Opening And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Hormone B-Rose, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bioidentical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Hopkins, and I have been in the functional medicine space for over 30 years, with a focus on hormones for 20 years. Please keep in mind this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult with your physician or practitioner for medical advice. Let's get started with today's guest. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

Alicia’s Early Hormone Struggles

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Today I'm very excited to introduce you guys to Dr. Alicia Newsome. She is the owner and founder of Body Wellness Institute. And she is an author. She has written two books called Manifesting Her and World's Greatest Speakers. And she also has her own supplement line called Root Care Supplements. And she provides a certification course for other practitioners called Hormones and Lifestyle. And uh she's just an all-around amazing woman. She is the mother of three children, and she lives with her husband and family in Phoenix, Arizona. So welcome, Alicia.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Welcome. Thank you so much for having me here today, Dr. Kelly. Yes. Did I mention the podcast that you have?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

The whole podcast is the whole and complete woman. Yes, I didn't want to miss that. Oh, good. So we are thrilled to have you on ours today. And just kind of walk us through your own personal hormone journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So for me, I feel like I've kind of had like multiple seasons of my life where I've dealt with hormone issues. It started when I was younger. I used to have really heavy, painful cycles. I used to have really bad acne. And back then it was just like birth control, acutane, antibiotics, all of those different types of things. And those are all the things my mom did with me as a teenager. And as I got older, then I started getting really fatigued. Like in college, you could see me when I was even getting these things checked out. I would go to the doctor's office and I'd have a friend. She'd come with me and I'd fall asleep, like in the office. I was exhausted all the time. And they diagnosed me with depression, fibromyalgia, all the things, right? And I ended up later on, like just kind of like pushed through school, continued on with my education, became a doctor. There were things that really helped me here and there, you know. It was never again as bad as it was where I was just falling asleep all the time. But I hit a point in life where I was going through a divorce, leaving a very volatile marriage, and that exhaustion, I had just lived with it for so long. I ended up meeting a functional medicine doctor and found out, you know, what was going on with my body, ran specific testing. And really, I went from being a person that was asleep on the couch all the time with little toddlers to someone that's like full of energy. I was able to lose weight. I used to have all these aches and pains in my body, and all of those things went away once I really got to the root cause of what I was dealing with with my health. So that's kind of my journey into functional medicine. It was a little bumpy in the beginning, but sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

There's nothing like going through something yourself to ignite a passion because once you have it figured out, you're just so ready and willing to help others. So were you as a teenager? Did you mention before when we had our conversation that you had PCOS?

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yes. It was like all of it, you know. But I I also feel like

Discovering Adrenals, Stress, And Root Causes

SPEAKER_00 3:58

looking back and then seeing what young women are dealing with today, it's it's still all of those issues that a lot of times like just band-aids are being put on.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Right. So do you feel like sharing what sort of testing the functional medicine doctor put you through and some remedies that you guys came up with?

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yes. So one of the things that the functional medicine doctor really focused on was what was going on with my adrenals, which are basically they produce cortisol, your stress hormones. And when you think about it, and when you also think about hormones in general, when we're our body is stressed out, it interprets that as if like a bear was coming after us. Okay. So in back in the day, I don't want to say ancient times, but a long time ago, in the way our bodies are designed, we were only designed to deal with stress short term. Okay. So bears coming after us, and we're gonna like fight that bear or we're gonna run away. Either way, the stressor's eliminated and our body goes back into this rest and digest state, okay? Like calm and peace. We're not constantly stressed out. And when our body is constantly stressed out like that, it affects our hormones. Think about it. Even if you're not in a place where you're wanting to make any babies, the last thing that if you had a bear running after you, your body would say, now's a great time to make a baby, right? Right. Thinking those things, right? It's also not focused on digestion and all of those different types of things. So one thing that he really focused on was my adrenals, which was a game changer for me. So in my practice today, stress hormones are a big part of that with testing to see what's going on with that, but then also looking to see what's going on with gut. And then also toxins are a big thing as well, too. So some people are dealing with mold illness, there may be environmental toxins, heavy metals, and the body still interprets those things as stressors. So, although it may not be mental emotional stress that we often think of when we think of stress, our body could be stressed from toxins, it could be stress from lack of nutrients, not enough protein, not enough sleep. All of those different types of things are stressors on the body. So I always feel like I've got the core of like really addressing stress, but addressing it in multiple areas.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Sure. And I think that was a really good point to make that stress is not just relational or job. It has so much to do with toxins we're putting in our bodies in the form of foods. We can have food sensitivities we don't know we have, just all that specific testing you mentioned, like heavy metals, all the junk they put in our foods, you know, all these things provide such stress. Okay, so he addressed your, he or she, I'm sorry, your your doctor addressed your adrenals. And then how did you guys proceed from there?

