Hormones, Stress and Skin with Dr. Carrie Jones

Hormones, Stress and Skin with Dr. Carrie Jones

Dr. Trevor Cates: Hi, I am Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to The Spa Dr. Podcast. Today we are discussing how hormones impact our skin and that includes our stress hormones. My guest is Dr. Carrie Jones, who is an internationally recognized speaker, consultant and educator on the topic of women’s health and hormones. She graduated from the national University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon where she also completed her two year residency in women’s health hormones and inner chronology. Later she graduated from Grand Canyon University’s master of public health program with the goal of doing more international education. She was adjunct faculty for many years teaching gynecology and advanced inner chronology and has been the medical director for two large integrative clinics and Portland. She is the medical director of Precision Analytical incorporated creators of the Dutch hormone test. In today’s interview, we discussed the top hormones that impact skin issues that include acne, premature aging, eczema, even hair loss or excess hair growth. Dr. Jones shares how to identify which hormones are the problem for your skin and natural solutions to rebalance them for healthy skin and for your overall health. So please enjoy this interview,

Dr. Trevor Cates: Dr. Carrie. It is so great to have you on my podcast. Welcome.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Thank you so much. I’m really glad the technology worked out. And here we are.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, zoom is quite popular these days. We are talking about skin and hormones and I know you have a huge following. People really look to you as an expert in the area of hormones. So I’m excited to interview you since you have not been on The Spa Dr. podcasts before, but before we dive into talking about specific hormones and how they relate to skin and more, tell us what got you really interested in this topic.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Oh my gosh. So I have known since I was a little girl that I wanted to do women’s health and hormones. And when I got to Naturopathic school, that is what I focused on was women’s health and hormones.

My mentor was big into hormones, big into hormone education. I learned a lot then did my residency in women’s health and hormones, got my Master’s in public health so I could do international work with women’s health and hormones. And so I joke, hormones is the only thing I know. If you ask me about your kids, or you ask me about your hurt knee, I have no idea. But if you feel hormonal I can help.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Well that’s great because then you become the expert and we can ask you all kinds of questions.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes.

Dr. Trevor Cates: When we are talking about hormones, there are certain ones, specific ones that really make an impact on our skin. So I want to talk about some of these. What would you say are some of the top ones that are the most important ones for us to be talking about when we talk about skin.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Really what I see all the time, are when women and even men have an imbalance with their estrogen, progesterone with their cortisol and with their androgens, their sort of testosterone and other intergenic type hormones. Any of those can cause hormonal stuff. Whether it is dull skin, aging, skin, acne, the hair growth in the places that we don’t want, and even up into the hair follicles, we will start to get hair loss on the head. So all four of those hormones can really cause a lot of problems for people.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. Let’s go through those. The first one you mentioned was the estrogen progesterone balance.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes. So estrogen and progesterone for women who are still cycling, as we get close to our period, we should have more progesterone relative to our estrogen. And if we don’t, if it’s the other way around, we actually have a lot more estrogen or just relative to progesterone. That is when women say, I feel PMS, I have heavy periods, I feel moody. But they will also say I’m breaking out. I feel puffy.

I feel like I’m having water retention. And as a result, I feel like I’m getting acne on the cheeks or even on the forehead and depending on the hormone as well, down on the chin and jawline area. And so by helping either improve that progesterone or improve that estrogen clearance out of the body, we call it detoxification. That women will say, Oh my gosh, my skin is so much better, so much clearer. I feel so much better. My PMS is better. Just by helping those two hormones.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. We are talking about scale, but of course all of that, all the things you mentioned, it all ties in and that is why I talk about skin being our magic mirror that gives us great information about our overall health. Then it just all ties in together. Certainly we don’t just look at skin. So thank you for including all those symptoms because it does help us figure out then which hormone it is. because there are a lot of different reasons too that someone can break out an acne. It’s not just from what you’re talking about here.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Absolutely. I mean even I have heard you talk before about the gut health and skin and the gut health itself can actually affect how a woman recirculates her estrogen or not. So we might be thinking, Oh my gosh, I have bloating, I have constipation. When I eat food, I feel super bloated. I get heartburn and you only focus on just the intestinal stuff, and then your skin breaks out and then you feel hormonal. It definitely has a big sort of a domino effect. And when the microbiome in the gut is off and then it just goes from there. And so I tell women, yes estrogen, all your hormones actually, but estrogen in particular, it’s cleared out of the gut. So if your gut is not happy, then your estrogen will not be happy and then your skin will not be happy and your PMS will not be happy. And it just goes on and on.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay. You mentioned this was with women that were still having their periods. So cycling, what about women that are no longer cycling?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Oh my goodness. So as women who get older and they get into perimenopause and menopause. That is sort of a transitional time when you are in reproductive cycling, but you are not yet menopausal, so your periods haven’t stopped completely. So usually for most women it’s maybe in their forties early fifties and they say to me all the time, I feel like a teenager. My skin is completely breaking out again. What is happening? I will be 43 in June, so I totally get it, but I call it reverse puberty. That is when you went into puberty, your hormones were chaotic and as a result, a lot of men and women break out and then when you are heading into menopause, it is reversed puberty. You are kind of backing out of making all of those hormones and those hormones are very erratic.

