How the rich and famous beat the menopause
Cycling in salty water. Being cradled like a baby. And tips from the self-styled ‘hormone king of Europe’
WHEN I finally meet him, Dr Pinto Coelho looks exactly as any selfrespecting worldfamous 68-year-old anti-ageing guru, TV personality and bestselling author should — barely nudging 50, with impossibly smooth and mahogany tanned, elastic skin, bright eyes, huge blingy watch and the most beautifully manicured hands I have ever seen.
He takes one look at me and grins, showing startlingly white teeth.
‘I will give you 20 years back. I will make you look prettier. You will not feel old. You will not feel tired. You will be able to get out of your bed in zee morning and attack zee day. But it is all about zee bioidentical hormones. Zee hormones they are Fun. Da. Men. Tal!’
He is almost shouting with his passion for all things hormonal.
‘Look at me! Ever since I started taking hormones I have got younger and younger. Look at my wife! Look at my daughter, Lara’ — here he grabs a silver photo frame and shows me his beautiful 35-year-old (second) wife and five children, ranging from their mid-40s to baby Lara (born last year).
Wow. Wow. Triple wow. I am 20 years younger than Dr Pinto, but I feel distinctly grey and papery beside him. He gleams with good health, throbs with it, almost.
But so he should. He is the hormone king of Europe, possibly the world, and clearly practises what he preaches. He treats the Portuguese prime minister, film stars, celebrities and athletes. But
most of all he looks after hormonally depleted women of a certain age who jet in from all over, hoping he will turn back their body clocks, improve their skin, restore their flagging libidos and generally perk everything up a bit.
At this stage I should say that I am 48, with two young sons aged four and five, a full-time job, a very busy life and an extremely messy house. Recently I have been suffering from appalling sleeplessness, constant bags under my eyes and a worrying level of forgetfulness — all of which sound rather too much like symptoms of the perimenopause (the hormonal change that usually affects women from their mid-40s) to ignore.
So when I got the chance to have a hormonal MoT with the king of bioidentical hormones — artificially produced hormones that are emerging as a far better alternative to HRT — I jumped at it. Because securing an appointment with Dr Coelho is not easy.
‘Go on! Call zee number and try,’ he cries, reeling off his assistant’s phone number in full. ‘You will not get zee appointment for six months, I promise!’
Happily, though, he is the star draw of a new week-long menopause spa break (yes, really) offered by the Palacio Estoril, a vast Thirties five-star hotel just outside Lisbon, which has long attracted a colourful clientele — Allied spies during World War II, James Bond author Ian Fleming (the hotel was the inspiration for Casino Royale), footballers, politicians, pop stars and the Portuguese royal family.
Lately, the hotel and its new state-of-the-art Banyan Spa and medical facility has been invaded by middleaged women desperate to cure their hot flushes, memory loss and lack of concentration — and even, they hope, to regain a bit of bounce in the bedroom.
ICHECKED in for a few days to see what all the fuss was about. First things first. The place is gorgeous — a haven of thick white robes, subdued lighting and shiny floors. But not quite as eyecatching as the staff, all of whom are ridiculously attractive and impossibly youthful.
My visit kicks off with something called a ‘Quantic medicine biofeedback consultation’, in which Dr Margarida Garcia, who looks about 17 but is actually 35, straps electrodes to my head, wrists and ankles and monitors my readings on her computer.
‘It’s sending out different frequencies to measure electro-magnetic polarities around your body — it’s a bit like an electro-cardiogram.’
Which means she can tell if I am lacking in anything — a particular vitamin, for instance — or reacting badly to certain things.
It turns out that my jaw is inflamed, I can’t cope with lentils or hot chilli too well, have no problem with wheat or dairy and, rather more worryingly, have difficulty remembering things.
Some things, she says, she can ‘tweak’ using electromagnetic pulses controlled by her computers. For others — such as vitamin deficiencies — she prescribes supplements and tells me that in a month I will feel loads better.
All her findings, together with the results of blood tests taken in my hotel room early in the morning, are fed back to the great Dr Coelho (currently tucked away in a villa in the Algarve, sunbathing and writing his ‘third bestseller’) for our consultation at the end.
The spa has a two-pronged attack, so there are hightech medical diagnostic tests to find out how we are ageing and what’s going on with our hormones, but also a raft of alternative (some too alternative even for me) treatments designed to ease the ravages of hormone depletion — namely tiredness, stress, lack of libido and loss of collagen and muscle tone in some pretty intimate areas (more of which later if you can face it) through exercise, diet and a bizarre selection of thermal water therapies.
Most of these last are conducted by a lovely ponytailed chap called Paulo. He has very white teeth, an extraordinary calm and is big on eye contact.
Paulo has dedicated his life to healing, is just back from six years studying in Taiwan and is a hot favourite among English guests.
‘He is very special, but most of all it is his hands — his touch!’ says the spa’s (very attractive) hotel PR. ‘Some of our English ladies have been so affected by Paulo’s touch that after they left, they wrote to him directly!’
My first meeting with Paulo and his amazing hands takes place in our swimsuits in the dynamic thermal pool for something called watsu — or water shiatsu — that must take place in water at a temperature of 34c. It is a bizarre mixture of massage, floating and being cradled like a baby and slowly swirled this way and that. It takes a bit of getting used to. As he puts it: ‘Sometimes when people start they are like a dried codfish — you know it, it is a Portuguese speciality? But then
half-way through
Hormone expert Dr PINTO COELHO ‘Don’t wait until the menopause. Start taking hormones NOW whatever your symptoms’
they just sort of melt.’
