Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. My guest is none other than the famous Dr. Karen Becker. If you haven't heard who Dr. Becker is, you've been hiding under a rock. Because, Karen, I think everybody knows you worldwide. But thank you so much for agreeing to be on our show.
Dr. Karen Becker 0:26
Oh, well, you know, Judy, it's, you have so kindly, graciously, we've done many podcasts on my platforms. Thank you for inviting me. And for me, it's all about scheduling. So I appreciate your amazing team when I'm like, Hey, give me six months. And they work with that, which is really nice. So thank you for having me.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:43
It is weird that we have to schedule things six months out, but we're finding that just with so many things, because we are all crazy busy. But I think we are making huge impacts in the world. So it's a team effort. So yeah, no problem. So, for those of you who may have been hiding under that rock, veterinarian and wildlife biologist Dr. Karen Shaw-Becker believes that biologically appropriate food, Yay! and an animal's immediate environment are the most important factors in determining health, vitality and lifespan. She has spent her career as a small animal clinician, empowering animal guardians to make intentional lifestyle decisions to enhance the well being of their animals. And isn't that what we all want? So, and today, we are actually going to talk about what you should know prior to desexing your dog. So we actually did with our team, we did a whole focus week on spay, neuter alternatives, reasons why you should or shouldn't, or maybe why we should rethink things. And so I know this is something that Dr. Becker has looked at very extensively. Part of it was for the Forever Dog book, right?
Dr. Karen Becker 2:02
Yeah, yeah, it's true. But most recently, that is when I did my second kind of dive into the bigger, deeper, more profound side effects that have that research has demonstrated. Yes, for sure.
Dr. Judy Morgan 2:15
Yeah. And you know, it's just, it's like so many things in veterinary medicine. A trend starts or a statement is made. And it's sort of like, well, this is just how we've always done it. And so this is how we're always going to do it. And I for so many years in practice parroted the exact same thing that I learned in veterinary school back in the early 1980s. So yeah, a little bit old. But it was spay and neuter at six months before they come into heat, you know, that way, we don't have to worry about them ever getting bred, you don't have to deal with the mess of them being in heat or your cats, you know, caterwauling and rolling around your house. And it just became sort of the mantra. And it was this is how we do it. And Karen, what do you think brought about the first studies on why we should maybe we want to look at doing something differently?
Dr. Karen Becker 3:15
Yeah, such a good question. That was the question that I set out to answer when I wrote Forever Dog in 2000. So I wrote Forever Dog during the pandemic, which was a fantastic thing to do when you're sitting around, stressed out, it's like at home pacing around, I might as well chit chat all that time for something good. So I did do a deeper dive into where the actual techniques get established for conventional spay and neuter, meaning that, you know, ovarian, hysterectomy, removing the uterus and the ovaries of a female and removing the testicles of a male, like, where did that get started? And it was my alma mater, which made it easy to actually call and have conversations with not just the surgery department. But some of the old timers that were originally the professors at Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, where they developed the this initial spay neuter technique. And I find it interesting when I was able to track down some of the old timers that were friends with the people that set some of these protocols, the original technique, what and the quote that I got was, well, if you're gonna make a big incision and have them under anesthesia, you might as well you might as well remove all the tissue that could be problematic, either at that time or going forward. So as long as you have them open, you might as well take it out. And my thought, holy cow. Yeah. And you know, we're talking early 1900s, when they set some of these protocols, and then it's open, just yank everything out. And at that time, they didn't know they didn't realize that every organ has a purpose, and that there is a web effect of when you remove one, there's this chain reaction of other things happening around it. They just didn't know. So in our professions' defense early on, they didn't know but I guess now, Dr. Morgan, you have to feel like I do. We do know. And so my frustration now is that we have this mounting evidence of really provocative research, a growing body of research and our profession. I feel it's a little bit like the ultra processed pet food industry, they're just I don't want to say choosing to look elsewhere. Because we're not taught how to do alternative techniques. Vets don't know what to say. And therefore, they're still parroting the ancient thing that we learned at vet school, which is Yank everything out, right?
