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Straight talk: Why we need to talk about hormones beyond reproduction
Knowing that our hormones are fluctuating in a healthy pattern is important at any life stage
When we say hormones, we often think about the reproductive hormones testosterone and oestrogen. Very few know that hormones are, in fact, responsible for every function in our bodies.
Hormones are chemicals secreted by our glands in order to send “messages” through the bloodstream, simply letting the body know what to do to run smoothly. Indeed, they regulate growth, sex drive, reproduction and metabolism, but they are also integral to our digestive, immune, urinary, nervous, cardiovascular, respiratory and skeletal systems.
When it comes to hormonal fluctuations – during menstruation and beyond – experts agree that there is a big education gap. A report published by the female-founded cycle company Fewe found that, of the 2,000 participants interviewed, more than half believed the menstrual cycle was just one week long, while 90 per cent did not see a correlation between their hormones and their health. The same number did not consider management of hormones as an important way to improve their health and wellness.
“What really surprises me is that even us, as women, don’t understand our hormones,” says Sarah Bolt, founder of the biomarker tracking platform, Forth. “Often hormones are talked about in relation to reproduction, but they are so important to our everyday health.”
The lack of knowledge is even more prevalent in regard to perimenopause and menopause. “The two are used very much interchangeably,” Bolt explains. “We see more conversations around periods, but there’s still such a long way to go. Menopause is getting a lot of publicity at the moment, helped by figures like Davina McCall and her recent programme, but we know we need to do a lot more to educate women about the importance of their hormones, how they fluctuate and how they impact all areas of their health. It’s not just about having children.”
Her company, Forth, offers a full range of tests – from liver function tests to immune system, thyroid and hormone tests, providing detailed insights and advice on how to help your body perform to its best. MyFORM, a female hormone mapping test available to women who want to check if their hormones are fluctuating in the correct pattern, is one of them.
The test is suitable for women who want to check their fertility, identify or manage a hormone-related condition such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but also for those wanting to check if their hormone network is healthy or for sportswomen who may be at risk of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S).
The idea behind the at-home test came after Sarah, working for the NHS, noticed how often women’s symptoms and hormonal imbalances were ignored. “Women were not being listened to particularly during perimenopause and menopause,” the founder tells me. “Our chief medical officer, Dr Nicky Keay, is an endocrinology specialist and she was frustrated because the tests at that time were not able to capture whether a woman’s hormones were fluctuating in the correct pattern during the entire length of her cycle.
“I myself had been going through perimenopause and I listened to all of my friends going through it. Very often they weren’t being given the correct information by GPs or they ended up being put on antidepressants. So, we decided to look at how we could come up with a solution.”
By combining blood analysis and information about your cycle length, the hormone test mathematically maps how each of your four ovarian hormones fluctuate across your entire cycle and it gives you a detailed, personalised report with next step actions.
MyFORM home kit
“Knowing that your hormones are fluctuating in the healthy correct pattern is important at any life stage and for general wellbeing,” Bolt points out. “So, our bigger goal is to educate women about these hormones and how important they are to their everyday well-being. We recognise those who are on fertility journeys, but we also look at women experiencing conditions like PCOS that they may not even know about.”
MyFORM can also be particularly useful for women who are doing a lot of exercise and who can develop relative energy deficiency syndrome that causes fatigue, low energy, disordered eating, menstrual dysfunction and low bone mineral density.
“Their periods just stop completely,” the founder says. “And that really starts to compromise their health. If you’ve got an imbalance in energy in and energy out, your body will start to go into survival mode. The test identifies if there is a drop in hormones and help you understand the relationship between those variations and how you feel.”
Once they order the blood test, women need to collect a sample on day 14 and day 21 of their cycle and then post it back to the company’s lab. The results are then available on their online account within two working days. Sarah says that women are very surprised when they get the results, because they’ve never been given this kind of information before. “They find it really insightful.”
She tells me that the next step is to expand Forth beyond the UK and develop “an ecosystem” that takes care of women’s health. “I’m also hoping to raise more awareness and help women spot some of the conditions that they might have,” the founder continues. “One of the things that women don’t realise is that the drop in their hormones can really impact their bone health. That is why athletes, for example, have a drop in their hormones and get more injury-prone, because their bone health becomes compromised. That is also why many women develop osteoporosis post-menopause.
“So, we want to open up this conversation because it’s just a natural part of women’s life. There’s nothing embarrassing. Why would it?”
By Con Raso, managing director, Tuned Global
Music and movement are neurologically intertwined. Tempo influences pace, rhythm supports endurance, and familiar tracks can reduce perceived exertion.
Beyond physiology, music creates shared moments. It sets the atmosphere, builds anticipation and turns individual activity into collective experience.
For sports, wellness and fitness brands, this means music selection needs to align with brand values, customer experiences and emotional outcomes.
