Speaking of Women's Health
The Speaking of Women's Health Podcast is excited to bring you credible women's health information from host and Executive Director, Dr. Holly L. Thacker. Dr. Thacker will interview guest clinicians discussing relevant women's health topics and the latest news and tips.
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Speaking of Women's Health
How 2025 Changed Women’s Health and Looking Ahead to 2026
We kick off season four by unpacking the most important women’s health developments of 2025 and turning them into simple, confident actions for 2026. From menopausal care finally getting a long-overdue reboot to new tools for mood, pain, and preventive screening, we focus on what’s real, what helps and what to do next.
Speaking of Women's Health Podcast Host Dr. Holly Thacker walks through timely risks and practical choices: the new data linking long-term Depo-Provera use to meningioma, the way even therapeutic levothyroxine can chip away at bone density and why the Mediterranean diet still outperforms trends despite the GLP-1 spotlight.
Menopause takes center stage with real progress: smarter labels, better education, and a broader toolkit.
We finish by swapping brittle resolutions for intentions that stick: consistent sleep, daily movement you enjoy, water before meals, gratitude to steady your mood, and strong social ties that extend life. If you’re ready to feel informed and in charge, this guide to the year’s biggest shifts will help you act with calm confidence.
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Welcome to the Speaking of the Healthy Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Holly Thacker, and I am Let's Back in the Sunflower for a new season. Happy New Year. But before we all sing that Auld Lang Sign song where we say goodbye to 2025 and hello 2026, whether you're feeling super energized from your red light therapy we talked about last season, or you're just shaking off your holiday glitter, I really want to thank you, our listeners, for tuning in. And thank you so much to those of you who subscribe and donate. And of course, anyone can subscribe for free, and we'll talk about that. So today I'm kicking off season four of the season Speaking of Women's Health Podcast. Can you believe it? Season four. It's really been a great and an incredible journey. And we're really grateful to all of our followers, our loyal listeners who've supported us from the very beginning. Your encouragement, your feedback, your enthusiasm inspires us to keep bringing you empowering content. Because our motto is to be strong, be healthy, and be in charge. And so thanks for being part of our speaking community. And we can't wait to share what's ahead in season four. But before I get into that, I want to go over some highlights of 2025. And on our speaking of women's health.com site, we post breaking news. And this is good to bookmark on your phone or your computer. And certainly some big news everyone seems to hear, but not always. And 2025 marked really a landmark news in women's health. Now, in my opinion, it was over 20 years too late. I have certainly been beating the drum about the benefits of menopausal hormone therapy. But there's lots of important news. Late last year, just as we were entering into 2025, a common contraceptive, injectable depoprovera, was noted to be potentially linked to a heightened risk for certain types of brain tumors in women. And depoprovera, the generic name is madroxy progesterone acetate, and it appears to increase the risk of intracranial meningioma 5.6 fold if used for longer than a year, as reported by researchers in the British Medical Journal. Now, the absolute risk is still low because this type of tumor is low, uh, but it does highlight that this is a risk, and we have lots of other contraceptive options. Now, the researchers warned that it was an observational study, so it couldn't 100% draw a cause and effect link. So for some women, they still may want to choose this, but it highlights that we need further study. And uh of note, progesterone receptors are present in over 60% of meningiomas. That's a type of brain tumor. And so a lot of women who want um very individualized hormone therapy who don't need progesterone, for instance, if they don't have um a uterus or endymetrium, uh, it does give pause to just throwing in extra hormones. There has to be a reason for what you're using. Another major news item that we highlighted in uh entering into 2025 was that levothyroxin, a very common medicine. Actually, it's one of the second most commonly prescribed medications among adults in the United States, may be associated with increased bone loss, even when used at the therapeutic replacement doses. Typically, we aim for a TSH around 0.4 to no higher than five. And we've known for a long time that too much thyroid can thin the bones. But this study saw that even in participants who are taking levothyroxina within the normal range, when they were followed up for 6.3 years, they had lost more bone density. And one in every eight woman, women uh has low thyroid. On a happy note, in 2025, the Mediterranean diet was named as the healthiest diet for the eighth year in a row. And it's similar to the DASH diet, uh rich in whole foods, uh, also plant-based, uh, olive oil. And so, really, the big news for the last few years have been uh the GLP and GIP uh agonist weight loss in medications. They've really shaken up the whole diet industry. But really, what's most important is healthy eating. The United States Surgeon General issued a new advisory on the link between alcohol and cancer risk. Um, and in January, a lot of people will do dry January. I think that's uh a healthy thing to consider doing, especially if you've had a lot of celebration uh at the end of the year. And if you didn't catch our podcast on alcohol and alcoholism in season three, that's