Have you found yourself forgetting a close friend’s name, or even fumbling to recall your own address? That unsettling brain fog isn’t just "getting older"—it could be a sign of something deeper. Welcome to this episode of The Hormone Prosperity Podcast, where I, Dr. Kyrin, your trusted Hormone Prosperity Coach, uncover the hidden culprit behind these frustrating moments of forgetfulness—hormonal poverty.

Key Highlights You Won’t Want to Miss

💡 What Brain Fog REALLY Means: Forgetting words, losing focus, or constantly feeling mentally “off” aren’t just random occurrences. They’re signs of a larger issue—midlife metabolic mayhem caused by hormonal imbalance. Discover how this phenomenon plays out in perimenopause and menopause and why so many women over 40 experience it.

🌿 Hormonal Poverty Explained: What is hormonal poverty, and how does it affect not only your cognition but your overall health? I coined this term to shine a light on the under-discussed yet vital role of sex hormones, insulin, cortisol, and thyroid hormones in maintaining your mental clarity, energy, weight, and vitality.

🚨 The Untold Risk: Did you know hormonal poverty can increase the chances of developing Alzheimer's and other life-altering diseases? I even share the heart-wrenching story of my own mother, whose battle with severe Alzheimer’s was painfully linked to decades spent in hormonal poverty without treatment.

🩺 The Medical Blind Spot: Why do mainstream medical practices fail to diagnose or treat hormonal poverty? Learn the difference between “normal” lab results and optimal function—and why settling for “normal” leaves you far from thriving.

✨ Empowerment Through Action: I’ll equip you with steps to assess your hormonal health and introduce tools to actively reclaim your wellness. Take the quiz to uncover if you’re in hormonal poverty and join my 7-day Hormone Bliss Challenge to start your path to vibrant health today.

👩‍🔬 Your Roadmap to Hormonal Prosperity: It only takes small but specific changes to go from “barely surviving” to fully thriving. No more blaming it on age—get ready to take control of your health!

Why You’ll Love This Episode

Midlife doesn’t need to be a period of decline—it can be a time of vitality, clarity, and joy if you give your body the hormonal support it needs. With 60+ symptoms of hormonal imbalance negatively impacting millions of women, this is a conversation that mainstream medicine just isn’t having… but YOU deserve to have.

This episode is about more than just identifying a problem—it’s about empowering you to take action, feel supported, and understand you’re not alone.

Take Control of Your Health Today

✅ Step 1: Take my 2-minute quiz to determine if you could be in hormonal poverty.

✅ Step 2: Join the 7-day Hormone Bliss Challenge where I guide you through actionable steps to reclaim your energy, focus, and vitality.

👉 Take the Quiz and Start the Challenge Here

Share the Love!

Know someone who could benefit from this episode? Send it their way! Together, we can help over 100 million women move from hormonal poverty into hormonal prosperity.

💖 Loved this episode? Leave a review and help more midlife women discover this life-changing information.

Here’s to a life full of peace, love, and hormones—because bliss is your birthright.

Podcast Episode Transcript:

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (00:00):

And maybe this has happened to you. You see a friend in the street, you've known them for years, you know, you know their name, but all of a sudden you can't think of what is her name. And you get all tense and feel embarrassed, right? If that's you, you're not alone. That is one of the 60 plus symptoms of midlife, metabolic mayhem and hormonal poverty. Greetings, friend. Welcome to the Hormone Prosperity Podcast with me, the hormone prosperity coach, Dr. Kyrin. Here's where intelligent women over 40 go to get credible guidance and inspiration on getting out of hormonal poverty and into hormonal prosperity and the joy and vitality that brings. Go from asking disempowering questions like, what's wrong with me? To asking empowering questions like, what would hormonal prosperity do? Hashtag ww PD. Join me as we dive into today's episode and get started on your journey off the couch, into your genes and back into life, because bliss is your birthright. And a healthy body filled with hormonal prosperity is the vehicle that gets you there. Welcome. Let's get started.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (01:14):

So brain fog is a great question in menopause and perimenopause, a woman wrote in saying that she was trying to pick up her prescription at the pharmacy, and the woman at the counter asked her for her address, and she was fumbling and bumbling because she couldn't even remember her own address. And maybe this has happened to you. You see a friend in the street, you've known them for years, you know, you know their name, but all of a sudden you can't think of what is her name. And you get all tense and feel embarrassed, right? If that's you, you're not alone. That is one of the 60 plus symptoms of midlife, metabolic mayhem and hormonal poverty that can occur after the age of 40 or even before the age of 40. And it can make your life extremely difficult to live and just complete activities of daily living, things that you do every single day.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (02:12):

