The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 67 – The Power of Hormones

Episode Date: May 19, 2026

Ahead of the publication of her new book The Power ofHormones, Dr Louise Newson sits down with journalist and Balance editorial director Kat Keogh to explore the hidden history of hormones and why women’shealth has been misunderstood for decades.Together, they discuss the stories and research behind the book, from the origins of HRT and hormonal contraception to the wider impact hormones have on the brain, immune system and long-term health. Louise explains why so many women are still being dismissed, misdiagnosed or prescribed treatments that fail to address the root cause of their symptoms, and whyunderstanding hormones is essential for everyone, not just women going through menopause.The conversation (and the book) also explores medicalmisogyny, the influence of pharmaceutical marketing, the history of synthetic hormones and the urgent need for change in the way women’s health is understoodand treated.Interested in reading The Power of Hormones? You canpre-order here 👉 https://bio.to/ThePowerofHormonesWe hope you love the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to follow us, leave a 5-star rating and share it with someone who might find it helpful.LET'S CONNECTSubscribe here 👉 https://www.youtube.com/@menopause_doctorWebsite 👉 https://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/Instagram 👉   / @drlouisenewsonpodcastLinkedIn 👉     / https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisenewson/TikTok 👉   / https://www.tiktok.com/@drlouisenewsonSpotify 👉 https://open.spotify.com/show/7dCctfyI9bODGDaFnjfKhgLEARN MOREPre order The Power of Hormones here 👉https://bio.to/ThePowerofHormonesDownload my balance app 👉https://www.balance-menopause.com/balance-app/Get tickets for my new theatre tour, Breaking the Cycle 👉https://www.nlp-ltd.com/dr-louise-newson-breaking-the-cycle/

This episode is all about my new book called The Power of Hormones. It's a really important book. It is the most important book that I've ever written, actually, and I'm very proud of it. So I'm with KACIO today. We talk about the contents, why people are going to be quite shocked, actually. And really, there's so much to learn from it, to learn about natural hormones, synthetic hormones, including the potential problems with synthetic hormonal contraceptives. also the history, history of also other drugs like antidepressants, antipsychotics and so forth,

and also about women not being believed and listened to and medical misogyny. So there's a lot in this book and we talk a lot about it in the podcast today. So Kat, this is not your first time on my podcast, but it's the first time actually in the studio, isn't it? I know. Third time lucky. It's really lovely. I know. We were just saying to Jack, actually, that it's 10 out of 10 experience,

but then I thought maybe it's 11 out of 10 because it's really lovely, really lovely here and I feel very relaxed. So thank you, Jack, in the background. So today I'm going to be talking about my book, and I'm holding it up for those of you that are watching. It's called The Power of Hormones, and then underneath it says, break free from fear and misinformation about hormones and harness them for a healthier, happier life.

So this book, I wish I'd written, actually, I think about 10 years ago, because I think things would be a lot clearer now if I had. So I apologise for those people that have missed out for 10 years. But actually, I'm really proud of it. I'm proud of all the books that I've written over the years. I think this is a ninth book that I have written, actually, because I wrote quite a few many years ago for doctors. But I've got with me, Kat Kio, who has been on my podcast before.

She's our director of all editorial content release. Kat works very hard on everything that we write. So throughout Balance app, throughout my website, through the podcast, everything to make sure that we are explaining things as correctly as up to date as evidence base as possible. And Kat and I, we've known each other for a long time. You were pregnant, weren't you, when we first met? Yeah, it's eight, nine years now.

Yes. Yeah, so we've been through. like the circle of life. It is really. Yes. So Kat, Katz worked very close to all my books with me and it's been great because actually writing a book is a really lonely process and so it's really great to brainstorm to make sure I'm on the right track to make sure it's written in the right way. So we thought this time we're going to spin it on its head this podcast. So Kat's going to actually ask me more questions than I'm going to ask her. That was her idea, not mine. But between us, We want to tell you what the book is about, why it's worth not just buying yourselves,

but for every single person that you know. And it's not just a woman's book, actually. Anybody should read it. So go on then. Over to you, Kat. I feel like I should have had like a David Frost clipboard or something with me. First thing, I think, I'd love to ask, and for people to know, is why hormones, you're the menopause doctor or you've been known as the menopause doctor for so long now.

