Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   0:05
Welcome to the bone code show dedicated to helping you understand all things related to diet, lifestyle, bone health and how you can live and thrive with low bone density and osteoporosis. I'm your host. Kevin Ellis, certified health coach, health and wellness speaker and, above all else, your bone coach. After being diagnosed with osteoporosis in my early thirties, I transform my health through diet and lifestyle and now help my clients and community members do the same through my online coaching practice. Bone coach dot com Look, there are no quick and easy cures for low bone density, but the choices we make every single day can have a powerful impact on our bones, our health and our general well being. I'll share the research, interview the experts and help you figure out how to get the conditions right in your body so you can better your bones through diet and lifestyle. A short disclaimer. I'm not a medical doctor, and this show should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with your health care team before making medical decisions and changes to your diet and lifestyle. With that being said, let's get on to the show. Welcome welcome to this episode of Bone Quick broadcast Today we're talking about adrenal health and hormone health, and we're doing that through my interview with Marcel Pick. She's an O b g y n nurse practitioner. A functional medicine practitioner. She has been featured on Dr Oz Fox, ABC, Glamour magazine L. She has her own PBS show called Is It Me or My Hormones? And she's the author of three different books. She has a long time, a lot of experience in women's health, and she's been helping women all over the world transform their health for many, many years. And I think you're really going to enjoy this episode so before we get into it, if you haven't done so already, head over the bone coach dot com. Sign up for that free seven day osteoporosis kickstart. You'll be glad you did. And with that being said, Let's get on with show So we have Marcel pick. She is an O b. G y n nurse practitioner and a functional medicine practitioner. She's passionate about transforming the way women experience healthcare through an integrative approach. She co founded the world renowned Women two Women clinic in 1983 with the vision to not only treat illness but also support her patients and proactively making healthier choices to prevent disease. She successfully treated thousands of individuals through her unique approach to wellness. She's currently an educator with the Institute for Functional Medicine, so she's actually training and educating this new line of practitioners that air coming in for root cause medicine. She is served as a medical adviser for multiple magazines. She's the author of three different books. She has appeared on Dr Oz Fox, ABC on a whole host of magazines, and she has her own PBS special called Is It Me or My Hormones? It is absolutely amazing, Marcel, what you have been able to accomplish in your career and women's health and I am Thrilled and Honored toe have you on the podcast in the show.

Marcelle Pick:   3:10
Thank you so much. I'm thrilled actually to be here. The more we can get this information out, the better.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   3:15
I wholeheartedly agree. So before we get into anything else I actually wanted to ask you. You know, you've been in women's health for a long time, obviously. What was the impetus for you starting down the path and Why is this a great passion of yours today?

Marcelle Pick:   3:31
Well, I have an interesting story, actually. Was born in Australia in the outback, and I spent much of my time. We really I mean, I didn't have I didn't have pleasure 12 and tells 11. And we, you know, we don't have any stores. When have any cars

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   3:44
with the rial outback?

Marcelle Pick:   3:46
Very different life. Yeah, and I spend a ton of time in the water and also in Aboriginal caves. Oh wow. And I've known since I was a very young woman that I wanted to make a difference. And I grew up in Virginia Beach after that. Edgar Casey's foundation was there when we talked a fair amount about how we can look a medicine a bit differently. And I was always a very, uh, I was spent more of my time in my books than I did anything else. Just kind of trying to understand this and learn it. So I've been doing alternatives since I started. I went Teoh program at Harvard Med for a nurse practitioner program at the very outset of nurse Practitioners, cause I wanted to get an education that would avail me um, the background to be able to also step out of the box a little bit because I have the credentials to be able to do that.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   4:33
Well, that's that's a wonderful background. And I mean, you're beginning starting in Australia to come in here. The US that. That's pretty amazing that now you've you've launched this amazing career. You have all these different resource, and you're helping so many people still around the world today. Um, I do want to talk about for a second. You have a book and a PBS show called Is It Me or My Hormones? And actually just want to start with a very basic question, because some people in our audience may not even be familiar with this. Ah, what are hormones and what role did they play in our bodies and in our bone health?

