The Dr Louise Newson Podcast - 81 – The hormone confusion that’s affecting millions of women

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

What’s the difference between natural and synthetic hormone treatments, and why does it matter?In this episode, Dr Louise Newson is joined by pharmacist and hormone expert Sara Hover, who has spent more than 30 years helping women understand hormone health. Together, they explore one of the most misunderstood topics in medicine: why natural, bioidentical hormone treatments are fundamentally different from synthetic hormone treatments, despite often being grouped together.Louise and Sarah discuss how small changes in a hormone’s chemical structure have very different effects throughout the body, why synthetic hormone treatments shouldn’t be considered interchangeable with natural, bioidentical hormone treatments, and how decades of confusion have influenced the way hormone treatments are prescribed and researched.They also explore why personalised hormone treatment is so important, the limitations of relying on blood tests alone and why conversations about hormones shouldn’t begin and end with menopause.LET'S CONNECT👉 Subscribe on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/@menopause_doctor?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉   Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/menopause_doctor/?hl=en&utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉 LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisenewson/?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉   TikTokhttps://www.tiktok.com/@drlouisenewson?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉 Spotifyhttps://open.spotify.com/show/7dCctfyI9bODGDaFnjfKhg?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+LEARN MORE👉 Download mybalance apphttps://balance-app.com/?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉 Order my new bookhttps://bio.to/ThePowerofHormones?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+👉  Speak to Newson Clinichttps://www.newsonhealth.co.uk/?utm_source=louise_podcast&utm_medium=show_notes&utm_campaign=clinic_cross_promotion👉  Visit my websitehttps://www.drlouisenewson.co.uk/?utm_source=DLNpodcast+&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=BAU+ 

So on the podcast today, we're talking about natural versus synthetic hormones. I've got with me, Sarah Hover, who's a pharmacist. It's a great listen that everybody should be listening to, whether you take hormones or you've got a daughter, niece, somebody at work who's maybe taking synthetic hormones. It's really crucially important to know the difference between the natural, bioidentical or body identical hormones and synthetic, so-called labelled hormones,

which are actually chemicals made to act like hormones, but they're not. So have a listen and let us know what you think. So Sarah, you're over from the US. It's always exciting having real life patients from abroad in the studio. So thank you so much for making the effort to come over. Absolutely. Very excited to be here. So you probably know more about hormones than me, although I'm catching up, because you've been in it for a lot longer than me.

I feel really cheated as a doctor because, I've only really known so much over the last 10 years, whereas you've been in this for a bit longer, haven't you? Yeah, a bit longer. I've been a pharmacist for 30 years. And before I even got my license, I was working for a pharmacy in the Dallas area. I'm from Texas. And they were doing hormone replacement.

And it really opened my eyes. I had one particular patient that came in. Her insurance change, so she had to see a different practitioner. And she then also needed something for sleep and depression. and she was like, I don't want to be on all these. Her blood pressure went up. All these things started. The wheels were coming off the bus.

And she told her husband, I don't care what it costs. I'm going to go back to that doctor. I'm going to go back to that pharmacy. And that was my big aha moment of the nutrition we were supplying to her, along with the, you know, bioidentical hormone replacement, was made all of those things. Other medications go away. And so it became my mission to help educate women because we've been lied to. We have, and I want to talk about this. So I've been a medical writer for many years.

I've trained as a physician, so I'm not a gynaecologist, and I've also got pathology degree, so I like basic science. But I've worked as a medical writer for many, many years, for healthcare professionals, but also for lay people. But about 12 years ago, I went to a lecture, and the doctor there was talking about micronized progesterone and saying how different it is to synthetic progestogens. Now, back then, the progestogen-only pill was called a progesterone-only pill.

So I thought, well, we've got progesterone. And then I read about micronized progesterone. So then I wrote an article about it. I used to write a weekly article, and it was called GP. So it was a magazine that was given freely to every GP. And it was sort of key topics. It was to keep people up to date. So I wrote an article about hormones.

And I wrote about progesterone, micronized progesterone, and Yuchogestan, which is one of the ones that we've prescribed quite a lot over here. And there were letters of complaint that came in. And one doctor wrote to say, how dare Dr. Newsom Wright about a drug that isn't even able to be prescribed on the NHS? Now, it was, and it still is able to be prescribed on the NHS. It's in the British National Formula. It's no more expensive than synthetic hormones.

