In this episode, we take a look at a few studies surrounding birth control and the effect it has on the brain.
When uterinekind are left to navigate a health care system that’s built by and for men, you can start to see where biases lie. With a system that doesn’t bother to focus and dedicate time to bodies that aren’t male, you start to see why gaslighting is so common. Today we have another round of uterine news to keep you up-to-date with your body.
In a male-centric health care system, getting proper basic care and respect can be a challenge. It is so common for uterinekind’s extreme problems to be dismissed and defaulted with birth control, yet we’re called moody, emotional, and hormonal at the end of the day. In this episode, we take a look at a few studies surrounding birth control and it’s link to the brain. One appalling study from Denmark specifically showcases the link between depression and birth control usage. These numbers are terrifying. Approach with caution uterinekind, there’s a trigger warning on this episode!
Lastly, we end on a high note! Don’t throw that away, recycle it! Plus, enjoy a sneak peek into some of our amazing future guests!
Thanks for listening, learning, and being you. And join us back here every Tuesday for all things uterus, in service to you, uterinekind.
Carol: Got birth control on the brain, told you're moody and need therapy, but it's not because of the birth control. Uh huh. I'm Carol Johnson and this is Hello Uterus.
Do you prioritize being nice and respectful with your healthcare team because you feel that if you aren't, you won't get excellent care? Yeah. Well, we're gonna have to burn that playbook because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're nice, respectful. Actually, it's probably not in your best interests to be nice and respectful because you know, I bet as uterine kind, what we feel is nice and respectful is actually trends a little bit more submissive in nature. we just, we gotta burn that playbook. So in this episode, we'll explore, navigating a health system built for men, run largely by men and baked rock solid with a whole ton of bias against the female body. Most certainly that moody, moody, misbehaving, naughty little brain, and how all that bias has led to millions of people being gaslit when they discuss complications from the most widely consumed pharmaceutical product on the planet. Birth control, but first uterus in the news.
But I can't wait until we get to a point in time , where there's at least a balance between like the awesome news and the not awesome news specific to our healthcare. But I don't think this week is gonna be one of those days even. Even with this lead story, which is like the most positive one I could possibly find out there. Arizona Appeals Court halts near total abortion ban. Hmm. Boy. So Judge Peter Erst Strm, part of a three member panel, issued the stay of the abortion ban and said the lower court may have aired in , resurrecting that Civil War era law because it conflicts with more recent laws that provide abortion seekers more leeway.
I mean, seriously. A law that permits abortions for up to 15 weeks, took effect last month in Arizona, putting it in conflict with the 1864 ban, which I think is the preferred ban. Right? I think that's what most Arizona lawmakers want, is that, that 1864, the good old years, one of those guys is State Attorney General Mark Barnovich. I'm just looking at his name because it's spelled b r n o v i c h. And I just wanna be petty and, , I just wanna tear him apart for the bad spelling of his last name. That's all I wanna do because I'm mad, I'm mad at him. He opposes abortion rights and has said that it's his plan. This one guy to enforce the older law and then get this from his Spokesperson . Brittany Thomason, which again, it's just kind of funny. She spells her name, B R I T T N I, It's like they both really, really like having all those consonants crammed together with no vows. There's probably something that we can, talk about, but not right now, because we're gonna talk about what she said that his office understands this is an emotional issue and we will carefully review the court's ruling before determining the next step.
listen, Brittany, this is not an emo Well, yeah, it is an emotional issue for sure, but you know what? Shut up. Don't lead with that. What this is is a life and death issue, which is what makes it emotional. Brittany. So I'm not sure if Bevi understands, perhaps he needs to take some pills to calm down his testosterone.
