ENCORE PRESENTATION: Women's Health - - Let's Talk Menopause with Guest Rebekah Brown

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Episode Transcript

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The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Welcome to Becoming the Journey.
This show will be a series ofconversations that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. This show's mission isto cultivate a community of mentorship by sharing

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our experiences and our life's journey.Nobody's journey is a straight line, so
no matter where you are in yours, this show is for you. Meet
Grace Laverrae. Welcome listeners. Thisis Becoming the Journey and we are about
conversations with my guests, whose thoughts, experiences, and opinions on topics they

(00:45):
are most informed about will resonate withyou. You can contact us on Instagram
at Becoming the Journey and share whatyou're thinking or struggling with. Let's dialogue
on your views and journey Today.My guest is Rebecca Brown, and Rebecca

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is the founder of a vibrant midlifecommunity and powdered supplement range called Empowder,
which was launched in twenty twenty asa response to her own journey into menopause
and from that, I'm going tolet you understand that the topic today is

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menopause. Rebecca's had quite an eventfulyoung life. She studied English and drama
at university in the UK. Whenshe got out of university, she was
a junior executive on the Labor Partiesnineteen ninety seven election campaign in the UK.

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She then went on to work oncommercial brands like Disney and Visa and
Vavo Cars, and created her ownbrand, consultancy, which she sold until
paramenopause hit. Welcome Rebecca, Thankyou, thanks for having me. Great.

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So, Rebecca, yours is ajourney, and let's face it,
menopause is inevitable in all women orwomen will experience it. It's not a
choice like we talk about in otherthings, and so your journey, actually,

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if we can kind of take thatin sequence, if you're looking back
and start with the one question thatI've always asked, and that is when
do women start to the dialogue withtheir gynecologist obgyn about change of life.

(03:06):
That's a really good question, andactually I would say that it goes way
way way back in terms of whendo we start the conversation about female biology,
And the reality is that it's nota topic that is taught adequately in
schools, so most syllabuses here inthe UK were quite unusual. And that

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we've just legislated as a government tostart teaching children about menopause in their secondary
school years, so from about theage of eleven or twelve, all children
will now not just learn about fertility, they will learn about the end of
fertility and the menopause journey that femaleswill transition prove. And I think that's

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really really important because if you waituntil you're at the beginning of your own
menopause journey and having that conversation witha guyany it's kind of too late.
We need to be harnessing our hormonesfrom the point of time that we start
menstruating, and that does mean thenthat we're empowered. We understand what our
hormones are capable of, we understandwhat our mentrual cycle enables, we work

(04:14):
with it rather than against it.And then as we head into our menopause
years, as you point out,it's a life stage that all of us
as females will transition through at somepoint, we're so much better prepared and
we're better prepared also to have theconversations with our guying you because we understand
when chaine starts to happen. Andthe biggest challenge for people today is that
perimenopause happens much much younger than manyof us expect, and because we don't

(04:39):
understand the symptoms of associated with it, we often don't have the conversation at
all. And it's only when youget to a point where you're really feeling
broken you may seek medical advice.So you're in a classroom and you're thirteen
or fourteen years old, and Iknow you're speaking about doing this in the

(05:00):
UK and they've initiated it already.I don't believe we do that in the
US, but then again, welack a lot of different kinds of education
that we should be teaching our childrenin the US. How do you think
a thirteen or fourteen year old willrespond, especially in a codgender classroom,

(05:25):
to sitting there learning about fertility andmenopause. Well, I think you know
it's a sensitive topic. So weknow that within the UK anyway, about
seventy five percent of females find thetopic of menopause taboo. So it has
a huge societal shadow over it still, but younger children's minds are much more

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nimble and much more accepting, andalready in the US and the UK we
have sex education classes from secondary schoolonwards, and really this is at the
extension of that. It's about understandingour sex hormones in their entirety, both
in terms of you know, pregnancyand shell care right through to the end

(06:10):
of that sex hormone journey for themen. So I think there's an opportunity
to do it in a way thatit's sensitive and focused on the biology and
the differenceies between females and males andthe implications that has in terms of,
you know, the wellness of ourbodies and minds at every stage of life.
So I think, you know,it's fair to highlight that there will
be some sensitivity, but there's alsosensitivity about addressing sexuality will stop. And

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I think it's important if we aregoing to be addressing that we address that
whole life cycle of both both flexerscorrect. And so they're learning it in
school and I'm sure most of themwill learn it and forget it because they're

(06:54):
young and they're vibrant, and they'regoing on their life's journey when is it
that a young woman should start totalk to their obgyn about it? Again,
A really good question. I thinkour advice would be that from about

