116 - Testosterone: the forgotten hormone with Professor Isaac Manyonda
The Dr Louise Newson Podcast
Dr Louise Newson
4.7 • 938 Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Professor Isaac Manyonda, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at St George's Hospital in London, makes a welcome return to the podcast to discuss the important hormone, testosterone, with Dr Louise Newson.
The experts discuss why awareness of testosterone in women is usually overshadowed by estrogen and they describe what type of symptoms can be greatly improved by replacing testosterone, as well as the different preparations available, licensing issues and challenges of accessing the medication on the NHS.
Isaac’s top 3 tips if you’re considering testosterone:
- Understand that testosterone isn’t just a male hormone, it is a key female hormone, and tell your doctor this if they are unaware!
- Be clear (with your doctor) about what symptoms testosterone can help specifically that estrogen alone may not fully alleviate, such as brain fog, sleep disturbances, lack of energy, and low libido.
- If your usual doctor will not prescribe testosterone for you, look into what other NHS clinics in your region will, it can take a bit of finding out how to receive it. It should be something you can access via the NHS, but change is slow.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Neuson Health Menopause podcast. I'm Dr. Louise Newson, a GP and menopause |
| 0:15.8 | specialist and I'm also the founder of the menopause charity. In addition, I run the Newston Health Menopause and Well-Being Clinic here in Stratford-upon-Avon. |
| 0:31.5 | So today I'm very happy and privileged to be introducing to you for the second time actually professor isaac menyander |
| 0:38.6 | who some of you might have heard us talk before about the benefits of hr t so this time i've |
| 0:44.7 | requested him to come back to talk about testosterone and the role this important hormone has for |
| 0:50.9 | women so thanks so much for your time today, Isaac, and joining me in the podcast. |
| 0:56.0 | My pleasure. So I'm a menopause specialist. I ran a very busy menopause clinic. I do some |
| 1:01.8 | research in menopause. I've set up a menopause charity. All I do is think and breathe and |
| 1:07.5 | spend my time thinking about the menopause. Yet, 10 years ago, if I'd had this |
| 1:12.7 | conversation with you, I don't think I even thought women produced testosterone. So I feel a bit |
| 1:17.8 | of a fraud, but actually I feel a very frustrated fraud because since I've learned about |
| 1:22.5 | testosterone and since I've understood what an important hormone it is for a lot of women, |
| 1:27.9 | I'm absolutely outraged that we're not allowed to prescribe it in the UK as a licensed product. |
| 1:32.8 | So there's a lot we need to unpick in the next half an hour. |
| 1:35.9 | And so perhaps, Isaac, you could just start by explaining why women have testosterone, |
| 1:42.3 | and do we all have it, and where's it produced? And, you know, what's it all about? |
| 1:47.3 | Yes. I think in years to come, people will laugh at us as doctors and physicians. Insofar as we seem to refuse to deal with things that are so obvious that we know about. |
| 2:01.6 | We know that although we talk about estrogen as the cardinal female hormone |
| 2:08.1 | and testosterone as the cardinal male hormone, |
| 2:12.9 | in reality, the female body, certainly in the reproductive phase of life, produces a lot of testosterone. |
| 2:22.1 | So the female ovary produces three times in terms of testosterone as it does, estrogen. |
| 2:31.4 | Not many people know this, but this is a biological fact. |
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