Dr. Amy B. Killen - Hormone Optimization Therapy's & The Future of Women's Health

Hey friends, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness and wellness industry podcast for over five years and running. I'm your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the honor of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. If you like the show, we'd love it if you took three minutes of your day to leave us a nice supporter review wherever you consume your podcast. If you're interested in staying up to date with the future of fitness, go to futurofitness.co to subscribe and get weekly summaries dropped into your inbox. Now onto the show. One theme keeps coming up the right technology can make or break your business. That's why I'm thrilled to introduce our new presenting sponsor, Perfect Gym. Perfect Gym isn't just another gym management system. They are part of the Sport Alliance Group, Europe's leading fitness software company that has officially entered the US market. Now, I've seen this movie before, but here's the difference. They've opened up a U.S. headquarters in Boston because they understand that the American market deserves dedicated, localized support. After digging into the platform, one benefit especially stood out. They are simplifying the nightmare that keeps business owners up at night migrations. These guys were able to migrate one mega client with more than 250 locations in six different countries in just 20 days between two payment runs. No disrupting operations, no member loss, one seamless operation that simply works. Now, if you have ever switched platforms, you know how terrifying that process can be and how truly impressive that feat is. They have invested a ton into this platform, and now they're bringing that European engineering excellence to America. The migration experts have arrived. Check out perfectgym.com where enterprise level sophistication meets operator freedom. Today's episode of The Future of Fitness is brought to you by Flex, the only HSA FSA payments infrastructure built specifically for leading fitness and wellness brands. I have been so impressed with the Flex team and their vision to transform how people pay for fitness. They built a platform that makes HSA and FSA spending seamless, unlocking a new revenue stream for brands and giving consumers easier access to the products and services that keep them healthy. Here's why this matters. Flex helps fitness brands increase average order value by up to 50% and boost checkout conversion by 30%. That is not just incremental growth, that is transformational revenue powered by consumer dollars that are already set aside for health and wellness. What excites me the most is that Flex is changing the game for the entire industry. They're bridging the gap between healthcare and fitness by making it simple for consumers to spend their pre-tax dollars on the products and services that help them feel and perform their best. Flex works with fitness leaders like iFit, Johnson Fitness, Tempo, and Aloe Moves. Honestly, this is a no-brainer, and I rarely say that. If you want to see how Flex can drive growth for your fitness brand, visit withFlex.com. That is with Flex.com. Now onto the show. Dr. Amy B. Killen, welcome to the future of fitness.

Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

Yeah. Yeah. This is gonna be great. I have so many questions for you. And you know, I'll set the table a little bit and then uh we can dive right into it. So, you know, I I first met you a couple years ago. I was down in Park City, I was interviewing Jim Donnelly at the kind of not the first team not, but like uh I don't know how you describe it, but at a stem cell therapy, right? That's what I was getting done in my we were meeting, and you were there. And uh we met briefly, we all sat down, we had some lunch, and I did not expect the lunch conversation to turn to where it did, which was sexual health, right? So we're all sitting there and I'm just I'm bewildered, right? Not not because of the topic itself, but because of the science that you guys are talking about. I'm like, holy shit, like what is going on? I can't believe that this is like we're at the forefront of of this type of uh you know science. So it was really exciting. And then I started following you a little bit. And then, you know, I as I was telling you, I keep seeing your name pop up in different areas, like on an advisory board for this or on a content piece for that, or speaking here and there. So you you're really your social profile, your professional profile is growing very quickly, and for good reason. Like you've been doing this for a while. Uh, you articulate things really well. And uh yeah, so there's a lot we can learn from you. And and like just one more thing, and then I'm gonna shut up. I think our industry, as you and I were talking about, we need to understand hormone optimization therapies better. You know, as like this type of science and this type of offering start to move into the health club setting, into the Jeff's gym setting, or at least adjacent to the programs that we run, it's really important that we have a fundamental understanding and then we can talk a little bit of the language and know how to partner or incorporate these types of things if it's doable. So I'll take a deep breath, Amy, if you don't mind. Give us a little bit of your background, then we'll dive into all of that.

Wonderful. Well, thank you for having me. Well, um, I wasn't actually an ER doctor for the first half of my career. I was in Austin as in the ER. And then in about 2013, I had my three kids within two years. Uh, I started kind of realizing that my own health was struggling because of all of my lack of sleep, sleep, and stress and poor lifestyle choices. And so I ended up uh segueing and essentially switching into this kind of preventative medicine, uh integrative medicine. Now we call it longevity medicine. You know, it didn't really have a name back then. But uh I've been doing this now for since 2013, so for 20-something years, 23 years. And I'm the founder of Human Out, which is in Austin, and we have some longevity clinics in Austin, Florida. I do a lot of hormone optimization, like you say, and I talk about it a lot. I treat men and women, but talk a lot about women's health specifically because it's such a kind of underserved area of health. But I also do regenerative medicine, stem cell medicine. I do a lot of uh stem cells for sexual health, as we mentioned in our lunch discussion. Yeah, and then and so and I like to speak, I do a lot of speaking as well. So I have a lot of kind of things going on, but really all in this in this field of kind of prevention, health authorization, longevity medicine.

