PROF. SARAH BERRY: How is Menopause REALLY Affecting Us? | GREAT MOMENTS

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1:10Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Lange and this is Great Moments. Hi guys and welcome back. I hope you're having a great day. Now today's Great Moments is with the incredible Professor Sarah Berry. Sarah is chief scientist at Zoe and one of the leading voices on menopause research. Now listen, I'm going to be totally honest, okay? Before she came on the show, I didn't really know anything about menopause. She broke it all down to me, what it actually is, the symptoms to look out for, and trust me, this is one you shouldn't miss. If you like her and you want to hear it, you can check out the full episode.

1:46All you've got to do is check out the link in the show notes. Click on it and it'll take you to the episode. So here it is, Great Moments, with Professor Sarah Berry.

1:57I don't even know where to begin on this subject because I don't even know what menopause is. I know it's something that happens to women. I know it happens to women at a certain time in their life. I don't know what it affects what happens. I hear this word and I feel slightly ashamed. I don't really know what it is. So can you explain to me what menopause is? I can. But I think, Jamie, the first thing to say is you're not alone, even as a woman until I started the perimenopause transition which I'll explain what that is I didn't really know what it was or until I started researching it because we don't talk about it we're starting to talk about it we certainly didn't talk about it like I vaguely recall my mum being a bit hot and sweaty in the night but god forbid you know you didn't say the word menopause it just was I said I don't know it's like growing up you know I was a child growing up in the 80s you didn't talk about sex you don't talk about menopause you don't talk about menstruation that's a it's changing and that's the good thing and so for those that don't know what menopause is menopause simply put is the point at which is a year after you've had your last period so you've last menstruated so it's menopause the pausing or cessation of menstruation the thing is you don't go to bed one night um you know pre-menopausal having periods and then wake up the next day and hey i'm post-menopausal it's not like that there's a menopause transition and we call that the perimenopause and this is the point at which your estrogen starts to decline because what stops you having periods and why you go into menopause is because your estrogen's declined and your estrogen is a point at which therefore you're not menstruating but you don't have like suddenly loads of estrogen next day that's it you don't even have this nice slow gradual decline in estrogen you go on a roller coaster so you literally you know you might be plodding along in your 40s okay and then suddenly it's like it goes down it goes up it goes down and this is what's so confusing for women because I think again until I started researching I didn't know that I just thought oh I might reduce a bit and I might get a little bit of a hot flush or might get a bit of brain fog but it sets your body into this kind of roller coaster of craziness and the reason is is because you have estrogen receptors all over your body in your brain you know in your bones everywhere and this is why menopausal symptoms are so widespread because the reduction in estrogen the fluctuations in estrogen impact nearly every cell in your body so explain to me what happens when you as a woman when you're going through menopause what happens to your mind your body what goes on so when you're going through menopause um when you're in that menopause transition that's the period that most people have uh symptoms of menopause so by this these are the kind of symptoms that we are talking about more like brain fog anxiety palpitations in the morning, aching bones, loss of libido, poor sleep, change in body fat distribution.

5:09There's about 50 different symptoms. There's 20 that are very common. You have your symptoms, which we can pick up on in more detail if you want to, that are particularly bad during that perimenopausal phase, during that transition phase. They still continue after the menopause. They still continue after that menopause transition phase. But what also happens at the same time and I don't think we're talking about this enough really we're starting to talk about symptoms but your change in risk of disease also changes. What do you mean by that? Oestrogen impacts a lot of the way that our blood vessels work our body metabolizes food because like I said it affects every cell in our body and so the way that our body has functioned from a kind of disease perspective also changes so I can outline some results from some of our research to illustrate this so if we look in our zoe predict cohort so this is in a couple of thousand people and we look at key risk factors for disease so these are chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease type 2 diabetes so blood pressure cholesterol inflammation body fat around the belly for example so if we look at those in our individuals and we look across different ages what you see is that these risk factors increase as you age.

6:30So your blood pressure is a natural part of aging goes up. Now, we can go on to talk about how we can minimize that through diet and lifestyle, but generally it will go up as you age. Your cholesterol goes up, particularly your bad cholesterol, which we call the LDL cholesterol. Levels of inflammation go up and you tend to start putting a little bit of weight around the belly. That starts to go up. Now, what happens is that up until the menopause, men are on a different trajectory than women women are doing quite well so men have at any given age on average at slightly high blood pressure slightly higher cholesterol slightly higher inflammation etc and women for once are kind of smiling we're a bit smug at this point because we're doing a bit better what happens is you hit the late 40s so the average age of menopause is 51 the average age of perimenopause is about 47 you hit your late 40s suddenly women who've been having this nice like slower trajectory suddenly wham it goes up suddenly their blood pressure their cholesterol their inflammation their fat tissue around their tummy suddenly goes up to the level of men and this is because they're losing estrogen and the estrogen is involved in many of the processes that help maintain a healthy blood pressure help maintain a healthy cholesterol help maintain appropriate inflammatory responses and so suddenly therefore your disease risk increases the same level as men in some cases might go above it and so I think it's important we talk about symptoms but I think it's also important for women to recognize that this is also a point in time to really take stock of how diet and lifestyle can help reduce your risk of some of these chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease like type 2 diabetes like obesity as well, because you're fighting a bit of a tidal wave as well.

8:23It must be so scary that if you're suddenly just experiencing these things and you don't really know what's going on. Why do I feel anxious? Why are my hormones all over the place? What is going on? And if we don't talk about it, dare I say it, I feel like relationships must break down during this period because why would people understand if something is going on within someone's body? Yeah, and I think it's so hidden. So the disease risk factors that we talked about, are hidden unless you're going to the doctor and, you know, having, you know, blood samples or having a blood pressure measured.

