The Truth About Bones and Estrogen with Dr Vonda Wright, Orthopedic Surgeon
about the episode
How Does Estrogen Affect Bone Health? Dr. Vonda Wright on Osteoporosis, DEXA Scans & Aging with Power
Does bone loss begin long before most women realize and what role does estrogen actually play in protecting long-term health?
In this episode of Innovate & Elevate, Sharon Kedar speaks with Vonda Wright, board-certified orthopedic surgeon, sports physician, and advocate for aging with power, about one of the most overlooked conversations in women’s health: bone health and prevention.
Together they discuss estrogen, osteoporosis, hip fractures, DEXA scans, strength training, and why women should think proactively about bone health long before menopause. Dr. Wright also shares practical strategies for protecting strength, mobility, and longevity across midlife and beyond.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- Proactive Steps for Your 30s & 40s: Learn the "Vonda rules" for proactive health, including why it's crucial to get a baseline DEXA scan, REMS scan, how to feed your bones with protein, and the importance of lifting heavy weights.
- The Truth About Estrogen: Understand the profound, protective role of estrogen in bone health and why the widespread fear of hormone replacement therapy is often based on old, misinterpreted data. Dr. Wright explains why there is "zero debate" about its preventative role on bone.
- A Call to Action: Discover practical, actionable steps you can take today—from seeking out your own DEXA Scan to starting a progressive weightlifting routine—to invest in your future health and avoid becoming a burden on your loved ones.
About dr. vonda wright
Dr. Vonda Wright is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon and elite sports physician who has dedicated over 20 years to research on optimizing aging. She is also a public speaker, author, and health innovator, with a focus on redefining women's longevity and wellness. Her work helps women navigate and thrive through menopause and other life changes. She has authored several books, including "Unbreakable" and hosts the "HOT For Your Health" podcast.
Connect with Dr Vonda Wright on LinkedIn, Instagram, or her website. Buy her book Unbreakable now.
Episode Outline
00:00 Introduction to Estrogen and Women's Health
02:20 The Impact of Hip Fractures on Women
04:37 Understanding Bone Health and Estrogen
10:51 The Importance of DEXA Scans
18:19 Making Informed Decisions About Estrogen
25:33 Preventative Measures for Bone Health
32:17 Empowering Women Through Knowledge and Action
-
Sharon Kedar, CFA: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Innovate and Elevate. I'm Sharon Kedar, your host.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: We are finally launching season two, and I'll tell you why. I went to the FDA in July of this year. It was their first ever menopause panel, and I just could not unhear the reality of hormone health. There is an ocean of information that we need to share.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Today, I'm super excited to be talking with the one and only Dr. Vonda Wright about estrogen and women. Dr. Vonda Wright is an orthopedic surgeon and advocate for aging with power. She's a bestselling author, world-class speaker and all around powerhouse and I think as a birthday gift to me, her latest book, which everyone needs to read: women, men, everyone, Unbreakable.
This podcast episode we'll take you into Dr. Wright's office, so that we can have a better second half. What Dr. Wright talks about in the book that menopause is somehow viewed for a lot of people as an ending, but the message today is it's a beginning and we're gonna talk about estrogen and we're gonna talk about bone health specifically today. Dr.
Wright, can you tell us about Miriam? I was in the audience and I had chills when you were speaking. Can you talk a little bit about why you do what you do and. About the story of Miriam so that everyone can hear it.
Dr Vonda Wright: As a practicing orthopedic surgeon, it is usual for us to take calls, long into our futures. When I take calls, I go into the hospital and I meet patients that have been brought to the emergency room. I'm often introduced to people who have broken their hips, and they're almost always women.
70% of all people who break their hips are women, which is a staggering statistic. If you think in your own life, you probably know a Miriam. An Aunt Lisa, Aunt Margaret, your mother, who were doing okay. Until they [00:02:00] fell, and then they're in the hospital with a hip fracture, and that is
the story of the woman I was talking about at the FDA, Miriam, who was 93. Most of my patients are in their late 70s when this happens to them. Miriam was brought in by her family, usually at the bedside in the hospital. It's usually their eldest daughters who are there. Miriam had broken her hip. When you break a bone, especially a large bone, the femur is the biggest bone in your body, it is excruciating. Most of us don't notice our bones unless it's fashion week, and we're like, oh, good cheekbones. Or maybe when you were walking your dog, you tripped, you broke your wrist bone.
