Beauty By Dr. Kay: Hey, is it done? You gotta hurry up!
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Joining, she's here in the Zoom. I have my Zoom question.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Here we go!
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Is there something about this?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Hello, hello, hello!
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Good morning!
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Hi, how are you?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: I'm good, how are you?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Good, doing really good.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Awesome. Well, it's so great to, get you on the podcast. Very excited.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yes, I know!
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Second, I'm gonna fix my Zoom background.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Oh yeah, no problem.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Great. Last time I saw you was, I think, at Chalene's meeting. Did you do Chalene Johnson? Did you come to…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I didn't.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Oh, no, it was one of the aesthetic meetings.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yes, it was… oh, it was in Dallas, and I don't remember which one it was.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, it was a good meeting in Dallas, there we go. Yes.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yo.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So excited that you're, hers, hymns and hers.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's incre… we're so impressive, very exciting.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, are you enjoying it?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I am.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, that is incredible. We'll talk about it on the podcast, because I know you have a hard stop at 10, so…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Oh, yeah, because you're behind me, I was like, well, 12 my time, yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Oh, yeah. So, okay, so I'm gonna record a little Instagram asset that we can do. I'll just say today's podcast, we're chatting with the amazing Jessica Shepherd, and then, are there things you're launching or premiering, or anything you want to talk about?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So my platform, Modern Menno, is on menopause, and so we've been doing a lot of promo about that, we have free webinars and, like, community. And then also, can you hear in the back? Are my kids too loud? Because I can tell them to shut us.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Really hear him?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: No, I don't hear him.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Oh, good! Okay, perfect. If you do, just pause and being like, hey, I can hear, and I can let them know.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Okay, perfect.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But yeah, Modern Menno, you can say founder of Modern Menno, you can say Chief Medical Officer Hims and hers, and then we could… I mean, I'm sure in our discussion, we can also talk about it as well.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And also your book.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Yes.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: How exciting, I gotta ask you about writing a book, how hard that was. Okay, one sec.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And if my dog starts barking, because he picks random times to start barking, I will pause and remember where I am, and have them take him, and then we'll continue.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: right where I left off.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: The beauty of working from home. That's so funny, sometimes I have a little teacup Maltese, and he just gets it in his head that he must be in my lap. It's crazy in the room next to her. Yeah. Yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: All right, ready? So you'll do a little recording here, so you can stand, and we'll do… you're gonna just, like, zoom on me, and then we'll zoom right on her… on the camera.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Let me just change the video view so that her picture's a little bit bigger here.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Perfect, and then… Let's see, how do we change the field?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Speaker view, there you go.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And gallery view.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Do you want to full screen it? Yeah, then we'll be able to see it. That looks perfect. Okay, here we go.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Reading.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And guys, today's podcast is going to be amazing. We are speaking to the dynamic Jessica Shepherd. Dr. Shepherd is Chief Medical Officer at Hims and Hers, and she has written a book, and she has her own platform. Tell us about the menopause platform, Dr. Shepherd.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, my menopause platform is Modern Minnow, and it really is taking all the noise and overwhelm that we typically see on social media, and really dialing that down to how we can build community, get questions answered, maybe a little bit more personalized, and then providing community with experts.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And, really getting them the information they need.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: We need this! I can't wait to talk about it.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Amazing.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Okay, great, that was awesome. I'm going to make sure we are recording, and then we are ready to go. Can you just tell everybody library voices out there? You did. Okay, great.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Thank you so much.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Here we go.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Should I…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Here we go, alright. Well, hello, hello guys, you're listening to Beauty Bites with Dr. K, Secrets of a Plastic Surgeon, and it's time for a really interesting podcast. We're gonna talk about menopause.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: with one of the most valuable and interesting ladies who's in menopause. I'd love to introduce you to Dr. Jessica Shepherd. She's a board-certified gynecologist and a women's health expert. She specializes in menopausal health.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: She's also the chief medical officer for HERS, you know him's and hers, and her holistic practice is called Sanctum Med Wellness in Dallas, and she's created this amazing place for patients to explore a holistic journey to optimize their health.