From Burnout to Bioidentical Hormones: Rewriting Women’s Health

You are not gonna wanna miss this conversation that we had with my business partner and cofounder of Minerva, doctor Betty Murray, PhD MS, who is the CEO of Minerva Project, a femtech and virtual care platform providing perimenopause and menopause care with AI driven personalization using labs, wearables, and symptoms to create personalized treatment in all 50 states. Doctor Murray is a women's health researcher and nutritionist with over twenty two years of experience leading integrative medical teams. In 2006, doctor Murray founded LivingWell Dallas Functional Medicine Clinic, the first integrative functional medicine center in North Texas. Doctor Murray is a sought after speaker, author, appearing on on Fox News, NBC, and Bloom TV. She also hosts the Menopause Mastery Podcast. Stay tuned for doctor Betty. Welcome to the Power Up Your Life Podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. I'm Kelly Resendez.

And I'm Mandy McAllister.

And we have one of my favorite humans on with us, my business partner and cofounder of Minerva, doctor Betty Murray. How are you?

I'm fabulous today.

Awesome. Well, we are just grateful that you could spend some time with us today Mandy would love for you to share just a little bit about your background and what caused you to create Minerva.

Well, it really came out of Kelly two separate events. So I had kind of the storied reinvention career, so anybody that's worried about reinventing themselves, I've done that multiple times. But I was swept in the technology boom in the early nineties. And while I was working there as the first woman hired to answer to the CTO, working a hundred hours a week, getting paid half as much as my male counterparts, killing myself quite literally, I was diagnosed with colitis. And, Your know, I'd had digestive problems, but, you know, it really kind of flared up during that stressful time period. And I asked the doctor what I thought was a legitimate question. It could I change my diet and change the trajectory of this disease? Because, you know, you you go in Mandy all of a sudden you're gonna be on all these meds Mandy it's gonna suppress your immune system. And he literally leaned forward and barked this huge laugh in my face and says, it has nothing to do with what you eat. And I was like, well, that sounds like complete and utter crap. And so I went Women, and this is the stuff I read about, like, probably a lot of the people that listen to your podcast. So I went back and started taking classes in nutrition and biochemistry, and that's where things clicked. And so I ended up leaving the corporate world, starting a clinic, becoming one of the first integrative clinics in North Texas twenty two years ago. When I hit my forties, I had a tubal because I didn't wanna be on birth control anymore. And what I didn't realize then, you know, hindsight's wonderful, is that what it was gonna do was accelerate my trip into perimenopause and menopause. And pretty much overnight Women six months, I started getting massive amounts of acne. My hair starts falling out. My periods get all kinds of wonky, and and I gain about 35 pounds. Now mind you, I I had been a bodybuilder at one point in my life. I was in that community for years. I knew how to manipulate diet. Right? I'm a nutrition professional, and I could not, for the life of me, figure this out. And despite having medical professionals in my in my clinic that were functional medicine practitioners Mandy access to everybody you read about because they were friends, nobody for over a decade could help me. I ended up going back and getting a PhD because I was Life, I need to, like, dig into what is unique about women's hormones and how our body operates with them because so many women had similar experiences. And so Minerva was really born out of that pain. I was like, if it sucks for me for over a decade, what does it feel like for everybody else? And I already knew, but I was like, there's gotta be more than just one on one. We gotta do something where we really change women's paradigm.

Yeah. Wow. That's it's incredible story. I mean, so many of us learn through hardships. Right? And then we start to solve problems that, you know, come as a result of those. So, well, we have some exciting news. We've got two new things hitting the market with Minerva Mandy would love for you to share a little bit about about what those are.

Yeah. You know, I would say the first one is we are we are launching a book called Just Write, and it really is about reclaiming. Yes. We both have it on the gallery copies. Whoo. Your know? And it really is it's it's a quick read, so it's not one of those things, you know. I don't know about you, but I love to read, but I also find it hard to make it through a book with everything else competing. But it really is a way to take inventory of what's happening in your life, both physically, mentally, and emotionally, and spiritually, and to understand what's happening in your body's physiology Mandy to really start taking this proactive step. I know I'm kinda speaking for Kelly. I believe women in this time period, we have an extraordinary amount of agency, access, and assets, and we have to know how to put those things together to really create the life that we want, but we have to feel good in order to do that. So that book is designed for that. And then we are launching a a reinvention of our telemedicine in all 50 states, which is very exciting with new clinical partners and access to some very, wonderful bioidentical hormones in an organic, Up oil base. I'm really excited about this. This has been a long time coming Mandy a lot of work for a lot of people. Has been so fun to watch both of you dig into this thing that you're so passionate about. And I, having come from, you know, working