why hormones are not in adverted just menopause. Yeah which is great question because menopause isn't on the title. It's not in the book at all actually and I do write about how we should be reframing menopause so it's really interesting because for me it's all very obvious the whole link between hormones but a lot of people aren't and I realised this a few years ago I was talking to my mother who's not a doctor as you know about hormones

and she said Louise I didn't realise that women had hormones naturally in their body. I thought hormones were HRT and everyone's scared of HRT because of breast cancer risk unfounded, of course. So then I thought, gosh, I really need to take it back to the basics. And I realized that in medicine, I've been a medical writer for many years

and years ago I was writing some information for women who'd had breast cancer and it was before the internet and I asked people what they thought cancer was and they said it means death, it means dying. And I was like, what? No, it doesn't, actually. And I spoke to the professor of oncology, Tony Howell, who I was working with. And he said, oh, no, don't be ridiculous.

Of course they know that. They're alive 10 years after their diagnosis. They're fit and well. They're coming back to my clinic. Obviously not. You just ask a few of your next patients. And you realize, as doctors, you use language or we use language that isn't so obvious to other people. So I thought, let me go back to the basics then.

Let me talk about hormones and what they are, and they are powerful. And actually, this title is a bit confusing in some ways because I don't talk about all hormones, although I talk about the history of hormones. And I think that's really important, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, that's what's really different about this book. Your previous books have been more of like, well, one was called a manual, more of a guide, more of a manual, what to do when you go to the doctor. what to do if X, Y, Z happens or you have X, Y, Z condition.

This is much more like the story of, almost like the unseen story of Hormones. Early on and throughout the book, there's a lot of history, there's a lot of content. I mean, there's everything from castrated choir boys to, you know, people performing experiments on the kitchen table, self-injecting. I mean, why did you think it was important to kind of almost start at the beginning of Hormones? Yeah, because I've got a very inquisitive mind, as you'd probably realise, and I don't like being told no for an answer as well. I like to know reasons for things.

And I think once you know reasons, it's easier to piece it together. And actually, I did a lot of research for the previous theatre tour that I did 18 months ago. And I've done even more for the upcoming theatre tour. But actually, I find history really, really fascinating, because then it can help you join the dots. And I actually try and understand this misunderstanding because there's been two big areas of misunderstanding. There's been the misunderstanding of what the hormones

progesterone, testosterone, testosterone are and what they do, which we can talk about. But there's also been a misunderstanding about many doctors and how they've been pioneers ahead of their time and they've been misunderstood. And that's really important. We've written about Brown-Sacquire. who was an incredible doctor very, very well respected.

And he actually had a very humble upbringing. But then he thought there was something and he knew there was something, but he didn't know about hormones in the testis of animals and humans. That's where you said he injected, didn't he? And he talked about this elixir of youth. And he's written about how he could get out of bed in the morning without joint pains, how he slept better,

His concentration was so good. His energy lasted throughout the day. And people just ridiculed him. And they didn't want to learn. And I think that's really sad. So knowing the history of hormones, the history of how the hormones were commercialised, the history of where it's all gone wrong as well

with the wrong data about the wrong type of hormones. It's been really interesting. But because I had all that knowledge for the tour, I only used a very small amount actually in the same. at all. Yeah. I have made so many notes. And so going back to all my notebooks, thinking, actually, I want to get this out somehow.

I mean, it's amazing, though. You think you go from probably just over a century since hormones, you know, as a thing, were discovered. And then there's this sort of 1920s, 30s, 40s where they've hit on something. They're starting to develop it. They see there's money there. things are used for nefarious reasons. And I mean, you know, I've worked with you for a decade now.

