How Women Can Improve Their Fertility & Hormone Health | Dr. Natalie Crawford

**Dr. Natalie Crawford** (0:00)
Everybody should get an AMH test. I think it's a very important marker. If you are listening to this, and you want kids one day, ask your doctor for this test. It is not a test of egg quality. I mean, we talked about what egg quality is, right? Genetics and egg competency. But it is a check of how many eggs you have, and that knowledge can be really impactful for how you view your future and your plan.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:22)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Natalie Crawford. Dr. Natalie Crawford is a double board certified physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, fertility and reproductive health. Today we discuss the actionable steps that all women can take to improve their reproductive and hormone health, both to enhance probability of successful pregnancy, but also because fertility and hormone health are strong correlates of general health and longevity. Dr. Crawford shares what all women, regardless of age or reproductive goals, can do to enhance their health using lifestyle, nutrition, supplementation and prescription medical tools that she indeed uses in her practice. We also have a very honest discussion about biological versus chronological age and fertility. Why age is not just a number, but also why it is that many women do successfully conceive in their forties. Of course, there's a lot of information online nowadays about women's hormones, fertility and health. Today, thanks to Dr. Crawford, you'll learn what is known and documented and what she has herself consistently observed clinically in her practice about women's health and fertility. Few, if any, people have Dr. Crawford's training, clinical acumen, understanding of the new research and incredible ability to communicate the well and lesser known actionable steps for improving female health. Dr. Crawford also has a new book out entitled The Fertility Formula, Take Control of Your Reproductive Future, which again focuses on reproductive health, but also hormone health and how both of those things impact female health in the short and long term. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Natalie Crawford. Dr. Natalie Crawford, welcome back.

**Dr. Natalie Crawford** (2:28)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:30)
And congratulations on your new book, The Fertility Formula. It's no small feat to complete a book, and it's especially a big feat to complete a book that offers people so much advice, not just people who want to get pregnant, but also looking at things through the lens of fertility as an important health metric.

**Dr. Natalie Crawford** (2:50)
Yes, thank you so much. You know what goes into writing a book, and it's always been this aspirational goal of mine, and after educating and talking about fertility with patients and people online, it's been something I've wanted to do, but I will say it is a much bigger feat to go through it, to work with editors, to try to refine within your word count.
I was 20,000 words over and tried to bring it back in. So thank you for having me and for holding it up and reading it early and sharing your endorsement forward to you. That means so much.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:20)
Yeah, I am insisting as much as one can insist that various people in my life read this book, including family members and other people, because again, it's not just about people who want to have children or who already have children, but fertility as a way of knowing where one is in their health arc, in their life arc. So if you don't mind, how should people think about fertility purely as a readout of health? I mean, just how do you frame this for, like if somebody comes to you and says, listen, they have kids or they don't want kids, or they're not sure if they want kids, but why use fertility as a lens on general health?

**Dr. Natalie Crawford** (4:02)
Yeah, fertility is a health marker, and I love that you bring that up, the top of the episode here, because so often patients, women specifically, think fertility is only the ability to get pregnant. We really simplify it into this one phase of life.
But if we want to zoom out, your fertility is a sign that you have good hormonal health, good cellular, good metabolic health, because it takes so many different moving parts to ovulate, for an egg to allow a sperm to fertilize, to implant, to get pregnant. But also your hormonal health and the ovarian function is really going to impact your entire life, how you feel on a day to day as a woman. But if we want to be really specific, if you have infertility, you have increased rates of metabolic syndrome, cancer, heart attack, stroke, and dying early. Those are extremely scary statistics, and you know, I had my own infertility journey, so I fall into this category. But the reason why is not that infertility causes any of those things directly. It's that for most people, it's one of the first warning signs that something is not right in their body, and that there's higher levels of chronic inflammation or insulin resistance that we know can impact long-term health outcomes.