ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Finally, Human Hormones Explained - How They Can Help As We Age with Dr. Robert Yoho
Hormones should be a part of general primary care There are many indications for hormones for younger women, especially women who've had a hysterectomy, who've had ovarian failure, It may be you know that we're getting discouraged or it may be that there are toxic chemicals or maybe something about the high sugar diet or something but it's a phenomenon over many decades.
About Dr. Robert
I was born in l953 in Richmond, Virginia, and grew up in Kent, Ohio, (known for the Kent State riots during the Vietnam war). I was an Eagle Scout and a Judo wrestler.
I spent four years at Oberlin College and went to Small College National Championships in Varsity Wrestling his senior year. I was then accepted at one of the finest medical schools in the United States, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
At 22 years old, one year into my medical education, I decided that I needed to "find myself" and took a two-year sabbatical. After starting and managing a tree surgery business, I went to Wyoming to work on oil drilling rigs, and then spent the next year traveling to rock climbing areas.
I became a master climber and traveled to cliffs in twelve states. Additionally, I published articles in climbing magazines and made "first ascents" at Devil's Tower, Wyoming, and Joshua Tree, California. I made an early ascent of "The Naked Edge," a classic climb near Denver, and climbed the Long's Peak Diamond. As recently as the mid-1980s, I climbed such difficult classics as Astroman, the west face of El Capitan, and the Crucifix in Yosemite, free climbing up to a mid-"5.12" difficulty level. I climbed the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome in 18 hours in 2004 and the Nose route on El Capitan in less than 24 hours in 2005.
After returning to medical school in l978, I found that bodybuilding complemented my studies. With the added responsibility of specialty training and professional pressures, I had less opportunity for athletics in the past decade. However, I ran 14 triathlons in the late '80s and early '90s and made time for some Kempo Karate (though injuries sidelined me). I have practiced Astanga (flow) Yoga and trained with the legendary 70-year-old master Yogi, Frank White, at the "Center For Yoga" in Hollywood. More recently, I practiced Bikram Yoga and concluded, "it's way hot in there." (105 to 115 degrees F). I currently practices Baptiste Yoga every day.
I married a wonderful woman from Trinidad and had three kids. My son Alan became an All American cross country star in high school, and he and his twin Sarah graduated from Brown University. He now works at Google and Sarah at Nasdaq. Hannah, their older sister, managed a group at the Four Seasons Resorts by the time she was 24.
Curriculum Vitae: cosmetic surgery career (now retired)
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1953
INTERESTS
Children, weight lifting, rock climbing, psychology, writing, kayak, Ashtanga and Bikram yoga. Bookworm: Reading averages 3 new books a week. Climbed El Capitan 4 x, Half Dome, Sentinel, Astroman (5.11c), Crucifix (5.12b) in Yosemite. New routes: a grade 5 in Zion and El Matador (5.11) at Devil's Tower, others at Joshua Tree. Climbed regular route on Half Dome in 17 hours 2004.
EDUCATION
1971-1975 : Oberlin College
Oberlin, Ohio
1975-1981: Case Western Reserve Univ. Medical School
10900 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, Ohio. 44106-4920
POSTGRADUATE TRAINING
1981 - 1982: Internal Medicine Internship R 1 year
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH
1982 - 1983: Dermatology Residency R 2 years
Hanover, New Hampshire at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, New Hampshire
1983 - 1985: Emergency Medicine Residency Training
Los Angeles County Hospital LAC/USC Medical Center
1200 N. State St. Room 1011, Los Angeles, CA
Huntington Memorial Hospital, Pasadena, CA
WORK HISTORY
2020-2021 full-time writer.
2019: retired from my medical and surgical practice and resigned my medical license. I had a fantastic career, and I was initially sad to end it. But I was soon relieved that I was no longer responsible for patient care and was able to write full time without conflicts of interest. See also the first chapter of Butchered by Healthcare for the circumstances, included on this website under "Writing."
1992-2019: Cosmetic surgery practice, Pasadena, Visalia, and Oxnard, California. Liposuction, breast implantation specializing in through the umbilicus (belly button), laser blepharoplasty, face-lifts, facial implants, laser resurfacing, vein treatments, hair transplantation. Operated medical hyperbaric chamber between 1996 and 2000.
1987-1994: General practice in Pasadena, California.
1984-1987: Employed by the Huntington Memorial Hospital Emergency Medicine Group,
SPECIAL EXPERTISE
One of the most extensive experiences in the United States with tumescent liposuction and Brazilian butt lift with fat. Some of our liposuction supply vendors say we are their largest account internationally for several years.
Trans-umbilical breast augmentation is a surgery that many try, but few become proficient. Thousands performed.
One of only two surgeons in the United States who passed the specialty boards in both cosmetic surgery and emergency medicine.
PAST MEMBERSHIPS IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
Los Angeles County Medical Society
California Medical Association
American Society of Cosmetic Breast Surgery
Fellow, American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery
ACADEMIC STAFF APPOINTMENTS (INACTIVE)
Drew-King Medical Center, assistant clinical professor, Department of Dermatology. Training residents in cosmetic surgery techniques.
BOARD CERTIFICATION EXAMINATIONS TAKEN AND PASSED (NOW INACTIVE):
American Board of Emergency Medicine (ABEM), 1987. Re-certification examination passed l999 and 2009. 3000 Coolidge
Rd., East Lansing, Michigan 48823-6319
American Board of Dermatologic Cosmetic Surgery passed in 1999. Recertification passed ten years later. 18525 Torrence Ave., Lansing Illinois 60438. (708) 474-7200.
