Birth Control Pill Nutrient Depletion (Episode 479)

Full Transcript: Episode 479

Lisa: All right, today I am wrapping up my impromptu pill and feminism series. I didn’t officially call it a series, but it ended up being a series because I wanted to share some of these episodes that really came to mind in this discussion that we’ve been having essentially about the pill. And so to follow up from last week’s episode with Dr. Kissling, I wanted to share one of the episodes from the archives that you may not have heard with Ross Pelton, and he is the author of the book The Pill Problem.

And this episode is really fascinating. He is a pharmacist, and he actually refers to himself as the natural pharmacist. And for those of you who may not be aware of this, there’s a huge difference between the knowledge base of a pharmacist and a medical doctor, for example. So one of the things I often share with my clients is if you have been given a prescription for a medication and you have questions or you’re already taking other medications and you’re not sure how they’re going to interact, your pharmacist is your best resource.

And that essentially is their training. Pharmacists are trained to know the drug interactions and the different side effects and all of the specific details about the various drugs that they’re prescribing to a much greater depth than most physicians. And so that’s why this episode is so fascinating because Dr. Pelton wrote a whole book on how the pill interacts in the body and the different known interactions and nutrient deficiencies and all these different things that are associated with pill use. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into today’s episode.

I’m excited to welcome my guest Ross Pelton to the show. Ross, also known as the natural pharmacist, is a certified clinical nutritionist. He received his PhD in psychology and holistic health. And he’s written 10 books, including the book called The Pill Problem: How to Protect Your Health from the Side Effects of Oral Contraceptives, which we’ll be talking about today, and another book called The Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs. And also, in 1999, he was named one of the top 50 most influential pharmacists in the US by American Druggist Magazine. And so very excited to have you today. In today’s show, we’ll be talking about his book, The Pill Problem, and really talking about some of the information, interesting things that you uncovered in your research by doing that book. So welcome to the show, Mr. Pelton.

Ross: Well, thank you, Lisa. It’s really nice to be here with you and your listeners, and look forward to our conversation.

Lisa: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I was telling you in our pre-chat that I came across your work as part of my training. I was kind of referred to it somewhere in there because of the information that you had uncovered about the pill and the connection between the pill and certain nutrient deficiencies and kind of a whole host of different effects that obviously as women we’re not really told about. And so, you know, before we get into all of those details, I wanted to ask you what prompted you to write this book?

Ross: Well, good question. I was asked by a nutritional supplement company if I could write a review of drugs that cause nutrient depletions because I had the unique background of being a pharmacist and understanding drugs, but also being a clinical nutritionist and really interested in all things related to diet, nutrition, and health. And so I accepted this consulting job, and the nutrition company had big plans. When I finished it, they were going to create a two-page laminated drug-induced nutrient depletion chart that they were going to distribute to all the female doctors in the United States and all the holistic doctors in the United States, so they had big plans for it.

And as things sometimes go, people at the company got fired and moved on, and they never followed up on this marketing program for drug-induced nutrient depletions. But when I started studying it, I was astounded at how many studies I found in the literature documenting the fact that commonly prescribed drugs were depleting nutrients. And so I just got really passionate about the topic and the project and continued on my own and ended up first writing the Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, which is a classic reference book for physicians and pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.

And then we realized that we needed to write this information in a manner that was more readable for the general public. So we rewrote the manuscript in the book titled The Nutritional Cost of Drugs. And that’s the same information for the general public, but it spends more time talking about the health aspects of the different nutrients and the health problems associated with the nutrient depletion. So it’s a little bit more educational rather than just being a reference book.

So that’s what got me started on all this. And then with our topic today, fertility awareness for women, when I wrote the Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, I was just aghast and astounded when I learned that oral contraceptives deplete more nutrients from women’s bodies than any other commonly prescribed class of drugs. So that really got my attention, and that’s what stimulated me to write The Pill Problem to teach women how to protect their health from the side effects of oral contraceptives and the things they can do.

And I’m not telling women they shouldn’t take oral contraceptives. My personal opinion is that they shouldn’t, but I realize in today’s culture and some of the stresses in everyday lives and jobs and so forth, a lot of women feel that they don’t have any other options. And of course, that’s one of the things that you do, is educate them about other options. But for the women that are taking birth control pills, I want them to know about the side effects and the nutrient depletions and the things they can do to minimize or prevent or reverse these side effects.