Dr. Judy Morgan 5:25
Yeah. And, you know, if we looked at yank out everything that can be problematic, well, while we're there, let's just take out their spleen. And it's sort of like people with large breed dogs who were like, Well, while we're there, we'll tack their stomach in place. It's like, well, how many things do we want to do? And how many of those body parts might be necessary down the line?
Dr. Karen Becker 5:47
Right, right.
Dr. Judy Morgan 5:51
So we see kind of similar things in human medicine, I'll never forget, I worked at an emergency medicine for 10 years, and the owner of this big clinic, where he had some blood dyscrasias. And they couldn't tell if it was a bone marrow problem or where it was coming from. And so he had an enlarged spleen. And they said, well, we should remove your spleen. This was back in the late 1980s. And he almost had his spleen removed. And then at the last minute, they finally figured out his spleen was big, because it was the only thing making blood for him. If they had removed the spleen, he was a dead man. So maybe we should look at things a little more critically, before we jump in here. So yeah. So let's, let's talk about some of the things that we now know. Like, we know that we need the sex hormones to make puppies and kittens, which yay, that's wonderful. But they do other things. Can you talk about some of the other things that we now know these hormones are responsible for?
Dr. Karen Becker 6:53
Well, and absolutely, and I think that that goes back to I don't know how and when kind of you started connecting the dots. But for me, I was raised. Working at a kill shelter, I was a euthanasia technician at 17. certified through I went to euthanasia school at my alma mater when I was 17. So I came from a background of a lot of emotional damage, but also dealing primarily with super irresponsible human beings that had litter after litter. So I graduated vet school. With that kind of as my base, meaning I graduated, obsessing about making sure that I yanked everything out before six months of age. So I had inadvertently, I set up my practice in 1999. By 2003, I was already seeing the unhealthy fruits of my focused labor of making sure everything was not just sterilized in my practice, but making sure that they were D set because at that time, I didn't even realize that there was an option for alternative surgical techniques. So it was around 2006. Judy, that for those initial research studies, Cornell had already released the hip dysplasia, correlation, Texas Tech had already released the CCL, ACL torn ligament. The Golden Retriever study came demonstrating hypothyroidism, correlation, all those things were kind of circa 2006. But it was then when the studies on mast cell tumors, lymphoma, as well as hemangiosarcoma there was some rumblings in the literature about those particular cancers being correlated to early spay/neuter, as well as the big one for me, I graduated telling everyone I knew if you neuter your dog, you'll prevent prostate cancer and it was 2002 that we know actually the study came out demonstrating that there's a four fold increase in prosthetic cancers if you have a neutered dog. So it was 2006 when I kind of had my own little professional meltdown, and I and part of this came about because I see exotics. So I started seeing all my ferret patients we spay and neuter ferrets at three weeks of age. So all my ferrets get insulinomas They all have insulin issues, pancreatic tumors, they all become diabetic, hypothyroid as well as adrenal issues. But then I started seeing these in my dog. So it was through my exotic animal practice that I was like, You know what all of my ferrets that are now dying of metabolic endocrine diseases are looking a lot like my midlife dogs that I desexed six months ago before. So that's when I made the call to Dr. Jack Oliver. He at that time had set up the Tennessee the Veterinary School, Adrenal lLab, the Endocrine Lab at University of Tennessee. They're amazing. And he really became my endocrine mentor until his sudden death, unfortunately, six years later, but during that timeframe, basically I said, Listen, Jack, I'm seeing these things in ferrets. And I believe I'a seeing them in dogs, but it's not like no one's talking about this. If I start sending you blood samples that look at endocrine panels, can we start a discussion and he gave me a massive discount and instead of running a traditional thyroid or adrenal test, I sent everything for a full adrenal panel and thyroid panel and endocrine panel through Tennessee. That six years body of evidence was overwhelming to me, enough that I had to open my mouth and start talking about it. And so it was at that time that I made that video got over a million views where I basically just filled my heart and said, Hey, listen, I am seeing something as a solo as an n of one. As a veterinarian. I'm seeing stuff out there that I just want to talk about. And holy holy Hellfire rained down on me for making that video. I could do that video now. And I think I have some professional colleagues that would be like, oh, yeah, you know, there is something going on. But in 2012 Everyone's like, What the hell are you doing? And all of these litters you're gonna cause and so I just want to be clear for anyone listening to your podcast that we are neither one of us are talking about irresponsible breeding. If we are going to sterilize we're talking about sterilization, so the prevention of unwanted litters without damaging the hormone producing tissues. So this is a long winded answer to your question. But what this comes down to Judy is the recognition of, of luteinizing hormones. So back then, we