Midlife Renaissance: Reclaiming the Conversation about Our Bodies and Menopause with Dr. Louise Newson

Jen Hatmaker: Okay, Dr. Newsome, welcome to the For the Love podcast. We have really been looking forward to this conversation with you. Yes, welcome. Yes. It’s kind of like you’re our captive hostage for these next 45 minutes. And we’re going, we’re going to squeeze all the juice out of the line because you’re our person right now. Yes.

Louise Newson: Great, I’m looking forward to being here. It’s wonderful that you’ve invited me, thank you.

Jen Hatmaker: I have followed you for ages and I’ve learned so much from you. I have a million things to say and they’re all competing. I need to just slow down. I was just telling you before we started recording that our listening community is largely like right in the pocket of your work. We are mostly perimenopausal and menopausal women. And so this is a conversation we’ve been having, hosting, searching out.

Louise Newson: Nice.

Jen Hatmaker: For the last five years or so. And so you’re gonna have a captive audience today over on our side of the street, that is for sure. I wonder if we could kind of like, let’s just start with the basics. Thinking about people listening who are maybe on the front edge of this journey or even they’re looking ahead. Because gosh, what I wouldn’t have given for this information in my 30s and in my 20s. But.

Louise Newson: Wonderful.

Jen Hatmaker: So we hear the terms of course, perimenopause and menopause. And so I wonder just from the highest level, can you break down those terms for us? What is perimenopause? When more or less does it start? How long does it last? What’s the difference with menopause? When have we crossed over? All that.

Louise Newson: Yeah, do you know what? It’s really confusing and I wish I could give you a really straightforward answer, but I can’t. So if you think of the word menopause, it’s just menomensal cycle pause stop. But it’s more than that. It’s actually officially a year since a woman’s last period, which is just ridiculous actually, because firstly, as a woman, I do not want to be defined about whether I have periods or not or how long it’s been since my last period. Like it’s just rubbish. So.

Jen Hatmaker: Sure.

Louise Newson: You know, even that term has caused so much confusion and then does it just last a day? Like, or does it last a minute or does it last a second or what is it? So, and then perimenopause, if you look at the word, peri is just a medical term for around the time of. So around the time of the menopause, something else happens. Like what’s that? So if you then think, well, what is happening to our bodies and what is happening is we have hormones.

Estradial progesterone, testosterone that are made in our ovaries but they’re also made elsewhere in our bodies including our brain and those levels drop as we age or if our ovaries don’t work properly and it just so happens those over those hormones also help us with our periods so like evolutionally we’ve been defined as whether we have periods or not are we menopausal or not.

Jen Hatmaker: Yeah.

Louise Newson: But actually what is happening is these hormones which are chemical messengers which go into our bloodstream affect every cell in our body are reducing and they reduce before our periods stop for many women in the perimenopause and that can last a decade or so. So for many women of many different ages, hormone levels are fluctuating and reducing. And then when we’re menopausal, after that time we are always menopausal.

So it’s not a transition, it’s not just a process we go through, it’s not just a day or a week or a month in our lives. It’s forever we have no hormones. And so for many years it’s just been menopause is a transition, it’s a process. Women get some flushing sweats like they’re there little women, don’t worry about it. Well actually as a clinician, I do worry about it because these hormones have really important roles in our bodies. They help our cells to function, our organs to function.

Especially our brain, our bones, our heart. So if we don’t have those hormones, it will cause symptoms for many of us, but more importantly, without symptoms or regardless of symptoms, there are risks to our health of not having hormones. And it’s a more important conversation now than it was 100 years ago because we live so much longer as women. And what causes most of us as women to die is heart disease and dementia.

Jen Hatmaker: Hmm. Yeah.

Louise Newson: Like what affects one in two postmenopausal women osteoporosis. So we need to be thinking in a really like grown up way, hang on, what is going on? It’s not just a natural process. It’s something that’s happening where we don’t have biologically active hormones in our body, which is putting our future health at risk. And that’s why it’s so important to understand what’s going on and then allow women to choose what they want to do about replacing those missing hormones.

Jen Hatmaker: One of the biggest misconceptions about menopause is that it’s just about reproductive health. But as you mentioned, these hormones are neurotransmitters. They affect every cell, every organ. They put us at risk for heart disease and osteoporosis and dementia. So given all of this, if we know it, like…

Louise Newson: Yeah.

Jen Hatmaker: A certain percentage of gynecologists understand this, certainly our demographic understands this. Why is it still overlooked in medical education and what needs to happen so that healthcare providers look at it as a full body condition, not just reproductive?

