What Men Should Know About Women’s Hormones

November 8, 2018

Men, have you noticed changes in your significant other and wonder if it could be her hormones? The symptoms may include loss of energy, weight gain, brain fog, recurring monthly headaches, or changes in mood.  Dr. Hotze answers all the questions you’re too afraid to ask as he discusses six common symptoms that women experience that are caused by hormone decline.

Podcast Transcription:

Stacy Bandfield: Welcome to Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution. I’m Stacy Bandfield, here with Dr. Dr. Steven Hotze, Founder of the Hotze Health & Wellness Center. If you haven’t done so, download our podcast. So full of interesting information. You can go to HotzePodcast.com. That’s H-O-T-Z-E podcast.com. Finally, this is a subject that I find so fascinating, and it is the six reasons that men don’t understand women with regards to hormones. I have been waiting for this for a long time, Dr. Hotze. So, explain to the men six things they should know about women’s hormones.

Dr. Hotze: Well, first thing I want to explain to the men is that you never want to ask your wife or your sweetheart, “Do you think it could be your hormones?” You only ask that question one time, but it’s important for you to understand in your wife or sweetheart’s life that she will have some changes related to her hormones that you need to understand so you can understand what may be causing the problems about what she’s complaining. You don’t have to tell her it’s her hormones, but it’ll help you understand what’s going on.

Now, I’m Dr. Steve Hotze, of course, and I believe that you and everybody needs to have a doctor and a staff of professionals who can coach on the path of health and wellness naturally, who have the wherewithal of that, who have the skill, who have the knowledge to do that without using pharmaceutical drugs, so as you mature, no matter what age you are, we’re all maturing as long as we’re alive, you want to feel healthy and well. You want to be brimming with energy, full of vim and vigor, and be enthusiastic about life, okay? That makes sense when you stick with us.

6 Things Men Should Know About Women’s Hormones

1. Energy

So, today we’re going to talk about six symptoms that women may mention or complain about or exhibit that are referable to hormones, and so the first thing I want to talk about is energy. In order to have a vibrant, fulfilling life, you have to have energy. Every cell in your body, and you have, I don’t know, 70 trillion, plus or minus cells, plus or minus five trillion cells in your body, and every one of those cells has power plants within them that produce energy, and that energy is electrical energy.

That power plant is called the mitochondria. So, the nutrients that you consume from your food, and that you get into your cells, plus the oxygen, plus your hormones, plus the vitamins and minerals, all enable your power plants to produce electrical energy, which then drives the biochemical processes in the cells so the cells can function and make the proteins and all the various biochemical products necessary to give you life. And when the cells are healthy and full of energy, your organs are going to be full of energy, and you’re going to feel well and be healthy and well.

When your energy production within your power plants, or the mitochondria, is low, you’d be called or thought of as a low-voltage individual, okay? And when you have low energy, you’re not going to function as well or feel as well, and it will have adverse effects upon your overall health and wellness. So, our goal here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center is to enable your cells, your mitochondria within your cells, your power plants, to produce high levels of voltage, high levels of electrical energy, so you’ll be a live wire and you’ll feel good.

Hormone decline has an adverse effect on your body’s ability to produce and use energy and so, in women, as they mature, their hormone levels begin to change, and this happens on a monthly basis with each cycle. So, a woman will enter puberty and begin to have her sex hormones develop, and they work to balance things out. She will hit a prime in her early 20s and then as she moves through her menstrual life all the way to 50s, she’ll have changes in hormones as she has pregnancies, and then when she hits mid-30s, the early 40s, her hormones begin to decline.

And the two hormones that we talk about primarily that are female hormones, although they exist in males as well, but the primary hormones in females would be the estrogen hormones. Estriol, estradiol, estrone, as well as progesterone, and they’re balancing out every month – first half of the month and then all month a woman’s making estrogen hormones. Mid-cycle she would ovulate, and then make progesterone to balance the estrogen. But as a woman marches through her menstrual life, and this could happen right at puberty. it doesn’t just happen late in menstrual life or menopause.