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your mid thirties, your body isstarting to shift. So if you don't
experience an early menopause a result ofsurgery or an underlying health condition, you're
likely to be heading into perimenopause aroundthe age of forty three in the Western
world. So from your mid thirtiesyou may experiences some changes, and typically
the changes that we see earliest inthe perimenopause journey are more associated with psychological

(07:42):
challenges. It might be that you'rejust feeling a little bit more anxious,
you're struggling to fleep. You maybe experiencing what we know to be brainfall
when we hit our perimenopause or years, but actually when it's earlier, it
can just be trouble forming sentences,trouble holding onto an idea, difficulty kind
of digesting on our chicken, relatingpoints within the workplace where normally you consider

(08:03):
yourself to be able to do so, so small little subtle shifts like that
or often an early indicator that youraoments are starting to shift, and that's
the best time to start talking toyour guying about what medical protocols are available
to you, but also what lifestylechanges and nutrition changes can make a big
difference to the way that your bodytransitions. So here's the problem there,

(08:26):
Okay, practitioners actually lack training inperimenopause and menopause. There was a study
done at the Mayo Clinic. Theysurveyed one hundred and eighty three medical students.
Twenty percent received a menopause lecture,and only seven percent said they felt

(08:48):
prepared to treat women. Women willgo to their gonecologist. Maybe maybe a
woman would get it more than amale and not disparaging the genders here,
but I would think that the tendencymight be that they would take in other

(09:11):
factors and perhaps going into early menopausewould be the last factor. It would
be, Oh, she's depressed,there's so many other things. Is it
because she's having problems at home?Is it because this is because of that?
How many do you think treat earlymenopause lest on the list. It's

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a really good it's a really goodstat and it played out in terms of
the broader analysis of training across theworld. So in the US, I
believe just twenty percent of the postgradsgynecologist courses cover menopause as a topic,
so you have eighty percent of theGuyanese operating in the US not having had
it as part of their studies ona post grad level. In the UK,

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general practitioners here we'll see around fourhours training in the whole of the
seven years of their course on menopause. So you're absolutely right. One of
the biggest challenges females have going totalk to a medical practitioner is that medical
practitioner may not join the dots forthem, and it takes on average three

(10:24):
to four visits to the doctor inthe UK before menopause is identified as a
potential underlying issue for the symptoms thatindividual has been talking to their doctor about.
So it's incredibly frustrating. But Iwould say the positive news both films
in the US and the UK isthat that is changing and lots of work

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we do as the communities around preparingindividuals to go in and have those conversations
with their doctor or gynecologists and presentingthat doctor or gynecologist with tracking data,
with information about symptoms that will betterenable them to join the docs. It
doesn't mean that you as an individualhaving to take far more agency for your

(11:09):
health in order to kind of bridgethat knowledge gap, but it does mean
that there are more tools out therefor individuals, and I think as a
result, actually doctors and gynecologists arefinding themselves on the back foot and therefore
going off to educate themselves further.On this slight stage, do you think
male doctors have a little bit ofa problem discussing menopause with women? Well,

(11:33):
I mean, again, it's avery fair point, and I think
you know that's that statistic that wesee in the Western world where seventy five
percent decide we see it as ataboo topic. Then that would mean probably
yes, it is an uncomfortable conversation. I think the larger issue, which
is true for all stages of femalelife and female health, is the assumed

(11:58):
trivialization of certain symptoms that are consideredto be only experienced by females. And
you know, the research will showthat we are less likely to get proper
treatment or care when we present ourselvesin accident emergency wards because we're assumed to
be exaggerating pain or exaggerating symptoms asfemales. So I think the issue around

(12:22):
perhaps being uncomfortable with topics that arerelated to female bology is true, but
there's also perhaps sometimes a dismissal ofsymptoms, particularly around menopause, when many
of them can feel psychological, andhistorically women will talk about sort of presenting
themselves in surgery and being told thatthis is just aging, this is just
something you have to get through.You know, my mother went through menopause

(12:43):
and she didn't need any medication,and so it's almost as if we're making
a fast and this is a naturallife day that we should just be able
to endure, whereas actually, youknow, the dangers are that postmenopause females
are at heightened risk of certain diseasesthat are totally addressed or if we get
the support and the tools around usat an earlier stage. So it's actually

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really critical the doctors and gynecologists dotake this life stage seriously because it has
an impact on our long term health. I mean, in the normal course
of events in a woman's life,yes, they'll go through paramenopause and then
menopause, and we all expect it. We just expected maybe from the age

(13:28):
of forty on, but that's notalways true. I mean there are women
who experience it much earlier. Thereare women who have gone through cancer treatment
that experienced menopause when they don't leastexpect it. So I'm thinking that all

