Alzheimer's, midlife sex, and sunlight: Liz's 2024 highlights

Hello, this is the Lizzo Wellbeing Show. The podcast helping us all have a better second half. I'm Lizzo and yeah, I hope you know by now that my mission is truly to find ways for all of us to thrive in later life by investing in our health and our well-being today. Well, how was your Christmas? I wonder if I'm finding you today surrounded by the brilliant chaos of family and new gadgets and empty chocolate wrappers

Or maybe you're managing to get a moment of peace to yourself outside in the crisp winter air, certainly if you're here in the UK or the Northern Hemisphere. Well, whatever you are doing, it is lovely to be keeping you company. And I thought that today might be a good moment to pause and just reflect back on some of the most impactful conversations that we've had here on the Lissar Wellbeing Show this year.

Maybe they'll give you some ideas about little places you can start really taking control of your better second half in 2025. We can have this hormone back if it's low. We can use it, you know, to give ourselves more oomph in our lives. Lack of sunlight, lack of time outside is a risk factor for death and disease that's equivalent to smoking heavily. To feel healthy is to be beautiful and

it's not down to some limited view of how big your lips should be or how big your cheeks should be. Oil-based lubricant saved our sex life. Well before we listen to some of the episodes that have really got me thinking this year, which episodes have really stuck with you?

Well, Jan got in touch on Instagram to say that she loved the one about gaining and retaining muscle strength. And in a similar vein, Julie enjoyed learning more about protein this year. Those episodes were with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and Kalen Murphy. They both talked about the importance of muscle mass in midlife in particular.

And then Alison emailed to say that she was very taken with nutritionist Stephanie Jay Moore. That episode was just a few weeks ago. And it was all the talk of cholesterol that she found most interesting. Well, Alison, that is definitely something.

that we will be talking more about next year in particular. And then Sarah, you've emailed to say that after hearing our various episodes about the menopause this year, you'll be quizzing your GP about testosterone. Well, that is exactly what I love to hear. Good luck with that one, of course. And P.S., Sarah says, I totally resonate with the alcohol conversation. That one was with Dr. Zynga Harrison,

She says, I'm now 12 months sober and so much happier. Well done you. Well stay there because some of my favourite episode picks are coming up next.

Well, a little later on, we're going to be talking about dating after divorce, hormones, cosmetic surgery, and whether we should ditch the sun cream if we want to stay as healthy as possible. But I want to start here with a conversation that I know really made an impact this year. I talked to Patrick Holford about Alzheimer's. He is the founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition,

That is Europe's leading training center for nutritional therapists. And as he says, once you've got Alzheimer's, there's no going back, so prevention has to be the cure. It sounds terribly arrogant, but having studied heart disease and diabetes and etc.

It became clear to me what we need to do to not have these diseases. So the issue really was how do we do prevention? And I really thought long and hard about this and realized Alzheimer's is quite unique because basically you end up with holes in your brain. So you can't reverse it once you've got holes in your brain. You can maybe get a little bit of improvement if you start early enough. But once you've got

you know, advanced Alzheimer's. There's, there's sort of no going back. So, and then I watched it because I started 10 years a campaign called Alzheimer's is preventable. When people thought I was crazy, you know, how could you say that? And by the way, we should cover this off at some point. Less than 1% is caused by genes.

So, I thought, you know, now it's becoming the number one healthcare cost, which it is, almost the number one killer, it is certainly in many countries, and it's the number one fear. So, you know, there's all this energy on the possibility of me getting this, so how do I prevent it? And what was fascinating for me as well, which is a fundamental principle of optimum nutrition and the institute that we started,

and the B12 as a classic example is this oxymoron that if you eat a well-balanced diet you get all the nutrients you need and we know with B12.

You can't do that. And what actually happened in David Smith's trial was he measured something in the blood, which we do in our charity from a home test kit called Homo cysteine. And it is a marker of risk. It tells you you're not getting enough bevismans. It's very easily lowered by having the bevismans. So in other words, we get into the area of sort of personalization that we're not. Yes. We're not all exactly the same.

So, don't ask me if you need to supplement the vitamins, ask your body, measure your homocysteine. And then, of course, I know you'll cover this in your book. Recent paper showed that homocysteine is a biomarker for over 100 diseases.

Yeah. And it's not just a marker for that. I mean, there's nothing else that is, not cholesterol, not blood sugar, not anything. It is actually causing Alzheimer's. In other words, if you lower the homocysteine, you stop the brain shrinkage, you improve the cognitive function, and that is the definition of something that actually is causal.

So those two things got me, if I really push hard on Alzheimer's prevention, because of course, as we'll talk about, every single thing that helps to prevent Alzheimer's also helps to prevent aging, diabetes, cancer, heart disease and everything else. So let's put the arrow on Alzheimer's and wake up as many people to the idea that you are the architect of your own brain's future. You do not need to lose your mind.