And hopefully the education in my book, The Pill Problem, will convince a lot of women to not go on oral contraceptives and to utilize some of the natural methods so that they can remain much healthier. Because I think all women are going to have significant side effects from oral contraceptives if you really start to stop to think about it. For literally millions and millions of years of human evolution, no woman ever put estrogen hormones in her mouth. Our systems are not designed that way. And so I think all women have side effects.

And it really even influences the type of mate selection that women go through. A lot of people don’t realize this, but part of our natural body processes is that our bodies emit odors. We call them pheromones, which are subtle. We’re sometimes not even too aware of them, but the pheromones that we secrete have a significant influence on the type of mates that we attract. And when women take oral contraceptives, it totally changes their body biochemistry. It changes the pheromones that are secreted by their system, and they end up choosing mates that are probably less optimal for them. So there’s just a lot of things involved with oral contraceptives that women need to know about. And that’s a little start on things, Lisa.

Lisa: Well, you know, I remember, I think many women have heard that. There’s lots of blog articles, you know, the mate selection thing. And I think what kind of, to use your word, astounded me when I actually looked into the research, it’s not like it was like one paper hidden away. There’s this whole emerging field of kind of evolutionary biology where they’re really looking at this. And there’s all of this research to support what you’re saying, which is how it can impact mate choice. And that’s just one area of one area that it impacts. Did you want to talk a little bit more about that before we move forward?

Ross: Yeah, I’ll share a little information that I think is fascinating, and I don’t mean to shock our listeners here because I’m going to share some scientific research. When they study primates, monkeys and chimpanzees, they have a very rich sex life. Under normal conditions, the males will copulate with the females on a regular basis, and sometimes multiple times a day. And that’s the sex life for primates, for chimpanzees and monkeys and so forth.

If they put the female on birth control pills, the male will reject the female and sit in the corner and masturbate. And if they take the woman off birth control pills, gradually the male will come back to the female and start having normal sex again with the female. So that is pretty dramatic, showing that the biochemistry and the odors of the female change to the point where in primates, the monkey or the chimpanzee, the male will reject the female when she’s on oral contraceptives.

Lisa: Wow. Yeah, that’s pretty interesting because it, you know, something, it’s obviously changing something, right? Like that’s what it comes down to. It’s obviously changing something. So what struck me about what you said initially was that you did all of this research about how different medications induce drug deficiencies. And I could say that that’s one area where I have a limited knowledge because really any research that I’ve done is focused on the pill and not on other drugs and how they may be depleting other nutrients. So you have a vast kind of knowledge of all of these different drugs. But what you said was that the hormonal contraceptives created kind of the most nutrient deficiency in women of all the other drugs. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? Because that’s a pretty powerful and strong statement.

Ross: Sure. Well, it turns out that oral contraceptives deplete all of the B vitamins: the vitamin B1, B2, B3, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, folic acid, another B vitamin. And let’s just talk about folic acid for a moment. Folic acid is a really critical nutrient, and one of the things it’s involved in is cellular division. Folic acid is required to have healthy cellular division. And if you don’t have enough adequate levels of folic acid, you can have mutations and damage during the cellular division process.

And during a pregnancy, when the woman is growing a whole new individual, a whole new fetus, that’s the most rapid cellular division process that ever occurs. And so if women are folic acid deficient, they’ll have problems in the developing of their fetus and you end up with birth defects. And it is pretty well documented that folic acid deficiencies are the number one cause of birth defects like cleft palate and spina bifida and all that sort of stuff, which is a horrible, horrible thing for a woman or a husband and wife team to experience.

So if women are taking birth control pills and birth control pills are depleting folic acid, it increases the risk of having an infant with birth defects. And then there are multiple classes of drugs that deplete folic acid. So maybe the woman, if she has epilepsy, she’s on an anticonvulsant medication, an anti-seizure medication, and those medications all deplete folic acid. And maybe she gets cramps or headaches periodically, and so she’s taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen and naproxen and so forth. They deplete folic acid. So you can see there’s multiple classes of drugs that could actually double up on the depletion of the same nutrient.

So I’ve mentioned the B vitamins. And also let me mention one other thing. Folic acid, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 are the three B vitamins that metabolize a compound called homocysteine. Now, it is well documented that if you have elevated levels of homocysteine, it dramatically increases your cardiovascular risk. It increases plaque buildup. It increases risk to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

And so here we have oral contraceptives depleting all three of these B vitamins—B6, B12, and folic acid—which are required to metabolize homocysteine. So women taking oral contraceptives are likely to have elevated homocysteine. And this is a silent killer. You can go for 10, 15, 20 years without having any symptoms, and all of a sudden you’ve got clogged arteries and you have bypass surgery or a heart attack or a stroke. And people think, “Oh, I just had a heart attack.” Well, if women have been taking oral contraceptives and they have elevated homocysteine, this is a condition that has been developing over decades.

