How Do Hormones Influence My Health? | Dr. Anna Cabeca

Welcome to another Women to Women podcast. I am so excited. We are talking today about hormones, but on the Women to Women podcast, we talk everything about hormones, weight, adrenals, and trauma. So let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Ann. I have known her a long time. We actually were at a conference together just recently. And let me tell you a little bit about her. She has just been a rock star. Seriously. She is an osteopathic obgyn known nationally as the Girlfriend Doctor. What an awesome, awesome, awesome headline. And she's the host of the Girlfriend Doctor show where she welcomes experts and guests to the show to share their insights on how women can truly thrive in body, mind and spirit. We're going to talk about that today. Dr. Ann is triple board certified and a fellow of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Integrative Medicine, Anti aging and Regenerative Medicine. She's creator of several popular virtual transformation programs that you can find at drannacabeca.

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So I'm thrilled to have you here today so we can talk about all these wonderful things that you're doing and also really helping women understand that they can be amazing in menopause and post menopause.

So, you know, go ahead. I was just going to say, Marcel, when you say what you're talking about, like, what your show's about, it's right. Hormones, weight, adrenals and trauma. And I've had issues and all of those things in my life, right. As so many women that are listening. And it's such an important means, such important. Each and every one is important concepts. But bringing it in, understanding together, it's just, it's crucial to empowering the woman, empowering women and the female body and men into, you know, owning. Owning their, you know, owning their physiology, owning their, their past and understanding what happened to them, why we behave this way, why we act this way, what was going on in my life at the. And, you know, and how is that affecting us in midlife? So I'm so glad. I'm glad to be here.

I'm thrilled to be here. So let's unpack it a little bit because I think it's kind of loaded. And I love the way you said that, which is that in my experience over the years, if we just talk about hormones without the others, we don't get anywhere. If we just talk about trauma and don't help people understand that they're all connected and the same with weight and same with adrenals. So let's unpack the hormone piece. You know, can we start at the basics of hormones and help people understand, especially in perimenopause, what is the impact of that? What does it do?

Yes, yes. And you know, and everyone would, every time someone asks me, like when we start at the basics of hormones, you want to say, what is a hormone? Right. And you know, and that just reminds me of the old joke, how do you make a hormone? Do you know that?

I didn't know it.

Don'T pay. That's terrible.

But, you know, our hormones are made from, you know, you know, from cholesterol. Our hormones are made from cholesterol and our hormones are, you know, like work together. And I was just doing a small video on vitamin D and how it affects it is progesterone, like in action as a steroid hormone, not a vitamin. Right. And so when we look at understanding our hormones, we have to understand that there's the big picture of hormones which we can't lose sight of. Because when we just start in ob, GYN and women's health, we tend to focus on the small.

End results. The small interventions like estrogen, for example, even testosterone and those downstream metabolites, those are important, those are critical. But I like to start at the top. And all our hormones are made from cholesterol and hormones are chemical messengers. And really we say chemical messengers because that's physiology and biochemistry. But really they're energetic messengers. As you and I know, they go beyond our body pheromones. Right. The energy that we get from someone else. I mean, there's our energetic component that are our hormones. And that is why when we study blood and we do, we study blood, saliva, urine, we look at hormones in many different ways. The energetic component, we just don't have the ability to measure that in a great way yet. But I think when we do, we'll really understand the fluctuation. Wouldn't it be great to wear a oura ring or.

Red device that was measuring the energy of our hormones on a regular basis so that we could see when we're pushing too hard and taxing our hormones and creating toxic metabolites versus really filling our tank and that when we, we were out of balance, like, you know, buzzers went off that shocked us and made us sit down or something. I don't know.

I'm working on that device. I'm working on that.

Good for you. Absolutely. We need it. So, I mean, I think that's so important and also for people to understand that cholesterol is not this bad thing. You know, everybody thinks about cholesterol so bad. It's like. No, it's really the mother hormone. It's really important. So thank you for reminding us, us of that.

