EP 115// "Optimizing Your Hormones With Naturopathic Physician Dr. Elena Zinkov!"

to inspire you to tune out all of the noise of our modern-day world even for just a few

minutes, so that way you can better tune into your body and start redefining what

“healthy really means to you. No longer do you need to live tied down to old toxic beliefs”

about food, fitness, and the scale. This year is the year of transformation where you have the opportunity to dive deep and take living and eating intuitively to a whole new level. This is the year that you get to gain a whole new strength and a vibrant about you that will be too bright for the world not to see. Get ready to dive deep with me on yet another exciting topic that I hope will leave you feeling inspired, motivated, and ready to

take on this week full steam. Welcome back everyone to another episode of The Live Healthy with

Laura Podcast. Today I am sitting here with the beautiful Dr. Elena Zincoff. She, you guys, is an award-winning naturopathic medical doctor, specializing in end technology, and with over 20 years of nutrition and exercise science. Her focus is on helping women specifically from all stages of life, especially

“women in Perry, then a pause and beyond, get out of the conventional way of thinking about”

hormones and provide a much-needed answer to the most common hormone-related symptoms. Like many women, she struggled with PCOS herself, Hashimoto's, poor gut health, and infertility, and she is here today to share the hidden truths in medicine about hormones and women's so without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Dr. Elena Zincoff. Thank you so so much for being here. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course. So I love to

dive into, you know, you're not doing this out of boredom. You're not doing what you're doing, for no reason, and I love to hear the story behind the practitioner or the person that is working to change the world. So would you share just a little bit with my, with my main audience, air back story, and what really sparked your passion for women's health? Yeah, thank you.

“Well, with many women, I struggled with hormone and balance symptoms, and when I was a teenager,”

I didn't know what was going on with my body. I just knew that I had cystic acne that I was anxious, very anxious, had a lot of social anxiety. I had irregular cycles, I had painful cycles, but back then, and even to this day, we didn't really have an answer for women. It was sort of, well, here's the birth control, we just know that it's going to suppress some things and it's going

to make things go away, but it never, you know, we never got to the root cause of the issue of the problem.

And I really feel like I went into medicine to help myself first, because I really wanted to understand what were some of the causes for the symptoms that I was experiencing. And it all started to kind of come together as different pieces of the puzzle. I didn't actually know that I had Hashimoto's until postpartum, and it still becomes a chicken, or they kind of thing that I did. Hashimoto's during pregnancy was it just the hormonal roller coaster postpartum that triggered

Hashimoto's as a lot of women when they go from sort of hormonal changes that can trigger autoimmune disease to appear. But anyways, for me, I was very passionate about helping myself and that had become very passionate about helping other women in terms of understanding the root cause of why they feel the way they feel. And we know that of course diet, lifestyle, exercise, play a huge role in our day to experience and how we feel. But hormones really dictate

the majority of our day to day experience. Everything. Our energy, our energy, our energy. You could be doing all the right things, and I felt like I was doing the right things, but I was still struggling. I was still struggling with hair loss, I was struggling with the joint pain because I actually had Hashimoto's. And I went with arthritis, double whammy, all together, I was starting with irritability, same thing that women feel, you know, great, you're great. Then two things

up to your cycle, you're like a different human. So it's a really passionate to having these conversations to help we're going to understand that what they're feeling is not normal, that this is not how it shouldn't be feeling, it should be feeling vital and healthy and vibrant and strong and confidence. Like we are supposed to rock this world and if we can't, we've got to deal with, we've got it. So did you, did you feel like you were listened to by the medical community before you

came into practice yourself? No, I, you know, my mom, I think you and I share the medical family

by my mother. She just didn't have any answer for me. She just cheated. No, you're not responsible for what you don't know. Right. Exactly. And actually when I was considering going into medicine, she said, can you please study in the chronology because we all, you know, she wasn't in a

“time. She wasn't in a place in her life. Well, she could just, you know, learn, start over, right, right?”

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's not smart. Like you want to be able to to delegate an outsource. But, you know, I felt heard by my nutritionist. Yeah. That's not it. And I was heard by actually, I had my first experience with an actual path when I was about 15 or 16. It will be 12 shod and have my first like food allergy test and all of that stuff. But I was like a one point in time. And I kind of like there was been what years before even thought about going into the

naturopathic medicine. We're, you know, working with a naturopath. But the bottom line is no,

I didn't feel like I was heard. You know, it was a typical 15 minute visit how we go. We blood pressure CVC, CMP, lipid panel, everything looks normal. Here's some birth control. Yeah, here's some birth control. And you just, you know, you don't know better. And I have this conversation with quite a few people where you just kind of you, you want to be able to trust the doctor. You want to be able to trust your provider. But you really can't nowadays. Like I, and that's so true.

