifiers and air quality. I've had various air purifiers for years and I knew

00:05:58.940 air quality was important but I've learned a lot too much this year after getting sick from mold

00:06:05.580 and I've settled on Aeroasis as my go-to air purifier. I actually reached out to them to see

00:06:11.360 if they'd sponsor me because they're the best air purifier I could find and now I know how important

00:06:16.380 they are. There are a few reasons why I chose Aeroasis. These filter down to 0.03 microns,

00:06:23.700 which is actually important. It means they actually filter partial allergens and mold spores.

00:06:28.960 And it was only recently that I realized most air purifiers filter down to 0.01 microns,

00:06:33.600 which means they miss fragments, which make up the majority of allergens in the air.

00:06:38.540 These also work on VOCs like new paint, gases, viruses, etc. I used to say if you guys have

00:06:45.120 allergies get one of these, and definitely do, but everyone should actually have one or multiple of

00:06:51.260 these in their house, given the amount of chemicals, molds, and air pollutants we're exposed to.

00:06:55.740 Air Oasis is quiet, which is important because a lot of them aren't quiet, sleek, and filters down

00:07:01.720 to the right particle size compared to the majority of other air purifiers. So check them out. Don't

00:07:06.640 just get any air purifier. Investing in one of these is so worth it for your health. They're

00:07:12.280 at aeroasis.com and you can get 10% off with code MP. Enjoy the rest of this episode.

00:07:19.020 Do you think that the correlation between, you said 40% of college students on the pill,

00:07:25.640 do you think when they get into relationships, there's a higher likelihood of divorce?

00:07:30.780 No, that's a really interesting question. And there's kind of two lines of research that point

00:07:35.860 in different directions. The one line of research is some longitudinal research that's been done

00:07:41.940 of newlywed married couples, and they followed them over time to look at changes in things

00:07:47.840 like sexual satisfaction and relationship satisfaction over the course of the marriage.

00:07:54.160 And one of the research questions that they thought to ask was, for women who choose their

00:07:59.840 partners when they're on hormonal birth control, does their relationship and sexual satisfaction,

00:08:05.500 for example, change if they discontinue? And so these researchers followed these women over

00:08:11.560 time. And what they found was that when women who chose their partners on the pill discontinue the 0.99

00:08:17.760 pill, it is associated with changes in like how attracted they are to their partner and their

00:08:25.660 sexual satisfaction and their relationship satisfaction. And what was really fascinating

00:08:29.940 about it is that whether that got better or whether it got worse depended on how attractive

00:08:35.480 their partner was so for women so for women who are partnered to attractive men when they went

00:08:42.980 off the pill it was like the blinders came off you know and all of a sudden they're having these

00:08:47.300 estrogen changes again and they're like oh yes right and they're more attracted to their partner

00:08:52.440 and they um and they're more sexually satisfied and and then as a result of that they're also

00:08:57.500 more satisfied in their relationship but they found that for women who are partnered to less

00:09:01.620 attractive partner is that the opposite happened and that the women became less sexually satisfied,

00:09:06.700 less attracted their partner, and then their relationship satisfaction decreased. And so it

00:09:11.700 could potentially, you know, when we're choosing our partners on the pill, it could potentially

00:09:16.380 nudge us into the direction of choosing somebody that we're not attracted to, but that doesn't

00:09:20.920 always happen. And so, you know, it's like whether it makes it more positive or more negative when

00:09:26.140 you go off of it a lot of times depends on the partner that you chose okay okay that makes sense

00:09:32.720 so it's not just like doom and gloom for people who are on birth control and like oh no now I'm

00:09:37.740 married and can go off of it I'm gonna see my partner in an entirely different light yeah no 0.61

00:09:42.760 totally I mean because when we look at the way that hormones affect like women's brains and they 0.65

00:09:46.580 affect women's behavior it's not like it's like gonna move you from here to over here instead it

00:09:51.740 just kind of nudges it nudges our behavior in different ways or it might nudge you toward a

00:09:56.020 you know more masculinized partner or more it might nudge you toward you know somebody who's 0.97

00:10:00.260 got this quality or that quality but it's um and for some women it will you know there is the

00:10:05.060 unfortunate circumstance where it can nudge people in a direction that when they're off of it they

00:10:09.700 don't feel attracted to their partner again but for a lot of women it's subtle and for other women

00:10:14.200 it can actually make them feel better and like more attractive their partner once they're off

00:10:18.360 of it and so yeah not doom and gloom it just all depends so so that's already a weird i guess you

00:10:25.940 could call it side effect that people weren't expecting from from birth control right what

00:10:31.680 about rates of depression and other side effects and are there specific people who are more prone

00:10:37.600 to this is it random right no these are really great questions um there's definitely you know

00:10:44.440 there's a lot of research that's pointing in the direction that being on hormonal birth control can

00:10:49.840 increase your risk of anxiety and depression um and this risk seems to be particularly high for

00:10:57.200 young women so um women who are like 19 and younger um seem to be the ones who overwhelmingly

00:11:03.740 shoulder the burden of the greater mental health risks and researchers really don't know exactly

00:11:09.900 why that is but i would assume that it has something to do with the fact that the brain

00:11:13.700 is still developing, and that our ability to regulate our emotions is still developing at

00:11:18.120 that time, and that changing that and changing our hormones isn't something that our mood and

00:11:24.860 our sort of emotion regulation system is able to handle very well. There's also research that

00:11:30.560 indicates that girls who go on it go on hormonal birth control during adolescence, so during their

00:11:36.440 teenage years, that this is something that can put them at risk for having major depressive disorder

00:11:42.180 across their lifetime even after they go off of it and this is something i know and this is

00:11:47.700 something that's really concerning to me and it's very concerning to a lot of researchers because

00:11:52.340 nobody's really paying attention to this um and there's so many doctors out there who do exactly

00:11:58.400 what yours did and they prescribe hormonal birth control to teenage girls for things like acne or

00:12:04.700 having irregular cycles or having bad cramps without understanding that when you take hormones

00:12:11.000 and you shut down your brain ovary you know ovarian axis during development that this could

00:12:17.480 potentially have long-term consequences in terms of brain development because our brain is still

00:12:21.980 developing and our sex hormones play an important role in the pubertal transition that goes on and

00:12:28.080 that post-pubertal brain development and very much influenced in important ways by our sex hormones

00:12:33.600 and so that's something that um you know hasn't been very well studied there aren't nearly enough

00:12:40.260 studies that have investigated the links of a teenage pill use on long-term outcomes. But the

00:12:46.600 work that has been done, like I said, is not painting a very positive picture. And it seems

00:12:51.580 like there's a potential risk there. And in terms of like who is affected, you know, and one of the

00:12:58.740 risk factors as mentioned is, you know, being a teenager. And so we know that teenagers are at a

00:13:03.560 greater risk of this than other women. But there seems to be even in adult women, like there is 0.99

00:13:10.180 an increased risk so many studies find that um there's a increased risk particularly with um

00:13:16.580 the progestin only pill so that's the one that's now available over the counter um that one is

00:13:23.180 like is always i mean almost almost every time they study it they find that being on that type

00:13:28.960 of uh birth control is um predicts a greater risk of developing anxiety and depression um another

00:13:35.560 Yeah, which is concerning to me. Like, I think it's great that we're allowing greater access to birth control, particularly in this sort of post-Roe dystopian world that we're living in at the moment, which I don't think is very good for women's health.

