Hormones and Your Health with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

Dr. Cates: Hi there. I’m Dr Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. podcast. Today we’re talking about hormones and your health with my guest, ob Gyn doctor Kyrin Dunston. Dr. Kyrin lost a life changing 100 pounds and healed herself from chronic diseases by addressing the root cause. She’s been featured on NBC, Fox, Huffington Post, First for Women and other media outlets. She knows that by looking beyond the symptoms and addressing imbalances, causing them including hormonal balance, toxicity, inflammation, nutritional deficiencies, mental and emotional and spiritual imbalances, that any condition can be improved if not ultimately healed. On today’s podcast, Dr Karen shares her powerful story and now it led her to help her own patients on a different path. She explains why women’s struggle more with hormonal imbalances than men do, and she shares her approach to balancing hormones and optimizing health. All of this ties into skin, of course, including a particular hormone that we don’t often talk about. That plays a big role in our weight, energy level, mood, and skin. You’ll learn all about this hormone and all of this in today’s podcast, so please enjoy the interview.

Dr. Cates Dr. Kyrin it’s so great to have you on my podcast. Welcome.

Dr. Kyrin: Oh, thank you for having me, Trevor.

Dr. Cates: Yeah. So let’s, um, let’s start with your background cause I know you have a pretty big story of your own healing journey that got you into being interested in what you do.

Dr. Kyrin: Yes. Well, I always say your pain becomes your purpose and that’s so true for me. I was a busy ob Gyn, very successful. I had a huge office. We have four doctors and mid level providers and 30 employees. And I had a home in a gated community and fancy cars and vacations and my kids went to private school. So from the outside I really looked like I had it all. And yet on the inside I really was dying because I weighed over 240 pounds. I suffered with something called chronic fatigue where I slept most of the time. I suffered with something called fibromyalgia where I had pain all over my body constantly. Every day. I suffered with depression and I suffered with anxiety. My hair was falling out, I had no sex dry. And so even though I looked like I had it all by those measures, I really was just breathing and taking up space and had tried everything.

Dr. Kyrin: I as a board certified ob Gyn to figure out what was wrong with me and then address it, but I couldn’t find anything wrong. And so I would go to my internist and I’d say, there’s got to be something wrong, and she would run tests even though I have run tests already and after, I don’t know, eight to ten times going to her and saying, really something’s got to be wrong. She just yelled at me and she said, Kyrin, I’m telling you everything, all your labs are fine. There’s nothing wrong. And I so knew that that wasn’t true, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. And so I kind of resigned myself that I was just going to be this way the rest of my life, just sickly and existing. And then thank God one day one of my patients, I call her an angel, came into the office and I had seen her a year before with the typical midlife female issues that I was suffering with that she had, you know, the overweight, the difficulties with sleep and energy. Um, and she had a lot of menstrual problems as well. And I had given her the standard of care, for treatment, well, here’s a birth control pill. Oh, that doesn’t work. Oh, here’s another one. Right. Who hasn’t had that in their gynecologist’s office. And she went away. We weren’t really getting anywhere with her. And she went away and came back a year later and she looked like a different person. Weight gone and looked just healthy, vital, alive, skin shining, hair bright. And I said, what have you done? I knew she had done something and she said, well, I went to this doctor who practices something called functional medicine and we did all this special testing. We checked salivary hormones and we put me on bioidenticals and whole bunch of other things and I couldn’t hear enough about it. And she actually brought me a book. One of Suzanne Somers earlier books and I took it. She said, I brought this for you. I was going to tell you about it. And I took it home and I put it on my nightstand. I was married at the time and I said to my husband, I am not reading this book, by Christy on Three’s Company. And then to which he responded, oh, and she was a playboy bunny too. I said, well, I’m really not reading, you know, so I let it sit there for months. And then one Saturday I was in bed in and the kids came in and said, we’re going to the movies. And they, they didn’t even bother inviting me anywhere, anymore. They knew the answer was going to be no. When mom’s home, she’s in her pajamas parked in her bed that that’s how it is.