American Board Laser Surgery passed in 2000.
417 Palmtree Dr. Bradenton, Florida 34210-3009.
ACLS re-certification 1999, 2002, 2005. ATLS in past.
Member, Fellow, and Past President, American Society of Cosmetic Breast Surgery: testing included written and oral examination as well as peer observation of surgical technique.
PEER REVIEW WORK
Produced with Robert Goldweber, M.D., Socrates Emergency Medicine Oral Boards Review Course, 1987. This was distributed nationwide for over 5 years.
Emergency Medicine Residency Director Huntington Memorial Hospital (coordinated and trained Los Angeles County Hospital emergency medicine residents) 1985-1987.
Board of Directors of California Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, 1998-2000.
Outpatient surgical facilities reviewer training for IMQ surgical centers and AAAHC surgical centers. (Inactive)
Testified before California Medical Board 6/01 regarding liposuction standards and 11/02 regarding expert witness problems.
Full Transcript Below
Finally. Human Hormones Explained, How They Can Help As We Age with Dr. Robert Yoho
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
thyroid, studies, hormones, hormone, drugs, testosterone, Alzheimer's, people, estrogen, women, progesterone, doctors, book, called, patent, terry, years, months, patients, endocrinologist
SPEAKERS
Robert, Terry, Roy Barker
Roy Barker 00:03
Hello and welcome to another episode of AGEUcational This is Roy,
Terry 00:07
this is Terry
Roy Barker 00:07
so this podcast Chronicles our journey not almost a my journey through agent Terry is always timeless, she hasn't aged in years. I have him trained and then and also our parents, you know, we are dealing more and more we just in the midst of a move with my parents, and Terry's had some her pet her father she lost to Alzheimer's a few years ago and then her mother is doing well. But you know, we still have the challenges with the payers programs and different things like that. Also, we'd like to have a guest from different disciplines on and today is no different. Dr. Robert is going to be with us and I'll let Terry introduce him.
Terry 00:48
Dr. Robert Yoho is our guest today he is 67 years young. He practiced medicine in the United States and rich and retired two years ago. He was a Board Certified Emergency Physician and later a Board Certified Cosmetic Surgeon. He did breast enhancement, liposuction and facial procedures. He's recently published two books "Butchered by Healthcare" and "Hormone Secrets", and calls himself a healthcare whistleblower. Dr. Yoho Welcome to the show. We're happy to have you today. Thank you, Jerry.
Roy Barker 01:23
Yeah, thanks so much for taking time out of your day. I mean, we got a you know, there's a lot to talk about, I think we want to really focus on the hormones, but we'd like for, you know, can you just give us a brief overview of the the whistleblower book. Okay,
Robert 01:38
so this is my other book butchered by healthcare, it's the first one I wrote. And it tells the story, everyone in America knows that our healthcare system is broken, it's obvious, but nobody understands quite why. And we're like, person describing an elephant. Somebody's got their hand on the tail, somebody's got the hand on the little toenail. And somebody, somebody's got the hand on the trunk. So we, even the medical specialties understand, there are things wrong, some of the internals for example, know pretty well that the cardiologists are doing a lot of stuff that isn't well supported by science to put the kindest spin on it. And to put the worst spin on it, they're doing a lot of stuff for money, that doesn't work. Right. So the bottom line with health care in America is we showered money out of the sky onto this industry, to the point where we're paying twice per person, what any other developed country pays. And there are many, many academics that think 50% of what we do is either ineffective or actually injurious, right. So we've got a mess on our hands. And everybody understands that when they go into see their doctors, they find that the doctors are looking at their computers, they're all they're required to spend. They spend literally 25 to 50% of their time documented things on their computer. I mean, that's the figure. And I know it's hard to believe, but that's literally true if you look it up. Yeah. So So I wrote I wrote this book after examining one field after another, and the whole I thought I was gonna uncover a little can of worms. But what I uncovered was a dumpster full of worms. I mean, it's it's a mess from the start to the finish. The insurance companies clip 20 or 25%, off the entire roughly $4 trillion gross revenues of healthcare. I mean, it's amazing. They administrate the whole thing. The pharmaceutical companies. They give up billions of dollars every year in criminal federal prosecutor settlements, and that makes them in that, by that measure, the most criminal industry in history. I mean, it's an unbelievable thing. And so they have over the last 20 years, they have openly ruined most of the science behind their studies that they're required to produce for in order to get their drugs approved and patented. We have a patent system that allows profiteering like you wouldn't believe it when when the when the corporate interest found out how much money that was to be made in healthcare. It attracted entrepreneurs, and worse, it attracted the crooks. So that's what we're seeing in healthcare, we have a system that is so heavily influenced and ruined by money, that even the doctors who have the best training in the room, we cannot keep our head screwed on tight. We have fields like oncology that have over half of their income is produced by retailing drugs that are outrageously expensive that cost 100,000 or more a year. We have I mean, it's just it's a crazy scene and almost every specialty field has things that they're doing. They're absolutely wrongheaded is well documented. Nothing I say is original. It's all derivative of literature that's out for anyone to look for and look at if they want to But interestingly what I did for most of my career, and people asked me, How did I become a health healthcare whistleblower? If I was a cosmetic surgeon that surely that's the happiest thing and imaginable? Well, it was a great career. And, you know, you get to deal with women and that has, it's great. And it's questionable. Right? Sometimes I characterize that I said, it was like having, you know, 500 girlfriends, any one of which could get mad at you at any given time? Did I say that dairy,
Terry 05:31
and then they found out about each other?