Marcelle Pick:   5:09
So the I know more about women, so I'm gonna forgive me when I'm not a real audience, but I'm like women's market passion. So we all have hormones estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHT A and certainly human growth hormone and others as well. But we have huge fluctuations that go on in our lives because in particular of adrenal dysfunction, which echoes dress, and we can have stress that actually starts when we're younger. And what's interesting is that I'm gonna tie this in your bones in a moment. But there is something called the Ace Study and the ACE study looks at. If you had adverse events as a child, did it cause health problems later on in life? And it was a study done in 1998 by Kaiser Permanent and a guy named Feleti. I had a radio show for a number of years, and I interviewed him on that, and I was blown away at the results. What it showed is, if you have on a quiz on a score of 1 to 10 you had four or more. You grew up feeling unloved. You had a parent that died. You had alcoholism. There was income, abusive family, including perhaps even emotional abuse. Your chances of having heart disease 165% higher kidney disease, lung disease. And how does that tie in the hormones? Well, guess what it does, because if you have a lot of stress, that's actually sometimes coming from, you know, as a kid you learn to be a perfectionist cause you wanted everything should be OK in the home you're trying to have control that causes court assault to be released all the time. When that happens, that actually sabotages your hormones. So we have. Ah, everybody hears about cholesterol. How important class rollers will cholesterol makes our sex hormones estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and DHT or contributes to it? I should say it doesn't make it if we have too much stress for too long, it hijacks an enzyme. Fancy words 17 20 lioce And it blocks that from being converted. And what happens in his court? Assaults produced. And if you have lots and lots of court assault, you then have less progesterone. And for those women that are listening, that might mean more PMS. It might mean more regular periods. It might mean no sex drive. It might mean having early hot flashes and night sweats. Those hormones are essential, especially for women to regulate their cycles, but also their emotions in your moves. Now the other part of that puzzle is that we have too much cortisol. Cortisol. We have to happen. If we don't have stress, we can't live however, we have too much of it. What goes on is we don't sleep, and when we don't sleep, you don't have human growth hormone. That's really important. And we also don't set bone down at night, which is very important to know as well. So if it got too much cortisol, it also, as I said, hijacks the hormones. But in addition, court assault, when it's up all the time, causes more inflammation, so that Cascade contributes then to a digestive system that's not working properly. And there in lies a huge issue, because digestion effects how we absorb nutrients. Our thyroid also gets disconnected with too much cortisol. But we see that we have more autoimmune disorders and immune issues, and we have a cascade of events. Then they go down a path we don't want to go down, so it's gigantic, and hormones are a huge part of that puzzle. We also see that women, when they have the less estrogen, have much more of a risk of developing lost You Kenyan osteoporosis and we know women on hormone replacement therapy don't have that issue, says it's connection there as well a long winded answer.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   8:42
No, no that was great. So, generally speaking, I mean, what happens with women's hormones at each stage of menopause? If you could just walk through that.

Marcelle Pick:   8:55
Sure. So the part that's complicated is that we have women that are having the hormones change and we say about 13 years before their periods stopped. Well, we don't know when that end point is. Generally the average age is 51.3. But prior to that, the hormones are shifting and what we know and what I say to people all the time I was just on a ah webinar the other day is that if we have too much stress, it absolutely exacerbates that shift that happens faster because of that shift. That happens because of the enzyme. So I always start with the dream ALS first, when I'm looking at somebody that has PMS or something called postpartum Depression or P M d D, which is much more significant than just PMS very super Depression, possibly even suicide. I start looking at adrenals early on, and as we correct that, then the hormones can stabilize themselves a little bit more, so we have the early menopausal years, you know, 13 years before that, Horman's air shifting and then we start to have more shifts happen around the age of 48 49 50. However, we're seeing now more than ever before, younger women going into early menopause, and that's before you know it from 40 to 50. That's called earning menopause. The unfortunate part is we're also seeing something called premature. A 1,000,000,000 failure, horrible name. It's like the ovaries prematurely failed on the experiment. But we're seeing with the amount of toxicity we have in our culture that we are seeing that probably exacerbating on the hormonal. You know, hijacking. That happens. But we're also starting to see that it's an auto immune disorder. You do see it in families, and there's a relationship between that issue. And there are a test that we can do to see if that's a problem for young women, especially if they have a family history. I'm gonna be someone. Then we'll say, Look, I think it's a really good idea for you actually free some eggs so that if you want to have some, you know, leader, if it becomes a problem that you have, um, so there's many layers to this, you know, stress being one. We also have what we call, you know, toxicity. The average newborn has 287 chemicals in its cord blood. The average baby that's breast fed 100 50 chemicals in the breast milk. It's like, Oh, my God, what have we done? So I'm suggesting for people all the time. I'm sure you are as well to Kevin that the cleaner your diet is the better. Keeping away from pesticides, artificial colors, sweeteners dies. If a food stays on a counter for 24 hours and it doesn't have some resemblance of not looking so good probably shouldn't have it. So those air kind of, you know, hallmarks on what's interesting now with the episodes that are going on in our lives, we always see the vegetables and the fruits and all those air. Oh, and many of the others you know things were kind of more empty right now with this episode that we're having going on. But our world needs to change how we eat our food and the foods that we consume on a daily basis.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   11:55
And then so once once a woman hits menopause on Doris postmenopausal. What's happening with her hormones that at that point, because I know what a lot of our audience is actually in that in that state