Dr. Kyrin: So they said, we’ll be back. And I said, well, let me pick this book up so I can just say I looked at it and give it back to her and be polite. So I picked it up and I started reading it. And it was interesting because it really wasn’t anything about Suzanne Summers. It was just her using her celebrity as a vehicle to bring information from these scientists and doctors on functional medicine. It was basically all what they had to say. And so it immediately resonated with me because they spoke about the biochemistry that I had learned about back in med school. And so I, we all have a truth meter and I immediately knew that what I was reading was the truth and that there was this other way of looking at the body that actually looked at the cause of health problems that I didn’t know anything about as a board certified OBGYN. And after a few minutes I was reading that book like my life depended on it and I read that whole book in one. Now think I stopped and, and by dinner time I had something I hadn’t had in years, which was hope, you know, all of a sudden this door opened and a little fresh air came in. It’s like, you know, this is true because you learned it and med school, all you need to do is learn more about the tests and do them and find out what’s wrong. And so everything changed from there. I started doing the special tests that they talked about salivary hormone testing. I, I did blood tests, but for instance, when I checked my thyroid, instead of just checking the standard, quote unquote medical thyroid tests, you know, a Tsh and a total t four and the calculated index, right? I did eight different parameters and I looked at my thyroid antibodies in my free t three in my reverse t three and things we never checked in regular medicine. And I had low thyroid even though I had checked it at least 10 times with standard measures. I had a normal quote unquote thyroid. I had sub optimal thyroid function. I had a flat line cortisol. When I did salivary cortisol testing, I had progesterone deficiency. I had tons of inflammation. I finally learned about gut testing, functional stool testing and food sensitivity testing. I had leaky gut like I’ve rarely seen. It was so bad. I was sensitive to probably on the severe line. There probably were 30 foods in that category, 30 in the intermediate, 30 in the mild. I mean it was, my gut was so leaky. I don’t know how I was functioning now knowing what I know, but that’s why I was just existing is because I was so ill without having a medical diagnosis. And so my whole life changed. I just started addressing one thing at a time and working, uh, with what I would learn about. I’d learned about a test. I would do it, I address it, we’re in about another test do, would address it. Started attending the American Academy of antiaging Medicine Fellowship Program and just got myself better one day at a time. And after two years I had lost a hundred pounds. I was off all medications except some hormonal support and on lots of natural supplements, botanicals and vitamins and minerals had energy better than when I was 20. My hair grew back. Yeah. Oh, sex drive back, everything back. No depression, no anxiety. And it’s funny cause then of course all my patients who are midlife women with the same problems started seeing the changes. These who, what are you doing, you know, we women will do like, what are you doing? What’s your secret? Yeah, I learned about this thing called functional medicine. I want that. So I started doing it with them.

Dr. Kyrin: And then before long, you know, I was, I was doing my OBGYN practice three days a week. And then on the other two days I was seeing functional medicine patients because those visits take an hour. So they’re way longer. So I couldn’t, I tried to do them together. Everybody warned me it didn’t work because you can’t do 10 minute Gyn appointments interspersed with hour long by PA was knocking on the door like I need you, I need you. What you, so anyway, I, I separated the two practices but then what I was doing on the regular OBGYN days is I was every problem I saw, I was giving them the standard answer that my board certification says I need to say, which is birth control pills, sleeping pills, anti anxiety and depression medicines, right. Treat the symptom. And then I would say, and that’s what my board certification says I’m supposed to tell you. And I also know that this other type of medicine helped me identify the root cause. And you may want to look at salivary hormone testing and functional tests and everybody’s like, I want that. And so then they would come see me on the other days and eventually I realized there’s no point in having a regular practice. So in 2011 I closed my practice and I have done this whole time since.

