The Health Frequency

The Health Frequency Valpré Huisamen | Registered Dietitian

Women’s health & weight expert — fertility to menopause.

Helping women thrive with science, simplicity & sustainable habits.

28/05/2026

The 2025 research is clear. If you are a woman over 40 and you are not taking creatine, you are leaving free muscle, bone and brain protection on the table.

For thirty years it was marketed at bodybuilders. The research kept saying it worked for everyone. Women just never got the memo.

Here is what changed in 2025.

Creatine plus strength training preserves muscle meaningfully more than strength training alone.
It supports bone mineral density. Critical when oestrogen drops in perimenopause.
Emerging data on mood, sleep and cognitive symptoms in the menopause transition.
Dose. 3 to 5 grams a day. Creatine monohydrate. No loading phase. Take it with anything.

Send this to a woman you love. Any age. We all deserve to know.

4 signs you're in perimenopause.For most women, peri starts in the late 30s, 5 to 10 years before periods stop. The sign...
19/05/2026

4 signs you're in perimenopause.

For most women, peri starts in the late 30s, 5 to 10 years before periods stop. The signs come well before any blood test catches up.

The four that get missed most often:

1. New anxiety or low mood with no obvious cause.
2. 3am wake-ups, mind racing, hard to fall back asleep.
3. Cycles shortening or going irregular before they stop.
4. Body composition shifting on the same intake.

Bloodwork is often "normal" in early peri because FSH and oestradiol fluctuate too widely for a single snapshot. The clinical pattern is the more sensitive investigation.

Track these for 3 to 6 months. Bring the list to your next appointment.

Save and share with a woman in her 30s or 40s who has been feeling like something has shifted.

Refs: Bromberger 2011 · Joffe 2014 · Santoro 2011 · Greendale 2019 · SWAN cohort · NAMS guidance.



18/05/2026

PCOS is now PMOS.

Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome. The diagnosis 1 in 10 women carry just got an upgrade.

The new name reflects what we have always known clinically. PCOS is metabolic, endocrine, and ovarian. Not the reverse. The Lancet published the change last week after a 10-year consensus process led by Monash University.

What this means for you:

❤️ Same condition. Better, more accurate name.
❤️ The labs that match the new framing have been recommended since 2023.
❤️ If you have PCOS, you have PMOS.
❤️ If you have been told to lose weight and come back later, the new name is for you too.

Save this. Send it to a woman who deserves to know her diagnosis just got upgraded.

For the 5 labs every PMOS patient should know about, comment LABS or DM me. Free printable guide.



Reference: Teede et al., The Lancet, May 2026.

13/05/2026

Last week I went to Take A Seat in Stellenbosch.

A truly inspiring women's event, and I went with some of my favourite women.

Three things have been sitting with me since.

1. Dr Barbara, dermatologist, said this: stop performing for an audience. Be true to yourself and the community finds you. I needed that.

2. The Wellness Wheel. Your life has eight spokes. Your body, your mind, your relationships, your work, your finances, your purpose, your space, and you. Work is only one of them. Balance shifts in every season. And it looks different for every woman. It's YOUR wheel.

3. Every woman in that room had gone after something. A degree. A country. A baby. An opportunity. And every one of them had been told no at some point. That one hit me in the chest. How often do we stop going, just because someone said no first?

So I'm posting more. I'm being honest.

Which one of these landed for you? Tell me below.

Thank you to the team at Take A Seat for organising, and to every speaker.

BalanceInSeasons WellnessWheel BackOnHere DietitianTalks StellenboschDietitian BellvilleDietitian TheHealthFrequency RDsa SouthAfricanWomen FemaleFounders WomenInWellness WomensHealth

Tired even after 8 hours?It's probably not insomnia. It's probably dinner.🔸 3am wake-ups? Often nocturnal hypoglycaemia....
13/05/2026

Tired even after 8 hours?

It's probably not insomnia. It's probably dinner.

🔸 3am wake-ups? Often nocturnal hypoglycaemia. Feed your sleep.
🔸 Caffeine has a 5–6 hour half-life. Your 2pm coffee is still there at 8pm.
🔸 Magnesium is quietly missing in most women. Deep sleep suffers.
🔸 One glass of wine costs you 30 minutes of REM.