I mean, there is just so much in what you have just said in that last kind of chunk. Bottom line, I guess I'm racing ahead here, but I'd always like to kind of catch the quick. If we have large doses of B12 with our omega-3s in the diet, are we therefore then protected from cognitive decline?

massively. And I'll give you two examples of this. National Institute of Health in the US did a very, very big study of all studies on Alzheimer's prevention. And what they look at is what we call the population attributable risk. To what extent is this risk factor important? And they attributed 22% of the risk, almost a quarter, to raised homocysteine, e.g., lack of B vitamins, principally B12.

and 22% to lack of seafood and lack of omega-3. So those two alone are going to certainly cut your risk by at least a third. And what's now happened in the study in Holland and Sweden and England and also in China is the extraordinary discovery

And I can tell you exactly why it's interesting, is that the Omega-3 trials that have failed, failed in the people who were low in B-bitments. So for example, in Sweden, they went back to the study of the game, Omega-3.

didn't work. They then looked at the blood samples at the beginning of the study, and they split them into the third with the lower homocysteine, which means good bevitamins, third higher, and they've had, oh my god, in the third with the lower homocysteine, in other words, sufficient bevitamins, it worked fantastically. And another study, which didn't fail, but it wasn't brilliant on bevitamins. Again, they went back, looked at the omega-3 levels. And so we have actually found out

that omega-3 and V vitamins are codependent. It's a little bit like if you give a builder a hammer, do you get a house for no? If you give a bag of nails to get a house, no. But if you give them a hammer and a bag of nails to get a house. So we've underestimated those two factors, which could be up to half of the problem. The third, I just want to mention these because I call them the four horsemen of the mental health apocalypse.

is sugar and your blood sugar. Some people call Alzheimer's diabetes type 3. Yes, I've heard that. It can be for some, so the sugar factor is big and that's why diabetes is a big driver for dementia. And then the fourth really is to do with antioxidants and that whole area of fruit, veg, herbs, spices, smoking is a risk factor. Pollution is a risk factor. Those are both generating oxidants.

Well, I thought that was so fascinating. And it really resonated with me as somebody with elderly parents. And I know many of their friends are getting this devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer's. And I thought one of the things that really struck me there was that less than 1% of Alzheimer's cases are caused by genes. So there has to be lifestyle factors.

that play a significant part in this. And also, wasn't it staggering that Alzheimer's is becoming the number one healthcare cost? So it really is something that we do have to address as a society and also, of course, on a personal level because it's one of the top fears, isn't it?

Certainly, I'm doing a lot to look after my metabolism and my muscle strength and my skin and my hormones and all of that. But how do we protect our brain? In some ways, it's almost the forgotten organ because it sits inside of our heads and we think about other things that we do with our brains. But do we actually think about the brains

themselves. And for me, having helpful pointers that are practical, I think was probably my biggest takeaway there, the importance of the beaver tamins and homocysteine. Homocysteine being a biomarker, as he says, for over 100 diseases. And let me just actually pick up on what homocysteine actually is, because it's nomenoacid.

that's produced in the body during the metabolism of methionine, which is another essential amino acid. And we find that in protein rich foods. So I guess by default, having lots of protein in the diet means that we're going to get lots of methionine and then of course produce homocysteine and have that whole chemical process going on. So methionine is converted to homocysteine and that's just part of the normal kind of cellular processes. And then it can be recycled back to methionine with the help of the vitamins B12,

and folate, and then it's also converted to cysteine, which is another beneficial amino acid with the help of vitamin B6. Now that might all sound a little bit complex, but basically what I'm saying here is this regulation of home cysteine depends on the B vitamins.

And in particular, we're talking about B6, folate and B12. And the optimum range for normal homocysteine levels is typically around 5 to 15. That's how they measure it. So elevated homocysteine, that's what we were talking about there with Patrick, they are the ones that are associated with increased risk for several health conditions, cardiovascular disease and neurological disorders. So you want lower homocysteine levels.

So how do we lower them? Well, we lower them with making sure that our B vitamins are in optimum levels. So the B6, the B12 and the folate. So we can do that through making sure that we're eating high levels of those B vitamins. So we're looking at things like poultry, fish, bananas, fortified cereals, or that there is some debate as we've often covered on this show.

about the differences between food sources and synthetic supplement sources and that includes fortification because fortified foods are usually fortified with cheap synthetic nutrients which may not be as bioavailable as those that are naturally occurring in foods.

So for vitamins like B12, we need, of course, animal products. So meat, dairy, eggs, you can have fortified plant-based products, of course, for vegetarians or vegans. And then the folate, you're finding that in things like leafy greens, citrus fruits, legumes, and, again, fortified grains. I think the key messages there are to look at the home assisting levels, as Patrick says, you can go and have blood tests, look at his website, and you can see

to track your home assisting if you're concerned about it. So make your dietary adjustments if you need to. Obviously other factors are important, quitting smoking, reducing alcohol, having lots of regular physical activity, etc. And just be aware, I think, that we can do something to protect our brain. So the B vitamins, super important,

Of course, in combination with our Omega 3s. And again, we've had many podcasts talking about Omega 3s.

primarily from fish oil or from krill. And just lastly, the Alzheimer's being dubbed type three diabetes and that is because of the impact that sugar has. So sugar causing glycation to cells in the brain and high sugar, high carb diets leading to this formation of crystallized sugars in the brain leading to Alzheimer's, of course, being dubbed type three diabetes.

Now, you might remember that when my book, A Better Second Half, came out in the spring, broadcaster and fellow midlife activist Gabby Logan, turned the tables on me asking me questions about my better second half. And I really enjoyed actually being able to share how my romantic relationships have evolved over time.

And I think, you know, one of the questions that's worth asking is, are you in a relationship because you want to be in a relationship or because you're too scared to be on your own? And I know from a lot of girlfriends I speak to, they say, actually, I know it's really bad and it's really tough, but I just don't want to be on my own. And possibly I fell into that category a little bit. I was certainly scared of being on my own. I've never been on my own because I got married the first time when I was 18.

So I went straight from college, living at home to being married. And then I was only divorced for maybe a year or so. And then I met my second husband and we were together for the best part of 20 years. So it was a big shock for me to suddenly be completely on my own. And I needed that time actually. I spent a couple of years, didn't date anybody. I was on my own. I was kind of figuring out who I was in all of this and doing things on my own for the very first time.

