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.

"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.

"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."