In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with Dr. Jolene Brighten about signs and solutions for hormone imbalances.

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only 1 place to go.

With your hosts, Sal DiStefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.

You just found the most downloaded fitness health entertainment podcast in history.

So she's obviously a doctor and expert on women's health.

And in today's episode, we talk about women's health hormones.

What isn't normal symptoms of things like PMS skin issues, energy issues, how to balance out your hormones, what's causing some of the problems that are so common that we think are normal but they're not normal.

She breaks all of this down and more in today's episode.

Uh, by the way, uh, if you're looking for some hormone tests for yourself, just to see if you're within range and, and, and essentially healthy, you can go to mphormones.com and also Dr.

Jolene Brighton can be found on Instagram at Dr.

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Jolene Brighton, welcome back to the show.

Oh my God, well this is 1 of my favorite podcasts And like I was saying, I'm super sad that we're not in person.

I'm just still like, look at your studio.

Has it been that long since you were here?

They were the type of chairs that gobbled up someone my size.

And then I end up in like this like oversized chair and then I realize I'm child size.

So you're still to this day, 1 of our most talked about interviews.

The last book that you wrote was incredible.

I have family members reading it and my wife loved it.

And we're having you back on because you have a new book that I think is equally, if not more interesting, and it's called, Is This Normal?

What was it that spurred you to create this?

Okay, no, you don't know how many podcasts I do.

And then I talk about Star Wars and the hosts, their eyes just glaze over and they're like, I guess you're a super nerd.

And I was like, are you not following me?

So, you know, I think about how like Star Wars, like We got the core Star Wars and it was so good and who didn't love it.

And then they came out with the prequel of now you really understand in depth what's going on.

That's a lot of how I think about beyond the pill.

I handed people like, you don't always have to do the pill.

If you want to do the pill, let's support you so you don't have side effects.

But I wanted people to understand their body and what they could do to take charge of their health other than just getting the same old, same old from doctors, which is like, you got hormone problems, just take the pill.

Then what came were all of these questions that made me realize we needed the prequel.

Like, is this normal is what everybody needed to know before going into Beyond the Pill.

And this book is really born out of all of the questions I get from patients, all of the questions that I get from people online.

And in the time of the pandemic, I actually pursued my training in sex counseling.

So I'm a certified sex counselor as well to help answer these questions even more.

So this is really born out of what everybody was asking for.

And I'm like, let's just make the book that we all should have gotten before we ever got our periods.

Why do you think that some, cause I think this is necessary.

I think this is definitely necessary, especially for women.

I have 2 girls, 1 of them a teenager, and I'm shocked that in today's modern world, that this is a question that women have to ask.

Why is it that this is a book that's got such high demand?

I see so many providers that take to social media and They're like, oh, you know, we hate these social media influencers.

And I'm like, I don't think you understand that you are the problem.

You created the problem that brought people to the internet to seek solutions and you're not being part of the solution whatsoever.

So we are told that our period cramps are normal.

This is a big reason why women with endometriosis fail to get the diagnosis that they need.

They can go decades without getting the diagnosis.

We are told things that having acne or irregular periods is just normal.

And now women with PCOS are having to see 2 to 3 providers before they get the diagnosis.

And then gaslit, when we tell a provider, this is not normal for me.

Like I'm telling you, I live in this body.

And then that's when their provider's like, well, don't mistake your Google search for like all of my years of expertise.

I hate that because I'm like, look, studies are great, but studies are not all encompassing.

That'll tell you everything about what the outcomes of that study will say.

And at the same time, there are just problems with a lot of the way that we haven't even tested drugs on women.

I mean, I could go on and on about the problems in medicine that make it to where the provider doesn't believe a woman's story about living in her body.

The other thing is our sex education sucks in the United States.

What do you guys remember from your sex education?

That's the only thing I remember from our sex ed.

That's the only thing that stuck out to me.

Yeah, I remember asking my older cousins.

