Ep 597: Hormones, Muscle & Longevity: Future-Proofing Women’s Health with the Hormone Heroines

In this episode of the Health Fix Podcast, Dr. Jannine Krause sits down with the Hormone Heroines, Dr. Serena Russum and Dr. Heidi Codino, to unpack what women actually need to thrive hormonally from puberty through menopause and beyond.

Dr. Serena and Dr. Heidi are award-winning speakers and nationally recognized experts in women’s health, with extensive training in longevity medicine, hormonal health, peptides, and BHRT. Their passion lies in helping women address root causes, not just symptoms, using a holistic functional medicine approach so they can feel strong, energized, and supported at every stage of life.

This episode is a must-listen for any woman who wants to build strength, protect her hormones, and age with power instead of burnout.

Resources From The Show:

• Dr. Serena and Heidi’s website – https://www.blossominglongevity.com/
• Dr. Serena and Heidi’s Podcast – Hormone Heroines
• Supplements we talked about: Urolithin A, CoEnzyme Q10 and Creatine
• Peptides we mentioned: P21 (brain), BPC 157/TB500 (gut health + aches/pains

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Naturopathic Medicine Journeys
02:48 The Role of Naturopathy in Women’s Health
06:04 Pediatrics and Family Health in Naturopathy
09:01 The Importance of Muscle Health
11:49 Nutrition and Supplements for Muscle Building
15:14 Hormonal Balance and Muscle Maintenance
17:45 Understanding Estrogen and Testosterone Dynamics
20:57 Peptides and Their Role in Hormonal Health
26:46 Navigating Dietary Challenges
30:12 Exploring Peptides for Recovery
32:09 The Power of Urolithin A
37:54 Resistance Training Across Life Stages
47:15 Future-Proofing Health and Longevity

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Jannine Krause (00:01.174)
Dr. Serena and Dr. Heidi, welcome to the Health Fix Podcast.

Hormone Heroines (00:04.814)
Hi, thank you for having us.

Jannine Krause (00:07.346)
my gosh, how could I not after we had such a fun time on your guys podcast, I’m like, we have to we have to geek out and talk a little bit more here on hormones and peptides. Now, of course, I always love to start podcasts out about learning a little bit more about the two of you in terms of like, what brought the two of you to naturopathic medicine? And how did you end up becoming work besties? How did this all how this all go down? Did you study together? What happened?

Hormone Heroines (00:16.141)
Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (00:33.206)
yeah. Yeah. Well, for me, I went to I always was interested in medicine growing up. And then I learned about naturopathic medicine when I was in undergrad, because I was working for like a chiropractor and like getting more into like learning about all the different alternative medicines. And he opened me up to it. And then I was like, that does everything that I am interested in, because I was really into like plants and herbs and

how those have been used throughout, like for medicine throughout history. And anyways, so that’s how I found out naturopathic medicine. And I was like, I can help people and learn all these other modalities that I’ve been drawn to. And so that’s why I went to naturopathic medicine. But yeah, then we just met in school and I’ll let you tell your beginnings.

have always loved medicine too, but I didn’t know about naturopathic medical school until, or naturopathic medicine at all, until I had a friend who was diagnosed with stage three cancer, or sorry, stage four lung cancer, and she was given like six months to live. And we did everything we could. Her youngest daughter was best friends with my oldest daughter. And so we did everything we could to try to find ways to prolong her life or maybe hopefully get rid of it. We ended up getting her about three years.

and one of the things or several of the things that we did was she had seen an ND and like had done all of this natural stuff and we really got into it and then I started researching it and Her and I just got into all these things that we were trying together. It got her about three more years She did end up passing. She actually ended up passing away. She told me I needed to go to ND school because I had already decided to go back to school and

the day she died was the day that NUNM’s applications opened. So I was like, well, okay, I guess that’s a sign. Maybe I should do it, because she told me to, and she literally died on the day that the applications opened. So I did it, and then her and I were in the same cohort. I was obviously a little older, but she is kind of an old soul, so we got along better than a lot of other…

Jannine Krause (02:24.351)
Wow.

Hormone Heroines (02:48.002)
people in the cohort just because not that we didn’t get along with the other people. was just, we met mashed better. You know, we like to be like, we’re in the same part of the classroom because we both preferred to like alternate between the sitting and standing desks and be in the back. so proximity started the relationship and then, yeah. And then we did a birth students together. So we delivered a lot of babies together while we were birth, interning as birth students, which is

bonding in its own way. Yeah. Being up all night and then be like, let’s go take a final. Yeah. Studying in between contractions is fun. Yeah. So and then, you know, we both have struggled with hormone issues our whole lives. And that’s why we wanted to focus on women’s health and specifically hormones. And, you know, then we just became better and better friends and had like really similar goals for when we got out of school. And

Jannine Krause (03:19.495)
Yeah, wow.

Hormone Heroines (03:45.9)
similar work ethics, which is helpful when working with someone else trying to grow a business. That’s pretty much it.

Jannine Krause (03:53.158)
wow. You know, it’s funny how, you know, we develop the bonds in school and based on like studying and what kind of things you’re grinding with together and yes, the nurse midwife and all that kind of side of things where, you know, you’re up all night. I did not experience that. So, and I did notice like a lot of people that did that track and did those kinds of things were much more like connected. Cause yeah, there was a lot of bonding there going on. So.

Hormone Heroines (04:09.356)
Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (04:19.96)
Well, you also just spend like so many hours together because you’re like, this is good. We’re going to be here for like 12 hours. So. Well, and you have to really work as a team when you’re helping to deliver a baby, because you have to know everybody’s roles and everybody has to do what they have to do. So you have to be able to trust who you’re doing it with. So I think that’s why, like when we did graduate and everything, it was kind of a no brainer to start a business together because we already trusted each other. We already knew what our work ethics were like.

And how you respond under high stress situations. So yes, that’s true.

Jannine Krause (04:51.766)
That’s, that’s, that’s, you know, something to be, something to be said, something to be said. So now, like, looking at your practice now, are you guys delivering babies? Are you doing that too in this practice? Okay.