Yeah. How do you feel about that term longevity medicine? Do you think it nails it?

I mean, I honestly I don't think any term nails it. And the thing is it's been different terms for different, you know, like it's functional medicine, integrative medicine, proactive medicine. You know, like we have all these names for it. Um, that I don't think any of it's perfect. So people got medicine 2.0 or 3.0. Like we just keep adding, you know, numbers to the medicine. And none of it really captures kind of what we're trying to do with this, though.

Yeah. Yeah, I've I've been talking to so many people about the fitness industry is undergoing a rebrand. We just don't know what to call it. We don't know what to name it, right? And it's it's not really like reps and sets anymore. It's something very different. Uh so anyway, that's another topic for another day. So hormone optimization therapy. Maybe let's start with this. If you could set the table for us, uh, Dr. Kellen, like over the last five years or so, I feel like it's seen a lot of advancements, especially in the women's science, right? Women's health, to maybe give us an understanding, get us up to speed, like what's been going on over the recent years and maybe like what you're focusing on specifically as well.

I think the main thing that's happened is that we have a public awareness finally about these hormone therapies that are available to women. Like we've known that testosterone, you know, it was available to men for most guys, probably a decade. You know, it became popular a long time ago. But I think that there was still this fear around women taking hormones, estrogen, progesterone, even testosterone. And it hasn't been, you know, until really the last few years that this has become like a public discussion. There's books now being written about minoplies that ever ever, you know, regular people are reading. So I think it's really an awareness thing. We've known this for a long time, but now finally you have, you know, male podcasters saying, Hey, tell me about these hormones, which I think is great.

Yeah, it is great. And, you know, I've I've interviewed a lot of over the last year or two, a lot of leaders in the field of women's health. And it's advancing finally, it's starting to make some real progress, right? And we don't have to get their history. I've covered that numerous times with Dr. Stacey Sams and Gabriel Lyon and you and a lot of other people are really, really doing some cool stuff. Okay, so maybe just let's focus on the women's side for a little bit. I mean, I could ask you selfishly about the men's side, but I think that's been covered at nauseum. When a woman enters into her 40s, right? Let's just say, like what are some of the normal symptoms, what are some of the usual cases that you'll see? And, you know, in generalities, maybe we can get in some specifics as well.

So uh in the 40s is kind of perimenopause usually starts kind of in your 40s. It can start earlier, but it, you know, oftentimes 40, 45, very common. And that's essentially the run-up to menopause. Menopause is essentially when your ovaries are no longer, you don't have enough eggs to make estrogen and progesterone every month. So menopause is usually at age, about age 50, but of course there's variations in that. And then perimenopause is before that. So essentially you have ovaries that have some eggs, but not all the eggs. And so you aren't maybe having regular cycles anymore, or if you if you are, they're a little different. And we start to see some shifts in the way that those hormones affect other parts of our body. So maybe we're not sleeping as well because we don't have progesterone in that second half of our cycle. Or maybe we have more anxiety and panic attacks again from progesterone going down. Women will often see weight shifting, not so much gaining weight, although there's certainly stories of gaining weight, but just more like weight shifting. It shifts from your butt and your thighs to your belly. And you see, we see more like visceral fat and more fat around the stomach that is more annoying to people. And so, and then also muscle loss is a big part of perimenopause and menopause as well as bone loss. And so you see muscle loss and again, you know, increased fat, less muscle. The weight may stay the same, but you know, you don't feel as good in your clothes, kind of thing.

Yeah, okay. And traditionally, I feel like there's a lot of stigma behind addressing this stuff with hormones, right? Coming in and replacing them or augmenting them. Why is that? Like I I can think from the from the the bro dude aspect, you know, whenever we thought of like TRT, it was always like some guy in the gym, locker room, selling it, right? Like 20 years ago at like Gold's gym, right? And you're like, that that's that's advanced quite a bit. Yeah. You know, it's it's very professionalized now. You get a lot of blood work done, and it's it's very but you know, on the women's side, like why do you think the stigma existed?

Well, back in 2002, there was a big study that came out called the Women's Health Initiative. And and you've probably heard of it, even if you don't know the name, but essentially it's the study that stopped all women or most women from taking hormones because it told them that these hormone therapies, estrogen and progestins, increase your risk of breast cancer and stroke and heart attacks and blood clots. And so 88% of women who've been taking these hormones got off of them. And for the last 20-something years, you know, doctors have continued to think that these hormones caused cancers and other problems. And this has all been debunked. We know that that wasn't actually true. But unfortunately, fear is very difficult to get past. And I think there's also a fundamental misunderstanding of what happens. Like I was just watching this video from a chiropractor. I just did a Instagram about it because I got so mad. But he was basically talking about how, you know, if you just women just, you know, if you just uh lead healthier lives, then you your hormones would stay in balance. And it's just preposterous. Like we literally go from making hormones to not making hormones in the course of about five years, and we don't have any control over it. Like lifestyle does not change the ovaries' ability to make hormones once you're out of eggs. And yet you still have people thinking, oh, if you just tried harder and you know, suffer more, you'll be you'll be fine. No, which is not, which is yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's that's the fitness industry way, right? Just work harder, suck it up, butter cut. Yeah.