I bring myself off to the theatre and on my own I bought a ticket for one and I took myself at dinner and I sat on my own, okay I had a book because I kind of felt I needed to be doing something but I actually really enjoyed the evening and realized that I didn't need somebody else to complete me and if I happen to have somebody else then that's great.

But they're there because I enjoy their company and I feel better for it, not because I need them to be there. And also I imagine you went through quite a void of discovery about how society and your friendship groups viewed you as a single person. Yeah, it was as seen as a threat.

You know, did they want to still invite me to dinner because I was a single woman? Was I just going to be hard to manage on my own? Did they have to find another single man? Did they have to take the numbers? They want to set you up. It was a bit of that. That was quite funny.

But again, that's all the voyage of discovery, isn't it, that I think a lot of people might look at and think it's quite scary, but when you come through the other side and you look back, you have absolutely no regrets, I'm assuming, the point you said is true and how do you come through that? I've come through and that's probably why I'm healthier and happier and feel fitter and stronger and more resilient now because I know myself much better.

and i know the things that i like and and also you know now being in a new relationship realizing how actually precious that is and how special that is and and taking time to make sure that i don't fall into the same pitfalls and patterns of behaviour that perhaps are less healthy i think you become more aware perhaps later life of

If you do then meet somebody and want to have a relationship of actually what you need to do to protect that. And there'll be women listening and maybe men listening as well who want to know how you meet people in midlife. You know, where are they? Did you get yourself on the apps? Yeah, I tried apps. I actually got blocked from Bumble from impersonating Lizzo.

I thought, but it is me. Obviously, I didn't put my real name, and that was, you know, because somebody reported me. They saw my pictures and said, no, that's what you were capturing. Yeah. So it's like how I knew that time, even though I'm not on the old apps. But yeah, I got blocked. But I gather Sharon Stone got blocked as well. Oh, you know, so there you go. You know, me and Shazza.

So, and I kind of, I went off the app. So I got very scared. I mean, everybody was on apps and I thought, well, I'll try it. But it's just a swipey thing, isn't it? And it's, it's very superficial. So I stopped it. And then I was just happy on my own. And then I met up with a girlfriend who'd been divorced and she was just glowing. And I said, what are you doing? You know, they should know I've met the love of my life. And I said,

Tell me more, how did you meet?" And she said, well, we met online. I said, I'm not doing those swipey apps. And she said, no, no, this is a website, a dating website. So you should do it. I cannot do that. So anyway, I went home and I joined and left it and probably over shared lots of information because I came down the next morning to about 90 messages and got completely scared and deleted my profile immediately.

and waited about a year. And then I was coming back from Kenya and I was thinking, you know, I'm coming back and I'm single and it'd be quite nice to be with somebody. So maybe I'll just reactivate my profile and see what happens. And then very, very quickly, I got a message from this young guy who said, you know,

Oh, I won't tell you exactly what he said, but he's basically said, will you meet me for a cup of coffee? And I thought, I'm not sure about this. I said, yeah, I go and I'll meet you for a cup of coffee. And yeah, that was it. We've been together ever since. Wow. That was timing. Timing's everything, obviously. Timing's everything. You were ready to receive. He was ready. And it was just like, yeah, do you know what? This is great.

That was just so interesting to revisit and you know I think that what I've learned over the last few years about what a quote successful relationship looks like has actually changed and for me you know when I got divorced for the second time I did spend quite a long time on my own several years and you know that was quite deliberate because I just kind of wanted to

find myself and who I was in all of this. And I think that's a really useful point because now I am in a very nice romantic relationship, but I kind of had to figure out not only who I was, but actually what I was looking for in a relationship. And I think so many of us, and certainly I'm gonna put my hand up here as being guilty, either go into a relationship or stay in a relationship for fear of being alone.

And I think the realization for me that I didn't need to be in a relationship to feel complete was actually a really pivotal moment for me that actually added to my personal strength and resilience and mental robustness, if you like, to know that I was actually quite happy on my own. And that was a conscious decision. It wasn't that I was being left out of anything or that I was missing out. I was actually making that as a deliberate lifestyle choice.

And that then I think made me show up differently in my current relationship. And also, I think probably value it more. And the thing that I've learned now about my current relationship and that I would kind of really stress to everybody looking at improving any relationship actually, whether we're talking about romantic relationships or

family relationships or work relationships is it does all come down to communication doesn't it in the end not being fearful of having slightly difficult conversations or even very difficult ones thinking about how you might have them how you might frame them.

How you can be non confrontational and i think that's one of the things that i've learned is how i phrase those conversations that if i want to bring up a difficult subjects i won't be so accused of tree perhaps also black and white and i'll say things like do you know i feel

this or I feel this is happening or I feel I might like to do things this way because nobody can actually judge you or criticize you on how you feel. You know how you feel is personal to you and it's it is very relevant to you and nobody can take that away from you. People can say well I'm sorry you feel like that you know because I don't but you know it's just a very easy way of starting that conversation and it is all about communication and

One of the things that I actually wrote about in my book when talking about relationships is the importance of having an audit. And I guess as we go into a new year, this might be an interesting discussion point for you because we do often have annual reviews. Don't we? We have annual reviews at work. We have end of term school reports. We have reviews. I don't know. We have our annual car service or whatever it is. So why don't we have that review or that service or that check in if you like for our relationship?

where we actually make an appointment with our other half and say, do you know what? I think let's sit down this evening and maybe even with a notepad and pen or just talk about how the last year has been. How's it going? You know, what do we think about this? What do we think about the way that we're looking after our personal life? Maybe our childcare arrangements, maybe our sex life, maybe our work habits, maybe our hobbies, maybe the way that we spend our weekends. You know, are we happy with the way that it's going? What's gone well?

