Just As Well, The Women's Health Podcast - How to Age Better: Dr Tamsin Lewis on Stress, HRT, Supplements and the Longevity Myths to Ignore

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Living longer is one thing — but how do we make sure those extra years are healthy, strong and fulfilling? Dr Tamsin Lewis joins Claire Sanderson on Just As Well to cut through the longevity hype and share what genuinely supports a longer healthspan. From the hidden impact of chronic stress and the importance of muscle, rest and community, to HRT, supplements, GLP-1s and whether expensive NAD drips are worth it, this is a practical, refreshingly honest guide to ageing well. Plus: the one habit Dr Tamsin believes delivers more benefit than we realise — and why women need to stop putting themselves at the bottom of the list. Want more from Women’s Health? Join the Women’s Health COLLECTIVE for workouts, exclusive events and expert advice to unlock your fittest self - Train smarter. Live better. Visit www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/wh-podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. And get life brand pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Do we all want to live longer? Would you want to live to 100? Apparently most of us do, but we want to do so healthy. We want to be mobile.

We want to be able to engage with our family. friends and be joyous and not live in a state of decline. I'm Claire Sanderson and welcome to Jess as well. My guest today is Dr. Tamzin-Lewis. You may know her as Dr. Tam on social media. She is an expert in longevity, psychiatry, elite sports performance and also the founder of Wellgevity. She is the fountain of all knowledge when it comes to living well for longer. And That is the key. No one wants to live until they're hundreds and beyond if they're going to be unhealthy and not able to engage in life. She firmly believes that we need to improve our health span. This is a fascinating episode. We cover everything from supplements to medication to state of mind to HRT and menopause and how aging impacts women differently to men.

There's lots in here that you can take away and act. action today so you two can have a healthy, longer, happier life. Enjoy. Dr. Tam, welcome to Jess as well. Hi, nice to be here. Well, we today are going to talk about all things longevity. Yes. Now, it's a buzzword. Is it a buzzword? I don't know. But I've heard you speak on another podcast where you said you were a bit fed up with the word longevity. Maybe it's been a bit overused, misunderstood. What does it actually mean to you? All of the above, actually.

I think because I've been in this space, this sort of wellness, longevity space for a long time, that the word longevity has sort of lost meaning and it's become synonymous with, you know, NAD drips and cryotherapy and hyperbriac oxygen and, you know, a lot of focus on diagnostics and tracking and actually lost the whole meaning of what it means to actually live well and live a full life with vitality and strength and capacity to do all the things that you want to do and need to do in your life.

So not necessarily living longer then. When I hear the word longevity, I think of, you know, these Silicon Valley bros trying to live until they're 140 and doing all sorts of weird biohacking to get there. But to you, that's not what longevity actually is. It's just living a healthier life for longer. I think, I mean, there's a lot of bro-science and, you know, all the people in Silicon Valley are, you know, the most successful way that they can extend their life is probably by putting

themselves on ice, cry or preserving at the moment. I don't think we have tangibly able to, you know, with this concept called it, longevity, escape velocity, we can't exceed that. So I think there's a lot of hype around what's actually happening and what is the reality because, you know, I'm keeping on top of the science. So I think we have got lost in. what it means to actually be healthy and prevent disease. And there's a lot of people who are living longer,

but living in this state of what we call decrepitude, right? They aren't physically capable of doing activities and actually, you know, enjoying life. And so really that, what is the point of that? Is there any research into why people are living longer, but not healthy for their final years? I think, yeah, good question. I think what's happening is doctors are very good,

keeping people alive and chronically ill but functioning, you know, with very restricted muscle, muscle movement, mobility, quality of life. And I think that's not what we need to be aiming for, but it's a lot harder. And sometimes the longevity industry misses this to reverse engineer a healthy body than to actually keep one, right? So if you go, if you're, you can slow the rate of aging by actually walking, by actually working on your physicality, your resilience, your muscular skeletal skeletor system in your 40s or even earlier. So I think we need to adopt this conservation model more than, you know, getting

to a state of decrepitude and then expecting to slow things down. The caveat to that is there is some interesting studies being done in the genetic engineering field where we are trying to almost switch off the genes associated with accelerated aging. And I think that feels a good five plus years away but essentially that would very much slow the rate of ageing and accumulation of damage in the body which becomes the ageing phenotype as we call it.

But what you're describing there, I'm sure, is going to be very expensive and difficult to access for the every man. So is longevity the privilege of the rich? Because in Western society, medicine, for instance, is solution-based, isn't it? It's crisis-based. You present to a doctor when you are crisis, whether that be in pain

or some sort of disease. There's very little intervention for the every man now and the every person, I should say, is unlikely to have access to what you just described. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's always the way it's been, you know, access to medications,

you know, that can improve health. Have always been, you know, something you buy, but it's not democratic as you're approaching. But actually, if you look at some of the healthiest populations in the world, and you've seen this and in blue zones and the research around people that live in blue zones, you know, what's keeping them young is quality of life, quality of social connections, access to nature, quality of nutrition.

