September 25, 2025 • 54 mins
In this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Smart Podcast, host Karen Litzy welcomes Dr. Marcia Harris, a pioneer in hormone restoration and a specialist in menopause care. With over 40 years of clinical experience, Dr. Harris has helped more than 10,000 midlife women reclaim their energy, sexual vitality, and quality of life. They delve into common myths and misconceptions surrounding menopause, discussing the need for personalized care rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. Dr. Harris shares her inspiring journey, which began with a personal tragedy that motivated her to ensure better maternal care. Tune in to learn about Dr. Harris's groundbreaking total transformation protocol and discover practical strategies for thriving through midlife.
Time Stamps:
[00:01:33] OBGYN care origins and motivation.
[00:09:24] Focus on women in midlife.
[00:14:29] Hormone therapy misconceptions and changes.
[00:19:48] Bio-identical hormone therapy explained.
[00:21:41] Hormone replacement therapy discussion.
[00:29:16] Myths of menopause debunked.
[00:34:25] Hormone replacement therapy options.
[00:37:18] Hormone therapy benefits and risks.
[00:45:05] Hormones are necessary for health.
[00:50:13] Live your passion.
[00:52:36] Healthy living tips.
More About Dr. Harris:
Meet Dr. Marcia Harris-Columbia- and Cornell-trained surgeon turned hormone restoration pioneer-who has helped over 10,000 midlife women reclaim their energy, sexual vitality, and quality of life. With over 40 years of clinical experience, she's challenging outdated menopause care with her groundbreaking Total Transformation Protocol. If you're ready to ditch one-size-fits-all medicine and learn what actually works for thriving through midlife.
MD degree: Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons
Internship: Harlem Hospital Center, Internal Medicine
Residency: Weill Cornell Medical Center- The New York Hospital Obstetrics/Gynecology
Attending Physician / Private Practice at New York Hospital for 35 years
Instructor, Department of Ob/Gyn, New York Hospital, for 35 years
Last 10 years: Medical Director, The Wellness Restoration Center, New York City, NY
Holistic and Integrative Medicine is dedicated to uncovering the root cause of diseases
Empowers women to take charge of their health as we take care of the "whole patient"
Focus: Menopause, Andropause (male menopause), Sexual Dysfunction, Vaginal rejuvenation, BHRT, Lifestyle changes incorporating diet, weight loss and stress reduction
Go to person for professional women to go from 'burnout' to peak potential.
She is passionate about busting the myths, countering the misconceptions, and correcting the misinformation that is prevalent about menopause in our society today
Resources from this Episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
everybody, welcome back to the healthy, wealthy, and smart podcast. I
am your host, Karen Litzy, owner of Karen Litzy Physical Therapy in
New York city. And today we are going to be busting
some myths and misconceptions, misinformation around
menopause. And I joked before we went on the air, this would have to be
like a 10 hour podcast, but we, it will not be 10 hours. We will
(00:24):
keep it to around 40 minutes as usual. But
I'm really happy to have on the program today, a
fellow New Yorker, Dr. Marsha Harris. She's
a Columbia and Cornell trained surgeon turned hormone
restoration pioneer who has helped over 10,000 midlife
women reclaim their energy, sexual vitality, and quality of
(00:46):
life. With over 40 years of clinical experience, she's
challenging outdated menopause care with her groundbreaking total
transformation protocol. If you're ready to ditch one size
fits all medicine and learn what actually works, for thriving
through midlife. You will not want to miss today's episode.
So get out those pens and notebooks or computers and
(01:07):
start getting ready to take your notes. Dr. Harris, thank
I am thrilled. So like I said,
you've been at this for 40 plus years, but why
did you decide to go this path? Why OBGYN
(01:33):
Well, I'll do two stories. Perfect.
The first one, my mother passed
in childbirth. when I was seven and a half or
eight years old. And I used
to say, I want to do something
(01:53):
to make sure that other little boys and girls didn't lose
their mommies. And that's actually what
started it. And I'll tell you, I didn't stay there because
when I started college, I was
a speech and drama major. I
wanted to be on Broadway. But I
(02:15):
couldn't sing. So
I came back. Actually, my dad sent
the money for college. This was the end of the second year.
Sent the money for the third year and gave
me a big letter saying, do you
see anybody looking like you on Broadway? And you can't
(02:38):
sing. Okay.
and I wrote void on the check and
sent it back to him. I had never worked a day
in my life. Okay, so here I was 16, 17 years
old and never worked a day in my life, sent the money back
to him and had to go out and find not one,
(03:00):
not two, three jobs. I
left home at 5.30 in the morning, got back at midnight or
after and graduated on time with
honors having three
jobs, pay for it to finish. So
that's actually where the original idea
(03:24):
of doing not just medicine, but OBGYN,
I didn't know what it was at the time. I actually used to say, I wanna be a surgeon
so that other little boys and girls won't lose their mommies. My mom had
had a C-section. She had sickle cell
disease. She was a mess. When
she had me, they told her not to have any more kids. She
(03:47):
had another baby, four years later lost it. And
they said, don't, if you have, if you get pregnant again, you're going
to die. And so said, so done. So that
was, that's my story for how the
OBGYN part comes into it. So I
actually, when I, when my
(04:08):
dad sent the money, I changed the, my
major from speech
That's quite that. That is like opposite and opposite end of
OK, so I changed the chemistry and then I
got out of school. I worked first for a
(04:31):
drug company for about three or four months and
said, no, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life shaking test tubes. And
at that point was hired as a chemistry technician
at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And that's
when I said, okay, yeah, I'm going to medical school. Went, I think I
needed three courses, took the three courses and
(04:53):
applied to medical school. So that's
the medical school story. I did OBGYN. When
I finished medical school, I
actually did a year of
(05:13):
internal medicine at Harlem Hospital and
didn't like, it was too sad.
I mean, people were dying and, you know, so
I then applied to OBGYN
programs. And I got into Weill
Cornell. Great program. The New York Hospital.
(05:37):
Now, we're talking about the early 70s, you
know, and I was the
eighth woman to ever go through the program. It
was an old boys club. New York hospital is
the second oldest hospital in the country. The
early seventies when I showed up there, they didn't have
(06:00):
a clue what to do with me. I was the eighth
woman, the first black one, the eighth woman
Like now, of course, it's so hard to believe, right? But
We're talking 50 years ago. So I can, I'm
(06:27):
Yeah, yeah, amazing. And
so you get into court, you get into Cornell, you
go through your residency. Did you then
And I went straight into practice. OK.
Opened a practice on the east side. I mean, far
(06:48):
from where I am now, actually, 65th and
Madison, my first office. And
I and then 72nd and first. I
was at 65th and Madison for eight or nine years, 62nd
Yeah. I sold that I retired. I walked in
(07:10):
one morning, one Friday morning. I used to see patients, you
know, most of the week I operated all day on
Friday and one Friday morning, it was
right about now it was actually October. I was driving down.
I lived in Bergen County. I'm driving down nine W.
