The Dr. Brighten Show

Latest Episodes:

Is Picky Eating a Nutrient Deficiency? Dr. Elisa Song Explains Jun 09, 2026

Show notes

My new book, ADHD and Women, is now available for pre-order! Learn how hormones influence ADHD symptoms and get your copy here: http://drbrighten.com/adhdandwomen

End picky eating with practical, root-cause strategies from integrative pediatrician Dr. Elisa Song, MD, and view the full show notes at DrBrighten.com: https://drbrighten.com. In this episode of The Dr. Brighten Show, Dr. Jolene Brighten and Dr. Song discuss picky eating, zinc, gut health, sensory food aversions, and simple ways parents can help kids expand their diet with less stress.

👩‍⚕️ Dr. Elisa Song, MD, joins Dr. Brighten to explain why picky eating may be more than “just a phase” and how nutrient status, the gut microbiome, sleep, movement, and nervous system regulation can influence a child’s food preferences.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn: - Why zinc may be a key nutrient to consider for selective eaters - How sensory food aversions may connect to nutrient insufficiencies - How to involve kids in food choices without pressure - What parents should know about zinc supplements and food sources - Why gut health matters for nutrient absorption, mood, immunity, and food preferences - How fiber, phytonutrients, and fermented foods support the microbiome - Why sleep and movement can help support gut health, even before changing diet - How nervous system regulation may help kids feel calmer around food - How to teach kids to become confident food label detectives

🎁 Sponsorship & Resources: Dr. Brighten Supplements: https://drbrightenessentials.com/ Hormone & Wellness Resources: https://drbrighten.com Guest Resources from Dr. Elisa Song: https://healthykidshappykids.com

📲 Follow Dr. Elisa Song: 🌐 Website: https://healthykidshappykids.com 🧒 Healthy Kids Happy Kids Membership: https://members.healthykidshappykids.com

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The IVF Missing Piece: Why Recurrent Miscarriage May Not Be “Just Egg Quality” Jun 04, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

What if the IVF missing piece is not only the embryo—but the environment that embryo is trying to implant into? In this powerful episode of The Dr. Brighten Show, Dr. Jolene Brighten sits down with Dr. Gerardo Barroso Villa, a world-renowned fertility expert and reproductive biologist, to talk about recurrent miscarriage, IVF, endometritis, sperm health, PGT-A, and why fertility care should look at the full picture—not just the egg.

Dr. Barroso brings an extraordinary depth of expertise to this conversation. He is introduced as a fertility expert and reproductive biologist trained at prestigious institutions including the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Cornell University, with advanced expertise in microsurgical male factor treatment and IVF techniques, a doctorate from Eastern Virginia Medical School, more than 2,500 international citations for his research, and experience serving as an ad hoc reviewer for leading medical journals.

Together, Dr. Brighten and Dr. Barroso unpack one of the most emotionally loaded and medically complex topics in reproductive health: why miscarriages happen, what may be missed in recurrent pregnancy loss, and how a more complete fertility workup may help couples make more informed decisions.

This Episode Is Brought to You By

Dr. Brighten Essentials Prenatal Plus

Want a science-backed prenatal that is designed to support women through preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum. Prenatal Plus is thoughtfully formulated with active B vitamins, well-absorbed nutrients like methylated folate, iron, iodine, and essential minerals to help support energy, hormone health, and healthy development. This vegan, non-GMO, and third-party tested formula is designed to support your body through every stage of motherhood.

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Natural Cycles

The first, and currently the only FDA-cleared birth control app. It’s completely hormone-free, science-backed, and designed to make tracking your cycle and fertility simple and stress-free.

Using a certified algorithm, the app analyzes hormone-driven changes in your body temperature to learn your unique cycle pattern and confirm your daily fertility status. This helps remove much of the guesswork and human error that can come with traditional fertility awareness methods.

Whether you’re looking to prevent pregnancy or plan for one, Natural Cycles offers a personalized, non-invasive approach to understanding your body.

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HigherDOSE – Red Light Showerhead Filter

Your shower water could be impacting your skin more than you think. The HigherDOSE Red Light Showerhead Filter features a 10-stage filtration system designed to reduce chlorine, VOCs, and other contaminants that can contribute to dryness and irritation. It also includes built-in red light therapy to support cellular energy and overall skin appearance—turning your daily shower into a more restorative ritual.