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: She's been featured all over the media in Self Magazine, Women's Health Magazine, we lectured on a stage once, and she's just released a book. It's called Generation M, and this has created so much buzz. She also has a really interesting modern menopause platform.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And she is such a total expert on sexual health, physical health, emotional health. She's so passionate about women's health and longevity and wellness. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Scheer.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, it is so…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Exciting to be here, especially since we were on the same stage, and like, right after, we were like, let's do something together, so here we are.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Exactly! She ran in, she put her heels on, and we went on stage together. It was, like, in and out, so flying… you're flying around these days. You're everywhere. You're on Good Morning America, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Today Show. What's it like to write and launch a book?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: It is… Paper cuts by a thousand.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Death wiping.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But in the end, when you see, you know, the product, the actual book, you know, it's very…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: gratifying, but then, you know, even from that is seeing how many people are impacted after that, and being able to speak to people about what they were able to learn and how it reached or touched them. That's… that's probably the best part.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's incredible. So you wrote Generation M, and is that the menopause generation?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: is, you know, 100% of women go through menopause, so what I wanted to be able to express through the book is
Sanctum Med + Wellness: not this fear kind of timeframe in which women get to, which is typically what we hear, you know, society-wise, is that it's this fearful timeframe, but something that women would want to be a part of, and, you know, join the club. We're all part of Generation M at some point in our life, and that's really what I wanted
Sanctum Med + Wellness: It to showcase is that we don't have to be fearful of it, but there's so many ways to…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: get through this part of our lives, because, one, we spend the rest of our lives in that postmenopausal phase, and it is 40% of our life is spent in that time frame. So why would we want to build it in a way where it is not
Sanctum Med + Wellness: joyful, or it is not something that we're looking forward to, and that's what I think we should change that to.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: 40%, that's a staggering number, right? I think people don't realize, because women live so long, longer than most male counterparts, right? We'll get into our 80s, so if you hit menopause, perimenopause in, you know, your 40s sometime, and then actual menopause in your 50s, and then it's like, that's a lot of years to live without optimal hormones.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: in the environment.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Hormones and wellness.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So what are the most common symptoms that people have that they're in perimenopause and they didn't even realize it, that all this time they've been in perimenopause?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, perimenopause is more of that chaotic time frame in a woman's life because, one, they're still menstruating, whether it's a regular or regular, they still have that feature, and so you're not really attributing to menopause, which is when you don't have a cycle.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So, there are these subtle types of changes that occur over time, whether that's, you know, hot flashes, but they're maybe not as severe, but you're like, was that a hot flash?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Changes in sleep, I think, are, some of the big ones that I see. Change in mood. Emotional kind of, changes…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: regulation, resilience, what you're tolerating is a lot of what I hear from women as well. And so, it's just like it's, like, subtly kind of coming on, and then you're like.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Is that what I'm going through? Is it not? It's very confusing, and I think that brings a lot of frustration as well. So, those are some of the symptoms that women see, and they're not always there.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And then you go into menopause, and that's when it becomes a little bit more severe, and women are like, okay, this is definitely menopause, in addition to you're not having your cycle. So, they're really different time frames, but they all kind of combine into this experience, and I think that the more that we can ease women
Sanctum Med + Wellness: In, kind of, the knowledge of knowing what's coming.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: How to get through it, what is available, what tools and resources there are, so that by the time you do become menopausal, you've kind of already given yourself this framework of what you would like to do.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, so you kind of built your own plan for getting through it. But I think that part of the problem is that hormone therapy is still so confusing for many women, and I would say that
Beauty By Dr. Kay: probably the majority of gynecologists out there do not have a great hormone therapy setup, and don't even want to learn it, and, like, are still telling people that they're fine, and they're supposed to just gradually burn out. And, like, your hormones are designed to go down, and just let them
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So, how do you talk to women about hormones these days? How do you frame the risks and benefits, timing, balance, and why we should do it?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I think it's a very broad conversation, you know, in fact, two of my patients that I saw yesterday had been told that, you know, by their OBGYN, oh, your labs are fine, you know, every woman goes through it, and you're going to be okay, without really giving the recommendation or resource of possible use of HRT. You know, I think as a HRT,
