In 2023, the Women's Health network became the latest AngioInstitute group co-produced by a handful of women's health practitioners including Dr. Roberta Kline (ObGyn), Dr. Leslie Valle-Montoya and Dr. Noelle Cutter. It drew major audiences and members from areas like breast and ovarian cancer, endometriosis, pelvic floor issues, mental health and menopause. This EmPowermeet event became the official celebratory launchpad for this national initiative, bringing in some of what Dr. Kline considers the A-Team of this generation of health advocates.
This 1-hour event is an historical landmark for the invited members. It started with an honorary speech by the founder of the AngioInstitute (main supporter of the Women's Health Network) Dr. Robert Bard. Next, each member was introduced and was hand-selected based on their background in support of women's health and women's aging issues. "There remains so many others to cover for the underdiagnosed woman", states Dr. Bard. "This is why I remain vigilant in my practice to support patients and clinicians with my diagnostic research. I am proud to continue supporting the Women's Health Network and its public projects including the expansion of a national education and professional alliances of advocates & collaborators in the name of women's health."
Executives were honored for their recent appointments: Dr. Roberta Kline is inducted as the new President of the Women's Professional committee and continues her role as editor of "Balance & Longevity" newsletter. Gina Adams (rehabilitation advocate and Meno-News co-editor) is now this year's Assoc. Director of Communications and the new manager for IPHA (Integrative Pain Healers Alliance). Dr. Barbara Bartlik was also honored with an advisory role in the mental health panel and the launch of the new WHN mental health newsletter "INSIGHTS".
"After a 15 year OBGYN career, I set out on a different path to explore health and healing", says Dr. Kline. "Thanks in part to collaborating with fellow visionaries like you all- and my lifelong support of women's health, I work with multiple modalities. I'm always curious about what makes people tick and I'm passionate about empowering women with knowledge about their health. Today, I run the functional Genomics and Predisposition programs with Dr. Bard and in my own virtual practice, I integrate functional medicine, genomics, mind, body, and human design to help midlife women connect with who they are from the inside out."
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| Gina Adams takes networking on a national level at the 2025 AMSUS conference in Washington DC! |
BUILDING THE VILLAGE
The second half of the event was moderated by Dr. Kline, who kicked off the spirit of a round-table collaboration with a discussion on "Networking and how to build a Supportive professional community in Women's Health". This brought all hands raised to contribute, ask questions and share their insights. As a Linkedin-powered organization, this alliance clearly appreciates the value of building "a village" of caregivers, educators and clinical care professionals through networking and partner-building.
GOING INTEGRATIVE
According to association architect, Dr. Lennard Gettz, one of the driving forces of this organization is its openness to teamwork, collaboration and the exponential presence of INTEGRATIVE HEALTH. This was made widely recognized by original member Dr. Jess Stoff (Integrative OncoImmunologist) who defined this paradigm as "an approach to healthcare that integrates conventional medical treatments with complementary and alternative therapies that have been shown to be safe and effective... considering the whole person, not just the physical symptoms, by addressing the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and environmental factors that can affect a person's health and well-being."
Dr. Leslie Valle-Montoya (Sta Barbara, CA) was appointed the advocate for Integrative Health Biosciences. "I started my practice working with chronic immune patients- focusing on cellular regeneration-- another word of anti-aging. The vast majority of my patients are very curious about how to improve or reverse their age with regard to their biological age. I invested in a wide range of screening devices and diagnostics to measure this- including electromagnetic field therapy, red light therapy, hyperbaric therapy, a full spectrum infrared sauna, cold plunge etc. I am dedicated to finding more answers for patients in a more natural way- and this very much includes the taxing symptoms of menopause!"
The future of the Women's Health Network and the Menopause Coalition is paved with continued success in meeting some of the most dedicated advocates and caregivers across the US. In support of providing public awareness, education and advanced diagnostic & treatment modalities, current members are uniting to connect with women's health organizations and national social groups. For additional information, visit: www.WomensHealthDigest.org
OUR EARLY POWERMEETS:
AGING IN AMERICA: Written by: Dr. Roberta Kline
AGING is a natural process that is associated with biological changes that lead to a progressive decline in physiological functioning. These changes start as early as the mid-20's, and accelerate in the mid-40's and again at around age 60. While aging is inevitable, the rate at which it occurs can be faster or slower depending on multiple factors, including the interactions of genetics with diet, lifestyle, environment, and stress. It is also impacted by resilience.
