I Choose...More of Dr. Mary Claire Haver
01:07:17 Share

Hi, it's Jenny Garth. Now that I'm in my 50s, I am all about skincare that delivers real results. And that's why I choose Perricone MD. Perricone MD's award-winning formulas combine the highest quality ingredients with decades of research and expensive technology.

clinical testing to back up their promises. Using these products exclusively, I've really noticed a dramatic difference in my skin. It's smoother, I feel glowy, and it reduces my fine lines. I feel like my face just looks softer and everybody wants to know what I've been using. Well, it's Perricone MD.

Perricone MD works as hard as I do, and it shows. Go to perriconemd.com and use code Jenny for an exclusive 40% off for a limited time. That's perriconemd.com, code Jenny, J-E-N-N-I-E.

GLP-1 injections have helped many people lose weight, but they can be costly and out of reach for some. That's where Henry Meds makes a difference. Even if you don't have health insurance, you can save over $1,000 a month with no hidden fees. Henry Meds offers affordable compounded GLP-1 treatments from licensed U.S. pharmacies, and their team of providers is with you every step of the way. Take control of your weight management journey. Visit HenryMeds.com.

now. Results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Consult with a healthcare provider to determine if treatment is right for you. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible cleaning items from Charmin, Tide, and Downy. And dinner essentials from Stouffer's,

Visit Safeway.com for more details.

At Lowe's, our members get more. With the MyLowe's Rewards Programs, you can shop member-only deals for your home and business every week. Plus, members earn points on eligible purchases. So what are you waiting for? Join for free today. Lowe's. We help you save. Loyalty programs subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowes.com slash terms. Subject to change. Free standard shipping not available in Alaska and Hawaii. Exclusions and more terms apply.

Hey there, this is Matt and Joel from the How to Money podcast. Indeed. And this spring is a great time to start thinking about travel plans for the summer, figuring out how you're going to pay for that travel as well. And one great way to financially support your travel is to host your home on Airbnb.

It's simple and a great way to make some extra cash. And now the Airbnb co-host network makes hosting even easier. You can access a network of high quality local co-hosts who can help you with everything. They'll handle all of the messaging with guests and make sure everything is ready for their arrival. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to I Choose Me. This podcast is all about the choices we make and where they lead us.

My guest today is back for more. You listeners absolutely loved her the last time we had her on the podcast, and I always love talking to her. She is a wealth of information, and I am so excited to chat with her some more today. She's a board-certified OBGYN and a New York Times bestselling author of The New Menopause. Please welcome Dr. Mary Claire Haver back to the podcast. Hi.

Hi, Dr. Mary Claire. I'm so glad you're here. You are our very first in-studio guest. This is really exciting for me because we had this little studio built in

And I'm so glad that you are here to break it in. So excited to be here. I couldn't make the I Choose Me event. I know. Fires and rescheduling. And when they said she would love to have you come in live to do the podcast, I was like, absolutely. Oh, good. I'm so glad because, yeah, you were very missed at the live event. We had to make do without you, though. But hopefully we did. I heard it was fantastic. We had a great time. And I think we reached a lot of women. So that's all that mattered. Mm-hmm.

But yeah, we're here. And you just saw my husband moving the car for us out of our shot. So you were asking what he does. And I told you he's in the restaurant business. And you said you're in the restaurant business? My family. So I grew up in a large restaurant family. My parents had their own, but my mother is a Landry. And in the South, like if your listeners are like, wait a minute, there's this whole Landry's restaurant chain that is huge and kind of got bought out by a big

a bigger conglomerate, but the name's still there. So like my grandfather's name is on all these restaurants and it's really kind of cool, but I just grew up. My first job was peeling shrimp, stuffing crabs. And then I was graduated to being a hostess. Then I learned how to wait tables and I became a bartender. That is super fun. All through college. You did it all. My husband would love talking to you because yeah, I mean, I know the ins and outs, the late hours.

The employee drama, all the things. Yeah, I'm learning about all that, especially the employee drama. But it does affect the family. It's an all-in kind of business. Kind of like what you're doing now, hi. It's all in. Your life has changed. Dramatically. Yeah. Yeah.

Did you always want to be a doctor? No, I wanted to be a movie star. So I thought ballerina, you know, little girl stuff. And I had an older brother. I have four older brothers. But one of my older brothers really kind of lived his life through me. He was gay and it was at a time in the 70s when you couldn't really express yourself. So he would, I was his muse. He would dress me up. He would put me in fake dresses. He would video me. It was the funnest.

brother to have growing up. I've always wanted a gay brother or a gay son. My cheerleader tryouts, you can't imagine how immaculate the choreography was. Like my prom outfits, my hair, my makeup, everything. And so he really kind of expressed himself in ways through me and we're 10 years apart. So,

So that was amazing. What a special bond. Growing up. Yeah. He did pass away. So like part of my journey, part of my story is his life and death, you know, kind of mixed in with my own menopause. And what made you want to become a doctor? So I.

you know, went to college, not really sure what I wanted to do. And my mom and dad had moved to Florida to try to open a restaurant there and it wasn't going well. So my mom had kind of sat me down and said, we don't want you to go to college. You need to stay and work and help the family. And I said, no. And I ran away from home.

And I moved in with my grandmother and enrolled myself in college. It sounds so traumatic when you say I ran away from home, but you ran into your grandmother. Well, it was in Florida back to Louisiana. So I had borrowed money to get a plane ticket. I had my stuff in a paper bag. It all worked out, but I was like a rebel. I didn't have luggage.

So I put some clothes in like a grocery bag, paper bag, like the old brown bags and like took it on the plane on my lap, flew. My cousin picked me up and I just kind of hung out, started working waiting tables and then enrolled in college. It was $5 enrollment fee. My tuition was a couple hundred bucks, you know, for the local community college and off I went. And then, you know, we made up with my parents and everything was fine. They moved back home and, you know, we got through that. But when I was an undergrad student,

I started taking a bunch of science classes like for fun. Like I was not a great student. I didn't apply myself in high school. I was a cheerleader. I was super fun. And then I get to college and my parents imminent bankruptcy kind of shook. I was shook, you know, and I was realizing, you know, I have a choice here and let me see what happens if I actually study. Turns out.

I was a great student. Turns out you're a pretty smart lady. Yeah. So I took a few science classes just to feel it out. And I fell in love with geology. So I have an undergraduate degree in geology. I worked as a geologist for a couple of years. That's how I met my husband, who was oil and gas. And then in the middle of the work, I was like, I don't want to do this forever. What else can I do with a science degree? And I thought about nursing and I thought about med school. And I thought, well,

Let me just take the MCAT and see what happens. And I literally like tripped my way into medical school. And so I started med school at 26 and finished at 30. My husband and I got married in the process. And then I did my residency in OBGYN at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which is pretty much the area where we've settled since 1994. Mm-hmm.

Wow. What a great story. I love the paper bag part. Yeah, it's really exciting part for me. I can't imagine you're so brave to do that. I just knew, you know, I've always been driven. I've always, you know, the one characteristic people would use to describe me who know me is driven. And I,

And my husband jokes, you'll never get to the top of your mountain. You're always going to find something else to do, something else to climb, some other passion project. And it's like I really – I went through menopause. I was beginning to empty nests. Like all of these things – my brother died. All of these things kind of happened at once to really –

allow me to rethink my future, give me time and space now that my kids would launch successfully to figure out what I wanted and where I wanted to go. I mean, I thought I'd just be a really happy, basic OBGYN, nothing wrong with it. I did it well for 20 years, teaching residents, medical students, you know, forever until I retired. But that is not what life had in store for me. I love

I love that. And it wasn't until you were empty nesting. Well, that I, yeah, I, you know, like the kids, when things took off for me on TikTok, Catherine was home from college for COVID and Maddie was homeschooling. So like, that's kind of, you know, where we were. I had an 18 year old and a 15 year old. And so, you know, they didn't need me all the time. We were home and I was just getting really creative on social media and trying to teach. Yeah.

And that's when things kind of really took off. What made you want to do that though? What made you want to pick up your phone and start recording? My own experience with menopause and realizing that there was a huge gap between

In my own education and knowledge, in the poor information and poor care I had given to patients in menopause for most of my career. I mean, honestly, I was a terrible menopause doctor for most of my career until I sadly went through it myself. And if any of my former patients are listening, I'm sorry. But it really took...

my experience and realizing this is not okay. You know, I thought hormone therapy was dangerous. I thought all the things, you know, that had been taught to me and no one in my continuing medical education had put forth some of the newer information, how the WHI studies have been walked back. The safety and efficacy of hormone therapy was really, really, you know, our understanding had totally changed and that, you know, for most women, the benefits far outweigh the risks. And I

I, you know, in 20 years of postgraduate education, no one had put that in front of me in a medical research article. And I'm like, this is not okay. Yeah. And I thought, well, I'm just one person. I started with zero followers, right? No one knew who I was. I was just random OB-GYN from Texas, you know, from an island off the shore of Texas. And it just grew on its own completely organically. That's so amazing. Like, because it is hard to start from zero. Yeah.