“So true. We have to indicate ourselves because yes, unfortunately, and I think this has gotten worse,”

the health care provider may not have the best knowledge or the tools resources, the best extensions because they're so busy seeing people every 15 minutes. Yes. And their job is like about the number. How many people can you get in and out the door? Yeah. And their job is not to focus on the health span and the quality of life. Their job is to keep your life. Yes, as long as you've had a pulse, as long as your heart is pumping, we're triaging over here. We're

not getting to the root. We're not dealing with optimal. We're not trying to optimally live. We're just getting to like, let's put this fire out here, this fire out here. So, okay, would you share some, you know, well, let me just say, hormonal imbalance as you, I think you and I both agree because it's happened to me as well. Our masks by other, you know, ailments in our culture. And they're pushed to the side. Gosh, it makes the angry. Just the prescriptions that are written

and then the tests that aren't done first. But I was just wondering, in your practice,

are there some side effects that you often come across in your patients when they first comes to you that actually end up being an underlying hormonal imbalance. And that fixing the the whole

“domino effects. What, what would, what have you seen? What are some symptoms or side effects?”

Yeah, absolutely. Well, we can take some even, you know, female related conditions like PCOS, for example, which I have. I have a adrenal PCOS. Yeah, we're dating. I don't know whatever you want to say, maybe in remission. It's not who I am, but I was, it was part of my life. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, you know, I kind of have two thoughts happening in the same time right now with PCOS. And even like different conditions like PCOS and even autumn, you could live with them.

You may necessarily kind of quote unquote cure right yourself from it. It may kind of disappear

on the labs. You may always have that predisposition, but you don't have to remission with, you know,

with it on a day-to-day basis. But let's say PCOS and insulin resistance, for example. So a lot of women will experience sort of the quintessential metabolic syndrome and metabolic disease presentation, whether having elevated a one-seed elevated vaccine blood sugar. They can have post-prandial elevated insulin levels and it can be treated with insulin management medications and such when they really have underlying hormone imbalance and imbalance between estrogen and

progesterone that is presenting us PCOS. Right. So here's an example of some metabolic conditions that also have this sort of similar presentation as hormonal imbalance. And a lot of women, especially as we get older and in peremenopause and beyond, we start to see issues with hyperlipidemia as an example, osteoporosis, heart disease blood pressure. A lot of women, they'll see me because they have heart palpitations. And it's not because, you know, they need blood pressure medication

or blood thingy medication. It's because they're potentially having declining estrogen levels or an imbalance between estrogen and progesterone, even testosterone is really part of a cardiovascular health. But people don't why do we not dig? I mean, because low estrogen, like you said, like

years. So it used to be like this, okay, you know, stay away, stay away. But I think like you said

on the flip side when women go through peremenopause or peremenopause and their estrogen starts tanking, you know, in conjunction to progesterone, you know, like, or both of them, simultaneously, like there actually can be dangerous, like there's actual dangerous, like you said. And it's, and I read so many studies or heard so many stories of people saying, I was an ER doctor, you know, and hearing the, this person come in with, they came in with an

elephant on their chest and they just had it ended up being, they were going through menopause,

“you know, and it's like, yeah, and I think we need to look at hormones as the foundation”

or health, aside, you know, of course the kitchen and all that. But I mean, like, yeah, you know,

I just think we are overlooking them. Oh, absolutely, we are. And I have to say, it's not necessarily your typical average doctor's fault, because that's not something that is taught in medical school. Even if we look at the topic and the subject come into chronology, we're looking at extreme cases, we're looking what happens when something's extremely low or extremely high for machines or adolescents as an example, but something in between, like suboptimal cortisol levels, right?

And I don't necessarily like the term adrenal fatigue because it doesn't really, it, it's not. It's the insufficiency we need to talk about. Well, and insufficiency is technically a pretty spit to, you know, to, it's a medical emergency in a way I'm dealing with insufficient sense.

“I think we have to be careful sometimes how we talk while these different conditions in order”

to this one can just be on the same page. Right? And when I talk to another colleague who's in a chronologist and I don't use the term adrenal fatigue because they're going to go, there's no such thing. It's like, but there is such things suboptimal cortisol levels. Yes. They don't want to label. They don't want to label. They don't want to label on it. They don't. It's harder to treat one is the great territory. It's a conventional medicine. It has to be block or white.

It's either you have it or you don't. Oh, gosh, it's frustrating because how many times is somebody going to the doctor? They leave the doctor crying and when it hurts a client say, like, I just cried myself on the way. I cried to my, I cried the whole way home because they told me I was normal and I like you said my hair is thinning and I can't sublosing weight and I can't, my memory, my short-term memory has gone and I have no libido and they're telling me that I'm normal

on paper and I got sent home. With no guidance, I mean, I feel for those women and I actually was one of them, you know, a long time ago until kind of like you, I was like, you know, I forget this. I am going to dive deeper and I do work with my dad who's incredible, who's western-trained, but very holistic-minded. It's a root which is amazing. Okay, so can you help me debunk the myth that? So there's nasty side effects of parry, parry, menopause and menopause. It's inevitable,

people want to say it's inevitable and our bodies should be able to adjust on the round. They always have,

they always will like, we don't need to be making menopause or parry menopause a big thing. Can you kind of help me debunk that myth, please? It's so ridiculous because, you know, if you look at

“the data and I've been using this quite a bit as an example because I think it's an important”

example, a hundred years ago, we were dying from infectious diseases. We made, we have medical advancements that we've got that protect us from, you know, the bugs and different virus in bacteria, which can shorten our lifespan, right? Nowadays, we're dying from heart disease, metabolic disease, right? It's not cancer, but it's heart attacks and heart and heart disease that women are dying of heart disease. Right? That's the number one thing that we should be concerned about.

