The brain and ovarian hormones | Marwa Azab | TEDxMontrealWomen

Translator: Linda Anderson Reviewer: Denise RQ A national health survey showed that one in ten American adult women suffers from at least one gynecological condition. But aside from pelvic discomfort, maybe some pain, who cares, right? Well, another Swedish study seriously disagrees with this negligent attitude that I have personally witnessed too many times in my doctor's office, as the doctor recommends taking Motrin for pain, and the most attentive one even offers to prescribe me a stronger pain reliever. . The Swedish study found that one-third, or almost one-third, of women who report having a gynecological condition also report suffering from psychiatric conditions.

It is important to note that there was no prior diagnosis of a psychiatric condition. So, there is more than just physical pain, and Motrin, or any other pain reliever, is not going to end this emotional pain related to gynecomastia. Depression and anxiety, gynecological pain, strange, right? I mean, gynecologists look at the ovaries and surrounding areas, and even emotion, now as we know, has a lot to do with the

brain

. The ovaries, the

brain

, an arm's length away. So it seems that gynecologists have something to say about mental pain and psychologists have something to say about pelvic pain.

We just need to get the two to communicate with each other, just as the ovaries and the brain communicate with each other. Personally, I make no distinction between mind and body, psychology and biology, and so I have been teaching in three different departments: psychology, human development, biology, and I welcome a few more. And yes, universities impose, or attempt to impose, a departmental way of thinking about human behavior, with students subscribing to the social or physical sciences. Of course, the most elite have the opportunity to move on and specialize even more, there are even subspecialties. So we have neurologists, versus psychologists, versus oncologists.

And of course, the more prefixes a society has with "-ologist", the more advanced it will be. The point is that we train professionals who evaluate the problem from their myopic perspective. Fortunately, recent efforts in integrative medicine have urged practitioners to evaluate the individual holistically. So that the individual is more than the sum of his internal organs. An unhealthy mind, or an unhealthy body, gives rise to an unhealthy mind. An emotionally suffocated mind vomits out bodily illnesses, one bodily system after another. I mean, it's okay to teach about mind and body separately. But it is naive to believe it and practice it clinically.

That is why today I have selected the example of hormonal imbalance to demonstrate the union between mind and body. Today's story is going to begin, and the story that is supported by neuroscience, is going to begin, not down there in the ovaries, but up here, in the brain. In reality, the executive, the coordinator of all this, is a brain structure called the hypothalamus. And it activates or deactivates glands throughout the body through intimate connections with another brain structure called the pituitary. And then this pituitary sends chemical messages through the bloodstream that are heard and interpreted by glands throughout the body, including the ovaries, the thyroid, and, yes, the stress gland above the kidneys, the adrenal gland.

We can even focus more and we will focus on the

ovarian

hormones

, estrogen and progesterone. They are sometimes called sex

hormones

, although interestingly, the emotional and cognitive parts of the brain understand them very well and interpret them in ways that have nothing to do with sexuality. Makes sense. Because since estrogen fluctuates throughout the month and the brain has many receptors that understand estrogen, it affects your cognitive abilities, from decision making to memory. And it also affects your emotions, from irritability to sadness. So we know that they are affected by this. In fact, a 70-something man's body produces more than twice as much estrogen as a woman of the same age.

So I guess this little tidbit was missing from the testosterone scientists, that is, the male scientists, who came up with the names progesterone and estrogen for us. Because progesterone means giving birth. Estrogen means gadfly, frenzy, crazy. And some have even traced it to the Greek root meaning intense desire or passion. According to these scientists, women are either giving birth or in a state of madness and hysteria. (Laughter) You see, that's why women should make up their own scientific names. (Laughter) (Applause) If it were up to me, I would come up with a theory or a name that probably has some kind of mix of my name, but something like, I don't know, like, 'cool.' So, for the rest of the talk, I will refer to these hormones as

ovarian

hormones and not sex hormones, so as not to limit the breadth of their influences.

Because we don't want to restrict the breadth of influences of these hormones. Now, these hormones in general, not just the ovarian ones, work silently. There is synthesis involved. There are enzymes involved. There is metabolism involved, all outside the realm of our consciousness. If you asked anyone here, including me, at this very moment, what hormone was being released, we would have no idea. However, we do not appreciate their diligence in keeping things in homeostasis and balance for us, without disturbing us. And when hormones feel underestimated, well, they don't like it very much. And they demand to be visible and shout for attention.

Consider a prediabetic woman who, throughout her life, is completely unaware of what her pancreas does and her insulin hormone levels are completely invisible to her. Upon diagnosis, she should be very aware of what her pancreas is doing. Her insulin levels must be visible to her at all times, otherwise she could fall into a coma or even die. Now, let's consider this rare example: stress. What if you are so stressed? I know, stay with me for a second, I know it's highly unlikely, but when we're that stressed, the stress gland above the kidneys produces cortisol. But when you're that stressed, it uses its entire inventory to produce cortisol, the stress hormone.

But what if there is more stress? She needs raw materials to produce more cortisol. Which means she has to borrow from somewhere. And where could she borrow from? Well, she borrows from progesterone. Which means it will reduce your progesterone levels. Which means you just said this (she snaps her fingers) and that's the link between stress and why I can't get pregnant. Not only that, but low progesterone levels have been associated with severe PMS symptoms and emotional disorders. And of course, that throws things out of balance, estrogen and progesterone. And that is one of the reasons for gynecological problems.

All of this could cause long cycles. I know some of you might say, "I have long cycles, I went to the doctor, the doctor told me, he assured me, 'That's normal, some women have long cycles.'" The research disagrees with that. Because research has found that long cycles are associated with a condition. And the condition is called breast cancer. Progesterone has just shown you its ugly side, because you have offended your adrenal gland from stress. When ghosts become visible, it is never a fun matter. It's always scary. So by the time we realize something is wrong, our hormones, on the orders of our brain, have already made us feel vulnerable, weak, anxious and dulled our memories.