Marcelle Pick:   12:07
were absolutely so. What's happening is that our and here's the part that's so interesting is adrenals. No, those small glands that sit on top of the kidneys that we hardly ever talk about unless somebody's very seriously got Cushing's or Addison's disease. Those adrenal glands help in the production of estrogen and progesterone. 50% of the production post menopause. They're required to produce about 30%. Still not enough. Still, not a lot. But they are still part of that cascade, in addition to helping with fluid balance and in addition to helping with glucose control and many other characteristics. So what's really important to know is that the production of the hormones goes down pretty significantly. So you have much lower estrogen, much lower progesterone, much lower, and for some of that had too much stress going on for too long. Dhe A, which is the feel good hormone and all of that, then consent the stage up. If you're not doing regular exercise and we you know, weight lifting and not eating a really good diet and don't have a good digestive system that can contribute pretty significantly to changes in the bone. But quite honestly, what I know is that those changes have probably been going on for a while. We just never test them. We never really find out about it until we're doing, you know, bone densities. And they were like, Oh, my God! And it probably was there all along, which is Do you know

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   13:29
what are the I mean, what are the indicators that at that point where you may not been may not have been having any testing done for hormones at all? But there may be in need. What, what are some indicators that there should be some testing on, and maybe something needs to be addressed?

Marcelle Pick:   13:44
Sure, that's a really, really complicated question because we know from the study that was done in 2001 that they looked at prior to that time, anybody should have been on hormone placement therapy, didn't put people on hormone replacement therapy was my practice 2001. This large study came out looking at 16,000 women, most of them menopausal, by the way, and I'll come back to why That's important. To know what they found is we can't use hormones and they were using What's very important is something called Prempro, which is synthetic estrogen from either turn off horses and also progestin gin, which is not the same as progesterone. And that combination increased the risk of stroke, blood clots, heart disease. The informational, nasty process was kind of varied, and also then breast cancer. When they took the progestin Jen out of that combination, they found that yes, perhaps it it increased your risk of breast cancer, but not as much. So that study created havoc in the world. My world and no one was gonna be. Everybody was taken off hormones like overnight. And what happened then is many people were symptomatic. We had so many symptoms and we started them putting people on antidepressants to help with the hot flashes that did nothing for the bones, of course. And now we're starting to come back full circle. You know, we have a extreme reaction. We haven't overreaction. And now we're coming midway understanding that Guess what? Hormones do help bones, and they are. So if you have somebody on a transdermal, either estrogen or a cream or amount, which is what I use. Those women are having less osteoporosis because we're adding in the estrogen. So if somebody doesn't have a family history of breast cancer and they don't have their, you know, having symptoms of menopausal symptoms, that pretty significant. I do use bioidentical hormone replacement therapy with a caveat that we're talking every single year, helping them understand that they still have some kind of risk profile. So using hormones is something that I do do. And I think the criteria for women is. I've changed my diet. I really look at my stress. I've addressed my stress. I've done an adrenal, you know, complex saliva wise to see what my cortisol levels are. We've addressed that with supplements, and I'm saying I'm doing exercise and I'm still symptomatic either. I'm concerned about bones because everybody, my family has osteoporosis, and I want to do something or I want to get rid of the menopausal symptoms.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   16:15
So you're mentioned one test in one test in there, the salivary cortisol for adrenal function. Um, any other testing that you think would be important for someone to get when they're trying to figure out what their hormone levels look like, what the really important, accurate test.

Marcelle Pick:   16:30
So here's the part that's important to know, and that is that anybody that's menopausal is gonna have the hormones tanked. I mean, it's unlikely. And Miss Somebody's got some significant weight body fat cause that produces estrogen. And then those people in particular is going to be very important that somebody do test their levels because the estrogen progesterone balance maybe off which contributes, unfortunately, teetering cancer. So I think if somebody's interested in kind of pursuing, what do I need to do to feel better? I'd start with the adrenal profile accord assault, you know, evaluation. Looked at the Institute of Functional Medicine. Find a practitioner of this actually certified in functional medicine because they have more experience and they can actually have that testing done. And then in terms of hormones, everybody's gonna have low hormone levels. So the question is, are you interested in doing something about balancing those hormones back? Because if you're not is pointless, you know we're not going to really be able to do anything. We do know that a whole foods diet a diet with wild gams and and a balanced, colorful diet is going to make a difference in terms of the production of hormones really working on stress. And I don't I mean, we all have stress. That's not the point. The point is, how do we learn to manage it? I was on the call this morning with my daughter, who was, you know, freaking out because she's in D. C. She just got laid up and she's in medicine that she's trying to figure out what to dio. And the point for me was, Look, put that on the shelf for right now, there's nothing you can do about it. If you want to spend an hour a day wearing about it, go for it. But the rest of the time, it's time to kind of figure out how you can really in live in your life. And this is an amazing opportunity for so many of us to go inside and look at the deeper, bigger questions about you know my life and how do I want it to be in a different way, which includes If you have bones that are weak, how can you strengthen yourself on many different levels because that's also symbolically what Bones air about.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   18:27
I wholeheartedly agree. No, I talk about that all the time. Strength of body strength, of mine, strength of bone. Eso You mentioned something in there about the You know, diet obviously has an impact on hormone levels. I know you mentioned while the EMS. And are there other natural ways to help balance your hormones? And what would those ways that look like

