Side Project Podcast 9: Longevity with Joanna Strober

Julie Liegl (01:49.55)

We are sitting here today with Joanna Strober, who is the co-founder and CEO of MIDI Health, which is a virtual care platform for women in menopause and perimenopause. The company brings expert care, which is covered by at least my insurance and many others, to women nationwide. She has an extensive history in tech, private equity, venture capital focused on health. And she’s the author of the book, Getting to 50 50, a primer on how women can succeed and thrive at work and at home, which sounds like something I definitely need to read. Welcome Joanna.

 

Joanna Strober (02:36.284)

Thank you. I’m so excited.

 

Leyla Seka (02:38.474)

We are too. So why don’t you start, so Julie just gave kind of the headline on Midi, but why don’t you give us a little bit of like, what is Midi? How’d you get into doing this? And why are you changing everybody’s life so that we’re all a lot nicer to our husbands and have a lot more calm, free time? 

 

Joanna Strober (02:56.146)

Midi 101. So I was at a party this weekend and a guy came up to me and he said, you saved my marriage. I’d never met him before. He’s like, you really saved my marriage. And his wife comes up and gives him a hug. She’s like, yeah, I was driving him crazy. And she said, I was so angry all the time and I wasn’t sleeping and I’d gained weight and my life was really bad and I was taking it out on my husband. 

 

Julie Liegl (03:25.038)

What I’m hearing is I’d be even worse if I wasn’t doing this.

 

Joanna Strober (03:28.976)

Yeah. but you know, this happens a lot, literally all the time. People are like, you kind of saved my marriage. You saved my relationship with my kids. You let me go back to work. So what is Midi? I mean, Midi is a national virtual care company focused on women 35 and up for all the shit. And there’s a lot of shit, right? So like, when you think about menopause, we, as you said, it’s like old ladies, right? Gray hair, like, that’s our image. And yet perimenopause starts in our 30s. And so it’s basically estrogen fluctuations and those exogen fluctuations as they’re going down impact every part of our body. So it imparts our brains, it imparts our hearts, it impacts how we are able to deal in the world, quite honestly. It makes it so sex is not as good anymore. Like it really impacts everything in our life. And historically, menopause has been only treated when you get to menopause after 50X, right? But perimenopause is the big thing here. And so there’s so much that women need to start doing in their 30s and 40s and 50s to stay strong and to basically help their symptoms and stay strong. so what we realized is that we had an opportunity to basically build out this expertise, build a national care clinic to take care of all of these symptoms and make sure that women get the right care. And it doesn’t have to be hormones. It can be hormones, the path that we’re all talking about, but people come to us for non-hormonal medications. They come to us for supplements. They come to us for lifestyle. Like it doesn’t have to be a hormone, but it’s the hormonal change that we’re managing. And then there’s lots of ways to fix that.

 

Leyla Seka (05:16.918)

It’s amazing. I mean, Julie is a customer. I’m an investor. We all clearly are hot on your tail and huge fans of what you’re doing. How does it work? Do I just sign up and like, you start?

 

Joanna Strober (05:31.226)

It’s that easy, Leyla. You just sign up. You book a visit. All you have to do is go to our website, check that we provide your insurance. If you want to do insurance covered care, if you want cash because you don’t have insurance, you can do that too. 90 % of women pay insurance. We take their insurance. They book a visit with us. They come to a call like this. It’s a 30 minute call. We learn all about your health. We learn all about your preventive health too. Have you had your colonoscopy and you had your mammogram and have you had your shingles vaccine? And then we also talk to you about what are your symptoms and then we’ll talk to you about what medications you want to try first. And I say first because this is an iterative process. It’s not wham bam, thank you ma’am, nor is it a vending machine. This is an iteration and we basically will iterate with you. So we’re going to try a patch and progesterone if you have a uterus.

 

And then you’ll come back and say, you know what? I’m kind of sleeping better, but not enough. Can you give me a stronger patch? Or, you know, I’m sleeping, but I’m still not having enough energy and we’ll give you more progesterone. Or like, we’re just, we iterate with you. And it’s very much an iterative process. And then maybe you’ll come back six months later and say, you know what? I’m actually feeling really good, but I’m worried about my skin and my hair is kind of falling out because I’m getting thin. Can you help me with that? My job is to be with you for 20 years and to help you to manage all these things that are happening.