That used to follow a really nice rhythm. You would hopefully get your period every month. But what happens is we get into our forties and early fifties. We may get it twice a month, we may skip several months, we may skip several months and then get it twice a month. And this erraticism absolutely wreaks havoc on our face because estrogen is high. Then estrogen is low, progesterone is high, then Progesterone’s low, then testosterone is high and then testosterone is low and the skin is like, I don’t even know what to do right now. I am just going to rebel. And some poor women, they end up feeling like they had skin when they were in puberty.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. What about men? You mentioned men too. How do the men play in this?

Dr. Carrie Jones: For men it is similar to women in that we look at testosterone, one of the other hormones for skin and testosterone itself can bind to receptors in our skin and can turn them on to either have hair growth like that dark coarse hair growth. The tree branches that we don’t like, or the cystic acne. And so men can get that as well. The other thing testosterone can do is testosterone can convert into an even more potent form known as DHT. DHT is really what is known, which you have talked about as what causes the cystic acne on the jawline. The hair grows in places women don’t like, the male pattern baldness in men and women.

At the hairline and that DHT is potent. For some people when a DHT molecule floats by the chin, the receptor freaks out and poof, you break out or poof, like on the jawline or poof on the neck area, you start to develop neck acne and it can happen in men and women. It doesn’t happen of course to all men and women, but to some who are more sensitive, it can absolutely be a real problem and you don’t have to have necessarily high levels.

You just have to be leaning more that way. You can just have a preference for that DHT pathway and we will see it in men and women and you don’t have to have something like PCOS, which is really common to go down that pathway. You could be not PCOS, and still go down that pathway and still struggle with skin issues.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Let’s go through the other hormones and then we will go back. We will talk about testing and treatment to touch on those topics. What are the other hormones we haven’t talked about?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Cortisol is a big one. Stress is really big right now unfortunately. And so cortisol is wreaking havoc on our collagen and our skin cells and our hair follicles. And so as a result, what I’m hearing from men and women is that they are feeling as if they are aging with stress. They feel like their wrinkles are more pronounced, their skin is either dryer or oilier, depending on the person.

Cortisol can really increase sebum though in the skin. They are reporting hair loss because of cortisol’s effect, the hair follicle. As a result with lots of stress, lots of cortisol we often get skin issues. And so right now being a really, unfortunately good example, if you already had stress and then we add a pandemic on top of it. I’m hearing this more and more from patients and even practitioners who are saying, what’s wrong with my skin and why is my hair falling out so much? I know cortisol has a really crazy affect at the skin and the hair follicle level.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. What about the thyroid hormone?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Thyroid is a big one and we know that when the thyroid slows down, it slows down hair turnover and it slows down hair growth. It slows down skin turnover and collagen. And again, that can affect skin and hair as well. Whereas the opposite, when the thyroid is fast, hyper thyroid, we tend to get oilier more sebum production and it can also affect oiliness in the hair and the scalp. It can also affect our hair loss as well. And so thyroid is a big one for skin health and really important to test.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah, absolutely. Going back to androgens, What is the differences between men and women, what are the things that you notice as far as their skin and the impact of those?

Dr. Carrie Jones: With the androgens, what I see the most in men, not so much in the teenage years, which obviously the change in androgens is what brings about a lot of the teenage acne along with, of course gut and diet, all that stuff. But just for the normal adults, with men, I tend to see the hair loss. I tend to see the receding hairline and the temples, the male pattern baldness. The other thing that those androgens can cause is their mood changes, which obviously is not related to skin, but they will be a little more angry, a little more less patient, a little more irritated.