00:13:50.780 But it's really concerning that women will take this without anybody knowing that they're on it, which could potentially be really devastating if you're a girl who just starts taking this birth control and developing a mood disorder.

00:14:08.360 And you don't know what's wrong with you because most of the time when we develop a mood disorder from a drug, it's not like we think, oh, gosh, my drug is making me feel bad.

00:14:17.500 We just think, oh, I'm depressed.

00:14:18.780 um you know we don't think about it that way and so i i do worry about that um that one any non-oral

00:14:26.740 product is associated with a greater risk of depression like they tend to find that pretty

00:14:31.960 regularly so the hormonal iud the vaginal ring the implant the shot um those are the ones that

00:14:40.480 tend to have the greatest risk um the combined pill um is also found to be associated with an

00:14:46.820 increased risk of anxiety and depression but the rate of that is lower than it is for these wow

00:14:53.460 yeah for the the like um the non-oral products or for the progestin only pill um and so different

00:15:02.200 products have different risk profiles and then lastly there's also individual differences that

00:15:08.040 we just don't understand and unfortunately you know the research isn't in a isn't in a position

00:15:14.800 right now, like where we can tell women like you, Michaela, are at an increased risk of developing

00:15:20.840 depression from this. And so we need a lot more research into the different types of factors that

00:15:27.200 influence women's risk factors, because some women have a great experience on hormonal birth

00:15:32.340 control. They feel great and they don't have any problems at all. And other women have, you know,

00:15:37.520 a list of side effects 10 miles long and we're not yet. Medicine isn't in a place yet where we 0.99

00:15:42.960 can make good recommendations for who's going to respond what way to what thing yeah yeah that's

00:15:48.720 very complicated i know um like i suppose if you were looking into this you would assume that

00:15:55.040 people who are already kind of on the anxious side might respond more but um i have this friend

00:16:00.460 one of my best friends in toronto who's a very bubbly person and wasn't prone to anxiety like i

00:16:05.140 was as a teenager uh and she went on the pill and after a couple weeks she was crying every day

00:16:10.520 which concerned me because i figure people who are already kind of prone to anxiety are the ones

00:16:16.680 that are going to get depressed on birth control but then this bubbly person turned into like a

00:16:21.200 crying mess after a couple of weeks right but to comment on one thing you said first of all i didn't

00:16:27.160 realize there was any type of birth control that was available over the counter now is that just

00:16:31.920 in a minute i thought like and is it marketed as lower hormone because it's only one of the hormones

00:16:38.500 I don't know if it's marketed as lower hormone. I know that the reason that they allowed that one

00:16:45.020 to be available over the counter is because the greater risk of, you know, like a heart attack

00:16:51.600 and stroke and that sort of thing from birth control comes from the estrogen in it. And so

00:16:56.920 they need this one available because it's the synthetic progesterone or progestin only. And

00:17:03.520 And so because of that way, it's safer in terms of your heart and, you know, your blood

00:17:09.080 vessels and your cardiovascular system, but it's less safe in terms of mental health because

00:17:15.140 it is the one that's got the worst side effect profile by a mile that in anything that's

00:17:21.940 progestin only like that project, like the birth control shot is also progestin only.

00:17:26.560 And that's also got a side effect rap sheet that's worse than many of the other types

00:17:30.800 of birth control out there.

00:17:31.840 so how did these how did these get like shuttled through and made available to everybody

00:17:37.420 didn't they do testing and see any of these side effects so that at least when you got a

00:17:43.900 prescription a doctor could be like hey you know it might work for you but if you're experiencing

00:17:48.460 weeping every day and these like strong emotions maybe don't stay on it for 10 years and attribute

00:17:53.740 it to something else like it could be the pill right yeah no i think that the reason that they

00:17:59.520 made it available is because they wanted to have something that was available, that was reliable

00:18:03.680 and easy to use, um, because of what happened with the Dobbs decision and overturning the,

00:18:09.720 you know, row. And I think that it was like when they made, um, you know, they, they removed the

00:18:15.820 guarantee of, um, legality of abortions for women, they figured, well, we have to do something to try

00:18:22.720 to prevent women from getting into this position. And so I think that that was the decision that

00:18:28.420 everybody sort of landed on is that this would be something that would be positive for women's

00:18:32.380 reproductive health, which in some ways it is. I mean, preventing unwanted pregnancies is like

00:18:37.420 one of the best things that we can do societally for women, just because like the biggest predictor 0.83

00:18:43.340 of ending up in poverty as a woman is a teenage pregnancy. And, and so like there's benefits that 0.95

00:18:49.780 way. But as you noted, I mean, the thing that makes me nuts, and of course, you know, I'm a

00:18:56.580 psychologists so i'm gonna say this but people don't take mental health risks as seriously as

00:19:03.300 they do physical health risks so for example you know like the the risk of a heart attack and stroke

00:19:08.940 for example is seen as a safety issue right and so they're like oh well this you know um the the

00:19:15.440 pill that has estrogen in it has a safety risk and so you know but like a mental health risk

00:19:21.540 isn't seen as a safety risk it's just seen as sort of a nuisance side effect which is kind of bs i

00:19:28.160 mean because when you think about it's like you think about how important your mental health is

00:19:33.040 and you also consider like what the suicide rate is right now um and i mean you know depression

00:19:39.060 like severe depression can be deadly um it can be because it causes people to take their own lives

00:19:44.900 and it ruins the quality of lives and um and i don't know if this is what you were alluding to

00:19:51.020 but I mean I know myself I was on the birth control pill for over 10 years myself and I used

00:19:56.500 to have this narrative about myself where I believed that I was anxious and in a little

00:20:03.440 melancholy and depressed and that's not me at all but I believe that to be true of myself because I

00:20:09.180 was on it for all these years and I had these spells of anxiety and depression and then when

00:20:14.920 I went off of it I realized that that wasn't me and then I didn't even really know who I was and

00:20:20.560 that that was this totally different experience for me yeah i think i think people completely

00:20:26.880 underestimate this i had a similar experience it was a little bit more complicated because i was

00:20:31.660 also on an antidepressant and i started the antidepressant before i started the birth

00:20:36.340 control so i already had the narrative that i was miserably depressed which is why i told my mom

00:20:41.900 i don't care like we'll add a little depression on this mess of depression it's not going to make

00:20:46.620 a difference anyway um but i don't like i i know also from having arthritis throughout my life

00:20:54.200 i know that the depression was worse than the arthritis like i would have chosen the arthritis

00:20:58.980 because you can deal with some pain like when you get a cold you can deal with not feeling good

00:21:05.520 physically but when it hits your brain that is a completely other like that's a completely

00:21:11.340 different story it's it's life-altering changes your perception of who you are like you said

00:21:16.980 your perception of other people your perception of what you're capable of like it can just destroy

00:21:22.480 your life and then you said you were on it for 10 years which is like that's an entire decade of your

00:21:27.240 life yeah no i know that's terrible yeah no it is terrible and it really concerns me that you know

00:21:35.220 when you have this available and like i said i feel very ambivalent about it because on the one

00:21:39.200 And I think that we need to do everything that we can societally to help make sure that women who are trying to avoid pregnancy are able to do so just because of, you know, what we know about the risks of ending up in poverty and not being able to continue educational goals and so on and so forth for women who end up unexpectedly pregnant.