Without a doubt, everyone will experience aging. It’s a biological process that begins at birth, and it is inevitable. But how we age is not. We are redefining aging, celebrating it as a time of new opportunities, deeper connections, and ongoing learning. It’s a time where we are actively engaging life with joy and purpose.
WHAT IS RESILIENCE?
Resilience is the ability to “bounce back” from an adverse event or experience, large or small. This is influenced by biological factors (including genetics) as well as psychological ones, and both forms of resilience can be cultivated. As people with higher levels of biological and psychological resilience tend to experience improved health and quality of life as they age, this heightens its importance for better aging.
Health is created from physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and energetic balance. But balance is not static. It requires constant adjustment in response to changes and challenges in your inner and outer worlds - and often changes throughout your lifetime. Resilience helps you bounce back and regain balance. Here are 8 simple strategies to help you cultivate resilience so you can handle whatever challenges come your way in a way that helps you thrive.
8 Easy Tips for Better Aging Starts with RESILIENCE
By: Roberta Kline MD
Focus on fresh whole foods, with an emphasis on colorful vegetables and low-sugar fruits, fish, poultry, nuts, non-wheat whole grains, and cold-pressed olive oil. Adding herbs and spices boosts your food power. Avoid fried foods, processed red meat, trans-fats, and saturated fats, sugars, sweets, and baked goods; swapping sugar substitutes may be worse than sugars, so avoid those too.
Aim for 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercises, such as walking, swimming, biking, dancing, tennis, strength training, gardening, or yoga. House cleaning, gardening, and yard work count too! Ideally, it’s something that you enjoy. Moving throughout the day is just as important. If you have a sedentary job, make sure to get up and move at least 10 minutes every hour if you can.
Playing chess, solving crossword puzzles, reading books, and learning a new language or skill are examples of brain-boosting activities. Mixing up your daily routine is another great way to increase cognitive resilience. This can include: exploring new neighborhoods or trying out a new coffee shop.
Identify stressors in your life and reduce or eliminate the ones you can control, and have strategies to manage the impact of the ones you can’t. Tai chi, meditation, music, art, yoga and other exercise, being in nature, finding moments of awe, experiencing joy and laughter - these are just some of the ways that can help you cultivate resilience.
Aim for going to bed by 10 pm, and getting 7-8 hours of restful sleep nightly. Even one night of insomnia or getting inadequate sleep can have an impact on your resilience. If you snore or don’t feel refreshed when you wake up in the morning, consider getting checked for a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea.
Having strong social connections - whether a few or many - along with having meaning in our lives, can be one of the most powerful strategies. This does not include social media or other virtual interactions - there is something about the brain that needs interaction with the actual person or people.
Heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and other chronic health issues can reduce your resilience. Staying proactive in managing all aspects of your health can help increase your resilience and minimize their impact.
Having a sense of purpose and connection to a greater meaning is a fundamental human need. So is joy. Identify things that bring you joy. Find something that gives you a reason to be excited about the day. Purpose doesn’t necessarily mean a grand vision - it can be big or small. Whether it’s through your work, your family, or your community, it’s important to feel you are loved and valued and are contributing to something that is meaningful to you.
Aim for incorporating at least 4-5 of these strategies. They each build on each other, so the more you of these you do, the more resilience you’ll have and the more your health will benefit. Every bit counts. As you take steps to improve your resilience, you’ll also be supporting your overall health of mind, body and spirit - feeling better and having more energy to keep doing the things you love! Start small. But you don’t have to feel overwhelmed - incorporating just one of them into your daily habits helps. Start with the change that feels the easiest first. Then build on your success to incorporate all 10 if you can!
Implementing these strategies can greatly improve your success in developing resilience for better aging.
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Can Hot Flashes be My Teacher? My Journey to Menopause Advocacy
Written by: Dominique Debroux
Nine years ago, menopause hit me like a brick wall. Hot flashes, sleep issues, weight gain, muscle pain—the works! As a cancer survivor and with cancer in my family history, I was told that HRT was too risky.
