July 8, 2025 • 25 mins
Learning about Functional Medicine Weight Loss hormone replacement
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Ask The Experts Philly is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Ask The Experts Philly is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Ask The Experts Philly Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio, it's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W four
CY Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you
educational information from top local experts in the fields of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now here are
your hosts, Spevo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, Good morning, Philadelphia, Welcome to another sc expert show. Well,
we bring you the top experts in the field of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. I got to tell you, Philadelphia
is really dearer to my heart when it comes to sex.
We started as the experts fifteen years ago and Philadelphia
(01:17):
was one of my first markets. We were on I
believe it was eight o six the station at the time.
It was a beasy station, and we had so much
great success with them. But radio is kind of dying
out and now podcast is the way to go. So
(01:42):
we became with a not a new company, an established company,
and here we are. And I got to tell you,
we get so many people asking us, you know, you
actually eat our emails and we do. And that's how
we got Today's Expert because we had so many people.
(02:03):
There is a new i would say a health area
and it's called functional medicine, and we had so many
people ask us, you know, we keep hearing about functional
medicine and testosterone and hormones. And we found one of
(02:24):
the greatest experts in Philadelphia. Good morning, doctor Katie Harris.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I who were so good.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, hey, it's really true. It's you know, we had
a right after your last show. We had a gentleman
who works out and he was doing uh testosterone through
the mail and he said, you know what, after hearing
your show, I am going to make an appointment with
(02:56):
doctor Harris because I really need someone who really stands
testosterone and hormones and you should be getting a call
from him soon. But that's just one of the few
things you do tell people about Philly Wellness Center.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, so we specialize in hormone therapy, weight loss, and
really just the diseases that nobody else wants to take
care of, or can't take care of, or conventional medicine's
not working for. And one of those is long covid
lime disease like fibromyalgia, those types of conditions. We do
a really good job helping people with those.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
So, you know, this skinny injection is becomes such a
big deal. What are your feelings? I got it, actually
got an email this morning when they saw that your
show was going to be coming on. Do you like
the skinny injection?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So, skinny injection, we're talking about sema glue, tide, tru
sepp a tide or tawa tried. Those types of those
are hormones. They're GLP one, which is a hormone that's
found in the body and the gut and the brain.
I love them. I was on them myself, lost fifty pounds.
It was one of those things where you just you
(04:13):
didn't do anything differently. You just got older and all
of a sudden you're fifty pounds heavier for it, So good.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Reason, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's been great, and we use it
because they have a lot of properties like anti inflammatory properties,
and they do a lot of things for the body.
It does actually preserve muscle, so all the GLP ones,
they're amazing, and we use them for things other than
just weight loss. We use it for, like I said,
(04:43):
pain mitigation because it helps with anti inflammatory.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Which I know there's three or four, maybe five companies
that produce which one do you like this?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So we get ours, we get ours compounded in a
compounded version. Yeah, there's a bunch of different pharmacies.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So we know what's in there.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Yeah exactly. I mean the base of the hormone, and
the hormone they can't patent.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So I got it. So I have to ask you,
and I don't mind admitting it. I'm on Ozemptic and
I want people to know that I've been on it
for about a year and I want people to know
I just got my blood work done last week and
(05:29):
it has never looked so good before. And I have
credited to Ossemptic.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Yeah, definitely, so it's it's improving people's labs. And we
saw we see people all over the that like my
sister had fatty liver, she had all kinds of issues
going on, but her labs normalized after being on the
semi glue tide for several months. And myself too, Like
(05:57):
I feel like just because I was on it for
about a year and it changed everything, Like I didn't
do anything differently again. Came on and then it came off,
just dis easily with it. But that motivated me to
you know, all of a sudden, once you drop twenty pounds,
it's kind of like, oh, I've got a lot of energy.
I want to go do something like and then habits
(06:19):
of working out and exercise because that part is a
big part of it as well.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I'm amazed what it does to your appetite as well.
I have to admit I was one of those guys
who could eat a large pizza. Now I'm lucky to
do a slice and a half.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah. It reduces the food noise and the craving. And
one of the weird things is when I first started it,
it was like, you know, my sister and I would
be like, let's go do something. But our culture is
so focused on food that the only thing to do
is to go somewhere to get something to eat. That's
all we could think of. So it was exactly a
(06:59):
mentality focus, like refocus as well, like we need to
do other things other than we eat.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We just got our first text, and I don't know
why we don't have it on there. What is your
phone number for the office, doctor Harris?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
The phone number is two one five seven zero nine
nine seven.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
One zero nine seven one zero, yes, seven o nine
nine seven one zero, Yes, okay, is I'm going to
have our great producer get that up on the scroll.