00:22:00.740 But at the same time, having this pill available over the counter when nobody's being supervised and have other people watching them to say, hey, you know, you haven't really been yourself the last couple of weeks.

00:22:14.600 What's going on is worrying because then these girls can end up in a situation where they're miserably depressed.

00:22:24.600 Nobody knows what's wrong with them.

00:22:26.180 And there's a really easy solution to it, you know, to fix that.

00:22:29.900 And it has to do with their birth control. 0.99

00:22:32.860 Yikes. 0.81

00:22:33.780 So for people, if you said 40% of approximately 40% of college-aged women are on...

00:22:40.100 Well, women in college, women in college, right?

00:22:42.660 Women in college, sorry. 1.00

00:22:44.220 So college-aged women are in college, yeah, yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:22:45.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:22:46.600 So if people are friends with someone or if they're in a relationship with someone who's experiencing heightened anxiety and they're on the pill,

00:22:54.060 are there resources that they can say hey maybe you should check out i mean obviously you

00:22:59.100 and you have a book right that maybe people could go read and say just so you know this could be

00:23:04.480 happening to you right no absolutely and in my book um which is this is your brain on birth

00:23:10.300 control one of the things that i talk about is the different types of hormonal birth control

00:23:15.060 because there's like four different generations of what are known as progestins which is that

00:23:19.780 synthetic progesterone that's in the pill and there's like four different categories of those

00:23:24.540 and so for example if a woman is experiencing depression and she's on hormonal birth control

00:23:30.540 she can like look and see what's in hers and i've got a list on there of like popular birth

00:23:35.280 controls that are out there and which you know which one tends to fall into what category and

00:23:40.200 the best thing that women can do is just even start troubleshooting by going to their doctor

00:23:45.940 and saying hey you know i'm on this pill i feel my mental health is in the toilet um i'm on 0.91

00:23:52.200 something that has a second generation progestin in it let's try a fourth generation progestin pill

00:23:57.840 and then trying something different because these the synthetic progesterone that's in hormonal

00:24:02.940 birth control is um is is different depending on what sort of category it falls into and they do

00:24:10.700 very different things in the body um so just to give you an example a second generation progestin

00:24:17.140 is actually synthesized from testosterone and because of that in addition to um stimulating

00:24:24.720 progesterone receptors it also stimulates testosterone receptors and it also stimulates

00:24:30.880 glucocorticoid receptors yeah so it has this really messy it can have really messy non-specific

00:24:36.280 effects in the brain and in the body but then like a fourth generation progestin for example

00:24:41.600 is synthesized from a diuretic called spiralectalone and it also it stimulates i mean it's just like

00:24:50.360 everything is messy all these progestins are messy and they all do something a little bit

00:24:54.820 different because they affect different receptors in the brain and to the rest of the body and so

00:24:59.440 if you don't like a prescription of birth control that you're on but you really are motivated to be

00:25:05.340 on hormonal birth control um i give really um i give recommendations like actionable recommendations

00:25:11.460 for what women can do to then you know try to find something different that they like better

00:25:16.240 and that their body responds differently too so is it dependent on the person or do you think that

00:25:22.340 there are classes of birth control that have the least amount of side effects yeah they all have

00:25:28.880 side effects um and all of them are sort of like different you know what it is so it's like for

00:25:34.040 example with the second generation uh progestins for example like you tend to get um some side

00:25:41.920 effects that are related to masculinization because of the testosterone receptors and so

00:25:47.180 you'll get like skin breakouts and some women will like grow start growing facial hair and you get

00:25:52.540 water retention um but then the fourth generation progestins are actually anti-androgenic and so

00:25:59.640 your skin clears up and you look really good but then because it's blocking testosterone you a lot

00:26:06.240 of times you can get decreases in libido and so it's like with each one of these you end up it's

00:26:11.980 like pick your poison you know and so it's really about understanding what the different side effects

00:26:18.080 are of these different types of progestins and then sort of picking the one that works the best

00:26:23.420 for your body and then for your individual goals because for some women having clear skin is going 0.88

00:26:29.300 to be more important than it is for others for example and so women if you know that then you 1.00

00:26:33.920 can go and you can sort of start to do a semi-customization of your birth control based

00:26:38.740 on your goals but to get at one of the other points you raised and that's that you know the

00:26:44.360 way that each person metabolizes all of those different synthetic hormones is also going to

00:26:49.740 differ and so for example you and i can be on the exact same formula of hormonal birth control and

00:26:56.280 have vastly different responses. Like it could make, you could like ruin your sex drive and make

00:27:01.820 your skin look amazing. And like, for me, it could make my skin look terrible, but not affect my sex 0.91

00:27:07.760 drive. It's like, and we're not unfortunately at a place yet with research where we can make good

00:27:14.040 predictions about who's going to respond what way to what thing. And so a lot of it for women ends 1.00

00:27:18.600 up being a crapshoot. And I do like to think that the information I provide in my book provides a 1.00

00:27:24.800 starting point for allowing women to be able to at least have some footing in terms of where to

00:27:31.240 get started in terms of what pill might work best for their body. I hope you guys had a fantastic

00:27:37.320 Halloween. I dressed up like a cow. If you woke up feeling like garbage after because you drank

00:27:42.820 and you don't normally drink, or maybe you do normally drink, but you still felt bad and you

00:27:47.060 haven't tried my after-party pill, try it. I don't need to interrupt you for very long. It works to

00:27:52.120 significantly reduce your hangover and help you break down acetaldehyde studies are available on

00:27:57.620 the website i wouldn't be shilling this out if it didn't actually work because that is a great way

00:28:02.640 to destroy your brand i wouldn't want to do that 30 day money well not just that i also don't like

00:28:08.780 lying so these work 30 day money back guarantee code mp for 15 off that code won't be around

00:28:16.100 forever available at fullerhealth.com we'll be rolling out more supplements in the future with

00:28:21.020 no fillers just pure ingredients like this one this is pure dihydromyricetin these actually work

00:28:28.880 they work how you want them to work unlike birth control enjoy the rest of this episode

00:28:33.960 so do you have kids or no kids i do i've got two okay uh do you have any daughters i do my oldest

00:28:42.580 is a daughter so i have a 16 year old daughter okay so what like what was your if you don't mind

00:28:50.220 what was your discussion with her because i know what my discussion would be but i'm so far

00:28:55.140 i got so hurt from psych medications really i don't even know what birth control was doing

00:29:00.980 because the psych medication side effects were so bad but yeah my like my response now which is