I think all of us holistic practitioners were starting to see stuff, thyroid dogs, adrenal dogs, fat dogs, overweight dogs, stuff that we're like, hey, something's going on metabolically, what could it be? Well, it was at this same time that our awesome colleague, Michelle Kutzler, who's a DVM, and a PhD, and a board certified DACT she studied she started making this like her passion for research. And so at that point, we knew Yes, some cancers Yeah, thyroid adrenal, yeah, tendon ligament, but I'm just going to read to you since 2012. Dr. Kutzler. Let me tell you what she has what her research has shown. And the reason I have to read it is I'm over 50, and I can't remember the list, but listen to what she has correlated. There are bonafide research papers demonstrating that eliminating sex hormones increases the incidence of obesity, urinary incontinence, urinary calculi, bladder stones, atopic dermatitis, allergies, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and thrombocytopenia, adrenal disease, thyroid disease, diabetes, IBD, hip dysplasia, CCL rupture, cognitive dysfunction, and several types of cancers prostate, bladder, lymph muscle and bone cancer as well as aggressive and fearful behavior and growth plate issues for large and giant breed dogs. That's her list based on her research, and at that point, it was like, Oh, my gosh, like we have, we need to stop and have a professional conversation about this. And what she found is exactly what you stated that we thought the only tissues let me back up and say, what she discovered she discovered that when dogs go through puberty, the signal for puberty is the pituitary releases luteinizing hormone from the pituitary that tells the ovaries and the testes time to start producing some sex hormones right? That's right. That's right, we're gonna start producing some sex hormones, and it's the stimulus. LH is what we call it instead of luteinizing hormone. LH is the stimulus to tell the body we're gonna go through puberty, let's go. When we remove sex organs that have those LH receptors, the pituitary, you know, six months of age starts releasing some LH and then the body's not getting the message because we took those glands out. And so then the pituitary says, Okay, I'm gonna release more LH and then more LH to the point that actually our dog's bodies become toxic with LH. Well, here's the answer to your question. We thought, Michelle Kutzler thought that maybe only ovaries and testes had those LH receptors and the truth is, every cell of our dog's bodies have an LH receptor, but particularly adrenal thyroid, bladder lymphocytes. So we've got some key tissues that are absorbing massive amounts of toxic levels of LH. And for those of you listening, say, Well, how did that whole long list of like, diseases happen? Dr. Kutzler is beginning to knit together that it's this excessive LH hormone that is doing the damage. So every cell of our animal's body has this receptor. So then it begs the question, well, then where is my dog's body potentially going to break? Which means where are those symptoms gonna come about? And we're all looking at each other at this point, comparing notes.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:22
Yeah, I you know, and it's interesting, because I'm not a researcher. I'm not a research based person, but early on in practice, and so one of the things that we know now is that all the different glands, so the pancreas, the thyroid, the thymus, the pituitary, the, the ovaries, the testes, they're all part of a system. It's the endocrine system. And they don't each have their own sandbox that they only play in, like they all play together. And when one of them is affected, then we see this cascade of problems. And so why are we seeing so much Cushing's that You know, that's the adrenal glands. Why are more and more Addison's? We're seeing now actually, why are we seeing more hypothyroidism? Why are we seeing you know, more of these issues? pancreatitis? Diabetes? Because the endocrine system is just like, Well, wait, half of us is missing. Like we don't know what to do because our sandboxes have to play together. So on that note, we need to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk some more about other options that are available other things that still happen within the body. So stay tuned, we'll be right back.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT 15:38
Have you had a chance to read Dr. Judy's best selling book, Raising Naturally Healthy Pets: a guide to helping your pets live longer? Whether you adopt or shop, choosing the right pet for your family is a decision that should be made after careful consideration. Once that pet enters your home, what's next? Are you going to vaccinate? What about parasite prevention? Or choosing the best diet for your new addition? Dr. Judy answers these questions and more in this easy to read book for pet parents. As a podcast listener you can enjoy 20% off Raising Naturally Healthy Pets by Dr. Judy Morgan, using the code PODCAST11 at NaturallyHealthyPets.com
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:16
All right, welcome back. We've been talking about some great research and some great researchers that are have been kind of in Karen's circle of friends, which is great, I love that you reach out to people who are kind of at that upper level Echelon and and really ask pertinent questions that we need to know because we don't know and we have to educate pet parents because like you said, so many traditional veterinarians are still stuck in the six months, everybody that's it. So what other diseases are you seeing associated with the traditional spay/neuter?
