Most women enter menopause expecting hot flashes and sleep disruption. What nobody tells you is that menopause is also a window of increased vulnerability to some of the most significant disease states of your lifetime — cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, autoimmune conditions, cognitive decline, osteoporosis, and cancer.

Menopause doesn't cause all of these. But it creates the biological conditions that accelerate them in women who already have underlying vulnerabilities, most of which have been building for decades, completely undetected. Here's what I've come to believe after years in this space, and from navigating menopause myself: the women who fare best aren't just asking what I'm feeling, they're asking why.

That question is the entire foundation of today's guest's practice. Dr. Derek Guillory is a board-certified emergency medicine physician, one of the first certified functional medicine practitioners in Texas, and founder of Root Causes Medicine in San Antonio, a practice built around the one question most conventional doctors never answer: Why am I sick?

We cover:

Why menopause accelerates disease in women with underlying vulnerabilities

What inflammation has to do with your hormonal transition How to shift from symptom management to true prevention

What functional medicine looks for that conventional medicine misses

How to advocate for yourself in a healthcare system not built for midlife women

If you've ever felt dismissed, confused, or like something deeper is going on — this episode is for you.

Learn more about Dr. Guillory: Website: https://rootcauses.com

IG: ‪@RootCauses-medicine‬‍ ‍

FB: ‪@rootcausesmedicine‬‍ ‍

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If you’re a Chicago-area midlife woman, check out the Chicago Menopause Collective, a nonprofit dedicated to navigating menopause locally with experts: https://chicagomenopausecollective.org