Managing Hot Flashes, Menopause and Midlife with Top Doc Dr. Jen Ashton
Show Snapshot:
Looking for real answers about managing hot flashes and other menopause symptoms? Dr. Jen Ashton, one of America's leading doctors, shares practical solutions and the latest treatment options (including non-hormonal alternatives) to help you feel your best. Get straight talk about what works, what doesn't, and how to take charge of your health in midlife and beyond. Whether you're dealing with sleep issues, mood changes, or hot flashes at work, this episode gives you the tools and knowledge to make informed decisions about your well-being. Plus, hear Dr. Ashton's personal insights from her own six-month health transformation at 55.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty [00:00]: Katie, welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. All month long, we are exploring the Science of Living Well in midlife and beyond. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty, and today, we have one of the country's top doctors joining us for a dose of science-backed straight talk on managing some of menopause's toughest symptoms, and who is sharing simple, yet often overlooked steps for supercharging our health all year long.
Dr. Jen Ashton is double board certified in OB-GYN and obesity medicine. She also has a master's in nutrition. She is one of America's most watched doctors. She served for many years as ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent, covering everything from public health crises to daily wellness strategies. She's got three Ivy League degrees. She has put in the years with thousands of patients in the exam and operating room and with millions of viewers on Good Morning America. Now she's channeling her expertise directly to you, blending real science with the real talk you've been waiting to hear. If you are not yet signed up for her free digital newsletter The Agenda, you are missing out. But lucky us, we get to hang out with her today. Welcome, Dr. Ashton.
Dr. Jen Ashton [01:18]: Thank you so much for that kind intro.
Katie Fogarty [01:22]: I am very excited. I've been following your work from afar for years, and I love the way you've taken it. I love you showing up in my inbox with your newsletter. And I'm really excited for this conversation. And I want to begin by asking you about what many people think of as the number one symptom of menopause, hot flashes. I often joke that hot flashes have a very good publicist. They are practically synonymous with menopause, but hot flashes are no joke. Can you fill us in on how hot flashes impact our overall health and our peace of mind?
Dr. Jen Ashton [01:55]: Oh, you just hit the nail right on the head. They do have a good publicist, because when people hear the word menopause, most think of hot flashes as the next word or symptom or sign. We have a term for hot flashes and night sweats in medicine - they're called vasomotor symptoms or VMS, due to menopause, and they are definitely one of the most bothersome signs and symptoms of menopause or perimenopause.
If you're a woman who's had one, you know what they feel like and how unpleasant and disruptive they can be. But if you've never had one, basically the way that I describe them is this sudden, unpredictable, intense feeling of heat that goes kind of from your core right up to your head, face, neck, chest, upper body, torso, a lot of times associated with a drenching sweat, which you can imagine, if you're at work, doing your job, how that could be. I mean, to say embarrassing is an understatement, but even if you're just in a social setting, that can be embarrassing and disruptive.
Sometimes it's associated with chills. Sometimes it's just the heat without the sweating, but obviously they can occur at night, which is why they're often called night sweats. And they can really disrupt a woman's life, not only sleep, but mood, productivity, relationships, workplace. I mean, the domino effect is pretty significant. And there's even recent research that links moderate to severe VMS with increased risks of cardiovascular or heart issues or brain issues later in life. So it's not just embarrassing or just an inconvenience, even though, let me be clear that that would be enough, but there can also be some significant health consequences as well.
Katie Fogarty [04:06]: So these can be an important signal that there might be something else going on. There's the hot flash-cardiac health link, as you just referred to new data showing. So how does a woman who's suffering from these tackle it? I want to explore a couple different ideas with you.
I am firmly post-menopause, but I never had a hot flash. I sometimes, you know, my husband will say that maybe my volcanic mood swings in perimenopause was my hot flash, and those subsided as I sort of moved firmly into post-menopause. So I can only imagine what it's like to be experiencing these on a regular basis, at a party, at a work event, how disruptive they are if you're experiencing them in the middle of the night.