Well, and testosterone is a little different in men, depending on the cause of your low testosterone. Guys who have low testosterone, especially when you're in your like 30s, 20s, 30s, you know, early 40s, oftentimes changing your lifestyle actually can increase testosterone. Like if you're lifting heavier, if you're losing a little bit of your belly fat, if you're getting your stress down, you sleep better, and you do all these fundamental lifestyle things, you can get your testes to make more testosterone until they until they peter out completely. But that could be when you're in your 70s, your 80s. But in women, it's not the same thing. You cannot force your ovaries to make more hormones once those eggs are gone.

Yeah. So walk me through like what would be uh, and we're we're kind of doubling over things, but I think it's that's okay. Like in a women's journey, in a woman's journey, when do the the changes really start to be noticeable? And then at what time, how does a woman know when to maybe seek help or look for intervention? Yeah, give us give us some signs of of what to look for.

I mean, I tell women, you know, once you hit about 35, it's good to have a doctor that understands this stuff, even if you're not doing anything with it. You know, you just have someone you're checking in with every year or more. Um, certainly as you get to be 40, have have someone that you could talk to because, you know, you need to know what's normal, what's not normal. There's about 30 different symptoms associated with perimenopause. And it could be everything from heart palpitations to dry skin to your face is aging faster, your hair is falling out, your vagina is getting dry. Like it can be there's 30 different things. And so this is why it's so difficult. A lot of these women will see four or five different doctors. You know, they're having weird tingling in their extremities, their palpitations, they're having panic attacks, they're they can't sleep. And so they're seeing all these different doctors, but it's all because of the hormonal changes that are happening. And actually, if we get you on hormones, if you need them, oftentimes it will help to you know solve a lot of those problems. Getting a doctor or provider who you can work with and then start reading about the stuff, and there's a lot of stuff to know, but the classic hot flashes and night sweats certainly happens as you get closer to menopause, but that is not the only symptom by any means.

And where do you think most women go astray? Like, uh do they start you know over exercising? Are they going on very restrictive diets? Like, what do you think the biggest, you know, not knowingly, they just don't know, right? But what where where do they put their effort and time and energy?

I I do see a lot of of overtraining, even more focusing on like cardically the the aerobic training, right? Like running and and trying to do endurance kind of stuff versus weight training, which I do think of, you know, I'm sure the fitness industry has is on the same uh kind of the same trend now and talking more about weight training for women than just cardio aerobic training. But I still see women trying to burn calories by running really hard on the treadmill or really restricting their calories, thousand calorie a day diets, and they don't understand why they still have belly fat and they're not maybe understanding that the the hormonal piece does play such a role in where your fat is distributed. Certainly your lifestyle also plays a role, but it's it's both things together.

Yeah. And then at what point do you think it is advisable for women to start looking at hormone optimization therapies itself? Is it do you just know through the blood work? Is it pretty apparent through sim through symptoms? Or yeah, how how do they it's kind of both.

In perimenopause, we do get labs because even though estrogen and progesterone are changing from day to day, so they're a little, they're a little less reliable in your labs, but other things are happening that we can look at. So for instance, your lipids will start to change for the worst during perimenopause, your blood pressure will start to go up, your blood sugar will start to go up, and you'll start to see some insulin resistance. So your body's not responding to blood sugar the same way. You know, your visceral fat is going up. So we start to see some of those kinds of things. Plus, testosterone is going down as we see, as we see in labs. And then that combined with symptoms like insomnia or anxiety or the fat changes, that usually will start progesterone kind of early in perimenopause. And then as you get closer to menopause when estrogen is also going down, then we may add on some estrogen as well. And then testosterone if you need it.

Yeah. And what what about lifestyle changes? I mean, you mentioned lifting heavy, right? I mean, Dr. Stacey Sims talks about this. I don't know if you have any, you know, some of the concepts she has. If you have any different ideas, feel free. But like, yeah, lifting heavy, you know, um, I don't know, zone two seems to come in and out. I mean, any other lifestyle things, like a lot of, of course, nowadays there's all the modern wellness trends, right? There's the contrast therapies, there's all kinds of all kinds of things. So, what what from besides going to we're gonna dive more into the hormone optimization therapies itself, but like what lifestyle factors can they focus on?

