Neutering and HRT

Here we go, we are live, gentlemen, we are live. Brend, do you want to do the honors?

Uh, yes, well, I'm just introducing one other. Uh, so tonight we have the Marvels. Let me just change this so that we're all here. Um, so this is where it's all going to go horribly wrong when I try everybody at the same time. Um, I have, uh, got together some of my good friends because I really am passionate about hormone replacements and what's going on with neutering and how alternatives to neutering should be talked about. And what we end up often discussing is, yeah, but I've already had my pet neutered. So in the past, we've had some great interviews with guests when we've talked about alternatives to neutering. But I thought tonight it would be great to look at that question of what happens if we need to replace hormones. So I'd like to introduce, for those of you don't know, Rowan Sanderson, who is a functional medicine practitioner who has a lot of great information on the human side. He runs the Hormone Balance Clinic. I'll just pop that up so that people can see where that's at. And that's helping absolutely thousands of people understand more about their own hormones. I know that he is, he has coaching classes for a few hundred now, is it, Rowan? Something like that, that you're taking on and helping individually. But so many people do dip in for the information. And then of course, down in the bottom corner to my side is the great Peter Dobias. And so many of you will know him from conferences that he's spoken at, from his great sites that he's got too. We're going to share the links that he's written very much about the veterinary side of hormone replacement and neutering. He's done some great interviews as well, so lots of stuff. So the Hormone Health for dogs. I'll put those links up later. And he's there. Now, guys, there are 3 people using Starlink tonight. And so we are going to have some funky ins and outs on pictures. If some of them look like they're psychedelic on an LSD, don't worry. It's just the satellite passing over the trees. Okay.

Have we accidentally given Elon Musk right of veto on our conversation?

Well, When it comes to hormones.

No, actually it's a Canadian, Canadian internet providers who were supposed to be here 8:00 AM this morning and it's almost 12 and they're still not here.

And Peter, it was lovely to meet you. I've never had the luxury of meeting you in person.

Nice to meet you as well.

I love your content. So thank you. Oh, thank you.

Thank you as well. I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about and, you know, maybe even beyond this broadcast because I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you.

Thank you.

So I am going to do some wizardry, hopefully, and bring people in so that we're not all little miniatures sat on people's screens as they're trying to peer into their phones and work out who's who. So I'm going to be trying to edit desperately to give each speaker a little bit of time when we ask questions in full screen. It's going to be so hilarious. This could go horribly wrong. But please be careful when you're not on screen what you say, because They can still hear you.

Are you saying that pointedly at anyone in particular, Brendan, or is that just generic?

He's sat just below the Raw Pet Medics sign right now. Oh look, he's got upset. He's taking his earbuds out because he can't hear us.

Well, he's decided to give the brain a break from Bluetooth, non-native EMFs just bombarding his mitochondrial sensing.

I do worry about that.

We should.

That's really interesting. Basically, air tubes, copper, copper insulated, massive dramatic difference in radiation and frequencies in your head.

Is that what they're called?

Air tubes?

Yeah. I'm doing some mitochondrial medicine mentoring at the moment with a fantastic female in in Canada, actually. And it was one of the first things she said is, you know, for dropping anxiety, depression, improving focus, energy levels, sleep is mitigating all non-native EMFs. And it's always been something we've covered in the clinic. And even we talked about Bella Duke, about keeping your dog away from Wi-Fi routers when they sleep. I've seen such a difference in the household from downregulating all non-native EMFs, and it's an easy win. It's an absolute easy win. I know it's not on topic and I've just gone on a mini rant, so I apologize. It had to be shared to the world.

What devices are you talking about, Rowan, when you're talking about reducing non-native EMFs? What sort of devices are you talking about getting on top of?

Well, the number one for me is AirPods, and the reason for that is proximity and duration of usage. So if you're on a 40-minute phone call and you've got this beaming Bluetooth basically right next to your brain, it's really not optimal. And actually, I've got now numerous clients turning around and saying they've found increasing focus, energy, and mood and less headaches.

Well, so we have already gone off topic. We are literally less than 6 minutes in and we have managed to talk about something that's totally irrelevant. And so I'm going to bring us back on topic because there are people crying for this information. And so I sort of really want to, just as Peter's new to us, bring Peter in for a moment. And we were talking earlier today about him rescuing dogs from being neutered. So I'm going to ask, you know, what alternatives are you giving clients, customers right now, Peter, for those that are questioning whether they want to go for neutering? What's your basic advice before we go into hormone replacement? Just your basic advice.