in medicine, you know, know that women's bodies weren't studied Kelly until the nineties. So what you guys are doing is revolutionary, not just for, you know, ladies of a certain age, but for for all generations to come. I'm I'm curious, you know, I I'm 45 Mandy, you know, we've had conversations about this Mandy things they are changing, Betty. You know? Who who is it that needs this service? Who who is someone

that needs to look into these bioidentical hormones or or this what you guys are launching here? Yeah. So it really it really goes into about, you know, three different time periods in your life. So the truth is is as early as your mid to late thirties, you can start experiencing hormone changes associated with the transition of fully cycling, everything's balanced to perimenopause to menopause. And so, you know, we know from recent studies that literally survey participants, like, a third of them were experiencing what we would consider perimenopausal symptoms, hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, insomnia. So so the reality is is even if you're, like, 35, 38 Mandy you're Life, I think something's getting weird, you know, and I don't know what's going on, you probably are in that transition phase. The average woman will spend eight years. That's a bell curve. So some of us get fourteen Mandy some of us get, like, three. Right? It's just kinda how it works. So so younger women who may be experiencing hormonal imbalance that leads to all kinds of symptoms, especially the women that are in your kind of forties range. This is where we know that the hormones are starting to Life. So progesterone declines, so you get insomnia and sleep issues. You get a little more anxious, a little more worked up. You probably don't get hot flashes yet. And in perimenopause, we usually get what looks like neurological symptoms, mood changes, depression, anxiety, memory problems, brain fog, extraordinary fatigue. That is a sign. Right? And then as you go into menopause where estrogen, I like to call it the bungee Your. Estrogen's all over the place. You start getting all these other symptoms. You might get, you know, vaginal dryness and pain on sex, joint pain, fatigue, all the other things add up to weight gain. And then at that point, often, people wait until they have their period stop before they get on hormones, and that's the last thing you wanna wait for. Because the reality is is you wanna start long before the period stop because the acceleration of bone loss, the the acceleration of cardiovascular aging, and changes in the brain start to occur years in advance. So for any woman in that time period at all, you have the right to ask about your hormones and explore them for you regardless of what age you really are because it's not a one size fits all.

Yeah. So powerful. You know, part of why we wrote Just Right is that we witness a lot of women that don't feel great in their bodies. They feel not enough. They feel too much. They don't feel just right. And we believe that this is critical to women Kelly just up leveling leadership, capital raising, other things. So share a little bit more about, like, the underlying reason why we're really why we're really doing this.

Yeah. You know, like I said, you know, there's 50,000,000 women in The United States that qualify as perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause. Six thousand a day go into menopause. And the truth is is our leadership, our decision making, the growth of companies depend on on women and men, but I would say women especially moving into these roles. And when your brain isn't working and you're having, you know, crime scene periods Mandy you break out in a hot flash every time you have to Mandy in front of a room, and then you get home and you're overwhelmed Mandy you're probably caring for children and, you know, an adult child that might be a partner and an another adult that might be an ailing parent, when all that occurs, women start to shrink. They go, okay. I can only take on so much. So I just am not gonna do that. And the first thing we do, we give up our dreams and our hopes and our desires for our careers for other people at our expense. Mandy corporate America, growth in The United States, and and I think in the planet pays for it pays for it because women perform fantastically. Women founded companies outperform male founded companies by '62 per but we can't do that if the time period that is so important to our careers, which is often in this second half, we can't get it together because we feel terrible.

Preach. I, I have, I this hits so hard and and speaks directly to me and I'm sure to so many of our listeners. So it matters so much to us on this podcast Mandy you you've been a guest before. So the these actionable steps. So talk to the woman who's maybe 45 with kids and parents and, you know, it has the brain fog. What what are the actionable steps that she should be taking? The Power Up Your Life podcast is powered by GoBundance Women. I could tell you stuff about it, or you could hear from some of our members. Here you go. GoBundance has connected me with an amazing group of entrepreneurial

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GoBundance gave me a boardroom of sisters who refused to let me settle. You know, within the first two months of me being a member, I enrolled someone to help them with their high ticket sales. I got double back my investment within the first, you know, sixty days of being a member. So it was it's incredible. You guys are just amazing, and there's always somebody to look up to in in, in GoBundance, so I love being a member.

