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Closing the Gender Gap in Women’s Health Research I Katie Moore & Mackenzie De Jesus
Women’s health research has historically overlooked critical differences in female biology. In this episode, Katie Moore and Dr. Mackenzie De Jesus join me to uncover the persistent gender gap in health studies. We discuss the implications of male-centric research, the rise of wearable health tech, and how women can take charge of their health with personalized solutions. Discover how new technologies and innovative studies are shaping the future of women’s health research.
🕐 TIMESTAMPS 🕐
[00:00] Introduction to Women’s Health Research
[01:13] Meet Katie Moore and Dr. Mackenzie De Jesus
[02:57] How autoimmune issues uniquely affect women
[05:56] Male-centric health research: The historical context
[11:21] Wearable devices and women’s health
[16:26] Using personalized health data for better outcomes
[25:10] The impact of gender-specific research on health care
[33:38] Participating in health studies with Reputable Health
🎙️ GUESTS 🎙️
Katie Moore and Dr. Mackenzie De Jesus
Join Women's Health Study: https://www.reputable.health/orshi
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reputablehealth
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reputable-health
🌐 LET'S CONNECT 🌐
Host: Orshi McNaughton
Website: https://www.optimizedwomen.com/
Podcast Links: https://optimized-women.captivate.fm/listen
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@optimizedwomen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/optimizedwomen
https://www.linkedin.com/in/orshimcnaughton/
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Transcript
Women are too complicated.
Speaker A:They could get pregnant at any moment.
Speaker A:They menstruate, their hormones fluctuate.
Speaker A:Because we our exposome is so much more complex than the male.
Speaker A:We then just were like left out of traditional studies because that would have required too much extra work and too much planning and there were too many variables.
Speaker B:Welcome to the Optimized Woman, the podcast for high performing women ready to take back their better health.
Speaker B:I'm Orshi McNaughton, a board certified holistic health practitioner and functional nutritionist.
Speaker B:If you're tired of feeling stuck, you can't lose the weight.
Speaker B:No matter what you do, your energy is in the toilet, your metabolism feels.
Speaker C:Like it's at a standstill, and you.
Speaker B:Lost the spark you once had, then.
Speaker C:You'Re in the right place.
Speaker B:We are here to unleash the unstoppable.
Speaker C:Force you meant to be and give you the tools to fix what's holding you back.
Speaker B:So if you're ready to own it.
Speaker C:Start thriving again and live the life you deserve.
Speaker C:And let's get to it.
Speaker C:Welcome, friends.
Speaker B:Today I'm thrilled to bring back my friend Katie Moore.
Speaker B:You might recognize her as my co host from last year's women's biohacking conference.
Speaker B:And we are also joined by Dr. MacKenzie de Jesus, a powerhouse health scientist.
Speaker B:In this episode, we are diving into the urgent reality of why women's health research can continue to follow outdated models built for men.
Speaker B:In this conversation, we are going to peel back the layers on how current health research may overlook critical aspects of women's biology, impacting everything from medications effectiveness to variable health tech.
Speaker B:For example, did you know that many devices women rely on today aren't actually calibrated for females?
Speaker B:This conversation is something every woman needs to hear, so let's dive right in.
Speaker D:I did my doctoral dissertation in autoimmune diseases, so we looked specifically at non responders in the rheumatic autoimmune industry.
Speaker D:So these were people who are undergoing current standard of care.
Speaker D:They've been diagnosed.
Speaker D:A lot of them are on those targeted synthetic and biologic drugs which are very serious for our bodies and expensive and they were still symptomatic.
Speaker D:The drugs weren't reducing their disease quality or improving their quality of life.
Speaker D:So they were still struggling.
Speaker D:And so what we were doing was a personalized trial and care approach in these people.
Speaker D:And what we realized was that not only were women 80% of the diagnosed population, but 90% of them were in this non responder population where they were being diagnosed.
Speaker D:And they also weren't responding to the care that they were undergoing.
Speaker D:So they were still exhausted with all of these symptoms, in pain, pain, not being able to live their quality of life.
Speaker D:And it started to raise the questions, why are more men responding with fewer diagnosed.
Speaker D:And these women are continuously being diagnosed and with multiple, as you pointed out, you might start with rheumatic arthritis and get a psoriatic arthritis or a lupus diagnosis later on based on how your symptoms progress.
Speaker D:But we didn't have any real understanding of why women, why are women ending up in this category of patients?
Speaker C:As a matter of fact, like, the number one thing I see is Hashimoto's, which connects both autoimmune and thyroid.
Speaker C:And if somebody has Hashimoto's, I immediately think, oh, do they also have celiac and do they also have other related autoimmune diseases?
