Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Susie Garden
and this is the Ageless and
Awesome podcast.
I'm an age-defying naturopathand clinical nutritionist and
I'm here to bust myths aroundwomen's health and aging so that
you can be ageless and awesomein your 40s, 50s and beyond.
The Ageless and Awesome podcastis dedicated to helping women
(00:24):
through perimenopause andmenopause with great health, a
positive mindset and outrageousconfidence.
Hit, subscribe or follow nowand let's get started.
Hello, gorgeous one, andwelcome to this week's episode
of the Ageless and Awesomepodcast.
This week, I'm talking about aproblem that many, many women
(00:48):
struggle with, in fact, and theproblem is issues, I guess, with
hair in peri and post-menopause.
Now, if you've seen aphotograph or an image of me,
you will see that I have verylong hair me, you will see that
I have very long hair.
Currently, I'm just feeling it.
Currently, my hair is at mywaist right, it's at my waist
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and I've been growing it forquite some time.
I was about to say I'm reallylucky, but I'm not really lucky.
I do a lot of things to reallymanage my hair and I wanted to
talk about it today because Ihear this a lot from women and
it can be extremely distressingto have hair loss and it is
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particularly prevalent duringthe peri and menopause years and
in fact, 40% that's four zero,40% of women will experience
hair loss during or aftermenopause.
It's huge, that's really huge.
When I read that statistic, Iwas really quite shocked.
(01:53):
I really didn't expect it to bethat much, but when I think
about it, there's so many womenthat I talk to that have issues
with their hair that it kind ofmakes sense, and we know that
the cause of this hair lossgenerally is because of the
deficiency of hormones as welose our estrogen in particular.
(02:16):
Now the thing is, if you aresomeone that's experiencing hair
loss and I'm going to talk alittle bit more about what that
could look like the thing is youdo need to get checked if
you're on certain medications,because some medications can
cause hair loss.
It could be another hormonalissue.
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So you don't want to assumethat it is menopause or
perimenopause, just in case it'ssomething else, some other
hormonal issue causing it.
Rather, stress can definitelycause hair loss, thyroid
conditions and, generallyspeaking, when you get blood
testing done, they will checkyour TSH, which is your thyroid
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stimulating hormone, and ifthat's a bit out, then they'll
go further and look at yourthyroid hormones.
But it's important to make surethat that is getting checked so
that if it is a thyroid causebecause it's one of the first
symptoms that really gets womengoing and seeking answers is
when it comes to thyroidconditions it could be an
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autoimmune condition.
It could be a fungal infectionthat's causing hair loss.
So there's quite a lot ofdifferent reasons that this
might be happening.
But if you're in that age group, it's probably more likely that
it is from the estrogen that'sfluctuating all over the place.
Oh, and the bonus is, whileyou're losing the hair on your
(03:41):
head, you're gaining facial hair.
While you're losing the hair onyour head, you're gaining
facial hair.
So, on the chin and the upperlip, if you're getting excess
hair there, then it's verypossible it's from the relative
androgen excess that we get whenwe're having the fluctuation of
hormones in this time of life.
But it does also need to bechecked.
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If you're getting this facialhair, it's always a good idea to
have a chat with yourhealthcare practitioner just to
make sure it's not a symptom ofanother problem.
And the thing is, like those ofyou that have been through
pregnancy you would have noticedthat your hair gets really
luscious and your nails becausethey're very similar material
that they're made ofets veryluscious.
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In pregnancy and thenpost-pregnancy often women will
get hair fall, quite a lot ofhair fall, and it's very similar
in menopause You're getting alot of hair fall.
What happens is women willnotice perhaps clumps of hair
coming out.
Hair might be thinning out,hair might be breaking.
It might be thinning out, hairmight be breaking.
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It might be brittle.
You may even see bald patcheson your head, which obviously is
really really distressing.
And the thing is hair goesthrough these phases, right.
About 90% of the time it's in agrowth kind of phase and 10% of
the time it's in a sheddingphase.
And you may notice andcertainly you have if you have
long hair and I noticed it a lotwith my hair is sometimes I'll
(05:09):
run my fingers through my hairand I'll get quite a lot of hair
will come out.
But then that won't happenevery time and it's because
there's these growing phases andthen shedding phases.
So it's quite normal to havehair a bit more hair fall
sometimes than at other times.
But if it's excessive all ofthe time, like in particular if
you're waking up and there'shair on your pillow, that's a
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bit of a worrying sign.
If you're getting hair all overyour like your clothing on your
shoulders, that's a bit of aconcerning sign.