Robert 05:37
Well, there's something happened. There, they're not happy all the time together. But anyway, so I had a couple of fatalities in my clinic within a five month period. And, you know, cosmetic surgeons are not supposed to have fatalities, we typically have a fatality, every career, right? Once a career, something happens, and and there's always some sort of special problem or some crazy thing, but I had to, and one of them was another surgeon operating in my facility, but it still was very painful. So it led me to re examine everything I was doing. And I got interested in general medicine, and somehow I bumbled into this corruption thing, what I eventually decided to call corruption, medical corruption. And it's ubiquitous. I mean, it's an amazing thing. But for most of my career, I also had a very happy practice, I prescribed hormones. And I never could figure out why hormones were so rundown by everyone. I mean, there's all these stories about cancer and heart disease and strokes and all this crazy stuff. And I after I wrote my corruption book that butchered by healthcare, I wrote another book that is called hormone secrets. And you can see it right there. And this picture of this, this is a mask and a Mexican mask. And it's got the names of the hormones on the mask. And that's supposed to represent the complexity going inside of Terry's head. Did I say that? It's true. Women are complicated. They're hormonally driven. And we all know that men are hormonally driven men. Of course they are and it but men experienced a more gradual slide than women, women hit a stone wall when they're 50, you know, call the menopause, and it's very difficult time. And it, many of them consider it existential problems or situational problems. But really, you can prevent and treat most of it by just supplemental hormones. So I I'm going to go in, as you guys develop this interview, I'm going to go into how the various influences made up a bunch of stories about hormones, and that are essentially untrue, and how healthy they are and how important they are for especially for seniors. And I don't think either you guys are on hormones or you know, okay, well, they have a particular interest for you.
Terry 08:02
Yes, yes. is the very educational mask is is I'm looking more and more like that Moscow that?
Robert 08:10
Well, that's not that mask is not just women who are over 50 mask is all women. So it's a complicated thing. Anyway, go ahead.
Roy Barker 08:19
I was just gonna say that, you know, I hear more and more about men my age being low on testosterone, and that it can help in so many ways, you know, with maintaining a better weight, and energy and different things like that. So that's why I'm very interested to hear more about this, because it's just something I've never really thought about going out and getting tested for when I was growing up.
Terry 08:43
I was gonna ask, what, when should women and men, when should they go in for a hormone panel? Does everybody need to do that at one time or another? Or content, you know, on a regular basis? What How do you know when your
Robert 09:01
hormones should be a part of general primary care? And there are many indications for hormones for younger women who, especially women who've had hysterectomy, who's had ovarian failure, and testosterone is dropping in our whole society in men. It's a phenomenal it's a phenomenal thing and the sperm counts are dropping, nobody knows why. It may be you know that we're getting discouraged or it may be that there are toxic chemicals or maybe something about the the high sugar diet or something but it's it's a phenomenon over many decades and testosterone replacement can treat many of these symptoms although it does render a person infertile you know, the men are in fertile after several years and also their waves shrink, which is permanent. You know, what if you care about that you better forget about testosterone theory, but testosterone is the second most important hormone after estrogen and since tests dosterone is broken down to estrogen. It's it supplies a source of estrogen for both for both men and women who both should get testosterone over a certain age because their testosterone levels drop so far.
Terry 10:12
At what age about at age 50.
Robert 10:15
So, you know, 50 is generally considered, I think anyone should be screened at 50. Although some men maintain high hormone levels into their 60s, I think it's reasonable. The main thing is, do you have symptoms? Are you tired, you feel not as sharp? Do you feel anxious, all those things are treated with testosterone therapy and, and Roy mentioned one of the stunning things about testosterone. The studies we have over a decade show continuous weight loss. So it's a better weight loss drug than anything we've ever had at the other drug. The other drugs we tend to put people on and off on testosterone is if you want the benefits, you want to continue taking the drugs and you want to take continue taking the rest of the hormones. Okay. Yeah, many, many benefits too.
Roy Barker 11:04
And I think the other thing too, is the kind of want to mention that the limits, you know, because I think a lot of these things get bad raps because somebody abuses them and takes 10 times as much or, you know, that's been a little bit. No, no, that's exactly. But you know, they take
Robert 11:23
the the starting bodybuilder dose is roughly up for a man is roughly 1000 milligrams a day, 1000 milligrams a week. And the standard replacement dose is 200 milligrams a week for everyone else. So now, it is true that there is some limit that causes problems, but it's there, these drugs are much safer than you can ever imagine. The bodybuilders don't freakin fall over with heart disease and all kinds of problems routinely. They have some problems, but it's not they're not well characterized, not well known.
Roy Barker 11:58
Yeah. Well, because a lot of the the other drugs that they push or that they used to push basically were they were just forms of what we used to call speed. In the old days. They were just something to kind of speed up your heart rate. You're in
Terry 12:11
caffeine pills. Yeah, yeah. Things like that. Well, they,
Robert 12:14
they take drugs to make them cells lose weight, they sometimes take thyroid, they, yeah, they take amphetamines, you know, like the kids with the with the Adderall and all that stuff. So and those things are actually moderately harmful. And certainly, if abuse long term, they're harmful. Those are not hormone that you know, thyroids, a hormone, but the Adderall class drugs are not hormones. They're 100 year old drugs. We understand a lot about the problems with them. We the best observers, in my opinion, are backing off the recommendations that we have universally medicator young people in school, but we got a third of the kids in Ivy League schools are taking those damn things. I mean, it's just it's awful. And the the animal studies show brain injury, brain shrinkage. I mean, it's there. They're not good for you. Yeah. You know, they can certainly aid short term performance. Yeah.
