Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 286 - Looking back on menopause and hormone health in 2024 – and what does the future hold?
Transcript
- 1:03So on this episode of the podcast, I'm going to do
- 1:05something a bit different. I'm not actually going to have a
- 1:08guest. I am going to be the guest of my
- 1:11podcast. It's towards the end of the
- 1:14year, the end nearly of 2024, so I thought I would just talk a
- 1:19bit about some reflections of the year and where everything is
- 1:22going, where my work's going, where menopause is going and
- 1:26where hormones are going as well.
- 1:28It's been an interesting year and really every day is a
- 1:33different day. I always say to my children,
- 1:35every day is a learning day. There's always new things to
- 1:38learn, and often we learn from experiences.
- 1:41Anything that we experience helps us to grow, to develop, to
- 1:46change, to improve and move forwards.
- 1:50Actually, somebody said to me many years ago that you should
- 1:54glance backwards and look forwards.
- 1:57And it's so easy to not think too much about the future and
- 2:03concentrate on things that have happened in the past.
- 2:06And many of us have had things that have happened that we
- 2:09wouldn't want to have repeated to us.
- 2:11But actually every negative and positive experience can shape us
- 2:15in different ways. When I started the work that I
- 2:19do about eight years ago, when I really wanted to dedicate my
- 2:23future career to thinking about hormones and menopause, I didn't
- 2:26really expect it to be quite as turbulent as it has been.
- 2:30But I also didn't expect it to be so hard for so many women.
- 2:36One of the things that really drives me to work so hard is the
- 2:40injustice that's happening, the stories that I hear from women
- 2:44who are really struggling to be believed, to be listened to, to
- 2:47be understood and also to be able to access evidence based
- 2:51treatment. Now many of you might know that
- 2:54I have a keen interest in evidence based medicine.
- 2:57I've actually written four books about evidence based medicine. 4
- 3:01GPS Many years ago I wrote a sequence of books and I've
- 3:06always read a lot of academic papers.
- 3:08I also have a pathology degree. So I have a first class degree
- 3:12in pathology, which is the study of disease and it's made me have
- 3:16a very inquisitive mind. I quite enjoy reading quite
- 3:20difficult scientific text, hard literature, where it's really
- 3:25explaining the nuances of how our bodies work in a
- 3:29physiological but also a pathological way.
- 3:31And I'm very interested in the role of our hormones with
- 3:34respect to inflammation, but also not just at a cellular
- 3:39level within the cells, looking at how they affect our
- 3:41mitochondria, which is the powerhouse of our cells.
- 3:44They've produced the energy that our cells and bodies need for
- 3:48every chemical reaction. So I'm interested in the way our
- 3:51hormones work and I'm obviously interested in the way that when
- 3:54we don't have those hormones, it can affect us in many ways.
- 3:58But what I am always hearing are stories from women who are
- 4:03really struggling. And that is, I think, because
- 4:08menopause has been mislabelled. It's been misunderstood for a
- 4:12very long time. So the first part of this year,
- 4:17I really spend a lot of my spare time reading, increasing my
- 4:21knowledge because I knew I was doing this theater tour, which
- 4:24started in autumn of this year. I wanted to make sure that it
- 4:28gave people information and knowledge that they didn't have
- 4:31in other ways. I've spent a lot of time
- 4:34imparting my knowledge through my podcasts, through the free
- 4:38Balance app, through the Balance Hyphen menopause.com website,
- 4:42through my Instagram lives that I've started to do every Sunday
- 4:46that are uploaded to my YouTube. Imparting knowledge is a really
- 4:50important part of my work. I like to use the available
- 4:53evidence and try and translate it into easy ways so people can
- 4:57understand. And actually what I really
- 5:01wanted to spend time on preparing for the tour was
- 5:04finding out information that I hadn't shared before.
- 5:07So I had read a lot of books, but I read even more about the
- 5:12history of hormones, about how it was when hormones were first
- 5:17discovered, what led to people discovering these hormones and
- 5:21how they applied them to clinical practice.
- 5:24I also read a lot about how women had been portrayed in
- 5:28medicine for many years, and also female leaders, how thought
- 5:33leaders have been treated or mistreated over the years as
- 5:37well. And also, I've reread the papers
- 5:41that I've spent many hours reading about the biological
- 5:45effect of hormones, how they work in our body.