00:29:08.840 probably i've gone so far in the other direction of just avoid everything they all have side effects

00:29:14.220 who knows what they're doing to you and they're like sneaky side effects you won't figure out

00:29:18.260 just don't take anything like that's my response but then it does come with the risk of

00:29:24.420 unwanted pregnancy like it does um what like what do you tell people to do that's a really

00:29:33.180 that's like well no i mean this this is the eight million dollar question right i mean this is the

00:29:37.920 thing that i talk with my friends about and other researchers about um and in fact the last chapter

00:29:44.560 of my book is called um what now a letter to my daughter and like yeah and it sort of discusses

00:29:53.040 like what what to think about when you're thinking about whether to go on hormonal birth control or

00:29:58.540 not and then if you're going to be on it like what type to to choose and like what are some

00:30:03.860 of the considerations that you want to make when you're making that decision just because

00:30:07.920 whether it's going to be right or not right for each individual woman is going to depend

00:30:12.660 on her unique life circumstances and her goals and her values. And so I don't like to make any

00:30:18.740 sort of indication about what anybody should do. Instead, I just like raise, like, what are some

00:30:22.740 of the things you should think about when you are making a decision about going on birth control?

00:30:27.440 And like, one of them is like, yeah, do I need to be on it? Am I in a sexual relationship or not?

00:30:33.780 And, you know, like, what are my career goals? Like, how, how terrible would it be if I had an

00:30:39.600 unprotected pregnancy right now because like for a married woman who's considering having kids soon

00:30:44.220 anyway that might not be catastrophic but for an 18 year old it probably would be and so you know

00:30:50.160 just sort of delineates what some of those questions are but I mean it's really hard like

00:30:55.560 the thing that I think is terrible for women is that we are in this position where you know

00:31:01.400 fertility regulation is the most important thing for us in terms of our ability to ensure that we

00:31:09.480 can meet our educational goals and our career goals and um and we just don't have a lot of good

00:31:15.400 options um for birth control i mean there's barrier methods like condoms and that sort of thing

00:31:20.660 which you know work they're not perfect um but of course they're inconvenient and a lot of times

00:31:26.720 people don't like them um then you've got and you've also got the um the uh uh diaphragm which 1.00

00:31:34.820 is another barrier method which is a little cup that goes in um you put it up in your vagina and 1.00

00:31:39.160 You snap it over the end of your cervix and, um, and that prevents, it serves as a barrier 0.93

00:31:44.780 between, you know, uh, the vaginal canal and then the cervix, um, which can prevent pregnancy

00:31:49.820 and use for a side with that.

00:31:51.540 Um, and that also, but again, that's not perfect.

00:31:54.140 I think that the, I don't know what the failure rate is, but it's, it's higher than it is

00:31:57.740 for hormonal birth control.

00:31:59.160 And then there's the IUD, you know, and the copper IUD doesn't have hormones.

00:32:05.060 um and so that's like positive um but uh it does create a little bit of an inflammatory response

00:32:12.220 in the cervix and uterus area and for women who are really sensitive to inflammation and some

00:32:18.160 women are really sensitive to it others are less so um it can also cause um psychological side

00:32:25.280 effects it's very rare but it does happen um just because some women are really sensitive to

00:32:31.640 fluctuating levels of inflammatory markers even at very low levels and then you've got you know

00:32:38.700 like the fertility awareness method which is where you track your cycle and then you have

00:32:44.620 unprotected sex during the time in the cycle when conception is not possible which for the last two

00:32:50.240 weeks of your cycle during the luteal phase after you've ovulated more than 24 hours ago you can have

00:32:56.700 sex safely without worrying about pregnancy for about two weeks, um, a little bit more than that. 0.98

00:33:02.180 So some women will do that, but that one's got a little bit of a high failure rate as well, 0.91

00:33:06.940 just because, you know, not everybody's going to be able to perfectly track their cycle. 0.96

00:33:10.600 And I certainly wouldn't recommend that to my 16 year old daughter. You know, I was like,

00:33:14.840 she can hardly keep track of where her lunchbox is. I'm not going to have her like tracking her

00:33:20.740 cycle to keep track of um fertility and so you know for her and and for you know me having 0.99

00:33:27.960 conversations with her um is like when she's ready to like if she needs uh contraception

00:33:36.340 i think that the first thing that we're gonna try is the non-hormonal iud just because it's so um

00:33:43.360 it's so good at preventing pregnancy and that's something that especially at a young age for women

00:33:49.700 is so super important and it's not going to be changing her hormone levels which for me as

00:33:56.760 somebody who knows about brain development and then the potential you know elevated risk of

00:34:01.960 developing anxiety and depression over the course of a lifetime is i'm really motivated to keep her

00:34:07.080 off of synthetic hormones until she's at least 20 and then at that point we can start considering

00:34:12.380 whether or not a combination hormonal birth control pill because if i was going to recommend

00:34:17.780 a hormonal product to an adult woman whose brain is done developing, I would say try one of the

00:34:24.020 combination birth control pills, because those do seem to be the ones with the least amount of

00:34:28.880 side effects. Okay, that's all good. That seems wise. Yeah, it is tricky. Being female is tricky.

00:34:38.580 It really is tricky. I mean, I think that one of the things that's really frustrating to me

00:34:43.540 is that, you know, women have been talking about having side effects from birth control forever.

00:34:50.160 I mean, this isn't a new conversation. And yet there's no innovation being made in this space.

00:34:57.480 I mean, there's just not investment by the drug companies back into coming up with new ways for

00:35:04.280 women to prevent pregnancy. Instead, you know, the only R&D that's really being done is they're

00:35:11.000 looking to create a birth control pill for men which is a step in the right direction in terms

00:35:15.580 of fairly shouldering the burden of contraception within a couple but at the same time it's just

00:35:21.000 shifting the problem from women onto men and that's not the right answer either so it's like

00:35:26.020 okay that what they have out there right now is something that keeps men's testosterone levels so

00:35:32.320 low that they don't produce sperm and it's like that's not what we need you know as a society

00:35:38.620 to be like making all of our men

00:35:41.320 have really low levels of testosterone

00:35:43.200 because testosterone affects a lot more

00:35:44.700 than sperm production.

00:35:45.840 It affects motivational states,

00:35:47.900 you know, and all sorts of other things,

00:35:49.300 your desire and ability to compete.

00:35:51.520 I mean, it affects a lot of different stuff.

00:35:53.880 And so like, do we really want to be doing that?

00:35:57.040 I mean, it's like,

00:35:58.080 I like the idea of having that available as an option.

00:36:00.980 So that way it's not just women 1.00

00:36:02.380 who have to make tough choices. 1.00

00:36:04.140 At the same time, that's not what we need.

00:36:06.680 What we need is something that's totally different.

00:36:08.620 Because like you, it's like, I feel very much, you know, my background is in evolutionary biology.

00:36:14.380 I understand our body as being this like really brilliant machine where we've inherited all of these traits that have helped our ancestors survive and reproduce.

00:36:23.920 And, you know, our body is so nicely regulated on its own.

