Doctor Ivana

02/09/2026

No one's talking about Lungs 🫁 and Menopause.

We all talk hot flushes, libido, weight gain, mood changes… all important — but don't forget your vital organs, like your lungs.

Here's why they matter here: your lungs rely on collagen and elastin — the connective tissue that keeps them elastic and able to expand and recoil. As oestrogen declines in Menopause, so does this connective tissue — and that can affect your lung capacity too.

Asthma history, smoker, ex-smoker, live with a smoker — and your breath isn't what it used to be, or that cough won't quit? Don't brush it off as "just getting older" or "not being fit." Ask your doctor to check your lungs.

Try this: Breathing Mindfulness Exercises are a simple, powerful tool — they can help support lung capacity, not only calm your mind. And moving and hydrating your connective tissue is particularly important in perimenopause and Menopause. 🫁

Next week: more on connective tissue — collagen and elastin — skin and hair in Menopause... 👀

26/08/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE

We've talked about the brain - gut axis. The brain - heart axis.

But what's actually the axis part of those conversations?

Meet FASCIA — a continuous, body-wide web of connective tissue surrounding your organs, vessels, muscles, joints, nerves, and glands.

It's not just an empty space packaging.

It's richly innervated, responsive to hormonal signals, and increasingly understood to actively contribute to immune communication too — not simply holding the body together, but taking an active part in the nerve signalling, hormonal activity, and immune messaging we've been talking about.

This is still an emerging area of research. Much of the mechanistic detail is newer and evolving, and there's a lot we don't yet fully understand — especially how this changes across the hormonal shifts of a woman's life.

We'll come back to fascia in more depth soon. For now — just know it's there, connecting and actively taking part in everything we've been talking about.

In the meantime, move — often, and as naturally as your body likes to. Fascia thrives on movement, and mindful breathing is a form of that movement too.

More next week.

🔗 doctorivana.com.au

19/08/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE

Brain fog. Sleep that won't cooperate. Mood swings that feel out of nowhere.

These are driven by real hormonal shifts in perimenopause and menopause — and understanding why they happen is the first step to managing them well.

The hormonal change is usually the trigger. Some women need HRT, some don't — and when needed, HRT is the bridge to where the gold is. The gold is our daily thoughts, habits, actions, and relationships — what we broadly call lifestyle.

More next week.

I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿

🔗 doctorivana.com.au

12/08/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE
THE HEART-BRAIN AXIS

Your heart and your brain are talking to each other — constantly.

The heart isn't just a pump.

It has its own network of neurons, and it sends signals to the brain just as much as it receives them — a bidirectional conversation science is still working to fully understand.

Part of that conversation includes our thoughts.

Emotional and mental states influence heart rhythm and vascular function, not just the other way around — which is part of why chronic stress is now understood as a genuine cardiovascular risk factor, not just a separate "mental health" one.

The autonomic nervous system is one pathway in this exchange.

One measure of it, heart rate variability, is well established in mainstream medicine — though outside the clinic it's often oversimplified by wellness culture as a simple daily "score," which isn't really what the science supports.

Add in shared risk factors — inflammation, blood vessel health, blood pressure — and it's clear why heart health and brain health are increasingly understood as connected, not separate systems.

For women of all ages, this interplay is nuanced — intertwined with shifts in s*x hormones through puberty, throughout the cycle, in perimenopause, and in menopause.

The science is still catching up, and there are real gaps in what's known, particularly around how these hormonal changes across a woman's lifespan shape this connection.

Knowing — and naming — what we still don't know is the first step toward new knowledge.

I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿

More next week.

🔗 doctorivana.com.au

05/08/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE

Last week we talked about your gut trying to tell you something. This week, let's talk about why it's talking louder right now.

There's a real, measurable connection between changing hormones and gut diversity — researchers call this the "estrobolome," the community of gut bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and other microbes that helps metabolise and regulate circulating oestrogen. This isn't in your head — the evidence for this link is solid.

What's still young is the science on solutions. We don't yet have long-term studies on which probiotic strains, supplements, or doses reliably help — and there isn't even strong evidence that HRT (MHT) makes a difference here. Anyone promising a precise "fix in a pill" is ahead of the evidence.