Louise Newson: Yeah, it’s so frustrating, isn’t it? I spent most of my life frustrated. And I really feel the medical establishment, because it is quite an establishment, has a failing women, not just in the UK, not just in US, but globally as well, actually. And I think what happens is I’m quite interested in the history of medicine, because it always tells a story, doesn’t it? And so when hormones were first discovered, the researchers, the biochemists, the scientists.

Jen Hatmaker: Yeah.

Louise Newson: Decided to work very closely with gynecologists because a lot of the research was done on the lining of the womb because they thought that it was the womb that controlled our emotions and our fertility and everything else and obviously indirectly they controlled our emotions because of the ovaries producing the hormones but because they worked very closely with gynecologists and paid them often to be doing research with them and have their names on papers traditionally.

Menopause has been owned by gynecologists and I sort of think like if I had type 1 diabetes and my pancreas wasn’t working very well I wouldn’t go and see a surgeon who operates on pancreas You know and say this is a problem that over the last 25 years people have been scared away from hormones for the wrong reason So everyone’s it’s been a of a hot potato that their menopause. Gosh. No, don’t treat that. I know don’t worry about that It’s not our problem. It’s not our problem.

And so now when I train different doctors and train psychiatrists and cardiologists and rheumatologists, they’re going, no, I would never prescribe HRT. Well, why not? You’re prescribing antidepressants, you’re prescribing methotrexite, you’re prescribing steroids, you’re prescribing blood pressure-lowering drugs, which are far more risky than some natural hormones. But there’s also, the last 25 years or so, medicines become very siloed. I’ve got a lot of general hospital training, I’ve done lots in different specialties. I’ve worked as a family physician for 25 years. Whereas a lot of people, it’s just like, this woman’s got palpitations, let’s sort out her palpitations. This woman has a mental health issue, let’s sort this out. And then no disrespect to OBGYNs, a lot of them are trained in the ovary and the pelvic organs. A lot of them don’t realize there’s a connection between the ovary and the brain.

Or that, like you say, the brain produces these hormones. So when I talk to gynecologists over here and say, well, I’m worried about osteoporosis risk, they’re like, well, we don’t treat osteoporosis. You know, or like, I worry about the risk of suicide in women who have low hormones, and they say, no, mental health issue is not related to menopause. Well, no, because if I was a woman with mental health issues, I wouldn’t go and see my gynecologists. You know, so they’re seeing a skew population.

Jen Hatmaker: Which is crazy.

Louise Newson: And that’s what’s happening all the time. And then people don’t like change, especially doctors, we’re so quite set in our ways. We’re trained in a certain way. We learn from our seniors. It’s all very respectful. And I guess I’ve got an inquisitive mind. I’ve also got a science pathology degree. I’ve always worked sort of part time doing lots of different jobs. So I have a lot of blue sky thinking time, which a lot of doctors don’t because they’re day in, day out, seeing patients, they’re on this hamster wheel, and you just do what you’re taught. So if I’ve been taught hormones are dangerous, if I’ve been taught menopause is just a few flashes, if I’ve been taught that menopause is about periods, that’s all I’ll do, and that’s what I remember. So that’s where it’s difficult, and what’s going wrong or right, I think, in this conversation is that women are understanding quicker than their healthcare professionals.

Jen Hatmaker: Yes, that’s exactly how it feels over here.

Louise Newson: But it’s, you know, yeah, and I feel sometimes really guilty. Like I sometimes say to my children, gosh, if I’d never been active on social media, if I’ve never done my podcast, if I’ve never done any of this stuff with media, maybe it would be better because women wouldn’t know. It’s like dangling sweets in front of children and saying, huh, look at this, but you can’t have it. This is just for decoration. But then I feel like actually, no, because the more we think about it, and I say we, as in menopause or women.

Jen Hatmaker: Hmm.

Jen Hatmaker: Mmm.

Louise Newson: The more we think about it, the more like my children are not going to have the same struggles that I had to get hormones. You know, so I sort of feel like I’ve gotten it too deep now. I sometimes want to hide in the dark room, but I feel like it’s not fair on the women that are still struggling.

Jen Hatmaker: That’s right.

Jen Hatmaker: Let me ask you something really quickly, because you mentioned you kind of came out of more of a general practice. So you had like sort of a traditional space and my guess is to kind of a traditional education around it. So let me say this first before I ask my question. Thank goodness you’re doing this. Thank goodness for your socials. Thank goodness for your podcast. It is, it matters right now. Amy and I were just saying before you came on, this is absolutely a centered conversation in the United States right now. It’s everywhere. We’re thrilled about it. We’re absolutely thrilled about it. Your work is only for the greatest good for sure. What was it though that began drawing you toward this niche? I mean, it’s a niche in the bigger realm of the body. When you, you know, it kind of come from over here. Was it your own experience? Was it what women were telling you?