Speaker C:Because once they have one, the chances of them developing a second or even third is really common.
Speaker C:And by the way, talking about non responders.
Speaker C:So the other thing that I see so much, just the people that I work with, that people come to me, they already on thyroid medication, hypothyroid.
Speaker C:But they have all the thyroid hypothyroid symptoms.
Speaker C:All of them.
Speaker C:But they are on medication.
Speaker C:And well, like I'm already taking medication, but then they list off, oh, but I'm here to work with you.
Speaker C:And my fatigue and my hair loss and my weight gain and all the other things.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So clearly the medication they are given is not properly dosed or not the proper medication or who knows if it needs to be more gender specific.
Speaker C:Or maybe just the allopathic approach is just not addressing thyroid medications properly.
Speaker C:But we see this all the time that people already, let's just say they are on an antidepressant, but they have a whole bunch of symptoms that are really related to depression and anxiety.
Speaker C:Well, partly because the underlying root cause issues are not being addressed.
Speaker C:Those are like band aid medications.
Speaker C:But tell me a little bit, Mackenzie, of how did you guys jump into this space of research and specifically what did you find when you started studying this?
Speaker C:Specifically the autoimmune issues for women?
Speaker D:What we found a lot of times was these blanket approaches that we see doctors using and industry using where they're don't eat gluten, no red meat, reduce sugar.
Speaker D:These overall recommendations that we kind of apply to everyone, we're reducing quality of life and leaving them symptomatic because everybody has their own personalized triggers and they can be based on gender.
Speaker D:Some might be more prevalent for women.
Speaker D:I don't really think it's an area that's been studied enough.
Speaker D:There are studies here and there, but really it could get to be as specific as yolks and eggs trigger one person where a whole egg will trigger their symptoms in another.
Speaker D:And we really don't know how that relates.
Speaker D:And especially variables and factors that are specific to women.
Speaker D:Where are they at in their menstrual cycle?
Speaker D:Where are they?
Speaker D:Are they perimenopausal, postmenopausal?
Speaker D:Do these factors matter when we're talking about triggers of disease and how they're responding to their treatments?
Speaker C:That's what I do when I work with a lot of people that have autoimmune issues.
Speaker C:And it's so tied to gut health and it's so tied to food sensitivities.
Speaker C:And there's differences from women to women too, because everybody's so unique and have their own blueprint of what their body needs or what they are triggered by.
Speaker C:So when it comes to drugs and how drugs are tested, they are primary, at least historically.
Speaker C:They were tested on primarily men.
Speaker C:Can you talk about that a little bit more?
Speaker C:Sort of like the history of research and just there has been some changes in this space in the last 20 years.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But not enough.
Speaker C:So tell me, tell us a little bit of a history so people have a bigger context of why women have been sort of left out.
Speaker A:I'll kick it off just because this is something that Mackenzie and I pretty much talk about like weekly as things come up.
Speaker A:One of the things that kind of has seems like a very bizarre excuse, but has been kind of the common thread.
Speaker A:Women are too complicated.
Speaker A:They could get pregnant at any moment.
Speaker A:They menstruate, their hormones fluctuate.
Speaker A:Because we.
Speaker A:Our exposome is so much more complex than the male.
Speaker A:We then just were like left out of traditional studies because that would have required too much extra work and too much planning and there were too many variables.
Speaker A:And so that is kind of the one thing that is across the board why a lot of women have been left out.
Speaker A:And the other thing is, up until like probably the early 90s, they just thought, well, what works for men is going to work for women.
Speaker A:Like it was historically male dominated.
Speaker A:And there was this kind of notion that, no, well, if it works for the male physiology, like we can just apply the same thing to the women.
Speaker A:There was no differentiator.
Speaker A:It's going to lead to a lot of issues down the line, which we have for sure seen.
Speaker A:And the unfortunate thing is our generation, and probably a couple more generations to come are going to have to suffer the consequences of not having long term studies on certain medications.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I even look at.
Speaker A:And just as a personal example, my mother went through breast cancer a year ago and because it was related to her estrogen levels, they put her on an estrogen depletion kind of hormone therapy afterwards to prevent the cancer from coming back, but as a result leads to bone loss.
Speaker A:She is in so much pain now, she's thinking about getting hip surgery because all of her bones have kind of weakened.
Speaker A:And so we.
Speaker A:I'm looking at this and I'm like, has this not been studied on a large enough group of women over a long enough period of time?
Speaker A:The answer is probably not because we're not even thinking about the preventative approach.
Speaker A:Like we're so into the diagnosis that we're just looking for a quick fix after and that's where we run into trouble.
Speaker A:And that I unfortunately.
Speaker A:And this is not just applying to women, but men too.