And I was really shocked that someone could be so rude about me without knowing the facts. But I'm not shocked now because lots of people are rude about me without knowing the facts. But I thought then, gosh, it's because it's something different and it's something about women and its hormones that these people got very cross. Whereas if I was writing about a new ACE inhibitor for hypertension, they'd probably go,

oh, this is interesting, you know? So I was really, and so then I started to use it in my practice, but it wasn't on our formulary. So in, I don't know if you know in the UK, each region has different formularies. So although we've got the British National Formulae, which is like our Bible of drugs, if you like, so we can theoretically as licensed doctors, prescribe any,

each formula will say what you can and can't prescribe, and it's usually on cost. So when I, after hearing this lecture, I went and read about the differences between natural and synthetic progesterone and progestogens. I thought, well, I'm going to prescribe you, Chigestan. It wasn't on the formulary. Like the drop-down box on my computer, it wasn't there.

So I initially had to handwrite the prescription, and I got into trouble for it. So then I went to the local authorities and I said, I'd like to change it for you to Jester. They said, well, no, you can carry on giving myoxy progesterone acetate or norathistrone. And I said, but they're completely different. And they said, no.

And I had to write so much. And in fact, I left the practice by the time. And now they've changed it, but it took about three years to change. And I look back now, and I'm really shocked by that episode because no one would listen to me, no one would understand the difference.

And if you go back to basic chemistry, just explain to me the difference between these different progesterones, because there is only one progesterone, isn't there? All of the progestin, progestogen, progesterone, they all get used interchangeably, and it's frustrating because there is a lack of understanding. I used to talk to physicians, and I would talk to them about the differences,

and they're like, they didn't understand. And I said, well, would you prescribe modoxy progesterone to a pregnant woman? They're like, oh, absolutely not. I go, well, then they're not the same thing. Because you would give progesterone to someone to help maintain their pregnancy. So that was always my big kind of giving them to think. To think, yeah. Because, you know, with hormones and receptors, it's like a lock and key.

Yes. And so it may fit into the lock, but it's not going to turn it the way that we want it to turn. And if you just even look at the molecular structures, they are very far from even. been looking the same. So it's very, very different. And it's frustrating. The literature, I always tell pharmacists and providers, like, please read in the literature. A couple of years ago, I was planning to do a talk on hormones in the brain. And I had turned in my learning objectives and I hadn't written my PowerPoint yet. But there was an article that came out that said hormones cause dementia. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. And I had a student at the time, I was like,

here, I'm doing this talk on hormones in the brain, and here's this article. And she looks at me like, I'm crazy that I'm excited that this article has come out. And so I'm like, I want you to dig down into it. She comes back and she was like, on the very last table, had to dig down into it. It was all synthetic hormones. I'm like, exactly. They caused dementia, progesterone, estradiol, testosterone, promote brain health. And so I loved that I could use that article as an example of you can't just read a title.

You can't just even read the abstract. No. You have to do. You have to. And it's so important. And because the terminology is quite confusing and it's branded around in the wrong way. And all hormones are lumped together. So any insert will talk about risks, whether it's the bioidentical, the natural Easterdial, progesterone, testosterone, or the synthetic versions.

It still has the same risks for the consumer for the patients. Same warnings when we try and prescribe it through our computer systems. So you can understand how this confusion happens. But often if I'm not sure about something, I've got quite a simplistic brain, so I'll go back to basics. I'll be like a sort of annoying two-year-olds asking why, why, just explain. And so going back to very molecular,

like the key and lock analogy is so brilliant because so many people understand when they've had a, we all had the dodgy key cut. And sometimes it does fit into the lock and then it just doesn't turn, does it? But there are two problems with that. Firstly, it doesn't unlock, like you say, these lovely cascade of biological processes that occur in the cells.

