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The Healf Source
The Female Blueprint: What Top Women's Health Experts Want Every Woman To Know
At HX26, female health was at the top of the agenda. Here’s what three experts want you to know, from hormone therapy to menopause and bone density to anti-inflammatory lifestyles
Written by: Ed Cooper
Written on: July 25, 2026
Over the course of two days at Healf Experience 2026 (HX26), Healf’s second-ever immersive wellbeing event in central London, over 4000 people chose to spend their weekend listening and interacting with industry-leading authors, scientists, athletes and longevity experts for their advice on how to move the needle on their personal wellness. Throughout the weekend, across intimate workshops, thought-provoking fireside conversations and keynote talks, HX26 explored the concept of wellbeing from all angles.
There was, however, one key element that drew more attention than almost anything else: modern female wellness. Specifically, it was in the Female Blueprint talk where aesthetics expert and anti-inflammatory entrepreneur Dr. Barbara Sturm, podcaster and menopause practitioner Dr. Alicia Robbins and dermatologist Dr. Shabana Daya spoke most pertinently on the evolving world of female wellbeing. During the panel, the experts discussed a range of topics, including the importance of early education and treatment for perimenopause and menopause, misconceptions about hormone therapy and, crucially, how women can build and maintain muscle mass, bone density and use an anti-inflammatory lifestyle to improve overall health and wellbeing as they age. Let’s take a closer look at what they said.
Start the conversation earlier than you think
When women wait for their period to change before they discuss hormones with a doctor, a lot of the groundwork has already gone unaddressed for years, says Robbins, who told the story of a 40-year-old patient who came to her with new, stubborn insomnia that was seemingly immune to the usual advice from sleep experts. Improvements in sleep hygiene, for example, various medical aids, and even traditional advice. “I said to her, why don't we just try a little bit of micronised progesterone,” Robbins recalled of the patient, who was surprised at the prescription, as she wasn’t in menopause. “She came back two weeks later and said, ‘you saved my life. This is the only thing that worked.’” The moment stuck with her. “Why was I inadvertently gatekeeping this from her? Why did I not know better?” she queried at HX26. “Statistically, women have to go to eight doctors before they're even offered this conversation.”
The root issue, Daya explained, is that women are still taught to think of menopause as a single event rather than a slow shift that can begin years earlier. “It's not a sudden transition where you wake up one day with menopause…and feel really different,” she said. “It's a long-term hormonal journey, as perimenopause can start in the early thirties, and women aren't aware that you can start that young.” Patients often dismiss their own symptoms, Daya added, describing conversations where women insist they can't possibly be perimenopausal, only to discover they are.
Robbins pointed to the early warning signs that get missed because they don't fit the hot flush stereotype. Progesterone tends to drop before oestrogen does, and its absence shows up first as sleep trouble and a shorter fuse. “It's a natural anti-anxiety hormone,” she said. “Oestrogen is a natural SSRI booster; its net effect in the brain is to increase serotonin, just like an antidepressant.” Recognising those signals early, both doctors agreed, is what stops years of unnecessary suffering.
Hormone therapy has an image problem, not a safety problem
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a medical treatment that supplements or replaces hormones that the body stops producing naturally, often still carries a certain reputation and breast cancer risk is usually the first thing that comes up. At HX26, the panel wanted to address that directly. “It's been 20 years since the WHI findings have been debunked,” said Robbins, referencing the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study that shaped a generation of caution around hormone therapy. “HRT doesn't cause breast cancer.” Daya sees the fallout from that study daily in her own clinic. “A lot of it has been debunked, but a lot of people still hold onto that information or are misinformed,” she said.
“A lot of NHS doctors will still not give HRT based on this, and a lot of patients have either not been offered it or started way too late,” Daya agreed. Sturm, however, offered a different perspective through the lens of skincare. “In the first five years of perimenopause, our collagen levels decrease by over 30 per cent,” she said. “I would encourage everybody to go on HRT, unless there's an underlying issue.”
