The Menstruality Podcast - 243. The Menstrual Cycle, Midlife and Metabolic Health (Lara Briden)

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Today we’re welcoming back our most popular guest on the Menstruality podcast, naturopathic doctor, Lara Briden, who has previously offered holistic health guidance for menstrual, perimenopause and menopause health challenges which has helped thousands of our listeners. Today we’re geeking out about a vitally important, but often misunderstood aspect of our physical and mental health.As Lara describes, we’re experiencing a global crisis in metabolic health on the planet today, with over 40% of people in many countries living with insulin resistance, which has serious health implications throughout the body. In our conversation today we explore what’s at the root of these metabolic challenges, how they are impacting us - particularly when it comes to menstrual challenges and menopause - and most importantly, why it’s not our fault.Lara speaks to the systemic issues that have given birth to this health crisis, and some practical ways to create lifestyle shifts to move towards better metabolic health, as well as turn the ship around collectively when it comes to our food systems, endocrine disrupting ‘forever’ chemicals and ultra-processed food. These shifts are especially important for those dealing with menstrual health challenges, or navigating the life transitions of perimenopause and menopause, as well as pregnancy and post-partum if they are part of our path. We explore:The complex interplay of insulin resistance and women’s health, particularly for those experiencing PMOS (previously known as PCOS), PMDD and other premenstrual mood challenges, and perimenopause. We break down terms like metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, as well as defining ultra-processed food, and how it’s contributing to menstrual and menopausal health challenges. Disconnecting metabolic health from body shape and size, and the importance of not comparing yourself to others when it comes to reversing insulin resistance and moving towards metabolic health.---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyLara Briden - @larabriden - https://www.instagram.com/larabriden/

Welcome to the menstruality podcast where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexander and Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can, unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, thanks for joining us today. We're welcoming back one of our most popular guests on the menstruality podcast,

naturopathic Dr Lara Bryden. She's previously offered holistic health guidance for menstrual challenges as well as perimenopause and menopause health challenges, which have helped thousands of our listeners. which has helped thousands of our listeners. And today we're geeking out about a vitally important but often misunderstood aspect of our physical and mental health. As Lara describes, we're experiencing a global crisis in metabolic health on the planet today with over 40% of people in many countries living with insulin resistance, which has

serious health implications throughout the body. And Lara has written a book about it. It's called metabolism repair for women. And in our conversation today, she shares so much of the deep study she did to write this book about what's at the root of these metabolic challenges, how they're impacting us, particularly when it comes to menstrual health and menopause health, and most importantly, why it's not our fault. Lara speaks to the systemic issues that have given birth to this health crisis

and some practical ways to create lifestyle shifts to move towards better metabolic health, as well as turn the ship around collectively when it comes to our food systems and endocrine disrupting forever chemicals and ultra-processed food and how these shifts are especially important for those dealing with menstrual health challenges or navigating the life transitions of perimenopause, menopause, pregnancy, postpartum. So let's get started with the menstrual cycle, midlife and metabolic health with Laura Bryden. So, Lara, thank you so much for joining us again on the Menshajati podcast. Your previous episodes, which I'll link to in the show notes, have been our most popular

episodes, most downloaded, because I think the information you bring is so, so helpful and so vital. And we're going to look at your new book today about metabolic health, but firstly, just thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here again. And, yeah, hopefully again in the future. Yeah, there's so much to talk about with periods.

I know so much to talk about and midlife too, perimenopause too. But we always start on the podcast with a cycle check-in. And I know you're post-menopause now. Yes. So when I'm sitting with a post-menopause woman or person, I always just want to ask what cycles are important to you in your life these days? I mean, for me, I guess it would be seasonal. But I mean, I've confused myself a little bit because I do go back and forth between hemispheres. So then, of course, the seasons change. But we have just passed kind of cross quarter. Like, you know, we're six weeks after solstice.

So it's, you know, a time of change. It's coming to end of winter here in New Zealand. So I do. And I've always lived at higher latitudes. So, you know, of course, people who live near the equator, they're going to have their own different seasons. But, I mean, I'm very much about the light, like the amount of daylight and length of day.

Yeah. Yeah. And you have short days right now because you're in winter. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, we're really at opposite ends of the spectrum here because I'm midsummer. at six in the morning and your deep winter at the end of your day.

So we're holding two sides of the cyclical spectrum. I'm premenstrual, which is excellent for this kind of conversation because I'm 44. And these days, my premenstrual phase, it's just where I feel most at home. I get serious. I get really connected to what I really care about. These are some of the flavors of my premenstrual. So this is exactly like, let's get into this. because this is such, I knew this was an important topic, but I didn't realize how important until I started looking at your book and listening to conversations that you've had with people.

And so I wanted to start with a big question, which is, why did you write this book? And why is this topic really important for one of us to understand? Yeah, that's the perfect question. And I talk about that a little bit in the introduction. I'm like, why would a women's health author, you know, I'm very interested in periods and, you know, why would I go down this path? What I talk about in the introduction and I'll say now is that it's, for me, it's been about going deeper into the body. So metabolic health, and we'll try to today obviously explore what that really means, it's deep down, like in the cells. It's that spark of energy.

that supplies everything else. It really does impact so many other aspects of health, especially mental health. I'll just point out there's like a big movement of metabolic psychiatry and sort of because the brain is so metabolically hungry, like just so energy hungry that metabolic health has a huge impact on mental health. I touch on that at the start of my metabolism book, but it also affects periods and menstrual health.