I think the average Joe, especially in England, you know, what's actually harming health is not just technology and screens, but it's pollution, it's the environment, it's the additives in our food, it's the chemicals that we're exposed to, which our bodies have never, the evolution has not caught up with that. So we're living in this weird biochemistry lesson almost. So that's one thing I would really advocate for, looking at what is potentially aiding you faster.

So you've worked across medicine, you're a doctor, psychiatry, elite sport. You're an elite triathlete. And I believe you hold some records in triathlons. Is that correct? I won the Iron Man UK in 2014 whilst just under a day pregnant. I didn't know. And longevity science.

So how was your own journey shaped the way you think about ageing? Do you know, I studied biology of aging as a degree in 2001. And I was trying to think back why I picked biology of aging as a Bachelor of Science. In the middle of my medical degree, we're allowed an opportunity to do this extra degree. And I picked the biology of aging because I started to think conceptually in my head, you know, we're thinking about health and the human and disease, but actually we all get old and illness is usually associated with age. The older you get, the more illness you have. So why are we not looking at what's happening with aging and the aging processes in the body? So I became fascinated

early on by that. And really, in the last 20-odd years, the science has evolved a lot. We understand a lot more about oxidative stress and genetic mutations, the impact of emotional health on disease risk and ageing pathways. So yeah, I think I'm fascinated, but I think what the turning point for me was my own personal experience of, you know, and we all have our own experiences and that they shape how we see the world. But I had a traumatic brain injury, a skiing accident. my final year of med school and I was in a coma for three days and it was touch and go and I came around but I was at King's College London the one of the best medical schools and teaching hospitals in the world and actually once the scan became normal the doctors were like well we don't really know

what to do with you and I was you know had gone from being super bright super intelligent to could barely string a sentence together it was it was bad I couldn't sleep I was binge eating turning to alcohol self-soothing because I wasn't able to really understand what was happening and of course my brain was still inflamed and finally through that journey I found my way to a concept of functional medicine Jeff Bland Mark Hyman and just took up sport my dad was an athlete he was a professional cyclist did the Olympics etc so I tried to find solace in in sport without really recognizing at that point that it was having an anti-inflammatory effect on my brain and then a knock-on effect on how I felt about myself and

and it improved my sleep, my behaviour and my mood essentially. But medicine was just offering me sleeping tablets and Prozac. And I was very disappointed. And that set off a whole trajectory of there has to be something more. And then I became an athlete and happened to be quite good at it. I think, you know, good genes and a tenacious mind. And through the athletic industry and performance, I got immersed in this whole biohacking world,

which was looking optimal zones in your blood. you know, medicine would look at iron deficiency. Have you got anemia? Well, we don't know what to do. But we were looking at, do you have iron deficiency? Do you have magnesium? So optimizing what we all do now, we all know if we have vitamin D deficiency or most of us.

So I early on got into this whole quantified self, health optimization, biohacking industry and realized that not many people, especially not many doctors, were looking at health in the UK like that. And that's where the birth of my company came, which was essentially offering private blood tests for people looking to feel and function better.

Your company is called Welgevity. Yeah. And you've spoken about moving away from the term biohacking towards bioharmony. Can you explain what that means and what prompted that shift? Yes, of course. I think the industry is shifting that way generally now,

which I'm so happy about, going to all these conferences. And I'm saying, you know, the shift away from the pressure, the obsession. And I saw that obsession. I lived that obsession with biohacking. You know, it was very much, you know, the 5am club and the, you know, the protocols and the rituals and the, and the obsessive tracking and need to stack all these behaviors together.

And actually really what a lot of it was escapism. Unless you're a professional athlete, you know, you don't need to be in the gym twice a day and in the hyperbaric oxygen and the cryotherapy. So I saw a degree of obsession and what we call cross-addiction, so people that were, you know, potentially they'd stop drinking as much alcohol, but they'd become addicted to the other thing. So for me, I've learned through my own experience. I was seeking this place of ease.

How do I feel safe in rest? How do I feel good enough to restore, to enable myself to restore? How do I step off this competitive ladder, which actually, in aggregate, in total is just stress biology, right? And I think that got missed, and I swear my patients, I'm like, but you know, you've got a great body, but look at your stress hormones

and look at your thyroid function, like there's no free lunch. Are you happy? When was the last time you laugh? When was the last time you enjoyed something? They're like, no, but I have to get up and I do this, and I have to be the human doing. So BioHarmony came out as this concept of,

you know, noticing the fluid, and the energy in the body that it's all connected and studying and observing the healthiest people I know who really don't sweat the small stuff. You just mentioned that you have patients who have replaced one addiction with another. Health optimization and tracking can become an obsession and is another source of stress.