But a femur is a completely different category of bone. It's about the size of my arm, and when you break it, it's excruciating. So Miriam, like so many of the other women who had a hip fracture I've taken care of, is laying there in her hospital bed trying not to move.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: That's terrible.
Dr Vonda Wright: And what happens on those slippery slidey hospital beds?
They slip down to the end of the bed in their wrinkled up blue robes, and they don't want you to pull them up because it's too painful.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Wait, I have chills from this. But what you are saying is that's preventable.
Dr Vonda Wright: Her fracture is preventable, but not when she's 93. Not when she's 73. When she's 30. The rest of Miriam's story rounds out how we have to get in front of menopause for women. She had a fracture. She was incontinent because she had never been offered vaginal estrogen, so she had chronic UTIs. Her heart was so bad that before I can take somebody to the surgery, you have to have cardiac clearance. Sometimes it's very hard for the hospitalists to clear a heart, which has been deprived of estrogen for 30 years.
And here's the kicker for women, and I don't know how you feel about this. My brain is the best part of me. There's a lot of great things I can do, but this brain, Miriam, like so many other women was having memory [00:04:00] problems.
And maybe it was because of the stress of the situation. Maybe it was because she was already one of the 70% of Alzheimer's patients who are women. Miriam's story is one of so many women, and I say it everywhere I'm capable. I am so tired of this being a woman's end of life story because the minute Miriam broke her hip, as I was trying to portray to all those people in the FDA room, that instant, she has a 30% chance of dying.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: You didn't say that, but you portrayed the drama of the metal rod going into her body and the implications. Stepping back from that, can we just talk about bone health and women and the role of estrogen because one of the things you did say that I didn't know as I was sitting there in the audience,
you said a couple things I wanna unpack. First of all, you talked about osteoporosis and fractures, and you said eloquently that it's either gonna be me or you. So I'd love to just sort of unpack that. But one of the things that really had my head turning is you talked about the Endocrine Society referencing that women lose 15 to 20% of our bone density in perimenopause.
But the part that I don't get as a lay person and a problem solver is, women don't even realize today when they go into perimenopause. Only single digits of who can be patched with estrogen are patched. So we have so much to bridge.
It's not like a woman today walks into an office and, correct me if I'm wrong and says, I have anxiety, I have brain fog. I'm having trouble sleeping; some of the different symptoms than, simply hot flashes. But she doesn't say, my bone density went down 2% last year,
help me.
Dr Vonda Wright: She wouldn't have any idea because the insurance companies in the United States do not pay for DEXA Scans until we're [00:06:00] 65. And if you're in Australia it's 70 which is way late in my opinion. So can I unpack a little bit of bone health for people?
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Please, and if you can just assume that people don't even know what a DEXA Scan is, so I would love you to unpack it.
Dr Vonda Wright: Bones are not silent. We think they're silent. They're not silent. We just don't hear them. We think, by and large, bones are just structural. They're holding up our muscles. They give us the shape of our body. That's your bones. But bones are master communicators. Let me just run through the things bones do so people can value them. Your bones are not only the structural I-beams that give you form, because without bones we would just be a piling heap of metabolic tissue laying on the ground. I'm not kidding. We would be a slug, actually like a slug. We are not, we are upright. We have form. It's because of our bones, so they are structural. But did you know your bones are where your blood cells are made in your pelvis and your long bones? Did you know how important that is? Did you know your bones are the master storehouses of all the minerals that your body uses to create energy?
They have that function. But here's the most fascinating thing. Bones are endocrine organs that secrete hormones. There's one in particular I love to talk about called Osteocalcin. It goes to your brain and helps you make brain cells, it goes to your pancreas and your muscle because it's critically involved in energy homeostasis in your body.It's your bone who controls your energy? If you're a man, it helps you make testosterone. So we think bones are just silent structures that break like Miriam's, but in fact, if I were designing a human being, I would put a master communicator with a reach from the top of our head to the bottom of our toes. Oh, and we do have that. We have bones, right? But here's the deal about bone: it is not an old lady [00:08:00] problem. Osteoporosis, by and large, is a young lady's problem.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: But people don't know that. Vonda, can you unpack what that means? Because I think your book is a must for everyone. And you talk about how estrogen is better in the protective years. If you could start from like age 30. No one told me by the way that I was in perimenopause, I mean, my big wake up call was - my daughter is a sophomore in college, my oldest. Last year we were at family weekend and I couldn't sleep. I think I put the clip about how I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep at night because I was so tired and wired and I wasn't patched properly. And obviously everyone needs to talk to their doctor, but I think that there is no doctor that really explains this as well as you do.