It definitely affects paramedopause. it definitely affects the longer-term outcomes of the menopause transition and what that's going to look like. And postpartum. Yes, and pregnancy and postpartum. I knew that with my work with patients. Not every patient, obviously everyone's a little different, but sometimes as we're exploring and like a detective, like moving deeper into what they need, sometimes we would arrive

at the very common problem of insulin resistance. We'll explore what that means today. I know for many conversations and even before the book, just my conversations with patients and then conversations with interviewers, there's something about the term insulin resistance that just makes people switch off. It needs a, it does need a rebrand, actually, which I've slowly, I've tried to be working. I mean, when I was writing that book, I was trying to work on that, but it's, we can, you know, talk about that a bit today. It's a lot about energy and how well your body is able to access, not just use it, but kind of accents it. Yes. I'm

I feel like where you took us there, like right into the cell, like into the core of the cells of our body. Like this is, this is core to all the functions of our body and most of the aspects of our health. And like you said, about energy. So I'm just going to break this down and ask you lots of beginner questions. Yeah. Because I don't know.

I love the beginner questions. I love that framing. I think people will, yeah, hopefully people listening will like that. I love when, you know, in seminars they'll say there's no, there's no stupid question. Like, you know. Yes, good. I'm glad. Because I, you know, as I was looking at the book, I was like, wow, I really don't know what these things mean.

And so, yeah, if you do know what they mean, just go and grab Lara's book and start reading it because she goes into all the detail. But starting with what is metabolism? I mean, in its broadest term, if you were to ask a biochemist, what is metabolism? Well, it's literally everything in the body. Like, it's literally every enzyme reaction, like just every single thing that's going on. So that's obviously not what the book's about because in common usage, it's a narrower term than that. I mean, then we have, you know, disorders of metabolic disorders, those various genetic disorders. And that's not what it's about either.

In common usage, what this really means is around how well the body can use excess energy. It's a lot around insulin signaling. it does of course intersect with blood sugar control but I'll just say at the outset that that's only one part of it actually the real part of it's deeper than that it is around I mean I guess a framing would be clinicians would talk about a metabolic syndrome that was a you know a term that came about a couple decades ago and that would be that combination of having high lipids kind of high triglycerides high blood pressure waking around the middle and this is seen as that pattern of symptoms is going to potentially correlate with quite negative long-term outcomes.

I mean, not to overstate it, but like really negative. Like we are talking about like in the long term, this is, we're talking about risk of heart disease and like of heart attack and stroke and other things. So it's not, this is the other reason when you ask me, why did I write the book? Because it's like this is a life and death. This is life and death for a lot of people, you know, into slow motion. But still, I mean, when you consider that heart disease is the number one killer, we do have to talk about this and also that we're in a metabolic,

we're in a bit of a crisis with it at the moment with many people, like a large portion of the population. So, but back to this metabolic syndrome, that constellation of high blood pressure, high lipids, you know, potentially weight gain, although it doesn't always have to be weight gain, was originally called the insulin resistant syndrome, but it got kind of rebranded as metabolic syndrome.

So that's kind of from that, metabolic is used to describe that sort of problem. Does that answer the question? It gets us going. And there's so many more questions I have from it. So it feels like a good next question is, so what does a healthy metabolism look like in a body that's like functioning well metabolically? What does that picture look like? Yeah. And that's our birthright, right? Like that's how we, you know, we're born and like how humans were for the longest time. And I'll just point out, that the crisis in metabolic health is pretty recent. And that is very sad because it is not people's fault.

And one of the most popular social media posts I've done about this recently has been just the really clear messaging that insulin resistance is not people's fault. Something has gone very, very wrong with, and we'll talk about where the Lord of that's come from. But back to your question of what should it be like? well it should be with good insulin sensitivity with good functioning of this hormonal part of our body we should be able to toggle pretty easily between burning carbohydrates after we eat eat them and then a few hours after that and we're sort of burned through that like then just immediately

just dipping down into our fat stores to burn body fat for energy that's actually a big part That's one of many symptoms of insulin resistance or having chronically elevated levels of insulin. It locks people out of fat burning. And the reason this is so important is there has really been a putting the cart before the horse kind of situation, if you will. Clinicians, like everyone, public health, everyone recognizes, okay, this constellation, this situation of waking around the middle, high blood pressure, you know, high triglycerides potential. this whole scenario. It's very dangerous. And so they tell people, lose weight, please. Like, just lose weight and you can solve this problem. But the problem is, this is the cart before the horse part. Like, so the old narrative was, you know, you gain weight because you're too lazy,

presumably. That's the old narrative. And then that causes insulin resistance. Actually, what the science shows is the opposite. The problem with insulin happens first through many different mechanism. So it's, again, it's not just something people have done wrong. The insulin signaling kind of goes off the rails a bit, a bit. And then when it becomes chronically elevated, it locks people out of being able to burn fat for energy. So they're now being told to treat the condition that makes it really hard to lose weight, to treat that by losing weight, which they can't do because they have the condition. Like, it's just head scratcher. like what has been going on?

And so the analogy I use in the beginning of the book, which I hope helps to illustrate this, to me, this would be like saying, like saying to someone with insulin resistance who has a hormonal condition that makes it really hard to lose weight, saying to them just lose weight

as some kind of solution would be like to saying someone with asthma, look, just breathe better. If you could just breathe better, then you could breathe better. It's like, that's not. Yeah, which is why I'm saying, grateful that you wrote this book because you're breaking it all down and you're showing what's

actually going on in the full like whole body whole world whole society picture which we're going to get into we're going to look at yeah why it's not our fault no it's not people's fault yeah and also even though it's not our felt what we can do so we're going to get to all of those yeah practical pieces but we're going to stay in the nerdy like what's going on okay just a little bit because now i need to know what triglycerides are because I don't. Okay, fair enough, yeah. So triglycerides are like one of the lipid or fat measures in blood. I mentioned that because people will have heard about their blood cholesterol levels