And so what's going on here? You go to your doctor and you say, oh, I'm forgetting things, right? Maybe they run some tests to see if you have mild cognitive impairment, early cognitive impairment, and they say that, oh, you're fine. 'cause You're worried about Alzheimer's, and nobody ever says to you, oh, well maybe you have hormonal poverty because they probably don't know that term. It's actually a term that I coined to help women understand what's happening to them as they age with their health. With the 60 plus symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem that can lead to disease, seven of out of 10 of the top 10 causes of death are increased by being in hormonal poverty. And this is something your doctor's not talking to you about. That's why I'm talking to you about it. And if you wanna know if this is you, you can take my quiz that I developed to help you understand.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (03:06):

Could you be in hormonal poverty? Your brain actually depends on not only your sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone, but all of your hormones to be optimized to function normally. Some of you know that my mom has severe Alzheimer's disease and that she was the healthiest person I knew and that the only risk factor she had for getting Alzheimer's disease was that she was in hormonal poverty for three decades without treatment because her doctor didn't believe in hormone therapy. Not only that so estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, but she probably had undiagnosed insulin, cortisol, thyroid issues because her doctor didn't go by the standards that I use to diagnose disease where there's hypofunction. You might not have an actual disease that your mainstream doctor identifies, but you can have suboptimal function. And if you are not functioning optimally, this is what you need to understand.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (04:15):

This is going to cause you to have hormonal poverty and brain fog, forgetfulness, lack of clarity, right? So you're the one at the pharmacy, can't remember your own address, you can't remember your lifetime friend's name. And so I want to, I really see my mission in life as awakening women to this truth, because what you're getting at your mainstream doctor's office is not the truth, right? They're gonna listen to your heart, listen to your lungs, they're gonna do blood work, most of which you don't know what it is. You're just gonna say, oh, my doctor said my blood work was fine. And what you don't realize is that they're telling you you don't have a disease or disease from a mainstream medical perspective, but they are not looking for optimal function. And the difference between having a disease and having suboptimal function is night and day.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (05:14):

It's the difference between you living your life optimally right brain on all cylinders. Click, click, click. You can remember things, you are focused and you take action in your life and you get the outcomes that you want. Your weight is where you want your energy is where you want your sex drive, your hair, your digestion. You don't have arthritis or myalgias pain in your muscles. You don't have the 60 plus symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem, right? That's optimization. But how most people, most women over 40 in the western world are living is with chronic conditions that are medicated. Now, some women will tell me, well, I don't have high blood pressure. And I'll say, well, what medications are you on? And then they'll list their medications, one of which is an anti-hypertensive medication. And I say, but I thought you said you don't have high blood pressure or hypertension.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (06:07):

And they'll say, oh, I don't. My medication controls it, so I don't have that problem. And what you don't understand is no, you still have hypertension and you're still subject to the consequences of hypertension just over a slower and longer period of time, right? Medications that control symptoms do not fix the symptoms and don't obviate you from having or opt you out from having the consequences of that, like increased risk of heart disease, increased risk of stroke, and all the other consequences of high blood pressure. So don't fall for mainstream medical practices of only diagnosing disease, only giving medications or doing surgery to control disease. This will never get you health optimization. It will never reduce your risk of seven out of the top 10 causes of death. It won't get you health optimization. I will leave you in midlife metabolic mayhem with the symptoms like brain frog, like the person who asks this question and not living life optimally.

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (07:15):

So if you look at, do you have hormonal poverty, which I teach you about in my hormone bliss challenge, then you can understand what you actually need to be doing to identify, am I in hormonal poverty? You can start by taking the quiz. But then in the seven day challenge, I actually take you through the exact steps that I use to get out of hormonal poverty and that I've helped thousands of women use to get out of hormonal poverty so that you can have a higher standard of health for yourself and avoid disease in the future. Optimize how you're living now. Get rid of the 60 plus symptoms of midlife metabolic mayhem. So thank you so much for the question. It's a great question that so many women have, and I'm so grateful that you asked it today. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, peace, love, and hormones. Y'all,

Dr. Kyrin Dunston (08:20):

Thank you so much for joining me on your journey from hormonal poverty into the promised land of hormonal prosperity. Loved today's episode. Share it with someone you care about, love the show. Consider writing a review and help other women find it too. Remember, we're all in this together right now. There are well over 100 million women suffering in hormonal poverty without answers. Please be of service by sharing, rating, and reviewing the show. Help us reach at least 1 million of these women this coming year from one previously suffering woman to another. I thank you. See you next week.