Dr Flutura Harold on hormones, sleep and real longevity

1. You've spoken about your own health battle. What did that experience teach you that medical school didn't, and how does it shape the way you sit with patients today?

It taught me that being a doctor doesn't mean you will not have any health issues. You can have the best medical knowledge and still, at some point, your own health can be compromised.

Traditional medical school taught me how to diagnose illness. It didn't teach me the root cause of illness, how interconnected everything is: the stress from work, the long hours, the lack of sleep, and the hormonal transition that comes with age and the journey toward perimenopause and menopause. It is all about prevention.

So, I looked beyond the symptoms. I used specifically dedicated hormone advanced testing and diagnostics. What was my lifestyle? What was stress doing to me? What was my body trying to tell me when I couldn't lose even one kilo?

Only when I optimized my hormones, the way how I trained versus how much I was eating to be functional, improved how I handle stress did I get to where I am now.

At my age, I feel I can do more than a woman 20 years younger.

That is how I sit with patients today. We move from reacting to illness to knowing yourself, so you are prepared before something strikes.

2. You trained as an anesthesiologist in intensive care, where the work is about saving lives in a crisis. What made you move toward preventing illness long before it starts?

In the ICU and in acute care, we were saving lives, but I realized there was something deeper. Why were these people so sick? Many of the cases coming into the ER were preventable: diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks, and many of the conditions I saw in trauma center.

The whole idea behind functional and longevity medicine is to stop waiting for people to become very ill. We identify problems early and optimize health, and that way you live longer and feel better.

3. You bring together conventional medicine, functional medicine and Ayurveda. Where do these approaches support each other, and where do they disagree?

Conventional medicine is extremely powerful. It gives us diagnostics, evidence-based treatment and emergency care. If you are bleeding, functional medicine won't stop it; you go to the surgeon and get stitched. But it complements beautifully with functional medicine, Ayurveda and Chinese medicine, because wisdom goes beyond treating disease with drugs alone.

That wisdom says: eat this, avoid that, don't drink alcohol because it harms your cells, sleep earlier because you are missing the window for your hormones, calm your mind. It connects lifestyle, nutrition and the mind–body relationship. My philosophy is simple: marry traditional medicine with these systems, that exist for thousands of years.

Where they disagree is mostly about recognition. I'm a yoga teacher too, and I became one for my own mind–body connection, not to make money teaching.

Yet conventional medicine has long not recognized yoga in the same way. In one exam I was asked what an woman in menopause should do for physical activity as advice: 1) exercise 30 minutes three times a week, 2) daily yoga, or 3) nothing. I chose yoga, because I knew this woman would benefit more from yoga daily. But the "correct" answer was exercise 30 minutes for 3 times a week, because that is what the current guidelines recognize. There is no recognition to yoga practice.

To be fair, medicine wants large randomized clinical trials before it endorses something, while the yoga community isn't waiting for that. The good news is that this is changing: integrative and traditional approaches are now starting to be recognized by the WHO as part of lifestyle care.

4. Longevity is everywhere right now, from IV drips to cryotherapy and red light therapy. Which trends are actually backed by science, and which can people skip?

The foundations of longevity are very clear. Professor Valter Longo has published studies on how Mediterranean-style nutrition supports a long life, as seen in the Blue Zones. My own country isn't officially a Blue Zone, but I've seen it in my family: my grandfather lived to 99 (some relatives insist 100!) and was healthy to his last day. He lived in the mountains, ate wonderful food, worked until the end and kept a calm mind. Fresh air, no toxins, good food: these are real things.

The most powerful tools are still sleep, nutrition, metabolic health, and maintaining muscle through proper hormone optimization.

The hype is when someone says, "Come for one NAD drip and the magic will happen." There is no magic bullet in longevity. It's an everyday bullet: what you do every day determines how you age.

That said, these treatments are not hype when they are part of a personalized, multi-layered programme. For someone who is highly stressed or insulin resistant, a programme with proper detoxification, recovery and the right combination of interventions works. It's just never one intervention on its own.

5. Hot flushes, brain fog and poor sleep have almost become accepted as "normal" for women in perimenopause and menopause. What do you wish women knew about their hormones in their 30s, 40s and 50s?

It's my wish for all women, and one I had for myself back when I was simply an anaesthesiologist with no training in hormonal health: hormonal changes don't happen overnight. They don't begin at menopause; they begin 10 to 15 years earlier. How you prepare during that time will determine how severe your symptoms are, whether that's sleep, mood, body composition, energy, libido or concentration.There is a way to get ready, and to personalize care around this change, including the right hormone dosages for you.