So I encourage women to be proactive, to learn about these things. So if they take B6, B12, and folic acid supplements, then you can lower homocysteine levels and reduce your cardiovascular risks and your Alzheimer’s disease risk because you lower your homocysteine levels.

So a couple other nutrients that are depleted by female hormones. In addition to the B vitamins that I’ve mentioned, vitamin C is depleted. And then the minerals magnesium and selenium and zinc are depleted. And the amino acid tyrosine, which is the precursor for the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine. And those neurotransmitters are critical regulators of moods and emotions. So when that gets dysregulated, women are much more likely to become depressed.

And in my book and in my seminars on this topic, I show slides and review studies that show that women taking oral contraceptives are much more likely to become depressed compared to a control group of women who are non-users of oral contraceptives. So we do see that this is increasing the risk for depression. And then probably most women will get prescribed an antidepressant drug, and that goes down a terrible rat hole with all sorts of side effects that are even worse.

And the last nutrient on my list here that is depleted by oral contraceptives is the very important compound called coenzyme Q10. So that’s a pretty substantial list of really important nutrients that are depleted by oral contraceptives.

Lisa: Yeah, yeah, it’s really significant. And I think that was when I was reading through your book, and it’s kind of like more than you thought. And it’s very interesting when you have kind of a general understanding of the roles of some of these nutrients. I mean, how important magnesium is in the body and how many of us are deficient anyways, you know, selenium plays a critical role in so many functions. And so many women who are trying to conceive are taking coenzyme Q10, right, in order to boost egg quality. So it’s really interesting to think about how these nutrient deficiencies are kind of playing out.

But what I want to ask you about is depression, because that is something I remember when I did one of my very first interviews. So when I first started the podcast, I interviewed Dr. Lara Briden, and I asked her what the most common side effects of the pill were in her practice. And now at that time, I just didn’t have a kind of thorough and grounded knowledge as I do now after three years of doing this. And so I actually expected her to say something about blood clots, and the first thing out of her mouth was—I believe the first thing she said was depression, low libido. And that I remember kind of surprised me at the time. So could you tell us a little bit about the connection between depression and nutrient deficiencies specifically?

Ross: Sure. Well, vitamin B6 is required for the synthesis of serotonin. So if you’re B6 deficient, you can’t make serotonin effectively. And the next step, serotonin gets converted into melatonin, which is the sleep trigger. So vitamin B6 deficiencies caused by oral contraceptives can create both depression and sleep problems because serotonin is one of the critical neurotransmitters for mood and emotions. And then insufficient serotonin means you’re not going to be able to convert serotonin to melatonin effectively.

And so then there are far more women than men that have sleep problems, and now I understand why, because we’ve got millions and millions of women taking oral contraceptives that are depleting vitamin B6. Then the other nutrient I just mentioned before, tyrosine, the amino acid, is the precursor for dopamine and norepinephrine. So we have both the serotonin pathway and the dopamine norepinephrine pathways hindered by nutrient depletions caused by oral contraceptives.

The other thing you mentioned, Lisa, is one of the main reasons that women discontinue oral contraceptives is really the sexual side effects. That’s probably the most common reason that women discontinue oral contraceptives. And there’s several different types of sexual side effects. There’s decreased desire for sex, which is the decreased libido. Women also have a greater difficulty becoming aroused. Many women develop vaginal dryness, which results in painful sex. And then many women have a difficulty or an inability to achieve an orgasm. And so this is a significant issue for women.

And one of the things I like to really emphasize is that women understand this: there have been studies where women are on birth control pills and they document a dysregulation of several different hormones. Testosterone goes down. DHEA, which is dehydroepiandrosterone, another important hormone in the body, DHEA levels are lower. And sex hormone binding globulin goes up. And when sex hormone binding globulin is elevated, that’s a protein that carries testosterone around your body to the cells, but it binds the testosterone up so that it’s not available at the cellular level. So elevated levels of sex hormone binding globulin mean decreased levels of testosterone. Of course, testosterone is what regulates your sex drive in men and in women.

So when women on oral contraceptives are compared with non-users, all women have these hormone dysregulations with their sex hormones: lower DHEA, lower testosterone, elevated sex hormone binding globulin. And there’s an endocrinologist, Dr. Panzer in Denver, Colorado, who studied this, and she was tracking all these hormones in women. And the women on oral contraceptives, when she took them off oral contraceptives, she kept tracking their hormone levels. And six months after they were off oral contraceptives, they still had lower testosterone and lower DHEA and elevated sex hormone binding globulin.

