The Best of Health Tanya Borowski

The finale of Season 4 with special guest Dr Fiona McCulloch ND features an in depth conversation around PCOS and diagnosis - this is a must-listen for all nutritionists and functional medicine practitioners!

As a woman with PCOS Fiona is passionate about health education and advocacy for women with PCOS, and serves on the medical advisory committee of the PCOS Awareness Association and as an expert on IVF.ca. She is also a medical advisor to Open Source Health and frequently lectures to professionals at the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine.

Fiona gives us a unique insight to the PCOS updated diagnostic criteria and practice guidelines as well as her own experience of supporting diagnosis with adolescents and adults.

This week my guest is the impressive Henrietta Norton: nutritional therapist, author of the best selling book: Take Control of Your Endometriosis, founder of visionary food supplement brand - Wild Nutrition, and I’m very lucky to not only count Hen as a colleague but also a friend. 

I couldn’t invite Hen back on the podcast without asking her to share more about her Food-Grown® supplements - which have revolutionised the supplement industry for the better…. We discuss the groundbreaking Perimenopause Report that Hen wrote to change the way our daughters experience perimenopause and this theme continues  throughout the episode discussing perimenopause symptoms and support, the challenges of managing perimenopause as a woman, the importance of education, the art of listening to our bodies, the value of rest in regulating our nervous system.

There are so many wonderful golden nuggets within this podcast episode and Hen is a dream to talk with and so inspiring to listen to.

Have you heard of spermadine?

If not (and even if you have 😉) this week’s podcast episode should be a real educational delight for you. I had the absolute pleasure of speaking with @lesliesnewprime an Oxford-based entrepreneur born in California and a graduate of Berkeley and Harvard Business School. Leslie is founder of Oxford Healthspan, a Longevity Expert with plenty of life experience and evidence-based science as her basis.

Leslie shares her personal story of a diagnosis of an array of autoimmune conditions in the 30’s (lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and hypothyroidism) drove to the reject the dire prognosis and instead immersed herself in studying with the Institute for Integrative Nutrition on a quest for a more holistic solution. 

Leslie shares how her specialist interest in spermadine and it’s use in her own journey to wellbeing, developing her brand of spermadine / Primeadine® as well as diving into how our body makes it, and get it from our diet and how it increases longevity and results she’s seen when embraced by women from perimenopause into menopause.

Another incredible podcast episode ready for your listening pleasure this week - Lara Briden was so generous to gift me an hour of her time to talk about metabolism with women in perimenopause and through menopause.

We discuss what effects metabolism - from genetics and weight resistance, to the impact of epigenetics, the relationship of oestrogen therapy and insulin resistance, and how evolutionary mismatch means modern women approaching menopause are not recalibrating our metabolism like our ancestors. 

Lara is a dream to listen to - she effortlessly describes the influence of oestrogen on satiety, what metabolic inflexibility is and provides a really logical approach to the latest intermittent fasting craze.

I honestly cannot recommend this episode enough for practitioners and anyone who was interested in Lara & Nicky Keay’s talk last year.

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.