Well, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, as you may know, announced in 2024 that conventional spay and neuter is actually not the best option for our dogs, even when it comes to population control. So we actually use hormone-sparing sterilization, which means vasectomies for dogs and ovary-sparing spays. Now, vasectomies for dogs are, I would just say, good for rescue organizations and shelters that really want to control population. When you have a responsible dog owner that is actually just taking their dog on leash or under control and make sure that they won't find a little girlfriend somewhere on the side, then then they, the males, can stay intact. And that's what the World Small Animal Veterinary Association recommends. When it comes to females, we do recommend removing the uterus, mainly because there's a 25% chance of pyometra. So, you know, as dogs age, there is a fairly large chance that you end up in an emergency clinic if you don't remove the uterus. So you can decide to do it middle-aged, maybe that's still safe because younger dogs don't have pyometras often, but as they age, the likelihood will increase. So that's why we recommend overexperiencing space. And I do have a dog that was neutered the traditional way, and I can actually tell you the story later if there is time, but I've had an absolutely mind-blowing experience with my own dog and now with many other dogs, and it's wild.

Brilliant. So from a point of view of where we go from here, I think that's brought people into what they think might be a good alternative to standard neutering. Guys, I want us to quickly check in with Rowan from a point of view of where we are with hormones in people, because many of us really have been recognizing what's going on, usually because of all of the information that's coming out in the press on menopause. Now, I understand— oh, and Rowan's just gone dead at that point. No, he's not. So I just want to check with humans for the standard hormone replacement that's available. What are you identifying as being probably the biggest problem in conventional medicine that you're seeing with customers coming to your site?

Okay, so great question. And first, he's just saying, I mean, how sanguine and insightful is all of that? And it really plays to all of my values. And this will answer your question, Brendan, in that I don't see these hormones any longer as simply sex hormones. I see them as longevity compounds. And this is really reflected in the symptomatology of the clientele that we see coming to the clinic on a daily basis. People who have, you know, advanced anxiety, depression, poor lipid expression and all of their heart markers, because obviously estrogen plays an essential role in the regulation thereof. They have poor energy levels because obviously estrogen is a key antioxidant in mitochondrial health. It's also a metabolic regulator in the right amounts. It actually, in the correct amounts, prevents visceral, visceral fat accumulation. And then, of course, all the benefits of progesterone, which are, you know, gut motility, opposing progesterone, preventing it becoming proliferative, the depth and quality of people's sleep, and also for the majority of the population, and this isn't 100% the case, but progesterone can go largely down two pathways. We sure— we repeat often that it's quite a calming hormone. You know, it's very much the yin to estrogen's yang. And that's not always the case because it can be metabolized and sit on the glutamate receptors rather than the GABA receptors. So it can make people a little bit excitable. But net-net, what we're seeing in conventional medicine is that people are not being tested correctly. First and foremost, it's been assumed they are in menopause rather than perimenopause. And the easy way to think of differentiate is one is a very turbulent sea state in which hormones have a large difference. You know, normally estrogen is is not balanced, it's significantly higher than progesterone, whereas in menopause and obviously 12 months after the last cycle, then all hormone levels are low and the protection that they bring is low. So if you actually just assume someone's in menopause when they're actually in perimenopause and top up their hormones with a one-size-fits-all solution, you could be exacerbating that gap. And estrogen in excess is associated with depression. All the same, in fact, all the same symptoms as estrogen. So testing and understanding where you are before proceeding, because hormones are a super tool, is just essential. I think it's, it's morally negligent to not test people before helping them on their hormone journey.

So thank you so much. I think, look, Nick and Conor, you have also sort of experience of what people are asking. Nick, I'm going to come to you. You've got some probably situations that you want to raise here, and I think it'd be really useful for you to come in and, you know, your experiences and what you feel about neutering and, and what happens if you're trying to replace hormones in your practice. Do you want to just share where you're at and see if we can get some answers?

Yeah, for sure.