and like the doctor might be worried about the cholesterol. But actually from an assessment of insulin resistance perspective, the triglycerides reading is probably way more important. I'll just say for people, and this is quite an easy thing because they already have their blood reports probably from the doctor. That sort of constellation, again, sort of it's like a pattern recognition, the pattern of high triglycerides, usually high fasting triglycerides with low HDL or low good cholesterol, that starts to tell the story almost straight away of insulin resistance, even before you try measuring insulin or anything like that. And the reason I mention this is because for far too long, there's been this very glucose-centric paradigm that, you know, has been very unfortunate actually because it's derailed the whole conversation. Because, and if people have been told, if people think, oh, I'm fine, because my blood glucose is

fine or my HBA1C, that's another sort of indirect measure of glucose on the blood test is fine, so therefore I'm fine. It's because their doctor thinks so too. But the scientists and the people who really kind of understand this are like, you could have insulin resistance, like, pretty significant for literally decades before your blood sugar goes consistently high. So in fact, one of the symptoms of insulin resistance is episodes of low blood sugar. And I knew how important this was when someone, one woman said, I posted something about insulin resistance. And she's like, oh, well, at least good, you know, I for sure don't have that because my blood

sugar is low, not high. and I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, actually episodes of low blood sugar is a symptom, can be a symptom of insulin resistance. It can be, to be, people can get low blood sugar and not have insulin resistance too. So it's never, I mean, it's one of these conditions where, I mean, there are some tests that are a little more definitive than others. But like many things, you know, you have to, you can't just take one symptom and, you know, no for certain over that based on that. like you have to sort of look at the whole picture. Which is a big part of the problem, actually, the picking out one symptom thing.

Yeah. Which again is why the book is so helpful because it's so comprehensive. So let's get menstrual. Yes. What's the impact of a not healthy metabolism for the menstrual cycle or how that, what's the connection? Yeah. Well, the most obvious, the most well known is what used to be called PCOS or polycystic

ovary syndrome is now PMO. So poly endocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, I think is what they've called it now, the new name, as of just a few months, like literally just like a couple months ago. Right. Didn't know. So it is classically, and again, there's quite a lot going on with PCOS, like so many things. It's quite a bit of nuance. And so I'll say at the outset there are some people with that diagnosis who don't have insulin resistance. So we'll just get that out of the way.

But like in general, the vast majority of women with PCOS. PCOS do have insulin resistance. And the insulin resistance is not just a symptom of the PMO acid is in part that, but it's also intricately involved in the whole pathophysiology of the condition. So it's, yeah, it's arguably a central feature. So that's the most famous way that insulin resistance or metabolic problems, metabolic syndrome impacts, period. but other ways would include it can influence heavy menstrual bleeding, in part just because

insulin, well, various things it can impair ovulation. It can actually just chronically elevated insulin can thicken the uterine lining in combination with estrogen. So it can play a role in premenstrual migraines, potentially PMDD in some individuals, and not everyone, because premenstrual mood or PMDD is not one thing. I'm sure you might have had guests talk about that. It's actually, it's an umbrella term for many different mechanisms of mood disruption. And then the other place where insulin resistance really comes into play with women's help

is around paramenopause, menopause, postmenopause. The simplest way to describe it is during our reproductive years, we women have a metabolic advantage. It's largely from eustodial. It's probably from our main estrogen. It's possibly from some other factors that shelters us compared to men from insulin resistance. But we start to lose that power with a paramedopause, menopause. And that's why there are quite well documented metabolic shifts that happen. And it includes like a change in body shape, thickening around the waist.

that's kind of classic insulin resistance pattern. And it's, again, it's not people's fault. Hormonally, it's kicking in. And in large part because as both eustodil and progesterone kind of drop away, the problem of insulin resistance can shine through more. I feel like, so this is me self-diagnosing, which is a terrible idea. But I, so I had my son when I was 39. Yeah. And I feel like my metabolism change. It feels like night and day. pre-pregnancy and post-pregnancy and the stubborn fat in the middle. I was blessed and never had to think about that before. And wow, it's so stubborn now after post-party.

So it's one of the reasons why I'm really interested in this. I can see that something really shifted for me during that process. Yeah. So that could have been the double whammy of both. There is a postpartum shift to insulin resistance somewhat. I do actually have a section in the book. in the in I think it's chapter nine like the all things female hormones I do have I kind of break it down I talk about pregnancy and postpartum and breastfeeding so breastfeeding can have a protective effect

but then in the case of a later life baby then you've got both you would have the postpartum and perimenopause happening and at the same time yeah and skin tags is connected because I said I got all these skin tags on my body and I was like well I've never had these before and there can be a connection with skin tags? There can. And again, skin takes can be related to other things. So it's not a standalone symptom. But yeah,

classically insulin resistance, if that's indeed what was going on with you. Like, can produce sort of skin tags are on the, sort of in the neck area and like around the under the arms. And it's in part because insulin's a growth hormone. So chronically elevated levels will drive things like that.

Which things we do. Can we define insulin? I know. I know. Yeah, fair. I love the, I love the, I love this to be one of my favorite podcasts. It's like, okay, let's just like beginners level. So it's a very ancient hormone. I'll start by saying that. By ancient, I mean, like our most ancient ancestors, like little worms or, you know, like they had, like, it's like goes way back. Like even before that, actually. Like, it was just almost as soon as we were more than a single cell insulin was involved. So it's very old. And. famously it's involved in lowering blood sugar, you know, taking sugar out from the blood into the cells. But that's just one of its many jobs. It's actually really important for signaling energy and all sorts of things. So, I mean, it's famous for the situation of deficiency of insulin, which would be type 1 diabetes, which is used to the terminal condition for the young

people who developed it. So fortunately, scientists discovered, you know, how to make insulin and give it and so that that's been great. So we would die without insulin. One of the hormones we would die without. It's unique that way. Just to compare and contrast with thyroid hormone, for example, thyroid hormone is very important, quite famous, and people would know it. And you start to feel pretty terrible if your thyroid is, if you're low on thyroid hormone, but it doesn't kill you. But you're being low on insulin. So it's, you want it around. It's so ancient that it does seem to be involved in like aging, but like signaling to the body sort of around like signals around age and energy intake and just all kinds of things. It's just really deeply integrated into our

