The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

Dr Heather Hirsch makes a welcomed return to the podcast this week. Heather is an internal medicine physician, specialising in women’s health and menopause care at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts, USA. Her clinical work and research centres on inequalities or unanswered questions in the field of women’s health, specifically in menopause education. In this episode the menop...

Dr Saira Hameed is a consultant endocrinologist working at the Imperial Weight Centre and at Imperial College London. Her work focusses on researching the drivers for appetite, obesity, and regulation of body weight to develop science-based interventions that help people manage their weight and lead healthier lives. In this episode the experts discuss the impact of obesity on individuals’ health,...

Dr Sharon Malone is an eminent American physician who has worked as an obstetrician and gynaecologist for over 30 years in Washington DC. After 15 years of working mostly as an obstetrician, Sharon changed to specialise in menopause care around the time of her own perimenopause. She is passionate about educating women to understand their own hormone journey and empower them with evidence based inf...

Dr Clare Bailey is a GP and health columnist with extensive experience in helping people lose weight and improve their health. Dr Michael Mosley is a science presenter, journalist and executive television producer. Together, they have authored several bestselling books on weight loss, diet and diabetes and created the popular 5:2 and fast 800 diets. In this episode, the guests describe the evidenc...

Rupa Lyall is a clinical pharmacist who works in a GP practice in Buckinghamshire seeing patients with minor illnesses and prescribing medications. In this episode she tells Dr Louise Newson how she became interested in the perimenopause and menopause and how, through the training on fourteenfish.com and resources on the balance website, Rupa now supports and educates other clinicians in HRT presc...

In this episode, Dr Thulasi Naveenan talks to Dr Louise Newson about her experiences as a 3rd year GP trainee working in a central Manchester practice and learning on the job when it comes to HRT prescribing. The conversation covers working with patients from different cultures and with interpreters or family members, challenging misinformation, health risks after menopause and gender differences,...

Consultant Gastroenterologist Professor Barbara Ryan and Clinical Dietitian Elaine McGowan are The Gut Experts, passionate about digestive health and helping women with debilitating bloating and irritable bowel symptoms. In this episode, the experts discuss why more women are troubled by gut related symptoms compared to men, how gut and bowel problems have a very real impact on women’s lives, and...

Dr Rajvinder Khasriya is a urogynaecologist who leads the Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms clinic at the NHS Whittington Hospital in North London, and is also involved in research work at University College London. In this episode, the experts discuss urinary tract infections (UTIs) and the role a lack of hormones play in their occurrence and ongoing recurrence. Dr Khasriya explains how common and deb...

Dr Jan Smith is a chartered psychologist, executive coach, author, campaigner and the director of Healthy You Ltd. She has over 15 years’ experience providing psychological support to those affected by injury and clinical negligence. In 2014, Jan developed a birth trauma service and campaigns to improve safety in maternity services for families and staff and provides training in the UK and interna...

In this episode, Dr Louise Newson speaks to Dr Abbie Laing about why she now specialises in menopause care and what she has learnt through her research and writing on the subject. Together the experts discuss clinical hot topics where misinformation and misunderstandings are rife such as what the evidence shows about the risk of clots and breast cancer with HRT, and treating symptoms of genitourin...

In 2004, Dave and Steve Flynn started a fruit and veg shop, with the aim to create a happier, healthier world. The Happy Pear now has vegan food products in nearly 1,000 stores in Ireland, 2 cafes and a farm, and their five cookbooks have all been no.1 bestsellers. The Happy Pear online health and lifestyle courses – in which they partnered with plant-based experts from across the globe – have hel...

Dr Robert Lustig is Professor emeritus of Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He specialises in the field of neuroendocrinology and his research and clinical practice focuses on childhood obesity and diabetes. Dr Lustig has led a global discussion of metabolic health and nutrition, exposing some of the leading myths that underlie the current problem of diet-related disease....

Ava Vanderstarren is a performing artist, actor and public speaker. She is the co-author of Blossom Living With Premature Ovarian Insufficiency / Early Menopause Journal and is the co-founder of the charity Innocence Lost Foundation. She has over 10 years lived experience of POI & mental health maintenance. In this episode, Ava discusses her experiences of her POI diagnosis when she was 17 and how...

