Part 2: Queen Cortisol Interviews Dr. Michael Borkin, NND Hormone Doctor

Queen Cortisol” “How long does it take before something starts to really change in a body to where you can see a definite difference?”
“It depends on the severity of the problem. It is not a magic wand, but within the first couple of weeks most people notice a dramatic change in their energy level , in their mental outlook and in their ability to achieve their goals everyday as far as activity levels is concerned. And especially as far as the impact on their sex life. We talked about before that the first thing that is traded off the body is the reproductive capability. So the wide spread effect of libido dysfunction and sexual dysfunction  or erectile dysfunction that is plaguing this country is directly associated with stress. So if we can properly analyze what is taking place and how our body deals with stress and which of these hormones have been depleted then we can normalize or balance the system. We can support the system long enough to allow it to recouperate , supplement it so it has the proper  building material so that it has the ability to recoup. And bypass some of those obstacles that would prevent the building materials from being delivered. If we can look at all those elements and if we change certain dietary aspects that contribute, ie, certain emotional aspects, certain behavioral modification such as changing the sleep cycle. When I first started my practice, it was back in Las Vegas and I was dealing with a 24 hour city where people were working graveyard shifts. Simply working from midnight to eight a.m. threw the 24 hour cycle off so dramatically that it affected every aspect especially reproduction and sexual libido. So these are things that we take into consideration. When it comes to body building or professional athletes they are always under stress. The more body building, you know the whole idea of building a muscle is destruction, breaking the muscle down. If we take that into consideration that is stress. Anyone who has chronic pain or chronic infection that is stress. The whole idea is you do not start baling or you do not start moping up the floor until you turn off the facet. The whole idea is to find out where that facet is. That is what this kind of testing achieves.

What effect does something like androstienedione have on the body then if they are working out and so forth and taking this with out doing all the other things you talked about? Well you know again when you build anything you create the proper foundation first. No matter how strong the structure of the building if it is on a poor foundation it is going to break down or lean. The whole idea is to create the proper foundation first. So if you want to use something to enhance the system you have to have a starting point to enhance it. It is like having a vehicle in motion, as long as it is pointed in the right direction you want to keep it on tract. But if it is pointed in the wrong direction you want to turn it around before you speed it up.

Many people have just speeded up the mechanism and they are headed away from their goals. So this is a way of accurately determining and it is the only way that I’m aware of in order to really create the proper baseline. So one has an accurate way of determining where am I to begin with. Then they can go back and recheck a month, two month’s and three month’s or four months down the line and then periodically in order to determine am I on track. . Is my protocol, are these vitamins I’m taking actually doing something?
Are these hormones actually correcting a problem balancing the mechanism? Am I actually benefiting from these things or am I wasting my money or my time and my effort?

So, doctor to use the kinds of things that you are talking about the 24 hour saliva testing, protocol to get the different kind of substances the transdermal creams that would be or could be indicated for these people do they have to go through a physician in order to use your services?  No and that is the wonderful part about these use of saliva as a collection device. Sabre Science is working very, very diligently in order to create an FDA approved collection kit. They can be sent to anybody anywhere. This allows them to actually collect the specimen through a 24 hour period in their own environment, their own work place, their own home under their own normal stressful situation. The saliva is collected every 4 hours through a 24 hour period of time and then sent once it is finished back to the laboratory. It can pretty much be kept frozen until it is convenient to be sent back.
Once back at the laboratory it takes a few days in order to process the specimens and to develop the specific profile. Once you obtain that profile a protocol is provided and a pretty simple approach using the transdermal, those tertiary factors such as supplements in order to reestablish normal gastrointestinal function or digestive function that is usually used concurrently as well as certain dietary suggestions  and certain exercise suggestions.

So that is all outlined for them as a result of the testing? Yes and now a transdermal cream is then made. This is an extremely effective cornerstone as far as the supplementation is concerned and it is designed specifically for what is presented in that profile. So one person’s cream is different from the next person. You know we are as different as our fingerprints and to give somebody inappropriate levels of hormones causes more damage and continues this negative cycle. So the whole idea is to get as I said before the right amount supplemented at the right time and taking the absolute correct dosage for the individual.

