Exclusive Dr. Hyman+ Ask Mark Anything: Balancing Hormones, Adaptogens, And More

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Okay, here we go.

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Ask Mark Anything. My name is Hershel Perth. I'm the Dr. Hyman Plus Community Manager. And of course we're here with our expert, Dr. Hyman. Hi Dr. Hyman.

Hi, everybody.

So we're so glad to have you here today. And of course, we're here to ask Mark anything. So let's go ahead and get started. So our first question is, what is the best advice you've received, and who did you receive it from?

Well, I don't know. I think there's a lot that comes to mind. I mean, my mother used to say things to me, you know, like, really not like, what did I learn in school? But what questions did you ask? So it was really all about being curious, and she really inspired curiosity in me, which. I've had my whole life about everything. And one of my big frustrations is I'm just too curious and I want to learn about everything and I just don't have enough time to read and doing all the things I want to do. So that's kind of makes me a little sad. I remember once walking in the stacks of Olin Library, which is, you know, the Cornell Library with 6 million books in it. And I just kind of broke down because I was like, oh my God, I did the math. I'm like, if I read every a book a day, I just never going to get through this in my whole life. So I just was so depressed. I think that's kind of, I think another, another great piece of advice I got once was rule number six. You have to remember rule number six. And rule number six is everything always works out. And then, you know, people go, what's rule number five? And I'm like, well, it doesn't matter. So I think, you know, in life, things tend to just sort through, sort themselves through. And I try not to get too stressed about anything because in the end, you know, here I am, so.

Both wonderful pieces of advice, especially these are things I have two kids and these are things that I say to them. So I feel like that's so wonderful to hear that that's something your mom said to you and that you carried on throughout your life. Look at you now, right?

I was always that annoying kid in the class who asked all the questions. So like I was in medical school, I would not leave the classroom until I actually understood everything. So I pestered the professors.

Well, I guess we did. Thank goodness you did when we're so lucky that your curiosity continues. And thank you, of course, for sharing it with us.

Of course.

So we're on to our first question from the AMAs and it's basically what is seed cycling and who can talk with it? We know you've talked about Bia Wellness before, so if you could just tell us a little bit more about what seed cycling is.

Yeah, well, you know, often the women's hormones in our society are so messed up, Herschel. And I think so many women suffer from hormonal dysregulation, whether it's PMS, whether it's heavy cycles of menstrual cramps. And it's not normal. Like, you just shouldn't have all that stuff going on. And a lot of it has to do with imbalances in our diet and our highly processed diet, extra caffeine, sugar, alcohol, processed foods. not enough of the right, you know, seeds, nuts, things that have super important minerals and phytochemicals in them that seem to help regulate hormones. So, seed cycling is a way of using different kinds of seeds to help actually improve your menstrual cycle. Um, and it's, it's a way to balance your hormones throughout your, your cycle throughout the month. Uh, the brand that I love is called Bia, B-E-E-Y-A. Uh, and it's using flax and pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds, some flower seeds, sesame , seeds and chamomile basically to help balance your hormones. And it's amazing that food is medicine. I always say food is medicine, but it actually is. And so think of these as medicines. You can use it in your smoothie. You can put on avocado toast and a salad. You can do lots of ways to actually do it. And there's two phases that they sell first phase is during the first part of your cycle, you know, estrogen levels start to rise, starts out low and often, you know, estrogen's gonna be out of balance. And so these provide extra fiber and a lot of your Estrogen metabolism is regulated by your microbiome. Flaxseeds, for example, have lignans in them. They're really important in regulating estrogen metabolism and the reabsorption and ending some of the excess estrogen that can cause, you know, heavy bleeding and various other issues. Phase two often your cycle, your progesterone starts to rise after you ovulate, and that's an important thing, but a lot of times women have inadequate progesterone cycles. And so they'll get PMS symptoms, breast tenderness, fluid retention, headaches, migraines, and, and using a little bit of progesterone can be really effective, but often just using the, the seed cycling can be all you need, including things like lignans and other nutrients that help balance them. So you can, if you can really having any struggles with menstrual cycles, you can read a lot about it on my blog. We'll link to it in the show notes, but there's a lot of articles I've written about how to balance things and particularly around how to deal with PMS, which is a big issue and heavy bleeding. And you can also try the supplements. Go to abeawellness.com, B-E-Y-A-Wellness.com, and learn more. And you can get it there if you want to try it.