So a hundred years ago, we were dying from different causes. If we think about the role that hormones play in preventing elevated cholesterol levels, in preventing plaque formation, in preventing heart disease, metabolic disease, we're living longer, but we don't have, we're providing your bodies with the tools to keep the body functioning properly, right? Hormones are extremely important in prevention of dementia, Alzheimer's, metabolic disease,

and what starts to decline after the age of 24, hormones, right? And that's the point that one more time for the audience because I think what you said, the age is shocking to a lot of people, right? What age? Well, what age do you have hormone stroke? After about the age of 24, so that's the most hormones. Oh, hormones starts to decline after the age of 20, by 15% 1,5% every decade, growth hormones starts to decline. And potentially, I think it starts to decline the other hormones

a hundred years ago, an average lifespan for a woman was about 54 years.

“Now, it's 78 years. So, there's someone to say, all our bodies were able to figure out previously,”

no, it didn't. We had 14 kids by the time we were 19 and then we died young. Yeah, we did not even have the chance, right, to live long, to live a long healthy life because we're susceptible to infectious diseases, war and all these other things. We didn't have antibiotic, we didn't have certain things we have now. Right? Right. Now, we can now, you can survive a heart attack when you're 60, because you know, you go to the emergency medical intervention. Right. But you don't have the

hormones to prevent another attack from happening to, you know, keep your lipids from being in healthy levels. And I'm not saying that it's just the hormones, it's a total world lifestyle, right? Sure. But it's a piece of a puzzle we are missing. Of course. It's a conversation we need to keep having because people, like you said, it's, I just, you know, there's even reals and stuff that drive me insane to be honest of like the woman in parry menopause with her like her going nuts

and like, you know, her like drinking the pot of cop. I mean, I keep seeing like they're making fun of these exhausted women and it's like almost becoming like, oh, yeah, I'm in hashtag parry menopause, hashtag menopause, you know, join me in my misery and I'm like wait, wait a minute, we don't have to live. I mean, I've been on, um, perpendicular placement therapy for 10 years. I've been on bio-denical hormones and it has changed my life and I think people, uh, you know, are just like, wait,

no, you know, I literally, oh, that's for bodybuilders or that's for like, you don't need that, but I, there's a great, there's a great difference, differentiation between bodybuilders and,

you know, what we use. For example, first of all, bodybuilders can be using a lot of synthetic hormones

because they're really trying to bulk up, bulk up and hack, you know, they're trying to go beyond the natural dose rate and body capable of doing an natural ways, um, and sometimes they actually don't even get it from legitimate sources, a lot of you know, that they use. Well, that's, that's not what we're doing, but we're, we're not trying to turn your body to be like 19 years old, 24 years old, we're trying to just optimize, you know, we're trying to optimize your health, your longevity,

“we're trying to make sure that you're the best self-parent partner, yeah, you're career. That's what”

we're doing. We're not trying to go into super physiological doses. We want you to be able to show up for your life. Right, absolutely, prevent disease and, you know, help you thrive. It's not about trying to mimic some sort of hormone levels, you know, it's not what it's not what we're doing. We're trying to make sure that you're just, again, you live a long, healthy, happy life. This is your problem. This is, right, this is, right, this is prevention. That's it. Yeah, and so, I think there's,

you know, you mentioned that you've been on, I'm, I'm soon by a done call. Yeah, I'm, oh yeah, first. And I've been on it for seven, about seven years and I started postpartum and, you know, a question that frequently comes up as when can women starve in bioidentical, right,

hormone replacements and here's, here's the thing is that you can be in pair of menopause,

a lot of women start to experience these shifts as early as 35. And so, we're younger. For me, it was about, they're around 32. Thank you, actually. 32 has a shift for me. Yeah, because, and it's because, well, slightly, women like you and I, we had a hormone imbalance. Oh, yeah, all along. But then something happens, stress, birth, career-wise, something happens that really stresses out our system and we are found ourselves financially, like, a deficit of a certain

amount of hormones. For me, personally, I've always been pretty estrogen dominance, even to the same, same. And that's like me avoiding the plastics and avoiding, like, my dad is loves to hold on some estrogen. And most women in pair of menopause are still in the more estrogen dominant side.

Thank you for staying back, because I do think people always assume that you are, you know,