I think the whole concept of removing gonads at an early age— and Rowan, you may or may not know that, that in the veterinary profession we can do it as, as early as 9 weeks of age in puppies. Which is in many circles accepted. And I think that this is just, frankly, barbarism. But for me, physiologically, removing gonads before puberty is also very, very unacceptable. Imagine going— for the women in the audience, imagine going through menopause before you've even hit puberty. Okay, that's, that's what essentially we are discussing. And for the boys, imagine not even ever hitting puberty. Now, that sounds like a terrible thing, but in fact, the, the, the sex hormones— and boys have oestrogens as well as the obvious testosterone— they have a massive toning effect on the body. They are there for a reason. Mother Nature is very economic with how she uses her hormones, and the thought of having to, of removing those, is a bad idea. In fact, Rodney has just posted that the later the neutering, if it has to be done, then that has a significant impact on longevity. That is to say that the further after puberty that you do it, the paper suggests that that has a dramatic impact on longevity. So that kind of says it all, really. So in my practice, I see a lot of patients who are having problems post-neutering. Neutering is the general term for removing male gonads, female gonads. And I tend to go down the, the, the, the, the, the the homeopathic route. I find homeopathics are very useful in many hormonal situations. And so really, that's, that's the way to go. But I always love to talk to people like Peter and Rowan because they can bring in some very heavy physiology and a very subtle effect. Rowan, from the human side, Peter from the veterinary side. So very much welcoming their input on these things.

Yeah. And Conor, from your side of things, are you seeing people asking about replacing with various gonads that you can get from abattoirs and stuff like that in the foods? Are you seeing people asking for supplements from you guys? What's, what's happening from Dogs First point of view?

That's exactly where my questions are for Rowan and Peter. Yeah, like, you know, they're very popular articles, the neutering articles, and then what can you do if your dog has been neutered? So very popular question. The top-selling hormone replacement kind of product out there is herbal-based, and there's no kind of, you know, nothing what you would expect inside it. It doesn't look like hormone replacement therapy to me. It's a very popular product that's sold on Amazon and But I think people are now more tiptoeing towards, well, can we replace the hormones that are now lost by feeding testicles and wombs of various or uterus of various animals, uteri? And so I have no idea about that. I thought these things were protein-based and so I would be surprised if they would evade the digestive system and get through. Like you can't, you can't ingest insulin by mouth, you know, that won't work. So I'm interested to know, is, is there any options? What is the natural hormonal replacement therapy for pets? Does it work? What are the options for people once the job has been done? They're my questions.

So I think that's a great place to then start. I think from a point of view of, for me, we're going to start on the female side. And I know there's been some people saying, look, I've gone through menopause, I'm absolutely fine. I don't need any other replacements, I'm coping really well. And that's right, some people do. And Rowan, you know, what happens when, you know, our gonads effectively shut down and we're no longer producing hormones there? You talk to, you know, you talk about them as longevity hormones. There are other organs within the body that take over that mantle of what hormones are producing. Do you want to just run us through that briefly before we start talking about hormone replacement? Sure.

I'm sorry I didn't catch all of it because there seems to be some internet trickery around. Clearly Elon is not aligned with our conversation. But you know what? We didn't need it. So, you know, just, Nick, you hit on something there very— and I'll just add to it very quickly what we're seeing in the human world and particularly around females, because there's a lot more data around hormone replacement therapy in females is the sooner they commence bioidentical hormone replacement therapy as they hit perimenopause, the greater longevity outcomes they have. And when you think of the amount of estrogen receptors there is in the brain, its protective effects against Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, as well as the benefits for lipid profiles and energy, it makes to me a simple and beautiful sense that if your mitochondria are functioning, your immune system is better armed to protect you and your cells are better armed to be able to identify precancerous cells and initiate apoptosis. So, you know, Brendan, can you repeat your question?

Because there's a part of it that I only got now. It was rich. Oh, it looks like your internet is going a little. It was really if we're losing our function of our gonads and obviously with surgical removal, that's eliminating function of the gonads. What area of the bodies tend to take over that function if we've got nothing there? Because there are some people that will report that they feel no effects of losing their gonadal function over time. Especially going through menopause. And, you know, that is a degree of women. Absolutely. Some people will report the other end, massive effects. So what could be going on in the rest of their bodies? And then we're going to bring Peter in to talk about what may be happening on the animal side.