So you would tell them what time of day for example to apply the cream? Absolutely that is a very important factor because we are looking at a 24 hour cycle that is dynamic that changes periodically . Wouldn’t that be more imperative for a woman than it would be for the man? Well no actually both men and women have a 24 hour cycle that is extremely dynamic.

I was thinking of a menstruating women for example if part of the cycle you said was more estrogen dominate and part of it was progesterone dominate? Well we are looking at two things stress hormones and sex hormones. So when we look at a 24 hour circadian we are looking at the dynamics of the stress hormones the accumulated stress, the amount of baggage that you carry. And the interaction as far as those conversions that are taking place as far as sex hormones so we can figure out which approach is most appropriate.

The idea is to affect the survival mechanism first the “fight flight” mechanism which is involved in all aspects. You know there is a tremendous wealth of research that is coming out that is relating abnormal weight gain or the in ability to lose weight and stress. You will see over the course of the next couple of years how this research will emerge mainstream and we will realize that there is an association. The reason that we accumulate fat in predictable areas around the abdomen, the rear end and the thighs because these are the areas of the large muscles that are going to carry us away from the impending doom.

And it is part of the armor that is going to prevent us from being successfully attacked.
Would they get a hold of Sabre Science? Absolutely. They are going to call Sabre Science’s toll free # 888-490-7300. Their direct line is 805-496-0106. They can be reached everyday from 8:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time until about 8:00 pm. It is a very, very simple user friendly approach. That is for testing and they also have a division that produces transdermal and oral supplements so they pretty much can provide all the necessary information and the analysis as well as the great majority of supplementation.

They will work very closely. If you have a physician and your physician is interested in working along with the laboratory they are extremely capable and very open to working with your physician. They encourage it If they determine that there is a problem that goes beyond what you will be able to attend to yourself they will refer you into a network of a physician closest to you who is fluent in this area. So you get the kind of care and management that is necessary.

I was going to say that you work with several hundred physicians? That is the amazing aspect is that I am presently educating physicians in a board certification course that we have designed. In order to bring physicians who have or have not been trained in hormonal therapies to utilize natural approaches to hormonal replacement and to utilize these diagnostics because the technology is so new. A lot of this was not taught in medical school and it is something that physicians have to maintain a certain amount of continuing education in order to bring themselves up to that point where they are fluent in this area.

Sabre Science works very closely as well as the Foundation for the Advancement of Endocrine Research who really is a fore leader in this area of hormonal research. They are working very closely training physicians and educating physicians providing an international data base in order to provide the information necessary.

So can we say that this is the frontier to be conquered then or to be explored as far as anti-aging is concerned? In February President Clinton was interviewed on 20/20.He at that time said because of the genome project that we would have a road map that would provide us with those vulnerabilities genetically which would arrest 50% of the possibility of developing certain problems later in life. The other 50% was stress related meaning that the biological clock is directly associated with the functioning we talked about today on a hormonal level. The 24 hour clock is something incredibly vulnerable.

The brain does not have an atomic clock so it does not know what a 24 hour period of time is. In order to be properly sequenced and for as female to have a normal 28 day menstrual cycle the body has to be functioning at a certain level where it has the foundational aspects and is functioning out of the “fight flight” mode. If you are not in survival you flourish. If you are in survival you are only worried about the here and now. You are worried about today not tomorrow, not next week and not next year.

Sabre Science is again 1-888-490-7300 and the direct line is 1-805-496-0106.

I think anybody who is trying to maintain the level of activity that is necessary in order to      really survive in the present environment has to have a strong hormonal foundation. What is the connection between stress and hormones? When you take a look at how the body communicates hormones are simply chemical messengers.

This is another means of the brain’s ability and the cells community to be able to communicate directly with various aspects of the body and different control mechanisms as far as the body is concerned. When you take into consideration what specifically impacts these mechanisms, what causes these mechanisms to function and what the overrides are in other words establishing the priority of the body’s specific survival mechanisms. When we talk about the core relationship between hormones and stress we have to look at the specific dynamics of the body and hoe the body functions in this environment .The unique thing about the human body is that the present model or present form is unchanged 50,000 years. It is amazing when you parallel that to the evolution of the automobile the fact that every year you get a new model and every few years you get radical changes as far as that model is concerned in order to keep up with the environment This present body is unchanged 50,000 years.