“if you have to look at all the hormones. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The scary thing, I see”

women who are in pair of menopause, they go to a healthcare provider who doesn't necessarily have much experience with prescribing hormones. They didn't, they, and I had a client. She was in pair of menopause to start to have some irregularity to her cycle. They tested for FSH and LH did not test her estradiol levels. And they assumed, just because her FSH was at a 20, let's say,

some careful about how you turn. Right, there's a later stage of menopause about to go potentially into postmenopause. And they just wanted to freely prescribe estradiol,

dominant estrogen patch without testing her estrogen levels. You never, ever do that. You never

put anyone on any form of placements without testing their levels. You never have one I assume. And it turns out that her levels were in the 600 plus range. Right. So for someone, and then, you know, when in hormones, you know, it balances overrated, but when it comes to hormones, it's not overrated. We need to help hormones and balance. Estrogen is a pro proliferative hormone. It grows things. Just like it grows, you're in lining, you can contribute to cell growth in other

places, right? You're going to assist. So estrogen dominant conditions present us by persistic breasts, my poids, ovariances, and the metriosis. Yeah, but it's mostly because estrogen over here

is just left on check. It's an important hormone. It's not at home. It is just but we need to,

we need to kind of, you know, buffer ourselves against times, you know, because it's a very strong hormone. I've had women come into me with their blood work. And of course, I'm not a medical doctor. I'm just a nutritionist. But they just want to share with me what their results are. I'm like,

“sure, let's go through them. Well, here's the thing. They're being told like the ranges this”

vague and they're normal, they're normal. But, but even low estrogen, that is high comparison to progesterine, it's still estrogen dominant. So if you're progesterines of 1.5 and your estrogen is a 50, even if they want to tell you, you know, your normal range or you're fine, you're still estrogen dominant.

You know, no, I'm sorry, the woman I'm thinking, I believe hers was a 30, but it was still

estrogen dominant. And she was having all these symptoms. And, you know, a lot of people really don't, I really struggle when with like the combo pellets when people aren't being checked because, you know, sometimes you don't need the combo of all of them if you're, you know, you check the labs. And, and I think what it's doing, the thyroid suppression is something I see to these women that have estrogen dominant, they have all these hypothyroid issues. You know, their thyroid is not

functioning properly. You know, I talk to women with the copper IUD and they're struggling, even though it's not hormonal because, you know, we know copper can be to the zinc and zinc builds our progesterone. And so it's like, I think we just need to talk about, keep talking about and educate,

“like, if you have symptoms, you have to keep fighting until you come up with an answer or somebody”

helps you find an answer. Yeah, and in regards to the estrogen and progesterone, you simply can just use an online calculator. Yes, I love an online calculator. Yeah. It's so wonderful because one, the nice thing about, you know, living at least in the United States is not the same in different parts of the world, but you can use something like ultilabs. I talk about this in my hormonal potential course. Right. You can look up Dr. Davis' ink of labs the ones that I recommend.

You don't have to run all of them, you know, but you can pick and choose which labs you want to run, but you can test your estrogen and progesterone levels on your own and you can even do a comparison of the ratio, right? Of like, you can just Google the Omni calculator and plug in your estrogen and progesterone or while on you have your ratio. Yeah. Most women, what we consider estrogen dominance is if your ratio is below 100. Yeah. So for example, a lot of women, like the sweet spot is the

rate is, you know, in proportion of progesterone, your estrogen is about 100 to 400. Yes. You know, and that's also with like, we don't want to just plumb people up with progesterone. It's all about balance. Yeah, well, we have like 50 for a long time. Your estrogen or no, no, no, I'm sorry, my gosh. Yeah. Oh, your ratio. Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's so it wouldn't, and so if you're, even if like a health care provider, right, is listening to this and they're just getting into

hormone replacement, if you're at all wondering if a woman does have estrogen dominance, she may not appear just if you just look at all the numbers individually, but if you look at proportion, right? Right. You just use a calculator. That's not hard. It's not that hard. Yeah.

“So, okay, would you share just writing, but he's like, wait, by way, identical, why?”

And that hormones, why? Can you just share, like, this, the distinct difference of bio-identical to synthetic hormones just for anybody who has, um, site, you know, completely like written them off out of fear? Yeah, absolutely. So, bio-denical hormones and synthetic hormones have been

they just hear hormones. When they hear synthetic, they just hear hormones. And they've sort of been

mushed together. And it's kind of scary when I hear healthcare providers not differentiating with their patients, the difference between progesterone versus progesterone. I have women who say, I went and asked for bio-denical progesterone, and I was given MPA, hydroxy progesterone, which is progesterone. So, if you're a simple question, if your healthcare provider does not know the difference between progesterone and progesterone, run, run, and you're allowed to get a different

doctor. You're allowed to go get a different practitioner, advocate for yourself, if you're not being listened to, and if they don't know. Right. And, you know, just like you hear women crying, I had a girlfriend who called me, I was, I was on a stair-master. I remember the day she called me, she was bald because she went to her primary position. She said, I downloaded the sheet that you have in your website. I went to my doctor, I asked her to run my panel, she yelled at me,

turn me down, and I feel like I did something wrong, and I said, really simply, go find a different provider, like you don't deserve this, you know? It's like, and it was really simple. I

“said, you know, you tried, and as you should, you should try, you know, you've got to test”

your doctor that might be a really good doctor for you. You see, once you're free in your exam, or if you get sick, but it hormones just may not be what their specialty is, and if you ask and they turn you down, well, guess what? They're just not the right provider for you. Simple as that, right? Yeah. If you go in a date and you don't like someone, then that'd be good. Be dating, you can do that with your doctor too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, exactly. So instead of that,

I mean, why do I don't go like, the, for instance, the progesterone cream I use is created for wild gams. Yeah. That's right. Even in compounded pharmacies, they're still, they're created from wild gams or soy plant products, but they're created for all of them. They're biologically equivalent to what our body produces. So let's take progesterone and progesterone is a classical

“example. The only thing to have a common is the word "progest" in the name. Yeah, that's it.”

