How to Naturally Balance Hormones with Infrared Light | Dr. Taz Bhatia

I am your host, Dr. Josh Axe. On today's episode, I'm gonna be interviewing Dr. Taz Bhatia, and we're gonna be diving deep into how to balance women's hormones naturally, or both men and women, we'll get into. We'll talk about the foods, the vitamins and supplements. Also be talking about an incredible piece of tech that I use, I have in my home, Dr. Taz does as well, that can help balance natural hormones. We'll be talking about things like What's better, cold plunge or infrared sauna for hormones? And answering a lot of those types of questions. But, uh, before I dive in, I want to introduce Dr. Tash. She is a board-certified integrative medicine physician. She's the founder of the Center Spring, uh, MD Clinic. And also she combines— this is one of the things I love about interviewing her— is that she combines Eastern medicine with Western medicine to help people get the best results possible. So we're going to talk about all things balancing hormones naturally. Dr. Taz, welcome to the show.

Oh my gosh, it's good to see you, Josh. I know we've talked before and we always have such great conversations. I know we're both so aligned when it comes to this sort of East-West approach to, uh, taking care of the body.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the first things I want to dive into is, is that there is a difference between men and women and their hormones, and I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what you really pay attention to when you're looking at— when men come into your practice, you're working on balancing their hormones. What do you look at with men? What are those key, key numbers and things that you're looking at there? And then what is it for women when you look at— and what's really the difference between sort of the, you know, men and women and caring for hormones?

You know, it's so interesting that we're leading the conversation with men because a part of me is like, do I just flip the book that I wrote for women and put a blue cover on it and we apply it to men? Because I do feel like there's this open space where men are not getting the attention around their hormone balance and what hormones really mean for them. And I think we're also with the new environment and changing genetics and all this other stuff, we're seeing the threat to their hormones much, much earlier than what we saw even a generation or so ago. So for the men coming through the practice, their hormones are honestly just as important as female hormones. We start out by looking— actually, everyone wants me to say testosterone, but we actually start out by looking at cortisol and understanding the impact effect of cortisol in their overall HPA axis and sort of the hormone pathway. Because here's what we're finding is that as cortisol sort of ramps up in men, right, and they ignore it more, they're not as— they don't have a period like we do or a cyclical nature to their cycle like we do to really track what's going on with their hormones. What we're starting to understand is that, you know, that high cortisol is crashing testosterone levels and it's really bringing those testosterone levels down. So it's important to understand where cortisol is so that we can help men then track what their testosterone is doing. And it's not just about total testosterone, it's also about how it's metabolized. So where's free testosterone? Where's DHT? Where's DHEAS, which is an adrenal hormone? In addition to those two, we also want to look at the thyroid and we want to look at insulin. And I feel like those are like sort of four corners of a square, so to speak, that we need to be thinking about when it comes to women's health. So testosterone, cortisol, insulin, and thyroid, and then understanding kind of what the interconnectedness of all of that is.

Yeah, it's so good. So talk to me about women's health a little bit. Let me, let me share this. What I used to see in practice constantly when I was in full-time, I felt like the majority of men that came in, again, the issue was low testosterone. And again, it was low energy, fatigue, lack of motivation, right? All of those things. And in women, they actually had some overlapping symptoms of fatigue, lack of energy, holding weight on their midsection, but theirs tended to be more of a thyroid issue in terms of what their blood would show. I mean, do you see something similar? And what are some of those root hormones that you really look at like, "Hey, this is the sort of domino that starts to crash all the other hormones when you look at women?" So, I think it's almost a similar conversation, right?

We start with women looking at cortisol again because I think that spike in cortisol In fact, I just was lecturing this past weekend to doctors talking about hypothalamic inflammation, which is an area of the brain that is very much responsible for how we sense our environment. And we're seeing a lot of the dysfunction in hormones really beginning there. Right. And that's a cortisol story. That's an adrenaline story. So that's universal for both men and women. I think the more that cortisol is overactivated, the faster you're going to see the decline in sort of the end organ hormones like estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, all of those. So I think that's a unifier amongst men and women. Now, the challenge with women is that we have this cyclical hormone cycle, right? We have fluctuating levels of estrogen, we have fluctuating levels of progesterone. And so when we take cortisol and we take the cyclical, you know, changing estrogen and progesterone, someone's going to pay. And in that sort of map of who's going to pay, oftentimes it's the thyroid. Usually it's progesterone levels dropping first, then the thyroid following after that, then estrogen dominance taking place, which is not necessarily rising estrogen levels. There's a lot of noise right now in the space saying estrogen dominance isn't real, but it's not. We're not talking about necessarily rising estrogen levels. We're talking about a lot more stored estrogen, which in turn then sets up sort of this domino effect for inflammation, weight gain, more fatigue, you know, diseases of estrogen, all of that, you know, all of that spiral, so to speak. So while the starting point might be the same for men and women, we do definitely diverge, and then the fallout is a little bit different.