I thought I was kind of upon hormones, history of, and I think helping you with this book, I realized that there was so much I didn't know. And I do think that there's going to be some real eye-opening sort of vignettes in there for people. I mean, is there anything in terms of like light bulb moments that you can sort of share that people might get out of the book? Yeah, one of the biggest. things that I really want for people out of the book to think about is what hormones are

and our language, because language, I think as a doctor we have to be really precise with our language. And for decades, doctors, including me in the past, have hoodwinked people and women have been completely given wrong information when we say you're on a hormone birth control pill, you're on a hormone or contraceptive. These are not hormones. They've been made to act like hormones, but their chemical structure has changed. And although I knew their chemical structure had changed when I was a junior doctor, I didn't realize, which sounds really, really stupid now, but I didn't realize they have completely different physiological and biological effects in the body. And that is really important for people to understand, because when we talk about

risks of hormones, it's risks with these synthetic chemicals. And, you know, to try and explain it in a really simple way. There's two things that I think might make it simple if people understand. One is thinking about a chemical structure. Lots of people might know different molecules, different compounds. They all have a chemical structure. You can break it down. And often it's sort of some hexagons, some lines, often carbon atoms, hydrogen, oxygen. But if something's changed, it really changes a lot how it behaves. So if you think of just carbon, carbon when it's just got three bonds is graphite, which is a lead pencil. If you change the structure so it's got four bonds, it's got an extra bond, then it becomes a diamond. Like it's the same substance

almost, but it's different. And then the other analogy that I've been using more with a lot of doctors actually who seemed to guess it as well is that if I gave a patient or a friend or anyone some chicken flavour crisps or I gave them raised chicken and I said to them which one's got chicken in it

you would hopefully choose the rose chicken and not the chicken flavour crisps because they're labelled as chicken but they won't have chicken in them something that a chemical that tastes like chicken so you can see it have completely different effects in the body and this is where

we've been mis, you know, hormones have been misunderstood. And also the whole fear about HRT, when we, or when I prescribe HRT, it's this body identical, so it's like for like. Whereas in the past, the HRT that's been linked with the cancer scares, the clot scares, the stroke scares and everything else has been the chicken flavor crisps version. The horse wee. And the horseway, yes. I mean, that's just crazy, isn't it?

talk about that in the book, don't you? How the equine, estrogen, how it came about, these huge farms. Yeah. We see, it's about corruption. It's about greed and corruption, which I think I didn't understand it again as you go out to the history because the first HRT was made from pregnant women's urine. But people didn't like it because it smelt of urine. So they wanted to try and change the smell.

But also it was expensive because you needed a lot of urine to make sense. small tablet and it was available over the counter so people could buy it from the pharmacy because pharmacists were quite different weren't they then in the early 1900s so then they decided the biochemists and the scientists to work with abattoir owners to get horses urine but they also then decided to work with gynecologists and they paid the gynecologists to work with them and said if you work with us we'll have your names on papers I mean one of the drug companies even paid for it's called Hormon, which was a journal just for, you know, for hormones. And so it was a way of the drug companies very quickly having control of this synthetic hormone.

They even wrote about the gold in the horse's urine because they knew that it had a huge commercial value. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about is we got it in Balances, Not Me campaign, which is running currently is medical misogyny. Yes. That's existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And you've written quite a lot about it. And it's quite shocking just how women's health was either completely dismissed

or it was all in the care of male physicians who some of them, a lot of them might have thought they were doing the right thing. But, you know, things like, I don't know if you want to talk about the the rest cure. Yeah, and this is really interesting. And actually in my theatre tour, I'm talking a lot more detailed about some of the treatments that were inappropriately given to women. And you're right, there's, there's, it's interesting really, because there is the medical misogyny, which I'll talk about in a little bit, but there's also this harm that's been caused to people, often by doctors who were trying to do what they thought was right. And so

the rescue, there's a doctor Silas who invented this because he, I think he probably was a kind doctor, but he was making a lot of money, so let's not be too, you know. Anyway, he, because they all did, think that the womb was the problem, the ovaries were the problem, and they were concerned that too much blood was going to a woman's brain, and that was confusing her and causing her to have all these, you know, memory problems and mood problems and everything else. So this rescue, the women would literally be put to bed for a month or so at a time. they would not be allowed to read, they couldn't talk, they couldn't do any embroidery or do anything that was going to stimulate their brains.

The nurses had a bedpan for them, so they would help them toilet. And they had a very, very bland diet that they were allowed to eat. And, you know, but people had it. And famous women. They were, weren't there? Yeah. So Virginia Woolse, Edith Walton. Yes.

Yeah. It's really sad. And when you read Virginia Woolf's letters that she wrote and even her suicide note, you know, I wonder how much was hormones that were related. So they didn't know about that. They didn't know. I mean, they gave this hydrotherapy where they were squirting water at women's genitals, you know. The picture.