Sanctum Med + Wellness: advocate when I think of hormone replacement therapy, is I'm not forcing it on you. What I do want you to appreciate is the information education behind it, so that you can make the best decision for yourself, whatever that is. That's what I'll support. But in that, I want to give you the best information around there, rather than just saying, you don't need it.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: In that framework, I think that a lot of women now come in with hesitation. You know, the WHI study, which was 20 years ago, really kind of gave that bad PR press moment that has lived for 20 years, and we're trying to unravel that now.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So there is a lot of confusion, hesitation for good reason, and concern. What I really think women
Sanctum Med + Wellness: should walk away with when… after they speak to me, and a lot of, you know, my menopause colleagues who fundamentally are here to educate women on it, is that there is risk with everything. So…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: When we assign risk, risk is very personalized, but risk also includes what is the level of risk that comes with that, based on your medical history, based on, you know, maybe medications that you're taking, based on your age and when you start.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But all of that together.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: all assigns a different risk category for everybody, and even in that, someone who might have a higher risk profile than someone else might choose to do hormones versus someone who has a lower risk profile and decides that that's what they don't want for themselves. Either one of those is not wrong.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: that's what we should be counseling people in all aspects of medicine. And so I think, when I think of women's health and the bad, you know, kind of rep that, you know, HRT got, I was like, why do we like to frighten women like this?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Like…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: What is this that…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: we feel that the risk of HRT, which we now know, the benefits from it, completely outweigh the risks.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: how did we get on that… that avenue and that path? That's what maybe frustrates me the most, especially when I see women coming in who are suffering, and I'm like, you don't have to do this, and here is a better way to navigate through that. But still, the mind holds on to that.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Risk of something that's very minimal to being the bigger thing that they would
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Hold on to than taking care of themselves in those moments.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's almost like hormones have been so attached, estrogen, breast cancer, like.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: They go hand in hand.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And then, I think people just have to let go of that notion, because actually the percentages of breast cancer conversions are extremely, extremely small.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And in…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Even in that study, it was not significant, you know, from a pure statistical standpoint, you know, not everyone knows statistics or loves statistics, but
Sanctum Med + Wellness: The fact that it wasn't significant, and it wasn't even due to estrogen, but the whole rumor mill asserted that it was estrogen causes breast cancer is just like…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: How did we get there?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's gonna be so hard to reverse that notion. I even still am seeing patients who are just like, well, my levels were normal. I'm like, yeah, your doctor says you're 60, you have hormones of a 60-year-old, is that optimal? Like, don't you want to have, like, a slightly better hormone function?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I think…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Even now, I'm still hearing this dialogue from women that, like, well, I've been through menopause, so I don't need hormones anymore. And, like.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: hear them getting the conversation about dementia, preventing cardiovascular risk improvements, and, like, the actual night sweats is one thing, but, like, the long-term estrogen use for bone density, et cetera, is so important. How do you frame that for patients?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I say, how do you want to show up for yourself in your 70s, 80s, and 90s, right? If we were able to forecast or make choice now, in midlife.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: to what we want to do then, then this is where we get to make some of those decisions, right now. Because for me to wait till you're 70, 80, and 90, doing a DEXA scan at 65, when you've been maybe 20 plus years without estrogen.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: is not a setup for success, it's actually a setup for failure. And so, I say, you get to choose that. And on what you choose, as far as outcomes, and what you expect for yourself, and what you want for yourself, let's build that now.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And then we can go back to the building blocks of how do we get that outcome that you just mentioned that you want for yourself? Because then you're putting it back into the hands of the women to advocate for themselves by giving them choice. But we typically don't allow women to do that.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: When it comes to choice, their body, their health, their outcomes, we want to more so dictate what it should be, and that really hasn't gotten us.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: That really hasn't gotten us very, far, you know, in the past.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, I think your book is gonna inspire a lot of women. What message do you most want women to take from that book?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I think, you know, when I wrote it was… I wanted it to be a love letter to all the patients and women I had seen over the years, and even to myself, being in perimenopause is…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: How do I want to frame this stage of my life in a way that feels not prescriptive, it feels valuable, it feels like it flows, because everything really is connected, whether that's your daily habits of nutrition, exercise, sex life.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: What else? I think hormones are obviously a part of that, but it's never just one thing that