Speaker A:This is kind of the way of Western medicine and how we've traditionally operated.
Speaker A:And until we can change that narrative and discourse, we're going to be in this situation.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So that's why we're here.
Speaker A:And we're hoping to help educate people about what needs to change and looking at things through a personalized approach.
Speaker A:And we have enough data from wearables and all sorts of different devices and tools these days where we can go more insular and look at how things are affecting us on a personal level.
Speaker C:Yeah, and you're right, the whole sort of biohacking movement that maybe started, who knows, 10 plus years ago and now it's more of a became more well known and mainstream that people are wearing more and more, as you said, variables and tracking things.
Speaker C:And these devices are more affordable and we also have just a larger amount of data.
Speaker C:And so once we have data, then the companies are now able to parse out, oh, this is the data for men and this is the data for women.
Speaker C:I know that Oura Ring does that now.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:They have more female specific data.
Speaker C:And some companies are now able to just from the collection of over many years of having all this data coming in, they can build better algorithms and more predictive things for our health.
Speaker C:And these are some of the tools that you guys are using through your app to do research.
Speaker C:Can you guys tell me a little bit more about how that works right.
Speaker A:Now on our platform?
Speaker A:And again, we're still a relatively newer company, so our platform supports two of the most popular and tried and tested wearables.
Speaker A:But we will be Adding more down the line, including CGMs.
Speaker A:But right now we are focused primarily on the Oura ring and the Whoop.
Speaker A:What we do is like, we integrate with those onto our platform.
Speaker A:You come in, you're already wearing your aura ring.
Speaker A:You probably have months, if not, if you're like me, years worth of data on yourself that we then can incorporate it, like literally pulls it into the app.
Speaker A:And so now you get a baseline.
Speaker A:So we can kind of say, oh, cool, this is how you.
Speaker A:Your sleep pattern is normally like this and your HRV is normally like this.
Speaker A:And so then when you start an intervention, so whether that be a supplement study or a breathwork study or something of that nature, on our platform now we can look at your baseline that you have from your or Whoop, and we can compare it to how the intervention is impacting you.
Speaker A:And we're essentially giving to the consumer is real time feedback on how something is impacting your health, whether that be for the positive or not so positive.
Speaker A:And nothing has really done that before.
Speaker A:I remember when I was first experimenting in this space and trying all sorts of things, it was really difficult to kind of understand what's working, what's not.
Speaker A:And now we kind of have a tool where we're able to integrate with wearables, so it's not adding any friction onto your life.
Speaker A:You can see what's working, what's not.
Speaker A:And you can also exclude any anomalies that like other factors that might be coming into play.
Speaker A:So whether that be a late night out or alcohol, we can exclude that from the data at the end.
Speaker A:So you can actually see, did this thing still work independent of these factors?
Speaker A:So that's a little bit about what our platform does and how we make it easy for people.
Speaker C:Katie, can you tell me a little bit about both Whoop and aura?
Speaker C:Just because I truly don't know how do they parse the data between men and women?
Speaker C:Because obviously you're using these tools as feedback for your research.
Speaker C:So I'm just curious, how many different devices have you reviewed?
Speaker C:Katie, the audience know that you have an amazing YouTube channel where you do reviews on a lot of different gadgets and biohacking tools.
Speaker C:Like, how many have you done?
Speaker C:I know you've done so, so many, right?
Speaker A:Oh, gosh, I've kind of lost count.
Speaker A:But the number of trackers that I did was unbelievable.
Speaker A:At one point I had 10.
Speaker A:I was testing it once and that's just too many.
Speaker A:But I really believe that the Aura ring and the Whoop, like, they.
Speaker A:They're nothing's perfect.
Speaker A:Let's just put that out there.
Speaker A:But they are, in my opinion the, the best ones that will give you the most accurate data over time.
Speaker A:To answer your question about how do they genderize?
Speaker A:Well, interesting.
Speaker A:This kind of comes back to what the whole point of this is.
Speaker A:We don't have his like necessarily historical data.
Speaker A:These wearables have only been out for a couple of years.
Speaker A:So how it works is like when you go on to the aura whoop, you have identify what your gender is.
Speaker A:And so what they're able to do over years of thousands, if not millions of people collecting is now they can take their algorithm and they can start to parse through the data of men and women.
Speaker A:But it's better like big data AI over time.
Speaker A:And that's sort of how they're able to say, oh, you know what, during the luteal phase, like most women, and because you can track your menstrual cycle in both of those apps, during the luteal phase, most women's basal nighttime temperature goes up 0.5 degrees.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's again an like accumulation of all of these people coming in, contributing people's science essentially over time where we can start to extract and see some of these correlations as it relates to women, women's health and men's health.