What could we maybe improve on? Anyway, just a thought. I throw that out there. But of course, we can't have a conversation about romantic relationships without also talking about sex. And I did absolutely love chatting to Sam Evans. You know, she's a former nurse and she now owns a sex toy company called Joe Divine.

And well you know me I am an ingredients detective when it comes to food labels, but Sam taught me that we need to be just as meticulous when it comes to the ingredients in our sex toys if we have them and lubricants because they can directly affect our physical health and enjoyment of sex. We set up the company.

with an idea that there were some skin-safe and irritant-free products out there. And it was actually using these products which transformed my intimate health and our sex life because it was the light bulb moment that actually the products we'd been using had caused all my problems for 20 years.

the well-known products that are still out there, that are still recommended. And so, you know, I say that yes, organic oil-based lubricant saved our sex life. And I will still talk about that today, which is why I'm so passionate about this because I advise so many people who experience issues.

And as you said about, you know, people caring about what they eat and what's in their skincare products, they're no thought to what they put on their vulva and inside their vagina. Yeah, which is obviously super sensitive area and probably more in need of gentle care than many other areas. And also, you know, you need to look after it. You know, we moisturize our skin, you know, morning and night, but we give no thought to our poor old vulva and vagina that actually needs just as much care too.

So yes, in my background, yes, nursing has really helped because obviously I can commit it from a clinical point of view. I understand a lot of the health issues that are out there, but I've also had my own sexual health issues.

which I'm happy to share with people and often people feel like they're the only person going through this issue. And I go, well, actually, no, I suffered from that and actually I overcome it. So there's nothing like firsthand experience. I've interviewed a lot of brand founders and the strongest are those who have had issues and problems and found ways to overcome them. Firstly, can we kick off really with the view here that a good lubricant can transform our sex lives and why that should be the case?

Yeah, I mean, very much so, you know, our lubricants are the top-selling products for us. They're the thing that I get the most about. It's the first thing that most people turn to in midlife or going through the menopause because vaginal dryness is an issue, but actually you don't need to have vaginal dryness to use a lube. We know using a good lube can transform your sexual pleasure and may your sex play a lot longer. But the problem is we have so many products that contain irritating ingredients.

And we now have the clinical evidence based research about some of these ingredients that they're actually not good for our intimate health. And often people will be using a lubricant like I did, and that caused so many problems. I had no idea it was our leaves. And you know, you constantly

you get thrush, you treat yourself, you know, you go back to using your lube or you get cystitis or UTI, you get the antibiotic, you go back to using your lube, you have no idea. And actually for us, people will come to us and say, I've tried so much and all lubes are the same. I get that from medical professionals, which drives me potty. No, they're not. And you know, most people and medical professionals are saying, oh, it's fine to use something out of your kitchen or bathroom cupboards as long as it's slippery. Because it's slippery, it's not good for your intimate health.

Let's get into the lubricant ingredients in a moment, but can you give us the top line there on the various different types? You know, I've seen labels, water-based, silicone-based, oil-based. What are the differences and what can and should we be using? So water-based is the most common lubricant out there. It is compatible

with sex toys with latex condoms, and it is the closest to your own natural lubrication, it's not particularly long lasting, having said that we sell soutill, lux and rich, which is a water base lubricant, which is long lasting, it's very unusual, and I love it, and after our customers, but

A lot of the water-based lubricants out there contain your rotating ingredients, so people don't like them. And then you have oil-based products. Now, I'm not talking about olive oil and cooking oil and coconut oil out of your kitchen or battering cupboard. I'm talking, and baby oil, I'm talking about products that have been designed for intimate health.

you're the only oil-based lube that we sell is the yes organic oil-based lubricant but oil-based products do destroy latex condoms and they linger inside the vagina and the anus for up to 24 hours so if you're then using condoms within that period

There's a potential risk that the condom can be damaged and obviously exposure to STIs and pregnancy. And then silicone lubricants are very, very slippery. They are, you know, there are a lot of people like using them, but the thing about silicone loops, they actually sit on the skin. They don't get absorbed into the skin, so they're not nourishing and hydrating like some of the water-based and oil-based loops that we sell.

And also you can't use silicon leaves with silicon sex toys because they will damage the silicon of the sex toy. It leaves it grainy so it's almost like sort of a rubbing effect. And then that damage your toy. You could potentially have a really expensive toy and actually it makes it feel quite tacky the surface of the toy. So that's the difference. There are hybrids. There are some that are water-based and silicon. We don't sell them because we are really careful about the ingredients in our products.

But those are basically the three. OK, interesting. So silicon used on sex toys is not a good idea. No, because it's silicon on silicon. So silicon is like little grains of sand and so it causes an abrasion. So that actually damages the material. Also, once you've damaged that material, it makes it porous. So then it's not skin safe and it absorbs bacteria.

So, you know, that's really important. Though some people will use a silicone tube with a silicone toy. If you're using a glass toy or a metal toy or plastic toy, it's perfectly fine because those materials, it's not going to damage those materials.

