Men's testosterone levels drop as they age, causing a variety of poor health conditions.

Episode 63 of the BioBalance Healthcast features a conversation between Dr. Maupin and Brett Newcomb on issues related to and the treatment of low testosterone levels in men.

View the video version of this podcast at Dr. Maupin's blog.

Qualified Anti-aging Doctors and Safe Compounding Pharmacies 

Episode 62 of the BioBalance Healthcast is a continuation of a discussion started in the previous podcast based on an article published on the CNN Health website on Wednesday December 28, 2011 titled The risks of anti-aging medicine.

The article alleges that anti-aging doctors are not as well trained as other specialist. Dr. Maupin disputes this saying many anti-aging doctors are very well trained and qualified to do what they do. Anti-aging medicine includes medical advancements that make it possible for us to live longer lives, allowing us to enjoy better health and mobility in our later years, instead of being stuck in a nursing home for 20-30 years.

In regards to Dr. Thomas Pearl’s comment on anti aging doctors, it’s important to understand that this physician is treating geriatric patients. Dr. Maupin does not suggest that hormone treatment therapy be given necessarily to this demographic. At that point patients may be too old for the therapy to make a difference. But patients that are menopausal or pre-menopausal can be helped by HRT. By offering this therapy doctors can prevent many diseases that are secondary to the loss of hormones. Diseases can be offset for 10-20 years with HRT.

HRT is a treatment for a syndrome, not symptoms, and often save money and time. Chelation therapy for heavy metal toxicity is not done by BioBalance Health. Chelation has risks of renal and liver problems. There are alternative supplements to rid patient of heavy metals. Baby boomers have higher chance of heavy metal toxicity due to lead, mercury, and other harmful substances in food and the environment.

Compounding pharmacies used to be popular 70 years ago before drugs were made by pharmaceutical companies. Current compounding pharmacists have the ability to compound drugs prescribed by a physician. Dr. Maupin supervises the use of compounding pharmacies for her patients. Her estradiol and testosterone pellets are made at a compounding pharmacy that is reputable and trusted. If your physician writes a prescription for a drug and sends you to a compounding pharmacy, be certain he/she has a relationship with the pharmacy they use. The FDA does oversee compounding pharmacies.

The article sites information based on the Women’s Health Initiative study which since released has been discredited. Dr. Goldstein is using a bad argument, a bad study, bad information and miss-representing the use of bioidentical hormone therapy.

Finally, Dr. Maupin discusses the term “the standard of care.” This term means the least amount of medical treatment that is acceptable by a physician. It’s the lowest standard of care you can give and not get sued.

It's important to understand the prescribed treatments you are given.

CNN Health, Wednesday December 28, 2011

Winter weather leads to dry skin. Dr. Maupin offers advice for taking care of face and body.

Episode 60 of the BioBalance Health features a look at how to treat dry skin. Dr. Maupin created a her own botanical skin care products that includes a line specifically for dry skin. The are available for purchase at biobalanceskin.com.

Dry air can effect anyone’s skin. For men and women, it is important to have a cleansing routine for your face and body. A nightly routine is not just about removing makeup. It’s about keeping your skin healthy.

Start your routine by washing with a cream-based wash. Using an alcohol based wash during the cold months will speed up the drying of skin. After you’ve washed your face, apply a toner to open pores and clean off all dead skin. Wiping with a toner will remove what your wash left behind and prepare your face for moisturizer. Moisturizer is meant to put a mask over the skin so all of the moisture produced in your face is held in while you sleep. Dehydration leads to dry skin regardless of the amount of moisturizer used.

For your eye’s, you first need to use an eye makeup remover. BioBalance Health has one with the same PH as tears and is therefore hypoallergenic. You then need to use a product that contains vitamin K to lighten dark circles and arnica to stop puffiness. The gel dries but does not dehydrate under the eyes. It moves fluid located beneath the skin’s survace and mobilizes it.

These products are not just for women and they’re not just used to make you look better. They are for overall healthiness of the skin on your face. For men, shaving exfoliates and aftershave acts as a toner, so some products for men are already doing the job.

Vitamin C serum is to be used for brown spots and dry dull skin, and is applied after toner but before moisturizer. Then, the moisturizer holds this in on your skin and heals overnight.