Hormone Heroines (05:04.106)
No, we so we got our certification, but then we decided not to actually like maintain the license for midwifery because in like Washington and Oregon, you can be an ND midwife. And we just decided that we didn’t want to be on call. If there’s two more of us, we just didn’t want to be on call anymore. Yeah. Well, also if there was two more of us, the where we could actually like, cause you have to be a birth teen. You can’t just like.

we could not alternate between each other being on call because you have to have two people. Like if something happens, you have to have like one doctor managing, maybe one doctor managing mom, if there’s two emergencies for each. And so we would be on call all the time. So if there was two more of us to have a separate birth team, we would have considered it, but it would just be in the two of us. was like, yeah. We still work really closely with the birth center and all of the midwives in our area. we, we are the, so I’m the,

consulting pediatrician and consulting doctor for the Bridge Birth Center in Vancouver. And so we see a lot of the pregnant women, we see a lot of the babies, and then we start doing all the pediatric care as soon as they’re born too. So we still get to have all the fun, we just don’t have to be up all night or on call all night.

Jannine Krause (06:21.73)
Hey, there’s something to be said about that. mean, I know I was like, nope, I can do that. I like sleeping way too much. So it makes sense. But yeah, it’s, know, it’s I think for a lot of people who are listening to the podcast, might not have known that naturopaths can help in, you know, that arena. And so it’s kind of fun to to highlight a little bit extra area there. And in terms of pediatrics, that’s another area that a lot of folks don’t necessarily realize that naturopaths can be helpful in this case and that we actually can help. And now

Hormone Heroines (06:25.838)
you

Jannine Krause (06:51.684)
I’m also like opening my eyes up to like okay, so you’re seeing women you’re working with hormones and you’re working with their kiddos So we’ve got a broad range here of like the whole the whole

I’m gonna say the whole family, but also I’m gonna say all the women in the family. And this is something that I love talking about ripple effect of how, you know, when we work with mom and then we can work with kiddos, we can help educate kiddos on this aspect of health too. Have you guys enjoyed working with Seen, the kiddos growing up and the teens and moms too?

Hormone Heroines (07:07.886)
Mm-hmm.

Hormone Heroines (07:23.798)
It’s very, it’s actually very weird seeing the kids that like you saw when the mom was pregnant with those kids and you’re just like, wow, how are you already so old? It’s because you don’t see them every day, you know? So you see them at these little snippets of time when they’re coming in for their well child. But we actually have several families where we see the grandma, the mom, the teenage girl, possibly another grand kid, you know, just in the mix there or other babies and stuff. So it’s, we see definitely.

Lots of generations of families. Or you see the whole like help the mom get pregnant and then you see her kid and then let’s get pregnant again and then now you got two kids with her and like all those fertility. So yeah it’s definitely layered in. Yeah it’s fun.

Jannine Krause (08:07.522)
It’s so much fun, it’s so much fun and I love it when folks are doing that because definitely it helps with the education, which of course us naturopaths are all about teaching and helping. And definitely with the younger population, I think this is a really big opportunity for us to be able to share some of the wisdom there and not let it be lost. Not that I think it’s going to be, but that it’s helping.

Hormone Heroines (08:34.156)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it is rewarding to work with kids and, you know, preventative medicine is the easiest to start when you’re a newborn.

Jannine Krause (08:42.71)
You

100%, 100%. And that’s kind of what I love for folks to hear on the podcast is like preventative health starts with the newborn. And then of course, then we sometimes go along our own little ways through life and then we end up at perimenopause and menopause and we’re like, now what do we do? And you guys have this great ability to know what to do with muscle. And I think it’s, a lot of people are hearing like protein, protein, protein, but it’s so much more than that.

Hormone Heroines (09:01.57)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (09:14.026)
Tell us more. Tell us more than the protein. What is it more than the protein? How does this work?

Hormone Heroines (09:19.224)
mean, like muscle isn’t just about like tone and power. It’s a huge vital organ for your metabolism, your hormones, your brain. Healthy muscle helps you regulate blood sugar. It helps support bone health. It helps support bone strength, keeps your hormones balanced. And after menopause or even during perimenopause, maintaining muscle becomes so much more important because studies show that women with lower muscle mass are up to five times more likely to experience cognitive decline or dementia.

And that’s really to kind of put it together, like that’s because active muscles release key brain supporting compounds like BDNF-alpha, which is brain derived neurotropic factor, and IGF-1, which is insulin-like growth factor. These help keep your brain nice and sharp, your mood balanced, and your blood vessels nice and healthy so that you can stay healthy for longer. And like…

Less muscle also means less movement, so less independence, and fewer chances for social and mental engagement. And these are all essential for long-term brain vitality. So like muscle is not just, you know, looking good and looking toned. It’s really about your longevity and how you feel and how you get to interact with the community around you.

Jannine Krause (10:33.25)
That makes sense. I don’t think I would have thought about all of that, you know? And I think unfortunately that’s kind of how we’re marketed to, right? We don’t think about like the ripple effect, all of the downstream effect of having extra muscle. And also just in general, think a lot of people are kind of thought that like to get protein in, they’ve got to adjust and to build the muscle, they’ve got to just eat protein powder, shakes.

Hormone Heroines (10:59.82)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (11:02.41)
more protein, tell us a little bit about how you’re guiding folks. Like yes, there’s the workouts and those kinds of things. There’s creatine, there’s this and that. What kind of recommendations do you make on like a Whole Foods all the way up to supplemental level to kind of help women tackle this?

Hormone Heroines (11:20.556)
Yeah, yeah, so really it’s multilayered. So if you’re not working out, I usually say you should start with about 90 grams of protein per day, but it’s super important to start with a 30 gram protein meal for breakfast and then divide those up throughout the day. Because if you just like mass eat protein, that’s not going to be great on your digestion. But so that’s like the minimum. But if you’re working out, then that’s when you increase protein.

because you actually need more protein to build the muscle. Just eating protein is not going to build the muscle. We’ll get into that in a second. But for working out, you want to have like one gram of protein per your ideal body weight or like the body weight that you’re shooting for when you have all that muscle. That being said, when you’re building muscle, you have to actually go and do the strength training. If you’re not doing strength training, you’re not really going to build any muscle. It doesn’t matter what you eat.

or what supplements you take, you’re not going to build muscle unless you tell your body that you need to make more muscle fibers. And how you do that is the strength training and you have to lift heavy and you have to consistently increase the load as you start to max out. I’m sorry. As you start to like, is that if that gets easy, then you need to go up and you need to consistently load heavier, heavier weights each time to get the feedback.

to actually build the muscles. So that’s really important as well. And then the other thing, if you do want to talk about supplements, like yes, creatine is going to be helpful. And then we really like Urolithin A is going to be really helpful for building muscles and also just for recovery because it really helps the mitochondria and the whole like, if you’re working out without any rest or without good recovery support, then you’re not going to be able to build the muscle because you’re just tearing it down all the time.