But for the people who are listening on iHeart Spotify,
it's two to one five seven o nine nine seven
(07:41):
one zero. Let's talk about testosterone. I got to tell you,
doctor Harris, I was amazed that younger people can have
low testosterone.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Yeah. No, I think that it has a lot to
do with our environment and heavy metals, toxins, endocrine disruptors,
like all the stuff that we hear about, and the
more you hear about it, you know, it's almost kind
of like, oh my gosh, you can't go anywhere or
do anything without being exposed to all of this stuff.
(08:15):
I mean there's microplastics and anything that's plastic, So your
plastic bottles, your food wrapped in plastic, and all of
that stuff has nanoplastics in it, so that becomes extremely problematic.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And then you have endocrine disruptors, which are a mimic
cry of of the environment that already exists out there.
So it becomes one of those things that the body
has receptors for it, and there's mimi cries. Can the
end disruptors can latch one to that and displace you know,
(08:51):
the your actual hormones from being there, and the body
doesn't produce as much. So we are seeing it like
I have some young guys and their their third and
they're not the you know, you don't want to start
thirty year olds so one exogynous testosterone because then the
body shuts down making their own. So you have to
look at ways to you know, help these guys to
(09:12):
rebuild their testosterone. You know, naturally your testosterone is going
to go down with age, but that shouldn't happen till
you're fifty sixty seventy, not twenty thirty. And that's where
you should be at your peak testosterone levels.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
What causes the levels should drop over time.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
So I mean there's the natural aging process where your
organs just are making less and less of whatever. So
and women make testosterone two women. That testosterone is the
dominant hormone and a female it has like three thousand
functions and it's made by the ovaries for the most part.
And when you go into ovarian failure, then you're going
to have a shutdown of testosterone. And when we measure
(09:51):
women's testosterone levels, it's usually like two or three by
the time they're fifty, and our goal is to get
them back up to one hundred because that's where should be.
That's where they feel optimized and they have the most energy. Men,
on the other hand, as they get older, their testosterone
is made by the adrenals, and the adrenals do a
(10:12):
lot of things. I make a bunch of different hormones,
you're neuropinephrine, adrenaline, cortisol, and they start to decrease as
more and more stress is placed on them to produce
more and more, so they make less and less testosterone.
And also the testes make testosterone, but you know, so
(10:34):
you get less and less testosterone just naturally over time,
but you shouldn't have that when you're twenty and thirty.
You should be at your peak performance with that.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
How does a person know that they have low testosterone?
What kind of symptoms would they have?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, so it's it can be vague or it can
be pretty profound. So testosterone is responsible for muscles. So guys,
particularly when they're in their fifties and sixties, will say,
you know, I've been doing the same workout routine and
I'm not getting the same results anymore. They have to
work like ten times harder to just achieve their baseline.
(11:14):
But you need testosterone to build muscles. So as your
testosterone level goes down, your workouts become harder and harder
and less effective. You might be tired. It's gaining weight
because testosterone regulates your metabolism, so when your metabolism goes down,
you're going to gain weight. Mood disorders, so anybody, the
(11:36):
first thing they do for women in menopause is put
them on antidepressants because they have mood disorders. Right, they
come in and there they're like, it's they won't describe
it as a depression, but they feel like apathetic. It
might be the best word. So conventional medicine puts people
on an antidepressant, so that's a sign too. So anybody
(11:59):
that's complaining of mood disorders, we take a look at testosterone.
It may be the cause, it may not be the cause.
There's a lot of reasons for mood disorders, but if
it comes one all of a sudden and you're fifty,
that is a big red flag for low testosterone.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
What happens if a person has low testosterone and they
literally do nothing about it and that hurts their health issues.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean because testosterone and estrogen. So I mean
men and women both have testosterone and estrogen. We don't
normally replace estrogen in men, but we do replace testosterone
in women. They're both really important and they have huge
roles in the body. I mean, hormones take information from
one space and deliver it to another space. And that's
(12:47):
really the definition of a hormone is you know something
that is made in one place and functions in another place.
And you have a lot of hormones in your body,
and testosterone and estrogen are just too like fifty or sixty.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That we know of.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
So you know, the purpose of testosterone and estrogen is
really to build muscle. It builds bone density. Nothing compares.