a good one to go back to. Also in the news was that the FDA banned red dye number three, um, a common artificial dye used in beverages, candy, and other foods. It has been linked to cancer in some animals, and it was used in lots of foods for children, like candy and cereal and cherries and strawberry-flavored milkshakes. Um, in fact, I did a podcast on banned foods in other countries and food freedom, and a lot of the things in our food supply in the United States. I mean, we're making some progress, uh, but we have a long, long way to go. And red dye three uh was approved for use in foods back in 1907, and it's made from petroleum. Uh, also, that's gotten a lot of attention, that's kind of petroleum-based, are seed oils that are extracted uh from plants that are very inflammatory, like cottonseed and sunflower, and palm oil, and canola, which is just Canadian rapeseed oil. And um, I've done a few podcasts on omega-3s and the uh fats that our body can't make that we need to be exposed to. Another topic that hit the news in 2025 is what everyone needs to know about radon exposure and lung cancer. Because every two minutes, someone in the United States is diagnosed with lung cancer. And lung cancer is a very common cause of cancer deaths, and we're seeing it in younger ages. Non-small cell cancer as well as small cell cancer are concerning. If you've never heard of radon gas, you're not alone. A lot of Americans aren't aware of the sneaky killer that's lurking in uh homes. It's invisible, it's colorless, and it's tasteless, but it is a risk factor for lung cancer. And um, when my husband and I built our uh first home before we had our first son, Stetson Thacker, who's been a recurring guest on speaking of women's health, uh, we had our home tested for radon, and I was so upset when I came in and found out that the builder had opened up the windows because you needed a closed environment to assess uh for your radon gas exposure. In the news also in 2025 was that the FDA approved a nasal spray for depression as a standalone treatment for depression. The nasal spray sprovato, it kind of sounds Italian, doesn't it? Was the first ever standalone therapy for treatment-resistant depression. And we have a lot of information about mood disorders and depression and anxiety on our speaking of women's health.com site. The FDA also approved in 2025 a new type of non-opioid pain medication, the first of its kind in more than 20 years. The drug called Gernax, uh, also known as Sutrigene, um, is a non-opioid painkiller, which does not have addictive properties like opioids do. And chronic pain is a vexing uh problem. Uh, and one of the treatments uh for chronic pain is ketamine. And in season four, we will be touching on ketamine therapies with endocrinologist, uh, neurotransmitter expert, and anti-aging expert, um, my friend, and a sister from another mother, Dr. Elena Christafides. So that'll be one to tune into in season four. And if you haven't heard my prior podcast with her on anti-aging, uh, be sure to catch those. So, uh, moving on in stories uh that were very important in 2025. Uh, there was an interesting study that showed omega-3 fatty acids slow down the aging process. Our senior specialized women's health fellow, Dr. Nayang Sung, who's trained in OBGYN, family medicine, reproductive endocrinology, immunology, and is now in her second and final senior year of our specialized women's health fellowship. Wrote an excellent column on omega-3 and is doing research in this area. Um, but findings from this large three-year randomized trial that we have under our new section on speaking of women's health, the Due Health trial, looked at the effects of omega-3, vitamin D, and exercise on healthy aging in adults over age 70. And these interventions reduced the risk of both infections and falls, and cancer and premature frailty. The next study was that hormone therapy reduced antidepressant needs in menopausal women. And uh menopause experts have known this for a long time. But it was nice to see this study out of Texas Tech University Health Science that showed um that perimenopausal women and menopausal women with depression that hormone therapy may reduce the need for antidepressant therapy and/or the dose and lowering the odds of adverse side effects. Healthy vitamin B12 levels may not be enough to ward off neurologic decline. We posted this back in March of 2025, and meeting the minimum requirement for vitamin B12 needed to make DNA, DNA, and red blood cells and nerve tissue may not actually be enough if you're older. A study from UC San Francisco showed that in healthy volunteers with lower concentrations of B12, but still in the normal range, showed some signs of neurologic and cognitive deficiency. And so I have uh started to do much more frequent B12 testing. I used to routinely do it by age 65 or younger in people uh with risk factors for B12 deficiency on certain medicines, family histories of pernicious anemia or other autoimmune conditions. But now I'm expanding that along with omega-3 testing. We posted information also in March, uh, which is colon cancer awareness month. And unfortunately, we're seeing more and more colorectal cancer in younger and younger people. Colaguard Plus was an improved at-home colon cancer uh test, expected to be an option for people that are at average risk, age 45 and older. So, certainly not high risk, certainly not those of you who've had precancerous colon polyps. The next news uh was on vitamin D, high dose, reduced disease activity in early multiple sclerosis. And MS is more common the farther north you go, where we have um less sun and less natural vitamin D. And multiple sclerosis does affect women uh more often than men. The other news on vitamin D was that uh better levels are associated with reduced risk of dementia. In the news in April of 2025 was the FDA granting marketing