Unapologetic Swingers
Follow us on our sexy adventures and sometimes misadventures as we find our way through the swinging lifestyle.
Unapologetic Swingers
Unapologetic Swingers: Epsiode 17 - Hormonal Balancing with Dr. John Carrozzella
The Tramp is joined by Dr. John Carrozzella from the Florida Center of Hormones and Wellness for an in depth discussion about hormonal balancing and why it's so critically important in the lifestyle.
https://hormonesandwellness.com/
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Welcome back to the Unapologetic Swinger Podcast. I'm the Tramp and guys, today I am actually on location. It's been really fun to get out of the studio and take a little trip down to Florida, and I am so thankful to be sitting here today with Dr. John Carla. And he's from the Florida Center for Hormone and Wellness. Dr. John, thank you so much for joining me this morning.
Dr. John:Thanks for having me. It's a lot of fun to be able to have these interactions, to be able to get the word out because, hormone therapy and care is so important these days and people are really just not understanding it properly to take full advantage. So it's a real pleasure to be here to help spread the word.
The Tramp:Of course. The topic today is obviously going to be hormonal health and why it's important in the lifestyle, and maybe we can dig into some details or maybe just start with some of the very intro, intro level stuff, the surface level stuff that a lot of people don't realize and then we can. Dive a little deeper, if that's all right with you, doctor.
Dr. John:Yeah. So, in my practice I tend to have a very large collection of lifestyle people. Mm-hmm. And so it gives me an opportunity to really see the impact that hormones make on these people. And, over the years now that I've been doing this and accumulating that large following in the office, it really makes me come to the conclusion that if you're in the lifestyle and you're not really optimizing your hormones and making sure that your hormone health. As good as it could be, you're really missing out because you're, you're missing an opportunity to enjoy what should be a very pleasurable experience. One which you get to meet the best people in the world and have the best experiences in terms of friendship, intimate contact, and the the other things that we get to do. And certainly on the sexual side when hormones are outta balance, it can really make a negative effect to you and your ability to perform, do well, and complete the aspect of the lifestyle interactions. So. Hormone health is crucial both for men and women. We know that these hormones decline over time and it can lead to some really serious problems. And it's not just a sexual thing, it's a life vitality, health metabolic issues. And so it's crucial to have an expert who's able to look at all of these things. And deal with them. And I differentiate a lot of what we do to what I call the drive by hormone clinics where you get your testosterone shot or your testosterone cream as a woman and go from there. So it's really, really important, not just for lifestylers, but everybody in general, but in particular in lifestyle, when we're looking to be the best that we can be. Mm-hmm. In all areas of, of, of that interaction.
The Tramp:I would also. Submit in there that it's also for your mental health because if, you feel good, you can perform, you can do all these things, it's gonna boost you up mentally as well.
Dr. John:Well, absolutely. I mean, there's no question when you look at things I. Specifically medically in terms of medical health. You know, hormonal balance reduces the risk of dementia in women by over 80%. It reduces the risk in dementia in men. It improves depression and anxiety. So from a clinical standpoint, mentally it does, but from a. A, a, a mental standpoint in terms of the satisfaction and enjoyment of life. When you're engaged in the lifestyle activities, or even if you're not just the everyday interactions with your friends and your, partners and all that to be clearheaded, feeling vital, active, and vigorous. Of course that's just gonna make you feel happier less depressed and less anxious about life. Sure.
The Tramp:Now, hormones at their core, they're naturally produced by the body. Especially they're prevalent in our youth or as we come into adolescence and during, the natural human growth cycle. At what point typically do you start to see a decline?