But if it's in the lock and you've got the new key, you've got to take out the old one first. And that is a real problem with the synthetic hormones, isn't it? They hang on to the receptor for a long time. Yeah. It can take three, six, nine months sometimes before we start to see, you know, the biodinical be able to do what we want it to do

because that's synthetic's on board. Yeah. And it's hard. It's frustrating. I usually talk about how we taper off of a synthetic, especially if we've been on it for a long time. It's not an easy process. Yeah. So I've written a lot about this in my book because the history, I think, is really important. It's all about commercialization at the end of the day. And when they discover the structure of the hormones, they wanted to make them commercial so they could sell them through pharmaceutical companies. So they altered the structure just very slightly. But a small difference in chemical structure can make a massive difference in the body and how this subsistency. works, but also the research was done on the lining of the womb. So they were very much focusing on will this woman bleed or not with this synthetic progestidum. But they didn't look up or look down. So they weren't looking at, you know, if you look down, looking at the muscles, looking at the

nerves, looking, you know, at the whole, even the skin. And then looking up, my goodness, they didn't go to the heart or the lungs and certainly didn't go to the brain. So they've got this synthetic chemical, I don't even like calling it a hormone because it's not a hormone, that has been tested on for bleeding. I hadn't really been tested whether it was a contraceptive or not when it was licensed, was it? No, it really wasn't. There was an article that came out about comparing modoxy progesterone acetate to progesterone, and they were testing it on recess monkeys. Do you remember that? It was before the WHOHI. Yes, it was a long time. And so they basically, they internalized stress like we do and they gave one group, I don't know how they stressed out these monkeys.

I don't want to think about that. But they were able to see that metroxyprogesterone cause vasocin constriction. Yes. And progesterone caused vasodilation. So when I first read the WHO, I'm like, did they not read the racist monkey study? Like it wasn't a surprise that Medroxy acetanastatic caused stroke and, you know, more risk for women because of the vasoconstriction. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And they can negate the beneficial effects of the those hormones, probably because the key is stuck in the receptor really, isn't it? But they had their own effects too. And some of them, we just don't know. But we, I mean, we as clinicians, I've spoken to so many women who have been given synthetic hormones, whether it's in contraception,

whether it's in all types of HRT, whether it's in an implant, the depot injection, whether it's the hormonal, inverted commas, hormonal, but the synthetic progestic end up, they've had negative effects affecting their mood and their memory and their sleep and their cognition. Yet they've often been told, oh, you're probably depressed. It won't be related to hormones. Exactly. Or they're, oh, you know, I've had so many patients that thought that a hysterectomy was going to solve all their problems. And that's just the beginning of it. You know, it was hormonal imbalance that was causing their problems and just taking out the component that is bleeding doesn't solve the issue and I look at those patients as medical victims like it just really breaks my heart

many times I'm like oh if I talked to you sooner I could have helped you sooner yeah but you know we do do what we can to help as many people as we can but education is it's really crucial isn't it because I was talking to someone at the Royal College of GPs recently about the difference between natural synthetic hormones and he just said Louise you've just lost me there just stopped talking now and I said well it's not it's not that difficult once you understand it's really not difficult So just to recap, really, in all contraceptives that are marketed as hormonal, they don't contain natural hormones. We've got one in the UK called Zoli, which contains estradiol, not ethanol-estradial. But all the others that contain, in verticomers, estrogen is ethanol-estadial, which is a synthetic estrogen.

It's like estradiol with an ethanol group, so it doesn't have the same. And actually, we've known since 1979, it's a carcinogen. So it can cause cancer and there are risks with it. But all contraception that's marketed as hormone or contains synthetic progestogens, doesn't it? It does. It does. And how many young women and young ladies have problems that, you know, it's difficult. It's very difficult because a lot of people, like I say, aren't believed.

They're not believed that it's associated with their hormones. And it's very hard to prove because you can't do a blood test and say, oh, yes, you're having a side effect to your progester. So a lot of people are being told, well, it's trauma, it's stress, it's something else, or you've got a psychiatric diagnosis. A lot of people also, and I was told it told that if you have a hormonal coil, so a coil that contains a synthetic progesterum, it doesn't get in the bloodstream. And so therefore you can't have systemic side effects from it. Right. I strongly disagree with that. And the same thing, even with, I believe, with vaginal estrogen.

there was an article that I was asked to do this talk on kinetics. And I'm like a very simplistic pharmacist. Like, you know, if I left it at my trunk, I'm not going to do the degradation rate. I'm going to say, oh, let's replace it. But I had to do this kinetic talk. So I thought, okay, well, I'll dig down into some literature. And I found this article on vaginal estrogen and how they said, oh, it only stays in the vaginal tissue. But in the same article, they went on to mention that it helped with vasomotor symptoms.

