“Nature Will Win, No Matter What Feminism, Economics or Pharmaceutical Companies Will Tell You” TS Wiley
While I have a few differences of opinion, Sex, Lies, and Menopause sings to me. For women’s hormone replacement this is one of the best approaches I’ve found. Hormone replacement is not something to consider once you are thinking about menopause. It should be considered for everyone of reproductive age living in our modern environment. For both sexes being maximally fertile is not only about reproduction. Fertility is immensely important or rather a consistent signal for mental and physical health including significant reductions in the core disease of aging: cancer, stroke, heart disease, and Alzheimers.
Sex, Lies and Menopause is about so much more than its title. Fundamentally, it’s about understanding evolution and the medical industrial complex to be able avoid diseases encouraged by civilization and modern medicine’s perverted incentives. We cannot naively revert to so-called natural remedies or a default of no treatment without deeply understanding evolution and the extreme unnaturalness of our modern predicament. We need to understand nature as best we are able to navigate her requirements. I think the author is right to point out the seeming rule of nature to have built in protections or support for those who are the best at reproducing. Likewise, we need tools sufficiently powerful for current conditions. While modern pharmaceutical and biological sciences do create innovations they also create anti-innovations by instigating fear about alternatives outside their product offerings and also by promoting and selling some products that they know do overall harm. It seems wise to be reasonably skeptical of the promoted evidence for chemicals emerging from an ecosystem where conflicts of interest are significant and omnipresent.
As the quote at the beginning states, nature never loses. As thinking, inquiring beings we have a chance to live within our deepest understanding of nature's rules and this book is a torch in the darkness. The author’s explanations rely logically on a model of evolution that includes group selection. This is important because programmed aging is logically wedded to group selection. Within the framework of programmed aging we self-destruct as we age so our community is robust to future threats and can radiate into a variety of new niches. Nature is dynamic and hyper specialization leaves a species vulnerable to all but the most recent past threat or environment.
I expect this will be a very uncomfortable read. It will be challenging to realize how much of one’s life and fertility has been sacrificed by cultural and economic norms. If you accept the premise, as I have, you may also feel outrage for all the abhorrent treatments carried out under a cloud of ignorance hiding malfeasance. I encourage you to push on however, because, ultimately, the protocol promoted is a powerful way to help mitigate the maladies our society and medical culture are promoting. While only one book, it provides critical insight for restoring or boosting fertility, increasing energy throughput and body composition, delaying aging and significantly reducing the likelihood of cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
TS Wiley does not hold back any punches, here are a few:
The pharmaceutical industry only wants to sell you patentable molecules
They also want to avoid selling or promoting non-patentable molecules even when they are far superior in effect to the patentable molecules
Often they know their product is inferior to a non-patentable alternative because the starting point for their product was the natural substance
Companies have used studies on synthetic hormones to induce fear of natural (exogenous) hormones
Not having and not nursing children has significant health consequences irrespective of contraceptive pill use
The above fact is a major clue to the benefit of the hormones of pregnancy
Pregnancy, especially early pregnancy, is associated with permanent increases in anti-cancer p53 gene expression
Pill use is associated with many health problems
The modern food and light environments are prematurely aging us
Declining fertility is an enormous warning sign about our material culture
DHT and progesterone play critical roles in apoptosis and fighting cancer
The cyclical use of both estrogen and progesterone is required to properly mimic natural rhythms and restore health.
I most strongly agree with the view that replacing youth associate hormones and hormone signals is one of the better approaches we have to prevent the maladies of civilization and of those aging. Progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone all seem to combat cancer and yet oncologists will likely oppose their use and will go on to use substances that are extremely expensive and have much worse track records. Looking into longevity and fertility for myself I’ve found very similar evidence around testosterone and DHT. When our sex hormones are highest our cancer and other health conditions are lowest. Men in their 20s almost never get prostate or other cancers. Somehow this has been lost on the medical community. Luckily, years ago I found the work of Abraham Morgantaler who started with that simple premise and looked deeply into the lore that testosterone feeds prostate cancer. I say lore because that hypothesis which is still a majority belief turns out to be based on minimal evidence and rumors. The original research was based on only one patient. When he continued looking he found exactly the opposite relationship: the lowest total and lowest free testosterone is associated with the worst prostate cancer outcomes. This is still mostly unknown and it boggles my mind. I suppose this is what happens when a medical curriculum is based primarily on memorization and obedience and lacks core organizing principles. I also think it is likely that testosterone like other un-patentable hormones has been demonized intentionally as market competitors to inferior but profitable pharmaceuticals.
My gripes with the book include a desire for her to spend more time on the benefits of thyroid replacement. Beyond the recommendations of the Sex, Lies, and Menopause I would include pregnenolone, and DHEA at appropriate levels for young women. She advocates for replacing thyroid levels and she even mentions thyroid’s potential for resolving cancer, but only in passing. I would also have liked more of her views and research on both melatonin and oxytocin. She notes the anti-cancer effects of melatonin but does not give much more information and she does not even mention oxytocin while pointing out all the benefits of birth and breastfeeding.
I have a very different view of the fundamental season disregulator. I almost entirely agree that an environmental seasonal signal mismatch exists. She points to summer light and sugar. However, my investigations into mammalian physiology point strongly to omega-6s and other signals of impending winter like the diminishing photoperiod of late summer. The plausible overlap for our views would be that high amounts of sugar, or simply calories, with high omega-6s and other inflammatory factors - including sleep deprivation and excess stress are optimal for gaining weight and creating inflammation. However, sugar from dairy or fruit with all the nutritional cofactors and little inflammation will minimally raise insulin and will support oxidative metabolism which is critical to reducing stress and increasing nutrient supply to the tissues that might otherwise become cancerous.
She rightfully points to cancer as a product of reproductive decline and aging and she simply unwinds the illogic of the genetic mutations view of cancer. I would emphasize that cancer emerges in a context of metabolic derangement in local tissues (The Warburg Effect) concomitant with age and particularly prevalent in a modern culture deprived of oxytocin, progesterone and high metabolisms. This book has changed my opinion of the importance of estrogen. Cyclical estrogen engenders progesterone receptors and thereby increases the effect of any given amount of progesterone which is one of the most critical restorative substances for all mammals - including humans.
From my vantage I would also have spent more time on the other types of aging interventions and their effects on women. As much as I believe in a full spectrum hormone replacement protocol, hormone therapy seems pretty clearly insufficient against the onslaught of aging. I would aim to combat aging beyond the sex and thyroid hormone replacement. I do so with oxytocin, NAD+ optimization, SIRT 6 and telomerase activators. Personally, I view hormone replacement and attempts to slow aging as a bridge to the not so distant future when we can fundamentally change our expressed age and then mostly not take anything.
If you are a women or know and love any women I hope you will take my recommendations to look at and even read Sex, Lies and Menopause. The “normal” we live in is far from the one best suited for fertility and vitality and we need to consider and appropriately use tools powerful enough to overcome the life-deranging pressures at work around us.
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