Yeah, I think that uh Stacey Sims and I are pretty aligned on I'm lifting heavy at least three or so days a week, I think is really important for women at all ages, but especially as you get over 40, I think that she and I probably both agree that you want to focus more on making sure you're getting your zone four, five little bits during the week versus as much zone two because we don't we have, you know, women are we're we're good at walking, we're good at zone two, we're good at like our mitochondria don't necessarily need as much of that as we do that high intensity pieces. And I think that especially as we get older, we're a little less like we're we're we're less likely to go to the track and like do sprints as we were when we were, you know, 20. Like I wish I went to the track this last summer and was sort of doing some sprints. I was like, I'm gonna sprint so hard. And I'm just doing these sprints, sprints and jaws and sprints and jaw. And I had I had my kids were filming me, my teenagers, and they were filming me, and they showed me the video later and they were like, Mom, you were not sprinting, you were barely running.

Oh, that's cruel.

I was sprinting, and I was like, of course, so fast.

No, you're going fast. You were going fast. Yeah.

But I think that we we think that, yeah, we so we we're we're resistant, I think, to doing those really high intensity intervals, and that certainly is an important part as well, as we get older.

Yeah, I know uh Dr. Sims kind of took of an offensive on HIT training as well, you know, specifically. And I don't sprinting is not that, sprint's more power training, in my opinion. But anyway, but like hit itself, what what's your take on that?

Yeah, I mean, I think I think hit training is I I mean, I think honestly, I for most women, I think that when we get super specific like this, it does them a little bit of a disservice because they're most women, the ones I'm talking to, like not the super athletes, but just the normal working women, you know, mothers. Like, we just want them to get out to the gym, like do the training, get go as hard as you can for a period of time, you know, lift as heavy as you can for a period of time. And certainly there are a lot of like little pieces we can we can pick apart. But I mean no, I'm I'm for HIT training. I think it's I think it's great to get your heart rate up. I think it's good to make to check your heart rate monitor and go up into that zone four, zone five. I think there's a lot of right ways to do it. And I'm not a fitness expert, but I just think the most important part is like get moving, lift heavy, you know, get your heart rate up.

Yeah. What about uh nutritional guidelines at that's at this point in life? What do you what do you say to that?

You know, it's been interesting. I was just talking to someone yesterday about how tell by the sigh. Yeah, everything is like there's so much shifting over we we were everyone's really into this like lots of protein, you know, right now. Like everyone's all about like you should be getting a gram of protein per pound of body weight, and you know, and they're focused on protein. I think that certainly you need enough protein. I think we've probably gone a little far in that direction. Like I think we could probably swing the pendulum back to maybe not quite as much protein, but certainly protein. Protein and fiber are the two things I always tell women to focus on, you know, trying to get the 25 to 30 grams of fiber at least a day. And then, you know, maybe if not a gram per pound of body weight, maybe a hundred grams of protein a day, like depending on kind of what you're doing and how athletic you are. But I think those are the two main things. There's a lot of other thoughts on what else you need. But I think that if you focus on those two things, then everything else becomes easier. Like you're not gonna eat usually a ton of calories if you're you know getting that much protein and fiber, you're probably not gonna be overeating on Skittles and Fruit Loops.

Yeah, right. What about like sleep regularity? I mean, that seems to be coming out in the forefront of like this is critically important, right? Yeah, talk about that.

Yeah, I mean, sleep is is one of the key, the key foundations. And I mean, honestly, when people ask me, like, what are the most important things for my own life in terms of what do I prioritize? I prioritize sleep over everything else. I I think, you know, if whether I'm traveling, whether I'm at home, like if I'm not sleeping eight hours, I don't feel great. And this is coming from, you know, 15, 20 years of being an ER doctor and uh and training to be a doctor and really not ever sleeping. So I think sleep is important. I mean, of course, we have a lot of different devices, ways we can track sleep with different rings and whoop devices and all of these things, and whether that is your whether you want to track it or not, it becomes important, and it becomes a problem with for women in perimenopause and menopause because we have those changing hormones that end up waking us up more often and also end up, you know, we you get nice sweats and and these just disturb sleep by you know understanding what's coming, using hormones if you need it, but also using other things like magnesium before bed or or L3 L-theanine or magnesium supplements, things like that can be helpful as well. It's awesome.

Okay. So hormone optimization therapy itself. And I loved uh one of your posts, you call it was it Rawl, Hot Girls, be a hot hot woman. What was it? H O T. Uh that was really funny. So I like it. By the way, I would highly recommend you follow Dr. Killen on Instagram, it's really enjoyable. Yeah, so tell me about the science of it. Like, you know, uh bio identical, the availability, like how has it advanced over the past few years and accessibility too? Because whenever you think about this stuff, you think, wow, it's probably expensive. And yeah, you know, if I'm on it, do I have to do it for the rest of my life? And what if I my paycheck stops coming? Like, there's a lot of things that yeah, you know, I are advancing and I hope become more available and regular. But yeah, give us some insights on that.