Yeah, some of those pictures. And then the uterine stimulation, the gynecologist, you know, thinking this wandering wound was the problem. And then they would be bringing their patients to climax. you know, giving them orgasms. And then the problem was they got so busy. The hands started to hurt. And then they invented this machine.

And then, you know, that's where the vibrator came from. So you could thank gynaecologist for that in some ways. But like, somebody somewhere must have thought this is actually a bit wrong. Yeah. But the other thing is this was, these were treatments for people that could afford. Yeah. The people that couldn't afford often went to an asylum. And, you know, I find that's so sad.

But it's sort of pattern recognition in medicine. Once they realized about the hormones, they could realize women were improving, there was sort of a cohort of doctors that started to prescribe hormones. They would talk about how brilliant they were. There was this book Feminine Forever by Robert Wilson, that came out in 1966, I think.

And it was amazing because he said that the menopause is a hormone deficiency, we should cure it. Women shouldn't be suffering in this way. It's written in a 1960 style, and that was one of its fallbacks, because it was about, you know, women needing to look beautiful for their husband.

So there was those bits. They're a bit cringy, but it was of the time. But he did some work with Wyeth that made some pharmacies or a company that made some of the HRT. So everyone said it was all about promoting HRT. I've read the book many times, actually. And it was very,

factual, but he was quite ahead of his time. He was talking about the women who without their hormones were like a eunuch. They'd been castrated essentially. He'd talk about their bone loss. He'd talk about their risk of cancer without hormones. And people didn't like it because it didn't fit into what they were doing. But the other problem in the 1960s was that there were other drugs coming to market. And this is where I've written a lot in the book because it still happens now. So the antidepressants, the antipsychotics, benzodiazepine, the amphetamines. Mother's little helpers. They were all given sometimes in good faith because doctors didn't know what else to do.

But also then people didn't want to learn about hormones. They didn't want to learn about menopause. There was a big farmer influence and there were certain doctors, a lot of psychiatrists trying to make it a psychiatric problem rather than an all-body hormone problem. And so in the book, I've written a lot about the history. of antidepressants, antipsychotics, amphetamies, painkillers.

Because then I think you can realize what's gone wrong over time. It makes you realize, yeah, exactly. It helps you realize why we are where we are now. Yes. And why that's not necessarily a good place to be. No. You're the doctor, not me. But my view is always that medication,

if it helps great, if it's not appropriately given, then why are we giving it? Well, this is the thing and this is where I talked about the reframing of menopause, about language, because I feel as a doctor, I need to be really clear with my patients, what's wrong with them. And I use the analogy, actually, if someone had chest pain, chest pain isn't a diagnosis. If I said to you, oh, you've got chest pain, you'll go, yeah, thanks, I know, because I've got this pain in my chest. Whereas you could be having a heart attack, or you could have some osteocroniditis, you could have a chest infection, you could have just, you know, been hit in the chest and got bruising. There's so many different reasons

for chest pain. So I said to you, you're having a heart attack. Pretty much, hopefully Jack would call an ambulance and off you would go. Whereas if I said, oh, you've got a bit of bruising there and you said, oh, yeah, I fell over, that's fine. So it's not fine, but you know what's the means? And that's the same with menoples. What does it mean? Oh, your periods have stopped for more than a year, so what? You can tell me that as a patient, but actually you might have had a hysterectomy 20 years ago. So that's not very helpful that diagnosis. Whereas if I said to you, oh, Kat, you're deficient in testosterone, you'd probably then say, well, how do I get testosterone? What do I do? Yeah. So I think that's really key because then you're more likely to get the right medicines

rather than what's happening now is that most women are prescribed antidepressants rather than HRT because doctors are thinking of a symptom. So, oh, you've got low mood, you're a bit flat, so you could sleep very well, therefore you must be depressed. And you as a patient are not thinking about your dry skin and your urinary symptoms and everything because you think that might not be relevant to tell your psychiatrist. No, exactly. Yeah, you look at things in isolation, don't you? Yeah. Thanks so much for listening to my podcasts. Did you know that if you prefer to watch rather than just listen, my podcast are available on YouTube every week.