Marcelle Pick:   18:48
so much of it is really about a whole foods diet, So it's having foods that are colorful on your plate. It's using things like wild gams and nuts and seeds. And you know, some of the better juices that are not sweet necessarily, but have spinach and collards and those kinds of things in it that will also help. The part that's going to be so important, though, is to understand that if people don't have a digestive system that works really well, it's pointless in some ways, Um, because the body doesn't absorb the nutrients, and that's another key important factor is making for the digestive systems really good? I would say 80% of my patients in my practice and I've been a practice for over 33 years, have had digestive issues. That's a huge number of people that then are not absorbing the nutrients. Well, maybe they got bloating or constipation or diarrhea, and they don't. They are always complaining. So going also there to make sure that that digestive systems working that enhances, then the nutrient absorption that that also cat X, you know, catapult somebody into having better health for their bones as well.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   19:52
So it's so not even focused on the natural route somebody decides. Okay, I do need hormone therapy in some form. What do those forms look like? And could you talk a little bit about the different forms and

Marcelle Pick:   20:05
ensure? So we've we've talked for years about bioidentical hormones and bioidentical hormones. Simply means were using a hormone that's very similar to what we produce ourselves. We have three different types of estrogen. We have something called S Trone. We have Esther dialogue. We have est rial for years in the in the kind of alternative community we talked about using by our try. Ask. I never used try us because s drone is a four minute. Most of the hormones get converted to anyway, so I sometimes we'll use biased. And sometimes on U Street Esther Dial. It comes in many different forms for those that treat with bioidentical. I used patches a lot of time in. The reason for that is covered by insurance. So you get something called the minute bell dot You can get something called a viable dot with your tiny and there's very they're very, you know, amounting. Get pointed to five you get put 375.5 point 75 and then 750.1, and I usually start in the lower end. But we always have to use a progesterone with it. If we look at the conventional world, they'll use pro Vera, which is a progestin Jim. Now, the important part about that now try to make this simple is if we have two months, feels we have a suggested Gen, which is what was in that study and many people in the conventional world used and a progesterone. Those molecules, believe it or not, are not similar to each other, and our body doesn't have an affinity to the progestin gin. It does affect our biochemistry, so it decreases the chances of us if we have a uterus. We have to be on progesterone or progestin gin to make sure we don't get uterine cancer. But the problem is that they're not. They're not identical to our biochemistry, so I add progesterone or pro mitri and which can actually get over the counter. The problem is, it's made in a red dye, and it's made in peanut oil and Pete. Many people have problems with peanuts, so I tend to have a compound in a compounding pharmacy, and I tend to use either a melt. And most often that is what I used because creams for some women they you know there's a point which you just don't have any more space on your body. He used them, so I tend to use a fair amount. Some people also use vaginal depositories because that's a fantastic way for you to be able to either get a lotion or cream or drops. So I think it depends on your comfort level. I've used all of those in many different varieties, and it does make a difference for bones. There's no question about it. The studies have all been showing that it's 0.5 of the patch that has been seen in the studies. But you can even go is lowest 0.375 to really help with bone health and strength.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   22:45
That was amazing. Very, very helpful. Marcel, thank you very much for that s O. Even though there are specific doses out there, you know, just cause you get on one dose, it doesn't mean that you can't adjust up and down, right? Based on

Marcelle Pick:   22:57
your not so I'll start many times with 0.375 Or, if I'm doing, you know, a combination of as to dialogue and estradiol and progesterone. I might start at a lower end and then work my way up number one, depending upon symptoms. And that is when I will do hormone of violations. If I'm using a melt all often times to a saliva test enough. I'm using the patch in combination with progesterone and a tablet. I'll use, um, actual blood tests, but I'll use a specific lab. I won't do generally tests in the hospital because their ranges are not you or they're not specific enough for women on hormone replacement therapy. So I'll use labs like Jean over doctors data. Many of the other companies diagnosed text so that I have a reference range that I can use, and then I'll look at the symptoms. They have the numbers that I have, and I'll see it several times before you know will together make a decision about how to change things.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   23:57
That's fantastic. And are there any specific conditions, diseases, other factors or situations where you advise against the use of hormone therapy?