And is the optimization of health and healthy? Can it be unhealthy? I actually just wrote a post on this. Because the whole concept of health optimization really is meaningless. What are we optimizing for? Are we optimizing so that we can run a marathon? That's fine. That's a performance.

Or are we just trying to chase metrics? Are we just trying to be a perfectionist and actually chase the middle zone on all of our blood tests and get the green on whoop every day? And I think then all we're doing is becoming a slave to technology. We're not actually acknowledging, do we feel good? Are we happy? Are we enjoying life?

Are we full of vitality in all these things? And I see it becoming very, it almost becomes isolationary. You know, people are just a slave to the wearable and not actually connecting with others. So I think there has, in general, and you probably saw this on Diary of the CEO, Stephen Bartlett got a bit of criticism recently because, you know, the more you obsess over the score

and you say to your body, you know, I can't cope with having a glass of wine, I'm trashed for three days. Actually, that's because you started to cause internal stress by worrying about it. Your body is quite capable of dealing with a glass of wine and many other things. But I think people need to,

I like people to understand that biology is dynamic and you've all noticed that when you're on holiday, you know, a couple of glasses of alcohol, I'm in no way saying do drink, but your body deals with it better. So you wake up and you're completely fresh. Whereas if you're in a stressful environment like work, you feel terrible or there's no light. So the context of which you do things really impacts.

And I think people, I'd love people to understand that there's a terrain in you that means the same thing you put in isn't going to be the same day and day out and to encourage a more dynamic, flexible, resilient approach to help. That's fascinating. I'd never thought about that, but you're absolutely right. I don't drink very often, but when I go on a holiday, there's nothing better than a pinoclada on a sunbed, you know. But I don't ever appear to get drunk or have hangovers

because you're relaxing and, yeah, into your holiday, into the environment. You're surrendering to it. Whereas if you drink on a working week and then you have to get up in the morning and you're adding cortisol and stress onto your system, there's no wonder it would have a more negative impact. Yeah, it's true.

true. I think the mitochondria, the cell batteries of ourselves are very dependent on, on light, on stress hormones, on emotions of joy and contemptment bizarrely. But, you know, this is what we're finding out now in science. To go back to the tracking, I'm sat here and I don't really track anything. I am wearing a certain watch, but it's more to tell the time. And I keep a vague eye on my steps, you know, I try and do the 10,000, even though it's not really been proven to be a target, you know, it doesn't actually

mean anything, but for me, I don't track anything else. I don't wear any rings or anything because when I have done it before and it's telling me I've had a rubbish night sleep or it's telling me I'm not relaxed, I'm not rested enough to exercise, and I feel great,

I get quite cross with it because I actually just want to get on with my life. And, yeah, I don't, I don't, interferes with my life, tracking interferes, and I think I am the sort of person that could get obsessed with it. So the way that I go about life is more being in tune with how I feel

rather than looking at data. I think that's great, and I have used, and that's the way I use wearables with patients, is an education system. So you'll put on a continuous glucose monitor or watch or a ring, and we have a conversation about it. And once you've learnt, you know, what keeps you awake at night

and what's, you know, dropping your deep sleep, you know, alcohol, heat, all of these things, then I don't think you should be a slave to the wearable. The only caveat to that is that certain people, you know, are headstrong and I'm one of them too, you know, and I will push through regardless. And I know many people like that. So sometimes having a ring that says,

actually, you know, your body temperatures a bit up, your resting heart rate, don't go to the, you know, don't go and do an hour run because you're going to end up getting sick. And this is the power of what wearables did during COVID, is that they could flag a disease at the illness before you knew the symptoms. So that's where they have real power. Because I am that person as well. I will just power through and then wonder why I get run down all the time.

So maybe I do need to pay a little bit more attention to it. Now, you've mentioned stress. You talk about stress quite a lot. Is stress the most underestimated factor in longevity or impacting your potential to have a long and healthy life? I think so. The concept of stress, though, is very broad, and your stress is not my stress, right? So I think we have to develop this awareness about what our stresses are. And they, you know, there's universal stresses like long haul travel, air pollution, different types of food and drink, etc.

But, you know, also our, you know, our childhood, our relationships, are, you know, our work environment, even overhead LED lights. You know, these are causing stress on our biology. So I think we need an awareness and we need to be more calculated about how, what is stress and how it's impacting us. And we talk about wearables. And, you know, we are going to be having little monitors

that will walk through our lives with us and say, you know, the air quality is not very good. You're exposed to heavy metals. Maybe you need to go and have a wash, you know, or you need more antioxidants, maybe go and have this and it will know where you are in the world and it will say choose this from the menu because it will support the biological impact of the environment.

The evolution of wearable technology is such that we will go through our days with an awareness of how our environment is impacting our biology on a day-to-day and I think a lot of the time we're not aware of that. You know, we're not aware of our pollution exposure and how to offset it, which you can through different types of supplements and food, and even sauna practice, which is detoxifying some of the heavy metal exposure. So I think we are living in an exciting world. Again, the more passive and ambient, we call it ambient longevity,

is the whole concept now that we can be informed of our life through different trackers, but it should be more passive rather than causing agitation and sort of a signposting to different things in our life. Like today, for you, play tennis because it's social, it's active or go for a swim because, you know, you really need, you know, so this individualisation of lifestyle through wearable is coming. It's here. So I'm sat here.