Hormonal changes can occur and every woman’s different, and depending upon what chemicals she’s been exposed to, what her genetic makeup is, the hormones are going to differ from woman to woman. Y’all have the same hormones, but women are going to…there’s a bell-shaped curve and many women, most women will fall in the average, but you have the outliers on both sides and…

Stacy Bandfield: Mm-hmm (affirmative), and we have seen young women come into our center who have real issues with energy and never been regular.

Dr. Hotze: Right, and their hormones are out of balance. So, those hormones regulate the menstrual cycle, but they also help regulate the energy production. When women’s hormones are out of balance and she has too much estrogen compared to progesterone, that adversely affects your ability to properly utilize thyroid hormones, and the thyroid hormone made from the thyroid gland in the neck is the hormone that catalyzes the power plants to produce energy.

Think of the thyroid hormone as a spark plug, so to speak, and you have to have enough spark plugs in your cells to be able to catalyze the production of energy. When the female hormones get out of balance, that’s going to adversely affect her ability to assimilate her thyroid hormones and enable her thyroid hormones to activate energy within the cell, and what happens, this is called estrogen dominance or the converse, opposite side, is progesterone deficiency.

When this occurs, no matter what the age, whether it’s hit puberty, whether it’s in the mid-20s after childbirth, as she marches through the menstrual life and gets into late-30s and early 40s, the hormones begin to decline and become imbalanced. So, when that estrogen hormone becomes the dominant hormone, even if it’s declining, it’s the dominant hormone, it causes the liver to produce high levels of thyroid-binding globulin, which is a protein that binds up the thyroid hormones, so it can’t be utilized properly.

So, that’s why the woman in your life may be having low energy problems, and the probable cause is she marches through her menstrual life as if she has female hormone imbalance as well as declining her ability to utilize thyroid hormones.

Also as she marches through her menstrual life as she matures, the adrenal glands, which are located above the kidneys and which produce the hormone cortisol, which is our natural anti-inflammatory hormone, that begins to decline, and that adversely affects the thyroid, as well as the sex hormones. So, the hormones really work synergistically together. When we think of hormones here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, the primary hormones that we work on replenishing and balancing are the thyroid hormones, the sex hormones and the adrenal hormones, and as these decline, energy level declines.

I can also tell you, too, that eating improperly, eating a high, simple carbohydrate diet can also lead to a decline in energy production. So, it causes inevitably weight gain, which could lead to high blood pressure, and diabetes, and heart disease, and kidney disorders. So, energy levels first and foremost are going to be based upon your hormones, but also your eating habits. If you eat a healthy lifestyle where you minimize or eliminate simple sugars and simple carbohydrates like pizza, pasta or bread, cereals, rice, potatoes, etc., those things that are converted to sugar, you will feel a whole lot healthier.

Stacy Bandfield: Basically the ketogenic diet is what you’re…

Dr. Hotze: Well, ketogenic diet is what we…what I recommend, and what I think we found to be very beneficial in most of our guests who do it, who try it, enjoy that ketogenic eating program, but we’ll talk about that. I’ve had a podcast on that, but basically that’s where you eat a high-fat diet. You cut out all your simple carbs, eat a lot of green vegetables and a minimal amount of meat, but you make sure you get plenty of good, healthy fats in your system.

And if you do, guess what? Those healthy fats, like eggs, or butter, or bacon, or olive oil, or fish oil, or coconut oil, avocados, cheeses, olives, and those products that have a lot of good, healthy oil and fat in them cause the stomach to produce an enzyme called cholecystokinin, which signals to the brain that you’re not hungry anymore. It satisfies. Fats and oils are much better to consume to produce energy than it is for sugar because sugar burns up very quickly, and you get sugar highs and sugar lows.

Dr. Hotze: Okay, second thing that the woman in your life may be experience and having a difficulty is with weight, and obviously there’s nothing you want to discuss with the…

Stacy Bandfield: “Honey, does this make me look fat?”

2. Weight Gain

Dr. Hotze: “No, you look skinny, babe. Those stripes going up and down make you look great.” Women don’t want to gain weight, but they know what happens over time, particularly, is they march through their menstrual life, particularly after they have children, they get hormonal imbalances. Guess what? They begin to experience weight gain. Well, weight gain is related to just what I talked about. It’s the imbalance in the female hormones, and it is the decline in natural thyroid within the cell, within the mitochondria power plants of the cells.