What we do have solid evidence for is what's always mattered — diet diversity, sleep, stress management, and movement. Eat the rainbow. A mostly plant-based, real-food diet has never mattered more than in this third stage of a woman's life, helping reduce risk across cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, genitourinary, mental health, breast cancer, and body composition outcomes.

Understanding this gap is part of learning to work with your body through this transition, not against it.

📖 Missed last week's post? doctorivana.com.au/blog/what-your-gut-has-been-trying-to-tell-you

I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿

More next week.

🔗 doctorivana.com.au

The estrobolome is the community of gut bacteria involved in how oestrogen is processed and recirculated. It runs both ways — your hormones shape your gut, and your gut helps shape your hormones. Here's what that means in perimenopause and menopause.

29/07/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE

What Your Gut Has Been Trying to Tell You

Your jeans still fit. Or maybe they don't.

Either way, something has shifted.

Bloating that wasn't there before. Foods you've eaten for years that suddenly don't agree with you. Digestion that feels unpredictable, sluggish, or just… different.

This is not only about what you're eating. It's also about when, how, why, and with whom.

There is a name for the conversation between your hormones and your gut: the estrobolome — the community of gut bacteria involved in how oestrogen is processed and recirculated. It runs both ways. Your hormones shape your gut, and your gut helps shape your hormones.

When oestrogen becomes erratic in perimenopause and starts declining in Menopause, that sensitivity shows up more loudly: in your microbiome, your gut motility, your inflammation. Most of all in women with autonomic dysregulation — because when the nervous system is unsettled, the gut feels it.

Most women are never told any of this.

Your gut is not failing you. It is responding to a shifting internal landscape — and that conversation is one you can take part in, through the choices you make every day.

Understanding it is where that begins.

🔗 doctorivana.com.au

I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿

More next week.

22/07/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE:
THE BRAIN FOG
You are not losing your mind.
But your brain is changing — and so is everything around it.
During perimenopause, shifting hormones directly affect how your brain processes information, stores memory, and manages focus.
And most women at this stage are also navigating the weight of being needed — by ageing parents, by partners, by kids, by workplaces that don't slow down, by the version of themselves everyone else still expects to show up.
Your brain is not broken. It is overloaded.
When we understand the brain as a system — one that processes your hormones, your body signals, your relationships, and your environment simultaneously — brain fog starts to make a different kind of sense.
And that shift in understanding changes everything.
🔗 doctorivana.com.au
I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿
More next week.

22/07/2026

Thank you to North Western Melbourne for their interest and for a conversation that looked at the bigger picture of midlife women’s health, rather than the reductionist framing of ‘MHT or not.’

To Dr Ivana Matic-Stancin, menopause and perimenopause are conditions requiring much more than a clinical response and pharmaceutical management. “More than half of my consultations are about midlife women’s transition through menopause,” she says. “The area has been my main focus for more t...

15/07/2026

MASTERING MENOPAUSE
Over the past five weeks, I've been sharing something that matters deeply to me.
It started with a personal story — how Mastering Menopause came to exist, and why I felt compelled to build it.
Then we went into what most of us were never told: what is actually happening in our bodies, our minds, our relationships during perimenopause and Menopause. Not the glossed-over version. The real one.
We explored why your psychology is not working against you — and what becomes possible when you understand what's driving your symptoms, your thoughts, your reactions.
And then we looked at what opens up when that understanding lands. Not a cure. Not a promise. A different relationship with what you're moving through.
The July cohort of Mastering Menopause begins this week — at Wattle Medical Group and Maxwell Medical Group in Melbourne's inner west.
If you missed this round, there will be another. I run this course at least twice a year, because this conversation doesn't stop being important.
If waiting doesn't suit you, I also offer a mini-group format — just 2 to 3 women at a time — exclusively at Maxwell Medical Group in Braybrook, with more flexible dates and times. A smaller, more intimate option for those who'd prefer not to wait for the next full cohort.
📍 Maxwell Medical Group, Braybrook
📞 03 7036 2450
🔗 doctorivana.com.au
I am Dr Ivana — GP, Lifestyle Physician, and a woman. 🌿
More next week