I know that HRT, which is sort of something I've covered a number of times on the show, is one tool that people use. But I want to explore some other non-hormonal tools with you. Now, there's some new sort of next-gen menopause medications. There are lifestyle choices. Let's begin with, what are some of the new FDA-approved drugs that allow you to tackle hot flashes?
Dr. Jen Ashton [05:13]: So first of all, I love your term "volcanic mood swing," because I had that too.
Katie Fogarty [05:18]: Oh my gosh, Dr. Ashton, I actually called it toxic rage.
Dr. Jen Ashton [05:22]: I was like, that's really good. I called it something else that rhymes with witch. Mine were particularly colorful, let's say. But obviously, look, I'm so glad that we're talking about this. And I also, as a 55-year-old woman, am firmly in that category too, which I'm actually enjoying.
There's so much here to unpack. I think that, you know, first, as you know, I've partnered with Astellas to help bring awareness and education to women and everyone actually, about an FDA-approved non-hormonal way to manage moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats due to menopause. And it's a medication called Veozah. The reason that I felt so strongly about this - you mentioned your husband, I'm going to mention my daughter - because things that really start in our family unit, I think, are oftentimes the most impactful and important in terms of their inspiration.
I was actually inspired to increase awareness about this medication, Veozah, because of my daughter, who's 25, so she is far from menopause, but she was actually told by her doctors - not by her mother, who's a doctor - that she can never take any kind of hormones, not hormone replacement therapy, not birth control, hormonal contraception. And I immediately thought when she was told this, I was kind of in the throes of my menopause symptoms, my volcanic mood swings, as you referred to them. And I immediately, as a lot of parents do, didn't necessarily think about myself, but I thought about my daughter.
And I thought, in 30 years, when she is in menopause or going through menopause, will she be told you have no options for management or treatment? And non-hormonal options, especially for managing moderate to severe VMS, is on the table, and a lot of women don't know about it, and some even healthcare professionals don't know about it. So that was really why I felt so strongly about increasing awareness through this educational campaign, and having women know that it's not just HRT or suffer, that there are other options.
And as we always say in medicine, because it's so important, it's not one size fits all. Not every woman, you know, as you said, you never had a hot flash, not every woman will have them, not every woman will want or need to treat them. But for women who don't want to take hormones or choose not to take hormones, or can't take hormones, they really deserve to be informed of all of their options, and not just one. And so that was kind of my inspiration and motivation for partnering with Astellas.
Katie Fogarty [08:35]: I have a 24-year-old daughter, and I am nodding my head when I hear you talk about wanting their experience to be different, and that's a big reason, too, why I've done, you know, I'm on year four of my podcast. I've done probably 70 shows about menopause. I've interviewed Dr. Sharon Malone and Dr. Jessica Shepherd and a number like Kelly Casperson, some really wonderful voices around this topic.
But I sometimes joke that all 210 episodes, menopause has a co-starring role because we get to midlife, and it really does impact your relationships, your mood, your mind in so many, so many areas. So we want our daughters to have more tools, different options and better resources than we did when a lot of us were flying blind.
So we're heading into a quick break, but when we come back, I want to ask who's a good candidate for this medicine, who maybe is not? You know, you said there's no one size fits all. Let's explore that a little bit. And then I want to pick up dietary lifestyle choices for people who want that. We'll be back in just a minute.
[Advertisement Break]
Katie Fogarty [11:33] Dr. Ashton, we're back from the break. When we went into it, we talked about wanting to create a world where the women coming behind us - our daughters, our colleagues, our children, our grandchildren - are going to have different options and different tools given to them. So who is a good candidate for this new - I know it's FDA approved in the US as of 2023, Canada approved this drug in 2024 as their first and only non-hormonal option in the country to treat VMS symptoms. Who should be thinking about putting this into their menopause toolkit and who should not?
Dr. Jen Ashton [11:33] Well, first of all, I love the way you framed that, because that's the way that any intervention, treatment, management, even potentially test procedure in medicine should - you should start the thought process and the communication with a healthcare professional along those lines, with that kind of foundation. Who is this good for? Who maybe is it not good for? Pros, cons, risks, benefits, options and alternatives. That is the gold standard when it comes to informed consent, and the gold standard of good clinical management in terms of medicine and healthcare.