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of this, including freezing your eggs, it's all part of this whole women's
health discovery should be started at perhapsthe age of twenty three, twenty four.
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, aroundone percent of us will experience in
early menopause. And that may be, as you say, to do with

(14:13):
an underlying health condition. It maybe so for some people it's thought it
could be genetics, but you're right. The lack of support if that is
the case for you, is reallytroubling because we won't necessarily sport the symptoms,
and we can feel incredibly alone,and I think what we feel a
lot in our community as well asif it is a result of an underlying

(14:33):
health condition. For example, ifyou've had a hormone sensitive cancer, that
treatment afterwards can often push you intoan early menopause. And the challenge there
is you're so grateful to be alive. You almost have a survivor's guilt when
it comes to then looking to addressvery debilitating symptoms around menopause because you feel
like you almost don't conserve it.It is an issue the gain where you

(14:56):
are. I think, the morealone you can feel and the less comfortable
you may feel complaining about something thatfeels trivial compared to the fact that you
survived a serious illness. Yeah.So let's talk about paramenopause, which again

(15:16):
can come at any age we don'tknow, and kind of a simplified description
of it is a woman's monthly menstrualcycle becomes irregular, starts to become irregular.
I think it could be three yearsto more than a decade. I
went through it for a decade.You can start with hot flashes, night

(15:41):
sweats, depression, and anxiety.I mean, there's so many different symptoms
tell us about your paramenopause journey thatled you, actually, that led you
to the company that your line.Yeah. So for me, which is

(16:03):
not atypical for me, My earlyperimenopause was dominated by the psychological symptoms associated
with menopause, and I think it'simportant to realize that they are often the
early sort of like signals that ourbody is transitioning, and that often happens
before our periods become less regular.For example, So I was, as

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you were saying in the introduction,I was running a brand agency. I've
spent my life as a researcher,working for big global brands and helping them
better understand their consumer databases and youknow, the wants and needs of their
customer. And I absolutely love myjob. And over the period about six
months, I went from being confident, very experienced because I've been doing it

(16:51):
since graduation in my own job,to being absolutely crippled by anxiety. And
it got so bad that I wouldbe waking up at five across in the
morning. I would be rehearsing theconversations I may need to have in the
escalator or the list going up tothe office because I was so nervous that
words would escape me and I wouldn'tbe able to talk prop me. I

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was petrified to presenting. You know, a big part of my job was
presenting to you know, corporate boardsand CEOs. I just couldn't I couldn't
find the words, I couldn't remembermy research findings. It was truly frightening.
It was so frightening that I wasconvinced I may have early on for
Alzheimer's or dementia, and the symptomswere accompanied by what was often called the

(17:37):
cluster symptoms of perimenopause. So becauseI was so anxious, I wasn't sleeping.
Because I wasn't sleeping, I hadmore brain fog, more trouble with
cognition, and that then said myanxiety. So I was in this awful
vicious circle. I was putting onweight around my middle, my hair was
falling out, I had terrible hormonalacne for my skin, and my nice

(18:00):
face was really sore. And obviouslyall of those things, those external manifestations
of ormoneum change impact your confidence becauseyou know, you look different, you
know, and you feel uncomfortable inyour clothes, like about sixty five percent
of the women in our community.I ended up in my doctor surgery,
you know, very worried that therewas something very wrong with me. And
to your point earlier Grace about misdiagnosis, I was told that I was most

(18:25):
likely depressed or burnt out. AndI think I would have accepted that diagnosis.
I would have taken those antidepressant pills. But I had known people who
were depressed, and I kind ofknew in my heart of heart that that
wasn't what I was experiencing. Mymood fluctuated sufficiently for me to feel that
something else was going on. AndI was lucky that I'm a researcher,

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because really what I then did wasresearch what these symptoms could be, what
evidence I was out there, andI came across this word that you know,
this is seven years ago. Ihadn't really heard of before. I
hadn't heard of the phrase perimenopause,and I'd consider myself to be relatively well
read and interested in wellness and health, and yet perimenopause at the time wasn't

(19:07):
afraid being used, and it wasonly really in the medical journals that you
could find out about this before menopausestate and understand that it actually starts occurring
much much earlier than society would haveyou believe. I would argue that most
women are taught that menopause happens whenyou're fifty one or fifty two, and
as we just discussed, that perimenopausephase typically is around the age of forty

(19:30):
three Howards, and you're absolutely rightin terms of your own experience, it
can last around ten years. SoI was absolutely where my body should be
for my age, and yet mydoctor had not joined those dots together.
And what happened over the next sixmonths is I was incredibly lucky that I
was able to take time off workbecause I owned the company, so I