Okay. So just answering this from an endocrinological view, if, for instance, ovarian ceases, the DHEA, dehydroepiandrosterone, which is produced in the cortex of the adrenal glands, can carry some of the slack. So DHEA is quite a wonderful hormone. It has immense neurological benefits and it can either go— let's look at this as it can branch left and turn into testosterone, or it branches right and turns into some of the estrogens, estradiol, E2, for instance. So your body can carry some of the slack. To conflate that with symptoms through perimenopause and menopause is assuming that all the symptoms in perimenopause and menopause are actually hormone driven. What we're seeing is that a large degree of those symptoms are actually created by underlying inflammation created by gut problems created by poor hormone expression. So, you know, it's a little bit more new or complicated.

Yeah.

You're understanding the playing field now, but great.

So I think what's great is all—

but we'll actually pick up some of the slack.

Yeah. So sorry about the internet, guys. Just to remember, if the sound goes a bit funny, the great news is everybody's recording their sound individually. The podcast will be seamless due to our wonderful sound guy, Peter. Thank you very much for doing this podcast for us. And you should be able to listen as you're walking your dogs to this in just the most excellent sound quality, hopefully reminding everybody to press go on their microphones if they haven't already, because that's Conor's trick normally. So I will just pass over. So Peter, when we're looking at the neutered dog side of things, what's your experience? Let's talk about females first and neutered females. What's your experience for some of the symptoms that people might want to look out for if their dogs have been neutered that might mean that help with their hormone replacement, which isn't massive on the female side in the veterinary world, may be required?

Yeah, I definitely agree that the female side of hormone replacement is a little less clear, and many of my friends and colleagues were discussing why it is so much more complicated in females than males. But the reason is that the female cycle and hormone production and the whole existence is actually a little more complicated on the reproduction levels. I personally have much more experience in male side of hormone replacement, but I can tell you what I think is happening. And some of the studies have been derived from human studies. And Dr. Michelle Ketzler basically started her research based on the studies in women. So the— I would say that the effect is kind of multi-level, that when you remove the gonads early, the metabolic effect, the development effect on the organs and body and connective tissue and the brain is huge. If you remove the organs after that, then I agree that there is a little bit less of an effect, but I— based on my experience, the effect is still quite fun and is enough for us to look for other avenues. But when it comes to removing the hormones, as we just discussed here a minute ago, the adrenal glands try to take over. So we actually see a lot of stress on the adrenal glands. The pituitary gland will actually start pumping luteinizing hormone, and the luteinizing hormone doesn't have the final destination there anymore. The ovaries and testicles are not there, so it starts attaching to it. In, in dogs, we start seeing injury-prone dogs, we start seeing ligament tears, we start seeing hypothyroidism, we see actually inflammation. The receptors are also in the amygdala and other centers of the brain. So we start seeing changes in behavior. So the impact is huge. And the alternative is basically like if you're looking for hormone replacement in females, as I said, there's still a little bit of a discussion what we should be doing. But I have colleagues who is only estrogen. And I have colleagues, some colleagues who are very adventurous and go all the way to the other side and say, I'm going to use only testosterone. And I personally feel that the truth should be looking into replacement, replacing estrogen, and also adding some testosterone. And when we get to males, it's actually much easier. And I don't want to jump the gun and go further. But, you know, there's like, I definitely think that there's the the effect of the absence of the reproduction hormones. Then there is the luteinizing hormone effect and the inflammatory kind of effect of this hormone, especially when it shoots up from normal values to 30 times the normal values. So it's, it's, it's, it's huge. And that's why dogs and probably people feel the same symptoms of achiness and mood swings. And the body, it's not their fault. The body just basically is missing very important metabolic hormones and, and it'll impact. And the other thing is that some of the hormones actually play a role, as, as you mentioned, Rowan, metabolic, you know, glucose, glucose and insulin sensitivity, fat, fat metabolism, connective tissue, and even fibroblasts and other cells are actually suffering from the absence of the hormones. So it's like an avalanche, like it's, it's like a serious problem. When I discovered this, I was shocked but also relieved that we now know why some of these animals, despite getting good food and good supplements and chiropractics and homeopathy or herbs, whatever they get, they are not getting better. And now we have something that is just profound. Like, I think that in the 30 years or 37 years I've been practicing, this is the, this is the greatest shift in how we understand healing and medicine. And that's one.