So if we look at the function and the specific goals that existed 50,000 years ago they are quite different than they are today.Alot of the disregulation that we are going to talk about this afternoon has to do with the specific abuse that our environment and our lifestyle can sometimes impact in a very negative manner.

Since we are essentially unchanged for 50,000 years are you talking about the way we respond to stress? No anatomically and physiologically So the cave person or whoever was roaming around when they encountered the sabre-tooth tiger or we have someone who cuts us off in traffic it is the same mechanism in operation? That is the amazing part is that it is exactly the same mechanism. Even from a medical standpoint a lot of the time this is not taken into consideration.

It is not taken into consideration where someone is placed into this environment. If you think about it in the last 50,000 years what was the most dynamic period as far as changes in lifestyle and environment? If we isolate it, it is the last 100 years and really the last 50 years where our lifestyles have changed dramatically.

When you got up 50,000 years ago you did not stumble to the refrigerator and check out what you were going to have for breakfast. It was a matter of getting up and foraging for your food. The mechanisms especially the survival mechanisms that are in place were designed specifically to allow us when we came across an animal to become the aggressor or if the animal was the aggressor or if we came across another unfriendly human. It allowed us to flee from the situation. This is called the “fight flight ”mechanism or the adrenal response.

When we take into consideration that we have this very primal mechanism that is in place that would allow us to either run from an invader or an aggressor or attack that aggressor is still in place. We know when that adrenal response is felt and it is extremely observable it is a 3 alarm fire in the body. When that mechanism goes off in present day we are behind the wheel in our car and somebody cuts us off and we feel our hearts pounding and our visual acuity becomes heightened as well as our hearing and our other senses.

It is a mechanism that releases some very specific hormones and this is important to understand. There are two primary stress hormones that deal with survival. The first of which most people are acquainted with which is adrenaline. Actually chemically, it is known as epinephrine.Epinephrine works in conjunction with another hormone we are going to be talking a lot about and that is cortisol. Most people are familiar with cortisol by some of the other names it is referred to usually hydrocortisone. When we talk about this steroid cortisone, we are really talking about a hormone that the body produces on its own.

It works in conjunction with adrenaline in order to activate the cells that allow adrenaline to be effective. When we go back to that mechanism that “fight flight” mechanism and we are behind the wheel in our car what has just happened is a hormone has been released into the blood stream and it is activating all the survival mechanisms through out the body. It is really focusing on the area of the large muscles.

You have to consider this if we were strolling along 50,000 years ago and we came across an animal that decided to charge us or to attack us which part of the anatomy would be responsible to carry us away from the impending doom. That would be the areas of the large muscles. Energy is directed in this state of the “fight flight” mechanism to this area.

So you run, pound, or do what is necessary to protect yourself and when that danger is gone, do you go on your way and do other things? You have it! You are one who exercises so you are physically observant. Most of us are sedentary and because of that inactivity, that response in being observant of the damage that is taking place when this mechanism is abused is not really observed. In the car, you do not pull over, get out and run around the car in order to utilize this hormone.

Of all the hormones in the body, and again a hormone is a chemical messenger and it activates certain cells. Once it turns them on let, us say it goes to a certain tissue or system in the body and it flips a switch to activate that system. After it ’s achieved goal the idea would be to flip the switch off. That is why the counter mechanism to a hormone is called an emzyme.For all the hormones in the body there is a specific enzyme that once it has achieved the goal the enzyme turns it off.

The amazing part about adrenaline or epinephrine is the fact that there is no enzyme or switch to turn it off, as it is too important to survival. It continues to function even though it has achieved its goal behind the wheel of the car. It has already alerted you and you swerve to avoid the impending problem and the problem is over but to the body the problem goes on

Cortisol, which works in conjunction as I mentioned, works over an extended period. of time Adrenaline should only have an impact for a few minutes like four to five minutes. Cortisol has an extended impact and an interaction such as that possibility of getting into an accident causes a reaction in the body that actually takes about 6 hours to rebound.

