Conversations Unplugged
with Alexis McClay
Most of the women Alexis McClay works with are between 35 and 45, an age when they often know something is changing but cannot quite pinpoint what it is. Workouts stop producing the same results, body composition begins to shift, recovery feels different, and changes in energy or sleep can start appearing. Alexis believes this is exactly when women should begin paying closer attention, not years later when symptoms become impossible to ignore. In this conversation with STEMREGEN Founder and Chief Science Officer Christian Drapeau, she explores what happens during the transition toward menopause and why establishing a baseline in your 30s may be one of the most valuable things you can do for your future health.
Alexis McClay
At her virtual clinic, Alexis often sees women arrive because they want to lose fat, build muscle, or understand why the routines that once worked suddenly are not working anymore. But once she looks “under the hood” through blood panels and other testing, the conversation becomes much broader. Changes in hormones, cholesterol, deficiencies, bone density, and other biomarkers can help provide a more complete picture of what is happening. Her goal is to establish those markers early, while women are still feeling relatively well, and use them to guide a more proactive approach to aging.
Christian sees a particularly interesting connection between this transition and stem cell biology. As he has explored the scientific literature around women’s health, he has become increasingly interested in the relationship between estrogen and stem cell function. He describes the decline in estrogen around menopause as a potential loss of support for repair and recovery, affecting areas such as muscle, bone, and body composition. Alexis sees many of those changes reflected in her clients and uses tools such as DEXA scans to follow shifts in bone density and body composition over time. STEMREGEN has also become part of her own experience; after following an intensive protocol, she reports noticing lower inflammation and significantly greater energy.
But neither Alexis nor Christian sees any single intervention as the answer. Alexis emphasizes strength training, sleep, daily routines, healthy relationships, and consistent attention to the larger “ecosystem” of health. She points to her own DEXA scans, which showed an increase in bone density after a year of focused strength training, as one example of why lifestyle remains fundamental. Her message to women is to begin before something feels wrong: know your baseline, understand how your body is changing, and build the habits and support systems that can help make the transition into the next chapter of life a healthier one.
