The Hormone Reset: FDA’s New Approach to Women’s Medicine

Speaker 1 Instagram teen accounts default teens into automatic protections for who can contact them and the content they can see.

Speaker 1 Explore teen accounts and all of our ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teen accounts.

Speaker 2 Daily Wire Plus annual memberships are 50% off during our Black Friday sale.

Speaker 3 That includes inside annual and all-access memberships. It's more to enjoy than ever before.

Speaker 4 That means more new daily shows from the most trusted voices in conservative media. Uncensored, ad-free, and available an hour before you can see or hear them anywhere else.

Speaker 6 More new series that capture conviction, courage, and the human story. More documentaries that challenge the culture and expose what's really happening.

Speaker 3 And when we say premium, we're proving it with the long-awaited seven-part epic series, The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin.

Speaker 2 The legend begins streaming January 22nd, 2026, exclusively on Daily Wire Plus.

Speaker 6 All access members get early access to episodes one and two at Christmas Day.

Speaker 4 50% off Black Friday is our biggest sale of the year.

Speaker 3 It It only happens once a year. When it's gone, it's gone.

Speaker 2 Go to dailywire.com slash subscribe and join now.

Speaker 7 After decades of stagnation and caution, the FDA is radically changing their advice on hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women.

Speaker 8 In this interview, we talk with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary about the new advice for women, as well as other shake-ups happening in medicine at the highest level.

Speaker 8 I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Wire executive editor John Bickley, and this is a weekend edition of Morningwire.

Speaker 9 America is built on hard work and powered by American energy.

Speaker 9 Chevron has spent $44 billion with local businesses across all 50 states since 2022, fueling infrastructure and communities, all while strengthening local economies. Last year, Chevron increased U.S.

Speaker 9 production nearly 20%, powering communities and businesses from the heartlands to the coasts.

Speaker 9 We're helping to fuel America's energy advantage, advantage, building a brighter future right here at home. Visit chevron.com/slash America to discover more.

Speaker 10 You may have heard of HelloFresh. They're the number one meal kit in America, making home cooking easier with chef-crafted recipes and fresh ingredients delivered straight to your door.

Speaker 10 But this fall, they're serving up even more love. This isn't the HelloFresh you remember, it's better.

Speaker 10 They've seriously upgraded the health factor too with 15 plus high-protein meals each week featuring grass-fed ribeyes, lamb chops, and other premium cuts. Here's the kicker.

Speaker 10 Steak and seafood are now included every week at no extra cost, and they've tripled their seafood options so you can enjoy quality protein, whatever you want.

Speaker 10 You'll also get to experiment with fresh seasonal produce like leeks, broccolini, and Italian eggplant, plus dig into cozy, hearty dishes like classic beef chili and honey glazed pork tenderloin that capture the best of the season.

Speaker 10 HelloFresh also has these absolutely killer taco recipes. I think I've ordered just about every kind they have and they've taken Taco Tuesday to a whole new level.

Speaker 10 The best way to cook just got better. Go to hellofresh.com/slash Morningwire10 FM now to get 10 free meals plus a free breakfast for life.
One per box with active subscription.

Speaker 10 Free meals applied as discounts on first box. New subscribers only varies by plan.
That's hellofresh.com slash morningwire10 FM to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life.

Speaker 8 Joining us now to discuss the updated advice for women's health is FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary.
Dr. McCary, thanks for coming on.

Speaker 5 Great to be with you.

Speaker 8 So tell us about the announcement about HRT that your agency just put out this month.

Speaker 5 Well, the FDA is removing the black box warnings that have scared women away from these estrogen products.

Speaker 5 Women who go through menopause and start hormone replacement therapy have profound short-term and long-term health benefits, including reducing the risk of bone fractures by 50 to 60% later in life, reducing the risk of fatal heart attacks by 30 to 50%.

Speaker 5 That's the number one cause of death in women. and reducing cognitive decline.

Speaker 5 So people think about hormone replacement therapy after menopause in terms of the short-term benefits, but there are profound long-term health benefits.

