It Takes MORE Than Hormones To “Fix Your Hormones”!

Yvonne Karney, MD

Well, it is so nice to be here and it’s wonderful to see you, thank you.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Oh, you’re so welcome. So I tend to start off by asking my guests your journey, you were a traditional gynecologist, now you are the founder of this vitality and renewal movement, and that doesn’t sound like typical gynecology. So what was the journey? How did you go from point A to point B?

Yvonne Karney, MD

You know, as I was. I was a traditional OB GYN for almost 20 years. And in the middle of that career, I just had chronic fatigue, I was exhausted. And I think a lot of people can relate to this feeling of like you’re treading water and you just barely have enough energy to get from point A to point B. And if there’s anything that doesn’t go exactly right, you kinda lose it. And I didn’t feel like myself and I didn’t like who I was becoming. I felt like I could barely make it through the day. So I dove in to learning everything I could about energy and health. And I realized in the process that a lot of the things I was doing was absolutely wrong. So I had to leave traditional medicine. It wasn’t giving the answers. It wasn’t helping my patients the way they needed to be helped. And in the process of my own recovery, it really hit me that there was so many people out there struggling with similar things. And so it’s been my mission to try to help people get their energy and focus back and feel like themselves again. It’s such an awful feeling when you don’t recognize yourself anymore.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yes, and energy is just key. If you don’t have energy, it doesn’t matter what else you have. If you don’t have the energy to do it, enjoy it, embrace it, then it’s really hard to participate in your life.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely, and, you know, as a gynecologist, people, it’s kind of a special relationship that women have with their OB GYN. And so I would have people confide in me that they didn’t feel good and yet they would say, “It has to be my hormones because my regular doctor says all my labs are normal.” And that’s when I started to realize that there’s so much more than just these lab values. And even hormone levels, the health goes so much deeper. And so that’s why I’m excited to talk to you today and share this information with people.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So let’s-

Yvonne Karney, MD

One of my favorite sayings is, one of my favorite sayings is “it takes more than hormones to fix your hormones.” Because so many people think, “Oh, I’m in menopause and what’s changed? I’m not having periods anymore. So every symptom that I have must just be my hormones.” But it’s so much more than that.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So what is this “so much more” to you? Tell us about that.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Hormones are just messengers and they are very, very important, but they need to have healthy cells in order to attach to the receptor. And so this thing that I have discovered, or it’s really come to me through my work, is that your cell membranes are made out of fat and people have this fear of healthy fat and we grew up thinking fat was bad. And yet, it’s so vital to our body. Our brain is 60% fat and the mitochondria, which are your internal Energizer bunnies that make energy for you, they make the energy in a layer of fat that has the exact same molecular structure as your cell membranes. And so what ends up happening if you have this, if you don’t have healthy cell membranes and you don’t have healthy mitochondria because you have these fats that aren’t, that are damaged, then your hormones don’t work right and you can’t make energy so you’re exhausted and you start gaining weight and you can’t think straight because your brain has the same, you know, fatty acid structure. So it, and those are the three biggest concerns that I see in patients, in women, as we’re going into the menopause change. “I’m gaining weight,” “I can’t think straight,” and “I’m exhausted.” And so it all comes down to the healthy fat in your body, in your cell membranes, in your brain, in your mitochondria.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So I’m sure some women are listening and thinking, “Wait, I wanna get rid of my fat. I don’t, you know, I’ve gained weight and I have this fat.” And so talk about fat. Talk about what is healthy fat. How does someone know what’s a healthy fat, what’s a non-healthy fat.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Oh, such a great, great question. Well, if I can go into the biology of it a little bit to explain a little more about what I mean, the, you know, your cell membranes are like a layer. So there’s two layers and they’re each made out of fat and they lay on top of each other and then they’re stabilized by cholesterol. And so these fats are so crucial and it, these two layers are called phospholipids. That’s just a fancy science word, but it’s really fat. And cholesterol stabilizes the cell membrane. And when we have these inflammation or toxic exposures, like mold or heavy metals or chemicals, it’s like somebody’s taking a fire hose, a flame thrower, and burning the fats in your cell membrane. And so they melt together. The biochemistry of it is they form this thing called ceramides and lipid rafts. And basically what that means is the fats that were normal and healthy in your cell membrane have melted together. 

