Hello, I'm Dr Louise Newsome. I'm a GP and menopause specialist, and I'm also the founder of the Newsome Health Menopause and wellbeing centre here in Stratford-Pon-Avon.

I'm also the founder of the free Balance app.

Each week on my podcast, join me and my special guests where we discuss all things perimenopause and menopause.

We talk about the latest research, bust myths on menopause symptoms and treatments,

and often share moving and always inspirational personal stories.

This podcast is brought to you by the Newsome Health Group,

which has clinics across the UK dedicated to providing individualised perimenopause and menopause care for all women.

Today on the podcast, I'm really excited to introduce to you, someone I've known for a little

while, but really respect his brain, his knowledge and his experience. So Dan

Riesel is with me today, who is an academic, but also a senior registrar in gynaecology,

but didn't actually train in gynaecology initially. So we're going to hear a bit about his

background and a bit about what he knows about the menopause. So welcome to the podcast, Dan.

Thanks for having me. So tell me a bit about your he knows about the menopause. So welcome to the podcast, Dan. Thanks for having me.

So tell me a bit about your background because you didn't actually start your first degree,

wasn't medicine, was it? No, that's right. I started life as a neuroscientist, actually. I like to

say that when I was a kid, which is true, I wanted to be a magician. And instead of pulling rabbits

out of hats, I pull habits out of rats. So I spent quite a few years doing basic research in

neuroscience with a master's and a PhD at Oxford in a really exciting lab, looking at the

building blocks of working memory in animal models.

And that was work that was part of understanding the brain basis for dementia, but also for

cognition, because working memory is that ability to engage in complex tasks and manage different

things at the same time.

...