(19:53):
could gift myself that time to getwell. And it was that journey back
to wellness, the research with mygrowing interest and curiosity around what I could
do personally to take agencies for myhealth that led to the founding of empowder
Well. I I truly understand whatyou went through, because and again,

(20:18):
who knew about perimenopause, And youknow, everybody just talks about menopause and
boom, you go through it andit's done. But it's actually the paramenopause
phase that is where you really experienceall of those symptoms or if you're blessed,

(20:38):
hopefully none but and then menopause issimply menopause. You're done. And
that's the way I look at it, So you know, it's it's And
I went through the same thing.I mean, luckily, I continued working,
but I all so used to getin front of or have a board

(21:03):
meeting beyond a board and all ofa sudden, the sweat would pour off
my face and I would be embarrassed, and it is definitely kind of cuts
you at the knees and so andI think, yeah, I mean it's
fascinating as well that it happens ata point in our careers quite often,

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you know, to your experience ofbeing in the boardroom and the kind of
almost the shame that your body isbetraying you and not behaving as it should
do. And it happens at thepinnacle for many of us of a career
that we've fought hard to get to. You know, we've fought hard to
get to that board table, we'vekind of broken our way through glass feelings
to get there, and then weget hit by this menopause wall. And

(21:51):
so many women end up with astrange kind of imposter syndrome, you know,
they begin to doubt that their rightto be there. And I think,
when I think about menopause and boththe opportunity and the challenge we face
as females, we're not going tohave a quality in society. We're not
going to have a quality in theboardroom unless we can better enable women at
every stage of life. And thisis, you know, eight or twelve

(22:14):
years a point in a female's lifewhen they're actually actively giving it as much
as they can to society. Andif we're not careful, we just fade
away, you know. So thestats would suggest that around ten percent of
us will leave work for good duringour menopause years because we don't get able
to perform our roles anymore. Andthe research in our community would suggest that

(22:37):
one in fibers us actually don't takepromotion, don't take that step up because
we no longer feel confident that ourbodies will enable us to do so.
So it's a huge loss of talent, wisdom, experience, and diversity that
we're having as a result of notensuring that women are able to thrive at
all stages of life and all meaningeven during childbirth. You know, women's

(23:03):
brains are very sensitive to hormones andthat's what causes mood shifts, as what
causes changes in our bodies. Imean, we're made up of hormones,
and so when you're during child bearingyears, you go through childbirth, your
hormones change, you come back fromthat, you have another child, you

(23:26):
come back from that, and it'sjust like this continuous cycle of ups and
downs of hormone changes and yes,it does take the confidence out of you.
And then just when you think you'vegot it all together, you're in
perimenopause. And so how do malesin what you do? Now? I'm

(23:53):
sure you've spoken to males about this. How did they react to I mean,
do they understand this? Do theyshould they be part of talking to
the gynecologists with their significant other spouseto truly understand or or are they just

(24:18):
kind of left out in the coldand they think, oh my god,
she's she's on a tear again,and you know, she's moody, she's
this, she's that. How muchof how much male participation do you think
we should have? Well? Ithink it is a societal challenge, and
I think I think the health andwellness of society depends on, I feel,

(24:42):
appreciating the biology of the sexes.So I think men absolutely should be
part of the conversation. And forthe people that I've spoken to who've engaged
in the topic of menopause, quiteoften they're incredibly keen to understand how they
can better for caught those they love. You know, if it's not a
partner, it's a mother, orit's a friend, it's a peer,

(25:03):
at work, and it's very confusingbecause if we as women don't understand what's
going on with our bodies, it'svery hard to articulate to others what's happening.
And what we found is one ofthe most powerful ways to kind of
de mysticy menopause and also sort ofdebunk the fact that this is somehow just
a woman being moody or difficult oryou know, all of the stereotypes that

(25:26):
come with menopause, is to showthem what is biochemicry happening on the inside.
So the minute you show somebody achart of what happens during menopause,
those three biochemical stages and perimenopause particularlywhere if you look at what happens to
our progester on an estein, itis like a rollercoaster, you know,

(25:47):
the peace and trots during that periodof time in terms of the sheer volatility
of those hormones and to your point, grace as well, the fact that
those hormones impact every single cell inour body. Everything is just by that
orchestra of hormones and if two orthree, if you're sex, hormones all
out spink in that orchestra. Itplays a really bad tune, and to

(26:07):
show that two men is a reallyquick way of removing the emotion, removing
the sort of personal feelings you mayhave to that individual who's making life harder
or is making team meetings more difficult. The minute you show them that,
it stops being about that person andit starts being about biochemistry. And that's
actually outside of our control of individuals, and what we have to do is

