Biohacks for Menopausal Symptom Relief, with Zora Benhamou

Reducing whatever it is that you think triggers your hot flash and doing a little bit of investigative work, writing things down, paying attention, you'll figure out what is it that's triggering.

If you want to live like you matter, ditch the pills, look great, and feel freaking amazing. You're in the right place. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo.

And I'm Dr. Ed Levitan. Welcome to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast.

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Welcome to the Feel Freaking amazing podcast. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo. This is Dr. Ed Levitan. He's with us today. And our guest today is Zora Benamou. She is a gerontologist on a mission to disrupt the menopause stigma and age of stereotypes. She's the host of Hack My Age podcast, and it focuses on biohacking for women going through the menopausal transition. So this is near and dear to my heart because I just went through the menopausal transition. And that's why we're going to write our next.

Me too. Me too.

He did, right? He lived through it. So first off, Zora, welcome, and let's go. Let's give some women some practical tips, because I think. I think there's a lot of things that people can do. Even if it's not, Even if we don't know whether we're fixing your adrenals, your thyroid, your stress, your. Your gut, we're going to fix all of it. Right. So what are some of the top things that women can do? You know, like the 80, 20 rule, right. What's the 80% of stuff they can do without a doctor and then the 20% of stuff they need to do with a provider? Let's. Let's separate out. Let's do the 80% they can do on their own.

Yeah, I think I'm a big fan of the 80% because it's so much that we can do for free. And one of my favorite tips is exercise and moving movement, any kind of movement. It doesn't have to be in a gym, but I'm. I'm an athletic person, so I tend to be a bit more biased on that side. But all the research that I see, it's just. It's so wonderful what exercise can do, not only for menopause, but just for longevity to. To age really well. But regular exercise and I want to, you know, say, five times a week or move every day. It depends on how. You know, I'm not saying to kill yourself. I'm just saying there are times we need to increase our heart rate and there's times that we need to recover and there's times that we need to get strength and flexibility, mobility, agility, all these things are really just really want the audience to start moving and that's going to be different for everybody. If you've been sedentary, then just walking is going to be a really big step towards that direction. But if you've been running or been moving around for a while, then learning how to exercise appropriately is really important because what athletic women tend to do is overdo it. And we don't recover as fast as we used to. We like to push it hard and it's just not working. This sort of chronic cardio that, you know, a lot of women have been doing in this space because if you grew up in the 80s, you know, you've been running and, and on the bike and trying to do as much cardio as you can to burn the fat. And this is, you know, old news now. We, we hopefully most women are now understanding that we need to lift heavy and some strength training and, and of course the HIIT high intensity interval training is really good because it gets your heart rate up, but then it brings you right down. But really important is the recovery component which is really hard for women who are athletic to, to get into that, that mode. But it helps your insulin sensitivity when you exercise regularly. It manages the body fat and, and the hormones are better balanced. You get better sleep, fewer mood swings. All of this is, is so good for you. I mean your, the transition will be a lot easier not only through menopause, but transition into older age as well. Just being active and being independent. What, what does an older adult want? Independence. We don't want to be burd family and live, you know, age in place age and home and are not have to go to a nursing home. If you do, then it really start lifting heavy and start exercising or start walking, whatever that means to you. Just please move. That's my number one tip.

Everything's better than nothing. I always think about that because I'm like, oh, I don't have time to do a full workout at the gym. I'm like, well let's do half a workout, right? It's better to do some than not to do any. That all or nothing mentality is where we get really nailed. So every, anything is better than nothing. That's what I would say.

But I want to add to that, because a lot of people I interview on the podcast who are in this, well, fitness space and menopause, and they say, you know, walking in yoga is great, but it's not going to be good enough to protect you from osteoporosis. We need a little bit more impact. And that doesn't mean you have to go crazy. But just jumping on a box from the floor, you don't have to beat yourself up by running every day and wouldn't want you to do that, but getting a little bit of plyometrics would be a really good thing. So I really want to remind women that for osteoporosis particularly, we want to be able to feel a little bit of impact in there.