In terms of functions, they don't have the same function in the body, and even there's a really cool research paper that I just came across. I'm getting ready to present it to conference room in complete research conference. Research conference? Exciting. But it's one of the, there's a really cool paper that clearly differentiates the actions of progesterone versus progesterone in women in terms of even brain health. So progesterone, for example, what you get in your compounding

pharmacy, if you don't, you may be getting it from your conventional pharmacy or all micronized progesterone, you know, there are definitely differences between the compounded the conventional version, but I'm not going to get into that. As opposed, you're getting bidenical progesterone. That's what I am identical to you guys, right? But progesterone, for example, bioidentical, it has such a positive impact on brain derived growth factors. So it triggers your

brain to restore, recover, repair, it can improve memory, mood, whereas the synthetic progesterone can have the opposite effect. It can, yeah, you make it feel more irritable. The really the big difference between bioidentical and synthetic, of course, the chemical structure, synthetic is not a biological equivalent to our own production. The way that they impact the hormone receptors is different, which is right, just in, even more than synthetic estrogen,

is linked to higher rates of breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, blood clots. It's, it's crazy. And I think a lot of people are shooting in the dark. They're on Dr. Google. For me, when I was 19, I had an eating disorder for a good year, and I lost my cycle for six months,

and the first thing that I second thing I lost besides my cycle was my memory, my short-term

“memory. I remember driving one day and being like, where am I supposed to turn, where am I supposed to go?”

Like, complete brain fog, brain block. It was horrible. So what bothered me is, again, back to people not wanting to dive into checking the actual levels. As I did go to a practitioner who was kind and did listen to me, but I didn't get my levels checked, so they threw a lot of fight-o-estrogens at me. I think it was black, co-hash, and a lot of things, but it wasn't, I was just getting in all these herbals that actually made it worse because I needed help in several

areas. And so then I was put on like the progesterone pill, and it was just this whole again,

and then finally I got my levels tested. And it was crazy to me, and then I had a miscarriage,

yeah, ended up having MTHFR and a clotting factor, and needing blood thinners, my pregnancies,

I miracle babies. But it was like, I really needed, it wasn't until it was laid out in front of

“me that I could see like what had happened, and and I was just, I think we need to stop shooting in the”

dark, and I think we can slump the flight, simplify this by just going to get our blood drawn, or do you like saliva? There's a lot of controversy, you know, are one of my favorite doctors, Dr. Pamela Smith, I have so much respect for her work that she's done in the class of longevity medicine space, you know, she's a huge proponent of saliva testing, and they're own clinic, and outside of the clinic, I, I'm not, I don't like to use saliva testing. I think there's a lot of

good research for you, are using topicals and creams saliva may be a better option for testing. Right, depends on your situation, right? I prefer the universal language of blood tests, right? And also, you're in testing because it is important to use the, you know, to check your especially the estrogen metabolites, and there are ability to methylate those estrogen metabolites. So methylation is important to look at estrogen metabolites, right, 2008, 2016, and to work with your

health care provider to see if you can shift some of those things to fortify one and face two estrogen detoxification, not just start on a dim, right? That was actually something that was also thrown at me, that made me, that made me crazy. So it's interesting. I am really careful to, I'm a naturopathic physician, very careful with herbs. I don't think, thank you for saying that.

“I think herbal can be beautiful, and but arsenic is natural, like, you know, just because they're”

natural doesn't mean that I think we need to just do a deep dive and not check our levels. Like, if we're estrogen dominant, we need to be careful that we're not loading our skin with lavender and tea tree. There's certain things for me that I'm affected by, and I think, you know, my mom having breast cancer, she's good now, but just being aware of the estrogen I'm coming to contact with, it's not just the plastics, and if it's just because it's from the earth,

it doesn't mean it's not powerful, and we need to be careful. You know, absolutely. I think

that's a really beautiful point in that we just, we want to lead with evidence and we want to lead with science, and I'm actually a bit, you know, when I look at a lot of these women's wellness formulas for PMS or PMS or PMS or PMS, I'm generally surprised at how many herbs they throw in those supplements, even a lot of other herbs supplements. Oh my gosh. I hope you know what your formal levels are before you jump on that website. Like, I remember Mokka's and the

Vitex's and the Dims. Thank you. I was so many. Listen, I've had times in this last year, and this is humbling and embarrassing at the same time, but I'll just say it, but I would be excited to try a new product, and like, I said my daughter says, of course, I have a cute little

“10 year old who's like, all into her skincare now. We look at the clean brands, and honestly,”