That's why you owe it to yourself to check out Women. So talk to the woman who's maybe 45 with kids and parents and, you know, has the brain fog. What what are the actionable steps that she should be taking?

Yeah. So I would say the first thing you have to identify is the fact that you probably have an OBGYN that you have used for everything under the sun because that's kind of what we do as Women. And the first thing you wanna do is assess if they're possibly capable of helping you in this zone. Only one third of any OB gynecology medical school programs even have an hour of menopause training. So it is likely that who gave birth to your helped you birthing your children or took care of you for these ongoing years has zero capacity to actually treat the next thirty years of your life. Right? So so this is the time where you start getting your team. It's usually not one person. You're gonna want a somebody who is hormone educated, perimenopause Up menopause informed provider. And you may need a health coach Mandy you may need a nutritionist and even a trainer that understands our body works differently. The next thing is I think it's really important, especially if you're in your mid forties, to get some hormone testing and see kinda where you're at. Because the other side of it is we have a hormone symphony. So when your sex hormones, I like to call them the wind section. Right? So imagine we have a orchestra. When they're starting to go all over the place and play off key, it is likely that your percussion and your brass section and everybody else is going to shift to bring balance. Right? They want harmony. And so many women are struggling with excess cortisol, failing thyroid levels on top of sex hormone changes, and doctors will tell you three things. They'll say we can't test your hormones. They change every day, and we can't figure that out. Now I'm like, okay. We have, I don't know, Your rings that can determine where your sex hormones are and kinda where you are in your cycle. We have devices Life Miro that we can literally track at home. We have apps that, gosh, we've been able to figure out fertility using apps. Hello. And so the reality is is we can test hormones, and so you need full sex hormone panels, estrogen, you know, progesterone, testosterone, free in total. Estrone, we need your entire thyroid panel. Right? We need to know what they're doing. We need a complete metabolic panel and your cholesterol and lipids, hemoglobin a one c, because often at this time, we're also experiencing weight gain, and we'll see more insulin resistance, and your blood sugar often doesn't show that. So your doctor says, oh, your blood sugar's 95. You're Life, but what we don't know is what your insulin is. And so I think it's really important to get labs. And if you're still cycling, you wanna try and get them day 19 through 21 from the la first day of your last cycle. So if you start today and your period starts, that's day one, and you wanna count out about nineteen to twenty one days if you average, like, a twenty eight day ish cycle because that's when the hormones are peaking. And at that point, we can tell, are they are they in tandem with each other? Because that's where the problem comes in. It's not your absolute level of a particular hormone. It's their relative relationship to each other.

Yeah. And these are all things that most people just are not educated on. And unless you take the time to research it, you know, you just won't know how to feel just right. So, you know, I wanna dig into, like, what are some of the myths that, you know, are out there around hormone replacement therapy Mandy what's the truth?

Yeah. So the first myth, and this is a myth that we've been fighting for twenty two years, it's the myth that estrogen replacement therapy after pair in perimenopause and afterwards causes breast cancer. There are no studies prior to the Women's Health Initiative that was started in 1997 and ended in 2002 that has ever shown estrogen to be causal for breast cancer. And in fact, in their own study, the women that were on estrogen alone in the Women Health Initiative had a twenty six percent reduced risk of breast cancer compared to the women who were doing nothing at all. It was specifically one drug that we don't use anymore. It's called Trempro that has a synthetic medroxyprogesterone, which is not like our progesterone. And that drug increases the risk for breast cancer, increases the risk for stroke and heart attack, and shouldn't be used particularly in perimenopause and menopause. And here's the thing, like Life, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh. How can that be? We give out birth control and, you know, and and different forms of birth control Life candy with no regard, no testing, no nothing. You go in there Life, here, take a pill, bye, get out, which is a synthetic hormone that irreversibly binds to the receptor. That's how they work. Right? Our natural hormones don't do that. They kinda pop onto the receptor Life a Kelly, and they lock and unlock, and then they let go. We do that from 18 to somewhere near your fifties. And then all of a sudden, medical world, because of one study said, Your know, that's totally Life. But the day you turn 50 and your period stops, your hormones or any bioidentical hormones are now deadly. That defies logic, and it is not true. Our hormones, especially when they're bioidentical, which means they're chemically exactly like what they make, they protect us from osteoporosis. They protect us from vascular aging, heart attack, and stroke. They protect us from Alzheimer's and dementia, and they are also protective against breast cancer. And even Tamoxifen. Right? So Tamoxifen is one of the most classically used treatment, particularly in women who are not menopausal, to preserve bone post chemotherapy Up breast cancer. It is what we call a SERM, a selective estrogen receptor modulator. So it hangs on to a particular keyhole for estrogen. It is like a synthetic estrogen. And what it does biochemically in your body is it actually raises your own estrogen five times. Perfect. Yeah. Let that sit for a moment. Our treatment for estrogen sensitive breast cancer until the more recent chemotherapy was high dose estrogen. We have been told that for two decades. And so women have had stroke, heart attack, Alzheimer's, dementia, osteoporosis frailty, dying of urinary genital syndrome that becomes a urosepsis. Women are dying because of a lot.