And I basically said to myself, why
(07:33):
are you still doing this? You know, totally
and completely burnt out, you know,
in my 60s, burnt out. I. Asked
myself, why was I still doing this? And
at that point, I went in, did my I had three major cases,
(07:53):
did my cases, cleaned out my locker. and
said to the girl at the desk, sayonara, I
am not coming back up here and every head in the
nurse's station turned. Every head. What
did she just say? You know, I, looked
at them and the girl at the desk said but doctor you have
(08:16):
cases scheduled next week and the week after and
I said don't worry they'll be rescheduled. I didn't even go
back up there to say goodbye. I never went back
up there and by December I had closed
the practice and was on
(08:37):
I mean, sounds like a good retirement, but yet, here
Okay, so you took a three-month vacation. You took a sabbatical for
Basically, yeah. Okay. I lay on
the beach in St. Lucia for a month, went to Jamaica, lay on the beach
(08:59):
there for a month, and I came
back here, ran around New York, New Jersey, Connecticut for a month,
and then said, okay, now
Right, and now here you are concentrating on
women. I should say women, your practice is both women and men. It
(09:21):
is. But today we'll focus on the, we'll be
focusing on the women part of it. So what
made you say, okay, now I'm gonna focus
on women in midlife. I'm gonna focus on these women going through
Well, that actually started before
(09:44):
the retirement because I had one
of the worst perimenopause into
menopause that anybody could ever have. 10 to
15% of women have
really severe symptoms. 10 to 15% of
(10:05):
women have no symptoms, whatever. And then you've got
the 70% in the middle you know, some with four
or 10 or 15 or 20, you know, varying
amounts into varying lengths of time. I,
let me put it this way. The nurses would see me get
off the elevator at Cornell and
(10:28):
duck into rooms. Oh no. The
Right. It was like the parting of the Red Sea when you walk down the
They loved me. They were all my patients. Yeah. I delivered 50% of
them. Oh my gosh. They were all my patients, nurses,
(10:52):
doctors, all my patients. But for
two weeks of the month, I was the nicest, sweetest person.
for two weeks of the month, please don't come
near me unless you wanted your head
to end up. I would scream for
no reason. I would
(11:17):
get 20 hot flashes a day. I was
on the Quality Assurance Committee and the Resident Selection
Committee. I remember one day in the boardroom, we're sitting there going
over applications. and I get this hot flash and I
rip off the white coat and then I rip off the jacket
and I'm looking at them saying, hope y'all have seen boobs before, cause
(11:37):
this blouse gotta go. It was horrific.
And I was so nasty. I
would throw stuff, I would scream. I mean, you know
what the nurses did? They looked at my feet because
(11:59):
I would, even operating, I would be in four and
five inch heels. Oh my gosh. All day in
the OR. When I
got off the elevator, they would do this because
if I was in my five inch heel, it was
gonna be a good day. If I was in flat shoes or
(12:20):
sandals or sneakers or whatever, oh God, it's
gonna be that kind of a day. Because
I was insufferable. And
I mean that, I was so bad. Now,
the problem
(12:43):
is that's right around the time all
of this happened. in the 80s. I
did not do hormones then,
even though I gave them to patients. But
the question was, did they cause cancer and
(13:06):
all of the above? There's a lot of cancer in
my family. And so on
and so forth. I wouldn't take them. I've
run the gamut. I started out with yam cream. Oh,
yes. Could hold yam cream and
went up the line, up the hierarchy until I
(13:27):
didn't have a choice, didn't have a choice. So.
The 90s, I actually started taking
hormones. Then this was
in the 90s. As I said, I would put people on
them. Because back then, I mean, you realize
(13:47):
there's a whole generation of doctors who
know absolutely nothing about menopause or hormones or
whatever, because they've not been taught. We were
actually taught. But there's this
whole, there's a 25 year period where
they literally have had no education in
(14:12):
Right. Because when that study came out, set up. Causes
And now, of course, the tide has changed and it's
(14:33):
unfortunate because the.
Women's Health Initiative study was so flawed number
one, and so wrong, number two. And
it was debunked within
(14:54):
two years. But whereas when
it was put out there, it was headline
New York Times, and headline Washington Post,
and headline Wall Street Journal, when
It came out that it's not so bad after all.
(15:16):
There's only one arm of the study that was a
real problem. And even that one wasn't so bad.
The one that said there was more breast cancer. There
was more breast cancer, but it was not statistically significant.
Instead of four women per thousand, it
(15:36):
was five women per thousand. You don't have to be a statistician to
know that that's not, it was actually 4.8 women,
you know, rounded up to five. Okay, that was
not statistically significant, but nobody
ever saw the two columns on page 30. which
is where it was, little columns on page 30. Reassessment
(16:01):
of the data in the Women's Health Initiative study says
it's really not so bad after all, and hormones actually can
But once that genie's out of the bottle, that's a
splash across. It's very I mean, it's very frightening for for
women to to say,
(16:21):
yes, you can. I want to start hormone replacement therapy.
I had somebody today tell me she
was not still not comfortable despite all
the proof that I heard. Mm hmm. OK.
Yeah. Yeah. However, is there
(16:43):
a lot of clinicians, because they
were never trained in it. perpetuating
Right. Right. And, and that's when
someone has that as a patient, if you've got that
in your head, that is a very hard thing for a practitioner
(17:07):
to break. Like you said, you just had that today. It's a very hard thing
to break. And so what,
obviously this is probably one of the myths of
menopause, um, that, you
know, we're going to cover today, but let's,
(17:28):
can we talk about, since we're on, um, the hormone replacement,
can, can you differentiate between bio-identical hormone
therapy and traditional hormone replacement therapy?
What we had back then was the traditional hormone
(17:48):
replacement therapy. As I said, there was
one arm of the study that really was concerning. The
rest of it wasn't very bad at all when
you looked at it, but the
study itself couldn't, I
mean, they actually, it was flawed in
(18:11):
that the average age of the women on the study was
64 or 65. So anybody
who had any symptoms, whatever, were not eligible to
be a part of the study. So the perimenopausal
women, menopause is average age is
(18:33):
51. Perimenopause starts at 39 or 40. So
all of those women were not on there because most
of them were symptomatic. Got it.
So they were not eligible to be a
part of the study because they were symptomatic. And
(18:54):
then in addition to that, the
type of hormone that was used was
horse's urine. Right. Conjugated
equine estrogen, CEE. Now
there are still women out there taking Premarin every day. Most
of them probably don't know what they're popping in their mouths is horse's urine.
(19:19):
Even to this day. The difference between the
conjugated equine estrogen and
the progestin, because
again, it was mixed in the test tube, it was synthetic, And
that actually, that part of the study, that's the one that
was really bad. The
(19:42):
difference between that and what we use now, the bioidenticals, bioidenticals
are extracted, the diagenin that is
extracted and compounded into estrogen and
progesterone. Testosterone. Yes, ladies.
Testosterone. We actually, as
(20:03):
women, have more testosterone than we have estrogen. A
lot of women, a lot of even practitioners don't know that.
We have 10 times less than men, but we have 10 times
more testosterone than we have estrogen.
All right. The molecule that
(20:25):
is compounded into what we use
now are all plant-based. And
it's the exact molecule that the human
body makes. The key fits the
Bio-life identical, same as. the
(20:48):
key actually fits the lock. Whereas the horse's
Yeah, thank you. That's a great differentiation there
for people. And hopefully it gives the listeners a
little bit more insight as to what we're dealing with now
today. Now, if someone, let's say
(21:11):
a listener, a woman out there is listening and
she's in, let's say perimenopause,
or maybe she just hit menopause and she is
having symptoms. What kind of
conversation can she have with her
doctor? What are some questions that she can ask? Let's
(21:33):
say if her doctor has never even
mentioned hormone replacement therapy to
And seven out of 10 gynecologists will
not mention it to her, even today. They
will not because they still even
(21:53):
if they don't think that it really is bad, it's not
something they are programmed and accustomed to
doing and dealing with, which to me never made any sense. If
you come into me, if someone comes into me and
I listen to them, examine them and
say, you know, I think you have a thyroid problem, I
(22:16):
fix the thyroid. Somebody comes
in and they have an insulin resistance
or deficiency, I'm gonna fix it. I'm not gonna
let them walk around with 600 blood sugars. I'm not
gonna let them walk around, you know, it doesn't make any
sense. These are hormones.