I see lots of posts in social media around eat well and train 3 to 5 time a week and you will feel amazing and look amazing but just eating right and training is not enough. I have women patients daily that can’t achieve their goals by just eating right and training. One thought she was training hard and eating well, I just looked at her and said – are you struggling to build muscle? She said yes, I said pls measure your testosterone- then discovered her testosterone levels were so low and after starting hormone replacement therapy she felt herself again.

So pay attention to the small signals. How we age is shaped by our DNA, but also by our patterns: what we eat, how we move, how we sleep. Listening to those signals and personalizing care can make us stronger.

6. Mental clarity and emotional strength matter as much as physical health. How do stress and emotional wellbeing show up in the body, and what do you see clinically?

Some stress is healthy. The problem is when it becomes chronic and we simply carry on without noticing the signals: I'm not sleeping well, my blood pressure isn't good, I get sick often, my digestion is off, I lose my temper more easily. I see so many people who look amazing on the outside but are exhausted, and their labs confirm it.

Clinically, chronic stress shows up through cortisol spikes and a disrupted circadian rhythm, with consequences across the whole body: the gut, sleep, immune function, hormones and blood sugar. If you put a continuous glucose monitor on a highly stressed person, you can see glucose spikes even when they haven't eaten. It's all correlated with their stress.

So we look at the full picture: how did you get here, how do you sleep, how can you recover better, and how do you manage stress? A gut test or a nutritionist's food plan alone isn't enough. We can't treat body and mind separately. They have to be treated together.

7. What happens when someone comes to see you for the first time at Longevity Hub by Clinique La Prairie, and what challenges do people usually come in with?

We prefer to call them clients rather than patients, because most people come to us for a prevention journey first. Beyond that, we see women and men going through menopause or andropause, and people with diabetes or lifestyle-related weight concerns.

Some of most common concerns are: "I don't sleep well." "I can't lose weight." "I'm so stressed, please do something." "I have no energy." Or I cant build muscle, though I eat well and train a lot Or, "Are there new treatments I should know about?"

My approach starts with listening very carefully. I take a full medical history, physical assessment, diagnostics, biomarkers and evaluate every symptom carefully in correlation to hormones and lifestyle habits. Then I prepare personalized protocols. For me, hormones are key to the longevity pathways, so I look at whether the hormones are balanced, alongside nutrition habits, body composition, training and other relevant biomarkers, and their lifestyle as a whole.

My philosophy of longevity is inside and out. Because my background spans anesthesia, functional and longevity medicine, and aesthetics, I always look at hair and skin too. Internal health and external appearance are connected. That's what our clients are looking for, and why the clinic takes a holistic approach across the medical side, treatments, lifestyle and movement.

8. Sleep keeps coming up. Why are so many people struggling with it?

Lack of sleep has become a global problem, not just a Dubai one, because our devices are always with us. Poor sleep is usually the consequence of something else: too much screen time, overworking, being constantly wired, too much alcohol or smoking, poor food. Fixing it means looking at the whole picture, including neurotransmitters and hormone optimization.

Sleep should be non-negotiable. When I set priorities, sleep comes first, then food, then exercise and stress management. After that comes the medical side: checking your hormones, physical activity, mindfulness and everything else.

9. For readers who can't make a trip to a high-end clinic, which simple daily habits matter most for ageing? And as a yoga teacher and lifelong athlete, what is your non-negotiable ritual?

My three daily rituals are sleep, food and exercise, that help me to feel good, look good and work hard both in the work place and in the gym. They determine how well I live. But I have to say honestly: I don't think they would work as well if my hormones weren't optimized too.

For me, movement must always be combined with mindfulness. My favorite yogaand pilate teachers, Sylvia Roberts, Bess Prescott, Talh Rinsky in Australia and Suyash Bisht Wellfit gym in Dubai, they all combine real movement with mindfulness: we chant Om before we begin and close with gratitude when we finish, so you truly feel the connection.

Pilates and Yin yoga classes have helped me a lot too on maintain flexibility and strength at the same time. I can't rush through a yoga or pilates class without taking those last two or three minutes to give thanks, reflect on how I felt and honor my teachers.

Namaste in Sanskrit means “The divine light within me honours the divine light within you.”

Because longevity is not simply about living longer, but about living with awareness, presence, and respect for the life within us and around us.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful part of the practice: if I rush out without taking that moment to acknowledge it, I have missed something essential.

True longevity begins with honouring life, within ourselves and in others.