(26:30):
then learn how you adapt and providethe environment for people to continue to be
well. But I think that's avery good way to introduce men into this
dialogue and may absolutely have to bepart of it, because the more we
understand about each other, the betterwe are able to move forward. You're
listening to Becoming the Journey on WORseven ten iHeartRadio, and I am going

(26:55):
to continue my conversation with my guestRebecca Brown on the topic of menopause.
So Rebecca going a little bit furtherin inclusion of who you include actually in
the discussion. If you have children, I mean, you know you're raising

(27:18):
children, you're going through perimenopause,do you include them also? I mean,
do they need to understand why momis yelling and screaming? Or mom
is in bed and doesn't want toget out, or do they need to
understand that also, I genuinely believethey do. And I think, I

(27:38):
think again, it stops it seemingpersonal. You know, if I think
back to my own childhood and mymother's transitioned through menopause. I remember when
I started as business and she saidto me, I don't think I al
really had menopause, you know,I kind of I kind of just you
know, got on with it andpushed on through. And I thought,

(27:59):
yeah, but mum, I rememberbeing a young adult and this is the
time that you left your job becauseyou were depressed, you know, And
this is the time that seems arereally difficult at home because you were depressed.
And actually probably she wasn't depressed atall. She was probably in promenopause,
and she was probably misdiagnosed and givenantidepressants and they didn't work because that

(28:21):
actually wasn't what her body needed.But during that time, you know,
twenty years ago, thirty years ago, that's inevitably what happened to women like
my mother. So as a child, it was quite frightening to find that
dynamic with the home change. Sodramatically because inegibly, children sort of fill
that void and hold themselves responsible.And I think if they're better able to

(28:44):
understand then and if you and yourcalm moments are better able to explain to
them that this isn't about you.You know, Mum's going through some changes,
her body's changing, and sometimes thatmakes me grumpy. Sometimes it makes
meems really tired, you know.Sometimes it means that I have to sleep
for long though I need time justto be quiet. That's a much healthier
environment for a child to spend timeand also understand about biology and about being

(29:10):
a grown up than just being likethe temperatures changed in the room or feeling
like the mood and your relationship withyour mother has changed, So explain to
us. And your symptoms were reallyquite radical. I don't think everyone experiences

(29:33):
all of those things, but touchon some of the things that women should
look for in perimenopause where they maysuggest that it is perimenopause to their gynecologist
or primary care physician. Yeah.So the National menpor Society in the American

(30:00):
National Menopause Society will point to betweenthirty seven and forty eight symptoms associated with
menopause, and you're actually actually rightways No, not everybody, Not everyone
has the severity that I experienced thatI think eighty percent of us will experience
some symptoms and find difficulties during certainperiods in our menopause. It's really important

(30:26):
not just to those the symptoms,but also to understand that they will probably
change over time. So, asI've described at the beginning, quite often
in perimenopause, at the early yearsof your perimenopause journey, it might be
more psychological. You know, youmay just feel that you're not quite yourself
at the moment. You may befeeling lower more regularly, you may struggle
with brain fog and anxiety as Idid. And then as you were describing,

(30:49):
you may find that your mental cyclechanges, so you may have longer
times between your periods. And youmay also have heavier menstruation or flooding as
it sometimes referred to during proemenopause.And those are quite obvious signals that your
body is changing. In your facilityis declining, your sexual moments are changing

(31:11):
in terms of the levels within yourbody. But then it's everything from the
hot flashes that I think many ofus are familiar with and associate with menopause
mood swings, and mood swings remember, can also include that feeling of just
it's almost like extreme pre mental attention. So if you're someone who's struggled before
your mental cycle, it's likely actuallythat you will find menopause has more of

(31:36):
an impact on your moods than someonewho's had a mental cycle. They they
don't notice that they have PNT aswe call it here in the UK.
You may also have see is iddchanges to your skin, your hair,
your nails. It's now being scientificallyproven that menopause will also impact your metabolic
weight. So if you're starting toexperience weight gain around your middules, that

(32:00):
can also be a sign that yourhormone for fluctuating and your body is holding
on and storing fat in a differentway. And then among so fortiate sent
there are so many some of themore unusual ones of things like burning tongue,
dry eyes, itching skin, restlesslegs. So it's worse for reliizing
yourself with those lifts because although theylook awful and this isn't about fear mungering,

(32:24):
knowledge is power and if you arestart into experience, you know three
or more than that probably is anindication that should have a conversation with your
doctor. And I'm going to askthis question, but I am assuming paramenopause
also causes changes in your sex sexlife. Some people don't even come back

(32:52):
from just they just kind of losethe desire. Did you find that also?
Yeah, I mean, I thinkit's a really good comment. So
I think if we're talking about tabooze, and I described earlier the research that
pointed to seventy five percent of usfeeling uncomfortable about menopause, even more of
us feel uncomfortable talking about sex,particularly if you're British. So you're absolutely

(33:17):
right. Our libido is a verycomplex thing. It's impacted not just by
the decline in our sex formost butalso the psychological impact is not feeling like
you anymore. So if you arestruggling with the external manifestation of menopause in
your skin and your hair change,you may put on weight around your middle,
it's not going to make you feelnecessarily comfortable in your own skin.