SPEAKER_00 6:55

The adrenals, me just addressing that was such a big jump for me. Like I was like, I've never really felt this way in my life, you know. At that point, I mean, I had spent the last 15 years just always feeling tired since I was a teenager. Like that was normal for me to just be tired all the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

So that was a big jump for me. And then from there, I started kind of going into my own journey and studying and learning and wanting to know everything about functional medicine in the body. And that's when I started doing more other areas, toxins and my gut, food sensitivities, like you mentioned.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So back when you were having PCOS, were your menstrual cycles just outrageous, heavy? You couldn't really keep track of when they would come, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

You know, my I remember one time I had a good friend that I grew up with, and we were talking about like fertility and all of these things. And I showed her like the app, like my cycles, and she was like, Your cycles are irregular. And I was like, No, they're not. Like they always come every, but there was like big gaps in time in the amount of time. Like some months it would be like 42 days, some months it would be, you know, 31 days. Like they were big, but in my mind, I kind of knew it's coming, like it comes every month, right? But I also had very painful, heavy periods where I would just bleed and bleed and bleed every month. And I didn't really look at that as being abnormal too. I think these are really important conversations for women to have. And that actually

PCOS, Heavy Periods, And Toxins

SPEAKER_00 8:35

happened later, even though the first doctor had helped me with like energy and all of those different things. I still continued having the heavy cycles. I don't even think it was a it's something in my mind. It was it was your normal. My normal, exactly. And believe it or not, really addressing toxins, which was actually kind of surprising to me when I was doing these things with my body, how much that impacted my menstrual cycles. They got so light that I started thinking I was going through early menopause. I was like, my period at, you know, like they're just a few days long, and I'm not having to change my pad every hour or two. Plus, we're a tampon. So now basically they're just what would be a healthy normal. I hate saying normal because that's sure normal's not normal. But that was a big thing. And then also my blood sugar as well was a big proponent of just even my overall health, cardiovascular, mood, energy. Blood sugar is very, very important there as well.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Sure. Insulin resistance is a huge piece of PCOS and just lifelong metabolic disease. It causes so many problems. So after you kind of got yourself figured out and all straightened up and that ignited a whole new passion in you towards functional medicine, just walk us through how you started your practice and kind of an overview of your practice.