Well interesting hey and quite a brave bold discussion I felt. You know how important is sex? I think for some it is very important others not so and as I say in my book actually I did write a section on sex and I had to kind of caveat it by saying listen I'm not a sex therapist I'm so not an expert and I'm actually slightly uncomfortable writing about it and even talking about it here but

It is an important part of our lives, but if it's something that's not important for you and your relationship, then that's okay too. As long as I think it's a mutually agreed decision, you know, many couples have separate bedrooms or separate beds or whatever. And if that's a mutually agreed state to be, then that's, in my mind, absolutely fine. I think it's when things are unsaid that it can become a problem. And of course sex is not all just about penetration. It's actually about contact.

skin on skin, you know, the hugs, the holding of the hand, the stroking of the arm. These are contact points that actually do produce this happy hormone, oxytocin, which is the same hormone that is produced during orgasm, for example. So that's why you get that flush of intense pleasure. But we also get that from a hug and that might be from a romantic partner. It also might be from

a friend or a family member or even a furry friend. So I think it's important to actually broaden the very definition of sex and just make it not quite so transactional perhaps as we might think about it but think of it in a broader sense. And I think also it's really important because I talk a lot here about midlife and menopause and perimenopause and postmenopause etc.

To understand that our hormones, not just the oxytocin that we're producing, but the hormones that govern so much of our feelings and also our intimate health. So we know, for example, that estrogen is controlling the health of the vagina.

and the internal pelvic cavity, and causing all sorts of hormonal fluctuations during perimenopause and menopause, and actually using something like vaginal estrogen is so important, not only for sexual health and lubrication, which we've just been talking about, but also for recurrent UTIs, for bladder health, for recurrent issues like cystitis, urinary tract infections are very much determined by the pH and what's happening

around the urethra, around the bladder area. And we know that using vaginal estrogen, whether that's in the form of a pessary or a cream, is incredibly safe. Even those who are undergoing active treatment for breast cancer, for example, it has been widely acknowledged that it is absolutely safe to do so because it's localized. It's not a systemic form of estrogen that circulates through the whole body that you would get with a gel or a patch or a tablet.

So localised vaginal estrogen, super effective, super important and actually I was talking to Lily the other day and she was saying just how important this can also be for younger young moms who are breastfeeding because then your estrogen can also be massively impacted by that and she was given that as a pointer by a women's health physio that actually vaginal estrogen for use during breastfeeding can also make all the difference. So I hope

that that information is super helpful. Well we're going to pause for a moment here but you don't want to go anywhere because when we come back have you considered cosmetic surgery to change your aging face and why might it be healthy to stop wearing sun cream and sunglasses? Stay tuned.

Well, we were just talking about sex, which means that we also have to talk about contraception. But are we talking enough about how our hormones, in some methods of contraception, the pill, in particular, are interacting with our body's own hormones? Well, Kate Muir is a brilliant investigative journalist. I got to know her quite well over the last 12 months, and I highly respect her informed, dedicated research for women's health.

She also helped Dr. Louise Newson set up the Menopause charity, and she came on the show earlier this year to chat about her latest book, which is called Everything You Need to Know About the Pill, and How All That Understanding of Hormones Relates to Menopause 2.

Kate, you say in the book that women who use progestin, only contraception, like implants, for example, are essentially given a chemical menopause. And that sounds quite stark. What do you mean by that? Well, I was talking to Dr. Louise Newson about this, who, of course, is the great menopause guru and, you know, runs the biggest menopause clinic in the world. And she'd been treating some teenagers too. And one of the things that happens, of course, is when you're on the pill,

most of the pills stop ovulation. So you're not getting that peak of estrogen anymore in the middle of the month. And even if you're on the estrogen-only pill, you've got that very, very steady low level of synthetic estrogen. And of course, a lot of people find that they get dry vulvas and dry vaginas, exactly the same symptoms as women get in menopause because there's not enough estrogen for the collagen.

in the vulva and it has some of the same mental health sort of slightly flattening effects. You know there's a real loss of joy for some people. This is not everyone but there is this you know people are not getting the hormones at the level they naturally would and for instance on the coil people tend to after a while on the coil start ovulating again so their hormones come back and they feel happy while being protected

whereas with the pill you can be sort of held down and the other thing it does is it increases your sex hormone binding globulin if we say that and lowers your testosterone which we know is a female hormone and of course about fifth of women say that the pill lowers their libido

I mean that's just an own goal isn't it? I mean the reason you're taking the pill is because you're having sex but you don't want to get pregnant but you just want to enjoy sex but then the pill actually lowers your sex drive so that's a bit of a a bit of a downer.

Yeah, and it's very, very hard for people. But we do see this. The thing is, there's been so much supposition around this, but now the science is coming in. And we're seeing really interesting, you know, looking into exactly what's happening to our testosterone levels, also brilliant neuroscience on the serotonin receptors in the brain.

and the effect of the pill on the serotonin receptors. And we can actually see in a picture that it's about 10% lower, our levels of joy while we're on the pill. And, you know, sex is not just one thing or the other, is it? It's joy, it's that ovulation peak, it's testosterone and it's the whole connection. And I mean, everything, you know. Yeah. Well, I mean testosterone has been such a big

flag that's being waived by the menopause community because up until fairly recently it was thought of as simply a male hormone but we know that we produce more testosterone in our ovaries than we do estrogen and that actually it's not just linked to libido and sex drive, it's linked to mental health and brain cognition and memory function and muscle strength and muscle mass and all of those things. As somebody who's an investigative journalist and a campaigner, are you seeing a shift in

getting more awareness on testosterone and kind of having that more widely accepted. I think among a quite a narrow group of women in the menopause movement and doctors, we are seeing that. I think the rest of society and indeed, you know,

if you look in the Encyclopedia Britannica or you know all sorts of places online you are not seeing testosterone being a female hormone and until people understand that testosterone is a female hormone and a massive female hormone and our brains are filled with testosterone receptors, never mind our vulvas as well.