So there's, there's a really beautiful thing to add to this, if I may, and that if you look in the human population, approximately 82% of all cases of autoimmune disease in North America are actually in the female population. And if you dive down into that data, the majority of these are going through or have transitioned through perimenopause and menopause. And that's because estrogen plays such an important role both as an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, which I appreciate, you know, but also it plays a key role in the integrity of the gut. So without that to actually regulate that or to play a part in the jigsaw of gut integrity regulation, you see people with profound intestinal permeability, which if we look at any of the work from Dr. Alessandra Fasano, tells us that intestinal permeability is one of the legs connects the three legs of the stool of autoimmune. And it absolutely bamboozles me as to why we're not correlating this 82% of the population with autoimmune disease and seeking very proactive solutions. Because if this is largely hormone driven and it's not purely hormone driven, but hormones are the tipping point then by definition we can reverse it. We can actually create a much healthier society.

I really love what you just said. And sorry, Brendan, I don't want to interrupt you, but what I, I really like what you said because it almost seems that we actually first have to look after the hormonal and metabolic health in order for us to actually start addressing the issues and then see what is left as opposed to doing the other way around. Because if we don't have functioning metabolism, how can the body recover? Like, that's impossible.

When you think these steroid hormones are 100% cholesterol molecules, they're 100% made from cholesterol with maybe like 0.3% of other factors. They're key signaling molecules. They actually, you know, regulate brain health, mood, happiness, ability to function, ability of our cells to, to actually identify, you know, tumors. This is astonishing. I mean, it's such a huge part of the jigsaw. We could literally change human and pet health if we just picked up the marks on the table right now.

What are the quick ways to identify hormonal imbalances in humans, Ro? What quick options do we have available, or is it intricate lab work that costs thousands of euros?

I know it's not internet lab work at all. First of all, you cannot do it through symptomatology. That's just a giant myth that's out there in the hands of people who are really not interested or really fully invested in human or pet health. So they'll just say, oh, you don't need to test, you can diagnose from symptoms. That's an utter fallacy. And the reason is that oestrogen excess symptoms, and there's like 7 or 8 key ones. Let's look at that. We always work your way down the body. Inability to focus, verbal recall, brain fog, anxiety, depression.

Some—

all of this stuff is the exact same. Exactly the same as estrogen lack. There's only two symptoms which differentiate, and that is basically vaginal atrophy or dryness and thinning skin on the face. So for a practitioner to say, hey, you don't need to test, you, you risk supplementing where you don't need to supplement and making the problem worse. The most insightful test you can do a blood test, but you need to be very assiduous about timing in both the day and the cycle. I always use a Dutch test. Why? Because it shows you the hormone metabolites, not just the bank balances of your hormones, but how your body breaks those down. And it's actually when people say, oh, hormones create cancer, that's an utter— that's a giant basket of twaddle. Because it's not the bank balances of hormones which are linked to cancers. It's actually the way your body metabolizes, breaks down, or spends those bank balances. And the great news is that's not genetically driven. You have a massive influence over that and how it's converted into, for example, methoxyestrogens through lifestyle, through diet, and through some really intelligent polyphenol supplementation. You can transform people's cancer risk like in as little as 6 weeks.

So yeah, that Dutch test is a urine test, a series of— it's a series of tests of the urine over a few days that are posted into a lab and you get your results back. Is that correct? Is that what a Dutch test is? Measuring metabolites in wee? Okay.

Yeah. And yeah, and the reason it's actually done throughout the course of 24 hours is because you want to be able see your daytime, your diurnal cortisol curve. Now, interestingly, Peter picked up on this and said, hey, you know, we've noticed that, you know, without the target tissues, the ovaries are no longer there, luteinizing hormones sending all these effects, cortisol. You see people going into perimenopause with huge spikes in cortisol. And correspondingly tying this all up together, cortisol is the arch, arch enemy of healthy thyroid production. Excess cortisol suppresses T3. So what you have is you've got a whole load of people going into hypothyroidism and suddenly you think it's their fault or they've got Hashimoto's. And actually it's— it comes back to the point is that their base steroid sex hormones are imbalanced.

