Far too often, women are told their symptoms are simply "completely normal." Laura Kassem experienced this firsthand, and she decided it wasn't good enough. Meet the physician behind Cue Her's medical direction.
Women have been underprioritized in research
Women have long been underprioritized in health research. The thinking was that they were too difficult to measure, because women's biology changes through the phases of the menstrual cycle and the life cycle.
Women's biology is far more complex than men's, which declines more steadily with age. It's new that we're beginning to look at what it actually looks like, and that we're recognizing we can't simply leave half the population out of research.
A personal discovery
Laura is a physician and researcher at Rigshospitalet, and she's a runner. Her interest in personalized medicine arose in the third semester of medical school, when she discovered she had very low iron, in fact so low that she also had a low blood count.
It didn't just mean she fell asleep during lectures, but also that she couldn't keep up with her fellow runners. Her own doctor told her it was completely normal, that she just had too much going on and should take it easy. But no matter how much she rested, it wasn't enough.
This was where her curiosity began: Can it really be true that you're just supposed to walk around feeling like this? The answer turned out to be low iron and a low blood count, something that's very common, not only for runners, but especially for women.
Why personalized medicine matters so much
We are all different, and there are no two identical people. We have different family histories and therefore different risk factors, and we have different lifestyles. That means when we measure your blood tests or run a scan, the results look different from person to person.
So it doesn't make sense to give everyone the same treatment when we're fundamentally different. At Cue Her, we recognize that women are different, and that it also depends on where you are in life's phases. That's why the program is built to be personal and fit precisely to you.
Fatigue doesn't have to be normal
Laura discovered for herself that you can actually feel much better. Being tired doesn't have to be common or expected.
That realization is what she wants to pass on to other women who might have a sore shoulder, stomach pain, or something else, and have been told "that's just how it is." She doesn't believe it has to be that way.
What you can learn from Laura
As Medical Director for Cue Her, Laura leads the medical direction for women's health at Cue. She shares her knowledge of why women's biology calls for its own approach, so you can make informed decisions about your own health, without having to accept that it's just "completely normal."