(33:38):
And that can have a very bigimpact for women in terms of desire and
therefore libidos, because the two areintrinsically linked. And if you're not feeling
mentally sexual or sex tree, thenit can be really hard. And I
think the important thing you is,I mean, you're right, some people
don't recover from it. It isa slow decline. But I think the

(34:00):
important thing to remember is that itis addressable. And so many of us,
I think, have been almost taughtthat there are certain things that we
just lose in mid life and aswe move into what the Chinese called our
second spring. But it doesn't haveto be that way. There's so many
treatments actually that can actually address thebido and sexuality for men as a age,

(34:21):
so it shouldn't be something we do. Is actually, you know,
sex is really good for us,and it's a muscle and it's something we
have to continue to practice actually toalmost fuel desire. So I think it's
a part of a big discussion,but a reframing of sexuality and the bido
as we age is needed alongside theway that we view aging, because let's

(34:44):
not forget menopause is part of theaging process, and I think perhaps part
of the taboo and the discomfort withmenopause is that we as women feel like
it's a signal as it's getting oldand getting old in the Western world is
not considered to be an attractive thing. In fact, we've spent huge amounts
of money trying to avoid it.And that means that it's all tangled out

(35:05):
with all of these these uncomfortable labels, and that includes, you know,
the right to feel desire as weage, and we absolutely should do.
And women, you know, it'sfunny because and I understand women go through
all of that. I don't knowanyone who hasn't experienced some portion of all
the symptoms that you have said,and some sexual change in their life.

(35:30):
And yes, it's you know,everyone throws it at you. It's it's
because you're you're getting old, andyou know, these things happen and these
things change. But and then andso then we go out and as women
and and we go and we youknow, get a facial, and we
do this and we try the bestwe can and then we're told we're ain.

(35:52):
So so we kind of damned ifwe do and damned if we don't.
But my congestion is whatever women needto do to feel good, go
do it. Let's talk a littlebit about hormonal treatments. Okay, one

(36:12):
would be the antidepressant, which wouldwould be the common thing that obg y
ns prescribe because that's the first thingthat they think it is is depression.
So women have been put on antidepressantsin the past years, and they've also

(36:34):
been put on hormonal treatments, whichwas kind of a formulation of estrogen and
progesterone, and then there was awhole big controversy about that causing breast cancer,
and so they kind of didn't gointo that anymore. There was a
fear and women didn't want to doit. Now apparently there are there.

(36:59):
They are definitely working on different treatments. I understand. Pfizer is working on
a drug called de a V whichcombines estrogen with a drug that can block
the effect of estrogen on certain partsof the body while turning it on for
others. There's also I think somethingcalled bricks analone, which is an injectable

(37:27):
drug. There's really nothing on themarket that says it. This is it.
Talk a little bit about your hormonaltreatment, why you think this works,
how it works, how you're bringingit to the community, and what
are the treatments les, Let's putit simple. What are the treatments?

(37:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean,you're absolutely right. So hormone replacement therapy
or hormone therapy I think as it'sreferred to in the US, was I
guess badly represented in the press asa result in very poor research conclusions.
About twenty years ago now, sothere was a big study undertaken with a

(38:15):
cohort of women who were older,so they were largely postmenopausal. They had
many sort of underlying health factors thatcan make hormone treatment less safe, so
weight issues, maybe high consumption ofalcohols, and the analysis of the data

(38:37):
was flawed, so it concluded thatthere was a much higher risk of breast
cancer specifically as a result of takinghormone treatments. And what happened is that
this research was picked up by themedia and over sort of the course of

(38:58):
those short period of time, womenjust stop taking hormone replacement therapy because they
were frightened. And it's taken avery long time to reposition hormone replacement therapy
and also reflect the fact that whathormone replacement therapy is today is very very
different than the drugs that were testedas part of that research study. So