that will really matter and it is a great piece of gender bias in medicine but it's also a piece of great hope for us all because I think you know we can have this hormone back if it's low we can use it you know to give ourselves more oomph in our lives

And I'm looking around me at these great menopause campaigners and women's health campaigners and politicians. And we are all on, you know, body identical HRT, many of us are all testosterone. And you're out there fighting every morning, kind of for women's health. And I think

in many ways it is fantastic to be given this gift that you do have your hormones functioning at a really high level in your 50s and 60s and probably 70s and 80s. It's really good news that you can bring to people and that's what makes doing this worth it really. I'm with you 100%

Well, I found that whole episode super interesting and I have sent it to my daughters and said, please share this with your friends and your community. So if you haven't listened, or maybe you think it's not for you because it's all about the contraceptive pill and those days are long gone.

do take a listen because it does have an impact in later life and also I think all of us will know young women who are taking the pill and it's really important that some of the points that Kate has raised there are addressed. I think it's absolutely staggering shocking that the synthetic hormones used in the contraceptive pill are far less safe than those that are prescribed to midlife and older women in hormone replacement therapy.

So as we've talked about before, the estrogen, for example, in HRT, if it's transdermal, so that's if it's in a gel or a patch or spray, is body identical. It's exactly the same estrogen that we find in our own bodies. So that's why it's so incredibly safe. But the fact that younger women are being given far higher levels of estrogen, because that's what's needed to make it into an effective contraceptive. These are synthetic. They work in a different way.

than the body identical hormones and they are in far higher levels and i think the whole impact on younger women's mental health their feelings of joy their sex drive is absolutely shocking that nobody is now taking this into account and producing safer.

levels of hormones in contraceptive pills. And I think also as we get older, looking at the role of testosterone on sex is really important too. You know, getting prescribed from the NHS testosterone can be done if we're quoting low libido.

And in some ways that's really quite shocking because the only way that the NHS will give us our own testosterone back is if we're not wanting to have sex with our partners. Why should it be thus? You know, why are we not getting our testosterone back? Because actually it helps build muscle strength and it helps preserve cognitive function and memory and improves mood in the brain. But no, no, it all seems to have come down to sex. So I think that's just one example of gender bias, for example.

in medicine and in the research that we've come across this year and i think we will be talking much more about that next year because one of the things i've become increasingly aware of through this podcast being able to talk to amazing academics and medics and researchers is the lack of information

and proper research and funding for so many female focused medical health issues. While we're on the subject of hormones then, what is the menopause doing to your skin? Well, Dr. Libna Khan-Salim is a cosmetic surgeon and well before recommending going under the knife, she focuses on how our hormones are affecting our skin and our appearance.

So often the driver, I feel, for a lot of women who are coming towards the perimenopause and menopause is that because we're only just talking about it. I mean, it's 2024, you know, we're now having conversations around menopause and perimenopause. But for a lot of women, still the dots haven't been connected as to what's going on internally and why they're feeling or looking the way they do. And so often they're driven to just say the cosmetic side of things because sometimes the very first things that they notice

is that their skin is changing or they've got drier skin or you start to feel like you've got you're getting the gels or the turkey neck or you know the various other sort of cosmetic signs of aging that we see and because because of like of education because we're not really sort of like spoken to in the health service really about our bodies or our hormones because there are so many signs and symptoms I mean from the very top of our head to the to our toe every cell in our body has got hormone receptors needed in receptors and so

you know, we talk about there being more than like 48 symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. And so women end up with either urine tract infections, whether it's low libido, whether it's about flashes, whether it's brain fog, you know, one of my friends suffered from what she thought was a breakdown. So, you know, end up going to see a psychiatrist. So there's so many signs and symptoms.

that we just don't recognise. And often when we're going from pillow to pose, we're seeing different specialists. And so sometimes for me, it is about having that woman in front of me and connecting the dots. And very often it is, you know, we are subject to our hormones as women. And it's not just the perimenopause, menopause, you know, whether it's dream puberty, whether it's fertility issues and beyond, you know, the hormones are a massive thing. And so one of my biggest thing really is for women to really understand their hormone shifts and recognise what's going on.

And with the skin, it's our largest organ. It's a true reflection of what's going on inside internally, how healthy we are. And so it's one of the first signs that we see. Yeah, really fascinating. And it's interesting talking to you about all this in a much more broader platform, if you like, because often a cosmetic doctor will point out all the things about your face that perhaps don't quite meet conventional beauty standards. In fact, we had India Knight on the show last year,

And she said just that, she said she went to have one little procedure done, but then was given a laundry list of all the things that she should probably have done, you know, which only really worked to increase insecurities. And it's interesting that you're kind of getting women

really to flip that and celebrate unique qualities, perhaps rather than making them look like everyone else? Absolutely, I think beauty is this limitless ideal and it's so individual and I really love that there's this beautiful book by Alan Moore with the do books, it's called Do Beauty and he talks about reclaiming the language of beauty back to being a verb, like doing beauty and so beauty, I feel it's like a feeling, it's the sense that we get and

Because we've become so divorced from nature, you know, from society, from communities, beauty really should be how we feel. And that's a combination of everything to do with, you know, truly well-being, all the tenets that make us feel whole. And, you know, that beauty shouldn't just be that limited and, you know, such a reductive way, you know, in terms of commercial beauty that is just down to the way we look. I want my daughters to grow up feeling beautiful and not

having to feel like it's just to do with the way they look. And so that's why I'm so passionate about this and want to do it in a different way. And yes, it maybe it doesn't make business sense. I'm selling procedures, but I think, you know, for me, it's creating that beautiful rapport with my clients that brings them back again and again, because, you know, this is health care. It's about somebody in the broader sense, you know, to feel healthy is to be beautiful. And

it's not down to some limited view of how big your lips should be or how big your cheek should be. And that whole upselling like you say, I had a client who went to a different clinic and like you said her face was grabbed and she was told that she should have this done and that done and that's just not the approach, that is not beauty.