Yeah. And so you said it's cortisol. I mean, that's the main, the primary hormone that you're looking at first. Now, I know you're looking at the things holistically, but you're looking at first, what are some of the top causes of cortisol getting imbalanced and what are some of the remedies and things that you tend to— and listen, I know everybody's different and you and I are both big fans. By the way, again, one of the things I love about Dr. Taz is she's into personalized medicine like I am. Like everyone listening to this show, is really, really unique. But when you're looking at the overlaps, some of the general trends, what are the biggest things causing cortisol to plummet— or that's not— anyways, calling it to be— causing it to be imbalanced? And what are some things we can do to start to restore cortisol levels?

Definitely. I mean, I mean, you and I could probably have a 1-hour conversation on this, but, you know, keeping it super— let's go superficial to deep. So keeping it kind of at a level where a lot of people have heard about cortisol. A lot of people know the word stress, right? And we've been throwing that around. We've been talking a lot about stress management and mindfulness. So at its most basic, cortisol is our stress hormone. It reacts when we're under duress, when we have a project, even when we have something good, right? It's that hormone that gets released. Keeping it balanced is key. We want it to be high and we want some cortisol on board when we need it, but we want it to turn off when we want it to, too. But what happens with chronic stress— and in certain conditions, that cortisol level stays elevated, first gets too high, then starts to flip-flop, then starts to get too low. And so people find themselves in that trap. And those are the earliest signs of this, like, fatigue and brain fog and then trouble sleeping. And then we have cortisol belly. Like, all of these things sort of progress from there. Keeping cortisol balanced is a lot about correcting the sleep cycle, helping kind of keep the diet to where it's clean, because we do know now that a lot of processed foods and packaged foods, high-sugar foods, all of these things will actually trigger cortisol spikes as well. So keeping blood sugar balanced, keeping the diet regular, relatively anti-inflammatory and clean, and then also engaging in activities and even maybe herbs or supplements that bring cortisol down and bring that sort of stress response down. And that could be everything from, you know, you're great about your 10 to 20 minutes of daily mindfulness. You get acupuncture once a week or you do something like sauna therapy at 3 or 4 times a week. That's actually been shown to bring cortisol levels down. The research is there, you know. So these are some of the things you can put into place, and maybe pairing that, you know, with the micronutrients for proper cortisol balance, which are usually B vitamins, vitamin C, magnesium. Those are some of the critical ones. So again, you want to craft this plan, especially if you're in a high stress state, to bring cortisol down. Now the trap here for everybody is like, well, what if you're like, well, I'm not stressed? And it's not just about being stressed, it's about understanding that Chronic viruses can create this high cortisol state, right? Can create this inflammation at the level of the hypothalamus that pours out cortisol. We understand too that trauma, right, a car accident, you know, any of these type of things can create a high cortisol state. And there's so many toxins out there now that create a high cortisol state. So having an active, you know, plan that truly manages cortisol and brings it down, I think is really important.

Yeah, that's great. You mentioned herbs. What are some of your favorite herbs to recommend, both for women and then also for men? Is there any difference in terms of helping lower those cortisol levels?

Definitely. I mean, I use a lot of ashwagandha across the board for men and women. I feel like that's a tried and true. I feel like the mushrooms are really great too. I love reishi mushroom. I feel like that one I can use across, you know, men and women. Um, for women, I start skewing a little bit more towards like maca because it helps me a lot with the hot flashes and the night sweats as well. That many women experience while helping a little bit with the cortisol component. And then I've got a lot of women that, you know, find ashwagandha too stimulating. So for them, sometimes we're using like holy basil and pairing that with maca to kind of bring that cortisol response down. So those are some of my favorites. I mean, there's so many more, but those are the ones I feel like I'm reaching for constantly.

Makes sense. I mean, I love those. You know, again, I, I, the, the mushroom I take the most personally is reishi. I do a lot. I mean, it's, it's more gentle. I mean, I love cordyceps. It's a little stronger, of course. But again, I think Reishi in terms of just longevity, there's so much great research and history behind that. And ashwagandha, I mean, it's great for men and women, so I love that. You had mentioned infrared sauna and I want to dive into that more later, but I do want to say, I mean, that is such a great practice. I've had my infrared sauna for years now. And, man, I just love it. I mean, I just really feel like— I mean, there's a— I hear a lot both about— and you'd mentioned there's a study. Would you just kind of quote that study? What was that finding on the benefits of, you said, doing a sauna, infrared sauna, 3 times a week?

Yeah, I believe the study looked at folks using the control group had used a dry sauna 15 to 20 minutes about 3 to 4 times a week. And they found a couple of things. It was super interesting. They found, first of all, the cortisol levels were down after use of the sauna, but in addition to that, they found that it actually lowered inflammation and even some of the cardiovascular markers. So lowered blood pressure, for example, improved heart rate, improved heart rate variability. So those are all things we associate with stress, right? And an exaggerated cortisol response. So just having that as a tool, you know, to kind of really help you manage your day-to-day stress or even just to help you with, you know, the environmental stress. Maybe you have to beat traffic. Maybe you flew a bunch and jumped on a plane, you know, for 3 weeks in a row. Definitely helping with some of those type of things that are triggering. Again, I keep telling people to, to imagine sort of your brain, the hypothalamus is sitting in the next— inside of it, it's sensing the environment, and then it's deciding what to do. And if it's got too many hits, it's pouring out cortisol. So what can we do to calm that down becomes really a public health issue, I think, moving forward. And we're not talking about it enough because I think so much can be prevented if we think about starting there versus, you know, there's a lot of conversation at the other end about hormone balancing or this or that or all those other things. What if we started up here so that our hormones didn't crash as quickly and as early as they seem to be doing nowadays?

