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METABOLIC HEALTH & WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
Why Your Cholesterol Got Worse in Menopause Even Though Nothing About Your Diet Changed
Nothing about your diet changed. Something about your physiology did. Dr. Brooks walks through why LDL and ApoB climb sharply in a two-to-four-year window around the final menstrual period — and the two tests most midlife women have never had.
What the 2002 WHI Study Actually Found, and What Twenty Years of Research Has Said Since
"Eight additional cases per 10,000 women per year, in a population averaging 63 years of age, taking one formulation, did not" make the headlines. Dr. Brooks unpacks what a 26% relative risk increase actually meant in absolute terms — and why the sentence that outlived the study is still shaping care today.
What Women's Equality Day Has to Do With Getting Taken Seriously by Your Doctor
"Your symptoms are data," Dr. Brooks tells her patients. "If a lab value comes back in the 'normal' reference range but you still feel unwell, that is not the end of the investigation. That's the beginning of a better question."
The Energy Complaint Men Don't Bring Up Until It's a Crisis
He mentions he's been tired. Not sick-tired — just tired in a way that didn't used to be there. Then he waves it off as getting older and changes the subject. Dr. Brooks hears this constantly, usually by accident, near the end of a visit for something else entirely.
GLP-1 Medications and the Missing Metabolic Evaluation (Copy)
"My doctor said everything looks fine." Dr. Brooks hears a version of that sentence almost every week — right before the patient describes fatigue, stubborn weight, and cravings that feel biological, not behavioral.
GLP-1 Medications and the Missing Metabolic Evaluation
"A prescription without a plan is not a treatment," Dr. Brooks tells patients. "It's a guess with a good marketing budget." Here's what a real metabolic evaluation looks like before — and after — a GLP-1 prescription.
Why Men in Southwest Virginia Are Waiting Too Long to See a Doctor
He's not in crisis yet. But he's close — the fatigue, the blood pressure his wife's been tracking, the chest tightness he's chalked up to stress. In the Roanoke Valley, this conversation happens every day, and almost always later than it should.
Chronic Stress Is a Primary Care Issue. It Just Rarely Gets Treated Like One.
Stress comes up once at most annual physicals — usually gets a nod toward sleep and meditation, then the conversation moves on. But chronic stress is one of the most consistent drivers of the health problems primary care treats every day. If you've been carrying a heavy load for a long time without ever asking what it's doing to your body, that question is worth asking in full.