Career Pivot And Research Years

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Okay. So when I first met with the doctor that helped me, I was in private practice at that time, but I wasn't practicing and using functional medicine. And I also was like, I don't even know how to like integrate this into my practice, right? Because in functional medicine, there's a lot of time that we spend with patients. I mean, there even consultations often are 90 minutes long, you know, and the visits were very integrated into someone's life and understanding all the different aspects. And then also I was going through the divorce at that time, and I took a pivot in my career and what I was doing. And I started working in pharmaceutical research, which I really I'm a research girl. Like I love data. I love read, that's why I love labs and you know, all those things. I love it. And I worked many, many years on endometriosis, fibroids, and cancer trials, and then ultimately infectious disease. So I was working there, and it for me it was kind of like a very, you know, when you get divorced, it's like a new life that I was living, right? And I was a single mom, but my career allowed, I traveled a lot every week for it, but it allowed me when I was home to be very present with my kids. So it worked very well for me. And I ended up getting remarried and all those things, like life just coming together. And then I ended up having a miscarriage, and I already had two little ones, and it was very unexpected for me. Like I did not expect this, and I ended up passing everything at 17 weeks, having that miscarriage. Thank you. Thank you. They are tough, you know. And I also believe that there's always lessons and everything. So for me, I had hit this, I was working on very high profile trials, like doing all this very important work, but it wasn't what I love, right? Always on the side, I'm like studying, you know, learning, understanding health and functional medicine and all those things. And I had always told myself, well, once I get to this place, I'm gonna go back and do functional medicine. Like that was always my thing. But I didn't, I didn't stop. It was almost like I was in kind of survival mode from

Miscarriage, Purpose, And Launching A Practice

SPEAKER_00 12:25

leaving our marriage, and I just kept, I was remarried, and my husband's like, why you don't have to work this much, you know? Like I get these different contracts. And that really hit me in a different kind of way when the miscarriage happened. And it just really caused me to pause. I'm the type of person that I give a six-week notice, cross all my T's, dot all my I's, train the next person. And I made sure everything was wrapped up, but I left and I was like, okay, what do I really want to be doing? That was, and this was back in 2021. It was during COVID, and I was like, I started looking and I was like, oh, these other doctors are doing functional medicine. Like, how are they doing this? And I ended up hiring a coach, and then I launched my practice and it took off, and I focused on hormones because my own personal issues. And then also I had this entire other career from a pharmaceutical standpoint and endometriosis and fibroids and women's health. So it was just perfect. And I launched that practice, and I'm completely virtual. So we work with people all over the country and even all over the world, too. We're able to get labs to them if supplements are included with what they need. We're able to get them to most countries without any issues.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

That's fantastic. While we're mentioning that, what is your website? How do people find you?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Dr Alicia Newsome.com. So everything's my name, just dralisia newsome.com.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Okay, perfect. And that will also be in all the show notes as well. So we would love to have the world reach out to Dr. Newsome and get the help you need. So you mentioned testing. What sort of testing do you like to do?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

So I, of course, I like doing hormone testing. I typically use the Dutch test to test hormones. You're looking at hormones differently than you do in the blood. You're looking at it in the urine and saliva, which gives us a different picture of what's going on with your hormones. If you're still cycling or if you have had

Virtual Care And How To Work With Alicia

SPEAKER_00 14:32

a hysterectomy but still have ovaries, then I typically do something called cycle mapping. And that's where we're able to see what's going on with estrogen and progesterone throughout the month. So when you think about it, even with a blood draw, even with urines, you know, looking at it in urine, if you're just looking at it that one day, that's the information you have for that day. So I love cycle mapping because we can get that picture of what's going on that entire month. So that's one of my go-to's. I love looking at what's going on with the gut to see how you're digesting your food, how you're absorbing your food, are there any pathogens there, leaky gut, all of those different types of things, inflammation in the gut. And then I do do a functional blood work workup on people as well, too, which includes all your normal CBC and CMP, but we look at a lot of inflammatory markers. When we're looking at cholesterol, we're looking at lipoproteins as well that let us know like your LDLs may be high, but then there's ones that are more dangerous. So we're able to look deeper into that. We look at leptin, which is a hormone that's produced by your fat cells that tell you whether to store fat or to release fat. So there's just more that I look at in the blood. And then other ones, depending on what people need, because I do a very extensive