I'm there all over the weekend. We're about to go to dinner, and I'm using their new, like, I'm just trying all the samples. You know how you leave smelling like the whole store. Well, I was trying a natural set of spray, and the rest of the eating, I had a great time with that evening. I just felt like irritable, and like, what is, but this is how sensitive I am. I'm not joking, and I really do think it's my genetic pathways, but it made my MTH or fart, like, not letting me

detox. Well, I am very sensitive to witch hazel, which is for the last year, very strong Friday question. And I'm like, did I do that? Spritz and nail my face, and then I look back at that product,

and I'm like, that was loaded with witch hazel, and I've always had a reaction, but I honestly

didn't check it at the moment. I've had times this past year, where my surprises would flare up, and I would watch my hair with a T-Tree shampoo, and be a crazy maniac, and have to, like, walk myself in my closet until I didn't like, get out of my family, and I'm like, oh my gosh, Laura, what did you bring into your house? What if, you know, I'm always like digging, what did you do? Oh my gosh, I started in a new shampoo. So, I mean, for me, listen, when I'm perimen,

menopausal and I need the estrogen, I'll know where to find it. Let me tell you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I, I'll learn as not to need any estrogen right now. Let me put it back. Yeah. Yeah. I have a lot of estrogen. Yeah. Well, I have a lot of women, even in their 50s, who are still having a site called potentially starting to pick up a little bit more irregular, but we just, like, you know, just started them. They've been potentially maybe five years in

perimenopause. Some of them have been about 10 years into perimenopause. Yeah. And we just

that's way too much, that they're very sensitive, or even quite a estrogen herbs. Oh my gosh,

“it makes things worse. And so, I, I, I want women to just, even, you know, like you've said”

a beautifully and I don't even believe it. Is that even natural, right? It's, it may not resonate with your system. And so, approach it like you approach everything else. You know, lead with science, lead with evidence. Is this right for you? Because that product that is designed that filled with a bunch of different herbs, it may not work for your body. Before your body,

this is why it used to be individualized medicine, right? Yeah. In treatment, in my second

book, a mom I used still mattered to mothers, guilt-free-guided physical mental, and spiritual self-care, I wrote it after my son was born. Um, yeah, I'll send you a copy actually. Yeah, I was like, I know your past, like, here in the same, what, our sons are the same age, I think, right? Well, seven. Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun stage. It's very good. But um, I wrote it because we need, I wanted women to know they could ask questions, and they could fight, and they still mattered,

and it wasn't just about those around them. And one entire chapter is about vital estrogens and coming into contact, um, you know, I remember when my son was born, I, I was very, I was still estrogens dominant, very low cajustro. Um, but I was like, somebody who gifted me like lavender, um, baby wash, and I, and I just had to stop and think, you know, we have to check what's in our labels, and I don't, I don't need to be eating a lot of hummus right now and check

peace because my body's so estrogens dominant. And so I actually share, I try to educate in the book, vital estrogens, in conjunction with, as you know, estrogens, because I think when my son was born

“in your son was born, there was, do you remember that there was the big, essential oil craze,”

like, everybody was doing this certain brand and at least, and it was like sprit sprit sprit spritz, and then there's articles in the UK coming about these young boys that have breast tissue now from their mother's using laviderity tree on them. Oh, no! Yeah, so just sharing the knowledge, you know, um, so yeah, I think you've talked about urinals for a minute, um, because I think

they're beautiful, and they're amazing if you need them, but you have to know your levels.

Um, can you, uh, if anybody's listening, would you just real quick list up a few, um, like if they're going to their, say, they're literally driving to their physical right now, and they're like, okay, Dr. Elina Zinkoff, give me some tests to ask my provider for, I feel like I'm going crazy, I don't feel good. What do I ask my doctor for? It assuming the doctor will listen. Absolutely. Well, if you're driving, if you're driving to your physical, um,

“and today may not be the best day to get your labs wrong, because for sure, if, if you do”

have a cycle, if you still have a relatively regular cycle, we want to make sure that we test your hormones when they pee, which is 20 eight average cycle, and then 20 day average cycle, you can, I also have a downloadable PDF. Um, so if you're pulling to the parking lot of your doctors office, you can just go into Dr. Elina Zinkoff.com, and there's a free PDF that you can download the kind of list of the days, the most optimal days that you can test. If you have a, um, partial

his direct to me, and you have intact ovaries, yeah, if you may need to test a couple times in the month to catch that peak in hormones, I've had women with his direct to me and they tested the hormone levels, and they're like, I'm not producing anything, and I was like, well, you know, you're still in that age where your ovaries should be producing unless you have surgical menopause, then we test them on a different cycle day, even though they don't have a cycle, but we kind of

assume, or, um, around when they would do ovulating, when they're, um, a cycle day would be, and sure not, they're still, you know, they still have pretty high levels of estrogen and but potentially really low levels of progesterum. So, um, if you've had a partial of this direct to me, then, you know, you may end up in your age, you may still just try to test different times of the month to see if you're still in your hormone levels. So, and you also don't want to just

test in the afternoon, hormones are really at their peak around between eight to 10 a.m. in the same similar with cortisol. Absolutely, right. I mean, one, our hormones to be at the peak earlier in the day, yeah, I can have up the day because that's when we're, you know, right, you can just amount of energy. Um, anyways, so you want to make sure that you're testing

in the morning fasting, ideally before 90 a.m. and you also want to be testing in that second

half, ideally, the meal phase if you're in post-mortipause, you can test any day. Yeah. It's probably positive thing with post-mortipause. I know, right. These men and also men, they're like, don't, they're the same all the time. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but in terms of testing, you want to make sure that you're asking for a complete thyroid panel. Um, you want to make sure that, you know, I just get into your age with

