The Best of Health

Back in Season 3 of The Best of Health podcast, I had the first opportunity to feature Dr Mandy Leonhardt in an episode and our friendship and professional relationship has flourished since. 

I was honoured to have Mandy join me on the expert panel at my womens health masterclass last year and I couldn’t help but ask her back on the pod to develop further into understanding POI - Premature Ovarian Insufficiency.

POI is such a hugely complex health condition and women are significantly underserved and dismissed by our existing health system. Mandy’s expertise in POI shines through in this episode and One little golden nugget Mandy leaves with us is if a young woman has a gap of 4 months or more between periods, this need expert health support and investigation. She passionately explains POI, the importance of testing and diagnosis and also the challenges of women with POI getting the right treatment, throughout their life stages. 

We also steer our conversation towards about PCOS and surgical menopause and discuss the reality of PMDD affecting 5% of women and what is happening with chemicals in the brain in women with this mental health condition. 

Plus Mandy gives us a little exclusive to her new book coming out in summer 2024, focusing on hormones, skin and hair.

Ann Marie McQueen is a journalist with over 30 years experience, including reporting on  complementary and mainstream health care including covering the early days of marijuana law reform, holistic and alternative treatments, transgender issues and abortion rights in North America. 

Ann Marie shares how her own experience of perimenopause led her to delve into researching clinical studies, treatments, products, guidance in the perimenopause - menopause transition space and the dire lack of relevant content led her to launch Hotflash Inc in June 2020.

In this episode we discuss women’s denial of the approach of perimenopause / menopause and the growing conversation in society around women’s health and the more natural approach to the journey of perimenopause to menopause. Ann Marie also shares her own take on GP support, HRT and GP dosing and most importantly - how to present the facts to women who are in such need of making informed decisions about their health. 

As always, grab a cuppa, or pop on your walking shoes and join me on your podcast platform of choice and drop a comment to share any snippets that particularly resonated with you.

This week on the pod, I’m joined by a dear friend and colleague Dawn Waldron. Dawn is a qualified nutritional therapist and a nutrigenomic expert. Dawn is unique - one of the first K nutritional therapists who specialised in cancer, with over 26 years of knowledge and experience.

In this episode we of course delve into what drove Dawn into the specialism of nutrition and cancer - firstly her own experience of breast cancer and later, how a diagnosis of precancer on her tongue lead her interest into nutrigenomics.

We discuss how cancer impacts women and methylation and how Dawn supports clients through treatment and building longevity post-cancer. We discuss some of the nutrients that we know are absolutely critical for anyone with a cancer diagnosis and how identifying any genetic SNPs can help us map out and identify commonality in different cancer presentations. Dawn also shares with us her amazing concept of the “Power Journey” - to rebuild back to health after a cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy treatment and the aftermath.

I could honestly talk to Dawn all day long - this is a brilliant episode for practitioners and also anyone with an interest in nutrition, nutrigenomics and cancer.  As always, take a listen on your podcast platform of choice and drop a comment to share any snippets that particularly resonated with you.

This week, I’m joined by Robyn Puglia and I’m sure for the majority of you Robyn needs little introduction - Robyn is a Clinical Nutritionist and IFM Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner with a specialism in autoimmunity.

We of course delve into autoimmunity and why in particular it impacts millions of women, why it appears to be on the rise, affecting 20% of the population and the underlying factors - our triad of: genetic predisposition, immune system dysregulation and environmental triggers.

It’s no surprise that Robyn is a published author - listening to her mix of passion, and incredible knowledge is absolutely captivating. Robyn generously talks us through her fabulous concept of immunological lasagne and shares her thoughts on gender bias in autoimmunity medical research and continued misogyny in women’s health care.

Robyn also fabulously naturally weaves in references to one of my all time favourite films - Love Actually and calls out the pioneers or “Taylor Swift’s” in women who are standing up, shouting out and leading the charge for better proactive healthcare for women. AND calls out the podcast as a love letter to those who are striving for answers or those championing for a better way to help women with their health 💌 

Robyn is running a practitioner mentoring programme, commencing  in January 2024 - head over to her website to find out all  the details. 

This is a really powerful episode - if you’re a practitioner and in need of an inspiring pick me up, you need to listen to this. As always, take a listen and drop me a comment to let me know if you enjoyed the episode as much as I did recording it.

