WEBVTT - Testosterone and Estrogen: Wondrous Hormones 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:17.160 Chuck and Jerry's here too, back again on the trip 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.239 of a lifetime and it's the Three Amigos, the Three Musketeers, 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:23.680 the Trace Caballeros. Stuff. 0:00:24.239 --> 0:00:30.120 That's right, talking about e n t Oi oi oi. 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.199 Hey, that was pretty good, Chuck. I was not expecting that. 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:39.159 Sometimes sometimes there's like a little pause in between you 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.040 talking and me responding, and it's because I'm just astounded. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.920 And that was a good example of that. You did great. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:49.800 Yeah, and t Baby, let's do it. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:55.040 Okay. So we're talking today about testosterone estrogen. What people 0:00:55.240 --> 0:01:00.800 commonly think of are the two hormones, the female hormone 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:05.280 the male hormone, and that those are what divides us. 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.720 The sexes are binary, they're bisexual, there's male, there's female. 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.119 Gender is a totally different topic, as we'll talk about 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.440 a little bit. But if you have a lot of estrogen, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.000 you're female, a lot of testosterone, you're a male, and 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.880 it turns out that we can trace that that's all 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:27.800 like generally incorrect. It's such a such a broad stroke 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:31.920 explanation of estrogen and testosterone that it actually has tripped 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:36.000 us up all this time. And just from researching this, Chuck, 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.200 I learned like, wow, this is if we had just 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:43.080 never considered estrogen female in testosterone male, I think our 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.760 general understanding of those two hormones would be so much deeper. 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:49.920 Yeah, and it's one of those things where we can 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:54.320 trace back to a time where that sort of whole 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.320 notion came from. And of course, you know, it's early science. 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.320 They were trying to figure stuff out. But starting about 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.640 the mid nineteenth century is when scientists started kind of 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:12.720 going wild with animals and organs and doing things like, hey, rat, 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.720 let me remove your testicles and let me put some 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.440 ovaries in you and see what happens. 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:19.320 And there was a lot of this going on. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.160 There was a British physiologist named Ernest Starling who actually 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.880 coined the word hormone from the Greek word to excite 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:29.600 in nineteen oh five. And this is sort of right 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.560 around that time in the early nineteen hundreds, when there 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:36.200 were other scientists and physiologists doing all kinds of wacky 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:37.640 experiments to see what happened. 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.639 Yeah, and we should say hormones are simply chemical messengers 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:46.160 that basically relay messages and trigger responses or keep responses 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.519 from happening in the body, and that estrogen and testosterone 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.360 are two kinds of hormones, specifically steroid hormones, meaning they're 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.600 made from cholesterol, which for some reason I find really. 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:03.280 Gross, so well, you might find this gross too. Then 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.679 there's an Austrian named Eugene Steinach who was doing these 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:11.120 kinds of experiments that I was just talking about, and 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.960 he was saying, like, came here, frog, let me poke 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.200 around your testicles and get some liquid out of there. 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.959 Let me, like I said earlier, let me take this rat, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.040 let me castrate it, let me transplant some ovaries onto 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.080 this rat, and then observe what happens. And Steinach was 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:29.880 one of those early scientists who kind of led to 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:36.960 this sort of binary idea that you know, if you 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:39.080 do this, you're going to feminize a rat, or you're 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.000 going to masculinize a rat if you do that. 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:42.360 Sort of the vice versa operation. 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:45.680 Yeah, but very very quickly there were people even back 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.400 then scientists that were like, oh, wait a minute, this 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.920 is it's not quite as binary as you're making it 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.200 out to be. And there's plenty of examples and reasons why. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.760 Yeah, you could almost lay the entire problem at the 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.560 feet of Eugene Steinach. That he was the one who 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.880 basically said that humans are bisexual as how we put it, 0:04:02.920 --> 0:04:06.160 binary sexes male female, and it depends on whether you 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.720 have testosterone or estrogen. And like you said, he got pushedback. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.960 There was one guy in particular, an embryologist named Carl Moore, 0:04:13.000 --> 0:04:16.000 who was like, hey, Steinick, stop and think about what 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.240 you're saying here, Like, even without your you know, mad 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:25.279 scientist experiments, female rats do all sorts of like quote 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:30.200 male behaviors and vice versa. And even with your flip 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:35.360 flop you know, overreason gonad rats, they're still doing behaviors 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:40.479 that are are not easily assigned to one sex or 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:43.120 the other. So I'm not one hundred percent sure that 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.560 it's quite as cut and dry as you you have 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:52.640 have explained it. And Eugene Steinach had Carl Moore murdered silence. 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.919 Forever not true at least I don't think it is. 0:04:58.160 --> 0:04:59.800 I hope, okay, I just. 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:01.599 Tho you might have just leaned in with a pillow 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:02.920 and gave him the forever Hugin. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:03.320 That's right. 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:08.120 So flashing forward a little bit too, about the turn 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.400 of the twentieth century is when research got a little 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:15.279 more serious about it, and they found that extracts from 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:19.080 your ovaries could have beneficial treatments for things like hot 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:23.320 flashes during menopause, and it could stimulate what's called estros, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.599 which is where the word estrogen comes from. But estris 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.360 is like when an animal is in heat. If you've 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.240 ever seen a cat or something or a dog in heat, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.040 it's pretty clear that something different is going on, right, 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:41.680 And that word estrogen in nineteen oh six comes from 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.920 that word estrus, which is from the Greek word oystros, 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:47.480 which means mad desire. 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:49.600 It also sounds like a brand of. 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.719 Yogurt oysters, Yeah, oystros. Yeah. 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.400 So once these guys like this is the beginning of 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.360 the twentieth century, very late nineteenth but mostly the first 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.440 couple decades of the twentieth century, scientists are starting to 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.920 isolate hormones, and in particular sex hormones, and they're like, well, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.159 what happens if you give them to humans? Now forget 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:12.719 the frogs and rats and all that stuff. And what 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:14.800 they figured out very quickly is like you said, they 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.600 like menopause have been around for a while, and they're like, well, 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.680 women have menopause and estrogen seems to be the woman's 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.839 sex hormone. Let's give them estrogen and see what happens. 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.240 And it actually had a pretty beneficial effect. It's been 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:34.680 long known that estrogen given as like a drug can 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.560 treat symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes and stuff. And 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:43.359 the first estrogen, I guess prescription drug. It's called premarin, 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:52.200 which says like a perfectly legitimate, big pharma sound to it, right, Premarin. 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.640 That's a great name for a drug. But it's even 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:56.240 better if you know what it stands for. 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.680 Yeah, and this is well should we say when it 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.440 stands say what it is and then what it stands for. 0:07:03.040 --> 0:07:05.320 I think you can do both simultaneously. 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:09.720 Actually, well, it's not a synthetic estrogen. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:15.160 It was actually a natural isolated estrogen derived from the 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.840 urine of a pregnant horse. So premarin stood for pre 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:25.360 pregnant mayor mayor and the end from urine, so pre 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:26.920 maren pregnant horse urine. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:30.400 Yeah, and it was I believe this is nineteen thirty nine. 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.800 It was made of like ten different estrogens and was 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.559 available commercially in the US just a few years later, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.400 and by nineteen ninety two was the highest selling drug 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:41.679 in the United States. 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.200 Yeah, if you want to have a good idea of 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.840 just how crazy the pharmaceutical market has become in the US, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.960 Premarin was the I think you said, the most prescribed 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:54.960 drug in the US. 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:58.680 Well, the best selling I guess sho would match. Yeah, 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:00.720 the hit single exactly. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:05.320 So this hit single, Premarin in nineteen ninety seven had 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.440 revenues of one billion dollars. Pretty not shabby. It'd be 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.440 about two billion dollars today. Humera, the second best selling 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.760 drug in twenty twenty two, had revenues of twenty one 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.800 billion dollars. In that nuts like, that's that's just night 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.520 and day compared to how far we've I guess how 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.000 far we've come. It's one way to put it. But 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.760 the upsot is premar in was it was a lifesaver. 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.080 Men were like, hey, I'd like you to be sexually available. 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.840 Why don't you take this horse, you're in estrogen, And 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.479 when we were like, it solves my hot flash problems 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.640 sold so it actually, it really was very popular for 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.480 a while, and it wasn't until I think two thousand 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.560 and two that it just dropped off precipitously. 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.000 Right, Yeah, And we should mention too that this was 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.559 you know, it was obviously for things like hot flashes, 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.080 but they were also marketing it as a way to 0:08:57.160 --> 0:09:02.240 maintain femininity as you age, none other than William Masters 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:06.280 of Masters in Johnson's Fame Sex Crime. They said that 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.600 women should use the drug to avoid falling into the 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.400 third sex or the neutral gender, which is very off base, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.559 to say the least. But yeah, in two thousand and two, 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:22.839 things change because there was the Women's Tell Initiative released 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:28.160 a study about attitudes that that really like changed everything 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:30.760 when it comes to how women or people in general 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.400 think of hormone therapy when they said that it can 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:39.400 cause breast cancer, heart disease, blood clots, and stroke if 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.480 you take what was called by this time prim pro 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.200 which was Primaran and pro Vera as a you know, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:49.320 sort of a cocktail. And they they minute so much 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.240 they said, we're even stopping this study. But it turns 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.559 out there was just a lot of bad reporting about that, right. 