You know, I think we all did, you know, now a lot of people don't, you buy followers or whatever, but yeah. And of course I have dopamine receptors like everyone else. When you see people responding and, and liking and sharing and things that kind of go viral, you're like, Oh, you know, let me do more of this. Right. Do more education. Let me ask more questions and let me get curious. You know, when 10,000 women,

on social media, send you a DM or comment about their frozen shoulder in menopause, I don't immediately dismiss them. What is that? I'm sorry, we're going to jump right into that. I got curious. What is that frozen shoulder connection? Because I'm like, do I have an injured shoulder from just something I did lifting weights and working out? Or do I have frozen shoulder?

Is that part of menopause? A symptom? Yeah. So there is something we now know. This is a newer finding called musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. And my dear friend, Dr. Vonda Wright, a diabetic surgeon, wrote that paper. And now it is an accepted medical diagnosis. But what it is, is there are estrogen receptors...

everywhere in our body, in our brains, in our bones, in our muscles, in our gut, in our kidney, in our lungs, in our heart, in our skin, you know, in our genitourinary system. But what she really honed in on was specifically in the muscles, tendons, and bones, what are we seeing?

And what we were diagnosing for a lot of women is fibromyalgia, you know, frozen shoulders, definitely related. And there were two researchers out of Duke University, one in OB-GYN and one in, if I have the lore correct, one orthopedic surgeon in OB-GYN. And I think they were having lunch in the cafeteria and talking about all these women with frozen shoulder. Could there be a relation to menopause? They're all the same age, you know, all in that age group.

And they looked at, they just pulled all the charts and said, holy crap. Yeah. Women on HRT don't get it as much. They have shorter courses of frozen shoulder and they do better on the long term. So that kind of led to, you know, no one in orthopedics would publish it. Why? They said, no, no, no, no, no. Can't be related. There's no way anything in orthopedics is related to menopause. Come on. And why didn't they want to share that? Because they just, you know, forever. Forever.

women's health outside of reproduction has been marginalized and made secondary. And so that would take a whole group, well, 98, if I have the numbers right, less than 10% of orthopedic surgeons are female. That's one problem. That's one of the problems, right. And when your whole career has been built around

Menopause should have nothing to do with this. It's really hard to accept maybe we were wrong and maybe we got this wrong. And so the menopause journals published it, but it's out there. It's pretty amazing. That's the thing about having a female doctor. For me, I've always been drawn to having a female doctor. And it sort of ties into what you're saying about you didn't even really know how to help your patients until you had gone through it. So when I see a male doctor, I'm like, you have no idea how I feel in this body of a female. Yeah.

And so I can imagine that when you had that sort of awakening as you were experiencing perimenopause and menopause, like you, it must've been so eyeopening for you. I mean, eyeopening when I got curious about my own symptoms and started digging in the literature and was actually finding studies to support what I was going through and how it could be related. Cause it just didn't make sense. And then there was like the rage and shame, shame because I,

We weren't coaching women appropriately. We weren't recognizing this. You know, I was brought up, brought up in the medical system. I say brought up as a child, but I mean, you know, in my medical education, there was this underlying current of bias that it's all in her head. That women tend to somaticize psychological issues, not men.

Why is that not true? And why? Why do they? It's historical, you know, because, you know, if you look at Eleanor Cleghorn, Unwell Woman, if you read that book, excellent book for your follow. And another one is Elizabeth Komen just wrote, It's All in Her Head. And they both of them go through the historical perspective, one from a social scientist perspective, the other from a physician perspective, but basically comes to the same conclusion. This bias has been built historically into the system where outside of your uterus and what it can do for

Making babies. Making babies. And a few diseases and needing to be surgically removed way too often than it probably should. Mm-hmm.

Men are women are small men. So all of the focus was on men. The studies were done on men by men. And we're just going to assume which, you know, wasn't that unreasonable. Why would the women are small men? Right. They just have breasts and uteruses. Well, now we know biologically. It's completely different. But it took women going into medicine, women going into the labs, women stepping back and saying, hey, you know,

No, actually, we're not small men. We disease differently. I mean, Elizabeth Komen points out, and I learned this in school, in cardiovascular disease, okay? When a woman has a heart attack, the way she presents is called atypical chest pain, even though we're 51% of the population. Here's why.

Men tend to have larger vessel disease. It's called the widow maker, right? For the heart attack. It's the bigger vessels coming right out of the agorda that dive in to feed the heart muscle. That's where the plaques and the clots happen, right? However, for women, we have more microvascular diffuse disease deeper down when the vessels start splitting off. So the way we present with a heart attack is fatigue, abdominal pain.

Shortness of breath instead of the classic symptoms of how a man tends to have a heart attack. You know, grabbing their chest, radiating up their neck, down their arm. You know, that's very, very classic. But it's only classic for men, not women. Why? So at the end of the day, when we talk about, you know, the gender health gap, when a woman walks into the ED, emergency department, with signs of a heart attack, she is 50% more likely to die. Mm-hmm.

She is much more likely to be misdiagnosed with anxiety. And this is not, this is not laid at the feet of one particular physician. These are, most docs are good people who went to school and did all this training and paid all this money to go help people. But this is built into the training program and this is where the work needs to be done. You know, I feel like when they say to a woman who is showing signs of a heart attack, it's anxiety. That

gives you a sense of, oh, it's just in my head. I'm imagining this. She believes it. She believes it. And maybe he, she, the doctor is saying that because they want to settle her, reassure her that everything's okay. You know, that kind of... She's more likely to get an anxiety med than pain medicine or appropriate treatment for her.

um, for her heart attack. So wild. You know, we just did the, I choose me live and we had a wonderful cardiologist there, Dr. Kittleson, and she really brought some eyeopening, uh, messages to the audience so much that one of our attendees went home later that night and was feeling a little off.

And she said, maybe it was just overstimulation from the event and such a big day. And she said, you know what? I'm going to listen to my gut on this. After all I heard today about listening to my body and questioning anything between my nose and my navel.

If I'm feeling anything in this area, she took herself to the emergency room and she was suffering from a minor heart attack. Yeah. And she would have normally ignored it and said, oh, it's just, I feel uneasy or nervous. You know, part of it is also sociological. Women are taught to accept pain.

and not listen to their bodies and not know themselves better. And there is a certain subset, especially in the menopause space. And this is what I've discovered. And I think this is changing. But kind of a lot of the people who kind of controlled the narrative around menopause really didn't feel like women were capable of making decisions for themselves. What?

They, when you look at how the, you know, it's like, I'm the expert. Listen to me instead of tell me how you're feeling. What are your goals? You know, it's like, you can't possibly listen to a set of facts and information and make a decision for yourself. I need to tell you what to do and how to do it. And this is the only right way.

And I refuse to believe that. I think women are fucking amazing. And I think women, I tell you, women, when armed with good information, make good decisions for themselves and their families. And a lot of the way that we've constructed around women's health and women's health after reproduction ends is not allowing for that. It's like, here's a guideline. You must follow the guideline to the T. Therefore, we cannot step outside of the guideline if it's not working for you, because this is the only way. That.

That is not working for the vast majority of women. Right. And so often deferring to people outside of ourselves, whether it is a doctor or whether it's our spouse. You know your body better than anybody. You know when something's wrong. And a woman's intuition is rarely wrong. That's what I've learned. It's true. It's so powerful. It's a little scary. Yeah.

Hi, it's Jenny Garth. Now that I'm in my 50s, I am all about skincare that delivers real results. And that's why I choose Perricone MD. Perricone MD's award-winning formulas combine the highest quality ingredients with decades of research and expensive, clean, and easy-to-use products.

clinical testing to back up their promises. Using these products exclusively, I've really noticed a dramatic difference in my skin. It's smoother, I feel glowy, and it reduces my fine lines. I feel like my face just looks softer and everybody wants to know what I've been using. Well, it's Perricone MD.

PerriconeMD works as hard as I do, and it shows. Go to PerriconeMD.com and use code Jenny for an exclusive 40% off for a limited time. That's PerriconeMD.com, code Jenny, J-E-N-N-I-E. We

We've all heard the success stories of weight loss with GLP-1 injections, but let's be real. They can be very expensive and hard to access. That's where Henry Meds comes in. No insurance? No problem. You can save over $1,000 a month compared to brand name options. Henry Meds has no hidden fees, just affordable, transparent pricing and a team of caring healthcare providers and compounded GLP-1 options with both injections and oral medications. Start your weight management journey at

HenryMeds.com today. Results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Consult a healthcare provider to determine if treatment is right for you. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points.

Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible snacks like outshine fruit bars and Ritz crackers or sweet treat favorites like Nestle drumsticks, nerds gummy clusters, and Lindor chocolates, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details. All right, I want you to use this tip to find moments of self-care time in your busy day. Brought to you by the all new Nissan Murano. The colors we wear can impact

our mood. Like a quick little rundown of how different colors affect us. Yellow equals optimism and focus. Orange, energy and confidence. Blue, calm and productivity. Red, excitement and boldness. Green, balance and good decision making. Green is also positive vibes.

So, if you wake up one morning trying to get ready for work or your day and you're just feeling kind of blah, maybe throw on a color that lifts your mood or try a different outfit that you know you feel your best in. Who cares if you even wore it the other day? If it's an awesome outfit, give it a go again. Listen to Four Things with Amy Brown wherever you get your podcasts. For more of this episode, brought to you by the all-new Nissan Murano.

It's tax season, and by now, I know we're all a bit tired of numbers. But here's an important one you need to hear. $16.5 billion. That's how much money in refunds the IRS flagged for possible identity fraud last year.

Here's another, 20%. That's the overall increase in identity theft related to tax fraud in 2024 alone. But it's not all grim news. Here's a good number, 100 million. That's how many data points LifeLock monitors every second. If your identity is stolen, LifeLock's US-based restoration specialists will fix it, backed by another good number, the Million Dollar Protection Plan. In fact, restoration is guaranteed or your money back.

Don't face identity theft and financial losses alone. There's strength in numbers with LifeLock Identity Theft Protection for tax season and beyond. Join now and save up to 40% your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off. Terms apply.

You were saying before about fibromyalgia. I think we might've talked about this in private and you gave me Dr. Vonda, right? You gave me her information. I haven't called her yet, but I need to, because I just have body pain that I shouldn't be having. You know, I'm very active. I'm, I'm feel better in my, in physically than I ever have, but my body hurt. So there's a, and I'm writing the new perimenopause right now. And there's a chapter in the book that

where we talk about things that are commonly diagnosed in women. And it's one of those, well, if nothing else, we're just going to call it fibromyalgia. If nothing else, we're going to call it interstitial cystitis. If nothing else, we're going to call it adrenal fatigue or, you know, this kind of laundry list of very vague diagnoses. And what we're saying on our end is this is probably how menopause is showing up in her body. Mm-hmm.

It's wild because there's so many ways it can show up. Yeah. For everybody. So when you look at the, you know, there's a beautiful paper that looked at the G coupled estrogen receptors throughout the human body, right? And they light up the brain, the heart, the endothelium, which is the blood vessels, right? The lining of the blood vessels, the bones, the muscles, the kidney, the, we know breast and uterus. Everybody knows that's where estrogen works, but it's,

It's everywhere. And when you go to these subspecialty papers and like, that's when I wrote Noon Pen and Pause, I was like, okay, I would go to PubMed and I would type in menopause and heart and just see what was out there. You know, menopause and bones. You know, we have a lot of information on osteoporosis, but you know, menopause and joint pain, menopause and dry skin, menopause and dry eyes. And I was like, whoa.

People are actually doing this research all over the world. And they're making all these conclusions and they're checking the status of dry eye, dry mouth, dry vagina from pre, peri, and postmenopausal women and tracking them across the transition. I'm like, no one's talking about these. Women are suffering in silence. No one's helping them. They're just blowing them off. They're getting gas lit. They're said, this is just...

We're all aging. We all know this, right? But menopause accelerates the aging process across multiple organ systems. That sucks. And it's not fair. No. And there are definitely ways that we can intervene. Pharmacology, lifestyle changes, nutrition, supplements, all of it. The whole toolkit is important. Mm-hmm.

Why? Why? Why? After giving life to people. I mean, it just seems such bullshit. And it's the perfect place where prevention, you know, I grew up, the medical system is Band-Aid medicine, right? Something breaks, we know how to fix it.

You know, you have fibroids. I know how to fix that. You have heavy periods. I know how to fix that. But we get such little training and teaching around prevention, around nutrition, around what the right movement for that patient would be, how to individualize treatment care. And that's where I think the money, the work, the research comes.

has to focus and it's not happening yet. And it's not happening in our school systems, that's for sure. They teach, you know, in health class about puberty and when you're going to be able to have a baby and how you can get pregnant and all the things.

never once was anyone ever mentioning menopause, perimenopause, what happens to us later in life. They're not even words used in a classroom. They're like taboo, which is a normal physiologic part of life. Right. Why are we teaching that? Kids have never heard of it. Yeah. No, it's huge. Do you think there will come a time when they're teaching about menopause in health class? So I hope so. But we have a very, I mean, I just hope they're going to teach about it in medical school. That'd be a good start. So when I was in med school, I...

I had one lecture on menopause in a four-year curriculum. One lecture? One lecture. In four years? In four years. Wow. And then when I did my OBGYN residency-

which I'm super proud of. And I learned amazing stuff. I mean, I am a boss in a labor room. You know, I got it. I wish you'd delivered. I am such a good laborist. Like I am the funnest, most wonderful. And I got all the skills, you know, and I like this hand. I'm a great surgeon. That was my shoulder dystocia, you know,

But where I now realize this huge gap was in menopause care. So I did, we did reproductive endocrinology. So you have obstetrics, right? Getting pregnant, staying pregnant, postpartum, that's more than 50% of our training, which is important, right? We need to be able to bring life into the world safely, all the things, take care of the emergencies, shepherd the healthy pregnancies, you know.

And then, then gynecology is everything else. So in gynecology, now the box, the little box that's left for gynecology, we have oncology. So uterine cancer, vulvar cancer, vaginal cancer, all the gynecologic cancers, we do a little bit of breast, you know, um,

pediatric gynecology, all the pediatric things that could happen, how the special treatment, you know, we do reproductive endocrinology, getting people pregnant and all the kind of endocrine disorders that can happen through childhood and women. And then menopause is just this little tiny, tiny sliver. So I got six hours, six one-hour lectures, my second year of residency. We had no clinics devoted to menopause, you know, and if we saw a menopausal patient,

You know, we did our best to take care of her, but we weren't really weren't given a big toolkit on how to help her. If she had severe hot flashes when I was training, we offered her hormone therapy. At the time when I went through most of my training, about 40% of women ended up on hormone therapy postmenopause. And it was recommended by the American Academy of Physicians, but it was like a

All women should consider this, right? And my very last year is when the bomb dropped from the Women's Health Initiative and everyone was terrified. Everyone jumped ship. And I, you know, jumped ship, threw their prescriptions away, terrified that we're going to give people breast cancer. And that just wasn't true.

And the same megaphone that's, I mean, it was like viral before viral, right? It was the number one medical news story of 2002. It was on the cover of every newspaper. They had a press conference. It was on TV. Nancy Snyder, man on good morning. America said I would never put a woman on it, you know, and she, with what was presented to her, I can see the reasoning. That's the way I felt too. But then as all of that got walked back, no one talked about it. No one.

To this day, the American College of OB-GYN, who I love and I'm super proud to be a part of, has not changed the menopause hormone therapy guidelines since 2014. It is 2025. Is that going to change?

I don't know. They kind of have their hands full right now with all the reproductive stuff going on. You know, the American board is who we get recertified every year. And I have to say we had six men out of 112 for the first time. We usually have one, maybe a year with six menopause, like serious menopause related articles. And I did a jig, a dance of joy, but they're elective. You don't have to read them, those particular ones, you know? So,

It's getting better. There's about 20 or maybe 30% of residencies now that offer an elective menopause course, but it is elective. So what I'm demanding, so Dr. Jennifer Weiswolf, who's an NYU attorney and she's a professor at NYU Law School,

She and I co-authored the Citizens' Guide to Menopause Advocacy. So we have six policies that we're trying to get enacted. And we teach people how to write your congressman. I still believe in democracy, despite what the world is thinking right now about the US. But I still believe that we have power and our votes count. And so teaching women, these are six policy thing. And one is mandatory menopause education for all clinicians. Amen. Okay.

Okay, I'm in already. All med school. Every person who's going to touch a woman needs to know about menopause and how it affects. And every orthopedic surgeon needs to know. And every urologist. And every, you know, this is...