 

Julie Liegl (07:00.11)

By the way, Joanna, I think you just described my first two appointments with Midi. So I’m a little concerned you looked at my private files because that’s like literally what I went through. I do have to say to you, thank you. I’m just going to thank you personally. I haven’t slept like this in like longer than just perimenopause, like 20 years. Weird side effect, I’m having strange dreams, but I think it’s just because my body has not slept deeply enough to have dreams. So I’m working through a lot of stuff right now overnight, but I sleep through the night, which is just not something that happened before. But I did have an interesting experience, which is after I did a couple of midi visits and then I visited a primary care doctor to kind of do everything else in person. They were like, hormones, we gotta get you in for that mammogram so fast. So I know there’s a lot of stigma and sort of old data out there about the risks and stuff like that.

 

Joanna Strober (07:31.237)

Yeah.

 

Julie Liegl (07:56.546)

How do you think about the changing attitudes on how we intervene with perimenopause, menopause?

 

Joanna Strober (08:04.188)

Yeah. So look, the opportunity for Midi is in large part because of the last 25 years of wrong information about hormones and about the intersection between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer. Honestly, the crazy thing is that study has created the opportunity because doctors for the last 25 years have not been trained on hormones.

 

And that study, which now they have 25 years more of data, was absolutely, I mean, wrong. It was wrong. The women who were on the estrogen only arm in the study had a decreased risk of breast cancer, not an increased risk. So there’s a book called Estrogen Matters, which is phenomenal. If anyone is worried about this, I strongly suggest reading it. It’s by Avram Bluming. He explains all of this, you know, honestly. There’s also a new member of the president’s administration who wrote a book called Blindspots. And he actually in that book says that like there’s four of the worst things that have happened in American society to in medicine and that hormone therapy is one of those four. And he really goes into it in depth and how poorly women have been misled and mistreated around.

 

hormones and menopause. So the truth is, should you have a mammogram? Absolutely, you should. I am not saying that you should not have a mammogram. You should have a mammogram every year. Absolutely. But it is not because your hormone therapy is putting you at higher risk for breast cancer.

 

Julie Liegl (09:39.118)

Yes, I was gonna say, we should do that no matter what.

 

Leyla Seka (09:51.477)

Right. And honestly, hormone therapy is often one of the things that helps to more increase longevity in women as they age, right? So I know you’ve been writing a lot about this right now, Joanna, and I mean, I’d love to get your take on, obviously there’s medical and all this, but like, clearly there’s something here. Can you kind of give us, you’re the expert, what are you seeing and how is this sort of playing out?

 

Joanna Strober (10:14.684)

Yeah, it’s so interesting, right? Because longevity makes it sound like people want to live longer. But so I kind of joke this is about strongevity, which is, you know, saying stronger, longer – not necessarily living longer. But, you know, also, I would say the longevity industry has historically been very focused on men who wanted to live till 150. Right? But what I have really learned is what I want and what most women want is to keep our bones, our brains and our hearts stronger for longer, right? And basically enable us to live healthier for a longer period of time. And the research is increasingly showing that hormone replacement therapy can be a very good component of that. So there is emerging research that ties hormone replacement therapy to brain health and to bone health and to cardiovascular health. So they see that as women’s hormones go down, it increases the risk of having a heart attack, for example. 

 

So, can you use hormone replacement therapy to reduce the risk of a heart attack? Research is needed there, but there is emerging evidence on that. So what I have come to learn is that Midy is a longevity company. It’s not what we thought we were building. But if I give you hormone replacement therapy, and if you’re overweight and I give you a GLP-1, and I help you to exercise and suggest that you exercise and I get you to sleep, that’s longevity.

 

Right? Like that is the building blocks of longevity for women’s health is going to be probably HRT and GLPs. And then you’re going to add sleep and exercise and that’s going to take you a long ways. Starting in May, we’re going to add blood tests. So everyone who wants to come in can get a blood test so we can start tracking your markers better and making sure that if there are other things that you are lacking that we can help you with that too.

 

Leyla Seka (12:15.158)

That’s amazing.

 

Julie Liegl (12:16.174)

That is amazing. Joanna, like, I still feel like, and I’m also trying to figure out how much of this is because I am now middle-aged, late middle-aged, hearing this. I feel like no one was talking about this stuff. And I get the sense from talking to my mom. Like, I asked my mom, like, what was it like when you went through menopause? And she was sort of like, meh. But there was some sort of stigma about talking about this stuff. And again, like somebody explained what perimenopause was and all these light bulbs started going off.