And I'm like, it's not just staying. It's getting everywhere. So, I mean, if that is absorbed systemically, certainly a synthetic progestin is going to be absorbed. If you put anything on an area where there's blood supply, the blood will go around. And actually, with vaginal estrogen, these are natural body identical, bi-identical,

so it doesn't matter. But I've seen people, especially when they've got very thinning of the skin, they get absorbed quite quickly and you can get, you know, it's a very small amount. It's not enough to be concerned about. But if you've got something going into the womb that's touching the lining of the womb, the womb is a lot more vascular than the skin or the vulva or the vagina. So you will get some going into the uterine vessels,

which will then get into the bloodstream. And I've seen people that have had really severe mental health symptoms. One lady was a psychiatrist and she actually took it out. It was a weekend. She couldn't get to see a doctor. So she actually just pulled the threads and took it out herself. And she said, you know, within minutes, she felt better. I heard the exact same story recently that someone else was like, nope, this is not for me.

It needs to come out of there. Yeah. So, no, it can definitely be systemic. I mean, there are a lot of progesterone receptors in the vaginal area. So, I mean, it makes sense that maybe some is going to stay there because of their traction to those receptors. Yeah. But we have progester and receptors all throughout our body. And that's why I get frustrated when they say a woman that's had a hysterectomy doesn't need progesterone. Don't get me starting.

I was at a presentation. I went to Ishwash Conference, really great conference in Los Angeles recently. And there was a talk by one of the menopause societies talking about POI premature ovarian insufficiency. So menopause and women under the age of 40 and she showed the flow diagram, which she would have seen many times before. Has a woman, you know, had a hysterectomy or not? Yes or no.

Therefore, if she's had a hysterectomy, she only needs estrogen. So I went up, I took the microphone and I said, oh, I'd just like to ask. We all know that our ovaries produce progesterone, estradi, and testosterone, actually. But just thinking about progesterone first, we know it works all around the body. We've got receptors on every cell, especially in our brains. So when women have their ovaries and womb removed, why are we only suggesting estrogen? It just doesn't make sense. And she said, because that's what the guidelines say.

Oh, wow. And I said, well, yes, but I'm just wondering why. So then she said, well, some people don't tolerate progesterone. And the audience actually laughed. And then she said, next question, please. And that was it. She didn't want to engage in any further. But some people don't tolerate a certain dose of progesterone.

But some women crash their car. Does that mean we can never drive? Right. I wanted to take a quick pause from our conversation to tell you about my new book, The Power of Hormones. Many of the topics we discuss on this podcast are explored in much greater depth. in my book. I look at how hormones really work in the body, why they've been misunderstood for decades, and how confusion between natural hormones and synthetic hormones has influenced medical

practice and public perception. Most importantly, I explain why understanding hormones is essential for improving both current health and future health. So, if you'd like to continue learning beyond the podcast, my book The Power of Hormones is available now, and I've included a link to buy in the episode show notes. And we get quite a few letters of complaint in the clinic because we're giving progesterone to women who've had a hysterectomy. And the doctors are saying, how dare you prescribe? And when I sort of interpret it, it's like, how dare you prescribe a natural hormone to somebody whose hormone is missing? Right. It's really weird, isn't it? And progesterone makes estrogen receptors work better and vice versa. And like you said, there's receptors in the

thyroid, the breasts, the brain, you know, the intestines. I mean, our body is so, it's just a miracle. Like it never does, has one way to do something. And so it's not going to just have one job. It has many jobs throughout the body. Yeah. And it's interesting because we see people, when they're perimenopausal and they're producing their own progesterone, they sometimes don't tolerate progesterone so well then, but then as they become older and their menopausal and their progesterone really drops, then they really enjoy having the progesterone back. But they're quite nervous because they said, oh, I didn't like it when I tried it before. Or we might change them from oral to a pezzary or a cream and then they feel very different because they metabolized quite differently, aren't they?