I mean, and this is like, you know, talking to 3 men, like this is a big problem as well of like men asking men about women's bodies to like learn about women's bodies, to learn about women's pleasure.

And it's why, you know, in the orgasm chapter of my book, I talk about how people are always like, oh, you know, making jokes about how men can't find the clitoris, men are so body illiterate when it comes to evolving, and female pleasure.

And I'm like, they don't want to be, but sex ed doesn't teach about female pleasure.

Sex ed barely teaches about female reproductive health.

They're like, here's your baby making container and it'll bleed monthly and that's going to suck.

And hey, this canal here, babies come out, penises go in and there's a banana and a condom.

We don't get the education about like, well, why are your hormones cycling?

And what are they telling you about your body?

We just don't get all of that data that we need about our own body.

And we're in it not understanding what's going on.

We've got the medical problems and we've got the societal problems.

And to anyone who's like, well, people have to take responsibility and go educate themselves or their parents should have taught them, sure, but who taught their parents?

And also, who do you trust on the internet?

Because writing this book, I can tell you, there's some seedy, scandalous, scary stuff on the internet that is not trustworthy.

How often do you see somebody's hormone imbalances and their health affecting their sex life?

So there's a lot of experts in the field of sexual health, and there are many who are brilliant psychologists, they are there or sex educators, and they'll say.

Your hormones don't have anything to do with your libido.

Like, how is that possible when you just think about that?

So, you know, there's the cyclical hormones, right?

So estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone cycles in women.

For anybody who's listening, we think about women being like the moon, right?

We know the moon has phases, the moon cycles, there's a full moon, there's a new moon.

And we think about men being like the sun.

It's up and it's down, and it's the Same thing day in and day out.

So with those cyclical hormones, you're like, we know, we know, we cohabitate with women.

So with those cyclical hormones, there are natural, normal changes that happen in your desire.

So what people think of as libido, your ability to self-lubricate, your ability to become aroused, how much you think about sex, how much you are running fantasies in your mind.

These are affected by natural cycling hormones.

There's even a 28 day program in the book to help you understand your own normal, but also fine tune and problem solve those hormone imbalances that may be causing havoc on your mood, your metabolism, your skin, or your sex life.

So they absolutely play a role and something that is completely overlooked.

And I think this is an audience who will get it is metabolic health and metabolic hormones impacting our sex life.

So I love the way, how you said it plays a role because I think 1 of the challenges with this conversation is that lots of other things affect libido as well, like confidence, the relationship with your partner, maybe something happened today at work or you were stuck in traffic.

And so this, sometimes people use this to discredit the hormone conversation.

We're like, Oh, I know my libido is supposed to go up during this time, but last month I was really in the mood here, but there's lots of things that affect this and hormones simply play a role and saying that they don't, I think is, uh, is totally silly.

And in fact, if, if a woman changes a hormone, she'll notice a change in her mood, just like men will.

1 thing I want to go back to that you had said that I think is important, that you kind of glazed over that people don't realize, is you mentioned drug testing and women.

A lot of people don't know this, but oftentimes when they run trials on drugs, they're done on a particular demographic, a particular age group, and all drugs don't affect men and women the same.

And in addition to that, what people don't understand is that sometimes when trials are being done, they'll actually put women on the pill to basically correct for the menstrual cycle or try to control.

So this is the way they think they can control for the menstrual cycle, except as we know, hormonal birth control can result in adverse mood symptoms for some women.

Some women may develop acne, they may develop gut dysbiosis, they may have more inflammation, they may have cardiometabolic changes that are unfavorable, or they may see tons of benefits just by being on the pill.

So maybe their acne does clear up, or maybe, you know, they find that their mood is a lot more even.

And so that's important to understand is that they think like the menstrual cycle is a confounding variable when in fact, adding an additional medication, 1 that also depletes nutrients, is more problematic.

So sometimes we see that in studies as well.