It's crazy. This is the last third of our lives. Yeah, this sounds like a no-brainer. It's so horrifying. So yeah, number one policy change. Number two. What's another one? Yeah. Take the black box warning. Have you picked up vaginal estrogen yet? And you should. You open up the packet and it's like you're going to die. It's not true. There's no evidence. I can't even see those letters, so I don't look that. I've already lost my vision. Not to mention the eyesight. Yeah.

Is that part of it? That's not related. Okay. I was hoping I could blame everything. No, sadly, no. Wait. Okay. So that's two. Oh yeah. We have six. So I'm on the spot. Sorry. Oh, black box warning, more education funding funding. So in 2023 and who knows what's going to happen with NIH funding, things are changing rapidly right now, but let's go historically in 2023 of a $43 billion budget. Okay.

10 to 15 billion went to women's health. Most of that was reproduction, right? And a little bit to ovarian uterine cancer, important stuff. We're half the population, okay? Menopause got 1.5 million, 15 out of $43 billion. That's 0.03%. 0.03%. So right now you go to PubMed, which is the clearinghouse of medical journal articles where I go to look for stuff, important stuff, right? Right.

I type in the word pregnancy. So that means every time pregnancy is mentioned in an article, we got about 1.1 million articles. We are just ripe, juicy with obstetric information, even though we have terrible obstetrical outcomes in the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries, but that's another conversation. Then I type in the word menopause. We have 98,000, more than 10 to one. So that's brain power, funding, expertise, people who give a shit. I type in the word perimenopause.

6,800. Okay. That is why I'm so excited that you're writing the new perimenopause because that is an audience that really needs to be reached. So I'm running off of those 6,800 compared to the 68,000 I had to write the new menopause. That's like, it's a lot of gray area. It's a lot of, you know, me talking to the menopause. What are you doing here? I mean, we're just a think tank at this

point. What are you doing? What are you doing? It's worldwide. So it's a really cool collaboration of these incredibly bold, brave, smart clinicians who are fighting for women after, you know, all women, but really after reproduction. And it's really our focus.

Hi, it's Jenny Garth. Now that I'm in my 50s, I am all about skincare that delivers real results. And that's why I choose Perricone MD. Perricone MD's award-winning formulas combine the highest quality ingredients with decades of research and expensive, cost-effective, and cost-effective products.

clinical testing to back up their promises. Using these products exclusively, I've really noticed a dramatic difference in my skin. It's smoother, I feel glowy, and it reduces my fine lines. I feel like my face just looks softer and everybody wants to know what I've been using. Well, it's Perricone MD.

PerriconeMD works as hard as I do, and it shows. Go to PerriconeMD.com and use code JENNIE for an exclusive 40% off for a limited time. That's PerriconeMD.com, code JENNIE, J-E-N-N-I-E. Everyone's talking about the weight loss benefits of GLP-1 medications, but let's be honest, they can be hard to get and extremely expensive.

That's where Henry Meds comes in. Whether you have insurance or not, Henry Meds makes compounded GLP-1 weight management treatments affordable and accessible for everyone that qualifies. You could save over $1,000 a month compared to brand name versions with no hidden fees or surprise costs. It's time to start your weight management journey with Henry Meds. Visit henrymeds.com today.

Results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Consult a healthcare provider to determine if treatment is right for you. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points.

Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible snacks like outshine fruit bars and Ritz crackers or sweet treat favorites like Nestle drumsticks, Nerds gummy clusters, and Lindor chocolates, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details. All right, I want you to use this tip to find moments of self-care time in your busy day. Brought to you by the all-new Nissan Murano. The colors we wear can impact

our mood. Like a quick little rundown of how different colors affect us. Yellow equals optimism and focus. Orange, energy and confidence. Blue, calm and productivity. Red, excitement and boldness. Green, balance and good decision making. Green is also positive vibes.

So if you wake up one morning, you're trying to get ready for work or your day and you're just feeling kind of blah, maybe throw on a color that lifts your mood or try a different outfit that you know you feel your best in. Who cares if you even wore it the other day? If it's an awesome outfit, give it a go again. Listen to Four Things with Amy Brown wherever you get your podcasts. For more of this episode brought to you by the all new Nissan Murano.

Hi, this is Joel and Matt from the How to Money podcast. We're almost out of the cold winter months, and the way I plan to help myself make it through is to think of the great travel I have planned this summer, like the road trip I want to take with my kids out west. I'm going to take the whole month off, head towards Seattle for my cousin's wedding by car. I'm already plotting...

all the different airbnbs we can stay on along the way nice i think that's a great idea there's nothing like a cross-country road trip during the summer months and staying at airbnbs is a great way to experience all the different towns and cities on the route plus while you're gone for this long stretch of time you could also be hosting guests in your home on airbnb making some extra money in the process i was an airbnb host myself for a while and i loved it

It was easy and it gave me the chance to make some extra cash. And now hosting your home is easier than ever on Airbnb with the co-host teacher. Access a network of high quality local co-hosts who can help you handle everything from getting your home ready to helping your guests once they arrive with whatever they may need. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host. You talked about the new administration and how that everything is changing so rapidly. Is that going to affect the funding?

I'm not sure. I know NIH budgets are being cut and certain terms are being limited. You know, they're kind of being flagged for review. So anything, you know, I saw the list and sadly, you know, for us, anything that contained the word woman or female or gender. And what shocked me is it didn't like male wasn't on there. I'm like, okay, if we're going to be equal, we're just going to, it's all humans. We're just a human and not male, female, but it was only women. But it's,

I'm praying and hopeful that clear heads will realize, you know, as the studies come through, it gets flagged. They'll have another set of eyes looking at it and say, oh, this was a menopause thing. This is not, you know, whatever they're trying to limit. So, but again, what's exciting is if we can't use NIH, there are big private funding sources. We have other sources of funding.

Right? And for example, Lisa Moscone, who wrote The Menopause Brain, just got a $50 million grant from Welcome Leap. And it's all, like she doesn't have to publish, like, you know, the way the machine of how publications are done and NIH funding and how much the university takes, she doesn't have to worry about any of that. All she has to do is solve a problem. And it's how much is menopause related to Alzheimer's disease? Hmm.

So when my patients come to me, they want to put out the menopause fire. They want to become functional again. And that's actually easy for me to help them with. Okay. We get them back to where they're like, I got this. I can handle my stress. I got my family, you know, I got it. I'm back in my job. I'm doing whatever. Then we talk about the next 30 years and the diseases that are plaguing her elders. We talk about heart disease. We talk about dementia. We talk about osteoporosis, fracture, and frailty. Mm-hmm.

and where menopause fits into all that, and what are the habits, the lifestyle changes we're going to do to decrease that risk. I'm so excited that Dr. Moscone was able to step out of the traditional NIH and find this beautiful funding. And it is so...

outcome driven and not publish this paper, you know, publisher perish. You know, we've set up this kind of crazy system and how we generate research in this country, good and bad, you know? And so for her, it's really freeing to step out of the system and just be evidence focused, right? And outcome focused. And she's doing it in three years. Wow. And so when you think of $15 million, she was fighting for a piece of that $15 million pie in 2023, and they just gave her $50 million for herself.

That's pretty remarkable. To make this happen. And she's hiring researchers. I mean, it is like amazing. And she's going to solve this in three years. You're right. That is exciting. Because yeah, I mean, now being in menopause, no longer in perimenopause, I want to know what's next. Is, is,

When I'm done with menopause, what happens? Or when am I done with menopause? So postmenopause is forever. So we've not been able to figure out how to resuscitate the ovaries, right? And so you living without the natural production of estradiol and progesterone is the rest of your life, right? So your bones are always going to be affected. Your genital urinary system is always going to be affected. Your skin's always going to be affected. You know, all of these things are still happening. Hormone therapy can attenuate a lot of that, but we're still aging and we're accepting that, right? We know we're getting older. Yeah.

But what we're trying to do is slow down the acceleration that, you know, for premenopausal women enjoy better health than men. Typically we have better mental health in general. We have better heart health, but all of that goes to shit across the menopause transition. And what we're learning now is by supporting women's hormones through the transition and post, we can slow some of that down and give her back resilience. But you know, when you watch the wellness bros and the,

Let's get in the sauna and let's do the ice bath. I'm like the wellness bros. Any conversation about a female and her health and longevity that doesn't include menopause is a mistake. You know, you can't wellness your way out of menopause. No. And so you can make your body more resilient to certain things. And you definitely can broad dog menopause. You don't have to be on hormone therapy, but it makes life harder. Yeah. It can be a lot harder.

I mean, why would they? I really want to talk more about you, Mary Claire. But I'm still so fascinated by all the menopause discoveries and the research. So I'm not ever going to be out of menopause or I'm going to go into what's called post-menopause. So you're post-menopause. Menopause is one day. One year after your final menstrual period. That is the medical definition of menopause. But here's my joke. What?

