Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 43 - Kate Muir on the power and pushback in menopause care

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43 - Kate Muir on the power and pushback in menopause care · The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

• 0:00
  This week, Kate Muir is on my podcast for the third time, and
• 0:04
  it's another great conversation talking about how we've worked
• 0:08
  together to improve awareness and knowledge about hormones and
• 0:12
  why some people are not so happy about the work that we've done.
• 0:17
  So I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation today.
• 0:22
  Kate, this is the third time you've been on my podcast.
• 0:24
  I don't think anyone else has been on three times.
• 0:27
  Well, that's because you've had such an effect on my life,
• 0:29
  Louise Newson. And I wouldn't be here and I
• 0:32
  wouldn't be a menopause campaigner if I hadn't come to
• 0:35
  consult with you in 2019 and gone away very politicised after
• 0:41
  having been just a patient. So it made a big, huge
• 0:44
  difference to me realising that this was a massive topic.
• 0:48
  In fact, it was a great story, so.
• 0:50
  Yeah, it was an amazing consultation, actually.
• 0:52
  We've spoken about it before, but for those of you that don't
• 0:55
  know, Kate is a patient or has been a patient, and you were
• 0:59
  quite straightforward. You'd had a difficult time
• 1:01
  because you've been given the wrong type of hormones from
• 1:03
  somebody else. And so actually after about 1520
• 1:06
  minutes, you knew what was going on.
• 1:08
  So I remember spending the rest of the time just like telling
• 1:12
  you about how awful it was and how terrible things were for
• 1:14
  women and about some of the evidence, especially the
• 1:17
  evidence of the newer body, identical hormones compared to
• 1:21
  synthetics, some of the debunking of the Women's Health
• 1:24
  Initiative, WHI study. And I remember you just saying,
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  I, I'm an investigative journalist.
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  I didn't know this, I need to know more.
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  And then you went off and then we had this, oh, we still have
• 1:34
  this great relationship where we share papers and talk things
• 1:38
  through. And then, you know, you not a
• 1:40
  documentary maker, but you went off and made a documentary that
• 1:45
  has had the massive effect on women and prescribing of
• 1:49
  hormones. Yeah.
• 1:50
  I mean, Davina McCall was fantastic and did a really good
• 1:54
  job presenting that and keeping going with that.
• 1:57
  But I think one of the most exciting things is the changing
• 2:00
  science that we've been learning as we go along.
• 2:04
  And the the more you dig, the deeper you dig into the
• 2:07
  protective power of hormones, the protective power of HRTI
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  think the more kind of essential this fight that we are fighting
• 2:15
  is. And the idea that the menopause
• 2:19
  is a transition, keep calm and carry on, and not a hormonal
• 2:24
  deficiency, that one way or the other you have to do something
• 2:28
  about either holistically or hormonally, preferably both.
• 2:32
  But, and it would be mad not to. And that we are portraying this
• 2:37
  to women completely wrongly. Yes, makes me so angry.
• 2:41
  But also work so hard to get this message out in books, you
• 2:47
  know, in podcasts, in the sub stacks, whatever it is.
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  Yeah, yeah. And I think what's great
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  sometimes is meeting people that haven't got preconceived ideas.
• 2:57
  You know, you came with a very open mind.
• 3:00
  You weren't expecting me to talk as much as I did about things.
• 3:04
  But you didn't go away and just listen to me.
• 3:06
  You went to other people. I introduced you to lots of
• 3:08
  people. You've read lots of academic
• 3:10
  papers. Whereas, you know, if I'd met
• 3:13
  you 30 years ago, we didn't have the Internet.
• 3:15
  We didn't have the ability to just do a teams call with
• 3:18
  someone in another country or the other side of the world.
• 3:21
  So you've managed to do things very quickly, but also you
• 3:24
  haven't had these preconceived ideas.