- 5:48And so reading and understanding makes you want to learn more,
- 5:52doesn't it? And so I spend a lot of time
- 5:55reading texts, but then actually having to reread and read more
- 5:58detailed information because I couldn't quite believe what I
- 6:02was reading. Because on one hand, I'm reading
- 6:05about how important these hormones, estradiol,
- 6:07progesterone, testosterone are throughout our body, affecting
- 6:11every cell in our body, improving biological processes.
- 6:14And on the other side, I'm reading on various social media
- 6:18platforms and websites how our hormones are dangerous, how we
- 6:22have to restrict their use. And there seems to be a bit
- 6:25confusion between what natural hormones are and what synthetic
- 6:29hormones are. So I just want to spend a little
- 6:32bit of time on picking the difference.
- 6:34So when we hire younger as women, we produce hormones
- 6:38mainly from our ovaries, but also from other tissues and
- 6:41organs in our body. So we have estrozil,
- 6:43progesterone, testosterone. They're produced from
- 6:45cholesterol. Actually, they're synthesized
- 6:47from cholesterol. These hormones are made and then
- 6:50they go in our bloodstream and affect every cell in our body.
- 6:54But they're also made in our brains, and they're also made in
- 6:57other tissues and organs as well.
- 6:59They have really important biological processes.
- 7:02They help our cells to function and work.
- 7:05They reduce inflammation in our body, and like I say, they help
- 7:09the mitochondria to function. They have effects on our brain.
- 7:14The way our brain works and functions, the way our
- 7:16personality, our memory, our mood, even our sleep.
- 7:20Other metabolic processes like our heart rate, our respiratory
- 7:24rate, our metabolism are all determined by these hormones.
- 7:28So they're very important ways that they work throughout the
- 7:32body. So when we don't have them,
- 7:34obviously our body doesn't work as well.
- 7:36We have more inflammation, our mitochondria don't work as well.
- 7:40We have an increased risk of diseases.
- 7:42But when we give people hormones back, certainly in our clinic
- 7:46and many other clinics, what we do is we give the natural
- 7:49hormones back. So these are made, they're
- 7:52synthesized, but they are actually the same biological
- 7:56structure as our own hormones. So basically if you look at them
- 8:00literally down a microscope, they look identical to the
- 8:03hormones we produce when we're younger.
- 8:05So we're replacing like for like, But over the years since
- 8:10hormones were discovered, they were discovered in the 1930s,
- 8:13people have made synthetic hormones because they wanted to
- 8:17make a chemical that was similar but different to hormones so
- 8:20they could market it out to people and make money from it.
- 8:24And there were two different ways in which hormone
- 8:26replacement therapy has been synthetic.
- 8:29One of them is chemically altering them to different
- 8:32estrogens and progesterogens. So we have a type of estrogen
- 8:35called ethanol estradiol, which is a chemically altered type of
- 8:40estradiol. It's not the same.
- 8:42It doesn't have the same biological effects and it has
- 8:44risks associated with it. But we also have synthetic
- 8:48progesterone. So these are like progesterone
- 8:51but they're chemically altered. So we have something called
- 8:54medoxy progesterone acetate or norothistarone.
- 8:58These two are synthetic progesterone that have been used
- 9:01in different types of hormone replacement therapies.
- 9:04We now prescribe the natural hormone which is usually
- 9:07referred to as micronised progesterone or eutigestan is
- 9:11the other name in the UK. So that is exactly the same.
- 9:15But the synthetic ones we know do have risks.
- 9:18They have risks of heart disease, risks of clot, risks of
- 9:22probably breast cancer, only small risk, but actually we need
- 9:26to be thinking about those risks.
- 9:28So we mitigate those risks by prescribing the natural
- 9:31hormones. The estradiol through the skin
- 9:34is a patch or gel and the progesterone is a natural
- 9:37micronised progesterone which can be given orally or off label
- 9:42as a vaginal or rectal pessary to get absorbed through into the
- 9:47bloodstream. And then obviously testosterone,
- 9:50which again causes so much confusion.
- 9:53Testosterone is a biologically active hormone that women and
- 9:57men produce. We produce it from our ovaries,
- 9:59our adrenal glands and also it's made in our brains.
- 10:03Now, testosterone is more biologically active than other
- 10:06hormones in our body. We produce more testosterone
- 10:09than estudiol when we're younger, and levels decline with
- 10:13age. So actually low testosterone is
- 10:16a age-related decline rather than purely menopause.
- 10:20But of course, if women have their ovaries removed and become
- 10:23menopausal at a younger age, their testosterone level will
- 10:26decline quite quickly. So testosterone, when we
- 10:29prescribe it, we prescribe it as a gel or a cream, and it's the
- 10:32natural testosterone. It's the same structure as the
- 10:35testosterone we produce when we're younger.
