What happens between the moment women notice something and the moment medicine decides it is real?

In June 2026, women all over the internet started asking the same question: what happened to our periods?

That strange collective conversation sent me down a much bigger rabbit hole into menstrual cycles, the moon, women’s intuition, midwives and witches, unexplained infertility, and the long history of women noticing things before science had an answer for them.

In this episode, we explore:

• The menstrual mystery of June 2026 and what heat, light, seasonality, and even solar activity might (or might not) have had to do with it
• How observation becomes scientific evidence
• Why women’s bodies are rhythmic, even though medicine often studies them as static
• Whether women’s periods really sync
• Menstrual cycles and the moon
• How menstruation went from sacred and powerful to impure, pathological, and something women were expected to hide
• Midwives, women healers, herbal medicine, ergot, LSD, and the ancient roots hiding inside modern medicine
• What science can tell us about women’s intuition, interoception, pregnancy, and maternal knowing (and what it still can’t)
• How the witch became a symbol of dangerous female knowledge, and why she still matters
• Unexplained infertility and the important difference between there is no explanation and we haven’t found the explanation yet

The full episode transcript, citations and companion guide is available on Substack.

For more from me beyond the podcast, come hang out on Between Mind & Body on Substack, where I share full podcast transcripts and deeper companion content, essays, physician-created guides, emerging research, and the questions medicine has not quite answered yet.

Substack: Between Mind & Body
Instagram: @drmaryella
LinkedIn: Mary Ella Wood, DO, ABOIM

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribing, sharing it with a friend, or leaving a review helps more than you know.

Can a psychedelic experience leave measurable traces in the body long after the trip is over?

In this episode, we explore emerging research on how psychedelics may influence:

• DNA methylation and epigenetic signaling
• The immune system, inflammation, and cytokines
• The HPA axis, cortisol, and stress physiology
• Neuroplasticity and lasting changes in brain connectivity
• Cellular senescence, telomeres, oxidative stress, and longevity pathways
• The bigger case for rethinking the mind-body divide

Psychedelic science may be revealing something much larger than a drug effect: how experience itself becomes biology.

The companion guide, full episode transcript and all studies and sources cited, is available on Substack.

For more from me beyond the podcast, come hang out on Between Mind & Body on Substack, where I share full podcast transcripts and deeper companion content, essays, physician-created guides, emerging research, and the questions medicine has not quite answered yet.

Substack: Between Mind & Body
Instagram: @drmaryella
LinkedIn: Mary Ella Wood, DO, ABOIM

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribing, sharing it with a friend, or leaving a review helps more than you know.

Can you prevent preeclampsia? In this deep dive, we look at the root causes, proposed mechanisms, and holistic support strategies for one of the most serious complications of pregnancy. We are learning more about what may contribute to preeclampsia, including placental development, inflammation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, endothelial health, genetics, nutrient status, paternal factors, the microbiome, environmental toxins, and long-term cardiovascular risk.

Aspirin is one of the most recommended prevention tools, and in this episode we get into why it is used, what it actually does, and where its benefits seem strongest. But it turns out, there may be a lot more to the prevention conversation.

In this episode, we cover:

• What preeclampsia is and how it is diagnosed
• The two-stage model of preeclampsia: abnormal placental development and maternal vascular dysfunction
• Oxidative stress, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, platelet activation, and endothelial health
• Genetic factors: MTHFR, homocysteine, methylation issues
• Epigenetics: how lifestyle may influence gene expression in pregnancy
• Environmental toxins, including BPA, phthalates, PFAS, heavy metals, air pollution, and placental health
• The paternal factor: semen exposure, paternal antigens, sperm health, obesity, and immune tolerance
• Gut, vaginal, oral, and urinary microbiome research
• COVID infection, COVID vaccination data, and preeclampsia risk
• Why preeclampsia is linked to future cardiovascular disease
• What the evidence actually says about baby aspirin
• Supplements that may help with prevention: Calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, lycopene, omega-3s, CoQ10, NAC, and more
• Nutrition: the DASH diet, Mediterranean diet, fiber, probiotics, and food-first nutrition strategies
• Exercise in pregnancy and what we know about hypertensive disorders
• Sleep, obstructive sleep apnea, and preeclampsia risk
• Mind-body medicine, stress physiology, mindfulness, yoga, acupuncture, and blood pressure regulation
• How to think about prevention without fear, blame, or over-supplementing

The full episode transcript with citations for all studies mentioned can be found at: drmaryellawood.com

For more from me beyond the podcast, come hang out on Between Mind & Body on Substack, where I share full podcast transcripts and deeper companion content, essays, physician-created guides, emerging research, and the questions medicine has not quite answered yet.

Substack: Between Mind & Body
Instagram: @drmaryella
LinkedIn: Mary Ella Wood, DO, ABOIM

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribing, sharing it with a friend, or leaving a review helps more than you know.