Marcelle Pick:   24:07
Sure, somebody's had a history of breast cancer. It's not a good idea to go on hormone replacement therapy. If they have a history of blood clots of any kind, then that would be not something to use. However, many of the cardiologists now, if I have a patient, has a cardiovascular issue, I will then have them go back to the docks to make sure because because of that study in 2001 it was forbidden everywhere. Well, now the docks are starting to see the research is coming out saying, Wow, who it does seem like perhaps estrogen is cardiovascular Lee protective. So they are now coming around saying, Yeah, I think it's a good thing, but we also have to understand the best time to go on hormone placement therapy is at menopausal when you're having symptoms. The study that I refer to 2001 Many of those women were 60 and had never been on hormone replacement therapy. So if you can imagine that a cell's been kind of quiet, quiescent and then we ramp it up with estrogen. More than likely that was another part of the puzzle that contributed to the numbers that we saw. So it's best if you're 2 to 3 years and I would say, probably won't like two years around the time of menopause to introduce these.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   25:17
That's great. And what about what about Lupus? As a condition is, there's some considerations with Lupus as well.

Marcelle Pick:   25:24
I wouldn't say so. I think you know, again what we know about Lupus is an autoimmune disorder. So, you know, for me the queen of adrenals always gonna be looking at adrenals first to see if I could really down regulate the Lupus and really converted to the other side. We've seen enough from, um, Terry Walls Research. I don't know if you know who she is, but, um, or she is at the instant of functional medicine with me. And, you know, we talk a lot about how we can really calm down that auto immune response, and we see it with Hashimoto's all the time as well. So I would start with adrenals and diet aggressively. But there's no country indication to being on hormone replacement therapy, as were, really, you know, helping heal that body.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   26:06
That's fantastic. And and so I do actually want to get to adrenals in just a minute book, but kind of close up what we're talking about with hormone therapy for women who are already using hormone therapy and want to stop. What can they expect when they do stop?

Marcelle Pick:   26:20
So I'm gonna say adrenals again, but that's gonna be really important that they have somebody test their dream als so that they can really support that biochemistry. And then I never have people stop cold turkey. So if somebody is on a patch, for example, of 0.5 I'll haven't cut a small amount off every couple weeks, and then they will stop the progesterone at the very end. But then we have to stop that. They don't have to mean off that unless they have the melt that I might, you know, have them cut a small amount off. You want to be able to support the by chemistry of the body when a cleaner than ever before get outside and exercise really work on that emotional connection because the more you go down the bunny whole, like my daughter did, the more you're gonna have problems getting out of it. That's gonna be really important to stay above that so that the biochemistry of the body also heels. So it's just being gentle with yourself and listening. You know, Am I sleeping really poorly? Well, maybe I went down to fast on that patch. And for some people, what honestly happens is it's their point of saying, I want to get off. I'm done. I don't want this anymore. It's just concerning to me. They get off and they come back and they go. Don't you ever listen to me again. I want to stay on them So everybody's different. They just have to understand that it, you know, got to figure this out together.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   27:30
That's great. So So let's ah, let's go and transition to talk about adrenal health now eso you have two books on the topic. Are you tired? Wired? And another one called Is it mere my adrenals? Can you start by sharing what our adrenal glands are and how they fit into our overall health?

Marcelle Pick:   27:46
Sure, you know what's so interesting? We never talk about adrenals, and unfortunately, the American College of Endocrinology came out with a statement in around the time that book came out saying, There's no such thing as adrenal fatigue. Well, you know, I think the reality is it's probably a horrible name. I mean, adrenal fatigue. It just was, you know, really capitalized on the Internet. But we do know that our adrenals are crucial for life. If we don't have adrenal function like President Kennedy, he was on medication and would have to be, you know, if you're still alive because you can't live without court assault. We know that in old times, many thousands of years ago, cortisol was the Harman that got up regulated pretty significantly. If we had a war coming and then our body went into what adrenals do is we don't get hungry. Our bowels, you know, get all crazy. We have no sex drive We've got very thirsty. Our mount gets very dry. We get hyped up with epinephrine and then after that crisis is over, the body calms down. The problem is happening now for our culture is because of especially now. We see TV. We see wars when they happen. We're on our computers all the time. The average work week is 80 hours instead of 40 hours. In some places, our whole world is exploding all the time with information. We're tryingto be parents. We got jobs, We've got relationship, You've got family. We've got friends. It's causing our dream ALS to have to work much harder than they're meant to work. On top of that, if we think about the ACE study and we have those issues which we call imprinting in the brain, what happens then? Is there the point for some people in which that rubber band that's been pulled and pulled and pulled can't do it anymore? So you'll see three types of people and I call him, you know, different names in my books. You the person that's wired and tired, you know where the kind of the workhorse person will see the flat liner who's just exhausted or the person that's just on tilt all the time. And those people we need to do something because ultimately what happens in my experience is that's when you see huge shifts with autoimmune disorders. And the interesting thing is about thyroid is, and unfortunately, many people are not testing all of things you need to test for thyroid. If I have something that's very stressed, I will do. The usual test will do a TSH free T three or free T four. I'll also very importantly, look at the antibodies. I might do it once, just to get a sense of where they are. But then I will also do something called reverse t three. And the reason that's so important is if you have a ton of adrenal dysfunction you have the the T three gets converted beautifully, so the T four looks pond. The T three looks fine, but then what happens is you got high reverse T three, which makes the T three in active, So the body's behaving as though it doesn't have enough firewood, and it doesn't so. It's very important to understand that the adrenals affect the thyroid, the immune system the hormones that I justice system and also because of that, our brain function. It's not unusual for somebody say, I'm just so I can't think I'm so foggy headed. I'm just so confused and that often times can be from cortisol, which is an inflammatory agent now. The beauty is we could do something about it. It doesn't require drugs, it requires some supplementation. And for me, it's one of the tests I almost never not do, because I need to know people's present themselves so differently. And I'm sometimes surprised is like, Wow, she sounds like she's hyper and she's flatlined or I'll see the opposite now Rusty high court assaults at night, all of which we can do something about. I just need to know what to do to help that particular person. And then we have to work on How did I get here to begin with? But that's a little bit later down the road.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   31:44
So it's not just a matter of oh person as high cortisol. It's a matter of you need to have quarters on the right amounts at the right times,

