The Micronutrient Gap

This guide shows you what they are, what optimal levels actually look like, and why getting them right is often what makes the difference between your hormones working — and not.

Inside this guide:

Magnesium — the most-used tool in the toolbox
Vitamin D — more hormone than vitamin
Vitamin B12 — what your medications may be stealing
Ferritin — the iron marker your doctor isn’t checking
Zinc & the Copper-Zinc Ratio — and why this matters before you consider hormone therapy

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About the Author

Yvonne Karney, MD

Board-Certified OB-GYN · Functional Medicine Specialist · The Hormone Locksmith®

Most of what I know about micronutrients I learned the hard way — by watching women do everything right and still feel like something was missing.

Over 25 years of clinical practice and more than 80,000 patient encounters have taught me that the gap between "normal" labs and optimal function is rarely about hormones alone. It is almost always about what the body has — or doesn't have — at the cellular level.

At Vitality Renewal, we don't start with assumptions. We start with data. The micronutrient panel is one of the first things we look at, because we have seen repeatedly that women who are serious about their health are often unknowingly depleted in the very nutrients that determine how well everything else works — their hormones, their energy, their cognitive sharpness, their resilience.

I'm board-certified in OB-GYN with advanced training in functional and integrative medicine, and I've spent over 14 years specializing in bioidentical hormone therapy. That work is what led me to develop The Hormone Locksmith® framework — because I kept seeing women with optimized hormone levels who still weren't responding the way they should. The keys were right. The locks weren't ready.

If you've been doing the right things and wondering why the results don't match the effort — this guide is for you.

vitalityrenewal.org · Crystal Lake, IL · (815) 271-7300