So you do need to balance those like good supplements with rest periods with progressive training to actually build muscle. Yes. And keep it. Yes. And keep it. Yes. But that being said, hormones also play a huge role in being able to do those things. So for one, like estradiol is huge and people are always like, it’s testosterone. Testosterone helps you do all that. Yes. Testosterone is huge too.

Hormone Heroines (13:44.12)
testosterone is going to help you build and maintain muscle strength, but estradiol actually is really important for recovery as well as maintaining the muscle strength. So a whole approach when it comes to building muscle throughout life, but especially in perimenopause and menopause.

Jannine Krause (14:01.858)
Makes sense, makes sense. You know, it’s funny you had hinted on it cause you like and to keep it because I think a lot of people think like, okay, I build the muscle, I get the muscle, I eat the protein, I take the creatine, I just don’t have to work out as hard, I keep it. Let’s negate that.

Hormone Heroines (14:19.886)
Yeah, that’s not how it works. Yeah, no, that’s not how it works. You really have to keep building. You have to keep tricking your muscles. You have to keep telling them that you’re progressively adding more, adding more, adding more so that they build more muscle. The other thing I will say really quick because creatine is hard on some women. So it depends on the actual creatine that you use. So you want to get a creatine

that is not going to give you migraines. A lot of women cannot handle just regular creatine monohydrate. It’s hard on their system and it’ll give them migraines or headaches or it just kind of makes them feel off. So there are certain kinds of creatines that women can process better. And one of my favorite ones is actually a design for health product, but it’s Knox Synergy, N-O-X Synergy. And it’s got the correct creatine in it and it just goes in my…

like watered down grape Kool-Aid for all those old people out there that used to drink Kool-Aid when we thought it was awesome back in the day in the 80s, you know? But it kind of tastes like a little bit of watered down grape Kool-Aid. But I just put it in my water bottle and I drink it all day long.

Jannine Krause (15:31.17)
And did you find that for yourself you were getting migraines with the creatine gotcha

Hormone Heroines (15:34.892)
Yes. Yep. Cause I used to take the regular creatine and I would always get headaches afterwards and I didn’t really put two and two together until I was doing some studies on something else and I was reading about creatine and like how the monohydrate is harder for us women to actually digest. Also on that note, a lot of women feel really bloated on the monohydrate. And so then they’re like, I don’t want to take it if it’s going to make me bloated. So the other one is also less bloating. So.

If that’s the concern and that’s why you’ve been having trouble getting like women to take creatine, switching it up to that different form is going to be helpful. It just needs. So like the one in NOx energy, it just needs to be chelated with something because when it’s chelated with something, it goes down easier and we can digest it easier and absorb it better. So like the NOx energy one is chelated with magnesium.

Jannine Krause (16:18.636)
Good to know.

Good to know, good to know, because yes, I have had people talk about the headaches, I’ve had people talk about, I seem like I’m swelling and then they’re like, we gotta check my kidneys because of course there’s some talk about how hard that can sometimes be on the kidneys so then people think their kidneys are dying slowly because of it so we have to look at it. And then, I mean, and then, I don’t know if you guys have heard this, but like a lot of fitness folks are like, oh, you can take like 15 grams or 20 grams a day of it and I’m like.

Hormone Heroines (16:50.252)
That will hurt your kidneys. That is too much for your kidneys. Your kidneys have to process all of that. And that’s just too much.

Jannine Krause (16:52.502)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jannine Krause (16:59.284)
Yeah, it’s one of those things. Hey, probably a good thing to chat about just because it’s a thing that someone might see is on the metabolic panels when they look at their labs and someone’s taking creatine, they might see the creatinine go up. What kind of things do you say to folks when you see it and you’re like, OK, so you’re taking creatine. This is a normal rise. This is not a normal rise. I’m super curious your advice on that.

Hormone Heroines (17:13.262)
you

Hormone Heroines (17:20.908)
Yeah, we do see it a lot. And I see it mostly in my perimenopause, post-menopause women, because I do have them doing all of these things to try to keep their muscle and build their muscle. And so I’ll see it. But just a slight little rise, I’m not worried about, especially if everything else in the kidneys looks fine. If it was a huge rise, then we’re definitely going to have some conversations. But generally speaking, what I see is just a teeny little

little dip above the normal range. And we have to remember these normal ranges are built on older men, not our bodies. the range is, you know, they’re neither here nor there. But if it’s just a tiny little rise, if it’s just a tiny little rise, I’m not too worried about it, especially if everything else looks good. But also on that note, I also find that if I retest them when they’re well hydrated, it usually goes away. So

making sure people are actually drinking enough water usually resolves that problem in most cases. And then really monitoring the EGFR. If that hasn’t changed, then I’m like, okay, it’s probably pretty good there. We’re not actually affecting the kidneys. We’re just seeing the supplementation.

Jannine Krause (18:37.804)
I like that you said hydration. You can definitely call someone out on it on that one a little bit. That’s kind of fun.

Hormone Heroines (18:41.678)
I do all the time. All the time, yes. I’m like, yeah, you said this, but your lab showed me something very different.

Jannine Krause (18:51.798)
We are such great accountability buddies, aren’t

Hormone Heroines (18:54.842)
Yeah, it’s quite fun.

Jannine Krause (18:58.782)
I love it. I love it. So of course you had talked about estrogen and testosterone and its relation to muscles and how we kind of look at this, you know, because women and men, I mean, everybody thinks just testosterone for muscles. But like you said, estrogen has a big play here. And I would love for you guys to kind of explain a little bit of that, but also kind of give us the thing, because what a lot of women will say is like, I feel like I’m getting a little pooch in my belly and I used to never have that and I have

Hormone Heroines (19:11.47)
Okay.