Well-chosen music increases workout intensity and duration, improves customer retention, strengthens brand recognition, creates community and cultural relevance, and opens new partnership models.
When delivered through properly licensed, data-informed systems, these outcomes become measurable and scalable.
Music also gives brands a way to stay culturally connected to their audience. The question for operators is how to use music strategically and legally.
This is especially important because the way brands approach music has changed significantly.
Early adoption in wellness, fitness and leisure centres often meant plugging in a Spotify playlist and hoping for the best.
Today’s leading sports and fitness innovators are far more sophisticated, curating music experiences that are brand-led, data-informed, tailored to specific audiences and workouts and fully licensed for commercial use.
This shift is being powered by specialist music technology platforms like Tuned Global, which works behind the scenes with brands to manage licensing, catalogue access, analytics and distribution at scale.
Rather than forcing sports brands to become music experts, these platforms allow them to offer legally compliant music in commercial environments, control curation across locations or content formats, and adapt music to different activities and intensities.
Through advanced APIs and centralised cloud infrastructure, operators can manage licensing, catalogue access and music governance at scale, while maintaining full creative control.
They also provide the reporting required by rights holders and integrate music into apps, devices, wearables and connected platforms. The result is music that feels intentional, on-brand and deeply embedded in the experience.
Music in action
Lululemon Studio and Mirror: At-home Fitness and Health
When Lululemon acquired Mirror, it marked a shift towards fully connected, at-home fitness where content, coaching and atmosphere converge.
Music plays a key role in making those workouts feel immersive and motivating, especially without a physical studio or shared space.
Instructors needed access to curated, commercially licensed music delivered consistently across live and on-demand workouts, while remaining compliant with music rights regulations.
Tuned Global provided Lululemon Studio with a branded playlisting app solution that enabled instructors to curate fully licensed music tailored to each workout.
Drawing from a licensed commercial catalogue and supported by usage reporting to rights holders, the system ensured compliance while giving instructors the flexibility to design high-energy, brand-aligned sessions.
The result was a seamless blend of movement, coaching and sound that makes digital workouts feel immersive and premium.
Psycle London: Performance Led Experiences
Con Raso
Boutique fitness studio Psycle London has built a loyal following by transforming workouts into performance-led experiences where music is central to the brand.
Each class is choreographed to sound, with instructors designing sessions that build emotional peaks and sustained intensity.
As Psycle expanded its digital and on-demand offering, it needed a way to give more than 70 instructors access to fully licensed commercial music while protecting the business from legal and reputational risk.
Tuned Global delivered a branded playlisting app that enabled Psycle’s instructors to search a cleared commercial catalogue by artist, genre or BPM, preview full tracks and build tailored playlists for classes ranging from high-intensity rides to strength and conditioning.
Behind the scenes, the music is delivered through secure API infrastructure integrated into Psycle’s own platform, with automated reporting to rights holders and support across label and publishing negotiations.
By combining creative flexibility with licensing governance, Psycle were able to scale its music-led experience across studio and digital environments without compromising on brand integrity, compliance or operational control.
Steezy: Movement and Music
Steezy, one of the world’s leading online dance platforms, sits at the intersection of sport, movement and music.
For dancers, music is not background sound. It defines timing, style and expression.
As Steezy scaled internationally, music became both its greatest asset and its biggest operational challenge. Delivering classes built around commercial tracks created both operational complexity and significant licensing risk.
Tuned Global provided the licensed music catalogue delivery infrastructure that enabled Steezy instructors to search a cleared catalogue, curate playlists tailored to specific classes, and prepare sessions using full commercial tracks.
The system ensured that music used across Steezy’s app and desktop platform was properly licensed and reported to rights holders, supporting global expansion without exposing the business or its creators to legal liability.
By combining instructor-friendly tooling with robust licensing governance, Steezy was able to continue growing its international dance community while keeping music at the centre of the experience.
A wider wellness ecosystem
For wellness, sports, fitness and leisure operators considering deeper music integration, a few principles stand out.
First, treat music as a product feature. It should support the outcome you want, whether that is higher intensity, calm recovery, emotional connection or brand recognition.
Second, get licensing right from day one. Using consumer streaming services in commercial environments exposes brands to legal and reputational risk.
For example, In 2019, more than 20 music publishing groups filed a $150 million copyright lawsuit against Peloton, alleging the company used more than 1000 unlicensed songs in its workout videos.
In another example, just last year the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia ordered a Sydney gym chain owner and five of his companies to pay more than $235,000 in damages and interest after operating multiple locations without a valid OneMusic licence.
Third, give creators freedom while maintaining brand control. Instructors, coaches and athletes bring personality, so give them tools to curate music safely within brand guidelines.
Last but not least, use data to refine the experience.
Track how music impacts engagement, completion rates and retention, because music is measurable. Finally, think cross-platform.