Dr. John:Yeah, that's a good question. And I want to emphasize a couple of points within your question. Hormones are naturally occurring in your body. And so we're gonna get into, in this discussion, I believe some of the myths about the potential harms of hormones. And I wanna be clear there, are lots of myths and lots of misunderstanding about the potential downside. And the reality is, when you're talking about a natural substance that however you wanna look at it, whether God put it in your body or revolution, put it in your body, something that's supposed to be in your body. Intuitively, it doesn't make sense that that's something would be harmful if you replace it later in life. But what ends up happening with your hormone balance, both for men and women, is those hormones are optimal or best, right around the primary reproductive years at the end of your twenties, and they're balanced. They're great. Everything's performing on all cylinders. Hopefully, I mean, there are obviously exceptions, but people are really doing well in their mid to late twenties. Then in men, we see a gradual hormonal decline in testosterone of about 1% to 2% every year. To the point when you're over 50, you're, more than 50% lower on your testosterone level. Mm-hmm. And, and it has effects in physical performance, sexual performance, weight distribution sugar metabolism, cholesterol metabolism, and all of these different things. Women as well see declines in their hormones. It's a little bit more irregular. And if you looked at the graphical change over time the way that these hormones go they still decline. But then women go through this dramatic change around the average age of 51 in the United States where they're going to menopause, and those hormones just fall off of the table and crater when the ovaries stop producing them.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm. And
Dr. John:they have a much more dramatic shift from hormonal balance to men. Not that they're absent of any problems in the forties or so leading up to that, of course. So what'll happen is at some point or another, and it's very personal, it's very individual. Way before you're in your fifties or your sixties, you're gonna start to see some changes. The way that you think, your mental clarity, your energy, your vitality. You're gonna start to see weight gain that's completely unexplained. I'm sure a lot of the women out there will either have experienced or no friends. They'll, go something along the way. Oh, I know. You know, I, I'm not doing anything differently. I'm eating the same I'm exercising the same. I haven't changed anything yet. Slowly over the last few years, I'm gaining weight. Well, that is a clear indicator of hormonal decline. And it goes to show you that hormones are not just for sexual function.
The Tramp:Right.
Dr. John:They're, crucial. And again, when we get into lifestyle issues, the sexual aspect of it. Maybe frequently or all too frequently becomes a little bit more focused, but there's so many other things that start to occur from, a hormonal imbalance. So it goes well beyond the sexual aspect. And we have the ability now to understand these things and do them in a very safe and very effective way to mm-hmm. Restore that balance and get people back on their game both physically, physiologically, and sexually by restoring these hormones.
The Tramp:Now I would also think that a lot of people, even some people in the medical community will say, well, that's just part of getting a little older. Or people will self justify. They're like, yeah, I've lost a, a step in my game. And it's just, it's just part of the process and I'm gonna try to be as graceful as possible moving onto that next phase of my life. But I'm one of those people who are like, no, I'm not. I'm going to. I have a certain standard and I want to keep that standard.
Dr. John:Well, I mean, that is a great question and I get that a lot of times that I even had. A few people who have actually left the office and go, well, you know, this is not normal. It's not natural. The hormones decline. I need to learn to live with it. One of the saddest stories I ever remember was when I first doing this, 15 years ago, I had a lady come into the office and she was experiencing all of the horrors of hormonal decline. And she had gone to her GYN doctor and, and was. Kind of telling her the story and, and the GYN doctor looked at her, put her hands on the table, stood up and said, you know what, big girl, sometimes you have to put your grownup panties on and get over it. And then she stormed out of the room. And just the heartless, careless approach to that. It is out there. And, that is indeed some of the attitude now.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:by simply restoring something to levels that were present in your youth, or maybe even sometimes a little bit higher, we can preserve the vitality in the health with a natural substance. It's one thing to say that you're artificially prolonging life when you create a drug that might have side effects or problems, or, cause other unexpected. Results in the longer, it's one thing to take a synthetic, something to try to restore something or to do something unnatural. It's another thing just to put back in the body what's been declining when you know that, that something is directly related to restoring health and vitality. So, I want to challenge that thinking and say that you don't have to accept normal, a age related decline. That, science technology. Gave us the ability to deal with these things and restore this in a safe and effective way.
The Tramp:That's, I think, safe and effective is, is the key there, realistically, because we've all seen the drug commercials and it seems like there's this whole litany of, whatever the, the big farm is pushing, and I think by law they have to list off, you know? Can cause this or that or this. And it seems like half the commercials are possible side effects, where typically with hormonal balancing, yeah, you may have some side effects, but not nearly to that level.