- 10:38But we have synthetic testosterones.
- 10:40Some of the injectable testosterones are chemically
- 10:44altered, so they're not going to have the same biological effects
- 10:47that testosterone does, and they're associated with risks.
- 10:51So they are labeled actually as anabolic steroids.
- 10:54They can build up muscle in a very unusual way.
- 10:57They can increase risk of heart attacks the same way that the
- 11:01unnatural, the synthetic progesterone, can increase risk
- 11:04of heart attacks. But they're very different.
- 11:07And I've spent a lot of time deciphering the differences.
- 11:11And it's important that people, women, men, but also healthcare
- 11:16professionals know the difference because it's lazy
- 11:18medicine to say all oestrogens are the same, or all
- 11:22progesterones are the same, or even all testosterones are the
- 11:24same because they're not. And one of the things that I
- 11:28think is a easy way of thinking about it is what's the
- 11:31difference between roast chicken and chicken flavoured crisps?
- 11:36The chicken flavoured crisps probably don't have any chicken
- 11:39in them at all, but they've been made to taste like chicken, but
- 11:42they've been chemically altered of course, and manufactured in a
- 11:45synthetic way. The other analogy that I used a
- 11:48lot in the tour was thinking about diamond compared to
- 11:53graphite pencil lead. And I had a slide showing these
- 11:56too, and people probably thought I was mad.
- 11:59But actually many of you might know if you've done any
- 12:02chemistry, that diamond is made from carbon and graphite is made
- 12:06from carbon, and there's just one bond different.
- 12:09So there are four bonds between the carbons in diamond and only
- 12:13three in graphite. So just adding one extra bond
- 12:18can really alter the structure of a substance.
- 12:22So when estudiol or progesterone or testosterone is chemically
- 12:27altered, just changing 1 bond or adding one different maybe
- 12:32oxygen or hydrogen atom is going to absolutely change its
- 12:35structure and the way it chemically works in the body.
- 12:39And I think for too long people haven't understood this.
- 12:43I didn't spend much time thinking about it when I was a
- 12:45junior doctor, happily prescribing synthetic hormones
- 12:48as contraceptives or synthetic hormones as HRT, because no one
- 12:52taught me and I didn't have the time or the energy or the
- 12:56knowledge to learn all this. But actually when you one pick
- 13:00it, it's really important. So a lot of the debate about
- 13:03risks, about hormones when given as a prescription are hormones
- 13:09that have been synthetically made, they've been chemically
- 13:12altered. And this is really important and
- 13:15I will talk more and more about it next year because it's so
- 13:17important when we think about reasons for taking hormones.
- 13:21So as a menopausal woman myself, I'm very open that of course I
- 13:25take HRT because I was experiencing a myriad of
- 13:28symptoms, especially affecting my mental health but also my
- 13:32physical health as well. So my mood was low, my memory
- 13:35was very poor, my concentration was terrible, my sleep was awful
- 13:40and I was very irritable, very short tempered, felt very low
- 13:45and flat, just wasn't enjoying things, became quite socially
- 13:49withdrawn and very lonely. I didn't really know what was
- 13:53going on. I thought I was just working too
- 13:54hard and that's just my lot really.
- 13:57But also I was getting physical symptoms.
- 13:59My migraines were a lot worse. They were more frequent, they
- 14:02were more severe, had a lot of muscle and joint pain.
- 14:06I had multiple times where I had awful palpitations, bit of
- 14:10indigestion and reflux as well. And all these symptoms really I
- 14:16didn't understand because I didn't put them together.
- 14:19And I also had recurrent urinary tract infections.
- 14:23I had some vaginal dryness. I had reduced libido.
- 14:26My hair had changed, became thinner, drier.
- 14:29My skin was quite itchy, so lots of things going on and then
- 14:34obviously once I realised what was going on and I was
- 14:37perimenopausal, then I decided to take hormones.
- 14:41But I take HLT for two reasons, of course, to feel better and
- 14:45it's taken quite a long time to have the right dose and type of
- 14:48hormones. It didn't work straight away.
- 14:51I had to increase my dose of estradiol because I don't absorb
- 14:54very well through the skin. And I had to, well, I didn't
- 14:57have to, but I chose to take testosterone to improve my
- 15:01libido. But it's also helped with my
- 15:03mood, energy, motivation, concentration and sleep, and
- 15:06actually my migraines as well. But it can take a while for
- 15:10these hormones to work. But the other reason that I take
- 15:13HRT is to improve my future health.
