Phil Hayes-St Clair: Fiercely advocating for women's health

Sonya: My name is Sonya Lovell and I am obsessed with helping women navigate the magical, messy, and, let's be honest, more hysterical moments of this thing called menopause. I'm a personal trainer and breast cancer survivor turned menopause coach. I help women understand what's going on, why and what they can do to navigate the menopausal transition. Gloss over the real talk? No way. Exhaustion, brain fog, loss of libido, loss of confidence and anxiety are just some of the topics that we'll chat about. Consider this a juicy happy hour with your new bestie and her friends. Settle in and get ready to learn and laugh. This is the Dare Menopause podcast. Oh, boy, do I have a gift for you. Today we have our very first male guest, phil Hayes St. Clair. You're probably asking yourself, why is a 40 something white guy talking about women's health? For that, I strongly suggest you continue listening. Phil wears many hats. But what is most impressive about Phil is his fierce advocacy for women and in particular, women's health. I think you're going to love this chat. If you're a science nerd like me, you'll love it a little bit more. Phil Hayes Sinclair, thank you so much for being our very first male guest on their metaphors.

Phil: Hey, Sonya. I am not nervous at all, but thank you very much for having me. It's a real treat to be here.

Sonya: Thank you. I was delighted when I came across first of all, I came across your Ted Talk. That was my kind of intro to you. I've had a few people reach out to me since going, oh, my gosh, I love feel so pleased he's coming on the Dead Menopause podcast. So I'm keen to know a whole lot more about how you have evolved into this space. But first of all, why don't you introduce yourself to my listeners and let us all know who you are and what you do.

Phil: Sure. Well, my name is Phil Hastenclair. I'm a girl dad. I build companies for a living and I am an educator. So much of the work that I've done in my life at the time feels quite random in sort of hindsight. There's a thread that you can weave through all these different bits and pieces. But look, I grew up in country Queensland. I joined the army straight out of school. I had a very strong ambition there to be an aviator in the army, a helicopter pilot, and to then study medicine as well. And I sort of considered that to be the ultimate career choice for someone like me. That didn't play out quite as planned. And so I studied immunology as my undergraduate degree in what feels like a long, long time ago, and then ended up leaving the army, unfortunately, because of a bad eye problem that I had, and then sort of found my way into company building. And I've built a number of businesses now, and it just happened that, you know, the world had put me in touch with a bunch of people that were doing some really interesting medical research in 2016 and 17. And it sort of captured my attention, brought all of my undergraduate and postgraduate training back from the back of my head to the front of my head. And the world had shifted where people really want to learn more about themselves, and medicine had a whole bunch of questions that it didn't have answers for. And so I decided to found a business called Drop by a Health, which is the business I run at the moment, which is now four years old, and I spend a lot of my time doing science and doing translational research work and for me it's the best job in the world. I love what we do every day at Drop by Health, but it also helps to add a framework to the other parts of women's health which are really important. So you're sure functional medicine and all the life stage work is really important, but as I learned more about this and being a father of girls and my wife being really accomplished, I see all of the little hidden biases that sort of live right throughout the world and the ones that most importantly impact women and children. And so from my point of view, looking at how we can really move the needle both on a medical research point of view and also just on a knowledge basis was really important to me. I think also just being able to know that you can play a role in things like paid parental leave, which has profound implications for women and their children and their partners and their lives, is really important. And so is things like paying real attention to perimenopause and menopause and sort of just finding ways to make it normalized and to make it a time in life to celebrate. I find that really invigorating, but I also just find it hilarious that so many people, particularly men, just don't get it and want to run a million miles from it. So from my point of view, I get a lot out of thinking about holistically women's health and it's because we have a chance in the world right now to make such a profound catch up from where we've been in the past that I think this is a great time to be involved with this stuff.

Sonya: It really is. And one of the things that I love so much and that I'm hearing, the people I've been lucky enough to chat with an interview recently is just it's really dropping in for me. How much difference, all this work that we're doing now, all this normalizing of the conversation, all the research, this is starting to be done, the impact that that is going to have for the generations that are coming behind us. Your daughters? I'm a mum of boys, but my son's girlfriends now we've had conversations about the impacts of the work that we're doing now, the raising of our voices now that it's going to have for them and that just makes me so proud and so excited for everything that's being done now. As much as sometimes it feels like we're just banging our heads against a brick wall, knowing that the trickle down effect of that is just going to be huge.