So can you talk about this? I've never heard it the way you've talked about it.
Dr Vonda Wright: Yeah, so bone starts out as a soft tissue in babies. That's why we're like, oh, be careful with babies. And as we age, it turns hard. From 15 to 25, we are creating so much bone that we reach peak bone about 25 to 30. It is critical that as very young women, we're eating enough protein that we're impacting our bones.
We're not sitting around for 25 hours a day on our devices.We're really doing the things that are gonna build tree trunks like bones. Because what happens? At 30 when we're at peak bone density, we start to decline in our bone density about 1% a year, and most of us don't even know that our bones are doing anything special at that time. And then what happens during our childbearing years is that our bones are critically involved to grow a baby. You have three children. Each time you grew a baby, you used 500 milligrams of calcium from your bones a day to grow that baby.
Dr Vonda Wright: If you're eating well and replacing your calcium, great, sometimes that doesn't happen.
So [00:10:00] there is a phenomenon called osteoporosis of pregnancy where you'll lose so much density that you'll go from fine bone density to osteoporosis. Now the body is equipped to replace that bone, but only if you take time to recover in the 10 months after you have a child. And then there's a phenomenon; what people don't understand is that every time, every day you breastfeed, your body will use 500 milligrams of the calcium from your
Sharon Kedar, CFA: bones. When should someone start looking at their bone density?
When do they get a DEXA Scan, basically is like the best bone scan you can get, when do we start to think about estrogen so that we get ahead of the bone loss? What is the secret that you know that really most people do not know?
Dr Vonda Wright: Many women, including my four millennial daughters, are waiting longer to have children. So they're having children in their early 30s. Mid 30s. I was 40. And many go directly from postpartum to perimenopause and don't even know it.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: I had a baby at 40, Vonda, and she actually has a broken wrist right now. She's 10 because I'm 50, and she also broke her ankle last year at physical therapy. She's like, ask Dr. Wright why do I keep breaking my bones? Do I need estrogen? Which I realize the answer is no, but...
Dr Vonda Wright: I have the same conversation with my 17-year-old. When do I think we should be aware of our bones? I want people to know this whole story that I just told you to always be aware of because I measure bone density on everybody and I have 20 year olds and 22 year olds and 30 year olds with miserable bones.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Wow. Yes.
Dr Vonda Wright: Yes.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: But what's realistic? Like how do you get someone's attention and when does a mom need to nag her daughter to go get a DEXA Scan and get the bone density?
Dr Vonda Wright: Like, I just wanna understand sort of the new rules. We are influenced by the insurance company. Why wouldn't we pay for DEXA Scans until someone's 65? But the Dr. Vonda rules: [00:12:00] the minute you decide that you're done with childbearing, in the next 10 months, go get a DEXA Scan or let's find out what your bone quality is. DEXA Scan tells us bone density and mineralization. Bone quality is determined by a test that's becoming more available in the United States called REMS Scanning. It's an ultrasound that tells us the quality of bones.
Go figure out your bones. Or if you wait, let's get it at the same time as our mammography at 40 so that we at least know the baseline because here's why, here's the reasoning. We have a critical decade between 35 and 45, to get our health stuff together because we still have our estrogen by and large, unless we're in early menopause, we can establish the health standards that will become the way we live forever. Instead of 47, I thought I was gonna die when perimenopause hit me.
And I didn't know enough at that time. It's more than a decade now, so at this point, I know exactly what to do and I feel like I've mastered this, but for so many women, we're not prepared and it hits us in the head.
So I would want, during the critical decade, between 35 and 45, when you still have your estrogen to start making all these lifestyle standards, so that you never hit the wall.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: But tell me a little more because when I was 35 to 45, I was having the kids, as they say, climbing the corporate ladder before co-founding a multi-billion dollar science venture capital firm, I was CFO of a $50 billion investment firm that I helped to build from $1.5 billion.