Or if you know you get off thelounge or your desk chair and
there's hair sitting on it, it'sprobably a sign that that's a
bit excessive and you may wantto look into that.
The thing is the drop inestrogen because, remember, we
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get surges of estrogen and thenwe get the drop in estrogen
throughout the years ofperimenopause and the drop in
estrogen slows down the growingphase from 90% of the time to
only 60% of the time and at thesame time that that's going on,
it ramps up the shedding phase.
So you get more hair loss, lesshair growth and therefore
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thinning of the hair and hairfall and maybe bald patches.
So the thing is, we think ofestrogen, we think of our
reproductive organs, but we haveestrogen receptors all over our
body and including in the hairfollicles, and the hair
follicles can also shrink andthat means the hair gets the
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actual, each individual hairstrand can get thinner, can get
grays coming through, that sortof thing.
So yeah, there's a lot that'sgoing on at this time of our
lives that can impact your hairand I feel this is a really
important thing, because awoman's hair in particular is
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really a big part of self-esteem, and if you feel, if your hair
feels good, you do feel good.
And if you, if you're worriedabout, uh, like a receding
hairline, or that you're losingyour hair or that it's, um, the
quality of the hair isn't good,then that's that can make you
feel not so great about yourself.
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It can reduce your, um, yourdesire to have social time can
be a real problem.
So I think it's important toaddress it and there's so, so
many things that we can do toaddress it through lifestyle and
diet.
And let's start with diet.
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What we want to do primarily isreduce insulin resistance.
Now, you've probably heard metalk about this, because I talk
about it a lot, particularly inthe context of weight management
, but the insulin resistancethat will develop pretty much in
all of us as we move throughour 50s, 60s and beyond it's
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just part of the aging processis that that insulin resistance
can increase facial hair andkind of contribute to the hair
loss, because the insulinresistance does interfere with
our androgen.
So if we can reverse thatinsulin resistance, we are
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reducing our androgen excess,which means we're going to
reduce our facial hair and we'regoing to improve our hair loss.
So doing things through diet toreverse insulin resistance, and
those are things like avoidingit's going to be the same things
avoiding processed food,avoiding lots of sugar, eating
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lots of good protein, a healthybalance of whole foods, so lots
of veggies, fruits, multicolored, eating, the rainbow, all of
those sorts of things.
But there are also some specificnutrients that you want to go
to as well.
Probably the number one will bezinc.
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The number one will be zinc,and zinc we use for over 300
different chemical reactions inthe body and you know it's used
for a lot of things, as prettymuch all of our nutrients are
going to be used for a higherpriority than our hair.
Our muscles, our bones, ourteeth, our eyes, our skin, our
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organs get higher priority ofour nutrition than our hair or
our nails, which is why, as anutritionist, I'm always asking
people in consultations what'sthe quality of your hair like?
Does it break, is it fragile,is it thinning, is it thick and
luscious?
If it's thick and luscious, itcan tell me that your nutrition
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is pretty good or your hormonesare pretty good.
So having a good, nutritiousdiet is going to really help
because if the rest of your bodyis nourished, then the hair and
the nails, et cetera, are goingto get that nourishment as well
.
So protein's really important,zinc is really important and
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vitamin D as well.
And iron keeps hair in thegrowing phase and, as I may have
mentioned recently talkingtalking about bone health, is a
huge percentage of ourpopulation in Australia is
deficient in vitamin D becauseof our sun safe message.
Now it is important to be sunsafe, but also super important
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to make sure your vitamin D isoptimal.
So, getting a test for yourvitamin D so that you can see
where it is For women, weprobably want to get it above 75
, close to 100.
Even my GP wants mine over 100.
So you can do that.
There are a few food sources ofvitamin D, such as eggs, but
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really the vitamin Dsupplementation is probably
going to be the best option ifyou are vitamin D deficient,
because we want to get it upfairly quickly.
So vitamin D and also iron.
And again, a lot of women areiron deficient, particularly in
perimenopause, when periods aregetting potentially heavier.
Sometimes for some women theybecome more frequent.
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They're lasting longer.
Not everyone experiences that.
They're lasting longer.
Not everyone experiences that,but some women do very much
experience that or have irondeficiency.
So I'm always looking at whenwomen have iron deficiencies as
well as how are they losingblood?
But it's also are you absorbingiron rich foods?
So if you do have a diet that'shigh in iron rich foods and you
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still have really low iron andyou're not bleeding a lot, I'd
be like well, maybe your guthealth isn't that great and
you're not absorbing the iron.