But this one dude who has zero clinical background is acting as if, as attorney general, as if he's like King of Arizona or maybe it's better said king of all those in Arizona who have or had a uterus. That's who that dude thinks he is. And he wants to take us back to 1864, and I would love to just ask him questions that I can guarantee you if he wasn't able to use Google, he wouldn't be able to answer. mThese questions would center on clinical complications as a result of, eliminating and outlawing access to modern healthcare procedures. yikes. Man. it's a shame because , I mean, again, I don't have a uterus anymore. I step into the shoes of people who need access to medicines that they're being denied because these medicines could cause an abortion. These people aren't pregnant. it's ridiculous. and what it feels like to me is like being a ball in a pinball machine that we're just getting batted about and it's just ridiculous? it's clinically horrific. people will die. And, then we have in other news, involving a minority of men seeking to strip away rights from over half the population. Herschel Walker. Yeah. How the NFL get into this conversation. Hey guys, could you leave the room please? could you leave? Could, No. Oh, Herschel Walker isn't gonna leave the room. He have four children. That he knows of . Good God. If I got pregnant by Herschel Walker, I will tell you there is one person I would've not told and that would've been Herschel Walker. So four children and counting. Definitely a proponent of abortion when it comes to his sperm causing a pregnancy in another person.
He'll even send you a get well card. Isn't that cute? Get well card rest and recover. Here's 700 bucks. Yeah, well, Herschel Walker is running for Senate a position. He is holy, unqualified to hold. Yikes. In my prior life hosting sports talk shows on ESPN and Sirius, I have interviewed so many people about concussions. I interviewed Joe Namath, let me tell you, that was a concussed individual. He at the time, was probably in his late sixties and he looked like he was in his eighties. I interviewed the doctor at UPenn who was part of the whole concussion film that Will Smith was in. And he said that if he had children who wanted to play football, he would not let them. That's how dangerous a sport it is. And if you just take 10 minutes to listen to Herschel Walker, it's whew, boy Yaa. You gotta do some work to stitch those thoughts together into something that's comprehensible. So anyway, he got called by some politicians and was totally seduced into running in Georgia for the Senate. He's just not qualified. And he wants a ban on abortion, of course, even though he paid for people to have abortions. But that's not the worst of it. That is not the worst of it. The worst of it is, is that he will do whatever those who placed him in a position of power want. Cuz trust me, Herschel Walker didn't wake up one day and say, You know, I really, I feel like I need to surf the people of Georgia.
I wanna spend these years, even though I can do anything I want right now, I wanna spend them working hard for the people of Georgia. No, not buying it. Uhuh didn't happen. Fantasy land. What happened was he got tapped on the shoulder and seduced into running for this position. And the reason why is because he's totally manipulatable. So that makes me nervous because. If Republicans get control of the house and the Senate, birth control will be next. Drugs used for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis are already being withheld from people with a uterus. They will do it with birth control. they will do it. Clarence Thomas, someone posing as a Supreme Court justice, came out and said the decision is on the table.The decision being same sex marriage and birth control, it's gonna happen. And if you think research funding of conditions that affect those assigned female at birth is bad now just wait. We will get together on this podcast and we will reminisce about the good old days when we were allowed to research female bodies.
It will happen, Birth control will get taken away. We have already, we're just in, I think I saw recently, it was like a, what is it, six months? I forget the number of days since Roe v. Wade was repealed. And it is an absolute disaster. a disaster start to finish. So, man, intense times, it's getting a bit ugly out there. But, I try to balance it with little, little humor. I think I'm gonna go to improv classes or something so I can get funnier because the news is getting nastier, so I feel like I have to get funnier. Well, at a minimum, we're gonna keep you informed. Because it's absolutely essential that you are in the know about what's going on. If you have a uterus, if you used to have a uterus, if you have people in your life that have uter, I Uterus is whatever you wanna call 'em, you gotta stay informed. So after this quick break, we're gonna get moody on birth control.
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Carol: Oh, the problems we create by not fixing the foundations of our male-centric health system. While I was doing research for this episode, I came across this little, I can't, I can't even find the article to pull it out, but it's not a claim, so I don't, I don't have to cite it for you. It was just an aside at that someone was talking, that someone mentioned when talking about the fact that we have a male centric health system, and it's been that way since the beginning of our health system. And the aside was this, and anesthesiologist was discussing epidurals and was using a poster of a male body in the OR with gynecologists and obstetricians and it was discussing the use of epidurals during childbirth. So the person who was telling the anecdote, who was a woman, called it out, and said, Hey, why are you using a poster of, of a male body?