Dr. Karen Becker 17:04
I have seen probably just like you have seen that entire list that Dr. Kutzler has rattled off, but for me, clinically, it initially manifests as metabolic disease. So step one, the first year out, it's potentially harder to maintain your dog's body weight, you have to cut their calories way back. And what we are learning now with AAFCO regulations is if you cut if you feed less than recommended on the bag, you're probably you are if you're if your pet food is formulated, according to AAFCO you are depriving your animals' minimum nutrient requirements and so by reducing food, you are reducing nutrients and then there's an interplay there. The second year after neuter I am seeing more skin and hair coat not only the increased incidence of atopy itchy dogs, but the thyroid adrenal thing kicking in and you are seeing this too. the adrenal either goes into burnout, and then failure, or becomes ramped up. And if you think about it, those little adrenal glands, the only place left that there could produce any sex hormones in the entire body is in the adrenal glands. So when we desex dogs early on, those little adrenals, which are teeny tiny, they're a size of a pee at the top of our dog's kidneys. They were not meant to take the place of testes or ovaries, but they try. god bless them and they fail. And in failure, they either over produce cortisol and we get a Cushing's dog or they just say I can't do it, and they quit producing any type of cortisol and then you have an Addison's patient. But in between there you have this year of adrenal burnout, where there's just low energy, fatigue, exercise intolerance, depression, behavior changes, significant behavior changes with spayed and neutered animals. So initially, I'm seeing those types of more metabolic issues. But then along comes the soft tissue, the musculoskeletal issues. And last and the most painful would be immune failure issues pertaining to increased incidence of cancer.
Dr. Judy Morgan 19:08
Yeah, which, just just awful
Dr. Karen Becker 19:11
devastating. Yeah.
Dr. Judy Morgan 19:14
So you, you had stated in some notes that were sent that UC Davis recently produced some peer reviewed studies. What did they confirm in their study?
Dr. Karen Becker 19:29
So actually, there's several different veterinary schools now doing research within certain spheres, or, for instance, the golden retriever, they're studying specific types of metabolic changes or physiologic changes within specific categories of dogs. And I still find it interesting. You know, let me just backtrack. And so the UC Davis study, it confirmed exactly what Dr. Kutzler has found that indeed, there are irreversible changes that play into dogs that we're not talking about kitties here, thank goodness, but dogs can have irreversible changes pertaining to immune, metabolic, hormonal and musculoskeletal. their physiology can be permanently changed depending on the age that desexing occurred. And it is nice that we have different institutions now confirming research. It is a little frustrating. The the visa study I believe came out in 2008 and the vizsla study 2500 Dogs demonstrating that anxiety, thunderstorm phobia, and aggression, as well as fear based behaviors all increased with early spay neuter, but I probably the biggest criticism I criticism I had from my colleagues with people saying, well, those are vizslas. Well, I've also had that with the Rottweiler osteosarcoma study, people say, Well, those are Rotties. And it's true. We haven't studied every breed with every type of metabolic physiologic dyscrasia going on. But we also can't veterinary medicine doesn't have that type of funding. So in essence, we are Judy, still knitting together, a variety think around the world of veterinary hospitals all around the world, as well as veterinary teaching institutions, private individuals raising money to do some of these studies, mostly correlated with breed clubs. They're looking at these incidences of certain breeds, carrying trending disease and degenerative conditions that they are beginning to assume could be linked to spay and neuter. So a lot of this research is being funded specifically by breed clubs saying, Hey, we are seeing hemangiosarcoma represented at a higher level, we're seeing osteosarcoma represented at a higher level than other breeds. Could it be correlated to early spay neuter? My frustration is that certainly, certain breeds have certain predispositions. But all breeds require some sex hormones just like our bodies, we need all breeds would benefit from a little bit of sex hormones before we up and remove everything. So we can't answer all the questions that everyone has. And certainly, I my brain swirls with questions. But I believe at this point, we know enough to make wiser recommendations as veterinarians.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:11