Sanctum Med + Wellness: you get the, you know, the big effect. It's everything together, and if that… the conversation could reside there in a way that feels comforting and allows people to settle in themselves.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: That's what I think my biggest message is, is for women, is to explore themselves through this journey in a way that feels inviting.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Amazing.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Let's switch gears and talk a little about HERS, your Chief Medical Officer at HERS. You guys have all heard of HIMS and HERS.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And what is going to be their big focus? I know that GLP-1s have revolutionized medicine, wellness, and have so many health benefits. Are you guys really highly focused on GLPs? Is it more about
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Hormones? Is it a little bit of both?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: It's a little bit of both, but as you know, GOPs really have, like, kind of stolen the spotlight, globally, and that is what really helped define, especially the hers side of the business, you know, hymns and hers, is that women really…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: In frustration when it comes to not necessarily always severe weight loss, but just sometimes even weight management, or the ability to, get their weight
Sanctum Med + Wellness: loss kick-started into something that they could see themselves continuing and maintaining, GLPs really became that platform that people needed.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And quite frankly, what we did see very early on was a lot of gatekeeping, you know, from the pharmaceutical industry and insurance model of who was allowed to access it versus not. And that's one fundamental, I think, you know, hymns and hers, is that we really want to reach
Sanctum Med + Wellness: People who don't have access, who may not have the wherewall to get the same service that they would through insurance and hospital services.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: and be able to do that. And so that's what we were able to do in a very…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Safe, efficacious, and clinical-driven platform.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And so as a telehealth, you know, industry, that's what kind of put us on the stage as well, GLPs, and in that was like, okay, well, women really want
Sanctum Med + Wellness: their health taken care of. What else can we add value to?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: on the platform, and that's when we were, like, perimenopause and menopause, and so we launched that, you know, in October of 2024, and we just continue to keep building our verticals by listening to women, first of all, and meeting them where they need to be met.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Amazing. So, it's in all 50 states.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Okay.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: get prescriptions for hormones through their insurance? Is it insurance-based?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: It is not, and that, again, is…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: a parameter that is very different to the mindset of patients, right? Because patients
Sanctum Med + Wellness: feel that insurance is going to manage everything, take care of everything, and we know quite differently that that's not the case. And so that's what we were seeking when I mentioned the gatekeeping of certain, you know, medications, specifically with GLPs, but also hormones as well.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And so, we were able to break that barrier by just being like, you… anyone, whether you have insurance or not, can access us, and can access what we have as a resource.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's so important. I've seen so many people who have obesity, they have an elevated BMI, they have high cholesterol, but they can't qualify through their insurance plans to get GLPs, so it's quite restrictive, unnecessarily so, I think.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Correct.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Especially given that you're going to get so much dollar value back in revenue saved from chronic long-term illness, it makes no sense at all.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: But, are you guys doing microdosing for GLPs? Curious if you're doing, like, the longevity side of things and anti-inflammatory benefits.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, we actually, I believe it was a month and a half to two months ago, started our microdosing availability of the medication, which, again, we are seeing, you know, staggering numbers, because it has to do… in two different capacities of, yes, there's a longevity aspect.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: of, you know, microdosing GLPs. But the other part of that is, for people who want to maintain weight, not necessarily have weight loss, can use the microdosing
Sanctum Med + Wellness: capability in that way. And so, what I do think… what we soon will see is the…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: studies and evidence behind the true benefits and value of GLPs, and what we… you and I, clearly know we've seen now in brain health, cardiovascular health.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: certain cancers, that was actually, discussed the other day. So, this is where we are going with GLPs. They will… I think they will only see advancements in GLPs, so yeah, that microdosing has… was definitely needed.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: We all, again, see what's needed, see where the gap is, and then fill in the gap.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, consumers are so interested in peptides these days. Are you guys starting to close that gap? Are you…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Prescribing any peptides?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: No, not currently. Obviously, GLP is a peptide, but when we look at peptides for longevity, you know, there's always a fine line between what is approved, obviously, with FDA, and what we do see, you know, in the safety side of peptides, what's been researched, what's been not, what still is in research kind of mode, but then also how it's sourced. What we have seen in the peptide world is peptides have been around forever.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I think people think it's new, but it, you know, hasn't really been given the…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: the credibility that it probably deserves as far as number and research, but then there are a lot of people who irresponsibly use it, right? So we have to make sure that, one, when we look at FDA approval, safety and studies, and then also how it's sourced, and kind of pushing away from
Sanctum Med + Wellness: the people who don't use it responsibly to make sure that we bring in a responsible version of that. So, I mean, I think the idea is there. We'll see, probably in the near future.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: As regulation, changes for peptides, what that will mean for us as a company?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: I think, yeah, people are asking, and potentially there are some peptides that are
