Medicine | Episode 5 — What Medicine Got Wrong About Women: A Conversation with Dr. Kat Léger
Women were not legally required to be included in clinical trials until 1993. Every standard of care practice before that was built on data from men. The medication your doctor is recommending you take as a woman was studied in men first.
That is where this conversation starts.
In this episode of Medicine, Sean sits down with Dr. Kat Léger - triple board certified in internal medicine, nephrology, and critical care medicine, and Director of Women's Health at Extension Health in New York City - to talk about what preventative medicine actually looks like, why perimenopause begins at thirty five and not fifty, and why the gap between what women are told and what is actually happening in their bodies may be the most consequential blind spot in modern healthcare.
Dr. Léger was diagnosed with PCOS at seventeen and put on birth control. Nobody discussed what that diagnosis actually meant for her long term health. She did not fully understand it herself until she was deep into medical school.
That is the problem she is trying to solve.
Topics covered:
- Why perimenopause starts at thirty five and why almost no one is telling women this
- What estrogen and progesterone actually protect - bones, brain, cardiovascular system, metabolic health, muscle
- The difference between what your PCP checks and what advanced diagnostics actually reveal
- Cholesterol, LDL, and why ApoB is the number that tells the real story
- How visceral fat creates metabolic dysfunction even in people who look completely fit
- The high achieving skinny fat problem - why a resting blood lactate panel matters
- Zone two training, resistance training, and why muscles are the longevity organ
- GLP-1 peptides - what they are, what they were designed for, and where the current wave has gone wrong
- Why going on a GLP without resistance training means losing muscle, not just fat
- Hormone replacement therapy and bone health - what the research actually says
- Why protein intake for women is non-negotiable and how much you actually need
- Why lifting heavy is not going to make you look like a man - and why you have to do it anyway
Dr. Léger speaks four languages, holds a nutrition science certification from Stanford University, and is completing advanced training through the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. She is featured in Forbes and is currently building the women's health program at Extension Health in New York City.
From Medicine, presented by Saint Bartholomew - a conversation series on the truth of pain, performance, and optimal health.
Find Dr. Kat Léger:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathleenlegermd/
Extension Health: https://extension.health/
Saint Bartholomew
The Patron Saint of Chronic Pain
New York City
www.SaintBartholomew.com
What is Medicine?
Medicine is not pills.
It is not injections.
It is not surgery.
Medicine restores the body.
Hosted by Sean Light, founder of Saint Bartholomew Medicine, this podcast explores what actually heals chronic pain and builds durable human performance.
Through clinical insight, lived experience, and systems-based thinking, Medicine challenges the conventional model of symptom management and replaces it with a deeper framework: rebuild the systems, and the body restores itself.
Each episode examines the foundations of real healing:
– Sleep
– Nutrition
– Strength
– Nervous system regulation
Along the way, Sean shares the stories that shaped this philosophy — from childhood headaches to performance training, from the Sistine Chapel to the symbolic meaning of Saint Bartholomew — and explains the Four Systems of Healing that guide his clinical work.
If you are done chasing quick fixes and ready to build a body that works, this is where we begin.
This is Medicine.