You want to make sure that you get into complete sex hormone panel. So, this is progesterone,

estrogen, estrogen, and you want to make sure that you're also testing at least a snapshot point in time. But cortisol can be hit or miss in the morning. Yeah, pressure. Um, if it's really low, so even if someone stabbing you with a needle to get your blood, your cortisol is low, then. Yeah, probably pretty low in general. So, but you can also ask for something called IDF-1, which is a method of growth hormone. So, if you kind of give us an idea of what potentially

total growth hormone reserves are. Can I real quick, just say, you said a full sex hormone panel. I've had so many women be like, I'm going to get my physical and I asked my doctor to check my

“hormones. They checked like my thyroid and my lipids and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, you have to”

specify. I want a full sex hormone panel. So, thank you for that. Um, okay. So, I like to hear him a expert. If you could just like wrap it fire, I would love to hear a little bit about your lifestyle. I think it's fascinating to hear from the pros. I think we're about the same age. We are, I'm 35. Holder you? I'm 39. 39. Okay, you look amazing and we're in the same state on the other hand. So, practically speaking, how do you care for yourself? How do you, in your life,

what are some things like non-agosciples you do to keep your hormones balanced on a day-to-day basis? Well, you know, I'll have to say like, for me, because I do take bio-denical hormones, it's not negotiable for me because even if I did all the things that I used to do for years, right, which is living a healthy lifestyle and I'll explain more what that means to me. My body still wouldn't be able to produce those things in my own. So, even though

what I do on my day-to-day basis is I've always lead with weight training. I always think

with movement. That's not a good thing. I've actually had my weight training as a post that's

“right here. Well, right, and then I think when we're, I mean, I play competitive tennis. I did”

about your acting. I did try, I did try off-alonges, alpine climbing. I did so many sports that required heavy duty for cardiovascular endurance training that after the birth of my son, I was like, I need to shift more into, I need to lean into this new phase of my life, and high-mountal cardiovascular exercises doesn't serve me. And you can eat it in your progesterone. It really can, if you're already stressed. Yeah, not always what your body wants.

So, in my just day-to-day life, outside of, you know, meaning to replace my hormones, which I don't produce naturally on my own, doesn't mean that I'm not doing all the other works. I'm obviously movement. Exercise is really important to me. I do, my exercise mostly in the morning, that's the best time to get your exercise, then just put your cortisol, any deep production, brain drive growth factors, and then I like to move my body at the end of the day as well.

It could be yoga, it could be walking on the treadmill, it could be walking upside, it could be swinging the pool, just not a huge time commitment. I don't want people to think like, oh my gosh, it just works out. Just a few minutes to learn that glucose from dinner, you know, like, to not just go sit on the couch after you eat dinner, like, move like this. I think it's a great example for kids that, hey, after dinner was the soccer ball outside of the floor. Right,

we'll see where the football around even if it's the minutes before we start the bedtime routine. You know, it was like music to my ears last night when my son goes to bed and he's like, hey mom, do you want to go for a walk in the morning? Oh my gosh. Yes, like he's catching on. I love when my kids say it like, my body told me to eat this, my body told me to stop eating this,

“I'm like, oh, they're listening. I am the best thing you can do for your kids, for your”

children, is to weed by example. Great. Yes, I mean, I'm going to learn it. Otherwise, really, unless I see it in their home, like, you're building these little humans that are going to go live their own life one day. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so for me, movement is not negotiable. I don't drink alcohol. So, same. We are turning ways with it. And I was named. My husband Joe, she's like, you went from not drinking that much. She's like, not drinking at all. And I just don't think

there's a really safe amount of alcohol. I was really well, well, I'm sure you're staying with Dr. Aiman and so on. Yeah. So I gave it up completely a year ago, probably now. So yeah. And

honestly, even just hit our miss here or there, I never felt great. I never looked great the

next day, I never, I would have, you're in a bill. It was, it didn't serve me and it inflamed my body and socially acceptable or not in our culture. I don't care because I have to live with myself.

oh, I only drink two glasses of wine per week. You know, the effects of alcohol, they can be heard from some people from 24 to 72 hours. Yes. In fact, they can have a new metabolism. So yeah, and then you add a G mutation like mine on top of it. And I can't even methylate a T3 shampoo, let's add in some alcohol to the poor liver. No, like it's, yeah. Well, you know what,

it's crazy is that I had, um, this is, um, I've never had cavities. I've actually didn't really

start drinking alcohol until I was in my late 20s. Um, because it was always a competitive athlete. Dr. Paul just there was no room for alcohol in my life. And it's crazy. I developed like seven cavities.

“I remember going to the dentist and I was like, what is like, where did this thing is going on?”