(22:39):
There are 400 different functions
in our bodies that are dependent on our
hormones, 400. Now all the
hormones, insulin and cortisol Thyroid
and every adrenals and everything included, but
included in that is estrogen and progesterone and
(23:02):
testosterone. We know for a fact now
that estrogen protects the heart, protects
our vessels, protects our brain. We
know for a fact that estrogen maintains
our bones. Testosterone not
(23:25):
just maintains, but builds our bones, gives
us our energy, gives us our libido. I mean,
we know what these things do for us. Every
cell in the body has hormone receptors. So
when they start declining, when the hormones start declining,
(23:46):
just about everything eventually is gonna get
affected. So it really doesn't
make any sense that we're so scared of
this. How could something that's been good for you for
50 years, suddenly when you start losing
it, it becomes bad for you. Right. Does that make sense?
(24:08):
No. Does not.
No, not at all. And so what, how
could you approach your doctor with that? Because sometimes when people go
in to see the doctor, well, you know, like number one, you
forget why you're there. And if you're in perimenopause or
(24:30):
menopause, you literally might have forgotten why you there, right?
You forget what to ask. You don't want to come off
as being pushy or a know-it-all or, you
Well, you don't want to come off that way, but
if you're, especially if you're symptomatic, even
(24:53):
people who are not symptomatic, the process is happening.
So you still need and can
use the protection. But especially if
you're symptomatic, you really do need ladies.
to bring it up with your doctor. And
go on till you find somebody that's going to help you. I
(25:18):
have a patient who was referred by another patient who
came in and she was only 43, 44, but she
had been suffering for almost two years. She had seen five
different gynecologists, five, count
them. She waited almost six months for
an appointment with the head of the menopause clinic
(25:40):
at one of New York's premier institutions.
I'm obviously not going to say which one. All
right. And even she dismissed
her. And she
said, you're still having regular periods. Yes,
(26:00):
you're having these symptoms, but at 42 and
43, I really don't think it's just your hormones. She
sent her out of there with a prescription for Prozac, gabapentin,
and- Gabapentin? Heard me
and said, see you in a year. She
(26:24):
came to me, that's one of the husbands who called and thanked me.
She came to me, she was, I mean, her symptoms were
so severe, okay? And
within six, seven, eight weeks, she felt like
a person again. Within six,
seven or eight weeks, she felt like a person again because
(26:49):
she didn't have a gabapentin deficiency. She
didn't have a Prozac deficiency. She didn't
have a Veoza deficiency. She had a
hormone deficiency. We
corrected her hormone imbalance and she is
now a happy camper. And
(27:11):
we are protecting her bones, skin, brain.
We are protecting her. Do you realize bones, Osteopenia,
osteoporosis, little
old ladies who break a hip, 50% of
them don't live a year. That's correct. That
(27:34):
is an actual statistic. I'm
lying, it's 48.9, but guess what? 50% of
them don't live a year. That
Yeah, I think so. I
(27:58):
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that we can go off on
a whole other tangent on people being believed, especially women,
when they are going to see their physicians
or well, I won't even say physicians, health care practitioners in
general. So you're right. I think you just have
(28:21):
You have to advocate for ourselves. Yes. We,
you have to do your homework ladies and you've got to
advocate for yourself. You've got
to go until you find somebody who's going to help you.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and we all
go through it. I went through it as well. Um, and I'm happy to
(28:42):
report that I found a physician here in New York. Who's
just lovely and listened and is like, okay, here's
the plan. And I was like, great, this is exactly what
I wanted. Thank you. Now, to
help educate these women out there and men, I
might add, men and women listening, let's
(29:03):
talk about the top five myths of menopause that
we can start busting today. So we might've touched on
a couple already, but I will throw it over to you to talk
Well, the top three, the
top one usually is that people think
(29:23):
that menopause is just hot flashes. Yeah.
And menopause is not just hot flashes. Anything
related to what your hormones can
affect could be a symptom. There
are 34 primary symptoms. There are another 20. secondary
(29:46):
symptoms and there were 60 or 80 tertiary symptoms.
Right, right. You know, so, I
mean, there were things which you work the person up and
it's like, wait a minute, I found absolutely
nothing. I wonder if it could be her hormones. Do
you know how many people come to me with just palpitations? Hmm.
(30:10):
Just, I mean, that's the only symptom. And
when they start running out of their hormones, guess
how it presents? Three o'clock in the morning, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
(30:33):
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, d treatment which
will address all of them. A
big portion is the brain stuff, the
anxiety, the irritability, the panic attacks. The
rage, as we said before, the rage. I
(30:56):
told you, I would clear the hallways. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. And the
thing is, You give them, okay,
gabapentin. Will it help? It will. But
that's not the basic problem. That's not the cause of
(31:18):
the problem. Fix the hormones. And
when you fix the hormones, the symptoms will
Yeah, and there's plenty of symptoms out there.
I encourage people to do
a little research on their own and look up a lot of those symptoms because
(31:43):
You have to think of it. Like
this woman, another one that's a myth, like this
woman, and as I said, it still blows my mind. I mean, mind blown,
the head of the menopause clinic, is telling someone
in perimenopause that because she's
still having regular periods, she
(32:06):
is not perimenopausal or menopausal. Right.
Well, the definition, if you're in perimenopause, you're
still having your period because your period, menopause isn't
That is correct. By definition, menopause is
one day. One day. That's right. It's one day. You're
(32:30):
perimenopausal for 10 years or more. your
menopausal for one day, and then your post-menopausal
for the rest of your life. Which is
the other thing. I've had people say, when can I stop this?
And I'm like, well, you can at any time, but
(32:50):
I'm not going to stop until I'm being viewed. When
they're walking by, you will know that I
have stopped. Right,
Yeah, no, that's great. So we've got menopause
is not just hot flashes. There are many more symptoms. If
(33:11):
you're in perimenopause, you're having symptoms,
even though you're on your period and there are treatments
for that. There are ways to help regulate
What's another- Another one, as I said
before, testosterone is critically important.
(33:33):
And that is something even the people who do give hormones,
a lot of times don't use and don't give testosterone.
Testosterone is a little different than
estrogen and progesterone because with
estrogen and progesterone, we are fine. Then we
(33:56):
fall off a cliff and crash and burn. With
testosterone, as with men, we lose
a little bit at a time. So it's
a little bit different in the
way it declines. It's not as stark. You
don't fall off a cliff, you don't crash and burn. But
(34:21):
you still lose it. So it still needs to
be replaced. All right. So
that's another very important, because
as I said, it's responsible for your energy, your,
you know, rebuilding your bone, your libido. It's
(34:41):
responsible for all the things that it is in men. It
is just as responsible for in women. Yeah,
that's another one. Um, what else.
Um, how about here's something that. that
(35:04):
I've always been kind of curious about. And
that is, can, there are a lot of
different ways to replace hormones, but
it can one be, let's say you're in
perimenopause and you're having symptoms, can going on
(35:25):
Okay. And that's been used traditionally. The
problem with that, there are multiple problems with that. Those
are still the bad hormones. Bad
is in quotation marks. Those are not bio-identical,
number one. Number two, do you
(35:47):
know that the same doctors who have no
problem writing a prescription for a pill for
a patient, no
problem doing that, but have a problem with
bioidenticals. Bioidenticals is
less than 10 times, is 10 times less, rather,
(36:09):
the amount of hormone that's in the pill. Oh,
interesting. So not only is it the bad
hormones, the synthetic hormones, the horse's urine
hormones, but it's 10 times more. than
we give when you get bioidenticals. Interesting.
(36:29):
Okay. Well, that's definitely a big myth. And is, are
there, you know, bioidentical hormones are certainly better
tolerated, but are there still risks
There are obviously risks.
As I said, there was a slight increase in
(36:52):
breast cancer. There are different, the
way you take them is important because
whether you're doing like creams or
sublinguals or injections. Or
patch, is a patch. Or patch, the patch as well.
(37:16):
How much you absorb is dependent kinda
sorta on the way you take it. All
right, so there are risks, but they're not anything
near or comparable to the benefits.
