What Is Birth Control Doing To Women’s Brains? - Dr Peter Attia

have you looked at the psychological impact of hormonal birth control on women is this something you've done much research on um I have not looked at the psychological component of it but obviously the downstream endocrine component of it we deal with a lot in in our female patients um especially as they you know those who have been on it for a long period of time who are then becoming per menopausal and as you're transitioning them to HRT obviously one of the uh results of long-term um oral contraceptives is a significant rise in shbg so as their sexor binding globulin goes up and up and up their free androgens go down for a given level so you you kind of have this issue where even if they you normalize their testosterone or estrogen they might actually be physiologically experiencing less of them so that's you know again but definitely not something I consider myself an expert in the uh Dr Sarah wrote a book uh this is your brain on birth control she's an evolutionary psychologist but um it's really wild I I think a friend has a a great question which is what is currently being ignored by the media but will be studied by historians it's a nice frame of what are we kind of overlooking at the moment and I really think that hormonal birth control will be one of those things that um there was a recent scan Scandinavian study that looked at you know we've got this declining female mental health problem especially among young girls like 40% of American teenage girls have persistent or regular feelings of hopelessness it's like this real maab apocalyptic sort of language and um I always ask this question because I had Jonathan height on the show and he was social media and comparison and blah blah blah but I was like how has anyone factored in the base rate of what increasing levels of monal birth control usage has done to like how much can this be contributing and this and has that changed significantly since 2010 maybe that's that's what needs to be looked at but because that's really I mean I think the argument in favor of Jonathan's argument is that when you look at the total takeoff or nose dive if you will of mental health for especially girls it coincides really perfectly with the exact introduction of you know Tik Tok not Tik Tok but Instagram smartphones and and and social media so unless there was a different type of birth control the question is was there also a birth control change great question uh I think I don't think that there has been a change I think it's anything it's going to be kind of like just a steady linear adoption of of these of these drugs but what you don't know is is there some sort of predisposition some sort of psychological uh uh um raw materials that are more susceptible is this being able to magnify the effect of social media of social comparison uh and Dr Sarah Hills works so I mean it's fascinating the the change that women have in the kind of partners that they go for both on and off of birth control uh the um level of testosterone that they prefer on a man's T-shirt at the same time the libido and the sexual uh not only libido sorry uh the level of sexual satisfaction with their partner which also is indicative of partner choice and how effective that is and I mean you may or may not have heard these stories but so many stories of women who get into a relationship with their partner when they're on get married decide that they're going to then have children come off and they like I'm not really that attracted to my partner anymore you know they sort of exit this hormonal Fugue State and their kind of eyes are open and it's not a comment on their partner particularly it's just that they're in a a very different hormonal profile now and what they find attractive has changed an awful lot it's wild I mean the research is is really really interesting interesting yeah totally unaware that side of things what about Sun cream what's true about the safety of sun cream I hear a lot of demonization of it that it's dangerous that you can put it on your skin that it gets absorbed that it turns into all of these but then also skin cancer not good what's your position on sun cream uh I'm in the process of learning an insane amount of this for a podcast I'm doing so I would I would say I have my thoughts now but they're they're going to be updated by you know a team of phds check out the drive in three months time exactly when when we get to do our AMA on this we're going to visit really two questions that are both going to elicit a ton of controversy this so the first is how clear is the uh role of the causality of sun in melanoma so again that might seem like a stupid question to ask um but the answer is not entirely clear um so what is it about the Sun that increases the risk of melanoma is is the risk of melanoma increased for example in sun exposure that does not result in a burn or does it have to result in a burn does it have to result in a severe burn does it have to result in a burn during a certain period of your life all of this is unclear um it's a lot more clear the relationship between Sun and basil cell carcinoma and scamac cell carcinoma I don't know what that is they're two other types of skin cancer but they're non-lethal because they can't metastasize so you know to be afraid of skin cancer really means to be afraid of melanoma that's the one that can kill you um and so that's going to be the first part of the podcast is really exploring that relationship and then the second is going to be the Deep dive on all of the all of the uh you know sunscreens out there and so sort of mineral versus chemical and um what what's you know to to the best of our ability to understand it what's the what are the real risks uh if any of of either of these types yeah there's an awful lot of very vehement uh push in both directions I think for this I can IM I'm we're certainly not doing this because we never do anything to sort of step in a pile of [ __ ] but I I there's no question that this is going to be inflammatory but what do you think what else would be I mean perhaps surprisingly uh talking about Sun cream uh like you know real Hot Topic it's a you know a war zone out there what are the other uh really spicy areas that you might not have thought about you start talking about pollen or something and it's it's a a real war zone what is that um I mean anytime I talk about lipids and heart disease and uh dietary fats and stuff anything to do with diet that's always that that always tends to be quite inflammatory uh because of course you know anything that's diet related is sort of very tribal and and religious um I think HRT is a somewhat polarizing topic though less so now than when I started talking about it you know when I really started talking about HRT um most of the medical establishment viewed it as bad and dangerous and I think more and more the doctors are coming around to realize that you know the women's Health Initiative was such a flawed study uh that it's you know responsible HRT is a great thing for women um uh what else is really controversial look I think you know vaccines I did a I did a I interviewed a guy named Brian deer and we went deep down the MMR causes autism claims and that's obviously a very polarizing and controversial Topic in other news this episode is brought to you by Mar Health when I wanted to get my blood work done in America I asked around I did a ton of research and Mar Health came back as the best quality service that you can find and I loved it so much I reached out to the owner to actually partner with them on the show they genuinely understand training diet supplementation and pharmaceutical they don't want to make interventions you don't need they will make suggestions that are minimum dose and appropriate for you and your goals and your age they're great it is literally like having a personalized bioh Health hacker in your pocket that understands you and your Bloods at all 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Channel: Chris Williamson

Views: 64,739

Keywords: modern wisdom, chris williamson, Chris Williamson modern wisdom, modern wisdom podcast, chriswillx, Chris Williamson Modern Wisdom Podcast, Dr. Peter Attia birth control, Hormonal birth control Attia, Attia on contraceptive health, Health effects of birth control Attia, Dr. Attia's insights on hormones, Peter Attia hormonal therapy, Hormonal balance Peter Attia, Attia on birth control side effects, Dr. Peter Attia on hormone regulation, hormonal birth control, chris brith control

Id: Zsaw78B0SbY

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 28 2024