Yeah, I agree. And I saw one major article in a major veterinary publication, where they were they actually listed out like 30 or 40 different breeds and said, and actually gave a timeline for the ideal time to spay and neuter. And the my take home from that whole thing was just as a as a whole. With the larger breeds. They were definitely saying, Oh, well, you know, because we've got the golden retriever study and the Rottweiler study, and that, you know, with larger breeds, yes, maybe leaving the sex hormones there longer is going to be beneficial for the smaller breeds, it really doesn't matter. Well, doesn't the hormonal system in the body function that I mean, maybe, maybe the smaller breeds are not as prone to osteosarcoma, or hemangiosarcoma, although I am seeing more and more hemangio in small breeds, which is scary. But I don't I don't know that we can make a statement that says if you have a small breed dog go ahead and spay and neuter in six months.
Dr. Karen Becker 23:12
I think partly so the paper that you're referring to basically was as a summary, a really nice recap of getting all the science we have thus far, but thus far, it's usually pertaining to certain breeds. So all we can do is kind of gather this, the data that we have and put it together saying, Well, this breed falls into large breeds. So let's look at what is trending there. I think generally speaking, most veterinarians would agree that small that chihuahuas, you know, tend to mature faster compared to, let's say, a Tibetan Mastiff, which it may take two years for a Tibetan Mastiff to come into heat. And we know that sometimes little Chihuahuas are run around the house humping, want to have sex at four months of age. So I think generally speaking, what that paper insinuated was that smaller breed dogs mature faster. And because they are maturing faster, they may come into heat faster and or become skeletally mature, they become adults faster than large and giant breed dogs. So we would be able to desex them sooner than dogs that potentially don't come into heat, or begin receiving that LH stimulus until one - one and a half or two years of age. And I understand where that paper was coming from. But I completely agree with you to say that we can early desex all small breed dogs. Give that 10 years and then we'll have an independent body of research pertaining to what we've done to small dogs where if I believe I believe we can avoid that if we use logic and common sense.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:47
So one of the the big things because we talked a lot and I'm not going to go into detail, but we talked about doing the vasectomies on the male dogs where basically we cut the tube that carries the sperm from where they're produced to get outside to get to the female. So, pretty simple surgery, we actually had our veterinarian that we're using, do her very first vasectomy on my daughter, Gwen's dog, she agreed, she let us film the whole thing. She's like, sure, if you want me to use your dog as my guinea pig, and I'm like, Well, look, you got to start somewhere. So I mean, it was awesome. But then doing either tubal ligations in our females or ovary sparing spay where we remove the uterus and leave the ovaries. There's also a surgery where you can remove the ovaries and leave the uterus that wouldn't really sorry, where you remove the ovaries and leave the uterus. And that one doesn't really make sense to me, because the ovaries are producing the hormones that we want. So anyway, but there's a few different ways that we can approach this. But why is none of that taught in veterinary school? And do you think it's going to change?
Dr. Karen Becker 25:58
Such a good question. I am trying to I'm starting with my alma mater, because they were the one that invented this kind of...