Speaker C:People that already have one of these devices, they can go onto your app, sign up and contribute to research, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And can you give me something maybe Mackenzie, you can speak to that, a little bit of what are the type of studies that are out there?
Speaker C:How can women that already use one of these devices kind of contribute to women's health research?
Speaker D:We specialize in sleep and stress, so we have a lot of sleep and stress related studies, but we do have a handful of women only studies that want to look at sexual health, look at quantum field energy on women's health in general and quality of life.
Speaker D:There's a handful of different options out there.
Speaker D:And so if they have a device, it's free to join.
Speaker D:They join through the reputable health app and then they get to see a menu of all of these studies.
Speaker D:There's eligibility associated with them.
Speaker D:Research isn't for everybody.
Speaker D:Not every study is for everybody.
Speaker D:So we want to make sure we find the right fits for everybody.
Speaker D:We try to be very participant focused as well as client focused.
Speaker D:So it's important to reputable that all of our participants have a positive journey if they're interested in just kind of checking it out and trying it.
Speaker D:We do offer some run in studies where we're just looking at healthy behavior change over the course of seven days.
Speaker D:So this might be a 30 minute digital detox.
Speaker D:At night when you get into bed, you're going to log in and check, I'm putting my phone away for 30 minutes before I go to bed.
Speaker D:But they'll get to see how their HRV changes from Monday to Sunday when they do this, or if they drink a gallon of water a day or get 10,000 steps in and they do this over seven days.
Speaker D:It gives them a sense of kind of how we run our research and let them also track all of these metrics and be involved in the data that they're contributing.
Speaker C:And I saw that you also work with companies, right?
Speaker C:So for example, if I have a supplement company and I want to validate a certain supplement and say this, just making this up, this supplement will help you sleep better.
Speaker C:And then you can use your ordering, take the supplement and then you can actually validate.
Speaker C:Is that really helps you sleep better?
Speaker C:Kind of that n =1 experimentation and it helps the person.
Speaker C:You know, it's a free app, but you get to participate in this study and see how it works for you.
Speaker C:And then it also contributes to the greater research.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:And what's really cool is we do get a handful of biohackers, but we also get people who are like actually looking to improve their sleep.
Speaker A:And so when you do sign up for a study, and in fact we have one with Qualia right now with a sleep study, you'll get the free product and you'll get like some type of gift card at the end because that's pretty much standard for when you complete some type of clinical trial.
Speaker A:Like there is a participation reward for giving us your time.
Speaker A:And so it's, it gives you the chance to say, hey, I do have some sleep issues.
Speaker A:I was thinking about buying this, let me test it out.
Speaker A:And so in doing so we can now you, you can actually look and say, hey, this thing is working, I'm going to continue this.
Speaker A:And then the company gets a group amount of data.
Speaker A:So like hundreds of people that are taking it all at the same time.
Speaker A:We then have an algorithm that puts it all together and says, hey.
Speaker A:So over the course of two months, most people's deep sleep went up 6.3%.
Speaker A:So you could say this product does help with deep sleep based on blah, blah, blah, and keep it FDA FTC compliant because at the end of the day what you want to avoid is getting a warning letter from the FDA and fdc and this is so popular right now and so prevalent, they're cracking down on a lot of these companies that are making these crazy claims like this is going to increase your biological age and everything's going to be perfect in your life.
Speaker A:Like there are so many things that are outrageous out there right now.
Speaker A:And I can attest because I've been in this world, this is the time for companies to actually get their act together and start validating what works, what doesn't.
Speaker A:Because consumers are savvy, they're smart, they're going to be able to know what's BS versus what actually sounds credible.
Speaker A:And one of the ways that they're going to be able to do that very easily is through data 100.
Speaker C:I think the biggest need is the supplement market is a wild west.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like everybody, there's so many supplements out there, especially low quality supplements.
Speaker C:There are people taking that.
Speaker C:Who knows what the heck is even in there.
Speaker C:Really not third party tested.
Speaker C:You don't really know what you're getting.
Speaker C:And isn't that, wouldn't everybody like to validate that?
Speaker C:If I'm gonna spend, let's just say $50 a month on this supplement or some supplements are much more expensive than that.
Speaker C:Is that actually working or not working?
Speaker C:Because I think the biggest issue with supplements like you have no clue is this actually doing or you're just kind of doing it on hope.
Speaker C:Well, hopefully it's doing something good for me because I'm spending a lot of money on this is expensive pee.
Speaker C:Right, Exactly.
Speaker C:So if I can see in my data, of course, if you can feel the fact, that's great.
Speaker C:But how often do we actually like when you are sleeping?
Speaker C:Let's just say, I mean, you don't really know.