• 3:27
  Whereas often when I talk to doctors who are very anti HRT,
• 3:31
  that you can't change them because that's what they've
• 3:34
  always talked and they're not going to think.
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  Whereas you didn't have any of that negativity going on in your
• 3:39
  mind. You just had an open mind to
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  think. Actually, let me learn, let me
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  understand. And coming from a place where
• 3:46
  you know, you're open about it. Your mother had dementia.
• 3:50
  You want to keep really healthy. You really look after yourself
• 3:53
  and you do your open waters to bring your dog walking.
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  You know you're an active, healthy person, but actually
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  without hormones you know you wouldn't be as healthy as you
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  are now. I'd be a mess and I've been
• 4:04
  thinking a lot because my mum died of Alzheimer's 10 years
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  ago. I've been thinking a lot because
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  I'm about to write a book about Alzheimer's and hormones and all
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  sorts of things, and I've been thinking about sleep and the
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  importance of a good night's sleep.
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  And every hour you lose, you are more likely to build up the
• 4:21
  amyloid plaques that can be a precursor to Alzheimer's.
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  And literally going from 7 hours sleep to six hours sleep to five
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  hours sleep puts you way in the risk zone.
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  And whatever we know about estrogen and progesterone, they
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  really, really help you sleep. They stop those night sweats.
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  And that anxiety and just being able to let women sleep might be
• 4:48
  the most important thing we can do to prevent, you know, the
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  fact that 2/3 of Alzheimer's patients are female.
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  The idea that we're not looking at this, that we're not
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  screaming that aloud, and the many other things, you know, HRT
• 5:03
  can do, it really shocks me. And it just has me, you know, up
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  every day punching. But it's so frustrating because
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  it's so obvious when you understand basic science.
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  So, you know, you talk about progesterone, estradiol, but
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  also testosterone has a massive effect.
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  And even just knowing that these hormones can improve melatonin
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  in our sleep hormone, you know, it's not rocket science that we
• 5:26
  sleep more and sleep better. Actually, I mean, I have less
• 5:29
  time in bed than I ever did, but I sleep really effectively.
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  But that's because I take hormones, but I also meditate my
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  way to sleep. I'm, you know, I exercise.
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  There's lots of things, but we can't always forget how
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  important the hormones are in our brains.
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  And somehow people seem so scared of the way hormones work,
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  especially in our brains. There's always this debate, does
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  HRT reduce risk of dementia or not?
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  But the studies, when you intertwine the synthetic
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  hormones and the natural hormones, you know, I've said to
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  some of the other day, it's a bit like researching bananas,
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  saying all fruit is yellow, that you can't include synthetic
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  hormones with natural hormones and expect to have good results.
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  It's such a total failure in the science that they are looking at
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  2 completely different drugs, yes, and saying they're doing
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  the same thing, they have the same effect.
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  These are the results. It's a big sloppy hole in the
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  science. And what I don't understand is
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  there are some very intelligent people, professors and people
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  with PhDs who are putting out things, old studies about
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  synthetic hormones and mixing them up with transdermal new
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  safer hormones that go straight in the bloodstream.
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  You know, and as we know, all your natural hormones being
• 6:44
  topped up. And if I take a 12 year old
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  child and tell him or her that they would understand
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  immediately. These are plastic.
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  These are real and organic. At which one would you like?
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  Which one would you like to give your mum?
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  Oh, the organic one. And you know, which is likely to
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  have the best effects? The organic one.
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  And you know, I'm just astounded at the, the, the stubbornness
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  and stupidity. And I think it's a sense of
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  maybe shame around confronting the fact that they've been
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  wrong, that so much of the science is wrong and that we're
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  overturning it, or that, you know, ordinary people like me,
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  journalists, can look up the science paper.
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  Ordinary about you. And look for the holes in, yes,
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  ordinary women, yeah. Can look up the.
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  Holes in the science paper and go.
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  This is not about the kind of HRT I use.