Yeah. And that's why fats are so good. Right. And in the 80s, when I was in high school and college, the low fat craze, I mean, that destroyed our hormones. That really destroyed our hormones. And I find today it's really hard to convince women to eat good fats because we were brainwashed. And this is so important. I would say, you know, test for yourself. How do you see? How do you feel better? And I think that's. I think it's really. It's really a key component. Fats are not the enemy. But again, we want to eat healthy fats, right? Not toxic fats.

So let's talk about that since we're talking about fats. I mean, I have a weight loss program that's not really keto because I don't have any fat in it to get the weight off. But then it's really, you know, paleo. I mean, it's. It's vegetables and protein and fruits to get the weight off using a homeopathic. But then I add back the fats because they're crucial. You can't live without fat. So let's talk about keto, and let's talk about the difference for keto, because I know you have a keto program that is different for women because I think women are different when they have keto, when they do keto. So let's talk a little bit about that from your perspective and how that affects our hormones.

Oh, yeah. No, it's so true. And in perimenopause and menopause, keto, and I say keto green. I won't just say keto, because keto green is the way we do it here and in my world. So keto green is not just a good idea. It is mandatory. Marcel and I have seen it over and over again in tens of thousands of women. And it is so funny because yesterday I received a text from a dear friend of mine who is a health expert, and she is like, Anna, you will not believe this. I just started doing your keto green 16 before I went on this other really restrictive plan. And I just feel like my brain is on fire. And I feel amazing. And I can't believe I waited this long to try it. And I just had to laugh, know, like, I'm so glad. Ready when we're ready, you know, Ready when we're ready. It's so true. But I Loved. I loved hearing that from her too. And, you know, because in this space, we can. And that's why I think it's always good to try, you know, keep experimenting with your body, but deep down, know what feels good. So there's the right way to do keto and there's a wrong way to do keto. So there's keto dirty and there's keto clean, which is keto green. And I wholeheartedly believe that. And it's very safe. We can do it at any age. But when is it mandatory in the menopause, perimenopause and beyond? The reason is our brain uses glucose for fuel or ketones for fuel. When we're starving, our brain will use fat for fuel, makes ketone bodies.

And produce these amazing energetic molecules. Consider ketones to jet fuel and consider gasoline to, you know, glucose. So. So this is what we. What I've come to learn through my experience because I had. I had, you know, brain fog, memory loss, the weight gain despite not doing anything different. And that's when I went keto and quickly realized it's not. This isn't working for me. That had to do something different. And I was really acidic. And especially those of us who had trauma, ptsd, and our progesterone is naturally declining of stress. And we have teenage daughters in the house. You can't do straight keto. You have got to add the green component, that is the alkalinizers, because it was really acidic. So the alkalinizers make a difference. And then realizing it is not just about what we are eating, which is a really important factor. The quality of food is incredibly important. What we eat, ate is incredibly important. So. But the keto green component that I came to fine tune, it's a keto green way of living and a lifestyle. And I love reading about that in the community. Comments that how they've, you know, encapsulated this, incorporated this lifestyle into their lives. But it's when we eat. So intermittent fasting, ideally 16 hours between dinner and breakfast, we worked that 13 to 16 hours on a regular basis. There's times of fasting, you know, and times of feasting, so you have a great amount of metabolic flexibility. We stop snacking. We're very conscious of the gratitude for the food that we do have, the people in our lives and.

That entire practice of gratitude, because our physiology isn't just based on what we're eating, it's based on our thoughts, too. Cortisol is an acidifying hormone, Oxytocin one of the most powerful hormones in our body is probably the most alkalinizing hormone in our body. Now, hormones typically haven't been associated with that, but as like, I've experimented with tens of thousands of people and charting and biohacking in every way possible, really come to realize that that's the truth. And we can see the benefits of the lifestyle factors in with what we're eating. And that's what makes such a big difference.