Speaker C:In the morning it's very hard, especially people that have worn OURA ring without quantifying that.
Speaker C:I think it's very hard to tell if you like really what the quality of your deep sleep was or your REM sleep was without actually having the data.
Speaker C:Okay, I only slept four hours.
Speaker C:Well, clearly that wasn't enough.
Speaker C:But if you're sleeping like you're about the normal amount of time, I would say it's pretty hard to judge in the morning when you wake up unless you have some data.
Speaker C:So quantifying that is really important.
Speaker C:And then if you have a baseline already or maybe even years of wearing a device, then you can clearly see me over this course.
Speaker C:A week, two weeks, whatever, a month that I've been using the supplement.
Speaker C:Is that moving my sleep score or is it improving my heart rate variability or whatever you're tracking.
Speaker C:Mackenzie, what are the number one things you guys are looking on the Whoop oring?
Speaker C:What are the metrics that you guys are paying attention to?
Speaker D:We started with sleep, so we really focused a lot on rem, deep sleep, light sleep, sleep efficiency, sleep latency, total sleep, and those metrics.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker D:But what has become kind of hot variables for most of the people we work with has been HRV and average heart rate, lowest heart rate, and body temperature.
Speaker D:And also looking at those metrics, I think HRV especially has become extremely prominent as a measure of stress and overall health in terms of what we get from WHOOP and Aura.
Speaker D:So I would say those are the predominant measures we use.
Speaker D:I know, like when you go in the Aura app, you see a whole bunch of composites score.
Speaker D:So you see your readiness score and your overall sleep score, and we don't include those because they are composites.
Speaker D:So Aura and WHOOP have algorithms behind those numbers where they actually use each individual's data over time to personalize these numbers for them based on their health metrics.
Speaker D:But because of the complexity that comes with creating a score like that, it becomes hard to validate and really stand behind the numbers.
Speaker D:So we really stick with the raw.
Speaker D:The raw data right now in terms of those metrics that I listed earlier to really provide validity in terms of what they're seeing in terms of change, we're constantly brainstorming on a weekly basis what's going to be next.
Speaker D:I know Katie's dying to bring in her neuro measure, so GMs are coming.
Speaker A:CGMs are definitely coming next quarter.
Speaker A:Because metabolic, I mean, as you mentioned, like, metabolic health is huge, especially for women, especially as they get older.
Speaker A:And so if we have a way to quantify that and be able to say, hey, let's run this study with this supplement that says it's going to reduce your glucose spikes and we're able to have efficacious data behind that.
Speaker A:Like, that's going to be a big.
Speaker C:Game changer, like I'm taking berberine or I'm taking metformin.
Speaker C:Which one is working better?
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:You could test that potentially if you had a CGM or some way of having some quantifiable data.
Speaker C:Am I using a good example?
Speaker C:Mixing it.
Speaker C:I was perfect.
Speaker A:I think you would also like in, in that case not to create a study here, but like, you would want to isolate too, if you're taking many things.
Speaker A:And I mean, we've seen this in the biohacking space with some of the most prominent male figures who are taking upwards of like a hundred supplements a day.
Speaker C:I.
Speaker A:Not I. I don't.
Speaker A:It's a great way to test anything.
Speaker A:In fact, like, that is kind of the opposite of what we're doing.
Speaker A:There is really like almost no way to know that all hundred supplements that you're taking every single day are doing anything like.
Speaker A:Like you can't ascertain which one is actually moving the needle most.
Speaker A:So what we would recommend for sure is isolate.
Speaker A:And I've been telling people that for years.
Speaker A:But it's nice to actually have that backed by Solid Science on our app.
Speaker B:Hey there.
Speaker B:Or she here with a quick message.
Speaker B:This is a brand new podcast and I would love your help with growing our community.
Speaker B:If you're finding this discussion valuable, I would be honored if you take a moment to leave a review and share this episode with a girlfriend or any woman in your life who might benefit from this information.
Speaker B:Your support truly makes a difference.
Speaker B:So thank you for helping me spread the word.
Speaker B:And now let's get back to our conversation.
Speaker C:Now I'm just curious.
Speaker C:How would healthcare change if we had more gender specific research, especially in the areas like you mentioned, metabolic health or even things impacting fatigue or autoimmune issues?
Speaker C:Like how would it shift things?
Speaker D:First and foremost, I think education is power.
Speaker D:So when we're using biofeedback from these wearable devices, it almost empowers the patients and participants in studies to actually be responsible and know what's happening with their health.
Speaker D:From the research side, I think we'll have more precise care for women.
Speaker D:So once we can identify what's working and what's not, we can adjust that based on women's needs and not just have a standard of care that is applied to men and women when they go in with a diagnosis or condition, we can apply variability to that, not even based on just it being a woman, but an ethnic woman or a woman at the age of 35.
