women who depart the workforce or stop leading because the symptoms and all the collection of life at that point becomes so intense that they elect to step out when in fact right now is when we need them the most as humanity because they're so good at leading so can we go back to some fundamentals here that you and I both know very well but I guess the curse of knowledge for us is that we know it and some others might not so maybe we can offer some insight to those folks today

so I don't want to be too crude, but a woman's entire biological purpose is to procreate and to have more children.

And it has a use by date.

The ovaries have maybe 45, maybe a couple of people naturally are fertile till 50.

But as your ovaries start to decline and start planning their retirement, your brain is telling your ovaries come on girl give me one more baby give me one more and so your brain is spitting out hormones you know telling your ovaries give me another baby and sometimes your ovaries go nah get stuffed I'm not doing anything and produce absolutely no estrogen and some days it goes yeah yeah yeah I've got this and give you enough estrogen for Australia and I call it the hormonal trampoline you're up and down like a yo-yo during perimenopause instead of your nice, regular cyclical hormones, that cycle is not always that great for every woman.

But for most of us, we're kind of used to rallying that sort of predictable wave of hormones.

The trampoline is not fun, and it's particularly not fun for your brain when your estrogen is up and down like a yo-yo.

And

Dr. Ginny believes the seeds of suspicion of the health industry were sown during the pandemic.

There is a skepticism about the medical profession as a whole, that we have the best interests of our patients at heart, that we don't have another agenda running why we want people to have these various tests or get these various diagnoses and get various treatments, and I think that's really sad.

I think there's a lot of conspiracy theories and there's a lot of impugning.

That sort of sounds terrible, but assuming that doctors are in it for their own nefarious purposes as opposed to most people who go into medicine, whether you're a nurse or a doctor or a teacher or whatever, you really do wanna help people.

That's why you go into that profession.

[gentle music] As for rebuilding trust, Dr. Ginny believes both the patient and the profession will need to meet halfway.

I think there's a lot the profession can do.

I mean, I think we've had such a huge change.

So Dr Ginni, if a child does happen to swallow one, how quickly can it cause this serious injury, this burn and what should parents do immediately?

So I think we've got to call triple zero.

As Kylie was saying, the burn can start within 15 minutes.

Within two hours, it can be really, really serious.

If you're just sitting there going, I'm not sure whether she swallowed it or not, I think err on the side of caution and get help as soon as possible.

Don't try and manage this yourself.

Don't try and make your child vomit.

Dr Ginny, with more household products using these coin batteries, there's lots of safety before it even gets to that stage isn't there?

Can you

simplify this for us? Yeah, it is really interesting because the number one killer of women in Australia is actually dementia.

But then if you put the number two and three killers, which is heart attack and stroke, together, they then eclipse dementia.

And either way, you can almost say that dementia is a chronic disease of the brain, which is kind of a very similar process to what's happening to heart disease.

for heart disease or even the process that leads to stroke.

And we know what's good for the heart is good for the brain.

And so we're going to wrap up all of these unsexy things together.

I mean, look, the sun, we are the

Okay, here's Kath and Dr Ginny in our first session.

Hey, welcome to Very Peri.

I'm Dr. Ginny Mansberg.

I'm a GP, mainly of midlife women.

I'm also an author, and I mainly see women about perimenopause symptoms.

And heaps of women think that they know exactly what peri is, like it's a bit of hot flushes and maybe a few mood things, right? That is just maybe 5% of the story.

Did you know that there are so many other symptoms? And before I tell you what they are, let me introduce my really good mate, Cass Mahoney.

tinnitus

[laughs]

Is it the fact that you need to be lifting like 1,800 kilos in the gym, otherwise there's no point in even trying to get fit? Would it be that most of us are completely sleep-deprived and you should be panicking right now? There's a lot of panic about health, and I think people feel like a roux in the spotlight, and they just freeze and just go, "Well, what's the point? None of it's working." So I, I think that, um, from where I sit, doctors can make health be a little bit, um, let's just say a little bit unachievable.

And so I just wanted to break it down and go, "Hey, actually, you've got this." Like it is you who has to do it.

I can want all the health changes in the world for you, but unless you're the one who's eating the kale and, you know, [laughs] doing the occasional walk, I can't really help you that much.

But other than that, let's, let me give you the information that every little bit counts.

Like every little bit counts.

Yes

...

Tell us what it's all about because there's so much information out there that I don't know what to believe and what not to believe.

I know, and if you're on social media or TikTok and you listen to some podcast bros and a couple of tech billionaires, you're going to think that you need to be full-time on the supplements, with the infusions, health hacking every bit of health tech.

And the reality is there's basically no evidence for really any of the health hacking stuff for longevity.

In fact, the evidence gets weaker every time a study is done.

Wow.

But what actually really moves the needle is your boring stuff, like your stuff like your sleep and eating well and exercise, all that difficult stuff.

I thought what was really interesting was did you guys follow in Vegas the enhanced games? Yes.

So what's your tip for getting the most out of going and seeing your doctor? Because sometimes I think, should there be some all-round test I should ask for?

Yeah

... that if we can.

But it also prevented heart disease, to the point where the American Heart Association endorsed HRT as a preventer of heart disease for women.

And so there was a massive study that was undertaken called the Women's Health Initiative study designed to look at exactly that.

Did HRT, taken regardless of menopause symptoms, reduce heart disease? And so they recruited 160,000 women for what we call a prospective trial, and it was randomized and placebo-controlled.

Now, doctors just go gaga over these trials.

'Cause we weren't looking backwards and going, "Hey, did you have HRT or not?" Because sometimes that data's unreliable.

Mm