Dr. Cates: Oh, that’s great. Well thank you so much for sharing that story because I know there are so many women that they have that same kind of story on the outside. Everything looks like it’s, it’s really great. And they look like their life is all perfect and shiny and happy and then they’re struggling on the inside or maybe, I mean, maybe they are, you know, showing on the outside that they’re struggling. But until you find the root cause it’s so hard to do anything. I mean, and conventional medicine of course we know that there’s a place in, you know, saving people’s lives and there are certain places where conventional medicine is very helpful. But I think a lot of times we miss the root causes. We miss these underlying causes. And of course, you know, I talk about a lot with skin because skin can’t, as you mentioned, and some of your story, it can be one of those big indicators that something’s out of balance and we need to address the root cause. And with skin, I know that one of the really big root causes for women in particular is, is hormonal imbalances. And so how do we get that back? And, and the conventional approach doesn’t have a lot of options for really balancing hormones. And so, you know, going the naturopathic medicine, functional medicine route gives a lot more options. So I’m, I’m so excited to have you on to talk about this. Thank you for sharing your story. And I, I’m sure there are a lot of people listening that resonate with, with your struggles and are also looking for a solution. So thank you.

Dr. Kyrin: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Like I said, your pain, my pain really has become my purpose in life. It transformed me personally and then it transformed my entire professional life as well. And I, I’m very passionate about people learning about this type of medicine. I don’t think that the majority of the population is aware and they really look to us physicians, MDs and DOs to guide them. But really now when I know is that in medical school, I didn’t learn about the true creation of health. I only learned how to put bandaids on symptoms. And once you know what’s available, your whole world opens up. And so it’s my career and hope every day that my message and your message that the message of true health and healing and vitality will get to people who are suffering.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. So people that are anyone listening, if, if you, you might know of somebody else that is also struggling with this. So this is a great podcast to share with other people. So let’s, let’s dive into talking about some of the hormonal imbalances that, in particular women, and first of all, why is it that women tend to struggle with their hormones more than men? Because we see a lot, right?

Dr. Kyrin: Right. Great question. Well, anytime a system is more complicated, it’s going to be prone to more problems, right? Because there are more areas where, or more steps in a process where things can go wrong. Uh, and you know, if you think about it, um, you know, when we just had plain old can openers that you use with your hand, not so much can go wrong with that, but now when you have an electric can opener, they’re weighing, we’re moving parts, you’ve got electricity, you’ve got a wheel that has to spend there all these different steps that have to happen. So it has the potential to break down. Well, we’re more complicated, right? Because me, we make babies and that’s a very complicated process and our bodies are highly specialized baby making vehicles. And so we have certain, uh, metabolic and biochemical and hormonal patterns that men don’t have.

Dr. Kyrin: They kind of, you know, they go through puberty and they’re kind of the same all the way to, they do go through a corollary to menopause, menopause meeting the end of our menstrual cycle and fertility. They do go through andropause, but in between there just coasting along. They’re always the same while we every single month have complicated stuff going on, right? So we’ve got an egg being matured, whereas men just, they produce and mature sperm continuously all the time at the same level. So each month we, we mature one egg and then that causes a hormonal cascade of estrogen initially. And then after ovulation and the egg is released, progesterone. And so this sick click the cycling of hormones. Um, there’s so many things that can go wrong in there, right? Just like with the can opener. So that’s why we’re more prone to hormonal problems. Now having said that, there are men who are prone to hormonal problems as well, especially with all of the chemicals that we are exposed to in our environment, the endocrine disruptors that get in our body and disrupt our hormonal function.

Dr. Kyrin: So for instance, infertility when a couple is experiencing it and they’re not able to get pregnant 55% of the time, the man is having a problem too. So even though he seems like he’s okay, he may be having some hormonal imbalance as well, but they don’t have an outward sign every month. Hey, I’m okay. Right? We get our period. If we have a normal length and flow period at the right time every month, that’s our reassurance. As a woman, everything’s functioning well in our reproductive system. Men Don’t have that, so they can be having disruptions, but the only time they’re going to know is maybe they can’t get pregnant as a couple and they do a semen analysis and Oh, you have too many misformed sperm or they have poor motility. While that’s an indicator, so that means that we also have an awareness problem.