Louise Newson: Yeah, Well, it’s a combination, to be honest. So what happened is, because I sort of went part-time, because I worked as a medical writer, I reviewed lots of guidelines, lots of evidence. I’ve written books on evidence-based medicine, on all aspects of medicine, know, blood pressure and diabetes and so forth. And then the NICE menopause guidance came out in 2015 and I was asked to review them. So I reviewed them, went back to the WHI, the Women’s Health Initiative study, went to lots of other papers, read them all again and I read them before and was like, yeah, no big deal, like the study’s rubbish, it’s the wrong type of hormones, wrong type of women, I’ve written a paragraph about that and just sort of thought, and then the more I read it, the more I thought, actually why are these guidelines so like conservative, why are they so worried, why are they, they sort of, and then I thought actually even those guidelines still say the majority of women would benefit, and back then only 10% of menopause of women were taking hormones and I just thought actually. I review guidelines all the time, but nothing where it doesn’t join the dots. Like, why are women unable to receive treatment? And then I was 45 at the time and some of my friends were clearly struggling with symptoms. And they were saying, oh, don’t worry Louise, we’ve been to our doctor, we’ve got some great treatment. I said, what’s it called? Oh, it’s Benlafaxine, it’s the Talapam. I’m like, you’re not depressed, why are you being given antidepressants? They said, oh, well they said HLT is too dangerous. I’m like, what? This is awful.

I started a clinic just to help some of my friends come off their hormones, off antidepressants and think about hormones. But then I started to see lots of women from all over the country. And I’d go home and have stuff with my children and say, my goodness, I’ve just seen this lady who’s given up her job. She said, you know, she felt like she’d been hit like a bus. She’s, you know, got these awful thoughts. What’s going on? So my daughter said, just put things on social media. Just start the conversation. People will learn and then my symptoms started, but I thought I’m just too busy. Trying to have a job, I’ve got three children and usual stuff. And then it was after about eight months of being very close to leaving my husband and stopping working as a doctor, my middle daughter said, I just think you need a period and then your mood might improve. And I just went, my God, Sophie. And I was even late, having nights, I was getting out of the bed most nights, creeping into the airing cupboard and getting a towel to lie on, because thought, god, my husband’s annoying me so much. Now he’s annoying, like I don’t want to wake him up and change the sheets. But I’m just, can’t, I’m like, I feel like I’ve wet myself. I’m just covered in this like, and I’m not a sweaty person. So I just would get a towel out, put it on the bed and then just try and sleep and then catastrophize and worry and think, my joint pains, my headaches, my palpitations. But I just thought, I’m just not coping as a mother. I’m not coping as a whatever.

Jen Hatmaker: Isn’t that crazy? And you even knew! You even knew!

Louise Newson: She does madness, isn’t it? Yeah, I know, I know. But then, let’s get back to your original question. That is why I think I work so hard because, like, I’ve been taking hormones now for nine years, but the dose of estrogen I need, because I don’t absorb it very well through my skin, the testosterone that I need for my brain to work, I cannot get from my NHS GP. And I am white, I’m middle class, I’m educated, I’m English speaking. I still, if I’m struggling, like, what does that mean for the majority of people globally? They’re not having a voice and they’re struggling. And if I didn’t have those hormones, my life would look very different. Not just my personal social life or my work life, but my future health would be different. I worry about my risk of osteoporosis, which I’ve already said I have a 50 % chance if I don’t take hormones. So it’s like, and I can’t think of anything else in medicine where I’m just being told, Louise, can’t have it. So it’s this injustice now that just keeps me working almost.

Jen Hatmaker: It is. Yeah. Your report titled Women’s Experiences of Perimenopause and Menopause revealed that older generations rarely talked about menopause. My mom didn’t. More women obviously are discussing it like we talk about it all the time. We’re discussing it with our daughters and sons. In your home growing up was menopause ever talked about?

Louise Newson: You see, I’m very lucky. Well, luck is a weird word, isn’t it? My… This is where I’m not lucky, really. My father died when I was nine, in 1979. And my mother went to work. We didn’t have any money. And she went to work as a teacher. And she started to really struggle. She was getting some sweats, but she also, like, couldn’t remember things. So she went to a doctor. So this was probably 1980. And said to her doctor, look I’ve got these symptoms and he said, oh Mrs. Newson, you’ll be going through the change, take these tablets. Now back then no one asked, no one challenged the doctor, no one asked anything, there was no internet, no Dr. Google, so she just took these tablets because she was desperate to keep working, she had three young children to look after and she started to feel better. So she carried on taking them and she didn’t really know what they were but obviously they were HRT.