I'm a 48-year-old woman. I eat well, not perfectly, but well. I do have a bit of a sweet tooth, but I rarely drink. I did on Sunday. It was my birthday. I did drink, but I could now not drink until Christmas. I'm one of those. I'm not focused on drink.

I exercise regularly. I lift well. and I take appropriate supplements, is it still possible that I'm undermining my general health through stress? Can stress override all those other wonderful things that I'm doing? I think a bit more of a dynamic interplay between the two that you are buffering or offsetting the impact of stress in your life by all the good habits that you have in your life. Could you be better? Yes, but do we know? that your life is inherently stressful,

the fact that you don't need alcohol to self-soothe, that you can go through life and be okay is a good sign. But, you know, I think where people don't notice stress in their life is when they, this concept of like email apnea, for example, where you stop, you're like, and, you know, this sort of constant pressure that we put on ourselves. And, you know, someone in your position has a lot of pressure. You, performance pressure, like a lot of places to be,

a lot of travel, a lot of conversation. And it's finding the right balance between pressure and pause that allows this kind of evolution, this flourishing in which health is found created. Because we are all living in a potential state of chronic stress in that we are carrying computers in our hands. Our smartphones are mini computers

and my WhatsApp, all my team have my WhatsApp. Contacts, PR contacts have my number. So I get contacted for work reasons when I'm on holiday. And I know I'm not alone. This will happen to many people. And as you describe there, when the phone goes off and it's a work, it's a work issue, and you can feel it in the pit of your stomach. And that's stress, infiltrating your day to day when it's really not invited.

Exactly. And I think we have to ask ourselves the impact of technology we are seeing on health, this constant being available. Our biology just hasn't kept up. You know, the needing to do, needing to answer, needing to be somewhere for someone. But I almost think that technology is going to solve that by these little AI bots are going to become us and answer for us.

And we're all going to be AI bots talking to AI bots doing stuff. And then hopefully the human will be liberated to do more in-person things and have fun. But do you think it's possible to be a high-performing individual and not be stressed? I am intrigued by that because I look at the people and I observe the people very closely that are, you know, living well at 70 and still working and still traveling around the world. But I, there's always a consequence, you know, in a lot of men I see, you know, calcification of the heart, you know, which is the sort of caused by chronic pressure of sorts and chronic stress. So, yeah, I think health, I think we need to prioritize more this sort of moving into real at ease. But, you know, I think we need a societal shift in order to do that. Because at the moment, all we're trying to do is achieve more, be more, do more with all the tools and technology is enabling us to.

And actually, that's the pace of life is not synonymous with the pace of aging. And, you know, the longest lived people in the world live a slow life. Yeah, in the blue zones, in Greece or Japan. And look at the longest living, you know, mammals. They don't move very fast. Look at the ones that do. They're the ones that are those short-lipped. So I don't know what the answer is that.

I think we will move to really put it out there into this sort of hybrid model where we're going to become half, you know, computer, half human. And, you know, because it's our tissues of our body that accumulate damage, right? There's a fascinating book I did a post on this why zebras don't get ulcers about the biology of chronic stress

which is that we're constantly on right whereas if you're zebra you're running for your life one minute and the next minute you're chewing grass you switch off the stress response but we're not. No we're not. We rarely do that even on holiday as you say and there is a move in this wellness industry

in this concept of bioharmony to restoration and so. saying, you know, I matter. Screw you. Like, we have to protect. Because it's the boundaries. I find it difficult to put boundaries up. And we interviewed the managing director of YouTube on this podcast.

And she said that her weekends are sacrosan. They are, she is not to be contacted on a weekend there for her husband, there for her children. And that's how she manages then to tolerate the level of pressure and expectations upon her during the working week. And I said to her, I said, I wish I had that strength of character to create those boundaries because I don't. And I will be dealing with work emails while watching my son playing rugby.

And then I wonder why if there was a checklist of chronic stress, I could tick every single one of them. Yeah, which is related to some of the life circumstances that you've talked about. But the reason why that, reason why you have that characteristics is, you know, it goes deeper than what is happening now. And I think that's what I observe and of invite people to go. into sometimes because you know you need to be able to delegate and you need to set that boundary because at the end of the day there's no one like you the fear is that someone's going to come in and take your place but that's not going to happen because no one's you but we need to sometimes feel into that a little bit so you've been very open about your own experience of

perfectionism and and burnout tell us how that is how you've managed to overcome that and be the what I perceive as the calm individual sat in front of me today? I think that there's a number of things in that. I'm definitely not always calm. I think there's a lot of pressure on all of us to keep up. And especially the industry right now is going mad. And I do try and keep up.