Jannine Krause (19:28.656)
the muscles but the pooch in the belly is happening it’s got to be testosterone it’s not estrogen I need to more testosterone is what I’ll hear from a lot of women please help us help us explain that concept

Hormone Heroines (19:38.503)
Yeah. Okay. So, So, okay. So first of all, I do like testosterone and I supplement women on it all the time because people always forget testosterone is our number one sex hormone. We make our ovaries make four times more testosterone than they do estradiol. So I do like testosterone, but it is not just testosterone. And if you are not

having the correct pathways. you have inflammation, if you have other things driving in your liver, you’re going to convert that testosterone into estrogen. So then your belly pooch is going to get a lot bigger. So you have to do things all around the correct way. Estrogen in and of itself, I love it. It’s great for the whole body. It does so much more than just regulate your cycle or help you get pregnant. It also is a huge, powerful muscle protector. So like the main form, estradiol, which is what

the best one is, think, except for if you’re pregnant, then it’s Estriol. But Estriol, which is what everybody knows about, because that’s what’s in the patches and everything for HRT. It helps your body repair and rebuild muscle because it activates special muscle stem cells. they’re satellite cells. They’re the stem cells of the muscles. It helps reduce inflammation and it helps prevent muscle breakdown. So when estrogen levels drop, especially like during perimenopause or menopause, or if there’s some other thing going on when they’re younger,

These repair systems slow down and then muscles don’t recover or grow as easily. So it’s not just testosterone that grows your muscles. It’s also estrogen. And if you don’t have these recover, these recover satellite cells going with you, then it leads to muscle loss, which is sarcopenia. And it’s a higher risk of weakness, falls, fatigue. Testosterone helps in it too. So you kind of need like everything together. It can’t just be testosterone.

that you do all alone because you need the estrogen, you need the progesterone, they all help in building and preventing muscle loss.

Jannine Krause (21:37.698)
Makes sense, makes sense. Yeah, unfortunately, we definitely have some folks that are convinced that all they need is testosterone and maybe a little progesterone, but estrogen gets like kind of demonized because, you know, the whole concept of extra estrogen, everyone’s like, I’m gonna be puffy, I’m gonna gain weight, well, you know, and so there is that like fear.

Hormone Heroines (21:54.52)
Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (22:00.268)
Yeah, it’s actually funny because you’re more puffy and you gain more weight when your estrogen is too low. with hormones, as you know, with hormones, there’s optimal levels, right? And there’s optimal balances. If you’re too high, you have all these symptoms. If you’re too low, you have all these symptoms. If you’re in the middle, that’s where everything’s great. That’s why when you’re in your teens and your twenties, as long as nothing else is going on, like other other hormonal issues, that’s when you feel great. That’s when you can eat

a freaking whole pizza and not gain an inch, know, like those kinds of things. You have to have the balance. So there’s a lot of swelling that comes in perimenopause and menopause because you’re not having enough estradiol. And yes, it can happen when you have too high of estrogen too. It’s all about the balance. And like with HRT, especially you’re getting an optimal range. It’s not just, I’m going to put you so high that you’re going to have the…

estrogen dominance because we’re also doing progesterone and we’re also maybe doing testosterone depending on the person. So it’s all about keeping everything in balance and then you don’t have those symptoms. Yeah. We actually joke all the time because I am pregnant right now and she is in perimenopause. So it’s like we have the same symptoms because mine are too high and hers are too low. And it’s like a really funny thing to live through together. It’s quite hilarious.

Jannine Krause (23:18.914)
It’s so, you know, part of why I love working with hormones, because it’s a challenge. You’re constantly like thinking like, are they too high or are they too low? Which one is it? You know, and I think for a lot of people, it’s very, I think it’s been placed to them as being cut and dry. It’s either this or that, but that’s the fun in it. It’s, you know, we have to sleut that out a little bit. Now, of course, you were saying like they have to work together and you guys love peptides as much as I love peptides. So looking at hormones and going, okay.

Hormone Heroines (23:28.91)
Mm-hmm.

Hormone Heroines (23:35.192)
Mm-hmm.

Jannine Krause (23:49.0)
Sometimes we can dial in like the sweetest protocol, right? We’re like, this is gonna be amazing. And we give them all the hormones and they’re like, yeah, I feel okay. But maybe you guys get this one. But my libido is just not there. I’ve got the hormones and the libido is not there and my belly pooch is still there.

what would you typically do then and be like, all right, what peptides can I throw in here to try to help out in this situation? And feel free to tweak it whatever direction you want, but I’m using those two comments because that usually ends up being the like, usual I get.

Hormone Heroines (24:16.525)
Thank you.

Hormone Heroines (24:20.876)
You can use me as an example. I’m the guinea pig for everything. So I’ve tried all the peptides. I’m on hormone therapy, all the things. Yeah. Well, for one, with the belly stuff, because usually there’s… I won’t get into all of it, but usually there’s GI stuff too. There’s usually GI stuff that comes along with perimenopause. And when you don’t have enough…

Jannine Krause (24:24.67)
Nice. Nice.

Hormone Heroines (24:44.522)
Estradiol you can get more leaky gut you’re not breaking down your food as well like you don’t have as much Digestive power in general and so like the pooch that you’re talking about might be because like we need to support your GI health and Yes, being on hormones is going to do that But one of my favorite things to throw in to like expedite things and heal up the lining and everything is to use VPC 157 I feel like it’s the little magical Magical thing that you can give women

when they’re like, you know, I’ve been eating right and I’m on my hormones, but I’m still having like all this bloating or like my digestion is like not great or like the pooch that you’re talking about. I’m like, okay, well, let’s do some BBC 157. They’re like, yeah, that worked. Everything got better. And we’re talking like it helps with food and like not all food intolerances, because people are intolerant to different things, but like things that you were never intolerant to before just start becoming an.

intolerant. And like for me, it was gluten. I’ve eaten gluten my entire life, you know, and I eat very healthy, I very clean, but I couldn’t even have the littlest bit of gluten without just blowing up. And I was nice. Yeah, swollen everywhere. All organic. Nothing. None of the super processed stuff. Right. And I had never had that before. And

just happened with perimenopause. And as we know, know, like esterbolome is part of your microbiome. And so when you don’t have enough estrogen to feed the esterbolome, all of those lactobacilli kind of die off and then you’re not able to break down things the way you did before. But when I started taking BPC 157 and I accidentally had some gluten, I didn’t blow up like a balloon and I didn’t have to run to the bathroom for an hour. You know, so it

Jannine Krause (26:26.497)
next

Hormone Heroines (26:30.996)
It really is great. actually alternate with a bunch of different peptides and stuff. So, but that’s, I’m sure we can get into that too. But they’re for all different reasons.