Phil: It'll be massive. And I think in particular for boys and for men being able to have a conversation. I was actually on a call just before this one where we were talking about the communication of health information between a household or inside a household between a couple is probably the largest relationship saving conversation and relationship preserving. Conversation that could ever be had, because it develops a hugely strong volume of empathy towards whether the man is facing something or woman's facing something. Whatever the case is, or a same sex couple doesn't matter. Just being able to have that language and that dialogue I think is hugely important. So I think it's great.

Sonya: I think that's also something that we're starting to see evolve through the generations as well. I know if I look back on my parents relationship and the health issues I know my mother faced during that and the lack of empathy and support that she got from my father, as, you know, generational reasons as well as other reasons. And then I look at my relationship with my husband, and I went through a cancer diagnosis and the medically induced menopause and all of that, and that was hard enough for me. But also for him was a really hard role for him to have to step into. And I was so grateful for the fact that we have always had a very strong communication thread through our relationship and I am an open book. I talk about anything and everything and that made it a little bit easier for him. But then I also now look at my boys and their relationships and the conversations that we have around our dinner table and the conversations I know that they have with their girlfriends. And there's just so much ease of communication and they do talk about anything and everything. And I love that so much. And, yeah, I think that that is something that is starting to trickle down into our generations as well.

Phil: Yeah, it's super fantastic and I think it does feel like sometimes you're beating your head against a brick wall. I mean, we look at the amount of effort that goes into establishing clinical trials, for example, from scratch and all the steps that we have to go through to make that work because they're all really important steps but it can feel as though it takes years to develop a really small amount of knowledge. I think one thing that I really loved about Covered was on Twitter in particular, there was such an exchange of knowledge happening because the rapid nature of the way that whole situation evolved and continues to evolve, we were able to talk with clinicians and researchers all around the world about what they were seeing. You started the conversation there. You sort of then took it offline and had these expansive and wonderful conversations. But it was because there's a language and a desire to sort of connect the dots on things that previously were thought to either not really matter very much or now are really, really important. And I think Perry and menopause are really just coming into light now and it's fascinating and really good.

Sonya: And Perry in particular, I still get so much consistent feedback from women in their 40s or even in their 50s saying I literally didn't know that Perry menopause was a thing. I'd never heard the term. I didn't know what it meant. Oh my gosh, everything now makes sense. When I went through, I went through, as I said, medically induced menopause. I was 47. I had shown no signs of being anywhere near any perimenopausal signs. And menopause was like something that my grandparents went through. It wasn't on my radar at all and so I learnt very quickly about it all. But I do totally appreciate that for many women it is just this unknown thing that nobody's talked about. It's like we've just created this term and it's been just being created, but.

Phil: It hasn't no, it's been there a lot. And I think the other thing as well is that when we talk about the education we do around Perry and also menopause, which has been taught to us by our clinicians so, you know, this is not native, certainly. It's certainly not native to a 45 year old white guy, let me tell you. But when it comes to the ability for us to learn, we've gone to people like Jenny Mansberg and we've gone to people who are clinicians of excellence in this field and we've listened to what they've said. And the irony is that there are some really fantastic, easily understandable frameworks to put into context what is going on and why and why some things make sense to do in terms of maybe blood testing or not blood testing versus doing things like nutrition changes or things that are going to help. And the risk of it being talked about as much as it is right now is that a whole bunch of, let's just say, evidence lacking products and services will enter into the marketplace to try and allay different things. And I think the way that that gets navigated is just through really good fundamental knowledge and discussion about what's real and what's not. Because we don't know a lot yet about all the different things we could do, but we certainly know what perimenopause is, we certainly know what menopause is, and we certainly know what happens post menopause in terms of aging for women over different times in different contexts. So as long as you can get that basic knowledge there, you're off to a great start.