And I have got an endurance athlete mindset, which lays, you know. But I do prioritise self-care. I mean, I will rarely do a Zoom call before 10 a.m. Because I'll have to do some form of movement or natural light exposure and just have some sort of headspace. And I've learned to say no more. A good friend of mine who runs Calm, the app, said to me, you know, you've really got to say,

if it's not a hell, yeah, it's a no. So again, going back to boundaries. Because we do get this sense of FOMO, but really life is in the moments in between. You know, that's when we really, you know, the things that we remember. So, you know, you have to sometimes go through a crisis, went through my own health crisis a couple of times, long COVID, etc., which forced me,

like many people who go through burnout, to slow down. I couldn't do, I couldn't run a marathon now, even if I'd trained, I couldn't train for a marathon. So my body has been forced to adapt to a softer way of living. But also, I feel very impassioned to care for humans, right? You know, that's what I signed up for as a doctor at medical school. I want to be able to get through the knowledge that we can't keep our foot on the gas and take a whole load of supplements and expect our biology to keep up. Like, we don't. It just doesn't happen.

So I think there's an element of truth through my lived experience and I'm keen to push forward. I'm keen to talk about women, ageing and longevity. Now, research in medicine historically has been focused predominantly on men. Are we as women being underserved by longevity? medicine and all the wonderful research that's coming down the line. Yeah.

Men are much easier to study than women because they have less fluctuations in their hormone cycles. But no, there's a big push now and a lot of funding going into women's health, which I'm super excited about. But, you know, still most of the research is done on men and focused on men. But there is a shift coming. And I think the personality differences with women as well, you know, we tend to be. the ones that care more, that don't put the boundaries, that pick up all the pieces. And I don't think that should change.

I just think we need to be repositioned and supported for all the brilliant things that we can do as opposed to overridden by men just because they're physically stronger and able to stand up and speak stronger. Because as women, we do tend to put everyone else first, don't we? We just come at the bottom of the pile.

Our children, our friends, our parents, our husbands, the shopping, the ironing, it all needs to get done and then we tend to come right at the bottom of that pile. I think this is why, and I think research has shown this, Gabel Mato spoke about this in his book, why women get so many autoimmune diseases in their 40s

is because the nervous system has been on high alert for so long and then the immune system is on high alert and it starts, you know, you have all these antibodies and it starts attacking its own tissues and the two are correlated. And it's like, so that is a, it's like a showing us that we really do. We can't give ourselves out to everybody. The only supportive thing they have is women have women, right?

And we should really champion that a bit more. Obviously, there's a lot of women that aren't and that could be bitchy and competitive and not trustworthy. But I think in general, women do a lot of supporting of women and probably more so than men do of men. And that's one of the secrets of London. having intersocial relationships that you can lean into. So do you think us putting everyone else first and everyone else requirements before our own

is maybe the biggest mistake women are making when they're thinking about ageing well? I think it's hard. People would not, I think in general, women don't realize how much they do until they can't do it. And then no one is there to do all the things. So I would say that if you can outsource parts of your day to free up your time to do more of the things that you love and enjoy, then that is a, you know, definitely a longevity intervention. Menopause, the M word. I love that we're all talking about it, much more than we ever were.

Perry menopause wasn't even a common word in anyone's vernacular five, six years ago and now we all know what it is. how does that change the conversation when we're talking about health span and healthy ageing? I think it's huge because it, you know, not so long ago, most doctors would only prescribe HRT hormone replacement for the symptoms of menopause, hot flushes, mood swings, insomnia, etc. Now we know that hormonal replacement, when done well,

slows down the rate of aging of the tissues of the bones, the brain, the muscular skeletal system and the heart. Most importantly, in women, the rates of cardiovascular disease and women go much higher postmenopause untreated. So I think what the research is looking at now is that what is the minimum effective dose of hormone replacement therapy needed to support your body without causing an increased risk of other things like cancers, for example. So it's a very exciting time to be in women's health.

The personalisation of hormone replacement therapy in the whole field of women's health is exciting right now. You know, there's different research being done showing that you can take your own avarian tissue when you're fertile and freeze it and then push it back in when you're going through the menopause and you get your own hormones back. Wow. And I think that's where we're going. We're now having continuous hormone monitors coming onto the market, which is super helpful in conjunction with symptoms. So, you know, it's not a one-size-fits-all, but we know that hormones are super important for all of the things I mentioned. And men really don't go through this precipitous decline like we do.

So the question is now, what is the dose of hormone replacement therapy needed in each individual to slow these aging processes because it's not universal? but the uptake of HRT is still shockingly low. Why do you think the fear is still there? I think it's shifting pretty quickly. I think it took a long, it's taking a long time for that women's health initiative study to be overturned in terms of the way that people think of the safety of HRT.