Dr. Kyrin: Men probably are having it a little more often than we think, but they don’t have an awareness. Whereas we know, oh, my period was really heavy this month. Oh, my period was a couple of days late, and I know most women who I’ve worked with thousands over my career are pretty, they’re regular. They know to the day when it’s going to come. They know how many days they’re going to flow. They know how many pads that are going to need and Tampons, right? It’s a science. We know ourselves because the body, when it’s functioning optimally, really, it’s, it’s like a clock. You can depend on it. So I think that that’s why we suffer so much. And then also our ratios of the hormones are different. We both men and women have estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, but they have 10 times as much to spouse throne and much less estrogen and progesterone. And we have probably 10 times the estrogen and progesterone and much less testosterone and estrogen and progesterone are up very powerful hormones all over the body. You have more receptors for them in your brain than anywhere else. So they have a lot to do with our mood and our cognitive functioning. And when our estrogen, progesterone aren’t right, we feel horrible and then everybody’s going to know about it. Right? Hmm. So I think one, it’s a part of awareness between hormonal imbalances with men and women, but then two, it’s the complexity of the system that really allows for disruptions to be known.

Dr. Cates: Right? Right. Those are all great points. And I think one thing you were talking about that I want to pay some extra attention to is the awareness of our cycles. Because certainly for a lot of women that are on birth control, whether that’s birth control pills or like a, an IUD with progesterone, the Progestin IUD, they may not be cycling. They are ma, it’s completely altered by this, these hormones that they’re taking. So then they don’t really know what’s happening. They’re not going to have a true sense of what their body’s trying to tell them. Right?

Dr. Kyrin: Right. And I love to talk about this because I like women listening to understand that the hormones and the birth control pill and the progestins in an IUD, those are synthetic hormones that are not the same as what you have naturally. And so the intent and what they do is they basically shut down your own hormones. So most women, if you check their hormone levels when they’re on a hormonal birth control pill or have hormonal IUD or they have the implants. They often times have estrogen and progesterone and sometimes testosterone levels that are in the menopausal range really, really low. And that’s because their system has been shut down. So the baby factory is shut down. It’s not open for business, which is why people use it. They don’t want to get pregnant. But what they don’t realize is that not having those natural hormones affects every cell in your body. It’s going to affect your cognitive functioning and your mood. It affects your, your breasts and your uterus. That affects all of yourselves. And you may not be aware of this, but your outward sign that you get a period on the pill. I hear a lot of women, they don’t understand that that’s an artificial period. That’s not a real period. That is not a menstrual cycle. That’s an artificially chemically induced bleed from the uterus. I mean, really we should come up with another term for it because period is not what it is. And, when they’re on the pill, they will get that reassurance and I’ll say, no, that’s they’ll say, oh, I didn’t get a period or I got one or whatever. That’s not a period. And so you’re falsely reassured if you’re having that and on the Progestin IUD and the implants, they don’t get that at all.

Dr. Kyrin: And, um, so I think it’s important for women to understand that. I also think it’s important for them to understand that these synthetic hormones have to be detoxified by your body and that they can cause problems. I mean, when you think about it, the difference between making an male fetus versus a female fetus is one chemical reaction off making estrogen to testosterone or testosterone to estrogen. So that’s like a chemical variation in one of those hormones can have that big of result or change in the environment can make you a boy or a girl. And these chemical hormones in these pills or, IUD they’ve made chemical modifications to which a lot of times we don’t really know what the end result is going to be. And if you look at Provera, the whole issue of them taking progesterone in the fifties and altering it chemically to be madrone oxy progesterone acetate and then using it for women along with excellent horse, pregnant horse estrogen in female hormone replacement for women in menopause. We did it for decades and then whoops, women’s health initiative study comes out and they say, oh, they stopped the trial early because increased risk for breast cancer among myriad other health problems. You can still get Frenpro, you can still prescribe a drug seeker gesture on Acetate and you can still prescribe Premarin, but they’ve been documented to cause myriad health problems and so women need to understand that there are studies, for instance, that show that the earlier you go on the birth control pill and the longer you stay on it, you have an increased risk of breast cancer. But how many women listening are on the pill and their doctor actually talked to them about that? Once you hit the 10 year mark on hormonal contraception, you’re at increased risk. Yeah. So I get a little bit on my bandwagon, but I think that we do a disservice when we don’t help women really understand the pros and cons and the risks and benefits of what choices they’re making for their health.