Roy Barker 13:05
So let's The other thing that you hear a lot about our I've heard a lot about lately, with this conversation is that I guess there's like a plant derivative or something that there's a chemical reactions, things that you can buy over the counter that may or may not be effective, they may or may not work. Can you speak to that as well? Sure.
Robert 13:30
Now, the Goldacre quote about because there are problems with aircraft design, it doesn't mean magic carpets fly. Right? Did I tell you that one before that, that applies here. And there is nothing that's over the counter that does a thing. Okay, so forget about that. You actually need to replace the actual hormones that bio identical or natural hormones, the same substances that you had, when you were younger, in in larger quantity in your body, those need to be replaced. And we have relatively inexpensive ways to do that, that have not they have not been able to patent these things. So they're, they're relatively inexpensive through compounding pharmacies, which make drugs for individual patients, you don't have to buy now some of these things are patented because the patent drug manufacturers are allowed to patent drugs for at individual doses, but that means nothing, I really would stay away from those they're good quality through a patent drug company, but they're outrageously expensive and their claims to unique qualities are incorrect. Okay,
Roy Barker 14:35
so, so basically, you know, what we need to do is go to a health care professional and there I guess they come as a prescription or you get is it an injection or a pill or how are they usually delivered?
Robert 14:48
Okay, so we have the main three hormones for women or progesterone estrogen, or Astra dial which is the natural main main one, and the progesterone is a natural progesterone and not provera provera is a chemical synthesize progesterone that causes various problems. And testosterone and testosterone can't comes there. There are multiple ways that we deliver these things. But generally speaking, if you want to try to remember one thing about the delivery systems, the creams don't work well except for testosterone. Okay? A woman can take three times a week and take a little smear of testosterone and get all kinds of great effects from it. But if she uses cream, estrogen or progesterone, she's likely to have to apply it three times a day to get levels that are high enough, your your blood levels are everything. And there are there are, you know, there nutritionist other people with agendas that are trying to tout salivary levels because they can get ahold of the salivary testing and profitably retail it for their patients, but it doesn't work very well. It just doesn't reflect exactly what the blood levels are, which are the bottom line for how good your health is. And I go into why and how that all works in in hormone sequence with the with the crazy girl on the front.
Roy Barker 16:06
So if if somebody went and got got the started taking them out, long would you expect to go before you see some market results,
Robert 16:16
week to a month. And then you you'll get I mean, the studies on a weight loss they they telescope out over 10 years. It's amazing. Some of these things like human growth hormone, which I mean, it's it's been rendered, almost politically impossible to prescribe. And if you do are courageous enough to prescribe it. It's outrageously expensive. Those human growth hormone can take three months to have a subjective change in how you feel. But and some people don't feel it very much. But if it could be the best hormone of all, we have all these freakin hormones, we have 50 to 100 years worth of experience with them. Just think about that. How many drugs can you say that we have? 50 are certainly not Prozac. Certainly not. Certainly not any of these antidepressants, certainly no psych drug, you know, No, none of the modern chemotherapy drugs, nothing do we have 50 to 100 years experience with now, the big pharma has not done double blind controlled placebo trials on hormones, because it's not profitable. They can't, they can't charge $25 a pill or 1000s of dollars a month for him because they're, they can't be patented, because they're human body components, except for in this, these certain circumstances, like special doses. Or they can patent a patch, which is a delivery system that goes on a woman's skin or a man's skin in order to deliver the warmer. But we have generic compounded variants of these things that mostly come in pill form that worked very well. The testosterone needs to go through your skin or injectable injectable is very inexpensive for women as $1 or two a week. That's it. And many, many people use that as a surrogate for the entire hormone panel, if you don't want to if you want, if you want to do something simple, Terry, inject yourself with a 10th of two tenths of a cc of testosterone, cypionate 200 milligrams per cc once a week, and you will relieve 80% of your menopausal symptoms and feel much more alert. your your your sexuality improved and your bones and your muscles will show signs of that make them look like you're 20 years younger. And so and the men, it's $10 to $15 a week. It's inexpensive, if you're willing to inject yourself and it's not as hard as it seems. You just in my book, I've got QR codes that you can scan with your camera, see the QR code. So you can scan that with your camera. And you can watch a video about how to do various things. I don't think I have an injection video but you know, it shows the syringes and it also has patient testimonials which are great.
Roy Barker 19:02
So what are some good?
Terry 19:03
No, I was gonna say, Gosh, I wish I had talked to you about 10 years ago.
Robert 19:07
No, no, no, it's not too late. Terry, not too late. No, not a bit, not a bit. it'll it'll make a difference now, that the data we have if people if women started 50 right when they're hitting menopause. It is true that we have stronger data for women starting at 50. And it seems to prevent Astra dial administration from then on seems to prevent Alzheimer's Alzheimers. And some studies say it prevents 80% plus of the Alzheimer's so it's a stunning stunning thing. I I have 500 References as links in this book but for the Alzheimer's I put in an appendix because it's such an important subject and we're ignoring it completely. We are using medications that just hardly work at all and even the researchers will say that these 10 Alzheimers medicines that cost 1000s of dollars a month are hardly worth it. They Barely do anything. And, you know, there's a rule of thumb that I always use in evaluating medic medical studies, especially in the last 20 years when the things have gotten so fouled out. If there are small numbers or controversy, you might as well just forget the whole thing. I mean, it means that it doesn't work because whoever has studied it is studying 10s of 1000s of patients. And if the numbers are so small, that they have to portray it as a slightly statistically significant figure. It means it doesn't work, it means it probably wouldn't be replicated if they took 10,000 patients and did it again. I mean, it's it's outrageous with what's going on. Because these drug companies have been allowed to essentially ruin their own studies by either concealing, they like the human papilloma virus vaccine, they conceal 50% of the studies, Japan completely abandoned that, right? Because they understood that they were so screwed up. I think we went over that in the other podcast, so we can, we can hit the hormones a little harder.