And I never, and you know, for me, I mean, I would only drink maybe like a glass of wine a week, like nothing crazy. You were like, it was in a part of your day today. Yeah. Yeah. And I, um, I'm so proud of this because I was like, I could never figure out what was in my life that was causing this, right? The, the silent enamel killer. Yeah. And I, I, when I, when I, when I could even that little bit of a glass of wine, I, there was, I was, I celebrated myself because it came to

a dentist. He's like, yeah, just regular, check up, no cavities. And I was like, wait, what, what, what did you say? Because I could not figure out what was causing that, you know? And I said, um, if I, if I assumed to be here in my doctor was, but I'm not a dentist, you know, and I, but I know how important teeth health is a reflection of alcohol. All right. Right. The oral health is a huge part. Right. What kinds of other issues? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, we're concerned about

that health and like, we should also be concerned about oral health as well. But it's just, I, I just realized that one, there's no safe amount of alcohol. And especially for women,

you know, we will, we will metabolize alcohol first before we break down and metabolize and do

estrogen. Yes. That's an estrogen. Yeah. What? No, we're going to be estrogen and dominate for a liver is handcuffed, right? Yeah. I can't do it. It's done. And I really love, um, um, I don't

“call all the principles, but Dr. Mindy Pell's fast like a girl. I think she has a really good,”

tips for women in terms of how to eat and not necessarily, um, we don't, you don't need to, we don't need to get into fasting for women, but um, the importance of healthy fats, right? Well, protein, but how important it is to really have a lot of healthy fats. You know, in the 1960s, there was a whole fat free fat free craze. And if you fast forward, like 50 years, then there's sort of being a increase in dementia and Alzheimer's. Two of my family's family members passed away

from Alzheimer's. And I really do believe that in their culture, when they were my age, your age, they started their brain from one, a nutrient that they needed in order to have the protection down the road. So I, I think you're 100% right. I love my healthy fats. Um, last question. So I let that I'm actually ending every episode with this question just because I'm, I'm very deep in a lot of ways. And I like to ask you, um, if you knowing all you know now with all the passion you have,

what advice would you go back and give your younger self 15 years ago? Uh, it's a really interesting question. Um, I would say, have the confidence that it all works out. You know, that I think the biggest thing for me is even my own health journey. It was a big contrast, you know, I didn't want to feel the way that I did. I didn't have the answers, but if I did hadn't gone through that experience, I wouldn't end up where I am today, vital in my own way,

but also helping so many women, right? And so for me, I think if I could go back, you know, I'll just give myself a big hug, say, it all works out. It'll all be okay. And sometimes these struggles, whether they're health-related, personal or whatnot are just they're just part of this

conscious experience of health-related. Yeah, it has a bigger purpose in meaning. So maybe not always

don't always fight the hardships and embrace them and realize that there's a lesson in the valley.

“It's not that it's because it's, right, life is not meant to be hard. Those moments of”

strive, those moments of where you feel like you're effortsing and things seem hard, even in our health, I would say because we're talking about health here, you know, you know, what does that ask me trying to teach you? What is that? What is this hormone imbalance trying to show you, right? What does it mean to change in your life from your perspective, from your environment, I live in a toxic environment, are you in a toxic relationship? What is your body telling you?

until you know what's wrong. You don't know, life is darkness. It's a gift to get to have those our bodies screaming at us or have a hardship because then we can pivot. We know what to pivot.

“I know we have to turn. I found I saw this really interesting post. I don't remember the doctor's”

name, but she basically said, you know, the women's health initiative, everyone's like horrible

study, ruined hormones for everyone. Absolutely did. However, yeah, also fun light. It should light on the actual benefits of hormones. It started to, it helped us really rethink hormones. It made us think about wait a second. I was at really estrogen or is it really progressed in? Like, now is it really not actually died into this? Now, I'll give it some attention.

“Right. So as much as we want to poo, the woman's health initiative, as much as I talk negatively”

about it, I'm like, I deserve it. It has its purpose. It really does. Well, thank you so much.

Like, you're such a wealth of knowledge and I can tell that you truly care about changing the world and you have a mission and you have a vision and you have a message like I do. So thank you for joining me on this podcast to just really bring, you know, help others take ownership of their hormones and know their allowed to ask questions. Where can everyone follow you and

is there a way that if they wanted to, they could work with you virtually? Yes. So I'm always present

on the Instagram at Dr. Elena Zinkov. Yes, I love your reels and there was one of my puppies. Look like the two dogs looking at the bath, the bottom of the pool. Like, what was that medical professionals trying to figure out what to do with hormones? Yeah. I re-share that and I laughed a lot.

“That's what we can feel like sometimes for sure. My personal website, Dr. Elena Zinkov.com,”

where I share my blogs, and stories, and my free PDF for women, and then for clinic purposes, if they want to join my one-in-one program, it's PraktiveHealthND.com. Okay, well, thank you. So thank you so much. Can not wait to air this episode and I'll send it to you as soon as it dies and I just help we can change the world together. Thank you so much. Thank you. Friends, thank you so much for taking these few minutes today to listen to this episode and invest in you. If you are loving these

episodes, please feel free to share, like, and review. And also, as you go about your week, don't forget to check out my whole food recipes featured on my blog, live healthy with Laura.com. And for any bookworms like me out there, feel free to also pick up a copy of one or all three of my books that are available wherever books are sold. I hope this week that you will commit to love yourself through each and every day. So that way, you can fill your best and also

in return be a light to others. Stay healthy, my friends, and I will chat with you again next Monday.