Yeah, you know, I, I have noticed tremendous benefits in using my sauna. I, uh, you know, and I think a lot of times people think, well, I'm gonna have to get in there a lot. Like, I, like, I'll get in there like you, like you said, 20 minutes a few days a week and really feel so relaxed getting out, feel energized. I've noticed I sleep better, so there's lots of benefits there. I've got a Sunlighten at home and love it in terms of the brand. But there's a lot of— yeah, so, so great. You know, you were talking about this, I want to talk more about infrared a little bit in the sauna. And so for everybody here, uh, if you've never been in an infrared sauna, it is an incredible healing experience. I mean, the whole family, you know, Chelsea post-pregnancy started getting in and to kind of help her blood flow and recovery after giving birth, which was amazing. Um, and then anytime we're not feeling well, but generally just for longevity, for health, I'd love for you to explain the basic, just a little bit of the science behind how infrared saunas work and why they're so beneficial.

Definitely. So I think infrared sauna, remember, are heating— we're getting kind of heated up from the inside out rather than just having a lot of heat come directly at us. So by doing so, again, there's some science and some early studies that showing that's actually helping our detox pathways. That's the difference. That's to me the biggest difference between the infrared and the regular saunas that you're heating the body gently from the inside out, which also means, by the way, you can go in it more frequently. Usually in a typical dry sauna, you're only supposed to go about 2 to 3 times a week. Otherwise it can be a little bit too much for the body. But with an infrared, you can go a little bit more frequently if you want. But this sort of activation of metabolic pathways and detox pathways has a lot of benefits. And I can go to a million different benefits. But I think one of the things that we've seen just within our own family, because we have a son, Layton, as well. And it didn't take me long to say that it's working for everybody to find everybody down in it. But my daughter is almost— she's 16 years old and she's almost self-medicating with the sauna. And she's got what many children and adolescents have today, a little bit more of those sensory issues, right? She has one of the MTHFR genes, so she's prone to some chronic inflammation. Now with her hormones, we're seeing sort of the the early PCOS stuff come out. And I find her in there almost every day because I think she's self-medicating and finding that that is improving her detox capacity. She feels better afterwards. She feels calmer. And she's even told me, like, you know, noise and sounds and textures, like she would yell at my husband for chewing, like all of that stuff seems to really be toned down as she's used that on a, on a regular basis. So I think the detox component is key. The support of liver function, which is an indirect byproduct, right, of being able to support detox is the other part of it. And there's some other studies too that are talking about 10% to 15% body fat reduction over a period of time and even weight loss, which is not really why we want to stress the importance of Asana, right? Because I think that's a byproduct of detoxing a little bit better. But, but those are some of the benefits that I've seen for sure.

Yeah, there are loads of benefits. There was a study I was recently reading recently on mitochondrial health. And for everybody listening, and I know you're familiar with this, but your mitochondria are your cellular engines. I mean, they create ATP. It's the energy that literally runs your organs and your entire body. And so the study found that if you get an infrared sauna, even just a couple of days a week for 20 minutes, you are supporting something called mitophagy, which is your cells are then going and actually repairing themselves. They're cleaning up and getting rid of something called senescent senescent cells. These are cells that create toxins, cause you to age. So really, it's supporting anti-aging in a really powerful way and creating new and healthy cells. And so, yeah, the benefits of infrared saunas are immense. And one other thing, I want to kind of take saunas now and talk about it from an Eastern perspective for a minute because when you think about hypothyroidism. Okay, now I'm going to mention, I know you've studied some TCM, but also a lot of Ayurveda. But in Chinese medicine, when you look at somebody who has hypothyroid, we would tend to, or the way that I would tend to call that is a kidney, a qi and yang deficiency. Okay. And that word yang is, there's actually a lot of times it could be correlated also with progesterone or testosterone, some of those organs rather than estrogen. And also, it tends to mean if you've got a yang deficiency, your body's too cold, which we know that happens in hypothyroidism. What are your views from an Eastern perspective of the benefits of sauna and maybe even for specific conditions like hypothyroid or where your body temperature is low or adrenal fatigue or some of those other conditions that could help?

