What Estrogen Does to Your Skin (And What Actually Works)

unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Mary Claire Media, LLC

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode of unPAUSED, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Dr. Tony Youn, a board certified plastic surgeon nationally recognized as one of the top plastic surgeons in the United States, bestselling author of Younger for Life, and the most followed plastic surgeon on social media with more than five million YouTube subscribers and eight million TikTok followers. In part one of this two part conversation, they take on a question that sits at the intersection of hormones and skin health that most doctors have never connected for their patients: what estrogen is actually doing to the skin, and what women can do about it. Dr. Youn opens with a statistic that women lose 30% of the thickness of their collagen in the first five years after menopause, and then continue losing collagen at twice the rate of men for every year that follows. He explains exactly why this happens, how estrogen interacts with the fibroblasts that produce collagen and elastin, what declining estrogen does to hyaluronic acid and skin hydration, and why women are not imagining it when their skincare suddenly stops working. Guest links: Anthony Youn, MD Tony Youn, MD (Instagram) Doctor Youn (TikTok) Dr. Anthony Youn (Facebook) Doctor Youn (YouTube) The Doctor Youn Show (Apple Podcasts) Books “The New Perimenopause,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver “The New Menopause"⁠ by Dr. Mary Claire Haver“Younger for Life: Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity, Nutrition and Self-Care for a Youthful Life,” by Anthony Youn "Playing God" by Anthony Youn "The Age Fix" by Anthony Youn "In Stitches" by Anthony Youn To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Because there was so much to cover with Dr. Tony Youne, we have broken this episode into two parts.
0:06.2	This is part one, and we will publish part two later this week.
0:10.7	So in general, for a male, starting in your mid-20s, you do lose about 1% of the thickness of collagen in your skin every year.
0:19.0	Starting the mid-20s.
0:20.2	Okay.
0:21.2	Women, it's different. Okay. Starting in mid-20s. Okay. Women, it's different.
0:23.2	Okay, starting in mid-20s, same thing, about 1% a year.
0:25.7	But once women go through metapause, there are studies that show that women lose 30% of the
0:30.5	thickness of their collagen in the first five years after menopause.
0:33.5	Wait, wait, Tony, wait.
0:35.6	30% of the thickness of collagen in the first five years after menopause.
0:40.3	Now, it also will increase by about, it increases the collagen loss to about 2% a year after that.
0:47.3	So now you're doing 30% in the first five years and then about 2% every year thereafter
0:51.3	versus men where it's about 1% a year.
0:57.5	And so that is the effects of estrogen on your skin.
1:01.2	And that's why you see women who maybe are in their 70s or 80s,
1:04.6	and some of them have literally tissue paper thin skin to where you scratch them and the skin tears.
1:06.0	You don't see it quite as thin in men as they get older.
1:08.9	Really?
1:09.3	That's that estrogen effect.
1:20.9	Okay. see it quite as thin in men as they get older. Really? That's that estrogen effect. The views and opinions expressed on unpaused are those of the talent and guests alone
1:25.6	and are provided for informational and entertainment
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 11 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mary Claire Media, LLC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Mary Claire Media, LLC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.