Live Well Be Well with Sarah Ann Macklin | Health, Lifestyle, Nutrition Brain Fog, Weight Gain, Poor Sleep: Dr. Stacy Sims on Why Women Are Given SSRIs Instead of Answers
Mar 23, 2026
Dr. Stacy Sims, an exercise physiologist and researcher focused on female physiology and hormonal health. She explains how perimenopause can start years earlier than expected. Short segments cover why mid-30s weight gain, poor sleep, and brain fog are misread as stress, how anovulatory cycles and the gut-hormone axis matter, and why medicine often prescribes SSRIs instead of answers.
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Perimenopause Often Starts In Your Early 30s
- Perimenopause commonly begins earlier than assumed, often around age 32 to 35.
- Stacy Sims explains symptoms often start years before overt signs, so mid-30s women can already be perimenopausal.
Doctors Often Prescribe SSRIs Instead Of Hormone Answers
- Many physicians misattribute perimenopausal symptoms like weight gain, poor sleep and 'tired but wired' to stress and prescribe SSRIs.
- Sims calls out that SSRIs are often handed out instead of addressing hormonal causes.
Anovulatory Cycles Link Hormones Gut Microbiome And Fat
- Perimenopause increases anovulatory cycles which alter hormone metabolism and gut microbiome diversity.
- Sims links reduced gut microbes that unbind sex hormones to more visceral fat and gut symptoms like bloating and altered bowel movements.