I mean, I tie it back to, again, and like we were talking about, we do a lot of personalized medicine, so I'm always tying it back to the patient or the individual who is in a depletion state. Right. So in both Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, they talk about people and they talk a lot about their Shen or their overall prana. These are words they use to describe energy, right? Like, how much energy does this person have? And people that are in a low energy state, you mentioned cold plunge earlier. Like, I don't want them cold plunging. That's more of a shock to the system, right? That's a little bit harsher to them. I don't feel like they're ready for that. So what I am usually looking for is folks that are in a depletion state. And depletion can be from many different things. It can be you just had a baby. It can be you had a surgery. It can be you're just nutrient depleted. Your hormones are all over the place. It can be from lots of different states. When you're in those depletion states, we do want to warm the body. Right. And, and they talk about generating energy and warming the body. Their modalities were acupuncture, cupping, moxibustion, right, that you would use that massage. You know, Shriyadhara. There are all these ancient remedies that were all about warming the body and kind of stimulating energy. Sauna is doing just that. Infrared sauna therapy is doing just that. You are heating the body. In fact, on some of my workups, it'll say somebody— it'll give them an element. And you can probably relate to this because we study this stuff. But like, it'll say this person is very metal. Well, that's someone who's cold and dry. Like, they need heat, right? They don't need a lot of cold stuff. So those are the type of people that really benefit. Now, when I apply that same thing to hormones. I feel like the benefit of sauna therapy for hormones is this: it definitely helps with hypothyroidism because again, you're warming the body, you're generating energy. People that are hypothyroid are depleted. It definitely helps with adrenal fatigue. So we're back to this cortisol issue and really trying to help them bring cortisol in balance. We don't want to plummet cortisol, but we want to bring it into balance. So in a fun way to track that, by the way, I don't know if you've done this before since I've been wearing this, um, or a ring for a period of time. Something fun to track is like, what's my HRV pre-sauna and what's my HRV post-sauna? Because remember, your heart rate variability is a reflection of kind of what your cortisol levels are doing, and you'll find that they will often improve. And then I think the other hormone pattern where I encourage folks to get into the sauna are those with estrogen dominance, because oftentimes when you have a lot of stored estrogen, you have this boggy— we called it liver stasis, right? In Chinese medicine, you have this boggy, heavy liver is the way they would imagine it. We apply it to science. We know those pathways are blocked. And by going in the sauna, we're again stimulating some of that activity to take place. We're helping with metabolism of estrogen indirectly, which then in turn helps blood sugar to come down, insulin to come down. And then that's the metabolic benefit. So again, there are clear hormone patterns where I feel like either because you're depleted that sauna is helpful or because you're congested where sauna is helpful if we're going to kind of apply the Eastern mindset to this.

That's so good. This is why I love talking to you. It's so good. And so, yeah, as we're talking about, just to add just a couple of thoughts, as we're talking about TCM, Chinese medicine really believed, and this is true, I mean, we have to get more more blood flow to an area. In order to do that, you need to bring heat to an area. I mean, really, cool is going to kind of freeze things and things will move less, and heat will help generate more movement in an area. And because people move less today— and just for everybody thinking about this, okay, if somebody moves a lot or too much for their body, in a way, I don't want to say it's too much, but in a way it is, they'll take ice baths. Like, think about— I remember I used to do triathlons. And I was a big fan. I love watching the Tour de France. One of the ways they recover is by doing ice baths. And so if you're moving a lot, a tremendous amount, let's say you're in a CrossFit competition doing it all day, or you're doing run— you run a marathon, or you are doing a triathlon, doing some ice and cold plunging when your body generates that much heat, it's a great thing. And that's why there are great benefits of cold plunge. But also for most people, we're not moving enough, right? I mean, really, we should be getting— I mean, we should be moving constantly all day. I mean, before, up until 100 years ago, most people were in agriculture and farming and walking and moving all day long, lifting heavy things. I mean, literally getting a hardcore workout every day. And this is where, if you're unable to do that especially, and you're not getting a workout that day, well, get in a sauna because now you're getting movement, you're getting blood flow, you're bringing that energy to that area. And so I think that's an important thing to remember. Part of this is due to modern-day sitting a lot. This is a way to help remedy and support your body in healing due to our modern lifestyle.

Very much. And I think, okay, I told you about my daughter, but I think for me, I'm really good. Our lifestyle, I mean, you're probably the same way. We're sitting a lot, writing, speaking, interviewing, seeing patients. There's a lot of this, right? So I'm really good. I'm a motivated, determined person. I'm great about the morning workout. I get it in. That's not the issue, whatever it is. But then you add on 8 to 10 hours of sitting. And what I've noticed is that now I almost stand up from that and I'm swollen. My legs are swollen. I don't know. I think a lot of women more so than men experience that, but I almost just feel super, super swollen. That's another way. Like, if I can't for some reason get out and go for a quick walk or use our equipment or whatever, I'll jump in the sauna. That's one more way for me to get some some blood flow, some movement, some lymphatic flow, even if I can't go and get another form of movement. So it's been a game changer that way for me too, on days where, you know, for whatever reason— I've tried to be better about it over the years, but I'm just sitting and sitting and sitting, and the hours are going away and I don't realize it.

Yeah, jumping back to a previous question I asked you, I just wanted to add this as well. You know, I, um, did an episode recently— I've done actually two episodes on the testosterone crisis in I mean, we are. And then also some of the side effects of doing TRT therapy too early. Yes. For men.

Yes. Oh my God.