Jen Hatmaker: Hmm.

Louise Newson: And so over the years, the only conversations in our household have been when she’s seen doctors who said, no, you need to come off them now, you’re too old, you shouldn’t be on them. And the more work I’ve done, the more she’s known that she doesn’t need to stop. I mean, she did start when in 1980, it was the pregnant horse’s urine, oestrogen, and this synthetic progesterone. So she’s transformed and transferred onto the natural hormones. So I’ve been very, very fortunate.

I’ve seen her friends around her who haven’t been on hormones and sadly a few of them have cognitive decline, dementia, some of them have osteoporosis. You know, I can see their health sort of worsening whereas she’s mentally very strong. And my mother-in-law actually just turned 89 and she had a hysterectomy when she was 38 and had her ovaries removed so therefore she went into menopause at age 38. And she didn’t know what was going on. She’s normally a very positive person and she felt very joyless, very sad. She said she felt a black cloud over her the whole time. And then she read a book about hormones and said to her husband, who was a GP, Alec, I need some estrogen. And he just went, whoa, whoa, I don’t really understand. Anyway, managed to get her seen by a gynecologist in Birmingham who gave her an implant and she just, like, the cloud lifted.

So she’s been very fortunate, she’s very healthy, but the sad part of her story is that her sister’s 18 months younger than her, who also had a hysterectomy about a year later, but had quite an abusive relationship with a man and very sadly took her own life and died. But now Kay, my mother-in-law keeps thinking, I wonder if it was a hysterectomy rather than the partner and no one knew. So, you know, it’s weird because so many women say, no, my mother had no symptoms, my friend has no symptoms. But they think the symptoms are just blushes and sweats. They don’t realize that the bigger effect, especially on our brains, and it’s this misinformation that’s gone on for so long that it’s judging people. And then a lot of people and cultures and races think, it’s a white woman’s medicine, or it’s a failure if we take this medicine. We’re giving in to Western medicine and that’s completely wrong.

Jen Hatmaker: I’d like to talk more about the fuller range of symptoms. I’m 50 and probably three years ago I was just, I could not sort myself out. I’m high capacity and always have been and all of a sudden I just couldn’t, I couldn’t attend to my work. For the duration that it required. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like my capacity shrunk socially. Just across the board, I’m like, what is wrong with me? And I attribute it to a recent divorce. And I thought, I’m just sad. And then, of course, my period started going off the rails. I literally, I am a person who has high-level conversations all the time. And I type into my computer, am I pregnant? Because my period’s being weird. And of course the internet told me, ma’am, you are in perimenopause. Like everything you’re saying is perimenopausal. And I was stunned at, I just was, it never occurred to me that brain fog, that this sense of overwhelm and a shrinking capacity had anything to do with anything other than just what at my life or circumstances. And so I’d like to hear you talk a little bit more about this. And of course, nobody probably has every symptom, but it is broad what perimenopause can wreak havoc on a body.

Louise Newson: For sure. And in that report, I write about the questionnaire that I sent and it had nearly 6,000 responses and the commonest symptoms are those affecting the brain. So the brain fog, the memory problems, the fatigue, the low mood, the irritability, the anxiety, the poor sleep, the fatigue. So you can see why women are being misdiagnosed as depression because these are symptoms related to depression often as well. But, when we understand how these hormones work in our brain, it’s no surprise. But the problem is, as women, we’re very used to being gaslit. We’re very used to being told, well, you’re very stressed, and well, you’ve had trauma before. Well, you’ve now got three children, and isn’t it difficult for you to work? How do you manage? I’ve never known anyone ask my husband, how do you manage with three children and a full-time job?

Jen Hatmaker: That’s right.

Louise Newson: So why is it suddenly we can’t cope? And that’s what’s happening a lot to a lot of women. But if you understand the role of hormones, but the other thing is we have other symptoms that often affect us in a physical way. So, know, palpitations or dry skin or nail changes or hair changes. And actually, as a physician, these are really important because if someone has low mood. And they’re also getting cystitis, they’re also getting dry itchy skin, then it’s less likely to be clinical depression and more likely to be something that’s affecting different organs in their body, i.e. more likely to be a hormonal problem. And that’s really, really important actually. So the more women can understand the myriad of symptoms, the more they can often join the dots as well.