Speaker D:We can really like fine tune these specific variables to see generally what works for women based on the time period that they are in their life and the variables that are impacting them.
Speaker A:We're already starting to see some of this taking hold in the biohacking space.
Speaker A:Angela Foster was one of the first people I ever heard talk about cycle syncing.
Speaker A:And this was like a totally new terrain for me when I was like, wait, we should eat and exercise differently, different weeks of our menstrual cycle.
Speaker A:Like this, like, just blew my mind because again, growing up in kind of this world of like male dominated research, you're just like, oh, every day I should be hitting the gym real hard.
Speaker A:I should be doing all the cold therapy, I should be fasting every day.
Speaker A:That's not what you should be doing necessarily.
Speaker A:Some people do, but as a woman, I have learned to actually start to create better structure on the days leading up to my period.
Speaker A:The days of my period after that actually make me feel better.
Speaker A:I'm eating the foods that make me feel better.
Speaker A:I was feeling like crap all month long and it was because I was doing too much or I was not doing enough.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:And so now there is this whole movement towards, hey, let's like look at the elephant in the room.
Speaker A:We all have periods.
Speaker A:I know we've been like, it's been years, no one ever wanted to talk about it, but it's the reality.
Speaker A:Half the population gets this.
Speaker A:And so how can we use this to our advantage and not just like brush it under the rug and pretend it's not happening?
Speaker A:Let's embrace it and say, hey, this happens once a month.
Speaker A:And you know what, I'm going to create like different parameters and different structures around my period that are going to enhance the quality of my life.
Speaker A:And so we need more of that.
Speaker A:And I'm excited to see kind of where that future goes.
Speaker C:That's sort of how Katie and I connected back in the day, many years ago, is that we commiserated about how everybody in this space, at least in the health optimization biohacking space, were male influencers talking to other, mostly men, and had male experts and male speakers talking about mostly issues that are relevant for men.
Speaker C:Now the conversation is starting to shift, which is really great to see and.
Speaker A:That'S thanks to you and the women's biohacking conference.
Speaker A:Just want to put that out there.
Speaker A:You were the first one to come out with one and it was so refreshing to be like, oh my gosh, like women are interested in this too.
Speaker A:And we're talking about this and we are creating new, new narratives for how we're going to communicate and how we're going to implement some of these practices into our your daily routine.
Speaker A:So definitely hats off to you.
Speaker C:And at least if not more than 50% of so called biohackers are female because women have so many issues that we just mentioned.
Speaker C:They are trying to fix their metabolism, they're trying to fix their thyroid issues, they are trying to deal with their fatigue, their autoimmune issues, all the things that we mentioned that are so prevalent in Women are always at our forefront as sort of and just anything that has to do with hormonal issues, we, we have so many that we have to deal with.
Speaker A:Look at infertility rates even.
Speaker A:I hate saying this, but what happened in the last decade or so that has led to so much infertility and the need for in vitro?
Speaker A:Do we know if it was emfs, mold?
Speaker A:Like there could be so many different factors.
Speaker A:We just don't know.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Because we haven't looked at it.
Speaker A:And so that's a huge issue for so many women that I think does require better investigation and hopefully over time we'll be able to say, hey, these are the things that actually contributed to that.
Speaker C:It seems like fertility is almost like 50, 50 now of sort of both male and women fertility is an issue.
Speaker C:So both men are not producing sperm and not and have issues in that area themselves.
Speaker C:And then women have issues with their viability of their eggs and all those things.
Speaker C:That is a whole different conversation.
Speaker C:But I think in our entire, as soon as we, we go through puberty, women start dealing with having to sort of biohack their own hormonal issues because we hit with that as soon as we, we became a, become a teenager.
Speaker C:And then in the, in your 20s, 30s maybe you're dealing with infertility issues and go into your late 30s, then you have perimenopause and then you go into sort of the early 40s, then you start hitting with the autoimmune, the thyroid, the weight gain and all those other things kind of heading into menopause.
Speaker C:And then menopause is just a mess for both women.
Speaker A:It's just a disaster.
Speaker C:And I think a lot of the times by the time I see people, they are in the middle of that metabolic chaos us.
Speaker C:And so much of that has to do with our unique hormone hormonal shifts that it makes us different and less stable for men.
Speaker C:And then also each stage of life is different for women too.
Speaker C:That complicates things even further.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So what can women do to advocate for better health care and research that that focuses on their unique health challenges?
Speaker D:I always recommend education, education, education.
Speaker D:There are good resources and bad resources coming from the science world.
Speaker D:Check out peer reviewed sources, stay away from the blogs and that just general blanket information that's everywhere and really get into the science.