Marcelle Pick:   31:51
correct because the Elevens air and the way that our medical community works now is we're really looking for high high levels, which is cushions or low low levels, which is Addison's and in the world of medicine that we have. But now we have a bell shaped curb, and if you are on either extreme, even if you're a point away from Cushing's or a point away from Addison, so you don't have it your good. It's like what makes sense that does not make sense. So then we have to treat it, and sometimes that people are very low. I'll use licorice if they're very high. All these spots, the title Syrian. And

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   32:25
could you clear that up real quick? So licorice not not as in, you know, the licorice candy. What would be the liquors that you're talking about?

Marcelle Pick:   32:33
Yes, I used a glass arrived licorice, and the reason that that's important is because sometimes for some people, it causes heart palpitations, and it makes it very anxious. So where you're using is, and actually some people, if they're craving, like, where should you kind of want to know about their adrenals? Actually, because they're intuitively getting a sense of I can't get enough of that and then it comes in many combinations. Many of the, you know, really good quality supplement companies have licorice in it in combination with, you know, things like court accepts our chagonda Rudy Ola, to really help those low levels come up. If you have high levels, however, that's going to give you heart palpitations because it's already high and it's just gonna rev you up that much more so knowing that some people are high and then low and then high and then low also makes a difference, because I'm going to intervene with them very differently and the long term ramifications. You know, when I first started in practice on and I was teaching on adrenals, I didn't have a lot of data. Double blind placebo controlled studies was I teach fry them. We have to have those showing that there was a relationship between stress and things like Lupus, stress and cancer, stress and hormones, dress and significant digestive issues. And also we're now starting association between stress and even uterine cancers because we're looking at Cortes also, we have the data now saying that we really, really as as never before in our culture we have the data to say We have to change how we act in our lives. And it also incurred tributes. In that sense, toe osteoporosis is well, because it affects the digestive system and is an inflammatory agent that very much affect our bones.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   34:22
Absolutely. Yeah. Court and court is all Ah, if this regulators is definitely not good for bone health too, and actually talk about that another episode as well. Um, so you mentioned earlier on D H E A. I do want to talk about real quick, the role of dhe, a in hormone balance and an adrenal function. If we could touch on that,

Marcelle Pick:   34:43
it's one of my favorite hormones. If I had nothing else, I would use that all the time. So when you have a low D h a level, what I say is you get up and go is get up and gone. I'm not interested in doing this. You know, you might finally say to people is, Do you want to go the movies at night? It's like movies. Now that couches my friend, so I'm already suspicious. But when I see the levels, I can either do it in blood or I can do it in the saliva. If I see a level that's low, I tend to use dhe A. I'm not a big fan, and this is because I can prescribe I don't use over the counter. Generally, our body produces about 25 milligrams a day, so I'm trying to use a physiological dose. So I use a milligram per drop and I increase it generally about five milligrams twice a day. That's it. And that shifts the dynamics of the body so much, and I use it in a sub. Ling will draw. I'm usually in olive oil or something like that, and it works probably within 2 to 3 days to really help that level come up enough that people sense of well being goes up. They have much more energy. You have to be careful when you take it later in the date, because if you take it too late like I talked to somebody yesterday, she couldn't fall asleep because she was taking it. It's up at bedtime. Can't take it then, so usually about two o'clock in the afternoon. But it's a game changer for people. Those women that have really bad PMS too, and they're adrenals really off. It can make the difference between I don't have a life too. I have a life in a very short period of time

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   36:09
and is it s so before they even start supplementing with dhe. I mean, dhe And it was good for bone health as well. But, um, before they even start supplementing with the A g A, should they be getting tested with a d 88 s?

