In this episode, Dr. Rena Malik is joined by Dr. Sharon Parish to debunk myths and discuss important facts about bioidentical ...

menopause-doctor-breaks-down-the-truth-about-natural-supplements-for-hot-flashes

Menopause Doctor Breaks Down The Truth About Natural Supplements for hot flashes

bioidentical hormones so a lot of people use this terminology and I think it's important for us to debunk the misinformation that we have bioidentical hormones that you can get and you mentioned it earlier from the pharmacy you don't need to go to a special Pharmacy to get a bioidentical hormone bioidentical means similar to your body and any other thoughts you have on that so everything that's available in the entire universe is not you don't take it out of your body and give it back to someone it either comes from like the urine or a body part of animal and then it's m it's synthesized and manufactured into something you can give back to a woman um or it's made in a lab but the idea of bioidentical is being as close as possible to what you made naturally so that when you integrate it or synthesize it it has the most positive effect and the least negative benefit and fortunately when we come we're talking about the two that we have FDA proof products progestin and EST progestogens is the category actually and estrogens and estradi is typically the bioidentical form these are available in a number of formulations we've mentioned some of them all of them I think that are considered to be similar to what women make and some of the compounding pharmacies and other places where these hormones are made and offered have variations on that but they aren't there's really never been any good data at least that we're aware of that these are better safer better integrated lead to less adverse outcomes and they're less predictably studied so we don't know what's going to happen and how they're metabolized and how they might build up or affect end organ or cause harm and that's one of the issues and the problems but if you want bioidentical the good news is this is one of the areas fortunately where what's synthesized is quite close to what we what we are trying to return or replace yes you said that much better than me it's so hard because it's it's a it's a you know a concept that you know I I would love to like Infuse something from the universe that's already like me but anything you get is made somewhere else yeah unless you're doing like PRP or something like spitting yourself right um and you can't B somebody asked me this once can you Bank your own hormones yeah you can they're so high when you're young maybe someday but not yet not yet um and then I got a couple questions about like rose hip oil and those sorts of Prim rose oil soy those sorts of things is there benefit to those I I know black Coos has some good data but I wasn't aware of the data on those other so black hos is a is the the best product I would recommend because it's regulated and it's marketed and regulated by the German government which does a very good job with herbal supplements as a herb and it's marketed as Remy Phantom there other versions of black hos but um again no commercial interest in anything specific but that seems to have some good data for controlling hot flashes there are some other available supplements around that are touted to improve symptoms I've never seen good trials and any others that have been consistently reliably tested and shown to be helpful for for menopausal symptoms the use of soy so there been some food soy studies the the supplements are trickier but the bottom line is eating the equivalent of like a quarter to a half of cake of tofu or a half a cup of shell edamami every day gives you some modest Improvement in hot flashes so if estral takes you from 10 to 12 hot flashes a day down to 8 to 10 with soy you probably get rid of a couple you still have six or eight or 10 so and you have to eat that much like you literally have to eat that every day it's a lot yeah it's a fair amount but not not undoable you know and what about seeds like I've been hearing a lot about seed cycling I have not seen any good evidence or had seen my patients have any reliable or consistent responses to that a lot of this is you know it doesn't mean that anecdotally it helped someone that it doesn't help but you're asking me like sort of scientific medical you know Rec it help you but we don't have data and then the other um issue is are there any supplements for sexual function so there is something called Rella MH which is a proprietary formula that basically works with the nitric oxide pathway it's available through also so I mentioned one of the other products it's available through a specific company called Bonafide it it has um a mixture of proprietary products including things that work through nitric oxide inv vasodilatory Pathways picol there's a bunch of you can look at the formula in the ingredients that Pro may help with genital arousal and have a feedback on having a better event and wanting desire that's in another example and there are a few small trials that are more like serial trials than randomized control trials but um where you look at a series of people is what that there's there's a fancier name for that but that's the idea you know if people ask me what are natural things you can do for menopausal symptoms there's the behavioral stuff there may be a couple of herbal or supplements that help with hot or one at least for sexual function libido it's pretty much there's there's some other supplements