Great. So I think we're going to be moving on to the male side because that is certainly more work has been done on the hormone replacement in the veterinary world for the male side. And I think it'd be really interesting to see what Peter thinks. But also, I know Rowan does a lot of female hormone sort of balance, but understands a little bit about the male hormone balance and things that are required. So it'd be interesting just to see if we can review whether there's any tweaks to what he hears is happening in the veterinary side. And, you know, alarm bells may ring, Rowan, but I'll bring you in to have a comment at some point. But right now, where are we at, Peter, when it comes to castration and following castration, you know, the male hormones in those patients? What, what may be symptoms that we see on the male dog side that are little indicators that we might be needing to do something? And as Rowan was just saying, are there any tests out there for us to consider? Are those hormone levels needing adjustment in the first place?

Yeah, so I, I've had— unfortunately, I have a firsthand experience with my dog Pax, and I thought I was a responsible dog owner and dog lover, and I neutered him at the age of 2 years. He grew up amazingly strong, just an amazing dog, healthy and happy and all that stuff. And pretty much within 6 months after I neutered him, he started limping, and we couldn't figure it out. And it's been— it, it took about 2 and a half years until I put him on HRT. The changes were so slow and, and kind of they, they creeped up on us. Uh, first he just limped the odd time, and then he couldn't swim because he got aggravated every time he swam. And there's some videos on my website at the hormonehealthfordogs.com page. But he was basically a wreck at the age of 2 and a half months— 3 months— sorry, 2 and a half years, 3 years. He was a complete wreck. Like, I couldn't swim, I couldn't hike, and It was one of those situations where you go, oh my goodness, I totally feel like a failure because I can't help my dog and I thought I knew it all. So it's actually a very humbling situation. But then I stumbled across the studies of Dr. Michelle Kutzler and Linda Brent, and they discovered— and I actually very much seen the same thing— that as soon as dogs get neutered, they start losing muscle mass. And in combination with the strong bones and, you know, solid body and the muscles, they get weaker, they actually start getting injured. So that's one thing. Also, the luteinizing hormone will start wreaking havoc virtually in the whole body. The research that has been done and confirmed is cruciate ligament tears are actually very much related to the luteinizing hormone complexes or, or receptors, and the luteinizing hormone latches onto the ligaments. And start creating autoimmune inflammatory reaction, and it leads to tears. Hypothyroidism, again, pretty much the same thing. Behavior changes. I'm not sure what your experience is, but my experience now when I'm kind of looking at it is that number one, dogs become very kind of low and deflated, depressed, and we think that they've matured or they're more sleepy just because they have nothing to do. It's absolutely not true. So that's one thing. Second, behaviorally, we see a lot of reactivity in neutered dogs and neutered— whether it's females or males— because the amygdala and the emotional centers of the brain actually have these LH complexes as well, and they cause inflammation and changes in the brain. So people experience fearfulness, agitation, reactivity, and so on. So we end up in situations where we think our dogs are just problematic, but they're not. And Rowan, I'm not sure what you think of this, but I've been— and I would love to know your opinion. We are kind of like derailing a little bit, but I'm really intrigued that menopause is actually quite parallel or aligned with the divorce rate in people. And I just, I just had, you know, a couple of friends husband and wife were going through divorce for a year. They were going through divorce proceedings. The wife finally decides to go on HRT. 3 months later, they're getting together and they're like absolutely fine. And I think that we should actually stop blaming ourselves, stop blaming our dogs for being misbehaved, and stop blaming ourselves for actually having changes. In males, it probably happens later, right, in 60s and so on. We get grumpy and old. Anyway, it's just, you know, there's so much material that we could probably talk for like 5, 10 hours, and I just hope that we'll, we'll continue this discussion. But anyway, in a nutshell, that's what I've seen, the symptoms.