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:57.800 Yeah. There's a New York Times magazine article about menopause 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.720 by a writer named Susan Dominus, who basically reported that 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.240 the media just jumped all over it. There's like, there's 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.959 a twenty six percent increased risk in developing breast cancer 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:14.760 if you take Prempro or generally have hormone replacement therapy, 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.920 and that's whopping. That's a big, a big number, a 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.080 big percentage. But in absolute numbers, it's actually not that big. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.360 So the average woman had a two point three to 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.040 three percent chance of developing breast cancer. If you took Prempro, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.480 you had a two point nine to nine percent chance, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.680 So like that was your twenty six percent increase, And 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.880 in real terms, it sorted out to, based on the 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.160 population at the time, an additional eight women developing breast 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:46.280 cancer out of every ten thousand who were taking replacement hormones. 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.640 Nothing to sneeze at those eight women. I'm sure would 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:51.120 much rather prefer not to have breast cancer. But the 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:55.920 point was the risks of it were grossly overstated, and 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.360 that it got but it got such a bad rap 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.720 because of the reporting that for a couple of decades, 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.640 just trust and hormone replacement therapy dropped off and a 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.199 lot of women suffered unnecessarily as a result. 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.280 Yeah, and I think they didn't even find that the 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:14.640 transdermal variety was in fact much safer than the other 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:15.400 way of taking it. 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:18.320 Yeah, absolutely so, Like if you take it orally, which 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.040 is what it was always before, pretty much it has 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.040 to go through your liver to be processed, and while 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:25.760 it's there it can do all sorts of nasty stuff 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.000 side effects that you don't really want, like causing thrombosis 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.280 and blood clots, it can lead to heart disease, whereas 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:33.959 if you do it transdermally, it just enters the bloodstream 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.560 and it does its thing with minimal side effects. So 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.640 we've reached the point today where your average kind of 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.559 coologists is probably going to say the benefits if you're 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:49.000 healthy outweigh the risk of taking it, especially if you 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:53.120 are under age sixty, and especially if you're under age 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.000 seventy and you start apparently there's a if you have 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.880 a gap between menopause and then start hormone replacement therapy 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.680 of a decade or two, then it can become pretty risky. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:06.960 And by the way, I don't have my lab code 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.160 on right now, I would advise you not to take 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:13.680 gecological health advice from me. Instead, ask your doctor. But 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.360 this is what I've seen from research. 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.640 Yeah, and that, I mean you say that virtually every 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.360 time you meet someone in person. I've heard you say 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:21.080 those same words. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:22.640 I'm big on that for sure. 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.319 Say Hi, Josh, nice to meet you. I dude, stuff 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.400 you should know. Please don't take onecological advice for me. Yeah, 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:30.480 no matter what comes out of my mouth at this 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:31.000 dinner part. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:32.720 I mean, it's just a smart thing to say. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:33.600 It is. 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.079 So this is all going on on the ester's in side, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.680 on the testosterone side, and we're gonna, you know, kind 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:43.559 of bop back and forth between. 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:43.840 The two of these. 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.920 That was isolated, I believe in nineteen thirty five. In fact, 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.480 that's when the name testosterone got its name, which is 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:54.560 sort of the big daddy mail hormone. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:56.320 And we'll talk about all the versions of these in 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:56.760 a second. 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.680 And on its own, testosterone, you know, wasn't doing very much. 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.360 But when they added estrone, which is a quote unquote 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:10.080 female hormone, it became very powerful. And in nineteen thirty nine, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:13.080 there were a couple of guys dude, name I guess 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.600 one guy, sorry, Leopold Ruska. Oh no, no, there were 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:22.400 two guys and Adolph Butenant of Germany. They won the 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:28.200 Nobel Prize for chemistry by working on largely testosterone, but 0:13:28.280 --> 0:13:31.480 you know sex hormones as a whole. And none other 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.520 than mister Adolf Hitler was one of the early adopters 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.240 when it came to a testosterone treatment. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:39.520 Yeah, he had low tit. 