 

Joanna Strober (12:34.61)

Really?

 

Julie Liegl (12:44.878)

Why has there been a stigma? Why haven’t people been talking about this? And I’m even thinking through longevity too. It feels like as women, the only thing people talk about is dye your hair and get a facelift. But like, are we being more accepting? Like why, it’s so great that this is happening, right? As Leyla and I hit the right age, but why was there a stigma and why do we get to talk about it now?

 

Joanna Strober (13:07.74)

So unfortunately, I think there is an odd stigma still around perimenopause. I’ll talk to women in their early 40s and they’re clearly going through perimenopause. They just don’t, it’s like, it’s still a bad word, but I’m like, okay, longer, stronger, longevity. Like they’re, okay, I’ll do that. So like it’s the same frigging thing, right? But instead with a different word. And I think we need to think about like, what is the stigma about perimenopause? My theory has been, and this is my own theory that number one, if you think that people are going to perceive you differently because you’re in perimenopause and therefore seen as old and unable to succeed in society, then you don’t want to talk about it. And there was a Harvard Business School study that said that when women were experiencing menopausal symptoms at work, they were seen as less important at work, and they were seen as less valuable members of their team and less of leaders. When they were getting treatment for it and they called out that, oh that was brain fog and I’m treating it, they regained their power. And so what is very important, I think, if you understand that is we’ve got to be willing to say, I forgot a client’s name. That was brain fog. Not a problem. I’m fixing it. Right. As opposed to it’s a problem because I’m getting old and there’s nothing I can do about it. So I think it’s that main mind shift that if you know you can fix something, you’re much more likely to talk about it. If you can’t fix it, you’re going to be really scared and you’re not going to want to talk.

 

Julie Liegl (14:51.99)

It is funny like being able to talk about it. Leyla and I kind of came up together, similar career, same company for a lot of years. And I think we both felt as women leaders kind of, or I felt a responsibility to talk about being a mother because, which I think, you know, 10 years before it was like, don’t ever talk about your kids. But I wanted to normalize it for the women that like, no, you can do this. And you can also acknowledge that you have this other life and draw boundaries. 

 

Joanna Strober (15:06.182)

Yeah, right.

 

Julie Liegl (15:21.71)

And it was, you know, I think it was part of what we felt responsible for as working mothers to normalize it for the next generation before. And I think what I’m hearing now is, now we gotta be the menopause broads. We gotta join, we gotta be the princesses of menopause and go and normalize it even further so that, you know, the ladies behind us will feel that they can get treatment and that there will be better treatment by their peers at work.

 

Joanna Strober (15:36.048)

Yeah.

 

Leyla Seka (15:45.719)

And there are crazy stats too, right? Of women in menopause and perimenopause dropping out of the workforce and just being like, I can’t, and not explaining these symptoms and not even understanding that the symptoms are symptoms, like thinking, oh my gosh, I’m having dementia or I’m like, and then I know you’re just having like hormonal surges that are messing you up. that, I mean, that’s a real thing. A lot of people drop out because of menopause and they’re just like, I’m done.

 

Joanna Strober (15:56.167)

Right?

 

Leyla Seka (16:12.052)

It shouldn’t be the end unless you want it to be the end, right? I mean, it should be something like anything you can manage and kind of like…

 

Joanna Strober (16:17.996)

I think as long as you know, you can manage it, I think that is the key factor here. When I was in Perimenopause, actually, it was 10 years ago when it started and I didn’t know the name. I really didn’t know the name. I was forgetting everything. I was forgetting client names and I was losing my car in the parking lot. I was really getting nervous that I was getting early onset Alzheimer’s.

 

I mean, as an aside, my grandfather died of Alzheimer’s, but also he had 10 years of not knowing who his family was. And so that is something that I was very scared of. it permeates that memory, permeates. So I have a friend, Ellie, who runs a company called NeuroTrack, and she actually has developed a test for early onset Alzheimer’s. So she comes over to my house one night and it was very early in her test and she shows up and she’s like, okay, Joanna, we’re going to give you that test, right? We did the test, and I did not have Alzheimer’s.

 

Leyla Seka (17:20.264)

Yay! Yeah!