Awesome. Thanks so much. That's super helpful. And we'll put the link in the show notes for anyone that's interested. So our next question is about adaptogens. What are they and what should they be used for?

Well, they're what they sound like. help you adapt to stress. And what they are really important compounds that are found in various plants that can be super effective in helping to regulate what we call our HPA axis. HPA is our hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. And this is our sympathetic nervous system. So a lot of times our sympathetic nervous system is over stressed. It's really dealing with so much of the kind of burden of our stressful lives. And so it's important to think about how can you start to use compounds in your life that are going to help regulate your stress response. And I think what I really love about adaptogens is that they're, they're natural products. They are incredibly easily available. There's wonderful formulas that you can take that I use. I, for example, I like combinations of different ones, but Ashwagandha, Ginseng, Reishi mushrooms, Rhodiola, Schizandra, Holy Basil. There's a lot of these that actually are very helpful as adaptogens. They were used a lot, even in Russia. The cosmonauts use them like Siberian Ginseng or Lycium Barbarum is another one. So, you know, you could actually use these as combinations. I take them regularly because I live a pretty active, busy life. And so, I do take adaptogens as part of my routine. The, the combination of mushrooms is a great way to do it as well. So, I encourage people to, to try these things and, and actually, and use them if they're living particularly stressful life. And, you know, they're, they're not toxic. They're very safe to take. Um, and they're, can be very effective. And you can drink them as tea. You can, there's a lot of kinds of like coffees now that have adaptogenic mushrooms in them. So they can help with, you know, reducing fatigue, increasing energy, helping stress resilience, helping immunE system, help anxiety, help you sleep. There's a lot of benefits to them.

Okay, definitely super helpful, especially in stressful situations. So speaking of stress, but this is actually good stress, let's talk a little bit about cold plunging. How many times a week do you suggest using a cold plunge and for how long? I know you talked about it in your book, but if you could summarize a little bit for us.

Yeah, I know I wrote a lot about it in Young Forever, and I think you know, hormesis or this little stresses in our lives that challenge our system, actually activate these ancient healing longevity pathways. So it's important to try to do this on a regular basis, whether it's hot and cold therapy. So for this afternoon, I'm going to do a steam and I'm going to take a cold bath. So I like that a lot. I try to do it every day. You don't have to do it every day, but what it doesn't take that long. You know, I, I often like to do it after a hot. Treatment and doing, you know, 10, 15 minutes of a sauna or steam followed by like a one or two minutes in a, in a cold bath. It can be just your bathtub filled with cold water. It can be a cold plunge that you can buy. It can be a big tub you fill up with ice. There's a lot of ways to do it. Breath work is really important. So making sure you just do, you know, some really good, deep, rapid breathing beforehand, you know, breathe out and then practice once you get in, breathe through your nose and calm your nervous system down. you know, it's amazing. People can say, you can go as cold as 40 degrees. I was in a cold plunge. It was 43 degrees a couple of days ago. It was very cold, but it doesn't have to be that cold. According to Dr. SobeRg, who we had on our podcast, and she's like, well, it can be, you know, even 60 degrees or 50 degrees. It doesn't have to be super, super cold. And that resets your nervous system. So I think I'd encourage people to try it. and I try to do it most days if I can, but, you know, at least three or four times a week for a few minutes, make a big difference. You can also take a two minute cold shower in the morning. I know it sounds scary, but you get used to it and then it'll, you know, give you a shock in the morning and you probably won't need coffee. Super helpful.

One of the things I want to point out that you said was the breath runner. And I think that that's super important to make sure that as you're going into either the cold shower, the cold plunge, to focus on your breath, because it's very easy to go in and start to, you know, sort of hyperventilate. So controlling your breathing is an important part of resetting the system. So thanks for pointing that out to us. All right. So our next question, do you have any advice for someone who's in their 60s and has been diagnosed with mild hearing loss? Is there anything you can do to correct this or prevent it from getting any worse?