Or maybe you're drinking redwine every night with your meal
and coffee, with your breakfastand your lunch, and that's going
to block your absorption ofiron and it's going to interfere
with your zinc absorption aswell.
So there are a few things tokeep in mind absorption as well.
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So there are a few things tokeep in mind In terms of other
nutrients silica.
Every now and again, I'll justpop myself on some silica powder
, I'll just chuck that in mysmoothie and that makes a huge
difference to my hair and nailswhen I'm taking silica.
I'm not currently taking it, itmight actually.
That reminds me to probably goon it again for a month or two
just to give myself a boost.
Biotin is a vitamin.
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It's in all of your.
What am I trying to say?
Your B-complex supplements.
Biotin is really important forhair and nails in particular.
Collagen is another one thatcan really help with hair and
nails.
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If you're looking just directlyat products for the hair, I
would say head massage would bea really good one, and that's
really easy to do yourself.
It's really nice, too, just interms of stress management.
I'm giving myself a little headmassage as I'm mentioning this
of stress management.
I'm giving myself a little headmassage as I'm mentioning this,
but it's just so nice to reallyget into the muscles in the
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head, and what that also does isincrease blood flow to the hair
follicles.
So giving yourself just a fewminutes of massage while you're
watching TV or doing somethingthat doesn't require a lot of
attention, doing something thatdoesn't require a lot of
attention you can give yourselfa little head massage.
I'd also recommend decreasingyour use of heat tools on your
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hair.
If you're someone that useshair irons on your hair pretty
much daily or every couple ofdays, you may want to reconsider
how you're styling your hairand reducing the use of those
sorts of tools, maybe by usinganti-frizz kind of products that
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may help.
Always try and go for anon-toxic version so you're not
contributing to your hormoneimbalance.
So really look at your hairproducts anything you're putting
on your body and making surethere's not a big chemical load
associated with that.
And you may wish to use thingslike hair oils, things like that
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.
I don't particularly use that.
I have a fairly basic sort ofhair regime and I very rarely
will use heat on my hair.
It's one of the reasons I haveit long.
Whenever I've had it short,I've always struggled to really
style it, so I find it reallyeasy just to have long, straight
, straight hair, so I can put itup if it's a bit messy, or I
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just leave it down and itgenerally just will sit fairly
well.
So I think that's all I want tosay.
I guess the other thing, asalways, I should always mention
hydration and I would also sayOmega-3s are probably going to
have a good impact on your hairas well.
Going to have a good impact onyour hair as well.
I know this is going to soundreally weird, but I noticed when
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I feed my dogs sardinesoccasionally I'll do that their
hair oh my God, their fur getsso glossy and shiny.
So and it'll be the omega-3s inthat sort of fish.
So, um, omega-3s you can findin, obviously, fish.
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You can find it in flaxseed.
You can find it in hemp seed.
Um, you may want to take a fishoil.
Uh, particularly if you've gotany cardiovascular risk factors
like high cholesterol, highblood pressure, diabetes,
anything like that.
Make sure it's a good quality.
Please do not buy the bargainbasement fish oil.
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Look on the label.
Has it been tested formicroplastics?
Has it been tested forradioactive products?
Has it been tested for heavymetals?
Because it's a really big issuein the fish oil industry and if
you're not in it, you may notrealize that.
So getting a good, clean fishoil is really important and you
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may pay a little bit more forthat.
But this is your body.
You got to look after it.
Put good quality in there.
If you're going to get yourfish oil through fish, get, if
you can, wild caught, because weknow that in the farmed fish
they're full of antibiotics andit's just, it's not a good
industry.
So I would really get informed,get educated about what you're
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putting in your body in terms ofyour food sources and your
supplement sources, but that'sprobably a different podcast.
Anyway, I hope that has beenhelpful If you are struggling
with hair issues, hair lossremember there may be something
else going on.
So if you're on othermedications, if you've got sort
of other things going on in yourbody, it might be worth going
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and having a chat to yourhealthcare professional and
making sure there's notsomething else going on and not
just assuming that it is fromperimenopause or menopause.
So I hope that's been helpful.
If you've got any questions,please let me know.
I love to hear from you.
You can email me hello atsuzygardencom, uh.
Or you can uh get on to methrough instagram at
(17:28):
suzygardenwellness.
All of the links are in theshow notes.
Have a great week and I'll beback on thursday with q and a.
Thanks so much for joining metoday on the ageless and awesome
podcast.
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