physiology. So we don't, we want some of it around, but the problem, it's very modern, it's very new epidemic of insulin resistance is the situation of the body's not responding to it well and partly in compensation to that. It sits at a chronically elevated. level and that is i think because it's such a deeply integrated hormone it affects so many things i think that's one of the reasons why there can be so many negative downstream effects the chronically elevated insulin itself can cause havoc then also downstream from that like the not being able to access energy properly from body fat and then also yeah eventually like the elevated blood sugar from as a downstream consequence yes and and this is big like you i think

you've used the word epidemic. We're talking about like 40% of adults in Western countries are dealing with insulin resistance. Yeah, that's the number. It depends who you ask. That's the statistic I put in the book. It's probably close to one and two adults, depending on where you are in age, I mean, age group to some extent, although, I mean, this is how quickly it's all happened. So even a generation or two ago, like even when I was an adult, like a young adult, like, you know, just starting out as a natupeithic doctor, it was pretty unheard of for a young person to have insulin resistance. It was kind of like an older, you know, old person, like an older person's thing, middle age thing. But now you get teenagers with it. And with it, I mean like things like

teenagers developing fatty liver disease, which is kind of a more advanced stage of insulin resistance. And that was just like 40 or 50 years ago that that was just unheard of. That would never happen. Like that was just something that scientists probably thought couldn't happen. So This is how much it's changed. And I think we could segue into this, like, it's not people's fault. Something's gone very wrong. The scientists studying this frame it that way is like something has happened. Happened, Lara.

Tell us what's happened. What's happened, I know. Cross every people, like every part of the world, it's affecting animals and pets. Like, this is the part that's just the crazy thing too, right? Like, so it's not just even humans. One thing we do know that's happening, which is a frightening part of all this, is it's amplifying every generation. It's also true for PCOS slash the new name PMOS as well.

It has a strongly acquired inheritability. So what's happening is if parents with insulin resistance, it could be coming from both side to like, because sperm does carry messages and like what we call epigenetics or sort of acquired changes. so it's not just, you know, what women are doing, it's coming from both sides. So if there's, in one generation, if there's, you know, mild insulin resistance or factors contributing to that, then that'll potentially be amplified in utero. And then that next generation, when they're born, they're going to be even more prone to it.

So we've got to turn the ship around. Like, it's having a heavy cost, not just terms, in terms of people losing, having their lives shortened by it. but just the impact on people's lives, like just not having a quality of life, and then plus the cost to the healthcare system, which is worth considering as well. A huge amount of the healthcare system goes to treating this right now and some of its outcomes. So scientists frame it as something's gone very wrong, depending on who you ask. I mean, they all have different theories. It's, I mean, it's possible there are just, you know, one or two specific.

smoking guns out there. I mean, maybe scientists will yet discover that, but the moment, and all I was able to do in the book is do a rough survey of what scientists think and just, you know, trying to be like a detective and like look at the timeline. They think it started in about the 1970s, but then some people think looking at the epigenetic tags and the biology of it, it might have started a bit earlier. It might have started more like the 50s. And so everyone's trying to correlate what change. I mean, of course, the food supply changed. So that's the whole topic of ultra-processed food, which is a controversial topic because it's ultra-processed food is a broad term that describes lots of different things.

So then it's like, well, which aspects of that? Is it the ultra-refined carbohydrates? Is it the amalsifiers? Is it some of the chemicals they're using in that? Is it the, I'll just give a little mention. Is it the high dose omega-6 vegetable oil, which I think it could be in part, actually, through my biologist lens? I do think so.

And then all different mechanisms by which that could be affecting us. Probably a lot of people think via the microbiome that something's, and then the microbiome is obviously also inheritable from generation to generation. Something's been very disrupted. Like one thing they know about ultra-processed food, which is a little frightening. Like the body seems to not recognize it as food. Normally when food comes in, the body's like, right. everything brings into action various satiety hormones, including most famously,

GLP1 gets activated and all these messages start being sent everywhere into the brain. And not just to the brain, like not just, okay, we've got enough food, stop eating. But like to all the other parts of the body is like, right, let's start burning some energy. This is, it's all happening. Like, this is what we've got to work with. And right, like, it's way more than just calories coming in or like protein coming in. It's a whole conversation that the body starts up. I know it's quite dense reading, but like I've got the chapter on like the biology of metabolism.

Like it involves the gut, the liver, like the gallbladder, the lowly gallbladder bile is actually a huge part of all this. Then the nervous system and like it's just so many different parts. And they're all having a conversation and the microbiomes chiming in as well. And unfortunately what it seems to be in some of this research when ultra processed food lands in, let's say ultra, you know, ultra refined carbohydrates like packaged baked goods or something. when they land, it's like the gut doesn't kind of fully register what's happening. Like the calories have come in, but it hasn't lit up the switchboard the way food does.

That's worrying. You can imagine from what I've just even said, like the intricacy of the biological systems that are involved. Now, of course, scientists don't have a clear, absolute idea of what's happening here. I'm going to pause my chat with Lara to share an invitation with you. because the doors for Red School's next menstruality leadership program are now open. This is the world's first leadership training rooted in the power of the menstrual cycle. And the circle is forming ready for the next round of the training which begins early next year. If you're curious about it, please head over to menstrualityleadership.com

where you can find out all about the journey, the curriculum, how it unfolds. And there's also lots of stories from graduates. And here is a story from one of the graduates from 2022, I think, Julia. The reason that I got into this work was because I was having big meltdowns on day 19 of my cycle every month. I was feeling quite untethered and scared and not myself on those days when I realised it was. day 19 that was happening every month. It was sort of a bit of a wake-up call and I thought, okay, there's something quite important I need to look into around my cycle and what's going on here. So when I saw the MLP advertised, it was an instant yes and I'm really glad that I did

do it because it changed my life in a massive way and I'm still studying with Red School now. So yeah, in my leadership as a parent, my leadership in my work, I'm coming from a much more grounded place. And I really recommend the MLP. If it is calling you, then just do it. You will not regret it. When I hear you, what I'm seeing is instead of eating how we did pre-50s, we ate grains and fruit and vegetables and most people meet some form of protein. Yeah. And then that entered our body, it recognized it as food, it processed it, happy days.