You'll find full episodes and additional educational content on our hormones, menopause and women's health, all grounded in science and real clinical experience. So if you want to stay up to date, revisit episodes or share them with others who might benefit,

make sure you subscribe to my YouTube. The other thing in the book, I mean, as you say, it's not a menopause book. It is about whole body, whole life, hormones. You've picked the, you know, the important hormones to talk about, estradiol, progesterone, testosterone. There's a big chapter there about contraception. Yes. So tell me about that. So that's because, again, I go back about the history of

contraception because I think that's really important. And so when they realized there was this role for hormones as HRT, people were feeling better, their well-being improved, they then thought, what else can we do? But a lot of the data was looking and the experiments were looking at hormones whether women bleed or not, because again, it's all about our periods and fertility, isn't it? That's all that matters is women, not. So they started to do experiments actually before the war on ethanol eustodial, which is a synthetic estrogen to see if it affect bleeding and the synthetic progestogens. And progestogen means a synthetic progesterone, very different chemical structure. So they started to do experiments and they saw that women weren't bleeding.

Now, bleeding has always been a problem for women, heavy bleeding, irregular bleeding, painful periods. So they thought this is good. If we can stop a woman bleeding, they're going to really thank us, which is sort of right. But all the experiments were on the womb. And so then they did thought, well, we've got this product that actually, if women don't bleed, they might not get pregnant. But then they didn't have to have consent for doing experiments then. It's shocking, isn't it? Really is. It's really awful.

And there was a big problem, like huge fertility problem, as in overpopulation in Puerto Rico. And they then went over to Puerto Rico, and you went into some of the hospitals and gave women without their consent these medications. So a lot of women actually reported that they felt sick. They were being sick. A lot of them had clots.

They were really ill. Some of them died. a lot of the records weren't written up properly. There was a report back to the American doctors to say, hey guys, this isn't quite right. They said, well, are they bleeding or not, as in having, you know, periods? It was all about that. There was some comment, or maybe this, we should reduce the dose.

The drug company actually changed the formulation without telling the doctors that this was happening. They realized women were bleeding less. So they said, let's put it to market. And so in the 1960s, they put this high dose, synthetic estrogen, synthetic progestogen, pill out as a treatment for bleeding. And they said, but you might not get pregnant on it.

But they said it's not, we can't license it as contraception because we don't have enough data. And then a year or two after, people were really going for it and using it a lot because they thought, great, this is, you know, contraception. So then they changed the licensing as contraception without any data. They didn't have data to prove. it was a good contraceptive, but the biggest problem in my mind is they had no data that it was safe for women, no data that it was safe for their brains, for their hearts, for their bodies,

for their long-term health. They didn't do any post-surveillance data. Once it was out and licensed, that was it. They didn't have to monitor it. Horse had bolted by that. It had bolted. And I hadn't realised so much. And so when you then go back into the data and you look at these risks of clots, heart attacks, strokes, cancer risks. It's all there. It's quite hard to find, but that's where the risks are. And they lowered the dose, but we don't even know if it's a dose dependent. You know, if you've got a synthetic hormone and it's blocking the receptors of the natural hormones or stimulating the receptors in an unusual way, it's not going to have the same effect as your own hormone. And so I have written quite a lot about the sort of

risks of hormonal contraceptives. And I'm very clear in the book. I'm not saying women can't take them. No. But we need to know as women the risk. And I feel frustrated because I was on a synthetic hormonal contraceptive for about 10 years when I was younger. And I thought, great, this is brilliant.

I didn't realise what was going on. And I prescribed them without being taught properly. And I feel, you know, I've got three daughters. I want them to know and have choices. I've written about the history of even the contraceptive coil, because that's got a story behind it as well hasn't him yeah yeah i mean there's just there's so much in that that once you realize what how things were discovered how they were marketed it's the marketing it's the marketing that's the big thing that was the thing that was a real

sort of eye opener for me sort of helping you looking through things when i remember you one evening just sending me a whole stack of pictures and it was just i remember showing my husband. I was like, have you seen this? Yeah. What is? And it was just, you know, you'd sort of see almost like the Pleasantville 1950s adverts of women, kind of, you know, men keep your woman under control, give her this pill to pepper up or, you know, real like upper and downer. Yeah, definitely.

And the contraception or the kind of birth control marketing is just, I mean, all very much of its time. But when you look through the modern lens, it's. It's appalling. But, I mean, the other thing that there's, you know, there's a couple of chunky chapters in there that are really well explained, but you go into a lot of depth. Inflammation, I think, is probably one of the biggies, isn't it? Yeah.