So, less energy’s produced. Well, what do you think? If you have low energy, you have low metabolism. So, you can eat the same amount of food, but now you’re gaining weight, and if you’re eating the wrong kind of food, you’re quickly gaining weight, and you’re converting all that sugar and the simple carbohydrates to fat.

Stacy Bandfield: However, I’m so glad, doctor, as you’re talking about this because it is such a point of frustration for a lot of women out there. You feel like you are eating right, you are exercising, and we’ve seen that so many times where they come to us and they’re like, “I am exercising. I am eating right. I am unable to lose the weight,” and that is a frustrating thing. So, it’s probably a little reassuring to people out there to hear, “Well, that’s not your fault. That can be hormone related that affects your weight.” It makes it a losing battle.

Dr. Hotze: Right.

Stacy Bandfield: Because you’ve got that hormonal imbalance.

Dr. Hotze: Unfortunately, when you go to many conventional doctors, there are many doctors that’ll just give you a diet pill, which are just amphetamines, and next thing you know you’re hooked on amphetamines, which have a host of health problems. So, that’s not the solution of the problem. The solution of the problem is to have yourselves producing more energy. How can you do that? Balance out your sex hormones and adrenal hormones, and make sure you’re getting adequate amount of thyroid hormone.

Oh, I believe this. Anybody that has the symptoms of low thyroid, no matter what their blood test says, deserves a therapeutic trial of thyroid, and we have treated over 31,000 individuals, males and females here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center, with natural, desiccated thyroid with marvelous results.

3. Brain Fog

Next thing we see or you might notice is what women describe to me as brain fog. They feel like they lose their mental acuity, their mental sharpness, their ability to remember things in details, and they’re not as good at their task and getting things done as they’ve used to done because they’re not thinking as clearly as they used to think. Now, what does that have to do with hormones? It has everything to do with hormones because the hormones both in males and females affect our neurotransmitters, affect the signals in our brain that enable us to think clearly.

Remember, they also affect our ability to produce energy. So, if you’re producing low energy, your brain’s going to be functioning at a lower than normal rate. So, that’s a very common cause of lost of mental sharpness, or as many women have called it…to me, men don’t ever describe it this way, but women often say, “I just have brain fog. I can’t balance a checkbook like I used to, and I go into a room, I can’t remember what I was looking for and I forget names, and maybe I have Alzheimer’s.” No, it’s not. It’s the inevitable decline in your hormones, which get imbalanced and adversely affects your thyroid hormones.

Plus, it can also be caused by individuals when they have yeast problems, and we’ll talk about that in another podcast, and if you’ve had recurrent use of antibiotics over your lifetime and have had recurrent yeast infections, you’ll have yeast in your colon, which produces toxins, which can adversely affect your ability to think clearly. So, in fact, I think about a lady that is in her…that comes to our center who has had recurrent sinus infections, two to three times a year for as long as she can remember, and she’s in her 50s or early 60s.

Now, for 30, 40 years, ever since she was a teenager, she said antibiotic use was recurrent, female yeast infections, and it’s never been treated. What hadn’t been treated? Her yeast problems. She has a yeast in the colon. We’re going to talk about that, and the toxins produced by the yeast adversely affect the immune system, can adversely affect your ability to think clearly, and that’s a big problem. So, you’re eating healthy, getting rid of yeast, and replenish your hormones are very important in order for you to have sharp mental thought process.

4. PMS

Next is PMS. Now, you may notice it’s certain times of the month your wife or your girlfriend may seem edgier, more irritable than she does at other times. Sometimes she may be perfectly sweet, but it may be you notice it certain times of the month she’s feeling irritable. You don’t want to say, “Could it be your hormones?” because she’ll bite your head off if you do that, but it can be caused by that and it’s called premenstrual syndrome, and it causes mood swings, fluid retention, weight gain, breast tenderness, headaches. These are very common symptoms women experience. It may happen a few days before her menstrual period, it may happen a week before, but as she marches through her menstrual life year by year, it begins to become a bigger part of that month.

So, it’s…start right in the middle of her cycle and she’s feeling that way half the month, and this is due to a very simple problem, which we’ve described, hormonal decline and imbalance, and it can be easily corrected with natural progesterone, and it’s a Godsend. Now you don’t wait to menopause until you take your female hormones. As soon as you begin to have symptoms of hormonal imbalance, that’s when you take them and you don’t take birth control pills for crying out loud. Those are counterfeit drugs that mimic hormones. They are unnatural and they’ll suppress the natural production of your hormones.

