The Truth About Hormones: Why Every Woman Should Consider Menopause Therapy

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:00)
You're giving your female patients testosterone?

**Nick Barringer** (0:01)
I am.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:02)
Why are you giving them testosterone?

**Nick Barringer** (0:03)
There is no ****.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:05)
Wow.

**Nick Barringer** (0:05)
Not all men suffer from low testosterone. All women will go through menopause. From 1999 to 2020, menopause hormone therapy dropped almost 30%.
So the Women's Health Initiative did more damage to women's health and hormones than any other single study in the history. When someone is in perimenopause, should they wait? I hear a lot of people say, well, I want to wait. Wait for what? These things don't get better. I see a lot of providers putting patients on estrogen cream. We don't recommend it.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (0:39)
Every female listening to this podcast needs to be taking notes and considering this no matter where they are in their life cycle.

**Nick Barringer** (0:46)
All women should have vaginal estrogen. And when they are entering perimenopause, vaginal estrogen with also testosterone will prevent vaginal atrophy. Women are not nearly as studied as they should be. It's embarrassing. It's actually embarrassing how little we know about women in relation to the science of this stuff. We cannot stop menopause or perimenopause, but we can get ahead of it. Just for the ladies out there listening, we're never gonna treat menopause. It's happening.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:22)
Gabrielle, want to talk about estrogen. What are the most common kind of signs and symptoms that a woman is low on estrogen?

**Nick Barringer** (1:28)
Number one, you won't believe this, and this might be very surprising, but when a woman is going through perimenopause, one of the first signs, she will be getting hot flashes. You've heard about hot flashes, maybe you've even seen it. Have you ever seen a hot flash?

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:43)
I have not.

**Nick Barringer** (1:44)
Ah, you know, we live in Texas.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:46)
Yes.

**Nick Barringer** (1:46)
It's very hot here. But before moving to Texas, I was in New York, and nobody was walking around with little those hand-held fans. Have you ever seen that?

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (1:55)
I know that. Yeah, the hand. Yes.

**Nick Barringer** (1:57)
A sure sign and symptom that a woman is going through menopause. OK, yeah, no, not not funny, but true. One of the most common signs or even symptoms that a woman is low in estrogen, hot flashes, also joint pain, believe it or not, frozen shoulder, frozen shoulder. Yes. And I learned this from Jocelyn, Dr. Jocelyn. She's an orthopedic surgeon who was recently on the show. And I didn't realize that when women are going through musculoskeletal pain, it's not just over training. Go figure.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:31)
Then why aren't more women on estrogen?

**Nick Barringer** (2:35)
Well, I've got actually some numbers here for you. Are you ready for this?

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:39)
I am.

**Nick Barringer** (2:39)
OK, from 1999 to 2020, menopause hormone therapy dropped almost 30 percent.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:49)
Why is that?

**Nick Barringer** (2:50)
From the Women's Health Initiative. So it was 26.9 percent down to 4.7 percent.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (2:56)
Holy smokes.

**Nick Barringer** (2:56)
Yes. So the Women's Health Initiative did more damage to women's health and hormones than probably any other single study in the history. You thought castrating men?

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (3:08)
Yes.

**Nick Barringer** (3:08)
Because you thought castrating men was bad. The Women's Health Initiative left 20 years of women from being treated for menopause. Meaning, you asked me what the signs and symptoms are. Hot flashes, brain fog, mood, poor sleep. All of these things can be contributed to low estrogen, not to mention change in the lipid profile. A woman's life who is going through symptoms of menopause is, again, it is so challenging and I have seen it and it really affects their lives.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (3:43)
Can you explain for the audience, the Women's Health Initiative, that was looking at the relationship between estrogen and cancer, if I remember correctly?

**Nick Barringer** (3:49)
The Women's Health Initiative did a number of things. And the thing about the Women's Health Initiative is it used PremPro. It didn't use estradiol, which is what we now use. So PremPro and then it used a synthetic progestin. They found that it increased the risk of cancer. And it was, for example, I'm looking at this here, higher risk of thromboembolism, stroke, and breast cancer. When that happened, they created a mass hysteria, and it really turned people away.

**Dr. Gabrielle Lyon** (4:24)
Everybody, so the baby got thrown out with the bathwater?

**Nick Barringer** (4:26)
Everything got thrown out, which I think is devastating, because we're seeing rates of osteoporosis, and dementia, Alzheimer's dementia, at rates we haven't seen before. And it could have been prevented. The average age of enrollment, by the way, for the Women's Health Initiative was 63 That's 12 years past normal menopause. A woman typically begins perimenopause, and perimenopause is a big term. It's around menopause. A woman could have these symptoms for 10 years.