The benefits are far, far, far, far,
(37:38):
far outweigh the risks. I'll
tell you, there are now even studies where
there's a woman at the Cleveland Clinic who
have all these papers out there, Dr. Rebecca Glazer, G-L-A-S-E-R,
not Z, and she has all these papers out
(37:59):
there. She was actually, she and I trained together 30 years
ago in hormones, with,
you know, using bioidentical hormones. She was at
the time a breast surgeon at the Brigham
in Boston. And five years later, she
moved to the Cleveland Clinic and
(38:22):
became head of their BHRT program. She,
even with somebody who had an estrogen dependent tumor,
she waits a year and puts them back on it. Now,
if the person, if it was estrogen dependent, she doesn't give them the estrogen. But
testosterone, when you get down to the bottom, the
(38:45):
hormones all morph between each other. You
know, if one receptor is full, it just goes
to another receptor. You know, so
it's, they're all doing this. Testosterone
goes to estrogen, goes to... Got it.
(39:05):
Okay. Well, I love to hear that there's a lot of different options and
I think it's great for the listeners to know also that there are a lot of different options
out there that can help them as they transition from
perimenopause to one day of menopause to
postmenopause. And that's, you know, I, as
we mentioned before we went on the air, I did a talk earlier this
(39:27):
year for the New York physical therapy association. And one of the questions I
And people were like, a year, a year,
a year. And then one woman raised her hand. She was like, one day. And
I was like, you got it. It is one day. So that's another
(39:48):
myth that I feel like needs to be busted because the way
that you, like words matter, the way
that we discuss this matters. And it's
like you said, At this point, we really need
to be our best advocate and educate ourselves as much as
Another myth that I think should be brought
(40:10):
up is people will say, can't I
just do this with diets and supplements and what have you?
Yes. Lifestyle is amazingly important,
but it doesn't cure menopause. It's
very important, but it does not cure menopause,
(40:32):
right? So you do need to exercise. You
do need to drink enough water. You
do need to eat right. You do need to take your vitamins, especially
vitamin D and the
Bs and you know, there is things
that are really important, anti-inflammatory stuff.
(40:55):
You do need to do all of this, but that's not going
It helps tremendously. It
helps tremendously, but
it's not going to replace the hormones
(41:17):
that help. Yeah. You know something
which I'd like to say here? Yes. Your
great, great, great grandmother and mine didn't live past 50. The
average age of death in the 19th century
(41:39):
Didn't have to worry about any of this. They didn't have to worry about
We, the average age of life for a woman now is
86. And for a man is 79 or 80. We're
living a quarter to a third or more
of our lives after
(42:04):
That's right. And so there's, we still have a lot to do
We do. And what I found really interesting is
that in this perimenopause through to post-menopause
time is usually the time in a woman's life
where she has her greatest earning potential, right?
(42:26):
Where she's maybe juggling children, career, older
The sandwich generation. And so, Are
we expected to do all of this with hot flashes and rage and,
and increased cholesterol and belly fat and et cetera, et cetera,
(42:49):
Which is another thing. And I'm glad you brought up something like increased
cholesterol because that also plays into
this. Your hormones help with
Hi, tell me about it. My cholesterol jumped 30 points in
a year. Right.
(43:10):
So I made diet and exercise changes. It went down 15 points
in five months, which is
great, but I
Yeah. It's, it's, it really is really
Yeah. And that's like, people don't realize, wait, cholesterol,
(43:32):
belly fat, what belly fat of course can lead to visceral fat,
which is its whole host of other problems, decrease extensibility of
our vessels, right? Which means that our
vessels aren't expanding in order to carry blood through. I mean, there's
a lot happening here. And some of it
you can't see. So when you say that, when doctors
(43:53):
say, well, you're not having any hot flashes or night sweats, so you seem to be okay.
Yeah. I'm much more worried about a change in cholesterol when
in my family, I have a history of heart disease, right?
Like that's much more concerning to me. physical strength.
(44:14):
Yes, we lose. Absolutely. And also lateral
hip pain, frozen shoulder, joint aches,
muscle aches, all of it, all of it. Yep.
All the above. So there's a lot more out
there. Like you said, that myth number one, it's more than just
hot flashes. Um, so hopefully the
(44:37):
listeners got a really good education from you today, but
what are some of the highlights that you want people to walk
Highlights, number one, hormones are
not dangerous. Hormones
(45:00):
are necessary because they
were necessary for 50 years, they're still necessary going
forward. That's number
two. You have to do
what you have to do in terms of Lifestyle
(45:22):
changes, eating right, exercising,
and all of the above. But an integral part
of that is balancing our
hormones because they are
protective. That's number three. They
(45:43):
are protective. They're cardio protective. I
mean, you can think of a
man who had a heart attack or a stroke
at 45 or 50. Women don't start having
heart attacks and stuff till 65 and 70 and 75 because
Right, right. And also when you look at like Dr. Moscone's
(46:06):
work, also at Cornell on
brain health, Yep. And she's like, well, wait a
second. Women aren't getting Alzheimer's because they live longer. We're
seeing changes during perimenopause and menopause
because of the lack of hormones, because of the lack of hormones.
And the other thing is. It's
(46:31):
you know, we worry about going through menopause, but
it actually should be liberating. Hmm. Because
up to this point, you're worried about getting pregnant. You've
got a house full of kids, even if by this time they're older.
And you're not, we as women actually should Look
(47:01):
forward to this period, trying to figure out
how to say it. Look forward to this because we're
now older and wiser and
Right. It can be a very empowering time of
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
(47:24):
Yes. But we have to learn to advocate
for ourselves. because it's not
going to happen unless we do it. It
is truly not going to happen unless we do it.
I couldn't agree more. And on that note, where can
(47:44):
people find you if they
want to consult, they want to reach out to you, they have questions, where
I'm on Madison Avenue in New York City,
right in the hub of things. And
I'm on a mission. I'm on a
(48:05):
mission. You know, the story of the girl throwing the
crabs back in the water and the person saying to
her, look at all these crabs. You can't throw them all back
in. Why are you doing this? And she picked one up, threw
it in and said, made a difference to that one. That's
where I am now. I'm on a mission. Cause as I said, what
(48:27):
started me up was the head of the menopause
clinic telling someone come
back in a year, take your Prozac, take your gabapentin, your
BIOSA, you're not in perimenopause. It
really is important, ladies, that we start
(48:49):
as soon as possible. The earlier we start, the
better, because then you're not playing catch up. The
earlier we start, the better, because then you're not playing catch
up. So as soon as possible, Bring
it up with your gynecologist. Bring
(49:09):
it up with your gynecologist and start getting
Great, and we'll have links to
Dr. Harris's website. It's drmarshaharris.com. So
whatever platform you're listening on down, if you scroll down into the show notes,
one click will take you to all her information. She's got a great website, it's
(49:31):
really thorough, and you can check
I have a free gift for anybody. Oh. The
toolkit, and we'll send you what I call my
Perfect. Perfect. So we'll have a link to that as
well in the show notes. Thank you so much. That's wonderful. Now,
(49:55):
before you go, I have one question that I ask everyone and
that's knowing where you are now in your life, in your career, what
advice would you give to your 20 year old self? That
young, that young lady starting medical school, getting
The advice I would give is live your
(50:16):
passion. Find what you are
passionate about and live your passion.
Live your life, but live your passion.