So yeah, I call it hormone optimization therapy or hot, because I think it's a fun word. But also the other names for it, of course, you've heard HRT is kind of the old name. And then the new name that is the official name is menopause hormone therapy. Those are the organizations that the powers that we call it that. But Basically, I call it HOT because I think it's more about just giving hormones and menopause. It's but it's also more about just estrogen, progesterone. It's also testosterone. Maybe it's thyroid, maybe it's, you know, growth hormone. Like it depends on what we're trying to do. But most of these hormones are actually pretty, pretty inexpensive. And you can get them through a regular pharmacy, through a regular doctor if they know how to prescribe them. So one, you want to make sure you're getting bioidentical hormones. And that just basically means the hormone matches the chemical structure of what your body makes or was making. So for estrogen, it's called estradiol. For progesterone, it's just progesterone. So those are the two names you want to look for. But you can get it from, you know, your Walgreens or CVS will have these types of hormones. And usually insurance covers them for women. They're if you're in perimenopause and menopause. The alternative is you can also get them from like compounding pharmacies where maybe you can get them very specialized forms of the same hormones. But they're both great options. So they're not expensive, usually, and insurance usually will cover them. But you do have to have a doctor who knows how to prescribe them and is willing to prescribe them. And that's the tricky part because right now, 4% of women over the age of 50 in the US are currently taking hormones. 4%, which is crazy. Like it's crazy when you think about when you learn about all the benefits of these hormones in terms of not just symptoms but long-term health benefits. 4% is crazy.

Why? Like, why is that? Is that do you think it's because there is still a stigma to it that people are worried about the cost, they're just not educated? Like, what where do you think the compounding issues are?

I think that that's definitely a big part of it. The other big part of it is doctors have not learned about how to prescribe these hormones. You know, in in if we go back to like, you know, my medical school residency, I don't even remember ever learning about, I don't even think I ever heard the word menopause. Like, I don't remember having any lectures about it or any talks about it. And even now, you know, there's less than an hour or two are spent on menopause education or perimenopause education in school. And so then doctors go out in the world, and really no sort of part of medicine has taken full ownership of this field. So you'd think that your gynecologist would do it, or maybe your endocrinologist, but none of those uh specialties have really taken ownership of learning about how to prescribe these bioethical hormones. And because of that, you don't have doctors who know what they're doing or are comfortable with it. And so we just don't have them to offer them to patients.

Which brings me to the opportunity at hand, which I believe, and you and I talk about this. I think that people come to gyms and health clubs and to their trainers and coaches because they want to proactively be healthier, basically. Right. And that's where I think like I look at what you guys are doing at Humanox, I look at Jeff Swefle's doing at Miora and Lifetime, like it I think there's a lot of synergy here between where the fitness industry wants to go and where the this specific sub sub sub-segment of the medical industry is going as well, like this preventive, there's an alignment there. And I'm curious, you know, if you're talking to, you know, our industry, like let's say gym operators or executives or practitioners, like how do we identify people like you, right? Who are forward-thinking, who are willing to prescribe this stuff and and do the preventative health stuff? Like, how do we find those people or how do we partner or bring into the health clubs if there, if there's enough room for that? Like, where do you see the synergy happening?

I definitely see a lot of synergy as you as it's already happening. We're already starting to see it. And I think it's fantastic. And there's a lot of different ways. You know, it could be as simple as the gym owners just referring to referring out to the clinics, you know, having some kind of referral programs going on. Of course, you can also have medical providers come into the client, into the gyms and be able to work with the clients there. Uh, and there's a lot of this can be done virtually. Like you don't necessarily have to have a full office to do this stuff. Like you can just be talking to patients, you could do phone calls, you know, you can order prescriptions and send them to the patient. So it's you don't necessarily have to have the brick and mortar like we used to. So I do think there's a lot of opportunities. You know, I think that there's the the best ways that I know of to sort of meet people and network in this space is to go to the different events and conferences that we have. A lot of the events and conferences are, some of them are just doctors, but most of them are other medical professionals and people in this industry, you know, make whether it's gym owners or just people who are curious about this. And but these events are fantastic ways to sit down with people, you know, over lunch and talk about what's happening and how to how to join up.

What uh what events do you like?

You know, I do a lot of the biohacker events because I've been in the biohacker space for a long time. So, like the Health Authorization Summit, which is here in August in August, I think in Austin or in Austin, all those events are great. There's a lot of just general wellness events that that I'll go to intermittently. And then I also go to events that are more specifically for physicians or you know, people like the like the A4M events, uh which is in Vegas. That's actually a big event. It's a great one, not just physicians. That's it, that's it. The Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine puts on a huge event in Vegas every December. And I've been going for years. And that's, you know, you'll see people from all over, thousands and thousands of people who are just interested in this, whether they're doctors or not. So that's a great one to start with. It's a little overwhelming, but but you know, start looking into like what's happening near me that I can go and check out and just start absorbing from the people around you.

Yeah, awesome. Uh awesome. This I want to ask a little bit just for the guys. So on the men's side of hormone optimization therapies, have there been any major advancements you'd say over the last five years? I mean, peptides seem to be coming on pretty hard. But yeah, I mean, anything new on that side or any um what what message would you have for the guys as well? Because I think there's still a lot of stigma. I mean, I I I have a lot of conversations privately with guys where like, I kind of want to start it, but I don't want to be on it forever.