(39:20):
what you'll find in the UK nowis a formal formone replacement therapy called body
identical hormones, and these are consideredto be much much safer for our bodies.
They are prescribed typically earlier in yourmenopause journey, and they're monitored closely
by adopts to ensure that the levelsremain safe for you. For the vast

(39:45):
majority of women, hormone replacement therapyis now considered by the medical profession to
be safe. If you do havean underlying hormone sensitivity or history of hormone
cancer within your family, server considerationis required. But what's happened in the
UK is there's been a very concertedeffort by the medical community to encourage a

(40:08):
reevaluation by society of hormone replacement therapyso that women are able to access that
treatment. Because you're right, thatreally is the only treatment in market at
the moment for replacing the loss ofprogester and nation that occurs during our menopause
transition. So those that option isin market today in both the US and

(40:31):
the UK. And there's another formof hormone treatment which is called bioidentical hormone
treatment, and that is unregulated inboth the US and the UK, but
it looks to match hormone levels moreaccurately with the consumer. So it's basically

(40:52):
know it's called bioidentical because it's lookingto match you as an individual on what
you are going through in terms ofyour hormone such way the concerns and medical
community is because it's unregulated, there'sno reassurance for the consumer that they get
in the right dotage levels of progestand nutation and that puts them at risk.
So within the UK and the US, it's not currently recommended as a

(41:16):
medical protocol, but private clinics willoffer it to women and a proportion of
women due choose to go down thatroute and you know, some of them
have very positive results. But it'snot something that's actually regulated for use by

(41:37):
GPS in the UK currently. Sothose are the medical protocols that are available.
And as you say, there's quitea lot of innovation happening at the
moment which is really exciting, whichwill open up more opportunity for individuals and
also sort of in terms of futurehealth and longevity for us. And then
there's a whole raft of things wecan be doing in terms of hormone management

(42:00):
ourselves that don't have side effects,and the key focus for us as a
business is around how you can usenutrition and whole food to better support your
bodies as you transition through menopause.So looking to phytoestrogenic food where you've got
plant based estrogen basically for a verysoft and gentle form of estrogen in your

(42:22):
food and in your supplementation can makeit a little difference. Looking at adaptogens,
which again have a lot of researchbehind them now as to their potential
in supporting certain symptoms, whether itcomes to cognitive function or rest and sleep.
And then the other thing we doas a brand is really advocate for

(42:45):
learning how to better digest stress.So what we do know about hormones is
that they respond to external stresses aswell as what's happening in the body.
So if you're living a life ofstress, if you're seeing those pressures at
work because you're living through a pandemicas we all just have, then your

(43:06):
hormones are going to respond to thatand your menopause symptoms are going to be
worse. So looking to how youcan adapt your lifestyle as you transition through
menopause can also have a very positiveimpact on your menopause transition, so you're
more homeopathic, am I correct?So our range is naturopathic, love th

(43:30):
and homeopathic. So it's a rangeof whole food blood powders that have been
formulated by medical doctors and naturopaths andherbalists, and they look to kind of
tap into those qualities of whole food. So whether we're looking at Soyer beams
and cacaw and mauringa, they're patsfull of the minerals and vitamins and botanicals

(43:55):
that our bodies respond well to whenwe're transitioning throe of course, and not
often deficient and as a result ofootal mapluctuation. So doesn't it all come
back to bio identification. So thinkabout it in a world where every woman
should go through just like we goand we get blood work from A to

(44:20):
Z, they should go through hormonaltesting and individualized a pill or some sort
of program, whether it's natural oror medical, where they're getting the proper

(44:42):
level of estrogen or progesterone in theirbody. And the other thing is is
and I'm going to tell you thisfrom experience, I was on hormonal therapy
and right after ten years I startedat forty perimenopause. I think by fifty

(45:04):
I was okay, and I wasdiagnosed with breast cancer, not blaming it
on hormone therapy, but I wastold because of having breast cancer there were
certain things I should not eat.One of them's soy. So you know,
is it just simple enough for awoman to say, ah, let

(45:24):
me try this, or should italways be more specific to their lifestyle,
who they are, what their bodychemistry is. No, it's a really
good question. I think you're absolutelyright. I think the feature of food
and the documentation is personalization. Youknow, we know that the gut biome

(45:47):
has a massive part to play,and that that gut brain access has an
accid impact on our overallwhellness and ourrisk of disease, and similar as we
transition through memice cause the way thatour hormones respond, you know, those
hormonal fluctuations of our sex hormones,but also what else gets pushed out of
wax. So we know that whenprogestion and estan are fluctuating, it impacts

(46:12):
on melotonin, It impacts on perotonin, It impacts on cortisol in turn impacts
on your body's ability to produce summitacid. So just those few impacts can
have a massive effect on your propensityfor future disease and health. So better
understanding what's happening with your own hormonescan be critical. Or the biggest challenge