Whereas with women, I still see the mood stuff. Women are like, I’m more irritated. I have less patience, but they tend to get more of the acne. They get more of that cystic acne, especially on the neck, the jawline, it doesn’t necessarily just have to be there in the chin.

Men make a lot more androgens, so they handle them better than women do. So men just tend to have lots and lots of testosterone because that is what makes them men. But it really affects their hair follicles. Whereas women, when we get too much of the androgens for us or we get too much of that DHT, that potent part, it affects not only our hair follicle but our skin, and mood as well. So we get the big trifecta when it comes to androgens.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Is there anything else you wanted to say about hormones before we go on to testing?

Dr. Carrie Jones: No, this is good.

Dr. Trevor Cates: All right. I find all this fascinating . I think hormones are so fascinating because they’re so complex and whenever anybody can kind of simplify it, I always love that. When it comes to testing, I know you do a lot of testing because you work with, with a lab. You have a lot of experience with that. What do you recommend when it comes to testing?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yeah, for women who are still cycling, the timing is everything. The first thing I always say, no matter what test you use, whether it is a blood test, a saliva test, a dried urine test, which is the hormone lab that I work for. You want to make sure that you get it at the right part. So if you pretend or assume that you ovulate in the middle of your cycle, roughly day 13, 14, or 15, you actually collect any hormone testing five to seven days later. So for the average woman, we’re looking at day 19, 20, or 21 of her cycle. Now if you are listening to this and you are like, I actually ovulated on day 10. Okay, you’ll collect on day 15 through 17. So it is very specific where we hormone test.

If you ask me, I got my hormones done on day five and I was told they are fine. Well day five, is that what we are looking for or are we looking for later in the cycle? More like day 19, 20, or 21 so that is first and foremost, know where you are in your cycle when you get tested. Secondly, when you do testing, with serum, which is a blood draw and with dried urine, which is where I work, I work for the Dutch test. There are other companies out there. It’s basically these pieces of filter paper that you urinate on a few times in the day.

So it is an easy at home collection, but the bonus of them is that you get testosterone, but you also get that DHT. You can get blood, draw of testosterone and you can get the blood draw of DHT. Unfortunately you can’t get that in saliva testing.
Now when you are looking at estrogen and progesterone, though, the nice part about the dried urine, is you get your estrogen, but you also get your estrogen detoxification, two out of the three phases. So if a woman says, I have a lot of skin issues, I also have heavy periods, I have PMS, moody, endometriosis, whatever it is, I can say, well, I can tell you based on these results, how you are detoxifying your estrogen.

And if you are not doing it very well, then it causes a lot of recirculation. It builds back up in your system again and now you have problems. So I like that I get the extra added information out of the dried urine to really help somebody who is struggling. So I can say, this is how you detoxify, this is what your testosterone is doing. Here is how your cortisol looks, here is how your cortisol looks through the day. Here is why you can’t sleep. Here is why you feel so stressed out. So I just get a much bigger picture when I do the dried urine. But I know a lot of people start with blood draws because it is easy. You just miss some of that extra info that we have been talking about.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that. And then when it comes to cortisol, a lot of people do the saliva test for the cortisol, but you can also get that from the dry urine test?

Dr. Carrie Jones: You can, and you do it throughout the day because you want to catch the rhythm. So you will do it in the morning and you will do it a couple hours later. You will do it around dinner and you will do it before bed. And if you have insomnia, you will do it in the middle of the night when you wake up as well. So it’s really nice to catch all the points. So I can tell you what your rhythm looks like. Are you high in the morning and low at night like you should be? Or do you have a reverse curve? Are you low in the morning and so you are super tired and unmotivated, but then you get a second wind and now you can’t sleep before you go to bed. And so we can work on that.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Right. And that really helps with treatment. A lot of times people say, why don’t conventional doctors do this kind of test. Because you typically don’t get the Dutch test or the dried urine or even saliva test and most doctor’s offices, even gynecologists or most of them. I’m not saying all, why is that?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Most of its education. Most of them are just taught if you have a problem, then here is the pharmaceutical that goes with it. So if you have, let’s say acne, then you have some options, you can get the birth control pill and if you don’t want that you can try spironolactone and you can try topicals that are prescription. So it seems in conventional treatments, first of all, they don’t have a lot of time. They have about eight to 10 minutes with you unfortunately. And then they have to make the quickest decision in that eight or 10 minutes to give you. And the quickest, easiest is here, take a pill. Yup, you have acne here, take a pill, or here, try a cream, or try this topical.