authorization of a first home test for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and trichomoniasis. And those sexually transmitted infections. Uh, we have a lot of information on our website about, as well as I've done podcasts with several of our terrific um nurse practitioners who also practice in the Center for Specialized Women's Health, talking about some of these common uh problems. We post when there is recalls of um various medications, and that's important. Um and there was a nationwide recall of a common antibiotic uh due to microbial contamination. And so that's why when you're ill and your physician or nurse practitioner uh doesn't think that you need an antibiotic just yet. Um maybe you've got a cold, but it's not necessarily a sinus infection, uh, or you have um viral type syndrome that generally is not going to respond to antibiotics. It's important not to take medications that you don't need. Now, in July is when things started to heat up in the menopause uh field. The FDA panel called for label changes and a lot more education on hormone therapy. And there were hearings held, several of my friends and colleagues had testified. I'd previously done that at the FDA. For years, we've been trying to get those scary boxed warnings off of vaginal estrogen and appropriate risk-benefit alternatives. It always irritated me that there was like no tolerance for any possible remote risk, even in the face of massive benefits in symptomatic women. Where other medications, whether they're antibiotics or cholesterol-luring medicines or other commonly prescribed medicines, which actually many of those have a much higher side effect and risk benefit than menopausal hormone therapy, that there was no equivalence in the field. So vaginal estrogen use in breast cancer survivors, we posted on also in July, um, because there was a uh a conclusion looking at over 5,500 articles that the use of vaginal estrogen in women with a history of breast cancer is not associated with an increased risk of breast cancer recurrence. And we have other non-estrogen options to use uh for genitourinary syndrome and menopause like vaginal DHEA, but it's nice to have the option of vaginal estrogen. We posted the uh docket that was open for public comments on the risk and benefits to hormone therapy, recurrent uncomplicated bladder infections in women, the American Urologic Association came out with new guidelines, and I uh was asked in several media interviews to comment on this, and it's very important to use estrogen vaginally in peri- and post-menopausal women uh because it does help reduce the risk of recurrent infection. We posted a study uh that was featured on the from the menopause society on hysterectomy with both ovaries being removed, uh, showing a slight higher risk of stroke in women having a hysterectomy with both ovaries out. And certainly to take out healthy ovaries is something we don't usually do, especially under the age of 65, unless there's brachogenes. And we started off 2025 with a very interesting podcast interview with Ryan Nas, a geneticist, talking about the GENA law. And I have a lot of patients uh with genetic predispositions to cancer, and so those discussions have to be very uh individualized. Big news came out at the end of October of 2025. The FDA approved a non-hormonal agent, which is not just um an NK3 receptor antagonist, but an NK1 and 3. So we've had VIOSA, which is physolinitant, as a non-hormonal excellent option to treat hot flashes since May of 2023. And now we have an NK1 NK3 antagonist, which is alizenotant, also known as Linquet, which just hit the market. And it's so nice to have both hormonal and non-hormonal options to treat hot flashes, to treat osteoporosis, and to treat genitourinary syndrome of menopause. So no postmenopausal woman needs to be left out in optimizing health and longevity, which is definitely a theme in 2025 and will definitely be a theme in 2026. And finally, the biggest news um on November 10th was when finally, finally, the FDA liberated women's menopausal hormone replacement therapy. And in the podcast interview that I have um with Dr. Elena Christafites, um, she thought that we would talk about that a lot, but we talked about ketamine and um infusions and boosting energy and anti-aging therapy. And what I said was it's so anticlimatic for me as a trailblazer in midlife women's health that I had been talking about this and writing about this and podcasting about this and educating about this till I'm about blue in the face. Um, but with all that media attention, because a lot of people fortunately or probably unfortunately get a lot of their health care from these little sound bites in the media. In fact, the Women's Health Initiative, the infamous women's health initiative, that was published on July 10th of 2002, um really kind of set the tone for doing little sound bites of a scientific study, but kind of unscientifically interpreted by these little sound bites. And really, your health is so important that uh we don't want to just relegate it to what some media talking head talks about. Yeah, that is for sure. And you've been listening to the Speaking of Women's Health podcast, our first episode in season four. I'm your host, Dr. Holly Thacker, and we have so many great podcasts lined up for season four. We're having a dermatologist and laser expert, Dr. Taryn Murray, back. She's gonna talk about skincare. Uh, we're gonna have a new guest, Vince Whalen of Wadsworth Family Physical Therapy. He's an expert in physical therapy, and we're going to talk about the importance of physical therapy. I've been trying to get a physical therapist on the podcast. I think I probably ask five. And um, Vince is the first one to finally say yes to me, and that's a great one. And on today's episode, um, I want to just go over some resolutions about being real, sustainable ways