So you did make a comment in the book about time efficiency when you were talking about the whole piece about strength. Because you are so brilliant and practical, when we talk about 35 to 45, like what realistically could someone do that doesn't take up too much time, but could change their longevity, quality of life?
Dr Vonda Wright: I have a [00:14:00] lot of hope for the current 35 to 45 years old women because I did some market research a few years ago. The millennials who, the oldest millennials were young then they were 35, and I asked them all about what they wanted from health because I realized what they want are very different from the baby boomers and they wanted a lot of fascinating things.
Two things that are apropos to this question. Number one, they are seekers. They are learners, and I have a lot of hope for current critical decade women that they're gonna seek this out and know this. There's enough of a rumble in the stratosphere. Number two, they're willing to pay for it themselves.
When they told me all the things they want their healthcare to be different from what the baby boomers, I said, great ladies, who's paying for this? The people I interviewed are willing to pay 25% of their disposable income to get what they want when it comes to wellness and healthcare.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: But Vonda respectfully to all that, like I just, I get the huge payment issue, but I think that people don't even know what we're talking about. I almost wanna know what's the bar? So is the bar when you're 35 to 45, ask your doctor for a DEXA Scan?
Dr Vonda Wright: The way I got my DEXA Scan, like my first DEXA Scan was last year and I asked for it from my GP.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: This is how you get it. Google how do I get a DEXA Scan near me? I'm not kidding. You can ask your primary care doctor and they're gonna say, oh, I don't think your insurance is gonna pay for it because you're not old. To that you're gonna say, my Aunt Miriam fell and broke her hip.
Dr Vonda Wright: That is a risk factor. Or, my mother is shrinking, or I had a fracture after I was 20. I want a DEXA Scan or, I was one of those women who thought it was cool to smoke and I poisoned my bones, I want a DEXA Scan. Or I have an autoimmune disease, or I have asthma and I had to take a lot of steroids. I want a DEXA Scan.
You can get a DEXA Scan paid for with any risk factor and by [00:16:00] being insistent, and then when you cannot, most gyms now have a real DEXA Scanner and they're for about $99. So we save our Starbucks money, and we get a DEXA Scan.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: I wrote about, years ago, personal finance for women. So I'm no Vonda Wright author, but the book On My Own Two Feet is, this is 20 years later, it's still a Simon and Schuster imprint. When you say that, it's like,
I completely agree with you that $99 for your life, and that's what I was trying to understand for the audience. I didn't know that myself. You can
literally go to the gym for $99 and get a DEXA Scan, and if you're 35 or older and you haven't, it sounds like it's worth it. And then the other piece was an ultrasound, did you say?
Dr Vonda Wright: Yeah, so there's new technology using ultrasound that will tell you the quality or the strength of the bone because a DEXA Scan will tell you how hard it is, the mineralization. But bones are dynamic, so every time you take a step it bends a little and bends a little, and so fracture has to do with not only how hard the bones are, which a DEXA Scan tells you, but how responsive they are to bending, which is what the quality of bone will tell you.
And they're becoming more and more available in the United States. I'm gonna put one in my office here in Orlando. They're very available in the UK and Australia.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Okay, But like, so basically, get the DEXA Scan and then how do women think about when to start estrogen and can you just talk about the profound stats laid out at the FDA? Talking with your doctor, estrogen could be beneficial, yet the massive gap that we have,
and it's not the doctor's fault. I love doctors. Both my siblings are doctors. If you get a false readout and have 20 years of false readout, medical schools are naturally gonna pull that information out of the training. So how do we reconcile 15 to [00:18:00] 20% of bone density being lost probably in someone's 40s, because the average age of menopause is, I don't know, 50 or 51. How do we get ahead?
Dr Vonda Wright: Yeah. Of losing bone. Part of it is education. You can't go into midlife blindly. There are so many menopause books right now, and there's about 10 perimenopause books that are coming out. Let's educate ourselves about what's coming because you know for sure what's gonna happen. Birth and death taxes and menopause. If you live long enough, it's gonna happen. So let's get in front of it.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: A lot of people say to me like, oh, it's too risky, or, I'm sleeping. Like people don't know this piece, when someone should get on estrogen and what's your sort of like, you know, best case for someone.