But it never gets to the cause. So yes, it may help, but you may have to be on it for a really long time or forever because you never actually backtracked and looked to figure out what really is going on. But they can’t do it in eight to 10 minutes, which is what’s really nice about the functional medicine movement is you have a lot more time. And the goal is more of what is causing it in the first place? What is causing this hormonal imbalance? What can we do to get this back in balance? So whatever you are taking, you don’t have to be on seemingly forever and ever. And so that’s why I like adding in this extra testing because I get more information and it just helps me really personalize what is going on with somebody. So for example, spironolactone, if somebody is on it and they are like, it is not working well, then it is not an androgen problem.

I know what the mechanism of action is. So now I know it is something else and we have to still test and figure out what else it could be, when it comes to skin and medic and pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. You just talked about a quarter cortisol testing. Let’s talk about that first. You get the results back, and there are different things throughout the day. How is that from a Naturopathic doctors perspective, how is that going to change the treatment protocol that you have?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes, that is actually a really good question. So if your rhythm is off, your circadian rhythm sets the rhythm for everything in your body. So including your hormonal rhythm, how you ovulate, how you have a period. When you choose to eat, your hunger symbols, how your thyroid is released. Your main wake up in the morning, go to bed at night rhythm. That circadian rhythm is the master circuit setter for everything below it. And so when I look at cortisol, I know that if you were flipped, like I said earlier, if you are low in the morning, which is not good and elevated at night, which is not good, then I know it is probably affecting every other hormone production in your whole body.

I know it is affecting how you digest your food. I know it is affecting how you absorb your food. It is affecting how you release glucose and release insulin. So blood sugar balance and all of that affects the skin ultimately. But it affects everything else. How you handle infection, how you handle inflammation, how you do or don’t get autoimmune disease, potential cancer in the future. It really affects everything downstream.

So when I am looking at that rhythm, I really want to make sure that somebody has a normal rise in the morning to get them up, to get them out of bed, switch them to alert, to help reduce infection, reduce inflammation, manage blood sugar because you have just been fasting all night long and I want them very low at night so they can fall asleep, stay asleep. So melatonin can come out. You get restored and refreshed and then you start all over again.

The idea of our rhythms and our energy and sort of stress in general gets blown off. In our society I find that people are like, are you stressed? Well yeah but that’s normal. It is common and normal are not the same thing and it really does affect everything else. Because most people are not just tired, they are tired and they have this list of other problems. The symptoms that they are experiencing. A lot of times it can just start with fixing that rhythm for a lot of people.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Absolutely. What are some of the things that you do to help treat those imbalances of cortisol?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Actually, believe it or not, it is free and it is easy and it is the greatest thing ever. Use the light and the dark to your advantage. They tell people, when you get up in the morning, your cortisol rises very quickly in about 30 minutes. That’s natural. And it does so at the response of light. So I want you to open up your curtains, open up your blinds, go outside, consider buying a full spectrum light box. Turn it on in the morning and get about 1520 minutes in your eyeballs. Don’t blind yourself with the sun, but enjoy the fact that there is full spectrum light around you. That helps in training your rhythm.

At night darkness is your best friend. Darkness is what resets a dysfunctional rhythm. So make sure you wind down at night, dim the lights, wear blue light blocking glasses. Consider getting off your phone, your tablet, computer, what have you. Sleep in complete darkness, no nightlights, no neighbor light in the window, no blinking lights, no electronic light. Sleep with a sleep mask. And by just utilizing light dark, it makes a big difference. The other thing I like to do a lot are stress management things. Whatever works for you. Is it meditation, is it journaling, is it nourishing your relationships, is it snuggling your kids or your dog. Building up that step. Feel good hormone Oxytocin.

It is things like washing your face with cold water and ending your shower in cold water, which may be new for some people, but take a shower and then when you end the last 30 seconds to a minute in colder water, it helps your system build up some resiliency and right now we humans could use some resiliency and it is actually good for the skin and it is good for the hair follicles. And so I’m telling people, whatever you do for stress response and stress relief, do it now more than ever. And any supplements you take for stress, any supplements you have been prescribed by your practitioner, especially if you are to do it in the morning for energy, try to do it within the first 30 minutes of waking up.