And it’s kinda like melted saran wrap. So if you picture saran wrap and it’s flexible and it’s stable, that’s what your cell membranes are supposed to be like. And what happens to saran wrap if you hold it over an open flame? It melts. And so that’s what happens to your cell membranes. You have these damaged, oxidized, melted fats and your hormone receptors are sitting right on there, waiting for the beautiful hormone to come and trigger its reaction. But now it’s covered with melted plastic, so nothing works right. And because your mitochondria have the same fat structure and now those melted fats that are oxidized and damaged, you have leaky batteries. And if you’ve ever opened up a flashlight or something, and you’ve seen that the battery’s all corroded and leaky, that’s what happens inside your cells to your mitochondria with inflammation from toxic damage.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So how can someone listening know if they have melted saran wrap for cell membranes? ‘Cause I’m sure women are wondering that, ’cause that doesn’t sound like a situation you want to be involved in.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Well, you know, the symptoms are of toxicity. You’re tired, you can’t make energy, you can’t manage your weight. In my experience, the vast majority of weight problems is not too many calories or lack of exercise. It’s the inability to utilize energy. Your mitochondria are broken and so it, they can’t burn fat for fuel. And so instead, you store it. And so, you know, the way God designed us is that we have food and in between our meals, we store it as fat. You know, and then in between the meals, we eat, we store fat, in between meals, we burn fat. But if you are storing too much fat, it’s because you can’t access it. And so, you know, that’s a symptom. Weight problems is a symptom. If you can’t think straight, it’s a symptom. Mood problems is a symptom because moods are generated in your brain and it all has to do with the neurotransmitters and how impulses move from one to the other and all the nerves are covered with fat. 

So it’s really, in my opinion, it’s really one of the root causes of most symptoms that people have is from this damage and this toxic exposure that changes the way our cells, our mitochondria work and the way our cells receive hormones. And over and over again, people in menopause, because of the, you know, the obvious change is that your hormones decline, but so many other things are going on at the same time, women think, “Well, I just need hormones.” Well, hormones are great and I am a big proponent of women’s safe bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. But if you have major toxic damage and brain fog and all these other things, hormones probably aren’t gonna fix it. And then people think, “Well, I just need more hormones.” So I’ve met people that have worked with a well-meaning doctor that didn’t understand the concept that they came in on massive doses of hormones thinking they needed more because they still didn’t feel good, but you can’t out-hormone poor lifestyle or toxicity or these things, you have to get to the root and figure out how to repair the damage. But the good news is I truly, truly believe that healing is possible.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Mm, always, healing is always possible. And it’s just, I just wanna really reiterate that and make sure it lands for everyone listening because that is such an important point and a point I have seen after 20-plus years in practice already, where women come in and they’re on insane doses of hormones and it’s still not working and we’re not sledge hammering, you can’t sledge hammer your way to health. And just like you said, bioidentical hormone replacement, love it, love it for myself, love it for my patients. But it’s about subphysiological levels. It’s just tweaking things, but hormones need to be put into a healthy flowing body. And I love when you did this, because that, you know, your cell membrane, it needs to flow. 

We need to flow with life. If we’re not flowing, we’re fighting and then things aren’t happening. And so flow, such a internal place for it to begin, is at that cell membrane. And as you brought up, the cell receptor. So it’s not just about giving, giving, giving. It’s kind of like when you say, “Well, you are what you eat,” and now we know you are not only what you eat, you’re what your digest. And so you’re bringing up such an important point that even if you’re getting the hormones in the right dose, in the right method, et cetera, et cetera, if your cell and your receptors are not like, “Hello, we’re clean and ready to receive you,” it doesn’t matter what you’re gonna take, so go-

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Go on, I love it.

Yvonne Karney, MD

So it, you know, back to my flame thrower. So what do we do about it? Well, we need to turn the flame thrower off, right? So that has to do with reducing our toxic load in our bodies, in our exposures. We need to get, we need, because even if you try to eat right and try to do the things that I’ll talk about in a couple minutes, if you have ongoing damage from consistent toxic exposures, then you’re trying to rebuild, but things are breaking down just as fast as you try to rebuild them. So, you know, aging and illness happens, or accelerated aging, aging is actually a good thing. I wanna get very old, right? But we wanna do it right. But this abnormal, unhealthy aging happens when we can’t repair anymore. And it takes a lot of energy to repair. And so that’s where the healthy hormones, the healthy cell membranes, and the healthy mitochondria are so intimately connected. So, you know, there’s ways that we reduce exposure. You know, don’t, you know, watch what you put on your skin. What do we have control over? 

