The TRUTH About HRT for Active Women with Dr Nicky Keay

Well, every woman will go through what I describe as the female hormone odyssey, right? It's a little bit of a journey.

So I know you said we want to focus on that age group, but actually to understand that, we do have to go back a little bit and start at the beginning.

And women are unique.

Obviously, it goes without saying, but particularly with their hormones, lots of the systems we share in common with men.

And men also have a reproductive axis, but it works very, very differently to ours.

So ours, we should rejoice because we have the most complicated, beautiful hormone choreography, in other words, the menstrual cycle.

And, you know, as a teenager, this is when the things start getting going and the periods start.

Often a problematic time, by the way, teenagers, periods starting, mood changes, heavy periods, painful periods, etc., And then hopefully they settle down into more of a regular pattern during those menstruating years.

And then at the end of this toward, you know, progressing through this female hormone odyssey, then the next big sort of sea shift as it were in hormones is the perimenopause menopause.

And so the ovaries are now retiring.

So they're reducing their production of the main, two main ovarian hormones, estradiol, most active form of estrogen and progesterone.

And so actually, the perimenopause, I liken it to reverse pattern of what happened in the teenage years.

In the teenage years, the hormones were getting going, a little bit stumbling.

They needed some dress rehearsals to get going.

And equally, when they retire, they don't retire willingly, if I could say it like that.

They keep wanting to come back for another performance and things like this.

So lots of the things that perimenopausal women do.

our experience are very similar to what the teenager did mood changes changes in menstrual cycle heavy periods painful periods um worsening pmfs all this sort of thing um and then ultimately the hormone the ovaries do fully retire and the hormones are now at least stable i should say but stable low which also now has health implications considerations because these hormones you know not only do they affect our mood and how we feel because they act on the brain our cognitive function but also all the physical things estradiol is the queen hormone for bone health full stop that's it men have to change convert some of their testosterone to estrogen for their bone health also these hormones very important for cardiovascular health i mean so many things and they're very important especially the estrogen it's what we call an anabolic hormone builds up muscle and bone So now you can see, okay, so perimenopause, the hormones are a little bit all over the shop and then they're declining.

So already we can anticipate what those challenges might be.

And it's all about, in my opinion, anticipation and understanding and accepting.

This is the female hormone odyssey.

Every single woman will experience menopause at some point in her life.

So the vast majority, the average age, for example, of menopause is 51.

So you can start getting perimenopause or symptoms at You know, even late 30s or 40s, something like this.

And so, you know, there's a lot of negative talk about this.