Yeah. And there are so many forever chemicals and things, you know, things in our food supply. I mean, there are just so many chemicals that are contributing. I think culture is contributing. I think there's a lot of things. Men just being sedentary, not doing hard, heavy things that are contributing to this testosterone absolutely plummeting today. But for those men getting that blood flow, but also detoxification, there was a study done that I'd read, and I'm not going to list all the chemicals, but I do believe that it said that infrared saunas help your body excrete and eliminate heavy metals including arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead from your system. And these are things we're exposed to that really negatively affect testosterone in men. And we know also, of course, Here's the other thing. A lot of women don't understand, especially how much the liver is connected to hormonal health, right? And how it has to do with energy. Would you explain that for a minute? Feel free to touch on both. So I'd love to talk for a minute about the testosterone in men and the connection there. And we were talking about saunas too with that. But that, and then also in addition, women and how your liver needs to be healthy in order for it to have hormone balance.

Definitely. And I think I'm going to back into both conversations talking about the liver, because I think you brought up a really important point. So just talking— let's go Eastern medicine first. In Eastern medicine, the liver is ground zero for your hormone health. Ground zero. They knew that thousands of years ago. That still holds true today. If the liver was boggy or sluggish, we've already talked about some of the patterns. You would have estrogen dominance, you would have issues with thyroid. All of these different patterns would emerge. Now, that is true for men and women. And what we are seeing, which is a little— very concerning, I think, is that not only are women experiencing estrogen dominance, men are too. Men have a lot of stored estrone. That storage form of estrogen is produced from the adrenal gland, actually. They're having a lot of estrone in their system, and we're seeing it in our young boys, not just in men that might have lived a little bit. We're even seeing it in boys. And so you can see it on the street. If you walk the street you will see the high estrone levels without doing a test. You'll see sort of what we call man boobs in young boys. You'll see little bellies in younger teenage boys and things like that. You see sort of this body composition shifting and changing.

Well, and I see it in the face, too. I mean, you see it everywhere.

Yeah, you definitely see it. So, so this is the liver being attacked is kind of a universal issue for both men and women. Now, the reason it's being attacked, and this is where we start to layer, right? First of all, we look at chemicals and we have— there's so many studies, I could talk about this forever, of the load of chemicals and its impact on the liver. We've got studies looking at glyphosate and how it impacts the liver and liver health and how it does lead to higher stored estrone or high estrogen dominance in both men and women. We're looking at so many different forever chemicals, right? And there's so many categories— your VOCs, your organophosphates, your, you know, the stuff in your pans and all that other stuff. So many of these chemicals are coming in and disrupting the hormone access. Everyone gets that. They're like, oh yeah, endocrine disruptor. But this is why they are endocrine disruptors. They disrupt the hormone pathways in the liver. And then what you have instead of a hormone being able to be a hormone, it's in this in-between state. And I've been calling those dirty hormones. Those sort of pile up and build up and then impact the rest of the hormone balance, whether you're talking about women whether you're talking about men. One of my greatest pet peeves, and I'm pretty sure— I don't want to speak for you, but it's probably yours too— is that, you know, people start to have hormone issues, men or women, and then they run out and they go get hormone replacement therapy, right? That's got to be the answer. But everybody forgot about the liver, because if you're not cleaning up this liver and you're dumping more hormone on top of it, guess what? You're just expanding your sort of intrinsic, uh, you know, population of dirty hormones. So that's only getting worse. So you see a lot of people on this this hormone kind of merry-go-round of, you know, my hormones are off, let me go get hormone replacement therapy. The hormone replacement therapy worked for a second, but now it's accumulating because the gut and the liver aren't working very well. So now I'm in hormone imbalance again. So that's kind of what we want to break, and we want to bring the conversation back. And that's— I wrote about it in The Hormone Shift, and, you know, super passionate about people trying to understand that to balance hormones, you really need to start with the gut and the liver before you start chasing individual hormones and replacing because you're trying to lay a healthy hormone foundation. And that's actually true. That's why I was joking. Like, I've got the book right here. This is The Hormone Shift, but I can flip this to a blue cover and apply it to men because that principle is universal and very important. So anything we can do, which means cleaning up our diet, right? Choosing the foods we can choose, really being conscious of where things are coming from, looking at products we're using, whether it's body care, or cleaners or, you know, our indoor air quality, the things that we can control. We can't control everything, but then also assisting the body in the ability to move those dirty hormones out. And you can do that with, you know, again, the right diet, with the right supplements or herbs, but even with the right modality. So this is where something like sauna therapy has a role in helping the body to move those things through and activating the right pathways. So we don't have that boggy kind of heavy liver that can't do the work it's meant to do.

