Carissa McAllister Naturopath

11/09/2026

If estradiol and progesterone are important in perimenopause, then they’re also important for young women.

Yet, sadly, many young women don’t have the opportunity to make them.

It’s a decades-long “Emperor’s new clothes” situation. And I predict future generations of scientists and doctors will look back on this as a very strange time in women’s health.

20/08/2026

20/08/2026

For more than 20 years, Victoria Winter lived with severe, unrelenting pain ❤️‍🩹 Now she shares her story: https://bit.ly/4qrMia0

20/08/2026

Of course, endometriosis is strongly affected by estrogen, even normal levels of estrogen.

But it’s not caused by hormonal abnormalities such as high estrogen or low progesterone.

Instead, endometriosis is fibrotic, immune, and possibly bacterial.

And, big picture, there are rumblings of a fast-approaching paradigm shift around how we diagnose, understand, and treat this enigmatic condition.

Link to my article/podcast, "The hidden story of endometriosis": https://www.larabriden.com/the-hidden-story-of-endometriosis-pain-lesions-and-the-microbiome/

And stay tuned for more in my upcoming period book.

20/08/2026

I've always felt heartbroken when a woman would come to me for help with fertility, but everything seemed fine with her.

“I think we’re trying to treat the wrong person,” I’d say. Because I strongly suspected the problem was on the male side, despite the assurance that his “s***m looks good enough.”

There is A LOT more to male fertility than s***m count, motility and morphology.

For example, semen has a microbiome.

A new Lancet study has found that an imbalance in that microbiome can strongly impact not only the chance of conception, but also of holding and maintaining a healthy pregnancy.

Links to the study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanogw/article/PIIS3050-5038(26)00213-X/fulltext
and an article about it: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-08-bacterial-imbalance-men-semen-chances.html

And chime in with your questions and knowledge.

29/07/2026

Many modern diagnoses are essentially descriptions of symptoms or clinical features. That means they can be surprisingly open to interpretation.

Descriptive diagnoses can also be temporary. You could quite feasibly reach a point when a particular label no longer applies because you no longer have the symptoms (or meet the criteria) that led to it.

Possible examples include ADHD, PMDD, PCOS, perimenopause, and even, in some cases, endometriosis.

Such labels can, of course, be helpful if they guide you towards a reality-based understanding of what is happening and treatments that actually work.

They are far less helpful if they become an ongoing story or identity that does not lead to ways of feeling better. In that case, it might be time to look beyond the label.

Links to some discussions of the modern labelling problem:
• my peer-reviewed article: Beyond the label: A patient-centred approach to PCOS: https://candjournal.ca/index.php/candj/article/view/114
• my recent episode: The hidden story of endometriosis: https://www.larabriden.com/the-hidden-story-of-endometriosis-pain-lesions-and-the-microbiome/
• Suzanne O'Sullivan's book: The age of diagnosis: How our obsession with medical labels is making us sicker: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/214986203-the-age-of-diagnosis

👇🏽 And share your thoughts.

03/07/2026

A new clinical trial will test whether heavy menstrual bleeding can be reduced by stimulating the vagus nerve to boost acetylcholine and increase platelet activity.

In itself, that’s interesting. But it also opens the door to a broader conversation about the roles of the nervous and immune systems in menstrual health, including the autonomic nervous system, mast cells, platelets, histamine, and the gut.

That neuroimmune connection is why periods can be improved through strategies like diet changes, gut treatments, breathwork, yoga, and more!

The future of women's health is systems biology.

Link to the trial: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07326722

The image is by artist Sonia Alins from her 'Water Women' series. Shared with her permission.

03/05/2026