Most people accept low energy, weight gain, brain fog, and declining libido as normal aging. Doctors tell you your labs are “fine” and send you home with advice to eat better and exercise more. But what if the problem isn’t your lifestyle? What if your body is fighting two silent enemies that no one is talking about?
In this week’s C3: CODE Conscious Conversations, we sat down with Carlos Bertonatti, co-founder of the Medical Health Institute in Miami. With over a decade of experience, 45,000+ lab data points, and thousands of successfully treated patients, Carlos reveals the truth about what’s really destroying your hormones, why essential amino acids matter more than protein, and how bioidentical hormone therapy can prevent the metabolic diseases plaguing 93% of Americans.
These aren’t theories. They’re clinical realities backed by data from top institutions like Harvard and Mayo Clinic. Let’s break down what’s actually happening to your body and what you can do about it.
Listen to this podcast now at C3 Podcast or join us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Two Silent Enemies Destroying Your Health
Carlos starts every patient consultation the same way: by explaining the two enemies you’re fighting every single day, whether you know it or not.
Enemy #1: Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs)
You are a network of 30 trillion cells. Every single day, these cells are subjected to thousands of chemicals that didn’t exist 30 years ago. You’re absorbing them through:
- Your skin (lotions, shampoos, soaps, toothpaste, fragrances)
- Your food and water (plastic particles, pesticides, preservatives)
- The air you breathe (microplastics that cross the blood-brain barrier)
Science now confirms that we consume approximately a credit card’s worth of plastic every month. Your cells are not designed to metabolize plastic.
The Statistics Are Devastating
Harvard, Mayo Clinic, and other major institutions have confirmed through multiple studies spanning two decades that endocrine disrupting chemicals have:
- Dropped testosterone levels by 53% worldwide in the last 45 years
- Reduced sperm count by 53% in the same timeframe
- Created a fertility crisis affecting both men and women
This isn’t just about bodybuilding or libido. Testosterone receptors are concentrated in your brain and heart. When you lose half your testosterone, you’re losing the fuel your most vital organs need to function properly. This is about disease prevention and longevity, not vanity.
Enemy #2: Catastrophic Nutrient Depletion
Here’s the truth most people struggle to accept: we have lost over 80% of the micronutrients and trace minerals in soil across the entire planet.
It doesn’t matter if you buy organic. It doesn’t matter if you grow your own food. Even the highest quality produce today would require eating 37 apples or 43 bowls of spinach to get what our ancestors received from one serving 80 years ago.
When you sit down to eat, no matter how beautiful your plate looks, you’re only giving your cells 20% of what they need. The other 80% is pure pleasure, not nutrition.
Your cells are sitting in darkness, fighting to show up against chemical poisoning, but they don’t have the resources to win.
Why Essential Amino Acids Are the #1 Supplement You Need
Carlos is known in the optimization world for beating this drum relentlessly: if he could go back to his 17-year-old self and give one piece of advice, it would be to prioritize essential amino acids above everything else.
The Protein Absorption Myth
Most people think eating protein builds muscle, strengthens bones, and creates healthy hair and skin. But here’s the question Carlos asks every patient:
Do you need to eat your hair to grow more of it? Do you need to eat your nails to get harder nails? Then why would eating a chicken wing or a steak give you more muscle?
It doesn’t work that way.
How Your Body Actually Builds Tissue
Your body manufactures everything from neurons to sperm to thyroid proteins to digestive enzymes using amino acids, the building blocks of protein. You need to make hundreds of thousands of proteins every single day just to function.
Eating protein is not the most effective or efficient way to do that. Essential amino acids are.
There are eight essential amino acids your body cannot produce on its own. These are responsible for:
- Building collagen (skin, bones, joints)
- Creating neurotransmitters (mood, focus, memory)
- Producing hormones (thyroid, testosterone, estrogen)
- Manufacturing digestive enzymes
- Repairing muscle tissue
- Supporting immune function
And 99% of people are deficient in them.
The Taste Problem (And Why You Need to Get Over It)
Carlos is blunt about this: if you want to be healthy, divorce taste from your health decisions. Most things that are truly beneficial don’t taste great, and your body will adapt.
He recommends taking essential amino acids like a shot. If you can handle tequila, you can handle amino acids.
After years of using Body Health (Dr. Minkoff’s formula), Carlos switched to True Matrix because patients kept complaining about the taste. But the principle remains: amino acids are non-negotiable for cellular health.
The Menopause Cliff: What Women Need to Know
Carlos divides his clinic into two separate departments: male and female. Why? Because men and women are different species when it comes to hormonal health.
What Menopause Actually Is
Menopause is a period in a woman’s life where she loses 95% of her natural hormone production in a five-year span.
Imagine being told that in the next five years, you’ll lose 95% of your income and all your financial assets. That’s the biological equivalent of what happens during menopause.