Inflammation is something that's so important. People talk about it and don't quite understand what it is. What is it? Yeah. So inflammation is a balance. actually, and the important thing to understand is it's good and bad. Yeah. So if, for example, I cut my finger, we have cells that go and repair,

so they will help make sure I don't get an infection. They'll send the right signals to that cut fingers to repair the cut, to repair the tissues and everything else as well. What you want to do is you've got these immune cells which help fight inflammation. So what you want to do is them to sort of gobble up any germs, any debris, any bad cells and keep us as healthy as possible. But if they turn against us, they can damage our tissue and they can make things worse and they can increase inflammation in our body. So then they can create more waste products. They can worsen the way that our bodies work in a cellular way

as well as in a systemic way and affect our organs as well. And having this balance is crucially important. So I talk a lot about the types of cells, like the macrophate is the most beautiful cell in the world, my favourite cell, but how that can turn against us. So talking about the different immune cells, but also talking about mitochondria, written a lot about oxidative stress as well. And it's important if you understand how they work. And then I've written about how the different drugs, like the biologics, like steroids, can have a positive but also negative effect on a our immune system. And then obviously I've written about how progesterone stood down and testosterone regulate our immune system in a very natural way. And I got my husband to read that chapter

recently because he did a pathology degree with me as well. And it was quite interesting because when he finished it, he did say, hmm, it's made me think that actually inflammation is not all bad, is it? We need to have that balance. And I said, yeah, totally. So I think that's a really pivotal chapter when we think about all the inflammatory diseases that are killing us that are more common as we age, how we can reduce inflammation, just in general, with our nutrition exercise and the way we live, but also really importantly with our hormones as well. The hormones too. No, absolutely. I think what's really lovely about this book as well is, you know, you go through the history, you go through the science, you talk about discovery of hormones,

harnessing of hormones when they've been used in, you know, for nefarious reasons or when they've been misunderstood. But what I think will resonate with people is you have dealt in, you know, you have shared a bit of yourself in there. You've talked about, you know, health history of yourself, of your family. You've talked about some difficult times that you've had, you know, in recent years. What made you feel like this was the place to kind of share a bit of yourself? Yeah, I didn't know that I was going to. actually, but I decided to write a chapter about women not being listened to, and that feeds into your medical misogyny question earlier, actually. And I was thinking, why are we in such a mess?

Because so many patients, when they come and see me, they thank me for listening to them, for believing them. And I'm like, what? I thought other doctors listened and believed, no, the amount of times I've been misjudged, I've been called names, I've been, you know, arms folded, terrible, and I'm consultations, and I'm like, what? What's going on? So then I sat and reflected about what's happened to my personal, you know, family over the years. And I've spoken about it before my middle daughter had septist a few years ago. And, you know, if I hadn't literally forced the doctor to keep her in at three in the morning, I'm pretty sure she would be dead now because she had the infection in her hip and it was awful.

But then I was thinking about, you know, when my father died in the 70s, the doctors didn't believe my mother then with his headaches. and he had a brain tumour. And I sort of think maybe that was acceptable in the 70s, but he had a really lovely neurosurgeon, Sid Watkins, who said to my mother, the most important thing is to listen. And he actually also said to my mother,

pharmaceutical companies are ruining the way doctors work. And, you know, he was so ahead of his time. That's almost 50 years. Yeah, it was incredible, actually. And so, you know, when I started writing about my father, I sort of wrote more than I expected, and I did get quite upset as I was. writing it and then writing about the family.

But then I thought actually, firstly it will show there's a bit of human side to me, but also I think other people it will resonate with them. Yeah, and I think it's really movingly and beautifully written. There's part in the book that sticks out in my head where it's literally just a list of bullet points of different health experiences, you, your children, your parents might have had. And the list is exhausted. And I've got a small family. Well, no, and I'm thinking I'm one of seven.

I'm like, God, almighty, if I had to go through my family's list, it would be, it would probably be another book. But it just goes to show that I think for just one person can talk about those kind of medical missteps or near misses. Like you say earlier, had you not kind of pushed for your daughter, it could have been a different outcome. Again, sort of just sharing your own experiences. you always talk about if women come up and thank you or speak to you. You know, I think you share a lot of yourself already that people feel like they can come and approach to you, talk to you. And not every healthcare professional is like that.