We control over what we put on our skin, what we put in our mouth, what we clean our house with, and what we spray in our yard. That’s about it. Everything else happens to us and around us. But if we take control over what we have control over, that will make a huge difference. So we can reduce the exposure to toxins by what we have control over. And then we help our body eliminate the toxins. That’s detox, but people have to be so careful on that because if they’re really struggling and really toxic, they can get sick by mobilizing toxins, right? You gotta do it right. You gotta be ready to detox. And then you have to give your body what it needs to repair. So once you are, once you’re working, you know, you can do these things at the same time. You’re working on the detox, but you’re also working on the repair process. So if you picture that melted plastic, those abnormal fats, there is actually a couple things that help to improve the removal of those and one of ’em is intermittent fasting because it increases autophagy, which is your body’s ability to take out the garbage. Get rid of abnormal things, that’s autophagy. 

And so we wanna get rid of the abnormal fats in the cell membrane and intermittent fasting can help with that. And I know, I believe you’re having some experts come in and talk about intermittent fasting. So I’m gonna let them talk about that, but I’m a proponent of that. And then there’s this beautiful fatty acid in our body called butyrate that the good, healthy bacteria in our gut make. And butyrate is the demolition crew that helps to remove the melted plastic from your cell membranes. The fancy word is it induces beta-oxidation of very long-chain fatty acids, which means melted plastic. So we’re gonna help the body get rid of that. And in my practice, I actually use this as a supplement because most of my people, when they come, they have this, you know, it’s like sludge built up and they’re struggling. And so we’re working on helping the healthy gut bacteria get better so that it makes more butyrate, but also I give them butyrate as a supplement so that it can help accelerate the cleaning of the cells. 

And so that’s a way. And ketone, there’s a ketone body that you can get when you’re in ketosis that beta hydo, sorry, beta hydroxybutyrate is a ketone. And so that can help also. So that’s the way that we get rid of the melted plastic. And then the last thing is to give the raw materials to rebuild. So what are those? Well, one thing we wanna make sure of is that we don’t keep putting in melted plastic from what we eat. So rule number one is nothing that says “trans fat,” right? ‘Cause trans fat is partially hydrogenated. It’s a Frankenstein fat, it’s not a natural fat. And then, we avoid the super high-heated oils because those, you know, those oils, they’re not inherently bad, seed oils are not bad, but when they’re processed and heated, they become Frankenstein fats. And so don’t cook with them. We grew up thinking that canola oil was better and it’s horrid. It’s like a little flame thrower. Every time you eat it, you’re burning more fat in your body. Not burning, you’re melting it on your cell membranes. You’re not burning it from where you wanna lose it, you’re adding guck and junk to your cell membranes. So eating the raw nuts and seeds is so beneficial because it gives the healthy fats to rebuild the cell membranes.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Right, so we wanna remember we don’t wanna go fat free, right?

Yvonne Karney, MD

No!

Dr. Sharon Stills

That is really not a good way, so I’m glad you’re breaking this down where we’re really getting into, ’cause there are good fats we can be eating.

Yvonne Karney, MD

We must have the healthy fats and that’s so important. It’s so important for women in our age group, because we grew up thinking that angel food cake was good, right? ‘Cause there was no fat in it. All it is is sugar and egg whites and a little bit of flour and oh, but it’s fat free, but all of these, you know, we need the fat, so we cannot be afraid of the healthy fat. We just need to make sure that it’s healthy fat. So we’re not gonna use trans fats in our food, we’re not gonna use partially hydrogenated anything, we’re not going to use high-heated corn oil, vegetable oil, canola oil. And that’s one of the problems with processed foods. You know, it’s full of chemicals also, but a big problem is that they use these high-heated industrial oils so you’re not getting any healthy fats when you eat the processed foods. And then, you know, giving the replenishing with the nuts and seeds, egg yolks, very rich in phospholipids. Nuts and seeds also have the phospholipids and the healthy fats. So those are all things that people can do. And especially pumpkin and sunflower seeds. They’re very rich in the phospholipids and the fatty acids that go straight to, have the materials that your body needs to rebuild the cell membranes.