Dr Ghazala Aziz-Scott studied Medicine at Cambridge University and graduated with a Masters in Neuroscience, Medical Ethics and Law. She has been an experienced senior GP in a large NHS partnership in West London for over two decades but is now dedicating her career to Functional Medicine and the use of bioidentical hormones to provide an expertise in integrative women’s health.

Ghazala led her career into integrative women’s health and bioidentical hormones and gives us a unique insight to a GP prescribing HRT to women. 

We are also joined by leading Pharmacist Rizvan Batha who beautifully explains so many concepts like the difference between bioidentical, body identical and compounded hormones and introduces the wonderful concept of hormone restoration.

This really is another must listen episode for any women trying to fully understand the options of HRT. 

Each season of The Best of Health podcast, I have a wish list of professionals that I hold in high regard and would absolutely love to speak to. So when Prof Jerilynn C Prior agreed to join me on the pod for an episode I was beyond thrilled and in all honesty, a little nervous too!

Jerilynn C. Prior has over forty years life experience as an Endocrinology Professor.  In 2002 she founded The Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research, studying the physical and psychological causes and effects of ovulation disturbances on women’s overall health. The centre also publishes scientific results and disseminates information directly to women.

This episode is a must listen to - for any women’s health clinical practitioner and for anyone with a keen interest in women’s health and ovulation through the life cycle. The episode has had a profound impact on me - Jerilynn was so generous with her time as she has been throughout her professional career - bravely standing up and a beacon for  women’s health. 

I am fully committed to supporting the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research - it’s a not-for-profit and the foundations that Jerilynn has established need to continue beyond her retirement. If you can support the centre through any charitable donations, please do: https://www.cemcor.ubc.ca/

Available to listen from most podcast platforms - take a listen and drop me a comment if you have found this episode as fascinating as I did.

First up in this season I welcome back my fabulous colleague Dr Nicky Keay to talk about the demystifying education around the menstrual cycle, specifically in the age group of teens and young women.

We both share such a passion about improving education with this age group about the menstrual cycle. We touch upon everything from the changing age of menarche, the health benefits of the menstrual cycle, peak bone mass, the impact of the oral contraception pill and how nutrition impacts our hormones.

Nicky has a captivating way of talking about women’s hormones - grab a cuppa and tune in via wherever you listen to your podcasts [search The Best of Health] and I also highly recommend Nicky’s book “Hormones, Health and Human Potential” if you want to delve deeper into the topic.

My last podcast episode of season 3 is the incredible Lara Briden - it was like Christmas come early spending an hour speaking with her and I’m so grateful for her time.

If you’ve not discovered Lara before, this is an incredible introduction to her natural ease of explaining perimenopause, menopause, HRT, metabolic flexibility, insulin resistance and so much more. But overall she gives the gift of hope - for all women going through perimenopause, there is so much you can do to overcome symptoms and to excel as you enter menopause and the next stage of life.

One of the many inspiring speakers at the Integrative and Personalised Medicine conference this year was Patrick Holden, Founding Director and Chief Executive of the Sustainable Food Trust. Patrick’s session really resonated with me as he shared his passion about the application of Nature’s principles of Harmony to food and farming.

I am thrilled that Patrick agreed to join me in a podcast this season to discuss why our food system is in desperate need of reform.

With nearly 50 years of farming experience, Holden Farm Dairy is now the longest established organic dairy farm in West Wales. As well as being hands-on at the farm, his role at the Sustainable Food Trust works towards accelerating the transition towards more sustainable food systems and influencing government policy - he only recently returned from COP27.

I’m so grateful to Patrick for his time to talk about how sustainable food systems directly impact our health - there's plenty that we can all learn and do to support sustainability.

This week’s podcast has been a long time in the planning so I am absolutely delighted to finally share with you my podcast episode with Dr Toral Shah.

We discuss how interactions between genes & environment impact both the risk of developing cancer and the intersection with social determinants of health. Toral talks about her own family’s personal cancer experience frankly, to help educate people about epigenetics and cancer. She also shares how stress is a major risk factor and we touch upon how personalising nutrition and lifestyle advice can be a huge support to your body to reduce the risk of cancer but also through perimenopause.