Terry 20:59
Well, and I was gonna say, I mean, my dad had a long battle with Alzheimer's, you know, 1214 years, that we know that he was diagnosed, you know, and it was a few years before that mom kind of hit it, you know, we just, you know, chalked it up to aging. And it ended up being it actually wasn't Alzheimer's, it was dementia picks disease. But that is that is a real fear of mine, that that's what my destiny is. And I know I shouldn't shouldn't do that. And I'm trying to eat, eat right, and, you know, get the proper nutrition that I need to feed my brain and the Omega 369 oils and things like that, that I that I should have done a long time ago when when I was bulletproof younger, you know, but but didn't do. But I I wanted to ask you about the new Alzheimer. I want to digress a little bit and talk about the new Alzheimer's struggle. What What do you think about that? Is it add add to them? I can't say that I
Robert 22:03
can spell it. This is the latest thing that they're marketing. And I don't I don't I'm not an expert about it. I don't have specifics about it. But my cynicism about pharmaceutical companies is so deep, that I have tremendous doubts whether this will be anything but another freakin settlement for false claims and, and marketing outside of the indications. Right? So all the whole package. Now, I don't want to claim that. Let me just back up a second. Obviously, there are miracles in medicine, and we see them we have friends that have had cancer that have had some new therapy, but most of it or half of it is absolutely sales pitch to make more money. I mean, it's just crazy how adulterated the whole scene has become. And in particular, cancer therapy. It's two months of improved survival is what they are predicting for 95 plus percent of those cancers, two months for all those chemotherapy side effects and everything else. Just not worth it. We have about five or six clinical diseases that can actually be cured in cancer. And the rest of it is just nonsensical. You know, it's just crazy.
Roy Barker 23:10
Yeah. Yeah. For the misery you go through. And it's a personal decision. So I don't want to project to everyone, but I will say, you know, thinking about that, when you said it, it's like, wow, going through all of that misery. You know, you'd rather try to live out your last few months as happy as you can, because I know some of those treatments for you know, different types of cancers can be very torturous, torturous.
Robert 23:35
Terry, I'm blocking on what your last question was. Go ahead and
Terry 23:38
add adullam Oh, yeah. timers drag,
Robert 23:42
but Oh, the thing I was gonna say was, once a horse is out of the barn, Alzheimers is very difficult to treat. I mean, you're just not gonna reverse it by starting Aster dial then. But had your father started testosterone when he became deficient, this might have been at age 50. He would have decreased his chances of getting Alzheimers significantly. And so I mean, who knows what would have happened but remember that testosterone gets broken down estrogen. Young men have very high Ester dial levels. And the idea that estrogen is a female hormone is meathead bodybuilders idea that's absolutely wrong. Young men have estradiol levels that are just about as high as women's. They're like 80 or 90 or something like that. And women's vary up into the hundreds depending on the menstrual cycle. But but there's a
Roy Barker 24:31
I've heard that speak into that. I've heard that if you do testosterone that there's some kind of estrogen that has to be woven in there. You kind of get a little bit of both of them. Is that correct?
Robert 24:44
You get a lot of estrogen because it gets broken down to estrogen and testosterone. This is part of the story about how industry has ruined the narrative right and exactly who's responsible. I can't really point it to any dirty players. But the The deal is, is they want to promote things that are patented of all and highly profitable and testosterone is is neither. Right. So, testosterone, there was a couple of studies that looked through the wrong end of the microscope telescope. They looked at testosterone from the standpoint of view, they found some people with heart disease. And then they tried to find people who were also taking testosterone. I mean, it's just it's a crazy way to do a study. It got swept up into the FDA somehow, the FDA, which is almost a creature of Big Pharma, because their revenues are well over half user fees that pharma pays them directly, right. They put what's called a black box on testosterone. That's an after market warning of severe problems. It's completely wrong. I mean, it's just it's outrageous. There are black box warnings on estrogen and progesterone, also, based on a study that was that cost almost a billion dollars called the woman Women's Health Initiative study, which has been deselected many times by commentators and the thing it was, there was I in my opinion, it did much more harm than good. And they studied drugs that were obsolete, the day the study was published. And now we use bioidentical drugs that are much safer. So I mean, it's it's a crazy, it's a crazy scientific scene. And it has been since the turn of the century, basically, that's when kind of pharma came out of the closet and told us that, that they were going to do anything they wanted in the last 18 months, it's there, it's been a much more obvious to even lay observes. Now.
Terry 26:37
Can you define what a bite you talked about by
Robert 26:40
chemical means? Yeah, bioidentical means it's actually a physical component of the human body, okay, as opposed to the estrogen made from horse mares urine, right, Premarin, or provera, which is a chemical related to progesterone, they're not the same. And in the Women's Health Initiative study, those substances were found to be injurious in a small number. And I mean, a small number, they're much better than nothing. But since we have the new ones, they should never be used long term. There are short term indications for both. I mean, they can stop uterine bleeding very effectively. Um, they're powerful. estrogenic and progesterone, you know, pro just to genic agents. But for long term use, they're outmoded. And the debate still seems to center about whether we should be using horse mares urine for women like dairy instead of bioidentical natural estrogen and progesterone? Ah, yeah, I know. That's how the deceptions get carried through in the public narrative. I mean, they the studies, the studies get done that study the wrong thing, or the studies get done that were the were essentially ruined, and the the narratives get perpetrated by the regulatory agencies, and the doctors get fooled. I mean, doctors are doing something that's completely consuming, and they don't have time to read or do anything, but like, pat the next patient on the back and try to figure out what the billing code is. Right?