Dr. Sharon Stills

And I just wanna go back, ’cause you mentioned butyrate as being so important for getting rid of the melted plastic. And I don’t know about you, but when I run stool tests, which I run on all my patients, they’re always low in butyrate. It’s kind of like, so again, it’s just such a common thing. And so it’s just a sign of how our microbiome is imbalanced, which is affecting our cellular health, and so-

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely.

Dr. Sharon Stills

All interconnected.

Yvonne Karney, MD

It’s like a beautiful web, absolutely. And yes, I do that stool study too. And I do see that, that butyrate is low. And so that’s a sign that the gut bacteria is not making as much as you need. And that’s why I use it often as a supplement. I have a regimen that I call the Membrane Healing Regimen, where we go on some supplements for a while to give your body what you need to remove the melted plastic and put the healthy fats in. And sometimes, I’ll even use IV phospholipids for people who are really struggling. Because if they’re really, really struggling, their gut is so upset that they can’t, you know, you have to be able to digest and absorb the fats in order to get them usable in your body. And some of my patients are really struggling. So we do the IV therapy with phospholipids first. But if we can do it, oral is great. And I have oral phospholipid in supplement form, but we also wanna look at what you can do on a daily basis with the healthy foods.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm, so are you using phosphatidylcholine?

Yvonne Karney, MD

Mm hmm, yeah.

Dr. Sharon Stills

A powerful one, so what’s in your, what’s in your membrane healing, in your little?

Yvonne Karney, MD

My little, my Membrane Healing Regimen is butyrate and TUDCA, which is tauroursodeoxycholic acid, it’s a lot easier to just say, “TUDCA.”

Dr. Sharon Stills

Yeah.

Yvonne Karney, MD

And ox bile and those three work together as the demolition crew to get rid of the unhealthy fats, because everybody knows if you’re gonna remodel your kitchen, you have to take out the old countertops before you put the new ones in. So you gotta do the demolition work before you can rebuild healthy cells. And then with the, to get the healthy, the healthy materials in, it’s a blend of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. And it’s the phospholipids in the phosphatidylcholine.

Dr. Sharon Stills

I love phosphatidylcholine. So you mentioned omega-6. So most people here stay away from omega-6. You only, you know, omega-6s are inflammatory. You want the anti-inflammatory omega-3s. So I’d be interested for you to talk about why you just said you’re using six and three.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Yes, and that is, that is controversial. I think that I’m right or I wouldn’t do it, obviously. But here’s the thing. We lump omega-6s as damaged, but we’re looking at the standard American diet omega-6s. And they’re not the way God made them. Like those are Frankenstein fats. They are not the same. But some data that I learned, because when I first started my functional medicine practice, I was really pro, “Oh, more omega-3s, more omega-3s, more omega-3s.” But you cannot out-supplement. The problem with our diet is not too many omega-6s, it’s damaged omega-6s. 

And so if you look at the ratio in your cell membrane, this get sciency again, of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, it’s a three- or four-to-one ratio, somewhere between three-to-one to four-to-one of omega-6 to omega-3s. So your body needs those omega-6s. And breast milk has a ratio of four- to six-to-one omega-6 to omega-3s. And that’s giving a newborn baby all it needs to grow and it has a lot of cell membranes and a lot of brain growth to do. And so it’s not that the omega-6s are bad. They’re not inherently bad. It’s the ones we’re eating are bad because they’re high-heated, they’re roasted, you know, they’re fried, they’re not in the same way that they are found in nature. They’re Frankenstein fats. They’re not the same way anymore.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Really adulterated. I love that you brought that up because it’s just another misnomer out there and I will run detailed essential fatty acid profiles and you can see that, where patients need these omega-6s. They’ve kind of been, you know, like made the black sheep just like estrogen has been and just like cholesterol.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Cholesterol, yep, absolutely and-

Dr. Sharon Stills

Glad you’re bringing this up, it’s an important topic.