Speaker D:A lot of times we don't have the answers in the science because women either weren't, weren't in studies or when they were in studies, we still weren't asking the right questions to Just account for anything beyond basic gender differences.
Speaker D:But you can still catch some red flags in the research that's out there that I think can educate treatment decisions and your approaches to how you want to approach your care.
Speaker D:I also highly recommend preventative care.
Speaker D:Don't wait until something comes up and it, it becomes more than fatigue or slight joint pain.
Speaker D:Stay ahead of the game and try to be preventative before it becomes too serious.
Speaker D:And that usually does mean some lifestyle change of some sort.
Speaker D:But it doesn't have to be big.
Speaker D:It can be small change implemented consistently that can help address small symptoms and prevent it from escalating into more chronic and severe disease and disability.
Speaker C:And women need to advocate for themselves and stand up to some of the allopathic practitioners that you're working with.
Speaker C:If, if that's what you're doing and do your own research, walk in there, make your case.
Speaker C:Don't let them gaslight.
Speaker C:Women get so much gaslighting when they go to their doctors and they get dismissed so easily.
Speaker C:So I encourage everyone to be your own advocate, take control of your own health, do your own sort of n +1 experimentation.
Speaker C:And 1 of the ways you can do that is to potentially get a wearable, whichever you choose.
Speaker C:And if you happen to get one of the wearables that reputable uses, then you can join one of their studies.
Speaker C:Katie McKenzie what can women do if they want to start doing their own n =1 experimentation?
Speaker C:What can they do?
Speaker C:What are the first steps?
Speaker C:And then by joining some of these studies.
Speaker C:Can you give me some examples there?
Speaker C:You mentioned already the sleep study.
Speaker C:Can you give me a couple of other examples of what are things that people can join for free or even get some products or some things to test out for themselves.
Speaker C:Can you talk about that a little bit more?
Speaker A:It runs the gamut on our platform in terms of free seven day studies that you can come in and join.
Speaker A:Everything from breath work to cold therapy to meditation.
Speaker A:We basically like took a page out of the biohackers handbook in terms of what people are interested in.
Speaker A:And so we wanted some, we wanted studies that we could actually see quantify over a short period of time.
Speaker A:Is this thing actually helping?
Speaker A:Is it not, as Mackenzie mentioned before, a digital detox, simple things, nothing that's going to require you to like, like spend a fortune on like a cryotherapy chamber in your home.
Speaker C:And most studies are seven days or.
Speaker A:Most of the studies that when you first come into the app, we want you to get comfortable with how the app works and sort of understanding the parameters of a, of a study, because this is sometimes a person's first foray into the clinical research space.
Speaker A:So they come in, they're, they're complying with, with all of the requirements of that study and then they become what's called a premium tester.
Speaker A:And so now this opens up the floodgates towards joining studies that are maybe a little bit longer.
Speaker A:These could be two weeks, a month, some are three months.
Speaker A:And these are the ones that typically involve supplements, devices, everything from lamps that are upwards of $300 to really the.
Speaker C:Company send those to people that are participants.
Speaker A:Yes, yes.
Speaker A:Again, we have eligibility screening first and foremost.
Speaker A:So you come in if you kind of meet the requirements.
Speaker A:Most of the studies are simple.
Speaker A:It's not like you're gonna have to jump through loops.
Speaker A:It's a three minute questionnaire.
Speaker A:We just wanna make sure that you're the right fit for this study.
Speaker A:And if you do, yes, you put in your shipping address and then they send the device or the supplement or whatever gadget to those individuals and then they begin the testing ground from there.
Speaker C:I love this because this is like literally Biohacking 101.
Speaker C:So people that are just kind of tipping their toe in the water of, okay, I'm gonna figure out what works for me personally and say, okay, I've been wanting to do breath work, but I've been too lazy to set aside the 10 minutes or 15 minutes a day to do it.
Speaker C:But now here's a challenge.
Speaker C:I can do it for a week.
Speaker C:I'm going to do breath work for 10 minutes in the evening before I go to bed for.
Speaker C:I'm just making this up.
Speaker C:I don't know exactly what the study is, but I'm going to do that for 10 minutes before I go to bed.
Speaker C:And I'm going to see how that's affecting my stress level, my heart rate variability, my sleep.
Speaker C:Mackenzie, am I talking about that's roughly how it works or tell me if I'm wrong?
Speaker D:Nope, you're spot on because it's instant gratification.
Speaker A:Think about it like we want want stuff immediately.
Speaker A:I want to know the next day, oh, did this do anything for me?
Speaker A:We live in this generation now, for better or for worse, where everything's immediate and so, right.