Speaker 5 In fact, there may be no medication in the modern era, aside from perhaps antibiotics or vaccines, that can improve the health outcomes of women on a population level more than hormone replacement therapy started within 10 years of the onset of menopause.

Speaker 8 So, do they stay on it for the duration of life? How does it actually work?

Speaker 5 So, many doctors do prescribe it for life after a woman starts it.

Speaker 5 The key is it has to be started within years of the onset of menopause because the body is naturally producing its own intrinsic estrogen, but that starts to decline and then go to zero around the time of menopause.

Speaker 5 So the replacement is replacing the body's estrogen that is known now to have some cognitive benefit and also to keep the blood vessels soft and dilated.

Speaker 5 It increases nitric oxide, which helps keep blood vessels dilated. And that's why there may be this profound cardiovascular benefit.
Now, that risk-benefit ratio inverts after about 10 years

Speaker 5 if hormone therapy is started more than 10 years after menopause. But when doctors start it around the time of menopause or within 10 years of menopause, many doctors do keep patients on it for life.

Speaker 8 Now, are there any women who are not good candidates? For example, I know for many years there was fear that it would increase cancer rates. So what about women who have, say, like the BRCA2 mutation?

Speaker 5 So there are some contraindications that doctors have used. One of them is an active breast cancer.

Speaker 5 Other doctors have suggested that if there was a breast cancer in the past, family history is a controversial area of contraindication.

Speaker 5 Someone who has a strong underlying risk of blood clots from a previous medical condition that predisposes them.

Speaker 5 These are some generally recognized contraindications, but many doctors are now saying, with the exception of active breast cancer, those are relative contraindications.

Speaker 5 And even women who are predisposed to blood clots can take a gel or vaginal form of the therapy.

Speaker 5 And you raise a good point that there is a fear machine that started 23 years ago that hormone replacement therapy increases breast cancer mortality, that is, increases a woman's chances of dying of breast cancer.

Speaker 5 But in reality, that study was put out to the media before the results were put out in the medical literature.

Speaker 5 It never had a statistically significant increase in the risk of breast cancer in the original study.

Speaker 5 And women who took estrogen alone because they did not have a uterus and did not require the added progesterone, they had a much lower risk of breast cancer. There was a protective effect.

Speaker 5 So the fear machine has been going on for 23 years. The FDA piled on around that time.
and added these scary black box warnings.

Speaker 5 Today, the FDA is taking action to remove these black box warnings so that women have the right information and are making the decision based on evidence and not on the fear machine.

Speaker 8 Now, for Gen X women who are maybe in the window where this is immediately useful to them, what sort of short-term benefits are there?

Speaker 5 So the symptoms of menopause are massively underappreciated, underrecognized, and understudied. I was told, for example, in medical school that some women have symptoms of menopause.

Speaker 5 They may last a couple years and they're usually mild. Well, that's not true.
About 80% of women have significant symptoms of menopause. They last on average eight years.

Speaker 5 And for many women, they are severe. Mood swings, night sweats, difficulty sleeping, pain with sexual activity, weight gain.

Speaker 5 And these symptoms are often alleviated with estrogen, that is with hormone replacement therapy, estrogen or estrogen plus progesterone.

Speaker 5 And so that message is underrecognized and underappreciated, both in the medical field and into the society at large.

Speaker 8 Your agency also announced that it's greenlighting two new drugs for menopausal women. What can you tell us about those new drugs?

Speaker 5 So one is a generic combination therapy of estrogen and progesterone. It is a generic form of premarin.

Speaker 5 And the other medication that we're advancing is a medication that can directly address some of these symptoms without a hormonal treatment.

Speaker 5 It's a non-hormonal version for women who have a contraindication for estrogen or estrogen plus progesterone.

Speaker 8 Now, broadening out a bit, we like to keep tabs on all things Maha on this show. So, what are the top initiatives being pushed right now, and what kind of progress have we seen?

Speaker 5 So, we've done a lot in calling on the industry to remove all nine petroleum-based food dyes in the next tier of chemicals.