Absolutely. And I think people don't quite understand that bones are like muscles. If you don't put strain on them, they're going to disintegrate. So putting strain on bones is super important. Not too much, but a little bit. And women are also, I think from what I sense, it's Alzheimer's and osteoporosis are kind of too big. One, that the two biggest worries that a lot of my patients come to and, and I can put them on hormones and I can get rid of the toxins. I can do this, that the other thing. And that's all amazing. It's appropriate. But if they don't exercise, that's like more than 50 of what they need. They're not doing the main thing. And then they want, they want all the biohapping foundational.

Right, Right.

But it's. You gotta ex. You gotta move your body foundations first.

Yeah. Yep.

All right, what else? So move your body's one. What else?

So the next one I would say is the big one is really big one is managing the stress. And that kind of goes with managing the stress. Not only the mental stress, but the physical stress and let's say toxic load especially. You know, the thing that you speak about is super important, but because like I mentioned before, stress is not going away. We gotta manage it. So I'm a certified breath work instructor with the oxygen advantage. I'm so happy I did this. And I'm able to teach women how to breathe, like functional breathing. This is the way we breathe all throughout the day while we're exercising, while we're sleeping. Right. Not just that one hour breath work class that you did in yoga. That's really nice and it's a great technique. But I really want women to learn how to breathe because it helps. It's like an immediate fix for a stress or when you're feeling overwhelmed, or if you wake up in the middle of the night and you can't fall asleep again. I don't want our women to pick up the phone when 2 in the morning and start scrolling and you know, trying to fall asleep. That way it's not going to work. And so I really encourage them to learn a breathing technique. There's so many out there. And then practice this while you're trying to fall asleep again. And it really, really works. And it also alleviates some triggers for hot flashes. So some women say stress, stress can trigger their hot flashes. So, you know, again, breath work is great, but anything that will manage the stress. And in the biohacking world, we love gadgets like a new comp, for example. It's like this neuroacoustic software that you listen to and it's supposed to get your brain into a meditative state because meditation is not easy for everybody. You know, I could say that. And, and it's great. If you can do it, fabulous. If not, then it's nice to have these little tools or gadgets and things that can help us calm down and relax immediately, you know, but the breath for me is like, wow, that's free. And, and we just have to learn how to do it. And, and then when you able to breathe, you, you're obviously getting better sleep, you're performing better with your exercising, you'll be able to go up the flight of stairs much easier. And so I really, I really am a big fan of the, the breath work. But that's for the mental stress. That does have obviously a physical impact. When you start breathing and learning how to breathe, your heart rate goes down and the blood press and immune system is better. Everything works. Function functions much better when you're able to manage the stress. But the toxic load as well, toxic stress and everything that you preach as well in terms of figuring out if you have mold toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, the EMFs as well in the environment. But I also love to talk about toxic people and try to get those people under control in your life and they, they're toxic load. If you, if you feel you're obligated to be with these people or you bend over backwards for them, and that has, it takes a big impact mentally and physically on, on your life. So managing the stress is, is a real big one.

Anything about breath work you want to add? I know that she's talking your language.

No, I mean, I took a deep.

Breath when you said breath. Work. I was like, okay, I need to. I need to breathe.

I mean, just like exercise. Breathing will move the lymph nodes, massage the internal organs, giving more oxygen. There's. There's exercise, there's meditation, there's breath. Work. Every. Everybody needs to, not needs. But the recommendation is to really move. Move that part of your body, because exercise does not do that enough. Most of us breathe from the top up.

Yeah. All right, so breathing, movement, what else. What else isn't that 80% people can do?