Smoking keeps oxygen from getting to your skin which leads to wrinkles and bad skin. It keeps you from healing quickly and from losing dead skin. Most smokers have bad lines over lips and deep wrinkles. Washing your body removes the essential oils that keep your body naturally moisturized. You can apply a body conditioner to keep in oil but still rid the body of dead skin.

10 million people in the US suffer with Osteoporosis, 8 million of them are women!

Episode 59 of the BioBalance Healthcast features a look at osteopenia and osteoporosis.

What is Osteoporosis?

• Thinning of bone density over time
• Measure bone density against a standard for 29 year old female averages
• Use of the bell curve as a statistical tool
• If you are more than 1 up to 2.5 SD out from average you have osteopenia
• Greater than 2.5 you have osteoporosis

Improving Bone Density

• Testosterone
• Estrogen
• Vitamin D
• Weight Bearing Exercise
• Calcium in the diet

How Do Bones Become Less Dense?

• It is normally a slow progressive change in bone thickness that begins in women before menopause and continues after menopause at the rate of 1% of your bone per year

Why Do We Get Osteoporosis?

• Aging leads to loss of estrogen and testosterone
• Sedentary Life Style
• Poor Diet
• Genetic Predisposition

Osteoporosis and Marketing

• Before the advent of a drug to "cure" osteoporosis, doctors rarely diagnosed the problem
• A new wonder drug was developed to fight osteoporosis called Fosamax
• This drug allowed us to focus on treatment rather than avoidance

How to avoid osteoporosis

• Be Male: The key hormones involved are testosterone and estradiol, but it is interesting that men rarely get the disease unless they are on steroids for asthma or another disease
• Replace estrogen and testosterone naturally
• Get the best out of your genetic potential

Why is treatment or avoidance so important?

• Osteoporosis leads to disability, poor posture, chronic pain, broken hips and crushed vertebrae

Other contributors to thin bones

• There are lifestyle choices and medical treatments that also increase our risk of thin bones
• Smoking, avoidance of milk in our diet, lack of sunshine and a sedentary lifestyle
• Amphetamine use, Lupron treatment for Endometriosis, corticosteroid use
• Some illnesses like removal of our ovaries, anorexia, or premature menopause can also cause osteoporosis

Do osteoporosis drugs really work?

• Recent studies on bisphosphonates showed that this class of drug that made bones “look” thick on bone density testing. Studies proved that bones were actually fragile and easily fractured.

I do not recommend the class of drug that includes, Fosamax, Actonel, and Boniva to my patients until further study answers the question.

What to do instead

• Bones are responsive to estrogen and testosterone. With these hormones and an adequate diet, you can protect your bones and yourself from disability and pain, and life threatening fractures.

The success rate for treatment of women with chronic fatigue with bioidentical hormone pellets is seventy percent

Episode 58 of the BioBalance Healthcast is a look at chronic fatigue in women caused by low testosterone.

The three symptoms associated with Chronic Fatigue:

• Severe fatigue following a flu-like illness. Abrupt onset of fatigue after the viral infection
• Exhaustion after any exertion or exercise
• Night Sweats occur in 50% of patients with chronic fatigue

What is the source of the problem?

• Immune System Dysfunction
• Low Cortisol, Low ACTH
• Low Testosterone

Diagnostic Tests: Blood work is essential for evaluation:

• CBC (blood count)
• Thyroid Panel
• ANA,
• Ebstein Barr Virus  blood test
• 8 AM Cortisol level and ACTH level
• Testosterone levels
• Growth Hormone levels

If you have been told that you have Chronic Fatigue 

• If traditional Medical therapy has not worked for you
• BioBalance Health Testosterone therapy improves the immune system, therefore improves many symptoms of Chronic Fatigue.

Chronic Fatigue & BioBalance Testosterone Pellet therapy

• Many patients who thought they would have to live mired down with fatigue, have found the answer with us.
• My patients who have been struggling with this syndrome, tell me that they have their lives back, by replacing the hormone they needed—Testosterone!

Chronic Fatigue Treatment = BioBalance Health Testosterone pellets

• Increasing duration of sleep
• Normalizing hormones
• Normalizing nutrition
• Juice Plus
• No smoking or drinking

Anxiety can be caused by hormonal imbalance, and can be treated with bioidentical hormone pellet therapy.

Episode 57 of the BioBalance Healthcast is the second of two episodes dealing with depression. Dr. Kathy Maupin and Brett Newcomb discuss various causes and treatments of depression and anxiety with a specific focus on internal causes, especially hormone imbalance. Dr. Maupin sees many patients in her medical practice and finds that restoring their hormone levels to a normal state cures their prolonged anxiety.