It can be really daunting as a patient to ask, or not even ask request for what you want. You might have looked at the balance app or read the books. You know what you want to ask for, but it's that hard. whole action of that there's quite a hierarchy. But it sounds like from the book you've talked about your own experiences at medical school in training in the workplace. It's still quite a hierarchical profession. It totally is and I do write about this because of the way that we're taught as doctors

and it still happens now that you're taught by your senior consultants or your senior doctor. So you don't really have a platform to be too inquisitive or to ask back or to challenge because that person is going to write your reference. So you are silenced quite a lot as a doctor and that can make it really difficult, actually. And then also the hierarchy of medicine, and this has been one of the things that I'm quite open because I have a chapter about women

and the medical establishment and women who have been taken down, including myself, because, you know, in avertis-comers, I'm only a GP, which is what some people who contributed to the Panorama program, referred me about a few years ago. And I don't think there's anything only about anybody because everyone's got something to contribute,

not just in medicine, but in life in general. And that still very much happens, especially in women who are not believed, rather than someone stepping back and thinking, oh, maybe she's got a point here, maybe she's saying something we don't know and we can learn from her. It's been, no, she's just a stupid doctor.

She is just a GP. She is just someone who's self-promoting or whatever. So thinking again, the history, it hasn't changed. But it should. It should be different. You know, we should be learning from our seniors. We should be learning from juniors as well. And we should have this equal footing

and have this professional curiosity that isn't there, especially when it comes to health of women. No, no. I think that this book will make people angry in the best possible sense. I hope so. Yeah, I think so. But I think it will kind of energize people to realize that actually enough is enough. Yeah.

Things do have to change. We've got the knowledge. We've got the tools. You know, we've got the treatments. Sometimes it just takes a time to sit back, read something. Absolutely. I mean, what do you hope that people will get out of the book? When they've closed that, that read the last page, closed the book, finish this kind of journey.

What do you want them to kind of do? It's to be a real impetus for change. I want people to read it and like you say be angry, be shocked, be disappointed that it's been hidden for so long. And I'm very clear this is fact. It's not my opinion. This has come from fact. It's very, very heavily referenced. But I want people to really be thinking, what now, what am I going to do for future generations? How are we going to change? Whether it's someone as a doctor reading it, someone who employs women, someone who works in healthcare, someone who's working globally. It doesn't matter who they are or what gender they are.

We've got to realise it's a massive problem that hormones have been misunderstood. And it's a great opportunity when you're angry to make changes. So I just want to, I'm looking forward to hearing what people think that we should do because we've got to work together. And a lot of my work is really about empowering women with knowledge and men. So they can make the right choices. But there's got to be some sort of movement that's created from it where people realize the injustice of what's happening to women globally

because they're being denied safe hormones because they're not being listened to because the wrong healthcare professionals are doing the wrong jobs with the wrong treatment for far too many women. I think it's with the book, it's almost like once you've read it, You can't unread it. Yes, I hope so. You know, there's so much in there.

Really, you know, the research is meticulous. The referencing is meticulous. There's a lot. But it needs to be, you know, in terms of credibility, I think it really stands up. Where does it stand in all of the books? Like you said at the beginning, this is the ninth book you've written, you know, for whether it's a general or healthcare professional audience. where does the power of hormones stand in? This is one I'm most proud of.

It's definitely, it's been a really, really hard piece of work. I've said to my husband, I'm not writing another book. So this is my last book. But it's the one I think just ties everything together. And I feel like there's nothing more I need to say about hormones now. It's for other people to do the work and decide what to do with that information that I'm giving them. So yeah, it's definitely, I definitely think it's the best book that I've written because it covers so much and it's just unmasking so much more.

It's a real expose in the best possible sense. And I think, you know, as I was saying before, whereas the other books were more of a guide, this is more of a sort of clarion call for change. But it will arm people with the knowledge, give them the background. And I think it will, yeah, make people. stand up and listen and realise that, you know, enough is enough, really. We spoke about this sort of medical misogyny healthcare professionals facing adversity.