And the anesthesiologist said, Because I couldn't find a female body that's me, laugh, crying in a hospital, an academic teaching hospital. They couldn't find a poster of a female body. So now that that has woken us out of a slumber, hoo boy, we really have a lot that we gotta undo. we have a lack of basic understanding of the female system. And at the same time, we're sprinting ahead with artificial intelligence, right? Like we're baking in the same biases that have us where we are today, which is not in a good. If one looks at the state of uterine healthcare of conditions that primarily affect those with a uterus, we are not in a good place. It's stacked against us the whole game. It doesn't matter what version we're playing, the rules are as old as time.
It's like, Oh, what? oh. Why? why would you need a poster of a female body? What, what's the big deal? Which is, honestly, I think I might faint in that situation, at this stage in the game, like the shrinking of the importance of over half the population as you seek out the ways in which we're negatively impacted by that, and you start to see them all, It's kind of like if all of a sudden without anyone telling you, you were walking through the woods at night and some new technology was invented, and they instantly enacted it. They instantly flipped the switch to turn this technology on, and you saw every spider in the woods at night. Everyone. That's what it's like when you really start thinking about how the system in the beginning was built for men. People with uterus were diminished. Wasn't important to study them. No need to understand that body better.
Really. Maybe if you understood the body better, you could better care for. Maybe if you understood the body better, then you'd understand that stripping away writes to healthcare without understanding how it impacts people's lives is a really bad idea. visually, I feel like , it's that image in, in the Serengeti of, a giant, of, creatures running ahead and the most vulnerable or behind, right? In our case, all the white cismen would be out front and the vulnerable would be made even more vulnerable by being left to take up the rear. And we are vulnerable because we're being medicated left and right, and dismissed, left and right, and nobody's studying us. And it's all just this big, crazy gross casserole of nastiness and it has to end. Caroline Crito Perez. Wrote a book called Invisible Women. It was published in 2019 and this is a quote from that book. The Bodies symptoms and diseases that affect half the world's population are being dismissed, disbelieved and ignored. And it's all a result of the data gap combined with the still prevalent belief in the face of all the evidence that we do have that men are the default humans.
So what does this have to do with birth control? Everything, men are not the default humans. There are two different types of bodies and actually now we have more than two different types of bodies cuz we're still an evolving system, right? So we have non-binary, we have trans, we have, we like, those are labels and names that we've. Created to identify some of these newer humans, right? There's probably another 50. it's like that saying, you know, you can't see the forest for the trees. We're so deep in being a human that, and we're so assumptive that everyone's like us, that we, we just, we probably are not seeing a multitude of evolutionary offshoots that to me are personally I find thrilling I'm so excited for that. But anyway, back to birth control. So, again, we are not anti birth. We are anti those who don't believe we need to do more research. The aim of birth control, totally noble provide those with the uterus, the ability to control when they become pregnant. It changed everything for those with reproductive organs, everything.
And you saw the ripple effect. It benefited our entire world. It benefit benefited the people directly who were using birth control benefited the economy. It be benefited everything, even just right self value. The ability to take action for yourself, not be dictated. So noble aim, but once they figured out how to suppress the function of the ovaries, they moved on . it would've been a really good idea to continue researching the long term and short term side effects of these birth control pills. And there's been some research, but we're gonna talk about that in a minute. So let's set the baseline here. The mechanism of contraceptives is not understood. We know they work specific to their intended goals. Eliminate the ability to get pregnant or current symptoms, suppression. And I guess those things could be, both, You want to suppress symptoms that you're having with your period and you don't wanna get pregnant, but we don't know how they do it. So it's safe to say, and my debate line by the way, is always open. If anybody wants to debate me, I don't need to win. I like if you have information that's different and vetted and validated and real, bring it . But it's safe to say that because we don't know how they do it. We also don't know what else they do.