Jannine Krause (26:41.442)
I love it. It’s kind of funny, because my family kind of sees me as this weird peptide drug dealer, because they’re like, I got a peptide for that. I’ve got a peptide for that. It’s like their joke with me. I mean, the truth is, I saw the same thing with the BPC. I was the same. was like, oh my gosh. I was working with a trainer who was trying to dial in my macros, because we were trying to get me a little more bulky and a whole other story. But anyway, like.

Hormone Heroines (26:50.12)
You

Jannine Krause (27:10.646)
We ended up like, I could not do any protein powders. I literally was to the point where was like I had three foods that I could maybe eat. And I was like, okay, I’m doing the BPC at this point because that’s what, I’ve tried all the other things. And then now I can do whey protein. Now I can do back to the, same like you. And so I just want folks to hear this because yeah, I got to the point where I was like, I am gaining weight and I’m not eating anything.

What gives? The esterovolum. That’s what gives. Ugh, crazy. So, okay, let’s talk about a little bit of the peptides that you’re playing with. I love to hear what people are experimenting with. just like you.

Hormone Heroines (27:41.868)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (27:56.078)
So, okay. So I did some research, of course, because I’m a geek and I love going down deep dark holes to try to find stuff. And I found some newer research that was talking about how, know, peptides are not for every day, all day for 365, right? We usually do like a month to two months or two months to three months, depending on what’s going on and depending on what you need and all those things.

But I came across some research that was they’re in studies right now and they’re talking about how using all of the different kinds of, not all of them, but a lot of the different kinds of peptides, like one one day, one the next day, one the other one that day, like kind of alternating them has really helped heal the body and restart everything, just kind of like refresh everything. So I started doing that just…

Probably a ago. No, because remember I was sick. I had pneumonia. So I didn’t do it when I had pneumonia. I think it was about two, three weeks ago. Beginning of January. She had pneumonia and I’m sorry. No, but I didn’t do it until I got back from Hawaii for a volleyball tournament. Anyways, so do a volleyball tournament in Hawaii and then I came back and that’s when I started doing it, at least religiously. And so right now what I’m alternating, I take BBC every day because that just helps me so much. It helps with

the myalgias of perimenopause and postmenopause. It helps with joint issues. It helps with muscle recovery because I lift heavy and I like a little bit of sore, but I don’t like as sore as I would be if I didn’t have my urolithin A or my peptides because I just probably wouldn’t walk. I do a combo of BPC 157 and KPV and then I also do a combo of BPC 157 and TB 500.

And then I have another one that I am getting I haven’t got yet is the copper one. So I’m going to do kind of add that one into the mix too and basically just become a whole new human. But I’m only going to do that for a couple of months, right? And then I’m going to take some time off and then I’m going to see how I’m doing. And I’ll always take my urolithin A because that definitely helps with recovery and all of that. But as far as the peptides go, you you have to cycle them. You can’t stay on them.

Jannine Krause (29:56.896)
the chick.

Hormone Heroines (30:18.572)
And you really don’t need to either. You get to a point where you’re great after a couple of months, maybe three months at that. I probably were going to do it for three months because I a bigger start that I needed. So I had a lot more to get over. So I’ll probably do it for the three months and then I’ll be off of it and see how I do. then if things start, like if my hormones start kind of being wonky again, because peptides really help your whole body and they really help.

optimize your hormones. So I won’t have to be on as high of dosing because my hormone receptors won’t be inflamed and everything in all the inflammation in my body will go down. So it helps to optimize all of that. So if, you know, in six months, maybe I need to do another round, who knows? Yeah. But so like in summary, the alternating is like our latest little thing that we’re trying. We have been using the KPV and the BPC 157 for like recovery.

Decreasing inflammation just kind of like general regenerative aspects for women and I mean we see the dads too in our clinic. We do see a lot more women anyways, so we have been using that and then The TB 500 for really supporting the muscle building and when women are trying to really do Like really gain some muscle doing like a round of that too, but like the alternating is our latest little

My latest little geeky deep dive.

Jannine Krause (31:47.682)
I love it. I’ve not played with the alternating as of yet. I have not. I’ve done like the clow, which has the KPV and the BPC 157 and the copper GQ altogether. But I’m like, huh, interesting to split it out and play with it. So now you’ve given me an idea to geek out on and we’ll have to like share with the crew. what, what happened? Please do, please do.

Hormone Heroines (32:08.171)
I know. I’ll let you know how it goes. So far it feels great. So far it’s been great.

Jannine Krause (32:16.03)
Nice. Now you keep mentioning Urolithin A and I’ll be honest I haven’t mentioned it on the podcast before. It’s not something that is I would say in my top repertoire of things that I use. So let’s talk about that because I am very curious as to how you guys are using it, how you’re dosing it, what you’re up to. Give us a scoop.

Hormone Heroines (32:38.542)
I love it. It’s my favorite. I call it my old lady crack. It’s not just old lady crack. I love it too. She loves it too. I’m not taking it right now because obviously it’s a newer supplement. We don’t really know how it affects pregnancy or anything, but it is derived from pomegranate. So like I think it would probably be okay, but I’m not. But before I loved it because it, I feel like you can just feel how much it helps your mitochondria because the biggest issue I was having before.

was horrible brain fog. Like after my first kid and just like recovery from that and I was just like, man, my brain is just like not what it used to be. And so I started taking urolithin A with some CoQ10 and I was like, my gosh, I can think like I used to. They had more energy. Yeah, and just had more energy. And I feel like when I was getting back into like my strength training routine, like things were just

easier. Like I just felt like pre-baby. I felt like myself pre-baby, maybe even pre-med school when I started taking it. And I was like, this is amazing. But it has other benefits. know, I’ll let you talk about that because I have to take Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It helps with all of that. But also my biggest thing for it, I love it is, and I will take it every day because I do lift really heavy. And so I hate being so sore that I can’t walk or sit or stand or

go to the bathroom or anything because you know, like I really do lift heavy and I love it. And it’s, it’s, it’s how I get my crazies out. That’s how I feel great in my body, but it sucks the next day and the next day. So, one of the things that I really love about your lithium A is even at just 500 milligrams a day, you, it breaks down the lactic acid and removes it faster. So you are not as sore, but you’re still gaining all the muscle and it helps to keep the muscle too.