No drug on the market comes close to touching what
testosterone and estrogen do for bone density increase, so they
(13:23):
maintain your bones, so that's very powerful. They keep the
cardiovascular system clean and clear, and it's you know, the
research is showing that there is a mitigation of cancer
risk when you have testosterone and estrogen impoartant. And if
you think about it, it makes sense. Right, Like fourteen
year old girls don't get breast cancer, right, they're protected
(13:44):
from us. You don't get breast cancer until you're fifty
because you've lost your estrogen.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
The same with men. You know, typically fourteen year old
boys who are at the peak of their testosterone levels
don't get prostate cancer. They don't get prostate cancer until
their testosters in the two hundredths.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We just got a text, and we don't diagnose anybody
on this show. This is an educational show with you
an expert in this field in Philadelphia. Even if you're
in Pennsylvania, you can contact doctor Harris's office. This is
(14:22):
really a great text that we just got. Her name
is Melanie, She's from Philadelphia. She said, I can't believe
I found this show. This DoD said, I am so
glad I found it. Here's my problem. I am sixty
seven years old. I do not have an appetite, so
(14:43):
I eat very little. I have a hard time going
to sleep. But my reason for writing is I'm gaining
weight when I should be losing weight on the amount
of food I don't eat. A good one.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, yeah, and it's a common one, you know. I mean,
we definitely see that as you're old, and yeah, it's
you age. But one of the issues is there's a
component of hormonal issue in there. But there's also a
component of mitochondrial dysfunction that exists in there as well.
So as you lose testosterone and estrogen, you increase insulin resistance.
(15:22):
When you have insulin resistance, everything that you eat basically
comes in. But the cells have said, you know, we
don't want this, right, So then you have glucose hanging
out in the blood and that can be life threatening,
right right, because if you have too much glucose in
the blood, you can go into a diabetic coma. And
that's you know, that's your extreme outliers that that doesn't
(15:44):
normally happen because What does happen is the pancreas creeds insulin.
Insulin's another hormone. So insulin comes and says, all right, guys,
you can't hang outside the cell. You're loitering, you can't
stay here. So it picks it up and the only
thing I can do is to pause that. It as
atipose tissue, which is fat, right, and it's very energetically
doing manding for the body to break down fat. So
(16:07):
it says, you know what, I'll do it another day.
You know, when when I have enough energy, when I
have enough food on board, when the cells are satisfied,
then we'll start breaking down fat. So that starts to
build up. And as we age, you know, surprise, you know,
your mitochondria become dysfunctional or you don't have as many,
and if you're not exercising, that becomes an exponentially more
(16:32):
and more of a problem. So you have you earn mitochondria,
which are your powerhouses in the cells. You have insulin resistance.
So the cells are like literally starving to death, but
they're still saying no to the glucose. It won't let
them in. But the other problem is fatty acids. If
I fatty acids can't get into the cell. Then those
(16:52):
get repackaged as they get repackaged as adipose tissue as well,
and that the reason that they can't get in. It
happens a lot in patients that don't have the right
amino acids on board. So if you don't have enough
carnatine on board, if you don't have enough to aurine
on board, and a lot of this comes from the
fact that many people take ant acids. They take ant
(17:13):
acids and then they don't have any stomach acid. If
you don't have any stomach acid, then everything you eat
doesn't get broken down properly, and then you get stomach
issues and you know, now you don't have the amino
acids because they didn't get broken down in stomach acid.
So it's a big, large, complicated problem. But you know
the fact of the matter is is that there is
(17:35):
there's a pretty straightforward path back to help it. Just
you know, there's a lot of components to it, and
it's just one of those things that we need to
look at and assess it and give you that roadmap back.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
We just got two questions. This is amazing. Both basically
the same wanting to know basically how much is stress
have to do with white?
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, I mean stresses cortisol. So there's two hormones that
I that I could give you that would make you fat.
So insulin is one of them. If you know, when
diabetics start insulin, the first thing they do is gain
ten pounds, like literally in two weeks, say nothing different.
All they did was get insulin injections and they gain
ten pounds. The other one is cortisol. So if I
(18:22):
give you prednizone, I mean, you've seen people on steroids, right,
they get fat. It's just the way it is. You know,
I've had patients on truzeppatide, like high doses of truzepetide,
and they're not they're not losing weight. Come to find out,
they're also on high doses of prenozone for Crohn's disease
or alter rate of colitis. And it's kind of like, well,
(18:43):
I can't overcome cortisol. Cortisol is just too powerful. And
when you have cortisol on board, it makes it. You know,
it increases insulin secretion, increase insulin resistance. Now you know
everything you eat is being stored it's that again. So
I mean stress is cortisol. It's your own cortisol that
(19:05):
you're you're making. And also progesterone regulates cortisol. When you
lose progesterone as you go into older age than cortisol
is more it's running I say, it's running amuck right
like people, and it leads credence to the stereotypical you know,
crazy menopause woman, right, that's flying off the handle. Well,
(19:27):
that's that's a lack of progesterone and an over zealous
cortisol surgeons.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Mickey wants to know. He's also in Philadelphia, wants to
know what is the difference in the estrogen you buy
over the counter versus estrogen you prescribe.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It's going to be strength. So whatever you buy over
the counter is not I don't know what's in that,
and you know that's it's regulated, Like estrogen is a
prescription regulated compound that needs to be made, so it
needs to be prescribed by a provider. And so if
(20:09):
you're getting it over the counter, it's not a high strength.