Drugs do not always affect the ovaries and the testes the same way or people that own those.

And in addition to that, a lot of research will be done on men because it's a lot easier.

But let's not negate the fact that who signs up for these trials.

A lot of times you will find they are young college students who were poor, like I was poor in college.

And so you're getting a certain population.

The real drug trial starts when you introduce this into the general population.

Some providers, I don't know, they just like miss that memo or they don't care, or they're not staying up on the facts that like, just because a study showed that there isn't this side effect when they did the study, once it gets into the general population, now we truly start to understand.

This is why it's so important to believe the patient's story.

When we look at a normal distribution, a bell curve, I actually almost put this in my book and my editor was like, this is a little dry and boring, but I think it's just important to understand in terms of statistics, when we say normal, we have a normal distribution.

So it's going to be a bell curve and in the center is going to be the average, except there are always standard deviations of people who fall outside of that.

And that is normal to fall outside of that to a degree.

And so that is all just to say that if you are having an experience that doesn't match what the research study says, or what your provider says is the only possibility, that doesn't mean you're lying.

That doesn't mean you don't know your body, and that doesn't mean it's not true.

And that's just really important that we always ask the question, what is true for me and what is my experience?

Okay, so this is interesting because to give an example for someone, you said the college-aged, I guess, sample size.

Imagine, just for people listening, this is a great example, I think.

Imagine if we tested the effects of alcohol on a bunch of college aged individuals, and then use that to explain how alcohol affects everyone.

Now, everybody listening knows alcohol feels very different when you're 21 or 22 versus when you're 41 or 42, so that would be very unrepresentative of how that may affect you.

So I think that that kind of illustrates what you're talking about.

The other thing I'm gonna ask you is the difference between common and normal.

In other words, I used to get this with clients all the time where they're like, oh my back hurts, my knee hurts, and they say, but that's you know that's that's normal because I'm you know I'm 45.

Well okay, just because lots of yeah just because lots of people have back pain, any pain doesn't mean that that's that that that's normal.

It's common because so many people don't exercise and so many people are overweight.

So let's talk about the difference between normal and common and why we need to look at normal, not necessarily common in a unhealthy population, for example.

People who have symptoms, people who have problems.

If you're going to your doctor and you've got period problems, fill in the blank, any period problem or hormone related problem, odds are your doctor is going to say, this is normal.

That's because this is what they're seeing day in and day out.

So from their perspective, they're like, this must be normal because everyone has this.

No, these are people who are coming to you.

And so it is very common by some estimates, upwards of 90% of women have struggled with hormone issues at some point in their life.

And when you take a look at our environment, that's not surprising whatsoever.

So to your average doctor, they're gonna be like, Well, because period cramps are so common that people complain of, because PMS is so common, and it is, I mean, 75% of women are estimated to struggle with PMS.

Miserable, pain, not living your life to a full extent, that should not be considered normal.

And it is that dismissal and that mistake that providers make of calling what is common normal that leads to the underdiagnosis of very real and life-threatening conditions sometimes, and if not life-threatening, they at least are hijacking your life and making it so that you can't bring your gifts, your talents to this world and get what you came for.

But at the same time, we have to also recognize that these mindsets of what is common is normal is also told to us via commercials on tv uh cosmo magazine not to call out cosmo but like many magazines you know have indoctrinated us with this and even our own mothers aunts teachers have told us like that's just normal like you get your period and it's painful and you're fatigued and you're breaking out and you feel horrible.

And your doctor or your mom, or maybe your sister is just like, welcome to being a woman, it sucks.

We need to change that narrative because that is absolutely not true.

And to your point about libido, I'm curious if you like read my book and that's how you're still in the know, or if you made observations in your life, like it's completely possible for any man to do, that libido is so much more complex than just hormones.

And yet hormones absolutely play a role in all of this.

Because I wanted to go back to that and shout out that you even said that because a lot of people miss just how complex it can be.