Jannine Krause (34:05.9)
We live.

Hormone Heroines (34:34.284)
They’ve just, we just went to a conference and we were talking to one of the distributors about their Urolythin A product and they’re actually coming out with a thousand milligram capsule instead of just the 500 milligrams. And so I, of course, I started experimenting taking a thousand milligrams and it’s great. I love it. It clears your mind. It helps even more with the soreness.

It’s not even just the soreness. It gives you more stamina when you are working out. So you feel like you can do more and you actually can do more. You can lift heavier. It makes it so that you’re actually able to do the things you need to do to build the muscle that you need to build and help you keep it because it won’t get broke down as much. Just like we talked about how estrogen helps with the satellite cells, Urolithin A also helps to get the recovery of those muscles too.

So it’s amazing. You really should try it.

Jannine Krause (35:33.282)
I know I’m like well sold me. All right, of course. I’m gonna be like, well, give me that thousand million grams. I want to try it out. Oh my gosh, it’s

Hormone Heroines (35:40.246)
Yep. It really helps with inflammation. So even if you’re not working out or anything like that, it just calms inflammation down. Yeah. The companies that started offering it as a supplement had some really good studies that actually looked at and like, know we talked about like, you got to work out to build the muscle, but the studies, they did some studies in like some 70 year old people and they were just giving them the Urolythin A even without working out and their muscle density increased.

I think it was just 500 milligrams too. Yeah, and it was just the 500 milligrams. They now have done more studies on the thousand and they’re seeing more benefit, but it just goes to show that it has a lot of really great benefit. just so people know, it is produced by your microflora in your GI tract. So when I said from pomegranates, mean when you eat the polyphenols from pomegranates and then it goes through your microbiome and they break that down, they produce your olefin A. So that’s really where it originally comes from. you can…

make your own urolipheny, but obviously you can’t get to like thousand milligrams by just eating more pomegranates with polyphenols. that’s why you got a lot of pomegranates. That’s why you can supplement it. But, you know, if you’re thinking about like whole food stuff, like that’s also how you can drive that too, is increasing your polyphenols.

Jannine Krause (36:47.648)
That would be a lot.

Jannine Krause (36:56.45)
That’s cool to know. mean, I feel like I’ve been geeking out on pomegranate lately. I had a patient send me an article and I had forgotten about like how pomegranate is research for arteries and reversing plaque, too. And I’m like, wow, there’s so many amazing things with pomegranate and it helps with the hot flashes because Chinese medicine is always like, drink your pomegranate juice or eat your pomegranate. so I’m like, pomegranate, super food of my year. Or your elythene if you’re feeling like going to grave. Oh my gosh.

Hormone Heroines (37:07.439)
yeah.

Hormone Heroines (37:19.668)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah, it does. It does help with hot flashes and it does help with vasculature too. They’re finding in the newer research with the thousand milligrams especially, it’s helping with all of that inflammation.

Jannine Krause (37:35.798)
Well, guess we gotta add that one to the repertoire here because, know, I mean, how could I say no to all that and how could I deny anyone from knowing about that? have to tell everyone. my gosh. So of course we’ve talked about lifting heavy. We’ve talked about different types of exercising and throughout the different stages of life, you know, depending on where someone may be, there may be better styles of lifting.

Hormone Heroines (37:45.901)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (38:02.882)
I can speak to this and I’ll turn it over to you guys. Crossfit, not so good for me anymore. Probably more because I wanted to keep up with the 20 year olds and I forgot that I was pushing 50. But that’s on me. But just looking at fitness, because a lot of people will ask me like, all right doc, so what does lifting heavy or resistance training mean for me at 40, 50, 60, 70 and beyond? And I’m like, well.

Hormone Heroines (38:08.238)
to at least.

Hormone Heroines (38:13.547)
Thank

Jannine Krause (38:31.35)
that could be wide open, but I’m curious as to what you guys are recommending for folks and how you break it down for them.

Hormone Heroines (38:38.178)
Yeah. You want me to this? Yeah. Muscle. So I was a master trainer and a nutritionist before I went to med school. like it’s kind of, I love it. It’s my jam. so here’s the thing, especially in perimenopause and postmenopause and older men too. So it’s harder for us to build and keep muscle as we’ve kind of already talked about with all the other things going on in our body. So you don’t want to stress your body to the point where it’s going to break down more. So you, it’s, it’s a very fine line.

when we get to that point. So what I have people do, and it’s not everybody, everybody is different, so there’s different things, but generally speaking, what I have everybody do is one, they have to walk every day because they need to get movement. That’s fine. That’s just kind of a non-negotiable. They have to walk. They have to do something. They have to move their body. As far as resistance training, what I have them do is I have them do it four days a week so they’re not overstressing their body at one time.

and I want them to really focus on one body area at a time. So we’ll do a leg day. Well, that includes all of the legs, know, glutes, abductors, adductors, hamstrings, quads, calves, everything. We’ll do a chest and back day. We’ll do a core day. And I always remind people core is all the way around. So it’s your back and your front. It is not six packs, not just your six pack abs. There’s a lot of different kinds of angles that you need to do.

And then we have a biceps triceps shoulders day. You always want to do opposing muscles when you are working out because when you when you contract one, you are stretching the other. So you always want to make sure that you’re doing opposing muscles. So I break it down into those four groups so that they’re able to concentrate on those, because when you do get older, the more you stress your body, the more cortisol comes. And you want to talk about that belly pooch. Even with everything else optimized, if you are having high cortisol or

in that fight or flight constantly, you’re going to have that belly pooch and you’re not going to get rid of it. And you’re also going to cause complete and total inflammation throughout your whole body. So we want to make it so that it’s not as stressed, but we still want to build that muscle. So I break it down into those four days. Four days is pretty manageable to do, especially because those workouts are generally like a half hour or less, because you’re going to go, you know, I always use the example of like, let’s use Planet Fitness as an example, because it’s

Hormone Heroines (41:00.684)
It’s a gym that has all of the machines and a lot of people are starting out from scratch. So I don’t want them just heavy lifting in their garage when they don’t know what they’re doing because they’re probably going to hurt themselves. So I’ll let, I’ll use the example. Okay. Go use all of the leg machines at Planet Fitness. And, I have them do each exercise. What I have them do is, and everybody starts out at different levels, but each time you’re going to go up, you’re going to go up because that’s what’s going to trick your muscles into building more. So I have them do three sets of six each.