Two-week experiment:
→ Dinner with protein + carbs + fibre
→ Caffeine cutoff at 2pm
→ 300–400mg magnesium glycinate at 9pm
→ No alcohol 2 hours before bed

Report back.

Save this for the friend who's convinced she "just has bad sleep."

PCOS just got renamed.This week the international medical community officially called the condition PMOS. Polyendocrine ...
12/05/2026

PCOS just got renamed.

This week the international medical community officially called the condition PMOS. Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome.

Published in The Lancet. Endorsed by the Endocrine Society. Decided by ~22,000 clinicians, researchers and patients in a 10-year global consensus process led by Monash University.

Why it actually matters:

• There are no cysts in PCOS. They were always follicles.
• It's a metabolic and endocrine condition first, o***y second.
• The treatment lens just got broader.
• Same diagnostic criteria. Better understanding.

If you've been told you have PCOS, you now have PMOS. And if you've been treated only when you wanted to fall pregnant, please ask for the metabolic and endocrine workup the new name demands.

Save this and send to a woman who deserves to know.

Reference: Teede et al., 2026, The Lancet.

Detox teas don't detox you.They dehydrate you. And in some cases, they damage the very system they claim to support.🔸 Yo...
11/05/2026

Detox teas don't detox you.

They dehydrate you. And in some cases, they damage the very system they claim to support.

🔸 Your liver is the detox — 24/7, for free
🔸 Most "detox teas" are senna-based laxatives
🔸 Chronic use → dependency and a lazy colon
🔸 The "flat stomach" is cramps and water loss

The boring truth: water, fibre, 30 different plants a week. That's it.

Nobody sells "eat more beans" because it doesn't come with an influencer discount code. But it works.

Save this for the friend still stirring senna into her water every morning 🫶

Your future self is not asking for a smaller waist.She's asking for strength.She's asking to get out of the car without ...
08/05/2026

Your future self is not asking for a smaller waist.

She's asking for strength.

She's asking to get out of the car without help at 75. To pick up her grandchild. To walk the dogs. To catch herself if she trips.

And she's asking you — now — to put in the work.

🔸 Muscle is metabolic insurance
🔸 Every kilo of lean mass protects your glucose
🔸 It buffers you against falls (the #1 cause of late-life decline)
🔸 You can still build it in your 50s, 60s and 70s

Start lifting. Stay lifting. Stop training for an Instagram photo and start training for your 75th birthday.

Save this for the woman who still thinks cardio is enough.

The thing no one tells women about intermittent fasting —🔸 Most IF research is on men. Women respond differently.🔸 Prolo...
06/05/2026

The thing no one tells women about intermittent fasting —

🔸 Most IF research is on men. Women respond differently.
🔸 Prolonged caloric restriction down-regulates T3 (hello fatigue)
🔸 Regular missed breakfasts in under-35s = hypothalamic amenorrhea risk
🔸 If IF made you miserable — that's biology, not willpower

This isn't me saying fasting is evil. It's me saying it wasn't designed for you.

Start the day with 25–30g of protein within an hour of waking. Yoghurt + seeds. Eggs on toast. Smoothie with whey.

Save this for the friend who's been white-knuckling through 16:8 for 8 months and wondering why she feels terrible 🫶

Everyone's obsessed with seed oils.Almost no one is talking about fibre — and that's where the hormone story actually li...
04/05/2026

Everyone's obsessed with seed oils.

Almost no one is talking about fibre — and that's where the hormone story actually lives.

Here's what fibre does that your supplement shelf can't —

🔸 Binds and clears excess oestrogen (the oestrobolome)
🔸 Blunts glucose spikes → fewer crashes → calmer hormones
🔸 Feeds bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory SCFAs
🔸 Covers the single biggest gap in the modern diet

The SA average woman eats ~12g of fibre a day. She needs 25–30.

That 13-gram gap is doing more "hormone damage" than any seed oil ever will.

Save this for the friend who's scared of bread but eats zero beans 🌾

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