Specifically, when you talk about Veozah for moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats due to menopause, you should not take this medication or be offered this medication, or consider taking this medication if you have a diagnosis of cirrhosis, liver disease, kidney problems, or you take a class of medications known as a CYP1A2 inhibitor. So it's oftentimes easier to say those people should not take it.
I expand that a little as a doctor and as a woman, by saying think a little more holistically, right? First of all, no treatment of any condition is always - and should always be - an option that's discussed with a patient. So using yourself as an example, you didn't have hot flashes; it would have been improper, in my medical opinion, for a doctor or medical professional to suggest that you take a medication for hot flashes when you didn't have hot flashes.
Dr. Jen Ashton [continued] So I think that it sounds obvious and it seems obvious, but it does bear repeating that "no treatment" is always an option. I think also you have to remember what the FDA approval for Veozah is for, which is moderate to severe VMS. So if a woman said to me, "I have mild - maybe I'm bothered once a month" - anything once a month is not something I would suggest any treatment for, regardless of what it is. I would say once a month, I think you're probably okay, because at that point the risk-benefit curves can intersect, right? You want the gold standard. And really the name of the game in good health and wellness practices is getting the maximum benefit while minimizing risk. And so whether you're talking about menopause or you're talking about weight management or you're talking about mental health, that's always the name of the game, because there are risks and downsides associated with literally everything. And so it's really about understanding what they are, knowing where you might fit in that scenario clinically and therapeutically, and making that informed decision with your doctor or healthcare provider. And I think that's always a good lens for us to use.
Katie Fogarty [14:37] You just outlined mental health, diet, all the different things that we start to navigate. We need new tools in midlife, and that's a great lens through which to look at our options. So thank you for sharing that. I know that you, a little bit later in your medical career, you reskilled again and added a new tool to your quiver. You have a degree in nutrition, you're really sharing incredible content around how we can use food and exercise and make lifestyle choices to help us manage a range of menopause symptoms. So what should we be thinking about, maybe in terms of VMS symptoms, or even the things that are really troublesome, like the lack of sleep, the lack of energy, sort of the brain fog? What are some dietary and lifestyle choices that you recommend when you pull out your prescription pad - this is always on it. There is a one-size-fits-all for some stuff, right?
Dr. Jen Ashton [15:32] Exactly. You're right. I mean, first of all, if I could write a prescription for sleep - seven to nine hours a night, repeat daily, a zillion refills or infinity refills - I would, because sleep is foundationally so important when it comes to our health and wellness that I put it on par with food and fitness, quite literally. You may have heard me say before, I say it in my newsletter, in my magazines: it's the trifecta of health. Your body needs three things every day. It needs fuel, it needs rest, and it needs movement.
And rest sometimes, like hot flashes or night sweats, we tend to think of as, "Oh, like I'll just deal with it," or "I'll catch up on the weekend," or "It's not so bad," or "Isn't everyone sleep deprived?" No, and so we have to prioritize our sleep, and the earlier a woman does that, the better. Obviously, there is a powerful connection between that and menopause symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats due to menopause, because if you're being awakened once an hour with a night sweat or a hot flash, you're not going to be able to get good sleep.
So I start with writing a prescription for sleep, and the earlier I start that in a woman's life story, the better, right? Because that is that powerful. I think we have to remember, and I know you know this very, very well, that menopause symptoms can start in a woman's mid-30s.
Katie Fogarty [17:16] Mid-30s. A lot of people do not understand that.
Dr. Jen Ashton [17:19] That is correct. So a woman can have a baby and then, within a year, be having perimenopausal symptoms, and more oftentimes than not, what her OB-GYN or midwife will say to her is, "Oh, no, you're in the postpartum period, like your hormones are just balancing out." Meanwhile, she's gone from pregnant to perimenopausal like that, and a lot of times, women's symptoms and signs of anything in women's health are minimized, trivialized, or dismissed, and they can go undetected, undiagnosed, under-managed, untreated, unrecognized. I mean, none of those "un" things do we want.