Favorite Labs: DUTCH, Gut, Blood

SPEAKER_00 15:50

intake with people. So it's probably they're like, my doctor doesn't normally ask me all these questions, but it's looking at their lifestyle. Then I have several questionnaires that let me know about toxins and neurotoxins. Like you can't test toxins if they're crossing your blood-brain barrier, but there's lots of symptoms that repeatedly show up in people when they have these issues. So I have those assessments that guide me as well for someone's case history. But to answer your question about lab testing, we'll look at heavy metals, environmental toxins, mycotoxins, food sensitivities. And then I've got this really fun test that I've been doing more and more over the last year or so. And this test is a metabolic test. And what this lab does, it's scientists in this lab, and they have like all the body of research, and they look at it, it was 126, now it's 298 different markers. Wow. And what they do is once your results are in, they create a digital twin of you. So they have your biological profile, and then what they do with that digital twin is it gives them the interventions, a thousand different interventions, and then test it a thousand different ways. So let's say you may need magnesium. Okay, but what type of magnesium? What time of day should she have magnesium? What's the dosage of magnesium? So it does all of this, and then also how do they interact with each other as well, too? So that's been a very that's a newer test that I've been using, but every person that I have used it on, it's been a game changer.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Do you care if you share the name of that test?

SPEAKER_00 17:29

It's called Ethereum, it's called the Aristotle Test.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Aristotle test, okay. I'm going to research that. Oh, it sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

I love that test.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

And is Ethereum the the laboratory company? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yes. I have a client that she ordered labs from me years ago, and then kind of just, you know, kept contacting her, but she just has a very busy life and she didn't get the labs done. So by this point, now we've got a thing with like labs, you know, lab kids expire, all of these different types of things. So I was like, let's trade that out and let's do this other newer test, you know, like, will you do this with me? And she's like, yes, let's do it. So she suffered from fibroids, and her periods were nine

The Aristotle Metabolic Test

SPEAKER_00 18:22

days long, heavy, bent over, like not able to function every month for this big period of time when you think about it, like a third of her month every month is this way. Moody, tired, all the things. We did this test. So then it gives you a protocol within this test as well, too. So, and then what I do with that protocol is I create a custom formula. So instead of having to take like a bottle of this or a bottle of this, like even my supplements, you know. Uh-huh. I'm able to create a custom blend for women where everything they need is in this one bottle. They may have a morning formulation and an evening, and there may be things like in her instance, evening primrose was one of the things. So we didn't put that in, right? It's a liquid. Uh-huh. But it makes it easier. You may have to take eight of them, but everything's all together.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

To simplify things like that is so nice for patients.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Oh, I love it. So we did all of that work with her, and then her following month, her periods. I mean, her they were light again. Now they've only, and she's been doing her protocol for almost six months now. They're only like four days long, they're light. She doesn't have any cramping. That is a life-changing thing for women that are struggling with different hormonal imbalances to be able to have that. And it's just repeatedly with this test. So I above all my other tests that I've always done for so many years, but this one is starting to take the it's so sophisticated and it offers such great information.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

Is it blood test or is it a finger prick? Finger. Wow. They get all that off a finger prick. Wow. Uh, just in case the listener doesn't know. The gut testing is that done with stool or blood or both?

SPEAKER_00 20:12

It's stool, but the kit comes with some gloves and the you know, it's kind of like a little fork type thing. Right. Yes. Yes, yeah. Everyone survives doing it.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

And the beauty of it, especially with the way you practice, all these test kits can be done in someone's home. Yes. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

Yes. And if we do draw blood, typically, depending on the area someone's in, we just send someone to their house to have their blood drawn too. So we'll find a mobile phlebotomist that will go, it makes it so much more convenient for oh, yeah, that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

So let's just take a patient that let's say a woman in her 50s, she's got a high stress job, she's going through perimenopause or menopause.

Custom Protocols And A Fibroid Case Win

SPEAKER_01 21:05

She's headed real quick towards menopause. I think a lot of our listeners are part of that demographic. What would your approach be to helping that lady?