Now, maybe the person on the birth control knows what else they do, but that often gets ignored. So we know that the body produces hormones in the brain, the ovaries, the gut, the pancreas and other. Organs, glandular systems in the body, and these hormones transmit information throughout the body and they literally control every bodily function. It's like a body intranet that involves among other parts of the body, the pituitary, the hypothalamus, and the adrenal glands. So the system that controls everything is definitely impacted by contraceptives, including the one organ We are most protective of our brains, and by we, I mean like probably mostly women because like I know it's changing. 56 here. Came into the workforce late eighties, early nineties. Trust me, nobody was thinking about my brain. I wasn't valued for my brain , like at all. If I could accidentally generate revenue for my company, that would be cool. Never once was it considered that my brain would put me in a position to be able to do that. They probably thought that it was like my skirts and my high heels, I'm not being hyperbolic here. I mean, literally. And I, I know most people get that, but I think sometimes, some people, if they haven't been exposed to that kind of treatment, don't realize how prevalent it is. So our brains have been dismissed, forever. And the fact that we're.
That they are affected. That they are impacted by medications. Medications that are not well understood is scary. Michael Lipton, medical director of MRI services and professor of Radiology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Montefiore Health System, who I actually think may be the first male guest that we have on our show. Maybe the only, I don't know, Anyway, here's a quote I think that this is, so good. Oral contraceptive pills are one of the most widely used drugs over an incredibly vast cross section of humanity over a long period of time. Okay. It baked into that, I'm not done with the quote, but baked into that, what are you saying is, Oh, we have data people. We have data upon data upon data. What we don't have is an interest in actually funding large scale studies to look at that data. Because why? Why would we, females, they're just a rib from, from a dude. Like how could they be that important? Anyway, the quote continues. He conducted a small scale study in 2019 on oral contraceptive pills, associations with brain structure, specifically the hypothalamus and pituitary. And he says, I think it's remarkable that there's not more known about the pills mechanism of action, right? So should we, we should think it's remarkable that we don't know more about a pill that is essentially a rite of passage that is prescribed for everything. Blamed for nothing So I did , I did some research. I fell face, first down a giant CVOs of competing research, which, you know, when people say like, Oh, just, you know, you gotta look this stuff up on the internet. Well, I'm gonna tell you, I, I strongly urge you don't , because I'm gonna point out how, unless you know what to look for.
It is so sketchy. It is so sketchy. When we launch our app in November, we're changing that. But for now, here, I'll, point out like, this is inspiration for the app actually. Is it? Because for the last 10 years all I've done is study research in these areas and, and, essentially uterine health and, Other areas of the body specific to minimally invasive devices that can treat the root causes of chronic conditions. That's kind of my sweet spot. Although obviously I am now fully in the uterus, not u uterus, but you know, a uterus, a mythical uterus. So there, it's not really a study, but it was published at the National Institute of Health, and it's titled Contraception and Mental Health, A commentary on the Evidence and Principles for Practice.
A commentary that's a tip off. Tip off is, is someone's opinion. And as you read it, it's just wild. It's wild. So I'm gonna just read a couple little, little. Tidbits here. There's a section called Effects of Contraception on mental Health, and it says, deficiencies in neurotransmitters that impact mood. Serotonin. No rep Prine. I have no idea. Dopamine, GABA and peptides have been implicated in clinical studies of depression and anxiety. Right, And we've heard, you know this, we talked about it last week about the serotonin uptake inhibitors. Reuptake inhibitors. So, They have been implicated in clinical studies of depression and anxiety and genetic predisposition and psychosocial stressors appear to be important precursors to neurotransmitter deficiencies, so genetically predisposed to mood issues, and then psychosocial stressors. So mental, social, environmental stressors, right? Those are precursors or things that kick off deficiencies with your neurotransmitters. According to this guy, contraceptive researchers in the sixties and seventies hypothesized that large dosages of synthetic estrogens and proin in combined oral contraceptive pills. Could potentially interact with mood related neurotransmitters and neurotransmitter metabolism, right?