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  And I do not understand why these huge institutions, your
• 7:41
  international, you know, menopause society, the menopause
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  society in America were putting out things just this week about,
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  you know, hormones don't help with dementia.
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  Now I'm researching a book on this.
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  I can tell you that hormones help with dementia, and I can
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  give you dozens and dozens of studies, and it's just bonkers
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  to try and maintain a really strange set of ancient beliefs.
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  And the only thing I can compare it to is the madness of
• 8:12
  religion. You know, the worst kind of, you
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  know, I was just watching, you know, a series about Belfast and
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  the Troubles just just now on television and thinking about
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  how crazy is this. And then when you think about,
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  you know, Catholics versus Protestants, you know, we all
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  believe in God, and there we are.
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  You know, we're on two different sides in this menopause story,
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  but yet we all want women to be. What is going on here?
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  What are the why are these institutions holding on to what
• 8:42
  they're holding on? Why did they attack you, for
• 8:44
  instance, on that Panorama programme with the BBC and what
• 8:49
  do you think? I think there's, there's a lot
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  and I'm, I'm very insightful and reflective, but I think you're
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  right in that people don't like to admit that they've made a
• 9:01
  mistake or told wrong information and they didn't do
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  it to be malicious in the past. You know, I think about patients
• 9:10
  I had who had recurrent urinary tract infections that I gave
• 9:13
  antibiotics to rather than vaginal hormones.
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  I think about people that I gave antidepressants to instead of
• 9:19
  hormones. But I'm very happy to sit here
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  and say, do you know what, Kate? I've learned so much about
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  hormones and urinary tract or hormones in our brain.
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  I've changed my clinical practice, but because I feel bad
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  about what I've done, I'm not just changed my clinical
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  practice, I'm changing the clinical practice for thousands,
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  hopefully of doctors and clinicians, but also changing
• 9:42
  the knowledge for women so they can ask for what they want.
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  And I think that's fine to be able to say even as a medical
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  society, to say we've got different evidence, we're
• 9:53
  changing the way we think, but to actually dig your heels in I
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  think is what it's damaging actually for women.
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  I don't understand it. I don't understand the horrible,
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  creepy kind of schoolyard fight feeling I get about that, the
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  feeling about bullying and negativity instead of moving
• 10:12
  powerfully forward for Women's Health.
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  And I just sort of want to know now that that Panoramas over a
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  year ago. And as you know, there were more
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  complaints about your panorama than there were about Trump's
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  panorama. And much the same team in terms
• 10:28
  of the editor and the editor in chief were behind both programs.
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  And we know that the evidence came from somewhere very strange
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  on your Panorama programme. And I wonder, I mean, it
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  literally seems to me to be a vendetta.
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  And when I look at it and I look at the science that was offered
• 10:48
  up in it, the science is wrong. Quite a lot of it is wrong.
• 10:52
  And they've gone for some very old fashioned versions of the
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  science. So why do you think you were
• 10:59
  feared and attacked like that? I think there's lots of issues.
• 11:05
  I I mean, I've known for years that various people from medical
• 11:10
  establishment haven't liked what I've been doing.
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  And maybe it's because I've got a higher profile, maybe because
• 11:16
  I help women get better. I don't, I don't know.
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  But I do know partly there's a patriarchy in medicine and I've
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  been told this by some of some people because I'm inverted
• 11:27
  commas only AGP and I'm not a gynecologist.
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  And I have an issue with that because I don't think anyone is
• 11:34
  only anything. But also, you know, I'm, I've
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  got a degree. I'm, I've got lots of
• 11:40
  qualifications and I've got lots of knowledge and I've got huge
• 11:43
  amounts of clinical experience. I don't really know why they
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  decided to do it. I don't even know why they
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  decided to even Commission the programme.