It's so good. It's so good. Yeah, you know, and one of the things that I think when I started studying Chinese medicine, uh, that I was most surprised by was, you know, liver. I mean, again, yeah, totally, it is, it is so important, especially for, again, getting rid of these estrogens as you're talking about. I mean, starting to balance out, uh, estrogen in your body. And it's really an epidemic. I mean, low testosterone numbers. I was doing a— like I said, I did an episode on my show, The Dr. Josh Axe Show, where I went through, um, how over the past— it's about 50 years— testosterone levels in men have declined by 33%. Wow. So I mean, it's amazing. And so on average, a man in their late 20s— a man in their 20s has the testosterone— if you were to go 50 years ago, that was the testosterone levels of men in their 60s. And so, it is just an astronomical drop in testosterone and then men are going in their— this is crazy— in their 20s and 30s getting TRT. And essentially, it's not common sense but it's happening is that that's causing male infertility. And for some of the men, if they— now, it's one thing if they get on it for 6 months, it may take another 6 months or a year before they're back to normal. Normal based on these studies. But if they're on it for 5 years in their 20s and then they want to go and have a family, there's a good chance— there's several studies showing the likelihood is actually pretty low. And so there's a lot of men getting on testosterone therapy in their 20s and 30s, and they don't— they— I don't think they fully understand it. I don't know if doctors have told them, this is the— these are the side effects.

I don't think so. I mean, I think I think Western medicine thinks about the body holistically. I think they think about hormones in a box. They think about mental health in a box. They think about— they don't even think about the liver, honestly, until it's super diseased, right? Yeah, that was, that was like eye-opening for me and, you know, probably for many of us that have gone through traditional education, you know. So the liver lives kind of off in the space somewhere and is really not paid a lot of attention to. And so when doctors are prescribing hormone replacement therapy, that's not a conversation that they're having, right? Because they're not integrating the body. And it's only when we really change medicine to have this integrated approach and we understand that when we do something over here, it impacts something over there, you know, that's only when we're really going to be able to heal people, you know, completely.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that, again, I've mentioned this several times, but it's only because I very much mean it, that Dr. Taz, I love the way you practice. And the way you think is that I've said this for a few years, is that there's really not two forms of medicine today. There's really three levels. You have conventional medicine where the only thing that's happening is we're treating your symptom. And then you have even integrative and sometimes functional medicine or general nutrition where you're going layers deeper, which is good. And you're saying, hey, I'm going to give you some vitamins, minerals, we're going to go gluten-free, we're going to change some dietary, we're going to do some things. But there is a whole nother layer deeper and a whole layer that is also more comprehensive, and that's putting together a whole root cause protocol. So because there's not one root cause, there tends to be multiple things. And so I want to, I want to do this for testosterone, and you can fill in gaps if you want. And then I'd love for you to do this for women with hypothyroid, the same, the same exercise. So if I have a male come in with whatever issues they're having, okay, low energy, low sex drive, just not, you know, lack of strength, all those things. I'm going to first again do some blood work. We'll look at cortisol, we'll look at DHEA, we'll look at all those things. But even without the blood test, I kind of already know most of the time, not every time, but most of the time. And it said, okay, well, let's change your diet. Okay, so let's do that. A lot of people do that. Let's start doing a lot more. Let's up your protein, animal meats and organ meats. Let's do a lot of vegetables, let's do some specific fruits, let's do some nuts, walnuts, Brazil nuts, some others on a regular basis. So let's get a diet that's gonna help boost, in Chinese medicine, your chi and your yang, your kidney chi, your yang, let's do that. And then from there, let's also do some herbs. Let's do some, if you're over 50, probably, not younger, but ginseng. If you're younger, let's do some ashwagandha. Let's maybe do some fenugreek. You know, let's get the gut healthy, do some probiotics. Let's support the liver. Let's do these things. And then let's get an infrared sauna. Let's get in there. Let's start detoxing your body. Stop doing stuff out of plastic. Let's get some glass. Let's start doing weight training. And I could keep going. My point is, let's do all of these things. Let's get to the very root around cortisol and insulin and your lifestyle and recommend you get sleep. There's another huge one for people getting quality sleep. Then here's some natural lifestyle practices. Start walking, get an infrared sauna. And that sort of thing. And so that is more getting to the root cause and helping somebody reverse disease. Like, I know in my practice, and you see the same thing in your incredible practice in Georgia around the Atlanta area, is that people are coming in with autoimmune disease, we're seeing it reversed. People are coming with type 2 diabetes, we're seeing it reversed. People with hypothyroidism, it's— there— it's being reversed. And so walk through me, if you have a patient come in with hypothyroid, let's say a woman— I kind of did men What would some of those protocols look like, uh, for you?