Dr Vonda Wright: I'll give you the Vonda rules of bones.
Here's the framework. I call this time the menolescence. It is a catastrophic transition, not unlike adolescence. We all remember that chaos, right?
This is the menolescence. The first step in the inevitable menolescence is education. You must become a student of this part of life. You can do that by listening to podcasts like you Read one of the menopause books. There's gonna be 10 perimenopause coming out this fall
Sharon Kedar, CFA: it's not a day, it's a transition that lasts a decade. So educate yourself. Do not go in blind. Number two, make your menopause hormone therapy decision. I believe every woman is sentient and gets to make her own decision, but we cannot make it from fear.
Dr Vonda Wright: We must make it from facts. So if you're a fact person and want to know the world's data on the relative safety of estrogen therapy, read Estrogen Matters by Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris. That book single-handedly saved my life.
And you will find in there that you're probably more likely to be killed by an airplane than estrogen or all the other great data,
statistically. You'll also find an explanation of the Women's Health Initiative [00:20:00] data which shows that when women took conjugated estrogen, meaning that from horse urine, which is not bioidentical, they had a 0.8 per thousand increase in diagnosis of breast cancer, but no increase of death by breast cancer.
So less than one in 1000 women had an additional diagnosis, and for that, we took estrogen choice away from generations of women, and I'm not belittling that because I was a cancer nurse in the 90s when women were not surviving. I'm just saying we need to backtrack that. So make your menopause hormone decision. In perimenopause in your 40s, on average it's 45. You can start taking menopause hormone therapy doses of estradiol, you can get patched. Now, the question that arises, people are like, yeah, but I'm not in menopause. Why would I take hormones? Ladies, if you choose an estrogen-based birth control, it's 10 times the dose.
So you're taking it anyway, and you're taking it maybe from the time you're 16 to the time you decide that you can't have children anymore, right? So that is not a hurdle, because menopause hormone therapy is a teeny tiny dose. Make the decision in your . And I encourage women, even if they're still cycling, to have that discussion because if you can avoid the common things, hot flash, night sweats, brain fog.
We know the severity of your hot flashes predicts cardiovascular disease. We know that women have a different kind of cardiovascular disease than men. We have microvascular disease that is critically impacted by estrogen. We know the brain is covered in estrogen receptors, and then without it, the brain literally starves. And that's why we have those changes and the mood changes and the brain fog. In your bones, you [00:22:00] go from the normal aging of bone, a 1% decline that both men and women experience to rapid more than doubling loss of bone density to the tune of losing 15 to 20% over the 7 to 10 years of perimenopause because yep, it's critical. Estrogen critically controls the balance of bone health.
There are two main kinds of cells. There are many cells, but there's one called an osteoclast that pulls minerals out of the bone, and there's one called the osteoblast that builds the bone in return. When we have our hormones, the balance is usually about this. Without estrogen, which helps control the osteoclast, we are breaking down bone faster and we don't even know it.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: That's the part, Vonda, I think your work is so important because if people got DEXA Scans earlier and knew the importance and prioritized the $99 and got patched earlier, I think that you so articulately talked about the implication of the WHI [Women's Health Initiative], but when you flip to the other side, and to your point, women are smart and they can make their own choices,
I feel like if women really knew what you knew that, like how many women will get osteoporosis? What's the stats on that?
Dr Vonda Wright: More than 40% of all women will get osteoporosis, and one in two will have a fracture. And when that fracture is a hip fracture, we've already talked about 30% die within one year. But here's the real, even from a financial standpoint, this...
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Sorry. One in two women in their lives will get a hip fracture?
Dr Vonda Wright: A fracture, an osteoporotic fracture, not a hip fracture.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Okay. Just one in two women. So when it's you or me, you just mean by being born, a woman, one in two will get a fracture.
Dr Vonda Wright: An osteoporotic fracture.
Because you can still get a fracture hitting a light pole with your car, but low energy fractures [00:24:00] are due to poor bones. And so there's the 30% that die after a hip fracture. But think about this: 50% of women with a hip fracture will not go home, because they can't take care of themselves.
So what does that mean? You have to hire somebody full time to take care of that person. Who can afford that on the average day?
