Transcript
Dr. Mary Claire Haver (0:00)
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Dr. Vonda Wright (1:21)
I contend that although we certainly undergo some life stage changes, what we call normal aging is actually normal aging for stressed out, undernourished people who are not intentionally building muscle, not attending to their hormonal health, and not prioritizing mobility. Aging to frailty only seems normal because modern life has made it so and threatens to rob us of our vitality. It's why most of us spend a quarter of our lives deteriorating from chronic diseases that encompass what we now understand as sedentary death syndrome.
Dr. Mary Claire Haver (1:58)
The views and opinions expressed on Unpaused are those of the talent and the guests alone and are provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. No part of this podcast or any related materials are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice to diagnosis or treatment. Both my grandmother and my mother had osteoporosis and fractures, so I always assumed it was inevitable for me too. I knew menopause hormone therapy would give me an edge, but I honestly thought weak bones and multiple fractures as I aged would just be my destiny. I see older women every day who were clearly becoming frail, bent over, moving stiffly, faces showing pain with every step. Recently, on a flight, I noticed an elderly woman traveling with her family. She was very weak and had trouble balancing and had to be guided just to walk. And it was clear she was living with dementia. I could even see through her pants that she was wearing a diaper. Her family tended to her with such love and care and I thought, my God, she's so loved and so well cared for. Thank goodness. But I couldn't help wondering what the last 10 years of her life had looked like. Was this long, difficult end of life slog inevitable? Is this what we're all destined for? Or can we change the way we think about aging, frailty and Independence? The first time I heard our guest, Dr. Vonda Wright, speak was at a menopause conference. I had never heard anyone talk specifically about aging for women. She told stories of women coming into the ER with a hip fracture who also had heart trouble or incontinence and they would look at her and say, I wasn't always like this. Hearing her speak stopped me in my tracks. She wasn't calm or detached about the way women age. She was furious. Furious that so many women are funneled down a path towards frailty, osteoporosis and muscle loss when so much of it is preventable. Up until that moment, I had only heard osteoporosis and sarcopenia discussed as inevitabilities, something you diagnose, accept and manage with treatment, almost never as something you could actually prevent. Dr. Wright shattered that narrative for me. She said, no, this doesn't have to happen. Here are the steps she showed me that osteoporosis is largely preventable, that frailty doesn't have to define the latter decades of a woman's life. And hearing her say that completely changed the way I think, the way I practice medicine, and the way I counsel both my patients and my followers. I call this stretch of life the minnow span and we need to talk about it openly, urgently and with solutions. Because aging looks very different for women than it does for men. And if we understand the difference, we can change the trajectory. I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist and certified menopause practitioner and also an adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Welcome to Unpaused, the podcast where we cut through the silence and talk about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life. Joining me today is Dr. Vonda Wright, a double board certified orthopedic surgeon, internationally recognized researcher and sports physician with more than two decades of experience dedicated to high performance, orthopedics, aging and women's health. She is the author of bestselling guides like younger in eight weeks, fitness after 40, and her latest New York Times bestseller, A Woman's Guide to Aging with Power. Millions of women experience debilitating fractures every year from osteoporosis, and yet it's still framed as inevitable aging rather than a preventable diagnosable condition. One out of two women will suffer an osteoporosis parotic fracture after the age of 50 versus 20% of men. Most women have no idea that they can lose up to 20% of their bone mass in the first five years after menopause. And as bone mass decreases, fracture risk increases. As I told you, Dr. Wright's mission is to educate women and help them navigate midlife with clarity. That begins with seeing menopause not only as the moment when your periods stop. It's the life stage many of us will enter for the next 45 years and one we can meet with strength and resilience. Why did you leave nursing? Why orthopedic surgery?