Interesting, isn't it? How hormones are just controlling so much of us, both inside and out, and of course the skin being the outer coating and the reflection of what's happening inside.

And I can usually tell when I meet somebody, an older woman, whether or not she is replacing her hormones with HRT, because the estrogen does plump up and smooth the skin. So I guess that's a beneficial side effect. I would never advocate replacing your hormones solely for your cosmetic appearance, but it is certainly a nice side effect.

I did here originally from an anthropologist that the reason that we have estrogen receptors in our skin is to give us that youthful glow so that the male that might be picking out a future mate for procreation of the human species because anthropologically that is kind of the only reason that we're here is to continue the future generations

They are only going to want to mate with a female who is reproductively capable. And so having that estrogen receptors plumping the skin gives an outward affirmation, if you like, that we are full of estrogen and ready to go. Well, of course, we're now going to be confusing the males of the species aren't made by our replacement hormones. But anyway, I think it is a very nice safe and effective side effect. And I think, you know, more broadly, looking at

surgical treatments, treatments, you know, I cover a lot of these in my book, actually, about a second half. I do think it's very much a personal choice. I don't think we should be pressured into having any kind of surgery or tweak. But at the same time, I very much take the view that it's your face, it's your choice. You know, I think as women, we're used to the expression, my body, my choice.

And I think that should also extend to what we decide to do with our appearance or not. And I think some people are very critical of other women who quote, aren't natural. Well, I would counter that by saying, you know, what is natural?

Is dying your hair part of that? Do you criticize somebody for having some highlights maybe? Or what about wearing mascara because that lengthens and curls your lashes? That's not natural is it? What about taking a photograph actually when you're standing towards really nice light that kind of blurs the lines on your skin? That's not very natural is it? You know surely we should just be on the outdoors just taking a raw photograph. So

You know, where do you draw the line as to what is natural? Is wearing makeup natural? Is injecting a muscle relaxant into your skin natural? You know, I think is having a laser facial way or using LED light, which is something that I particularly like. Is that natural or not? So I think we need to be a lot less judgmental, actually, and just say to any woman and man, because

Guys going to go the knife and have all kinds of surgical treatments as well. Listen, it's entirely up to you. That's not judge. There are bigger things to be concerned about in life. That's my view anyway. Well, the topic that I want to end on is still feeling quite new and actually fairly controversial, but it is something

that I am actively involved in researching for 2025. You are going to be hearing more about it across all of my platforms. And it's about the importance of sunlight. You know, we have become so sun phobic. I've can't tell you the number of beauticians and estheticians I've talked to over the years who've said, oh my gosh, you've got to put on your high factor SPF the moment you wake up, you know, before you go outside, it needs to be on your skin. Well, I'm sorry, but having researched,

the impact of low-level UV light on the skin, I entirely disagree with that. I do use sun cream and I use it when the sun is very strong, so between the hours of perhaps 10 and 3 or 4, when I'm out in strong sunshine. Do I use it when I'm indoors? No. Do I use it if I'm out and about in the winter months and the light is so low that there's very little

UV getting through, let alone any high intensity UV light. So do I use it then? No, I don't. So I think this is a subject that I do definitely want to dive into more. I think there's a lot of vested interest as to why the sun care narrative needs to be kept going.

Virtually every cosmetic product and cream that you look at contains an SPF. So if we suddenly realize that actually low levels of UV are beneficial for the skin, so I'm not just talking about not being dangerous, but I'm actually talking about being actively beneficial. This is going to cause a lot of head scratching and disruption in a lot of companies.

So we can definitely expect some kickback on that. But hey, I'm after evidence-based information, so watch this space. Meanwhile, Dr. Leland Stillman practices functional medicine in America, and he wants to re-educate us about sunlight. And maybe, just maybe, a lack of this natural light is what's causing us to get so ill.

Because light and sunlight in particular is essentially your body's best signal for the amount of energy in the environment. Your metabolism and your activity is wired to respond to it. So imagine you're living in cold, you know, a cold dark place like England and its winter, your body will, you will do well if you hibernate, so to speak, and you rest and you don't spend a lot of energy out there in the world being active.

And then in the summer you want to be active because you have to gather enough food preserve enough food, firewood and so on and so forth so that you can survive the winter. And this seasonal change in modern life has really been extinguished by artificial light, which is part of why it's then led to these epidemics of chronic.

illness and disease, but the basic premise there underlying all of that is that light hitting the retina then is transmitted to the brain to affect our behavior, our thinking, how we are, how we behave. Sunglasses became popularized in World War II by fighter pilots who needed their sunglasses to allow them to see into the sun because one of the best dogfighting tactics of that period of time and still to this day is to attack your enemy

from the sun because they can't see you. So aviators from World War II popularized this and people just started wearing them because they do reduce the amount of sun hitting your eye and it is comfortable. It's very comfortable to wear sunglasses on a really, really sunny day. The caveat to this is that you end up blocking 95, 99% of the sunlight, right?