So each set has six reps. And what I have them do is I have them start out and that first set is gonna be, it’s gonna be kind of hard. It’s gonna be like, yeah, that kind of burns, that’s hard. And you get the six out, maybe you could do seven, eight, maybe, but you do the six. The next set you’re gonna go up, depending on what the body part is. You might go up by five pounds, you might go up by 20 pounds, depending on your strength. You go up to that next one, that next set.

of six, you do those and you’re, it’s real hard to get that sixth one out, but you could probably squeak out a seventh one. That’s how heavy you want to go. The next set, which is the last set for that particular exercise or machine or whatever, you’re going to do six again, but you’re going to go up by another five or 20 pounds depending on what you’re doing. So you’re going to increase that weight again. That’s going to be at a weight that you are doing.

fight, you’re like at the fourth rep and you’re like, holy crap, I don’t know if I can do this fifth or sixth one, but you barely squeak it out with good form. And I always tell people if you are at a heavy weight that you thought you could do, but you can only get four with good form, stop. That’s good. I don’t want you doing more and hurting yourself because then you’re not going to do any. So, and if you do all of those things, if you do all of those body parts, it’s usually 30 minutes or less.

And so you’re not stretching your body too much. If you do an hour to two hour workout where you’re really going and really going, it’s going to produce too much cortisol on you. And it’s just going to cause an inflammation issue. So that’s kind of where we start people and it just really depends on their weight and where they’re at athletically and that kind of stuff. But that’s a general rule we have is we just want them to focus on one area at a time.

Jannine Krause (43:19.052)
Makes sense, makes sense. I mean, I think for a lot of people that’s doable versus trying to think about, and the fact that you said under 30 minutes, I think for a lot of people they’re thinking they’ve gotta be in the gym for like two hours or more. Like I think that’s.

Hormone Heroines (43:30.946)
Right, and that’s actually worse for you because it breaks down your muscle too much, right? And it stresses your body too much and then you have that cortisol picture and then you’re gaining weight and it’s not all muscle because you’ve got all this extra cortisol going on.

Jannine Krause (43:44.802)
Ugh, it’s so disheartening. mean, I think for a lot of women, they want to just go in the gym and do the elliptical or just bang out, like some kind of bike ride or keep running because they’ve been doing that for so many years and sadly.

Hormone Heroines (43:58.124)
Yeah. It doesn’t work. Honestly, I just feel like the cardio starts driving too much cortisol as you get older. Not that you shouldn’t be doing some cardio, but like the heavy cardio workouts that everyone was like, that’s how you lose weight growing up. And all those messages is actually driving a cortisol pitchers when you’re older and it’s leading to more issues than in actually improving anything.

Well, and if you, you know, if you want to add cardio, which you should have cardio, like my warmup before I go do the weights is actually a sprint warmup. So I do one minute of walking at three minutes. do one minute of running at seven minutes or seven miles per hour. And I do one minute of walking at three miles per hour, one minute of running at seven miles per hour. And I do that for about 14 minutes. And that is my hit workout. It’s sprint workout technically, cause it’s even, but, that’s how I get it.

I have lost so much more weight doing that just for that 14 minutes as my warmup before I go lift weights. And it doesn’t stress me out as much. It doesn’t give me that high cortisol picture. Yeah. If you’re going to do longer cardio routines, it should be low intensity, moderate, like risk walking, which is good for your cardiovascular system. And we should all do that. But that’s not how you’re going to lose weight.

Jannine Krause (45:20.778)
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. agree. It’s interesting that you mentioned before a workout doing the sprint. It’s something that I think a lot of people wouldn’t think about. They would be thinking about, you know, like the finisher kind of concept of things.

Hormone Heroines (45:35.34)
Yeah. Well, no, because like, yeah, you don’t want to do that because when you’re finished, hopefully your muscles are very tired and you, especially on leg day, you don’t want to, there’s no way I could do it after leg day, you know, but yeah, no, you need to warm up your muscles before you work out your muscles. So what, what better way to get your little sprints or your, your HIIT workout in at the same time. I don’t have time to go to the gym more than four days a week.

Jannine Krause (45:48.214)
No, no, I don’t, I’m not sprinting on leg day.

Hormone Heroines (46:05.442)
I don’t have the time. We run three businesses and we have kids. There’s no way that we have the time to go more than that. So I get it in when I can and I already have to do a warmup to warm up my muscles. Why not do that as my warmup? So it makes it easier for me. Yeah.

Jannine Krause (46:22.754)
Absolutely, absolutely. That’s great to know, because I definitely think that that, for a lot of women, they’re gonna be like, sprint first, then lift, because that’s not what we hear as much. So, my goodness, such good stuff. Now, of course I wanna round it out in terms of bringing it all full circle, because we talked about muscle, we talked about some peptides, we talked about urolithin A, which now hopefully folks are all gonna be checking that out, because it sounds fascinating. And yeah, it’s a new thing.

But hey, you know you guys are getting results and that’s what I love to hear because there’s one thing when the supplement companies are telling me Stuff and I’m looking at research and I’m going okay when I hear other folks talking about them like okay I’ll try it now now I’ll do a little end of one study and then everyone

time that they think. So what are some things that you guys you know would look at in terms of future proofing your health and longevity and and what would be like the non-negotiables that folks should be thinking about for that?

Hormone Heroines (47:24.046)
You want to take this one since I just talked a lot? You can add into So the biggest thing cuz like I think about this all the time because I am in my 30s So I’m like I want to feel this good as long as possible So I am huge on nutrition I that is always like my number one like you nutrition nutrition nutrition and that means whole food diet healthy fats high protein high fiber

and avoiding processed foods, avoiding food intolerances if you have them, keeping your GI tract healthy is like the center of your health. So if you want to future-proof your health, you got to have a healthy GI tract. And so I always start there. The other thing is after that movement, like we talked about how important movement is, if you want to future-proof health, you should start now. And it’s easier to build muscle now than it is later. But it’s not too late to start, ever.