Sonya: I think also the second part to that too, is that we need to, and you will know more about this than I do, and hopefully we're seeing some headway in it, but addressing the globally recognized education gap in our GPS when it comes to perimenopause and menopausal care or any health care for women over 40, really outside of the big things and also really moving the needle on, leaving the Women's Health Initiative findings way behind us. So that there is a whole lot less resistance from our endocrinologists and our GPS that perhaps aren't quite up to speed around the use of MHT and those sorts of things. And I think while we still have some murkiness in our primary carers kind of world, that it opens up a window for those other products to become more present and to become more of an option for a woman who perhaps isn't getting the support from her GP that she needs.

Phil: Yeah, look, I agree. I think that the constant challenge for people working in science and medicine in particular is the way that that evidence gets translated. And I think that what you've mentioned before is a classic example of research not being communicated well that has such profound implications for women everywhere of that age. But I also think that when I go to conferences, one of five or six men who are going to the menopause conferences and we're seeing the listening to, it like there is a huge volume of GPS who are subspecializing in women's aging, including perimenopause, and menopause who are looking for and engaging with their colleagues on what is the current best practice. What are you seeing, how are we seeing it? What are the real issues that we're trying to work through? Because often women will present with comorbidities and things that are other factors of their life which actually make treating symptoms of menopause just more complicated. It's not impossible, it's just more complex. And so the exchange, I can assure you, the exchange that's happening between doctors that are specializing this area is increasing and so is a subspecialty growth as well because many of these GPS are sort of going I'm not sure I want to practice as a general practice clinician. I'd actually like to spend more time with women at this stage. And that group is growing as well, which is great news, but it could grow quicker, of course, but it's certainly evolving.

Sonya: Yeah. And I also love that there's also starting to be some movement as well in making those clinicians that do subspecialize more accessible to more of the population as well. One of our issues here in Australia is everything's available on the coast, but you start speaking to the women that are regional and rural and they really find it very hard to find support.

Phil: There's no doubt I mean, one of the reasons that we started Drop and we've built it the way we have is because the need to provide accessibility to remote and regional communities, whether it be indigenous or not, is just appalling the current state. If I'm being completely fair and there's a need and an interest, I just feel as though it's a travesty that women and men, that women in this context would be felt to feel alone and just not have access to knowledge or or ability to have a conversation. I just think it's one of those things. It's like 2022 here already. Like, what? Why are these people not part of the fold? And so I think the next decade is going to see a pretty fundamental shift, not because the government will make policy, but because companies and organizations will just find a way, which I'm frankly really excited about.

Sonya: Yeah, me too. And we still need to support the women that are in that situation now, but yeah, what can come in the future is hugely exciting. Phil, I'd like to talk a little bit about the Ted Talk that you did. So your topic for that was moving beyond hope in women's health. Are you happy to expand a little bit on that? I don't want to hear your whole Ted Talk, but I've shared the links for that far and wide, and I'll share it into the show. Not too well for anybody that has missed it so far. But yeah, a little bit behind. What drove you to present on that topic and what your hopes are for women's health.

Phil: Well, I'll start by saying I don't think I've ever been more nervous in getting on a stage to talk about anything. And I do a lot of talking, but that one for me was something that we prepared for a lot. I guess I have the privilege of being able to see and understand, to a degree, not all, but a large number of the efforts that are happening around the world to answer questions that relate to women's health. And as a scientist and somebody who leads a company like this, we process a lot of that information to try and work out how we can build on that knowledge. But I'm also a big fan of just going back in history and sort of what will history tell us and teach us about what we shouldn't do in the future? I think it's the most underrated sort of thing that people sort of forget about. And when I went back and started looking at why is it that my wife, who's aged in the mid 40s, who is hugely an accomplice, still has problems getting answers to question A, question B, question C. Again, it's 2022. Why is that the case? And then when you start to understand and go back in time to see how this knowledge was eventually built upon and then what not the systematic, but the things that stopped it from progressing at the same rate that it did for men. You see some really fundamental sort of choke points in that process. One of them, obviously, was that men were educated to doctors and so they just considered women to be a more complicated physiology to sort of do practice on. And so they sort of said, well, just puts out the one side.

Sonya: Yes, we just do the men. They're so much easier.