Well, let's unwrap oxytocin, because some of the people may not even know what you're talking about. And then also, let's go a little bit further back and talk about. So keto green. Describe what keto green means. So, yes, we're talking. Talking about intermittent fasting and we're talking about less carbohydrates in the diet, but what about the green part? Tell us a little bit more about the green part that you're talking about.

Yeah, so the green part is adding alkalinizers and like dark green leafy vegetables and cruciferous vegetables. So Swiss chard, beet greens. Like, you can get rid of the beet or save it for a feast day. Eat the beet greens, which are some of the most alkalizing greens around. It's amazing. I was throwing them away for decades. Now they're like, oh, I just, like a lot of times at the grocery store, they'll just have the beets and I'll go to the grocer. I'm like, you got the greens back there? You know, don't throw them away. They're better than the beets. And so those beet greens are tremendous. And kale beautiful, like making a good kale soup. These, these are your dark green leaf Swiss chard. I mean, you guys know these things. Spinach and then the cruciferous vegetables, the cauliflower, the broccoli, the. And the sprout sprouts. Broccoli sprouts, you know, the alfalfa sprouts. I mean, these different foods that are low in carbohydrates but rich in micronutrients that support hormone production and detoxification and metabolism. So adding them in helps balance out the keto part, which is typically a healthy. A healthy protein source and healthy fats. And I give a lot of examples in my book the Hormone Fix and keto greens 16. But I can give you a day example in my life that it is really easy. So say, for example, start out in the morning. I am just drinking herbal tea right now. As I mentioned, a Ginger, eucalyptus, cinnamon, lime tea to help my throat so that I could speak. Today.

We are drinking that tea and typically will break fast around 16 hours. And I'll break fast with a keto green shake, so it may have some avocado in it. A 0 gram sugar protein vegan shake is what I use. And add in some handful of greens, whatever I have, if it's, you know, if I have dark green leafies, I'll put them in. You don't want to make that drink too bitter because you want to enjoy it, right? So you could add a cucumber, you could add some zucchini, frozen zucchini, that works. And I stay away from the fruit in the morning because that tends to drive your blood sugar up and that's going to make you hungry and less able to do it. But adding a little extra MCT oil for additional fat is another way to do that. The healthier fats we have in the morning, the more we're going to have willpower throughout the day to stay on course, especially starting out. And then I may or may not have something before I have dinner. And typically dinner would be a beautiful and early dinner. Typically eat around five.

And that would be a saute of vegetables, maybe some zucchini zoodles we call the zucchini noodles. So some zoodles stir fried with onions and spices. And I may add some sesame seeds or pine nuts. I love to use nuts and seeds in my diet too to get extra, you know, extra phytochemicals and extra protein sources. And then may serve it alongside a smoked salmon, so. Or a piece of steak. And. And I have vegans who do my program. We have a vegan plan too. They could use, you know, non animal sources of protein as a substitute. The issue I have with vegans is they're really carb heavy. So we really want to watch that and just substitute substituting with some healthy fats and that and drizzled with olive oil and served. And that's a great meal for me and my daughters at home.

And I think you and I over the years have seen that food is the most powerful drug we have. And just by changing the diet you can change people's sense of the hormonal balance as well.

So let's talk a little bit about.

Adrenals and adrenaline, stress and what that does to the hormone balance. And then I want to talk about sexual health because we got to get there.

Yeah, definitely. So adrenals, you know, and that's a really powerful.

Part of supporting our body and You've been on the forefront of this. And I remember when your book on adrenals came out. I mean, just so powerful. And thank you for being a leader in this area because people needed to understand, people need to be aware. And I highly recommend your book so that really to understand the things that we can do, what's happening to us, and we're not going crazy, right? So part of my journey with ptsd, post traumatic trauma, right? And the trauma we've had in our family, you know, was going into an early onset menopause caused by stress, caused by excessive unrelenting cortisol until they're, you know, until the brain said, okay, stop, you're frying me out, right? And with that plummeting cortisol. And this is what I want people to understand now, right? We're seeing isolation, depression, mood changes.