- 15:16And that's something that is really important, and we've
- 15:19known it for decades, thinking about how these hormones can
- 15:24reduce inflammation in our body. And when we think about
- 15:27inflammation, inflammation is important because when we have
- 15:30inflammation, it can damage tissues and organs and increase
- 15:34our risk of diseases. And the inflammatory diseases
- 15:37are the diseases that really affect our future health as
- 15:40women, but also as men. So if I list them, they're
- 15:43diseases that you will have heard of before, and these are
- 15:46heart disease, including cardiovascular disease.
- 15:49So that's not just our heart, but our blood system as well.
- 15:53So cardiovascular disease, dementia, type 2 diabetes,
- 15:58clinical depression is even thought of as an inflammatory
- 16:00disease, osteoporosis, other neurodegenerative diseases such
- 16:05as Parkinson's disease and autoimmune diseases as well.
- 16:10Those can all be associated with altered inflammation in the
- 16:13body. Cancers can be associated with
- 16:16inflammation too. And so we know that I've already
- 16:20said that hormones reduce inflammation, So we know they
- 16:24reduce the risk of diseases, these inflammatory diseases.
- 16:28And we've got many studies for many years showing that women
- 16:32who take hormones have a lower risk of these inflammatory
- 16:34diseases. And that is important when we
- 16:37think about population health. I'm very interested in keeping
- 16:42people healthy for as long as possible.
- 16:44It's not just helping them feel better, although as a doctor
- 16:48it's lovely to help people feel better, but it's about investing
- 16:52in their future health. So we know that women who take
- 16:56natural hormones have a lower risk of all these diseases and
- 17:00actually are less likely to die at an earlier age.
- 17:03But it's not the age we die, it's a journey to that age.
- 17:07It's thinking about health span rather than lifespan.
- 17:11And for too long we don't think enough as healthcare
- 17:15professionals about health span keeping people really healthy.
- 17:19And that is so important because we know that the NHS is really
- 17:24on its knees. We know that there are a lot of
- 17:26people being admitted to hospital all the time with these
- 17:29chronic diseases and many of these people are not taking
- 17:32hormones to reduce their risk. So it is very important when we
- 17:37think about the role of these hormones and how they work.
- 17:40And if some of you had come to the tour, you would have seen I
- 17:43had a massive slide with a picture of a macrophage, which
- 17:47is the cell that reduces inflammation in the body.
- 17:50It's really important because our macrophages work better when
- 17:54we have estradiol, progesterone, testosterone on them,
- 17:57stimulating them. We know in the presence of
- 18:00Easterdale, the macrophages work better.
- 18:02They can genetically be reprogrammed, they can increase
- 18:05the number, they can improve the efficiency of how they work.
- 18:09And I also had a slide of mitochondria because we have
- 18:12trillions of them in our body and we know that those hormones
- 18:16will improve the way that they function as well.
- 18:19So I spoke to thousands of women on the tour and men, actually
- 18:23men, came to and it was such an incredible experience that I
- 18:27hope I can repeat again. I was incredibly nervous, the
- 18:31thought of having 34 tour dates all around the UKI went up to
- 18:36Scotland, I went to Wales, went down to the South Coast, all
- 18:41around meeting people and I had sessions before with small
- 18:45groups of women. Obviously the theatres were very
- 18:49full, or some of them were full, and then I saw people afterwards
- 18:53because I did book signing as well and it was amazing.
- 18:58I was very fortunate in that I had a lot of support.
- 19:02I worked with Angilda, who's a comedian who lightened it a
- 19:07little bit for me, which was great.
- 19:09The team that came with me were very, very professional, very
- 19:13supportive, and I never thought I would be on the stage.
- 19:18My mother's an actress, and going on the stage would have
- 19:21filled me with horror. But I knew that it felt the
- 19:24right thing to do to be able to have a different platform,
- 19:27literally, to share some of my knowledge, but in different
- 19:30ways. So I had lots of slides.
- 19:33I had lots of information in the second-half about, like I say,
- 19:37the history of hormones, the history of what happened to
- 19:41women. I even had some adverts from the
- 19:4350s and 60s about how women were portrayed as well.