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  When I look and reflect on the content, because it was
• 11:56
  confusing for women. It portrayed me as some awful
• 12:00
  doctor. It was very much a personal
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  thing rather than just about my clinic and it's damaged loads of
• 12:09
  women. That's the saddest thing about
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  it. I also think in terms of your
• 12:15
  ability to respond to that, you've got patient
• 12:18
  confidentiality, you're a doctor, you can't say this is
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  what happened. You're not able to say that.
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  And I think that is also really hard and and it just puts you in
• 12:30
  a very hard position in terms of of comeback.
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  And obviously Ofcom received all these hundreds of complaints and
• 12:39
  Panorama received hundreds of complaints.
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  And even I was in Glasgow 2 weeks ago talking to the
• 12:47
  Scotland's menopause warriors who were featured at the
• 12:51
  beginning section of the programme, talking about people
• 12:54
  being sold sort of vitamins and fake menopause cures.
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  And it was about the fake menopause industry.
• 13:00
  And they are horrified that their bit of the program was
• 13:05
  attached to an attack job on you.
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  And they have said so to Ofcom, and they said so to me the other
• 13:12
  week, that in no way did they want to say that there was
• 13:16
  anything wrong with what you're doing.
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  And one of the apps they recommend to women across
• 13:22
  Glasgow who are not getting the information they want from their
• 13:25
  doctors is your free balance app.
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  And you know, it's just shocking to me that those two things are
• 13:34
  juxtaposed together in a programme and everyone in that
• 13:38
  programme has been misrepresented, you and the
• 13:41
  Glasgow Menopause Warriors. And it, it just makes me so
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  annoyed. And that the establishment just
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  sits there and goes, well, we don't care.
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  And if women aren't coming off HRT because they see that and
• 13:54
  not getting the long term benefits of it, then people
• 13:57
  should think about seriously about what they've done, I
• 14:00
  think. You're right, because at the
• 14:02
  time it was all very raw and as you know, I was doing the
• 14:05
  theatre tour, so it came out on the second night of a theatre
• 14:07
  tour that was 34 nights. So I had to keep going and it
• 14:11
  was really difficult. And you think, well, actually,
• 14:14
  let's just keep going. And it's just going to be a
• 14:17
  small number of people that maybe watch the programme and it
• 14:21
  will be OK. But actually, it's now over a
• 14:23
  year, as you know, since the program.
• 14:25
  We know that HRC prescribing has plateaued, but we also know that
• 14:30
  a lot of women have been stopped their HRT, especially if they've
• 14:34
  been on any higher doses to help with absorption.
• 14:37
  So, you know, every day in the clinic, we hear from women who
• 14:40
  have been very stable on their HRT for years.
• 14:43
  They've been told to reduce it, told to come off it.
• 14:47
  And then their mental health has worsened, their physical
• 14:49
  symptoms have worsened. And these women can't afford
• 14:52
  private care. They shouldn't have to.
• 14:55
  And doctors are really scared. You know, a lot of people think
• 14:58
  that I've been struck off by the GMC, and I absolutely have not
• 15:01
  been struck off at all. I find it really sad.
• 15:06
  And I do think a lot about the way that the film was made as
• 15:11
  well. I mean, we had to involve
• 15:12
  lawyers before the film came out because they did these
• 15:16
  consultations, as you know. It was a camera.
• 15:19
  It was secret filming. Secret filming, which you're
• 15:21
  only supposed to do when you're trying to expose a crime.
• 15:24
  Or something. And I, you know, they had no
• 15:26
  evidence that I'd done any harm at all, but they did this.
• 15:28
  But they were going to expose the identity of the doctors and
• 15:32
  I'm really protective. It's bad enough having my face
• 15:34
  everywhere, but not for these doctors.
• 15:36
  So they did change that and there were other bits that they
• 15:39
  were going to put in that they didn't.
• 15:40
  But they did ask if I wanted to go on the programme to talk and
• 15:44
  I said what I would if they could confirm that they wouldn't
• 15:47
  edit what I said. Trump style.