What if it's leap year? Do you have to go 366 days? What if you've had a hysterectomy? What if you've had an ablation or Mirena IUD and you don't have periods? What if you have PCOS? Do you not get to be menopausal because you didn't hit the year? I mean, it's so random and arbitrary. It is ovarian failure. This is what menopause is. So you have before the ovaries fail and after the ovaries fail. And then our ovaries age twice as fast as any other organ in our body.

And it's just reality. And we don't know how to slow it down. We can speed it up. If you smoke, if you have radiation, if you have abdominal surgery, if you have a C-section, if you have a stereotomy, you know, we tend to chip off some of the life of the ovaries. But we know that if you don't do those things and you eat a healthier diet and you exercise regularly, you can stretch as much as the genetic capability of your ovaries that you have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And that's like what the new perimenopause is about is like setting these women up for success. Right, right. Setting them up for success. I think that's so important. And it's for my daughters. Yes. And for my daughters who never heard the word menopause. My daughters, God bless them. They know a lot. It's just their vocabulary now.

I think my daughters too and my husband too. It's not a word that is like, eh, anymore. It's not taboo. No, we talk about it and I blame everything on it. Yeah. And every time my body hurts, I'm not afraid to stand up and say, oh, my body's aching today. And I feel like I have justification for those and it's not in my head. Right. And I'm not just being complaining. Well, what I love about the new menopause is so many women have reached out and said,

You validated what I'm going through. And how much cortisol did we lower? Just by doing that, just by explaining what's happening, taking the mystery and the shame and the, you know, the confusion out of it and being like, oh, okay.

This makes sense. Okay. It still sucks, but you know, for a lot of women, but like, I get it. I get what's going on. Let's, let's figure out, you know, let me go find a partner in this and let me change my diet and let me fix my nutrition and you'll do whatever I need to do. But like, just knowing that they're armed with information, they're making great decisions for themselves and they're ending up, I mean, females live longer than men. We win guys, you know, the longevity race, but we're not having good health span. Right. Women are ending up

in 25% of their lifespan being in poorer health than their male twin would be. Because our bodies are made differently or because we work so much harder? Well, the emotional labor, you know, there's a lot of factors keying into this.

My sister is the de facto eldest daughter in town with my mother who's aging and she is also a nurse. So she is managing the bulk of my mother's care. I'm out of town, right? And I'm flying around doing interviews and my sister is there doing the work.

And I'm wondering how much of her life we're chipping away at because of the stress, the day-to-day, my mother has dementia and broke a hip and, you know, managing all those decisions. And that is the plight of most women. And, you know, the eldest daughter ends up in a lot of families being the caretaker. So how much is that? You know, but what I want your listeners to understand is super happy. I am literally living my best life. You know, I'm a fully menopausal woman.

I have better boundaries. You know, I did all the things. I got therapy. I learned how to journal. I learned how to take time for me, choose me. I put my own oxygen mask on first, prioritize my needs, my wants. And I wasn't, you know, I don't feel selfish about it anymore. Did you at first? Oh, absolutely. I'd always put everyone before. That was my role. That was my job. I put my patients before, you know, my children, the needs of my husband, his career. And

And then finally I was like, no, I can't keep going like this and be menopausal with horrible symptoms and not sleeping and, you know, this crazy weight gain. And I would, you know, had I not completely like thrown out the rule book and started from scratch and figured it out and taught everybody as I was going along the way, everything I was learning, I wouldn't be here today. And I'm in a great spot. I am so looking forward to the next 30 years. I love that message.

Because yeah, I feel healthier than I've ever felt. Okay, I have so many questions. At my recent I Choose Me Live Summit, I was talking to Sasha Peterson, who suffers from PCOS. What is the deal with menopause and PCOS? Oh, that is such a tough one because forever in medicine, we have used menstrual cycles to kind of gauge where you are in menopause. Because for most women, the cycles become somewhat irregular and it's any kind of irregular. But towards the end, you start skipping periods.

Women with PCOS who are untreated don't have regular periods in general. So they have no marker. How do they know? And so a lot of late perimenopause looks almost exactly on a biochemical basis like

without the, you know, like PCOS, our insulin resistance increases, you know, you start developing visceral and body fat, you almost become like a mini PCOS patient on your way into full menopause. So it can be really, and I have a blog about it and I have a little checklist like PCOS and then menopause and like where things line up and then where you can tell the difference. Oh God, you had a post recently and it had some crazy ass chart.

about your hormone fluctuation. The zone of chaos. I was blown away at that. I'm going to put that up for our listeners to see the visual of the graph that was just

all over the place. It's spaghetti. And then it flatlines. And then it flatlines. So in premenopause, most women have seen the monthly hormone curve. It looks like an EKG. Right. You have a estrogen starts out low and then it surges in ovulation. Then it kind of like tapers off and then progesterone after ovulation goes up. And that's when our temperature goes up. Like anybody's been through a fertility treatment or natural family planning. You know, we all kind of get that. And all clinicians know this by heart.

So that EKG, that is a monthly EKG for a healthy woman. You know, day 12, she's doing this, day 18, she's doing that. And it repeats over and over and over again, beautifully, unless she's pregnant or going through something really stressful or, you know, we're suppressing with birth control pills. In perimenopause, now the reason why we ovulate is not the ovaries. It's the brain. It starts in the brain. The hypothalamus gland in our brain.

It's constantly sensing for estrogen, looking for it. When it gets low, it sends a kickstart signal to the pituitary gland saying, dude, tell the ovary to get to work. We need an egg. We need some estrogen. We got to get this level back up. And ovary's like, got it, boss. And pumps out something called LH and FSH to the ovary. That jump starts ovulation. And then the whole thing starts over again. And that is just predictable month after month. In perimenopause, we reach a critical egg threshold level. Mm-hmm.

We're born with all of our eggs. Menopause is the end of your eggs. No more. We exhaust the supply. So for every woman, it's a different threshold. But whenever your preset threshold is that you have 2 million eggs left, whatever it is, a million, 10,000, the signal coming from the brain stops working. There are not enough follicles to recruit.

So the brain is like, where's my estrogen? And the pituitary is like, I sent the signal. And we wouldn't respond. It's being, you know, the door's shut. We're not hearing the knock at the door. And the brain is like, F this. And so it starts pounding the ovary with higher and higher levels of FSH, which is why our FSH levels rise in perimenopause, to force the ovulation.

And that creates a hormonal zone of chaos. We end up with these wild fluctuations of estradiol, much higher than you ever had in your premenopausal years. And they crash. And they're very unpredictable when the surges happen. And then progesterone never kind of gets as high as it used to in your premenopausal years. And then what happens when it's flat? And then when you run out of eggs, no estrogen, no estradiol, no progesterone, and FSH and LH stay elevated.

And it's just, that doesn't sound good. The flat lining does not sound like what I want. Fortunately with, we can replace what's missing in a very bioidentical way with inexpensive FDA approved options for most women. And,

And they work great and women feel a lot better and their bones are stronger and their general urinary system is healthier and their skin is more resilient and their brains are more resilient. The best treatment in perimenopause for new onset depression or anxiety is not an SSRI. It is hormone. That's what they give you though. Automatically. Yeah. We're getting there.

Okay, so I'm on all the hormones like you because you told me you were on the trifecta. So I was like, I gotta get me some of that trifecta. Feel amazing. How do you feel? Amazing. Right. What happens if I forget the patch? Because you have to do it every twice a week. Twice a week. So that happens to me. Actually, we were looking at my team over there.

I was like, what day is it? What day is it? Yeah. I'm great when I'm at home because I have all my little triggers. But I was like, oh, it's Wednesday. You lose track. You lose track. You know, the patches give you a little bit of grace. You know, they should be changed every three to four days. If you go five, nothing bad is going to happen. And one time I really forgot. And it took a whole week before I started having hot flashes again. Oh, they came back right away. Yeah. Progesterone, I do not forget because this girl likes to sleep. Mm-hmm.

And without progesterone. I think that was the initial reason when I started HRT was that I was losing sleep. And for me, that was a deal breaker. I can't function without sleep. Everything in me hurts. My brain doesn't work. I'm not pleasant to be around. Yeah. That's the first thing like I hone in on with my patients is like, we've got to get you sleeping and it's not going to be a sedative.

you know, long-term sedative use, long-term Benadryl use, long-term melatonin use is fraught with cognitive disorders down the line. Short-term, you're sure. You go to a different time zone, somebody that, you know, you have an acute response. Yeah, of course, no problem. But like using that dependently to go to sleep every night is not healthy. What about trazodone? Trazodone has an addictive potential. And so what the studies are showing is that

Long-term use of sleep aids are not good for cognition long-term. What some of us in the menopause world think is it's not maybe the medication as much as not sleeping, right? That women who don't sleep well, that's when you recharge your brain. And if you're having disrupted, not deep, you're not getting all the phases of sleep. Now that I wear an Oura ring, it's charging. I wear a ring to track my sleep because I have to protect my sleep with my life because my mother has Alzheimer's.