And this is where it gets interesting. If you look at a disease like seasonal affective disorder, seasonal affective disorder, I really think is better described as a light deficiency syndrome. We treat it with a, call it's called a sad lamp, a seasonal affective disorder lamp. It's a lamp that emits bright light.

what are you doing when you put on a pair of sunglasses, but creating the conditions of seasonal effect of disorder or a lack of light. So people will often tell me that when they took my advice and stopped wearing their sunglasses and started taking walks outside and stopped baking an artificial light from screens after dark and started to, in other words, live a more naturalistic lighting

a lifestyle in terms of their light environment that things like hot flashes went away. Weight just came off, energy came back, sleep improved, their mood lifted, their anxiety abated. All of these things are being mediated by the effect of light.

on the brain itself. And so you can use sunglasses, but you have to be mindful of this effect. Because ultimately, if you wear them all the time, you are setting yourself up for a kind of artificially induced seasonal effective disorder. And this is also why people in modern corporate environments are so depressed.

You know, people think about their corporate work environment as being oftentimes I'm told by patients as being crushing and soulless and meaningless and boring and repetitive and pedantic.

And part of this, frankly, is the fact that there's no natural visual stimulation of light. As we've introduced indoor lifestyles and sunglasses, we've seen the rates of not only neurological disorders skyrocket, but we've also seen rates of visual disorders skyrocket. We have far, far more visual loss. The disease is like st. macular degeneration now than we did just a few generations ago, which is

counter to the mainstream narrative of both the ophthalmologists and the dermatologists who say, well, you've got to protect your skin and you've got to protect your eye from the sun. There's no actual data to support their premise that getting sunlight is bad for you. In fact, if you look at the data, the more sun you get on your skin and by extension in your eye, the lower your risk of death

and the lower your risk of developing a chronic disease. In fact, in the melanoma in southern Sweden trial, which is very relevant to your listeners, they found that the people who smoked the most but were outdoors the most had the same risk of death as the people who smoked not at all and who went outside the least. And that implies that lack of sunlight, lack of time outside is a risk factor for death and disease that's equivalent to smoking heavily.

And yet people are being told, you've got to slather up with sunscreen, you've got to wear sunglasses, you've got to wear a hat, you've got to cover up. I'm not saying this may not be good advice for some of you with very special skin or very sensitive skin or specific skin conditions or ocular conditions. But by and large, as we've removed natural sunlight from our environment and our lives, we've seen the incidence of chronic degenerative disease skyrocket with no real end in sight.

And no explanation for why, even as we've cut the sun out of our lives, rates of cancers like melanoma have gone up, other types of skin cancer have gone up, and also these ocular diseases that I believe in the end are also linked to a lack of sunlight and a lack of red and infrared light.

I actually have become increasingly interested, as I mentioned, in the role of sunlight, partly because I've been researching quantum health, quantum healing. If you look at my own Instagram, which is Lizelle Me, you'll often see little references to that. And the fact that I go out first thing in the morning, I actively look to the eastern point in the sky. And even during the gray winter months, when there's not much sun coming through, there will be that low level of UV light even coming through the clouds, even if we're not hugely aware of it.

And of course, if we can get out towards sunrise when we get the red glow, that red glow is the near infrared, super helpful for our health. What we're doing, if we can see that through naked eyes, so that's with no glasses, no contact lenses, definitely no sunglasses, then it is stimulating the little retinal cells at the back of the eye.

that are connecting into neurotransmitters in the brain and setting up our circadian rhythm, that cascade of hormones, that bizarrely, because we're doing that first thing in the morning, means that we're actually setting up our melatonin hormone production, which means that we'll sleep better at night. And that is one simple practice that I would really advocate for the year ahead, that wherever you are, if you can get outside first thing, great. But even if you can't,

Sometimes if I'm traveling or I'm in a hotel or whatever, I will just throw open the window and just look outside. Those few moments of near-infrared and low-level UV light hugely beneficial and we're going to be hearing a lot more about that in the months and the years to come. Maybe you heard it here first. What do you think?

And I thought one of the things that was interesting hearing Leyland say, seasonal effective disorder, which I know is affecting so many of us right now. I've got members of my family and people close to me, definitely affected by sad. He's saying that it's actually a light deficiency syndrome. So encouraging people, whether that's you or somebody close to you who is feeling literally sad with seasonal effective disorder,

to get outside and whenever you see that glimmer of sun, do get outside and try and enjoy it because it can literally lift your spirits. And I'm wondering actually more generally how big a lifestyle paradigm shift we need here in Western society if we are really to prioritize natural light, get away from the overhead LED downlights and the fluorescent bulbs

that may well be impacting our brain and our brain health and our physical health, our immune system and all the rest of it.

it's going to be an interesting time ahead. Anyway, I would just like to end here by saying the biggest thank you to every single person who's shared their knowledge and their experience with us on the show this year. And of course, if you'd like to listen back to the full episodes that you've heard parts of today, there will be links to all of these in the show notes. So then, what healthy habits would you like to put in place for 2025?

Well, here on the Lizar Wellbeing Show, we are going to spend January talking about morning routines, nutritious food and getting our bodies moving. Do let me know how you're getting on with any lifestyle tweaks that you're making to benefit your health and your well-being. And you can leave a comment to do that on Instagram at Lizar Wellbeing, that's the team,

and I am there too of course at Lizzo Me or you can email me and the email address is podcast at lizzo wellbeing.com. So until the next week and the next year go well and do have a very happy and healthy new year. Goodbye!

The Lizzo Wellbeing Show is presented by me, Lizzo, and is produced by Neushka Tate for fresh air production, with thanks to our editorial director, Ellie Smith, and social media manager, Rachel Andrews.