Jen Hatmaker: So we’ve talked about the medical profession taking a long time to get up to speed and women are educating themselves on all of this much faster than our doctors are oftentimes. So what advice would you give a woman who suspects that her myriad of symptoms or even diagnoses are hormone related? What advice would you give her when she walks into her doctor’s office? How can she advocate for herself and get what she needs?

Louise Newson: Yeah, so it’s a great question and the word advocate is so crucially important in this conversation. Advocate for yourself, but maybe have someone else to advocate for you as well because for many of us when our brains are all over the place, it’s quite hard to be that strong woman to go, yes, this is what I want. You just sort of crumple a bit or I know I would because I was very tearful at many times. So having information, you know, downloading the free Balance app.

Getting this health report so we’ve created it so you can mark your symptoms whether they’re not there or mild, severe and take that to your doctor as like the initial part of the consultation and say look I’ve got this health report these are my symptoms I would like to talk to you about my treatment choices and I have decided I want XYZ or I would like to talk about treatment to improve my symptoms but also my future house.

And you’ll know then quite quickly, firstly, if it’s going to be a good consultation and if that doctor’s knowledgeable. And the other thing really is to be clear that it’s fine to ask for a second opinion. Know, if a doctor looks at you really blankly and says, no, sorry, I’m not interested. Well, firstly, they need training. But secondly, just say, right, OK, who else can I talk to? Because I don’t want to waste your valuable time or mine, but I really need help.

Jen Hatmaker: Yeah.

Louise Newson: Remembering that menopause lasts forever, i.e. until the day we die. It’s not just something to get you through the next job interview or the next phase of your life or the next relationship. It is forever. And so making sure that choice that you decide is right for you, knowing you can change your mind, you can see someone else, but you have to be happy with what you’ve got because, you know, I see women all the time that have been denied HRT for the wrong reason 10, 20 years ago. I saw someone in my clinic yesterday, he said, oh yeah, I sort of had my medicals at age 50, but I was busy and I didn’t really, the doctor said not to worry. But she’s 72 now, she has had a heart attack, she’s got osteoporosis, her mother has got dementia. At the end of the consultation, she said, I wish I’d met you 15 years ago. And I don’t want that regret in women, it’s not fair.

Jen Hatmaker: I want to ask, I don’t know if this is the right question. I may be having the words wrong, but so when we’re looking at HRT, because we’re just normal people trying to assess this barrage of information and there’s a lot of competing ideology around managing menopause and everybody feels real strong about it. Like however they feel is so concrete and then sometimes it’s in complete opposition to this idea over here and so it can. For just a person who didn’t go to med school, it can be a lot to wade through. And so when we talk about HRT, can you, what is the difference? Like the terms I’m reading that I don’t quite know how to parse out, what’s the difference between like a synthetic hormone and a bioidentical? Like I don’t really know what that means.

Louise Newson: Yeah. So it’s a great question. So when we talk about hormones, firstly, there are hundreds of hormones in our body. Hormones are chemical messengers that are produced in different tissues, organs, go through our bloodstream to every cell. So we’ve got loads of hormones. So when we talk about HRT hormone replacement therapy or MHT, menopause hormone treatment, the hormone bit is only three hormones, ester, diol, progesterone, testosterone. So even then, it can be a bit confusing.

So if we look at those three hormones, there are different types and different doses. Now, traditionally, they’ve been synthetic. So like my mother was given pregnant horse’s urine, estrogen, which you could argue is natural, but it doesn’t contain all the hormones that we need as humans. You know, it’s got different hormones in it. But also, when they discovered hormones in the 30s and 40s, they wanted to chemically modify them so they could sell them because if they had the same structure and formation, then people bought them over the counter and they wanted to market them, they wanted to make them, they wanted to make lots of money from them. So they chemically altered the structure. So if you chemically alter the structure, it doesn’t work the same way in the body. And recently I’ve been trying to work out how to explain it in a simple way to people and I’ve been talking about the difference between natural strawberries, know, nice organic fresh strawberries or strawberry-flavored gummies or sweets. Like they’re both strawberries. Like if my daughter comes home from school says, mommy, I’ve had some strawberries at school. Obviously, I really hope that she’s had nice fresh strawberries, but she could have had some sweets. They taste nice for her, both of them. They will work very differently in the body. Everybody knows that. So with hormones, you’ve got the synthetic ones, the Haribo sweets, know, the sort of, you know, the chemically-altered ones or the, it’s like having roast chicken and chicken-flavored crisps. They’re completely different, aren’t they? So they’ve been chemically-altered. So the studies that show the risks with HRT have been the synthetic chemically altered ones. So we talk quite often about bioidentical or body identical hormones. And that basically means the structure is the same. They’re often made from yam or yam plants or soy, but they are like down the microscope. They’re exactly the same as the hormones.