So I think that it's very important for women to understand that truly, life is a marathon, not a sprint. And when you look at the main reproductive stages in our life, whether it's puberty, pregnancy or postpartum, and then perimenopause and menopause, we need to be training for that health span constantly, not like chasing our tails after it's already happened.
So just as I would say to a woman, guess how you have a good pregnancy? By being in good shape before you're pregnant. I will also say, guess how you help yourself have a good menopause? By being in shape, in as good a shape in terms of food, fitness, sleep, lifestyle, as you can be before you start that. And the other thing I would write a prescription for 100% of the time, if I could, is meditation. I think it's that powerful, that underutilized, and that important.
Katie Fogarty [19:04] I love all of this advice, and I do think that the word is getting out. The listeners of my show tend to be 45 to 65, but we all have young women in our lives, and we can all lend a hand backwards and pull people through by sharing with them, which is what you said, that perimenopause is a time to really take ownership of your health, to set yourself up for a great menopause.
And I love that idea. So a question for you, because I follow you on Instagram. As I shared in the beginning, I'm following your work, both on television and on social media, which is so fun and it feels so intimate, and you share a lot of great content, sort of very snackable, small doses of information that we can use almost immediately. I know that you've been doing what you're calling a six-month health reboot, and I would love if you could share with our listeners why you started this project and what it entails. I think it's also just so inspiring for us to know that we all can change what's going on with our bodies and our lives and our energy at any point. We didn't have to start in our 30s. We could start today. We could start tomorrow.
Dr. Jen Ashton [20:11] You could start in your 60s, you could start in your 70s. You can start even in your 80s. So thank you, first of all, for asking me about the six-month experiment, and for following it. It's something that started by accident, literally, because I was leaving a job and a career that had for about 16 to 18 years involved me getting up at four or five in the morning every single day for work, five days a week, sometimes on the weekends. And I thought, "Okay, I'm 55, I'm starting a new company called Agenda focused on women's health and weight and nutrition, and I'm going to have a different schedule." Thank goodness—
Katie Fogarty [20:57] You deserve it.
Dr. Jen Ashton [21:01] So I thought it came from a position of curiosity, really, like using myself as the human science experiment. And I thought, "What would it be like if for six months I tried to reboot my health and wellness and get into a condition of fitness or wellness that maybe I've never achieved before?" It's like that saying, "If you want something you've never had before, you have to do something you've never done before."
Well, I had never had the time in my life, in my career, to devote basically 45 minutes to 90 minutes a day to my health and well-being. I just never had that kind of life. And so I partnered with trainer Corey Row, whom I had met over a year ago, and I said, "This is what I want to do. Will you help me do this?" And part of it involves fitness and weight training and weight lifting and cardio and the whole thing. But I also wanted to reboot my sleep and, even as a nutritionist and as a doctor, the way I was eating - just everything.
So I shared it on my Instagram. It got over a million views. I talked about it in my newsletter, hundreds of thousands of comments and subscribers, and they said, "Look, we find that interesting too. Please share it with us." So I'm now in month six, I have learned so much, Katie, I cannot even tell you - on every level about my psychology about this. I've gained six pounds, most of which is muscle, but not all. The psychology of watching the number on the scale go up as I get stronger and stronger and more fit - I have my lowest resting heart rate that I've ever had in my life.
You mentioned your listeners being, let's say 45 to 65 - I have heard from women in their 70s and beyond about the interest and desire to do their own type of six-month experiment. So I'm working on it. I will be announcing it and launching it to the public probably in February. So stay tuned for that.
But I think what it speaks to is my curiosity as an individual, as a woman who's 55, to say, "You know what, I could never do a real tricep push-up. Now I can do 40." Or "I could never do these kind of sprints. Now I can." The human body is so miraculous that it's just a matter of the curiosity and respect that I have for our physiology, and also the kind of sense of humor and community part of it, which I think is really powerful and I also enjoy.
So that's been part of my relationship with trainer Corey Row. That's been really fun. He has this expertise in fitness. I have expertise in nutrition and food and medicine, but I'm still the pupil. He's the teacher, and when he gives me an assignment, I do it. And now I'm going to be bringing it to everyone, but it's been fun, funny and fab.