You simply replenish what your body is currently making, but an adequate amount to balance out and that’s done based on a clinical basis. We’ve treated here, at the center, somewhere in the neighborhood of 22,000 to 25,000 women. Most of them have had these hormonal imbalances and progesterone has been a Godsend, natural bioidentical progesterone. Now, I’ve seen a lot of different doctors treat this, but you know what? They don’t have the experience that we have here. I wrote the book on it for crying out loud, Hormones, Health, and Happiness, which many doctors that want to know about bioidentical hormones read it and try to figure out how to do it.

And I’m sure there’s some that figure out how to do it right, but we see many individuals come over that have seen other physicians and have convinced them to put them on bioidentical hormones and they didn’t have them on the right dose at all, and they didn’t get much relief. It’s all dose related, and it’s all based upon a doctor’s clinical experience in having dealt with women. So, we base our hormonal treatment not upon a blood test, because a female’s hormones will change every day during a menstrual cycle. She’s going to have changes in her estrogen and progesterone levels. So, you have to treat it based upon her clinical symptoms, her age, her size and her symptoms.

Stacy Bandfield: Oh, and Dr. Hotze, it’s also about the quality of the prescription as well. Isn’t that right?

Dr. Hotze: This is so important. So, you get bioidentical hormones, which are natural progesterone and natural estrogen, as well testosterone for males and a little bit for females, and thyroid. You purchase cortisol from a compounding pharmacy. Not all compounding pharmacies are equal. We know that because we have done studies, tested the hormones from other compounding pharmacies.

We here at the Hotze Health & Wellness Center have Hotze Pharmacy, which I established back in 2001, because I had lot of our guests who were going to a lot of different pharmacies around and some people did really well and some people didn’t do well, and I couldn’t figure it out. I said, “Well …”Well some of the pharmacies they were going were Jake-leg pharmacies. By that I mean they were mom and pop shops. They were selling all the pharmaceutical drugs upfront. They had some low key individual they sent to a course to learn how to make these hormones and had them in the back making 10 or 15 prescriptions.

So, what we do, 500 a day. So, we’ve got our systems and procedures down. We’re a member of the Pharmacy Accreditation Board, PCAB, and only 300 of compounding pharmacies, no more…I think it’s about 300 plus or minus a few, since 2005 are accredited by the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board. There are over 20,000 compounding pharmacies across the country, but only 300 can be accredited because the rest of them don’t do a large enough volume that they can even afford to test the drugs like they’re required to do.

So, I want to tell you it’s very, very important for you to make sure you get the highest quality prescription compounded hormones available, and they’re available right here at Hotze Health & Wellness Center. If you’re going to spend money on bioidentical hormones and on having yourself evaluated, then you should make sure you get the highest quality to give you the best opportunity to have the most favorable and beneficial results.

Stacy Bandfield: Absolutely.

Dr. Hotze: Okay. I should’ve mentioned too, under PMS, headaches are very common and migraine headaches are a very common problem that we see in women and if the headaches occur, gentlemen, every month at the same time and they happen premenstrually, you can be assured they are tied to the imbalance of the female hormones. They’re not due to a low level of Cafergot or any one of the other very experience migraine medications that the doctors give.

You ask a doctor, most of you convince your doctors…when a woman goes in and complains of the headaches, they say, “Well, you have migraine headaches.” And they go, “Okay,” and they just give them a prescription. The question should always be, “Why do I have migraines?” Most of them say, “We don’t know. You just get them. They could be caused by your diet or something.” But it’s obvious if the doctor takes a history, it’s menstrual, in most cases. Now another big problem in causing migraine headaches is low magnesium levels. So, I think you had…

Stacy Bandfield: That’s right.

Dr. Hotze: You experienced that.

Stacy Bandfield: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Hotze: Well, Stacy had told me several years back, she was having all these migraines and I said, “Gee, could it be low magnesium? Try some magnesium.” Took magnesium and that, and you were taking, what were you taking? What was the medication you were taking?

Stacy Bandfield: Zomig.