Timing is everything, because again, you have got about 30 minutes where your cortisol takes off. You are trying to improve that communication. So do it within the first 30 minutes of waking up, because what happens is people get up and they get ready and they get their kids ready and they let their dog out and they take a shower and all of a sudden two hours have gone by and then they are like, Oh, I have these supplements in my pocket, and then they forget. So you have got to train yourself to take it early.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Great. That is all fantastic. And I think it really depends of course on the level of issue that you have as far as what supplements to take. But is there anything in general that you want to say? I think of course it is best for people to work directly with a Naturopathic physician or a functional medicine doctor. But in general, do you have any recommendations?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes, absolutely. For stress and cortisol. I will tell you my absolute personal favorite is Holy basil, which is also known as Tulsi and it is generally pretty safe. You can’t take it if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. But for the average person, pretty safe. It is very common in teas. You will see it in teas in the grocery store, very popular ones you will hear are ashwagandha, which is an Indian arithmetic herb, eleutherococcus, you will hear Rhodiola, your B vitamins are very supportive, vitamin C, very supportive to the adrenals and the immune system. There is definitely a number nourishing stuff for people when it comes to cortisol.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay, great. You also talked about androgens, especially the DHT excess. And so what do you do to help address that and treat that?

Dr. Carrie Jones: So the two big triggers are inflammation and insulin. So if you have a lot of inflammation that you can identify, maybe you are eating dairy and you shouldn’t, maybe you have a virus, maybe you have Epstein BARR virus, maybe you have mold exposure. Just whatever inflammation you are working with your practitioner on, that can increase that DHT pathway. The other big thing is insulin. So if you have blood sugar imbalance, try asking your practitioner to get a fasting insulin and let’s see what is going on.

The higher the insulin, generally the higher the DHT. As you are working on those two things, there are some more natural supplements that can be helpful. One is Saw Palmetto, which we commonly think of for men and prostate health. And you will see it in prostate mixes and men can use it too, obviously. But for women, I will say, I know maybe the bottle says prostate, I know you don’t have a prostate. It is really for that DHT pathway. Zinc can be really helpful. So eating more foods that are high in zinc, reishi mushroom can be really helpful and pushing away from that DHT.

Medicinal mushrooms, not the illegal kind, but the medicinal kind are getting a lot of press right now. And I love it because they are so beneficial to the body and reishi is a really good one for decreasing that DHT. And then stinging nettle root, a stinging nettle. It comes as a leaf and it comes as a root and it is the root that actually helps to decrease that DHT for people as well. It can be helpful. Again, they are just bandaids. They are not going to fix the cause. You still have to fix the cause with your practitioner. But they can be helpful in the meantime to just slow the process down and improve it faster.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay, great. Let’s transition to estrogen, progesterone, that balance, and you mentioned that sometimes just progesterone’s low because of where women are in the phase of their cycle and how close they are to menopause. And then there is also the inability to metabolize estrogens. And so there are probably some differences in the way you address that?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Definitely. If we start with estrogens, I tell people the first thing you want to do is always start with the gut because it is like the sewer line out of your house. You want to make sure that it’s open and clear and getting rid of all the bad stuff out of your house. So lots of fiber, reducing alcohol, looking at your pre and your probiotics. Thinking about antibiotic use, do you really need that antibiotic or are you just taking it just because, of course that will affect your microbiome and so anything that helps the gut will automatically help your estrogen.

Then we go up from there. We look at the liver. Again, we are looking at alcohol use. If you have a lot of skin issues, a lot of hormone issues, and you do happen to have one to three glasses of wine a night, know that alcohol and estrogen are both trying to get through your liver and alcohol will always win.
And so estrogen gets pushed to the back and recirculates over and over again. In your body. So keeping that in mind. Brassica family foods are really important. What is the brassica family food? That’s your broccoli, your kale, your cauliflower, your Brussels sprouts. I like broccoli sprouts.

There is big broccoli, we have our normal broccoli, and then sprouted broccoli is really high in something called sulforaphane. Sulforaphane is really helpful for estrogen detoxification, lots of detoxification, estrogens is one of my favorites and so I am using a lot of that. Magnesium can be really helpful. Zinc is really helpful here as well. Glycine can be really helpful. B vitamins again can be really helpful and that’s just helping to get estrogen through the liver and then out the intestines in a healthy manner so that it is more imbalanced with where you need to be.