Dr. Cates: Right? Absolutely. And you know, all of that. I’m so glad you’re talking about this. I think it’s so important and I think that it’s overlooked, not talked about very much. So that’s why, you know, we’re talking about this now. I think what happens is that the people that have heard about the risks of birth control pills or, from, you know, some of the hormonal treatments like the women’s health initiative study, then they think all hormones are bad, right? And so then it goes across the board. But now we also have, there’s an, there’s a healthier option, right? The bioidentical hormones. And then of course, there are a lot of ways that we can balance hormones, right? We want to build a solid foundation for health because a healthy body is going to help that. But we also have bioidentical hormones that have very differently in the body. So do you want to talk some about the difference and the change that, that that makes as far as the risk, but still helping with symptoms?

Dr. Kyrin: Right. And so, what you’re talking about is the bio identical when people say, well, what does that mean? Is that natural? Well, it means biologically identical hormones, biologically the same as what your body naturally makes. So the estrogen and a cream that you might use, or a troche or sublingual drop or a palliative whenever it is, looks exactly the same as what your body naturally makes. So that’s what bioidentical means. And so when we say, so beltic we mean chemically altered. Now bioidentical hormones can be made in a lab. So in that way, it depends on what you consider quote unquote natural as to whether they’re natural or not. And so I have to really educate people on this, but hopefully if you’re listening, you’re getting the difference. So biologically identical is what you want. When your body has a normal level of physiologic level of these hormones that it’s supposed to have, you don’t have untoward side effects. You don’t have an increased risk of cancer or other diseases and in face you potentiate and improve all of the other health processes in your body. So this is really the mainstay of treatment that we’ll use when necessary. There are other botanical and nutraceutical treatments that you can use sometimes to help optimize someone’s hormonal function before going to bioidenticals. But bioidenticals are a safe alternative and that’s as opposed to the synthetics. Madropsy progesterone Acetate, which is a progestin not progesterone. Progesterone is what’s naturally in your body that’s biologically identical. If you give someone a a biologically identical progesterone cream, it’s called progesterone, but a progestin is a chemically altered progesterone, so if you’re listening, hopefully you’re getting the difference. So all those pro Justin’s norethindrone that’s used in birth control pills, these are chemically altered. So there is a huge difference and there is great safety with bio identical or we also call them natural hormones. So that’s been used for decades worldwide and has been proven in the literature as well as with clinical experience to be safe and effective.

Dr. Cates: Great. Thank you for clarifying that. And I know that for those of you who’ve listened to other podcasts at the spot after we have talked about this before, but I think it’s always good to hear it again because I think the more you hear about it and you know, everybody teaches a little bit differently. So eventually, and it all starts to click and make sense. And I, you know, I get it cause it took me a while to figure all this when I was in medical school and still beyond and continuing medical education. I’m trying to learn more and more about the complexities of hormones. Um, so when you were telling your story and also talking about some of your patients, you listed off a number of symptoms that are so common for women. Weight gain, a sex drive, energy, sleep, mood, a lot of these symptoms that are typically a lot of women think, okay, this just means this is what happens when I get older. This happens when I hit starting my mid forties, 50, you know, fifties, this is what happens. And of course, as you, as you know, and you know, we both know there’s, there’s a lot we could do to help support our health during that time. But I think one of the big things that was huge for you was the weight that you lost as well as the energy. I’m so what do you feel like are there are some of the big things and probably part of that sex hormones, but there are certainly other hormones that play a role in these,

Dr. Kyrin: Right? And so first thing I would say is that we’ve really been trained or indoctrinated in our culture that as we get older, we’re going to get fat tired, have no sex drive, lose our hair. It’s just defacto going to happen. And that’s a lie, right? It’s a lie. It’s the imbalances in the body that caused these symptoms. If you address the imbalances, guess what? No symptoms. And that’s why now, well into my fifties I have better energy and health status than I did decades ago because I’ve learned how to address the imbalances. So I may be a little off off of your question, but I think that it’s important for women to understand that they have a right to a higher quality of health to end to a higher standard of care. And that they can access that standard of care probably if they’re listening to your podcast, they know this. And so I love that. Uh, but maybe like you said, they want to share this podcast with somebody who doesn’t really get it. And you know, this means that we can fall prey to every television commercial telling us take this medication and you’ll lose 20 pounds and feel like a teenager again and want to have sex. And it’s not that simple. It’s always more complicated. And so for me, I really have a four pillar approach of how I addressed these issues with anyone. But particularly I love working with women at midlife because you know, half of us in our forties are, I’m sorry, two thirds of us are overweight or obese women in their forties that is huge. And so it’s really an epidemic. And so because that was me, I’m so passionate about working with women in that age group.