Oh, absolutely, yes. I mean, I do love oral progesterone just because of the metabolite, the allopregnolone. Yes. It can really, really help with anxiety, depression and obviously sleep. it's fabulous but you know there are some some ladies i usually ask like how did you feel when you were pregnant and some will say i was pregnant and others are like it was the best time of my life i enjoyed every minute of it and others like i hated every second of it yeah that kind of gives me an idea like what they're going to be like with progester and how they're going to do with progesterone um i mean we can still work work around that and work through different dosage forms different strengths and that's the beauty of personalized medicine is we can fine tune it and that's

really important. We do it with every other aspect of medicine and somehow with HRT, certainly when I started to prescribe it in the 90s, it was fixed dose. It was one dose and you're either like it or you don't. And often people then, if they didn't feel better, they're said, well, it can't be hormones because you've been on HRT. And I look back and I think, oh my goodness, that was a east, well, it used to be the estrogen from pregnant horses urine and reducty progesterone acetate. Like, the wonder they didn't feel better. Oh my gosh. You know, it's, but things have moved on.

Yes. So giving personal or prescribing personalized hormones is really important because you've got flexibility. So we always prescribe the progesterone, estradi, testosterone, separately, certainly initially. I mean, they can be combined when we know the right dose. But having them separately gives real control, doesn't it? Absolutely. And that's what I would recommend to my patients or as providers when I had my

pharmacy was let's start out separate so we can see how you respond because if they're all combined we're going to have to raise or lower them together and there were a couple of times patients talked to me into that and I regretted it every time I did it because then there would be an issue you know maybe they had some you know fluid retention and maybe we need to back their estrogen down or you know there were things that we needed to tweak and we couldn't because it was combined but I got to the point where it was like a hard no we can't we can't start combined but I would tell them that was an ultimate goal. Yes. Yeah. And it's the absorption is a real issue and there's still confusion out there. We have had and we still have so many patients whose doctors

refuse to prescribe them a higher than licensed dose of patches or gel. Yet their ester's dial levels, which I know are only a guide, a low, but they've got symptoms that improve when they increase their dose. And I feel very strongly about optimizing dose for two weeks. reasons firstly because, you know, I've had a whole panorama documentary made about doses against me. But secondly, as a patient, I've been using higher than licensed doses for the last 11 years. And if I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to work and function. But I also get very frustrated with the patches. So the gel doesn't absorb at all. It just literally float. You can see it floating off my skin. But the patches sometimes are brilliant and I have no worries and problems.

And other times, they don't stick very well. So it's almost been like perimenopausal again. I'm sure I'm getting like intermittent absorption. And because I'm a migraine sufferer, it triggers a lot of migraines and a lot of joint pain as well actually. So, you know, the tiredness and the mood things, that can be due to so much. But it probably is related to hormones. But migraines and joint pain is something that you can't really make up. And I find that really frustrating because you think you've just got that.

and then you can't. So having alternatives like a cream can be really just life-changing, actually. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And the migraine suffers I'm always super, super careful with because it's the change in hormones. So, you know, even though they might be extremely low, like we're going to start out with baby doses and just barely fill up the cup. Even though we want to fill it up right away,

we need to just kind of drip it in so that it doesn't kind of, throw things off in our body. So, yeah, those patients are definitely more difficult. But, yeah, it's the patch is a lot of patients do great with it, obviously. I live in Dallas, so Texas in August, September. I wouldn't recommend that. It would be a time to visit because it's hotter than can be. And I had a patient that was a semi-pro golfer.

And she was on the golf course, 100 degree. I mean, it's Fahrenheit. So I'll let y'all do the conversion. and she told me as soon as I put the patch on, I feel like it's gone. Yes. And that was the first time it made me think, hmm, and like you, thinking about chemistry, thinking about physics. I'm like heat transfer.

Yes, course. Her body is super hot. Yeah. They probably didn't test that. She was probably sucking every little bit of estrogen out of the patch and then nothing. So if someone is super active, they're outdoors, they work out a lot. Even if they tolerate the adhesive and it stays stuck, they might not. be getting the even delivery that they mean. But we've known it for decades actually when you look

at some of the studies because it's not just between different women you can get differences. It's also the location, whether it's on the back or the bottom or the thigh, but also like you say, the temperature of the skin. There's so much. And it's basic pharmacology, actually. So it seems madness that people are worrying about the doses because actually it's all about absorption and penetration through the skin, isn't it? Absolutely. Yes. What we're absorbing. And then the other part that I heard a doctor talk about not that long ago just really made me think twice about things is what's going on at the receptor. Yeah. We don't even know that.