Yeah.

Or, you know, there's all these side effects. So, like, yeah, is is is there, is it becoming more easily accessible and healthier for the long term for men?

You know, it's it's I don't think a lot has changed, at least in the last five years, from my perspective. Where we still have, we have, you know, testosterone is quite safe and it's great, but you do have to, once you start it, you're generally going to be on it because you are, you know, you're taking over your own body's testosterone production. So you don't want to start it too early. There are other also medications like, you know, clomate or enclomophene or HCG, where you can get your own testes to kind of start production. That works great in younger men. There are a lot of, there are peptides. The ones that talk about trying to increase actual hormones, I don't think work as well as we want them to yet. Like KISPepin, for instance, is talked about and is supposed to work in the hypothalamus, but you know, it doesn't actually seem to do a lot in studies so far. But you know, hopefully we'll continue to see more research on some of these peptides happen and make use of them. But you know, I I think that with any medication, you have to always think about you know, how is it going to be beneficial now? And most of these testosterone boosters or testosterone itself, they're really great for you. Then the long you know, long-term question is is my am I on it forever? Potentially, you can always stop it, but the benefits, of course, will go away when you stop taking it.

Yeah. What about so? And I think this goes for men and women. What about the long-term, the long tail effects of being, you know, starting uh, you know, a hormone optimization therapy, let's say in your 40s for both male and female? Like is there anything to be aware of down the road, or is it pretty much generally accepted as safe and advisable?

Yeah, it's it's not only safe and advisable from my perspective, it's it is oftentimes associated with better health. So for instance, for women, we know from multiple 20-something randomized controlled trials that if women who start estrogen early in menopause, so they they just got to menopause and they start estrogen before they've got too far into it, those women have a about 30 to 50% lower risk of developing heart disease, which is the number one killer of women. So estrogen helps prevent. So if you start estrogen early in menopause in women, there's a 30 to 50% reduced risk of getting heart disease. Yeah, it's it's huge. You know, we have the same, same amount of reduced risk of getting osteoporosis and having fractures, um, about 30% reduced risk of dementia associated with early use estrogen. You know, these are the big killers of women. And so we could, if we start our hormones early, there's every reason to believe that we can extend health span and even lifespan. Similarly, testosterone therapy is also associated with improved cardiovascular health, with less metabolic disease, less dementia, less obesity, you know, with just a general improvement in and uh health and health span. So I think that we should think of these not as being something, these therapies not as something like that I have to take for a short period of time to get over these symptoms and then I'll get off of them, but something that's, you know what, I'm gonna start these, I'm gonna find a way to stay on them long term because I want to feel good now and tomorrow. And I also want to prevent diseases of tomorrow.

That's great. That's really good messaging that I think people need to hear from a professional because I think there's a lot of, you know, and once again, there's so many different stigmas around this from years of just, I don't know, abuse that's in the past. But I think especially for men, like men will think about it and they're like, wow, I'm kind of cheating, right? It's this weird feeling, right? A weird thing that that they all kind of know, or but not really, it's your life. Like if you if you want to be healthier and live a you know higher quality of life. So what what what would you say to people about that to kind of get over it?

I mean, the idea that you that that making yourself healthier and feel better is cheating. I mean, I guess it's cheating if like you're if you're if you're comparing yourself to the people who feel miserable and don't want to stay healthy, like okay. But the thing is we all have access to these hormones now, or most of us do. And so I don't think it's I don't think it's cheating at all. I think it's it's saying, you know, this is what's evolved. Like we have science is beautiful and we can take advantage of this. We don't have to be natural our whole lives. Um, we've chosen to adopt many things into our lives that are not natural, you know, antibiotics and surgeries, and like we do a lot of things to ourselves to stay healthy that are not natural. Uh so there's no reason that we should shun these hormones for not being natural.

Yeah, science is beautiful. I like that. And I mean, to double on your point, I believe that we just don't live in a natural world. Like we are inundated with you know microplastics and all kinds of like toxic pollutants and shit in our food and uh you name it, right? We live in an aquarium most of the day, right? It's not natural. Uh so I think you have to have some supplementation and things like that if you want to live, you know, a really full life. So uh yeah, I think it's amazing. So where do you think this is all going, Dr. Kill and like maybe give us a picture of like over the next 10 years? Okay, let's say you and I are having a beer at a biohacker conference, right? And it's 2035 and just this huge advancement in hormone optimization in the fields that you're in, sexual health. We haven't even talked about that, but I think if we have enough time, we'll touch on it. But where do you think it's all going? What's the vision here?