This way you will, you know,
they say, if you love your job, it's
(50:37):
not a job anymore. live your passion. I
used to do a lot of speaking to high
school kids and that type, you know, young
women. And I used to tell everybody, oh,
you got to go to medical school. You got to go to medical school. I don't do
that anymore. Now I ask them, what
(50:58):
do you see yourself doing? Five
years from now, 50 years from now, and you're going
to, as far as you're concerned, feel the same way
about it. That's what you need to do. If
it's plumbing or cleaning
toilets or doctoring, lawyering,
(51:20):
whatever it is. Or the theater in
your case. There you go. Live your
passion. You know, I have actually tried to get my daughter
to become an actress. And now my granddaughter. It'll
happen one day. It'll happen one day. My
(51:40):
daughter actually promised she was going to do it. And then Rene done
that. And now my granddaughter, my granddaughter can sing. So
she could do it. But now she wants to be a lawyer. Oh, well, what
can I tell you? Oh, well, it's also going to live her passion. And
that's really what it comes down to, ladies. Live your
(52:00):
passion. The only other thing I will say is, please, you
have to advocate for yourself. Nobody
else is going to do it. Absolutely. Advocate for yourself.
There are people like Dr. Litzy out here
who are going to help, but you've
(52:25):
Great advice. And Dr. Harris, thank you so much
for coming on. This was a, so this was great. So much
good information. If you saw me with my head down, I was
taking a whole bunch of notes on this. So thank you so much for
coming on. And again, everyone, if you want to learn more,
go to drmarsciaharris.com. Thank you again. I
(52:49):
My pleasure. And everyone, thanks so much for tuning in. Have a
everybody, welcome back to the healthy, wealthy, and smart podcast. I
am your host, Karen Litzy, owner of Karen Litzy Physical Therapy in
New York city. And today we are going to be busting
some myths and misconceptions, misinformation around
menopause. And I joked before we went on the air, this would have to be
like a 10 hour podcast, but we, it will not be 10 hours. We will
(00:24):
keep it to around 40 minutes as usual. But
I'm really happy to have on the program today, a
fellow New Yorker, Dr. Marsha Harris. She's
a Columbia and Cornell trained surgeon turned hormone
restoration pioneer who has helped over 10,000 midlife
women reclaim their energy, sexual vitality, and quality of
(00:46):
life. With over 40 years of clinical experience, she's
challenging outdated menopause care with her groundbreaking total
transformation protocol. If you're ready to ditch one size
fits all medicine and learn what actually works, for thriving
through midlife. You will not want to miss today's episode.
So get out those pens and notebooks or computers and
(01:07):
start getting ready to take your notes. Dr. Harris, thank
I am thrilled. So like I said,
you've been at this for 40 plus years, but why
did you decide to go this path? Why OBGYN
(01:33):
Well, I'll do two stories. Perfect.
The first one, my mother passed
in childbirth. when I was seven and a half or
eight years old. And I used
to say, I want to do something
(01:53):
to make sure that other little boys and girls didn't lose
their mommies. And that's actually what
started it. And I'll tell you, I didn't stay there because
when I started college, I was
a speech and drama major. I
wanted to be on Broadway. But I
(02:15):
couldn't sing. So
I came back. Actually, my dad sent
the money for college. This was the end of the second year.
Sent the money for the third year and gave
me a big letter saying, do you
see anybody looking like you on Broadway? And you can't
(02:38):
sing. Okay.
and I wrote void on the check and
sent it back to him. I had never worked a day
in my life. Okay, so here I was 16, 17 years
old and never worked a day in my life, sent the money back
to him and had to go out and find not one,
(03:00):
not two, three jobs. I
left home at 5.30 in the morning, got back at midnight or
after and graduated on time with
honors having three
jobs, pay for it to finish. So
that's actually where the original idea
(03:24):
of doing not just medicine, but OBGYN,
I didn't know what it was at the time. I actually used to say, I wanna be a surgeon
so that other little boys and girls won't lose their mommies. My mom had
had a C-section. She had sickle cell
disease. She was a mess. When
she had me, they told her not to have any more kids. She
(03:47):
had another baby, four years later lost it. And
they said, don't, if you have, if you get pregnant again, you're going
to die. And so said, so done. So that
was, that's my story for how the
OBGYN part comes into it. So I
actually, when I, when my
(04:08):
dad sent the money, I changed the, my
major from speech
That's quite that. That is like opposite and opposite end of
OK, so I changed the chemistry and then I
got out of school. I worked first for a
(04:31):
drug company for about three or four months and
said, no, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life shaking test tubes. And
at that point was hired as a chemistry technician
at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And that's
when I said, okay, yeah, I'm going to medical school. Went, I think I
needed three courses, took the three courses and
(04:53):
applied to medical school. So that's
the medical school story. I did OBGYN. When
I finished medical school, I
actually did a year of
(05:13):
internal medicine at Harlem Hospital and
didn't like, it was too sad.
I mean, people were dying and, you know, so
I then applied to OBGYN
programs. And I got into Weill
Cornell. Great program. The New York Hospital.
(05:37):
Now, we're talking about the early 70s, you
know, and I was the
eighth woman to ever go through the program. It
was an old boys club. New York hospital is
the second oldest hospital in the country. The
early seventies when I showed up there, they didn't have
(06:00):
a clue what to do with me. I was the eighth
woman, the first black one, the eighth woman
Like now, of course, it's so hard to believe, right? But
We're talking 50 years ago. So I can, I'm
(06:27):
Yeah, yeah, amazing. And
so you get into court, you get into Cornell, you
go through your residency. Did you then
And I went straight into practice. OK.
Opened a practice on the east side. I mean, far
(06:48):
from where I am now, actually, 65th and
Madison, my first office. And
I and then 72nd and first. I
was at 65th and Madison for eight or nine years, 62nd
Yeah. I sold that I retired. I walked in
(07:10):
one morning, one Friday morning. I used to see patients, you
know, most of the week I operated all day on
Friday and one Friday morning, it was
right about now it was actually October. I was driving down.
I lived in Bergen County. I'm driving down nine W.
And I basically said to myself, why
(07:33):
are you still doing this? You know, totally
and completely burnt out, you know,
in my 60s, burnt out. I. Asked
myself, why was I still doing this? And
at that point, I went in, did my I had three major cases,
(07:53):
did my cases, cleaned out my locker. and
said to the girl at the desk, sayonara, I
am not coming back up here and every head in the
nurse's station turned. Every head. What
did she just say? You know, I, looked
at them and the girl at the desk said but doctor you have
(08:16):
cases scheduled next week and the week after and
I said don't worry they'll be rescheduled. I didn't even go
back up there to say goodbye. I never went back
up there and by December I had closed
the practice and was on
(08:37):
I mean, sounds like a good retirement, but yet, here
Okay, so you took a three-month vacation. You took a sabbatical for
Basically, yeah. Okay. I lay on
the beach in St. Lucia for a month, went to Jamaica, lay on the beach
(08:59):
there for a month, and I came
back here, ran around New York, New Jersey, Connecticut for a month,
and then said, okay, now
Right, and now here you are concentrating on
women. I should say women, your practice is both women and men. It
(09:21):
is. But today we'll focus on the, we'll be
focusing on the women part of it. So what
made you say, okay, now I'm gonna focus
on women in midlife. I'm gonna focus on these women going through
Well, that actually started before
(09:44):
the retirement because I had one
of the worst perimenopause into
menopause that anybody could ever have. 10 to
15% of women have
really severe symptoms. 10 to 15% of
(10:05):
women have no symptoms, whatever. And then you've got
the 70% in the middle you know, some with four
or 10 or 15 or 20, you know, varying
amounts into varying lengths of time. I,
let me put it this way. The nurses would see me get
off the elevator at Cornell and
(10:28):
duck into rooms. Oh no. The
Right. It was like the parting of the Red Sea when you walk down the
They loved me. They were all my patients. Yeah. I delivered 50% of
them. Oh my gosh. They were all my patients, nurses,
(10:52):
doctors, all my patients. But for
two weeks of the month, I was the nicest, sweetest person.
for two weeks of the month, please don't come
near me unless you wanted your head
to end up. I would scream for
no reason. I would
(11:17):
get 20 hot flashes a day. I was
on the Quality Assurance Committee and the Resident Selection
Committee. I remember one day in the boardroom, we're sitting there going
over applications. and I get this hot flash and I
rip off the white coat and then I rip off the jacket
and I'm looking at them saying, hope y'all have seen boobs before, cause
(11:37):
this blouse gotta go. It was horrific.