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Connect with Dr. Gerardo Barroso Villa:

Clinic Website https://nascere.org.mx/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/clinicanascere

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@clinicanascere

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Brain Inflammation and Food: Dr. Austin Perlmutter on the Gut-Brain Connection, Brain Fog, and What to Eat for Better Cognitive Health Jun 02, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

What if your brain fog, low mood, and poor focus were not just “in your head,” but connected to what is happening in your immune system, gut microbiome, and daily food choices? In this episode of The Dr. Brighten Show, Dr. Jolene Brighten sits down with Dr. Austin Perlmutter to unpack the connection between brain inflammation and food, including why the brain is literally built from the nutrients you eat, how added sugar may influence systemic inflammation, and why the gut-brain connection is one of the most important conversations in brain health right now.

Dr. Austin Perlmutter is a board-certified internal medicine physician, New York Times bestselling author, and Managing Director of Big Bold Health. His work focuses on brain and body health, including the biological roots of mental and physical “stuckness,” how environmental factors shape cognitive and emotional well-being, and how plant nutrients may impact human aging through epigenetics. His work has reached millions through media outlets including PBS, Rolling Stone, and NPR.

In this episode, Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Brighten explore how brain inflammation, nutrition, the microbiome, stress, sleep, exercise, air quality, social media, and daily habits all intersect. But the heart of this conversation is simple and powerful: your brain is not separate from your body. It is built from the food you eat, shaped by the microbes you feed, and influenced by the inflammatory signals your body produces every day.

This Episode Is Brought to You By

Dr. Brighten Essentials Radiant Mind

Your brain deserves support every day—not just when your focus disappears, your motivation crashes, or your hormones decide to make executive function feel like a full-contact sport. Radiant Mind by Dr. Brighten Essentials was formulated to support cognitive function, mental clarity, and a healthy stress response, making it a perfect companion to today’s conversation about estrogen, dopamine, focus, and women’s brain health.

Get Radiant Mind here https://drbrightenessentials.com/products/radiant-mind

Sunlighten Saunas

Supporting your brain and hormones isn’t only about what you take—it’s also about how you support your body’s resilience. Sunlighten Saunas are designed to help you create a restorative wellness ritual at home, supporting relaxation, sweating, and recovery. For women navigating stress, perimenopause, and the daily demands on the nervous system, having a consistent way to unwind can be a powerful part of your self-care routine.

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Connect with Dr. Austin Perlmutter:

Website: https://www.austinperlmutter.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/draustinperlmutter

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Endometriosis Imaging: Why Your "Normal" Results Don't Rule Out Endometriosis May 28, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

Most women with endometriosis are told their imaging is "normal" — sometimes for years, sometimes for decades — while the disease silently progresses through their body. When Bryan Johnson posted a viral photo of his girlfriend Kate Tollo undergoing a transvaginal ultrasound, it exposed more than just one couple's private medical moment. It exposed how little most people — including those with enormous platforms — understand about what proper endometriosis imaging and diagnosis actually require.

In this episode, I respond to that viral post and use it as a teaching moment. I walk through why normal imaging can never rule out endometriosis, how most radiologists miss the disease entirely, and what the right diagnostic pathway actually looks like. I also share my own story of being dismissed as "attention-seeking" by a radiologist — only to be diagnosed with stage four endometriosis.

You'll learn:

- Why a "normal" ultrasound or MRI does not rule out endometriosis — and what gets missed when general radiologists read your scans

- What an ENZIAN score is, why it matters more than the I–IV staging system for surgical planning, and how to request one

- The three types of endometriosis (endometriomas, deep infiltrating, and superficial/peritoneal) — and which ones imaging can and cannot detect

- Why endometriosis is a full-body inflammatory disease linked to a 20–60% increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and blood clots

- The embryological rest theory: why endometriosis can occur without a uterus, and why you don't need to have a period to have this disease

- The mast cell, histamine, and estrogen feedback loop that drives lesion growth and systemic inflammation

- How to vet your radiologist, why an "endometriosis protocol" at an imaging center isn't a guarantee, and what questions to ask before surgery

- Why the birth control pill and Lupron are symptom management tools, not treatment — and what true treatment actually requires

- What proper pre-surgical imaging looks like — from transvaginal ultrasound at a center of excellence to ENZIAN-scored expert reads — and why it's the difference between a planned surgery and waking up to surprises

This episode will change how you think about endometriosis diagnosis — and what you demand from your next scan.

👩🏻‍⚕️Follow Dr. Jolene Brighten:

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Estrogen and Dopamine: Why Your Brain, Motivation, and ADHD Symptoms Can Change With Your Hormones May 26, 2026

Show notes

Pre-order ADHD and Women by Dr. Jolene Brighten http://drbrighten.com/adhdandwomen and discover how hormones shape focus, motivation, executive function, and emotional regulation.

