Dr. Jessica Shepherd
speaker
254 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Jessica Shepherd’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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And so what do we start to see as we age is decline in estrogen now can't support the collagen, which is the framework of that structure and the ability for our skin to do that. So another example is pregnancy, right? In pregnancy, we usually see, which is a different type of estrogen, but it's a severe increase, right? Because that's what supports the pregnancy.
A lot of women will say, my skin in pregnancy and my hair in pregnancy is just phenomenal. And the reason is, is because there's this amazing estrogen support. When the baby comes out and the estrogen declines, a lot of people are like, now I'm losing my hair or my skin is really, really crappy. That has to do with that balance of estrogen.
So now when we're losing estrogen at a decline and it's not coming back, the skin responds. It's like, estrogen's not around. I can't be plump. I'm going to have these wrinkles. My skin is starting to sag a little. And that's because of the estrogen can contribute to the collagen, which is scaffold. Gotcha. So is there anything that you can do to...
Yes. So it's the way that you can do it directly on your skin, which is when now we start to hear more about estrogen creams that you can apply to your skin, right? And then that stimulates collagen growth? So it's the collagen growth, but also the blood flow. Estrogen is a very big proponent of blood flow and vascularity, two areas. And that's what we need in order for our skin to look
plump and not have the issues that it has in addition to the collagen. Yes. And so then the other part of that is if a woman is on hormone replacement therapy and she's either taking a pill, a patch, a cream, she's now giving her body back that estrogen, which allows it again to have the replenishment of estrogen, which supports our skin.
I think that there is a lot of consumerism. So there's a lot of products out there that are not necessarily going to get you the outcome that you want. Mm-hmm. And so when we look at skin products specifically, I think as we're getting older, we need to look at products that have maybe retinol, retin-A, that have things that actually are supporting collagen. Estrogen is one of those things.
But it doesn't necessarily mean because something claims to get the outcome that you're going to do it. The other thing that I would say is we have to watch our diet.
So what we're inputting into our body has a lot to do with what the skin is able to do, whether that's with foods that are supporting hydration, whether it's foods that's supporting vitamin deficiencies that have a lot to do with what we go through in menopause. But our gut, right, our gut health is always very impactful for how our skin can respond to.
I think that top food should be obviously your protein intake, which can help your muscle, but also antioxidants. I love blueberries. I don't think that it's a power food and everyone just has to eat a blueberry. But what I do know is it has so many ways that it can kind of fill your day, whether it's a snack, whether it's added to something.
that it has the antioxidants, which is also very helpful for our kind of gut health. And the last thing that I think is looking at how we use our omega fatty acids is an important part. So that would be like in nuts. I think nuts are a great snack, but also salmon has omega fatty three acids as well. So that's important, again, for our gut health.
And again, I think that when we look at our diet, not everyone responds. And that's why I don't love power foods is some people just don't respond the same way to certain foods. So making sure that you maybe talk to a nutritionist as you go through these stages in life because your body is going to respond differently and find out what's best for you.
And just don't take everything that you hear and think that's going to apply to me.
Yes, absolutely. Because the things that served your skin well when you're in your 20s and 30s are probably not going to serve it in the same way. One, because of how our skin absorbs product is going to be different. How does it change? It changes where it's not as porous.
Porous just means if you were to think of like a screen on a window and things that can go in versus come out, those things change because maybe it's more porous and it doesn't allow for the things that really should be staying in. It kind of seeps out. The other thing is that we have hot flashes and night sweats. So that increases the amount of sweat that is going to be around our face.
And so that actually impacts it as well. And then we talked about the whole collagen and the estrogen, which is not there. So there is multiple layers of why the skincare should change. And
Things that I think are important to incorporate are, we talked about Retin-A earlier, but also when we look at maybe using devices that get to a deeper level of our skin to help restore that vitality to our skin, but also helping correct that. some of the things on a deeper layer that we could never get to just from washing our face. Like what? Like lasers.
I think lasers are a beautiful way that people should, if they can, because sometimes they are pricey, but even if you have the opportunity to get a laser treatment, I think intermittently those can, again, create this better foundation so that when we go home and maintain with other products, we're having a good foundation. Let's talk about thinning hair.
Our hair has cycles. It has a growth phase, right? So it goes through these different cycles. And estrogen is a very big part of those cycles and how long it's going to stay maybe in the growth phase. And so that's, again, akin to when we were pregnant is we started to see a lot more hair growth because it stayed in that phase longer.
It will help you, but it's not going to solve the problem. What is the problem? I think that the problem is our decline in estrogen is not able to impact the hair follicles. It's not allowing to bring the blood flow to the hair follicles for growth. but also the growth phase.
Because if estrogen is a big part of how long it's going to stay in the growth cycle of your hair, then when you're taking away estrogen, it can't stay in that phase forever.
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