We go for a goal of seventy five to one hundred,
which even you know compounded creams and patches and pills
aren't going to get you to that level. The only
way to get to that level is through pellets. Inserting
the pellets, but with if you don't have that level,
I mean, the creams might help with some symptomatology like
(20:32):
hot flashes, but even that, generally when people switch over
from creams to pellets, they're like, oh, this is this
is a way different experience.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okayris, I know that you mentioned on your last show
you really like the pellet. Tell people what the pellet does.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
So the pellets, they're about the size of a grain
of rice, and actually the estrogen itself is so small,
like you always have trouble like trying to pick it up.
That's so tiny. But we place those under the skin
on the backside, so I make a very tiny incision
and then just drop them in there and they're they're
dropped into like a fat packet pocket. And then you know,
(21:13):
we just tape you up and that incision heals over
a couple hours. It's really past and then what happens
is your blood capillaries will wrap around them and the
body uses what it needs when it needs it. And
we use biodentical pellets that are made from a yam plant,
and the yam plant's got a very similar chemical structure
to human hormones, so the body can't tell the difference
(21:36):
between a hormone that I give you versus a hormone
that it makes itself. So it's it's readily accepted, utilized
very quickly, and a lot of people feel the effects
of it within like a day or two.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So it actually gives you a lot of energy, right, it.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Does, and it sustains that energy, so you you peek
out on the the you know, if let's say I
give you ten milligrams of estrogen, they'll peek out at
the ten milligrams of estrogen and you stay there for
about three to four months. There's no kind of like
up and down and up and down like a lot
of guys, for instance, will take testosterone injections, but those
(22:12):
are once a week or sometimes they'll take them twice
a week. But it's like you inject you get this
huge surge of testosterone, and then it wears out in
the body like in a day, and then you plummet
back down. Then you give yourself another injection and you
have the surge of testosterone. So it's kind of like
this up and down and up and down. Whereas guys
(22:33):
that get pellets, they just they hit their macs where
they're going to be and they stay there. They actually
stay there for six months and then they don't start
to taper down slowly. So it's one of those things
where they they'll call me and they're like, you know what,
I think it's starting to wear off. It's time to
redo the pellets and that will generally for men, be
about six every six months.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I want to tell everybody, We've got about a minute left.
I want to tell everybody, don't try to treat yourself.
You hear all these advertisements on TV now or on
the internet. You can buy these the skinny injections from them,
or you can buy estrogen from them, and it's so
(23:16):
important that you make an appointment with doctor Harris and
be under a person who is an expert in this
from the formulation of the skinny injection to a much
stronger estrogen, and someone who can really understand your problems.
(23:38):
And I just hated when people look at you know,
these companies, these advertisements, Doctor Harris. How do people reach
your office again?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
They can call us at two on five seven zero
nine nine seven one zero, where they can go to
Phillywellnescenter dot com and they can book an appointment to
speak to our patient coordinator. They can message us through chat,
they can email us at info at Billywannocenter dot com.
So any of those ways we'll get to.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Us, doctor Harris. We're so blessed to have you. Doctor
Harris is with us every month. Hey, listen, you know
you've got a great show when you got people writing
and saying how come the show is so short? That's
a compliment to you, doctor Harris. Hey, we'll see you
again next month on Asdxpert. Thanks, thank you, doctor Harris.
(24:30):
It's doctor Katie Harris, Billy Wellness Center that's going to
do it for us today. We'll be back again with
you next week with more experts.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on the W four CY Radio and Talk for TV.
Tune in next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
estate planning, medicare, and many other topics in the areas
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. See you next week.
