Your magazine for health, energy and prevention

At 43, a woman sits in her GP's office and names five things: brain fog in the meeting, new knee pain although she has not started extra sport, worse sleep despite the same routine, an LDL that has suddenly hit 165 mg/dL, and a belly that is growing even though the calories have not changed. What often goes unsaid: all five sit on the same hormone. She is not ill. She is in perimenopause.

In everyday language, estrogen is filed under reproduction. In the body it reaches into more than 400 biological processes, from how the brain uses glucose to how the liver handles cholesterol. Perimenopause starts at 47 on average and can begin up to ten years before the last period. Estradiol in this phase does not fall in a straight line; it swings from hour to hour. That is why women from 40 often meet a scatter of symptoms that no single reading explains and no single specialty owns. If you want to understand the transition, think of estrogen as a system regulator, not as a cycle marker.

You are 38, tired for months, and you have put on 4 kilos for no obvious reason. At the GP it is: TSH 2.8, everything in the reference range. Thyroid ruled out.

That is not quite right. The standard blood test usually measures a single value. The thyroid, though, has seven distinct dysfunction patterns. TSH alone detects two of them.

What is likely happening in your case: your body produces enough T4, but cannot convert it into the active hormone T3. You are running at half speed. On a standard blood count, that looks like “everything is fine”.

Last week a woman sat in front of me. Mid-thirties, project manager, two children. She jogs three times a week, eats deliberately, sleeps seven hours. And still she said: "I feel as if someone turned the dimmer down." Her GP ran a full blood count. Everything normal. I already knew: a value was missing that he had never ordered.

The omega-3 index. It measures the share of EPA and DHA in the red blood cells and reflects supply over the last 8-12 weeks. The target range is 8-11%. In Germany the average sits at 4-6% (Schuchardt et al., 2024 [1]). In our aescolab analyses, three out of four female clients sit below 8%. That is not a niche problem. That is the default.

Five bottles on the kitchen table. Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, omega-3, iron. For millions of women this is the morning ritual. The question almost never asked: is any of it actually doing something?

The evidence is clear: supplements have an effect when a deficiency is present. Without a prior blood analysis, every capsule is a shot in the dark. Most people still supplement on suspicion - a podcast, Instagram, a friend’s tip. The result: money spent on products the body does not need. And gaps nobody sees, because nobody is looking.

This article shows why blind supplementation is a system problem, what the research says, and how a data-based blood analysis changes the picture.

Last week a woman sat in my practice. 38, a pharmacist. She does everything right: exercise, food, sleep. And still she said: I feel as if someone has turned the dimmer down. Not sick enough for a sick note. But nowhere near the person she could be. Her GP ordered a large blood count and said: everything is normal. I hear that at least three times a week.

Lena is a project manager, 34, and she is doing everything right. Training four times a week, meal prep on Sunday, eight hours of sleep. And still: at 3 p.m. she feels as if someone has pulled the plug. At the GP it is: blood count unremarkable, haemoglobin at 13.2 g/dL. All in the green. But her ferritin? It sits at 19 ng/mL. And that is exactly where the problem is.

Vitamin D is far more than a vitamin. It is an essential prohormone that controls numerous vital functions in the body. It does not only affect bone health; it also plays a decisive role for the immune system, muscle function and even brain health. An optimal vitamin D level is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease and certain cancers.

The problem: at our latitudes, enough vitamin D from sunlight is often not guaranteed, especially in winter. Many people therefore have a deficiency without knowing it, which can go along with fatigue, susceptibility to infection, muscle pain or even depression.

This article shows you why vitamin D is indispensable for your health, how to recognise a deficiency, and what you can do to bring your values into an optimal range.

Melatonin is the most-bought sleep supplement in Germany. It regulates more than 500 genes. That is not on any package insert.

On the bedside table sits a substance that lowers blood pressure, protects cells from oxidative stress and coordinates DNA repair. And most people take it so they fall asleep faster at 11 pm. That is like building a concert hall and only using the lights in the foyer.

Stranger still: your body makes this hormone itself. From 40, it winds production down. Picture a night shift: cells repairing, immune system ramping up, waste being cleared, tissue renewing. From 40, half the crew resigns. By 80, nine out of ten are gone. None of that shows up on a standard blood panel.

Last week a client sat in front of me and said: "My GP says all my values are fine. But I am still constantly tired." I hear that sentence so often I have stopped counting. And I understand the frustration. Really.

You go to the doctor, have blood taken, get a sheet with a few numbers, and everything sits "in the reference range". But your body is telling you something else. You sleep enough, eat reasonably, move, and still something is missing. What if the problem is not you, but the question that was put to your blood?