Why Your Hot Flashes Can Be Heart Clues

Plus, six other critical yet overlooked facts about our bodies that all women should know.

- By Meghan Rabbitt

As a health journalist who's spent the past 25 years digging into everything from hormones to heart health, I might be someone you'd think would have a pretty good handle on important facts.

But while interviewing over 100 of the country's leading experts to write a 704-page book on women's health (true story: I woke up from my colonoscopy drilling the doctor about the differences between the female and male colon, and how women might metabolize anesthesia differently than men!), I lost count of how many times I got off a call thinking, Wait—how did I not know this?

These days, we're talking about previously stigmatized topics more than ever. Once-taboo subjects like menopause, painful sex, and hysterectomies are popping up on social media feeds and in dinner party conversations. Google search trends for terms like “vaginal estrogen” and “perimenopause” are up. This is great. Yet in that influx of info, it's easy for some crucial stuff to be overlooked. We're not just talking about tidbits that'll help you score points and praise on trivia night. Instead, these are the kind of truths that could change how you understand your body, how you talk to your doctors, and, perhaps most important, how you advocate for your health.

FACT NO.

1 Many of our body parts are named after men who labeled those parts many years ago.