Roy Barker 28:15
So we can, I don't think we talked a little bit about some individual things. But overall, what are some of the other big areas that the hormones can help with? You know, because like, we talked a little bit about weight, maybe weight management, or Alzheimer's, but are there some other big things because it one thing it kind of sounds like is that some of these studies are trying to disprove the dollar a dose solution, because they can sell you 10 other medications that cost $20 apiece?
Robert 28:51
Okay, so there's a lot of things and I'll just go through them and list um, people hate to make longevity claims, because in order to study humans, you got to take a bunch of humans away to a bunch of them die and put half of them on the drug and half of them. So you can't do that conveniently with people. You can do it easily with rats. And the critics always say, Well, you can't really say these are longevity drugs. But low levels of thyroid growth hormone, estrogen, testosterone and DHT are linked to premature death. Right? So you can say that for sure that people who are older with low levels of hormones die sooner, and I I'm certain as vitamin D as well, vitamin D is not a vitamin, it's a hormone. And it's easy over the counter thing to do. And a lot of people respond dramatically to it. And they, you know, the suggested doses are in my book, and it's it's an easy thing to correct. It's inexpensive. We don't have studies that study groups of people until they die on vitamin D either we the studies we have see if you can figure this out. We have these Swedish studies that looked at 250,000 people that's a lot of people, and they check the vitamin D levels on the older people with Without diseases, right, and the ones with diseases who were older who were doing doing poorly had very low vitamin D levels. So that doesn't prove that giving vitamin D improves your health, but it's very suggestive. So it doesn't cost much and it probably decreases your susceptibility to severe variants of COVID. That's been speculated, okay, I don't Okay, so general health. Long term estrogen replacement estrogen is the best monetary. It decreases strokes, blood clots, colon cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration, it reduces the loss of tooth. It reduces likelihood of a tooth loss depression, osteoporosis, ie death because of bone fracture. Breast Cancer is unaffected. Contrary to you know, the common opinion, avoidance of estrogen and Yale study was estimated to cause 50,000 excess deaths over 10 years in the United States. Alzheimer's disease we mentioned heart disease 40 observational studies have shown that giving a string to women reduces coronary artery disease, heart attacks and deaths. Women have higher levels of estrogen they have less heart disease, and giving natural estrogen deficient men improves cholesterol but has not decreased blood clot increased blood clotting as its claim, depression, estrogen DHT a progesterone, testosterone, melatonin all have antidepressant effects thyroid has been studied and used for 50 years for as a treatment for depression by the psychiatrists. Obesity, thyroid, estrogen, testosterone, testosterone is a big one. dapa and human growth hormone reduce unhealthy belly fat. As you may know, having a potbelly is much worse than being a little fat all over because it seems to be associated with heart disease. So those are the things and it's it's I mean, it's a stunning, stunning thing about how much evidence there is that these things do a lot of good. And how they've been suppressed. And I can go over how they've been suppressed if you want to know some political details, but tell me what you're interested in. Right?
Roy Barker 32:04
Yeah, now that'll be fine, because that's what I was just sitting here thinking is it's it's not not anything that either one of us have ever heard or talked about? Correct.
Terry 32:14
I mean, I I do have I have hypothyroidism. So I'm, I'm very interested in the thyroid, the basics and all of that. So if we could cover Okay,
Robert 32:25
so fibroid, I would advise that you look carefully at my book, which is the best summary. And then if you want to just flip to a website there stop by right and sanity calm. I think that's what it's called, but that'll take you to it. And it's a thyroid is sort of the one of the more complicated stories. So, thyroid, thyroid. There's two different kinds of thyroid hormone, right, t three and T four. Have you heard of that? So t four is Synthroid there. It's biosynthesized. Synthroid is a brand name is off patent. Now, t three, there are several names for that if you buy the chemical one, but the great thing is we have something that's been used for 120 years that has both the T three and T four in it. That is not as widely used as it should be and is rundown by industry is called porcine thyroid like Armour Thyroid is the best known brand. Right? So the, you know, the endocrinologist are the experts at glandular diseases they studied for many years about this stuff. And in theory, they're the they're the best sources of information, but they tend to be very conservative. thyroid disease. There's another group of doctors that I call the hormone doctors, they are specialized like I did in prescribing hormones for deficiency states. And it's it's a really feel good specialty because you get dramatic responses. I mean, you change people's lives every freaking day. And the thyroid is theorized to be deficient in 40% of the women over 40. Now, that's a big number. I know it's crazy, but the endocrinologist are exceedingly conservative about prescribing thyroid and in a few sentences, here's why. They deal with a disease called graves disease, which is two to 3% of the population. It's a very common disease. Now in graves disease, the thyroid kind of goes crazy and produces some thyroid, right? So you can't shut it off by stopping the medicine. Okay, if you're prescribing thyroid to somebody, if they have palpitations, or their heart's going too fast, or they feel hyper, you just cut the dose or stop the medicine. It's easy, but in graves disease, you need to give medications takes months to get it under control. The people need a lot of monitoring. So they've had these experiences which have have prejudice them against giving thyroid and they fear, osteoporosis and atrial fibrillation, which actually there's almost no documentation that that helps that occurs with supplemental thyroid only happens in graves disease or So it's it's a bit of a, and of course, endocrinologists, they want to maintain, and they don't have a chemotherapy and they don't have a surgery and they don't have some magic trick where they can build a lot of money. So they got to keep control of their patients and maintain, okay, so they use, there's a test they use, which is very difficult