And we've done what we've done across the globe, which is so tragic, which is kind of just manipulate things and create something which isn't really food, but, and I blame McDonald's largely, you know, in this whole like industrial food complex, you could call it. But we've created something that isn't food, but tastes amazing. And we crave it. And then, of course, that isn't going to interact with our complex bodies as normal complex food would. That's what I'm hearing. Some of the researchers call it food-like substances.

Yeah. So they're food-like, I mean, they contain calories, but they're missing much of what our body was probably trying to use as, you know, sort of information and deal with. I love this conversation about ultra-processed food because it's just, so important. There are these lovely twin doctors in the UK to Tulican, the Tulican brothers. Yes, I read. My mom's obsessed with them, which is great. Because now we're just having these conversations about UPFs all the time. So can we define it? Can we explain what we mean by ultra-processed food and like break it down a bit? Yeah, the definition would be, I like Michael Paul's definition. If it's something your grandmother would, like great-grandmother wouldn't

recognize as food, if it has a list of 20 and and seven-eighths of them, you don't even know what that is. That's getting into the territory of ultra-processed food. It's actually, I guess, technically defined as something that someone could not make in a kitchen. And this is where a difference from processed food is different from ultra-process, because baking bread, you know, fermenting and kneading and any kind of fermentation process actually is healthy and would have traditionally been part of our diet and is a type of processing, but it's processing to make the food more, like, healthier, actually.

Whereas what defines ultra processing is it was never made done with humans in mind. It was all done with like shelf life and potentially addictive value. And it's pretty sinister, actually. It's hard to talk about it without sounding like a conspiracy theory. Like it's hard to talk about it without kind of just saying, wow, this was so, I mean, I won't hesitate to use the word evil. like I guess depending on who you're talking to, they can trace it back to like post World War II

and obviously just trying to make food have a longer shelf life. And so some of that would have had good motivations. But at some point, the drive to make money off these foods, like, you know, kind of took, went into the driver's seat and. And then like socioeconomic factors come in

because it has a long shelf life is cheap. And so in terms of people who are at the poverty line, it's the most easily accessible cheapest food. Yeah. I remember way back watching, I think it was supersized me by, what's his name, Michael. Oh gosh, I'm having a memory moment. I mean, it is 6.45 a.m. I'm going to give, I'm going to share ourselves. Yeah.

But I remember there was a family living in the States, and they were like, we eat at McDonald's because we are working three jobs, each of us, and that's what we can, afford to get for our three kids. And if we go and buy rice and beans and vegetables, we don't have time to cook it. And it's more expensive. And I was like, well, it's right there, isn't it? That's a huge part of the problem here. It is. And so that becomes a more nuanced conversation. One thing I, people might find interesting in the book, in my book, I talk about being severed from what were like a millennial long culinary tradition of our various peoples, who whoever they were. I talk about how, you know, the Mediterranean diet is held up as this uniquely

healthy diet, but it's not. It's just one of the traditional lineages of diets that arguably any traditional diet is going to be healthy because it's sustained people for millennia. And we've been severed from that. And I, that's a combination of things in modern life, including, yes, the need to work out of the home. And I mean, there's a lot to it. It's obviously, it goes way beyond just a biology health topic. It does pretty quickly become a society topic pretty quickly. Yeah, it's massive. I feel like we need to tackle it from all levels.

Yeah. Like all of us, yes, individually in our lives and also systemically, culturally. Yeah, there's a lot we need to change. That's a lot we need to change. And also ultra-process food obviously is a big part of it, but also hormone-disrupting, intercrime-disrupting chemicals are, also considered to be a smoking gun. So depending on who you ask,

the statistic I put in the book was possibly about 15, so 1, 5% of the portion, like 15% of the portion of the metabolic health crisis is directly attributable to endocrine-straping chemicals or toxins in the environment.

Which is like the scents, the perfumes, the... Yeah, some of it would be the PFSAS, like so the Florida, um, Lomo, flurom. Yes, I know, it's a really morning for you. It's late afternoon for me.

And they're liking things like water-resistant packaging. And so, like, it's coming into the food supply through various mechanisms. And they're called forever chemicals that people want to look it up. So forever chemicals, as in they never leave the body. Like, once they're in the body, they stay there. And there's a category of, and it's not just them, but there's a group of chemicals that are called obesity-promoting chemicals. And depending who you ask, obviously some people think that's been a major driver. And that's just another example of like it's not people's fault.

And that's partly why animals are being affected too, right? Wow. I do want to stay with UPFs if it's okay. Okay. So the body isn't recognizing them as food, but it's also doing a lot of things like disrupting the microbiome, triggering bacterial overgrowth. Can you speak to that? Yeah, the bacterial overgrowth is interesting.

And this is, and we are getting, and this is, I realize, I'm acknowledging that we're getting kind of detailed biochemistry. And so I encourage people to keep listening because we're also going to talk about things potentially like around some of the shame around this for people and, you know, how to tackle it. But what we're talking about right now is a well-recognized role of gut problems, driving metabolic problems. There's multiple mechanisms by which that can occur.