Vicki is 39 years and has struggled with heavy periods and related pain since she was 10 years old. She was eventually diagnosed with endometriosis at 22 but continued to suffer with severe pain, heavy bleeding and UTIs, despite treatments and multiple surgical interventions. As a last attempt to be pain free, Vicki chose to have a hysterectomy when she was 35. Even though her ovaries were not rem...

Jonathan Wolf is the CEO and co-founder of ZOE, a health technology company that focusses on personalised nutrition. ZOE runs the world’s largest nutrition science study with universities such as Harvard and King's College London, investigating the gut microbiome and how nutrition can improve overall health and wellbeing. During the COVID pandemic, their valuable technology was utilised to help sc...

In this episode, Dr Louise Newson is joined by two women, Rhona and Tanya, who share their experiences of fertility support, pregnancy, and having symptoms of low hormones after the birth of their children. Rhona asked the fertility specialists whether the hormone treatments she was taking to become pregnant would affect the onset of her menopause and she was told that it wouldn’t. 18 months after...

Content warning: suicide   Peter Smith joins Dr Louise Newson this week in a difficult and emotional episode. Peter lost his wife, Victoria, to suicide a year ago after she experienced a sudden change in her mental health in her late 40s. In their quest to understand how things could have got to such a crisis point for Victoria, Peter and his family have learnt more about the menopause and mental...

Sarah Davies is an experienced business coach and trainer who previously spent over 15 years in senior international corporate roles and as a head-hunter for senior executives. Sarah supported her sister, Dr Louise Newson, as business manager, six years ago when Newson Health menopause clinic was launched. Seeing how devastating the consequences of the menopause affect personal and professional li...

Simona Stokes is an experienced counselling psychologist who uses CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) to help people with stress, depression and anxiety. After 20 years working in the NHS and voluntary sector, she then founded her own clinic in Birmingham, and has developed an interest and specialist knowledge in helping women with the emoti...

Dr Louise Newson met Dr Naomi Jiagbogu over a decade ago at Birmingham Medical School when Louise was mentoring students who were studying medicine as a post-graduate degree. Naomi subsequently qualified, began her GP training and moved to Manchester with husband, Aria, who was training to be a paediatrician. Louise and Naomi discuss their memories of the post-graduate course and reflect on how th...

Medical oncologist, Dr Avrum Bluming makes a welcome return to the podcast this week to re-visit the hot topic of menopause hormone therapy after breast cancer. Avrum has spent decades studying the research on the benefits and risks of HRT in women with a history of breast cancer and is passionate about giving women clear, evidence-based information that dispels myths and combats the misinformatio...

Dr Rupy Aujla was in his mid-20s and beginning his career as a doctor when heart problems caused him to re-evaluate what he thought he knew about health, nutrition and medicine. Having previously rejected his parents’ influences of traditional Indian medicine, Dr Rupy began delving deeper into some of those concepts and the science of nutrition that he wasn’t taught at medical school. In this epis...

Kate Muir returns to the podcast to discuss her ground-breaking new book on the menopause, which she describes as the most difficult and complex subject she has investigated to date. Dr Louise Newson speaks to Kate about the shoddy science and lies that women have been told over the years and what Kate has learnt about past and current research from speaking to over 100 experts, and the real life...

Journalist and presenter, Mariella Frostrup, joins Dr Louise Newson for an energetic discussion and a whistle-stop tour through current insights and reflections on the way society approaches the menopause. Mariella talks about why she is ‘still banging on’ about the menopause, why you needn’t be afraid of HRT, and why it’s time to stop the silence and shame that surround it. In 2018, Mariella pres...

Popular online personal trainer, James Smith, admits he only read Dr Louise Newson’s most recent book to check out the literary competition when their new books were released back-to-back. He bought a copy and read it on holiday and while he may have got some funny looks for his poolside choice of reading, James discovered many new insights about the perimenopause and menopause that he knew would...