So these problems don’t correct themselves easily when women stop taking oral contraceptives. And I have not seen another study that followed women for like two years and five years and ten years to see how long it does take to correct itself. But I want women to understand this up front: when they take oral contraceptives, they are going to have sexual side effects. And even if they decide they don’t like being on oral contraceptives and they discontinue them, they are still going to have residual sexual side effects for some time to come.

Lisa: Yeah, I’ve heard—I’ve seen a few studies—and it’s incredible that these effects continue. And this leads me to a question because what I always say is that it’s not the question of whether or not you’ll have side effects. It’s kind of like which ones will you have? Kind of like how will it affect you? But there’s many women. So when I talk about these things, obviously I’m talking about these things publicly all the time. So when I talk about these things, sometimes I get responses from women, I’m sure some of the women who are listening now, who will say adamantly, “You know, I was on hormonal contraceptives for 10 years. It was the best thing I ever did. I mean, I didn’t have any side effects.” So what do you say to a woman who adamantly says, “I didn’t have any side effects”?

Ross: Well, Lisa, there are certainly a lot of differences to consider. There’s what we call biochemical individuality. And there’s different diets and different levels of exercise and different exposures to environmental pollution and so forth. So there’s a lot of different types of things that will influence how women are affected by oral contraceptives.

But I would say that all women will have some of these side effects, whether or not they’re aware of them. Some of these side effects are long-term, like cardiovascular disease and cancer and osteoporosis, or things that take years to develop. And so women probably just aren’t even aware that these things are going on.

And for example, lower levels of magnesium increase your risk to blood clots. But if women are taking omega-3 fish oils and doing some other important things, they’re less likely to have that problem. Another problem that a lot of women really don’t connect the dots and connect this with oral contraceptives, but many women complain of low energy and fatigue.

One of the examples I use in my seminars when I’m introducing this topic is: when people take a drug, a prescription drug, and they have a side effect, it usually happens relatively quickly. They’ve got a rash or a headache or nausea and vomiting. And so within the first 12, 24, 48 hours, they really realize that they’ve got a side effect to the drug, and they will stop the drug and report it to their doctor.

But drug-induced nutrient depletions is a little more difficult because these nutrient depletions are gradual in their onset. And so my example that I use to explain why this is sometimes difficult to figure out for women: consider a woman who’s been taking birth control pills for maybe 10 or 12 years, seemingly without any side effects and without any problems. But in the past six months, she’s been increasingly complaining to her husband or her significant other, “Honey, I just don’t have any energy. I’m tired all the time. I can hardly drag myself out of bed in the morning. Or by mid-afternoon, I’m so tired I can’t even think about making dinner for you and the kids at night.”

She’s probably not going to realize that depletions of folic acid and magnesium and coenzyme Q10 and a number of these nutrients are all required for energy production, and a depletion of any one of those nutrients can cause a depletion in energy production and energy capability in the body. But she’s been taking oral contraceptives for years without problems, so she’s not likely to connect the dots and realize that it’s the oral contraceptives and the nutrient depletions that are gradually causing the problem.

And so when these nutrient depletions develop, oftentimes what people do is go to the doctor and explain the symptoms, and then the doctor prescribes a drug. And they’re on another drug when what they really need to do is learn what nutrients have been depleted by the drugs they’re on and take the appropriate dosage levels to counteract those deficiencies and not end up with these additional health problems.

Lisa: That’s such a good way of putting it because one of the things that I’ve heard a lot—so I have done a number of interviews with just, you know, real women, women who have taken oral contraceptives, and of course typically women who haven’t had the greatest experience on them—but one of the things that I’ve heard a lot in my client work, and in this, I’m just talking a lot of women who’ve been on hormonal contraceptives, and what they’ll say is like, “I didn’t really notice anything until I came off.”

So it’s what you said about energy. I think that’s an example where I’ve heard many women say, “Okay, you know, I went off of it, I didn’t really think anything was wrong, but all of a sudden I got my energy back.” Or, “My libido came back.” Or, “My brain wasn’t foggy anymore. I didn’t even realize how foggy my brain was.” Or, “My moods changed.”

There’s always a part of me that’s a little bit skeptical when a woman says, “I didn’t have any effects and I was on it for 15 years,” because from a physiological standpoint, there are effects.