Well, Peter, to, to answer your question, the, the divorce rate— and this is one of the things I actually spoke with when we launched the clinic in its, in its for that. And I appreciate this sounds like it's not hubristic as in around me. I mean, hubristic around the topic is I said to these people when we were getting together is you do realize that you're actually changing the outcome of family life, of divorce rate, of people's enjoyment of experience, their longevity and their ability to thrive and contribute to society, hormones are key signaling messengers. They're essential for life. They're essential for preventing us being grumpy, for us not being a defensive asshole, for us being able to be present and listen to somebody else's view. And of course, I've always, you know, it strikes me that menopause and let's just say perimenopause and menopause, we'll just wrap it up in one for the moment. Is the biggest single physical, emotional, spiritual transition that any human, male or female, can go through between birth and death. It's a major identity change. It's a major identity change. And suddenly you don't have the faculties, the clear thought, the ability to sleep, to be able to deal with it. There's 6,000 people in North America alone going into perimenopause every day. And yet it's still a huge lacuna in medicine as to how we look after these people properly. And for me, it starts right at the beginning, which is let's just test and find out what's going on so at least we can supplement where they need it. But it's such a bigger thing as well, because this isn't just a chat about hormones. It's a huge part of it is inflammation and stress. And what we've seen from over 7 million Dutch tests over the last decade is that the two biggest influences on hormones in humans are stress and inflammation. And unless we're managing those alongside hormone replacement, responsible, intelligent, strategic hormone replacement, it's like painting the galley of a boat which has got holes in it. it's a bit pointless. So when I use the term holistic, I don't mean, you know, we need to use some products from Holland and Barrett. I mean, we need to be looking at stress and inflammation and hormones to totally look after the female population responsibly.

Mm-hmm. So let's then just move to what is currently available in hormone replacement on the male side. There's various clinics that are popping up around the world. I know that I've seen a couple in the UK now that are saying that they're specializing in hormone replacement. I've seen that they generally are just talking about testosterone. What's happening on your side of the pond over in Canada and America, Peter? Have you— are you seeing a lot of replacement therapies. What's happening, Bren?

I'm just going to stop you there. It's 19— guys, sorry, I'm just going to stop you there. It's 19:43, um, and we're gonna way overrun.

Do you want to keep going? Do you want to keep going and knock them to Patreon? Because this information we're going to get is going to be pretty important for people. What do you actually want to do?

It's just that we do have an obligation to our Patreon people. We do.

I, I think we've, we've got something that we can give them, um, in the last 10 minutes or so, I think for now let's just see what's happening on the standard side and then we'll talk about that. We'll talk about weaknesses and we'll talk about tweaks that we could maybe bring in as holistic therapies over on Patreon just in the last part of the hour. So, Peter, yeah, what's, what's, what's happening? What's happening on the conventional side with these hormone replacements that is there? You know, are they just giving testosterone? Are they using any of the superlorins? Are they— what's happening?

So, um, I'd love to say that, that a lot is happening, but not much is happening, mainly because so many people are so entrenched in the old practices and the status quo. So Parsemus.org, which is the organization that sponsors most of the research on the animal side, on the pet side, has a list of veterinarians who are open to hormone-sparing sterilization and hormone replacement. Now, what I've been doing with the patients that I have, and I'm currently licensed only in the U.S., retired from practice in Canada in 2018. What I've been doing, I've been using on the male side, I've been using GnRH agonist, which actually reduces or stops the production of LH, luteinizing hormone, and testosterone together. And the reason for that is that in the research, we discovered that If we use only testosterone, we have to use much higher doses, and the doses can be actually causing some side effects. But if we use the GnRH agonist that basically stops the production of luteinizing hormone, we see a reduction of inflammation and all the changes that we would normally see after neutering actually, they subside. And then we introduce subcutaneous injections of testosterone, and that's what I've been doing. The dose is 0.5 5 milligrams per kilogram once a week. And across the board, like with all the patients that I've used it with, and Dr. Michelle Ketzler and Linda Brandt, we've seen just really predictable, beautiful results. And it really depends on how old the animals are. So my dog was fairly young, so I started seeing changes within 3 months, but the changes started kind of like it hasn't stopped and it's been a year and a half after energy level. My dog has basically not been injured for a year and a half.

Oh, and that's Starlink just cutting out for Peter. But I think that gives us a good sort of level and a good point to break before we go into holistic stuff. And I'm going to— we're going to listen on Patreon to Rowan and, you know, what's going on that side of things. Sorry, Peter, you cut out for a moment. So I'm just going to— we're just going to bring you over to Patreon to talk about some of those other conventional bits and the rest of the male hormone. I think we've got a good idea about the level of testosterone that people can use alongside GnRH, have that discussion. You know, there's some great information on your website. I've shared that earlier. For the dog hormone replacements. And I think that's a really good place to seek more information about somewhere also that might be closer to you if you're looking for clinics around the world. I think Pasimos, as you mentioned, is collating as many people that are on board as possible so that they can direct clients that are experiencing this for their pets to those, to those vets. So do have a look at that site. Guys, it's been wonderful. I'm going to bring Nick in more because he's been quite quiet tonight because I think there's so many people on that we're intently listening to that we need to have a proper chat. And so what you'll probably see is a 5 of us all live together pretty much like this in a moment. So we're going to be over on Patreon. All attentive, listening, chatting, interacting. So glad you could join us tonight. Remember, if you had any problems with the sound, do apologize. We've got excellent sound recording that will go out on the podcast so you can listen to us on your favorite podcast station. So great. Anything else to add, guys, before we hop over?