So they fit the receptors well, they work in the cells in the right way. So they have these beneficial effects in the body. And that’s really important, the difference. What’s quite paradoxical actually, I think, is that all contraception is synthetic hormones. Yet we prescribe it like smarties out to people without any worry in the world. Yet suddenly you suddenly say HRT and everyone’s going, no, I can’t have that. That’s going to kill me, that’s going to give me breast cancer and heart attack and stroke. Well hang on, even the older types of synthetic hormones are lot lower dose than contraception which has given out 10 to the dozen. But the natural hormones don’t have these risks. So like why are we so worried about something that’s really natural in our bodies?

Jen Hatmaker: So that’s just key. Like when we are talking to our doctors and we that is a that it’s a piece of the puzzle that we have to come like with that in hand clear, like educated and prepared for sure. I have a I have a question about something you said at the top of the interview talking about lifespan or lifespan is longer. That’s why more of us are dealing with this. Hormones were discovered just, I think you said, in the 30s. And so it’s been, it’s taken a long time for the medical community to catch up to treat these things. But how much of it do you think could be lifestyle? Like in the US, every month, someone discovers that one of our top diseases is actually a lifestyle or a metabolic disease. So do we know much about how women dealt with perimenopause and menopause 200 years ago? Like did our bodies naturally just handle it better in addition to having a shorter lifespan? What, how do we get here?

Louise Newson: Yeah, so, okay, it’s interesting. If you think evolutionary as women, we are designed to have children. Like that is our, like how we’re designed. So in the Victorian times, for example, we used to reproduce a lot more. Many women had a lot more pregnancies than now and not all successful pregnancies, but we still were pregnant a lot more. So when we’re pregnant, we have really high levels of hormones in our body. And we don’t ovulate, so we preserve our egg function a bit. So in the Victorian times, the average age of menopause was about 57. It’s about 51 in the UK now, so it was older because probably their hormones lasted longer in their body. But the average age of death actually was 59. So they would die quite soon after. So they didn’t have this long consequences, if you like, of not having hormones in their bodies. Women did still suffer, know, there were lots of women who went to asylums and were locked up and had lobotomies and all sorts of awful treatments, but it wasn’t recognized. In the Victorian times there’s some great books that I’ve read actually from gynecologists writing about this crisis time, about they knew something was related to ovaries but they didn’t know about hormones then.

And so very descriptive texts and all the different diagnoses that they would give to women that would affect them in different ways, that they didn’t know that it was menopause. So they had different labels, if you like, for women. But the other thing is that menopause is associated with these low hormones which determine inflammation. If we’ve got a lot of inflammation in our body, it increases our risk of diseases. The inflammatory diseases are heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, dementia, autoimmune diseases, cancers. But there’s lots of other reasons why we have more inflammation in our body than ever before and a lot of it you’re absolutely right is lifestyle. You know a lot of people are eating processed foods, they are inflammatory foods, they’re not exercising. Exercising reduces inflammation. They’re drinking alcohol, they’re smoking or vaping, that increases inflammation. So it’s a multifactorial disaster if you like.

For our immune system. Not having hormones will make that even worse. But having hormones back, like as a menopausal woman myself who takes hormones, I have to have responsibility for my health as well. So, you know, I could eat, you know, burgers and chips every day. I could smoke 20 a day. Hormones are good, but they’re not going to help me as much as if I look after myself. And that’s what’s really important. But I think what’s very sad in the conversation and I think some of it is getting bigger in the US because people are realizing the marketing power of menopause. They’re realizing firstly how hard it is to get listened to and treatment from a doctor. So if I was a marketeer I would be rubbing my hands with glee and thinking, right, what can we sell these women? What can we market to these women? And what supplement, what shampoo, what face cream, what whatever you can prescribe, give to these women because we’ll make money out of them.