Dr. Hotze: Zomig, but what’s it cost? How much?

Stacy Bandfield: A triptan drug. $50 a pill.

Dr. Hotze: $50 a pill. And magnesium costs maybe a dime.

Stacy Bandfield: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Hotze: Or something like that.

Stacy Bandfield: And it’s better for you and it’s…

Dr. Hotze: Yes, it’s natural.

Stacy Bandfield: It’s natural. Exactly.

Dr. Hotze: So, anyways…

Stacy Bandfield: It did. It took years to figure that out, but I was so glad when I finally did it because migraines are, and headaches in general, are debilitating.

Dr. Hotze: They can be debilitating. They can be. So, we’ve talked about four things. We’ve talked about decline,  that are caused by hormone imbalance and declines, energy level, weight gain, brain fog and premenstrual symptoms, which are headaches, mood swings, fluid retention, weight gain, breast tenderness.

5. Irregular Menstrual Cycles

Fifth thing is irregular menstrual cycles. What governs a woman’s menstrual cycles? Hormones. So, as a woman marches through her menstrual life and she has the declining progesterone, and the estrogen hormones become the dominant hormones, they’re the proliferative hormones. So, they cause proliferation in the inner lining of the womb and the periods become heavier. So, a woman may have a period lasting three to five days and it is light to moderate, and then several years later, maybe after childbirth, because the ovaries have shut off during childbirth, they have to turn back on, or if they don’t turn on adequately, you have an imbalance of hormones.

Next thing you know, the periods are lasting five to seven days and they’re moderate, starting to get a little heavier. Then a few years later, they’re seven to nine days and they’re getting clotting, and cramping, and severe pain. Now, this can happen in a woman at puberty. So, we talk about a bell-shaped curve, sometimes it happens to women early in their menstrual life, sometimes it happens in mid-life around 35 to 40, some of it happens as they approach the change of life, menopause.

Inevitably…and then they begin to have, oftentimes, intermenstrual bleeding, so between the menstrual period, they’ll start spotting and maybe have periods that last 10, 12, 15 days. Well, no woman wants to live with that, and you know, if the woman in your life is having those problems, it’s hormonal. But she’ll go to her OB/GYN and her OB/GYN will say, “I have a solution for that problem. We’ll just yank out your uterus, young lady, and you won’t have anymore bleeding,” which is true. You take out the uterus, you’re not going to have anymore menstrual bleeding, but that’s not…

The uterus is the end organ. What governs the uterus? The hormones. So, if you’re beginning to have, or if the woman in your life is beginning to have irregular cycles or heavier periods, that can be easily corrected with natural progesterone. And if it happens in your 30s, start taking it in your 30s. It happens in your 20s, take it then. If you’re having very irregular menstrual cycles and your daughter’s having those, and she’s in her teens or early 20s, don’t send her to an OB/GYN, he’ll throw her on birth control pills, which will shut off her hormones and cause a host to hell problems because they lead to breast cancer, and birth control pills also cause estrogen dominance. The symptoms of hyperthyroid in with them and can cause them to feel depressed because they’re counterfeit hormones, they’re not natural.I can’t tell you the number of women that we’ve encouraged who have come in here who were on birth control pills. When they get off’ them and we get them on their natural hormones, we balance everything out and they feel good, and they feel normal. I remember this one woman that I saw, this goes back years ago, and she came in and she’d been on birth control pill for 10 years, been depressed and taking antidepressants and everything.

I said, “Just get off of them. We’re going to get you on natural hormones.” She came back in the following month. She said, “If I had known this, I’d get off of those 10 years ago. But I asked my doctor, “Could the birth control pills be making me feel depressed and gaining weight and tired and… “No, they could never cause that problem.” Well, that just shows you how little doctors, …many doctors, it shows you how many doctors have very little understanding or experience in using natural bioidentical hormones to help women regain their youthful vigor, their vim, their vitality for life.

6. Low Libido

And finally, let’s talk about romantic moods and inclinations. If you’ve noticed that even if you are sweet, and you do bring home flowers and send cards, that you don’t have the same reception that you used to have years ago, and you don’t understand. She goes, “I just don’t feel up to it tonight.” Now, she may tell you she has headaches and guess what? I found out that’s not a made-up story, meaning women have the problems with their headaches. We talked on how you can get rid of that, but if a woman’s romantic moods and inclinations are declined, yes, you should make sure you give her flowers when she doesn’t expect it and give her cards when she doesn’t expect it, and take her out on a date now when she doesn’t expect it.