(46:34):
that we face is the gender healthgap. So we know a lot about
menopause, but we don't know enoughbecause the research hasn't been done by the
medical community historically. When you lookat funded research within the UK, just
two point three percent goes to femalehealth currently and a very very small fraction
of that goes to menopause, sowe don't really know enough about what actually

(46:59):
happens as a result of these sexdecline hormones in our bodies. And siminly,
when it comes to blood tests,it's quite a complex challenge for doctors
because you need to test over aperiod of time because of the hormone fluctuations
we described earlier and that sort ofperimenopause rollercoaster. Taking markers can be quite

(47:22):
challenging and there's some debate around otherprotocols. So for example, there's a
testing protocol called the Dutch test,which actually uses you as a marker of
hormone fluctuations. And behavior of thethyroid, etc. But all of them

(47:42):
have limitations. So I absolutely agreethat there should be a future where we
can look to really understand what's goingon within the female body, but much
much more research is required to actuallyhave the level of sophistication those testing tools
to truly enable the insight. Ithink that we would need to personalized protocols.
How do we as a female collectiveaffect that change? Wow, that

(48:10):
is the million dollar questions, Grace. I think I get so much stated
and you must feel this as well, because you're you know, you're a
serial entrepreneur and are successful, hugelysuccessful in your field. And I get
so cross that the amount of investmentthat goes into female health, female backed

(48:31):
business ventures, female focused solutions isso timy when we are fifty one percent
of the population, because we knowthat if we can kind of affect the
health of the world in this way, it's going to have a huge impact
on the health of society. Andyet the biggest problem is there's not enough

(48:52):
money going into these lead researchers,and that really is where it needs to
begin. And I think what weas women can do is support each other
a lot more explicitly. So Ithink it's really exciting that we're seeing,
you know, even the two yearsI've been in business, the growth of
female focused stunning, for example,the growth of discourse around this disparity we

(49:15):
see in the gender health market specifically. I think change is coming and I
think change will happen actually when womenin positions of power step up to demand
change. What we've seen in theUK, which I think is fascinating,
is one in three of the bignewspapers here in the UK is now edited
by a female and the last twoyears, the story of menopause has constantly

(49:39):
been in the column inches of thosenewspapers, and I think in part that's
because the women in charge are transitioningfrom menopause too, and they're using that
platform to ensure that the conversation isn'tjust there for World Menopause's Day on the
eighteenth of October each year. It'san ongoing conversation because change urgently needs to

(50:00):
happen and they do have the opportunityto do that. And if you know,
you look to the boardrooms in theworld today, obviously we're still hugely
underrepresented. That there are more ofus there now and it's our responsibility really
as women at this stage of life, to be using our platforms to make
sure that the generation that follows doesn'thave the same barriers. We have just

(50:24):
a few minutes left. I'm justgoing to very quickly ask this question,
will we be able to address hormonesand menopause in those that are transgender?
Yeah, it's a really good question. So, I mean, I think

(50:45):
individuals that don't identify with being awoman transitioning through menopause can be an incredibly
lonely experience. As a sector ora life stage, we have to incredibly

(51:05):
careful that we don't accidentally exclude peoplethat don't identify. And if you look
to the world's industry generally, Ithink it's a big problem. You know,
it's a big problem in the sensethat we don't see enough diversity in
the wellness space. We don't seeenough cultural differentiation in the wellness space.
And if you're not careful the kindof menopause category as it grows up,

(51:29):
we'll have the same issues at themoment. If you look at menopause new
Google menopause, it's white, Caucasian, endy, middle class women and there
is no depiction of same sex couples. There's no depiction of transgender, there's
no depiction of people that identify asthey, So we do need to do

(51:52):
more to ensure that they're part ofthis discourse and that treatments are made available
to them and there's recognition that theywill be transitioning to it's it's it's something
where I think we all just needto be very aware of our ignorance and
very and very open to to stayingopen. Yeah, I totally agree.

(52:15):
I mean, it's a different worldand we just have to reach out to
everyone that will experience anything like that, hormonal or otherwise. Rebecca, I
thank you so much for being onthe show. I hope it has been

(52:35):
an education for those that are listening, and I wish you a lot of
luck on your journey with em powder. If you would like, we can
post a resource if you send thatto me, I will put that on
on my Instagram page that someone couldreach you or talk to you or use

(53:00):
the product. And thank you again. I appreciate it. Thank you for
tuning in to Becoming the Journey.Find us on WR seventy ten, iHeartRadio
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(53:22):
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(53:46):
the products offered or the ideas expressed