This is why women experience:
- Erratic mood swings
- Night sweats and hot flashes
- Uncontrollable weight gain
- Hair loss
- Vaginal dryness and painful intercourse
- Brain fog and memory issues
But here’s what most doctors don’t tell you: these symptoms are just the beginning.
The Disease Risk No One Talks About
We now have 50 years of unequivocal clinical data showing that if a woman does nothing to restore her hormones to optimal levels, her risk skyrockets for:
- Metabolic disease (hypertension, obesity, insulin resistance)
- Cardiovascular disease and stroke (3x higher risk)
- Osteoporosis
- Dementia, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s
- All forms of cancer (50-80% increased risk)
Hormones are biochemical messengers that tell your organs how to function. When you lose them, your body doesn’t just decline in quality of life. It becomes vulnerable to every major disease.
Men vs. Women: The Staircase vs. The Cliff
Men lose hormones gradually. After age 23, testosterone drops about 2-3% per year. When you start with high levels, losing 20 points isn’t noticeable. This is why men hit a midlife crisis around 40 or 50 when they’ve lost about half their hormones.
Women fall off a cliff. They lose 95% in five years.
It’s the difference between a frog slowly boiling in water versus being thrown into a hot pan. Men don’t notice until it’s too late. Women experience the shock all at once.
Bioidentical vs. Synthetic Hormones: Understanding the Difference
The fear of hormone therapy largely stems from one deeply flawed study: the Women’s Health Initiative, which told women that hormones cause cancer.
The Horse Hormone Problem
That study used synthetic hormones derived from pregnant mare urine. Horses have 10 different estrogens that humans do not have. When you introduce animal hormones into a human body, problems arise.
There is no credible research showing that bioidentical hormone replacement causes disease. In fact, the overwhelming evidence shows the opposite: the danger is living with zero hormones.
What Bioidentical Means
Bioidentical hormones are derived from natural sources (like yams or sweet potatoes) and are molecularly identical to what your body produces. When they attach to receptor sites, they fit perfectly like a key in a lock.
Synthetic hormones are altered at the molecular level so pharmaceutical companies can patent them. This creates a key that doesn’t fit perfectly. Over time, forcing that key causes problems.
Bioidentical hormones include:
- Estrogen (usually estradiol and estriol)
- Progesterone
- Testosterone (yes, women need this too)
- DHEA
- Pregnenolone
When dosed correctly under medical supervision, these hormones restore energy, prevent disease, improve brain function, protect bone density, and support cardiovascular health.
The Peptide Warning: Why Online Sources Are Dangerous
Peptides have exploded in popularity. Everyone from biohackers to Instagram influencers is talking about them. But Carlos issues a serious warning: if you do this wrong, it can be dangerous.
What Peptides Actually Are
Peptides are signaling molecules made up of amino acids. They tell your body what to do, like “build more bone” or “repair this tissue.”
Think of peptides like words. They use an alphabet of 20 amino acids plus two punctuation marks. You can make “bake,” “lake,” or “cake.” Very similar letters, very different meanings.
The Mathematical Problem
Take a popular peptide like tirzepatide, which has 39 amino acids. The number of possible expressions that peptide can have in your body is 20 to the 39th power.
That number has 36 zeros. Your mind cannot comprehend how many ways that peptide can manifest in your body.
Why Online Peptides Are a Gamble
Carlos scoured over 70 popular peptide websites. Every single one included two disclaimers:
- “This product is not meant to be ingested by any human or animal at any point for any reason.”
- “We cannot guarantee that what is advertised on the label is actually in the bottle.”
Why would you inject something into your body from a company that legally cannot stand behind its product?
Legitimate peptide sources use:
- High-definition liquid chromatography
- Mass spectrometry
- PhD biochemists and microbiologists on staff
- Pharmaceutical-grade clean rooms
These processes ensure the peptide signature is exact so it says “make bone,” not “make cancer.”
At best, an online peptide does nothing and you waste your money. At worst, it signals for disease.
Peptides Are Ornaments, Not the Foundation
Carlos uses a tree analogy to explain health optimization:
- The trunk = Hormone optimization (the sturdy foundation)
- The roots = High-quality targeted supplementation (cellular nutrition)
- The branches = Peptides (seasonal decorative ornaments)
You don’t put ornaments on a tree that has no trunk. Peptides are powerful tools, but they only work when the foundation is solid.
Optimization vs. Healthcare: The Top 2.5% Nobody Talks About
Here’s something most people don’t know: when labs like LabCorp and Quest create reference ranges, they test 100,000 random people and calculate the average.
But consider the pool:
- Half the country is pre-diabetic
- 3 out of 4 Americans are obese
- The average American is on over 10 prescription medications
- 93% of Americans have metabolic dysfunction
That’s the comparison you’re being measured against.
The Missing Data
When labs publish reference ranges, they cut off the bottom 2.5% (the sickest people) and the top 2.5% (the healthiest people).
If you want to be in the top percentile of health, your doctor doesn’t even know what that looks like. Those numbers are unpublished.
This is the difference between healthcare (keeping you alive) and optimization (helping you thrive).