There's people singing your praises, Roland, people that are working with you. So you can see in the comments there in Facebook and YouTube that there's a— I know lots of people, half the women in my life are with Rowan and getting immediate benefits. So that's, that's going well, Rowan. So fair dues. And I'm sure, Tobias, your information for pets is very, very valuable as well. So it's a learning curve. It's just, there's just so much to learn. I've got one more question before we jump over. If hormones are so important, how come women don't suffer terribly when their hormones plummet after menopause?

Who's going to go with that one? Is that the deathly silence? You've got 5 blokes on screen all going—

I just checked.

It's like the 5th of August, not April 1st. Don't react. Testosterone level prevented me from being reactive.

That is a serious question. I want to know. Am I assuming that their hormonal levels do plummet afterwards, or do they just decreased slightly and, you know.

Oh no, it's a violent crash. It is a violent crash. And, you know, even with the standard hormonal replacement therapy, it barely touches the minimum effective dose. So this is really important because, you know, up until, let's just say back in, you know, year when men, I don't know, believed the world circled around the sun. They basically— that the world was flat. You would look to supplement either with estriol, E3, because we thought it was the least dangerous. This gives us an idea of what the thinking on it was. The lightest hormone for some minimal efficacy because we wanted to avoid cancer. The reality is quite the opposite, that these hormones are protective as long as they're balanced. And I'd love to hear Peter's view on this. And, you know, even dogs without, for instance, a uterus, in my opinion, just what I understand from humans, would benefit from progesterone, not for the uterine protective properties, but for the anti-proliferative properties. Of estrogen. We're seeing this in the human world all the time. And I'll just do a very quick scenario on how this works. Like, this is a classic example I hear like 5 times a week. Female comes into the clinic, says, I started HRT and then stopped. I went to my doctor. He diagnosed me in menopause. She was actually in perimenopause. She was in huge estrogen dominance. They gave me a one-size-fits-all patch solution. Suddenly her estrogen's through the roof. My symptoms got worse. My boobs were enormous. I couldn't get off the sofa. I hated my husband. I thought I was going to kill my kids. Actual words I hear people coming out. I put on 20 pounds and then I got endometriosis. They removed my womb. They put me back on HRT, but this time they didn't give me progesterone because I didn't have a womb and I don't need it. So you've pushed someone into estrogen dominance, you've given them uterine fibroids and endometriosis. You've then medievally removed an essential organ, or rather a very important organ, and then you're actually recreating estrogen dominance all over again. And I— it saddens me. We need to get this information out that people deserve better. It's 2020. 55. This was avoidable. Where was it avoidable? Test them properly. Oh, they're in estrogen dominance. Let's actually bring estrogen down and pop progesterone up. Oh, wow. Feel amazing. I'm actually back in love with my partner and my kids are amazing and I can sleep and my body weight's regulating and I'm contributing to society and I feel amazing.

It's just—

it's not that complex.

Wow. So on that note, guys, it's been wonderful for you to join us on Facebook. Thanks for everybody there. We've given you some links that you can find these guys if you want more information. For all the rest of you, if you want to join us over on Patreon, there's some more holistic approaches that we're going to just talk about over on the other side. So look on a bit on the side on Patreon in about an hour or so, you will Finders uploaded there. For the rest of you guys, thank you. Good night. See you next Tuesday. I don't know what we're talking about as usual. Nick will come up with something this time. It's his turn, I think.

No problem. Yeah, I've got a list of things that would be really, really good. So there's no problem.

So we'll keep going and look forward to speaking to you again soon. Take care, guys.

Guys, thank you so much. And thanks for everybody who's supporting us. Really fabulous work. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, Rowan.