Dr. Rachel Rubin

But if you take an oral contraceptive that is a combined estrogen progestin, the goal of it is to turn off your ovaries, which is elegant, right?

So you don't ovulate, you don't have a baby.

You don't have a baby.

Well, you're winning.

And there's no fluctuations of your hormones.

So in many ways, it's very elegant and quite lovely.

The challenge becomes when you are giving back this large dose of a final estradiol and a progestin, that comes with side effects for some people, weight changes, mood changes, potentially other changes.

Like any drug, there can be side effects, which is totally, again, reasonable for any drug to have side effects, pros and cons.

Right.

But what it doesn't do, like the ovary, the way I was taught, does estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

And so there's no conversation about testosterone.

And so if we believe as a society that testosterone, that women have testosterone and make testosterone, and we know that testosterone helps with libido, well, then if women take birth control and are complaining about low libido, which I know a lot of you listening are complaining about, is the logical answer that it may be a testosterone problem.

It makes logical sense.

Right.

Do we have all the funding in the world and all the research to prove it?

No.

But for all the people listening, we would love to fund some research on this.

But it may be a testosterone story.

Now, again, I said that vulvar vestibule where people have pain with sex at that opening around the urethra has testosterone receptors.

So researchers have seen that.