00:36:29.000 and then to like do things like alter our hormones as a way to um to protect ourselves

00:36:35.380 from pregnancy it's just not the best idea you know like staying away from all of that stuff

00:36:42.280 i think is um if you're able to do it is is is good for the body it'd be nice in theory if there

00:36:48.740 was a pill you could just take and like oh your skin clears up you feel fine nothing changes and

00:36:54.920 you can avoid unwanted pregnancies until you're ready to have a kid. That sounds great. And that's

00:37:00.600 how it's sold, right? That's basically how it's sold. Yeah. Ridiculous. So then is this a like

00:37:07.920 progestin issue mainly? Like what happens when women go through menopause? And then I know a

00:37:15.180 lot of women supplement hormones after menopause. Are they screwed then too? No. So here's the thing. 0.99

00:37:22.840 and it's it really is a progestin thing so that synthetic progesterone that's in hormonal birth

00:37:28.720 control does all kinds of ridiculous crazy things in the body um just because the by the binding

00:37:36.780 is non-specific as i mentioned like you'll have okay they'll stimulate testosterone receptors

00:37:42.260 and they'll stimulate glucocorticoid receptors and they'll do all sorts of things that they're

00:37:46.640 not really you know supposed to do and all of those things together create this experience of

00:37:53.200 really weird side effects and the other thing that happens is just keeping women's own endogenous

00:37:59.840 levels of sex hormones really low because essentially what you're doing when you're

00:38:03.400 taking the pill is you're shutting down the brain ovary axis and you're not producing any hormones

00:38:08.480 and that's a really unusual state for the female body to be in we are very much hormonal creatures

00:38:14.840 and you know the the experience that women have when they're going through menopause is what

00:38:21.600 happens like women oftentimes feel terrible because their hormone levels are really low

00:38:26.620 and that doesn't feel normal for them and so their bodies feel bad and you know they get mood swings

00:38:32.680 and they get vaginal dryness and some other things that are the result of having low levels of sex

00:38:37.680 hormone and when women do a menopausal hormone therapy which is where they're taking synthetic

00:38:43.780 hormones to try to increase their hormone levels to ease that transition, that oftentimes makes

00:38:49.700 women feel a lot better than they do in the absence of it. And these hormones are pretty

00:38:55.840 much biologically identical. And so when you're doing menopausal hormone therapy, you're taking

00:39:00.960 a synthetic estrogen, which is very similar to what you have in the pill. The synthetic estrogen

00:39:06.020 really isn't the problem. It's those synthetic progestins that are so goofy. And when you're 0.90

00:39:11.620 doing menopausal hormone therapy you um you actually take a bio-identical um progesterone

00:39:19.580 so you actually take micronized progesterone instead of taking a progestin and so um that

00:39:25.500 actually ends up being a lot better for women and just to give you an example of why that's true

00:39:31.040 it like in addition to the fact that uh you know synthetic progestins will bind to hormone

00:39:38.000 receptors that have nothing to do with progesterone and can make you feel kind of crazy um progesterone

00:39:43.840 like the real deal progesterone that our body creates and then also is in micronized progesterone

00:39:50.120 that women use in hormone therapy um when that gets metabolized by the body it actually releases

00:39:58.320 a neurosteroid called allopregnanolone that is like really positive for mental health and so

00:40:05.500 it's something that's very calming it um it helps to facilitate gabaergic activity in the brain

00:40:13.440 which slows the brain down and makes it feel calm and relaxed and um so taking progesterone you get

00:40:19.680 all these nice um neurological benefits that are calming and relaxing but with the synthetic

00:40:25.620 progestins because they aren't even synthesized from progesterone you don't get that because when

00:40:31.420 the body is metabolizing the synthetic progestin there's no neurosteroid there's no allopregnanolone

00:40:38.400 there's nothing calming and relaxing instead you're just metabolizing a wonky version of

00:40:43.360 testosterone for example in the ones that are made out of testosterone and so you don't get

00:40:48.920 yeah no it's a totally different ball game than regular progesterone and sometimes i think

00:40:55.280 progesterone our natural hormone and the one that women take in menopausal hormone therapy

00:41:00.040 um gets a bad rap as being this like you know negative bad mood hormone um just because people

00:41:08.160 are confusing it with the synthetic progesterone that's in the pill that makes people feel

00:41:12.480 terrible okay i didn't know any of that i was like all the research i did on birth control and

00:41:19.940 then i got you know like i said spooked out from spooked out to say the least from from other

00:41:25.680 medications um i was worried about yeah what to do after menopause i mean do you go oh natural what

00:41:33.240 if you're really suffering can you take any of those is it the same thing as taking uh birth

00:41:38.200 control i had no idea that that was actually a different form of progesterone because i know

00:41:42.300 when you get pregnant right your progesterone skyrockets and isn't that supposed to make you

00:41:47.980 kind of feel calm during pregnancy so then how could it be the opposite with birth control why

00:41:53.580 don't they just use the same couldn't they just use the same progesterone as they used to treat

00:41:59.380 like post-menopausal symptoms right that you know i love that question because i had the exact same

00:42:05.280 question like i went to um because i'm not an md so i'm not a doctor you know i'm a research

00:42:10.300 psychologist so i study everything from the neck up and i was like why in the world are birth

00:42:16.780 control pills made from this synthetic trash you know instead of like using this other thing that's 0.72

00:42:23.340 good. And here's the answer I was given. So the first part of the answer is it took a really long 0.93

00:42:30.400 time for researchers to be able to figure out how to make a solid, like a version of progesterone

00:42:37.680 that you can take as a tablet or like as a pill that would pass the digestive tract and be able

00:42:45.160 to be absorbed in the body. And so it took them a long time to be able to do that. And so it wasn't

00:42:52.340 available micronized progesterone wasn't really available until i don't know how many years now

00:42:57.660 but it was after birth control pills had sort of come on the scene right but then now that it is

00:43:04.240 available and that we use it for things like menopausal hormone therapy and that sort of thing

00:43:08.700 um why isn't why aren't we using it in in birth control and the answer i was given was that you

00:43:15.400 would have to take it in such high doses to ensure that you're not going to allow your brain to start

00:43:23.360 stimulating your ovaries because you have to have high levels of progesterone for your brain to not

00:43:28.660 tell your ovaries to produce an egg which is how the birth control pill works is that you'd have 0.95

00:43:33.620 to take it in such high doses that it would make women just like way too tired and because it makes

00:43:40.320 you like when you take synthetic or when you take a bioidentical progesterone it makes you sleepy

00:43:45.380 and some other things and that you'd have to take it in such high doses that it might have an

00:43:50.220 like intolerable side effects but that being said I've never seen it being tried you know I've never

00:43:56.620 seen that I've never heard of anybody trying to do that and um and I and I think that it's a

00:44:03.280 fascinating alternative to at least try that to see whether that's something that's possible

00:44:08.340 um and and i don't know the answer to that like i said i'm not an md um but the mds i talked to

00:44:14.720 when i asked them about that that that was their answer was that you know you you the dosage that