Beauty By Dr. Kay: safer, or been used for longer times, that maybe those can start to get utilized, but I'm with you, I think that the consumer safety should come first.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Like, the purity sourcing, like, they've done some studies that show that
Beauty By Dr. Kay: When they pull, like, 20 different peptides on the market, and they find that there's inactive ingredients in the vast majority of them, like, there's no actives in these. You're buying, like, sterile… sterile water. Hopefully it's sterile, because sometimes there's endotoxins in it.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Exactly.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So I think the consumer has to be extremely safe, and even as a physician, I would find it hard to go and find an online vendor of peptides that I would trust.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Correct.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And I have seen so many patients using research grade, and clearly the bottles are labeled for research use only, and, like, I just have a lot of qualms about not knowing the exact ingredients in everything I put in my body.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I… it's a funny story that you just said that this past week is… is people who, you know, will…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: you know, try to seek counsel or advice or opinion from me, you know, as a physician, and they'll show me what they're using, and I'm like, that clearly just says research grade only. Like, this is… this is not a thing.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Elaborate.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I'm not discussing that with you, because that's, at your own risk, what you would like to do. I'm not taking part in that, so it's funny that you said that.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, it's… I honestly, these days, when I take a medical history, I'm asking every patient what… I don't even think that otherwise, I just say, what peptides are you on? And, like, 70% of the time, they'll give me a little list, and I'm like.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, that's true.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Shocking! GLPs are one thing, but they list these peptides that I have not even heard of that they bought from their gym bro, you know, and it's just kind of interesting. So that's part of my every patient's history. Have you… are you on a GLP, and what peptides are you on right now?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, exactly.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, what's one of the things that you would want to change about midlife and how to thrive in midlife?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I think one of the things that I would want to change, and hopefully can change, you know, as I do this work.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: is for women to feel comfort in midlife, but really, I call it the magic of midlife, because what you do see is, we said it, you know, a little briefly before, is in our 70s, 80s, and 90s.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Is, really, midlife is where we can fine-tune that, and really change what we,
Sanctum Med + Wellness: how we approach that. You know, think of you and I, and think of our mothers and their mothers before as
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Nothing was really discussed, approached, done. Then you get to those ages, and you see a very sharp decline, specifically for women and their health. But we can do that differently if we kind of
Sanctum Med + Wellness: front load with, whether that's hormones, change in our nutrition, how we fuel our body, movement, and exercise when we think of strength training. So even those small little changes incrementally in our midlife.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: can completely, vastly change our 70s, 80s, and 90s. So, the magic of midlife, I think, is really important for me to emphasize to women that in midlife, just granted, midlife, our life expectancy is 80, so midlife is, what, 40.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So, even as early as latter 30s, 40 into 55 is, like, the 15-year time frame.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: In where just consistent changes in daily habits can really get us great benefit 20 to 30 years later.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So, at age 35, what's, something that every woman should start doing for her future self?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: creating… A template. Creating, kind of, like, just even in thoughts.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: what in the next 5 to 10 years, right? We do that with life goals, financial goals, but we don't always do that with our health, is in the next 5 to 10 years, what do I want to work towards?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: That I can get really big gain from. And, you know, that, you know, that cheesy saying, health is your wealth, but in some sort of truthness, if you can live to 100, but if you really don't have your health.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: You really don't have much.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So, that's what I would say is starting those conversations, even in your head, and, you know, even talking to your doctor in that way of, like, okay, I know I'm 37, 38, but when I'm 48, or when I'm 46, this is what I'm kind of conceptualizing for myself and my health.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: what can we build from now to get me there? Because everyone wants the overnight fix, right? I mean, even myself, as I say that. That's kind of human nature, but we also live in a society that, like, pushes that on us very heavily. You and I know our bodies, just in medicine, just from a biological standpoint, does not work that way.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So, for me to expect that I'm gonna do one big move, and it's gonna change overnight, and I'm gonna maintain that habit, and I'm gonna change my life forever, said no whenever. We all think it.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's very true, like, I mean, I think I have some basic goals. This year, I want to really master push-ups, and like, after that, I get that upper body strength, I want to do a pull-up. I've never done a pull-up my whole entire life, I should try to do that, right?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I mean, like, even that, like, just that alone is, like, start there.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, honestly. But I think there are metrics that we can do. I wish that modern healthcare incorporated those, so if there were some tests or studies that you could do early on in your 40s.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: to predict and guide you in your trans… you know, into later life, what would you do right now? I know DEXA scan is a great one.