Phil: So much easier. Right? And so then you have other situations where there seems to be in history these pockets of innovation which we look back on now and just go, that was just chronically lacking in ethics, approval and sort of a setup. But when you look back on innovations, often they've broken through a mold which we can look back and to be completely disgusted by, or we can go, well, actually, this is what the result was for that. And the Pill is a classic example of that. I think in the talk I mentioned that there was about 250 women that were involved in the initial study that built the evidence base that got the FDA to approve the Pill in 61. And there's 150,000,000 women around the world using this most days. How did it go from 250 women to that point? Like, what happened there? So it was just some of those really interesting pieces, but then also just some of the unintended consequences of knowing that, for example, the Pill was creating an issue. And so then the leadership at the time, which I think included very few women in FDA sort of circles of the US regulatory apparatus, sort of said, look, until we understand the results of toxicology studies, we just need to put a pause on this because we're worried about the public health impact of this being there, which is it was a fair decision to make. It had an inadvertent consequence of slowing down medical research on a wholesale basis, which meant that all the things we want to sort of continue doing was a problem. So that was sort of the basis for the slowness. And that for me is just, okay, so we get that given all the technology and communication and the interest, surely we can leapfrog all of that massively to sort of play catch up. And the answer is, actually, we are like there's huge investments going into female technology startups, which is where all the innovation is sort of tending to happen. We find that there are more female doctors at any point in history now than there ever have been, which is amazing. And it's these kind of statistics where you go, well, we are making change. And now it's not just about a voice that's happening from a single woman or a single mother or sort of isolated pockets as generations have shifted. And as we said before this conversation that your husband and you are having or me and my wife are having, we're all starting to demand more and invest more interest and mind share into how this is all changing. And then you've got the generation coming behind us. I mean, I've got seven and ten year old daughters, and they're already talking about the impacts of certain things in the world. As that generation comes through, they will step change the investment and interest in these areas and we will catch up. So I think it's really just about this whole talk was about helping people understand that yes, the world is in a bit of a **** place. Right now we're all being beaten up wholesale. I don't know about you, but I'm screaming into Christmas this year. It's not going to be a gentle landing. It's going to be pretty up. Most people are in that position. So when you think about that, everyone can sort of go doom and gloom. The state of women's health is in disarray. Point of the government pointed. People get upset. Actually, if you zoom out and look at that what's? Going on around the world. Yes, the world is not in great shape, but if you look through the smokescreen of what's going on and some of it's really their real problems, you see this amazing group of scientists, doctors. Entrepreneurs, investors, pockets of government, all bubbling away to make women's health both more accessible, more practical, and answering questions that have previously not been answered. But then you have other people like Jenny and her partners, doing things in awareness for perimenopause and menopause in the workplace. There are multiple organizations playing in that role at the moment.

Sonya: And then there's amazing research being done too. I spoke to a researcher during the week which will be coming up. On an episode and she is teaming up that's Macquarie Uni teamed up with Griffith University to do research and I didn't realize this but to get policy change and within the big corporations you need this research to be able to ground the policy to then put it in place. And I was like, here we are going. How do we make it easier for women at work? And it's like that. We actually have to do this research first and we have to get this done. And that's what's being done, which is.

Phil: Really exciting and it's not new, but the fact that there is multi institutional research going on, which is sort of going between different states, different ecosystems of women, being able to give us broader sort of perspective, that is fantastic. And look, to be honest, there is a time in not too far off history where that wasn't happening either. So it's all these little things. So I guess my point in that was to say that people don't just hope, know that things are happening. The wheels are turning, actually faster than you expect. And I know you might be in a situation where you go, well, if I need it today, I get that. But it's happening faster than it ever has had in history. And just because the world don't forget that it's going on. So I want that message to really persevere and hopefully for women and men to look at that and go back and say, well, as I challenged every single man that listens to this, the reason why this is a problem is because of my gender's inability to push bias to one side. So if you're a leader who is focused on a workforce team, then do a better job of menopause awareness, do a better job of paid parental leave, and do a better job of understanding that, to your point, that the only way you can move the needle is through evidence. And that might be through studies like you've just described. Or it could be by actually saying, well, look, we as a couple could enroll at Health Match to participate in clinical studies that could actually build the evidence bases to make the changes we need, but we're not going to leave that to women. And ironically, all the three tools I mentioned, that Ted Talk, are all pioneered by women. They're the ones creating the tools for us to use to get this thing moving. So, for the love of God, just get moving.