Yeah. I I think it's such an interesting point that there's no testing that happens before you put, you know, even a kid on birth control pills. You know, I I'm someone who has a genetic, mutation that I had blood clots because of it. It's interesting that this care on this other side of life is not as, you know, allowed for. I'm curious, you talked about this being a, you know, a rebrand or a relaunch. How is this different, and how is this different? Because there there are, you know, maybe some other, groups out there. How how is Minerva different?

Yeah. We're different in a lot of ways. So let me kind of address the the relaunch. We have been working very diligently for the last year with a partnership to bring, you know, basically a bioidentical hormone, so, again, identical to what your body makes, in an organic jojoba oil base. So that means it has two ingredients. It's got hormone and organic jojoba oil. Jojoba oil is real important because it actually is a lot like your waxy oil that your skin produces. So it absorbs very rapidly and absorbs very well. Topical creams, with hormones Life testosterone and and compounded creams don't generally absorb very well. I was always frustrated with the fact that a lot of even the bioidentical forms of hormones were actually in endocrine, you know, disrupting chemicals. They've got solvents. They've got other things that are emulsifiers to keep it suspended in in a cream, and so we've been working very diligently to to bring that to the market on top of additional functional medicine training in hormone metabolism, which is where my PhD really resided. It was looking at not only how do we make sure our hormones are at the right levels in blood work, but also looking at how your body packages them to get rid of them, which is very important because that's more about how your body really responds to your hormones. And the other side of it, we we changed a little bit of how we work with people to be able to stabilize the prescription management. Right? So prescriptions, depending on where you are Mandy what state, one woman could go to CVS and get a patch, and it might be $30. Another woman, it might be $200. Another woman across the country, she can't even get it. And another woman will get it, and it'll be something else. So we've been able to negotiate a pass through for pharmaceuticals, and so it's part of how we work with people in our subscription model, which means that you're not finding out, oh, there's a patch deficient you know, there's patch out, you know, out of stock. Like, we have a patch out of stock that we anticipate will be at least sixteen more months. Right? So that means you're on a hormone, then you can't get it filled. So what it enabled us to do is be able to provide for our patients in a much more rapid way, a a hormone that is in an organic base Mandy also reduce some of that sort of, you know, financial burden where you don't know what it's gonna be each time because it's different. Because nothing by insurance.

And to expand on that a little bit, like, our appointments aren't a drive through. A lot of our competitors and there's no, you know, no judgment for the way that they do business, but there are competitors that are not even meeting with patients Mandy they're prescribing HRT. And then there's ones that are doing it in super quick Up. And, you know, it's important to us that women are heard and seen. And so these are gonna be, you know, the hour long appointment where you can really share everything that's really going on with you. So that is definitely one of our biggest differentiators alongside of having the nutritionist, the coach that's riding, you know, along this journey with you. So, you know, Betty, one of the things that, you know, we always like to ensure that our audience hears is, like, what is something unconventional that you've done in business? So, like, let's leave the medicine out of it. You know, like, what are some of your business strategies that maybe some people might think are a little unconventional?