Katie Fogarty [24:30] First of all, congratulations. Six months is an incredible accomplishment to stick to something for that long, and I love that you're curious - like a spirit of curiosity took you there, because I think that's just been a theme of this show. When we get curious about anything - writing a novel, launching a podcast, building a new brand - when we're curious and we follow our curiosity, really magic can happen. And I'm excited to hear that you're going to be bringing it to the rest of us as well.
And I could see this as courses or books or live events. It's so exciting, and it's something that all of us want to sort of get our hands on as well. We're at the start of a new year now, when everyone does get excited about focusing on fitness and new habits, but you know this very well - we lose momentum. But much of what you share is very easy to apply all year long. Now not all of us are going to necessarily be working with Corey, but I noticed, because I follow this, that you recently focused on something as simple as water intake, right? And this is something that's really, I think, accessible to any of us at any time. We don't all need a trainer to make these choices and changes that can really drive big impact. And you focus beyond simply drinking enough water, which sometimes we still work on, but what type of water you were drinking, and when you drink it, and I would love it if you could just share that, because this is such an easy action item, I would love to offer it to the listeners.
Dr. Jen Ashton [25:49] Well, first of all, I'm glad that you found it interesting and useful. You know, I've been, full disclosure, a bad water drinker my entire life, and I've had three kidney stones caused by dehydration. So I'm always trying to walk the walk and talk the talk. And as we've learned more and more about water and microplastics and how much water we need and what kind of water we're drinking, I went down the rabbit hole. I did the whole deep dive in terms of water - like our shower water, our tap water, our drinking water.
I put it in last week's newsletter. I'll be doing more about it. But the hydration factor, whatever kind of water you drink, has been really important in my six-month experiment. And there's physiology to back this up, but I lived it, right. And ultimately, I think that's an important distinction, because when a woman or a person speaks to their doctor, and the doctor says, "Well, you have X percent chance of this happening" - for a person, as the saying goes, it's not X percent. It's either all or none. It's either going to happen or it's not going to happen.
And for me, it's one thing to intellectually or rationally or professionally or academically know that, yes, we should be drinking water. And for women, the recommended amount for an average person is 2.7 liters a day. I want to tell you something, Katie. There were days before where I'm not joking - my only liquid would be my coffee.
Katie Fogarty [27:27] I'm nodding my head too, because I've had days like that as well. And, you know, I sometimes joke too - it's like the tiny bladder committee. It's like, I'm not having that water if I'm leaving my house.
Dr. Jen Ashton [27:38] Or, by the way, like "I'm not drinking three liters of water and then having my sleep, which is already teetering on the edge, disrupted," right? So I was very bad about this. And it was actually in my six-month experiment that I learned that, guess what, when I drink more water, not only does my skin look less dry, but I have more energy. I'm less hungry. My weight's better. You know, a little bit of ankle swelling that creeps up with us very commonly with age disappears. So, you know, it just goes to show you again in terms of education and the dialogue that you really - it does help. It's not always necessary, but it does help if you've been through something yourself.
Katie Fogarty [28:24] And how did you incorporate it into your day, Dr. Ashton? Like you're not doing it at night because you want to sleep through the night and not be doing bathroom breaks. When are we—
Dr. Jen Ashton [28:32] I front-load it. Okay? So you could see me right now, I'm proud to say I have an empty bottle of water, 750 MLs, so I'm about at a liter today. I'm about halfway through the day, but I kind of think about it in terms of time, like by noon, I want to be one liter in. By four in the afternoon, I want to be two liters in, and then by eight at night, I want to stop drinking. So like, I have my last liter of water around six o'clock at night or before, and then I try to shut it down so that I maybe only have to get up once to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. But it's just important that we understand that our bodies need a significant amount of water - not diet soda, not juice, not whatever, not wine. And hydration is important.
Katie Fogarty [29:28] I love that. I love this idea of front-loading and then also measuring it. Because what gets measured sometimes gets done. And habits are much easier to stick to when it's like, "Oh, one liter by noon, two liters by four." You know, you don't have to think. And I think when we remove the thinking and decision-making from the equation, it's just much easier to move through anything. Like, I calendar my yoga classes - I don't have to think, "When am I going to yoga?" It's there on the calendar.