Now progesterone is a little different. Progesterone is a lot about ovulation. In order to make progesterone, you have to release an egg or ovulate. There is a really great helpful herb that is common. It’s called Vitex or Chaste Tree Berry. And it can be helpful to be done usually every day in a cycle to help the brain communicate with the ovary to improve ovulation. B Vitamins are helpful again here, specifically vitamin B six. Your oils are really helpful. Your Omega threes, your borage oil, your evening Primrose oil, those good organic oils, really good for the cells and really good for progesterone production. And then again, sleep, honestly getting your circadian rhythm right helps with your ovulation rhythm and that will then further help your cycle and your hormones at large.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yeah. How do you feel about seed cycling or seed oil or oil cycling or any of those?

Dr. Carrie Jones: I actually like seed cycling, People will often say, well, there is no literature. There is no research on it. I said, there is not, but I do have lots of anecdotal women over the years who swear by it. They have done seed cycling through certain seeds the first half switch and add different seeds to your diet the second half. And they are like, my PMS got so much better and my cycle was right on time and I ovulated when I was supposed to. So the anecdotal just absolutely is what I believe. If I have all of these women who swear by it, then if you want to do it, I recommend it.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay. How do you feel about evening Primrose oil and cycling that?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yeah you can. The only downfall to Primrose oil, is that I have found it can make headaches worse in headache prone people. I have gotten that feedback over the years from women who say doing Primrose oil and my migraines are worse. I’m like, Oh yep. That is one of the potential side effects. Just be aware. But yes, you can alternate, you can do Primrose in the first and then fish oil in the second.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Great, And about the estrogen metabolism you mentioned, Sulforaphane, you mentioned broccoli. How do you feel about taking supplements of Sulforaphane or dim supplements?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Dim is a little different. Dim is Di Indole Methane and Dim comes from broccoli. So when you chew up broccoli and it hits your stomach, first, there is a component called indole three carbinol and it needs acid. So you have to have healthy stomach acid to break it apart. One of the molecules is dim, so you can buy Dim as a supplement or you can get it from broccoli. If you have good stomach acid. Dim is really good for phase one estrogen detox. If you have a phase one estrogen problem, excellent. If you don’t have a phase one problem, then dim can actually be more harmful than helpful.

Whereas Sulforaphane is more of a phase two support and it helps stop estrogen from inducing DNA damage. They are called adduct formation. So I like sulforaphane because it is like a step back. It is a little more broader and you can take that pretty continuously, whereas Dim is really focused only if they have a phase one problem.
If they have a phase three problem, which is the gut or phase two problem, which is a genetic snip called COMT, Dim is not going to be helpful. But if you have a phase one problem on testing, then yeah, absolutely. It works wonders.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I know people are going to ask me that. How are we going to know if they are phase one?

Dr. Carrie Jones: You have to test. People will ask, what symptoms are different? What is a symptom of somebody with phase one versus phase two or phase three? All the symptoms are the same. If you have bad PMS or heavy periods or endometriosis, I can’t tell you if it’s one, two, or three. Sometimes it’s all of them and we have to address all of them. Sometimes it’s just a part of them. Phase one and two are done through, urine testing and phase three is done through stool testing. It is two different tests unfortunately, but that is just the way it goes when we are looking at detoxification.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay. And do you ever recommend genetic testing too, because you mentioned, synthetic polymer polymorphisms. Do you do that as part of your practice?

Dr. Carrie Jones: I do. And in fact nowadays a lot of people just come in with them. I mean not everybody, but a lot of people have done something online. They have the results and they have run it through some sort of reader that tells them what is going on and it is helpful, especially for estrogen, that is probably the favorite thing I look at for estrogen detoxification. That COMT that neutralizes estrogen so that you can get rid of it out of your intestines. And if somebody has polymorphism in their snip that may increase the risk for breast cancer, not the BRCA gene, but there are other genes that are called CYP. Your cytochrome.