The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are
solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
those of W FOURCY Radio, it's employees are affiliates. We
make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services,
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
explicit or implied shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio
or it's employees or affiliates. Any questions or comments should
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome to the Ask the Experts Show on W four
CY Radio and Talk for TV, where we bring you
educational information from top local experts in the fields of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. Now sit back and listen to
experts in family law, association, law, hearing laws, business brokers,
(00:47):
home care, along with many other topics. Now here are
your hosts, Spevo and Sophia.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hey, Good morning, Philadelphia, Welcome to another sc expert show. Well,
we bring you the top experts in the field of legal, health,
financial and home improvement. I got to tell you, Philadelphia
is really dearer to my heart when it comes to sex.
We started as the experts fifteen years ago and Philadelphia
(01:17):
was one of my first markets. We were on I
believe it was eight o six the station at the time.
It was a beasy station, and we had so much
great success with them. But radio is kind of dying
out and now podcast is the way to go. So
(01:42):
we became with a not a new company, an established company,
and here we are. And I got to tell you,
we get so many people asking us, you know, you
actually eat our emails and we do. And that's how
we got Today's Expert because we had so many people.
(02:03):
There is a new i would say a health area
and it's called functional medicine, and we had so many
people ask us, you know, we keep hearing about functional
medicine and testosterone and hormones. And we found one of
(02:24):
the greatest experts in Philadelphia. Good morning, doctor Katie Harris.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I who were so good.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Well, hey, it's really true. It's you know, we had
a right after your last show. We had a gentleman
who works out and he was doing uh testosterone through
the mail and he said, you know what, after hearing
your show, I am going to make an appointment with
(02:56):
doctor Harris because I really need someone who really stands
testosterone and hormones and you should be getting a call
from him soon. But that's just one of the few
things you do tell people about Philly Wellness Center.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah, so we specialize in hormone therapy, weight loss, and
really just the diseases that nobody else wants to take
care of, or can't take care of, or conventional medicine's
not working for. And one of those is long covid
lime disease like fibromyalgia, those types of conditions. We do
a really good job helping people with those.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
So, you know, this skinny injection is becomes such a
big deal. What are your feelings? I got it, actually
got an email this morning when they saw that your
show was going to be coming on. Do you like
the skinny injection?
Speaker 4 (03:53):
So, skinny injection, we're talking about sema glue, tide, tru
sepp a tide or tawa tried. Those types of those
are hormones. They're GLP one, which is a hormone that's
found in the body and the gut and the brain.
I love them. I was on them myself, lost fifty pounds.
It was one of those things where you just you
(04:13):
didn't do anything differently. You just got older and all
of a sudden you're fifty pounds heavier for it, So good.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Reason, exactly.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's been great, and we use it
because they have a lot of properties like anti inflammatory properties,
and they do a lot of things for the body.
It does actually preserve muscle, so all the GLP ones,
they're amazing, and we use them for things other than
just weight loss. We use it for, like I said,
(04:43):
pain mitigation because it helps with anti inflammatory.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Which I know there's three or four, maybe five companies
that produce which one do you like this?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
So we get ours, we get ours compounded in a
compounded version. Yeah, there's a bunch of different pharmacies.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
So we know what's in there.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
Yeah exactly. I mean the base of the hormone, and
the hormone they can't patent.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So I got it. So I have to ask you,
and I don't mind admitting it. I'm on Ozemptic and
I want people to know that I've been on it
for about a year and I want people to know
I just got my blood work done last week and
(05:29):
it has never looked so good before. And I have
credited to Ossemptic.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Yeah, definitely, so it's it's improving people's labs. And we
saw we see people all over the that like my
sister had fatty liver, she had all kinds of issues
going on, but her labs normalized after being on the
semi glue tide for several months. And myself too, Like
(05:57):
I feel like just because I was on it for
about a year and it changed everything, Like I didn't
do anything differently again. Came on and then it came off,
just dis easily with it. But that motivated me to
you know, all of a sudden, once you drop twenty pounds,
it's kind of like, oh, I've got a lot of energy.
I want to go do something like and then habits
(06:19):
of working out and exercise because that part is a
big part of it as well.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I'm amazed what it does to your appetite as well.
I have to admit I was one of those guys
who could eat a large pizza. Now I'm lucky to
do a slice and a half.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah. It reduces the food noise and the craving. And
one of the weird things is when I first started it,
it was like, you know, my sister and I would
be like, let's go do something. But our culture is
so focused on food that the only thing to do
is to go somewhere to get something to eat. That's
all we could think of. So it was exactly a
(06:59):
mentality focus, like refocus as well, like we need to
do other things other than we eat.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We just got our first text, and I don't know
why we don't have it on there. What is your
phone number for the office, doctor Harris?
