Short educational video (Dr. Tabatha Barber) explaining menopause as the permanent shutdown of ovarian function when eggs/ovulation cease, and describing how the adrenal glands act as a "backup" source of sex hormones by producing DHEA which can be converted to estrogen and testosterone; warns that low adrenal DHEA can lead to very low sex-hormone levels after menopause.
Did you know your adrenals are your backup ovaries? Our ovaries make estrogen, progesterone and testosterone all through your reproductive years. Then when your ovaries are running out of eggs and they're no longer ovulating and releasing an egg every month, they get to a point where they're done and your ovaries shut down permanently. That is menopause. So we rely on our adrenal glands for our sex hormones for the remainder of our life because DHEA gets converted into estrogen and testosterone. So if we aren't making enough DHEA and we go into menopause, our sex hormones will be even lower than they're supposed to because we don't have any backup hormone production from our adrenal glands.