Sonya: That's a great message.

Phil: That that's all I was trying to say.

Sonya: So and I think it was the Dalai Lama was it the Dalai Lama that said that it will be women that make the biggest profoundest impacts in the world?

Phil: Of course, that was always going to be the case. I don't understand why we think our time is totally true. Exactly.

Sonya: That's all good news. That's amazing. Phil, one of the other things that I wanted to just kind of explore with you a little bit was I was really fascinated when I read through your bio and the different work that you're doing. You talk about your work in creating personalized preventative health. What does that mean?

Phil: So when we talk about prevention, we're talking about putting knowledge into a doctor's hands or into a consumer's hands and individual's hands so that they can understand how they're aging. And you've talked about your diagnosis, and having seen many people have gone through cancer treatments, cancer therapies and facing a whole barrage of different conditions, wouldn't it be nice to know that something might be coming towards you? Whether that be a cancer in a number of years because there's a family history or the fact that there was just something that didn't feel quite right. That you could get deeper knowledge, but not deeper knowledge based on what? A very large study said deeper knowledge about you so that you can act and make maybe lifestyle changes, whether it be diet or exercise, sleep, stress, whatever the cases were, or to have a very different conversation with your GP or your team of people that help you out. So that it becomes really tailored and it's data driven. So it's not sort of I've just tried this for two or three days. That didn't work. I'll jump to something else, I'll pop a pill, I'll try something. All of these things have been what we've done to date. And over the last sort of decade, we've seen this explosion of technologies allow people to understand more about themselves.

Sonya: Wearables, like, I wear an aura ring.

Phil: An aura ring. Fantastic example of how sleep can be brought more into your consciousness. And you, you know, many people who wear aura now understand just how critical that seven, seven and a half to 8 hours of sleep is. Not just on the basis of how you feel the next morning, but how it's taking literally years off your life if you are not doing that well. And all the cognitive decline that can happen as a consequence of not giving your brain that 24 hours recharge point. So that's a good example. Other ones, apple Watches, whatever watch you have fitbit, whatever the pace is. But then also going into things like how you can measure, say, your microbiome now, so you can go to a company called Microba, who's colleagues of ours in Brisbane. You can essentially poo on a stick, and they'll measure all of your gut bacteria and tell you sort of how is that playing out for you, like, given the food that you eat, given the way that your gut plays such a profound role in your general well being, mental health, everything, how is it made up? Right? And just knowing a little bit about that can empower you to go, I might just not have that. I might just try this. And it enables those really small micro habits. So there's a lot of those. And what we've elected to do to contribute to that was to make fingerprint blood testing available to people in their homes so that they can periodically check in and essentially create an annual health check that you can do by yourself and get really interesting personalized data so that you can then make choices to live healthier and longer. But more importantly, if something is brewing, then you can get early warning for it. So you can make a change and you can talk to someone about that. So when we talk about prevention, we talk about trying to avoid nasty conditions. And when we talk about personalized, we want to make it all about you. And the world of healthcare is, without a doubt, moving into that sort of area. And that comes with a whole bunch of discovery and a whole bunch of interesting new next steps forwards. But I think it's fair to say that COVID was one of those you could never have picked covered. I mean, some statisticians would argue they could, but when you look at COVID coming out, it did three things for the world's population. The first one, for the most part. In developed nations was it allowed people to do an at home test, which was either sticking something up your nose or getting some celebrity of your mouth and seeing a result. And that unless you're a diabetic. No one's really ever done that before.

Sonya: No.