Indeed. His touch is astonishingly gentle. Apparently some people cry. Others fall asleep. Sometimes even Paulo falls asleep, he tells me — ‘if the mood is right’ — though what happens to his cradled client then is anyone’s guess.
Less relaxing is something called hydrobike, which is effectively a spin class on a bike in warm, salty thermal waters. (Dr Coelho is almost as passionate about salt water as he is about bioidentical hormones — he bathes in it, spritzes himself with it and drinks a litre of diluted seawater every day — ‘It is the elixir of life!’ he says.)
You’d think pounding through hot, strangely viscous water to the thumping beat of Portuguese pop would be the last thing anyone suffering from menopausal sweats would want to put herself through, but the class is full of very friendly middle-aged women pedalling madly.
You never know who’s here on the menopause spa package because it’s all handled with the utmost discretion by the staff. But once you get your eye in, you can see likely candidates everywhere — discreetly fanning themselves with menu cards, gently loosening their white fluffy robes to let a nice cold breeze in, fretting over thickening middles and chronic sleeplessness.
Even better — and harder to miss — is the astonishing number of extremely attractive Portuguese men with lovely thick dark hair and very small swimming trunks who frequent the spa area.
Most likely they’re just local celebrities or football players — the 130-room hotel is a favourite with both. Whatever, I’m sure that in their own way they are doing their bit to jump-start flagging libidos.
ON THE subject of libidos, upstairs in the women’s physical therapy department are two very discreet ladies called Philippa and Marian.
They are here to help those who, due to depleted vaginal muscle tone, have become incontinent and lost sexual enjoyment or, for want of a better phrase, ‘vaginal oomph’.
Using a combination of very hands-on massage and physiotherapy using a series of weights, they help rebuild vaginas from the inside out and are adored by their grateful clients.
‘The more we strengthen the muscles, the more blood circulation and the more sexual pleasure,’ says Philippa.
‘Now it is still a taboo, but things are changing,’ she adds. ‘It’s a very rewarding job.’
I’m afraid I can’t comment further as I gave this one a miss — though I did try the Vichy Shower massage and jet shower, which was a bit like being hosed down by a member of the Fire Brigade aiming closely at your wobbly bits as you hold on to a metal frame in your swimsuit; and the traditional Chinese acupuncture, by the lovely Paulo again, which left me feeling markedly calmer and lighter.
I also attended some brilliant aerobics classes and saw Patricia the nutritionist (again, stunningly beautiful) who praised the benefits of occasional fasting, abhorred sugar, recommended that menopausal women should eat more meat and protein to retain muscle mass and loved working alongside Dr Coelho.
Wherever I go, his name pops up — usually in awe.
Dr Garcia describes him as ‘bold’ and ‘brilliant’.
Others say he is ‘flamboyant and fearless’.
He is not everyone’s cup of tea thanks to his highly outspoken views, not just on the anti-ageing properties of hormones and salt water, but also statins — which he says are ‘rubbish’ and should be avoided at all costs.
But it is bioidentical hormones — artificially created hormones that are an exact chemical match for those made naturally by our bodies — that really get him going and on my final day, when he kindly leaves his typewriter and sun-lounger and travels specially to Lisbon to see me, he is so animated it is almost disconcerting. ‘Bioidentical hormones are not one-sizefits-all like the normal Hormone Replacement Therapy. This is like a bespoke suit — made to measure — we all know the difference and we all need them.’ What, even men? ‘Of course men! We all need them. I take 21 tablets a day and I have done for five years.’
Which sounds like an awful lot of tablets, but he looks good on it. So good, I ask whether he he’s had any cosmetic surgery — and his head nearly blows off in indignation.
‘I have never never never had zee surgery!’ What, not even just a little bit of Botox?
‘Why would I put zee poison in my skin? That is just stupid. This all down to hormones!’ he cries. ‘I already look ten years younger, so just imagine what I’ll look like in another ten years!’
HE ALSO eats neither dairy nor wheat, only very occasionally has sugar, takes regular exercise and is given an extra spring in his step by his very beautiful Brazilian wife Diana, whom he met in a bar in Brazil ten years ago, when she was 25.
‘I always said I’d never marry a Brazilian because we Portuguese have preconceptions against Brazilians. But it was love at first sight.’ Indeed, they were engaged in two days and married three months later.
‘I have to stay young for her! That is why I do all this.’
And then he’s galloping off again, rattling through hormones — DHEA, oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone — like old friends and showing me pictures of menopausal women looking tired before the Coelho treatment — until finally I haul him back to me and my hormones.
He is still waiting for the results, he says, but that doesn’t matter because his recommendation will be the same anyway. Forget the menopause, just start taking hormones as soon as possible.
‘It makes no sense to wait! That is what I tell anyone over the age of 35 because this is when our hormones start depleting. We have to restore them — low and slow is my motto — before all the symptoms start.’
I must look startled because he jumps up, takes my hands and looks at me very kindly.
‘I am here for you now. I take care of you — personally. You are in my hands now.’
Which is, of course, wonderfully reassuring.
And it has to be said, after three nights at the Palacio being pampered, prodded and generally fussed over in all the right places, I am already feeling restored — I’m sleeping like a log, my skin looks better, I am uncharacteristically calm and relaxed and haven’t forgotten anything for days.