Dr. John:Well, I really spend a lot of time in my office differentiating between side effects. And excess effects.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:To me, when I consider a side effect of something like, you have a headache and you take a pill and your thumb falls off, I mean, that's, that's clearly an unwanted hazard from the medicine that you took.
The Tramp:Yes.
Dr. John:Okay. And you can say there's something really wrong with that. Okay. Now, if we look at a hormone, if we take estradiol or what people will commonly call estrogen, if a woman does that and she has uterine bleeding. Well, someone would call that a side effect. I just call that an excess effect. That means you took too much estradiol, it wasn't properly balanced by progesterone. And estradiol naturally causes uterine proliferation, and if you have uterine proliferation, you're gonna get some bleeding. So that's not really a side effect. That's just getting more of what the, the hormone causes in an unregulated, unmonitored way. Same thing with testosterone. If you take testosterone and you get oily skin. That's not a side effect. That's what the testosterone does. Testosterone makes your skin produce a little bit of extra oil. If you make a little bit of extra oil and you get some acne, that's not really a side effect. That's what testosterone does,
The Tramp:right?
Dr. John:And it's the same thing if you get irritable or anxious when you're on testosterone. It, it's not a side effect. We know that's what it does in, and in a way it's kind of good because if, if you get irritable and your testosterone level is up and you're a caveman, it gives you that drive to go out and hunt. So these are things that are, in my opinion, misnamed as side effects when they're really just excess effects, because there is not one well documented study when you take a natural hormone. That causes any serious medical adverse harm.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:Now what ends up happening is a lot of the synthetics are out there, and when we talk about Premarin or the synthetic estrogen when we look at these things true, they have a blood clot blood. Cox can go to the lungs, they can kill you. I mean, those are side effects, but they're as a result of the inflammatory nature of these synthetic substances which don't belong in the body.
The Tramp:Okay?
Dr. John:So we, we have to be very, very clear, and when you start to understand the literature and you start to unwind. These studies that it's just a crime that the medical community and the editors of the journals have allowed the conflation of the, the synthetics with the natural hormones. It, I mean, it's a, it's a veritable crime. You've got journal articles that you cannot unwind whether they're using estradiol, which is the natural estrogen or the synthetic Premarin. You've got journal articles for men that you don't know whether they're using. You know, Ava or withdrawal methyl testosterone or whatever, synthetic, they're over the regular testosterone. You can read the article and you cannot tell whether they're, the naturals or the synthetics. Mm-hmm. Yet when you clearly identify articles that have either synthetic or natural hormones, then you can see a clear difference in the outcomes. Mm-hmm. Because, if you read and study like I do, I. And you just can't believe the fact that the medical community today is so against hormones. Yet when you parse the literature properly, when you find the clear differentiations between the natural and the synthetics, it's not like, well, it's, it's, it's arguable, you know? No, there's a clear difference when you take the natural hormones. It's safe and effective.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm. With
Dr. John:little downside, other than excess effects, which may be bothersome by not medically damaging. In that instance, you just adjust'em until you find the right combination. Sure. Versus the synthetics, which are clearly dangerous and, that just has not been enforced properly by the editors or the journals. And, and it's really a crime because it's allowed the myths that there are potential downsides of the hormones. And, and they're not.
The Tramp:Do you think there's a correlation? Something that I've run across and, and I've heard other people run across where with testosterone, for example, and, what would be considered an appropriate level for a man of say, 40 years old that in recent years, the guidelines have actually been adjusted. Downward have you found that as well?
Dr. John:Yeah. Well there, there's a real problem there. Okay. Because o over the last 50 years, so, well, lemme take a step back. When you look at a lab test
The Tramp:mm-hmm.
