As a Rule, Do You Recommend That Women Take Estrogen Replacements After Menopause?
15 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Podcast episode by JJ Virgin (Ask the Health Expert) that mixes sponsor reads with a listener Q&A about whether women should take estrogen replacement after menopause. JJ emphasizes a personalized, algorithmic approach: optimize thyroid and adrenal health, manage stress and sleep, refine diet (including phytoestrogens), check vitamin D, evaluate cardiovascular, metabolic, brain, and bone markers, then consider bioidentical hormone replacement in collaboration with a functional medicine doctor within a limited postmenopausal window. Multiple sponsors and product endorsements (Wayfair, Earth Breeze, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, Monarch, Corona) are interleaved.
Chapters
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Sweet Ray Ban Meta Glasses available at Ray Ban stores and other authorized retailers. As a rule, do you recommend women take some sort of estrogen replacement after menopause? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert, expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. TBL Ruth asks, as a rule, do you recommend women take some sort of estrogen replacement after menopause? I'm going to give you the algorithm for you to be able to make the right decision for you on this one. Stay with me. Foreign.
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All right, so I am a big proponent of health freedom, of getting the information out there, the right information, so that you can look at all of it and make the best decision for you in whatever it is. And here's the thing. In order to make the best decision, you've got to really be able to hear your body and know where your body is at. So estrogen replacement, hormone replacement, because if you do it, it probably won't just be estrogen, it will probably be progesterone and testosterone, too. The first thing you do before you ever get there is make sure that you've got everything else dialed in so that if you do need to do bioidentical hormone replacement, you will need to use the least amount and you'll really be able to tell what's working for you. Because you've got the labs, but they're taking moments in time and your body doesn't work like right, it's cycling. So first thing that you're going to do is make sure that your thyroid is optimized, that you have your thyroid tested by a functional medicine doctor, and that you are probably in the 0.5 to 1 range with low to no antibodies. Everything looking good, a good free T3. So thyroid optimization first. If your thyroid's not working well, you will not be able to balance your sex hormones. So that's step one. Step two is making sure, of course, that you've got your adrenals dialed in, you're sleeping super well, you've got something put into your life every single single day for stress management, something that brings you joy. I'm going to do a shout out to my girl Radha Agrawal, who's got the new dose program. We'll be talking more about it on this show and just really about prescribing joy into your life every single day. What should, what, what did you do today to have fun? And, you know, I know we ask that question. People look at us like fun. What. What are you talking about? So what are you doing every day for Joy to, you know, balance out all the stress that we're under? Are you doing some tapping? Are you doing some Ziva meditation? Are you hanging out with Your awesome dog like my dog Daisy? Are you watching something funny? Are you hugging your spouse, partner, kids, friends, you know, Are you dancing with Sammy, D.J. shoebox, Moses? What are you doing for fun? That's super important. Then do you have your diet really dialed in? Really important? So you're getting good sleep, you're matching your stress, your thyroid's working well. Your diet is dialed. You've done the Virgin diet to figure out hidden food intolerances. You've brought that information into your everyday life. You've done the Sugar Impact diet to lower your sugar impact, become a fat burner. And now you're adding in some intermittent fasting. You know what normal feels like for you right now, right? You've got that new normal. You've incorporated in some phytoestrogen foods, tahini, garbanzo, flax. You're eating a really good healthy diet because you love yourself. Then at that point, oh, and you've optimized your vitamin D, which is the pro hormone at the top of the cascade. At that point, then you start to look at how do I feel at this point? And how are my blood markers? One of the challenges for women is their estrogen goes low. Is a couple things go sideways. Low estrogen impacts your bone, your brains and your heart. Women die of heart disease more than anything else. So what you want to see is, where are you now? You know, what's going on with your heart, what's your cholesterol levels, all the different markers for good cardiovascular health. Homocysteine, ldl, hdl. Looking at particle size and number, looking at lp, super important one, fibrinogen. So you're looking at all of those. You're looking at blood sugar and insulin. You're looking at your brain function, meaning if you walk into a room and go, why the heck am I here? Probably have a little brain fog, right? And then also you're getting a bone density test. That's important. Fish oil and flax can help with bone remodeling, so that can be helpful. So you're looking at all those aspects. You're going, all right, how am I doing here? And if you're not doing well, that's a time to really look at doing hormone replacement therapy. And the window is not wide here. You can't go into post menopause and then decide five years later you're going to do this. So you really have to be looking at this as you're going through and working with a functional medicine doctor to look at the bioidenticals. How you're going to optimize them and how you're going to cycle them. And what's important here is you'll have the lab test, but you'll also have how you feel. That's why you've got to so know in your skin how you feel, what feeling good feels like so that you can use the least amount to get the most the best effect for you. All right, hope that served. If you've got more questions, remember you can DM me over at Instagram JJ virgin. And be sure to subscribe to JJ.com so you never miss a daily dose. Bye. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com.
Hello listeners, this is Anne Bogle, author, blogger and creator of the podcast what Should I Read next? Since 2016, I've been helping readers bring more joy and delight into their reading lives. Every week, I take all things books and reading with a guest and guide them in discovering their next read. They share three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately, and I recommend three titles they may enjoy reading next. Guests have said our conversations are like therapy, troubleshooting issues that have plagued their reading lives for years and possibly the rest of their lives as well. And of course, recommending books that meet the moment. Whether they are looking for deep introspection to spur or encourage a life change, or a frothy page turner to help them escape the stresses of work, school, everything, you'll learn something about yourself as a reader and you'll definitely walk away confident to choose your next read, with a whole list of new books and authors to try. So join us each Tuesday for what Should I Read Next? Subscribe now wherever you're listening to this podcast and Visit our website whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com to find out more.
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