This conversation is about one of the most misunderstood areas in women’s health: how hormones interact with the brain. Dr. Brighten explains why estrogen is not just a reproductive hormone, why dopamine is not just a “pleasure chemical,” and why hormonal changes can influence motivation, reward, focus, working memory, task initiation, emotional bandwidth, and the way your brain responds to stress.

You’ll also learn why perimenopause can be such a blindsiding experience for women who previously felt like they were “holding it all together.” Estrogen doesn’t always decline in a neat, straight line. It can fluctuate, surge, and drop, and those changes can feel disruptive for the brain, especially if you already have ADHD, PMDD, premenstrual exacerbation, depression, anxiety, chronic stress, trauma, or a history of traumatic brain injury.

Dr. Brighten also makes one point very clear: this is not a “go start hormones” episode. This is a “your brain symptoms deserve a real differential diagnosis” episode. Hormones matter, but so do thyroid function, iron status, sleep, B12, vitamin D, insulin resistance, metabolic health, inflammation, medication response, stress load, and your lived experience of symptoms.

This Episode Is Brought to You By

Dr. Brighten Essentials

Radiant Mind Your brain deserves support every day—not just when your focus disappears, your motivation crashes, or your hormones decide to make executive function feel like a full-contact sport. Radiant Mind by Dr. Brighten Essentials was formulated to support cognitive function, mental clarity, and a healthy stress response, making it a perfect companion to today’s conversation about estrogen, dopamine, focus, and women’s brain health.

Get Radiant Mind here https://drbrightenessentials.com/products/radiant-mind

Sunlighten Saunas

Learn more about Sunlighten Saunas here https://get.sunlighten.com/drbrighten

LMNT

Hydration matters for energy, focus, workouts, sauna sessions, and feeling like your brain actually came online today. LMNT is an electrolyte drink mix with sodium, potassium, and magnesium—and no sugar—making it an easy way to support hydration, especially if you’re sweating, exercising, eating lower carb, or simply need help keeping up with mineral intake.

Get LMNT here http://drinklmnt.com/Brighten

Thank you to our sponsors for supporting The Dr. Brighten Show and helping us bring evidence-informed women’s health conversations to more people.

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PMDD vs PME: How to Tell the Difference and Why It Changes Treatment May 21, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

If symptoms get worse before a period but do not let up once bleeding starts, is it really PMDD, or could it be PME instead? In this episode, Dr. Brighten breaks down why PMDD vs PME is not a small wording difference but a clinical distinction that can change what treatment needs to address.

Listeners will learn how to tell whether symptom timing fits PMDD or PME, why the symptom-free or mostly symptom-free window matters so much, what two months of daily tracking can reveal before a doctor's appointment, which underlying issues can be mistaken for PMDD, including ADHD, depression, anxiety, thyroid problems, and chronic pain, and why severe mood symptoms, self-harm thoughts, or suicidal thoughts need medical and mental health support instead of self-diagnosis.

For anyone who has been told it is just hormones, this episode leaves one question hanging: what does the full month actually show?

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Autoimmune Disease Management with Dr. Terry Wahls: Nutrition, Mitochondria, and Women's Hormone Transitions May 19, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

Autoimmune disease management is often reduced to one question: which medication comes next? This episode pushes back on that narrow frame.

For listeners living with fatigue, brain fog, pain, or gradual loss of function, that frustration is real. The conversation with Dr. Terry Wahls centers on a different idea: autoimmune disease is not only about immune signaling, but also about mitochondrial energy production, nutrient status, gut integrity, environmental load, and hormone transitions.

That does not turn the episode into an anti-medication message. It makes the case that symptom burden and progression may be shaped by modifiable lifestyle factors that deserve far more attention than they usually get.

So what happens when the standard conversation is too small for what patients are actually experiencing? This episode changes the conversation.

This Episode is Sponsored By

Dr. Brighten Essentials

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Exclusive for podcast listeners: Visit http://drinklmnt.com/Brighten to receive a free sample pack with any purchase.

Meet Terry Wahls

Dr. Terry Wahls website https://terrywahls.com/

Dr. Terry Wahls Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drterrywahls/

Environmental Working Group consumer guides https://www.ewg.org/

The Wahls Protocol https://amzn.to/4tP7RRX

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PCOS Has a New Name: What PMOS Means and What Still Hasn’t Changed May 14, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

PCOS has a new name, and a lot of people are asking the right question: does this actually change anything?