with Al Arginine and the one I mentioned maybe and then some of the Pharmaceuticals possible hormones and also there's a like there's other a whole colle of things we haven't talked about is the role of Behavioral strategies for me when we're talking specifically about sexual function then some work on things like mindfulness mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy Group Training on improving or enhancing sexuality in the diad or in the Dynamics and there's some very good books for example I love Lori br's book called better sex through mindfulness she's going to join us on the podcast later so so that's another example so those are all different things can do that if you don't want to use hormon I mean there's a whole Spectrum in other words for both menopausal and sexual symptoms great well thank you we end with just a few sort of fun questions what's something that you know now in your life that you wish you knew earlier oh boy it just it doesn't have to result in the field no anything you want to share I wish that I had known about cross country skiing really I know we were talking about how nice it is to live in a warm climate cuz I was just talking about this before I came I'm Runner and I like to exercise and but as you get a little bit older as you become midlife and so forth and things start to ache and hurt and only in the past couple of Seasons as my husband who loves to cross country ski got me to agreed to go and it's so impact and like I love it and so you know I wish I had learned about that earlier cuz I I like to be active yeah and avoid like the harm or the injury and we have to adapt as we get older so it sort of fits the theme right right um and I guess never too late to try something new yeah um I guess the other thing is I wish I had um it sounds really really weird but realized how much I would love having College age children who are becoming young adults really yeah because as another this is kind of I have to stay thematic as a midlife and Beyond woman you know I had a little of the sadness when my kids launched off to college they're both in college in different years and you know these they seem to be engaging you know like one is on a term abroad we're going to visit the other one competes as a high level ath and we're like following them around and doing things and we interact with them very differently and I thought I would really be sad you know losing that part of myself as a woman and as a mom and I thought oh my God I spend too much time working and not enough time with my kids and I guess the positive part is like it's fun now and so I didn't really miss anything so know midlife isn't sad that's really encouraging to hear as someone who has younger kids what is a non-negotiable you have to do every day exercise yeah I will be an hour late for a meeting for a brunch tell someone that I can't come because I have to find time to exercise and it doesn't always have to be like now I'm more careful but some form of exercise it's just like my it's my safe space it's my Haven yeah and there's like I either have to be really sick or it has to be a like a holiday where like it just doesn't make sense yeah for me to miss a day and what's something you wish would change about the world oh my well things I can't say there's so many things you can say or you want to share in a I think that some of the idealism that was non-controversial that everybody sort of uniformly believed in I wish it were more like that you know cuz now like everybody's idea about idealism is so fractured yeah you know like there things like that we think back on the history of like at least this country I live in the United States where like everybody kind of thought like that's really great about this and now there's so many different views on what makes something great everyone's a contrarian almost yeah and last question is what's a health hack you want to share or life hack I like sun yeah me too you know like sometimes I'll just be like I have to walk outside I go okay I'm going to stand here in the Sun for 60 seconds not look at my phone not do anything else it's going to make me feel so good and it takes so much work just stop for 60 seconds and um so I don't know maybe that's an example that's great I mean I did that today like in between the meeting I went out and um stood in the sun well thank you so much let us know let the audience know know where they can find you so my I live in New York City or the New York City area I live in the service I work for wild Cornell Medical College and you could find me on that's the easiest thing just to find me online through wild Corel Medical College I think that's easier than thinking about the various social media Outlets I interact with but that's the best place to find me awesome well thank you so much it's an honor having you oh wonderful it's been this conversation's been really stimulating and a lot of interesting ideas and a lot of fun so thank you yeah thank you thank you guys so much for joining us today on the Reena Malik MD podcast if you are enjoying this podcast please be sure to check us out on YouTube or give us a rating or review on Apple podcast or Spotify this allows our content to reach more and more individuals and I'll appreciate it so much if you want to learn more from me make sure to follow my handle on other social media platforms including Instagram X Tik Tok and more and as always remember going to take care of yourself because you worth it

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