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primary care
women’s health
prevention & Wellness
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 Summer Health Mistakes Virginia Physicians See Every Year
A headache becomes "just the heat." Fatigue becomes "just summer." But the patterns Virginia physicians see every June are almost always preventable — if you catch them before August.
Why Women Need More Time With Their Doctor During Midlife
You walk in with a list of concerns and walk out with a referral, a lab order, and the sense that nothing you said actually landed. The average primary care visit lasts about 18 minutes — nowhere near enough time for what midlife actually brings.
Why So Many Women Feel "Off" During Perimenopause — Even When Their Labs Look Normal
You wake up exhausted after a full night of sleep. You walk into a room and forget why you're there. If your labs look "normal" but nothing about how you feel does, perimenopause may be the missing piece nobody's mentioned yet.
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.