- 19:48There were a lot of laughs in the audience and there were
- 19:50quite a few tears as well, especially talking about mental
- 19:53health impact of hormones. But what I wanted to do was
- 19:57allow people time to really reflect and think differently
- 20:01about my work and what hormones do throughout the body, and
- 20:05about ways that women have been almost stopped from having
- 20:09hormones throughout history of medicine.
- 20:12And there are lots of examples where people have been taken
- 20:15down by other healthcare professionals when they've tried
- 20:18to help women with hormones. So that's been really
- 20:21interesting for people to listen to and to.
- 20:25Watch and just feeling the energy from the room has really
- 20:29been incredible and I really want to thank those of you who
- 20:32are listening who did come to the tour.
- 20:34But I also came away very sad because every single place I
- 20:40went to, I heard stories from women who were often very
- 20:43tearful telling me that they are unable to receive hormones from
- 20:48their doctors. Even some of them in Scotland
- 20:51said to me there's no point even being referred to the menopause
- 20:53clinic because we know they won't prescribe testosterone but
- 20:57we know we really need it. We have 0 libido, we feel
- 20:59absolutely dreadful. We take HRT and we still have
- 21:03symptoms. One lady told me that she was on
- 21:06testosterone and she was feeling wonderful.
- 21:08Her testosterone level was normal, within normal limits for
- 21:11a woman and her doctor said no, you must come off it and then
- 21:15don't come back for another six months.
- 21:16You don't need to be on this anymore.
- 21:19And she was really scared because she didn't want to go
- 21:21back to how she was feeling. I also met a lot of women who
- 21:24tell me that my work had transformed their lives and
- 21:27actually saved their lives. I had partners of women telling
- 21:31me that information that I'd shared had given them the
- 21:36confidence and the impetus to go and receive help, which had
- 21:40transformed and often saved their lives, and they wanted to
- 21:44just thank me. And it's very humbling actually
- 21:48when people thank me because I'm not really doing anything
- 21:51special and all I'm doing is giving them common sense
- 21:54information based on the evidence.
- 21:56But it's almost as if these people haven't been allowed to
- 21:58have evidence before, haven't been allowed to have this
- 22:01knowledge. And it makes me realise how
- 22:04closed actually a lot of medical healthcare professionals are and
- 22:08how they don't empower their patients in the way that they
- 22:11should. And it's really sad because it
- 22:14doesn't seem to be improving for everybody.
- 22:18I went to the Royal College of General Practitioners Annual
- 22:21conference in October in Liverpool and presented some of
- 22:24our data and there was a lot of people there who were really
- 22:28encouraged. They're doing a lot more
- 22:30training, they're learning a lot more about the role of hormones
- 22:33and health and prescribing more HRT, which is great.
- 22:38We have the new NICE guidance that came out in November this
- 22:40year. They're updated from the ones
- 22:42from 2015, but they don't depict all the evidence.
- 22:47They're quite skewed in what they present.
- 22:50But even then they'll take home. Tagline, if you like, is that
- 22:54HRT is first line treatment for the majority of women, but the
- 22:59problem is, is that it's not first line treatment for the
- 23:02majority of menopausal women because only the minority are
- 23:05receiving hormones. Less than 20%, around 14 or 15%
- 23:10of women who are menopausal in the UK are prescribed HRT and
- 23:14it's in areas of deprivation. In ethnic minority groups, it's
- 23:18a lot lower than this. We looked at some of the data of
- 23:21people that have had frigidity fractures, so no impact
- 23:24fractures, people who've have osteoporosis, who have
- 23:27fractures, and it was less than 1% of those women are prescribed
- 23:31HRT, whereas HRT is licensed as a treatment for osteoporosis.
- 23:36There's been a lot of confusion about dosing of hormones, and
- 23:41we've been working very hard as a group.
- 23:42I fund a small research team and we've been showing that we do
- 23:47see women who need higher doses, myself included.
- 23:50And that's very simple. It's just the skin is a barrier.
- 23:54It's harder to absorb estudiol through the skin if the skin is
- 23:58thicker, if it's colder, if there's more subcutaneous fat.
- 24:01Skin type and texture really varies between people.
- 24:05And I know personally my patches do not stick on very well, so
- 24:08when I remove them there's still glue on them.
- 24:12The glue contains estradiol so it hasn't all been absorbed
- 24:15through my skin. And so my consultant many years
- 24:18ago gave me a higher dose so I could get adequate absorption
- 24:21and monitored estradiol levels. And I have my estradiol,
- 24:25testosterone levels done every year as part of my review and my
- 24:29levels are within normal ranges. They're not too high and they're
- 24:32not too low and my symptoms are optimised.