You know, if I hadn’t got hormones, I was so desperate, I would have given my kidney away to feel better. So I get why women are trying these things and I get why people always want to make money. There’s a lot of corruption. And that’s what’s really difficult for women who are vulnerable anyway. It’s like, well, who do we believe? And, you know, for transparency, I do no paid work with pharmaceutical companies at all. So I have no hidden agenda. My agenda is just to improve women’s choice and allow them to have healthier lives. But a lot of people, doctors, marketeers, business owners, they have some sort of agenda. And I think I could see it and hear it more and more. And I think that’s such a shame. And then women are told, well, why don’t you just improve your diet and then you’ll feel better? Well, they might feel better, of course. We all feel better when we eat better. But we’re not going to get those hormones back. I wouldn’t say to someone who had an undirected thyroid gland who was really tired. Never mind, just maybe eat less of chocolate or do whatever. So, but in medicine, we have to be thinking holistically. You know, it’s not just one thing that we focus on. And I think because it’s useful for people to debate, to talk about the alternatives to those awful HRT because of the marketing flow, then it makes women feeling guilty for going and getting help because their mother didn’t and their auntie didn’t and whatever. So, but it’s changing that shift. And I think it’s also thinking about what are the risks of not having hormones? Like we’re talking all about, what are the risks of having? What are the risks of not having? Well, for me as a menopausal woman, my risk is osteoporosis and I want to reduce that risk. So, you know, and then it’s about choice. So everywhere you look, it’s been set up to fail women, I think, who are hormonal.

Jen Hatmaker: Hmm. Yeah. And you know, there’s another factor too, because in the UK where you are, you are, you’re right out of the tip on menopause advocacy. And so here in the U S we’ve actually had several bills introduced to improve menopause education and care. And, and some of that includes coverage for hormone, like therapy, replacement therapy and in some cases like workplace protections too. And so I’d like to hear your thoughts on the importance of having our policymakers, our insurers, our employers also as a key part of this conversation.

Louise Newson: Everyone needs to be involved in the conversation but everyone needs to be working together and the together bit is really important because it should be to improve women’s health. So workplace is an example where I think people could do some really good work and there’s some good work doing but there’s also some not so good work doing and so when I think about workplace it’s great to have that conversation, it’s great to have more knowledge, it’s great for everybody, men, women, menopausal or non-menopausal people to have information. But what we shouldn’t be doing is just saying to them, dear, you’re menopausal, why don’t you go in this restroom? Why don’t you have access to more water in a fan? That’s not very helpful. In the same way that, you know, if I had a broken leg, I wouldn’t want someone just to give me a stool to rest my leg on if my bone was sticking out through my skin. I would like someone to take me to hospital and say, right, get it fixed. We might adjust your work a bit. We’ll be really careful. We’ll talk to you if you need pain killers or reduce time till you feel better, fine. But don’t just like, they’re there, pardon me. And that’s what’s happening sometimes in the menopause space is that women are just being told, oh, it’s just a transition. Let’s support you through the transition. What does that mean? I don’t go for, do I not go for promotion? Do I work part-time? Do I work at home? Hey, that’s just ridiculous. When actually if I have treatment, I’ll be better than ever. It’s sort of, know, and a lot of workplace initiatives are set up by people who aren’t doctors. They don’t, you know, they’ve got their own agenda. This is the whole thing about people’s agenda. And that’s a shame really. So I think a lot of policymakers and with the insurance, like it’s madness, isn’t it? That women are not covered by insurance because no one wants to insure half the population. You know, but if I was a young man and had my testes removed and I had low testosterone I would be covered by insurance usually. If I was a young woman and had my ovaries removed I wouldn’t be covered by insurance. Whereas my risk, like of heart disease, osteoporosis is so much greater if I was young and menopausal. So if I was insuring that person it’s a lot cheaper to allow them to have hormones than to pay out for their hip fracture and their everything else as well.

Jen Hatmaker: That’s right. No. Yes, it doesn’t make sense. Insurance should be playing the long game here and ultimately managing women’s health at this level and during this season is it’s a it’s a savings for them over the long not even to mention all the misdiagnosis that she’s about to encounter. Yeah.

Louise Newson: For sure. I totally agree and I don’t get it. I know, some of the insurance companies when I’ve spoken to them, just say, because it affects half the population and it’s a natural process, it’s part of aging, whatever. But then, you know, if you compare it to raise blood pressure, like, is that a disease or not? Well, it’s not really a disease, but if we don’t treat it, people have a higher risk of a heart attack. So therefore we treat it. Is menopause a disease or not? I would argue probably it is, but even if you say it’s not, it increases risk of really significant diseases. And we know that if you treat it, it reduces that risk. You know.

Jen Hatmaker: We have to be up linking at least a giant portion of this monstrous gap in healthcare to just patriarchy, right? Just in that women at our age, when we are beyond childbearing years now, and so we are no longer useful. Mean, the whole medical complex was obsessed with me when I was in my 20s having babies. I couldn’t, there were books everywhere and doctors everywhere and information everywhere and I mean, I knew down to the day what was going on inside my body. But now that we’re old and not useful to procreation, don’t you feel like that’s a big piece of it that women have always had to claw our way for good healthcare and representation inside of the medical complex?