Dr. Jen Ashton [29:53] It's a system because it's very visual. And a lot of people, like sounds like you and me, are visual.
Katie Fogarty [30:00] And you know, you were saying that you were a good student. I'm a good student too. So if I see it on my calendar, I'm like, "Oh, I'm supposed to do that. So I'm going to do that." All right. One last question before we move into the end. I know that you've got expertise in nutrition as well. I know from following your reboot that you in this last month have reincorporated intermittent fasting, and you, of course, are prioritizing protein. These are both topics I've had the pleasure of exploring on the show. I had Dr. Mary Claire Haver come on to talk about the Galveston Diet. So anyone who's curious about a deep dive in intermittent fasting should go back and listen to that. Dr. Jessica Shepherd, who's out with her new book "Generation M," Dr. Sharon Malone, I've interviewed twice on "Grown Women Talk" - they both talk about the importance of protein. But I'm curious, is there another aspect of nutrition that you focus on personally over the six months that you want to put on our radar, something that you see women overlook again and again, and you think to yourself, like, "Why?"
Dr. Jen Ashton [30:54] Well, first of all, all of those doctors are my friends and colleagues - they're all great. I think the key thing that I learned when I got my master's in nutrition - which, let's face it, doctors learn literally zero nutrition in medical school, except how to feed a hospitalized patient with tubes, literally. And to be honest and fair, sadly, the level of nutritional science is not where the level of medical science is in terms of its research and in terms of the types of studies that are done, for a variety of reasons.
However, when I went back to my alma mater, Columbia, and got that master's in nutrition, which was a three-year process for which I had to write a 100-page thesis - so it was hard, and I complained throughout the entire time. My family were like, "Mom, you're getting a master's. Like, that's one step below a PhD. Did you think it was going to be like an online course?" And I was like, "But it's so hard!" They're like, "The books are big," and I'm like, "It's a lot of work." And they were like, "Cry me a river."
But anyway, what I learned in that process, which I think oftentimes is not communicated well by a lot of experts who are well-credentialed and well-intentioned, is that nutrition is not gimmicky. And if it's made to sound gimmicky, buyer beware. I mean, it's like medicine - it's not one size fits all. It's what works for you. It's nice to say, "Well, what does the science say about intermittent fasting or protein?" That's great. And as science geeks, believe me, I'm interested in reading it and knowing it and that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, the reason nutritional science is so elusive and so complicated is because an orange or a carrot ingested by me is different in some ways than an orange or carrot ingested by you, or by someone living in a different part of the country, or of a different racial or ethnic group, or in a different part of the world. The carrot may be different, the person may be different, and that's why generalizations usually become kind of a very muddy area, in my opinion.
I think that yes, protein and fiber are important, particularly as women are perimenopausal and menopausal - very, very important. There's good science and data behind that, but there's also good, tried-and-true, real-life examples of that. But we, unfortunately, in this country, eat a pretty poor quality diet. That's why it's called SAD - Standard American Diet. If anyone's been fortunate enough to be in Europe in the last decade, what happens when we go to Europe? We eat more, we drink more, we walk more, and we come back not weighing more. And I think that tells you something. Their food is different there.
So I think that there's a lot of individualization that we can do when we talk about nutrition, particularly in and around menopause. And what works for me and what's worked for my patients and my viewers, and in terms of my research, et cetera, is great, but it's there to be individualized for you. And I think that's part of the noise that I am hearing a lot in this space right now - that there's one gimmicky way to do things. There just isn't, because our genetics are what make us individual when we talk about medicine and life.
So I think that yeah, there's a big focus on protein now. Protein is having a moment. As the saying goes, protein has a good publicist. But high-protein diets, if you're eating poor-quality protein, are ultimately not healthy for the overall organism, which is us. So it really, I always say, comes down to what works for you, and being holistic in your approach - not swinging-a-clove-of-garlic-over-your-head holistic, but living in a moderate way that's not so austere and militant that it is incompatible with a fun, normal existence, but that's healthy. And I think that it is possible to do both.