00:44:19.760 you have to take is is really high to ensure that you're preventing pregnancy and that it would just

00:44:24.560 not be something that was very well tolerated by most women but we haven't tried it and the 0.80

00:44:31.360 severe side effect of depression and choosing a slightly different mate is definitely better than

00:44:36.140 being too relaxed yeah i know yeah yeah i know yeah no i don't understand like like i said

00:44:42.620 that's always been my question and i was thinking like because i talked to a naturopathic doctor

00:44:48.180 about this because i was thinking surely she would have tried this you know with a patient

00:44:52.900 yeah and she was like no i just i i don't think that that would work because i think it'd be

00:44:58.260 you'd have to take it in too high doses and i'm thinking to myself i want to like let's try that

00:45:03.300 like let's try it that's weird yeah that's very strange yeah huh okay it'd be fun if like anybody

00:45:12.780 who's listening to your podcast and they're um like sort of well-versed in the mechanics of

00:45:19.580 birth control like in terms of uh how it like why that would be impossible i'm i'm just always

00:45:25.500 looking for you know like why is that impossible because it seems to me like that's a great idea

00:45:29.980 like why can't we do it and there's one answer that's also out there which is that you know you

00:45:37.100 can't patent progesterone but you can patent progestin there we go yeah yeah and so i think

00:45:45.160 that that might have something to do with it as well that's so infuriating okay this is going this

00:45:52.900 is going in i had no idea about that makes total sense that makes more sense i always thought the

00:45:59.960 birth control like i said kind of mimicked pregnancy and it was kind of made from bioidentical

00:46:06.960 hormones because that's pretty much what you're told right yeah yeah and no and it's and it's not

00:46:14.840 and it essentially it it makes it it has a hormonal profile that's similar to the second

00:46:20.260 half of your menstrual cycle which is when after you've ovulated and your body is releasing

00:46:24.580 progesterone and estrogen and so that daily hormone pill that you take every day is sort of

00:46:30.400 mimicking that hormonal message it's relatively high levels of the synthetic progesterone or

00:46:34.640 progestin and then low levels of estrogen and you take that every day and it makes the brain think

00:46:40.300 that it doesn't need to stimulate the ovaries to release an egg but like you said i mean it's it's

00:46:46.060 not progesterone it's a progestin and so it's stimulating progesterone receptors but then it's

00:46:51.640 also doing a bunch of other stuff. And, um, and a lot of that other stuff is what makes women feel

00:46:56.140 bad. Lovely. I think also part of the danger of like putting girls on it when they haven't 1.00

00:47:05.180 experienced cycles properly, like say when they're 14, cause I think I was, I literally

00:47:11.140 think I started taking it like right after I got my period. Um, I didn't even know what a cycle

00:47:16.860 felt like psychologically and so it wasn't until i was 23 and i stopped taking it and was like

00:47:22.640 oh i can actually tell what the first week feels like and the second week i can feel what ovulation

00:47:29.920 feels like i know when like i'm more inclined to work on the second half of my cycle where i'm just

00:47:35.640 not like i'm not as interested like i'm gonna get down to business start working whereas the first

00:47:40.740 half of the cycles i'm kind of like floofy and more social and things so and it was fun it was

00:47:45.600 like oh that's what being females like i was just stuck in this weird work mode and with who knows

00:47:52.700 how much extra anxiety for like almost 10 years from the pill that's so interesting yeah that's

00:48:02.040 so interesting because i've heard from so many women that exact same experience and i had that

00:48:06.280 exact same experience myself where i felt like i was i mean i went and i got my phd and i did all

00:48:11.800 these things but I was just like yeah down to business you know just like do do do and then

00:48:17.000 when I went off of it and I was like oh this is what it feels like to feel sexy like yeah

00:48:22.500 like I didn't realize that I was missing out on that this all this time and and you're right I

00:48:29.540 mean it's like not being able to experience that until you go off of it it's like what a shame

00:48:35.840 yeah I got the weirdest thing I think that happened to me is I started to be able to

00:48:41.440 then this was kind of gross too but around when i was ovulating i started to be able to smell people

00:48:46.380 that i was walking by so i'd walk by someone and be like they have a smell i can smell i haven't

00:48:52.220 smelled that smell before like what is that and i noticed it was when i was ovulating i could smell

00:48:57.060 people which is i was like that's really animalistic and basic that i just didn't have

00:49:03.780 before weird that's that's so interesting so there was actually a study done and i talk about this in

00:49:09.820 my book where they find that very thing where women right near um what we call the fertile

00:49:15.680 window so during that period of time right prior to ovulation um and and right at ovulation um 0.98

00:49:21.740 where you get increased in sensory sensitivity and women are like their ability to like detect 0.92

00:49:29.320 the scent of things like testosterone metabolites for example increases relative to what's seen 0.96

00:49:36.060 outside that cycle yeah and pill taking women don't get that they don't have that experience

00:49:40.860 and they've also done some research with the pill looking at women's ability to identify

00:49:47.460 genetically compatible partners like based on scent cues and generally what you find is that

00:49:53.540 women right near high fertility that they can they exhibit a preference for the scent of men

00:50:01.660 who are sort of immunologically genetically compatible and what you see is that like right

00:50:09.540 near high fertility that women you know experience this preference for the scent of these genetically

00:50:14.200 compatible men and for women who are on hormonal birth control there's nothing there's like no

00:50:19.100 they never get that increased preference for genetically compatible men it said they have

00:50:24.120 this like overall like flat line there's no preference at all and so this is another way

00:50:29.180 that taking the pill could potentially get you in a relationship with somebody that you don't

00:50:34.700 like and in fact one of the women i talked to in the process of writing my book was talking about

00:50:39.220 scent and she ended up getting a divorce after um she discontinued the pill because she didn't

00:50:45.840 like the way that her husband smelled and it was all that very thing that you're talking about

00:50:51.220 um where she just didn't know it's not that he smelled bad he just didn't smell right

00:50:55.800 yeah and that that could sound i'm sure people will take that the wrong way like oh how is that

00:51:02.040 a reason to get a divorce but like if somebody smells good they smell really good like yeah

00:51:07.600 yeah no but just idea yeah it's strong and and the idea that that i mean it's not so much like

00:51:13.700 oh it's just smell but it was like yeah but i mean but that really plays an important role

00:51:18.960 in attraction and and it's something that i don't think men understand because there's

00:51:23.480 research that shows that you know women um scent is something that we're a lot more sensitive to

00:51:29.400 and it influences our uh attraction and partner choice um to a much greater extent than it does 0.84

00:51:35.760 for men for men it's it's not even really uh something that's very important and women are

00:51:40.960 a lot more sensitive to it and it does it it affects attraction is there any way for men to

00:51:47.460 hack that like say they're suffering from oh also i wanted to talk you said there's the male birth

00:51:53.240 control pill that seems to just flatten testosterone which like nobody is gonna want

00:51:59.120 to take that like no man is gonna want to take that that was like literally when i first read

00:52:04.920 the the news story about like they're creating this pill that lowers testosterone i'm like