Ross: Absolutely. And just the fact that it changes the level of secretions in the vagina. So this will change the acid-base level in the vaginal area and the mucous membranes and makes it much more likely that candida yeast will grow. And sometimes this is also what’s behind the development of painful sex, one of the sexual side effects. So yes, these women are having side effects whether they realize it or not.

And just things like magnesium is required for over 300 different types of reactions in the body. So when you’re low in magnesium—one of the most common nutritional deficiencies in our culture—but if you’re taking a drug that additionally depletes magnesium, you’re quite likely to have magnesium depletion, or at least not have optimal levels in your system, which increases risks to a lot of things.

And another thing I can talk about for a minute here, Lisa, is your immune system. Women taking oral contraceptives are definitely going to have a weaker immune system because key antioxidants like vitamin C and zinc and selenium and CoQ10 are all critical antioxidants for the immune system. And so these nutrients are lower in people, they’re going to have increased free radical damage going on, which means you’re accelerating the aging process and the immune system is weaker.

And so I’d love to see a study that documented two groups of women, one who are non-users and the other group of women who are using oral contraceptives, through the winter cold and flu season, to see if the women taking oral contraceptives catch colds more often or have longer episodes of the cold or flu when they get it compared to non-users. I’m pretty sure the outcome would show that the women on oral contraceptives have a weaker immune system and are more susceptible to colds and flu, but I haven’t seen a study like that.

Lisa: Yeah, no, that would be really interesting. So one of the thoughts that just crossed my mind is kind of, again, like that what about someone who says, “Well, if you know that these nutrients are depleted, you know, and you’re taking hormonal contraceptives, why not just, you know, take a vitamin or something?” What would you say to that kind of thought process?

Ross: I heartily agree with that. If women are going to take oral contraceptives, then yes, they should take multivitamins and a good, well-formulated multivitamin. And by that, I mean not a one-a-day vitamin. One-a-day vitamins are formulated along the lines of the RDA, which stands for the Recommended Dietary Allowance. And I think the RDA stands for the Really Dumb Allowance. It’s got nothing to do with optimal health and wellness.

And if women are taking medications that are depleting nutrients, like the wide range of nutrients depleted by oral contraceptives, a one-a-day vitamin just isn’t going to do it. And especially in the United States where the standard American diet is known to be nutrient deficient. People rely on fast foods and processed foods, which are low in nutrients to begin with, and then they are taking medications that are depleting more nutrients from their bodies. So we’ve got a real nutritional problem in our culture.

And I strongly advocate taking good quality nutritional supplements and a well-formulated product that’s more than just a one-a-day vitamin to complement and supplement for the nutrients that are being depleted by oral contraceptives and any other medication women might be taking.

Lisa: I mean, of course that, like there’s—I feel like with some, so I’ve done a bit of research in this area, and I feel like with some of the nutrient deficiencies, it’s possible to supplement with like a reasonable, you know what I mean, like a reasonable amount. The studies that I was looking at with folate, there’s like a lot of these short-term studies where the researchers conclude that it’s no problem because they allow the participants to take folate. But with other nutrients, it would seem as though the amount that would be required to counter the nutrient deficiency would be kind of excessive.

Ross: That’s true. And one study that I presented in my seminars is a study where the women are on oral contraceptives and they had symptoms of depression and tiredness, and also some of their markers for type 2 diabetes went up. And so the clinician, the physician, put women on 40 milligrams of vitamin B6 a day. It totally corrected all the abnormal biochemistry and all of the symptoms went away.

But the point I’m making is the doctor prescribed 40 milligrams of vitamin B6 daily for these women. The RDA is 1.6 milligrams. So you can see this is a massive dose that the doctor is using to overcome and correct the nutritional deficiencies of oral contraceptives.

Lisa: Yeah. It’s just—it’s what you said at the beginning. I mean, what I always say is that I agree with you that I don’t think that no woman should ever use hormonal birth control. I mean, it’d be nice to say something like that, but I’ve used it. I was put on it when I was a teenager because of painful periods. So I have used it too. And I understand why women use it. I mean, I am a woman, and when you’re at a certain stage of your life, you might not—you don’t want to have a baby and you need to find a way to organize that for yourself.

But really what I think is important is to have that informed consent piece. I feel like that’s most important because I don’t think that knowing this information would preclude women from ever taking it. But I feel like if you know these effects, it would allow you to choose, you know, which type you’re going to take, how long you’re going to take it. And perhaps some women would make the exact same choice, but I feel that many women may come off of it maybe a little bit sooner knowing that there are these other effects going on.