And also, HRT is not one thing, right? I think there's a lot of misnomer in the private and the public healthcare systems that you have to go to a private doctor to get body identical HRT. You don't. It's prescribed on the NHS. Yeah, people are terrified

that hormones cause cancer and I think it's going to take a big PR job to overturn that, but it is happening. More women that I know ever, more than ever, are taking, you know, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, because of influences like Davina McCall and people like that who have really brought it to the public eye. Because I was initially told not to take it

because my mother had breast cancer in her 40s, but I spoke to various experts and decided I want to try it anyway and then I was led to believe that I could not get testosterone on the NHS but I'm pleased to say that I recently did so you don't have to go private I managed to go to the NHS I've got my annual HRT pass

which costs me £19 I think and I get it all on the NHS so it is readily available for women to take advantage of The only problem is that the monitoring in the NHS is often can often be lacking and I've seen people overdose of testosterone

because they give you male dose testosterone and you've just got to be a little bit careful. Well the doctor did say to me you need to come back in three months to be tested and I asked him about the symptoms that I should look out for that maybe would suggest I'm taking too much

I'm hoping my experience is commonplace but then you could speak to another GP who maybe wouldn't then follow up with testing it's that you know you don't know what service you're going to get. But testosterone, I was led to believe, was exclusively available in private clinics and that's not the case anymore. No, that's great. Just under rather than overdose. What do you think, what do you wish every woman in her 40s and 50s understood about maintaining vitality and

well-being and ageing well so they have a long and healthy health span? I think doing a health Screen is super important. I don't think enough women do health screen, you know, thinking about all of the available screening on the NHS, the cervical, the breast, etc. All of that is a 100%. But, you know, getting your bone density checked, going through a detailed family history, you know, the advent of full body MRI scans a little bit controversial, but, you know, they're coming onto the market and they are more affordable than ever. And, you know, I think it, so health screening is super important. Commercial and consumer health is becoming a lot more affordable and understandable through

the help of AI. So that's one thing. Really know, get to know your biology. Don't obsessively track it, but really know your baseline and your risks. And that can inform, that can inform your, the way you approach life. Really do think about how you exercise and the body that you're building. and forcing it into a gym to do certain types of exercise that you don't enjoy is not worth it. You're going to get a far bigger impact on your systemic health if you exercise in a way you enjoy it.

More with friends. There's lots of research around tennis. So really varying exercise, enjoy it, dance, keeping the brain active. I think people need to really focus on cognitive health. It's a brilliant book called The Stimulated Mind that's just come out by a friend of mine. So doing activities that challenge you, we get this narrowing of repertoire when we get older. And I think it gets harder to move outside of that.

We've all seen that. So challenge yourself a bit. And then do things that excite you, whether that's travel or reaching out to an old friend or going to see concerts or arts. That isn't just a sensation. It has a real tangible effect on your ageing pathways. What was the name of your friend,

who wrote the book? Dr. Tommy Wood, he's amazing. He's a professor of neuroscience and a medical doctor. And he's called The Stimulated Mind. Yeah. Okay, make a note of that. I want to talk about supplements and medication.

We mentioned HRT there. I've also read the GLP-1s are a wonder drug when it comes to healthy aging. People associate them with weight loss and diabetes, but there are many other benefits. There's metformin, which I know a lot of, lot of longevity experts speak highly about where do you stand on taking medication and supplements? I am a medical doctor and so I use medications when indicated I have and do use GLP1 medications

with individuals but monitor them closely. Off off label sometimes as well which means they're not obese or diabetic but I think there's a craze and I think the craze of GOP1s is a little bit premature because I think for weight loss they're brilliant right but you know there's lots of studies done showing that eat away at the muscle mass even the bone we know that it can you know shrink bone and and muscle so I think the longevity industry is looking now to how you offset so if you give a medication like a gLP1 maybe you need to provide a muscle stimulus as well so looking at medications that can keep muscle mass. So I think that's the way we're going.

We're going to be, you know, signaling with gLP ones and then keeping muscle mass. But it is complicated because, you know, they have widespread effects on the body. Sometimes amazing, right? You know, people with allergies, they can disappear allergies and brain fog and long COVID.

But the dose is key. And keeping an eye on the quality of the nutrition that you have when you're on them is super important. So I do use them. I do use HRT, bioidentical, body identical. But a lot of supplements that I will use in people, but I taper them in and out, right? So depending on the individual,

but getting people sleeping, getting people restored, improving their mitochondrial, their way they can generate energy. But it is a case-by-case basis. I don't think everyone should take anything. as a blanket raw, maybe creatine. I'm a fan of creatine. I think it's a good science.

Everyone's a fan of creatine on this podcast. Every expert we have on recommends creatine. I'm just going to take you back to GLP1s momentarily. What are the wider health benefits that some people are claiming they can contribute to, such as reduced inflammation, etc.? Why are they being considered by some longevity experts as a drug that can help you live longer? A number of things. They seem to change our relationship to the way we reward ourselves.