Carlos works with clients who want to perform at the level of professional athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, and elite performers. That requires understanding what the top 2.5% of health actually looks like.
Practical Takeaways for Everyday Life
- Get a real lab, not a “grandma lab.” Standard doctor panels check if you’re dying. Optimization labs show the entire system and reveal deficiencies before they become diseases.
- Prioritize essential amino acids. This is the one supplement everyone needs, regardless of age, gender, or health status.
- Don’t fear bioidentical hormones. The research is clear. The danger is living with hormonal deficiency, not correcting it.
- Work with a qualified team for peptides. Never buy peptides online. Work with a clinic that uses pharmaceutical-grade sources and understands how to structure protocols safely.
- Focus on the foundation first. Hormones and nutrition come before trendy biohacks. Build the trunk before you decorate the branches.
- Understand that health optimization is a journey. You’re not buying a quick fix. You’re building a sustainable lifestyle supported by science, education, and personalized protocols.
Our Final Thoughts
Your body is not failing you. It’s being poisoned by chemicals it wasn’t designed to handle and starved of nutrients it desperately needs. The solution isn’t accepting decline as inevitable. It’s understanding what’s actually happening and taking strategic action to restore balance.
In this episode of C3: CODE Conscious Conversations, Carlos Bertonatti cuts through the noise of the wellness industry and delivers a science-backed roadmap for reclaiming your energy, optimizing your hormones, and preventing the metabolic diseases that plague modern society. These tools remind us that health isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about understanding your biology and giving your body what it actually needs to thrive.
🎧 Listen to the full episode now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify: Carlos Bertonatti: Are Your Hormones the Missing Link to Energy, Longevity & Disease Prevention?
FAQs on Hormone Optimization and Cellular Health
1. Are bioidentical hormones safe for women?
Yes. Bioidentical hormones are molecularly identical to what your body naturally produces. There is no credible research linking bioidentical hormone therapy to cancer or disease. The flawed Women’s Health Initiative study used synthetic horse hormones, not bioidentical hormones. When prescribed and monitored by a qualified practitioner, bioidentical hormones prevent disease and improve quality of life.
2. Do men need hormone optimization too?
Absolutely. Men lose testosterone gradually (2-3% per year after age 23), but by their 40s and 50s, most men have lost 50% or more of their natural levels. Low testosterone increases risk for cardiovascular disease, dementia, metabolic dysfunction, and depression. Hormone optimization for men is just as critical as it is for women.
3. What’s the difference between hormone replacement and hormone optimization?
Replacement aims to get you to “normal” levels based on standard reference ranges (which include sick people). Optimization aims to get you to the top 2.5% of healthy ranges, where disease risk is lowest and performance is highest.
4. Can I just take testosterone or estrogen on my own?
No. Hormones work in a symphony. Taking one hormone without understanding how it affects thyroid, cortisol, progesterone, DHEA, and other hormones can create imbalances. You need comprehensive labs and a qualified practitioner to structure a safe, effective protocol.
5. What are essential amino acids and why do I need them?
Essential amino acids are the building blocks your body uses to manufacture proteins, collagen, neurotransmitters, hormones, and enzymes. Your body cannot produce them on its own, so you must get them from food or supplementation. 99% of people are deficient, which is why Carlos calls them the #1 supplement everyone needs.
6. How do I know if I have a hormone imbalance?
Common symptoms include:
- Persistent fatigue despite adequate sleep
- Brain fog and memory issues
- Weight gain (especially around the midsection)
- Low libido or sexual dysfunction
- Mood swings, anxiety, or depression
- Hair loss or thinning
- Difficulty building or maintaining muscle
- Sleep disturbances
If you experience any of these, get a comprehensive optimization lab (not a standard doctor panel).
7. Are peptides safe?
When sourced from a legitimate pharmaceutical-grade compounding pharmacy and prescribed by a qualified practitioner, yes. When purchased online from unregulated sources, no. Online peptide companies legally cannot guarantee what’s in the bottle or that it’s safe for human use. The risk is not worth the cost savings.
8. How much does hormone optimization cost?
Costs vary depending on the clinic, lab testing, and protocols. However, compared to a lifetime of medications, chronic disease management, and declining quality of life, hormone optimization is cost-effective. Many clinics like Medical Health Institute offer telemedicine consultations across all 50 states.
9. Can hormone therapy reverse aging?
Hormone therapy doesn’t stop aging, but it significantly slows the decline and prevents age-related diseases. When combined with proper nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle strategies, it can restore energy, cognitive function, muscle mass, and metabolic health to levels you had decades earlier.
10. How do I get started with hormone optimization?
Start with a comprehensive lab panel that measures all your hormones, not just one or two markers. Then consult with a practitioner who specializes in optimization (not just replacement). Medical Health Institute offers telemedicine appointments and works with patients nationwide. Visit medicalhealthinstitute.com to learn more.
Listen to this podcast now at C3 Podcast or join us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
