Dr. Louise Newson

And so, so many women have been misunderstood for decades because they have been misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression and it's all in your head and it can't be.

It can't be your hormones because you're still having your periods.

So it's so interesting because I feel very strongly that women are really intuitive and actually give them the information they can work it out themselves.

But often they haven't had the information.

So what you're doing is completely just validating them, that you're allowing them to be heard and understood, which perhaps they haven't been before.

Well, this is what's interesting actually, because it's officially when people have been a year since their last period, but it's just bullshit, excuse my language, because why should we be defined by a period?

And a lot of women, if they've had, for example, a hysterectomy, they're never going to have periods, so you can't work it out.

So it's really related to our hormone levels being low and they stay low forever.

So actually, a woman is menopausal forever.

And a lot of people think it's just a transition and then you come out the other side.

And as you know, one of the things I'm very interested in is the protective roles of our hormones in our body.

So even if people don't have symptoms, they have health risks of not having those hormones because they're very anti-inflammatory in their body.

And often when our hormone levels stabilise...

whether they're stable low or stable high in pregnancy or stable sort of middle of the road, people often don't get symptoms because the body sort of acclimatizes really.

It's a bit like if you're hungry, initially your brain is like on overdrive telling you how hungry you are and after a while it just accommodates and it just sort of adapts.

And it's the same as menopause actually.

The body can adapt, but it will often be in a different level and a different gear and obviously there's more inflammation.

But in perimenopause, hormone levels, especially estradiol, but also testosterone and progesterone really do fluctuate.

And it's a bit similar to women before they have their periods.

They can get real changes in their hormone levels just before their periods.