Women’s Health
Thyroid, Your Weight, and Metabolism
How’s your thyroid? Do you know your level of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH)? It’s estimated that about 60 million Americans, both men and women, struggle with thyroid problems. Most don’t know it. Women struggle with their thyroid more than men. A common sign of a thyroid problem is difficulty losing weight, despite doing all the…
Read MoreMetabolic Health: Why You Must Care and How to Measure It
Are you metabolically healthy? If not, you’re not alone. Only around 12% of Americans have achieved metabolic health.1 What does metabolic health mean and why do we all need to start caring more about it? How do you measure metabolic health? Let’s start by looking at the word metabolism. A lot of people misconceive the…
Read MoreI Weigh: Women, Hormones, Diet Culture, and Body Positivity
When I read an intake form for a new patient and she requests help with weight loss, I pause and I take a deep breath. The territory is full of landmines. On one end of the spectrum, we have diet culture, touting crash diets or unrealistic body-size standards or the latest miracle weight-loss supplement. On…
Read MoreKetogenic Diet: Who Benefits and Who Is at Risk?
The ketogenic diet (“keto”) is often touted as an easy way to lose weight fast, providing impressive weight-loss results for men and women alike. But is it true? How do you separate fact from fiction when it comes to keto when there are so many so-called experts stating keto is safe for everyone? Part of…
Read MoreWomen, Food, and Hormones: Why Keto Doesn’t Work for All Women
Keto diets can be disheartening for women, especially when they witness their male co-workers or partners shedding pounds with relative ease. I first tried to lose weight with a ketogenic diet several years ago. It simply didn’t work for me, unlike my husband who managed to quickly lose several pounds. Neither did keto work for…
Read MoreCovid-19: Comorbidities, Long-Haul Symptoms, and Immune Resilience
Vaccines are getting distributed at increasing rates. Researchers are testing 68 vaccines in human clinical trials, 20 are the final stage of testing, and two are approved for full use according to the New York Times vaccine tracker. However, depending on your risk category and the state in which you live, it could be months…
Read MorePCOS: Natural Solutions for a Common Hormone Imbalance
What is polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)? It is a complex endocrine disorder that affects 20 to 30 percent of women. In medicine, we use the term syndrome to describe a collection of signs and symptoms that don’t necessarily have a single identifiable cause or pathological process. PCOS causes the sex hormones in women to become…
Read MoreHormone Therapy for Women: What Are the Known Risks?
Discussion about hormone therapy for perimenopause and menopause is complex. Questions about safety, timing, and duration typically require a nuanced conversation about a person’s history, diet, lifestyle, risk factors, genetics, blood tests, and cognitive function. This article illustrates why the discussions are complicated and how I approach them. I practice Precision Medicine, which means that…
Read MoreWhy Cardiovascular Disease Kills More Women Than Breast Cancer
Most women I know, friends and patients, fear breast cancer. It makes sense because one in eight of us will develop breast cancer over our lifetime, which translates to a lifetime risk of 12.5 percent, and higher for those of us with a high-risk gene mutation. However, our fear of breast cancer may come at…
Read MoreHormone Testing: What to Check and Why
Questions about hormone testing are common among my patients and on social media. Women want to know which hormones they need to check and why. They also want to know what hormones and other biomarkers can be tested at home. In this video and accompanying article, I cover the biomarkers that I check for myself…
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