Depression has Physiological and Emotional Components

Episode 56 of the BioBalance Healthcast is part one of a two-part series on depression. Next week's podcast will cover depression resulting from hormone imbalnce, but this week the focus is on a variety of topics related to diagnosis and treatment of depression, covering it from two perspectives; the medical and the psycological. In Dr. Maupin's medical practice and Brett Newcomb's counseling practice, patients often complain of or exhibit symptoms of depression. There is an overlap between their two fields.

Brett often sends his counseling patients to a medial doctor to be a evaluated for health related causes. There are two types of depression: endogenous, that is having physical system malfunction, has to do with neurotransmitters in the brain. Exogenous depression is caused externally, usually by things that happen to people.

We all have mood swings. If you have clinical depression, your mood goes way below the normal bottom point. Clinically depression is when you don't cycle normally, but instead stay at a low level. Antidepressants are often given.

Proper evaluation is done in multiple hour long sessions. Exogenous depression can lead to endogenous change. Some people have a genetic weakness, e.g. have relatives on medication for depression, are hospitalized, or are alcoholic.

Doctor patient relationships: doctor feels the patient's pain when the session is over, and the patient feels better, like they transferred it to the doctor. Therapists are are trained to protect themselves from becomming depleted from depressed patients who come in to the session get energy from the therapist. The have to llearn to give energy but still have some left after the session.

Some people siuffering depression need medicine. Depression can be caused from a lack of hormones or long term stress. When cortisol is high for a long time, it wears out the neurotransmitters. When the patent is trying so survive a long term stressful condition, they can't get out of it without medication. It's important to talk to your physician about your symptoms.

BioBalance Health offers complete suite of esthetic medical services

Episode 55 of the BioBalance Healthcast features Esthetic Nurse Practitioner Abbie Calabio as special guest. Dr. Maupin added Abbie to her skin care staff in August of 2011, and with the addition, expanded from offering only such skin-rejuvenation services facials, waxing, Jet-Peel and hair removal, to include injectables such as Botox, Juvederm, Radiesse and more.

This episode focuses on laser treatments, specifically the IPL (Intermittent Pulse Laser) to painlessly remove brown spots, and the PIXEL Rejuvenation treatment which stimulates collagen and tightens skin.

Listen to episode 54 for a look at BioBalance Health's injectable skin treatments.

Look years younger with Botox®, Juvederm® and Radiesse®

BioBalance Healthcast episode 54, is titled Medical Esthetics—Injectables and Dermal Fillers. Dr. Maupin and Brett Newcomb welcomes Cosmetic Nurse Practitioner, Abbie Calabio to talk about the esthetic injectables Botox®, Juvederm® and Radiesse®. This is part one of a two-part series. Next week they will talk about esthetic laser treatments.

Abbie Calabio is a board-certified Nurse Practitioner and esthetic skin specialist, only one of three in the St. Louis area. She has five years of expertise in the field and her specialities are cosmetic injections and laser skin treatments.

In her work as a esthetic nurse practitioner, she combines science and artistry, sculpting the patient's face with injections of purified proteins.

Botox® blocks the signal that causes muscle contractions that cause wrinkles. It is injected around the eyes to give a refreshed look, brightening the eyes. It is injected between the eyebrows where to remove what is referred to as elevens and outside the eyes as crows feet.

All treatment begin with a consultation where she ask the patient what bothers them about their skin. She then addresses these concerns with the best medical solution.

Radiesse® and Juviderm® are dermal or facial fillers. Radiesse® is a volumizing filler, a calcium based filler that helps enhance the volume, bringing fullness back to the patient's cheeks. It fills and lifts, helping with sagging cheeks and jowls. It's a non-invasive, non surgical procedure that is like getting a liquid facelift. It lasts up to a year.

Juviderm is a hyalironic gel for filling in the parentheses around the mouth, and add fullness to the boarders of the lips.

The goal is to return the look of the face to the age 10 to 20 years younger. Abbie recommends that new patients bring with them a photo of themselves when they were younger. Her approach is always conservative, assuring them results that look natural.

The Visia is a photography- and computer-based system that reveals and analyzes the degrees of the patient's wrinkles, UVE damage, redness, and more. It compares the patient's skin to women in the same age range. A printout is given to the patient that helps them decide what treatments they want to receive.