Science
The Science Behind The Vulva Co
The Vulva Co was developed from clinical and research work exploring intracrine signaling, tissue responsiveness, and midlife physiology. Research is ongoing, with continued refinement of these published biological models and their clinical applications.
Why Tissue-State Matters
Healthy vulvovaginal tissue response depends on the presence of hormones, but it is influenced by far more than hormone levels alone. Over time, the condition of the tissue itself changes — including hydration, elasticity, local signaling, vascular support, and biological responsiveness.
Estrogen and testosterone, derived in part from DHEA through intracrine conversion within tissue, help regulate and maintain healthy vulvovaginal function. For many women, restoring these signaling pathways is sufficient to improve tissue health and comfort. For others, response remains incomplete. This reflects the fact that midlife tissue health is shaped not only by hormones, but by the broader biological environment in which those hormones act.
The condition of the larger system - including inflammation, metabolic health, stress physiology, circulation, nutrient status, and tissue resilience - can all influence local tissue health. Vulvovaginal tissue is therefore not separate from the rest of the body, but one expression of overall physiological health.
Founder & Research
About Dr. Laura Kelly
Laura Kelly, DAOM, L.Ac., Dipl. O.M.
Dr. Kelly is a California-licensed primary care provider and nationally board-certified clinician, with a clinical focus on women's health and healthy aging. She is a researcher in system-state biology, intracrine signaling, and midlife physiology — work that explores why biological systems stop responding to intervention, and what conditions are required to restore healthy physiological response and function.
She is a Research Scholar with the Ronin Institute and US Principal Investigator on a 26-country study of menopause.
Her published work includes The Drive–Capacity Model: A Systems Biology Framework for Midlife Female Sexual Function (Oxford University Press, Research Connections), senior editorial and contributing work for Elsevier's Academic Press The Implementation of Personalized Precision Medicine, and books published by Chelsea Green and Rizzoli. A five-axis model of postpartum vulvar tissue biology is currently under review at Sexual Medicine Reviews.
ORCID: 0000-0001-6586-7308
NPI: 1518287515
Learn more about Dr. Laura Kelly’s research and systems.
Selected Publications
The Drive–Capacity Model: A Systems Biology Framework for Midlife Female Sexual Function
Oxford University Press, Research Connections
Introduces a systems-based framework proposing that midlife female sexual dysfunction may reflect changes not only in psychological or hormonal state, but in the relationship between central drive, tissue responsiveness, and broader physiological regulation.
The Implementation of Personalized Precision Medicine
Elsevier / Academic Press
Senior editorial and contributing work exploring systems biology, individualized intervention response, and the growing role of precision medicine in chronic disease prevention and treatment.
Translational Application
Dr. Kelly's current research program examines the biology of midlife vulvovaginal tissue: how it responds to hormonal signaling, how that responsiveness changes across the lifespan, and why outcomes vary so widely between individuals.
The Vulva Co exists to translate that research into products developed with the same care.
Beyond formulation
The Vulva Co also places strict emphasis on formulation integrity, plant-sourced ingredients, and broader accessibility in women’s health. Ongoing work includes support for underserved women’s health initiatives and participation in international menopause research collaborations.
And, where the science on this site is established, we say so. Where it is inference, we say that too.
[Learn more about our philosophy]
FROM WILD YAM TO DHEA
Wild Yam Is Where DHEA Starts. It Isn't DHEA.
Wild yam contains a molecule called diosgenin. Diosgenin is the raw material, but your body cannot make the conversion on it's own. There's no human enzyme for it - diosgenin applied to skin stays diosgenin.
Turning it into DHEA takes four steps in a laboratory. The chemistry was worked out in the 1930s by Russell Marker, and it's the reason steroid hormones became available at all — before it, they were extracted from animal tissue at extraordinary cost.
The four steps, for those who want to know more:
Step 1 — Extraction. Dioscorea root contains dioscin, a steroidal saponin. Hydrolysis releases diosgenin.
Step 2 — Marker degradation. Diosgenin is heated with acetic anhydride under pressure, opening the spiroketal ring system to give pseudodiosgenin diacetate. Oxidative cleavage removes the remaining side-chain fragment using catalytic permanganate with periodate as co-oxidant — followed by hydrolysis to give 16-dehydropregnenolone acetate, or 16-DPA.
Step 3 — Oxime formation and rearrangement. The C20 ketone on 16-DPA is converted to an oxime, then rearranged to move the nitrogen into the ring system, giving a C17 amide.
Step 4 — Hydrolysis. The amide is hydrolyzed to unmask the C17 ketone. That, with the 3β-hydroxyl, is DHEA.
This is why wild yam cream and DHEA are not interchangeable, and why women who have tried yam creams without result have not failed at anything. They were applying the starting material, not the finished molecule.