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yep, I was gonna say DEXA scan is great, so you have a starting point, right? We don't want to wait till you're 65 and your bones are already taking a hit to being like, yeah, now I think I'm gonna do something. The other thing is metabolic health. Metabolic health is our engine for, again, how we live our lives now, but what it can do for us later, so…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Labs. Like, very easy labs that can help as your hemoglobin A1C, see where you are with, you know, glucose metabolism. Fasting insulin really tells us how our body is good with insulin and glucose, but also shows us, like, chronic inflammation. And then, cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer of women.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Right.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Globally. And men as well, but for women, one of the downfalls as we go through menopause and estrogen, which is cardioprotective, is lost.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But we do have better testing now to kind of see where we are. Again, don't wait for the symptom, but we have really good cardiovascular biomarkers, such as your APOB and your
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Little protein, your lipoprotein little a, your, you know, high sensitive, CRP, homocysteine.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So, going to a provider that can understand, like, the background of what it looks like genetically, but then also what you're contributing to your health cardiovascular-wise, is probably really important, in addition to metabolic health with insulin and glucose.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: I think so, and maybe a calcium scan would be good.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, I like calcium scans.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But I'm like, let's do the fundamentals first, and then push you, because there's different types of calcium, you know, scores or testing that I think, depending on where the person is, might be better, you know.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: push towards, but that's, like, that next level that I think everyone, you know, should get, but let's just see where you even are. And I think we don't do a great job at screening in medicine. We are very disease-prone. Wait till you have it, then we'll fix it.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's so true, because even on… you're going for your physical, you get your labs, and the doctor's like, you're fine, you're not going to die this year. You know.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But when you are…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Right? But come back when you have a problem. But they don't actually say that, like, there's some predictive tests we can do, and there's some trajectory of aging things, that if we worked on this now, the way you age is going to be better, so it's almost up to the consumer to…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Ask for those tests, or think about those pathways, and, like, are you doing any testing for biologic age testing versus chronologic age testing?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I do. I… there's a company that looks at glycans, and glycans really are kind of looking at how our cells are aging, what inflammation is adding to that aging, you know, if you want to use the term inflaging.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And that kind of looks at your chronological age versus kind of, like, what your body age is. And I think those are really good motivational tests
Sanctum Med + Wellness: That can help people say, oh my god, you know, people love seeing numbers, you know, if you're
Sanctum Med + Wellness: 45, but your labs show that you're 37 versus someone who comes back as 52. Like, those are really good ways to motivate yourself, and I really like them.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, I think that's super interesting, all of the advanced testing that we do, and…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Talk a little about the microbiome changes that we go through, for example, in menopause. Like, everything changes inside and out.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Those are my partner.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: have changed, do you recommend certain things? Supplements?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, I'm… I'm… those traditional doctors that still feel that supplements can be really helpful.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: In what you're able to… Not wait till it's depleted, but keep that storage level, or that reserve.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: stocked, right? It's kind of like a storage facility. We don't want all the product to be gone before we'll call in
Sanctum Med + Wellness: for more product, we want to keep a really good tally on what's decreasing, and keeping that at base. So, for example, vitamin D,
Sanctum Med + Wellness: looking at your vitamin B12 complex, and then supplements like creatine. Creatine really helps with muscle recovery, which we lose, you know, 1-3% per decade at the age of 35.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And that naturally starts to significantly decrease with menopause, loss of estrogen and testosterone. So, I think that…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: supplements can be tricky, because people then want to do 18 million supplements, and I'm like, let's fine-tune that, like, who are you, right? And then, what are you gonna… I always say, keep it to, like, top 3 or 4, because we can change out a few here or there.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: But when people get, like, overwhelmed by it, again, it's one of those… I'm very big about small changes consistency. And if you can keep four, you know, that you can do daily, and then if you're doing really well in one area, we can switch that out to something else.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And that's how we should be attending to our health, is just keep, like, a really good monitor on it, and seeing when the needle's moving too, you know, too far or too left, and trying to just keep that… that flow.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Do you… are you on some supplements? Do you want to share your supplements?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, I'll send that. My supplement stack.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I… use vitamin D, because mine is low.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: So…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: one for women, that typically goes down, but for Black women, you know, that usually is lower, so I take vitamin D. I do take creatine, because as I'm strength training, I want to help, you know, my muscles… my muscle cells to be able to build better, stronger.