Oh my gosh. I mean, there's so much happening so fast. I mean, especially now with AI coming on online. There's so many things, you know, that you and I are both associated with are we've talked about reputable a little bit, but you know, essentially trying to take all of the information from different wearables and labs and re aggregate them to help make um, you know, health predictions and vet therapies. But the ability to take all of this information now and to really, to really do sort of in of one, looking at, you know, your particular genetics, your particular wearable data, your particular hormone profile, taking all that information to craft very personalized programs, I think is something that we're already starting to do, but we'll still see more and more of that. And then being able to, well, you know, I think we'll continue to develop tools, hopefully, where we don't necessarily need to even give you hormones. Like maybe we're able to slow down ovarian aging in women or testicular aging in men so that your ovaries keep working and you don't have to give hormones. You know, there's all these things, there's a lot of research being done in that field because you know, certainly we prefer not to have to give medications every day. Like, what can we change something at the gene level or at the epigenomic level or at the ovary level? Like, what can we do to prevent us from having to do uh these other hormones until we get there? Obviously, we'll just give hormones, but there's so much that's that's happening and it's gonna happen.

Yeah, it's wild. You know, I speaking of AI, my wife, my poor wife, I bring this up during dinner parties all the time. And she's like, Oh, here it goes again. I I created my own JAT GPT, right? With the deep research function. I fed it all kinds of lab work and yeah, you know, genetic testing and wearable data to make it as personalized as it can for me. And I just chat with it like once a week, you know, it's ridiculous. I'll just be like, hey, you know, I was thinking about taking this supplement and then I'm like, do the deep research and it comes back with some stuff. Like the ability just with that, and that's version 0.5, yeah, right, of where this is all going, because you know, I don't know if the data is great or not because it's coming from the internet. But as these things become closed systems and the data keeps getting better and better, called Eric's Robodoc, Eric's Robodoc is going to get really good. And then that maybe what does that mean for the medical profession? Do you think?

Yeah, and we've you know, we at Humanaut, we've we've integrated uh AI into some of our processes. Like essentially, I'm able to take all of my protocols that I developed over the last decade and say for hormones, and they're not the same protocols you'll find on the internet or other places, but I've been able to then train the AI that then when we have our other medical providers can, you know, put in, ask questions and queries and patient profiles and get like, you know, the kind of output from my protocols. But yeah, I mean, I think that it will change the relationship between patients and doctors. I think doctors who are not using AI, it's you know, here pretty soon, they'll get left behind because, like you said, like you can learn so much about yourself just by creating a sort of a digital twin of yourself, like a you know, a digital twin that has all of your medical information, it knows all your gene profile, like all your medications, and you can just say, hey, digital twin, Eric, what should I do do today for my food, whatever? So I think that that, but I think it's an opportunity for us in medicine to to evolve and be, we should certainly use these tools, and then we should help sort of be the person in between the tool and the patient that's helping them guide them using our knowledge as well, and then of course facilitating getting prescriptions and things like that.

Yeah. I mean, you can basically insert like uh we're I've said this numerous times, and I'm sure I borrowed it from someone else, but coaches won't get replaced by AI, but coaches that use AI will will be replaced by something similar. You can insert any field percent into that right now, and that's that's kind of where we're at. And it's it's a strange time to be alive.

I think most of us still want to have this human interaction, whether it's in person or virtual, I think that there's something, especially for coaches. Like, you know, I I'm much more likely to listen to a coach over here on my shoulder telling me that I'm doing it wrong and you got to start doing this better versus like an AI that I just I know is not real. So I think that we listen to we want to listen to people and be in touch with people, but absolutely you have to use these these tools also.

Yeah. Yeah. How do uh if I'm an operator in the industry right now and I'm thinking like, well, I'd really like to identify either a clinic to partner with online or someone locally. Um, and maybe you have a recommendation for someone that you work with, and that's great. But how how do you identify good partners in this field? And how would you approach them?

Yeah, I don't know for sure. The best way to identify probably just start looking online, like who's doing hormones, who's doing longevity medicine or health optimization or bioidentical hormones, like kind of these like buzzwords that we use. So start looking for people doing those things. And a lot of times the clinic that's doing hormones is also doing, you know, maybe they're doing sauna or hyperbaric oxygen or IV therapy. You know, a lot of times they'll kind of bring a lot of that into the clinic. So start finding those people. And then, you know, we're people like the human, we're very happy to have people from the community, whether it's gyms or other professionals, come in. Like we would love to talk to you and see if there's a way for us to collaborate and for it to be mutually beneficial. Because, you know, for instance, like at Humanaut, like we want, we want our patients to be moving and to be exercising. And so, so yes, if you come out, let's let's talk about how we can send our clients to you and you can send yours to us. So yeah, I think you know, you have to be willing to go out there and and shake some hands, but it's definitely opportunities are definitely out there.

Yeah, yeah. How are things at Humanon? I interviewed Jim, I think it was about a year ago now, and I, you know, we we stay in touch every once in a while, but uh yeah, what's what's new there?

So yeah, we opened Austin in October of 2024, and then we just now, like a couple of weeks ago, opened our Florida location at Palm Beach Garden. So we've got those two, and I think Dallas will be next. So it's they're it's it's ramping up and we're we're doing well. We're excited. It's it's super fun.

Yeah, I mean, you guys are taking on a very challenging model. I will say that.