Never too late to start, but if you’re future proofing stuff starting now is better than pushing it off. So those are the biggest ones. And then stress. mean, we talked about how stress impacts. We talked a lot about like cortisol and we didn’t really get into all of it, but like cortisol and stress just wrecks every bodily system. And so I usually try to, I mean, with myself, cause like I’m

Like she said, we’re running quite a few businesses or I’m definitely not the perfect picture of like no stress type of person. But I usually try to incorporate like a non-negotiable every day. So that way I’m not in fight or flight all day long. I have like 15 minutes a day or like that’s my minimum. If you can get more, get more. But like 15 minutes a day where you are present and I don’t care what you do that makes you feel present, but some like a period of time.

or you’re not scrolling, you’re not thinking about the future or what you should be doing or stressing about what happened yesterday, like 15 minutes of literally just being present, whether that’s a meditation, a walk, reading a book, because you can focus on that and be present in the story. But yeah, just something like that. So those are like the biggest three things, like foundations of health that are going to future proof your health for longevity.

Hormone Heroines (49:46.926)
throughout life and then all the things we talked about.

Jannine Krause (49:51.2)
Right, got it, got it. And anything else there, Dr. Heidi?

Hormone Heroines (49:56.172)
I mean, okay, I feel like we’re kind of being mean to cortisol. Cortisol is great. We do need cortisol. We need it high at certain moments. It’s short term. It’s great. The reason I brought up reading is because I cannot meditate. cannot sit there. I’m not good at sitting still or relaxing. So my non-negotiable is I actually read at least probably a half hour to an hour when I’m in bed. And that’s how I get my mind to shut off. have to, neither one of us are really good about

relaxing or doing any of the stress reduction techniques that we tell everybody else to do. We are very bad at it. And so I think that’s our biggest struggle, but it is one of the biggest things that needs to be done. And I think everybody always forgets that because it’s so simple, but yet it’s so hard because putting ourselves first and actually doing something for ourselves where we’re sitting alone or we’re not taking care of everybody else at the time, I think.

We need to remind people that that is a huge thing and you need to take that time in order to be the best person of yourself so that you can help other people.

Jannine Krause (51:01.73)
Absolutely, I 100 % agree. It’s wild, the nervous system and cortisol, like reducing stress relieving techniques, like yeah, I would agree. I definitely have had my own struggles with trying to get those nailed down and you know, just like you said, what resonates with you and what works and that’s definitely at the end of the day, something that has to be part of the whole process, of the whole.

I would say whole longevity slash anti-aging. hate that word, but everyone else uses it. So I’m going to throw it in that category. Health optimization. Let’s put it that way category. So as we round out this podcast.

Hormone Heroines (51:38.806)
Yes. Yes.

Jannine Krause (51:43.842)
Is there anything that I didn’t ask you guys about that you’re like, I really want folks to take away from this if they could do one thing, if they could focus on one thing that, you know, from all of this, because we’ve got the non-negotiables that you guys mentioned, if there’s one thing, what would be the one thing?

Hormone Heroines (52:06.318)
Find a practitioner that knows what they’re talking about. To talk to them about all of these things that are going on with you and what you need to do to help it. I think the biggest thing is that people will go to TikTok or they’ll go to Instagram or they’ll just Google it and then they end up doing the wrong things thinking they’re the right things and then they get worse and then other problems happen. It really needs to be with somebody who knows what they’re talking about.

Not all regular doctors know about peptides or even honestly, this is really sad, but hormone optimization they don’t know about either. So you really need to do your research and find somebody who actually knows what they’re doing and talk to them about it. Tell them what is actually going on with your body because it is very different for everybody. And Google and TikTok and Instagram are not gonna tell you all the right things because it might not be right for you. And it might be dangerous for you depending on what it is.

Might also not look at yourself as a whole person because you’re like I have this one issue and you might not see how These other things are connected and why you would need to be doing these things to get that to be better And I feel like not to mention the new chat gpt doctor instead of dr. Google. Yeah You know they give you they give you plans but they’re not you know, you put in what you thought was the problem and if you’re not, you know medically trained or have a background in health then

you might not be putting in all the things. So that’s also why those things can like fall short and why talking to a doctor who can treat you as a whole person is going to be really beneficial.

Jannine Krause (53:42.05)
Love it, love it, yes. Dr. Grok.

Dr. Chad GPT, Dr. Claude, it’s very wild out there these days. It’s impressive. And we thought Dr. Google was one thing, but wow, whole new level. So of course we gotta tell folks where to find you to, and especially if they’re in Washington state, because I’ve got a lot of Washington state folks that listen to the podcast, and we also have a lot of folks worldwide, and so I know you guys have a couple different derivatives of your business, so tell us where they can find you. And then of course we gotta talk about your podcast too.

Hormone Heroines (53:47.768)
Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (53:56.38)
yeah.

Hormone Heroines (54:13.806)
Yeah, you can find us we treat people in Oregon and Washington via telemedicine at blossoming longevity and so that is info at blossoming longevity comm if you want to email us or just blossoming longevity comm is our website and you can also find blossoming longevity on like Instagram and Facebook and then lastly our Podcast hormone heroines is on all the major podcast treatments of YouTube

Apple, Spotify, our Heart Radio, and that’s where we dive into all things hormones, but also cover other topics as well and how they relate to hormones. So if you’re just looking to learn more about your hormones as well, you can just tune into that. But those are the main ways to reach us. And to see you on there. Yeah. Because you were on our podcast. So they can come see you on there for more of a peptide talk.

Jannine Krause (55:03.872)
Yep. Yep.

Exactly, exactly. We’ll make sure we get all that linked up in our podcast notes at dr spelled out jkrausend.com. So my gosh, Dr. Serena, Dr. Heidi, thank you so much for coming on and sharing such good stuff with my audience. And now I think everyone’s gonna be looking up your Olithin A so thank you. And so much on the hormones too, because you know, there’s so much info out there and I love to like mind folks for what they’re learning, what they’re seeing and just kind of keep the conversation open so that folks know that

Hormone Heroines (55:27.532)
Yeah.

Jannine Krause (55:39.458)
Yes, if we look to providers who have done their homework know what’s going on we can get better info than just quick one-hit wonders on TikTok and chat. my goodness. Thank you too so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.

Hormone Heroines (55:49.128)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hormone Heroines (55:54.574)
Thank you for having us. We had a great time. Thank you.

Jannine Krause (55:57.909)
All right.