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:10
So now we can blame it on them
Dr. Karen Becker
So I kind of am. I went back last fall, and I had a conversation with the head of the small animal surgery department. And I don't know I can't say why it's slow, what I what I pitched and what my proposal would be is, it would be very easy to teach third or fourth year surgical students when they're both learning and then when they're practicing, it'd be very easy to teach. Here's a traditional desexing surgery. Here's a vasectomy surgery and here's an ovary sparing spay which is another term for hysterectomy. So in theory, hysterectomy and vasectomy, less time under anesthesia, which means you're saving money, smaller incision, you can do two procedures to every one traditional spay and neuter. Like there's a bunch of reasons why we should be teaching this not to mention that we have pet parents around the world saying I really would like this.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:05
Not to mention it's better for the animals. But you know what
Dr. Karen Becker 27:09
I mean? We can factor all that in and say is there a reason why you're not teaching these alternative sterilization techniques? And the institutions I have contacted more than just ISU but the institutions that even the Parsemus Foundation, which is https://www.parsemus.org/ is the is the place that your listeners can go to to find a veterinarian who offers different surgical techniques, whether it's vasectomy or hysterectomy, you can go to https://www.parsemus.org/, and you can find a list of vets and that's so awesome that your vet was open to doing this. She must be amazing. So God bless her for saying Sure. And then also to film it the first time you know what I practiced on? I found dead raccoons driving to and from work and I did my first vasectomies on Roadkill because I'm not going to I'm not I was I would be way too chicken to have a beautiful client and say, Hey, let me practice vasectomy. So I did it on road kill, it was awful.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:05
And here's a veterinarian looking over your shoulder.
Dr. Karen Becker 28:08
So your veterinarian is amazing. But for people that don't have access to her, then you can go to https://www.parsemus.org/ and find a veterinarian that offers these techniques. The biggest pushback I'm getting from veterinary schools, which I find really shocking. And this is kind of a push for your listeners and readers to call your state or wherever your closest veterinary school is, is that around the country, they're saying, we're not seeing a need for it. we have not been alerted to a need for teaching an alternative surgical technique. So apparently, we're not loud enough yet is what they're saying... yet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:41
Okay, well, just we're gonna keep jumping on this bandwagon. So I'm sure that most people that are listening, sadly, you know, especially if you go to adopt an animal, they're gonna come to you already spayed or neutered, and some of them at six or eight weeks, which is just so sad. So what can people do if their animal and I get this question all the time? What do they do if their animal was spayed? or neutered early? Or any even if it wasn't before six months, but let's say it was before 12 months? In my practice in the probably the last 10 years in practice. We were definitely spaying and neutering later and it was sort of like, where is it for the for the males? I was like, why don't we just leave them intact? You know, as long as people are handling them and blah, blah. And for the females, we were sort of like, well, there's a sweet spot here somewhere, because everybody gets worried about mammary cancer, which has sort of been debunked, but and then people worry about pyometra certainly understandable. So we're kind of trying to find that sweet spot, depending on the size of the dog and their maturity level. And it's like, oh, well, maybe 18 months 24 But let's let them go through a couple of heat cycles. Anyway, so but once somebody has their animal desexed Is there anything they can do to try to help these animals function?