Cytochrome one B one is an example, pushes estrogen down the wrong pathway. And if somebody has that and enough regulation in that, then I know I have to be very proactive as a practitioner to keep them off that pathway. Because genetically they really want to go down that pathway. I do not want them to go down that pathway. And same for, if somebody has a slow COMT polymorphism, they are going to be slow to detox their estrogen. It is going to recirculate and they are at higher risk for heavy periods, fibroids, endometriosis, PMS, skin issues. So I know I need to help do what I can to speed up their COMT and support their COMT. I do like it for that reason.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Okay. Great. You also mentioned stool testing, so it sounds like you do a stool test.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes. I am looking at good bugs, bad bugs, parasites, and I’m looking particularly at an enzyme called beta glucuronidase. Beta glucuronidase is the enzyme that will keep estrogen in the body and not let it go. If you have high levels as a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter, then you can have higher levels of circulating estrogen because the gut won’t release it. And we can do things to help lower that enzyme. Affecting the microbiome, reducing inflammation, being careful of what we eat and how we eat fiber and alcohol and antibiotics. And there’s a supplement called calcium D glucarate CDG doesn’t fix anything, but it does bandaid and allow estrogen to go out. So while we are working on all the microbiome things, I will sometimes give that supplement to help estrogen continue to clear out and it really helps the symptoms pretty quickly.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Great. Well that has been amazing. And I know we have covered so much just now. Oh my gosh, I’m so overwhelmed. How do I know what to do? I wanted to make it clear with people, it is really important if you have hormonal issues to work with the naturopathic doctor, functional medicine doctor who can do testing like this that we have talked about and really figure out what the root cause of because it can be oversimplified and all you need is a blood test. Is your estrogen low, is your progesterone low, and it is so much more than that. I wanted to shed some light on that with you today, so I really appreciate it. Anything that you would like to share with people, tips or general things, where to start with their skin and hormones?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Yes. I actually do. I will start with, which is not so much skin but it is the hair because it is probably the biggest question I’m getting right now is all the hair loss. And just reminding people that if you are suddenly experiencing a lot of hair loss, cortisol has a very powerful effect on the hair follicles. On the skin as well, like we were saying, but I have women freaking out like, Oh my gosh, I’m losing hair all of a sudden starting in March or April. I’m like, yes.

So high cortisol and high adrenaline epinephrine directly impacts your hair follicles and can cause shedding and it can slow down growth. It can push your hair actually into the resting phase as opposed to the growing phase. And so don’t freak out. I know you want to freak out because you are losing hair, but don’t freak out. Just know it is a temporary thing. Do what you can to reduce and relax with stress and to take care of yourself right now. It will eventually turn around and your hair will grow again, you didn’t do anything wrong. It is just the current situation of stress right now impacting your hair follicles. And by telling men too, but so many women are like, there is nothing wrong with me? I say no, it is the state of the world right now. And your hair follicles are very sensitive and they are reacting and it will eventually get better. I promise. It is cortisol stress.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I think sometimes about how when everybody’s gotten back to their hairstylist and get their hair appointment done, how many of them want to go, Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize how much hair I had lost.

Dr. Carrie Jones: I say it to hairstylists who are listening to this need to know that don’t freak out your client. Like wow, you have lost a lot of hair. Everybody has stress right now.

Dr. Trevor Cates: All right, great. Dr. Carrie, can you tell everybody where they can learn more about you, where they can find you?

Dr. Carrie Jones: Definitely. Everything I do, webinars, podcasts, everything I post for free, including this one, on my website, which is actually Dutchtest.com. And then on Instagram. I live on Instagram. That is my favorite. And it is @dr.carriejones.

Dr. Trevor Cates: Yes, you have a great Instagram. I know you have a really active following and you post some really great things on there. Thank you for all that you do to educate people and to help out. And again, thanks again for coming on the podcast.

Dr. Carrie Jones: Thank you so much for having me. I love talking about hormones and skin is near and dear to my heart so I love it.

Dr. Trevor Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Carrie Jones. Lots of fascinating information about the connection between hormones and skin. You can learn more about her by going to TheSpaDr.com, go to the podcast page with her interview and you will find all the information and links and this might be a good time to download the transcript from the podcast because there is so much information in this interview. Also, while you are at TheSpaDr.com, I invite you to join The Spa Dr. Community so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows and information. And if you haven’t taken The Skin quiz yet, you can go to theskinquiz.com to find out what messages your skin might be trying to tell you about your health, including imbalances of hormones and what you can do about it. Just go to theskinquiz.com. Also, I invite you to join us on social media. The Spa Dr. Is on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and I’ll see you next time on The Spa Dr. Podcast.