Dr. John:What does that range mean on a lab test? Okay. That range is purely a statistical number that has no functional significance whatsoever. So what happens is the lab will get a thousand men who are of a particular age. And they will draw their blood. And it's important that they have no symptoms of testosterone. So they're screened for no symptoms of testosterone. They get a thousand men of a particular age, and they do what's called a standard deviation. Okay? And for the statistical nuts out there, they'll understand this clearly. But basically what you get is what? A bell-shaped curve, and they take two standard deviations off of the mean, and they call that normal. It's. Purely arbitrary how they come up with that number. And even though we know for an absolute medical fact that his testosterone levels decline, the rate of illness goes up.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm. But
Dr. John:because over the last 50 years, the herd average of testosterone has been declining. They have lowered that normal range of testosterone in the blood slip. Well, it's completely makes no sense because we know that the lower the testosterone levels are the worst that men do. I think it's important to recognize that, the herd range of testosterone has been declining. Well, what does that mean? It means that we call the normal range that, but I, I, as I said earlier, there is no functional significance to that. I see
The Tramp:we have,
Dr. John:we have clear medical literature that says that men need a testosterone level that achieves the medical and physical results that they need.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:And there's a great article published in this journal called Mayo Clinics, which obviously is put out by the Mayo Clinic. And it took about 20 international testosterone experts that got together after the FDA changed some guidelines back in the early 2010s. And they came out and made a comment that there is no level of testosterone at which a man with significant testosterone symptoms might not benefit from getting supplemental testosterone if his symptoms are severe enough to warrant a trial.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:And what that means is. You could have a normal, or even in fact, high testosterone level. If for some reason you feel or your doctor feels that you're low in testosterone, there's no reason why you shouldn't trial testosterone because we know. And this is gonna blow some people away. We know that I cannot hurt you no matter what level of testosterone I put you at. I can make you not feel good. Oily skin, acne, irritability, aggression, things like that. Mm-hmm. But I can't medically hurt you. I can't, you can't get heart problems, you can't get prostate problems. You're not gonna get thick blood, you're not gonna get blood clots. You're gonna get none of that.'cause there's no literature out there that shows that any of that happens. So what I'm getting at is if the Mayo Clinic and the leading testosterone experts around the world say that there's no level at which your testosterone might be improved, if you feel have symptoms. That means to everyday people. If you think you're low on testosterone and you consult with an expert who really understands hormone balance mm-hmm. There's no problem with taking your level and raising it higher. So if you look at the range today, the range today and the blood slips is something around 300 to roughly a thousand. And that varies from lab to lab. Sure. And you'll get doctors that'll go, okay, well you're 301, your testosterone level is normal. You don't need testosterone. And then the next patient will come in and his level is 299, and they'll say, yeah, you're 299, you're below the range. You can get testosterone functionally. What's the difference between 299 and 301? There's none. So looking at that number makes no sense, and there are many, many people that have testosterone levels that are 4, 5, 600 that I see in my office. We have to consider other things. What are the hormones that are you're eating in your food that are interfering with your body, receiving the testosterone that's there at that particular level, and if using more testosterone to override that, to crowd out these hormones that come up in your food, is that okay or you know. What is going on genetically, that the receptor, where that hormone plugs into is misshapen slightly, and that the way to come over that is just to overwhelm it with more testosterone.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:You've got these special circumstances that you're just trying to overcome what's going on in nature and in the environment. The toxicities, the heavy metals that you might consume. Mm-hmm. Hormones in your food, radiation effects on the shape of the receptor or the genetic effects. And for all of these things, you can use a higher level. And in many cases, in fact, in my experience, well over 90% of the time overcome whatever it is that's blocking your body's ability to receive the testosterone or the estrogen or the progesterone or the thyroid, or whatever it is that we're using.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:To try to make you feel healthier, more vital and active. So I can assure people that hormones are safe. They're effective. Well done literature shows, no downside. And I want to talk about that a little bit, but there is absolutely no downside when it comes to men or women's health.
The Tramp:Now you brought up something very interesting there. I think a lot of people only associate hormonal health strictly with testosterone and estrogen which are the core, what you would call the sex hormones or what you will, but it, sounded like there are a lot more facets out there than simply those two big players, if you will.
Dr. John:Yeah. There, there, there are several. And, and, and I'd say that there's. Four major hormones that we spend a lot of time with at their basic, although there's probably a regular usage in our office we're probably dealing with about 10 or 12 or somewhere around that. But the big ones are the testosterone and the estradiol, which we know a lot about. And then the secondary hormones are progesterone for women and thyroid for both men and women.