And I am doing all the things, working on alcohol, but all the things that I can to try to decrease that risk for myself so I don't burden my children. So what are the greatest risks for Alzheimer's, do you think? Alcohol, you mentioned. Yeah, Lisa Moscone wrote a beautiful book about it. There's like 14 and we just had a live, but smoking, insulin resistance, diabetes, sedentary lifestyle, all the things that lead to heart disease and diabetes and stroke are

are all kind of in that list. Poor dietary choices. Things that will decrease your risk, social connection.

You know, Mama, when my dad died, I mean, bless her heart. She lost three kids and her husband, you know. And I think I'd lock myself up in my house, too. She just kind of shut the world out and started drinking a lot more. I think she was self-medicating. And so I'm certain it hastened her journey towards Alzheimer's. And I can't blame her for that. And I'm just trying to have compassion for her. It's her birthday today. She's 88. It's her birthday. She had a good day yesterday, so I was able to have a reasonable conversation with her. Good. I wish her a happy birthday. Yeah.

And, but, you know, just frankly, I'm like, okay, you know, what habits did mom have that I should really work at avoiding and let's get some therapy and let's get these things on the front end so that when the terrible things happen, I don't isolate and shut everyone out of the world, you know, and, and just go into a kind of a dark place. That's so easy to do. Mm-hmm.

Brain fog just happened. It happens all the time. Hi, my name is Menopause. Nice to meet you. It's the best. I do QVC Live on airs, middle of my sentence. I'll be like, oh, yeah, no idea what I'm talking about. So I just kind of change the subject. The audience just, yeah, they're fine. They love you. They don't know. They don't know. They don't know.

Hi, it's Jenny Garth. Feeling confident in my skin is non-negotiable, and that's why I choose Perricone MD. Perricone MD's triple retinol renewal face and eye serums are powerful but gentle, boosting cell turnover for visibly smoother, firmer skin. Since I've started using these serums exclusively, I've noticed that my skin is more radiant, it's glowing, and people are asking me more and more, why?

What do you use on your skin? Having confidence in the way your skin looks starts with Perricone MD. Visit perriconemd.com and use code JENNIE for 40% off your order for a limited time. perriconemd.com code J-E-N-N-I-E

GLP-1 injections have helped many people lose weight, but they can be costly and out of reach for some. That's where Henry Meds makes a difference. Even if you don't have health insurance, you can save over $1,000 a month with no hidden fees. Henry Meds offers affordable compounded GLP-1 treatments from licensed U.S. pharmacies, and their team of providers is with you every step of the way. Take control of your weight management journey. Visit HenryMeds.com.

now. Results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Consult with a healthcare provider to determine if treatment is right for you. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for storewide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible cleaning items from Charmin, Tide, and Downy. And dinner essentials from Stouffer's,

DiGiorno, Arby's, and Violife, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details. All right, I want you to use this tip to find moments of self-care time in your busy day, brought to you by the all-new Nissan Murano. The colors we wear can impact our mood. Like a quick little rundown of how different colors affect us.

Yellow equals optimism and focus. Orange, energy and confidence. Blue, calm and productivity. Red, excitement and boldness. Green, balance and good decision-making. Green is also positive vibes. So if you wake up one morning, you're trying to get ready for work or your day, and you're just feeling kind of blah, maybe throw on a color that lifts your mood.

Or try a different outfit that you know you feel your best in. Who cares if you even wore it the other day? If it's an awesome outfit, give it a go again. Listen to 4 Things with Amy Brown wherever you get your podcasts. For more of this episode, brought to you by the all-new Nissan Murano.

Hi, this is Joel and Matt from the How to Money podcast. We're almost out of the cold winter months, and the way I plan to help myself make it through is to think of the great travel I have planned this summer, like the road trip I want to take with my kids out west. I'm going to take the whole month off, head towards Seattle for my cousin's wedding by car. I'm already plotting...

all the different airbnbs we can stay on along the way nice i think that's a great idea there's nothing like a cross-country road trip during the summer months and staying at airbnbs is a great way to experience all the different towns and cities on the route plus while you're gone for this long stretch of time you could also be hosting guests in your home on airbnb making some extra money in the process i was an airbnb host myself for a while and i loved it

It was easy and it gave me the chance to make some extra cash. And now hosting your home is easier than ever on Airbnb with the co-host teacher. Access a network of high quality local co-hosts who can help you handle everything from getting your home ready to helping your guests once they arrive with whatever they may need. Find a co-host at Airbnb.com slash host.

You talk so much about menopause. You educate so many women. You devote your life to delivering the messages that change people's lives. And so often we're getting these messages from left and right and it's all over social media and there's so many things and it's very overwhelming. What would you say to the person, me, who is overwhelmed by all the information? You know...

Find a source you trust. It's like walking into Barnes and Noble back in the day when we did that, right? And you see all the magazines, right? And they're shiny and which one do I want? And they all have these beautiful things on the cover. They have these catchphrases and these lines and you're just like, oh, which one do I read and believe? You have to sample and then you have to look at credentials really is one thing. And where's the information coming from?

And what do they have to gain, right? Are they trying to dissuade you from a certain thing to get you to buy their product, right? That's a little bit of a red flag. Are they, you know, truly looking out for your best product

health and behavior, are they calling that, you know, are they using a credential, but not, you know, you really, you should have whatever your MD, DO, you know, whatever. If you're calling yourself a clinician online, you really should in the, in your bio have clearly your credentials listed. And when that's kind of sketchy.

when I see people who have that stuff and just listen to the message. You're an intelligent woman. You know, what is resonating with you? For me, right. What is resonating for you? And does that make sense to you? And does that make you feel better? Go for it. That's good information then. Yeah. I mean, it's very hard to jump in to what we talk about all in about changing our lives to assure us that we're not going to go down the same road as our parents who might not be healthy. Yeah.

And it is daunting. But like stick to the basics first, right? You see all the micro stuff, like the sauna. And I have a red light, so full disclosure. But you know, the red light in the sauna. But you know, if you're not sleeping eight hours, like there's some basic stuff, low inflammatory nutrition, eating pattern, right? And I know you're doing that. But like, look at your food. Look at the basics, your food. How are you moving your body? We need to be weightlifting.

We need to be doing a resistance training. Otherwise, your muscles are deteriorating in front of you. And this is an age-related thing that's accelerated with menopause. It doesn't have to happen, but it takes work. Are you getting enough protein? And we were joking off camera, you know, it's our full-time job to find protein sources. I wish it was in a pill.

That we can tolerate. Can you invent a protein pill, please? I just need to take one. It's just a bigger, you know, to get that many amino acids, it's hard to like get those. I'll take more than one. If you can just make that for me. I'm like, one of my teammates is doing Perfect Amino. So I have to look into that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think now that focus is on protein and the benefits of making sure. And I'm not talking, you know, people are like, oh, I was talking to one of the other podcasts this week about high protein. I go, I don't know what that is. I'm just trying to get enough protein.

Yeah. You know, it was more than I was used to getting. So this is now a job for me is to figure out how to work this into my life in a reasonable fashion. Right. It's, it's not easy, but it is doable. Yeah. If we start focusing on the right things and we start focusing on choosing ourselves and taking better care of ourselves.

Because at the end of the day, everyone's going to be off doing their own thing. And we're going to be sitting there. I want my kids to feel like they have to stop their lives to come and tend to me. No. I want them to flourish and fly. And the last couple of weeks, gather around. Like my dad. My dad had a beautiful death.

We all kind of realized it about a month out. You know, we started making plans to come in. We were all there the last couple of weeks and sang songs and told stories. And he slipped into unconsciousness the last couple of days. Mm-hmm.

And we were all there and it was beautiful. That's all you can ask. And I'm like, the women in my family are in nursing homes for years with like falling and with anxiety and all these things. And I'm like, God, this is not a beautiful death. No. And so many women in our lives are being denied that from not being set up for success to age well.

