Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Top 4 Expert Advice That Will Save You Years of Guesswork | Podcast BIRTHDAY Special !!

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Before you get into today’s episode, we have some news…We've been nominated for ITV Podcast Creator of the Year (!!!) 🏆I'd be so grateful if you could take a minute to vote for us: https://bit.ly/4ynqe45Select ‘Creator Shortlist’Scroll down to ‘Podcast bCreator of the Year - Her Discussions with Dr Faye Bate’THANK YOU XXHappy ONE YEAR birthday to Her Discussions!!We've had so many wonderful conversations this year, so to celebrate, I've gone back through them all and pulled out some of my (and your) favourites:-Your Stress Isn't In Your Head... It's In Your Gut with Dr Caitlin: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7wSC7mheQRcnSwISoH43bV?si=2Yk3ZFXsSGGbn8FyMDRthw-Everything They Never Taught You About Eggs and Fertility with Dr Nagla: https://open.spotify.com/episode/21NfUoGB1wdXh8Qe7NoM36?si=PzbrE6sORye1PNjMNz4cjQ-Get Rid of ACNE SCARS and DARK CIRCLES + How To Get Glass Skin with Dr Justine: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6SqqUXgAYgXOU6X2EcX4m6?si=WooYDcWJQ5278FKoEXQ_9g-Psychological Tricks to Becoming More CONFIDENT Without Faking It with Caroline Goyder: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hMFmKSA27mpK2h6rSuuS0?si=2yDep6NZRMGNZuSByqtZ-g🔔 Join the HERd* broadcast channel here: https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==📱 Find us on socials:Instagram & Tiktok - @drfayebatePodcast Instagram & Tiktok: @herdiscussionspod📩 Want to reach out? Email: [e-mail]🛑 Disclaimers: Opinions are my own. This content is for educational / entertainment purposes and not medical or financial advice.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Legendary is here with BetMGM Sportsbook. Sign up to unlock access to hundreds of pre-match and live betting options for all your favorite sports.

Download the BetMGM app. See BetMGM.com for terms, 18 plus Alberta only. Please play responsibly, subject to eligibility requirements. If gambling is affecting your mental health or well-being, 21-Alberta is here to help. Call or text 211 or visit ab.211.com. BetM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with the Alberta Eye Gaming Corporation. Standard message and data rates may apply. I am terrified by health advice online. It has never been more confusing. But if you're a woman who

already feels ignored by doctors and under-researched by science, it has never been more important to cut through misinformation and find advice you can trust. That is exactly why one year ago, I put £27,000 of my own savings into creating her discussions podcast. As a doctor obsessed with the female body, I was sick of women being lied to and let down. That's why today to celebrate one whole year of my firstborn child, The Discussions Podcast, I've gone back through the whole year and pulled some of my favourite conversations. We'll revisit the gut, brain connection, fertility questions, women are too afraid to ask out loud, where you should actually spend your money on skincare and the communication hack you can use to be taken seriously

in a doctor's appointment and your career. But first, I am going to ask one small favour from you that will take two minutes. I am so excited to say that we've actually been nominated. for ITV podcast creator of the year. Considering this time last year, I didn't even know if anyone would listen. I cannot believe this podcast and our community has been recognised, so it would genuinely mean the world if you could take a minute to vote for us. I have popped the link in the description below and a QR code on screen. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The aim of her discussions is to show that women's health is so much more than periods, vaginas and boobs. It's also the stress we're under, our mental health, our gut, and how all of those things interact with each other, which is exactly why our episode with Dr. Caitlin is one of the most popular. This is her explaining exactly why gut health is about so much more than taking the probiotic gummy you saw on TikTok. What actually is the gut brain axis?

And how is gut health and the brain linked? Yeah, it's a great question. And obviously, my favorite area of research to talk about, But essentially the gut and the brain are connected bi-directionally. So there's constant signals coming from the gut that are communicated to the brain within seconds. And similarly, there's also many, many different signals coming from the brain that are communicating to the gut.

And the way I like to think about it is, you know, when I used to call up my friends at school, we'd kind of just like shout over the top of each other. like we just wanted to get the last word in, that's kind of what these two organs are doing. They're just sort of like screaming messages at each other constantly. So this bidirectional relationship. And the way we like to talk about it is sort of the top-down communication, which comes from, you know, if you're feeling stressed or anxious or low in mood, they're the signals coming from the brain emerging in the gut.