 

Joanna Strober (17:21.872)

And what a relief, right? So that to me is actually like, it was the relief that I felt of like, I’m gonna be okay. Now it still took me two years before someone was able to say, okay, this is perimenopause and let’s get you on hormones so that you can sleep again at night. Yeah.

 

Leyla Seka (17:39.306)

Feel better, yeah.

 

Julie Liegl (17:41.55)

I mean, that is so interesting because I, you one thing that’s so interesting to me is like once perimenopause was explained to me, I was like, oh, and it’s also such a huge range of symptoms. And I’ve kind of been obsessed by this like meme, is like, is it depression? Is it anxiety? Is it ADHD? And it’s like, when, when you’re a woman and let’s say you’re 40, 42, and you’re like, is that, I mean, but is that safe? Is it like, you know, life is kind of tough right now. 

 

Joanna Strober (18:04.134)

Just assume it’s menopause.

 

Julie Liegl (18:11.394)

Maybe I’m budging into depression, is it like, nope, if you’re that age, you should check for perimenopause first. Is that sort of the advice?

 

Joanna Strober (18:18.32)

That’s what I think. Yes. That is my feeling. Honestly, I think that every marriage therapist, before you have any marriage therapy, should sit down with you and say, let’s see if this is perimenopause. And then we’ll work on your marriage. Because how many people go to marriage therapy to talk about painful sex or lack of desire for sex or lack of libido or just being angry at your spouse all the time and not really knowing why? It all can be tied together. So I think that every marriage therapist needs to say, we’re happy to deal with your marriage therapy, but let’s try hormones.

 

Leyla Seka (18:53.366)

So I love that too. I actually think there’s a lot to that because I do. I mean, the number of my friends who are like, I don’t want to have sex anymore. I mean, I not my personal situation, but I’m like, I it’s it’s there are a lot of people saying that. And I’m like, that can’t that can’t be good for long term marriage satisfaction.

 

Joanna Strober (19:14.53)

I can tell you another story. So I was talking with this guy recently, and he said, well, I’m in the process of getting divorced. I was at a party. He’s like, I’m in the process of getting divorced. And, you know, my wife and I haven’t had sex for 16 years. And I said to him, do you think that it could possibly be related to perimenopause? And he’s like, what’s that?

 

Julie Liegl (19:29.314)

What?

 

Joanna Strober (19:41.966)

I kind of explained it to him and he’s like, wow, like really? Like he almost started to cry. He was like, really? Like, he’s like, maybe my marriage didn’t have to fall apart. You know, it’s very sad.

 

Julie Liegl (19:56.158)

That’s very sad. Also, Joanna, you go to a lot of parties is what I’m getting from this. 

 

Joanna Strober (20:00.762)

No, only work parties. Every work party I go to, every time I leave the house, it’s just people wanting to talk about menopause.

 

Julie Liegl (20:08.034)

was gonna say, people are like, would you like a glass of wine? And they’re like, let me tell you about my sex life, Joanna. I have a lot to complain about.

 

Joanna Strober (20:10.926)

No. Exactly!

 

Leyla Seka (20:14.806)

It’s the last thing we get being asked questions about software, let me tell you. Not nearly as exciting. Not nearly as exciting.

 

Julie Liegl (20:18.606)

It’s very fair. You alluded to sleep and like I told you, that’s one of my biggest things. So I have a question that is probably not an appropriate question, but why can’t I drink red wine anymore?

 

Joanna Strober (20:34.852)

You know what? does ruin like no more wine for me at all. I don’t feel that anymore.

 

Julie Liegl (20:37.856)

Wine, so why, why is it wine? And I’m not, you know, I know alcohol intake… we need to be careful and it’s worse than we thought. Right, but realistically, Leyla and I are middle-aged moms, like we drink alcohol. Why has wine become such a problem? And is there any level of hormone I could get to where I could enjoy a nice Barolo again?

 

Joanna Strober (20:41.297)

Yeah, you’re not supposed to drink alcohol all together. Do you not know that?

 

Julie Liegl (21:02.252)

Seriously?

 

Joanna Strober (21:03.698)

Also, no, so my mother says that for like 10 years she couldn’t drink and now she likes drinking wine every night again. So I’m optimistic that it’s just a hormone shift and it’ll come back. But now I just drink like two sips and I get a headache and I just want to go to sleep. That’s a hormone thing. And hopefully it will get better, but that is a hormone thing.