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: How many… is it grams or milligrams? How many…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, so it's usually grams, so I do 5 grams. I have tried occasionally to go up to 10. When we get to 10, that's where we start to see some benefit for brain health, right? So for cognition. And so…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: my goal is to get there, 10 to 15. And then, also, I love, obviously, hormones. And, you know, for hormones, I am on hormone replacement therapy, and I'm not even menopausal. You know, I, one, started to have changes in, like.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: brain health, so, like, cognition, you know, brain fog, multitasking, kind of those things started to waver, so I started on testosterone first.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: And then, even though I know I have estrogen, because I'm perimenopausal, I was like, well, I know the benefits of estrogen, I'm gonna start on estrogen as well. And so, I'm on estrogen. I do have an IUD, so that's my form of progesterone to counteract estrogen, but at some point I will convert to…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: another type of progesterone when I'm menopausal, yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's a great stack. I have a couple rapid-fire questions for you. Yes. Alright, what's one lab marker women should know in their bodies?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Hemoglobin A1C.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's a good one. One symptom women should not ignore.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Hot flashes, the more severe they are, has been shown to increase in dementia later on in life.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: One favorite habit that supports aging better.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Meditation and mindfulness.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: True. One supplement or nutrient that you wouldn't live without?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Or that you… need every day.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: A supplement. Sunshine and oxygen.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's… that's a nutrient right there.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: I love it. I think those are such great questions. Are you a coffee or tea person?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Definitely coffee, but I am now a new… not new, Reclaimed tea drinker at night.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Oh, good! Yeah. Yoga or running?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: That's hard, but yoga, because you get physical benefit as well as mental benefit from it.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: So true, that's so true. And then last book that you read…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I'm a very big, young pueblo.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: reader, and he has a bunch of books, but his last one that I read was… Moving forward.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Wow, okay, I'll have to check that one out.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Who inspires you lately?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Mmm… my kids.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: My two little boys.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Good, I love that.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: That's, that's, gives you your strength.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: It does. I learn so much about myself through them.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, I hope that lots of people will read your book, Generation M.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Thank you.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: How do they find your platform for modern menopause?
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Yeah, for Modern Menno, you're, you know, we're obviously on social media, at Modern Mennow, M-E-N as in Nancy O, obviously for menopause, and then also on our platform, which I can share with you, you can share in the notes, but also, Dr. Jessica Shepherd is my website, which can lead you to Modern Menno.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: I love it. Well, I hope… I love that you've created this little mini-universe for people to understand, going from a society that ignored and didn't talk about women's issues, and, like, just threw them under the rug, to now a situation where it's… it should be acknowledged as part of life, it's like our own version of puberty that we're going through, and then…
Beauty By Dr. Kay: And there's ways to optimize it. Now, we have to push for more research. We do. And clinical dollars, clinical trials, and like, let's do a new women's health initiative, my god.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's time. It's time.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast. Everyone should check out Dr. Jessica Shepherd, and if you're looking for a really knowledgeable resource on menopause, this is where you go.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Love you to the moon. That's it for now, guys. Stay beautiful, and don't forget to find me on my Instagram, it's BeautyByDrK, that's D-R-K-A-Y, doing amazing things with people's faces, and longevity, wellness.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: It's all about the collagen production, and I would love to send you our new, peptide skincare line, which has GHK copper in every product, glutathione, it has my own KD, collagen elastin Peptide, palmitil Pentapeptide 5, that grows…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: God.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Collagen. Love it. It's gonna be…
Sanctum Med + Wellness: I get your stock?
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yes.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: my back, you're sending me your stuff, I love that.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: the skincare stack. That's it for now, guys. Stay beautiful. Thank you so much!
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Mwah, that was so great. I will send you links and let you know when it's gonna go live, probably pretty soon, sometime in the next 2 weeks or so.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Do you need any assets from my team? I don't know how you post it on your page, or do you just use a still from what we're doing now? If you need anything, just let me know.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Yeah, just maybe a headshot, or if you want to send a book, that would be great.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Will do.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Okay, sounds good.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Have a good one.
Beauty By Dr. Kay: Bye for now.
Sanctum Med + Wellness: Bye.