Is anyone complaining about memory loss lately? Sharp, non-sharp, disappearing cognitive thinking, slower reaction time, fatigue, all that. And you're thinking, "Okay, I can deal with that. It ruins my quality of life a little bit, but hey, that's kind of soft." Not so mild, because research has also found that it is linked to and increases the chances of heart disease, cancer and stroke. It is not a joke. So not just quality of life, but it can essentially lead to your death and cut your life short. So how do we begin this journey to discover if there is an imbalance?

That's why I want to urge you that the absolutely mandatory first step is to visit your doctor. At the very least, to eliminate any chance of suffering from a serious condition like ovarian cancer. But then you think, "Check, I did it, good job. But I still feel like things are a little off." You're probably right, things may still be bad. And you are one of many, and the reason is: first, the current tests that are available to check for hormonal imbalance are not sensitive enough to detect everything; Second, we must remember that doctors are physiologically trained, so they look for physiological causes and physiological solutions.

But sometimes a physiological cause is actually a consequence. And the physiological solution, a prescription pill, might make the imbalance worse to begin with, but it wouldn't solve the problem either. Furthermore, doctors, rightly so, after long hours in the hospital and clinic, do not have the opportunity to catch up with the proliferation of research that occurs every day. Therefore, research results take years to be put into practice. And then we have doctors doing things outside the box, because that's just the way things are, regardless of what recent research may have found. Now, all this does not help, in light of the fact that ovarian hormones happen to be very complex and slow acting.

So what that means, and it's also complemented by the fact that the testing that we have now is too inclusive in terms of what is normal. That means there is a high probability of a false negative. So, to capture this fluctuation, one test will not be enough. It is necessary to at least repeat these tests over the months to capture this fluctuation. Another thing these tests are not so good at is looking at metabolism. You can have completely normal levels of a hormone, but a pathological metabolism of it. So, for example, estrogen is metabolized to the good metabolite, C2, and the bad metabolite, C16.

And the ratio of good to bad predicts the chances of getting breast cancer. So not only do you want to know if you have normal levels of the hormone, but you also want to know if it is metabolized properly. Fortunately, there is something we can do to tip this ratio of good to bad in our favor, and that is to eat cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. Yes, what goes into our mouth also goes into our mind and our heart. Very good, your doctor has told you that everything is wrong. Now, it doesn't help that research, pharmaceutical companies, or any available solutions have to be synthetic hormones.

Because the synthetic hormone can be sold for profit and a patent can be obtained for it. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to obtain a patent for natural hormones. So, by the way, the solution is very different from the natural one, because you can make money, you can make dollars. Then, the synthetic hormone will make the problem worse. It will worsen the imbalance. But it's not just bad for us. It is excreted and becomes part of our waste and water, which means that animals are affected, men are affected, children are affected, the environment is affected, we are truly one.

According to what his doctor told him, everything is normal. You have a feeling that things are not normal. And, in fact, we have a second brain next to our guts. So, I would trust that. What are some symptoms to keep on the horizon, to say, "Oh, I might be unbalanced, I should start some kind of journey." Well, if you're fatigued all the time, and it's not because you were at the gym for six hours, if you're losing hair in places where you want to keep it and you're gaining hair in places where you don't want hair.

If you have acne and your teenage years happened 30 years ago, that's probably not a good thing. And also some cognitive things like memory loss, irritability, sadness and anxiety, so they really are quality of life ruining symptoms, so consider a potential trip to really be at war with this hormonal imbalance, regardless of what the doctor. Now, I'm not going to leave you hanging like this. I'll leave you with some simple solutions that you can start right now. The first thing is to try to be aware of xenoestrogens. A xenoestrogen is basically any substance that is a good estrogen imposter.

Because the brain doesn't care if it's estrogen or some fake estrogen from some toxin in the environment. A list of xenoestrogens is published on the Internet (I'm not going to go over them now), but just to give you an idea, some could be in your hand cream, others could be in your sunscreen, cosmetics, and even your baby's toys. son. Another solution that we already talked about, and that is probably the panacea for almost all the problems that exist, is to reduce stress. One thing that probablyMany of us are guilty of not getting enough sleep. Well, irregular sleeping patterns cause hormonal imbalance.

In fact, something as simple as constipation may actually be what's causing your hormonal imbalance. Therefore, treating constipation will promote metabolism, so you won't have metabolites in your body that trick the brain into thinking it needs to produce more or less and throw it off balance. There is a lot to think about. Some of you might get stuck on things like, “How do I spell xenoestrogen again?” (Laughter) So the thing is, we shouldn't live in a bubble. We shouldn't think: "I can't eat plastic, it has xenoestrogens." We cannot live in a bubble, that is stressful, we already talked about what stress can do.

Which means we have to balance our choices. But unless we are aware of those options and understand some of these invisible influences, we will remain vulnerable and decisions will be made for us. Instead, I want you to embrace your vulnerabilities by learning about them, and even taking advantage of them and recruiting them to work for you and empower you. Because the more you learn about yourself, the greater the chances that a better person will emerge. When you learn about your hormonal fluctuations, such as by journaling, how it affects the way you behave, your mood, the way you love, your PMS symptoms, and even the way you parent, you can use that information to That your hormones can work for you.

You can find that ideal moment for critical decisions that have consequences where your hormones work for you instead of against you, where they facilitate the exposure of the best in you. You are truly an expert on yourself. You are the best defender for you. So today I challenge you to get to know yourself. Thank you. (Applause)