Talk to us about how common this is and what are the signs and symptoms and what advice you would give to women who may be living with this today?

Okay, so unfortunately PCOS is underdiagnosed.

I see people walking and you see it straight away, unfortunately.

But one of the reasons I spoke about this so much is that it is so underdiagnosed and people are suffering for years before they're caught, which is awful.

And as Louise said, it's always in history.

So when I see these patients walk in the door, no straight way.

But I always say, take me back to the first period.

You know, are we being honest with women about their fertility window? Do you feel or do we need to widen this discussion?

When does it typically kick in?

How are you doing? Good, Mary.

Good, good.

So usually age 45 to 50 is when perimenopause happens.

And what that really means is that your period starts usually 11 to 12.

You have them every 28 days.

And then at 45...

How do I find out if menopausal hormone therapy, the MHT or hormone replacement therapy, HRT, are a safe and appropriate option for me?

You want to try and start empowering women from the very beginning, from when they are young girls.

girls.Totally, and I think Clare has already met its mark because this book was launched, I think, in April of, of this year.

And the wonderful thing is that it starts with the beginning, which is the period puberty.

And for so many generations, women didn't know what a normal period was.

Society didn't know what a normal period was.

They didn't know it was three to four days, that it should only be mild pain.

It shouldn't be severe cramps, which is telling you there's too much hormones called prostaglandins which are being released, which cause severe inflammation, and we know inflammation causes disease.

Thank you, Mary.

Mary, how can a woman differentiate between a standard heavy period and an underlying endocrine disorder like polycystic ovary syndrome or thyroid dysfunction?

So basically, the normal periods for women is three to four days.

And one of the reasons I brought out the book, It's Probably Your Period, was I was never told, it was never brought down through the generations whose women, periods weren't spoken about.

So as a result, a lot of women had five, six, seven, eight-day periods, suffered dreadfully, and they didn't know what's normal.

So normal is three to four days, a, a mild cramp and j- just, you know, a m- it could be heavy on the first day, but certainly two-- day two, three, and four, very light.

Uh, if it goes on to five days, fine, but definitely you shouldn't have any severe pain.

You shouldn't be collapsing.

While cervical screening tests for HPV and abnormal cell changes, how do broader immune and endocrine health indicators influence a woman's capacity to naturally clear an HPV infection?

So tell us a little bit about your story to hear.

Thank you.

So Yeah, I'm an endocrinologist with Hormone Health.

So I trained in Trinity College.

I'm from Tipperary.

I went to Trinity College because our local doctor went to Trinity.

So that's the reason why.

So I

Mary, what was your assessment of last night?

Well, very much like the girls.

Actually, I saw Georgia's post on Instagram this morning, very, very positive and lovely, lovely post that she did with Oprah.

No, it was magnificent.

Exactly what you said, you know, she's inspirational.

That's what I want to be there.

My son actually gave it to me as a present, which I was really...

Talk to us about that quote.

Because I think that self-worth and self-esteem are so, so important.

As we mature into our real selves, we come to love ourselves.

And as we begin, we love who we are, who we've become.

We're OK with ourselves as we are.

We're not trying to impress anyone.

We're not trying to validate ourselves.

How do we reduce stress?

Why did you initially choose to specialize in endocrinology? Because it's sometimes seen as a little bit of a Cinderella subject, isn't it?

Okay, so I was going down the cardiology route 'cause of a huge instance of heart disease, particularly women and heart disease, and then this fantastic professor called Gerald Tomkin, who's unfortunately deceased now, he came on and he was a p- fantastic guy, big holistic view, very intelligent man, and he said, "I'd love you to work with me for six months, see if you like it.

You can still do your lipids and your heart disease," but he said, "I think you'd be brilliant at this." So he really introduced me to the whole idea that hormones control everything.

I really hadn't picked up that in medical school, so he taught me about the hormone control center, the pituitary gland, that basically controls all our muscles, all our emotions, all our organs, and that everything was linked in a lovely positive and negative feedback system.

But he also believed in that whole holistic approach that, you know, you, you could do a lot to help your whole hormonal system through diet, through exercise, through relaxation, through deep breathing, meditation, because he felt that this area wasn't really looked at at all.

Like for example, h- how can you slow down your parasympathetic system, slow down your cortisol, slow down your sympathetic system, which is your real adrenaline system.

So he was huge into that as well, and he was just very, very, I suppose, a, a huge foresight into endocrinology.

Is there a hormonal connection there? What is going on? 'Cause all, all, all we hear about is cholesterol, isn't it really?

What exactly is postpartum depression? How does it differ from postnatal depression, for example, Mary?

Okay, so postpartum depression is a type of depression that happens after having a baby.

So it's actually quite common.

It affects one in seven women.

And you can have very sort of feeling very tired, very low, crying a lot, feeling worthless.

Some patients feel they wouldn't be able to care for their baby.

And the one good thing is that if people get support, they can do very well.

What's the difference there? What exactly is a psychosis, Mary?

What happens to the body, Mary Ryan, when we get the sugar hit that comes from maybe the ice cream during the summer period, the barbecue two and three times a week?

We don't function as well just as if you put bad diesel into a car.

I mean, we are what we eat.

We've heard that all the time.

And that's so true because hormones control everything.

But for the hormone control centre to operate properly, it needs good, healthy food.

And it's fine to eat sugar in moderation.