I thought, that’s okay, I got this. Nutrition and alternative therapies had been part of my cancer healing, and had motivated my research towards becoming a nutritional chef using food as therapy for the body and mind. Remember, this was 2016 and even though the initial interpretations of the infamous 2002 WHI study on hormone replacement were being questioned, OBGYNs still took the ultra-conservative stance when it came to cancer risks. So, I started learning natural methods and creating delicious recipes to treat my new post-menopausal normal.
But what was I going to do about the feeling that life was over? Signals were clear, society wanted me to take a big step back now that I no longer had any of the youthful glow of fertility. I felt dread of the future. My documentary filmmaker husband, Christopher, was working for a menopause study, so I asked, well raged at him actually, to find more info from the doctors he was interviewing.
An
Unexpected Discovery
I had already consulted
some top doctors so I didn’t expect Chris to bring me miraculous new
treatments, but I hoped for more than what I heard. The general consensus was
that menopause had not been studied until relatively recently because living
beyond menopause was a modern issue. One doctor said that we need to treat
menopause to “fix nature’s mistake” of living beyond our fertility. Really! Does
nature make mistakes?
Chris has a hyper-logical mind that won’t stop until he fits together a storyline. The view of menopause he heard from the doctors didn’t make sense, so he started researching. The longer modern lifespan point was taken apart with one look into biological anthropology. Another interesting fact, humans are the only land mammal that have long post-menopausal lives. That rare adaptation inspired our deep dive into interviewing more anthropologists, sociologists, a neuro phycologist, and geneticist. A different evolutionary perspective of menopause came into view that we call The Wise Women Hypothesis.
Menopause
Made Us
Turns
out, we became habituated to fire 2 million years ago and experienced cooked
meat and plants. Instead of constantly roaming, maintaining a fire had our
ancestors stop to set up camps. Stopping put greater needs on social
organization and at the same time cooking increased the quality of nutrition
from food, so life-spans increased. Yes, all the way back in our pre-human
ancestors.
As females lived longer and became post-fertile, they were able to leverage their inherent social capabilities to handle the social pressures of a camp, without the burden of reproduction. The groups that had more post-fertile females and therefore were better organized were able to supercharge the potential of fire, cooking, and birth-rates. The social pressures of all these changes fueled rapid brain growth.
Far from being a mistake, menopause is what made us the humans that we are. We exalted the importance of the feminine and lived that way for most of human history. Patriarchy rose 10,000 years ago as we domesticated animals and mis-understood reproduction to be male dominated while females thought to be only the hosts.
Christopher detailed the development of The Wise Women Hypothesis in our upcoming documentary film WISE WOMEN – WHY MENOPAUSE MATTERS. Find links to the trailer and current cut of the film at the end of the article.
With menopause having been so significant to our evolution, I started to look at my symptoms differently. What if they were training posts or signals to help me grow into this new, leadership phase of life?
I watched my hot flashes. Most happened when I was suppressing my feelings or words. As if my flashes wanted to burn away all the “be sweet” and “don’t rock the boat” messages that I had been taught as a woman. Now, when a hot flash starts, I listen for its message and let the words or emotions fly. The flash goes away much faster and is much less intense.
How about the rest of my symptoms? Studies show that post-menopausal women are more susceptible to heart disease, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s and dementia. Well, there are also nutritional, supplemental and lifestyle habits that are potent preventatives of those conditions. As I took on those habits, I felt so much better, pain free and physically strong. My symptoms put me on a path of research, careful consideration and disciplined practice that maximizes this phase of life.
The conversation of menopause has shifted since I started my journey, thankfully we are now openly discussing it. However, medicine still stands on the belief that women’s reproductive longevity has not evolved along with longer lifespans and they believe that’s a problem. Therefore, the main medical therapeutic route is to continue at least some level of the hormones we have during fertility. I wonder what therapies medicine would discover to support us older women if they saw menopause as the doorway to a vital leadership phase, rather than the problem of a stunted reproductive phase.
Now, as I see
this life phase through the lens of how menopause made us, and as my flashes
burn away decades of repression on my voice, I advocate that we open our eyes
to the larger perspective of women. The first time we embraced menopause it
made us the humans we are. Now reclaiming and supporting the importance and
capacity of post-menopausal women will bring us the leaders we need to move
humanity to what’s next.
WISE WOMEN- Trailer https://f.io/G0Sd16ve
WISE WOMEN – Movie https://f.io/p70AsWxB
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