Sharon Kedar, CFA: I don't think women, as a person who isn't a doctor, but someone who deeply cares about, and just loves you and loves what you're doing when you're in your 30s or 40s or even 50s, you're not thinking about a hip fracture. So you're basically trying to have us be smarter about our future.
Dr Vonda Wright: How about I don't wanna be a burden to my kids? Everybody says that to me, no matter what age they are. I don't wanna be a burden to my kids. You're gonna be if you break your hip, because either someone's gonna have to pay for you to be taken care of, you're gonna have to move in with your daughter, or you're gonna have to use all the money that you thought you were gonna give to your kids to pay $15,000 a month for an assisted living. And then when you run outta money, then you go on Medicaid and the government will pay for something that may or may not be great, right? So let's not get there.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: But that's where I just wanna have the message be super simple, which is this is preventative, this is fixable. Check with your doctor, but estrogen can be protective…
Dr Vonda Wright: estrogen and lifting weights are the two most impactful ways to preserve and build bone. It shouldn't start when we're 50. It should start when we're 15 to 25. It's our daughters. daughters are about the same ages. They are in the critical stages of bone health right now.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Lift heavy girls.
Dr Vonda Wright: Lift heavy. Eat enough protein. Jump around.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: That's beautiful. I think it's so important. And why I'm doing the podcast is I really do think people miss this point. I think most people don't walk around thinking, oh, of all women, 40% are gonna have osteoporosis, and it's highly preventable.
I [00:26:00] just don't think that conversation is the typical one. When I had the DEXA Scan, I didn't even know what it meant.
But no one tells you what to do. It's once you get the DEXA Scan, it's then what? Do you take more calcium? Do you eat more protein? Do you lift heavy?
Dr Vonda Wright: Here's what you do. And you should be doing this always, not just with a bad DEXA Scan, but number one, make your hormone replacement decision. It's one of the biggest ways to get in front of bone. Number two, you have to lift weights. Our bones respond to the stress put on them. If we're not putting stress on our bones, they think they're not important. Think of what happens if your foot is in a cast. Your muscles shrink up and your bones lose their density. So you must lift weights. You must feed your bones. Bones are 50% protein, so we can't starve our bones and expect to have good bones.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: You write about how women gain weight so they eat less during menopause and it's the exact wrong - you write about it so eloquently how it's like the exact wrong thing to do.
Dr Vonda Wright: The wrong thing to do. Yeah, we're so afraid of our size. We should be concerned with our strength. And then. I want women to do two other things. I want them to relearn balance so we don't fall over. Very simple. I teach it all the time on the internet.
Stand on one leg, and I reintroduced hopscotch the other day. It's a really good jumping in, balancing exercise, plus it's fun. Those are the basic components to getting back in front of bone density.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: There's increasing data that estrogen can be cardioprotective and protective against dementia, which will be in future episodes. But when one weighs the risk, women are smart to your point.
And it's like, okay, do we want to have less dementia, less osteoporosis, healthier hearts, you know, live longer. I mean, it's almost to me, as a problem solver, amazing that those are the benefits that people don't know. And then it's like most people are 50 plus when they start to have this conversation.
So I [00:28:00] would like to say for the audience and viewers, like if you're 50, 60 or 70 or 80, like still it's okay, talk to your doctor. I think no matter where one starts I don't know if it's ever too late. I don't know if there's like a point where it's too late for someone, but it's still the right conversation.
Dr Vonda Wright: It's always the right conversation and when you get past a certain point, you have to do a cardiac risk assessment. A friend of mine, Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, said that all her company does at Adesso. It stratifies a woman's cardiac risk during menopause so that we can see what the effect might be.
But to your point, and I said this to the FDA, I say this tongue in cheek to every, at every stage, whether it's a longevity stage or a women's health stage, listen. While the world is debating the relative merits of estrogen for the brain or for the heart, there is no debate, zero debate, about the preventative role of estrogen on bone health. And given the fact that one in two of us is gonna have a fracture, and if it's the hip you have a 30% chance of dying.
What are we waiting for?
Sharon Kedar, CFA: When you think about the weights - Because I think that's something that, it's like you have such a huge audience, you know, millions of people follow you, but then there's also the people who aren't caught up yet there. And do assume that doctors have the information that they don't and it's not their fault.