So they tend to sort of volume down on food cravings, food noise, and even alcohol craving. Some people that can extrapolate to, they don't have the desire to, you know, have sex or go to the gym. But in some people that's not the case. So they reduce a number of self-sabotaging behaviours. I see that. There's some evidence that they reduce. what they call mass cell activation, mass cells release histamine related to allergies and autoimmunity,

so they can dampen that. So a lot of people with chronic inflammation and long COVID have shown a benefit. But the dose is much smaller than you'd use to lose weight, which means it's off-license and off-label and not being studied yet. Arthritis, for example, inflammatory conditions, even gut inflammation, they've been shown to have benefits. and even Alzheimer's and neuropathology as well.

Because again, there seems to be GLP1 receptors everywhere. But, you know, the science is evolving, and a lot of it is citizen science. You know, we need these big companies that are handing out GLP ones to be actually studying individuals a bit more. And metformin? Metformin has been used for a long time in the longevity industry. I've just been with the scientist Neb Barzley,

who set up the tame trial, which was looking at metformin. And it became popularized in longevity because of huge trial in people with diabetes and to that they had the same level of blood sugar control. But the ones on metformin were living with better health span by a number of criteria. So metformin is interesting, but again, it works on the mitochondria. So it basically tricks your body into thinking it's slightly underfed when it's not. So if you are the type of person that's slightly underfed and stressed, metforma is not a good drug for you

because it's a mitochondrial toxin, those cell batteries. So it's case by case if you are prone to pre-diabetes, if there's diabetes in the family, if you eat a lot of sweet foods and you have a little bit of excess fat, then metforma potentially could be helpful. And if somebody was to walk into a high street shop now near our studio today to buy supplements are there any that you would suggest

everyone should be taking or is it really you'd only take any supplement if you've got a deficiency in it? I think so I think I think vitamin D has a number of properties I think many people have probably said that

if you've got autoimmune disease you benefit from having a higher vitamin D level if you don't have sun exposure more vitamin D I think also vitamin C, you have to think about our lifestyles deplete vitamin C. It's a key antioxidant, and our foods aren't as high in vitamin C as they used to be. So actually having vitamin C, especially when you're a little bit run down, or traveling or exposed to pollution, is a good

idea. Anything between one to five grams with plenty of water. And then omega-3, fish oil, I think we're all a bit deficient in, because we're just, fish isn't full of omega-3s like it used to be. If you're vegan, then our food. algae oil is very good for the brain. And magnesium, again, a lot of magnesium deficiency. We don't eat dark green, leafy vegetables, the quality of our nutrition isn't as good. And stress depletes magnesium. So I like the glycine form of magnesium, glycinate, because it's calming.

Oxide, the cheaper forms can give you diarrhea. But magnesium is a good one for sure. And then B vitamins, again, stress depletes B vitamins. So you don't need to do it. these things all day, every day, but just be mindful that they can help support you. We've got some quick fire questions here that our audience submitted. So what's the one longevity myth you wish would disappear? The NAD drips, they'll extend your life. There's a lot of hype about NAD drips at the moment, and as I said, starts synonymous with longevity almost.

NAD is a molecule that's found in every cell, and it's generated. through these mitochondria, like your body has to produce it through various different co-factors, which essentially come through our diet through forms of B vitamins like niacin. And age, stress, infections, travel can deplete NED levels. But giving your body a massive dose of NED via drip, the evidence doesn't suggest that it's actually got any health benefits at all. It can make you feel better because it's basically like giving you, you know, free energy to the body. but there's no real evidence that it's improving any health conditions currently.

Because everyone's raving about NAT drifts. Do you not think there's anything in them then? There's even some evidence they could potentially do harm. So the jury's out, listen, if you've got long COVID, you've been travelling extensively. The odd series of NAD drips is not going to, it probably might make you feel good. But the point is, are we all chronically NAD depleted

and should we be hooking ourselves up to drips? It's like living on Lucas Aid, basically. That's the way I think of it. You're literally giving yourself something that your body has to work hard to create. And therefore in that, you're going to downregulate the way the body creates it. What's one wellness trend that you think is just simply overrated? Cryotherapy. And I hate it.

So I love that you say that. Why you would want to make yourself that cold? But explain to me why you think it's overrated. I think it's just, it's a big shock to the system. you get a shot of adrenaline or adrenaline stress hormones which make you feel very awake and alive. But I don't think it has any lasting benefits on the body. Caviate to that is I really like cold water swimming.

I think that can have a benefit to the brain and body. But putting yourself an expensive cryotherapy chamber for three minutes, I don't think it has an elastic. It's a waste of money. Awful. I've tried it a couple of times and I've not lasted more than 30 seconds. What's one habit that delivers more benefit than people realise? Going on holiday.