Speaker 4 (07:14):
The phone number is two one five seven zero nine
nine seven.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
One zero nine seven one zero, yes, seven o nine
nine seven one zero, Yes, okay, is I'm going to
have our great producer get that up on the scroll.
But for the people who are listening on iHeart Spotify,
it's two to one five seven o nine nine seven
(07:41):
one zero. Let's talk about testosterone. I got to tell you,
doctor Harris, I was amazed that younger people can have
low testosterone.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Yeah. No, I think that it has a lot to
do with our environment and heavy metals, toxins, endocrine disruptors,
like all the stuff that we hear about, and the
more you hear about it, you know, it's almost kind
of like, oh my gosh, you can't go anywhere or
do anything without being exposed to all of this stuff.
(08:15):
I mean there's microplastics and anything that's plastic, So your
plastic bottles, your food wrapped in plastic, and all of
that stuff has nanoplastics in it, so that becomes extremely problematic.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
And then you have endocrine disruptors, which are a mimic
cry of of the environment that already exists out there.
So it becomes one of those things that the body
has receptors for it, and there's mimi cries. Can the
end disruptors can latch one to that and displace you know,
(08:51):
the your actual hormones from being there, and the body
doesn't produce as much. So we are seeing it like
I have some young guys and their their third and
they're not the you know, you don't want to start
thirty year olds so one exogynous testosterone because then the
body shuts down making their own. So you have to
look at ways to you know, help these guys to
(09:12):
rebuild their testosterone. You know, naturally your testosterone is going
to go down with age, but that shouldn't happen till
you're fifty sixty seventy, not twenty thirty. And that's where
you should be at your peak testosterone levels.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
What causes the levels should drop over time.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
So I mean there's the natural aging process where your
organs just are making less and less of whatever. So
and women make testosterone two women. That testosterone is the
dominant hormone and a female it has like three thousand
functions and it's made by the ovaries for the most part.
And when you go into ovarian failure, then you're going
to have a shutdown of testosterone. And when we measure
(09:51):
women's testosterone levels, it's usually like two or three by
the time they're fifty, and our goal is to get
them back up to one hundred because that's where should be.
That's where they feel optimized and they have the most energy. Men,
on the other hand, as they get older, their testosterone
is made by the adrenals, and the adrenals do a
(10:12):
lot of things. I make a bunch of different hormones,
you're neuropinephrine, adrenaline, cortisol, and they start to decrease as
more and more stress is placed on them to produce
more and more, so they make less and less testosterone.
And also the testes make testosterone, but you know, so
(10:34):
you get less and less testosterone just naturally over time,
but you shouldn't have that when you're twenty and thirty.
You should be at your peak performance with that.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
How does a person know that they have low testosterone?
What kind of symptoms would they have?
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Yeah, so it's it can be vague or it can
be pretty profound. So testosterone is responsible for muscles. So guys,
particularly when they're in their fifties and sixties, will say,
you know, I've been doing the same workout routine and
I'm not getting the same results anymore. They have to
work like ten times harder to just achieve their baseline.
(11:14):
But you need testosterone to build muscles. So as your
testosterone level goes down, your workouts become harder and harder
and less effective. You might be tired. It's gaining weight
because testosterone regulates your metabolism, so when your metabolism goes down,
you're going to gain weight. Mood disorders, so anybody, the
(11:36):
first thing they do for women in menopause is put
them on antidepressants because they have mood disorders. Right, they
come in and there they're like, it's they won't describe
it as a depression, but they feel like apathetic. It
might be the best word. So conventional medicine puts people
on an antidepressant, so that's a sign too. So anybody
(11:59):
that's complaining of mood disorders, we take a look at testosterone.
It may be the cause, it may not be the cause.
There's a lot of reasons for mood disorders, but if
it comes one all of a sudden and you're fifty,
that is a big red flag for low testosterone.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
What happens if a person has low testosterone and they
literally do nothing about it and that hurts their health issues.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean because testosterone and estrogen. So I mean
men and women both have testosterone and estrogen. We don't
normally replace estrogen in men, but we do replace testosterone
in women. They're both really important and they have huge
roles in the body. I mean, hormones take information from
one space and deliver it to another space. And that's
(12:47):
really the definition of a hormone is you know something
that is made in one place and functions in another place.
And you have a lot of hormones in your body,
and testosterone and estrogen are just too like fifty or sixty.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
That we know of.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
So you know, the purpose of testosterone and estrogen is
really to build muscle. It builds bone density. Nothing compares.