 

Leyla Seka (21:20.448)

Terrible! Me too!

 

Julie Liegl (21:25.568)

It’s sad because, you know, it’s funny to think about, you know, Leyla and I are both, you know, plus minus 50. And it’s like, when I think of women in their fifties, like there’s so much vitality. There’s so much, and like, these are women who like, our kids are old enough that we can be a little less tied to the home. And it feels like our bodies are kind of trying to say like, sorry, it’s time to crumble the dust and go off on the ice flow. I mean, is this just like evolution? Weren’t supposed to, like we had our kids who were supposed to be gone. I mean, why are-

 

Joanna Strober

I actually don’t feel that. I have to say, other than the not drinking thing, I have a lot of energy. I’m actually, I think it’s partially that I’m also trying testosterone. I don’t know if you’re trying testosterone, but I think the testosterone is giving me more energy. So I’m pretty confident of that. So I would suggest trying that, but I’m lifting weights for the first time in my life and that is feeling good.

 

Joanna Strober (22:23.25)

So I don’t know that I feel like my whole body is falling apart. I was actually before I was on the hormones and, but now I feel like I could actually like, I have much more optimism now that I could like be successful at 70 than I did when I was in my late forties.

 

Julie Liegl (22:29.656)

Well, that’s the thing, the hormones have kind of changed it.

 

Leyla Seka (22:41.216)

I love that. That’s how it should be. And I chew, I mean, I don’t, I actually feel pretty strong and pretty good too. I’m taking all the hormones I can get my hands on, right? But the not drinking, just the not being able to get a little into an altered state every now and then can be a little bit challenging, especially when you’ve leaned on that for most of your adult life to like sort of make it. But I have noticed like, and the sleep thing too. I mean, I agree with Julie, I’ve never slept this well. Like maybe when I was a kid, but who remembers that, right? But to the testosterone point, like, I mean, that was added into my regime relatively, like not so long ago, like in the last couple of months, because, you know, we checked the levels and all that stuff. But so what’s your take on that and kind of how that all plays together?

 

Joanna Strober (23:33.148)

So testosterone is proven for low libido, but there is emerging research, and I’m always careful to separate out proven versus emerging research, but there’s emerging research that it has benefits to mood and to bone strength. so I don’t know, I’ve been trying it. I think it is helping my mood a bit. I am, yeah, and I try to test everything. And if you come to our office, there’s, you know, gummies of all types in the office. Come try a gummy. Would you like a magnesium gummy or would you like a calm gummy or would you like a protein gummy or, you know, tell me what you want. But I’m trying, I’m trying to try everything and learn. And that’s really what I want to understand the science between each of these things. I do know that there is an increase in, you know, research on women in THC. I don’t think there’s enough really good data that is specifically good for this, but there is emerging research on that too. And CBN, is another ingredient in hemp that people like. So, right? So, let’s try the things. My job at Midi is to do the research and to have people do all the research and then to tell you, here’s what works. 

 

Julie Liegl (24:50.158)

Two thumbs up for CBN. Yeah. Before, yeah.

 

Joanna Strober (25:02.02)

I really believe our job is to give you all the options. No judgment here. I want to give you the options and I want you to understand here are the things you can do to feel better. We actually, we’re coming out with a fiber in the summer because women don’t take enough fiber and we know how important fiber is and it’s going to have a little berberine in it because so it can help you lose weight but it’s also going to make you feel full and help you to poop better.

 

So like, we’re just like gonna try to make things that benefit women and, but that’s really my job, right? Is to just figure out all the different things that can benefit.

 

Leyla Seka (25:42.378)

Your job is fun.

 

Julie Liegl (25:42.68)

Joanna, thank you. Yeah, it’s fun. And thank you, by the way, because I did have to admit to a nutritionist we had on a prior episode that I take all my vitamins in gummy form, and she was a little like, eh, and I was like, I need candy. So this is what I do. But I appreciate you being, she wasn’t anti-gummy, but she was clearly a little disturbed. Thank you for being pro-gummy. I think what’s so great is, you know, some of the stuff you alluded to, it’s so easy to go deep on hormones and those are such a critical part. 

 

Joanna Strober (25:52.316)

I don’t know, I’m pro-gummy.