But there's also the bottom-up signals as well. So that's things like inflammation in the gut, your bacteria sending signals, appetite and hormone signals. They're constantly being communicated to the brain to update the body and to change things if we need to. There's a really nice example that I like to use from, you know, that top down interaction, which is stress. And I think it's particularly relevant because in the UK we're living in a stress epidemic. I think last year they took a survey of people in the UK and 81% of women have been stressed to the point where they can't cope at some point in the year.

We look at that in men and it's around 67%. So that's still really high, but there's still this massive gap between the two. And there's clearly something happening here, you know, social pressure, work pressure, family pressure. All of these things contribute to this to this. really big issue, which is stress. And we know that when you are stressed, then those signals will be communicated to the rest of your body. And in particular, it comes back to your gut. And I think the metaphor that really resonates with a lot of people is the, you know, the fight or flight response in a really stressful, acute stressful situation, your body is trying to find safety and to avoid that threat.

And, you know, the adaptive property of stress is that if you see a snake or you see a tiger, then you need blood diverted to your muscles and to your brain to run away from that and to escape the threat. In the same breath, all that blood is being diverted away from your gut. Because you don't need to digest, you know, your pistachio croissant from a couple of hours ago. You just need to get the hell out of there. So a lot of the motility that we see happening in the gut, a lot of those natural contractions, a lot of the secretions of hormones and different substances, all of that is slowed down

dramatically in acute stressful situations, which then results in constipation, in a lot of pain, in a lot of bloating. We also know that stress influences the way that we perceive pain. So cramping and a lot of like abdominal pain happens to occur. occur. And again, it's happening more often in women. So that's the, I guess, the top-down relationship in a stress example. But there's also the inverse relationship as well in that your gut is having a huge effect on how you experience stress, on your mood, on your anxiety, even on things like memory and cognitive function as we age. And a lot of that we now know is coming down to the

types of bacteria that you have in your gut. So I think for people that aren't familiar with the gut microbiome, there are trillions of bacteria, viruses, archaea, nematodes, all of these microorganisms living throughout your whole gastrointestinal tract. And the largest population of those occur in your colon, which is towards the end of your gut. About 1.5 kilos worth. of bacteria, which actually is about the same size as your brain, which was a nice statistic that I'd give to the neuroscientists that I'd work with in the lab, just to humble them slightly. But these bacteria, they're not just freeloaders, they're not just hanging around living within your gut, they're contributing in a really meaningful way to your health. There's never been a time

where humans have existed without our microbes. They have evolved with us. And to the point, where we've sort of like delegated specific roles to them. For example, we can't even break down fiber from the foods that we're eating. We've sort of delegated that role to our gut bacteria to be like, yeah, you've got a handle on that, you take care of it, which is why they're hugely important. But also they produce neurotransmitters and they produce different chemicals and substances. And one of those which is particularly important is a substance called butyrate, which is a type of short chain fatty acid. So buterate is only produced when your gut bacteria break down fibre from food,

and as a byproduct of that digestion, that breaking down process, they produce buterate in different amounts. We do know that buterate is a really strong anti-inflammatory substance, but it also can act on various nerves. And we know that the gut is deeply innovated, by vagal aphorance, which is that vagal nerve projection which connects the brain to many different organs in the body. So we know that butyrate can actually synapse onto those nerve endings, and they can make

communication with the brain within seconds. So they can emerge within this brainstem region called the nucleus tractus solitarious, and then those signals emerge through subcortical regions to higher cortical regions to areas like the insular cortex and also the prefrontal cortex, which are involved in things like emotion, stress, threat and safety, and also then your decision-making processes and what you do with that information. So we have established quite a strong direct and indirect relationship with buterate and how we perceive stress, mood and anxiety. So there's really good evidence to show that that's the strongest and fastest way that our gut bacteria can communicate with the brain.

We also know that these substances can leave the gut and travel throughout the bloodstream. So things like butyrate and tryptophan, which is a precursor to serotonin, that can actually travel in the blood to different organs in the body, including interacting with the blood-brain barrier interface, which is that gatekeeper to the brain. So it allows things like oxygen and gluten, and glucose and amino acids into the brain but stops pathogens in. It also allows things like tryptophanine, which is the precursor to serotonin.

I've just kind of like thrown a whole lot all at once, but that's kind of the where we're at at in terms of the research around how your gut bacteria can influence the brain and how the brain can so influence the gut as well. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised must. matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer.

Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro-level? This is Fidelity Connect, your daily edge in the markets. Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio. Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow. That statistic really stuck with me about how many, how a higher percentage of women, was it 80? Yeah, 81% of women have experienced stress to the point where they can't cope, which was more than 70-something percent of men. And it does less. I think it was like 60-something percent.

60 percent. Gosh. And because I think that obviously the reason I started this podcast is because I'm so, so, so passionate about women's health. And actually the women's health does not just mean vaginas and vulvers and breasts. Women's health incorporates all these other stresses that are on women. The cultural stresses that exist on women, you know, the way that women are twice as likely to experience anxiety than men, the unique experiences women may particularly have with their goals. gut. When you mentioned tryptophan, we just did an episode about PMS and PMDD, making sure that you're eating some good sources of triptophan or good foods that can potentially help with PMS and PMDD's

symptoms. Are there any particular issues you see commonly amongst females when it comes to the gut brain axis? Oh, hugely. There are, I think across many different conditions, gut health conditions, there is consistently a higher population of women affected than men. If you have ever felt shivers run down your spine hearing the words biological clock, this next episode is for you. When we talk about fertility, almost the entire conversation gets pointed at women instead of what their partner could be doing too. So here is Dr. Nagler taking the fear and blame out of fertility. I vividly remember an episode of keeping up with the Kardashians where Kim is like lying on the bed.

rocking herself backwards to try and tip the sperm further back. So I would like to go back to those misconceptions and just lay out. Like let's clear it up. So positions, is there a position that is more likely to get you pregnant? So any position where you can ejaculate inside the vagina has the same chance of conception. You have millions and millions of sperm in the ejaculate. and they are travelling up through the cervix, through the uterus, to the floping tubes,

where hopefully there's an egg there waiting. And that process takes minutes. So less than five minutes. It's relying with your legs in the air for 20 minutes or not going to the toilet. Like these things don't make a difference. Do it however you want to do it. But yeah, there's no specific position

that's going to increase your chance of pregnancy. And same thing with the toilet. Go for a wee after your sex because it reduces your chance of urinary tract infection and it makes no difference for your chance of consumption. Perfect. Love that. And the tampon just same again. They're traveling really fast. You don't need to put anything in there. They're getting to their destination without any additional thing from you. You know what I mean? Perfect. Yeah. And regular sex. Yes. Regular sex means different things to absolutely. Everyone. Just think about, so there's a few different ways to track.

when you're ovulating. Of course you can just have regular sex throughout the month, that's absolutely fine. You don't need to do it every day. There's a little bit of evidence that having daily sex can slightly lower sperm quality,

so every other day is fine. Really? Yeah. So daily sex can reduce... Potentially. If you want to do it every day, don't let me stop you. Yeah.

But, you know, every other day is plenty. Yeah. But you also just need to have an understanding when you're ovulating. Lots of people think, well, I'm ovulating on day 14.

Well, you're only ovulating. on day 14 if you have a 28 day cycle. Yeah. It's that second half of the cycle which is quite fixed between ovulating and you're getting your period, called the Luteal phase, of around 14 days. So you can see if someone has a 30 day cycle, they could be ovulating around day 16. Yeah.

And if somebody has a 24 day cycle, they can be ovulating as early as day 10. So if you are not aware of that, you could just be missing the window completely. So yeah, so know roughly when you're ovulating, you can use like apps to track it. You can do ovulation predictor kits. I know some people find doing more tests, especially when they're trying to get pregnant, quite anxiety-inducing. So you don't necessarily need to do that,

but you can. And you can do things like checking your basal body temperature. So there's different ways monitoring your cervical mucus around the time that you ovulate, it becomes very thick and stretchy, like a bit like egg white. So there's different ways to do it. You find the way that works for you. But the important thing is you need to start having sex before

you ovulate because if you wait to the day of ovulation, your chances of getting pregnant actually going down. And the reason is because once the egg is released, it's only there for about 12 to 24 hours, but sperm can survive for up to five days. So what you really want to do, and your highest chance of conception actually are timing intercourse so that you're doing it around two days before you ovulate because you want that sperm to be there waiting to meet the egg. Yeah. And you also don't need to save up sperm. That's the other thing I hear. you know, people waiting like a week and then saving it for like the day of ovulation. Actually, you're increasing the number of dead sperm in the in the ejaculate.

So you want to be ejaculating regularly in order to increase a chance of conception. I didn't know that. So that's that's that's that's a lot that I have just learned. So ejaculating too much may lower the quality of the sperm. Potentially. Yeah. But saving up your sperm may actually. increase the number of dead sperm.