Louise Newson: Yeah, I totally agree. You it’s very convenient for society for women to be invisible as they age. Who wants a forceful woman? Who wants to have somebody? You know, there’s so much misogyny, actually, and also in medicine as well. There’s a lot of hierarchy. There’s a lot of, know, well, Louise, you’re just a family physician. What do you know when you’re not an OBGYN or you’re not a this, you’re not a that.

And it’s not just menopause, people who have endometriosis, people who have a period problem, they’re just ignored, they’re just treated as second rate citizens. And I think the medical community very sadly are failing women, and it’s wrong.

Jen Hatmaker: It’s true. I know this is why your work matters and it is mattering because a bunch of normals like us now have new information in our hands, a new understanding of what is going on in our bodies and a new sense of authority when we walk in to talk to our doctors where we don’t feel criticized or minimized or sort of condescended to and that to me makes all the difference in the world. Let’s break it down. We’re going to we’re going to wrap it up here. Sometimes I’d like to tell people like you across from us who are highly credentialed, very brilliant in your, and we’re just the regular people out here. Talk to us like we’re kindergarten. So if we were just gonna go through it like this, just the down and dirty, here’s the brass tacks. What would you say are the biggest misconceptions about menopause?

Louise Newson: What it is actually, the biggest misconception is that it’s just some flushes that people will get through, which is completely wrong.

Jen Hatmaker: Great. What’s the most important thing women can do now to manage symptoms later on?

Louise Newson: So get knowledge and information, download the free Balance app, be empowered with information to work out how you’re going to manage your symptoms.

Jen Hatmaker: What more or less should we be asking our doctors but we’re not right now? So whether it’s we’re embarrassed or we have lack of knowledge or we’re ashamed or whatever, what should we be saying to our doctors?

Louise Newson: I think too many women are scared of asking for hormones for the wrong reasons. So I think we should be saying, why am I not being received? So I say that again. Why am I not being given hormones? Why are you not having a conversation with me about hormones? And that’s whether you’re menopausal, perimenopausal, you’ve got PMS, PMDD. We need to be talking about hormones in general and how they’re affecting us as women and having an impact on our future health.

Jen Hatmaker: So great. These young women are going to come up with this ready to go. They’re going to be locked and loaded. They will not be Googling. I pregnant when we were 50 years old and the internet having to go, come on, man, you’re peri-menopausal. I want to tell you something as we’re about to close here. I was reading your book. We were kind of getting ready for this interview with you. We’re doing like deep dives into your work and your body of knowledge. And I’m telling you this morning, this morning for this interview, I got on. I pulled together all my information. I pulled together my blood panel that I worked. I worked with kind of a holistic practitioner and I made an appointment this morning and to go to my gynecologist. Then when it, had this little box saying, what are your primary concerns? I filled the whole thing. I’m like, here’s everything I want to talk about. Here’s, here are some next steps I know I need to take. I will be bringing my panels with me. I mean, I just, that was this morning. And have it next week. I feel I’m so grateful to have doctors teaching us what to do like you and helping us feel empowered and educated enough to walk in and take control of our own health care. So thank you for all that you do for women. And this ball is just going to roll downhill. We’re catching the front edge of the, you know, of this shift, but our daughters, your daughters.

I just don’t think they’re gonna have to fight in the ways that we do to be believed and listened to and heard. And so thanks for being a big part of the change. Yes. And what we learned from you, we take to a generation of doctors that are not gonna go back to med school at this point. So I think they’re probably learning so much from their patients. That’s probably true. And eventually when every patient that walks in the door says the same thing, then the doctors will behave differently also.

They’re like, these women are driving me crazy. Coming in here with their panels, waving them all around.

Just for our listeners, you tell them where’s the best place to follow you, to find your work, to read your books, all of it?

Louise Newson: So the easiest way is just my website actually, is drlouisnewson.co.uk, and then you can springboard onto anything you want. There’s lots of free resources, including my YouTubes and like you say, podcast, as well as Balance app as well. And I’m quite active on social media, especially Instagram.

Jen Hatmaker: Perfect, we’ll round all that up for you listeners so you can have a one click, one stop shop. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for being with us. I feel just more confident even having talked to you for 45 minutes. So yeah, yeah, just love it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Louise Newson: Perfect, good.

Louise Newson: Thank you so much, thank you.

 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause by Dr. Louise Newson

Newson Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre

Balance App

The Dr. Louise Newson Podcast