 

Julie Liegl (26:12.15)

There’s such a shift given some of the stigma of the past. But you’ve alluded to some other things like weightlifting, like fiber, testosterone. What are some other things that women of a certain age should be incorporating into whether it’s supplements or lifestyle that we should be thinking? I hear about soy, I hear about protein. Like what are the things that you think make the biggest difference?

 

Joanna Strober (26:35.612)

So, I mean, I do think fiber and protein are super important, right? And we all, we came up with an age where we don’t think, I think we were a little more scared of protein, right? Like we were, yeah, right? Low fat, yeah, sugar-free. So I’m having to train my brain to eat more protein. I still can’t eat red meat. Like I think I just like, but I eat a lot of chicken now, a lot more chicken. I try to load up with chicken. So protein, and then honestly, the emerging research on GLP-1 microdosing. I actually believe that we’re going to… So the GLP-1s are weight loss medications, right? So we know that it helps with weight loss. There is emerging evidence that it really helps with inflammation, which helps reduce Alzheimer’s. My guess is that you’re going to see the two biggest longevity drugs for women is HRT and GLPs. And so I think there’s going to be an emerging interest in micro dosing, so small doses of GLPs. We don’t know yet how much is necessary to get your brain the protection and to get your body the protection, but I think you’re going to see that people who are on it get a lot of benefits, not just weight loss related. And so I’m really interested in that too, and making sure that we will stay on top of that research and then be able to offer that to our patients too.

 

Leyla Seka (28:10.613)

Microdosing!

 

Julie Liegl (28:10.648)

So that’s not available yet, but it’s being studied or I’m guessing off label there’s people already doing it. Okay.

 

Joanna Strober (28:13.618)

It is available-ish.

 

Leyla Seka (28:18.998)

It is crazy the GLP once I’m clearly taking it for weight loss, but like all I just met with my doctor before this, she’s like, all of your levels are down. Like everything’s across the board. Inflammation is down. You’re pre diabetes is like everything. So clearly, and, we were talking to someone else on the podcast recently and I was saying what should we be, are these safe? Like, should we be worried? And she was like, they’ve been around for 20 years.

 

Joanna Strober (28:44.132)

Exactly. Right.

 

Leyla Seka (28:44.486)

We have 20 years worth of research on these drugs from people using them and seeing good effects.

 

Joanna Strober (28:48.646)

I mean, I could read you the text. If I just read you the text that I got today from people saying how incredibly grateful they are. I mean, I looked at myself in the mirror for the first time in four years and I cried. I was so happy. That was this morning. She’s like, I can’t believe that it took so long for me to get here. And I’m so grateful that you’re offering me this product.

 

Leyla Seka (29:15.104)

Amazing.

 

Joanna Strober (29:15.546)

I got one yesterday in the middle of a meeting. You’re gonna love this. You ready? First orgasm in four years. Thank you.

 

Julie Liegl (29:23.086)

Wait, from GLP-1 or from…?

 

Joanna Strober (29:25.424)

No, from the, estrogen. Yeah, I’m literally sitting in a meeting with an investor, and I get this text – First orgasm in four years, thank you.

 

Leyla Seka (29:34.026)

You have a great job, dude. Your job is so much better than mine was. That’s crazy.

 

Julie Liegl (29:36.45)

Did you show the investor? Were you like…

 

Joanna Strober (29:42.788)

I started laughing. It was like she put all these little hearts in it and like a target. It was very funny.

 

Julie Liegl (29:52.686)

Bullseye.

 

Leyla Seka (32:24.374)

So I just wanted to ask, what is something you do every day that you learned from this foray into like drilling deep? Like we talked about, you know, the medicines and everything, there’s just some, like, do you wake up and do some breathing routine or do you have any, know, like what sort of, anything.

 

Julie Liegl (32:44.802)

Gratitude Journal.

 

Joanna Strober (32:46.45)

Yeah, no journal. But I do try to do gratitude. Gratitude is big for me, actually. I mean, the things that I do to keep my saint, I go for a lot of walks. So if I don’t walk, just how I process myself is by walking. And so I spend a lot of time going on walks. I also am quite convinced by our estrogen face cream. So basically, the research has always shown that if you put estrogen in your vagina, strengthens the wall of your vagina and makes it moister and so sex is pleasurable or doesn’t hurt. So there was emerging research on estrogen in a face cream in a little bit weaker version. And in the 50s and 60s, it used to be in all the face creams. If you go back and look at old ads, estrogen used to be in the face creams. And of course it said, look beautiful for your husband, use this cream.

