Women's Fertility & Lifestyle Debate: Dangers Of Not Having A Period! Fasting Can Backfire For Women

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 215 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 4 leading powerhouses in women’s health break down urgent topics facing women today: irregular periods, PCOS, endometriosis, perimenopause, and the best diet for hormonal balance. Part 1 of this 2-part female health roundtable is focused on hormones and fertility, bringing together: Menopause specialist Dr Mary Claire Haver, longevity orthopaedic surgeon Dr Vonda Wright, fertility doctor Dr Natalie Crawford, and female physiology researcher Dr Stacy Sims. In this powerful conversation, they explain: ◼️The shocking lack of research on women’s hormones, and how it’s harming health ◼️How insulin resistance fuels hormone imbalance, irregular cycles, and infertility ◼️How coffee, fasting, and overtraining can silently disrupt your hormones ◼️The truth about cycle syncing, and why your luteal phase changes everything ◼️How stress, sleep, and muscle mass directly influence perimenopause ◼️Why birth control is not a cure, and the lifestyle tools that actually help (00:00) Intro (05:30) Why Do We Need to Have This Conversation? (10:51) Why the Female Body Is More Adapted for Endurance Exercise (12:12) Why Women's Heart Attacks Are Considered 'Atypical' (14:51) The Research Gap on Women's Health (19:14) Why Women Downplay and Gaslight Themselves About Pain (21:54) Why Don’t We Understand Hormones? (26:26) What a Normal Period Should Be Like (28:35) What Is Progesterone? (33:45) The Underlying Cause of PCOS (35:15) Developing Diabetes During Pregnancy (39:36) What Causes PCOS and How to Reduce It (47:47) The Pill Is Not the Only Help for PCOS (52:48) How Do We Know If It's a Normal Flow, Too Much, or Too Little? (57:42) How to Know If You're Experiencing Abnormal Period Pain (01:00:43) Anemia in Women and the Issues With Lab Results (01:03:58) People Suffer Silently With Endometriosis for Years (01:09:17) The Real Reason There's No Treatment for Endometriosis (01:12:27) Could We Create a Cellular Marker for Endometriosis? (01:15:22) How to Ease Pain Symptoms Before Your Period Naturally (01:20:49) If You're 15 to 25, You Need to Know This (01:22:10) How to Treat Your Body in Each Decade After You Start Your Period (01:35:14) Advice to Your Daughters (01:37:41) Should You Use The Coil? (01:43:32) The Best Contraceptive Method (02:02:33) The 5 Fertility Non-Negotiables (02:04:22) Should I Freeze My Eggs? (02:15:55) IVF Has Helped 13 Million People (02:24:44) PCOS and Infertility (02:28:47) Why Is Pregnancy Loss Still a Taboo? (02:36:59) Should You Take Time Off During Your Period? (02:41:18) People Need to Know When Perimenopause Starts (02:42:24) Menopause (02:49:12) Check Your Mum's Menopause Age to Know Yours (02:57:31) The Dangers of the Year Before Menopause (02:59:04) Suicide Rates in Women (03:04:39) What Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Really For? (03:13:33) Should You Treat Menopause Symptoms? (03:25:00) How to Improve Your Sex Life and Lubrication You can follow the guests, here: Dr Mary: ◼️Instagram - https://bit.ly/4ogsgwJ ◼️The Pause Life - https://bit.ly/48rycyv ◼️You can purchase ‘The New Menopause’, here: https://amzn.to/4nUOnt5 Dr Vonda: ◼️Instagram - https://bit.ly/46SMfvR ◼️Website - https://bit.ly/4n41GGg ◼️You can purchase ‘Unbreakable’, here: https://amzn.to/4n6xVEO Dr Natalie: ◼️Instagram - https://bit.ly/4nbZFI9 ◼️YouTube - https://bit.ly/3J5fLFw ◼️Website - https://bit.ly/3W6E0pG ◼️You can pre-order ‘The Fertility Formula’, here: https://amzn.to/3KRpobk Dr Stacy: ◼️Instagram - https://bit.ly/4hcRuKm ◼️Website - https://bit.ly/47dqkhS ◼️You can purchase ‘ROAR, Revised Edition’, here: https://amzn.to/4nbjDmr Sponsors: Pipedrive - http://pipedrive.com/CEO Plaud - https://www.plaud.ai/pages/steven use DOAC22 for 22% off Note and NotePin or https://amzn.to/47ahktN with code DOAC2222 - only available from October 16th to October 23rd. Vivobarefoot - https://vivobarefoot.com/DOAC with code STEVENB20 for 20% off.

Transcript

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0:00.0	If someone's menstrual cycle is irregular, should they be concerned?
0:02.9	Yes, yes, yes, yes. Your body's meant to work like clockwork. And our monthly cycle is so much more than getting ready to have a baby. Especially when we're looking at exercise. And it's important to say if you don't have a period, it's very harmful to long-term health, brain health, mental health, low energy, mood, libido.
0:21.8	And I don't want the younger generations to have to go through the stuff that we've gone through.
0:25.7	So it's an important discussion that we need to have. We are joined by four leading female
0:29.9	health experts from very different fields to have a crucial conversation about women's health.
0:34.4	With over 80 years combined experience, they're sharing the truth about what every woman and every man needs to hear. We asked 1,000 women to submit their questions ahead of this conversation, and I've got so many questions around fertility, understanding hormones, PCOS, birth control pill, and miscarriage. And I'll say this, Stephen, it's because we haven't had these discussions publicly. When we look at funding in women's health, it's horrible.
0:57.4	Like less than 1% is spent on women over 40.
1:02.2	Women are living 20% more of our lives with chronic disease or mental health disorders.
1:05.8	I mean, 50% of patients with unexplained infertility have endometriosis.
1:09.8	But yet it takes women seven to 10 years to get a diagnosis after symptoms start.
1:27.9	But also, there are things that we do that will inherently arm our fertility because we're not taught this. And it predisposes you to many medical problems later in life. And patients will say, like, I have a really high pain tolerance. Yes. Like it's a badge. And so they gaslight themselves. And that's what we're all trying to fight here. But there are a lot of things we can do to deal with this and then i want to talk about menopause so in medical school menopause
1:32.6	just gets shoved into a tiny box and this is a scary statistic so oh my god it's crazy i just think
1:39.3	it's insane this is why we need to create change.
1:47.5	This might be one of the most important conversations we ever have on the Dyer of a CO because women's health has long been a total mystery to so many people.
1:51.9	And so many people are struggling with all of the issues that we're going to talk about today
1:54.9	with their menstrual cycles, PCOS, endometriosis, with diet, with understanding how to exercise
2:00.1	as a woman. it's probably never
2:02.5	going to be the case again that these four individuals, that at the very top of women's health
2:07.3	in their fields, will be in the same place at the same time having this conversation. We structured
2:13.0	this conversation into two parts. They cover completely different subjects, but they're fundamentally interlinked.
2:19.8	For me, the understanding that I got from this conversation at this table with these four women
2:24.5	has fundamentally changed my life. It's going to change how I deal with my romantic partner, my sister,
	...

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