When we look at it from that aspect many things, start in motion when we are put into a situation of being threatened Is there a residue of stress that stays around the system for a while, the adrenaline you mentioned, epinephrine and cortisol? Since we do not have just one stress episode during the day then we have all kinds of these stressors going around continually and it is going to be upsetting the hormone balance that should be there, correct? The amazing aspect is that stress is accumulative you know it is not how long you are on the planet its how much baggage you carry while you are here.

Stress is something that is measurable. Adrenaline is a hormone that has a crystalline structure in other words if you look at it under a microscope it looks like little razor blades. Adrenaline is not used physically, it has to go somewhere and it has an affinity for what are called receptor sites within the sonovial membranes. These are the small tissues between the joints and in a structure such as the fingers. It is usually determined to be arthritis when in actuality it is the abuse of the “fight flight” mechanism. Keeping that thought in mind that is one area where stress affects a certain physiology and a certain part of our anatomy. It causes pain and it is perpetually there.

Another area where stress has a major impact is in the conversion of other hormones for other purposes, for stress purposes. I will explain it simply. If we take into consideration that survival is at the top of the list as far as priorities in the body then we have to look at how the body is going to utilize all of the building materials that is required in order to make these chemical messengers .So when it comes to the production of hormones it is reliant on the amount of building material it only makes sense. So if the body is deficient or unable to produce enough hormones for all activity and for an abundance of stress then once this system over loads it will go into other systems that are not at the top of the list as far as priorities ,and borrow in order to maintain survival.

The person who is stressed continuously is called hyper vigilant or inescapable stress the inability to flick the switch and to go from being in that stress competitive mode into the relaxation mode and the repair mode. When that function is lost because of this inescapable stress, we start to have to rob other parts of the body in order to make the fuel and provide the building material that is necessary in order to maintain survival.

If we look at all the systems in the body, the circulatory system, the digestive system, the neurological system, the only system in the body that is expendable is the reproductive organ. You can remove a woman’s ovaries or a man’s testicles and they will live.You cannot take their heart, lungs, liver and kidneys without killing the person.

On the list of priorities, the reproductive system is something that is expendable, which means that that is the first place in the body where building material is going to be robbed for hormonal purposes. This is important because a woman under stress will take hormones that are designed for fertility and for sexual reproduction procreation and convert them for stress purposes. The most prevalent of which is seen is the conversion of progesterone for cortisol. What most physicians do not even understand is that these structures are so similar that is very easy for the body to convert these sex hormones for stress purposes. Estrogen, which is the primary female hormone with progesterone and testosterone that is the primary male hormone that is also present in a small quantity in females, is easily converted into stress hormones. Testosterone and estrogen convert to DHEA. Progesterone converts to cortisol.

What makes this important is that in many cases the reason that one’s fertility is in jeopardy or a woman can not become pregnant or she suffers from PMS.Or if she suffers from dysmenorrheal or the absence of a period all together. Painful periods or several periods in the same 28-day cycle. The reason that all these things happen is a shift in the relationship between estrogen and progesterone. Many times this shift takes place not because the body is unable to produce adequate levels of these hormones but because they are being converted and used inappropriately as stress hormones not as sex hormones.

Once you drain all the resources then what happens? Does the body just stop? If we were, an automobile that is exactly what would happen if we ran out of reserves. Unlike an automobile, the human body just cannibalizes other tissues in order to keep going. It is like burning up the engine as fuel eventually there is no engine left so the reserves run out and that is when you really run into problems. That is when a woman becomes infertile yet she appears to be healthy in all other aspects.

That is when a woman goes into menopause prematurely in her 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and early 60’s before she should actually go. In other words while there are still viable eggs or ovum. a woman should continue to be able to menstruate and continue to be fertile. If we take into consideration these dysfunctions and we will get into those areas as far as how this affects a man in the next hour it is amazing how the body is a master at juggling and borrowing from one aspect of the body in order to provide for something that is higher up in the hierarchy or priorities.