Yes, lovely. And this year, I have not taken a week off, and I've just been taking long weekends and days off here and there. And I've realised there's value in taking a week off, isn't there, or two weeks off, and just really removing yourself from a situation. Otherwise, you've got this always on mentality. Yeah, I think our biology is designed to go through seasons. And I think, unfortunately, society has,

has given up on seasons. But yeah, we need time to hibernate a bit. Love that answer. What's one thing women worry too much about? Wrinkles. Yes. Yeah. But the anti-aging movement,

there seems to be so much focus on a women's appearance rather than what is going on inside, all the aesthetic treatments you can have these days. And I partaking them, full transparency, but when's it all going to stop? We can't have all these women walking around in their 90s trying to look like they did within their 40s. Yeah, I mean, again, talking about a disconnect in the industry,

you know, it's not what you put on your skin, but, you know, the cost of surgeries, the constant and the stress on the body to have surgery and interventions. Yeah, I would say that focus on what's coming in rather than all the things that you can put on. Yeah. What's one thing women should prioritise more? Finding what lights you up,

what gives you those moments of joy and allowing that to bake into your biology a bit. Yeah, giving yourself space to find that moment. Yeah, and also if you do have space when you meditate or you take a few moments, people think they have to go somewhere to meditate. But to me, doing 10 minutes of meditation and breathing, I'll bring in the memories.

And I often encourage this when I'm on stage is to bring in a moment of joy and really bring in the colours, the people, the faces. And that sets off a biochemical reaction. So you're biophobic, you know, you get the oxytocin. And what's one daily practice that you never skip? I am a sauna fan. I feel a bit odd.

I mean, it's a bit different than summer, but I really love a sauna. I don't care if it's infrared. or high heat but I think it's has multiple effects on physiology and it's good for us but you that person that goes in the sauna

and then goes and jumps in the cold plunge afterwards can you do that that kind of I can do it all it just I don't want to do it all anymore I'd rather just enjoy the sauna and then I'll put my feet up and I prefer to stay warm

because you're actually getting the heat shot proteins then and it's causing the changes but also I just like the feeling of being relaxed and warm. So fast forward, in my case, 42 years. I'm not quite sure for yourself, but we're 90 and we're looking back at our life. What will make you think that you've lived not just a long life but a good one? I will remember the moments, the community. I make an effort with my birthday every year since 40.

I just always bring everyone together that I never get a chance to see all year round and co-create a community and make sure there's plenty of dancing. Yeah, so those are those are the things and also the message of care and, you know, bringing love and community. I think that's one that often is underestimated

in a world that keeps forcing us to keep up and do more. So the average life expectancy in the UK is 83, I believe. So by the time you and I get to near that age, it quite likely could have increased to 90. But not necessarily in good health. You have to remember what causes demise, right? Especially in women, it's broken hips. It's urinary infections, all related to hormones.

So lift weights to improve that bone health as well, ladies. Also, and natural light. People forget how much effect light has on board, and that's more than vitamin D. It's the energy from natural light. But we just need to remember, could we, can we do the things that we love? Can we lift our grandchildren?

Can we, you know, have a few gables with our friends, etc. And maybe climb, maybe go hiking. It's all about capacity. When I, on my working from Home Day, I work from David Lloyd's. And I love that there are women there. Some of them must be in their 80s. They might even be older because you absolutely can't tell how old someone is by looking at them.

But they're all playing their tennis. Then they go for their coffee afterwards. the cafe and I look at them and I think that is going to be me. I am going to be that active older person playing tennis, playing paddle, having a coffee with the girls and they're in the pool after doing acroarobics. Love it. Well, there you go. You've just described what a longevity lifestyle looks like.

So Dr Tam, before I let you go, we finish every episode with the same quickfire questions. I've invited myself around your house for dinner. What are you going to cook me? I like a Thai green curry. Yeah, I'd have to go with a Thai green curry. Nice. Nice and spicy as well. Yeah, with some coconut yogurt on the side.

Lovely. If you could drink one of these for the rest of your life, what would it be, coffee or wine? I'd probably have to go with wine because of the relaxation effects. You're justifying it. Yes. So you're going to a desert island for a year,

a whole 12 months. and you can only take one thing and it can't be your child. That's cheating. Okay. So what would you take? I really like my calming sleep supplement. I use one by Diome,

but Elthianine. I really like Elthianine. I would probably take that with me. Is it a herbal sleep supplement? Yeah. Nice. What's the last thing that made you belly laugh? I was on stage with my partner and business partner.

We were doing a sort of show and he said something very funny and everyone just, it was very self, you know, silly and it just made me love. It was self-defeating. It was just like, you know, no ego. Like, just be human. And that just made me laugh. Did you struggle to get it back together then to carry on presenting?

I was. I was giggling. Yeah. It was so funny. And finally, what's one thing people listening or watching today can do to make themselves feel a little bit better? It sounds simple, but just getting outside. and moving.

And I think we're just so on our phones, on our screens, on it all. So I think sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is just move it through. Well, Dr. Tam, thank you so much for joining me today on Just as well. Thank you for having me.