This is all about setting us up for success, about longevity. I love that. You know, I know your life changed so much recently, like we started initially talking about. How has that affected you on a personal note and affected your family? Because fame...

comes fast and hard sometimes. We've talked a little bit about it and you've dealt with it for a very long time, but not everyone is happy with what I say and do. And I definitely have, for me, having been the straight A student

Top of my class, the top producer at my hospital. You know, I was always used to being the it girl, the star, the, you know, everyone. Because you have that drive. You have that, you want to achieve. I wanted to, I was a number one people pleaser. And one of the hardest things for me, but making this shift and choosing social media as a platform to educate and realizing that I'm a good science communicator are the criticism and the people and the people who doubt me.

what my motivations are and where I'm coming from. And that is a path I've never dreamed about navigating. And it is a everyday having to take a deep breath and go back to my therapist who says, what do you know is true? What do you know is true about you? And I'm like, I...

to change the world. I don't want, I want for our daughters to be able to navigate menopause without a care in the world, that it is not a major transition into where she feels lost.

and she's hurting and she's, you know, it's the number one time for a woman to commit suicide. 40% increase of mental health disorder, divorce rate skyrocket. Oh my God. We feel so good reasons. We feel so like just lost. I mean, read all fours, you know, like that book, there's a reason why it resonates with so many people. And I'm like,

If I can just, in the littlest way, change that narrative, then the haters are worth it because I know what's true and I know me. So it's good and bad. And it's been a lot of life lessons to be learned, but I'm here and I'm not stopping. I know we talked earlier, I think a few months ago when you were kind of struggling with- I hit a wall. Yeah. I took a break. It's okay. A deep breath. Yeah. Gathered.

my family around me and said, what do I want? What do I want to do? And were they, did they boost you up? Oh, totally. I have the world's greatest friends and team and family and my kids. My kids are probably, my daughter's in med school. So she's like trying to act like it's not a big deal, kind of, you know, and she's going through her own journey. She's assured me she is not going into OBGYN. You know, she's thinking maybe psychiatry or internal medicine. We'll see. You know, she hasn't even done her real rotations yet.

My youngest is doing PR and marketing and mass comm. So I've taken her to events. I've brought her to New York. She's done internships. Is that the one I met at Hello Sunshine? Yeah. Yeah. So that was Maddie. And so, you know, they're proud. They're a little like, whoa, what just happened? Yeah, I bet. Why are these people coming up to my mom? Yeah, like, you know, one time we were out celebrating my niece's birthday in New Orleans and, you know, I get recognized now.

And we're just like in the corner and like we're dancing, the girls. It was my sister and my two daughters and her daughter and like the boyfriends and stuff. And this woman comes up so sweet and was like, oh, my God. And my younger daughter like kind of rolled her eyes a little and was like, here we go, you know. And the woman, thank God, didn't see. And I was gracious and we took a picture and she went about her way. And the next morning I got up and I looked at my daughter and I said, I get it.

you did not ask for this. And I'm so sorry. I said, but this is our life right now. And I don't think it's going to be stopping anytime soon. Can you handle it? She says, yeah, mom. And I was like, we need to learn to be gracious. That woman was brave enough to come up to me and she didn't want to interrupt our party, but she felt it was important enough for her to share whatever she wanted to share with me. And I didn't want to disrupt the party, but

But, you know, this is our life. And, you know, just us having that communication, she was like, okay, I don't know how you manage it with your kids for so many years. But, you know, this is new. And it's like been in the last couple years since COVID really. And we could travel since COVID. So, but people are so gracious and kind. Every important bathroom. They just want to.

They come up. And share. And share. Connect. Yeah. And that can be scary. But once you embrace it and you see the effect that you're having on so many people, and then you in return feel how that pushes you forward. It propels you to continue doing what you're doing. There's so much love there. There's so much good. So much love. Yeah. That I just, I'm embracing it. So, but you know, I had to talk to my daughter and be like, don't roll your eyes in public. I know. Yeah.

It's okay. I always try to like kind of remove the photograph taking from my kids so they're not like just standing there like, yeah, mom. How about like on a personal level in your marriage? I know you said before you spent a lot of time supporting your husband. Has been the coolest thing. I married a rock star and I didn't realize it. Like, I mean, he's a great dad, like world's greatest father, provider, all the things, check the boxes, you know, but he's

As this has grown, he retired from his oil and gas. He reached the rule of 90, if you've ever had anybody in a corporate world. They have this age and years of service where they get full retirement benefits. He had been quietly helping out in the business. We have our supplement line, and it's done really well. I was getting frustrated with contracts and negotiations. He has an MBA. Yeah.

And he's an engineer. And so he kind of started putting a toe in the water and meeting with contractors and doing stuff and just making my life so much easier. And so as his retirement age was getting closer last year, I said, you know, you're doing so much now. I'm going to have to hire, you know, we keep growing. We grew 300% in one year. I'm going to have to hire someone and pay them your Chevron salary to do what you're doing now. And he was like, oh, since you put it that way, I said, you can come work for free. Yeah.

But so we work from home. I have a clinic, but you know, I'm in clinic two days a week, but the days I work from home when I'm doing like the business end or researching or writing the book, we're in like separate areas of the house, but I can hear him on calls and I'm like, oh, he's so hot. Listen to him do his thing, you know? And we're closer now than we've ever been. You know, a lot of couples really can't work together. And I thought that would be us sequestered in another room because we're both on calls, but we're just doing this together. Yeah.

And we're building it together. Oh, I love that. And... I've always wanted that. I... And I, you know, this was an accident, the way it all happened, but it is a skill set I didn't realize he had. And we are absolutely hand-in-hand.

Doing this together and he's so supportive, like I get lost in the sauce. Right. And all of a sudden I'll look down and he's put a plate of food in front of me, you know, when forever I was the cook, you know, I came from a restaurant family. I was like, and he's like, well, he says, I just want to eat. So, and you're so busy. You don't really, you stop eating. And so he's like, if I want to eat, I need to cook. And so he's kind of taken over since, you know, he's working from home, like semi-retired.

He says he's working for a startup. It's our family business. The supplement business. By the way, I just ordered yesterday for the first time your supplements. I ordered the fiber. Cannot wait because I need more fiber. We all need more fiber in addition to our protein. So once you come out with the protein pill, let me know. And I got, what else did I get?

the creatine, the collagen. We just have a few. Yeah. It's not overwhelming, your supplement range. These are nutritional things that women tend to not get in menopause. And my patients were coming in with all of this stuff with fillers and additives. And I was like, yeah, yeah. You know, it is, that's another really crowded space where it's hard to see. And I was like,

Can I look into, you know, my business partner and I, let's look into like, like what would it take for me to build a high quality tested, you know, ethically sourced, right. You know, good high quality vitamin D product. Cause my patients are not getting enough vitamin D. I'm scared of some of the stuff they're bringing in.

Let's try it. You know, we self-funded. I have no VC. I have no bankers. I have nothing. Like my husband and I funded this whole thing out of our own bank account. And, you know, it's just this beautiful like mom and pop thing that we've done. But we did it our way. And it's

Tested high quality. If your listeners, they don't want to buy from me, it's fine. All of my information is free. I will never have it behind a paywall. There's so much information. We have a website that is stock and packed full of stuff so you can live your best life. And you choose to support me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but we're okay. I just want you to be your healthiest, happiest self. Right.

I mean, that's, I can feel like if I'm going to buy a supplement, I want to buy it from you. I don't, I'm not associated with you or whatever. I'm not, I'm not paying her to say this. I even bought my own products. Like, you know what I mean? Like I, I feel like, you know what I need because you've been through it and you've just devoted your life. I see where the gaps are for most women. And I'm like,

Get a little tracker. They're free. Track what you're eating. See where your gaps are. You know, see if you can get it up from food. But if you can't, I'm here for you. I'm not that good at tracking. That sounds like a lot of work. Really? You know, if they've got a good basic diet, they only need to track for a couple weeks to just kind of see where they're at. It's like getting blood work once a year. You want to see where you're at. You know, you're probably doing okay. And then you were like, oh, gosh, I'm not getting enough magnesium. Yeah.

I need to work on that. Oh my gosh, I'm only getting 10 grams of fiber a day, which is what most women are getting. We need 25 to 35. This is big gaps that we have. How do I know if I'm getting enough magnesium? Is it in my food that I'm getting that? We get a lot of magnesium from food, but

And so like vitamin D is fat soluble. So like you can check a vitamin D level and it gives you an idea of what her stores are. Magnesium is tough because it's stored in like bone and, you know, stored in the side of tissues. So we don't have like a good gauge and it's an electrolyte. So you pee it out all the time. So it's hard to get a one time blood test and be like, oh, I'm low in magnesium. So I really like to use the nutritional intake of magnesium to see where you're at, to see if you need a supplement.

Okay. Yeah. So that's the tracking. I got to get better about that. And you know what the thing is for me? It's like an experiment. I hate being on my phone more. So if it's a digital thing, I'm not going to do it. But here's what I could do. I could write it down and have somebody else track it for me. Put it in the little...