It is challenging because we do a lot, like we do hormones, but we all and peptides and kind of that that you know, that kind of stuff, but we also do a lot of advanced diagnostics, and then we also do stem cell therapy, and so it is a lot of different things under one roof.

Yeah, and uh thank you guys, by the way. My knees feel great. I got that done. Yeah, yeah. I uh yeah, what was it? It was about six months before ski season, and I got some stuff and my knees were there. I was getting a little worried. And you know, I skied over a million feet vertical and I feel great.

Amazing. I will tell Dr. Adelson that he did a good job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They and it was very, and here's what I uh not to pump you guys up too much, but what I what I found, and I if people have gone into a clinic like this, is that if you're used to just going to the doctor, it's a completely different experience. Like the doctor, you're like, well, you can if you're lucky, they acknowledge your existence and then you go sit in a waiting room for 30, 45 minutes. And if you know nothing runs on time, the visits are short. Yeah, it's not uh there's no hospitality to it. Yes. But what I noticed when I was in there, I was like, this is so pleasant. I they called me 15 minutes before to make sure that I was not lost and I was on my way. And I was like, well, that's actually a very valid concern with me. So thank you. And they guess sent me a book, and like I was like, wow, like this is a service. And I feel like that's what we should strive for in the medical industry, right? It's like, how do we how do we provide a real service? Because people are paying, whether they know it or not, you know, through its insurance or out of pocket, like they're paying a buttload of money for this stuff. So why isn't the service better? So kudos for that. Thank you. That was really good.

Yeah, that's that's the goal. It's not to make, you know, we don't want to be going to the doctor have to be an onerous process. We want it to be to feel like you're going somewhere that it actually kind of makes you happy. You can you get to know that the physician or the medical provider and the staff and hopefully come back more than just once a year.

Yeah, yeah, that was very good. Well done. Maybe if we just have a few minutes and this is like a huge topic that I want to let's talk about like because this is the the conversation that fascinated me at the lunchtime was stem cells for sexual health. I was like, whoa, they do that. And they're like, yeah, and like everyone's talking, like some people have done it, they're like, yeah, shit works. Like, so give us some insights. That I think a lot of people don't know about that burgeoning part of stem cell.

Yeah, it's um, you know, I've been doing stem cells for for sexual health for probably almost 10 years, but I think it is finally getting talked about more. You know, essentially we take stem cells. Stem cells are just are like signaling molecules. So we can take your own stem cells from like your own fat or bone marrow, or we can take stem cells from like placental tissue that's been donated. Either way, essentially, these are cells that, well, the way we use them is we inject them somewhere and then we rely on them to send signals to your cells that are already in that area to become more or more youthful versions of themselves, right? So we can put them in your knee and it can help repair your knee. We can put them on your face and help with your skin, or we can put them in your penis. And that this is the same kind of thing, essentially trying to it increases blood flow and communicates with this the tissue that's already there to act like more youthful tissue. So there's these are actually very simple little procedures like, you know, I just do two injections, you're awake usually, unless you don't want to be I'm numb with numbing cream first. But that combined with low-intensity shockwave therapy, which is another device that I have in the clinic that just uses sound waves, amazing combination for just improving sexual health, like whether you have ED or you don't, but just improving sexual health in men. And we do the same thing in women as well.

Yeah. Well, the one thing I gleaned from that conversation too is like if you're gonna get a therapy like that done, is make sure your partner gets it as well. But yes, it's one person jumping all over the other person, right? And then one's like, hey, please, whoa, whoa.

Yeah, we definitely had wives who were not happy that we treated their husbands with both testosterone and the injections because their wives are like, What are you doing? I was finally getting a break.

That's that's hysterical. That's great. Well, you know, uh, one of the last questions I always like to ask here, Dr. Killen, is um, as an industry, people are listening, what what what do you need help with? Like what how can we benefit you if people weren't gonna reach out? I mean, I presume some people are gonna reach out, maybe they want you to speak or do a webinar or do something like that. But yeah, what do you need help with?

You know, I I always appreciate I do like to speak. I like to speak at events, uh, you know, at least a few times a year. I do some pretty big events. So if you have any big events you know about that I would be a good fit for, please let me know. If you are in one of our cities that has a human art, come visit. I also have a female focused uh longevity company, a supplement company called Hotbox, which is HOP Box. And if you're interested in that, it's a great product as well. And uh, you know, and also just just follow along. I I'm on social media, I'm on uh Dr. Amy B. Killin on Instagram. I do a lot of a lot of posting and education and would love to have you join me if you're interested.

Yeah, it's very entertaining. I was going through it this morning in preparation. I'm not a big Instagram person. I live most of my life if my if LinkedIn is a social platform, that's where it is. Super boring, but that's where I am. But yeah, this is this has been fantastic, super educational, really cool uh industry that you're in right now. I mean, it's it's it's the future. It really is, right? And I think as it gets more democratized and more accessible for more people, it's it's gonna be uh hugely beneficial. So hopefully it keeps going this way. But thank you. Great interview, job well done. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Amy B.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.