Your music strategy should work across physical venues, mobile apps, connected devices and on-demand content. Consistency builds trust.
What’s ahead for music as a performance tool
Music in wellness will become even more adaptive. As AI, biofeedback and real-time analytics become more embedded in fitness technology, music will increasingly respond dynamically to heart rate, pace or emotional state.
Early implementations in health and performance environments are already demonstrating how adaptive music can optimise outcomes.
As wearable technology and connected fitness continue to evolve, music will play an increasingly central role in shaping personalised experiences.
The infrastructure choices operators make now will determine how easily they can adopt these capabilities later. Those who invest early in licensed, data-informed music systems will be best placed to innovate without risk.
Music is a performance tool, a brand asset and a powerful lever for engagement. The examples above show that this applies at every scale, from a single boutique studio to a global combat sports brand.
The most successful innovators understand that when music and movement align, something special happens. With the right technology and licensing in place, that can scale.
About Con Raso, Managing Director of Tuned Global
Con Raso is an entrepreneur passionate about innovation, new technologies, and start-ups.
Over the last few decades he has focused on creating innovative mobile and online distribution models within the B2C entertainment market, enabling brands to utilise music as a marketing tool, via unique customer engagement strategies.
Being inherently well-versed in both technology and music, Con ensures our solutions are aesthetically pleasing, engaging and disruptive.
About Tuned Global
Tuned Global is the leading data-driven Cloud Music Platform that empowers businesses to integrate commercial music into their apps or launch complete streaming experiences using advanced APIs, real-time analytics, licensing solutions, music intelligence and customisable white-label apps.
Our turnkey solutions for music, audio, and video, coupled with a broad ecosystem of third-party music tech integrations, make us the most comprehensive platform for powering digital music projects.
We streamline complexities in licensing, rights management, content delivery and music discovery, enabling rapid innovation and bringing new ideas to life.
Since 2011, we’ve supported 40+ companies in 70+ countries — across telecom, fitness, media, aviation, and more — to deliver innovative music experiences faster and more cost-effectively.
For more information, visit www.tunedglobal.com.
To mark International Women’s Day, Women’s HealthX released a new eBook exploring one of the biggest challenges in healthcare today: the sex difference data gap.
Women’s HealthX spoke with leading voices from Mass General Brigham, NYC Health + Hospitals, GSD Health Research and WomanCentered to explore how the healthcare industry can close the sex difference data gap and build a more equitable healthcare system for women.
In this special interview series, they share recommendations for the industry to ensure women are properly represented in research, data, and care.
What you’ll gain from reading this eBook:
• Ways we can work towards closing the sex difference data gap in healthcare research
• The biggest barriers preventing women from accessing equitable care
• The innovations that could transform women’s health in the next decade
• How digital health can expand access to care
• What meaningful allyship looks like in healthcare leadership
• How women can advocate for their health in clinical settings
• The changes experts believe the healthcare industry must make now
Register for the event to download the eBook for free here.
Registration is free for all our end users in pharma and biotech, hospitals, insurers, enterprises and policy makers.
Oestrogen helps protect premenopausal women from hypertension by relaxing and widening blood vessels, according to new research examining why women develop high blood pressure less often before menopause.
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, affects more than a billion people worldwide and is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke.
Premenopausal women are less likely to develop the condition than men or postmenopausal women, but the biological reason has been unclear.
Researchers used a mathematical model of the cardiovascular and kidney systems to analyse how oestrogen influences blood pressure.
The analysis found that oestrogen’s strongest protective effect comes from vasodilation, the process by which blood vessels relax and widen, helping blood flow more easily and lowering pressure in the arteries.
Anita Layton, Canada 150 Research Chair Laureate in Mathematical Biology and Medicine and professor of applied mathematics, said: “Oestrogen is often thought of only in terms of reproductive health, but it plays a much broader role in how the body functions.
“It affects how blood vessels respond, how the kidneys regulate fluids and how different systems communicate with one another.
“What we found is that its impact on blood vessels is especially important for regulating blood pressure.”
The findings may also have implications for treating women after menopause, when oestrogen levels naturally decline.
The model predicted that angiotensin receptor blockers, a common class of blood pressure drugs, could be more effective than another widely used treatment group known as angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors in treating women with hypertension, even after oestrogen levels decline after menopause.
Layton said her team has spent years developing a mathematical model of women’s kidneys and the cardiovascular system, designed to explore how different biological mechanisms affect blood pressure.
The model allows researchers to test individual effects separately and examine how each influences the body.
“We can turn on one effect, then another, and see exactly how each one affects the body,” Layton said.
She added: “For too long, women’s health, especially older women’s health, has been overlooked by medicine.
“Understanding how age and sex affect the body and, therefore, treatment, is an equity issue.”
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