Ross: Sure. And also, if they understand this information, if they choose to take oral contraceptives, they can take proactive steps to take the nutritional supplements that will help to prevent the onset of some of these nutrient depletions.

Lisa: Well, and one of the common themes that I found, you know, speaking to so many women that are part of my community, is that many of them had no idea that the side effects they were experiencing were related. So for instance, one woman who I interviewed on the show, shortly after she started taking hormonal birth control for the first time, she actually started to get like a yeast infection. So she’d get yeast infections, and then her doctor would give her antifungals, and then she’d get the bacterial overgrowth. So she was on this medication party, and it wasn’t until she stopped taking it for a different reason—so she was also getting migraines, and her mom had mentioned, “Okay, you know, I had migraines on it, so that might be why you’re getting them”—so she went off of it for a different side effect, and then the yeast infections went away. So women also don’t know, because I know you mentioned that the change in the vaginal secretions and how it can contribute to an imbalance of bacteria.

Ross: Exactly. You’re right. You hit the nail on the head. And for all women who are taking birth control pills, I recommend that they take a really good quality probiotic to help prevent the yeast overgrowth and to help prevent the gastrointestinal problems and dysbiosis, which is too many bad bacteria and not enough good bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract or your microbiome.

Lisa: Well, and one topic I wanted to ask you about as well is long-term versus short-term use. So you touched on it a bit. I just wanted to ask you about that cumulative effect. So compared to a woman, say, who’s on hormonal contraceptives for two, three years versus a woman who’s been on hormonal birth control for, say, 12, 15 years, could you talk to us a little bit about cumulative effect of these nutrient depletions?

Ross: Well, yes, the nutrient depletions will increase over time. So there is a cumulative effect. And the sex hormone problems and the sexual side effects will also increase over time. Longer-term usage creates these problems and makes it more difficult for the body to self-correct when you discontinue the birth control pills. So yes, there is an increase in the problems over a period of time.

And things like blood clots and heart attacks and cancer and osteoporosis, these are all conditions that just gradually develop over time. So the longer women are on oral contraceptives, the more likely—the likelihood that these conditions are just going to creep along, getting worse and worse over time until there’s some sort of a catastrophic event. And of course, we’d like to prevent these things from happening.

Lisa: Well, and I think you touched on this. I mean, it’s one of the topics that I find that I talk about the least, because some of the other side effects are so much more pervasive. But I think all women—we know that there is this serious risk of, you know, the risk of having a blood clot or a stroke goes up. And in the media, there’s more of these young—usually young women who’ve had these side effects, and many of them have died as a result of them. And so is this increased risk of stroke and blood clotting that’s related to nutrient deficiencies in particular, or other actions of hormonal birth control?

Ross: Well, those problems can be caused by other issues, but some of the nutrient depletions caused by the oral contraceptives are increasing the risk of those problems. And like magnesium deficiency is definitely going to increase your risk to blood clots and cardiovascular disease. So there are other reasons that those problems develop, but oral contraceptives is just increasing the risk of these problems and probably exacerbating pre-existing nutritional deficiencies.

Because I’ve got numerous studies in my database that shows that the nutritional content of the commercially available food supply has been declining steadily for the last 70 to 80 years. Because factory farming has gotten into only using artificial fertilizers, and they don’t rotate crops anymore, and pesticides and insecticides are used. And so this all contributes to a decrease in the nutritional content of the commercially available food supply.

So nutrient content is going down in the food supply, and then women start taking oral contraceptives, which further deplete additional nutrients. And it kind of ends up being the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And oftentimes, when people start taking medications and the nutrient depletions start to happen, you go to a doctor and you expect to get a drug that’s going to help you. But instead, that drug causes nutrient depletions, which causes more symptoms, and you end up with additional health problems. So it’s a really vicious cycle.

And if I could wave my magic wand, I would say that the government should mandate that—or the FDA should mandate that the process for bringing a new drug to market in the pharmaceutical industry, they should have to research the drug-induced nutrient depletion issue. And part of their launching a new drug should be a discussion and reveal to the physicians and pharmacists as well as the general public what nutrients are being depleted by those drugs.

Lisa: Well, that makes me think of what you talked—basically, when you introduced yourself and you shared why you wrote these books, you were part of a team of people who were basically trying to bring this information to doctors. And that was totally squashed, which is, I suppose, a topic that could be of a whole other podcast. But it seems as though that’s exactly what you’re saying.