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:43.080 I meant to send you this, and I'm sorry I didn't, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.560 but I turned up something that there was in British 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.240 World War two military files. There were like a bunch 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.600 of ideas of how to like basically take neutralized Hitler, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:58.840 and one of them was to start slipping estrogen into 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.080 his food and that over time it would basically turn 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:08.920 him from a maniac, murderous killer psycho to maybe a 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:12.880 little calmer, maybe a little more feminized. And the whole 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:15.240 idea was that if you put poison in his food, 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.520 he had tasters, and the tasters would die from the 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.640 poison and he would know that he was being poisoned. 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:22.680 That would not happen with estrogen. It would take place 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.840 over such a long time they wouldn't be able to 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.080 taste it that that apparently it was never even attempted, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.000 or certainly not carried out, but that was someone's idea 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:36.040 to take care of Hitler. It would have been hilarious, dude, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.560 to see that transition, like had they done that, and 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:40.160 then just to be able to look back all these 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.320 years later and watch the progression. 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.280 There's a Benny Hill sketch in there somewhere, for sure, 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:47.560 I think so. 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:47.720 So. 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.760 Initially, medically speaking, the first use of testosterone was to 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:58.000 try and cure homosexuality in males, which was a needless 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.760 to say, it spectacularly back fired because all it did was, 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.760 you know, it didn't alter any orientation. It just created 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:10.520 I guess super tops and power bottoms and ramped up 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:14.200 to sex drive. And then of course trans people. This 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.600 was you know, very early in the days of hormone 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.640 therapy for trans people. It was actually going on, and 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.080 in fact, we did a whole episode in April twenty 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.880 nineteen called Michael Dillon Trans Pioneer about the Englishman who 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.920 was I mean, I think probably the first person at 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:36.000 least from the female to male transition to use that 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:37.200 hormone in nineteen forty. 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.760 Yeah, yeah, it definitely was from what we could tell. 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.160 And by the way, if you go back and listen 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.120 to that episode, if you're like, oh my goodness. 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:45.680 We heard from listeners. 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.120 We goofed up the pronouns on that one because we thought, 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.120 and this is five years ago, we know better now, 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.000 but we thought it would be a good idea to 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:58.200 sort of let the pronouns follow the journey of Michael 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.200 Dillon's life. And you know, we know better now, So 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:02.960 just take that with a grain of salt. 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.720 Yeah, kid, co. And while we're on that, we should 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.080 probably say we're using male and female and man and 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:15.160 woman just generally a shorthand, a biological shorthand. With the 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:18.840 advent of trans people, there there's a much more specific 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:23.280 way of talking about that. Specifically, we would we should 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:27.040 be saying typically developing assigned male at birth or assigned 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.120 female at birth, people who haven't altered their hormones. Right, 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.480 that's tough to say over and over again, rather than 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.960 man or woman. So please forgive us for that. We're 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:39.800 not we're not being disrespectful in that way, and we're 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.800 certainly not excluding trans people from this, because this very 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.040 much has a lot to do with trans. 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.200 Yeah, and well you know that'll come in part too, obviously. 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:50.520 For sure. I say we take a break and come 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:52.800 back and we'll start talking about estrogen. 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:53.680 Let's do it. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:19.040 All right, So we're back with estrogen. Welcome to the studio, estrogen. 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:23.480 How have you been doing so? That is, usually you 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:26.240 think of estrogen as one of the two female sex 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:31.639 hormones with progesterone, and it is actually a family of 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.320 three hormones, the first one being estrone, and that is 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:41.000 the that's not the money estrogen, that's the weakest one menopause. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:44.000 You know, it keeps getting produced through menopause. It's made 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.600 in the adrenal glands, it's made in the ovaries, it's 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.800 made in fatty tissue, and it can actually serve as 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.840 a sort of a warehouse keeping place for estrogen. 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.040 Right, yeah, for sure. So here's where we get to 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.560 the idea that it's just misguided. Think estrogen is a 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.360 woman's sex hormone and that's it. There's so much more 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.920 to it. The whole reason you would continue producing estrogen 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.240 as a woman in some form or fashion after menopause. 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:13.400 I mean, if you're not having sex, if you can't 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.480 reproduce any longer, why would you produce estrogen? You would 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.159 produce a weaker version because it's still doing other things 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:23.359 like it's really important for bone growth and muscle development 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.560 and to keep yourself active. There's a lot of stuff 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:34.080 that estrogen does just beyond forming the reproductive system or 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:35.639 for sexing females. 