The Tramp:Okay.
Dr. John:And, and thyroid in particular is one that is really. W dramatically misunderstood by the medical community. And we use a lot of thyroid and, and pretty much in my office, if you walk in and, and, and the word fatigue or energy come outta your mouth, you're gonna end up with a thyroid prescription.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:Because thyroid is a metabolic hormone. And, and when you're not dialed up. Metabolically, you're gonna be tired and fatigued and those are gonna be symptoms. And I would say, well, over 90% of the time, if I are tired and fatigued and they go on thyroid, they're gonna get better. And it, it's dramatic. And yet that's another hormone, which many, many everyday doctors think that the number tells them how to treat it. That is this little black number on this white piece of paper is gonna tell me how to treat you. Mm-hmm. So that you feel better. And I love to tell my patients and I get the funniest little deer in the headlights look when I do that, I said, so you go to your family doctor and you say, doctor, I'm tired. I'm fatigued. You know, I'm gaining weight. I've got no energy. I've got no sex drive. I. You know, my brain is all cloudy and you go on and you list 37 thyroid symptoms. Mm-hmm. And he goes, Nope. This piece of paper over here where this black number says it's not your thyroid. Go lose some weight, exercise more, get more sleep, and come back in six months. And then you come back in six months and you do that, you're still as miserable as you were in the beginning. And he says, it's not your thyroid, it's something else. And you go, what is it? He goes, I don't know yet. 90% of the time when I give those people thyroid, they're dramatically better. Mm-hmm. So, I mean. Why don't give'em thyroid and, and then the same holds with the thyroid. That is, the good literature shows that if I give you too much thyroid that your body needs, you'll have a certain set of excess effect symptoms. Mm-hmm. But I'm not gonna hurt you. Well. The problem is, is that there's illness out there called Graves disease, and it's an autoimmune disorder in which your immune system starts to attack your body and it attacks your brain. It attacks your heart, it attacks your bone, so many other organs, and it attacks your thyroid. And when your immune system attacks your thyroid, your thyroid starts to go haywire, and the levels of your thyroid go up.
The Tramp:Okay?
Dr. John:And the way that Graves' disease presents is with the symptoms of too much thyroid. And so, Graves' disease is often called hyperthyroidism, okay? And so when you look at the lab slip, you're gonna see very high thyroid levels, okay? The reality is, is the thyroid problem in Graves' disease is a victim, not the perpetrator. Because what happens is if you go and you fix the thyroid issue, usually by either removing the thyroid or poisoning the thyroid
The Tramp:mm-hmm.
Dr. John:And you do studies 10 years later, you're gonna still find that they get brain problems, heart problems, bone problems, and all other things that they say that you're gonna get from too much thyroid that you never get when you look at the literature for, for giving a lot of thyroid, you know, everyday doctors conflate this and bring this over there and, it's really wrong to do that. And I would say the most. Violent, nasty phone calls that I get from family doctors regards thyroid, and yet I have not had one single problem with thyroid that's caused the hospitalization in the 15 years that I've been doing it. I'm very aggressive in my use of thyroid. Matter of fact, there is a really, really good book out there called Understanding Hypothyroidism and is written by a doctor who used to be the president of the American Thyroid Association and the American Thyroid Association, and the american College of clinical Endocrinologists or A CCE are two of the most violent, anti functional medicine approaches to thyroid. And these doctors are just vicious and ruthless in their attack on the functional medical community of which I'm in and the way that we use our thyroid. So this doctor was a president of the A TA and he got done with his leadership of the A TA and about over the next two or three years, he started to go out and actually. Practiced medicine out of the ivory tower more on an everyday basis of seeing people in a clinic. Sure. And he started to come to the realization that, wait a minute here. All of this stuff we've been keep preaching about, about thyroid is wrong and we need to start listening to people about their thyroid symptoms. And he did a 180 degree turn. He wrote a book about it saying that we completely misunderstand the way to treat thyroid and need to be treating it more on a functional basis. And we do that. People are gonna be happier and healthier. And I use that book every single day in my office and is eyeopening to a lot of patients who now. Understand that their doctor are not maybe necessarily giving them the right mm-hmm. Advice on thyroid. So it's really important to understand that. Again, just like with testosterone, when you talk about thyroid. There may be a level that is above the range that may be very helpful and healthy for a variety of reasons that are largely environmental, is why the amount of thyroid in your body is not enough to produce the effect on the thyroid functions of your body that we see otherwise. So I see it's, it's a crucial thing. Same thing with estradiol thing, same thing with progesterone and, and progesterone is crucial to balance the effects of estradiol in a woman's body.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm. No, this has all been fascinating. Now, in regards specifically with the lifestyle, o obviously there's the sexual component. What other tie-ins do you see or have seen in your experience just in terms of the lifestyle and, and with. Proper hormonal balancing.