So the ability for the, for serotonin to go out into your system and talk to your system, and then the ability for it to be absorbed back up into your system and this beautiful, balanced cycle. And this is exquisite system, right? And they're saying that these large dosages of synthetic estrogens and progess, the two hormonal ingredients that are in combination, oral contraceptive pills can get in the way of that continues to say, while there have been no published clinical trials to date, using hormonal bioassays or brain imaging to clarify these relationships, newer evidence suggests that the steroid activity of lower dosage, modern contraceptives do not have a clinically relevant physiological impact on women's mood or mood related neuroendocrine functioning. It continues and really pay attention to these words.
Little science exists to explain how or why mental health influences contraceptive behavior. That's a fascinating sentence li like the way he says it, Little science exists as if you need to go out and hunt in the woods for it, right? Like, Oh, you know what? Let's go look for some science today. All right, let's go. Let's go. Hit the redwoods, see if we can dig up some science. Like you're not gonna find it out there. Science exists when you have studies, right? So little science exists to explain how or why mental health influences contraceptive behavior. , what the heck? I'm sorry. Now this whole opinion piece is kind of geared toward compliance by, of taking contraceptives, right? Staying on track with them. And in essence, what it's really asking is why are so many people starting the pill and then stopping? Right? And they're stopping. They're telling the doctors why they're stopping. They're stopping because of depression, anxiety, agitation, feeling like they're not in their own body, feeling uncomfortable in their own skin, loss of libido. And all of those things that I just said are largely dismissed. If you are in an obstetrician's office or a gynecologist's office and they aren't one of the rare people who will stand in front of you and say, We don't know a lot about these drugs. If it's not that, then they're gonna pretend like, Oh yeah, it's totally, this is completely just completely fine.
It's . Okay, so psychological. I'm gonna continue with this little excerpt. Psychological research suggests that altered cognitive processes may contribute to heightened perceptions of physical symptoms among women with mental health conditions. I should have given a trigger warning before I read that. Psychological research suggests that altered cognitive processes may contribute to heightened perceptions of physical symptoms among women with mental health conditions. Hmm. So your bad brain is misinterpreting your physical symptoms. I just wonder like, can we get blamed for everything? I just wanna be blame, but just do it now. Just blame us for everything. I'm sure there's a doctor out there that that would probably tell me to calm down over this stuff. Don't, don't. You just wanna see what would happen if that happened? Oh my gosh. Okay. So Guy continues to say combined oral contraceptive pills, discontinuation rates from perceived mood symptoms are not uncommon.
They range between 14 to 21%. In some studies, I've personally seen higher numbers despite evidence, refuting causal associations. Okay? Despite evidence saying that there is no association between your birth control pill and your depression or your anxiety. Depressed or anxious. Women may also internalize negative or incorrect information about contraception and have exaggerated concerns about risks and side effects. you know what? They should have to present these live . They really should take questions from the audience. That means seriously additionally, risk assessment, planning, social learning, decreased motivation and desire for self-care, excessive worry and diminished perceptions of success. Susceptibility to pregnancy may impact contraceptive decision making processes and lead to suboptimal contraceptive choices among women with depression and anxiety. Additional studies are needed to test these mechanistic theories, so, As I started reading the study, at first I was like, Oh, this should be interesting. And then I was like, Oh, oh man. All the red flags went up at one time. And then I scroll into the bottom of the page and both authors have deals with pharmaceutical companies.
Kind of figured that out halfway through. But holy cow, in that opinion piece, there was a whole lot of gas lighting, misogyny, bias, right? We, it would be interest. I mean, I'm surprised I that I didn't read that black women who are on birth control are even more determined to say that it's the birth control pill that's causing their depression and anxiety, then their broken brain, right? I mean, this guy was just, ugh. So now onto someone who has no such deal with the pharmaceutical company, Dr. Sarah E. Hill. I discovered her this week. I, this is my researcher crush. I have several, but holy cow, I would pay a lot of money to spend a week with Dr. Hill and just every day listen to her talk about what she has learned. She wrote a book called, This Is Your Brain on Birth Control. It arrives at my house tomorrow, and I I'm not gonna be accessible until I finish reading it. So your brain on birth control, the surprising science of women hormones and the law of unintended consequences. So, Dr. Hill turns to Denmark, and I urge you to not rely only upon research that is conducted in the United States because we're behind, we're behind . So she turns to Denmark. Where they clearly value studying those with a uterus as much as they value studying those without a uterus.