You know, I don't know if I would call it unconventional, but, you know, I've owned a clinic for twenty two years. And when I started it, it was before the newsletter Mandy. It was Your social media. And, you know, I opened that on a whole lot of bravado and naivete. Let me be really honest. I was like, of course, this is what medicine should be. I had no idea there was no tribe. And I got I learned very quickly because I did not have a financial runway that I was gonna have to get crafty. Right? I was gonna have to get real crafty to build a tribe and educate. And so I built our business locally in the in the North Texas area through public speaking. Right? And I would say that a lot of people will look at starting a business, and the first thing they think about is, how do I get new leads Mandy how can I run ads on Instagram Mandy how can I just crank leads through the door? And what I can tell you is even the other people I know in this industry, the reality is is you are always stronger locally than you will be nationally. And that if you are starting a business, do not overlook your local community even if you can deliver anywhere. Right? Because you have a big community and a big relationship, and people will always do business with somebody they feel more connected to. And what better way to start out than to remember you have a local footprint, you have a local set of friends, you have a local, you know, multiple reaches that you have. And I think it's very easy to look at, I gotta do all these cold prospecting, which can become really expensive, and also Your never know when the algorithm's gonna change. Right? Your ads start working, then they stop working, that you never ever wanna give up some of those low hanging fruits that require a little bit of work on your part, but are probably higher ROI per person and per impact. And I think that's the thing that I find a lot of people struggle with because they're looking at the new fancy object. Oh, can I do AI ads? Oh, can I do this? And I'm like, don't don't forget to go speak somewhere Kelly, probably.

Right. I think that's the there's so much wisdom in that. Right? Like, going an inch wide and a mile deep. If if you reach some critical mass, you're gonna hit a tipping point McAllister, and then things can spread like wildfire nationally if you have it locally first. You know, Betty, I just I adore you in so many different directions that not the least of which is your, you know, your way of putting things into words, you know, your your crime scene period ideas that I'm just gonna giggle until later tonight about. But my favorite thing that I'm taking away from this conversation is that, you know, just that when we know better, we do better. Right? That we can either get pissed off at what has happened in medicine and what how women have been led astray in terms of hormones, or we can look to the future and and figure out the the next right step to, you know, getting out of brain fog, to to living a better life. Kelly, what was your favorite part of the conversation today?

Yeah. I mean, all of it. Can I say that? Like, because I believe as women, we are the most powerful force in the world. And that's not that's not putting our male counterparts down, but we do wear a lot of hats, and we can wear them simultaneously. You know, women in our feminine energy, just differ from men in in their masculine. And when you talk about just how important it is that women step into their power at this critical time in their life, like, it really is sending a message that we must educate ourselves and really just inform ourselves if this is the right path for us. So that definitely was my greatest takeaway.

One thing that we love to do is you've served Up, we want to serve you. What is an introduction or a resource that might change the ball game for you that Kelly and I might help with Your any of our listeners?

Well, you know, Kelly and I definitely want to meet Oprah. We want Oprah to have it on to talk about this book. I just manifested her saying that. You're manifesting Your being really interested. You know, I think, you know, for me personally, I love public speaking. Like, I a I have done comedy and improv, so anybody that's seen me speak knows that's true. So if anybody is like, gosh, I need somebody to come talk about women's health, I would love that. You know? I would love that. I'd I'd love to be on stage and share with us. Your an amazing entertainer as you do it. Yeah. And, you know, the one thing that I love too, Mandy, which I miss saying is she makes rage

seem like it's a really great thing. Like, a lot of times when you're, like, rageful, like, that is part of what got Minerva going. Right? And I think it's in a humorous way because it like you said, Mandy, we can't go backwards, and we can only move forward. So, you know, Betty, thank you so much for joining us today. If somebody's interested in finding out more about the hormones, where do they go?

Yeah. The easiest place to come check us out is gethormonesnow.com. Real easy to remember. What do you need? Gethormonesnow.com.

Yay. And you can find just right on Amazon coming out here pretty soon. So thank you so much for joining us. If this was a powerful conversation, make sure that you share it with your friends. We all need to educate each other on this important mission in empowering Women, and we will see you on the next episode of Power Up Your Life. Thanks for joining us today on the Power Up Your Life podcast.

If you got value from today's episode, make sure that you like and subscribe and send this episode to someone who needs to hear some wins like this. If you need to power up your business, head over to Power Up Your Life Now, where you can see all of the resources that our team has to power up your business. We'll see you on the next episode.