00:52:09.780 perfect have these people met men do they know any men like i don't know a single man who would be

00:52:17.500 like yes please i'll take one of those yeah no way they're feeling a little too motivated

00:52:22.820 feeling a little too motivated today let's take an anti-testosterone pill yeah no isn't that nuts 1.00

00:52:29.020 i just think it's crazy who's gonna take that okay yeah no not no one and nobody like women 0.67

00:52:35.760 wouldn't even want men to take that that seems like a terrible idea um no it does is there so 0.66

00:52:41.820 in regards to scent do you know anything about is there any way for men to hack this like is it just

00:52:48.020 about raising testosterone and maybe they'll smell better are there things they can do that's a great

00:52:54.040 that's a great question there was actually a study that came out just a couple years ago

00:52:57.700 that showed that um for men who are like who don't like smell sort of good to women or whatever

00:53:06.520 um they can actually improve their attractiveness to partners just by good old-fashioned cologne

00:53:12.060 um and what research finds is that it's actually really fascinating is that if you have um men who

00:53:19.820 are sort of on a range of um you know masculinity and so you have like the really masculine guys

00:53:25.260 and you have guys who are less masculine um and you have women uh like rating their attraction

00:53:30.500 to the man by looking at a photo and like smelling the man um what you get is that uh for men who are

00:53:37.820 less masculine you get this increase in attraction just based on the presence of cologne um and it

00:53:45.620 brings those men up to the same level as the masculine guys but for masculine guys it does

00:53:51.160 nothing for them like it doesn't improve their attractiveness because they already smell

00:53:55.660 attractive to women and so it seems like the sort of musky scent that tends to underlie um

00:54:02.880 male cologne that you know it's like chemists have been like working on trying to make that

00:54:08.960 smell just right to women for a really long time seems to be tapping into the to the right thing

00:54:14.640 and it does seem to um attract women in the same way um as um as just good old-fashioned you know

00:54:22.120 cues of uh testosterone within the the sweat glands that's so sneaky i know

00:54:30.680 which is why it's like um if you're gonna get together with somebody like like maybe without

00:54:38.340 cologne like how about no cologne like i just like let's spend some time together without cologne

00:54:43.680 it's like spending time together without makeup let's just let's just see what's going on here

00:54:50.220 that's so funny i was talking to uh graduate students of mine about tests relationship tests

00:54:56.540 and that was one that the guys were like yeah you hang out with a girl with no makeup on and

00:55:02.480 that's that's your test and now i love it so here's a female equivalent no cologne no deodorant 0.72

00:55:07.280 nothing just i need to smell you and that should be a test for women i like that i i completely

00:55:15.180 agree uh that's great okay do you think in the future there's going to be any solutions here or

00:55:22.280 is what people are playing with too complicated because of all the hormones involved and like

00:55:29.800 trying to stop i feel like trying to stop a body from getting pregnant which is what bodies want to

00:55:36.900 do really yes is so complicated that is it even like do you see it even as a possibility that

00:55:45.580 doesn't come with a host of side effects in the future we have condoms i mean yeah everyone hates

00:55:51.820 them but yeah exactly i think that there are you know i so i feel hopeful i think it's going to end

00:55:57.600 up being something totally outside the box and so just to give you an example um of something that's

00:56:03.440 actually being worked on right now and i don't know whether or not this is going to end up panning

00:56:07.500 out to anything or not but there is this um apparently there's some like vitamin a derivative

00:56:13.040 that our body is like some breakdown product of vitamin a that our bodies use in sperm production

00:56:19.380 and it seems like it's only used in sperm production like they're doing a lot of

00:56:23.480 research right now in animal models to make sure that it's only used and that the body doesn't need

00:56:28.980 for other things um but so far it seems like really promising and that that's the only thing

00:56:34.480 it's really used for and um and it's being used to test whether if you take something that blocks

00:56:40.620 that does that prevent sperm production in men without having any other side effects

00:56:45.420 um which would be really fascinating if that's true you know another thing is like i think it's

00:56:51.920 going to take outside the box thinking like i'm just thinking like imagine that you have like

00:56:58.040 some sort of a little thing that can in your full like a fallopian tube where the egg can like

00:57:04.480 fall out or something like i think it's going to end up we're going to have to come up with

00:57:09.440 something that's just totally different than anything that we've done before and um so i

00:57:14.400 think that like outside the box thinking is going to be really important for this i mean i also think

00:57:19.600 that there's a lot you know it's using uh so for example i use uh natural cycles which um uses the

00:57:27.060 aura ring and so it tracks my basal body temperature and it's really good at um like

00:57:33.220 telling me when and i know also when i'm in the fertile window i'm just i'm pretty in tune with

00:57:39.040 my body but i think that technology and things that measure daily body temperature and apps and

00:57:45.600 that sort of thing that can help isolate the fertile window for women so that way they can

00:57:50.460 you know do something else for birth control or use some form of birth control just during the

00:57:55.320 periods of time when they need it over the cycle I think is also like one of the ways that we're 0.99

00:58:00.760 headed um and so I'm hopeful that um our ability to successfully predict when women are in their

00:58:08.160 fertile window gets better so that way it's more reliable after women and they can feel more

00:58:13.100 confident and that is a birth control method but um yeah I feel hopeful that something's out there

00:58:18.700 but it's gonna have to get away from hormones I mean there's just no way to not profoundly affect

00:58:25.140 the entire organism you know with that when you change a person's hormonal profile it's just

00:58:30.600 impossible i feel like that's the right track because there's only like how many days a month

00:58:37.220 are women actually fertile like five and then if you have so say you have sex eight days before

00:58:45.980 the sperm's in you long enough you know there's still a likelihood you can get pregnant or is

00:58:52.880 it really this five-day window of having sex that you can get pregnant yeah yeah yeah it's about five

00:58:57.580 to seven days in which um yeah that that sex that you have on that day could potentially lead to

00:59:03.840 conception and it's five to six five to six days prior to ovulation and then within 24 hours of

00:59:10.700 ovulation um and so after you it's been 24 hours since you've ovulated you're home free and you're

00:59:17.420 generally home free about the first week of your cycle so the first day of bleeding for about seven

00:59:23.320 days you're generally home free but that's not always the case sometimes the women will have a

00:59:28.040 you know short um follicular phase and that sort of thing and which is why it's always a little 0.99

00:59:32.820 tricky to just give a rule of thumb like that because you could give a rule of thumb and then

00:59:37.320 somebody ends up pregnant so um but as a general rule of thumb not to be used as birth control

00:59:42.460 um that first seven days of your cycle are usually reasonably safe after you know you've

00:59:47.640 ovulated if it's been 24 hours you're generally safe for about almost two weeks so okay so i've

00:59:54.940 got i have a couple of questions one when you're taking this say you're taking the birth control

00:59:59.400 pill that stops your cycle for like three months or it does something for three months and then it

01:00:05.460 says there's like a bunch of sugar pills you take those for a week and you bleed is it actually

01:00:10.560 uterine lining given the fact you haven't ovulated like what's going on there yeah no it's not uterine