We don't know. You know, we don't know what's going on in the receptor. We can measure how it's getting in. We know how much we're giving. But that part is kind of like a mystery that I think is the next thing we have to solve. It is. And also, you know, I see a lot of women in our clinic who have very severe mental health symptoms. One in six have suicidal thoughts.

and a lot come from psychiatrists, a lot of them have been inpatients, and a lot of them have been mislabeled really with treatment-resistant depression, but they've been on antipsychotics for many years, which can obviously block their hormones. And increasingly, some of them, need higher doses for their mental health. And it's impossible, isn't it, to know, you know, blood test will tell you what's in the blood at the time of the blood being taken. But it doesn't tell you what's going on in the blood.

the brain. We spend time with our patients. We're very lucky we see our same patients coming back and we work with them very closely. And you learn a lot when you do that. And you think you've just got there. And then I always say to the patients, I don't know whether it's true or not, but it's almost like the ovaries have a bit for swan song just before they go. There's this sort of heightened activity and, you know, they can get breast tenderness, they can get bloating, they can get bleeding and they come back and say my hormones. And it's like, actually, I don't think it is the hormones I've prescribed for you. I think it's your own. just give it a bit of time and then they settle, don't they? And it's, but we're all different.

Absolutely. And I think that's important. I know a lot of people will be listening and thinking, right, what am I going to do either for my contraception or for my daughter's contraception? And there's no easy answer at all, really, is there? There is not. I have a 25-year-old, a 21-year-old daughters and then an 18-year-old son. And, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years. years. And so when I first was learning about after pharmacy school was learning the negative things with synthetics, that's the first thing I thought of is, what am I going to tell my girls? And, you know, abstinence sounds great. It's not going to happen. It's not reality, and I realize that. So, but I just, you know, and they've heard me talk for years about the

negativity of synthetics. So, you know, we opted for copper IUD. You know, I felt like, It's, you know, not perfect, but it was at least a non-hormonal option. You know, there was a non-hormonal contraceptive that came out and that's like to change the pH. I don't know that I trusted that. Like, I wanted my girls to get through school. Yes. Yeah. And of course, they can still have natural hormones on top coming if they need to.

Absolutely. Yeah. So just getting everything balanced is really key. It's really key. Yeah. Really important. And, yeah, certainly with balance at, We're doing a lot more education about younger people with PMS, PMDD, PCOS,

about having those natural hormones back, women with endometriosis, often the inflammation lowers when they have progesterone, maybe testosterone as well. So looking at those hormones beyond just for perimenopause and menopause is really key, isn't it? Absolutely, absolutely. And just, yeah, and looking at the whole patient, you know, we can't just narrow in just on these hormones, these female hormones. We have to broaden and look at adrenal. and thyroid, their gut, what's their lifestyle like?

It's, you know, just are they sleeping? That's key for so many things. Do they need to lose weight? Like, just really, I'm just more of functional medicine of really looking at the whole individual, but hormones is really the key piece. To so much, isn't it? So I'm really grateful for your time.

Before I end, I always ask for three take-home tips. So three reasons, and we will have talked about it already, of course, but three reasons why the, what I say natural, bioidentical, body identical. So the three reasons why these natural hormones are a lot better and safer than synthetic hormones. Number one, I'm all about brain health. With what I do with education, I want to make sure my brain is always functioning.

And so brain health is number one. We also want to feel good and live longer. I mean, a healthy health span, not a lifespan. Yes, course. And so I do think that the biodealphiore. and Nicole helps us to do, do those sort of things. Let's see. Number three, it's just, you know, overall happiness.

You know, I've had ladies come to me that were their hormones weren't balanced and they stopped doing the things that they used to love, their hobbies. Once we get their hormones balanced, then they have that, you know, zest for life again. You know, and so to me it's all about quality of life as well. So the health span, the quality of life and brain health. That is so important. Really important things to end on. So thank you so much, Sarah, for coming to the podcast today.

It's been my pleasure. Thank you. So just a quick one, it would be really great if you could follow or subscribe to this podcast. This will really help me reach more people with evidence-based information about hormones and their future health. And also means you never miss a future episode. Thank you.