The Dr Louise Newson Podcast14 Mar 2023

195 - Health risks and treatment of surgical menopause with Dr Walter Rocca

Dr Walter Rocca is a neurologist from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, USA, where he studies common neurological diseases as well as the aging processes between men and women. He has a particular focus on estrogen and the effects of menopause on health risks.

In this episode, Dr Rocca explains how sex hormones have a much greater role in many of the body’s functions than simply regulating the menstrual cycle and reproduction. He explains why it’s so important to treat women with hormone replacement after bilateral oophorectomy with or without hysterectomy or early menopause, especially younger women.

Dr Rocca’s three take home messages:

The ovaries are a tremendously important organ for healthy functioning of our heart, brain, bones, kidneys, lungs and more.
For healthcare professionals: be very careful when thinking about removing the ovaries and/or the uterus, unless there is a very clear clinical indication. The longer-term harmful effects of these surgeries are greater than the apparent short-term benefit to symptoms.
If a woman has a high genetic risk of ovarian cancer (>40% risk level), removal of the ovaries is appropriate, but she should be given estrogen therapy afterwards as the risk associated with this treatment is very low (including for BRCA carriers). If a natural menopause occurs early or prematurely, these women should also be offered estrogen therapy, unless there is a specific contraindication.

More about Dr Walter Rocca

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(401)

101 – Luteal Uglies - what does this mean?

Up to 80% of women with PMDD have suicidal thoughts. Online, it's being trivialised as the 'luteal uglies'.In this solo episode, Dr Louise Newson explains what'sactually happening in the second half o...

15 Sep 27min

100 – Sepsis, UTIs & quadruple amputation: Kim’s story

Kim Smith went on a family holiday to Spain with a UTI and woke up nine weeks later having lost all four limbs to sepsis.Twice missed by Spanish doctors, Kim's kidney pain and uncontrollable shivering...

10 Sep 32min

99 – Gut health, hormones & food noise with Dominique Ludwig

Nutritionist Dominique Ludwig, author of No NonsenseNutrition, explains why your gut controls your hormones and hunger.Dominique trained at King's College and has spent 20 years in clinical practice, ...

8 Sep 27min

98 – Why the type of hormone matters for health and fitness - Davey Maher

Many women are told that all hormone treatments are essentially the same. But the reality is far more complex, and understanding the difference could have a significant impact on your health, fitness ...

3 Sep 29min

97 – PMDD, ADHD & autism: addiction as a coping mechanism

Natalie Sykes spent years using heroin and crack cocaine to self-medicate undiagnosed PMDD, autism and ADHD, and now finally understands why.Natalie, founder of the PMDD & Neurodivergence Alliance, te...

1 Sep 30min

96 – How India is waking up to hormone health Sanjith Shetty

In India, one woman asked her gynaecologist about HRT and was told: "over my dead body." Dr Louise Newson travels to India to meet Sanjith Shetty, founder of the menopause community Miror and one of t...

27 Aug 27min

95 – Rosie Moss: is it grief or hormones?

Rosie Moss spent years being told her symptoms were simply grief, when actually there was undiagnosed PMDD also at play.Rosie hosts the podcast Widowed AF, and after her husband Ben died suddenly in a...

25 Aug 31min

94 – Fixing doctors' fear of hormone treatments including testosterone

Dr Holly Carding, GP, Women’s Hormone Specialist and Education Lead at Newson Education, joins Louise to expose the hormone training gap that leaves doctors too scared to prescribe hormone treatments ...

20 Aug 32min