Testosterone came up too, an option Robbins said is rarely mentioned to women at all despite its effects on energy and drive. She prescribes standard, low female doses, not the higher doses sometimes used off-label. “Our testosterone tends to decline in our thirties,” she said. “A friend of mine started on it and said she used to be completely dead by 4pm.” With a little supplementation, Robbins said, “she has more energy.” The panel framed hormone therapy as an option worth discussing, however, rather than a guaranteed fix. “It's not a magic bullet for everyone,” Robbins said. “But too few women are ever given the conversation, and too many struggle through their forties and fifties without it.”
Bone density and muscle are built decades before you need them
If there's one figure worth remembering from the panel, it's this: bone density peaks in your late twenties, long before most women start thinking about it. “We don't often think about bone density in our twenties because it seems so far away,” Robbins said. “High-impact exercise in your twenties, jogging, tennis, lifting weights, working on being strong over skinny, is going to benefit you in the long run.”
Inevitably, the stakes rise with age. “One in two women will have an osteoporotic fracture in their lifetime,” Robbins said. “If that's a hip fracture, it's a serious injury with a difficult recovery.” Her advice is to get ahead of it: a baseline bone density scan in your late forties, alongside resistance training to preserve muscle and prevent frailty later on.
As for Sturm, she checks vitamin D and calcium levels regularly and works with a physiotherapist on movement patterns that load the bones directly, things as simple as getting up off the floor without using your hands. “This is how you activate the osteocytes, the cells of the bone, to become dense,” she said. As for Daya, her advice centred on what’s on your plate, rather than the gym floor. “The majority of your meal should be protein-rich, because we want to build up that muscle [mass], which we are inevitably going to lose and decline as we get older.”
Between them, the panel's arrived at the same conclusion: female health has been treated as an afterthought for too long, arriving late and only once symptoms are severe enough to demand attention. The fix, as Robbins put it, starts with women being handed the information sooner.
Living an anti-inflammatory lifestyle
Sturm has built her career, and her skincare line, around one idea: inflammation sits underneath almost every complaint women bring to a doctor, from skin issues to fertility problems to low mood. She recently had her genes tested at a longevity clinic in London. “They said, based on my genetics, I should be having type two diabetes and be obese," she said. "Going on an anti-inflammatory lifestyle really changed my blood work.”
That claim rests on epigenetics, something Robbins studied closely during her training in lifestyle medicine. “We are not doomed to what our genes are,” she said. “Your genes don't change, but they can be expressed differently depending on your lifestyle. Even if you carry genes for diabetes or PCOS, what you do day to day is more powerful than those genes.”
The daily habits both doctors point to are unglamorous: a diet built around fibre and low glycaemic index foods, proper sleep and time spent managing stress rather than carrying it home from work. For Sturm, a lot of this is achieved by getting outside. “Use the healing powers of nature,” she said. “Hug a tree, walk barefoot, lie on the grass. Get up with the sun and go to bed when it sets. You can fix so many things just with nature.”
Daya agreed the answer is rarely complicated. “We've overcomplicated things because we have so much information available to us,” she said. “Going outside, sleeping well, strength training and removing some of the stimulation that’s giving us this chronic inflammation or stress.” Proof that simple things, done consistently, can make all the difference.
This article is for informational purposes only, even if and regardless of whether it features the advice of physicians and medical practitioners. This article is not, nor is it intended to be, a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment and should never be relied upon for specific medical advice. The views expressed in this article are the views of the expert and do not necessarily represent the views of Healf
Ed is a freelance journalist and former Men’s Health digital editor, with bylines in Red Bull, BBC StoryWorks, Guardian Labs, Third Space, Natural Fitness Food and Form Nutrition, among others. Having run marathons, conducted sleep experiments on himself and worked with some of the world’s most in-demand experts — from sleep scientists and strength athletes to high-performance trainers and elite-level nutritionists — one thing remains clear for The Healf Source contributor: fitness trends come and go, but as long as you keep turning up for yourself, consistency will win every time.