Yeah. So actually, you know, so much of the onus on facility is push on women. Yes. But there's a sweet spot for the amount of ejaculations. And that actually kind of brings me nicely onto the fact that it's very different for men because men produce sperm every single day. But it takes about three months to reach the ejaculate.

So whilst women, we're born with all of our eggs and they're going down as, you know, time goes on, for men, you can actually make major lifestyle changes today. And in three months' time, dramatically improve your sperm quality. So the big things I would say is if you're trying to get pregnant, quit smoking. Smoking is bad for both egg and sperm quality. And especially for men, cannabis as well. Yeah.

Really bad for sperm. We even see that it increases the risk of miscarriage for the female partner because it affects the DNA in the sperm. So quit smoking, binge drinking as well. I mean, generally trying to cut down or cut out alcohol whilst you're trying to get pregnant is a good idea. if you have excessive heat exposure to the testicles, like sitting with a laptop on your lap all day or daily hot baths or jacuzis,

because the testicles are outside the body for a reason, right? So it's to be kept cool. So constant heat exposure can also affect your sperm quality. For men who go to the gym, things like steroids, anabolic steroids, can completely switch off your sperm production. You know, taking supplements,

things like testosterone as well, that tells your brain, that there's enough testosterone, so we don't need to produce more. So, yeah, those are big things, big fertility red flags for men, that you can change and actually expect to see a big change in about three months time. Put the finger down if you bought a skincare product that promised to give you glass skin and did absolutely nothing. I've lost count of how many products I tried when I was struggling with severe acne.

That's why I asked dermatologist Dr. Justine Clark to go through all the biggest skincare trends and tell me what she would buy or say bye bye to so you never have to waste another penny on skincare ever again. We're going to do our section called buy or bye bye. So you're going to tell me I'm going to show you some products that may be guided by current social media trends in skin health. And I would like to know whether you would buy these products or say bye bye. I love this. Yeah. So first step, a red light mask. You're going in strong with the first one. So for me, bye-bye.

But it's, as ever, a little bit more complicated than that. I think red light for sure has been shown to have some positive benefits in the skin. So it can help with calming inflammation. It might help with dialing down redness and may also help with boosting collagen and therefore slowing signs of skin ageing. But most of the work is on devices that are used in a hospital or clinical setting. And so we might expect that the dose and exposure would be different there compared to a mask that you would use at home, where necessarily if people are going to be operating something on their own at home,

it needs to be super safe so that you can't go wrong. The at-home masks aren't as well studied. And I think it's a bit of a stretch to say for sure that the at-home masks would deliver the same sort of results as an in-clinic device. That said, it's not complete nonsense. But I think the things that people need to know about are that you have to use the mask regularly to get benefit. You probably have to use it for quite a sustained amount of time before you get benefit.

And that if you do all of those things, the benefits still might be very modest. So as long as someone is aware of those things, then I'm not. I don't think there's any problem with using a red light mask. And I know one of my, when I was having this discussion with one of my patients earlier in the week and we were talking about stress management and what do you do, you know, to decompress during the week. And she said, I wear my red light mask because then no one bothers me while I have it on and then I'll do something while I've got it on. And I thought, you know what? I quite like the idea of that. But I think the problem is that there is so much misleading marketing. And I think a lot of people

buy a red light mask because there's this sort of idea that it's going to, it's going to improve skin, but people don't exactly know what they're looking for it to do. And I think when people think that having a red light mask at home is going to treat their acne, and then don't seek proper support for managing acne and then develop scarring, et cetera, in the meantime, that's a sort of scenario where I think it would be really useful. People were really clear about what the mask can do, how much benefit it can have, and that there are sometimes better. alternatives. I think a really common thread that we've seen in a lot of these podcast episodes is not using or not going, avoiding using a product as a replacement for going to get clinical help

is not a good idea and that's a really common thread. So I'm happy you said that. Another thing is focusing on the boring, boring, boring, boring bloody basics that don't get the clicks, don't get the aren't as sexy, you know, go and see a doctor getting proper treatment for your acne before maybe result into these things which may have marginal gains but aren't going to be the foundations. So, yeah, I feel like that was a really, really useful answer. And if I'm allowed to add one last thing, it's that a lot of people do get very upset if we say that actually the benefits might be modest because they'll say, I've tried it and actually had a good result. And I think some, you know, that's the nature of these things. Some people will have a bit.

benefit, but probably more people don't get a wow factor. So that doesn't mean it's useless for everyone, but it also means that probably if everyone bought it, a lot of people would be disappointed. But to your point, often when someone has got to the point where they're buying a red light mask and most of them are not super cheap, they've also already thought about their skin care routine and maybe using products that are helpful for the skin condition. And I think there's this bias whereby if you spend a lot of money on something, you are inclined to think that that thing is the thing that's working rather than the other boring things that you're doing, like washing your face twice a day and using a retinal cream.