• 15:51
  And thankfully, actually, I was advised to not go on the program
• 15:55
  because they would edit it and they agreed that they would edit
• 15:57
  it and goodness only knows what they would have portrayed me as.
• 16:03
  Starting in April this year, I'm going back on tour across the UK
• 16:07
  with a brand new show, Breaking the Cycle.
• 16:10
  The power of hormones. I'll be visiting 45 venues and
• 16:15
  my aim is to challenge what we've been told about hormones,
• 16:19
  to unpick the science that's often overlooked, and to explore
• 16:23
  why there's still so much confusion and misinformation,
• 16:27
  particularly around hormone health.
• 16:30
  Our hormones influence everything.
• 16:32
  Our mood, our sleep, our metabolism and our future house.
• 16:36
  Every single cell in our bodies is impacted by hormones, yet so
• 16:41
  many people are still left without clear answers.
• 16:44
  So in this show, I'll be sharing research, some history, the real
• 16:49
  stories, and some very uncomfortable truths.
• 16:52
  There will be moments that surprise and maybe shock you,
• 16:55
  and plenty of opportunities to reflect and ask me questions.
• 16:59
  So if you want to learn, feel empowered, and be part of a
• 17:03
  movement that's changing how we think about hormones, I'd love
• 17:06
  to see you there. You can buy tickets through the
• 17:09
  link in the show notes. I think you're seen as an
• 17:13
  influencer, but in my world you are in fact a public
• 17:18
  intellectual in the old fashioned sense.
• 17:21
  You are the menopause Enlightenment, right?
• 17:24
  You and Mary Claire Haver and Doctor Rachel Rubin in America
• 17:28
  and Doctor Fonda Wright. It was a great team of people
• 17:32
  around the world, Doctor Cherry Cashel in Australia who are
• 17:35
  really forward thinking people and I would say they are the
• 17:39
  menopause enlightenment movement who really, really understand a
• 17:44
  lot of the science. And I think there's a thing
• 17:47
  happening here where you have been cancelled in a mysterious
• 17:51
  kind of medical but also Internet way that social media
• 17:56
  is, you know, you've made a huge comeback and you've been really
• 17:59
  brave and really tough. But that is what is happening,
• 18:03
  the business of kind of public cancellation and public
• 18:06
  humiliation. And I think you have to remember
• 18:08
  you're a public intellectual. You've got a job to give us the
• 18:11
  medical information and you have to continue to do that.
• 18:14
  It's hard, though. It's been really difficult.
• 18:17
  And you know, when people call me controversial, I said to
• 18:21
  someone the other day, could you not just call me clever?
• 18:25
  And they sort of sat back of it and went, oh, yeah, maybe, maybe
• 18:30
  you are. And so having the FDA
• 18:32
  announcement recently about the black.
• 18:37
  Box. That just basically saying that
• 18:40
  estrogen is safe, lot safer than we've said for decades.
• 18:44
  It just validates some of the work that I do and having the
• 18:47
  people that you name and Kelly Casperson of course as well, you
• 18:51
  know, there's lots of people that are now saying the same
• 18:53
  that I've said for many, many years.
• 18:55
  And you know, when you have something really awful happen to
• 18:59
  you, it makes you very reflective and thinking, oh,
• 19:04
  have I been to gun? Who have I said things that
• 19:06
  weren't right? But all I've done is gone back
• 19:09
  to the evidence, gone back to basic science, gone back to
• 19:12
  Physiology. And I know that I haven't done
• 19:15
  anything wrong at all. And, and in fact, as you know,
• 19:18
  we, we did involve lawyers to complain to the BBC.
• 19:22
  You have to complain to BBC before you can go to Ofcom.
• 19:24
  It's very drawn out process. BBC wouldn't uphold our
• 19:28
  complaint and then we found out beginning of October that Ofcom
• 19:31
  wouldn't uphold our complaint either without any reason.