 

Julie Liegl (33:35.618)

What?

 

Joanna Strober (33:43.856)

And there was research then that showed that basically it was doing the same kind of thing for your skin where it was thickening the epidermis and making it moisture. we went into that research and we said, wow, we can make this. So now we make it for our patients and you can order it. And it really works. So I’m not, I don’t know, like I’m not trying to sound like a ad for this, but like I really look better. I mean, don’t care much about beauty. You can see I don’t wear makeup, but I’m really quite convinced that using this cream has made my face look better. So that’s my one beauty tip.

 

Leyla Seka (34:19.83)

That’s a good one, I love that. That is a good one.

 

Julie Liegl (34:21.422)

That’s a really good one. And it’s, I mean, it’s so funny. It’s hard to separate sort of Midi the company and all the opportunities and adjacencies you guys might have, you know, starting with hormones and weight loss, but also beauty to also just think about it, like as women who are prioritizing our health in a different way than we ever had before, thinking about all the other things you should be doing. I mean, again, we’ve touched on weightlifting, but like, is that next thing that we should all be doing with our friends slash midi’ll start offering is like, here’s how you weight lift as a 50 something woman to maintain bone density, mobility and strength for the rest of their life. There’s so many things to think about.

 

Joanna Strober (35:00.816)

Yeah, and I think, I mean, I don’t know when we will offer that, but I do think that’s a great thing to do with friends and to try to, you know, and you’re getting to friends. Friends are a good method for longevity, right? Like the basics of longevity are probably exercise, sleep, community, estrogen.

 

Julie Liegl (35:21.39)

Protein fiber, matcha, turmeric.

 

Joanna Strober (35:22.802)

Protein, yeah, protein, fiber, etc. Yes, exactly. Yeah, but those are lower. Don’t worry so much about the matcha and the turmeric if you like those. I want to get to the basics, right? Everything else is kind of extra. That’s why I try to keep it as simple as possible.

 

Julie Liegl (35:32.301)

Okay. Any of these things gonna, I mean, just again to the longevity and I know we’re nearly at time, but like, is there gonna be different advice for us when we’re 65, 70? Like, what is there gonna be like now at this age, you know, again, not thinking about living to being 150, but to be great from 70 to 90 or however long we’re lucky enough to live. Do you know yet or do you have an eye what those different things might be that we should focus on then?

 

Joanna Strober (36:08.7)

So here’s what I’m gonna say, which is not gonna be, it’s good for us. It is never too early to start working for these things. We might also say it’s never too late, because you can add all these things later, but if you add them in your 40s, the likelihood of being healthy in your 70s is so much higher. So absolutely, there is research that shows you can start exercising in your 70s and strengthen your bones, right? But hormone replacement therapy makes it so your bones do not disintegrate. Okay? You want to do that before your bones start to disintegrate. Right? So you’re not catching up. So what I think about a lot is what I can do for what I can urge women to do in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s. So they’re healthier in their 80s, their 70s and 80s. Even in your 70s and 80s, you can take estrogen and you can, you can exercise. It’s just that the benefits you get younger are so significant that, you know, ideally you start young.

 

Julie Liegl (37:12.878)

So we’re doing this the rest of our lives. Like some version of the regimens that we’re adopting now should be what carry us through and keep us healthy forever.

 

Joanna Strober (37:15.524)

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that’s right.

 

Leyla Seka (37:23.686)

I have a friend who was listening to podcast and she’s already through menopause and she didn’t take any hormones, right? Because she, her GP was like, no, no, no, you’re fine. She lives in a small town. And she was asking me, she’s like, should I start taking them now? And I was like, well, I’m not a doctor dude, but yes, I think you should call someone and start taking them. So I think that’s an illusion too, that people are like, well, I didn’t take it. So I’m kind of screwed or I’m, that’s not the case. Like people.

 

Joanna Strober (37:49.348)

Yeah, that’s not the case. No, and this is where the longevity argument is super important. People say, I’m not having a lot of symptoms, so I don’t need to take hormones. But they are underestimating the power of prevention. And they’re underestimating that even if they’re not having a lot of symptoms, their estrogen is still going down. Estrogen going down is what puts you at higher risk for brain issues, what puts you at higher risk for heart issues, what puts you at higher risk for your bones disintegrating.