And they have this massive database of residents and they can analyze their health data over long periods of time, years, they're able to compare and contrast data from different medical disciplines and evaluate the effects of pharmaceuticals in other treatments. they can analyze the data from a gynecologist, the data from a gastrointestinal doctor, the data from a neuropsychologist, on and on, on whatever the discipline is. They can, This person in Denmark has a single number that tracks them throughout the entire healthcare system, and they can analyze all of this data. So, whereas in the United States we see studies that say, Hmm, evidence of negative impact on mood caused by contraceptives doesn't exist. And if it, if it does exist, it's wrong because it's not caused by the contraceptives. It's caused by you. . Yeah. Well, that data exists in Denmark. It does.
So here again, I'm gonna turn directly to this amazing article that we will post on our Instagram and on LinkedIn, both ter at Uterine Kind, and you need to check this out. And we have invited. Her to be on our podcast, and we hope that we're gonna be able to make that happen really soon because this is some stuff.
Holy. So listen up. From these registers we've learned, Val, the register is the database. Okay. From these registers, we've learned valuable lessons about the powerful effects that birth control pills can have on mood. In the first of these studies, the researchers looked at the record of all the healthy, non depressed women living in Denmark between the ages of 15 and 34. Then they followed the prescription and mental health records of these women, more than a million women, right? I read studies in the United States that have 30 people in them. , Denmark can get a million people. because the of the healthy way their health system is structured. So anyway, they followed them for 14 years to see whether going on hormonal contraceptives influence the likelihood of later being diagnosed with depression or being prescribed antidepressants.
And let me tell you, you need to sit down. The researchers found that women on hormonal contraceptives were 50% more likely to be diagnosed with depression six months later compared with women who were not prescribed hormonal contraceptives during this time, 50% more likely. They also found the women on hormonal contraceptives were 40% more likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than were women who weren't prescribed hormonal contraceptives during this. The results of this study as well as others suggest the pill can increase some women's risk of depression. Yeah, I'd say so. 50% more likely seems like it increases the risk. This seemed, that was me, by the way, having to vent. No, back to the excerpt. This seemed particularly true for non-oral products such as patch, vaginal ring, or hormonal i u D. And for young women, ages 15 to 19, whose brains are not yet done developing and may be more prone to the influence of hormonal signaling or another way of saying it, they may be more prone to the influence of hormonal medications. So note that stat about people ages 15 to 19. The brain is not yet developed and we're screwing with it.
We're screwing with it in a, in a wide variety of ways. Oral contraceptives for young women. Super problematic, right? 15 to 19. And then non-oral products. Super problematic for everybody in the age group of this study, 15 to 34. Dr. Hill speaks to correlation is not causation in this article that she wrote. And it's like a giant hug because we, we read the meaning behind this statement. She includes, Well, first she says that, you know, the, depression occurred does not mean it occurred because of the contraceptive use. Right? So she speaks to that correlation is not causation. We cannot say that birth control pills in this study caused depression. What we can say is that we watched these people before they went on birth control pills and they were good. And then we watched them while they were on birth control pills and was within six months they were experiencing depression and 40% of them actually had to go on antidepressants, which also communicates with the brain. And, you know, like a, like a seesaw is trying to balance this unbalanced system that's likely unbalanced from.