test to use, called the TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. Okay, now, this may be too much detail for you. And you can get all this in my reference. But TSH probably shouldn't be used at all, because it's not an active hormone, it's it's just it goes up when the thyroid goes up and goes down. When the thyroid goes down, it's a brain, it's a brain hormone, and not a doesn't have any effect on the periphery where the thyroid, the thyroid head is the master hormone, it has effect on every part of your body. So if you just measure the T three and the T four, and you adjust those to high normal ranges, and you look at the patient, and you get them feeling good without having a rapid heart rate, that's where you should be for thyroid and not worry so much about the osteoporosis atrial fibrillation, because it doesn't really happen except in graves disease, as far as I can tell. So that's that's the thing in a nutshell, it's more complex than other fields, sometimes you can find it you got to go back multiple times the doctor at least talked to him on the phone or, or see how you're doing. But the the ideal thyroid dose is not in the middle of the testing range, as the endocrinologist seem to think it's usually high normal, it's like you're getting an A on a test instead of a see. Right, the testing ranges are there, they're made to be a bell curve. And the endocrinologist like to see in the middle of darker, that's fine for a lot of tests. But for thyroid, especially in older people whose bodies are not as responsive to thyroid hormone, you need to push that up a little bit in order to feel your best. And women do very well with thyroid. And I've seen an awful lot of women in their 80s. And I say what's your freakin secret? How our Why are you doing so? Well? Why are you so alert? And the only thing they did differently was, they've been on thyroid for decades. Right? So but I recommend you consider all these things become knowledgeable about them. You can find your doctor through one of these organizations that I quoted in or hormone secrets. And you know, and I even got a couple of specific recommendations, I can't make specific recommendations. But I had a couple of people that I worked with in the in the course of the manuscript that you can, you can check them out. Okay,
Roy Barker 37:31
yeah, cuz that's I just marked down that for question was, if you go to your general practitioner, is this something that he's going to want to talk about? Or do we need to probably seek out a hormonal specialist?
Robert 37:42
Well, some some of the GPS, some of the older GPS have more experience and more knowledge about thyroid because they practice before all this craziness went in about, you know, the the crazy thyroid testing and everything else, but you got to find an older one, you got to find one is confident and willing to do it. These hormone specialists, in my view, are the best. But I would learn it all myself if I were you and figure it all out and know if your doctor is stepping off the rails. And you can do that with my book, you can you every every detail that you have to know is in there practically, you know, I mean, you'll never get a feel for what it's like to treat hundreds or 1000s of these patients and watch them all if you can find somebody. The other thing you can do is you can often consult with these guys, virtually, you don't have to go in and see him anymore because Trump made an executive order that said that that was permissible prior to this the medical board sanction people sanction doctors who just we did consultations, without it without being in person. They said it was not a good faith exam. But now in this era of you know, internet and COVID and everything else, we're allowed to do it. So I think that's another tip if you live in a major metropolitan area, you can you can find these people in that are part of these organizations that are that are very competent, and they will they will help you and but you've got to know yourself or you'll get freakin swindled. Yeah, you have to understand what you're looking for and know the tests and everything else. It's not that hard. Yeah, it's not that hard. The fibroid thing, just work on that website, you understand how crazy does and look, look at my material going I'm
Roy Barker 39:20
not sure if it was you or if I heard this somewhere else this last week that where you can go to look up all of these different scientific study, you know, the trials, the groups and things like that. It's like, is it med pub or
Robert 39:36
PubMed? PubMed is the big is that's the big, you know, supposedly scientific thing, but you gotta you got to realize that the studies are designed to create patent approval, right, and they're paid for 95% or paid for by the corporations that will profit from the path approval This is called a conflict of interest as a kind way to put it. And it basically ruins their they basically ruin their studies. And they do it in very, very, in many ways, including statistical frauds, to hiding half the studies, which they're allowed to do. And, you know, using contract research groups overseas who are paid to create a certain kind of result, if they don't get that result, they get fired, and they use some other bunch of jackasses next time. I mean, they're there, you read golden golden acres book, bad pharma, if you want to learn about that. And it's a horrifying story.
Terry 40:34
That's a 10 year old book to go ahead. And they just mean they just manipulate the study manipulate the
Robert 40:39
study. So getcha who is a commentator and a statistician in Sweden, and in my view, the most reliable commentator about all this stuff, he says that it's impossible to find decent studies in amongst all the garbage now for the last 20 years. I mean, it's it's it's amazing the system, which was very well intentioned, to force these guys to do scientific studies morphed into a basically fraudulent activity. And and there's every every study you read, has some sort of bias. Sometimes you can decipher it, sometimes you can't. But doctors experience means more than you can imagine. And the doctors are they worship on the altar of the double blind, controlled trial, right. But they're no longer any good. And we have 50 or 100 years experience with these hormones, 50 to 100 years experience, it's more experienced than any other drugs. And since they're part of our biologic systems, it's quite we know how they work. Because the glands have been worked out. And we know the way the drugs go around in the body and what they do. And it wasn't apparent until recently that they had all these positive effects. But it's quite apparent now.
Roy Barker 42:02
Okay, yeah, good. We're gonna we'll check that out. Because, especially with Terri and her thyroid, that may be the answer that she's been looking for.