Definitely. So, you know, in some ways I'm laughing because they're so similar, but you know, if someone comes in with hypothyroidism, obviously we want to understand a couple of key things. What's their diet? It always begins with diet. We have— we see a huge relationship between hypothyroidism and gluten intolerance, or something called Candida, which is an overgrowth of yeast in the gut.. And Candida can be the issue that's driving some of the thyroid stuff. There's genetics and stuff like that involved in there. We won't get into all of that, but diet would be first, and diet modification is our first step. Our second step is nutrient support, right? Because the thyroid is highly dependent on a couple of key nutrients. Magnesium is one, iron, iodine, selenium, you know, even the B vitamins play a role in the ability of your thyroid to function effectively. So those are probably our two big starting points. Now, side by side, as we're working on those two key issues, we are looking at the other hormones because as with men, no hormone exists in isolation. So if the thyroid's off, what was going on with cortisol? What was going on with progesterone? In fact, I was just talking to a group of women and I was explaining to them that oftentimes it's progesterone to be the first hormone that drops in women. But that in turn is so depleting for women that the thyroid is the next guy to go. What's going on with everybody else? Do we need to support any of the other hormones? And once we establish sort of that catty corner, then we start asking a harder question. Okay, great. We've got your diet on the right track. We've got the nutrients moving in the right direction. But is your gut really where it's going to absorb anything or convert, right? T4 to T3, which is the more biologically active form of thyroid. So if you don't have the right gut, microbiome, your thyroid's not going to work effectively. So that's the next place to go. And then it's very highly dependent on the health of the liver and what the liver is doing to make all of this work kind of together in a symphony. So then the next question after that is, well, what are we doing for liver health? What are we doing for general detoxification? And how can we add something to this overall plan? So historically, we used to add like milk thistle. A lot of these folks with thyroid issues also had estrogen dominance, so we might add calcium gluconate. But, you know, there is a cap at which people can take things, and that's where adding other modalities is super helpful in terms of supporting something like the thyroid or something like estrogen dominance. So this is where sauna therapy might come into the picture as well and be yet another thing that folks can do as they're trying to balance out their thyroid.

Yeah, it's such a good point because again, I think that doing things as a full-on protocol— because you can only take so many vitamins and minerals, right? You can only take so many herbs and diet. But yeah, doing all of those things together, they're all going to start to contribute. And thanks for doing that. Another thing I wanted to mention that I know there's some good research on, and I think, of course, a lot of history on, and that is light therapy. So we've talked about infrared light. I want to talk about the sun too and these different forms of light. Talk to me about the importance of using different sort of lights, whether it be the sun or infrared or others, to support hormone balance.

I'm fascinated by light therapy. It's an area I probably need to even dig deeper in because if you look back, that was a form of medicine and that is what many of our medical ancestors used to heal people. But it's really founded in this fundamental idea that by receiving light and the right wavelengths of light at the right times of day, you can reset the entire circadian rhythm, but also the HPA axis, because again, the two are so intricately linked together. And so when we think about a condition like cortisol or adrenal fatigue, what's going on there? You have a lot of disruption of the circadian rhythm. A lot of those people are up all night. Women with hormone imbalances can't sleep. So what we want to do is try to help them reset that circadian rhythm. So for them, receiving light at the right times is so critical. In reality, what's happening— I'm just as guilty— we're on our phones late into the night. We look at our phones first thing in the morning. That's not the type of light we need., right? So there's a specific wavelength to light that is healing and restorative and stimulating. So we need sunlight first thing in the morning. We need no light as we move towards the latter hours of the evening. But because, again, this pineal gland, which sits right here with the hypothalamus and pituitary kind of buried deep behind, we're receiving all kinds of wavelengths of light, is triggering that hypothalamic inflammation I was talking about that's then driving the cortisol and then disrupting kind of the HPA axis. So we're having a huge issue. That's also part of why I think we're seeing the hormone crisis, right? Everyone's on these devices all day long. They're getting this element of blue light, they're getting electromagnetic radiation that is also probably contributing. We don't know how much right now, but probably contributing to this overall kind of hormone crisis that we're having. But infrared light at the right wavelengths, right? This is light at a particular wavelength that is going to help to heal the body. It's improving blood flow, it's calming the nervous system down versus like the super stimulatory or even harsh and a little bit harder on our system. So light therapy is so important. And I think that getting your light right, you know, not to rhyme on here, but getting it right to where you're receiving the right wavelengths of light at the right times is a part of overall health and healing. And we know that even if we look back thousands of years.

Yeah, that's so good. I know my wife Chelsea, our sauna that we have at home, she, you know, she says for her, her biggest benefit she knows is getting better sleep. You know, she tends to do it around dinner time, get in there a little bit, or sometime in morning, and just really notices a difference with that. And the recovery from pregnancy has been great. So again, I definitely know— and there's some great studies on getting outside first thing in the morning, going on a walk. I, I've noticed myself myself, the more time I spend outside, the better I sleep. I mean, I just, you know, I, now that I'm older, when I was a kid, I just slept like a rock and never woke, you know, I just, and now that I'm in my forties, I wake up a little bit more at night. But again, the more that I spend time outside, the less, the more I just sleep, sleep well.

It's a cortisol. I mean, you know, that's why we all crave the beach, right? I think the sun and the water and those nature elements, they just instantly tone everybody down, right? They just instantly bring you down. So I think, um, you know, that just needs to be— we've gotten so far away from that. Like, even our kids don't get outside time at school, right? Everything's so like scheduled and all that other stuff. But that's true. But I do think it's an important part of healing.

Have you ever had anyone, you know, patients that you, you know, obviously we recommend a lot of things. We recommend a lot of diet, a lot of, you know, supplementation, lifestyle changes. But have you ever recommended anybody start spending time in the sauna or infrared light and they came back and just said, wow, this was a game changer for me?