Disconnection, burnout from work, burnout from relationships. And this is what's happening, and I experienced it over a decade ago. And cortisol goes up, oxytocin goes down, and the brain. Paraventricular nucleus of the brain shuts down. Cortisol production, oxytocin stays down, shutting it down as well, and we get into this disconnect stage. You should never live here. We should live. Oxytocin up, cortisol down. Every once in a while it pops up because we react to some acute trauma, but it's got to come right back down. And when oxytocin and cortisol are both down, that's that burnout, that's that disconnect. That's the physiology of divorce. That's that physiologic isolation and feelings towards suicide. We've got to re establish this healthy connection. So we've got to reestablish that healthy cortisol circadian rhythm that is just, you know, is what we need for life. And that's where the adrenals are so misunderstood, understood, right? That's where the adrenals are so taken for. These little glands that sit above the kidneys are so taken for granted. And honestly, Marcel, as you know, I traveled around the world and learned from different healing practitioners around the world. They spoke of the adrenals in this way. Like the kidneys, they say they hold the energy of fear. And from an Andean philosopher to a Native American shaman to an Indonesian healer, all three, the kidneys hold the energy of fear. And that's the adrenals. That's their response to fear, is to work. So you got to let. You cannot live in fear. You have to live in love. And love is the hormone of oxytocin. Fear is the hormone of cortisol. So what are we doing today? And when you have more gratitude, oxytocin in your love, oxytocin, that hormone of love bonding and gratitude, the connection hormone. And you have a balanced physiology, again, the most alkalinizing hormone. Do you have this balanced physiology? And if I hadn't lived this and kept asking, why, like, what the hell is happening to me? Why am I behaving this way? Why am I feeling this way? Why can't I seem to pull myself out of it? Anyone out there ever say that to themselves? Well, you know, I had to ask and I had to understand and keep digging and digging, and I'm still learning today. That's why now keep writing books, keep learning and keep sharing.

And it is. It's a journey. But having understanding that aspect of how stress affects your adrenals and creates that.

Physiologic disconnect, it's really important. I was lecturing in Florida years ago, and a physician came up to me after my lecture. I talked about this, and he had lost a son when the child was 2. And so he came up and he just started to talk. He just was. And he couldn't talk. He just gave me a big hug and he just said in my ears, thank you for helping me to understand what happened to me. Thank you for helping me understand what happened to me. I'll never forget that. Absolutely. And that's why we do what we do.

You know, one of the things that I love about how many conversations are coming together now, and that's part of why I'm actually relaunching my summit on adrenals. I'm really pulling in some other speakers on. We can call it trauma, we can call it many different things, but it's how we hold on to pain. And one of the things I say all the time is our issues are in our tissues. It's one of the chapters in my book. And if you don't deal with your story, whatever that story is, the story will deal with you. And you know, what you're saying, just like so many other people, is we all have things, we all have issues. And as we get older, those issues cause physiological changes with respect to cortisol. If we don't have enough love in our lives and gratitude. And right now, for many people, it's very hard to do. And my urgence to everybody is to find those things that they're grateful for. And the Things that really make them happy and do them anyway.

It's really important. Well, and at this time, research has shown that if we've had adverse childhood experiences, post traumatic stress, when we're in perimenopause menopause, we do it less well. We have more psychiatric issues, more physiologic issues, more health issues. And what's happening is, I consider it, this is a little bit of a pressure cooker. I mean, like, puberty is pressure cooker time, menopause andropause a little bit slower for men because they have protective testosterone 10 times more than women. But progesterone, consider, like if we're in a pressure cooker, consider progesterone, the lid to the pot, right? And as our progesterone starts to decline naturally, physiologically, but adding stress to that, then the decline is a lot more significant, right? And then that's when all these other things start to come up and erupt. And if we haven't dealt with it, it is time. It is time to heal and it is time to forgive and it is time to feel blessed and to bless others. So.

