Ladies, let this be a reminder to put your health first.
This week marks the second-ever Women’s Health Week, so More FM Drive’s Sarah Gandy sat down with TEND GP Dr. Eileen Sables to chat about all things women’s health, from pregnancy to why women get worse hangovers.
Dr. Eileen has a specific interest in both women’s health and mental health. She says that Women’s Health Week is important because “women tend to put their health at the bottom of the pile”.
“They tend to take on that burden of doing all the picking up and dropping off and looking after everyone else,” Dr. Eileen said.
“At the end of the day, there’s nothing left for them to think, actually, I’m more tired than I should be, or ‘hmm, what’s that pain?’”
Sarah asked which common things women may not know about their bodies, prompting Dr. Eileen to raise issues connected to age and fertility.
“A lot of people think ‘I’ve looked after myself and I go to the gym... so it doesn’t matter how old I am, it’s going to be really easy to get pregnant’ and actually, that’s not always the way,” she said.
“[At] age 25, you’ve got about a 25% chance each cycle that you have sex without using contraception of getting pregnant. By the time you get to 35, that’s down to 15% and then by the time you get down to 40, it’s down to 5% per cycle.”
As well as spontaneous pregnancy not being as easy as one may think, Dr. Eileen also confirmed that women do indeed get worse hangovers.
It’s all related to the makeup of the body composition, and that women “don’t have as many enzymes to break down alcohol”.
“Alcohol hangs around in the system longer than it does in males, so that’s why you tend to get drunker quicker and maybe even stay drunker a little bit quicker and then feel miserable the next day, because it’s taken a longer period of time to clear those toxins,” Dr. Eileen shared.
Not only do women have worse hangovers than men, but they also tend to feel the cold more.
“Again, that’s about body composition because women tend to have less muscle mass than men do, so we are meant to have more fat.”
"We are supposed to have that muffin,” joked Dr. Eileen, “that is how we were designed".
“But we do have less muscle mass, and muscle is a heat generator, so males stay warmer because they tend to have more.”
In other news, Dr. Eileen confirmed that later this year the breast screening age is going to be extended from 45-69 to the day before your 75th birthday.
“I think that’s quite exciting, because we’re going to catch a lot more mammographically detected breast cancers, rather than ones you find yourself,” she said.
Listen to the full chat with Dr. Eileen here and let this Women’s Health Week be your motivation to check in with your body.