Yvonne Karney, MD

And the quality of omega-3s that you take are so important too, because just to, you know, if you think, “Oh, I have inflammation” or “I have aches or pains” or “I wanna healthy brain, I’m gonna go to, you know, the drug store and just get an omega-3 off the shelf,” chances are, that’s already oxidized before it gets in your body. And so you get, you know, knowing and evaluating the healthy supplements. It’s hard nowadays to make these informed choices on your own because the supplement companies just wanna sell you a product. They don’t care if you’re healthy or not. And so you have to be, you have to know how to evaluate, because if you’re just saying, “Oh, I need more omega-3s and I’m gonna take that as a supplement,” number one, if you’re still eating all those Frankenstein fats, you can’t take a, you know, you can’t make up for that with omega-3s. Number two, if your omega-3s are damaged by the time you take ’em in your supplement, they’re hurting you more than they’re helping you too. So it’s not something that you can just, it’s just hard for the consumer to go out and know what a good product is.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly, that’s why if a patient is working with me, they have to use my supplements that I recommend, like physician-grade supplements, because you, I have seen it so often, time and time again, where a patient may come in and, you guys listening, you’re so well educated, you know so much, you listen to podcasts and summits, and it’s amazing how much patients know. And especially if you have a disease process going on, if you’ve been given a diagnosis, you probably spent a lot more time researching it than maybe your doctor did. So I’ll sometimes have patients coming in and they’re on all the right supplements. I’m like, “Go you, you did a good job.” But the brands they’re taking are not quality and so they’re not getting the benefits. And then we just switch ’em over to the supplements I recommend, then it’s like kabam, now they feel free. So that’s another good point you bring up. So is there anything else? I’d love to chat a little bit about the mitochondria, but is there anything else about the cell membrane that our lovely ladies need to know?

Yvonne Karney, MD

One more thing. And that is what, because I was talking about the toxins. So one thing I forgot to mention is we, you know, we wonder and we try to do the right thing and we rely sometimes on governing bodies to tell us what the safe level is and not. And there’s this, you know, so there’s this organization that everybody’s probably familiar with, the Environmental Protection Agency, right? The EPA. So they come out with safe levels of things. What they consider safe, right? So lead, if it’s at a level of less than five parts per billion in your blood doesn’t cause harm. But if it’s at greater than that, then you have what we call lead toxicity. And that’s the fallacy. Because the problem is the organization comes up with these guidelines of what is considered harmful to the average healthy person. Well, you show me who the average healthy person is ’cause I don’t know. That’s one, and the other is they’re also making this assumption that that’s your only toxin. So if your only toxin in your whole body and everything else is perfect is lead and it’s less than five parts per billion, you probably aren’t gonna have problems. 

But that’s not how your body works. We have this bucket and if your bucket overflows, then you’re toxic. And so we gotta look at a little bit of lead and a little bit of mercury and a little bit of organophosphates and a little bit of mold and a little bit of something else. And they could all be under what they call harmful. So they’re all within safe levels, but it doesn’t matter because the whole burden is so high that it’s causing the toxic damage. And so it’s that whole inflammatory cascade that comes on with these toxins that causes that cell membrane damage. So when you asked, you know, me, “How do people know if they’re toxic?” I think we’re all toxic, right? Because we live in this world and we’ve been living in a toxic soup. We drive through road construction, they spray for mosquitoes in the backyard, we, you know, they spray the lawn, you know, the chemicals that off gas in our house, the stuff we didn’t know was harmful that we put on our skin. So we all accumulate these things. And so if we wanna be healthy and age healthily and long, then we really need to start paying attention to those things and do that, do the, you know, make the changes, do the detox, heal the cell membranes, provide the raw materials. 

I think we all live in that toxic soup and it shows because cancer’s increasing, right? So in the last year, the governing bodies decided that we need to screen for colon cancer at age 45 now instead of 50, because at age 50, they were picking up too many colon cancers. So now we’re gonna decrease the, we’re gonna decrease the screening age because we wanna catch it in time. But nobody’s asking, “Why is colon cancer increasing? Why is breast cancer increasing? Why are all these cancers increasing?” It’s ’cause everybody’s toxic. And so I don’t want anybody to get cancer, but the toxins also cause fatigue and brain fog and weight gain. So let’s, when we start having those symptoms, let’s take it as a red flag and do the things we need to get well and not wait until it’s so far gone that now cancer shows up.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So do you find that your cell membrane cleansing protocol, do you feel like that’s something people need to be taking all the time, forever, or do you cycle it or how do you, how do you think about that?

