Progesterone and Brain Health

Hey everybody, in this video, we're going to talk about hormones and brain health. And in this particular hormone video, we're going to talk in particular about the hormone progesterone. Now, both women and men have progesterone. So if you're a man listening to this, definitely stay tuned. This is also for you. My name is Dr. Diane Mueller. I'm the founder of my Lyme Doc Medical clinic where we treat complicated cases of brain fog, cognition, Lyme disease, mold illness, and all of the symptoms that come with things like chronic infections and chronic hidden toxins. So let's move on to today's topic. Progesterone. Now, I love this hormone so much because from a standpoint of male versus female, there's some kind of misunderstanding like for men, what this particular hormone does for men. And what we're talking about today is going to shed some light on that. So if you are a man, like I said, this is definitely for you. You also want to make sure you're getting your test, your self tested women. This is also for you as well. It's just more well known that what progesterone is doing for women because it's a part of our hormonal cycle, right? It's a part of pregnancy, it's a part of so many things that are involved in being a female. And for men, it's the thing with progesterone is it doesn't do much from a genital sexual perspective, at least not that we know at this point. But there are other major functions for progesterone and your brain is huge. So your brain actually has a lot of receptors in it for progesterone. This basically just means that there's a lot of places in the brain where progesterone can attach on a cellular level, meaning progesterone attaches to the cells and then all of a sudden the cells respond by doing certain things. So we see studies that show that it is helpful for cognition, that it is helpful for lowering inflammation, that is helpful for the mitochondria to work. So the mitochondria, some of you guys probably know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, right? That's what we often learn about the mitochondria when we were in grade school. And that basically means that the mitochondria are the part of the cell responsible for producing energy. And progesterone can impact the mitochondria in very, very positive ways. We also see progesterone has a direct relationship on mood. But my favorite of all, all things that progesterone does. Progesterone is responsible for neurogenesis. What that means is it helps your nerve cells regrow. And this is huge, you guys, in the conversation on cognition, on brain health. Because one of the things that can often happen with cognitive decline is we can have a change in the nerve functioning. You can have nerve cells that are actually dying, that are being subjected to inflammation, being subjected to infections and toxins and other things, and that leads to the death of the nerve cells. Now some are, we all, we have these self preserving mechanisms of the body to keep our cells turning over. So it's normal for us to have these processes on a very low level where cells in our body die, our body makes new cells, we get rid of the dead ones. So it's how we are continually turned, turning over our cells so that they're functioning as well as possible through the aging process. But we can have this process sped up where we start having nerve cells die way quicker. And when we see cognitive decline, this is one potential process that's happening, is our nerve cells are dying faster than we want. And when our nerve cells are dying, we're not getting those, those. That communication of our body, that communication of different parts of our brain because the nerves really, you can look at this simplistic way of looking at the nervous system. And in part it's about communicating. It's about this part of the brain telling something else to the brain. It's about my brain telling my arm to do a bicep curl. It's about my brain telling my body subconsciously to remain seated in this chair until I get the stick stimulus and a signal to say move, right? So it's communication. So a lot of cognition is about communication of the brain. Thinking, processing, pulling things from memory, pulling things from logic, remembering that process that you were taught years ago by your boss or your teacher, right? So all of that is those nerve cells communicating. And when the nerve cells start dying at too rapid of a rate, that changes the communication and thereby changes cognition. And progesterone is amazing for the regrowth and the regeneration of these nerve cells. Not the only thing to think about. Remember, there's so many things to think about with the process of brain health, Lyme toxins and more. That's why I have this channel dedicated to really be teaching you guys so many different aspects of what's involved here. But we absolutely want to consider progesterone as a really important component of this. And I'm making this video because Oftentimes when you're, you know, you're thinking brain health, you're probably not thinking to test your hormones. So you absolutely want to make sure that you're testing estrogen, testing testosterone, testing progesterone. There's other videos on this channel about estrogen and testosterone, so I definitely would go check those out as well. And you know, really be an advocate for yourself. Make sure you're getting the proper testing done because this can make a big difference on your health and well being and cognition. And if you're a man, you know women, it's going to be easier for you guys to get your progesterone tested because it's something that is commonly done. If you're a man, this can be more difficult because typically progesterone is not tested for in men conventionally. So you might have to be a little more of an advocate for yourself. If you do need any help, you can get information about working with my clinic and I down in the show notes below. Please do subscribe to this channel. If it's been helpful, share it with a friend. Please don't keep me a secret. I'll see you next time.