Some medications for diabetes, blood pressure and reflux can sometimes be reduced alongside lifestyle change. Here's what the research says, why you never stop on your own, and what to track before your next appointment.

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and co-founders of Real L...

For some people, staying on a GLP-1 medication long term is the right call. For others, it isn't. Here's what the research says happens when people stop, and five things that help, whichever way you go.

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and co-founders of Real Life Medicine. Octo...

Bone loss speeds up around menopause, but your skeleton is still living tissue and it still responds to what you do. Here are five things that help protect it, so you can keep getting down on the floor with the grandkids (and back up again).

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and ...

High blood pressure is common, often silent, and much more changeable than most of us are told. Here's what's pushing yours up, and five things the research says can help bring it down.

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and co-founders of Real Life Medicine. October 2026.

You...

If you're doing “all the right things” and still not sleeping, you're not doing it wrong. Here's what's actually getting in the way, five techniques that help, and some extra tips for ADHD and neurodivergent brains.

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and co-founders of Real Life M...

You know about sleep, movement and blood sugar. Here are five less obvious things the research links to a lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline, starting with the shingles vaccine.

By Dr Lucy Burns and Dr Mary Barson, medical doctors and co-founders of Real Life Medicine. Updated September 2...

A new randomised trial found every diet can help you lose weight. Only one of them made a real difference to your liver.

Today, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine published one of the more useful diet trials we've seen in a while. It didn't ask whether weight loss helps your...

If you've ever walked into a room and forgotten why you're there, or struggled to find a word that's right on the tip of your tongue, you're in very good company. Changes in brain health are common in midlife, especially for women navigating perimenopause and menopause. And while brain fog can feel ...

Did you know that dementia is now the leading cause of death in women in Australia? And that women are twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as men?

The good news is that dementia is not inevitable. The science is clear: what you do in midlife matters enormously for your brain decades d...

Let’s talk about calories — the backbone of the dieting industry.

But what actually is a calorie?

A calorie is simply a unit of energy. Technically, it’s the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C.

We use calories to measure how much energy is in food, and we e...

Menopause brings significant hormonal changes that can affect multiple systems in the body and many of these changes are permanent. So yes, the perimenopause period, where hormones fluctuate, can be challenging, but the permanent decrease in hormones in the post-menopause period brings its own set o...

Lasting behaviour change doesn’t come from willpower alone. Real, sustainable transformation happens when you understand why your health matters to you on a deeply personal level. At Real Life Medicine, we teach that connecting your daily actions to your internal motivation — your why — is one of th...