Katie Fogarty [35:44] Smart advice - just experiment for yourself. We can inform ourselves about good choices and see what works for us. So I love that notion. Before I say goodbye, I do want to quickly have you share with our listeners a little bit about The Agenda. It sounds like if they follow you on Instagram or sign up for your newsletter, they will be hearing an exciting announcement in February. But let's let people know, what is the content that you're sharing in The Agenda? What do they get in your magazines, and how can they continue to follow you and interact with your work and your wellness and health coaching and counseling?
Dr. Jen Ashton [36:20] Thank you so much, Katie. I mean, first of all, so many ways. Here's my cell phone number - no, just kidding! But first of all, on Instagram, @DrJAshton, I will be putting a lot of these kinds of announcements up there. Also on joinagenda.com - and that's agenda like J-E-N, like Jennifer - joinagenda.com. You can sign up for the free weekly newsletter.
Basically every week I divide it up into women's health, weight, nutrition content largely. But as you said, this week was a deep dive on water - all things water. I have some core experts like dermatologists or even veterinarians who contribute great professional insight, perspective, and analysis. Generally, I have a symptom-solution part, a dose of honesty part, a community part where these friends and experts are sharing their information, and a heavy focus on food and fitness and the six-month experiment. My national magazine is coming out at the end of this month, and the past issues are all available on Amazon, so people can go and get the past three issues there, which include a whole menopause manual, diet and weight loss and nutrition, food - all of that is in there. And then the big six-month experiment will launch in February, and I'll have information on my Instagram about that too. So thank you so much for asking.
Katie Fogarty [38:00] Of course. Well, this show is coming out to start the new year, to get us all excited about how we can supercharge our fitness. I will put all of those links into the show notes.
Dr. Jen Ashton [38:10] I'll say one last thing - Happy New Year and happy holidays. I hope you had a good holiday season. Happy 2025! But mycoolermoments.com is an Estellis platform that I'm just so excited about and so impressed with. It's really kind of an education hub for women to learn more about menopause and their treatment and management options. I think it was very well done. I was honored to be a part of it and to partner with them on that - really all about education, empowerment, tips, tools, you name it. It's all on there.
Katie Fogarty [38:46] Those are the smarts that we need to make the most of 2025, so I will also put those in the show notes, and then I will link out to that in the newsletter when this comes out and is being put into people's inboxes. So Dr. Ashton, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. I took so many mental notes, and I'm so excited I got to hang out with you. Thank you for your time today.
Dr. Jen Ashton [39:08] Thanks, Katie, and call me Jen.
Katie Fogarty [39:13] Okay. Thank you, Jen. Beauties, do not go anywhere. We are now taking listener questions to close the show, and I know zillions of you are going to be interested in this question that comes in from Lexi R. Lexi asks, "Can you help me find a menopause-trained specialist in Westchester County?"
I receive questions like this every week from all across the country. You've heard me say any number of times on the show that women need to be working with a doctor who gets it, and an important part of your menopause care toolkit is having a menopause-trained specialist. However, they are hard to find. Demand outpaces supply.
So here are a few ideas to get started. You can head to menopause.org, which is the North American Menopause Society's website. They have a database of practitioners that you can look up by zip code, but there are numerous counties across the US that don't have trained specialists, that may not even have gynecologists. Consider working with a telehealth company. This is not an exhaustive list, nor is this an ad, but here are a few companies to do your homework on:
Check out MIDI Health (M-I-D-I Health)
Elektra Health (that's Elektra with a K)
Alloy
Gennev (G-E-N-N-E-V)
Per MD
Ever Now
And there are more. These are great places to start. All offer telehealth services for women in midlife. I know how frustrating it is not to be able to find a trained specialist. Please keep at it. There are doctors, nurses, PAs, pelvic floor specialists, urologists out there who can help with your needs. Do not settle.
If you have a question you want answered on the show, you can DM me on Instagram - come find me at @acertainage.pod, or email me your questions directly at katie@acertainagepod.com.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. If you learned something on the show, I would love a podcast review. If you enjoy tuning in every week, let us know - give us a shout-out over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Reviews help other women find the show.
Special thanks to Mike Lemancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties.
[End of transcript]