Speaker 5 We are revising infant formula guidance, and we are now working on changing the food pyramid.

Speaker 5 That is the broken dietary guidance that has come out of the government that has done tremendous damage in school lunch programs, in military bases, and everywhere that food is served.

Speaker 5 We are rewriting that guidance to make it now evidence-based and not based on what the food industry tells you they want you to buy. We are ending a 50-year war on natural saturated fat.

Speaker 5 We're talking about the types of grains, the importance of fiber, and the importance of food that comes out of good soil.

Speaker 5 And we want to let people know that refined carbohydrates do have an effect on the body and drive up insulin levels

Speaker 5 to heights that we've never seen before in human history. And

Speaker 5 this is something that people should track and keep tabs on because the idea that there was no dietary limit on sugar is an era that we came out of. And so this is the first generation.

Speaker 5 to see insulin and sugar spikes at levels that have not been seen before in human history.

Speaker 8 Now, drilling down a little bit on the food food pyramid or whatever infographic you plan to use, what specific changes are you making to those recommendations?

Speaker 5 Well, I think there's been a false dogma that the calories in, calories out count has been a zero-sum game and it was just that simple.

Speaker 5 And it didn't matter if you had bad food that was highly processed. It was just a matter of how much time you spent running or on a treadmill.
And so that concept is a broken concept.

Speaker 5 And we're rewriting now the guidance to talk about the value of protein, for example. There's a recognition now that maybe we need more protein than has been recommended in the past.

Speaker 5 Our doctors are still meeting. We're actively working with USDA.
And we're going to be putting out this guidance in the coming months.

Speaker 5 And I think people are really going to see a refreshing new framework for thinking about the food that they eat and where it comes from.

Speaker 8 Now, I'm going to save my questions about statins and cholesterol for next time you're on. But in terms of your post, what are your top priorities as commissioner of the FDA right now?

Speaker 5 So my predecessor in the Biden administration at the FDA said that his number one priority was to fight misinformation. Well, my number one priority is not to censor Americans or fight misinformation.

Speaker 5 It's to deliver more cures and meaningful treatments to the American public and healthier food for children. And we're doing that.

Speaker 5 We are going into the pipeline of new cures that are potentially promising under review at the FDA.

Speaker 5 I personally go to the scientists on the front lines at the FDA and ask them, are you seeing anything that looks amazing?

Speaker 5 Are you seeing anything in animal studies, a new mechanism of action, something in an early phase two trial that could be a game changer?

Speaker 5 Is there anything you're seeing that gives you chills up your spine?

Speaker 5 And sometimes they say no, but every now and then, we realize there's a potentially promising treatment that we need to put at the front of the line.

Speaker 5 And so we're doing that now with a new pilot program to get decisions out in weeks instead of a year. And we're proactive.
We're not just in receive-only mode.

Speaker 5 I want to see a powerful treatment or cure for type 1 diabetes in our term for neurodegenerative diseases, a treatment for those suffering with PTSD.

Speaker 5 We want to see treatments for cancer that are a leap forward, not an added survival benefit of two weeks. We discovered, for example,

Speaker 5 an article in the New England Journal of Medicine a few weeks ago that showed a gene therapy for a form of childhood deafness restored hearing in three out of 12 kids who got it.

Speaker 5 And other kids had some benefit as well.

Speaker 5 Well, within hours of that article being public, we then went into the pipeline and moved that application to the front of the line, called the company, and that's going to get a priority review within weeks.

Speaker 5 We're doing the same with cancer treatments that can melt away a cancer without any chemo or radiation or surgery. that is game-changing.

Speaker 5 And so, we have prioritized drugs that are in our national priority interests, increasing affordability, moving manufacturing to the United States, and meeting an unmet health need.

Speaker 5 And so, we're doing that and we're going to keep going.

Speaker 8 All right. Well, Dr.
McCary, thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 5 Good to be with you, Georgia.

Speaker 8 That was FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCary, and this has been a weekend edition of Morningwire.