Dr. Kyrin: So I really work with four pillars and for me the foundation is hormones because hormones are the communication system in the body, right? Information goes from one area to another and it tells yourselves in your plans how to function along with the nervous system. So I consider those the two branches of the communication system, the hardwired nervous system, your brain and nerves is I find a little heartier and a little less susceptible to interruption. The hormonal system, just like we talked about, the complicated system between men and women, the hormonal system, because it’s molecules being released in one area of the body, it has to travel through the bloodstream to another has way more opportunities for disruption. And the analogy I use with that, it’s like the hardwired internet in your house versus the wireless Internet. And I don’t know about you, but my wireless Internet every other day I have an issue, cannot connect. You know, there’s some problems. So hormones are your wireless Internet. So that’s usually the foundation of where I start with people looking at the three metabolic drivers, insulin, thyroid and cortisol, and then looking at the sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone. Those are really the, the big drivers. I mean you have lots and lots of hormones.

Dr. Kyrin: Then I moved to the next pillar, which for me is toxicity and inflammation, which we really, if you think about it, I call it inflammation is really rust in our body and that’s ultimately what we all died from is this accumulation of rust or inflammation. And that comes from a lot of toxicity. And then I look at nutritional deficiency as the third pillar. 70% of Americans have nutrient deficiencies. The RDAs that were created in the 1950s really are not, haven’t kept pace with the level of nutrients that we need in order to de toxify everything that’s coming into us every day. I mean it’s kind of like how are our Internet and our, we’re on information overload. I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep up with all the emails and texts and messages. And I mean, the information overload that we get in one day is probably is, I’ve heard it quoted that is equivalent to what people got a hundred years ago in 10 years. And so our bodies are inundated with the toxins and so we use up nutritional resources so we’re depleted. So nutrient efficiency is what I look at.

Dr. Kyrin: And then I always look at the fourth pillar is mental, emotional, spiritual balance that really forms this energetic framework around the physical body that you’ve got to get right. Because I find that you can detoxify and balance hormones all day long, but if you don’t address that, you’re probably not going to get the results you want. So those are kind of the four pillars that people need to be thinking about when it comes to optimizing their health.

Dr. Cates: Oh, those are fantastic. Those are all really important. Um, and um, I’m glad that you talk about these and you know, one of the hormones that you talked about, um, was insulin. And, uh, that’s not one that we talk a lot about on the podcast. So what, what do you do to help people with that? And like identifying issues with insulin.

Dr. Kyrin: Great question. Because that’s probably the number one hormone disruption in America right now because so many of us are insulin resistant, prediabetic and diabetic and insulin, excuse me, is the hormone that’s involved with that. And so, well, let me just talk about, so some of the symptoms, one of the main symptoms I see when people are having an insulin problem, they are tired all the time. So you can’t really distinguish by symptomatology whether it’s a thyroid or cortisol or insulin or sex hormone problem, because if you have a disruption in any of those, first off it’s going to affect the other ones. But secondly, fatigue is usually a major component. But I usually find with insulin it’s this consistent. It’s not episodic. It’s not like, oh, I get up in the morning and I feel great and then by the afternoon I’m crashing. That says to me more probably a thyroid or cortisol problem.