You should be sweet, and kind, and loving towards her, and you’ll find you’ll have a much better reception than if you’re just a burrish old boy, man. She’s not going to like that too much. But still, even if a woman is receptive to your wooing of her, but she still may not feel up to task. She just has lost her romantic moods and inclinations, and that’s due to the inevitable decline of hormones. Now, what’s interesting, key hormone in a woman’s desires is progesterone. Progesterone’s very important. So, as a woman loses her progesterone, as it begins to fall at midlife, then her romantic moods and inclinations will dissolve. Another hormone that also will increase a woman’s romantic moods and inclinations, and God built into her anatomy is testosterone.

In the middle of a cycle in a perfect world, there’s a 28-day cycle. In the middle of the cycle on day 14 or 15, a woman would ovulate or should ovulate if everything’s working normally. When she ovulates, she begins to make progesterone, high levels of progesterone to balance out the estrogen, but she also makes some testosterone, and it peaks that one day because the egg lives for one day. It lives for one day and there’s only one day that egg can be fertilized, and so, God has built into a woman’s nation when she ovulates, she’s going to give off testosterone. Testosterone has a strong drive towards desiring of experiencing romantic and intimate relationships.

So, testosterone could be important too. A little bit of testosterone could help woman with their romantic moods and inclinations, but really the progesterone, which is almost identical in molecular structure to testosterone, has a really profound effect. So, when women get estrogen dominance is a go … 30s, and 35, and 40s, and begin to have a loss of progesterone and a dominance of progesterone. Some progesterone and a little thyroid go a long way to helping a woman restore her overall health so she feels healthy and well, so she has energy, she’s slim and trim, she’s crisp in her thinking, she doesn’t have those irritable mood swings that have plagued her in the past, her cycle’s become regular, and she has open arms, and a warm embrace for you when you come home.

That’s an explanation of six effects that you may see in the woman you love because she has an imbalance in her hormones, and these could be easily corrected with natural bioidentical hormones, and with thyroid, and a little bit of natural Cortisol. So, I hope this helps you gentlemen understand better why your wife or your sweetheart, or the woman you love may be experiencing some difficulties. It’s hormonal, but don’t tell her that. Look, feel free to get a copy of my book.

Stacy Bandfield: Absolutely.

Dr. Hotze: You can go online and get it at Amazon.com. You can pay for it.

Stacy Bandfield: Or you can give us a call.

Dr. Hotze: Give us a call.

Stacy Bandfield: We will send you a copy.

Dr. Hotze: We’ll send you a copy. I want you to have that because I know there’s literally 10s of millions of women out there that are experiencing very … poor lifestyle right now. They want to get their life back. I remember this woman who told me one time, “I just want to get me back. I’ve lost me. I want myself back. I don’t have it.” And that’s what happens when the hormones decline. So, we could help you do that. Get a copy of the book Hormones, Health and Happiness. Call our office at …

Stacy Bandfield: (281) 698-8698. (281) 698-8698.

Dr. Hotze: We’d be glad to send you a copy and I also want to recommend that you go to our website, HotzeHWC^.com, H-O-T-Z-E-H-W-C.com. Click on the testimonials. Listen to some of the women’s testimonials. Besides that, here at the Hotze Health and Wellness Center we really focus on healthy eating lifestyle, replenishment of hormones, vitamin and mineral supplementation to enable you to detoxify the toxins that are in your system, and then an exercise problem. Of course if you have yeast problems, we address that and we also address airborne and food allergies when indicated.

Dr. Hotze: That’s what we do and our goal is to help you obtain and maintain health and wellness naturally so that you enjoy a better quality of life as you mature.

Stacy Bandfield: Absolutely, Dr. Hotze. Such great information. We’re so glad you joined us today, and you can also call us for a complimentary health consultation. We’d love to be able to do that for you and to serve you. You can call us at (281) 698-8698. That’s (281) 698-8698. Thank you for joining us today here at Dr. Hotze’s Wellness Revolution.

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