to make 2026 your healthiest and happiest year from a physical perspective, emotional, and mental perspective. So, beyond resolutions, um, we all want to have intentions that stick. So, how many of us say on January 1st we want to lose 10 pounds only to forget about it by February 1st? So rather than just focusing on some rigid goal, I think it's important to ask yourself, what do I want to feel more of this year? And what things can I let go of? And what brings me joy, peace, and energy? Maybe your intention is to prioritize rest, focus on relationships, as well as advocating for your health and your family's health. And they're these are really powerful goals that go well beyond just what the scale says. Now, preventive care is very important, and there are some key screenings and tests. The PAP smear. It's very important to get this every three years under the age of 30. And by age 30, we usually pair it with an HPV test. Now, the kind of bottom basement care is every five years, but I see so many women who are educated, they're interested in their health, they have access to health care, and yet it's seven or eight years and they haven't had a PAP. So in our center, we like to get a PAP smear every three years. Now, if your HPV is negative and it's three and a half years, okay, that's probably fine. But getting a scrape of the cervix is not the same as a pelvic exam. So you may need to get a pelvic exam without a PAP. And it's very important to keep a record and keep track. And I always tell my patients that even though everything's on the computer or they try to look at it on their phone, but then they don't get internet access, uh, or there's a power outage, or you know, there's cyber attacks, anything really important, you should have a hard copy of. And it's very important to come prepared for your visit to get the most out of it. Now, breast cancer screenings typically start at age 40 to 45. It can be individualized every one to two years. Um, there may need to be more intensive screening for women at higher risk, women with gene mutations, women with very dense breast. Colorectal cancer is very important. We're starting that now at 45. There's colonoscopy, there's also stool-based test. By age 65, all women should have a bone density to check their bone mineral density. And increasingly, many places, and I've certainly offered this since 2021, are looking at trabecular bone scoring or the bone architecture. Every adult should know their cholesterol and their blood pressure starting in their 20s. Um, by age 45, we need to screen for sugar diabetes sooner if there's risk factors. Also, in pregnancy, this is done. Uh, depression and anxiety screenings are very important. And having an annual wellness visit to go over medications and supplements, discuss health concerns, changes in lifestyle, daily habits for a happy, healthy life, um, hydration. Um, aim for six to eight glasses of water a day. Always drink fluids before you eat. Some people are thirsty and they think they're hungry. Prioritize sleep, at least seven to nine hours of sleep. It supports mood to metabolism, movement, whether it's yoga. We've had some great podcasts on exercise and yoga, or just dancing in your kitchen. It's important to move. Practice gratitude. Whether that's a gratitude journal or writing notes to loved ones, can really boost your emotional resilience. Decluttering your mind, try meditation or prayer or just unplugging from all electronics. Connections, keep up strong social ties, they are linked to longer and healthier lives. And be familiar with your health portals, stay informed and engaged, track your test results, joy and purpose. Health just is not about lab results, it's about living with purpose. So I challenge you in 2026 to say yes to things that light you up, say no to things that drain you, laugh more and worry less. And remember, you are your best advocate. Thanks for joining me in 2025 and welcome to 2026. If you found this episode helpful, um, share it with a friend, leave us a review, hit the five-star button. And speaking of subscribing, I just want to take a couple of minutes to go over uh how to get notified when there's a new Speaking of Women's Health podcast. I have some friends and patients who uh really want to listen to the podcast, um, but unless they're prompted and they only see a little snippet on Facebook or a little reel on Instagram, like for the longest time, my husband thought that was just the podcast when he's scrolling on Instagram. No, that's not it. You really have to subscribe. And it's all free. If you have an iPhone, go to your Apple Podcasts and open up that little purple icon and just uh search for speaking of women's health, everything we do on social media. You can use your little microphone if that's enabled and just say it instead of type it. And once that uh purple icon with the microphone comes up, you can just hit subscribe. And if you want to enable notifications, you can go to settings and turn on notifications. That way, every time there's a new podcast, you'll be notified of that. And at the bottom of the notification page, there's a little link and you can make sure that that's turned on. Now, if you have an Android phone or if you're using Spotify on an Android phone, you open up that little green Spotify app. You again in the search button, type or say, speaking of women's health, and you click follow to subscribe. And if you're already following, it will say following. And to receive alerts or notifications, you just click on the bell icon, which is to the right of the follow. So I hope that this has been helpful for you. And remember, our team is here to help you be strong, be healthy, and be in charge. Until next time, I'm your host and the executive director, Dr. Holly Thacker, and this is the beginning of the fourth season of our Speaking of Women's Health podcast.