Dr. John:Sure. Let's bring some clarity to the sexual side of the lifestyle into hormones. There's absolutely no question that men who have more optimal testosterone levels function better sexually. They have. Better erections, they have better recovery time. They have more ability to go longer. Their durability is longer, their satisfaction is greater, their ability to have better sensation, better climax.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:Every aspect of the spectral function is better when those testosterone levels are higher and more appropriate for what their body needs. We touched on this and I didn't say it specifically. There is no specific testosterone level. At which a man needs to be in order to be optimum. What, what is some man may do at 1100? Another man may need 1800. 1900, or even over 2000 to get Oh wow. So it has to be tailored individually to each individual person. So by tailoring them, you may get men that. Have gone to another doctor and they say, Nope, a thousand as high as you can go. And the guy goes home and goes, oh, that's the best. I, I guess that's the best I can do. And maybe tweaking it another two or 300 points is gonna make a world of difference. And all of a sudden the light goes on. He feels a lot better. And because that level has been adjusted to his specific needs considering his physiological response mm-hmm. To that. So it's. Clearly important for sexual function and optimizing those things is good beyond just the sex and men, their energy, their focus, their motivation, their drive, you know, getting the urge to perform
The Tramp:right, and, and just their
Dr. John:overall enjoyment and satisfaction gets up dramatically when you optimize their levels. For the women, it, it's the same thing. How many women are on the lifestyle that. That do because their partner wants'em to or whatever, and they know, they kind of think that they like it, but getting their levels optimized, their drive goes up, their desire to initiate gets better, their responsiveness gets better. Mm-hmm. Their, their lubrication gets better, their sensitivity, their ability to climax gets better. So they may be enjoying the lifestyle to a degree, but when you get them optimized where their levels are good for their body, they get a better response so that the whole sexual experience becomes a better and improved. And then beyond that, just like in the men, their vitality, their energy. I mean, we all, some of these lifestyle events, the average thing is you go out to dinner, you go to the party, you do some dancing. It's 11, 12, 1 o'clock in the morning. Yes. Our ability to have that endurance and, fortitude to, to continue on is better when your hormones are balanced. So we're able to enjoy these events, these parties, there's trips or everything that go, that go later. So you got the sectoral side and you got the physiological side. Not to mention, the, the health benefits overall. So we've got probably to talk a little bit about the health benefits, and then I really want to talk touch on some of the, with the perceived downsides and some of the myths about Yeah. Yeah. By, by means the floor is yours. There's a lot of myth out there about hormone therapy and, on the women's side a, a really poorly done study was released in 2002, yet it was carried out by a$1 billion grant from the National Institutes of the Health. Okay. And what it was, was called the Women's Health Initiative. I could spend an hour talking about that study. I'm a, I'm an expert on that study. I'm an expert on understanding why that study had such negative impact on women's hormones. But the study is severely flawed. Use ste synthetic hormones, and it led to doctors concluding. And hormones cause breast cancer, blood clots, and all kind of medical issues, strokes in women. And so therefore, we shouldn't use hormones in women. It led to an immediate, almost 90% decline in the use of hormone therapy in women. And it's set off now on a generation of women being deprived of the ability to be hormonally balanced and enjoy their life. Mm-hmm. Okay. When, when women, women are hormonally imbalanced. They got dementia, heart disease, and all of these things. When you look at the proper literature with using the biologically identical hormones of estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid, what you actually see is a reduction in the risk of breast cancer. Testosterone alone actually lowers the risk of breast cancer in women by over 75%, and it's linear, meaning that the higher that you bring their testosterone levels. The lower that their breast cancer rate is, that is testosterone is directly toxic to breast cancer cells. There's a a famous surgeon in Dayton, Ohio named Rebecca Glazer, and she publishes extensively on this topic and is actually when she does a breast cancer surgery, she will leave a testosterone pellet in the cavity where the, breast cancer tumor was removed and her recurrence rates are dramatically low. You also find. For example, women with stage one in stage two breast cancers. And I'm very aggressive about managing these women. The conventional wisdom is you don't give women with breast cancer testosterone'cause it's gonna make her come back. Well, the reality is in the literature says, particularly with stage one and stage two, which is the overwhelming majority
The Tramp:mm-hmm.