SPEAKER_00 21:16

So, first, what we would do is we would do a very thorough intake. So we're gonna look at, you know, what's going on in your life, previous health history, you know, what it medications you're taking, what supplements you're taking, take them through all of my full assessments. And then we may do some testing. I'm I'm a big advocate, as you see, when I talk about lab testing, you know, we're gonna test, not guess. You know, we don't want to just be throwing things at the walls trying to fix things. But there are some things that become universal for women, especially as you're entering menopause. We talked a little bit about blood sugar regulation. That's really important. So starting your morning with what I call a savory breakfast. So that is something that is. Full of protein, you know, about 35 grams of protein plus some good fats, right? You know, you could do some kind of eggs and breakfast meat and avocado. You could throw in some complex carbs with that as well, but you've got to get protein in first thing in the morning. Okay. It's very important. It's very important as we age too that we're not losing muscle mass. So I also just recommend protein in general. And there's lots of controversy around how much protein. And I know with the new guidelines, they just changed, but a good safe one is one gram of protein per ideal body weight. Now I have some clients, their ideal body weight may just be like 170 pounds, right? And I've got some that are like, I want to be 120 pounds, right? For someone that's has an ideal weight of 170 pounds, don't eat 170 grams of protein, you know. I think 120, you know, to 140, that's good. You know, you've you've got plenty in there. But about 35 to 40 grams of protein per mil each day with some snacks, we'll get

Home Testing And Convenience

SPEAKER_00 23:05

that in. Very big. Sleep is the most underrated medicine for us. You know, it is when our body detoxes naturally, when our brain detoxes. It is so needed in those circadian rhythms as well, too. Very important. I do do a lot of work around stress resiliency as well, too. And women also, when I was growing up, you know, emotions and all of those things were things to be not heard or seen, you know? Right. So a lot of my work comes from that experience, but also women learning and being able to be with the emotions that come up with them. And I'm a big advocate of stress resiliency. So life is going to life. There's going to be stressful things that happen at work in our relationships with our children, all of those things. But what we want to do is we want to open up basically our window of stress resiliency. I think of it as somebody going whitewater rafting, which I've I'm too scared to do. I've done it before. I don't have to do that again. But going down a

Helping Stressed Perimenopausal Women

SPEAKER_00 24:10

river and like imagine you're just hitting the walls, right? Like that's a small zone of stress resiliency. What we want to do is we want to widen that. So when life is still happening, our bodies aren't in this fight or flight state. Like that bear's coming after us. That's a big proponent of my work, which is very important for women and then women, especially moving into menopause and all of those different types of things. Because that's taxing on the body. We don't need any extra additional stress there. And then I did talk about blood sugar. Those are the biggest things that I would say just like try to get those things in. It will make a big, big difference.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Sure. And I love the fact that you address and validate a woman's stress level and her ability to handle stress. I think too many times, you know, we'll see patients that come in and they're like electrocuted cats just because they don't have the reserve of female hormones or adrenal hormones to manage what's going on. So it doesn't take much to send them over the edge.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

And that's the thing. As someone's moving through perimenopause and then into menopause, those hormones are going down. Progesterone's going down. That's so important for GABA. You know, all of that progesterone itself is that feel-good hormone, like your body's own natural volume to just relax. It's the chill pill. Right. And estrogen's going down as well after that. But typically, our adrenals pick up after that. They still produce those hormones, which all of us have lives that have been severely taxed with stress. The adrenals are like, I can barely give you cortisol, let alone some progesterone and some estrogen and those types of things. That's right. That's addressing stress. And I know it just, you know, it sounds almost impossible to address stress, you know, but it's really that window that we're wanting for your body to be able to handle it. And what comes up for us, you know, when when we're stressed, a lot of times we have automatic defaults, you know, and I teach four different ones that we have, but a lot of times we'll default to like, I'm not enough, or there's not enough, or I'm alone, you know, no one ever helps me, you know, or I'm bad. You know, there's all of these things that we and everyone tends to have like a core one, or I'm not safe. That's a very big one. And that just keeps us, you know, all riled up inside. So it's really being able to understand what's coming up and be there compassionate with ourselves, but heal those parts of ourselves at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

That's amazing. And that's beautiful. I want to talk a little bit about, will you tell us a little bit about your book, Manifesting Her? It's a series of stories, correct?