- 24:35But I use higher dosing because that is the right dose for me to
- 24:40get adequate amounts through the skin.
- 24:43Many people have been quite scared about these higher doses.
- 24:46Now we know it's just a natural hormone and we give higher doses
- 24:50to a minority of women who need it because they were just trying
- 24:54to get adequate absorption through the skin.
- 24:57But I'm very proud of our research team.
- 24:58We've had publications accepted. We had a great one about
- 25:02testosterone. So symptoms of mood changes,
- 25:06memory changes, as well as libido reduction can improve
- 25:09when testosterone's added to HRT.
- 25:12So this was looking at our patients.
- 25:13We had that accepted in an academic journal and now we've
- 25:17got one about our dosing accepted.
- 25:19It's going to come out any minute now and we've been doing
- 25:22a lot of work for women who've had breast cancer.
- 25:24So we've had two publications accepted, another one that's
- 25:27been submitted for review process and these are in peer
- 25:32reviewed journals. We always present our data at
- 25:35different conferences and certainly I can't think of
- 25:39another menopause clinic that is producing the quality of
- 25:42research and data that we're producing.
- 25:45We're working collaboratively with different universities as
- 25:48well, such as Liverpool, John Moores University, Bristol
- 25:52University, King's College London, Monash University in
- 25:56Melbourne, and working collaboratively with other
- 26:00people's is just wonderful. There's a huge amount of support
- 26:03for what we do, not just in the UK but globally as well.
- 26:08This year I've been to Norway, which is wonderful, met some
- 26:12incredible people. I've got Norwegian blood, my
- 26:15grandmother was Norwegian and so it was great my first time
- 26:18visiting Norway and I really, really enjoyed that.
- 26:21And I hope to go back at some stage next year.
- 26:25I am going to Australia, I'm going to go to Sydney, Perth and
- 26:30Melbourne. Really, really looking forward
- 26:32to that. Talking to women, but also to
- 26:35healthcare professionals as well.
- 26:37Recording a couple of podcasts over there too.
- 26:40So lots of exciting things that are going to happen.
- 26:43And on my way over to Australia, I'm going to be stopping in
- 26:46Singapore. And Singapore is going to be
- 26:49very exciting as well, talking a lot about longevity, talking
- 26:53about future health with hormones.
- 26:55So that's going to be exciting and hopefully going to go to
- 26:59America as well at some stage. So I'm also going to be focusing
- 27:04a lot on my podcast, how to reach wider audiences all across
- 27:09the world. I'm going to be doing a lot more
- 27:11work on balance, enabling people to have balance in many, many
- 27:15countries and improve the quality of the information that
- 27:19we're giving. I'm doing a lot of work with our
- 27:22education programme as well, so that's very exciting.
- 27:26We're going to be updating our education, working
- 27:29collaboratively with all sorts of people.
- 27:32Our research team is going to continue working with other
- 27:35people and of course our clinic is still going to be seeing
- 27:39people, seeing people who are unable to receive the evidence
- 27:43based care and treatment that they want and deserve from the
- 27:46NHS. But we work very closely with
- 27:48the NHS, so increasingly patients come and see us maybe
- 27:52two times, then they're optimised on their hormones and
- 27:56then their NHS GP takes over their prescribing, which is
- 27:59really great. So we have a great network of
- 28:02colleagues in the NHS that we work with, which will continue.
- 28:06And we're going to be doing monthly webinars for people who
- 28:10are non healthcare professionals and then also monthly webinars
- 28:13for healthcare professionals as well.
- 28:15So lots of things going on, but I just hope you've enjoyed this
- 28:19podcast to learn a bit more about what I've been up to and
- 28:22what I want to get up to and what's been going on in my mind
- 28:26recently. So I hope you're looking forward
- 28:29to Christmas. I'm looking forward to spending
- 28:31time with my family. I have three daughters who are
- 28:34so inspirational and a lovely husband and the four of them
- 28:39prop me up and persuade me to keep going and keep doing what
- 28:42I'm doing because it's making a difference to the right people.
- 28:46So enjoy your time, keep knowing as much as possible, improve
- 28:53your knowledge, try and advocate for other people as well, and
- 28:56let's keep going with this massive community of people we
- 28:58have who are determined to make changes for the better going
- 29:02forwards. Thank you.
- 29:08You can find out more about Newson Health Group by visiting
- 29:11www.newsonhealth.co.uk and you can download the free Balance
- 29:18app on the App Store. Or Google Play.