8:53The symptoms also something you're suffering. And many women who are now in that perimenopausal phase, like I am, are of a generation where we didn't talk about it. Our parents, my mum never talked about it. You know, you suck it up and you get on with it. I'm really lucky that it's changing, that I feel I can talk about it. And for my daughter, I think it will be even better because I think she's being brought up in an environment where, yes, you do talk about it. But it does, it impacts all aspects of your life. You know, I can be bloody grumpy and irritable. Like ask my husband and he'll honestly, like the amount of times he's like, Sarah, I told you this.

9:30And it almost feels like a cop out for me to say, oh yeah, but it's because I'm perimenopausal. I've got brain fog. That's why. That's actually what's going on with me. But I, even I, even though I research it, feel like, oh, I can't really say that. We know from our own research that 99.8 % of people, women of that age in our cohort, have at least one menopausal symptom. 66 % of people, women in the peri and post-menopausal stage, have 12 or more symptoms. 80 % of women who are perimenopausal, so around my age, have sleep disturbances. 85 % have anxiety, palpitations when they wake up, brain fog, mood swings, all of these things going on that we're contending with.

10:14Now, the good news, there were some things you can do about it. But the bad news is until now, we weren't talking about it and we weren't helping solve it. 10 % of women leave their jobs because of menopause. There was this YouGov survey that was done and asked people and they specified that the reason they left it was because they could not cope in a working environment with the symptoms. they felt embarrassed because they were forgetting things they weren't sleeping so they couldn't cope the next day their anxiety of going out into to you know a normal workforce and 30 percent of women say their symptoms are so debilitating it's having a significant impact on their quality of life and to think that for generations we've not recognized this and talked about this and you know my mother's no longer alive and I feel sad that I wasn't appreciative of actually probably she was having a difficult time.

11:08That's really sad. And thank you for explaining that. If you were going to go into the symptoms, you mentioned there were 50 different types of symptoms, but you said some people experience 12. What would those 12 symptoms be if someone was experiencing that? So the most common symptoms we find in our research is sleep disturbances, change in energy, like how energetic they feel, change in how they feel their metabolism is working, change in lots of cognitive aspects. So the brain fog, the memory loss. I mean, honestly, why does memory loss happen? Because you've got estrogen receptors in your brain.

11:49You've got estrogen receptors everywhere. Irritability. So you become forgetful or you just literally have memory loss? So things like you introduced me to your wonderful team earlier and I'm not going to remember anyone's name. If you'd have asked me five years ago, I'd have remembered everyone's name. It's that kind of thing. I mean, when I go into, I'm one of the things I'm filled with fear about, I love socializing. I'm very chatty as you can tell. But when I go to parties and I might have to introduce my husband to work people who I might've worked with for ages and, you know, have an incredibly close relationship with, I get this like, oh my God, I can't remember their name.

12:27You know, it's awful. I can't remember their name. that didn't happen five years ago but i can still be high functioning as a scientist but then you have that kind of momentary memory loss um so these are the kind of common symptoms so irritability mood swings change in your body composition so estrogen changes where you distribute your body fat so uh men typically have what we call an apple shape i.e you have fat around the abdomen, around your tummy. And women tend to, up to the menopause, have what we call pear shape. So, you know, nice little bottom and hips. So the fat is distributed there.

13:07That's because in very simple terms, your estrogen is kind of directing the fat to be distributed there. Once you lose estrogen, it's no longer directed to your hips and your thighs. And so it's then directed more to your tummy. So this is a really common symptom that women have that suddenly their fat where their tummy is suddenly increases apart from the aesthetics is also the fact that we know that fat around the belly is really bad for us it's metabolically really active compared to fat anywhere else in our body so it increases it produces more inflammatory chemicals it uh is more involved in mechanisms that we know are unfavorable for cardiovascular disease for example and so suddenly as well as oh shit you know i don't look quite so good in my bikini also increasing your risk of chronic disease as well.

13:56So is this sort of scientific suggestion or a personal suggestion to start thinking about menopause before it's even happened? So perhaps changing diet or perhaps taking HRT before that's even happened? I think that I would caution about anyone taking HRT before they need to take HRT. I would suggest is the discussion you should have with a medical practitioner. I'm not a medical practitioner. I think that we should be having a healthy diet, healthy lifestyle all our life. The reality is we don't. Now, a lot of the time people have a wake-up call, whether it was COVID or whether it's that you're going through the menopause.

14:37A lot of the time, this is a wake-up call for many women that, you know, I'm not feeling the same. I've got to do something about it. You know, the stronger and healthier we are going into the menopause, the better. So for example, we have some interesting data showing that people who are overweight or living with obesity, they have a lot higher rates of symptoms. If you're entering the menopause physically inactive, you're also more likely to have symptoms. So if you can enter the menopause transition in your early 40s, our bodies are changing anyway because we're aging. But if you can enter that, that your kind of 40s and start your 40s thinking about making sure you're getting yourself in good shape for it great because we know it will help reduce some of your symptoms so you're not getting in that vicious kind of circle

15:47Ruby, how do you take your tea? Steaming, piping hot and spilled with my best friend. Wednesdays has entered a new era and the tea is better than ever. Join me, Melissa Tatum. And me, Ruby Adler, every Wednesday and Friday as we dive into friendship, pop culture, modern relationships, wellness and the chaos of navigating life. We are best friends and for us, nothing is off limits. Celeb stories, life milestones and your juicy dilemmas. We're here to share it all with you. So, fancy joining us? The kettle's on. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Quick question. When was the last time a display ad changed your mind?

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