And just pointing out, again, that the famous. GLP1 is famous right now because the OZempic and the medications are GLP1 analogs. It's a gut hormone. So its natural production can be just can be impaired not just by ultra-processed food, but by gut problems, particularly dysbiosis, which is the overgrowth of certain bacteria. Just to be clear, most of our gut bacteria are meant to be down in the lower intestine, like further down. That's where they're supposed to live.

That's their place. And unfortunately, it's a pretty common for them to take up shop or, like, move into and grow in the small intestine. And that's quite inflammatory thing to happen. So that's called SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth. People, it's a big contributor to IBS, not the only cause of IBS, but it's very uncomfortable often, like a lot of bloating. And it causes intestinal permeability.

So it causes this, like, inflammation too. And there's a name for it. the way it drives metabolic problems or insulin resistance via something called metabolic endotoxemia. People don't have to remember the name, but just know that scientists, there's a whole, like, word for gut problems causing insulin resistance. So this is just one example of how one mechanism of alter processed food causing problems, but also you can have SIBO even on a healthier diet. This is why in my metabolism book there's 10 patient stories and I think at least two of them and maybe three are about treating the gut to treat metabolism.

So that's partly why. Yes, yes. Let's go where you were taking us around the same piece and what we can do because in the book you named these 23 obstacles to working with this and then how we can start to change the picture. Yeah. Like as I said earlier, there's been various oversimplified narratives around it. The oldest one was you got fat because you're lazy, basically. I mean, that's not usually said in those so many words, but it's kind of the subtext. And then this is all downstream from that.

And I talked about how that's like, that's backwards. And then there's even been since then kind of other narratives around, oh, you just need to do this one thing. You just have to cut carbs and you can reverse insulin. And, you know, it's, in reality, my experience on the ground with people is, it's quite individualized. And not so individualized that it becomes impossible to do. And there are some basic principles. But every person is a little different. And also, I will say one of my messages is that the strategies like the, you know, diet and exercise protocol strategies that work for fitness or sports performance are not necessarily going to reverse.

insulin resistance. So I'm building up to the shame thing because you can imagine like we've been, we've had decades of kind of being bombarded by, you just have to do this. And also just eat less and move more. Yeah. A lot of it targeting women. And a lot of women feeling like their value depends on their body size. And I mean, that's, again, this is where it quickly becomes a whole cultural. There's a lot going on there. So in the book, I have a chapter about getting out from of the shame. And in there, I just do try to, I guess I approached it in a few different ways. And one thing that I wrote in there that I later found out did resonate with a number of people, as I've already said it a couple times today, but like, it's not your fault.

Like, it's not people's fault. And when I was writing the book and realizing, just looking at all the mechanisms and kind of what scientists really think is going on and what's happened here, and the way it's amplifying every generation. And the way some people are just immune to that through pure genetic lottery, I just thought I feel so bad for people. Like it's hard to accept the reality that some people are just going to have a much harder time with this than others. Like it's through no fault of their own. The way I frame it with my patients is they've been pushed into insulin resistance.

And once you're there, you can do something. But like, you can't, usually can't get out of that by just mentally trying to eat less. You try. A lot of people would have tried that for decades, actually. And decades of thinking, all I have to do is just do the right thing, just follow the right rules. And then when it doesn't work, feeling more shame about it, it's heartbreaking. So I feel like just maybe even if people listening to this, just know, scientists know it's not your fault. The people who really understand what's going on here know it's not people's fault. So, There has to be another way forward. And yeah, that's part of what I talk about in the shame chapter. And I do,

I'll just say a word about, I'm not sure how much the, I don't know, I mean, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Like we came through about a decade or maybe two of kind of really body positivity. It's like, you know, it's okay to be a larger body size. And I get where that was coming from. But it didn't really seem to help people. And it kind of did fall. down on the logic that unfortunately there is a real, you know, health risk associated with. And again, it's not that having a larger body size causes the health problem. It's more upstream from that. It's like having insulin resistance that hasn't been sort of detected or, you know, properly addressed is causing both a larger body size and also all these downstream medical

problems that are very real. And does that make, I mean, what are your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, One of the things that you said in the conversation with Lisa, Hendits and Jacks, was you're like, you said, let's talk about bum fat. And I was like, cool, let's talk about bum fat. Because you were saying there's some people, some women, especially, are just going to have bigger bombs genetically. And actually the bum fat is good. So I was like, yeah. And I feel like what the body positivity movement has done is say like, look, this one ideal way we're supposed to look isn't true. Like we all have different bodies.

They wobble. they have cellulite, they flap, all these things. And there's nothing wrong with you. That is good. And I love that. I love this, dispelling this patriarchal myth that we should look one way, which is basically white and blonde and thin.

So I love that. And yeah, I can see how it's complex. But yeah, tell me about the bum fat. Yeah, so let's talk about that. So, yeah, so that's a section in the book, it's actually in that, starts in that chapter, and then I talk about it later, like, well, the variety of body shapes and sizes.

And that is a large of that, is genetic. And some women, yes, do, like, thankfully, which is actually great for them, like, are likely to have more bum fat. A lot of bum fat does not correlate with poor metabolic outcomes. It's actually the opposite. In fact, I should have mentioned it earlier when I was talking about partly how women are protected from insulin resistance, partly it is that gynoid or kind of hourglass shape. Potentially that some of that bum fat is to store essential fatty acids for breast pregnancy and breastfeeding. And I do have a section in that, shame chapter about don't break your heart trying to like die it away a big bum for one thing you can't

really die it away big bum like you have to really starve yourself to move like to shift that at all and why like when bum's coming in and out of fashion anyway i mean sort of depending on which decade you're looking at it's good to have a small bum or a big bum and like i love those graphics of like from like the 1200s and like beauty standards and how they've shifted it just shows like it's just a it's just a game the whole thing Yes, you know, there's lots going on there. So the thing about body shapes is people have not only different shapes and sizes, which is great.