Yvonne Karney, MD

Many of my patients have chronic fatigue and are pretty, you know, pretty sick when they first come and see me, ’cause that’s my passion. So they go on this regimen for a while until they’re feeling better. And then we, and then we’re doing the whole program, you know, we’re looking at detox and lifestyle and emotions and all the things that fit together in that beautiful web of health. But once we get you feeling good and back to who you are, first we wanna get you feeling like yourself again. Then we say, “Okay, how long do you need this for?” And then it depends on someone’s vocation, right? If you’re a hairdresser or a firefighter or you work in the airline industry, how many chemicals are you exposed to in your vocation on a daily basis? So there are some people who need these because of the type of place they live or the job they have. And they have more exposure than the average person that they need to continue with that repair process and other people don’t. So that’s where the guidance from someone comes in because it’s not a one size fits all.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Except we know we’re all exposed to toxins.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Right, that’s that’s one size fits all.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So do you have any tips for the women listening about, ’cause you mentioned where we’re getting it from, whether it be our cleaning products or lawn products or self-care products. So I’m very adamant in making sure my patients, my students are no longer spraying, that they learn to be happy with the weed, that weeds are okay, and to take-

Yvonne Karney, MD

Or we bend over and pull the weed.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Doing that for me, she likes to pull the weeds. So, and we take off our shoes when we enter the house so we’re not tracking in the pesticides from where we walked. Of course, it’s really better if you can get your whole block on board with you. So you’re doing all these things and then your neighbors spring, so it’s really good to educate people. But are there any tools or products or websites or things that you recommend just to get someone, if someone’s listening and they’re like, “Wow, I need to start.”

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely, yes. So my favorite website is the Environmental Working Group, ewg.org. And they’re a wealth of information on options for less-toxic products. And it’s a free website. They give you this information for free. They ask for donations because they’re funded by their visitors, but they have gardening products, they have cleaning supplies, they have makeup. So you can browse and say, “Oh, I want hairspray. Is there a hairspray out there that’s not toxic?” And you can type those in. So there are ways that you can look at what you have control over and make informed decisions. And with the internet now, it’s so much easier to find these products ’cause we don’t have to just go with what Walgreens or CVS sells, we can find ’em elsewhere.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly, I always say if you see it advertised on TV, don’t bring it into your house, it’s a.

Yvonne Karney, MD

And the, yeah, and the, what else? Oh, EWG also has the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen for food, right? So people who, you know, eating organic is great. It can be very expensive. So for people who are trying to do this on a budget, let’s look at which foods have, which vegetables and fruits have the most pesticides and let’s either avoid those or eat those organic. And the ones that are on the Clean Fifteen list are much less likely to have high levels. So if we’re trying to save money, then we either avoid or eat organic the Dirty Dozen and the Clean Fifteen, you can get the conventional, save your money. We need to know where to spend the money.

Dr. Sharon Stills

You can always wash your veggies that you’re getting. You know, and I highly recommend that. And I wanna, I was thinking about when I was talking about the lawn, I have to put in a plug. When my kids were younger and we lived in Tucson, I was homeschooling them and we went on a homeschooling field trip with a bunch of the other homeschoolers in the area. And we went to this place called ARBICO and it’s A-R-B-I-C-O, you can google it, it’s in Tucson. They ship all over the world and they have a natural solution, whether it be a bug or diatomaceous earth, for any kind of infestations you have or any kind of problems. And so I’m always telling patients, “Call ARBICO, see what they have.” They’ll ship you whatever it is you need. And so it’s a natural solution. So you’re not getting rid of one thing and causing toxicity in your body at the same time.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely, I think I met the owners of that company at a conference and they were motivated to start that company because of health concerns that they had from mold and chemical exposures. So they figured out how to make products that are useful without being deadly at the same time.

Dr. Sharon Stills

A lot of us in this field get motivated right from that. Like you were saying, we have an experience or we have a loved one and then we wanna give back and share the truth. So we talked a lot about the cell membranes. What about, before we finish up, the mitochondria? Is there anything you’d like to share about the mitochondria and what women should be thinking about their mitochondria?