And I was so nasty. I
would throw stuff, I would scream. I mean, you know
what the nurses did? They looked at my feet because
(11:59):
I would, even operating, I would be in four and
five inch heels. Oh my gosh. All day in
the OR. When I
got off the elevator, they would do this because
if I was in my five inch heel, it was
gonna be a good day. If I was in flat shoes or
(12:20):
sandals or sneakers or whatever, oh God, it's
gonna be that kind of a day. Because
I was insufferable. And
I mean that, I was so bad. Now,
the problem
(12:43):
is that's right around the time all
of this happened. in the 80s. I
did not do hormones then,
even though I gave them to patients. But
the question was, did they cause cancer and
(13:06):
all of the above? There's a lot of cancer in
my family. And so on
and so forth. I wouldn't take them. I've
run the gamut. I started out with yam cream. Oh,
yes. Could hold yam cream and
went up the line, up the hierarchy until I
(13:27):
didn't have a choice, didn't have a choice. So.
The 90s, I actually started taking
hormones. Then this was
in the 90s. As I said, I would put people on
them. Because back then, I mean, you realize
(13:47):
there's a whole generation of doctors who
know absolutely nothing about menopause or hormones or
whatever, because they've not been taught. We were
actually taught. But there's this
whole, there's a 25 year period where
they literally have had no education in
(14:12):
Right. Because when that study came out, set up. Causes
And now, of course, the tide has changed and it's
(14:33):
unfortunate because the.
Women's Health Initiative study was so flawed number
one, and so wrong, number two. And
it was debunked within
(14:54):
two years. But whereas when
it was put out there, it was headline
New York Times, and headline Washington Post,
and headline Wall Street Journal, when
It came out that it's not so bad after all.
(15:16):
There's only one arm of the study that was a
real problem. And even that one wasn't so bad.
The one that said there was more breast cancer. There
was more breast cancer, but it was not statistically significant.
Instead of four women per thousand, it
(15:36):
was five women per thousand. You don't have to be a statistician to
know that that's not, it was actually 4.8 women,
you know, rounded up to five. Okay, that was
not statistically significant, but nobody
ever saw the two columns on page 30. which
is where it was, little columns on page 30. Reassessment
(16:01):
of the data in the Women's Health Initiative study says
it's really not so bad after all, and hormones actually can
But once that genie's out of the bottle, that's a
splash across. It's very I mean, it's very frightening for for
women to to say,
(16:21):
yes, you can. I want to start hormone replacement therapy.
I had somebody today tell me she
was not still not comfortable despite all
the proof that I heard. Mm hmm. OK.
Yeah. Yeah. However, is there
(16:43):
a lot of clinicians, because they
were never trained in it. perpetuating
Right. Right. And, and that's when
someone has that as a patient, if you've got that
in your head, that is a very hard thing for a practitioner
(17:07):
to break. Like you said, you just had that today. It's a very hard thing
to break. And so what,
obviously this is probably one of the myths of
menopause, um, that, you
know, we're going to cover today, but let's,
(17:28):
can we talk about, since we're on, um, the hormone replacement,
can, can you differentiate between bio-identical hormone
therapy and traditional hormone replacement therapy?
What we had back then was the traditional hormone
(17:48):
replacement therapy. As I said, there was
one arm of the study that really was concerning. The
rest of it wasn't very bad at all when
you looked at it, but the
study itself couldn't, I
mean, they actually, it was flawed in
(18:11):
that the average age of the women on the study was
64 or 65. So anybody
who had any symptoms, whatever, were not eligible to
be a part of the study. So the perimenopausal
women, menopause is average age is
(18:33):
51. Perimenopause starts at 39 or 40. So
all of those women were not on there because most
of them were symptomatic. Got it.
So they were not eligible to be a
part of the study because they were symptomatic. And
(18:54):
then in addition to that, the
type of hormone that was used was
horse's urine. Right. Conjugated
equine estrogen, CEE. Now
there are still women out there taking Premarin every day. Most
of them probably don't know what they're popping in their mouths is horse's urine.
(19:19):
Even to this day. The difference between the
conjugated equine estrogen and
the progestin, because
again, it was mixed in the test tube, it was synthetic, And
that actually, that part of the study, that's the one that
was really bad. The
(19:42):
difference between that and what we use now, the bioidenticals, bioidenticals
are extracted, the diagenin that is
extracted and compounded into estrogen and
progesterone. Testosterone. Yes, ladies.
Testosterone. We actually, as
(20:03):
women, have more testosterone than we have estrogen. A
lot of women, a lot of even practitioners don't know that.
We have 10 times less than men, but we have 10 times
more testosterone than we have estrogen.
All right. The molecule that
(20:25):
is compounded into what we use
now are all plant-based. And
it's the exact molecule that the human
body makes. The key fits the
Bio-life identical, same as. the
(20:48):
key actually fits the lock. Whereas the horse's
Yeah, thank you. That's a great differentiation there
for people. And hopefully it gives the listeners a
little bit more insight as to what we're dealing with now
today. Now, if someone, let's say
(21:11):
a listener, a woman out there is listening and
she's in, let's say perimenopause,
or maybe she just hit menopause and she is
having symptoms. What kind of
conversation can she have with her
doctor? What are some questions that she can ask? Let's
(21:33):
say if her doctor has never even
mentioned hormone replacement therapy to
And seven out of 10 gynecologists will
not mention it to her, even today. They
will not because they still even
(21:53):
if they don't think that it really is bad, it's not
something they are programmed and accustomed to
doing and dealing with, which to me never made any sense. If
you come into me, if someone comes into me and
I listen to them, examine them and
say, you know, I think you have a thyroid problem, I
(22:16):
fix the thyroid. Somebody comes
in and they have an insulin resistance
or deficiency, I'm gonna fix it. I'm not gonna
let them walk around with 600 blood sugars. I'm not
gonna let them walk around, you know, it doesn't make any
sense. These are hormones.
(22:39):
There are 400 different functions
in our bodies that are dependent on our
hormones, 400. Now all the
hormones, insulin and cortisol Thyroid
and every adrenals and everything included, but
included in that is estrogen and progesterone and
(23:02):
testosterone. We know for a fact now
that estrogen protects the heart, protects
our vessels, protects our brain. We
know for a fact that estrogen maintains
our bones. Testosterone not
(23:25):
just maintains, but builds our bones, gives
us our energy, gives us our libido. I mean,
we know what these things do for us. Every
cell in the body has hormone receptors. So
when they start declining, when the hormones start declining,
(23:46):
just about everything eventually is gonna get
affected. So it really doesn't
make any sense that we're so scared of
this. How could something that's been good for you for
50 years, suddenly when you start losing
it, it becomes bad for you. Right. Does that make sense?
(24:08):
No. Does not.
No, not at all. And so what, how
could you approach your doctor with that? Because sometimes when people go
in to see the doctor, well, you know, like number one, you
forget why you're there. And if you're in perimenopause or
(24:30):
menopause, you literally might have forgotten why you there, right?
You forget what to ask. You don't want to come off
as being pushy or a know-it-all or, you
Well, you don't want to come off that way, but
if you're, especially if you're symptomatic, even
(24:53):
people who are not symptomatic, the process is happening.