• 19:35
  You know, they said it was a fair and impartial programme.
• 19:37
  Well, even if you didn't know the subject matter, you'd know
• 19:40
  that it wasn't very impartial. But it's been confusing because
• 19:45
  one of the things that we kept saying to them is that there are
• 19:48
  different types of hormones as well.
• 19:50
  And So what they're doing is demonizing HRT, natural body,
• 19:55
  identical HRT as you say, it's the exact molecular structures
• 20:00
  are in hormones. Yet the doctors on the programme
• 20:04
  all prescribe contraceptives which are equivalent, a lot
• 20:09
  higher dose. Of course they are, but they're
• 20:10
  usually oral. Or they might be the implants,
• 20:13
  but they're all synthetic. And your second book about
• 20:17
  hormones was really a lot about the contraceptives.
• 20:20
  I mean, sometimes you need them and sometimes you need a coil
• 20:23
  and God knows I have one, but I'd rather not have 1.
• 20:27
  And I know so much with so many young women struggling with
• 20:32
  different progestins and how so many of them are risky.
• 20:36
  And I just, I'm astonished again at the sort of intellectual
• 20:42
  vacuity of people who aren't looking into that, you know, in
• 20:47
  the, the kind of, you know, Women's Health area.
• 20:50
  I mean, why aren't we talking about it?
• 20:52
  Why are we trying to stay safe and give people the £1.50 pill,
• 20:56
  the Microgynein or the Rejuvidon, which you know, lots
• 21:00
  and lots of girls have a miserable time on and that
• 21:03
  there's no good replacement for that yet.
• 21:05
  There's no, you know, we're lucky older women got the
• 21:08
  fantastic, you know, natural hormones, younger women getting
• 21:12
  the kind of ultra processed food.
• 21:14
  That's basically what's happening.
• 21:16
  And yes, sometimes you need it, but it would be great if it was
• 21:21
  so much better and people cared to research something better.
• 21:25
  But people do understand and I think it is like, like you're
• 21:29
  saying about being voted at school, sometimes people forget
• 21:33
  what they're getting. So crossabouts as well.
• 21:35
  They've just got this innate hatred for somebody or
• 21:38
  something. And they just keep going round
• 21:41
  and round and not, not putting their head up and not thinking
• 21:44
  maybe this person's got a point. And it becomes really damaging
• 21:48
  for so many other people. It's not just an internal
• 21:51
  debate. And, you know, I think in
• 21:52
  medicine especially, people can agree to disagree.
• 21:57
  You know, my husband, as you know, is a surgeon.
• 21:59
  He does different type of operations to other people.
• 22:02
  He does a lot of showcase operating.
• 22:04
  People learn. But every so often people say,
• 22:06
  well, I wouldn't hold the suture like that.
• 22:08
  I wouldn't use that suture material and I wouldn't put a
• 22:10
  cut there. I would do it here.
• 22:12
  And they'll have a really great discussion about when it works,
• 22:15
  when it doesn't work and the reasons between.
• 22:18
  And that's what Panorama could have been an amazing program if
• 22:21
  we've had a really open discussion, because a lot of my
• 22:24
  work is just about choice. You know, you can choose to do
• 22:27
  open water swimming. I can choose to do yoga.
• 22:29
  We're, we're not right or wrong. It's just a different thing, you
• 22:33
  know what I mean? And I, I think, but it's great
• 22:35
  to be able to talk about it. Yeah.
• 22:38
  But I, I just think that was very, very old fashioned and
• 22:42
  very sort of stuck in a time before.
• 22:45
  I think if we look at in 10 years time, how will we look
• 22:49
  back on this time and what's happening with hormones.
• 22:52
  And actually if you look at the market predictions around
• 22:56
  transdermal hormones and the size of the market, it's going
• 23:00
  to double. So, you know, the economists are
• 23:03
  like, this is a good idea. This is going to happen.