Yeah, there's. Well, when it comes to the typical hot flashes, let's say cassettes and night sweats, this is really something that women struggle with, is. Is reducing some of the caffeine, alcohol, spicy foods, whatever it is that you think triggers your hot flash, and doing a little bit of investigative work, writing things down, paying attention, you'll fig out what is it that's triggering. And oftentimes, you know, women don't realize that caffeine, especially if your adrenals have been overtaxed and you're already in a stress state, trying to stay awake and getting dependent on coffee or caffeine is not something I recommend. So there's so many ways we can just kind of reduce it in our lives. And I love using, say, mushroom, like Chaga. Adding some of the Four Sigmatic, I think, is one of those brands that people like out in the US Making maybe a golden milk with a lot of spices and turmeric and cinnamon. And there's a lot of alternatives out there to having a nice warm drink in the morning. Obviously, tea. Herbal teas is there, but sometimes people are just bored with that and they want something else. And if you just Google it, you'll find a lot of alternatives to your morning coffee, and not that you have to take it away. One thing I really don't like to do with my clients when I'm working with them anyway, find out that coffee, that ritual is so important. They love that. So I don't want to remove that joy, because we need vitamin J. Right. That's important. But just if you're overdoing it, if you find you're dependent on it and you think that it's triggering your hot flashes, then you may want to just manage that a little bit, too.

You know the ritual without the coffee, you know, you can. You can change it up, right? Sit out. Sit. Do your cross. I do the crossword puzzle every morning. So do the crossword puzzle, read the paper. Whatever that ritual is, it can occur with a different drink. Like, I'm drinking chicken soup. Are you sure people think I'm drinking coffee?

Yes. Or bone broth.

This is what I'm drinking. It's bone broth. Bone broth with collagen and salt.

I mean, the other one I know I've. I've gone in and out of is mud Water. It's a blend of adaptogenic mushrooms and a little bit of caffeine from tea.

Okay, okay, that's interesting. Is that a brand or is that just what people call it?

It's a brand.

Oh, okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, we don't have that in Europe.

Mud. WTR.

Yeah.com or something.

Yeah, interesting. Oh, go look at that.

Any other major things that. That fall in that 80% category that we want to make sure women know about?

I want to stress the importance of intimacy. I think investing in your relationships, in your partner, connecting with your partners, you know, taking care of your vagina, if I can say that word, and having that good vaginal health, whether it's with estriol or lubricants or other things, or just having plenty of sex, that is really important. And we, we tend to. And I totally get it when you're in menopause and you got low libido and your vagina is dry and it hurts to have sex and you know, it's the last thing on your mind, but we don't prioritize it enough. And I really don't like women to brush it aside and say, whatever, I don't need it. I think, I think it's important to pay attention to it whether you're with a partner or without a partner. If you're with a partner, ask your partner if you. He or she is okay with that. Usually not, but if you're alone as well, you gotta figure out a way to. Self. Pleasure is very important, but to stimulate the vagina for those juices to come in and have a very healthy vagina. And you know more about this than I do in terms of what you recommend to your patients. But it is something I really want women to. To not ignore and put aside. I think life is so much more rich when you have that intimacy, whether it's with yourself or with another partner. And, and you'll probably be happier. And then all of this sort of cascades in a. In a very positive way.

Here's the best thing that Amazon has provided women. Okay. And you probably don't even think about this. Brace yourself. I know you can tell it's coming. So you can get dilators on Amazon now. And that's literally the best thing that we've ever been able to purchase. Because I can now say to people, just go on Amazon and buy dilators. If your vagina has gotten too inelastic and it can't tolerate either fingers or penis or sex toys or whatever yet, you can get dilators. And so that with a lubricant and maybe some vaginal estrogen that can actually transform the tissue. But you do need to use it or lose it and retrain it to be more elastic. So I say to patients, get a dilator and then go just slightly bigger than what's comfortable, whatever that is. You know, start wherever you are and then just keep going until you get to the point where you feel like you're in the right place. And it's, you know, practice makes perfect so it doesn't happen overnight. Did you know that you can get dilators off yourself now?

You know, I will leave that conversation to you.

Yeah, go see Wendy. She wants to talk to you about something.

Hello?

Seriously? Like, I mean, you see a lot of women and they tell you everything. Sometimes I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe they're talking to you. They tell you everything.

So are you making them feel comfortable? That's really good.

He's, like, approachable. So, yeah, now, you know, dilators on Amazon, super important.

And there's so many other things, too. Just little, little toys, whatever. Red light. They got stuff with red lights in there. And rejuvenation.

Yeah, there's a red light wand now.

That's cool.

And up the hatch. Okay. Any other tests you recommend for women to do?