A wide variety of things, including birth control pills. So here's, what she says, and I think is so cool. As a scientist, I'm obliged to point out, we don't know for sure that pills caused this increase. Okay? She has to say it is what she's saying. What she's also saying is, Hmm. Looks pretty, pretty much like the pills caused it. But she can't say that. And I get that. I get why she can't say it. We need more research. Okay. So the same team looked at whether hormonal contraceptives may increase women's risk of suicide, and the article says the women on hormonal contraceptives were twice as likely to have attempted suicide during this time. Then the women, not on hormonal contraceptives, but the risk of successful suicide attempts was actually higher. It was triple that of women not on hormonal contraceptives. As with depression risk, the biggest negative impact of hormonal contraceptives on suicide risk was found for young women ages 15 to 19 on non-oral products. So IUDs, patch rings, things like that, right? But we also know that the oral products are problematic too, on young women because the brain is not yet fully formed, and we also know that they're problematic for people between the ages of 15 and 34, 35, 30, what was 34 in this study overall, 50% of people were diagnosed with depression.
40% had to go on antidepressants.
wow. Twice as likely to have attempted suicide. And the success of the suicide attempts was triple that of women not on contraceptives.
And yet we have this opinion piece published in the national, health Library. John Hall made that, I have to go back and look. It was National Institute of Health or the National Health Library Library of Medicine it commentary piece and the, the gyrations that guy had to go through to try to diminish or dismiss any correlation between birth. Pills or IUDs or what have you, and depression and mood changes. I mean, in essence, he blamed not the pharmaceuticals, but the person as if we haven't seen that 50 million times. So Denmark, gosh, thank you. We need this information. This is so, so essential. So thank you so much for doing that. Really, really important. Just to wrap up here, last night while I, I couldn't sleep because of that CVOs that appears when I think about the patriarchy and misogyny and bias and racism in healthcare and how we're gonna have to fix it all, I watched a woman talk about her experience with birth control. She had to have her gall platter removed. And do you know what her doctor said? Wow, that's rare. Like you're spotting some cool animal in the wild. She had been suffering for so long. I'm skipping right to the climax of her, tail and then get this. So after the wow that's rare. Like bro row.
He said once we take out your gallbladder, you can go back on birth control because the worst has already happened to you. Has it? We'll be right back with ending on a high note because we need it.
I had to take a few laps. To calm myself down so that we could talk about something really cool. I've, I, for years, I was the worst recycler. It wasn't that I didn't recycle , it wasn't that I thought I was the best recycler. It was actually that I was recycling all the wrong stuff amongst the stuff that could be recycled. And, you know, it's like elementary school and you, they take your kids to, you know, on these tours and, my kids went to the recycling center tour and then they came back and they like schooled me. They're like, Mom, Mom, what are you doing? Putting that in the, in the recycling? It was like a bad, it was a potato chip bag, right? Actually, it wasn't even that, I remember this moment because I was mortified. It was a, uh, tortilla chip bag and I was like, Yeah, I've been putting these bags. In the recycling forever. As a matter of fact, I would scold them all the time. They would be at their dad's house who clearly understood how to recycle and they would come back and I would look in the garbage.
There'd be candy wrappers in the garbage and potato chip bags in the garbage. And I'm like, Whoa, guys, this, goes in recycling. And they were like, Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, guess what? It doesn't. I learned that you, I'm sure you all know that, but I didn't. Now I realize how little is actually recyclable and that's somebody should start a podcast called Hello Recycling, because I just think there's a lot going on there that needs to be uncovered. So anyway, no, not everything can be recycled. The thing that needs to be recycled, most of all, the plastic bag can't recycle it. You can now, now there is this company called TerraCycle, where you can send away for a box. It costs a lot of money to do this. I mean, like a, a couple hundred dollars, I think the small boxes are like $80 you send away for a box. You cram all of your recycling in there, fit in as much as you can, and then you send it back to them. But, otherwise there's really no way to, to recycle plastic bags. You have to find a place that you can, take them to. And then you gotta wonder are they really being recycled with, TerraCycle? I know that they are, but you gotta wonder, right? So anyway, thanks to the University of California Berkeley, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We have figured out a way, well, not we as in me , they have figured out a way to recycle plastic bags. So polyethylene plastics are used to make plastic bags and shampoo bottles and tons of other products that are extremely difficult to recycle.