Oh my goodness. All the time. All the time. In fact, as a part of our treatment plans, for the very reason we know that diet is a little bit of a journey, supplements can get too heavy if you have too many on there. What are the other modalities? We're always questioning ourselves, what are the other modalities? Realities that might be beneficial to the person sitting in front of us. And folks that do take up that sauna therapy, they feel better. First of all, they feel better, they sleep better. And then for me, the doctor, over a period of time, we actually see some of their numbers improve, right? Whether it's liver enzymes, whether it's hormone balance, we definitely see things improve. So we know, and like I was talking about with my daughter, and I don't think she'd care if I shared, there is that MTHFR gene on my husband's side of the family. Yep. And with that, there's that low-grade hum of inflammation, right? So for those folks, when they're able to go and do something that they look forward to and enjoy as a therapy or as a modality rather than yet another thing that they have to remember, you know, the great thing about sauna therapy is you look forward to it. You can't wait to get in there because you feel so good coming out of it. When they can be consistent with something like that, the hum of inflammation does go down and it improves mood, it improves just general energy, definitely improves sleep. So, uh, we hear that from our patients all the time.

You know, it's, it's a feeling of like, I've been cleansed. I mean, there is— I mean, totally, yeah, you feel that coming out. Well, I have a one last question for you. Yeah, with people who are wanting to balance their hormones, give me your, like, Taz's top 5. Like, what are 5 things that people should start doing in order to start balancing their hormones? And you can think about a little bit, it could be be— yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to answer it for you. So, but what are Taz's top 5?

I mean, my top 5, I think food is still medicine. There's no way to get around that. So upping your protein, eating at regular intervals, getting a lot of those plant-based foods, and getting the junk out. Get all the—

how much protein do you recommend typically for men and for women?

So it's— I will look at their body weight, honestly, to make that decision. Um, but I would say it's about— I know it's about 1 gram per kilo is sort of the advice out there, or 1 gram per pound, excuse me, is the advice out there. I feel like that's a lot and it's hard for some women to digest all of that. So I'm more like 0.6 to 0.8 if you can get somewhere in there. So for most women, for the average woman, that's about 70 to 80 grams of protein. For men, it's closer to 100. Yeah, but getting that and then getting it at regular intervals. So women or men with low HRVs or high cortisol, shouldn't be doing a ton of fasting. That's almost more stressful to the body. They can cycle fast, but they shouldn't be doing every single day of fasting. So that's one. I think that getting the key nutrients for hormones, right? Hormones need food just like we do. So they need B vitamins, they need magnesium, you know, they need omega-3 fats. These are sort of the foundational, you know, nutrients, vitamin D, foundational nutrients when it comes to hormone balance. And then the third is cleaning up the liver, you know. So I think really having some sort of liver cleanup, and that could look like an herb, it could look like thistle or dandelion tea. It could look like sauna therapy. That's another way to do it for sure. But you need some way of cleaning up the liver in a systematic way because of our environment and because of the fact that your hormones are probably off and your load of those hormone metabolites may be bigger than where you want them to be. I would say sleep and movement, not to be too superficial there, but deep, consistent sleep, 90 minutes of REM sleep, 90 minutes of deep sleep. Sleep. These are like non-negotiables for hormone balance. I feel like those are things that the body really needs. And then movement. Move when you can. Don't make it hard. I even started telling people if it's 10 minutes, everyone feels like they've got to do this beautiful 1-hour workout and that's the answer. It's actually 10 minutes chopped up throughout the day. 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening, 10 minutes midday. That's going to help keep your blood flow going, your lymphatics going, and keep your blood sugar a little bit more balanced.

Balanced. That's such good advice, such good advice. Well, to wrap up, I just want to, uh, mention everybody, your hormone balance is very important. Of course, as we're talking about, we have an epidemic today. I mean, men with low testosterone, women with hypothyroidism, there's a lot of infertility. I mean, some of these numbers keep crawling up. And so if you're going to look your best, be your best, extend your lifespan for longevity, you've got to really take care of your hormones. And again, I appreciate Dr. Taz coming and sharing all of her wisdom and how to do everything from taking vitamins like vitamin D, taking herbs like ashwagandha. She mentioned— she talked about getting more protein, warming your body with things like infrared, more time outside, and so much more. So again, I hope everybody's enjoyed this episode. Also want to mention a few things here about Dr. Taz. She has her new book, The Hormone Shift. Get it. You can see if you're watching here on YouTube. Let's see the COVID again here. Here it is, The Hormone Shift. Awesome book. And if you have a friend who is dealing with hormone issues, get it to them, give it to them as a gift. This is a great book. Bookstores nationwide, but so easy to just go grab it on Amazon. Also wanna encourage you, she's got a show called Superwoman Wellness, and you can follow her great advice on social media. It's @DrTazMD, that's spelled @DrTazMD. @drtazmd, @drtaz on social media. There's a lot of other things we could talk about. I mean, we could talk for hours and hours, and again, we'll have you— I did that, guys, you were on there not long ago. We'll keep, keep having you on because again, the wisdom is so, so great. Um, thanks so much for coming on.

Oh my gosh, thank you. You know, I enjoy it. I love our conversations and I appreciate it. So, um, thank you. Thank you.

Remember, subscribe and like and share this video. If you felt like this was impactful for you, hey, text this to somebody. Let somebody know how to naturally balance their hormones. Thanks again to Dr. Taz, and God bless everyone.