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yes. So manifesting her, I co-authored that book with several other authors, and there are short stories in there from each author that were just there to inspire women to really be able to step into their dreams

Protein, Sleep, And Stress Resilience

SPEAKER_00 27:15

to manifest her. You know, that the her is like who are we becoming? So it's a book that is a compilation of several women and their stories to encourage other women.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

That's awesome. And then world's greatest speakers.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

World's greatest speaker is another compilation. And that one's for people that are seeking speaking careers and their stories from people who are speakers who have overcome different things within their lives. So for me in that story, I talk about being in the seventh grade, and I remember walking into my math class, and I go in and I was like, I was going to school and the county over. There was lots of different demographic social issues. I really stood out. I was not in my space at all. So I already felt like the outcast. And I went into class, I just went and sat down in my seat. And then there was this boy about two rows behind me and to the left. And his name was Matthew Thomas, and all the loved him. And he was like, Hey, Alicia. And I like turned around, like, and he was like, Do you want to go out with me? And I was just kind of shocked. Like, no one had even ever asked me to, you know, have any interest in me. And then he just started laughing and was like, I'd never go out with you. And all the kids around laughed. But I realized, you know, I had kind of created a life in a way where I was like blocking people out, you know, or in men, you know, like if men seemed powerful or like I never wanted to be dominated by them. So there's just different things I teach this in my work, but that's what my story is about in that book and overcoming that and you know, speaking and doing those things.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Wow. The weapon inspiration. I'm sure that will resonate with someone for sure. Okay. Well, just one more time, dr Alicia Newsom.com and is it bodywellnessinstitute.com. Either of those websites will direct you to Dr. Alicia. And you are booked. I saw four to six weeks out. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. There might be something that pops up here and there a little sooner, but and on your supplement line, are those available? Do you have to become a patient to be able to order those?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

When you go to my website, there is a link on there. Maybe it says wellness store, and you can go in there and click to go to the supplements, or you can just go to rootcaresupplements.com.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Okay. And I looked through those and you've got a very massive list of supplements that are amazing. You are a hormone hero. And is there anything, any leaving thoughts you'd like to give our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I feel like

Adrenals In Menopause And Emotional Defaults

SPEAKER_00 30:10

in this point in my life and the work that I do with women, I just want to remind you that you're worthy. You know, you're worthy to be healthy, you're worthy to be loved, you are enough. And that with our health and us having those different types of things, we're really able to walk in our power and our purpose in life and our relationships and all of that. And you are so worthy of having a very full life.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

That's beautiful. Very beautifully said. Thank you, Dr. Alicia Newsom. I appreciate your time today. And I will encourage all of our listeners to reach out to Dr. Alicia and pass the word along that she's available to people worldwide. One more question. Do you treat men at all?

SPEAKER_00 30:53

I do. Typically, it's when someone's husband needs some help. Sure. Typically through that way, or someone's brother and things like that. And oftentimes what I find with men too is they're a little apprehensive about going to the doctor in the first place, you know? So some wives will just order the lab work for their husbands and then have them do it. And then when we review the lab work, that's the wake-up call that they need to make changes in their life, which is usually very beneficial for everyone involved.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Yes. Usually the female is the gatekeeper where that's concerned. Okay. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Thank you for having me. And thank you for what you're doing with Hormones and Hormone Hero and spreading the word and getting good information out to women. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes. Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. While you are there, help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. If you would like to share your bioidentical hormone story or need help finding a physician in your area, please email us at drkelly at hormoneheroes.org. That's D R K E L L Y at H O R M O N E H E R O E S dot org. We want you to be a hormone hero.