Can you believe? Shampoo bottles and toothpaste containers. And I'm getting rid of all of that stuff in my house. I use like a powder now to brush my teeth and I love it. It's so great. But anyway, there's a lot of shampoo bottles out there and plastic bags and bottles of every kind that, you know, we get our skincare and everything and they're all made with this polyethylene and only 14% of all polyethylene plastic. Are currently able to be recycled and then only for certain products such as garden furniture, right? So you, it's not like you can take a plastic bag and make another plastic bag out of it. And the this polyethylene plastics, they make up about one third of the entire plastics market worldwide. And it's not just them. That's bad manufacturing them uses massive amounts of fossil fuels. And we have to stop doing that. If we wanna have humans on planet Earth, we have to stop doing that. They've found a way to break the sturdy polymers. The super, super strong bonded together polymers that make our plastic bag into the three carbon molecule called propylene. And they describe it as a valuable molecule. it's a molecule that can be used to make a whole wide variety of things. And so after they break the polymers into this molecule, they can then turn it into ropes, tape carpets, upholstery clothing, camping equipment. And here's the best part. They can make that transition. They can take that three carbon molecule and morph it into these products with minimal fossil fuels.
So they're, curing two ills at one time here. And, you know, just wonder, I wonder if we had prioritized this sooner, where would we be as a society? And then that there's me taking the ending on a high note and like looking, like complaining about it. I gotta stop doing that. But it just it definitely makes me really want us all to just kind of grow giant research brains that we're just constantly either asking about research, seeking out research, talking to researchers, finding out what they're doing, in cheering them on, supporting them right. And get us, take advantage of all these technological advancements that we have happening on the daily and put them to use for really good things. So, thank you. University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I am so excited to hear this. I have literally saved every plastic bag for like the last three years. And I, I use dispose, I use, not disposable. I use, you know, use bags that are reusable, but I've saved them all and now I'm gonna find out where I can send them so that they can be made into other cool stuff we're getting there. We need to focus on innovation inventions and gathering compassionate humans together to take these inventions and roll 'em out into the world so that we can get better and healthier. All right, that's ending on a high note, but actually I have a little extra high note for you coming up.
We have some amazing guests and thi this is not the whole list. Shannon Cone, the creator and director of Below the Belt, the film that is out about endometriosis, Professor Heather bti Nelson, who we talk about often on this podcast. We are finally going to get her on the show. She is coming from Arizona State University and will be discussing her soon to be published. Paper on the Brain Uterus Connect. And then Dr. Truthy, Maha Gaia from the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard's th Chan School of Public Health to talk about all things endocrine. We're gonna get into some hormone conversations and birth control conversations and all sorts of stuff with her, and I am so excited to talk to her. So please come back, please every week. And also, if you find the information here valuable and useful, and you find the podcast something that is valuable and useful for you, would you please give us a review wherever you get your podcasts, or rate and review wherever you get your podcast. We'd really appreciate that.
And also enter our beauty Hero's gift away. We're getting feedback from people who receive the beauty boxes. It's super luxurious and it's free, and we're doing it because we just wanna expose you to truly clean products and we wanna spoil you because people need to be spoiled when they're dealing with chronic conditions. You need to be spoiled. It's so, it's like that's how you balance it out a bit. So if you're not getting spoiled enough in your life, check us out on Instagram, follow us, and you can enter our Beauty Heroes gift away there. Or you can go to uterine kind.com and you can enter there. Thank you Angel and Marielle for producing Hello Uterus.You all rock at this. And our team at Uterine Kind is expanding and it's a thrill to see it bloom. Thank you for bringing your A game. We see the passion that you have for Uterine Health on the Daily, and it keeps me believing that we will make a difference. And that's why we're doing this to make a difference.
And thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of Hello Uterus. Till then be well, Be cool. Be kind.
Angel: The Hello Uterus podcast is For Informational Use Only The content shared here is to not be used to diagnose or treat any medical condition. Please ask your physician about your health and call 911 if it's an emergency. And thank you, Uterine kind for listening.