Yes, I think every single woman who is listening right now needs to do a bone density test. Unfortunately, I think in the US it's. It's the age 65 when you. Medicare pays for it or something. Way too late. Way too late.

People go on to Medicare at 65, so that's when they're eligible for Medicare. But long before that, they should be having a bone density.

They should be. But I think a lot of women don't because. Well, either they don't know the doctors are not recommending it. And by then it's really too late. So I really think it's very important to have a bone density test, first.

Of all, as a baseline.

As a baseline. As a baseline. And then from there, whether you need it every year, every couple of years, whatever. You know, that's. That's depending on the results, you may need it every six months. If you're having. You're saying you're already quite, quite fragile. We want to make sure we also have, I would say thyroid is also really good test to do. Just because I see so many women in perimenopause having, having thyroid issues and not really knowing it, but also you, you know, more than anyone else is, is getting not only your tsh. That's not. Just seems to me every doctor here is, well in Europe, is in the U.S. it's just TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. And if it's fine, you're fine. And even if you feel bad, they just still send you home. So I really want women to.

You're fine, it's no problem.

Yeah, everything's just.

You're just anxious, woman.

It's all in your head.

Actually. Here's some antidepressants and a sleeping pill. You'll be fine. And you know, it's, it's really a pity. So we want a full, full thyroid panel, the T3, the T4, the reverse T3, and, and then of course that comes out than the anti TPOs and just taking a full, deeper dive into thyroid, I think is, is a, is really important insulin. Seeing your insulin levels, where that's at, you know, because that's it. Generally, women going through perimenopause and getting to menopause, they have a lot of insulin resistance. They don't know why they can't eat like they used to. Nothing's changed and haven't changed their diet, haven't changed. Exercise, everything's the same and they're gaining weight and it's really stressful. So many women I speak to, they swear everything is, is the same. And it's frustrating because what I see is that they're exercising more and eating less. And that's the worst combination because it just doesn't do anything anymore at our age. And maybe it worked when you were in our 20s and 30s, but it's not working anymore. And so I really encourage women, first of all, take your insulin. Just see where it's at. We want to know it's in a good healthy space and if not, we can work on it. And then of course, there's so many hacks and things that we can do to deal with the weight gain and the insulin resistance. So those are just a few tests, I think that are really important for cholesterol as well, because cardiovascular disease gets thrown right under the rug. Women are more worried about breast cancer than, than heart disease, but where you're dying more of heart disease. And I think we really need to take a full Cholesterol panel. I like women to do the EPOB as well. Not just HDL and ldl, total cholesterol. We take a little bit deeper dive and there's so many other things that you can do. I don't know if you guys do the NPO, the oxidized LDLs.

No, we don't. Well, we do.

We're doing the cardio iq.

The cardio iq, which is what exactly?

It's got the particle numbers and the small, medium, large, and the HDL and the APO. Lipoprotein being lipoprotein 8. So it has all of the measures pulled out, as well as inflammation. So I love it. And then I would say cortisol, a cortisol test to see, like, what's going. But not blood, because someone with a needle, their cortisol is going to go up anyway. So.

Yeah, yeah, I think it definitely cortisol. Those are. Those are. We could go down a whole. You know, I love doing blood work and I do it when I'm in Asia because it's so inexpensive. Like, let's just do it all and see what happens. But, yeah, no, those are. Those are the important ones. I think a lot of women don't realize that just for aging as well, it's not just menopause.

You forgot one big thing, though.

Which one? Vitamin D. Oh, vitamin D, Yeah, of course.

I mean, you can't.

I was like, what are we talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, no, I mean. Yeah, yeah.

The vitamin D is so important in making sure. It's at least in the US it's optimally a 50 to 80 to. Really, when you're looking at menopause, making sure. Because that's for the woman, that it's much more important. That's where the. You're going to get more. It's more important than calcium because if you have a good level of vitamin D, that's going to help you absorb the calcium and you need much less calcium in your diet. So super important to have.