Marcelle Pick:   36:23
It would be helpful just to get a no. And here's the thing. You can actually get a D h E A s test done with your doctor, and that will give you an idea about what those numbers look like. Now, the problem is going to be some of the people that are not trained in functional medicine, which means I'm not looking at the cause of cause. They may not be as apt to want to do anything about it. So it's really the knowledge is power piece. You get the information, and then you can use the resources that are available everywhere. Now, thank goodness to help people understand what to do for themselves and to also pay attention. Okay, I took three drops twice a day, and that's what I do actually increase the drops every four days. So I have. Some of my patients are only on, you know, three drops twice a day. I have some it on fire twice today. It's very dependent upon how your body responds and how you feel. We also have to understand, though, that dhe A can get converted to testosterone and also can increase your estrogen so people know his breast tenderness. They need to decrease the level if they noticed they really irritable and angry. And I need to know that they need to decrease that level cause it's getting converted with me. Inappropriate way,

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   37:32
Very helpful. Thank you, Marcel. And then, um, any any supplements, herbs, anything. I know you mentioned licorice just a minute ago. Any other supplements? Herbs that you think are really helpful for adrenal health?

Marcelle Pick:   37:44
Oh, there's so many. So actual Gonda is very helpful. Siberian ginseng is very helpful. Court accepts road Eola finding a combination, you know, and I'm a real stickler for getting good quality supplements. You know, I've been in the industry long enough that I know, and here's some I'm sure you've talked about, But if we get supplements that we don't know where they're from, there's many phases to development of supplements and the beginning phases there colon teaming the raw materials. And if you have a company that's not wanting to spend a lot of money, they may use those raw materials without doing any quality control, and you don't want that to happen. The bad news is it's more expensive. But then you go through that the arena of they put many, many different things into that that to make that supplement, many people complain. We'll have to take three a day. Seriously, Can't you just put it in one where you can't? Because then you're gonna push it down so tightly that when they're evaluating whether the stomach acids cause they do that for every batch in the better companies, it should be dissolved in 30 minutes. If it isn't, your body can't absorb it. So the companies that spend the time looking at and quantifying that are gonna be a little bit more expensive. But it's going to be totally worth it because the other side of it means you absorbing it, and you can see the difference in how you feel

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   39:05
You mentioned court accepts rodeo. Uh um

Marcelle Pick:   39:08
actual Gonda said very engine sing. So

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   39:10
what? What are those? And and how did they influence? You know, our adrenal health?

Marcelle Pick:   39:17
I love them because they're adapted genic, And we know from Chinese medicine for a long time that if you have a low level, you wanted to get the body to adapt by supporting it instead of using. I call many drugs are hitting a small nail with a sledgehammer. We don't want to do that. We want to really support the biochemistry of the body. Now, what we also know is that not not site somewhere, and just Jensen doesn't work for everybody. So sometimes we have to kind of check out some supplements that work for you because we're all different. But they work by helping the body adapt to the lower the high levels. I, uh, many years ago went to Belize and we went to the, uh we went on a tour in the rainforest on while I was watching the monkeys and we had a tour guide, of course. And we're talking about Oh, that monkey must have diarrhea. It's going for that tree or that monkey must have blah, blah, blah. And we don't do that in medicine. Were you using drugs? And the unfortunate part with that is it has many side effects, and then we have to have another drug for that side effect. We're not dealing with the problem. And what I love about the adapted Jenna carbs, which were describing now is they help the body adapt. They're not meant to be used long term. That meant to be short term as you heal the issue that got you there to begin with and take care of nutrition and take care of other things. We can't take care of the stress, but you can take care of how you respond to it. Or perhaps if you have stress in your story, I call it your history that you may need to work around that as well. At some point,

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   40:51
I think that's great. And then you know another area that I do want to touch on So great information on adrenal health. Another area that you helped women with is weight loss. Because this is something I know you have a great deal of experience. I know you've helped a lot of women over over many years. I want to tie weight loss back to something we talked about at the beginning, though. So how can a hormone imbalance effect weight loss and weight gain?

