The Female Factor: Making women’s health count – and what it means for you (The Food Medic)

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The quality of our sleep. It's also quite interesting in that some studies have even looked at how our sleep architecture changes in that second phase.

Hazel Wallace: Absolutely. And most of the medical research we have is based on a male body, and it's only been the last decade or maybe the last two decades that there's been a huge drive to. Include females in medical studies because we've previously just assumed that women are just smaller men and therefore we can just extrapolate all this data onto women. Of the mind body connection. So you're moving your body, but you're also doing a lot of breath work during the practice and you're tuning into how you feel in your Historically, female bodies (both animal and human) have been excluded from medical research for three main reasons:

Jonathan Wolf: we actually had a lot of questions around that, from our members in advance. I definitely want to dig into this during this episode. Your mood is better, your motivation. You're likely to feel stronger in the gym, and also at this time because of our. Metabolism. You tend to have a lower appetite during this phase, so unlike the next phase where we see a shift in the metabolism and cravings are higher, this phase tends to be a time where women don't find they've got many debilitating symptoms. Hazel Wallace: That regular activity can actually reduce menstrual symptoms and also how heavier period is amazing. Yeah, and you know, this was, this is evidence from the Cochrane review where we pool lots of research together and we look at. Pregnancy. The risk of harming pregnancies has caused ethical issues for using fertile women in clinical trials. Hazel Wallace: yeah, it's something I get asked a lot and I think because there's less known about it, and I think when people from my experience, from people who have come to me, they find it very hard to get a diagnosis.

Hazel Wallace: Sleep is really interesting and I would definitely love more research in this, especially when it comes to sleep architecture. So when we're talking about the different stages of sleep, but as a brief overview, we do see a lot of sleep disturbance just after ovulation and in that premenstrual period. So just before the next period. Endometriosis affects one in ten women in the UK and it takes on average eight years to get diagnosed. It’s absurd, right?However, female reproductive experts tell CNN that the advertising policy is still too restrictive and is creating barriers for how younger people around the world access information about female reproductive health issues, including the menstrual cycle, which can start as early as 8 years old. Jonathan Wolf: when you say sleep architecture. I love the idea that I have sleep architecture. Can you explain a little bit more what that means? So really to be doing the best research, we should be taking urine tests, blood tests as well, to find out where women are at the cycle. And for researchers, that's a huge inconvenience, a huge expense, and it's just easier not to do the research. So there needs to be a bigger drive there and. Like you, you mentioned it may change how we, how women respond to treatments, how women present to hospital with different conditions.