I mean, many of the women who I’ve spoken to and worked with who’ve had some of these side effects, they went to their own doctor several times or several doctors and were never told by their physicians that their symptoms, that they’re experiencing—their side effects, essentially—they were never told that it could be related to hormonal contraceptive use. So I feel like what you’re saying is critical, because if your prescribing doctor doesn’t know that the symptom you’re having could be related to the drug that she’s giving you, why are you giving the drug if you don’t even know the side effects that could be related to it?

Ross: Exactly. I totally agree with you. And depression is a good example of this. When women get depressed and they go to the doctor and they’re given Prozac or some other type of antidepressant when they’re on birth control pills, one of the things they need to realize is that the birth control pills can be causing the depression because of the nutrient depletions. And before you try an antidepressant, let’s try supplementing with tyrosine and vitamin B6 and some of the other nutrients that get depleted. And also maybe consider going off birth control pills.

Lisa: Yeah. And of course, some doctors do that, but many, many others do not. So I suppose it’s just, you know, raising awareness.

One other topic—I’m trying to think if it was an email that I had or a comment in one of my Facebook group or something like that—but I had a woman contact me and she says, “You know, you’re always talking about the pill and all the negative effects. But what about the positive effects? What about the, you know, the pill reduces the chances of certain cancers. Why don’t you talk about that?”

And so I’d like to hear what you have to say about that, because, you know, what I’ve read in the research is very—it’s very interesting how this is positioned. I find it—I always find it to be interesting because the pill increases the chances of some cancers and reduces the chances of others. But in the research, it’s always presented as a positive, like the overall effect is positive. And I find that to be a little bit interesting.

Ross: Well, I suppose there’s an argument to be made there. But I think that the overriding thing that I would focus on is that the number of nutrients that are depleted and the number of different health problems that can arise from these nutrient depletions far outweighs any possible positive influences that might be attributed to maybe decreasing the risk of certain types of cancer because they’re on oral contraceptives.

But if I run down the list of different types of health problems that can be caused by oral contraceptives and the nutrients that are depleted: there’s fatigue and low energy and anemia, and we’ve got blood clots and birth defects and plaque buildup in the arteries which can cause cardiovascular disease—both heart attacks and strokes—and elevated blood pressure, and cancer, various types of cancer—breast cancer, uterine cancer, and colon cancer are increased risks for women on oral contraceptives. And osteoporosis is definitely an increased risk because you’re less likely to have adequate levels of magnesium, which is critical to bone growth.

And weakened immune system and depression and sleep problems and vaginal yeast infections and migraine headaches and fluid retention and weight gain and all the sexual side effects we talked about. And not to mention just increased free radical damage and accelerated aging. So I mean, that’s a lot of potential problems that are happening to every woman who’s taking birth control pills.

Lisa: So from your perspective, then—because I feel this way—like when you go down this rabbit hole and you find out, and it’s not something that’s hard to find. So the evidence is not hard to find, and it’s plentiful. The research literature is there, and it’s there in spades, in all areas, every area that we talked about today. So then the bigger question is, why do you think that this is not—why do you think that this is a fringe conversation that we’re having, that most physicians and women have never heard this particular conversation before?

Ross: Well, I’m happy to comment on that, and I think I understand it. It’s a couple of things to mention. First of all, when I wrote the Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, there were over 500 different published studies on drug-induced nutrient depletions. And these are published in hundreds of different scientific journals over 20 or 30 years of time.

And physicians just don’t have the time to track down all these studies, or they don’t even think about looking for the information. They’re educated in the medical system, which is just focusing on drugs. And so they’re never encouraged to research the biochemistry and the possible nutrient depletions. So there’s a bias because of the AMA and the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry.

And there’s just the difficulty in tracking down all the information. And I’m just a crazy enough guy to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours to track down all of these studies and organize it into one coherent resource, which is the Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, the first book I wrote, and then the second one is The Nutritional Cost of Drugs, which is more organized for the general public.

And unfortunately, both of these books are out of print, but I am taking steps to get this information available on an online seminar, especially for healthcare professionals. But The Pill Problem is still available. You can order The Pill Problem from Amazon and from my website, and it’s available both in paperback and as an e-book.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, you know, I really appreciate everything that you’ve taken us through today. I know that I could really continue—I could probably talk to you for hours and kind of go through all kinds of different things. But the work that you’ve done is really important and profound.

I would love to see those books back in print, because it’s what you said—really struck me—that the physicians don’t necessarily have the time to go and track down 500 odd papers. So if you had 500, you probably had to look at a thousand to get those 500, and to then condense it into a resource. I often wonder that because we’ve reached a point where there’s so much research. I mean, I don’t even know how many research papers come out every day and how many hundreds of thousands of them come out every year in all the different areas. And so at what point do you start amalgamating that data and use it to improve people’s lives? I’ve often wondered that.