Dr. John:You get that cancer removed and the day after that cancer surgery is done, you can go ahead and put them on hormone therapy. Number one, the recurrence rates go down. That is testosterone is a better. Preventer of recurrence than tamoxifen and the poisons that they use in chemotherapy. Okay. That hormones, wow. Improve the quality of life. That is the trade off. And the potential for recurrence is that the recurrence rate, if there even is one, is well offset by the improvement of all cause mortality by the be beneficial effects of, the hormones. That is, if you said, okay, even if. There is a very slight increase in the risk of recurrence of breast cancer, which is not true.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:Then the reduction of all cause mortality from dementia heart disease strokes, and all these things outweighs whatever adversity is. And the oncologist response to that, well, that's not my problem. I don't want their breast cancer to come back. They need to go to a cardiologist or their family doctor. Right. Well, it is their problem. Okay. Because just by doing their their hormones, they're gonna get a better result in terms of all cause mortality. So women clearly have a reduced risk of all kind of medical problems when their hormones are balanced, even in the face of breast cancer. So there is absolutely no well done study that shows that hormones cause. Blood clots, strokes, or heart disease in women infect the opposite is true. Let those things are reduced on the men's side. Mm-hmm. We've got a lot of myths as well. Testosterone has been claimed to increase heart attacks. It has been claimed to increase prostate cancer. A lot of people will, worry about what they call thick blood or blood clots. None of that is true. It is absolutely 100%. The opposite. In fact in June of 2024, there was a big study that was finally brought out. It was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was called the Traverse Study. And what they did is they got about. 10 leading testosterone authorities. Five of'em were very substantially anti testosterone.
The Tramp:Mm-hmm.
Dr. John:And five of'em were pro testosterone and they got them together. They got a grant from the National Institute of Health and they started on this study called the Traverse Study, which will evolve over the next. Few years, but the first publication in June of 2024 absolutely specifically looked at the question. They took men who were at high risk for heart disease, they gave them testosterone therapy. They broke them up into two separate groups, and they followed them out over time. And the conclusion was that testosterone did not increase the risk of heart disease or, or significant heart issues. Okay. I, I have a little bit of a problem with that study. It didn't bring them to the good levels because I know it actually will reduce it, but I'll take what I can get out of it. I can now pretty much unequivocally state that a study designed to look at the effect of testosterone and heart disease now has clearly said that testosterone does not contribute to the increased risk of heart disease. Similar studies have done in prostate cancer test, testosterone does not. Contribute to prostate cancer. In fact, the current state of the art of practices, the day after your PSA is less than one, you can go back on testosterone therapy. And even here in Orlando, we have a prostate cancer surgeon who does not require their mend to go off of testosterone throughout the course of their prostate cancer. I see. Treatment that is. You can have your testosterone, you can stay on your testosterone. You have your prostatectomy. You do not even need to wait for your PSA to go down. So there is no link between testosterone. And prostate cancer. There, there's some subtle nuances that you need to know as an expert in there. And, I talk about them with my prostate cancer patients that I see in follow up. And, and the other big one is thick blood and blood clots. Mm-hmm. That is becoming my biggest headache right now. And I have lots and lots of issues with it. I just had a, patient called the other day, almost dropped this program'cause he said, my doctor says I'm gonna get thick blood and I'm gonna get a, stroke. I need to stop right away. And, I had to produce the, receipts to prove to him that that's not the case. And I did, I've, I've written a very nice three page letter that's got about a 2020 references in it that specifically itemizes why testosterone does not cause. Thick blood or increase the risk of, of blood cuts and strokes. So it's very safe, it's very effective and we know when you look at the very relevant literature that, I have no major negative downside. I think I've discussed over the course of this, this conversation, I. That it's safe and effective, and the only issues are, the excess effects, which may be unpleasant and uncomfortable. Mm-hmm. You just need to adjust. There's, there's no major medical downside in the major areas, and I think I've touched on the literature that clearly says
The Tramp:that. Right. No, this has been a, an eye-opening conversation and I think it just goes to prove that, particularly in the lifestyle that. To truly enjoy it. We need to be the best version of ourselves. And if that means hormonal balancing as you get a little older and there's no downside to it.
