Peter Attia· MD
why two women could experience the same we can measure progesterone levels throughout the cycle and we could know that at day twenty-two two women could have the exact same progesterone and on the first day of their menses they could have the same progesterone so you know they had the same peak to Valley and yet two women can experience that in two totally different ways now I've thought about that through the lens of progesterone receptors and you know the way we sort of talked about the cortisol stuff is there something else to that that you layer on top of that that is even more subtle about those differences yeah tons of this sort of additional insights here's one example that comes completely out of left field and this was actually my wife's thesis research on baboons so your female baboon and you're coming up on your period and we could frame it as you just did here's two two females who are both about to have their period a of the same exact progesterone levels and as soon as they start menstruating progesterone drops the exact same way and one of them is a totally irritable awful liking jerk to all the other females around her for three days afterward and the other one is not the other one withdraws and become socially isolated okay what's the difference it sure can't be progesterone levels and it's probably not going to be progesterone receptor levels it's one of them's high ranking she could afford to be a jerk to everybody else and get away with it the other one's low ranking oh it's not just your hormone levels it's what sort of position in your society you have even if you're a baboon or now you look at humans and depending on what sort of culture you're in are you in an individualist culture or a collectivist one individualist the United States poster child of individualist thinking collectivist 99% of the research has been done on East Asian cultures and how you some at aside your mood shifts and your physical shifts during your period differs in collectivist versus individualist cultures how irritable you become not because there's a difference in how much of negative effect you're feeling during the time are you in a culture where it's culturally acceptable to and moan to all your best friends when you're not feeling well or are you in a culture or when you're feeling lousy what you're supposed to do is reach out affiliative leAndria fie you're like social values