 

Leyla Seka (37:52.086)

This is a regiment you can pick up.

 

Joanna Strober (38:19.206)

So you wanna be proactive younger so that you don’t have to be in the position of having to catch up. You can catch up, but you would prefer not to.

 

Julie Liegl (38:31.97)

Leyla, I’m laughing because like, again, maybe it’s just since we started this podcast. I had a friend call me and ask if she should go on hormones. But this friend called me, her doctor told her she should go on hormones and she’s like, next step, call Julie. I have an MBA, but not an MD. So going back to you, Joanna, and the business that you’ve started, I think there’s a reason that we need a place like Midi for people to talk to medical professionals as opposed to idiots like me and Leyla, asking whether or not they should go on hormones.

 

Joanna Strober (39:04.114)

Well, it shows that people don’t know where to go, right? Like we don’t have a place. I don’t know. Do you remember reading, did you read A Room of One’s Own in college? So she writes about a dinner party. First of all, she writes about women needing their own money, which I obviously believe in. But then she writes about a dinner party, the men’s dinner party and the women’s dinner party. And the men’s dinner party, it’s this fancy table, beautiful feast. And they’re talking about philosophy, right? At the women’s table, they’re talking about getting more food. And this is so applicable to women’s health, right? Like the research has gone into men and it’s gone, the men have had all the money and all the research. And so they’re thinking about living to 150, right? And like, we’re just like scrounging to get the research done. So I can prove to you that taking testosterone is going to be good for your mood. Or that, you know, estrogen, taking estrogen is going to help your brain. because the issue is when I use the words emerging, right, it’s because this medical society has decided it’s not enough research yet because they don’t have 50 years of data. Well, 50 years ago, no one was researching anything about women at all. So there isn’t 50 years of data. So we need to make some hypotheses and then we need to let women try and see if they feel good.

 

Leyla Seka (40:29.142)

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I don’t think we can end it on anything better than that, right?

 

Julie Liegl (40:33.744)

I was going to say that was great. That and please do not come to Julie Liegl or Leyla Seka for medical advice.

 

Leyla Seka (40:40.756)

Yeah, please go to Midi. Joanna, that was super insightful. I just want to thank you for what you’re doing. You built a company in the tech space that is not about topics that those boys like to talk about very much, and you’re crushing it as well you should. And you’re helping so many people. You’re helping all of us to just figure out how to dialogue about this and how to find our way through it. I mean, can’t tell you how many times Julie talks about that patch.

 

Julie Liegl (40:45.383)

I mean, do. Yeah. 

 

Joanna Strober (40:52.978)

Thank you.

 

Leyla Seka (41:11.702)

I except for the fact that she doesn’t like how dirty it is.

 

Julie Liegl (41:12.408)

Yeah, how do I keep it clean? Well, yeah, no, so I switch it twice a week. We’re gonna do this. I’m not gonna show it to you, but you know, gets a little, and I work out every day, so I’m sweating. I shower, but is there any way to not have a brown ring of it by day three? And then I take it off and I scrape my skin. I mean, it’s exfoliated now.

 

Joanna Strober (41:23.824)

Yeah. I use like acetate to get it, like if it, if it leads the little ring when you take it off. 

 

Julie Liegl (41:38.562)

Like nail polish remover?

 

Joanna Strober (41:23.824)

No, no, no, there’s some, you know, like there’s some like alcohol or something you can use to try to take off the little ring around it. 

 

Julie Liegl (41:43.67)

Okay, okay. Maybe all the wine I can’t drink anymore. I can use it now to scrub my belly when I take off my patch.

 

Joanna Strober (41:23.824)

Exactly! You’ve got, I was talking to, who was it? One of the women in Operator Collective was… It was Dawn Dobras, who was the CEO of Fido. She was suggesting to me that we try to make our own blue little patches in heart circles. So you could have it look like a tattoo, right? So instead of hiding it or it looking a little dirty, you could have like a patch tattoo. 

 

Julie Liegl (42:03.34)

Like a tattoo! You could do shamrocks for March and, you know, trees and stars of David for Christmas in Hanukkah.

 

Joanna Strober (42:14.258)

Wouldn’t that be fun to have like multicolored patches?

 

Leyla Seka (42:17.31)

I like that. I like that. That’d be a good idea.