I was talking to someone yesterday or some earlier this week about she's got osteoporosis, she's menopausal. And she said to me, yeah, I was having some reflux, so I took. I took Pepcid. And I was like, oh, let's not do that. And she was like, why? I said, because when. So your stomach acid's required in order to start the conversion for calcium, magnesium, folate, B12 and iron. It gets converted in your stomach acid. And then the small intestine, large Intestine, absorb it. Small intestine. And so if you're not starting the conversion process, you don't get the activated forms of them and then you can't absorb them. So don't take Pepcid, pantoprazole, all of the acid inhibiting substances mess up your absorption and so don't do that. If possible, do other stuff like massic gum, do other things.

But yeah, once or twice it's not a big deal.

But ongoingly it's a problem. Once a. Once a quarter, who cares? But this was not once a quarter. This was like four or five times a week. I'm like, you want to tip the scales towards health, not away from health.

So yeah, anytime you're taking some kind of medicine four or five times a week for a condition that perhaps could be reverse, then it's time. But I'm glad you mentioned the vitamin D. And I think what biohackers would love to do is again, another great test is we test our vitamin D. We take a vitamin D capsule and we retest in several months to see if that vitamin is working. Because there's so many vitamins out there that don't actually have what they're on the label or you're just not absorbing it and for one reason, reason or another. And then, you know, oh, I gotta up my dose and then you up the dosage until you're happy with with the ranges. But I want to ask you because I, Dr. Rosen, David Rosensweet, who did this menopause method program which I just went through, he talked to me about when he looked at my vitamin D levels. He says, well, we don't really know if your, you know, vitamin D levels are actually high. And I said, what do you mean? He said, you have to look at parathyroid hormones. And I didn't quite get the memo on why or how. But there is something in the functional medicine space because he's a functional medicine doctor and he said that yeah, looking at the parathyroid, those levels need to be optimized in order to see if you really are absorbing the vitamin D. Despite what the vitamin D says in the blood work.

There's all sorts of, I've heard of it. There's also looking at. Normally we look at 25 hydroxy vitamin D and there's all sorts of things about looking at the 125 hydroxy vitamin D. And we don't. Right, we don't tend to get into that too much. We do look at things like NT peptide, which is how much calcium you're actually leeching both in the urine and the blood. But we don't look. Tend to look that. But we can. And we, we usually find 5,000 is a good maintenance dose. But women that have vitamin D receptor, SNP, small nucleotide polymorphism tend be able to need like 10,000 a day. So there's all sorts of like, really deep, deep, deep dives you can get into. I think we go in one path. There's a lot of other paths we can go to, but we tend to stick with that path.

I think we're, we're more at the 10, 000 foot view. Like, let's take.

I mean, we get deeper, but, but not in the written.

Like, yeah, not every path.

So, yeah, it's, it's, it's. That's why I said it's kind of like you need a good investigator to understand the whole blood work. Because even if you just go, oh, I'm in the ranges, whatever the labs show you, you guys are the experts in tying it all together and saying, you know what, this is something to worry about, or this is not something to worry about. And this is why women going through menopause really need a good doctor. Because I think, like you mentioned earlier, they're just being gaslit and they're feeling bad and their blood work is showing. They're. They're just fine.

All right. And I think the most important question is, as we draw to a close, where can women find you?

Hackmyage.com is the website and all my social media, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, they're all hackmyage. So if you can remember hackmyage, then. Then you're good.

All right then. And I know you would, I think, offered that the people who listen to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast, they participate in a menopause program with you, they can get 10% off by mentioning the Feel Freaking Amazing code. Is that accurate?

Yes. Feel Freaking Amazing, which is with a G. Freaking not freaking. Right amazing for 10 off any of our menopause programs. And, and if you have, you know, any questions about it, you just reach out to me and I'm happy to explain. But these programs are really great. It helps, helps a lot of women get through this transition with ease, with grace, and with strength. You know, I really want women to be strong through this period of time and be empowered with, with, with knowledge and, and how to go find a doctor and how to go find help and how to, you know. Really? You do? Really? My motto is menopause is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

Nice. Really nice. All right then, Zora, thank you for joining us. Thank you for talking about menopause and shedding light on this. And thanks for being here for another episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. All the people listening. She has her own podcast hack my age. You can certainly go listen to that and have an thanks for being here. Zora.

Thank you so much for having me.

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