Dr. Kyrin: But people with insulin problems, they’re just tired all the time. That’s usually when I hear that. That’s one of the first things I look for. And then of course my favorite labs to look at our a fasting insulin, fasting glucose and the hemoglobin a one c I like also to do a two hour glucose tolerance test. Some people may be familiar with that we do in pregnancy for diabetes, but this is a great place to do it because the fasting blood work may come back normal, but it’s your response, your insulin response that could be impaired. And so we look at the same parameters at two hours after a glucose load, which might be as simple as a big white Bagel with jelly on it. Right? And a lot of people think that that’s probably not a lot. That’s a lot of sugar. So we look at that, but it’s so important because like we were talking about all these hormones interact. I used to do this exercise where I had the names of the hormones and I’m on a plaque and then I would put it around each person’s neck. And I would have, I also forgot to mention DHEAA, but that to me goes hand in hand with cortisol. And I would have people hold hands with the different hormone names. And so I use this as a way to show them the interactivity between the hormones because insulin is sensitive to what you eat and your glucose load. So if you eat a sticky bond, well insulin’s going to go up. So then with this exercise I would have insulin, thyroid, and cortisol all holding hands. And so I’d say, okay. And so, you just say to sticky bond, what happens? You go up, so what happens? You start pulling and then cortisol goes off, balance and thyroid goes off balance.

Dr. Kyrin: And then I usually ask them, who knew that what you eat could unbalance your hormones? And everyone says, no, I didn’t know that. Nobody ever told me that. And so a huge component of what I do and what we all do and naturopathic and functional medicine is educate our patients. I really wish that we would have your body 101 in elementary school because it amazes me how little most people know about how their body functions. But I always say knowledge is power and so I’m going to give you the knowledge that you need so you can be empowered to make different choices for your health.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. That’s probably why I did the podcast. Right, to educate and empower people. Right. So well I mean and with insulin of course you don’t, what I do talk about it definitely impacts the skin is one of the triggers for acne breakouts to when insulin increases increases sebulum production and the androgen activity. So then that, um, that can also lead to acne promise. So we certainly talk about that when it comes to skin too. It’s all interconnected. So diet of course will play a big role in that and reducing your sugar intake and foods that turn to sugar and balanced eating balanced meals. What else is really, what else do you find helpful and, and, and addressing insulin.

Dr. Kyrin: Oh, the number one driver. Well, food is the number one cause you gotta stop putting in the high octane sugars and carbs because that’s what your insulin is reacting to. But the number two action that you can take to help your insulin recover is exercise because the muscles represents the largest utilizer of glucose in the body and you have a huge muscle mass. And so if you do exercise, and I think the studies have shown just if you did 30 minutes for five days in one week of aerobic type exercise that gets your heart rate up into the target zone, you can statistically significantly reduce your insulin in one week. And so it is the, the biggest action that I have people take next to changing how they eat. And then the third is there are some supplements that can help to decrease your glucose absorption or sensitize your body to insulin. But I find a lot of people can do it just with the Diet and exercise.

Dr. Cates: Yup. Absolutely. All right, well this has been so, I mean we can just keep talking about hormones and health for the rest of the day but this has been so interesting. So it Dr Karen, tell everybody where they can find more about you. Let’s learn more about you and connect with you.

Dr. Kyrin: Sure. They can check out my website which is kyrindunstonmd.com and I’ll spell that cause a lot of people get confused. k y r i n d u n s t o n m d.com. There’s more information there. And then I did have a Meditation for Brilliant Hormone Balance I wanted to share with everyone, which is a free download of that. Hopefully you’ll linked in the show notes and you can check it out and listen, it’s us quick 20 minutes a guided meditation that I created to help take you through a different exercise that will help you to balance all of your hormones.

Dr. Cates: Oh, I love it. Okay. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, we’ll definitely, we’ll put that in the show notes. So that will be on The Spa Dr. website below the interview. So we’ll have that link there saying thank you so much for that gift. I appreciate that. And thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing all your information. We’ll have to have you back on some point. Keep our conversation on hormones going.

Dr. Kyrin: Yes, thank you so much for having me. I it was a pleasure being here and yes, we can talk about hormones and anytime you want.

Dr. Cates: Okay, great. Have you enjoyed this interview today? And to learn more about Dr Kyrin Dunston and the free gift that she mentioned, you can go to TheSpaDr.com, go to the podcast page with her interview and you’ll find all the information there. And while you’re there I invite you to join The Spa Doctor community so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. And if you haven’t already gotten your customized skin report, you can go to theskinquiz.com find out what messages your skin is trying to tell you about your health and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com take this quick free online quiz and you’ll get lots of information about your skin and your health. And also I invite you to join me on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, youtube, Pinterest, and join the conversation there and I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.