Dr. John:Yeah, I agree. I think you, put the point very clearly, you want to be the best that you can be. You wanna be vital, you wanna be active, you want to enjoy your life. And, and when you bring the sexual aspect into it in the lifestyle, you wanna be able to enjoy that. And being hormonally optimized and metabolically ma managed properly by an expert who understands hormones in their metabolic impact and does the things to help you do that, all of a sudden you're living your best life, you're doing the best you, you can, and the hormones directly contribute to that with very little downside and certainly downside that can be managed. Right.
The Tramp:Absolutely. Well, Dr. John, if people wanna reach out to you would you mind sharing the best way to? Sure.
Dr. John:My office is in Orlando, Florida. We're called the Florida Center for Hormones and Wellness. Our website is very easy to understand. It's hormones and wellness.com, obviously altogether no spaces, hormones and wellness.com and we, have a very active office. I see people from all over the world. I have patients from all over the country. The one I I, it even shocks me that I have a number of people that come in three or four times a year for pellet therapy. Mm-hmm. But a lot of people will go to their family doctors and find out that too many doctors are still practicing on a numerical based thing that is, your levels are, or this, that and the other. I can't do it. And yet they feel they can't get to where they need to be. And so I do a lot of people from around the country that will come in and we. We manage them from a distance. So I, I have a lot of success with that and it's really been quite rewarding to travel the way that I do within lifestyle, meet people then end going back home and find out that they, can't get the kind of care that they need. Right. And then they end up doing distance medicine back to Orlando with me. Oh, oh, that's so, it's, it's a lot of fun and I've changed a lot of lives doing this. It's, it's really, it is the best kind of medicine ever.
The Tramp:That's amazing. And I'll also put a link if it's all right on the website, directly to you guys. Yep. And thank you, Dr. John. Thank you so much just for taking the time out of your weekend and. Sitting down and talking with us.
Dr. John:It's my pleasure. I love to spread the word and love to grow. The understanding of the benefits and the health of hormones. The, the ship is turning around. More and more. People are recognizing that it's important to be healthy and vital, to have their hormones balanced than I think it's the horrors done by the Women's Health Initiative and other gender driven articles to keep people off of hormones. People are starting to recognize it. That's not the truth. And they're coming in and getting treated and we're seeing some great mm-hmm. Reverses in that. Thank you so much for allowing me to participate and I'm, I'm happy to come back anytime to talk about other specific issues. Oh, we certainly will. Or, expand on some of the things we've talked about today. I'll,
The Tramp:I'll take you up on that. Alright. Well everyone, thank you for listening and we're just so thankful El and I, that you've just come on this journey with us. And feel free to reach out to us. I don't have a a MA question this week, so feel free to reach out to us at unapologetic swingers@gmail.com. Our website is also unapologetic swingers.com and wherever you happen to be listening to us, just leave us a quick review, maybe some kind words. And until next time, I'm the tramp. You have to be sexy. You have to be confident and you have to be unapologetic.