So you still need and can
use the protection. But especially if
you're symptomatic, you really do need ladies.
to bring it up with your doctor. And
go on till you find somebody that's going to help you. I
(25:18):
have a patient who was referred by another patient who
came in and she was only 43, 44, but she
had been suffering for almost two years. She had seen five
different gynecologists, five, count
them. She waited almost six months for
an appointment with the head of the menopause clinic
(25:40):
at one of New York's premier institutions.
I'm obviously not going to say which one. All
right. And even she dismissed
her. And she
said, you're still having regular periods. Yes,
(26:00):
you're having these symptoms, but at 42 and
43, I really don't think it's just your hormones. She
sent her out of there with a prescription for Prozac, gabapentin,
and- Gabapentin? Heard me
and said, see you in a year. She
(26:24):
came to me, that's one of the husbands who called and thanked me.
She came to me, she was, I mean, her symptoms were
so severe, okay? And
within six, seven, eight weeks, she felt like
a person again. Within six,
seven or eight weeks, she felt like a person again because
(26:49):
she didn't have a gabapentin deficiency. She
didn't have a Prozac deficiency. She didn't
have a Veoza deficiency. She had a
hormone deficiency. We
corrected her hormone imbalance and she is
now a happy camper. And
(27:11):
we are protecting her bones, skin, brain.
We are protecting her. Do you realize bones, Osteopenia,
osteoporosis, little
old ladies who break a hip, 50% of
them don't live a year. That's correct. That
(27:34):
is an actual statistic. I'm
lying, it's 48.9, but guess what? 50% of
them don't live a year. That
Yeah, I think so. I
(27:58):
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that we can go off on
a whole other tangent on people being believed, especially women,
when they are going to see their physicians
or well, I won't even say physicians, health care practitioners in
general. So you're right. I think you just have
(28:21):
You have to advocate for ourselves. Yes. We,
you have to do your homework ladies and you've got to
advocate for yourself. You've got
to go until you find somebody who's going to help you.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, and we all
go through it. I went through it as well. Um, and I'm happy to
(28:42):
report that I found a physician here in New York. Who's
just lovely and listened and is like, okay, here's
the plan. And I was like, great, this is exactly what
I wanted. Thank you. Now, to
help educate these women out there and men, I
might add, men and women listening, let's
(29:03):
talk about the top five myths of menopause that
we can start busting today. So we might've touched on
a couple already, but I will throw it over to you to talk
Well, the top three, the
top one usually is that people think
(29:23):
that menopause is just hot flashes. Yeah.
And menopause is not just hot flashes. Anything
related to what your hormones can
affect could be a symptom. There
are 34 primary symptoms. There are another 20. secondary
(29:46):
symptoms and there were 60 or 80 tertiary symptoms.
Right, right. You know, so, I
mean, there were things which you work the person up and
it's like, wait a minute, I found absolutely
nothing. I wonder if it could be her hormones. Do
you know how many people come to me with just palpitations? Hmm.
(30:10):
Just, I mean, that's the only symptom. And
when they start running out of their hormones, guess
how it presents? Three o'clock in the morning, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
(30:33):
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung,
dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, dung, d treatment which
will address all of them. A
big portion is the brain stuff, the
anxiety, the irritability, the panic attacks. The
rage, as we said before, the rage. I
(30:56):
told you, I would clear the hallways. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah. And the
thing is, You give them, okay,
gabapentin. Will it help? It will. But
that's not the basic problem. That's not the cause of
(31:18):
the problem. Fix the hormones. And
when you fix the hormones, the symptoms will
Yeah, and there's plenty of symptoms out there.
I encourage people to do
a little research on their own and look up a lot of those symptoms because
(31:43):
You have to think of it. Like
this woman, another one that's a myth, like this
woman, and as I said, it still blows my mind. I mean, mind blown,
the head of the menopause clinic, is telling someone
in perimenopause that because she's
still having regular periods, she
(32:06):
is not perimenopausal or menopausal. Right.
Well, the definition, if you're in perimenopause, you're
still having your period because your period, menopause isn't
That is correct. By definition, menopause is
one day. One day. That's right. It's one day. You're
(32:30):
perimenopausal for 10 years or more. your
menopausal for one day, and then your post-menopausal
for the rest of your life. Which is
the other thing. I've had people say, when can I stop this?
And I'm like, well, you can at any time, but
(32:50):
I'm not going to stop until I'm being viewed. When
they're walking by, you will know that I
have stopped. Right,
Yeah, no, that's great. So we've got menopause
is not just hot flashes. There are many more symptoms. If
(33:11):
you're in perimenopause, you're having symptoms,
even though you're on your period and there are treatments
for that. There are ways to help regulate
What's another- Another one, as I said
before, testosterone is critically important.
(33:33):
And that is something even the people who do give hormones,
a lot of times don't use and don't give testosterone.
Testosterone is a little different than
estrogen and progesterone because with
estrogen and progesterone, we are fine. Then we
(33:56):
fall off a cliff and crash and burn. With
testosterone, as with men, we lose
a little bit at a time. So it's
a little bit different in the
way it declines. It's not as stark. You
don't fall off a cliff, you don't crash and burn. But
(34:21):
you still lose it. So it still needs to
be replaced. All right. So
that's another very important, because
as I said, it's responsible for your energy, your,
you know, rebuilding your bone, your libido. It's
(34:41):
responsible for all the things that it is in men. It
is just as responsible for in women. Yeah,
that's another one. Um, what else.
Um, how about here's something that. that
(35:04):
I've always been kind of curious about. And
that is, can, there are a lot of
different ways to replace hormones, but
it can one be, let's say you're in
perimenopause and you're having symptoms, can going on
(35:25):
Okay. And that's been used traditionally. The
problem with that, there are multiple problems with that. Those
are still the bad hormones. Bad
is in quotation marks. Those are not bio-identical,
number one. Number two, do you
(35:47):
know that the same doctors who have no
problem writing a prescription for a pill for
a patient, no
problem doing that, but have a problem with
bioidenticals. Bioidenticals is
less than 10 times, is 10 times less, rather,
(36:09):
the amount of hormone that's in the pill. Oh,
interesting. So not only is it the bad
hormones, the synthetic hormones, the horse's urine
hormones, but it's 10 times more. than
we give when you get bioidenticals. Interesting.
(36:29):
Okay. Well, that's definitely a big myth. And is, are
there, you know, bioidentical hormones are certainly better
tolerated, but are there still risks
There are obviously risks.
As I said, there was a slight increase in
(36:52):
breast cancer. There are different, the
way you take them is important because
whether you're doing like creams or
sublinguals or injections. Or
patch, is a patch. Or patch, the patch as well.
(37:16):
How much you absorb is dependent kinda
sorta on the way you take it. All
right, so there are risks, but they're not anything
near or comparable to the benefits.
The benefits are far, far, far, far,
(37:38):
far outweigh the risks. I'll
tell you, there are now even studies where
there's a woman at the Cleveland Clinic who
have all these papers out there, Dr. Rebecca Glazer, G-L-A-S-E-R,
not Z, and she has all these papers out
(37:59):
there. She was actually, she and I trained together 30 years
ago in hormones, with,
you know, using bioidentical hormones. She was at
the time a breast surgeon at the Brigham
in Boston. And five years later, she
moved to the Cleveland Clinic and
(38:22):
became head of their BHRT program. She,
even with somebody who had an estrogen dependent tumor,
she waits a year and puts them back on it. Now,
if the person, if it was estrogen dependent, she doesn't give them the estrogen. But
testosterone, when you get down to the bottom, the
(38:45):
hormones all morph between each other. You
know, if one receptor is full, it just goes
to another receptor. You know, so
it's, they're all doing this. Testosterone
goes to estrogen, goes to... Got it.