• 23:07
  The medical establishment is very much, you know, stuck in
• 23:10
  the mud behind. And women are going to make this
• 23:12
  change for themselves with good doctors like you who are helping
• 23:15
  to lead the way. But it's coming from women up.
• 23:18
  Yeah. It's women doing their own
• 23:19
  research, women desperate to read about the menopause.
• 23:22
  And, you know, the whole business of the kind of
• 23:24
  menopause snake oil industry and people selling supplements is
• 23:28
  because of the failure in leadership among ordinary
• 23:32
  doctors. And I know some absolutely
• 23:36
  brilliant GPS that I'm friends with them and they are doing
• 23:38
  amazing things like mass consultations in their
• 23:41
  surgeries. So, you know, there are these
• 23:43
  fantastic people, but there is a great big kind of fatberg of
• 23:47
  people holding this back and we really, really need to change
• 23:52
  that because this generation is coming up and I don't want to
• 23:55
  see them getting Alzheimer's or diabetes or, you know, stiff
• 23:59
  joints or whatever it is. And I just can't believe this is
• 24:03
  not part of health policy. This is not what where streeting
• 24:06
  is, you know, changing, although great, you know, to add
• 24:09
  menopause to the 40 something consultation.
• 24:12
  Well done everybody. But it is good because it will
• 24:15
  so. We'll start conversations.
• 24:17
  But you know, the idea that it wasn't there when it was the
• 24:20
  biggest metabolic change in midlife and you didn't mention
• 24:23
  it in the midlife consultation just tells you how.
• 24:26
  Yeah, bonkers. It's absolutely.
• 24:29
  But also, you know, not acknowledging the millions of
• 24:33
  women who are under the age of 40 as well with hormonal changes
• 24:36
  is just crazy too. It's just so much has got to
• 24:41
  change. But I think you know what you've
• 24:43
  done with the documentary, what we've both done working together
• 24:48
  sometimes behind the scenes a bit, is that we've allowed women
• 24:52
  to wake up and understand what's going on.
• 24:55
  And I think that's where I've tried to be silenced by the
• 24:58
  medical establishment. They can't silence be getting to
• 25:01
  women and giving people a choice and it's a choice that they've
• 25:05
  not had for decades. You know, in the 60s they did
• 25:08
  have this choice about sexual liberation and the
• 25:12
  contraceptive, but in some ways that was potentially damaging
• 25:15
  because that was synthetic hormones that had never been
• 25:17
  tested in the long term. We didn't know.
• 25:20
  This is quite different because these are the natural hormones
• 25:24
  replacing like for like we know that metabolically they work so
• 25:27
  well in the body and women are understanding that quicker than
• 25:30
  healthcare professionals. And I know a few years ago I
• 25:34
  went to the Royal College of GPS because I'm a fellow there.
• 25:36
  And they said, Louise, your work has got to really stop and slow
• 25:40
  down because your media influence means that too many
• 25:44
  women are now asking for hormones to the detriment of
• 25:47
  other appointments. Because too many women are
• 25:49
  coming every day to see GPS and we can't get through the people
• 25:53
  with back pain and other conditions.
• 25:56
  But you can't shoot the messenger, can you?
• 25:58
  But that's just daft because the minute they're on horn, yeah,
• 26:01
  most of them, maybe it's three months follow up, but you know.
• 26:03
  They won't be coming back with. Bothering you for diabetes and
• 26:06
  they won't be bothering you for, you know, various kinds of
• 26:09
  arthritis and things, you know, So it really, really it's really
• 26:13
  important. Short term pain, but longer term
• 26:16
  gain. You know, and I, I think we see
• 26:19
  this in other areas of medicine as well.
• 26:21
  You know, you can prescribe antidepressants very quickly,
• 26:23
  but you can't prescribe exercise in the same way.
• 26:26
  It takes a lot longer to explain about lifestyle and.
• 26:29
  So I think of hormones as the door opening.