We need to celebrate that and not try to micromanage like our bodies. So much about women's health is like micromanaging things that can't be micromanaged. But also people have actually a lot of that body shape or what I sort of talk about as body type does correlate with nervous system type and circadian rhythm type. and people will require quite potentially quite different like eating and movement patterns to feel good for them. So there is like like so there's the whole morning versus evening chronotype that's very real. And this is another kind of cautionary tale in not comparing yourself to people online.

I mean, it's stating the obvious I would hope by now. But one thing, especially in this area of metabolic health, I really caution people. I've already said, I think I've already said, like, I don't think what sports performance people are doing can necessarily translate into what you need to do to reverse insulin resistance. So I would just say that's potentially a dead end. Not completely. I mean, obviously, like, it's never, there's always some nuance. But, and likewise, what I have noticed observed, you know, with some of the influencer culture is people find themselves maybe quite naturally skinny. some of that, a lot of that could be genetic and then think, right, so all you have to do,

telling people, all you have to do, if you want to look like me, all you have to do is eat and move like I do. It's like, that doesn't, that's not. I just see the correlations between that and the food culture so clearly. It's like this one way, distilling a complex, beautiful natural system, like food production into this one, like, industrialized thing or like this one type of body. Yeah. It's part of our human problem. And just to give a really concrete example, like we do know from some of the research

that in terms of chronotype or body clocking, a healthy variable is probably variation is probably about three or four hours difference. You can also get in a situation where you're a not good kind of night owl where you've just pushed yourself into something that's not healthy for humans. But humans are diurnal creatures, so we're active during the day. And some people are really perky in the morning.

And so one, you know, one body type or nervous system type would be that like they wake up, they want their protein smoothie hit, like almost right away. They're going to do some high intensity exercise at the gym. Like, you know, before they go to work, boom, boom. And yeah, that does feel great for them potentially. But then there is another whole set of body types and there's a group of them that, and I talk about some of this in the book, that with the later chronotype where they actually need their hormonal system, everything, their whole system is geared.

They need a slower start in the morning, possibly a later breakfast, still a healthy breakfast, still protein, but like maybe like 9 a.m. rather than, you know, 630. And some different, maybe more like strength training or like long walks in the afternoon. Like, you know, then that actually will, in their case, that's going to leave to better longer term outcomes. So you get what I'm saying. Like this is totally. I just went camping with my friend and we're completely, I'm a morning person, she's an evening person,

and we have different bodies and totally different ways of being. And we were just marveling at it. It's beautiful, actually, those differences. And I like to think, because I'm a, before I became a naturopathic doctor, I was an evolutionary biologist. Once an evolutionary biologist always won, like it's not something you can unsee. There's this quote about, you know, nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. I would say that's true for health as well. Nothing in health really makes sense, except through evolution. And when you think about chronotypes, one thing I think about like in our, you know, ancient people's tribes, like groups, you did need people who were awake at different times the night because there's predators out there. So like you want the like, so I mean a classic would be, I mean, I always think about like the young men, like the teenage boys, you know, staying up till, you know, they stay up till like two in the morning. And then, you know, someone might be up at night, you know, to pee or whatever up in the night. And then by like five or six, then the postmenopausal women are awake and everybody. kids are awake early everyone's taking a turn like you've got between you you've got like pretty

much the whole 24 hours whole thing covered um so good i mean laura i could talk to you all day um but i i'm just curious like to begin to close this conversation if we can if there's some things that people can take away like given all the complexity we've been speaking to but yeah um to start moving towards metabolic health and finding their way out of this insulin resistance pattern. Are there some core pieces that you would name maybe from the, like, that list of 23 that you have in the book? Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I would start. I'd say actually step one is describing the situation. Like, so I actually do feel like it's worth figuring out to what, like, if there is insulin resistance and potentially to what degree. Because that's a far better metric for then monitoring progress than, monitoring progress than

weight on the scale. And this is actually another takeaway that I do want to make sure I communicate. There's a lag time. So if insulin resistance is quite strong and like this whole, you know, the body's locked out of burning fat quite strongly, then even if you're doing everything right, like you've fixed the metabolic obstacle, things are starting to, it's all kind of happening under the hood, like things are changing. You might not notice significant changes on the scale for six weeks, right? And so this is where things could still be improving. And if you were monitored, like if you were retesting your triglycerides or even just checking in with your energy and how long you can go between meals, you know, as a easy metric to sort of check in with,

then you could be encouraged and say, actually, I'm feeling a bit better. I'm not getting the blood sugar crashes the way I used to. But if you're only relying on scale, because I've seen so many of my patients tell stories about, oh, I tried one thing, you know, for a few weeks. And the scale actually went up. So I like, you know, gave that up. So then I tried something else. Does that make sense? Like you're trying to follow a metric that you're not going to see the different, that you have to actually be monitoring yourself in a more truthful way. And some of that is just actually feeling better. So if you feel, if you make some changes in your life with your diet, and you start having more energy and feeling better, put way more weight on that than just actually

what the number on the scale is, at least in the beginning, like at least for the first couple months. I mean, I think that's really important for the initial steps. And also as you, as you start making changes, the beautiful thing about using increased energy as your metric of success is that also then having more increased energy gives you the energy to make some of the other changes. You should be able to get some momentum going because you feel better. So I guess I do list. I think it's 20 something, I think it's like 23 or 24, potentially metabolic obstacles. Some of them are medications. But one of them is for whatever combination of reasons, not having the time or the knowledge or the confidence to cook at home. And we talked about that already, right?