(39:05):
Okay. Well, I love to hear that there's a lot of different options and
I think it's great for the listeners to know also that there are a lot of different options
out there that can help them as they transition from
perimenopause to one day of menopause to
postmenopause. And that's, you know, I, as
we mentioned before we went on the air, I did a talk earlier this
(39:27):
year for the New York physical therapy association. And one of the questions I
And people were like, a year, a year,
a year. And then one woman raised her hand. She was like, one day. And
I was like, you got it. It is one day. So that's another
(39:48):
myth that I feel like needs to be busted because the way
that you, like words matter, the way
that we discuss this matters. And it's
like you said, At this point, we really need
to be our best advocate and educate ourselves as much as
Another myth that I think should be brought
(40:10):
up is people will say, can't I
just do this with diets and supplements and what have you?
Yes. Lifestyle is amazingly important,
but it doesn't cure menopause. It's
very important, but it does not cure menopause,
(40:32):
right? So you do need to exercise. You
do need to drink enough water. You
do need to eat right. You do need to take your vitamins, especially
vitamin D and the
Bs and you know, there is things
that are really important, anti-inflammatory stuff.
(40:55):
You do need to do all of this, but that's not going
It helps tremendously. It
helps tremendously, but
it's not going to replace the hormones
(41:17):
that help. Yeah. You know something
which I'd like to say here? Yes. Your
great, great, great grandmother and mine didn't live past 50. The
average age of death in the 19th century
(41:39):
Didn't have to worry about any of this. They didn't have to worry about
We, the average age of life for a woman now is
86. And for a man is 79 or 80. We're
living a quarter to a third or more
of our lives after
(42:04):
That's right. And so there's, we still have a lot to do
We do. And what I found really interesting is
that in this perimenopause through to post-menopause
time is usually the time in a woman's life
where she has her greatest earning potential, right?
(42:26):
Where she's maybe juggling children, career, older
The sandwich generation. And so, Are
we expected to do all of this with hot flashes and rage and,
and increased cholesterol and belly fat and et cetera, et cetera,
(42:49):
Which is another thing. And I'm glad you brought up something like increased
cholesterol because that also plays into
this. Your hormones help with
Hi, tell me about it. My cholesterol jumped 30 points in
a year. Right.
(43:10):
So I made diet and exercise changes. It went down 15 points
in five months, which is
great, but I
Yeah. It's, it's, it really is really
Yeah. And that's like, people don't realize, wait, cholesterol,
(43:32):
belly fat, what belly fat of course can lead to visceral fat,
which is its whole host of other problems, decrease extensibility of
our vessels, right? Which means that our
vessels aren't expanding in order to carry blood through. I mean, there's
a lot happening here. And some of it
you can't see. So when you say that, when doctors
(43:53):
say, well, you're not having any hot flashes or night sweats, so you seem to be okay.
Yeah. I'm much more worried about a change in cholesterol when
in my family, I have a history of heart disease, right?
Like that's much more concerning to me. physical strength.
(44:14):
Yes, we lose. Absolutely. And also lateral
hip pain, frozen shoulder, joint aches,
muscle aches, all of it, all of it. Yep.
All the above. So there's a lot more out
there. Like you said, that myth number one, it's more than just
hot flashes. Um, so hopefully the
(44:37):
listeners got a really good education from you today, but
what are some of the highlights that you want people to walk
Highlights, number one, hormones are
not dangerous. Hormones
(45:00):
are necessary because they
were necessary for 50 years, they're still necessary going
forward. That's number
two. You have to do
what you have to do in terms of Lifestyle
(45:22):
changes, eating right, exercising,
and all of the above. But an integral part
of that is balancing our
hormones because they are
protective. That's number three. They
(45:43):
are protective. They're cardio protective. I
mean, you can think of a
man who had a heart attack or a stroke
at 45 or 50. Women don't start having
heart attacks and stuff till 65 and 70 and 75 because
Right, right. And also when you look at like Dr. Moscone's
(46:06):
work, also at Cornell on
brain health, Yep. And she's like, well, wait a
second. Women aren't getting Alzheimer's because they live longer. We're
seeing changes during perimenopause and menopause
because of the lack of hormones, because of the lack of hormones.
And the other thing is. It's
(46:31):
you know, we worry about going through menopause, but
it actually should be liberating. Hmm. Because
up to this point, you're worried about getting pregnant. You've
got a house full of kids, even if by this time they're older.
And you're not, we as women actually should Look
(47:01):
forward to this period, trying to figure out
how to say it. Look forward to this because we're
now older and wiser and
Right. It can be a very empowering time of
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
(47:24):
Yes. But we have to learn to advocate
for ourselves. because it's not
going to happen unless we do it. It
is truly not going to happen unless we do it.
I couldn't agree more. And on that note, where can
(47:44):
people find you if they
want to consult, they want to reach out to you, they have questions, where
I'm on Madison Avenue in New York City,
right in the hub of things. And
I'm on a mission. I'm on a
(48:05):
mission. You know, the story of the girl throwing the
crabs back in the water and the person saying to
her, look at all these crabs. You can't throw them all back
in. Why are you doing this? And she picked one up, threw
it in and said, made a difference to that one. That's
where I am now. I'm on a mission. Cause as I said, what
(48:27):
started me up was the head of the menopause
clinic telling someone come
back in a year, take your Prozac, take your gabapentin, your
BIOSA, you're not in perimenopause. It
really is important, ladies, that we start
(48:49):
as soon as possible. The earlier we start, the
better, because then you're not playing catch up. The
earlier we start, the better, because then you're not playing catch
up. So as soon as possible, Bring
it up with your gynecologist. Bring
(49:09):
it up with your gynecologist and start getting
Great, and we'll have links to
Dr. Harris's website. It's drmarshaharris.com. So
whatever platform you're listening on down, if you scroll down into the show notes,
one click will take you to all her information. She's got a great website, it's
(49:31):
really thorough, and you can check
I have a free gift for anybody. Oh. The
toolkit, and we'll send you what I call my
Perfect. Perfect. So we'll have a link to that as
well in the show notes. Thank you so much. That's wonderful. Now,
(49:55):
before you go, I have one question that I ask everyone and
that's knowing where you are now in your life, in your career, what
advice would you give to your 20 year old self? That
young, that young lady starting medical school, getting
The advice I would give is live your
(50:16):
passion. Find what you are
passionate about and live your passion.
Live your life, but live your passion.
This way you will, you know,
they say, if you love your job, it's
(50:37):
not a job anymore. live your passion. I
used to do a lot of speaking to high
school kids and that type, you know, young
women. And I used to tell everybody, oh,
you got to go to medical school. You got to go to medical school. I don't do
that anymore. Now I ask them, what
(50:58):
do you see yourself doing? Five
years from now, 50 years from now, and you're going
to, as far as you're concerned, feel the same way
about it. That's what you need to do. If
it's plumbing or cleaning
toilets or doctoring, lawyering,
(51:20):
whatever it is. Or the theater in
your case. There you go. Live your
passion. You know, I have actually tried to get my daughter
to become an actress. And now my granddaughter. It'll
happen one day. It'll happen one day. My
(51:40):
daughter actually promised she was going to do it. And then Rene done
that. And now my granddaughter, my granddaughter can sing. So
she could do it. But now she wants to be a lawyer. Oh, well, what
can I tell you? Oh, well, it's also going to live her passion. And
that's really what it comes down to, ladies. Live your
(52:00):
passion. The only other thing I will say is, please, you
have to advocate for yourself. Nobody
else is going to do it. Absolutely. Advocate for yourself.
There are people like Dr. Litzy out here
who are going to help, but you've
(52:25):
Great advice. And Dr. Harris, thank you so much
for coming on. This was a, so this was great. So much
good information. If you saw me with my head down, I was
taking a whole bunch of notes on this. So thank you so much for
coming on. And again, everyone, if you want to learn more,
go to drmarsciaharris.com. Thank you again. I
(52:49):
My pleasure. And everyone, thanks so much for tuning in. Have a
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