• 26:32
  And for me, it was a door opening to, you know, a portal
• 26:35
  to the second-half of my life and a different life and
• 26:37
  possibly a different brain. I mean, my brain, I think, is
• 26:40
  probably different than it would have been.
• 26:42
  And it's also the time when you have the kind of strength, once
• 26:46
  you've got the hormones to take on your health and decide to do
• 26:50
  things like my case, stop drinking alcohol, start cold
• 26:55
  swimming, you know, you know, go running, eat less awful food.
• 27:00
  All these things once you've lifted up onto that step of you
• 27:04
  know, hormonal normality and also having your hormones the
• 27:08
  same everyday instead of them going upwards, which is.
• 27:11
  Such a. Joy, you know, then you can look
• 27:13
  after your health and the idea that people are talk a serious
• 27:16
  academics are talking about, oh, the holistic health is how we
• 27:20
  need to deal with menopause and not hormones.
• 27:23
  I absolutely agree, agree with every single thing on the
• 27:26
  holistic health board. I think you should add it if you
• 27:30
  possibly can to, you know, hormones at the same time, I
• 27:35
  know you've got, you've got to do both things because your body
• 27:38
  is changing and your mind is changing.
• 27:39
  And God knows, you know, to what extent we're able to replace our
• 27:43
  own hormones. And we do age and we've got to
• 27:45
  deal with aging well because we've got to work till we're 67.
• 27:49
  And, you know, the idea that there's a holistic, natural,
• 27:52
  unnatural divide when hormones are natural just makes me really
• 27:56
  annoyed. Philosophically, none of it
• 27:58
  makes any sense. You know, if you take a sort of
• 28:02
  intellectual point of view of on this, it's just, you know, it
• 28:06
  just doesn't work. Well, it doesn't because we I
• 28:08
  often spin it on it's head and think what are the risks of not
• 28:10
  taking hormones? Yeah.
• 28:12
  And that's something we need to spend this year.
• 28:14
  It's the beginning of the new year, 2026.
• 28:17
  Thinking about that as well. Because, you know, we need to be
• 28:20
  making decisions that are right for us.
• 28:22
  So your books just come out in paperback?
• 28:24
  Yeah. Just very quickly, I'd like 3
• 28:28
  reasons why people, if they haven't got the hardback
• 28:32
  version, why they should be thinking about your book.
• 28:35
  Well, it's called How to Have a Magnificent Midlife Crisis.
• 28:40
  And I realized that, you know, when I was campaigning on
• 28:43
  menopause and hormones, there was so much else going on around
• 28:46
  it. And that women at this time in
• 28:48
  their lives, I think first need to make a five year plan or a 10
• 28:53
  year plan and reassess their lives and have one midlife
• 28:57
  crisis or possibly even 2 and really decide how am I going to
• 29:02
  live the next half of my life. So that was really important.
• 29:06
  The other thing in the book is it's about creative renaissance.
• 29:09
  And I've had a real creative renaissance in in a mad way via
• 29:13
  you because I've become a mad scientist, writer person and not
• 29:19
  what I expected to be having been a film critic.
• 29:22
  But here you are on a different trajectory, doing a different
• 29:25
  thing and you've got the energy because your body's working and
• 29:28
  your mind's working to to do this and to help people and to
• 29:32
  have time to help people. And I also think the third thing
• 29:36
  is about all the different things you can do in terms of
• 29:38
  self compassion at this stage in our lives, because we've looked
• 29:42
  after other people, we've looked after our colleagues at work,
• 29:45
  we've looked after our children in our 50s.
• 29:48
  We need to look after ourselves, our health, and then go out
• 29:52
  there and make a difference in the world.
• 29:54
  And I think those are the things that the book is about.
• 29:58
  It's such good advice and of course, it's such a brilliant
• 30:00
  book as well. So thank you for coming on for
• 30:03
  the third time to my podcast, OK?
• 30:05
  Thank you.