FAP. Yeah. Next, we have... I'm nervous. Beef sallow. Yeah, it's food. Yeah, no. No.

A big old bye-bye. Yeah, that's a bye-bye. I think this is a sort of fear around, I want to say chemicals, fear around using conventional skincare. But I just don't understand how tallow has been the thing that people want to use instead. No. No, no. No.

So it's fine for, no. No. It's just a big old no. Next, we have this is an overnight mask, overnight face mask, if you want to have a little look. Collagen night wrapping mask. Yeah. So this is going to be something that I would never use, but tell me how is it supposed to be used? So to be put on the face of the left on overnight. I'm not a massive kind of mask type of person, mainly because I think all the things that we ought to be able to deliver to our skin, we can get through standard skin care, cleanse and moisturiser, sunscreen, serum. I think masks are a bit gimmicky. I can see the potential benefit of doing a mask for self-care. I can see that if you have a nice event coming up, you might want to use a hydrating mask or do some sort of treatment, I guess, at home treatment a night before.

But actually, if you get like your kind of ordinary skincare routine working well for you, you don't really need to do all these other bits and pieces. I think collagen is quite, there's lots of hype about collagen because I think in the last five or ten years, we've had a lot more awareness about skincare. People know that collagen is an important protein in their skin, that it makes their skin firmer, it reduces sagging and wrinkles, that it declines with age. And so there's been a big trend, one about collagen supplements. I don't know if you've got any hiding there. Okay, you find it coming. And the other end is using collagen and skincare. But collagen and skincare doesn't really go anywhere.

It's too big to penetrate through your skin barrier. Your skin barrier is really clever and it keeps stuff out that's not supposed to go in. The best way to look after your own collagen is with sun protection. So 80% of facial aging is from UV exposure. So that's a number one threat to our collagen. The second thing to do to look after your collagen is to use something which has a retinoid in it. So retinol, retinol, retinone, and these are all different retinodes. And this is probably the best proven topical agent to boost collagen.

And then there are other things that we can do to look after our collagen, like protecting our skin from pollution, like making sure we have a good diet that includes enough protein. But I think this sort of thing is a bit gimmicky. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk, Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometres in support of life-saving research.

Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. If you use like in every sentence and wonder if you'll ever be taken seriously, this episode will explain exactly why. Recording for podcast episodes a month for a whole year has made me painfully aware of every single filler word. I use. So when voice expert Caroline Goida shared this hack, I knew it would help so many of you. I use like in every sentence, every other, you know, it's awful. You know, I also do as well. I'm quite bad at filler words. I am cutting every single like out because it sends shivers up my spine. I think, why are you diluting your voice with these words? Do you have any tips for the girly

who are listening, how can we get rid of these filler words or minimize them? This is the million dollar question, isn't it? My strong sense around fillers is that if you just close your mouth, which sounds like the kind of advice my mother would give me, if you just close your mouth instead of using the filler word and take a relaxed breath, it does two things. An in-breath allows your brain to take in new information. So it helps you think there's a sew. and it also stops you doing the filler because your mouth is shut.

So just taking a full stop, close mouth, let the air come in, and then saying the next bit will minimise fillers so quickly. But we've just got to practice. So a breath instead of a filler. Yeah. That in-breath, it refueles your brain, it tells the system it's safe and it also takes in new information. And when we're rushing and, you know, kind of this, you know, going really fast and I'm talking that I'm not really taking in the oxygen and my brain can't think properly.

So I'll start tripping over words and doing more fillers and it becomes this horrible vicious circle and dumb. And I'm really stuck. And just like that, that's already a whole year of her discussions. Thank you to every single guest who has trusted me with their expertise and their personal stories. And thank you to every single one of you who has listened, commented, shared an episode on your stories or with a friend or sent me a message. You are genuinely the reason I get to keep doing this. And I cannot wait to share with you what we've got in. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer.

That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca. It's all next.