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Women’s Health

Perimenopause & Menopause: How to Balance Your Hormones Naturally

By Sara Gottfried, MD | May 28, 2018
Navigate Perimenopause + Menopause Naturally|Women's Hormone Health|Sara Gottfried MD

Perimenopause is rough on many women. Menopause too. As a woman, one’s sense of equanimity can feel under attack starting in your forties, sometimes earlier. As your ovaries start to…

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What Happens to Our Hormones After 35

By Sara Gottfried, MD | May 7, 2018

Women, we have it tough. Once we hit our thirties, our hormones just can’t take it anymore. Balance becomes elusive. Mood swings become normal. And our family and friends want…

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The How-Tos of At-Home Hormone Testing

By Sara Gottfried, MD | April 30, 2018
The How-Tos of At-Home Hormone Testing |Women's Health|Sara Gottfried MD

Many people ask me about self-testing for hormone imbalances. Doing these tests can be insightful and shed light on any particular issues. At-home testing is just one way to take…

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Screening Recommendations for Chronic Disease

By Sara Gottfried, MD | April 23, 2018

Quick blog today to review the screening recommendations from the US Preventive Services Task Force. I often get asked how often someone should get their Pap smear or blood sugar…

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Top Questions Women Ask About Aging

By Sara Gottfried, MD | April 16, 2018

As women age, their hormones take off on a roller coaster, often exacerbating any signs of aging. Most aging women have one major complaint: thinning hair and skin problems such…

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Why do Hormone Imbalances Happen?

By Sara Gottfried, MD | April 9, 2018

Hormone imbalance stems from various factors. In fact, symptoms and sensations you might consider normal as an aging woman are actually from broken hormones that can easily be fixed with…

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Postpartum Anxiety: A Unique Problem Faced by Women

By Sara Gottfried, MD | April 2, 2018

You’re thinking about the birth or just had a baby. You’re not ill, you’re thrilled about having a baby. You’re not depressed, but you’re on edge and worried about having…

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Can Yoga Keep Menopause Away?

By Sara Gottfried, MD | March 26, 2018

A new study of menopausal women has shown something that we’ve known for decades: that yoga helps reduce symptoms of menopause. Read more about the study right here in a…

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Hormones: A Problem Worth Fixing

By Sara Gottfried, MD | March 12, 2018

Stress is inevitable but how we deal with it and whether it causes further hormone imbalances is not. In order to help you balance your hormones naturally, lose weight, and…

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A Woman's Natural Hormone Rhythm Explained

By Sara Gottfried, MD | January 8, 2018

The female body definitely has a daily, monthly, seasonal hormonal rhythm–and problems arise when those natural rhythms are ignored, neglected, silenced, overpowered, or disconnected from environmental cues. A good example…

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PRAISE

“For the first time in my adult life I feel that I have gained control over food. I feel healthier, look better and have gained an interest in making sure that what I am putting into my body is the best it can be. And I lost 10 pounds in all the right places.”

– Janice Lunde, Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“Dr. Sara is the height of excellence! She is incredibly knowledgeable and gives very generously of her time. I feel so blessed to have been able to work with her.”

– Yvonne Varah

“You don’t have to settle for being stressed out, binging on sugar and chocolate, and aging prematurely. Stop blaming yourself and step into sacred action. It’s your birthright. You can have the joyous, mission-driven life you want, and Dr. Sara is here to show us how.”

– Marci Shimoff, New York Times Bestselling Author of Happy for No Reason and Love for No Reason

“Dr. Gottfried offers powerful and effective tools for addressing the most difficult health issues facing women and men today. She is warm and kind and has so much experience to draw upon, it’s inspiring. Thank you Dr. S!”

– Cassandra Mick

“Dr. Sara Gottfried is a modern-day healer goddess if ever there was one, and she also happens to be a Harvard Medical School graduate and rigorous physician-scientist.”

– Christiane Northrup MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

“Dr. Gottfried’s book and detox came at a time when I was ready to give in to old age. Hot flashes, low energy and libido, weight gain, increasing blood pressure and cholesterol levels were unacceptable to me. I now know that hormone levels and what I eat are a huge influence on how I feel and look. To now be able to control something that was out of control is empowering…”

Cheryl V., Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“My health coach told me about your book and I took the [hormone] test, and lo and behold, I found I was a mess, hormonally speaking. Now I’m getting on track and I love your videos and your book. I feel like I’m getting my life back again, when not long ago I truly thought I was losing it!”

-Tracy, Registered Nurse

“You don’t have to accept the hormonal hell of being tired, stressed, overweight, and never in the mood for sex as you grow older. In her fabulous new book, the brilliant Dr. Gottfried gives you an effective, easy-to-follow plan to balance your hormones and become lean, energetic, and loving life again. Stop settling and reclaim your sexy!”

–JJ Virgin, Author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy and The Virgin Diet

“I lost 10 lbs., reset my hormones and metabolism and eliminated my sugar cravings! I have also found that I respond to stress much differently, I feel it, notice it and move on from it. Stress no longer has a grip on me. Dr. Sara’s conference calls and detox information was invaluable. I am so grateful for this program. Thank you Dr. Sara!”

–Sophia, Dr. Sara’s Detox Challenge Participant

“The Hormone Cure is the playbook for your mojo, your mind, and your bootie. With every chapter I thought, ‘So THAT’s how that works.’ I wanted to call every girlfriend and give them the goods on how to glow… now and always.”