No drug on the market comes close to touching what
testosterone and estrogen do for bone density increase, so they
(13:23):
maintain your bones, so that's very powerful. They keep the
cardiovascular system clean and clear, and it's you know, the
research is showing that there is a mitigation of cancer
risk when you have testosterone and estrogen impoartant. And if
you think about it, it makes sense. Right, Like fourteen
year old girls don't get breast cancer, right, they're protected
(13:44):
from us. You don't get breast cancer until you're fifty
because you've lost your estrogen.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
The same with men. You know, typically fourteen year old
boys who are at the peak of their testosterone levels
don't get prostate cancer. They don't get prostate cancer until
their testosters in the two hundredths.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
We just got a text, and we don't diagnose anybody
on this show. This is an educational show with you
an expert in this field in Philadelphia. Even if you're
in Pennsylvania, you can contact doctor Harris's office. This is
(14:22):
really a great text that we just got. Her name
is Melanie, She's from Philadelphia. She said, I can't believe
I found this show. This DoD said, I am so
glad I found it. Here's my problem. I am sixty
seven years old. I do not have an appetite, so
(14:43):
I eat very little. I have a hard time going
to sleep. But my reason for writing is I'm gaining
weight when I should be losing weight on the amount
of food I don't eat. A good one.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah, yeah, and it's a common one, you know. I mean,
we definitely see that as you're old, and yeah, it's
you age. But one of the issues is there's a
component of hormonal issue in there. But there's also a
component of mitochondrial dysfunction that exists in there as well.
So as you lose testosterone and estrogen, you increase insulin resistance.
(15:22):
When you have insulin resistance, everything that you eat basically
comes in. But the cells have said, you know, we
don't want this, right, So then you have glucose hanging
out in the blood and that can be life threatening,
right right, because if you have too much glucose in
the blood, you can go into a diabetic coma. And
that's you know, that's your extreme outliers that that doesn't
(15:44):
normally happen because What does happen is the pancreas creeds insulin.
Insulin's another hormone. So insulin comes and says, all right, guys,
you can't hang outside the cell. You're loitering, you can't
stay here. So it picks it up and the only
thing I can do is to pause that. It as
atipose tissue, which is fat, right, and it's very energetically
doing manding for the body to break down fat. So
(16:07):
it says, you know what, I'll do it another day.
You know, when when I have enough energy, when I
have enough food on board, when the cells are satisfied,
then we'll start breaking down fat. So that starts to
build up. And as we age, you know, surprise, you know,
your mitochondria become dysfunctional or you don't have as many,
and if you're not exercising, that becomes an exponentially more
(16:32):
and more of a problem. So you have you earn mitochondria,
which are your powerhouses in the cells. You have insulin resistance.
So the cells are like literally starving to death, but
they're still saying no to the glucose. It won't let
them in. But the other problem is fatty acids. If
I fatty acids can't get into the cell. Then those
(16:52):
get repackaged as they get repackaged as adipose tissue as well,
and that the reason that they can't get in. It
happens a lot in patients that don't have the right
amino acids on board. So if you don't have enough
carnatine on board, if you don't have enough to aurine
on board, and a lot of this comes from the
fact that many people take ant acids. They take ant
(17:13):
acids and then they don't have any stomach acid. If
you don't have any stomach acid, then everything you eat
doesn't get broken down properly, and then you get stomach
issues and you know, now you don't have the amino
acids because they didn't get broken down in stomach acid.
So it's a big, large, complicated problem. But you know
the fact of the matter is is that there is
(17:35):
there's a pretty straightforward path back to help it. Just
you know, there's a lot of components to it, and
it's just one of those things that we need to
look at and assess it and give you that roadmap back.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
We just got two questions. This is amazing. Both basically
the same wanting to know basically how much is stress
have to do with white?
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Yeah, I mean stresses cortisol. So there's two hormones that
I that I could give you that would make you fat.
So insulin is one of them. If you know, when
diabetics start insulin, the first thing they do is gain
ten pounds, like literally in two weeks, say nothing different.
