Hystelica

We are a community built to understand women’s biology for safe and effective psychedelic use

31/03/2026

Hormones shape how drugs work. So why are women's hormonal states still under-measured in research? 🔬

A new AI model called HormoNet is changing that — predicting hormone-drug interactions (including psychedelics) before trials begin.
This is the future of medicine: designed around your biology, not averaged data. 🌸

28/03/2026

What did women in the Amazon know about psychedelics and the female body — long before any clinical trial asked the question?

We sat down with Dr. Paulina Valamiel Lopes, sociologist, ayahuasqueira, and co-founder of Hijas del Sur, to find out.

Paulina spent a decade inside the Santo Daime tradition — interviewing 30 women across 12+ countries about how they navigate ayahuasca across their menstrual cycle, pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause. What she found is extraordinary: women from the UK to Japan to Brazil, with no contact with each other, arriving at the same embodied practices independently. No clinical guidance. No research papers. Just bodies, attention, and generations of oral knowledge.
This is the kind of research Hystelica exists for.

Head to the blog to read the full conversation — link in bio. 🌿

26/03/2026

Prolactin and endometriosis — a relationship that deserves way more attention than it gets. 🔬
Most people know prolactin as the lactation hormone. But in women with endometriosis, it may be doing something far more sinister.
A 2023 systematic review (Lee et al., Pharmacological Reviews) found strong evidence that serum prolactin is consistently elevated in women with endometriosis — and that this may actively sensitise pain pathways, contributing to chronic pelvic pain. PubMed
Other studies have even shown that prolactin levels are higher in more advanced disease stages, pointing to a potential dose-response relationship between prolactin, lesion burden, and symptom severity. PubMed Central
Yet it's rarely on the radar in clinical care. At Hystelica, we think that has to change. Hormonal complexity shouldn't be flattened — it should be the focus.
📎 Lee GJ et al. (2023). Prolactin and pain of endometriosis. Pharmacological Reviews. PMID: 37169264

23/03/2026

Nature just published this review article 🔬

Women were excluded from clinical trials until the 1990s. Female animals were left out of preclinical studies because hormonal cycles were considered "too complicated." The result is a medical system built almost entirely on male biology - and women paying the price.

A new analysis across 204 countries found that while women live longer than men, they live those extra years in worse health. More chronic pain. More depression. More musculoskeletal disease. And in cancer treatment, women experience more severe side effects than men receiving the same drugs - a gap that persists even with modern therapies.

The fix is not complicated. It starts with separating data by s*x, asking why differences exist, and building research that treats female biology as a starting point - not an afterthought.

This is the work. This is why Hystelica exists.

Madhusoodanan, J. (2026). Uncharted: understanding women's health across the body. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00526-8
*xdifferences

20/03/2026

At the threshold of light and dark ✨ Happy spring equinox from all of us at Hystelica. May the turning season bring you back to yourself. 🌕🌿

17/03/2026

The menopausal transition isn't just hormonal. It's neurological, psychological, and deeply personal 🧠

From perimenopause through postmenopause, fluctuating HPG axis activity and the gradual loss of estrogenic neuroprotection create what researchers describe as a "neuroendocrine window of vulnerability" - a period of real, measurable change in mood regulation and stress sensitivity.

But the science only tells part of the story.

Alongside these biological shifts, many women are navigating something harder to name: a profound identity transition. Moving from years of caring for others toward the question of who you are now - in a culture that still struggles to see midlife women clearly.
At Hystelica, we're exploring whether psychedelics could offer meaningful support during this window. Not as a shortcut — but as a tool for integration, reconnection, and transformation in a life stage that deserves that kind of attention.

Because menopause isn't the end of anything. It's a threshold.

13/03/2026

Nature just published a long-read that says what many of us have known for years: perimenopause is the most disruptive part of the menopause transition - and it's the least studied. 🧩
Hot flushes, brain fog, sleep problems, low mood. These symptoms are at their worst before periods stop, but clinical guidance is almost entirely based on postmenopausal data. Women are being treated with tools designed for a different stage of their own biology.
The research is catching up - but slowly. At Hystelica, our work sits right in this gap. We're investigating how psychedelics might support women navigating menopausal mental health, precisely because conventional options remain so limited and evidence so thin.
Women deserve research built around their biology from the start - not retrofitted after the fact.
Link in bio to learn more and get involved 🔗

Nordling, L. (2026). The missing pieces of menopause science. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00692-9

10/03/2026

The diagnosis of 'hysteria' wasn't removed from psychiatry until 1980, yet women continue to face medical dismissal, delayed diagnosis, and gaslighting. Historically, medicine didn't just ignore women's symptoms—it weaponised them, mutilating bodies in the name of treatment. Today, that legacy lingers in how women's hormones are blamed, our pain minimised, and our cycles pathologised. At Hystelica, we're reclaiming women's health through science-grounded, body-centred approaches. Emerging psychedelic research, when integrated with hormonal literacy and compassionate care, offers women genuine healing -
not punishment. Your body deserves to be heard.

08/03/2026

Today, on International Women's Day, we stand for something long overdue. 💜
Women have been excluded from psychedelic research for too long — their biology, their conditions, their lived experience left out of the science that could change their lives.
Hystelica exists to change that.
We advocate for transforming how women are included in the future of psychedelic care — centring equity, safety, and lived experience. Through evidence-led education, rigorous research, and interdisciplinary collaboration, we are building the clinical foundations that women deserve.
Because the future of psychedelic healthcare must include all of us. 🌿
🔗 Follow us to learn more about our research and education programmes.

06/03/2026

Hystelica is heading to the PsyEdu March Mini-Conference 2026 💫

Dr Grace Blest-Hopley and Tali Avron will be speaking about women, psychedelics and the future of healing – from female experiences of psychedelics to the role of women in the psychedelic renaissance.

🗓 Saturday 14 March 2026
🕙 10:00–17:00 UK time
💻 Online
🎟 Tickets £30

To get your ticket, head to the Events page on the Hystelica website or visit PsyEdu’s site and search for “PsyEdu March Mini-Conference 2026”.

Save this post and share with anyone working in, or curious about, psychedelic science, women’s health and mental health. 🌿

04/03/2026

70% of people living with chronic pain are women. Yet women remain the most likely to be dismissed, misdiagnosed, and undertreated.
Pain perception isn't just biological - it's shaped by bias, research gaps, and a medical system that wasn't built with women in mind.
If you want to learn more about chronic pain in women and the promise of psychedelic therapies, our webinar is available to watch on our website. 🔗 Link in bio.

02/03/2026

Endometriosis is far more than “bad periods.” A recent clinical study from Khan et al. analysed electronic health records from over 43,000 patients across six major medical centres, comparing people with endometriosis to matched controls. The team found increased rates of migraines, gastrointestinal disorders, asthma, autoimmune diagnoses and vitamin D deficiency, with some symptoms appearing years before formal diagnosis. They also identified distinct comorbidity “subtypes,” hinting at more personalised care in the future. At Hystelica, we see this as essential evidence that endometriosis is a complex, whole‑body condition deserving timely, specialist support. Study: Khan et al., 2025, Cell Reports Medicine.

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