Absolutely.

I mean, menopause is the journey of self discovery, adolescence in reverse, if you will. And that's the time that so many things have been shoved under the carpet that come to the surface. And that's a perfect opportunity to say, okay, let me look at this, let me deal with it. And then we can kind of move on with life and have an amazing life ahead. I mean, that's the thing that you and I are out to tell people is you can be amazing later. So with that, let's talk about sexual health. You know, we've been mum about it for so long, hardly anyone talks about it. At least we can say vagina and clitoris now without getting banned. But let's talk about sexual health. You know, you're the queen of this.

Thank you, thank you. I'm really passionate about it because I think it creates so many unnecessary, unnecessary disconnects and relationships. So, you know, I, way back 10 years ago, created a program called Sexual CPR. I love the name. You know, think about CPR, right? Well, this is Sexual CPR. And in a very holistic way, to address the many reasons why people lose sex, you know, sexual connection, lose desire. We know as clinicians, when a patient says to us.

I don't ever want to initiate sex, I have no libido. I mean, that's a three hour conversation. We know this. So that's why I created a program and this is what's really crucial. It's that, you know, it could be physiologic, it could be biochemical, could be relational. You know, what haven't we talked about? And you say this always, like if the upper lips aren't speaking, neither are their lower lips. I got that quote from you. I love that quote. And so, and that's so true.

And could be from past held beliefs. It could be from something sexual partner said to us 50 years ago that we're holding on to still.

Or it can just feel a disconnect from our pelvic floor because we had trauma. Maybe we had human papillomavirus, maybe we had episiotomy that never healed well. Maybe we had a vaginal surgery and we just don't feel in love with their vagina again. And this is where I really want to encourage women. Listen, the most important real estate of our body is clitoris to anus, because we need to keep that healthy. And we have to. We know the clitoris has 8,000 if not more nerve endings to it. 8,000 nerve endings to it. That's twice as much as a penis has. Well, we want to keep that healthy naturally, as we age, just like we'll get wrinkles here, here and here. We're going to get wrinkles down there. We're going to get atrophic, thinner, the nerves will, you know, desensitize and that we get clitoral atrophy. And oh yes, it's normal as we age. But hey, I don't know about you, but that's pleasure zone. We don't have too many of them. Let's keep the ones we have. Right? So that's really important. And then of course, anal fissures, hemorrhoids. Women who have had been strong athletes, weightlifters, they struggle with hemorrhoids. Look, we need to get that taken care of. And sometimes we don't need surgery. Right. And so that's why I created my product Jilva, to help women topically with something really simple to help with vaginal dryness and to cover clitoris to anus.

Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit more about pieces that perhaps I haven't covered. What's something that I have not asked about? We don't have a lot more time because I know people are kind of of busy these times in their lives. What have I not kind of asked about that we should talk about?

Well, I think like one of the things like in just like a typical patient that would come to my office, you Know with sexual health issue. And I can think of, I can think of a couple and one, this one, this couple is really cool. This was a couple in their 40s, they'd been married for a while. And a gorgeous couple. And she'd been my patient for a while and she brought her husband, she goes, you know, he wants to ask you some questions. And I said, okay. And he said, you know, Dr. Anna, my wife is amazing and I can bring her, we have great sex, but she never initiates sex. And you know, and I don't, you know, I don't know what's, you know, what to do. And I look at her. So do you enjoy the sex? Yeah, I love it. I'm okay once we get started, but I never want to initiate. She says, man, I can tell you the number of times I've heard that that's normal. That's a secondary desire. That's normal after the first two years of marriage, I'm telling you. But okay, but this the issue. And then I said to him, but I know we can recreate that primary desire and it's a discipline. So I asked him, I said, okay, Seth was his name. Said Seth. So what do you do after, after, you know, after you orgasm? After she orgasms. After you orgasm. He goes, well, I roll over and fall asleep. I'm like, here in lies the problem during this time, oxytocin is really high, right? Oxytocin works different. It's love bonding, intimacy, connection. We need to feel connected, we need to feel nurtured, we need to feel loved, we need to feel validated. We just need two minutes, man. Just give us two minutes after sex and let me tell you, don't roll over. That's the biggest disconnect you can make for the majority of us.