And at the same time, when we talk about this common versus normal, it's often told to men and it's propagated that it's completely normal for women to never be in the moon, for women not to be able to orgasm, for it to be impossible, like finding a unicorn in the forest, you know, is going to be easier than making a woman cum.

These kinds of things are also propagated.

And there are women who also internalize this and believe this to be true about themselves as well.

Of like, oh, well, I'm just not that into it because I'm a woman.

These are more of that common scenarios that are playing out, but not it just to be accepted as normal.

I think part of that is the potential, because we see this in our space too, is that the potential shame that comes from being like, oh, this is something that I can work on.

Maybe this isn't necessarily healthy or normal.

Like you don't have to feel shame around it.

Uh, but, but actually look at it and say, okay, how can I make this better?

And I think that that kind of fuels it a little bit, right?

Like a man may be like, well, that's normal.

You know, that happens to all women to make himself feel better.

Or maybe a woman says that cause she doesn't want to feel the shame associated with some of that.

Are hormone issues more common now, or are we just more aware?

In other words, has the world and our lifestyle changed so much that they're just super common or is it that, you know, people just, you know, they read about it and report it more now.

I think it's both, but I do think it's a lot more common now.

So we are paying attention a lot more to our bodies.

I mean, take it back to like the 1950s and doctors were like, let me just like medicate your that you just can like, you know, numb out to the world and we don't have to listen to you.

And so, I do think that we are, we've got the internet, we are much more body literate than we used to be.

And yet, it is a lot more common to see hormone imbalances because we do live in the most toxic environment that humans have existed in.

So endocrine disruptors, these are exactly what they sound like.

So endocrine means hormone for anyone listening who's like, what's that word?

Endocrine disruptors, exactly what they sound like.

These are chemicals that exist in our environment.

So they might be lining your to-go cup in your coffee container.

I love my coffee, why are you sabotaging me?

They may be found in your personal care products.

And they are also just found in the air that we breathe.

They are everywhere, and they have the capacity to cause issues with your hormone system.

So not just having more issues in terms of PMS and mood symptoms and waking, but also things like increasing your risk of cancer, fibroids, we certainly see that a lot of the common products that women are using, especially in the BIPOC community.

So I have straight hair right now, but I usually have curly hair.

These kinds of products that are targeted to Latinas and to black women, they are very problematic.

And we have studies showing the increased incidences of cancer.

We also have studies showing a correlation, we can't quite say causation yet, of these endocrine disruptors and women starting their period much younger.

We also live in a society, at least in the United States, that is like hustle culture, grind, have babies, but do it without support because you're supposed to be a super mom, go to work all day, run a household.

The nuclear family as it is, has a lot of stress and we are more fragmented than we have been in the past.

I detail all kinds of things in Is This Normal that are leading to our disruption in our hormones.

And another big 1 that I would just mention is our food supply.

I mean, that's another source of endocrine disruptors.

You know, people, the argument always comes of like, organic food is not healthier than non-organic food.

And I'm like, look at the health of the field workers.

And I call bullshit because people who are working in the field, they're dying at a younger age.

They're getting more of these reproductive related cancers.

Like this, These are the people that are being exposed to this, and then you're being exposed to it day in and day out.

And so if you want to just take the argument of like, well, it's such a little exposure to me, then how about you think about the people who are out there laboring to collect your food and to make it so affordable for you, because these chemicals are having an impact.

But there's also, and again, this comes back to the metabolic health, the way that a lot of people are not taught, but then find themselves eating as health food or better choices or even the anti-diet culture that's just like, just eat anything and it's fine.

We see people are eating nutrient-devoid diets and that is what's highly problematic is the highly processed food-like items.

I don't even like to call it food because it's not, if it doesn't deliver nutrients, if it doesn't signal the microbiome in a positive way, if it's not loving up your body, it's not really food.

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2120: Signs Your Hormones are Out of Balance With Dr. Jolene Brighten