On Sunday, The Guardian published my latest Call the Doctor column. This one is about "period poops" — the digestive bedlam a lot of women experience on the first or second day of their periods.

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There’s one detail from reporting this column that I haven't been able to shake: My main source, Taylor Judkins, is a nutrition researcher at the University of Florida who has spent more than a decade studying why periods and gut symptoms show up together. She’s the world expert on this subject, even though she’s just a few years out of her PhD. She's good at her job, but when I asked her how she became the leading authority on this issue at such a young age, she didn't describe a eureka moment or a rival lab she out-hustled. Instead…