Because for guys, oxytocin makes them tired and makes them want to go to sleep. Ask anyone, they will tell you the same thing. But you just say, give me two minutes and I'll want sex more often. Oh my God, they're going to give you two minutes. And let me tell you, that was game changing for them. So when I saw them back for their follow up a couple months later, they're like she'd initiated sex three times. She felt more validated, you know, and she felt like their, their relationship had improved to such a degree and they were even talking about things in their, in their over decade of marriage that they hadn't talked about in their entire marriage. That's the power of connection. Safe communication, safe connection. And that we can accomplish that. The second thing I want to talk about, do we have time, Marcel, Is like, we get a lot of. A lot of. When we start looking for sexual health information, we can get a lot of sexual health misinformation. Now there's something called vibrator trauma. We on the clitoris. I said clitoris has 8,000 nerve endings. Use strong vibrator regularly, you're going to get vibrator trauma. You're going to decrease the sensitivity of the clitoris and those nerves. Nerves. And so it's really important to be very conscientious of that and to take a break in your vibrator and to convert to a very light soft touch. Very light, soft touch and that. And do that for weeks until you really feel that improved sensitivity. And some people will feel this like shard grass or like your, you know, when your legs asleep. And it starts to get the pins and needle sensation to your clitoris as it starts to reawaken those nerves. I tell clients to use jalva during that time and just massage lightly so it's lubricated and nice and plus you're nourishing it with the java during that time. But it just is game changing at how we can recover that clitoral sensitivity again from vibrator trauma. Yeah.

The other thing I want to mention for people is that so many people come into my office and they're complaining that they've been told they have an atrophic vagina, which simply means that the vagina, the tissue in the vagina has really not had what it needed. Oftentimes it's something. Something similar to what you're having or even estriol vaginal cream. And it's so sad for me because it's so easy to treat that and have amazing vaginal changes come back and the tissue looks very healthy again. So I just want to kind of remind people that that's something to do. So my suggestion is you and I have a conversation in a separate podcast, and we only talk about sexual health. Are you willing to do that?

Oh, I would love to. And then just how important is with your expertise too, and prescribing vaginal hormones. Hormones. Because estrogen only works on the mucosal layer. And that's what people are getting. They're being sent home with an expensive, compounded, chemically formulated vaginal estrogen that's messy, doesn't smell good or taste good and all that stuff. And it only works on the mucosal layer. We need to get those androgens in there. And how important. Like don't settle, ladies. Don't settle.

I will oftentimes use DHEA in my compounding for vaginal cream. So, yeah, it's. It's amazing kind of the changes. So if people want to learn more about you, how can they learn more about you? And you. And I will schedule another time. I'll have people do it today and we'll talk just about sexual health.

That sounds great. So you can just find me@dranna.com so-r a n n a dot com. It's my website. And on social media at the Girlfriend Doctor. Be sure to follow me on Instagram. That's a fun place. Where able to put those videos and reels on and then join my Keto Green community on Facebook. Look forward to seeing everyone there. Marcel, thanks for having.

Oh, my gosh. You're so welcome. And I'm going to be doing interviews during the week that I do this summit. How about if you and I do one on one of the days that the summit's going? Want to do that with me?

We'll do it. I would love to. Absolutely. Cool. Okay. Thank you.

All right.