So as we sort of bridge this information gap where do you suggest someone starts? I have a weighted vest and people make fun of me in the neighborhood sometimes, I wear it, it's just five pounds. But I'm like, okay, I think this is helping my bone density. I know I need to lift heavy, but where do you suggest people start?
If someone just wants to do that but they don't have a lot of time.
Dr Vonda Wright: So you're asking me the one thing if you had 30 minutes a day, the one thing you could do besides getting patched up to build bone, that is to learn to lift weights heavy. And if you're so busy with the corner office that you can't leave and [00:30:00] nobody lets you out, put the machine in your office. Put it there and you tell your assistant that I am blocked for 30 minutes. In fact, a girlfriend of mine is the chairman. She's one of the first female chairs of a surgery department, which is a big deal in surgery land to be a female chairman.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Yes.
Dr Vonda Wright: The hospital gym is two floors above her executive office. She doesn't tell anybody. She doesn't make an announcement. She goes up there in her suit and she just pounds out a few weights and she's yeah, I come back a little sweaty, but I don't care. Because I'm gonna get it done.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: We gotta go lift in our suits. We gotta put a video of a couple women lifting on the- Because my husband who I've been with for 30 years, he always says that I need to share more about this messy concept of messy that I always talk about.
But it is, it's like there's so much on us, right? But I would totally do it. Lifting in a suit and when you're like, just get the equipment, I'm like, what? Get some 10, 15 pound weights and just start lifting them.
Dr Vonda Wright: You know what? I want everybody to progress to lift heavy. But literally if someone is starting out with a history of Pilates and yoga, that's all they have ever done. Okay, that's fine. That's great for flexibility. That's never gonna be enough muscle to prevent you from getting frail. So we're gonna start with body weight and we're gonna progressively overload.
That's what it's called when you keep adding more weights. And you know what? Now's the time to invest in a trainer so you can learn a meticulous technique so that you're not hurt and over six months, nine months, maybe it'll take a year depending on where we start from, you will be lifting heavy with barbells and racks and you know what?
You will not only be building muscle, you're going to feel like the badass you've never felt like outside of exiting your giant company you built; like that was a badass moment. You wait until you're like under a squat bar lifting more than your body weight.
Dr Vonda Wright: That is something.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Wait, Vonda, so that is in my basement. Because I have a 16-year-old son and a husband. [00:32:00] They've just built that out and it's, I can see the influence on the rest of the family. Because my 10-year-old has to pick a sport.
She'll be 11 and she'll be in middle school and there's a family group text and she was like, hey Andrew, should I do weightlifting? And he was like, definitely. And so one of her sports this year is gonna be weightlifting. I'm like that girl, maybe some more protein. But I'm like, that is the kind of stuff that we need to teach people.
And I should probably have some weights in my office too. And I guess to your point, it's like permission to prioritize a trainer, permission to lift heavy and read Dr. Vonda Wright's book Unbreakable, breaks it down.
It's the book that, if I think about the books that we should have read, when it comes to our health, years ago, I think it's the personal finance stuff that, 20 years ago,
because I do think women have been coded differently and that's a big generalization. But it's why, people used to ask me 20 years ago, why is there a personal finance book for women with the same advice for women and men? And at the time, women made 70 cents on the dollar to men. Now it's I think in the 80s, but it's still not.
The same, and women leave the workforce to take care of aging parents because they're fracturing. And it was like, here's the toolkit, but Unbreakable should be top of the list. I wanna give these girls when they graduate college. Because, for our generation, I want women to walk in with a pin that's slightly provocative. I think that if we can get women, when they're graduating college or graduating from some graduate school and just say, Hey, I know you're gonna be busy.
I know you're going to try to change the world, but make sure you make time to feed your body protein. You know, get your DEXA Scan at the right time. Get patched at the right time and go lift some weights. Like, I think those messages are not, in the traditional [00:34:00] messaging, and I think what you're saying is, uh-uh, you're not a receiver of information.
You need to go seek the right information. And if you wanna start seeking, start with Unbreakable, because I think that tells you. Not just for the second half, but how to set yourself up from 20 to 50. When I was 46, my body just started to completely do things that I didn't understand and, I ended up, just on a health journey that I wouldn't wish on anyone.
I vasovagal'ed and passed out in my vomit at home and my blood pressure was 70 over 40, and I was carried on a gurney down the stairs and no one could figure out what was going on.