Speaker A:There's this element of gamification.
Speaker C:I think seven days is a good amount of time because maybe on one day you're not gonna see too much.
Speaker C:I mean, you might, you guys could probably tell me if you see something over one day, but I think seven days is just enough like you start establishing a new habit for yourself.
Speaker C:I think the perfect example of doing something like meditation or when you do meditation, it's hard to know is this working?
Speaker C:Am I getting anything out of this?
Speaker C:And of course some people are really tuned in and they really feel the difference to their stress level.
Speaker C:But isn't that also nice to quantify that?
Speaker A:I wish I was one of those people.
Speaker A:Or she, I'm like the number one proponent of intuition.
Speaker A:But that is a lifelong journey of me figuring out my own.
Speaker C:And we are all in the same boat, right?
Speaker C:If, I mean, I think one of the reason Oura is still around and it wasn't just a hype, but it's a company that is doing so well because it allows us to quantify our sleep.
Speaker C:Something that otherwise we would have a really hard time quantifying that.
Speaker C:We talked about it earlier.
Speaker C:So if you can also start quantifying your meditation, your breath work, your cold therapy and some other, your sauna use or whatever else you're doing that is, that is gold.
Speaker C:Because then you can see, is this working for me?
Speaker C:Maybe it's working for Katie really well, but it's not really doing anything for me.
Speaker C:And ultimately it comes down to for bio individuality, like for you, is this working for you?
Speaker C:Is that making a difference for you?
Speaker A:As it relates to our platform, I know we've talked a lot about the app itself.
Speaker A:I just want to emphasize that we, we are, are like really full service when it comes to all things clinical research.
Speaker A:We handle everything from study design, which Mackenzie, who is our head of clinical research does.
Speaker A:And it is intense and rigorous and it sometimes involves IRB approval.
Speaker A:We do all of that.
Speaker A:We even help recruit participants, which is something that we're always actively looking for people that are interested and have wearables that want to join.
Speaker A:So we help with that and then we also then collect all of the real time data.
Speaker A:So we're analyzing it, we're giving it to the companies, we're making sure that their, their claims that they want to make are in alignment with what the data says so that they are compliant with FDA and ftc.
Speaker A:Really at the end of the day, like if anybody's going to take away anything that's we are really looking to democratize health research for so long and it's so been a mail game and it's so been a money game.
Speaker A:I mean, clinical trials these days are like thousands upon thousands, if not millions of dollars.
Speaker A:And some of these companies are just getting off the ground and they want to know if their product is efficacious.
Speaker A:And so we've actually made a platform sustainable and accessible to some of these smaller companies that are in the space that really care about the efficaciousness of their products.
Speaker A:So I just kind of wanted to throw that out there that we are full service, we do it all.
Speaker A:And if you would.
Speaker A:Sorry, go.
Speaker C:You guys have any like really cool variables that you guys are working with, like, like new technologies that you are testing?
Speaker D:There are a couple that we've been eyeing.
Speaker D:BioStrap is definitely one who has been talking about some incredible measures.
Speaker D:One that I'm personally excited for is autonomic nervous system function.
Speaker D:So really breaking down sympathetic to parasympathetic function.
Speaker D:And another one is Ultra Human, which has a lot of similar features, I think probably even more granular than Maybe even the BioStrap, but newer.
Speaker D:It's a ring as well, like the OURA ring.
Speaker D:So those are two that are coming up that we're definitely keeping our eye on.
Speaker C:And what type of other companies do you guys look to work with who are like your ideal customers?
Speaker A:Stress sleep, wellness companies, companies that have a product.
Speaker A:But also we've worked with companies that.
Speaker A:And this is actually a pretty interesting one that we recently just wrapped up on the quantum field and.
Speaker A:Or she, you know that my skepticism on.
Speaker A:On all things quantum just because there hasn't been research.
Speaker A:So we actually did a study and I don't know if we can actually talk about the results yet, but McKenzie both really shocked at.
Speaker A:At the findings and this was all wearable data over time.
Speaker A:Kind of crazy like to think that we can now start to quantify some of the things that have not been quantified before.
Speaker A:And we're also doing, As I think MacKenzie mentioned, we're doing a health study for women between the ages of like 40 and 70 for sexual health and function.
Speaker A:And so that's also something that is typically challenging to measure over time.
Speaker A:And we are working with that company as well on getting supplements out to people to start testing that.
Speaker C:Well, you guys are doing some fantastic work.
Speaker C:And how can people connect with you?
Speaker C:So it's if whether they are people that just want to participate in the, in these studies or you have companies that want to validate their products, what is the best way for them to reach out to you or learn more.
Speaker A:Just head over to our website.
Speaker A:It's Reputable Health.
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