01:00:16.420 lining because you're not what is it it's just blood it's just essentially when you have a

01:00:21.460 hormone crash in your body that um sends a signal to your um to your endometrial layer to to start

01:00:28.920 to um shed and and and release blood flow and so that's really all that that is there's a little

01:00:35.400 bit of uterine lining because like there's a tiny bit of estrogen and especially in these combination

01:00:39.880 pills and estrogen is proliferative and causes the cells in the uterine lining to proliferate

01:00:45.940 and so there's a little bit of it but not much so the the period that you have on the pill isn't

01:00:52.320 really a period it's um it's just a withdrawal bleed okay that's yeah okay i and then the other

01:01:02.900 question that's also why like oh i was gonna say that that's that's another reason why um you know 0.62

01:01:08.120 for a lot of women who have been on the pill for a while and then they go off 1.00

01:01:11.140 of it, they're,

01:01:12.580 they find that their periods are a lot more gnarly than they were, you know,

01:01:17.580 before when they were on the pill, like, cause those, you know,

01:01:20.500 the period that you have when you're on the pills,

01:01:22.040 it tends to be very light because there's not a lot of endometrial material.

01:01:25.960 And then like, once you actually start shedding endometrial lining,

01:01:29.220 it can be a little bit like, like, whoa,

01:01:33.380 surprising to women just because it's a little bit of a different beast. 0.96

01:01:36.660 so that's why it that's why it improves your period yeah because you're not proliferating 0.63

01:01:43.320 your uterine lining isn't proliferating and so you're not having as much there's not all those

01:01:47.980 contractions and everything else you don't have as many cramps there's not as much material with

01:01:52.700 your with your period as you get when you're naturally cycling which sometimes with some

01:01:57.900 women can be you know have clots in it and other things which is totally normal when you are

01:02:02.380 shedding an endometrial lining huh okay and then that makes that makes more sense and then is it 1.00

01:02:08.860 possible to ovulate twice in a month does that ever happen i mean it can if you have two eggs

01:02:16.900 at one time like sometimes two eggs will get released and then you end up with fraternal twins

01:02:21.140 okay you know and if both of them implants but that is very it's pretty rare um but you won't

01:02:27.480 ever get a case where you will ovulate um and then uh and then ovulate like a week later and

01:02:33.520 then end up with like a sequential pregnancy okay so that can happen so then mostly the variation

01:02:40.340 is just ovulating early or late yes it changes right exactly and generally like the follicular

01:02:48.080 phase which is the first half of the cycle when um the egg follicles are maturing and estrogen is

01:02:53.520 being released and all that sort of thing everything prior to ovulation that part of the

01:02:58.300 cycle tends to be more variable in length so sometimes it can be longer or shorter the luteal

01:03:04.000 phase of the cycle um is generally about two weeks and it's a lot less variable it's it's pretty

01:03:09.360 it's pretty um stable unless you have um failure to ovulate which does happen especially in women

01:03:17.140 like western women all of us who are stressed out all the time um you can get ovulatory

01:03:22.080 disturbances fairly frequently. That makes sense. Um, did you, I mean, you, you probably know this

01:03:29.320 study. Uh, it was a study on how women dress when they're ovulating. Yeah. Can you describe that a

01:03:35.980 bit? Sure. So, um, when women are ovulating, they tend to show more skin. Uh, they tend to wear

01:03:43.240 sexier and more revealing clothing and research even finds that they're more likely to wear the 1.00

01:03:47.480 color red relative to what you see outside the fertile window and this is just because women 0.84

01:03:54.020 feel sexy at that time they have an increase in sexual motivation and they also like feel sexier 0.73

01:04:00.580 and they tend to feel better about themselves and um and they show it um by going out and wearing

01:04:07.040 less and um yeah dressing sexier that's cool it is really cool did you there's something else i

01:04:14.960 read, I don't remember where I read this, but, um, for, for men supplementing testosterone can do

01:04:22.660 like wonders, right? If you have low testosterone, it can take away your motivation, like you said,

01:04:27.800 and your energy and your libido, and it can be awful. Um, I've read some stories of women 1.00

01:04:34.940 accidentally getting testosterone cream or anything on themselves when they didn't need it

01:04:41.000 and experiencing wild heightened sexual arousal have you do you know anything about that is that

01:04:48.540 true i haven't heard of that but that would be absolutely consistent with testosterone so

01:04:54.800 testosterone um it's a powerful sexual motivator in men but it also plays a role in women's sexual

01:05:00.700 desire so for women sexual desire is really a function of like well i mean there's a lot of

01:05:06.260 things it's relationship quality and all these other things but in terms of the hormonal drivers

01:05:10.460 it's estradiol or estrogen and then testosterone and those two things together promote women's

01:05:17.980 sexual desire and in fact one of the therapies that especially women as they're going through

01:05:23.060 the menopausal transition are given to help revive their libido is is testosterone

01:05:29.440 that's cool yeah no totally totally our hormones are awesome

01:05:36.140 okay well when women are going through like menopause and trying to figure that out

01:05:44.500 uh is the supplement usually oral or can it be injected do the creams work do you know

01:05:50.420 anything about that like do these creams work yeah so the creams work like um the because

01:05:57.100 they actually test whether or not women's hormones are changing in response to the

01:06:02.080 treatments that they're given and so yeah there's a lot of research validating the the use of the

01:06:07.480 creams in terms of raising women's like estradiol levels for example so generally the cream is um

01:06:13.820 is estrogen um but you can also get estrogen in a patch and that's usually the way that estrogen is

01:06:19.700 it is administered is with the is with the patch or with um a cream and then progesterone is a pill

01:06:26.180 um and then testosterone it can be you can get an injection there are pellets that you can get

01:06:32.520 put subdermally they get under your skin and then it releases a certain amount of testosterone

01:06:37.240 every day um and uh and these are all sort of the the usual therapies that are included in

01:06:44.060 menopausal hormone therapy cool okay well sarah i think that answered my question that taught me a

01:06:51.180 bunch too i didn't realize progestin i know it's called progestin it's not called progesterone i

01:06:55.740 didn't realize that that was a totally synthetic hormone that actively works on other hormones as

01:07:01.840 opposed to just pure progesterone that is concerning so that's very good to know and the

01:07:07.100 fact that just taking natural hormones like say for post-menopausal women isn't the same as taking

01:07:15.460 birth control that's good to know too yeah right yeah yeah and just make sure that it is because

01:07:21.020 some doctors do treat women in the menopausal transition with birth control pills. Um, and so

01:07:27.580 when you, if you're a woman who's going through the menopausal transition and you want to talk

01:07:31.540 to your doctor about hormone therapy, just make sure that you're using the body identical, um,

01:07:37.660 progesterone and, um, and estrogen. And that's what most doctors use, but there are still some

01:07:43.780 who prescribe birth control pills. Okay. Well, thank you. That was really interesting. Thanks

01:07:49.500 very much. Yeah, of course. So that was fun.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - November 08, 2023

The Hidden Impact of Birth Control + What You Should Do Instead ｜ Dr. Sarah E. Hill

Episode Stats

Transcript