Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.

On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based

information and advice about both the perimenopause and the

menopause. So today with me in the podcast, I've got Sarah Hamid, who I've recently got to

know, who has been doing some very important work for many years, and her work has

become more public since the publication of her book, which we will discuss. So before we start,

do you mind just introducing yourself, really, and say what you do and how you've got to do

what you do, if that's okay, Sire. Hi, Louise. Thank you for inviting me on.

So, of course. So I'm Dr. Saira Hamid. I'm a consultant endocrinologist, so that means I'm a hormone

specialist. I work in two places. I work at the Imperial Weight Center, which is a nationally,

in fact, internationally known center of Excellence for Weight Management.

So it's where people with some of the most important and complicated weight problems in the country will come for specialist and expert advice.

And I also work at Imperial College London.

And my background is in researching the drivers for appetite and obesity and the regulation of body weight and how we can come up

with scientific evidence-based interventions to help people to manage their weight and lead

healthier lives that feel good. So that's what I do. That's what gets me out of bed in the

morning. And as you say, I've recently summarised all of

this in my book. So thank you for having me on to discuss all of this. So endocrinology is study of

hormones. Now, how many hormones do we have in our body? There's lots, isn't that?

That's such a good question. I mean, there's so many hormones. The thing I love about hormones is you're not based in a specific organ. What do I mean by that? I mean, cardiologists look after hearts and

pulmonologists look after lungs and neurologist brains and so on. Hormones affect every single

cell of the body. So you are looking at diverse systems, diverse processes. Hormones are like the body's text messages.

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