About Inês
Inês Santos Silva is a Portuguese entrepreneur working at the intersection of women's health, preventive medicine, and longevity. She is Co-Founder and COO of TejoMed, a membership-based family medicine clinic in Lisbon built around personalized, preventive care — and part of the team behind AthenaDAO, which funds research into women's health.
Her work grew out of personal experience: after struggling with health issues that fell between medical specialties in her mid-twenties, Inês began researching the gaps in women's healthcare herself. She found a field shaped almost entirely by male biology — from clinical trials to diagnostic thresholds — and decided to help change it.
Today she is focused on building better science, better data, and more personalized care for women across every stage of life — from hormonal shifts in their twenties to the long-term consequences of ovarian aging and menopause.
What You'll Learn
The women's health blind spot. Why medicine still treats women as a variation of the male body — and what that costs in diagnosis, treatment, and longevity outcomes.
The ovarian aging question. What menopause, fertility, and women's long-term health have in common — and why the science is still catching up to the biology.
The hormonal misdiagnosis. Why symptoms like low energy, depression, and loss of drive are routinely dismissed as mental health issues when the full hormonal picture hasn't been examined.
The longevity obsession trap. How health optimization can become another source of pressure — and why the most effective protocol is the one that actually fits your life.
The social connection prescription. Why belonging, purpose, and time with other people may be among the most underestimated drivers of resilience, peak performance, and healthspan.
Key Takeaways
1
Women's bodies are not smaller male bodies — but medicine treated them that way for 200 years. Most clinical research used male subjects as the default. The downstream effects on diagnosis, dosing, and treatment for women are still being mapped — and still causing real harm today.
2
Ovarian aging may be the central lever for female longevity. The ovaries are the fastest-aging organ in the female body. They regulate not just fertility but hormones that govern cardiovascular health, bone density, cognition, and metabolic function. Delaying menopause could reframe the entire female healthspan conversation.
3
Hormonal imbalances are routinely mislabelled as anxiety or depression. Women come to TejoMed saying they don't feel like themselves — lost drive, low energy, mood shifts. The medical default is psychiatric labels. The real driver is often hormonal. Inês believes continuous hormone tracking (like CGMs for glucose) is coming — and it can't come fast enough.
4
Endometriosis affects 1 in 10 women and takes 7–10 years to diagnose. Once diagnosed, the standard response is suppression — not solution. PCOS follows the same pattern. These are not niche issues: they affect hundreds of millions of women globally, yet research funding remains a fraction of what comparable conditions attract.
5
Women live longer but spend 25% more time in poor health. Around nine additional years in poor health — a gap that is almost entirely preventable with better science, earlier intervention, and care that actually reflects female biology. Longevity for women isn't just about lifespan. It's about healthspan.
6
The best protocol is the one you actually do. Inês never obsesses over perfection. If she eats something she shouldn't, she moves on — just doesn't do it two days in a row. Her insight: the transition from protocol to habit is the real goal. A checklist you follow is useful; a lifestyle you live is transformational.
7
Social connection is the most underweighted longevity lever. Inês closed the episode by naming belonging and purpose — not supplements, not biomarkers — as her top priority for the future of longevity. We are in a crisis of belonging, she says, and we need to be far more intentional about reversing it.
"Women are 51.5% of the world's population. It's funny — people call this a niche. If it's a niche, it's the biggest niche in the world."
"A lot of the times, women are treated for depression. What they actually have is hormonal imbalances — and we completely miss it."
"Being at my peak is when I feel that energy in me — mental and physical at the same time. There are seasons where that's easier to find. But that's what I'm looking for."
Disclaimer
Medical disclaimer. The information in this episode is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making decisions about your health.