Marcelle Pick:   41:17
So if we notice when women describe having tremendous trouble with weight, it's either, and it's not across the board. True, but generally speaking, it's because there have got, you know, hormonal imbalance When they're younger, they got pregnant and can't lose the weight afterwards, Aczel and then them classic times. This is a problem, but I also see people that have a dream dysfunction there, so frustrated they're exercising more than they ever have, which they shouldn't be doing, in my opinion, better dream dysfunction because I don't like to see the heart rate over 90 until hell that they are eating less than they ever did before. They're trying every diet known to mankind, and they're not losing weight. So there are many things that calls cause what I call wait last resistance, and that's actually the first book I wrote called the Core Balanced Diet. If you have digestive issues, we know that contributes to not being able to lose weight. We've got study after study now looking at the microbiome. If we shift the microbiome in mice, they lose weight. Well, that's amazing. Just changing the microbiome. You serious? Absolutely another. During studies, it would be swimming in Boston, looking to see if they did in what sense grows. But fecal implants? Did it make a difference? We know that women that have pretty significant stress actually affects the hormones, and they, sometimes them, will gain weight because a body goes into fight flight and holds onto every single calorie. We know that perimenopausal e. We've got this estrogen that's here. Progestin usually look adrenals were usually off that contributes them to the body, Being in this state of holding onto every single calorie, no matter what you're doing now. The other part puzzle is that as a culture said, one size fits all 1200 calories. Increase your exercise, you lose away. I'm here to tell you that is not truth, and that is that we're all different. Some people need lower facts when people need lower carbs. You know, some people need Mediterranean more balanced, and our culture doesn't talk about that. It's no, no, no No, no. And I've done it long enough that I and I do genetic testing to see Oh, she's a low fat or no wonder she's rooms way. So it's also understanding that part. And in 2000 and I think it was about 2007 there was a book that came out called Diet Cure, and it was by Trudeau, and he talked about using human chorionic gonadotropin. Eight c G, which we have a lot of room were pregnant, and that transformed my thinking because what I was able to do using it I don't use it anymore is I shifted people's biochemistry and metabolic function using that particular hormone. The problem is, it wasn't, you know, know everybody was using it all over the country, and people then started getting even more weight loss resistance that they had before. So I now use a homeopathic in my office that works incredibly well to help women shift that stuck place. And then we go right back to what kind of food do we need on the other side of this? Because women are so frustrated and they just give up. It's like I've done everything I've tried everything. And I'm here to tell you when you figure it out, we can get women on the other side of this. But sometimes it takes a little bit of work on our part to figure out. Is it adrenals? Is it hormones? Because we see it so much around pregnancy, and we see it in menopause and perimenopause that dynamic needs to shift. We get people than to lose away. So there's many factors and men don't have these factors. And women are in my office with their partners. They might need to lose £10. They look at you differently and lose the weight. And when they're sitting there, so frustrated because they can't so it's just helping them figure out what the problem is so we can get him on the other side of it.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   44:56
I think that's that's fantastic, that you you do that and I know Marcel our time. I know it's coming to a close here, Um, but I just want to ask, Is there anything else that you think is important to share with regards to hormones? Adrenals, thyroid, bone health? Specifically.

Marcelle Pick:   45:14
So you know, we touched on it and we could probably have another conversation another time. There is some interesting kind of relationship between heavy metals and also bone issues. So that's something for people, perhaps to even check with their functional medicine practitioner to look to see if there's a relationship there if everything else you're doing isn't working to change the bones, but also knowing that if you worry a lot the worrywarts that we see out there, they also tend to have, you know, especially the senator. Women so tend to have problems as well with the with bones. So just changing that. But I also know we can change anything. Once we understand what to do, we can get healthy. We could have lose the weight. We can have energy. We can ever hormones balanced. It just takes a little bit of effort and also working with someone that knows how to do it with you.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   46:02
Marcel, I want to let our audience know where they confined you. If you if you wouldn't mind sharing that with them and I'm gonna make sure I linked to these resource is in the show Notes for them.

Marcelle Pick:   46:11
Sure, So they can look at Marcel pick dot com I have Ah, large website There, they can also go toe women's transfer formacion center dot com, which is where the weight loss component of what I do is, um and they can look at women. Two women Health Care center. They want to become a patient, cause I do from concerts a swell and from all over the country. So those options for people and then they can go on Amazon and get any my books as well.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   46:37
That is wonderful. And Marcel, I just want to thank you again So much for taking your time today. Talkto me the audience and come on the boat coach podcast. And maybe we'll have you on again here sometimes in your future.

Marcelle Pick:   46:48
Sounds great.

Bone Coach (Kevin Ellis):   46:49
Thanks for so thanks so much for tuning in for this episode of Bone Coach podcast. I hope you learned a lot about bone health, adrenal health hormones and everything that we talked about in this episode. You're gonna be able to find all the resource is the show notes everything over a bone coach dot com forward slash Marcel pick. And you know what? I'm really glad you stopped in for this episode. I hope you join us for the next one. I'm your bone coach. Kevin Ellis. Talk to you soon.