Ross: Well, thank you. It’s just my passion and my professional responsibility. I happen to have the unique skill set that allowed me to put this project together and put this information out there into the world for both the general public and healthcare professionals. So I’m just happy to have it out there and make it available for people.

Lisa: Well, so given everything we spoke about today, especially if a woman’s listening to this and this is perhaps her first episode of my podcast that she’s ever heard, her mind is blown, she’s feeling a little bit uncomfortable, maybe she’s on hormonal contraceptives and feeling bad about it—and that’s—I don’t want that either. I think one of the challenges is that a lot of women come to this knowledge at different stages of their lives. So there’s women who are listening to this podcast who’ve been on the pill for 10 years. Do you have any words of wisdom or support or encouragement for those women and all the women who are listening to the podcast so they don’t leave feeling kind of dejected?

Ross: Well, I encourage women to be proactive and to get educated. So learn about the side effects from birth control pills and learn what they can do to help prevent them or reverse them. And then they might want to consider looking for healthy alternatives.

Lisa: Well, I just want to thank you so much for being here, Ross. It was my pleasure to have you on the show and to really delve into these topics. Like I said, I really appreciate the work that you’ve done in this area. And I know that many of the listeners—I mean, just going through all of those effects and to really think about what these, you know, the far-reaching effects of all of these nutrient deficiencies—I feel like it’s very important and powerful information.

So where can our listeners go to get more information about you and to grab a copy of your book?

Ross: Well, sure. My website is naturalpharmacist.net, and I’ve got a free online newsletter that people can sign up for. I’ll put them on my mailing list and they’ll get my newsletter as I send it out periodically. And my blog is on my website, naturalpharmacist.net, where I’ve got hundreds of different articles on various health-related things.

And one of my great passions in life, Lisa, is anti-aging and life extension research. And so I’ve got a number of studies on my blog that specifically tell people key things for anti-aging and life extension. And so it’s just one of the main focuses of my website and my blog. As you get deeper and deeper into health, it all moves in the direction of getting healthier for slowing down your aging process and healthy longevity. So that’s—I’m a natural pharmacist that specializes in life extension.

Lisa: Wow. That sounds like a really interesting field. I think it’s funny, like I’m in my mid-30s, and so it’s kind of like it hasn’t occurred to me yet, but it definitely will. And when it does, I know where to go to get the best results.

Ross: Yeah. One of the things I present in my seminars is a picture of a huge roller coaster, and I use it as a metaphor for the aging process. Because most people have been on a roller coaster, and you know when you go up the roller coaster, it’s very steep and you chug along very slowly. And I kind of—this is my metaphor for the aging process. But when you reach the top and start going down, things accelerate really fast.

And so I encourage people with this metaphor: on the upside, do everything proactively to slow down your aging process, because when you get older and it kicks in, things really accelerate rapidly and it gets harder and harder to turn it around or stop it. So be proactive and do everything you can to slow down your aging process. And I think that women who are on oral contraceptives need to be very conscious of this—to take the nutritional supplements that will help to prevent some of the nutrient depletions that we’ve discussed today.

Lisa: Well, wonderful words to end on. Thank you so much for being here, Ross.

Ross: All right. Nice to be with you and the opportunity to talk on your program.

Lisa: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. You’ll find the show notes page for today’s episode over at fertilityfriday.com/479. I hope that you enjoyed today’s episode with Ross Pelton. And this is the conclusion of my impromptu pill series for the month of July. I just took this as an opportunity, especially just after the conversation that I had with Holly, to go into it a little bit and share some of my favorite episodes on this topic with you.

So I hope that you’ve enjoyed it. I know that many of you have been listening for a while, but now that we’re at nearly 500 episodes, I know that many of you haven’t heard some of these gems that are hidden in the back catalog. And so every now and then I pull some of them and share them with you because I mean, there’s just so much gold there. And so I hope that you enjoyed it.

Next week, I’m sharing a brand new interview with Mark Sklar. He’s been a repeat guest on the show a couple of times. And this time we’re not talking about male fertility, we’re talking about female fertility, unexplained infertility, and he shares some of his expertise on that. So definitely join us next week for our upcoming episode.

With that said, I hope you have a wonderful week, weekend, whenever you’re tuning into the show. And of course, as always, until next time, be well and happy charting.