Yeah, it's also the other thing coming up here in the text line today, Mary, from listeners, you know, people wondering about kind of alcohol consumption and the levels of that over the summer period as well.

Thanks very much.

As I said, the, just there in, in the introduction, um, with ASIP here in Ireland, um, for the last number of years, it's been one-to-one farmer engagement, and that's still the, the main function for ASIP.

Um, but just in, towards the end of 2025, the EPA also designated catchments of concern for some of the bigger rivers.

Um, and, uh, we're currently transitioning towards a more collective ac- action and catchment approach.

Um, there's also some individual farmers are wondering how would they go about collaborati- collaborating among themselves if they wanted to look at kind of having better control or management over a particular stretch of water.

In New Zealand, they've been doing this for a long time.

They have small individual catchment groups.

And then you go into the Māori, who have a kind of a co-governance role with the, uh, government and regional councils.

How did you cope?

It was very difficult, and I say to all my patients, when somebody dies, it takes you two years.

You go into a bit of a hole for two years.

And I'll always remember my father, who meant it in a lovely way, he said, "Mary, you..." After three months, well, after Eamonn had passed, he said, "Mary, you're going to have to pull out of this." He said, "You know, you've only one life." And he did it out of the goodness of a father.

But in actual fact, he, you know, you can't understand what it's like unless you're in it yourself.

You just go into this dark hole.

You wonder, you know, if it wasn't for the children, you'd say... 'Cause I was, uh, very young at- at that time, and you sort of thinking, "Oh my God, there's all my dreams shattered." 'Cause we'd only moved into the house that we- our dream home, and did it up, a lovely period house.

Yeah.

I will, of course.

PMDD is basically where patients are very sensitive to oestrogen and progesterone, particularly mid-cycle, but also basically they're very sensitive to the rise in oestrogen that occurs mid-cycle at ovulation.

and the rise in progesterone that occurs particularly the week before the period and they get very emotional, they get very exhausted, they get very tired and basically the pituitary gland is just not able for those rises and we find that in recent studies we find that natural progesterone, the bioidentical progesterone really does help patients at this time.

There's a lot of studies out now showing that.

So I think up to this, women weren't researched at all.

And now we are finally listening to the stories of women and finally the research has been done.

But certainly the bioidentical estrogen or a progesterone that's available now that we use for HRT, we're using this in women with PEMDD and what it does is basically the byproduct of the natural bioidentical progesterone helps inhibit the GABA and does this relaxing calming effect on the brain and really does help.

Could be due to my hormones or could this be due to my hormones and what can I do to improve it if it is?

How can we teach teenagers to understand their cycle in an effort to try and kind of transform their health into the future?

So first of all, they need to understand what a normal period is.

So it is three to four days.

You shouldn't be bent over.

You shouldn't be vomiting.

If you've got an excessively heavy period, severely painful, where you're just bent over, that's not normal.

You shouldn't abuse a few cramps.

Why did you decide you're supposed to bring out the book?

I think

men and women have it.

I think we always associate with men, but I think now we're realising, I don't think people know actually, even though we have lower testosterone concentrations than men, it's actually the most abundant biologically active hormone in a woman's body.

Can you believe that? So that's never been told, but it's true.

But it's really important for men and women.

It helps bone health, so it stimulates bone growth.

It maintains your bone density.

56 year old woman female listener Mary on HRT says that her doctor said her levels are too high must be testosterone levels too high to prescribe it my libido and energy are gone any advice?

Mm

... as they get older and prevent, uh, hospitalization.

So there was a whole learning curve.

And even the heart disease, we know that estrogen reduces bad cholesterol and improves the good cholesterol.

So there was all of this that we weren't doing and wasn't being done, so I really felt that it was important as a woman to talk.

And we, we live i- in a very institutionalized medicine, so what I did was I went out and I spoke to the public.

And educated the public.

Mm

How are you doing?

Your thyroid is a critical gland sitting just in the base of your neck.

And basically it controls metabolism in both men and women.

So it's a really important hormone.

So, for example, it regulates your basal metabolic rate.

If it goes overactive, so if you have hyperactive thyroid, what you call Graves' disease, the most common cause where antibodies attack the thyroid gland, you will be sweating, you will lose loads of weight, you will be irritable, your heart rate will be irregular.

It's one of the commonest causes of a condition called atrial fibrillation, actually, and you'll be profoundly fatigued.

manageable, you know, is it, suppose if you have difficulties, whether it be under or overactive thyroid, is it the kind of thing that's manageable, Mary?

Yeah.

And the resolutions are to eat healthily.

Exactly.

Resetting, eating healthily.

That means three good meals a day.

That means getting a good amount of protein, which a lot of women don't do, by the way.

Eat good protein with your meals.

And I'm wondering, like, how much of this is genetic, Mary? Or how much, you know, of our hormones can we control by diet and sleep? Like, is that a big factor?

Do we understand our hormones, first of all, Mary?

I don't think people understand how much they do, that hormones control everything.

They control every single muscle in your body.

They control your emotions, your mood, whether you laugh, whether you cry, whether you sleep.

And I think people don't realize that hormones like dopamine, serotonin, endorphins, oxytocin, which is the one when you cuddle somebody, you release oxytocin, they improve your mood.

So they give you pleasure, reward, well-being.

And there's so much you can do through lifestyle and connection.

Should we be getting our bloods checked to see where our hormones are at? Or is it only something you get examined if you feel there's an issue?