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:38.680 Yeah, and we also did mention and this is probably 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:42.880 if someone wants more quote unquote proof. Estrogen is found 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:44.359 in plants like rice. 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.800 Yeah, I mean, we could just end the podcast right here. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.720 Testosterone is not found in plants, only in the animal world. 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:53.560 But we'll get to that, all right. The next one 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:55.600 we come to that was E one. By the way, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.840 E two is estra diol, which is this is the estrogen. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.320 This is the potent one. This is made in the 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.360 ovaries of women and made in the testes of men. 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.280 Once again, men and women both have each in different levels. 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.640 And this is the one that really like kicks in 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:19.600 during puberty and then takes a break during menopause. Not 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:21.160 a break but more like a retirement. 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:24.240 Yeah, it goes to Florida. 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:25.200 Yeah exactly. 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.639 Maybe yeah Flora for once. I'm just gonna stick with 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:34.520 my original one. Good Astriol is another one. This one 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:39.080 is mostly produced during pregnancy to help the uterus grow, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.200 and it also helps with breastfeedings. It leads to most 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:47.560 of the body changes during pregnancy. You can thank estriol 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.919 for that. And there are other types of estrogen, but 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.760 typically it's those three. Those are the big ones. And 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.080 it's obviously everyone knows estrogen is the reason that you 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.320 have breasts and that your hips fill out, and that 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.920 it has a lot to do with a woman's monthly cycle, right, 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.719 And that's absolutely true. That has a lot to do 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:09.919 with everything, like that's what estrogen does. But it is 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:15.640 again it's important for metabolizing muscles, for preventing your muscles 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:20.439 from injury. It also contributes to endurance, which if you 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.800 read about ultra marathons, women tend to dominate those I 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.760 was reading about, Like short runs, men can outrun women 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.760 very easily. Marathons typically men win. But then as you 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.080 get further and further and further, and actually there's a 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:39.040 moment I think it's like like one hundred and fifty 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.080 miles or some mind boggling amount of distance, women start 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.840 to slowly overtake men. And then the longer you go, 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:51.919 the further ahead, women finish before men in tests of 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:54.720 endurance like that, and they think it's because they have 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.639 higher stores of estrogen, which is helping their muscles work better. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.720 So you talked about good for like you know, muscle 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.119 growth and muscle formation. Sure, Also estrogen can help facilitate 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:13.320 brain activity, skin elasticity, which you know, is that why 0:21:14.320 --> 0:21:16.879 like wrinkles happen as you age? Is that because of 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:19.440 drop and among other things in estrogen? 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:22.800 I would think so. I think it's also just they've 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.840 been around the block so many times, like skin, I mean. 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:31.040 Yeah, yeah, So if you're a doctor, doctor Clark. 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:33.600 Well, no, okay, why am I? 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.480 Why am I going wrinkley around the eyes here? What's 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:39.680 going on with physiologically with my body? You know, it's 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:40.400 been around the block? 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:43.840 What more? What more can I say? And also, don't 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:45.680 take any gynecological advice from me. 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:48.600 Right, I'd be like, I thought you're a dermantologist. Oh 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:49.160 I'm neither. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:50.080 Oh boy. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.840 So estrogen is something that can affect mood, but you 0:21:54.880 --> 0:22:00.200 know it's it fluctuates. I think pre menopausal women have 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.840 a range of about thirty to forty pikeograms per mili liter, 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:08.600 But it varies from person to person. And then like 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.200 we said, it rises and falls during the menstrual cycle. 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:14.560 It's not like a set number. I think Postman Apostle 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:20.040 that drops all the way down from literally zero to thirty. 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:21.160 And then for. 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:23.879 Men, for guys like you and me, yeah, we have 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.880 a range of about ten to fifty. I'm probably more 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.679 like fifty five or sixty would be my guess. 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.399 So I'm right there with you, buddy. So again, the 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:35.480 reason why men would have it at all is because 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:39.400 it's not just the woman's sex a female sex hormone. 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.359 It does other stuff. Just I can't say this enough 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:44.479 because it was such a sure you can like it, 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.400 It was such an epiphany for me. I'm just like, Oh, 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:52.399 I had no idea that it was this, that things 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.600 overlap this much. Yeah, I mean I didn't think it 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:57.600 was just like cut and dry, but I knew there 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.320 was some crossover, but I didn't realize just how much 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:04.240 Steinbach screwed us up with that whole binary thing. 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:05.200 Yeah. 0:23:05.240 --> 0:23:07.720