Yvonne Karney, MD

You know, I think that you could use the terms inter, they’re not interchangeable, they’re different structures in the body, but they’re made out of the same material. And so the mito, you know, the side effect of cleaning up your cell membranes is that your mitochondria are gonna work better because they have that same structure. And so the detoxification, the demolition crew with the butyrate and the TUDCA and the ox bile, you need those, but definitely work on butyrate for sure. And then giving the healthy fats to rebuild is gonna rebuild both the cell membranes and the mitochondria, and then you’re gonna have more energy, your weight’s gonna be better, you’re gonna think clearer, and your hormones are gonna work right. And there, there you are, you’re back.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hello. And it’s so true, you talk about the weight because we store so many toxins in our fat.

Yvonne Karney, MD

In our fat.

Dr. Sharon Stills

We really wanna be, when we’re losing weight, we have to be thinking about, sometimes you can’t lose weight because your body is like, “No, there’s way too many toxins, we have to-“

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So you really, you always, to me, you always have to be thinking about toxins and a detox plan on a daily basis. What are the choices you’re making and then moving it out to weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, that we are always supporting. ‘Cause just like you said, even the World Health Organization acknowledges that cancer toxicity is a big underlying root cause of it. And so you don’t wanna wait. You don’t wanna wait, I say this–

Yvonne Karney, MD

Cat’s out of the bag if you’ve waited.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Exactly, exactly. And I work with a lot of oncology patients and you’re very motivated in that state. And so it’s such a dream of mine for us all to be motivated, even if we’re feeling good, to be motivated, to be cleansing, to be preventing, to be empowered and making choices and taking actions to prevent rather than reverse.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Absolutely, so the thing that breaks my heart is that a lot of traditional doctors, you know, they look at a woman and say, “Well, eat less and exercise more.” And it’s just a math equation. And they think you’re lying, right? “You must be lying. You gotta be eating more than you think you are or you’re not exercising or you wouldn’t be overweight.” Well, that’s hogwash. And the other thing that breaks my heart is that people are told, “Well, that’s just normal as you get older,” right? “You’re gonna lose your memory, you’re gonna not feel good, you’re gonna be tired. You’re 55, you’re 60, you’re 65, you’re gonna be tired.” That, I don’t accept that. If we take care of our bodies and nurture them, they will give us longevity with energy and focus. And that is what vitality is.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Hmm, beautifully, beautifully said. Is there anything else that you wanted to share that we didn’t cover? I mean, I think the take home message of this, of paying attention to your cell membranes and being fluid and the right amount of fats is so important and such a, I keep saying we’re making a mosaic here of all the pieces that help you to master your menopause transition. And this is definitely such an important piece.

Yvonne Karney, MD

Yes it is, absolutely. And healing is possible. So if you give your body what it needs, you take away the things that are hurting it, and wonderful things happen.

Dr. Sharon Stills

So is there a free gift? This is my favorite part when I ask, “What’s the free gift? What are we getting? What are we getting?”

Yvonne Karney, MD

Yes, well, I have two. I have a hormone quiz, which is actually a very detailed quiz that you can, it takes probably five to 10 minutes to do the quiz, but you get quizzes for different types of imbalances. And if you’re struggling with certain symptoms and you’re not sure what might be the cause, this can bring a lot of light to that. So it’s a hormone balance quiz. And I also have an ebook, which is “5 Fatigue Fighters to Renew Your Energy.” And that’s, that’s using my RENEW method, which is what I use in my, with my patients to help them get their energy back and feel like themselves again.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Does RENEW stand, is that an acronym or?

Yvonne Karney, MD

It does, it is, yes.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Do tell, do tell, what’s it an acronym for?

Yvonne Karney, MD

So RENEW, R is to repair the gut, E is to evaluate, test don’t guess, N is to nurture your body’s innate healing capacities, E stands for eradicate barriers to healing, and W is wire your brain for health. If we do those things, we have what it takes.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Woo hoo, I love it. Well, thank you, Dr. Yvonne, for being here and educating us and-

Yvonne Karney, MD

Oh, it’s my pleasure. This summit is so important, so I am just so happy to share with your viewers.

Dr. Sharon Stills

Thank you, we’re happy to have you be a part of it. So it’s all about the membrane, ladies. This was an important one and we’ll be back with more, so be well ’til then.