Yeah, that's going to work for me. I had just had an epiphany. I'm going to track myself, you guys. Do it with me. Track. Let's track. We have little tracking challenges with our followers. Yeah, you do. You have some great challenges and just so much great information. Thank you. It's a labor of love. It's so much fun. As a friend, I care about you. Like we don't go back that far, but I instantly cared about you when I met you in the elevator at Q50. Yeah.

And I feel like I'm in safe hands. I turn to you for, you know, I'm like, my body hurts. What can I do? And you send me a doctor. And I trust your supplements. So I just want to thank you for all that you do. Just for your own ambition, but for your own love of helping and educating women. Because we have to do that as women. We have to. When we go through something, we need to pass that information down. And you have to be CEO of your own healthcare. If your listeners...

Nothing else. You have to advocate for yourself. You have to do the hustle.

to keep those bones and muscles strong. You have to keep your brain strong. You know, like these are non-negotiables if you want to age well. And so, you know, what, any little part I can to give you the tools to do that better and easier, it just makes me so happy. I always said, people ask me over the years, like, what do you do? You know, what are you doing? What do you, what are you working on? And my answer has always been, I've been so confused about how to answer that because I do so much, but, and I can't really narrow it down to one thing. So I always ended up saying, I'm the CEO of me.

And I think every woman should adopt that title as a CEO of herself. I love that. Yeah. I'm the CEO of me. But ironically, I am the CEO of me. Yeah. Yeah, you are. I choose me. Which I love. But it's just so wild that that can be your full-time focus. You know what I mean? And it's okay. Yeah.

I love, you know, when I watch you on QVC, which is super fun for me. You know, when you're talking about your line and why you built it and how it's for every woman, I love that it's, you know, every shape, every size. And, you know, I have a body scanner in my office for my patients. And so I'm able to tell her,

You're not fat. You have muscle, you know, like, like look at this glorious amount of muscle and the, and the fat that you have is just curves and they're gorgeous and we're going to dress them up and show them off. And, and they're just crying because they've been told that they were obese or something their whole life. And I'm like, yeah, once you think you're obese, you feel like you don't have any muscle anymore. No.

I mean, and, and you know, weight and BMI are now kicked out, right? We're not using them as measures of risk of chronic health anymore. We're using things like body scanners and abdominal circumference. I mean, like we're, we're getting strides there. Yeah. In, in cardiovascular health though.

Yeah. Cardiometabolic health. We're not doing weight and BMI. Not BMI anymore. Oh, interesting. We are working that out. We're using the abdominal circumference or the waist-hip ratio plus. So obesity is now defined by the waist-hip ratio or abdominal circumference plus one like cardiometabolic risk factor, like hypertension, insulin resistance, diabetes, et cetera.

That now is what obesity is defined by, which is pretty powerful. It's going to take a minute for like the rest of the world to catch up and all practitioners, but that is definitely something that's moving in the right direction. How are you holding up? Are you tired at all from all this work that you're doing? You know, I'm doing seven podcasts in a special, in a primetime special. But like I have the greatest team with me and we are eating super healthy and getting our workouts in, well, kind of. And...

it's a giving, you know, I'm just giving and giving and giving. And that's my favorite thing to do. And I know that I'm speaking to a microphone, but we're going to reach millions of people with all these conversations and give them tools and make them feel better about themselves and give them motivation to live their best lives. So,

So that is what feels better. Yeah. I fly home, go to a Mardi Gras ball the next night. Okay. Yeah. And then the next day we fly to Australia for another event. Oh boy. I'm speaking at the opera house, which is like bucket list. Yeah. There's a menopause event at the Sydney opera house. That's so cool. So we're doing that. We sold out the opera house in like three days. Wow.

And then the next day we're doing a medical conference for clinicians and I'm doing some other, you know, work stuff, book stuff around that. And then my husband and I are going to take a week and just travel. Nice. Yeah. I've never been. Oh, that's right. I haven't either. It's always been on my list. Yeah. Okay. So you're doing so much. You're so amazing. You're on the run. You're always thinking of how to help other people.

We're running around with a weighted vest on. Wait, first of all, the weighted vest, you told me before you're working on that with QVC. How's that? Is there anything happening? We're still in talks. Okay. I'm waiting for it. We're in talks. So with like a subsidiary, but yeah, we're getting there. I just bought a little trampoline. How do you feel about that? So great studies looking at

bouncing and jumping and bone density. So anything that stimulates the musculoskeletal units, rebounders are showing to have improvement. Just be careful if you're incontinent, you know, you know, so go with an empty bladder, but there's, you know, reasonable studies that look at, you know, box jumping and bouncing, uh,

to stimulate the musculoskeletal unit for bone density. Now, people like it for the pelvic floor. You know, there's other things that it has. You know, it's good cardio. It's fun. So yeah, I'm a fan. I have another question about the weighted vest. Okay, I have fake hips. Anytime I carry a bag, a backpack, something that adds weight onto my load...

My hips don't feel good. Okay. So the nice thing about the weighted vest, you want to start low. So the benefits for bone density seem to start for most women. This was women who were in assisted living. So they were older, frail. They already had osteoporosis. We think it's preventative, but no one's done that. We're getting there to that study. But the weighted vest, the thing about the vest versus a backpack is that the weight is equally distributed front and back. Front and back.

And so you get this just on the axial skeleton. So you have it down the spine and the hips. Now your hips are bionic. It's down. And so I would start lighter than that 10%. I would go with an eight pound to start. Okay. And then go from there. See how you do. Get stronger. Okay.

The recommendation for osteoporosis starts at 10% of ideal body weight. That might be too heavy for someone to start with. They're not conditioned or you already have, you know, you don't want to hurt your hips. Get the eight pounder, try it out, see how you feel. And then when you're strong enough, move up. Next time I talk to you, I'm going to be wearing my weighted vest on my rebounder. Everything's going to be different. Drinking your protein, taking your protein pills. My protein pills. Oh my God. Okay. With everything that's going on,

Mary Claire, what was your last I choose me moment? Oh, probably this morning, you know, let them, let them, let them. Just learning to take the negative out, focus on the positive and the good in the world. Every day. And just keep, know what is true about myself. That I am here for a mission. I'm here for a purpose. God put me here.

And this was not an accident. And that whatever my skill set is as a science communicator, as an empath, as someone who truly cares about the health of women and the health that is being brought forth to the children I brought into this world, I need to keep going. That's what you got to do. I'm here for you. Keep going. I love you. I love you too.

Hi, it's Jenny Garth. Feeling confident in my skin is non-negotiable, and that's why I choose Perricone MD. Perricone MD's triple retinol renewal face and eye serums are powerful but gentle, boosting cell turnover for visibly smoother, firmer skin. Since I've started using these serums exclusively, I've noticed that my skin is more radiant, it's glowing, and people are asking me more and more, why?

What do you use on your skin? Having confidence in the way your skin looks starts with Perricone MD. Visit perriconemd.com and use code JENNIE for 40% off your order for a limited time. perriconemd.com code J-E-N-N-I-E. Everyone's talking about the weight loss benefits of GLP-1 medications, but let's be honest, they can be hard to get and extremely expensive.

That's where Henry Meds comes in. Whether you have insurance or not, Henry Meds makes compounded GLP-1 weight management treatments affordable and accessible for everyone that qualifies. You could save over $1,000 a month compared to brand name versions with no hidden fees or surprise costs. It's time to start your weight management journey with Henry Meds. Visit henrymeds.com today.

Results may vary. Not all patients are eligible. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Consult a healthcare provider to determine if treatment is right for you. Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway. It's stock up savings time. Now through March 27th, spring in for store-wide deals and earn four times the points. Look for in-store tags to earn on eligible snacks like Alshine fruit bars and Ritz crackers or sweet treat favorites like Nestle drumsticks, Nerds gummy clusters,

and Lindor chocolates, plus many more. Then clip the offer in our app for automatic event-long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Restrictions apply. Visit Safeway.com for more details.

Experience vibrant senior living with award-winning services at Brightview Senior Living Communities. At Brightview, our residents enjoy resort-style amenities, daily programs, exciting social and cultural events, and delicious chef-prepared meals. But that's not all. Brightview residents also enjoy complimentary transportation, safety, security, and high-quality care if needed. Brightview Senior Living Communities. Learn more about the possibilities at brightviewseniorliving.com.

Give your kids a summer full of fun and learning. Give them ID Tech. ID Tech camps are all about high energy fun, meeting new friends, and our top elite instructors. Located at 75 prestigious college campuses all across the country, ID Tech features over 50 epic courses like BattleBots, AI, and machine learning, coding, game design, and more. There's something for every kid

ages 7 to 17 at ID Tech. Sign up at IDTech.com and use code IDTech to save $150 on a week of a lifetime.