In this episode, I break down the shift from PCOS to PMOS—polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome—and why I see it as directionally positive, but nowhere near sufficient on its own. The old name was misleading. It made “cysts” the focus, even though those findings were often just follicles, and it helped turn ultrasound imaging into the main character instead of the patient sitting in front of the provider.

That needed to change.

But a more accurate label does not automatically produce more accurate care. If clinicians still reduce this condition to irregular periods, acne, infertility, or a weight problem, then women are still going to be missed, misunderstood, and treated one symptom at a time.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

What PMOS means and why PCOS is being renamed

Why the word “cysts” sent the conversation in the wrong direction

How ultrasound findings became overemphasized in diagnosis and care

Why the PMOS name change is helpful but still incomplete

Why “metabolic” should not be translated as “this only counts if you live in a larger body”

How lean PCOS patients risk being overlooked again

Why symptom-by-symptom treatment is still one of the biggest failures in mainstream care

Where supplements like inositol, spearmint, green tea extract, and saw palmetto may fit

Why health coaches and influencers are now repeating metabolic PCOS insights they did not originate

This Episode is Sponsored By

Dr. Brighten Essentials

Exclusive for podcast listeners: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off your order.

Shop now https://drbrightenessentials.com

LMNT Electrolytes

Exclusive for podcast listeners: Visit http://drinklmnt.com/Brighten to receive a free sample pack with any purchase.

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Why Perimenopause Hormone Therapy Can Make Symptoms Worse: Gut, Liver, Thyroid, and Toxin Factors | Pamela Langenderfer May 12, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at ⁠https://drbrighten.com/pmdd⁠

Have you ever started perimenopause hormone therapy and expected relief, only to feel more bloated, more irritable, more tired, or more in the grip of insomnia instead? If that sounds familiar, you are not imagining it. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Pamela Langenderfer about why hormones can be an important tool, but not the whole story.

A prescription is only one piece of the puzzle. What your body can metabolize, clear, and tolerate matters just as much as the hormone itself. That means the gut, liver, thyroid, bowel habits, histamine load, and environmental exposures may all influence whether hormone therapy helps or feels like one more thing your body has to manage.

This is the conversation I want more women to hear before they assume they simply need a higher dose, a different hormone, or another supplement. Sometimes the real question is not, “What hormone should I add?” It is, “What is getting in the way of my body responding well?”

This Episode Is Brought to You By

Dr. Brighten Essentials

Exclusive for podcast listeners: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off your order.

Shop now https://drbrightenessentials.com

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Links Mentioned in This Episode

Dr. Pamela Langenderfer’s website: https://drlangenderfer.com/

Dr. Pamela Langenderfer’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drpamlangenderfer

Dr. Pamela Langenderfer’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrLangenderfer/

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Why PMDD Treatment Fails: SSRIs for PMDD, Birth Control, and What Your Doctor May Be Missing May 07, 2026

Show notes

I'm hosting a live PMDD Relief Workshop on June 10th, free when you pre-order ADHD and Women. Get your spot at ⁠https://drbrighten.com/pmdd⁠

If you have PMDD and feel like you’ve tried everything—SSRIs, birth control, progesterone, gut protocols, antihistamines, supplements, cycle tracking—and you’re still crashing every luteal phase, this episode is for you. In this episode of The Dr. Brighten Show, Dr. Jolene Brighten breaks down why PMDD treatment is not one-size-fits-all, why some women feel better on standard care while others feel worse, and how PMDD can overlap with ADHD, perimenopause, histamine issues, endometriosis, progesterone intolerance, inflammation, and brain sensitivity to hormone changes.

The biggest message: if your PMDD treatment has failed, you are not broken—the treatment may not have matched your biology.

Learn more about the upcoming PMDD workshop hosted by Dr. Brighten here https://drbrighten.com/pmdd

In this show, you’ll learn why PMDD is more than “bad PMS,” why normal hormone levels don’t rule it out, why SSRIs for PMDD can be helpful for some but not everyone, how birth control can help or hurt depending on your body, and how to tell whether your symptoms are more likely PMDD, ADHD, perimenopause, or all three. Dr. Brighten also shares why PMDD has such a complicated history in medicine, how pharmaceutical influence shaped the diagnosis, and why that history should never be used to dismiss the real suffering women experience.

This Episode Is Brought to You By

Dr. Brighten Essentials

Exclusive for podcast listeners: Use code POD15 at checkout for 15% off your order.

Shop now https://drbrightenessentials.com

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