Like finances can be an obstacle to that. And that's real. But it's unfortunately, it's a non-negotiable metabolic obstacle. So it's actually, if that's one of your metabolic schools, that's priority. There's no point in trying to correct more than one thing all, like all at the same time. Here's an example of how, you know, I might say get some of the key nutrients. I talk about the five metabolic nutrients in the book. I mean, the number one one is magnesium. So, I mean, just if you're, if you're feeling really low and you just need to be able to take those first steps, get on some magnesium that'll help start to actually straight away, start to improve insulin sensitivity a little bit so you can start to access body fat for energy,

feeling a little bit better, then make a plan for cooking at home if you're not already. And one of the tricks for that is let go of variety for a while. I'm quite famous with my followers for being kind of a non-foody. Like I really don't. I really don't like cooking. Like I really don't. But I do it anyway. And that's one of my messages.

Like even if you don't have to love cooking to do this. And it can be really simple. It can be super simple. take two minutes to chop some potato into the air fire like tonight I before the interview I threw a chicken in the oven like literally almost threw it like I put

like a few things and then just like right that's good enough and it's in the oven so some people might want nicer meals than that but even I mean you can have pretty simple and it still be good and actually for in the book I managed to get I asked my followers to give me their favorite

quick and easy like this the simplest you know protein nourishing whole food meal and they gave me a great list of like 30 things that you can just throw together. So nothing else will really work until you're mostly cooking at home. It's hard to kind of have to say that, but because I get it. I mean, I get busy sometimes too. And that doesn't mean never eat out too because I don't, I mean, it's not going to help to have too much rigidity around it or fear around it. But just to have that core. you know, most, like the most of your life having home-cooked meals is a, I mean, sometimes

if you just do that one thing, that could, I mean, that might be all that some people need. Yeah. I mean, I feel like culturally, it's like these, returning to these slower traditional ways is a really powerful answer for so many of the problems we're facing, you know, connecting to community, slowing things down, regaining those traditional, like, ways of eating, yeah. I have a question for you just on the traditional ways of eating because one of the traditional ways of eating that's been lost is organ meats. So in the book, like the five, I talk about these five missing metabolic nutrients. Two of them are classically, Colleen and Anastol would have

come from organ meats and not that long ago. So really not that long ago. So I mean, I was a kid in the 1970s. We were fed in Canada. We were fed liver. Yeah, I was in the 80s and it was the same, yeah. You were the same. Okay, yeah, interesting. But I mean, if I'm curious, you know, for younger people listening, if that was in their, you know, dinner table rotation or if that, like what point that? I mean, not by the time I was 10. Like, it was a primary school thing. Yeah, totally not included at all. Yeah. Interesting. And you don't have to go back very far. Like, um, it's interesting. If people want something fun to do if they're every, like, just go back and get some like old menus from, you know, just old shopping list. And, you know,

from even like the 1950s and 40s and see what people were eating. Yeah, they were eating a lot of organ meats and a lot of kind of weird-sounding foods. And I have a section in the book too about that, about how we'll kind of finish with this. But what we consider normal food is very deeply ingrained. I have this quote from a neurologist talking about how, I forget his name, but like before about the age of seven, we're in a hypnotic state. So like everything that kind of happens to us in that younger goes, it's our blueprint, right? Like it goes really deep. So I think what we were, you know, when I've been encouraging people, can you try eating this or even just having, like an example might be,

like I'm a pretty big fan of having chicken soup for breakfast or like a bit of meat for breakfast. And a lot of my patients are just cannot imagine doing that. And that's for lots of different reasons. I think you have to have a reasonably healthy digestion to be able to sort of tackle that at 9 a.m. But I think part of it is this deep-seated, well, that's not food. Like, that's not right. Like, you have toast in the morning. That's like what I do. And I think if you like, if you travel outside of your, if you're blessed to be able to

travel, I got to spend a year in Thailand in my early 20s. But the families I stayed with, this is my son talking about being in a Yeah, everyone's going to stay. Everyone's waking us on my knee, but we're just finishing our conversation. Yeah. And what do you do? Hello. Yeah, because they just eat food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And it's rice and vegetables and meat. And I was like, wow, okay, that just dispels this whole myth about what breakfast has to look like this and lunch has to look like this. Well, for everyone, listeners, homework, they can kind of go back and read about the history of breakfast and how that came about. Like, the whole breakfast cereal thing started as marketing for sure. Laura, we could talk about like 80, 100 things. There was one thing I wanted to close on, which was I think it was an Instagram post of yours, and you've mentioned it in the conversation. The female body doesn't like to be micromanaged.

Instead, can we embrace a little more softness in pursuit of metabolic health and a little less rigidity? Health is a dynamic whole body project, not a numbers game. And then you quote the beautiful Mary Oliver poem, you do not have to be good, you do not have to walk on your knees for 100 miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Yeah, that's a great place to end. That's in the book, actually. I had to pay royalties on that poem to put it in the book,

but I thought it's worth it. My publisher's like, is it worth it? I'm like, I just need to have that in there. So we need to remember this. Yeah, these are big things that we're tackling. It's not our fault. And, yeah, little shift by little shift, we can make a difference. Yeah.

Softness is the way out. Do you have a word to add, Artie? don't say poo-poo what what's for breakfast what's for breakfast thank you so much laura it's been it's been so beautiful be with you i wonder if this will make it into the edit let's see um yeah thank you so much i'll drop lots of different links in the show notes and especially the link to the book and yeah i really appreciate everything you've shared thank you take care yep bye Thanks for being with us today. That was a geeky episode. That was a lot of science for me. I'm not a science. I don't have a scientific brain, but I'm so grateful for everything that Lara shared.

And the book is fantastic. I hope it was beneficial for you. And if you know someone who's dealing with metabolic health challenges, then please do forward it to them. And another way that you could support the podcast is by going to Apple or Spotify and giving us a five-star rating and a review. That's probably the best way you can support this work if you want to, to help it to reach more people. And we're so, so grateful for your support. Okay, that's it for this week. I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks time. And until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.