{"id":5914,"date":"2017-03-13T07:00:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T14:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywomanover29.com\/blog\/?p=5914"},"modified":"2017-03-10T04:31:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T12:31:06","slug":"menopause-insulin-cortisol-oxytocin-anna-cabeca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywomanover29.com\/blog\/menopause-insulin-cortisol-oxytocin-anna-cabeca\/","title":{"rendered":"Menopause: insulin, cortisol, and oxytocin (an interview with Dr. Anna Cabeca)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What should a healthy menopause look like and what does an unhealthy hormonal imbalance leads? And what is the significance of insulin, cortisol, and oxytocin?<\/p>\n

Dr. Brian Mowll, host of the upcoming Diabetes Summit<\/a>, interviews Dr. Anna Cabeca on the topic of menopause and metabolic health. Dr. Anna is a board certified gynecologist and obstetrician as well as board certified in anti-aging and regenerative medicine. She is an expert in functional medicine and an expert in women\u2019s health.<\/p>\n

She starts with an overview of what menopause should look like and what an unhealthy hormonal imbalance leads to:<\/p>\n

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Hormonally, what does menopause look like? Yes, we\u2019re going to age. And we\u2019re going to have wrinkles and laugh lines and smile lines and things like that. But that\u2019s awesome. We should be waking up rested, going to sleep on schedule without difficulty and have the sense of peace within us that we\u2019ve become able to enjoy the life that we\u2019ve worked so hard to create and also be able to educate, inspire, and instruct those around us and the generations that follow us. So those are the ideals in menopause.<\/p>\n

However, with our environment and toxicities and unhealthy aging and unhealthy hormonal imbalance, what happens is we tend to get overweight, difficulty with weight loss. We tend to have increases in our blood sugar, increases of heart disease. What that feels like, too, is hot flashes, mood swings, itchy skin, night sweats and irritability. The monster within us can come out!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The next part of their discussion is fascinating and rather unexpected. Dr. Brian asks Dr. Anna about the main hormonal players in menopause and this is what she shares: \u00a0<\/p>\n

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As a gynecologist, you would think the major players would be estrogen, progesterone, and even testosterone. However, the major players when it comes to a healthy menopause are insulin, cortisol, and oxytocin. I run menopause programs specifically to get these major hormones in balance. And then we can fine tune the minor hormones.<\/p>\n

But unless we\u2019re getting the concepts that relate to increasing our body\u2019s ability to have insulin sensitivity and, regarding cortisol, to have reset our cortisol, our natural circadian rhythm, we\u2019re not going to get hormonal balance at all. And we\u2019ll continue to struggle with the inflammation, the weight gain, the mood swings, [the anxiety and insomnia], the night sweats\u2026. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Actually, insulin and cortisol have a bigger role than estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone although those are important and DHEA as well which I will replace very frequently. But insulin and cortisol are key to healthy menopause. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

And so cortisol is our natural anti-inflammatory. But also, we know that when we excrete high spikes of cortisol, that\u2019s going to affect glucose production. So whether cortisol is too high or too low, we\u2019re going to have an issue with glucose production and metabolism and increasing hemoglobin A1c and inflammation. So from both those areas, we\u2019re going affect our inflammatory pathways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Anna also covers some of the following in the interview:<\/p>\n