Dr. Karen Becker 30:00
There's a lot that you can do. In fact, I have a whole six-eight hour webinar on what you can do because as you know, Judy, it depends on where the body breaks. So if your animal is in adrenal is beginning stages of adrenal failure, that's one protocol, if they're full Addisonian, it's another if they're cushioning it's another. But what I would tell everyone listening, is that there's some basic things we can do if your animal that has no symptoms right now, there are some basic things we can do. Now, if your animals symptomatic where we would support them is where their innate physiology broke. So if you have a giant breed dog support the hips support those CCLs, support, you know, support the knee ligaments support. Healthy bodyweight, exercise actually is really important. And so the two factors we know from the literature is that LH this toxically high hormone that that we would like to decrease is on a seesaw with dopamine. So what we want to do for generally speaking, is we want to do what we can to bring LH down because it's at toxic levels and to increase dopamine. And interestingly, you probably have seen this too, spayed or neutered animals because they innately all have lower dopamine you can see kind of like this midlife blase neutral like working dogs but wanting to work dogs because I've had my clients say they're depressed or they act like they have fibromyalgia they they act like they don't feel good and yet that that's hard to kind of explain but when you understand it, they're not producing adequate dopamine because LH suppresses dopamine, it's like okay, it's hard to have an amazingly great day when you have no dopamine right? So things we can do to increase dopamine, exercise is a good freebie. tyrosine rich foods like meat based diet and eggs, some of the richest foods and tyrosine getting your animals off of carbs carbs though when I say carb, those refined white flour, sugary carbs, the high starches actually feed insulin and we know that one of the best ways to help control LH is to get keep insulin low and steady. It's hard to keep insulin low when you're feeding a bunch of carbs. So focus on minimizing insulin, maintaining body weight, focus on meat based foods that have a lot of tyrosine which is necessary for dopamine production. Actually, bizarrely, fava beans fava beans for whatever reason have a dopamine precursors and so I was I went digging probably six years ago on what foods specifically could help support dopamine production. Fava beans, now not don't go crazy with fava beans, but you know, you can add a good 5% fava beans in like training treats. They're awesome. You feed them cooked, but has some dopamine precursors and believe it or not, curcumin, curcumin actually helps to bring down LH as well. Now where this research came from is not from dogs, Judy, it came from women that have polycystic ovarian syndrome PCOS. women that have polycystic ovarian problems also have very high LH. So we look at what they're doing to bring LH down into normal range and then I'm just applying it to dogs and I've seen pretty darn good success over the last 20 years of doing this. glandular therapy is awesome. glandular therapy, feeding desiccated organs back to animals that have dysfunctional or missing organs is a grand idea. And so using glandular products I absolutely love. You can also do dogosterone, which is a CE continuing education program where your veterinarian has to sign up, watch a class online, and then they could do basically, hormone replacement therapy. And I do use hormone replacement therapy in many of my cases. But in essence, you have to match what you're seeing with your patient with what the protocol is. So if it's skin and coat, you're going to increase those omegas you're going to work on increasing DHA and EPA, which also has a tie in. But honestly one of the best supplements we could ever give is inositol, and then inositol. It's also called vitamin B8. It's also called IP6, or hexaphosphate, IP6, aka Myoinositol, actually is one of the biggest things we can do to bring LH down in the body. And so I use a lot of IP6 in my practice for animals who we know let's say had early spay neuter but are two to three and are not yet exhibiting anything. IP6 is a really nice supplement that you can use for a lifetime. That helps within reason, minimize the amount of LH circulating around the body. So the key is be astute for changes. If you rescue a dog that has been desexed, look for behavior and physical changes. And then the second you see those changes, be proactive and address them. For animals that have been desexed at eight weeks of age and that have no symptoms, glandular therapy, a fresh food diet that is low starch, and lots of exercise. Lots of sniffaries to keep dopamine high, fava beans, meat based diet and some inositol is a really good starting protocol.
Dr. Judy Morgan 35:01
That's amazing. Yeah, I used to use IP6 a lot for my cancer cases. And so yeah, so this makes perfect sense, you know, with what we are trying to accomplish. We are out of time, I could like literally sit here and talk to you for about 10 hours. But where can people find more information about Dr. Karen Becker for anybody who's been under that rock?
Dr. Karen Becker 35:21
at DrKarenBecker.com
Dr. Judy Morgan 35:25
There you go. So simple. We appreciate everything that you do. Karen, you are amazing. You are such a gift to the pet world and actually wildlife too because I know that's a passion of yours. Keep up the good work. And I love watching your travels around the world and seeing where you're off to next to celebrate birthday parties and do research and it's just amazing. So thank you very much for being a guest and keep keep on doing what you do.
Dr. Karen Becker 35:54
and much love to you and everything you are doing. I think together I think all of us working in our own lanes and doing what we do, ultimately makes our mission of doing everything we can to empower pet owners to make better decisions. We're all in our own lanes doing it. But when we come together, we're making a big dent in the world when it comes to intentionally creating good quality of life. So I appreciate everything you're doing.
Dr. Judy Morgan 36:17
Thank you very much. Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