Phil: Now it's familiar. So if I send you normal idea, for example, a blood test kit at home, you say, I can work this out. The second one was that it made people realize that it could happen to me. So most people go through their lives knowing their statistics about things that can go on and then all of a sudden, I'm sorry, Mr. Hasten, Claire, but you now have X like, Wait, what? And then your life changes and you do a bunch of things and I'm sure with your cancer diagnosis was not dissimilar. So with COVID now every single human on the planet now knows it can happen to them. And the consequence of that is I think I should just maybe act a bit differently. I might wear masks a little bit differently, I might exercise. All these little things made the big change. And I think the final piece is that as part of COVID people were told correctly so, that if you have a comorbidity and you get covered, then that's a bad situation and it can escalate very, very quickly. And for the most part, unfortunately, it's almost at a point where nearly one in two of Australians are either prediabetic or diabetic. And with that in mind, the ability for a diabetic issue to be matched with covered, it might not seem like it's a big deal, but if that is a very significant underlying condition, it can run away. And we saw that happen with a number of people. So Norman Swan and a lot of the other commentators were pleading with people who had an existing comorbidity or who were immunocompromised. Please take extra care as it relates to COVID because it becomes really difficult. So now people know what a comorbidity is. And that's really good because when people go like what? They go like diabetes. Is that preventable? You bet it is. So what I'm going to try and do is find a way to avoid that at least type two diabetes. So these are the kind of things that were really profound, I think, through COVID and frankly, our business and many other organizations, not for profits and governments would still be beating the drum on prevention, prevention. Prevention is better than a cure. But covert helped accelerate that narrative, which I think the world is better off as a consequence.

Sonya: Yes, amazing. Thank you for that. I get the nerd in me gets super excited about stuff like that and the advocate for health and also for that, taking responsibility for your own health and your future. A lot of the work that I do when I'm speaking with women, when I'm in my gym and I'm training my clients I talk about. Let's not just be worried about our fitness, health and wellness about today. Let's be focused on everything we do now is for our future. Let's be future fit. Let's future proof our bodies, our minds, everything that we possibly can so that we can live those really long, happy, healthy lives. And it's the work that we do now. And we are hopefully passing this message on to the generations coming before us as well, that there is so much advantage to looking after your body and our minds and really taking ownership.

Phil: Yeah, it's huge. And I think it's also the world has found a way to make it fun, right? So you often hear people about, I'm on this diet or I'm doing all these things and look, there's something for everyone. But the bottom line is, if you move every day, if you take good care of the things that you eat and you eat well, and you still treat yourself from time to time, if you sleep well, which is the single greatest force mob supplier to well being over time. And if you just look after your mind, you're going to be in pretty good shape. And if you end up being in a situation where you get diagnosed unexpectedly with something, then you are set up for a much better fight than you would be if you weren't. And if that doesn't come to pass, then you'll be happier for longer. I mean, who doesn't want to be happy?

Sonya: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a wonderful note to finish on who doesn't want to be happy. Phil, I have loved our chat so much and I kind of feel a little bit like I could sit here and pick your brain for hours. I'm sure your schedule doesn't allow for that and our listeners would get a little bit bored after a while. Thank you for your time. As I said, I'm so appreciative. I wrap up all of my interviews with the same question, and that is, what are you reading, listening to, or watching right now that is bringing you joy?

Phil: I'm reading a lot at the moment and there's a book that has stayed with me for a while that I share with many people that helped me fall in love again with my profession. And I love it a lot. So it was quite a quite an accolade. So the book is called An Elegant Defense and it was on Bill Gates's book list last year for Christmas Time. And so I grabbed it and it's a story of a journalist that sort of tells a story of four or five different people who have gone through autoimmune issues that have gone through all of these inflammation related chapters in their life. Some of it was cancer diagnosed, others weren't. And it just sort of gives this really elegant description about what's actually going on. It really made the knowledge that we keep as scientists. It just made it very accessible. So an elegant defense. Highly recommended. It's a beautiful book. It's beautifully written, amazing.

Sonya: I definitely like the sound of that. And I'm going to go and add that to the Show Notes and probably go buy myself a copy for Christmas.

Phil: Awesome.

Sonya: Bill, thank you so much for your time. I have a feeling that we will potentially be chatting again in the future. There's a lot of exciting things to come and the work that you're doing is so incredibly important. And thank you for being such a fierce advocate for women's health.

Phil: You bet. Thanks, Sonya. I really appreciate being here.

Sonya: Thank you for listening today. I am so grateful to have these conversations with incredible women and experts. And I'm grateful that you chose to hit play on this episode of Dare Menopause. If you have a minute of time today, please leave a rating or a review. I would love to hear from you because you are my biggest driver for doing this work. If this chat went way too fast for you and you want more, head over to Stellarwomen.com Au Hot podcast for the Show Notes. And while you're there, take my Midlife quiz to see why it feels like Midlife is messing with your head.