All they did was get insulin injections and they gain
ten pounds. The other one is cortisol. So if I
(18:22):
give you prednizone, I mean, you've seen people on steroids, right,
they get fat. It's just the way it is. You know,
I've had patients on truzeppatide, like high doses of truzepetide,
and they're not they're not losing weight. Come to find out,
they're also on high doses of prenozone for Crohn's disease
or alter rate of colitis. And it's kind of like, well,
(18:43):
I can't overcome cortisol. Cortisol is just too powerful. And
when you have cortisol on board, it makes it. You know,
it increases insulin secretion, increase insulin resistance. Now you know
everything you eat is being stored it's that again. So
I mean stress is cortisol. It's your own cortisol that
(19:05):
you're you're making. And also progesterone regulates cortisol. When you
lose progesterone as you go into older age than cortisol
is more it's running I say, it's running amuck right
like people, and it leads credence to the stereotypical you know,
crazy menopause woman, right, that's flying off the handle. Well,
(19:27):
that's that's a lack of progesterone and an over zealous
cortisol surgeons.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Mickey wants to know. He's also in Philadelphia, wants to
know what is the difference in the estrogen you buy
over the counter versus estrogen you prescribe.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It's going to be strength. So whatever you buy over
the counter is not I don't know what's in that,
and you know that's it's regulated, Like estrogen is a
prescription regulated compound that needs to be made, so it
needs to be prescribed by a provider. And so if
(20:09):
you're getting it over the counter, it's not a high strength.
We go for a goal of seventy five to one hundred,
which even you know compounded creams and patches and pills
aren't going to get you to that level. The only
way to get to that level is through pellets. Inserting
the pellets, but with if you don't have that level,
I mean, the creams might help with some symptomatology like
(20:32):
hot flashes, but even that, generally when people switch over
from creams to pellets, they're like, oh, this is this
is a way different experience.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okayris, I know that you mentioned on your last show
you really like the pellet. Tell people what the pellet does.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
So the pellets, they're about the size of a grain
of rice, and actually the estrogen itself is so small,
like you always have trouble like trying to pick it up.
That's so tiny. But we place those under the skin
on the backside, so I make a very tiny incision
and then just drop them in there and they're they're
dropped into like a fat packet pocket. And then you know,
(21:13):
we just tape you up and that incision heals over
a couple hours. It's really past and then what happens
is your blood capillaries will wrap around them and the
body uses what it needs when it needs it. And
we use biodentical pellets that are made from a yam plant,
and the yam plant's got a very similar chemical structure
to human hormones, so the body can't tell the difference
(21:36):
between a hormone that I give you versus a hormone
that it makes itself. So it's it's readily accepted, utilized
very quickly, and a lot of people feel the effects
of it within like a day or two.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So it actually gives you a lot of energy, right, it.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
Does, and it sustains that energy, so you you peek
out on the the you know, if let's say I
give you ten milligrams of estrogen, they'll peek out at
the ten milligrams of estrogen and you stay there for
about three to four months. There's no kind of like
up and down and up and down like a lot
of guys, for instance, will take testosterone injections, but those
(22:12):
are once a week or sometimes they'll take them twice
a week. But it's like you inject you get this
huge surge of testosterone, and then it wears out in
the body like in a day, and then you plummet
back down. Then you give yourself another injection and you
have the surge of testosterone. So it's kind of like
this up and down and up and down. Whereas guys
(22:33):
that get pellets, they just they hit their macs where
they're going to be and they stay there. They actually
stay there for six months and then they don't start
to taper down slowly. So it's one of those things
where they they'll call me and they're like, you know what,
I think it's starting to wear off. It's time to
redo the pellets and that will generally for men, be
about six every six months.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
I want to tell everybody, We've got about a minute left.
I want to tell everybody, don't try to treat yourself.
You hear all these advertisements on TV now or on
the internet. You can buy these the skinny injections from them,
or you can buy estrogen from them, and it's so
(23:16):
important that you make an appointment with doctor Harris and
be under a person who is an expert in this
from the formulation of the skinny injection to a much
stronger estrogen, and someone who can really understand your problems.
(23:38):
And I just hated when people look at you know,
these companies, these advertisements, Doctor Harris. How do people reach
your office again?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
They can call us at two on five seven zero
nine nine seven one zero, where they can go to
Phillywellnescenter dot com and they can book an appointment to
speak to our patient coordinator. They can message us through chat,
they can email us at info at Billywannocenter dot com.
So any of those ways we'll get to.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Us, doctor Harris. We're so blessed to have you. Doctor
Harris is with us every month. Hey, listen, you know
you've got a great show when you got people writing
and saying how come the show is so short? That's
a compliment to you, doctor Harris. Hey, we'll see you
again next month on Asdxpert. Thanks, thank you, doctor Harris.
(24:30):
It's doctor Katie Harris, Billy Wellness Center that's going to
do it for us today. We'll be back again with
you next week with more experts.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Thanks for tuning in today to the Ask the Expert
Show on the W four CY Radio and Talk for TV.
Tune in next week and every week to hear more
from our experts on personal injury, insurance, air condition repairs,
estate planning, medicare, and many other topics in the areas
of legal, health, financial and home improvement. See you next week.
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