I mean, that's a tough one. I mean, you got to figure out where the hearing loss is from. Sometimes it's a nutritional deficiencies. It can be a neurologic thing. It can be Arthritis in the ear basically is what you get as you get older, the little ear bones actually tend to get arthritic, believe it or not, and that can cause a reduced sound transmission. So I think it's important to understand that hearing loss is a real problem. You want to make sure you treat it. There really are no simple treatments for it. Sometimes elevated cysteine can be a factor. So B vitamins can be a factor, B12, but there's not really a lot of natural therapies. I think the best is really to make sure you get a hearing aid if you're starting to have real hearing loss. because you don't want to be disconnected from your environment. That causes a decrease in cognitive function, a decrease in engagement, decrease in social ability. So it's important to get aggressively treated.

Okay, super helpful. So we're going to move on to Candida. What is Candida? How do you know if you have it and what's the best way to treat it?

Well, I think, you know, a lot of people talk about candida. But the, the, the truth is, there's all kinds of different species of yeast and fungus. So we tend to call it CIFO or small intestinal fungal overgrowth. It can also be in your large intestine. And the symptoms are, are varied. It can be everything from bloating and distention to problems with constipation. But you also might notice you have, you know, athlete's foot, or you might have anal itching, or you might have, you know, acne, or you might have various kinds of eczema patches, dry skin, you might have dandruff, you might have actual fungal rashes on your skin. So there's a lot of people, I saw one woman, she's like a walking mushroom, she's had fungus everywhere. So it did involve different degrees of it. The best way to get rid of it is to really cut out all the things that are feeding the yeast, which is sugar and starch and processed foods. So just get rid of all that stuff from your diet, eat a whole foods diet, we call it Pegan diet. Then you can take a bunch of herbs if that's helpful, oregano and other herbs we use to help treat candida. I use a probiotic called Saccharomyces, which we call yeast against yeast to keep the fungus down. Sometimes you do need to use a medication like nystatin, diflucan, sporanox, depending on the patient. So I think we basically need to kind of sort through what the right treatment is for each person, but it's a very treatable problem and it's often under diagnosed. And traditional medicine has very little insight about this and often very little to do and pretty much ignores it, unfortunately. Yeah.

And is this something that you would, you should get tested for, if you're, if you're feeling any of those symptoms?

A lot of it is a clinical diagnosis, unfortunately. I think a lot of people, you know, do different tests and you can do Candida antibodies, which may show up. You can do stool testing, which can give you clues of overgrowth. You can do urinary organic acid testing, which looks at different biomarkers from yeast in um, urine, and I tend to use a combination of those plus the, history, which is, I think, the most effective.

Okay, super helpful. Um, so going on to our next one is, do you, one of our community members wants to know, do you agree with the current FDA guidelines of eating 1.5 to 2 cups of fruit every day and can eating too much fruit be bad for your health?

Well, yes and no. I mean, I, yes, I think fruit is amazing and it's full of phytochemicals and it comes in a package of fiber and vitamins and minerals and phytochemicals. I wouldn't say fruit is all bad. Now, if you're diabetic, if you're in severe poor metabolic health, any kind of sugar load is gonna be a problem. And, you know, people really wanna know how things are affecting them. They should wear a continuous glucose monitor, which is something you can get from Levels. You can go to Levels Health. what is it? Levels.com? Well, we'll put it, we'll put the link in the show notes, but anyway, you can go to levels and get continuous glucose monitor and see what happens. I had a patient who was a diabetic. He's like, wow, I'm good. When I eat a plum, my sugar goes crazy. But if I eat a, you know, if I eat an apple, it's fine. So it's not all fruit is the same. So pineapple, melons, grapes tend to be really high sugar, high glycemic. For example, berries and, you know, apples and pears might not be so bad or kiwis. So you can have lower glycemic fruit. For most people, food isn't a problem, but if you're obese or diabetic, you want to be careful with the amount of sugar and people will tend to kind of go overboard on the sugar. So I think one or two servings is fine.

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