-Danielle LaPorte, Author of The Fire Starter Sessions and The Desire Map

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Sara (Gottfried) Szal M.D.

saragottfriedmd

Author of 4 NYT bestsellers 📚
Tried contrast bathing? Tried contrast bathing?
I don’t always clear stress well. It loiters in I don’t always clear stress well. It loiters in my body like a juvenile delinquent, poking holes in my gut wall, ruining digestion, truncating my timekeeping telomeres, and smacking around my poor defenseless brain. Even everyday stress can make me feel ridiculously vulnerable, traumatized, and tense. It’s as if the factory forgot to install my shock absorbers, so I’ve had to come up with my own. Stress management is common knowledge but it’s not the same as common practice. Our collective need to self-soothe is growing. You’d think by now we’d understand how stress gets under the skin, but the truth is that we’ve only recently figured it out. I’m going to share some ways to soothe emotional tension and ride the stress wave. Do you need new shock absorbers?
6 dos and don’ts to live a longer, vital life. 6 dos and don’ts to live a longer, vital life. @hubermanlab asked me what my top six dos and don’ts are to increase healthspan and live a longer life full of vitality. Here they are: 1️⃣ DON’T skimp on sleep and DO sleep for 7.5 to 8.5 hours a night. 2️⃣ DON’T let alcohol dim your light and DO limit or stop drinking alcohol 3️⃣ DON’T let stress become toxic and DO stress better 4️⃣ DON’T eat ultra-processed foods and DO eat whole foods 5️⃣ DON’T isolate or stay in toxic relationships and DO tend, befriend, and improve social connections 6️⃣ DON’T sit the whole day and DO move in a way that fits with your body Which one do you need to improve? To listen/watch the podcast, comment HUB123 and the link will be sent to your DMs
5 Metabolic Tests I Always Run These are the firs 5 Metabolic Tests I Always Run These are the first 5 metabolic tests that I run on men and women. 1️⃣ Glucose and insulin. Post-prandial insulin changes first when metabolism starts to get out of balance, according to research from the Lancet. It can change 13 years before glucose levels indicate diabetes. Sometimes I’ll check C-peptide. 2️⃣ Thyroid panel. Not just TSH and free T4, but add free T3, reverse T3, and thyroid antibodies (thyroid peroxidase antibodies and anti-thyroglobulin antibodies) 3️⃣ Hemoglobin A1C, a 3-month average of your glucose. This test shows the three-month average of your glucose levels. The downside of this test is that it is not a linear reflection. Therefore, it can be falsely low for people who have hypoglycemia at night, something I see in a lot of perimenopausal and menopausal women. 4️⃣ Advanced lipid panel, not the old school version of total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides, but lipoprotein fractionation NMR with lipids (includes LDL-P, small LDL-P, LDL size, HDL-P, large HDL-P, HDL size, large VLDL-P, VLDL size), lipo(a), hsCRP, myeloperoxidase, oxidized LDL, HDL function, etc. 5️⃣ Other hormones, like free and total testosterone. There are dozens of hormones that affect metabolism, from cortisol to leptin to ghrelin to growth hormone to adiponectin, but that’s a basic panel! These tests are in addition to a comprehensive metabolic panel, a test that all physicians are educated to order on patients. I have many other tests that I like to run that I haven’t mentioned, from genetics to micronutrients and gut health, but these are a solid 5 to get you started. If you’ve been following me, you know I also use wearables for sleep, activity, and continuous glucose monitoring, when warranted. As I cover in WOMEN FOOD AND HORMONES, these are the basic tests of your metabolic health. Ask your healthcare professional to measure them. If they refuse, ask why, and consider finding one who will. You deserve to know where you stand with your metabolic health, do you agree?
One of the most unfortunate things that often happ One of the most unfortunate things that often happens when you turn 40 is you gain weight. It’s not muscle weight, it’s fat. As estrogen levels decline, the rate of fat gain doubles, and lean body mass declines — these gains and losses continue until two years after the final menstrual period. Body fat, waist circumference, and waist-to-hip ratio increase during the menopausal transition except in women who take hormone therapy. It’s not just a problem of vanity: women gain an average of 5 pounds over three years of the menopausal transition, and 20 percent gain 10 pounds or more. The weight gain is associated with a greater risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and fasting insulin. So if evolution is working against us and causing body changes that lead to weight gain, what can we do? You might need to change the way that you eat so that you're eating an optimal food plan that helps to regulate glucose and insulin. In addition, and the one factor that I found to be the most important is weight lifting. I'm a big fan of lifting heavy, and doing it with really good form so that you preserve and even gain muscle mass as you get older. I think this is so important for women over the age of 40. Maintaining your muscle mass during perimenopause and menopause can be challenging, especially after 40. Yet your muscle is the organ of healthspan. More muscle helps you dispose of glucose so you’re less likely to become insulin resistant as you age and store more fat. Along with creating a personalized food plan to regulate glucose and insulin, priorite weightlifting for muscle preservation and growth is vital for staying fit during this stage of your life. Did you start lifting weights after age 40 or 50? What has your experience been?
Reason #1 to use a CGM: Perimenopause When you go Reason #1 to use a CGM: Perimenopause When you go through the last half of perimenopause, estrogen declines which may increase insulin resistance, weight gain, altered fat distribution with more abdominal fat deposition, and more cardiometabolic risk. Insulin and glucose levels tend to climb in about 88-93 percent of us, heralding metabolic problems. it’s important to track your body mass index, skeletal mass, fat mass, fat percentage, and basal metabolic rate. Additionally, I advise my clients to track their glucose and insulin, and to personalize their diet to lower the risk of cardiometabolic dysfunction during this vulnerable time. CGMs are a critical part of Menopause 3.0! Don’t guess, test. Karaflou M, et al. “Body composition analysis: A snapshot across the perimenopause.” Maturitas vol. 180 (2024): 107898. #perimenopause #menopause #hormones #bioidentical hormones #estrogen #progesterone #testosterone
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