I mean, Katrina Dalton gets quite a hefty mention in the book, isn't she? I didn't know if you wanted to kind of talk a bit about that. So she was someone that qualified many years ago, actually, at the year the NHS was launched. And she was misjudged a lot because she promoted progesterone, the natural. progesterone, giving it to women, prescribing it for women with PMDD, premenstrual dysphoria, which is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome, postnatal depression. And people didn't like her for that at all. But she really did transform and save lives. And she was, inverse of commas, only a GP as well. So she was misunderstood. So I write a lot about her and really acknowledge her work

because we've reactivated a lot of her work in the clinic and have transformed and saved lives with it. So I'm very grateful to her knowledge that she left. And I think she gives a great example of a woman that just kept going for her patients as well. Absolutely. And I mean, some of the things that you write about her work with women facing the criminal justice system, I mean, I didn't know that there was a correlation between criminality and the time in your menstrual cycle. She really and picked that and she actually successfully she actually reduced a sentence for quite a few women with PMDD

who committed their crime those days before the periods when they were very angry irritated, aggressive because once she gave them the right hormones their mood improved they were stable throughout their cycle so she shortened their sentence and that was before it was made a psychiatric

diagnosis and so it's just impossible to change that now sadly well I did nothing's impossible but it's very hard The last chapter in the book, you do spend quite a lot of time talking about your work in prisons. I remember asking you at the time, why do you want to end with that? I mean, it's obviously a really, really important piece of work that you're proud of. But why end on that now?

So there's two reasons really. Firstly, I used to work in a prison 26 years ago, but I knew nothing about hormones, nothing about Katrina Dalton. and I did the best job that I thought I could, but then looking back, I realised that I never asked the women about their periods. I never asked them if they had a cyclical change in their symptoms, and I feel that I misjudged a lot of them because I didn't know about hormones. So I wanted to go back for my own knowledge. But the other thing is when I did go back, as you know,

I went to five different prisons, volunteered, I went with some other colleagues, and we spoke to some incredible ladies in prison who were really, really struggling. They were struggling with their symptoms, but they were also struggling because they weren't able to have HRT prescribed to them. No one was even giving them anything, let alone testosterone. They were giving synthetic hormones and a lot of psychiatric medication. But the saddest thing is that I've been banned from going to prisons because they thought that it was a threat to their own doctors.

And they thought I was going there to get patients for my private clinic, which is the most ridiculous thing ever. So it's the saddest thing that's ever happened to me in my professional career. They reported me to my responsible officer who does my annual appraisals. And I had to write a report saying all the experience that I have about mental health, all the experience I have working in deprived communities, which I have. And they still don't feel that it was appropriate to be there talking about hormones. So I've written about it and I've written about some of the women that I spoke to. Yeah, there's some amazing questions.

And I've told the prison service that I'm writing this. in the book so there's no surprises but I want people to realise that actually this is a problem for all communities and all societies and we need to wake up to it and can't keep ignoring it. This is going to be released on the week of the

publication so I think we're two or three days out if I'm looking in the future we're about two days out for publication how are you feeling excited nervous, bit of everything? I'm really excited I'm intrigued and excited yeah okay well in the

interests of turning the tables, I get to ask the three take-home tips. So I do feel like I've got the keys to the kingdom. So, Dr. Louise Newsom, can you give me three reasons why people should rush out and buy the power of hormones? Thank you. The first is everyone needs to know about hormones because we all have them, regardless of our age, regardless of our gender. So everyone needs to know about their hormones. So it's about knowledge about hormones. The second thing is that most people will realise that there's been issues with HRT. People are scared for the wrong reasons. People are confused. So if anyone is scared, confused, unsure about HRT, then you should definitely read it. The third thing that I reason that I think people should be considering it is no more about

hormone or contraception. I really worry about teenagers being prescribed synthetic hormones that we've already said aren't hormones for their acne, for their bloating, for their mood changes, for their heavy periods and the long-term consequences to their future health, which we don't know, we can speculate. So anyone who's on a birth control, anyone who's thinking about contraception for themselves or a family member, I would really urge you just to read it with an open mind and then make decisions after that. Three excellent reasons. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you for coming on my podcast. I've enjoyed it. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Louise. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. It would be amazing if you could follow me or subscribe because it will really make a difference to grow numbers

enable this to reach even more people. Thanks so much.