Did you mention that the highest priority is survival? Yes, the body has to be concerned with the here and now. When you are in this state of hypervigilance where you are constantly in this state of the “fight Flight” mechanism the body is only concerned with getting through today. I know that many of those that are listening have a physical attitude of if I can just get through today tomorrow is going to be hopefully better.

The body and every cell in the body stay because it is just trying to survive in this mode. Dr. Borkin you made a comment before that it is not how long you live but how much baggage you accumulate. You look at certain cultures or societies such as the Hunzas these are people that live to be typically a 120 or older. When you look at these civilizations of the documented life extension you realize the women there menstruate into their 90’s and it is not unheard of for a woman to become pregnant in her 80’s.

Although it is hard for us to understand this aspect there is a lot more to the presence of menstruation and the menstrual cycle in women and different mechanisms in men that control fertility that are directly associated with our biological goal. Even if a woman has stopped her reproductive years if you understand how to maintain a certain balance in the body through these hormonal substances then are you saying they are going to accumulate less baggage and have the prospect of living a longer healthier life?
One of the research studies that we are two years into actually has a group clinically of postmenopausal women who all have specific biomarkers such as blood and serum, urine and saliva analysis that all correlate to show that they are postmenopausal over a period of two months of hormonal therapy using natural hormones. We have been able to restart the cycle because they have viable eggs. But the body because of this tradeoff that we talked about before the fact that it just depleted the system, shut it down because it is expendable. What does a woman need a reproductive system for if she is not going to around nine months in order to carry an infant to term?

One of the things that we talked about before is that many of these problems start inutero. They start actually before birth. If a woman is undergoing great deal of stress during the pregnancy, can that affect her and her fetus? It has a tremendous impact. Most of us can blame our mother for the great majority of the hormonal problems that present. I will explain why. During the process of the development of a fetus as a baby is developing, by the second trimester the placenta, which is really the life support system for that developing fetus, is producing a hormone called progesterone.

Progesterone is a primary sexual hormone for a female. We have a tendency to give a single term to these hormones. If you think about it, and these hormones have many jobs as progesterone helps provide the environment necessary for the developing fetus. It becomes healthy and develops throughout that nine-month period. When a woman is in a state where she is overstressed she will take from the placenta the progesterone that is dedicated for the developing fetus and use it for her own purposes by converting it to a stress hormone called cortisol.

This puts a certain demand on the infant. It goes to another phase, by the third trimester around the beginning of the 7th month the fetus has developed to the point where its endocrine system is formed and it starts to produce stress hormones of its own. Therefore, since the baby is now producing stress hormones then why should the mother utilize something like progesterone when she can get the real thing, cortisol directly from the baby? She starts to rob from the baby a certain amount of its stress hormones.

By doing so it puts the baby under a certain amount of demands so its adrenal glands actually enlarge. If you keep this in mind, the analogy is to that of a ball of yarn, if you imagine that the adrenals look like a ball of yarn with long tubules. Inside these tubules are the structures that produce these stress hormones. When you are under stress, inescapable stress these tubules enlarge. When they enlarge, it causes the adrenal gland to get bigger.

Therefore, a baby’s adrenal gland as it is developing gets bigger and it produces enough stress hormones to sustain its own development as well as mama’s health and supplement her stress activity. The down side to this is one, that it hyper stimulates the infant throughout this process. In addition, once this baby is born as soon as the umbilical cord is cut it cuts the lifeline to mama. That hormone that was being directed to the maternal influence or to the mother has been cutoff abruptly and this leads to a postpartum depression.

The depression that is usually seen after a woman gives birth is one associated with this elimination of a lifeline of a supplementation or the equivalent of injecting a hormone into her blood stream. By interrupting that process, it puts her into a situation of deficit and it puts the baby in a situation of now being hyper stimulated producing a 100% more of the stress hormones than it needs for itself. It was producing 200%, enough for itself and enough for mama just prior.

The baby is now hyper stimulated. If certain other elements exist, it will perpetuate this hyper stimulation or inescapable stress we mentioned before through out ones lifetime and it recycles over and over again.  Is there some way out of this other than learning certain life style techniques as far as handling stress and the way we respond to it? What about supplementing with some of the hormones that are in short supply because of the stress like DHEA? Absolutely. It is a matter of prioritization in knowing what hormone to use and at what time.