But I wonder how much of that could have at least helped.
Dr Vonda Wright: Oh it's a triple whammy. it's all layers on. But I couldn't agree with you more. Unbreakable is about pivoting our attitude that the rest of our life is gonna be decrepit. It's gonna be the best of life if you get in front of it. And I love your attitude that this is something that we can start at any time, best started when we're still a youngish woman.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Can you even imagine we wake up 10 years from now, just how much we will have shape shifted the world. I mean, that will make a huge difference. I really believe it. And I thank you, Dr. Vonda Wright. You are a true soul sister. You are amazing.
Dr Vonda Wright: Oh as long as the message got across. Thank you so much.
Sharon Kedar, CFA: Thank you. And that's the end of today's episode.
Thank you so much, Vonda, for your time and for sharing your expertise with our audience. To our audience, I hope you feel smarter. I sure do. By hearing Dr. Vonda's approach to longevity. And please share this message with loved ones. Let's get the word out. The secret is out about estrogen and bone health.
Make sure you're subscribed to Innovate and Elevate wherever you listen to podcasts. And I'll see you in the next episode.[00:36:00]
About Your Host
Sharon Kedar, CFA, is Co-Founder of Northpond Ventures. Northpond is a multi-billion-dollar science-driven venture capital firm with a portfolio of 60+ companies, along with key academic partnerships at Harvard’s Wyss Institute, MIT’s School of Engineering, and Stanford School of Medicine. Prior to Northpond, Sharon spent 15 years at Sands Capital, where she became their first Chief Financial Officer. Assets under management grew from $1.5 billion to $50 billion over her tenure, achieving more than 30x growth. Sharon is the co-author of two personal finance books for women. Sharon has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a B.A. in Economics from Rice University, and is a CFA charterholder. She lives in the Washington, DC area with her husband, Greg, and their three kids.
Connect with Sharon
Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn: Sharon Kedar
Follow with Sharon on Instagram: @sharonkedarcfa
Learn more about Innovate and Elevate innovateandelevatepodcast.com
Join the newsletter to receive the latest episodes in your inbox: Innovate and Elevate Newsletter
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
Did you love this episode? Let us know by rating and reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts. It’s easy - click this link, scroll to the bottom of the page, and select “Write a Review.” Let us know what you liked best about the episode. While you’re at it, consider following Innovate and Elevate. Follow now!
This podcast is produced by Brave Moon Podcasts.
Please note: The information on this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Please consult with a healthcare professional regarding your individual health needs.
FAQs
How does estrogen affect bone health?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright explains that estrogen plays an important protective role in maintaining bone density. The conversation explores how hormonal changes during menopause may contribute to accelerated bone loss and increased fracture risk.
Does menopause increase osteoporosis risk?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright discusses how declining estrogen levels during menopause may increase the risk of bone density loss and osteoporosis. She explains why many women do not recognize these changes until significant loss has already occurred.
When should women get a DEXA scan?
In this Innovate & Elevate discussion, Dr. Vonda Wright encourages proactive conversations around bone screening and discusses why baseline DEXA scans may help women better understand bone health earlier in life.
What is a DEXA scan?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright explains that a DEXA scan is a diagnostic imaging tool used to measure bone density and help assess risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis.
Why are hip fractures so serious for women?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright shares the story of a patient whose preventable hip fracture became a powerful reminder of the long-term consequences of poor bone health. The discussion highlights how fractures can dramatically affect independence and quality of life.
Can strength training help prevent osteoporosis?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright explains why progressive resistance training and lifting heavy weights can play an important role in maintaining strength and supporting long-term bone health.
What can women do in their 30s and 40s to protect future health?
In this Innovate & Elevate conversation, Dr. Vonda Wright discusses proactive steps women can take earlier in life, including bone screening, adequate protein intake, strength training, and investing in long-term health before symptoms appear.
Does hormone replacement therapy help protect bones?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright discusses the relationship between hormone therapy and bone protection and explains why conversations around estrogen should include long-term prevention and quality of life.
What does “aging with power” mean?
On Innovate & Elevate, Dr. Vonda Wright explains that aging with power means approaching health proactively rather than waiting for decline. The conversation emphasizes preserving strength, mobility, independence, and quality of life over time.