Hi I’m Marc Sklar, The Fertility Expert and today I’m here with Amy Pamensky or nutritionist to talk about Maca; its benefits; some of our concerns about taking Maca and how it can benefit you.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Marc: Hi I’m Marc Sklar, The Fertility Expert and today I’m here with Amy Pamensky or nutritionist to talk about Maca; its benefits; some of our concerns about taking Maca and how it can benefit you.

We get quite a bit of questions about Maca specifically, whether it’s on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.

When I speak to patients all the time and I usually ask them what their list of supplements that they’re taking, Maca is usually on there because they read some place that for fertility it’s awesome. And I don’t want to disagree with that kind of awesomeness about Maca when it comes to fertility but I do think we all have to be careful because all Maca is not created equal; it’s not the same. Not only where it comes from but how they process the root itself and are they getting some aspects of the chemical alkaloids that are found in Maca that they don’t need individually because Maca as root in of itself and Amy can confirm this, can benefit both men and women and women of menopausal age or reproductive age; so kind of span the whole gamete right.

Amy: Right, so Maca is an endocrine regulator; so hormone regulator. And what it’s actually doing is its acting upon or pituitary glands, which is in our brain. The pituitary gland has influence on many different hormones, not just the sex hormones but it’s also influences; our adrenal glands as well as our thyroid hormones. So that’s why we’re looking at Maca when it comes to fertility; when it comes to hormones because of the role that it plays on the pituitary gland and the role of the pituitary or the effect that the pituitary gland has on our hormones as well.

Marc: Yeah and those are some 3 key areas that we constantly look at and address with patients; you know adrenals, thyroid and clearly hormones. So Maca can have an influence on all of those and that’s really a great description and summary of it. As I mentioned before it can be beneficial for different types of individuals. So what do we look for I a type of Maca that might benefit those 3 types of individuals?

Amy: Chemical Alkaloid that come from the Maca route and on what age you are, even what gender you are; so whether you’re male or female; whether you are getting your menstrual cycle or whether you’re in parry menopause, post menopause… all of those factors because your hormones are different in all of those different phases are going to affect what different chemical Alkaloid or what different strain from the Maca you’re actually going to need. So again not all Maca is the same and you really want to address where you’re at and the quality of the Maca too.

Marc: Yeah and that kind of leads into our potential side effects for Maca. If you’ve take Maca and you haven’t felt any change from it or seen the results you’re looking for, you’re probably on the wrong one. In addition what I often find it that patients they’ll take Maca and their cycles will become a little deregulated… because Maca, the whole Maca route also has an influence and an effect on testosterone levels. They can start to develop testosterone symptoms; acne, facial hair disregulation of their menstrual cycle… so that means you’re on the wrong type of Maca, which is why we’re pretty particular about the brand and quality that we recommend. Typically by the way if you’re getting the powdered Maca to use in a smoothie, you’re getting the whole Maca root which has ever chemical alkaloid in it. So you do have to be careful. It might be fine for someone whose hormone levels are like perfect and don’t have any issues. But if you’ve got some sort of disruption in your hormone regulation and hormone balance and it’s probably not the right choice for you and the right way to get it. We are going to provide a link in this description which will take you to our blog and then from the blog there will be a link that will take you to our favorite source and our favorite quality of Maca that you can get. It is not in a powder; well it isn’t a powder but it is a pill form and so you can access that, that way. Do you have anything else?

Amy: Yes one other thing I wanted to address is especially with Maca or anything that’s going to be affecting your hormone levels, whether it’s a food or a supplement, you really want to start with a low dosage. You don’t want to jump right in to the highest dosage and you want to make sure that you’re not seeing side effects from it. So even with the product that we’re going to link below, we really do recommend for people to start slow and give it at least 15-20 days before you decide to increase the dose because you want to see how it’s affecting your hormones and sometimes that takes a little bit of time to figure that out.

Marc: It might not be the perfect super food for your fertility so you might also need the help and supervision of a health care provider to be able to do that like one of ourselves. So thanks so much for following or for watching the video; thanks so much for giving your feedback about Maca to everybody out there. If you have not subscribed to our newsletter, please follow the link below that will take you to our blog that gives you a better description and summary about the points we made here in this video. We’ll also give you a link to our newsletter where you can subscribe and get more information that we shared there that we don’t share anywhere else. And like this video and follow us on YouTube. So thanks so much and have a good day.