I have a quick story to tell you about a very famous doctor who came from the orient who was touring the hospital and he saw a young girl in a coma. He asked about the girl and it turned out she had been a coma for several years. He walked over, examined her, and took her pulse. He reached over, he applied a finger to a specific accupoint, and instantaneously her eyes opened. She sat up and before you knew it, she was talking as if she had never been in the coma. A month goes by and the director of the hospital received a bill for $20,000 from this physician that came from the orient. He called him and says I cannot imagine how you could charge me so much for just pushing on one little area. He said to him you know I did not charge you for pushing on the area I charged you for knowing what area to push.

The point of the story is there is a certain prioritization when you approach a protocol like this to interrupt a cycle that has been continuing since birth. You have to know exactly what to do and at what time. Most people do the right things they just do them out of order. It is like baking a cake if you throw all the ingredients together you do not get the desired results unless you follow the instructions.

If you understand the proper sequence then can you get an idea as to how to start to repair some of this stress damage? Once the cycle is recognized, it gives you a place to go in that cycle to interrupt it and stop it from reoccurring. As I said, many of these things go back to birth. There are actually certain cycles that are put in motion at the time that we are born that continue and they only get worse over time.

When it comes to a female’s hormonal health, you start to see problems early on usually during puberty when a woman starts to menstruate. There is usually some indication of some deregulation that is occurring at that time. It is not until we are much older, you know when a woman enters that realm between the age of 35 and 50 that there is a certain vulnerability that exists. It is usually exacerbated by stress meaning problems that would not have affected her in her teens and 20’s all of a sudden begin to bother her.

Or just after the birth of the first child, problems that did not exist prior are all of a sudden becoming monumental, are easily observable, and only get worse as time goes on. The way to recognize these problems and how to read into this cycle was not possible only a few years ago. Technology has evolved so rapidly that we are at a unique place. Up until the last few years if you wanted to look at the hormone cortisol or epinephrine, those hormone involved in stress you would have to draw blood.

The problem with that is once you take a needle out and put it in someone’s arm, what is that going to do? It is going to create stress. The second aspect to that is in order to look at the dynamics of how someone deals with stress or to asses the accumulated amount of stress you have to look at a 24-hour cycle.

A woman has a 28-day menstrual cycle but also has a 24-hour circadian cycle that is a 24-hour day. There are certain activities that take place during that 24-hour period. If you want to look at how the organism deals with the environment and one responds to stress, we look at the 24-hour period, at different abnormalities during an average day. The idea is not to isolate somebody and to test through a 24-hour period. The idea is to do a test during someone’s normal day.

The only way to do that is through some user-friendly method. That method is the use of saliva or salivary collection in order to determine exactly the amount of hormonal activity. Is there some controversy as to whether this is accurate? There is some controversy as far as mainstream medicine is concerned and I educate physicians on a daily basis as far as the viability of saliva as a diagnostic fluid.

Recently the surgeon general of the US declared that saliva might turn out to be a better indicator of the homeostasis of the body than blood is. When you at saliva you are actually looking at tissue saturation or utilization of specific factors compared to the presence meaning if you have something in the blood stream does not necessarily equate to it being properly utilized at the site of the cell or the target tissue in which it was intended.

Just having something present, it is like having a bank account and not having access to it.  When it comes to hormones it is like having an IRA account where you have an asset but you don’t have free access to it. When you measure hormones, you measure total hormones and then you measure what is called free fraction. What the difference is, is the free fraction is the amount of the hormone that is going to be utilized. It is only a small fraction usually between 2 and 5% of the total volume, meaning that estrogen, progesterone and testosterone in many cases you produce adequate levels but it becomes bound in the blood stream and it is inaccessible.

Is a hormone more likely to be bound as the older you get? Not only is there an age variant but what we understand even better now is in the last few years the media has brought several hormones to the forefront like DHEA and melatonin. They have given the indication that these are age variant and when we get older, they decrease in production. That is not necessarily true. Pierre Pauley who is one of the eminent researchers in this specific area of research as far as steroid hormones are concerned dispelled it years ago.