Terry 42:13
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and estrogen, I mean, for that matter, you know, I need I need to do all of it. And I'm, I'm kind of, I feel like, I'm kind of like everybody else, where they just go in to see the doctor, and we've been conditioned just to take, take the doctor's word for it. And that's, you know, you did this test, and this is what it showed, so we're gonna throw this medication at it. Well, we need to do a little more research and, and find out more natural ways to, I mean, more natural ways to address whichever situation we're in.
Robert 42:50
If you get through this thing, which is not hard, it's written down to about a ninth grade level, you'll know more than 98% of the physicians 90 at least 95%. I mean, everybody's got an opinion, like, everybody's got a backside. And these guys are well trained. They're that we're we're really the most ethical and the best trained people in the country in some ways. But a lot of us, it's in medicine. So consuming that only a freaking genius, who's a hyper manic son of a gun can ever continue to keep up on the studies, there's like 5000 articles in primary care published every day. I mean, it's just insane. You just can't, you can't possibly keep up. And you can become a specialist in one of these areas, like hormone therapy if you try. But that's about the best you can do. Now.
Terry 43:35
Yeah, you just have to try to sift through the noise. Noise noise is massive. It really is.
Roy Barker 43:42
And I don't want to, you know, from my inexperience, I don't want to belabor one thing that I do know about, but I think it's worth saying is a great example of, you know, again, we've been trained to think testing is good, and that if the FDA says it's good, then it's done everything but what, you know, as Terry has taken more control over her knowledge of such medical situations, it's like with this new Alzheimer's drug, there were 10 Terry telescope
Terry 44:15
11 panel members that they were they were all pretty darn well, they're all industry well, but they were the they were the ones you know, they they will honorary Medical Advisory Board and 10 of the 11. You know, said no, this drug is no good and the 11th one said uncertain, and then they still approved, the FDA use their special approval process for the first time and three to four of the advisory board members quit immediately. They were just like, Hey, I mean, I know the FDA has the it's a whole big ordeal anyway, and they, it just seemed to me that they were manipulating what they wanted. They manipulated that process just to say what they thought it needed to say, to get the drug approved. You know,
Robert 45:06
remember, the rule of thumb is controversial, it
Terry 45:08
doesn't hurt. So I like that is ingrained into my head. I forget it.
Roy Barker 45:13
Yeah. And that, you know, again, that drug $56,000 a year there. So that, you know, it just, I'm not, you know, we don't even have to say that anything was was, we say, you know that there is any, any shenanigans going on behind the scenes, but things like this really make it hard to believe there's not when there's so much money to gain. But the other part of this is there's so many people that are desperate for an answer that they would do anything, and they would pay anything. And that's where parents are like that. Yeah. And that's where I feel like it's a little bit taken advantage of people. Because, you know, there seems to be a lot of evidence now that this is not going to work as advertised. But the you know, if it was me, or my loved one, you're willing to try anything. So yeah, anyway, especially if somebody else is paying for it. Right?
Terry 46:11
Well, right, if somebody else is gonna pay for it, for sure. But yeah, I mean, if you have a loved one who has Alzheimer's, and you're going to be grasping at every straw that you possibly can to see, you know, there just aren't as many drugs available, and this studies and all of that they can't do the studies until the person dies. And they look at the brain and they're just so many things.
Robert 46:35
It's too late for them. Terry Worry about yourself.
Terry 46:37
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Roy Barker 46:41
All right. Dr. Robert, well, we as always, we appreciate your time. And we're gonna go do some checking out on this hormone therapy for both of us and kind of see, you know, where we stand with that, because I have no idea. Like I said, it's never been anything in my years anybody's ever put on the radar. That sounds like it could be, you know, fairly simple fix if, if I do if you know, if you do need it?
Robert 47:07
Well, you know, the American College of Gynecology says that you do not have to check blood levels for postmenopausal women before starting them on supplemental estrogens, right, estrogen and progesterone and testosterone. So I think the standard should be the same for the men. But everybody checks the levels. I'm you know, just from looking at you, I'm sure you'd benefit. I'm I guess your level is 200. Right. That was what mine was when I was 45. I don't know what happened to me, but I've been on testosterone ever since. And it's been very helpful. And yeah, 67
Roy Barker 47:36
Yeah. Now, I have no idea what mine is. We need to I need to go get get it checked and see because like I said, nobody's ever mentioned, hey, maybe we need to look at that. So Alright, well, thanks so much. Tell us again, both books. So we can people can run out and get those and how they can reach out and get a hold of you as well. Okay, so
Robert 47:58
my website is Robert Yoho author.com. The first book is "Butchered by Healthcare," right? See all that gold bar. That's how that's how we are butchered. Right. And the second book is "Hormone Secrets." And it's got the pretty picture on the front. This one was just published about a month ago. And so you can get them on Amazon or it's getting on as hard covers on other platforms too.
Roy Barker 48:24
Okay. Awesome. Well, again, Robert, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Thank
Terry 48:28
you so much. Nice talking to you, Terry. Okay,
Roy Barker 48:30
okay. All right. that's gonna do it for another episode of educational we do appreciate all y'all listening. We you can find us of course at www.AGEUcational.com we're on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify. If we're not on one that you listen to reach out I'd be glad to add make it easier for you to listen. Also, you can find us on all the major social media platforms typically we hang out on Instagram a little more reach out we'd love to interact with you over there. This video of this interview will go up when the interview excuse me when the episode goes live. So reach out to our YouTube channel and take a look at that as well as a lot of our past interviews as well. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your health.
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