Katie Couric on Truth, Trust, and Women's Health

What makes me mad is it's another example of the medical establishment, ignor...

The views and opinions expressed on unpause are those of the talent and guests alone, and are provided for informational and entertainment purposes only.

“No part of this podcast or any related materials are intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.”

Today's guest is someone who has been a part of my life for a very long time, long before I ever imagined sitting across from her with a microphone. Like so many people of my generation, I grew up watching Katie Curric every morning on the today's show.

She was the anchor I trusted to help me understand the world. She was in our living rooms during moments that defined entire decades.

Last year I had the opportunity to meet Katie in person, write for her newsletter, and then join her on stage at one of her live events.

“Meeting and working with her confirmed what I had always since from afar, Katie's not simply an icon. She's a truth teller, a connector, a fierce advocate for cancer and women's health, and someone who cares deeply about using her platform for good.”

The journalist author, producer, and now founder of Katie Curric Media. She spent 15 years as the co-host of the today show and served as the anchor of the CBS Evening News, and has interviewed nearly every president, world leader, public figure, scientists and cultural voice of the last four decades. Twenty-one memoir going there became an instant New York Times bestseller. She created and co-founded Stand Up to Cancer, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. She host the award-winning podcast next question with Katie Curric, and she continues to lead national conversations on everything from politics and media literacy to cancer prevention, women's health, and the well-being of our democracy.

What I admire most about her, though, is her ability to merge journalism with humanity. She has endured profound loss. She has reinvented herself repeatedly.

“She has used her grief to fuel advocacy, and she has remained curious and courageous in a media landscape that is more polarized and more punishing than ever.”

I'm deeply honored to welcome Katie Curric to unpause. This is a conversation about women's health, caregiving, and the power of reinvention. I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist and certified menopause practitioner. I'm also an adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Welcome to Unpause. The podcast where we cut through the silence and talk about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life.

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I'll come home with the suns out. No, and the youngest of four kids went to public school. My whole life had a decidedly middle-class background, although my parents really focused on education.

My dad was a newspaper reporter, and then went into public relations.

Cartographers, she drew maps. Yeah. Yeah. So I was a geologist undergrad. Oh, okay. I have a fair share of cartography skills. And she did lay out for a magazine called Coronette, which I think was a precursor to Esquire magazine. My mom was very artistic and very clever, and my dad was extremely, my mom was smart too, but my dad was deeply intellectual, I think, and very, very well read. And while he never made a lot of money, and, you know, we could enjoy the country club and all the things that more affluent families and my neighborhood did, although my neighborhood didn't have that many affluent families.

I never wanted for anything, you know, I feel like I had such an incredible childhood Mary Claire, and I feel it's because my parents, I never for one moment, and, and now as an adult, I realize that not everyone is this fortunate, but I never for a nanosecond doubted my parents unconditional love.

“That's amazing. And support. And my mom used to say, everybody needs a cheerleader, and I'm yours. So I think that has helped me so much, you know, you think about the foundation of your childhood.”

And the things your parents equip you to handle, just by giving you that solid sort of reservoir of love, that I think it's helped me so much through both my successes, failures, my triumphs and disappointments, my heartache, and my, you know, finding love again, and all the ups and downs that I've experienced in my life. I really credit my parents giving me this solid foundation that has helped me navigate so many different things.

And I always feel so bad when I hear of people who don't have access to good education or solid sort of family bonds, but who have acrimonious or really difficult relationships with their parents.

“A lot of a strange brand. And I think gosh, that is a tough way to go through life. And I think people obviously deal with it and compensate for it, but it's just much harder, I think.”

And now when I watch my daughter raise her son and my grandson, and I think gosh, you just really have to to to love children and obviously give them boundaries too, but just how much is imprinted psychologically on us by our parents and what an awesome responsibility that is. You went to university college, you went to UVA UVA and where you were journalism well they didn't really have a journalism department so my dad had me talk to a number of people before I went to college because my father really kind of encouraged me to go into journalism because I was actually a pretty good writer.

All through junior high school and high school I was a master procrastinator so I think he thought I would work well under deadline always extremely outgoing always very curious.

So my dad kind of encouraged me to work at different radio stations during the summers while I was at UVA and before I went to college, I did talk to some people in journalism and they all told me most of them said, you know, so somewhere you get a very broad liberal arts education. My parents, like my mom went to college to meet a husband. She did sexual science for two years.

“To get her MRS and she did and you know that worked out for 60 something years and it was all fine and it's fascinating who you talk about this because I love my parents, but you know, I think my dad was like, well, she's pretty, she'll marry well.”

They weren't worried about me. I think my dad never sat me down and talked about my career future. He's just like, marry well, choose well.

Yeah, I think that was very typical of that generation. My father maybe perhaps was a bit of an anomaly and you know, there were I was the fourth kid and I had two older sisters and an older brother. And my dad really, I think it was both my parents really wanting us to get good education. That was like every time we got five dollars from my grandmother, we put it in our college fund. You know, every time we did anything, you know, if we worked in the summer, it all went into our college fund. So we were very oriented toward getting a good education.

My sisters both went to Smith College, which at the time was a seven sisters,...

And this was before women were admitted to Ivy League school. So to go to a seven sister school was sort of the the pinnacle for a young woman in my sisters era.

And then they started living in women to schools like Princeton, Harvard and Yale, but my grades weren't good enough to go to a school like that. And in fact, one of the earliest traumas for me was I got rejected from Smith and Smith, apparently loved sisters. My sister Emily was by beta kappa at Smith, you know, my both my sisters had done well there and I didn't even get wait listed.

“You're like, wow, well, it was really, it was really hard. And I think part of it was I worked kind of hard in high school, but not that hard. My junior year when I knew it was going to really count.”

I got all A's and was really focused, but I wasn't that academic in high school. And I ended up going to UVA. I was in state. It was a little easier for instate people to get in, then out of state people today. I don't think I'd even get into UVA. Because it is so, so competitive, but I ended up going to school to be honest with you that was was much better suited for me and my personality. But I am just getting back to to your earlier comment. I think I think my parents really understood the importance of being financially independent as a woman and not necessarily, you know, just relying on your husband.

The lesson didn't come from mom and dad, but it was secondary because I watched you get that lesson. My aunts who went through some horrific divorces and we're basically left attitude.

And I watched the move into public housing and like really scary situations. My cousins haven't just which schools and livenies like scary apartments.

“And I was like, ah, you know, like that was what was like you must make your own money. You can't rely on this. It was not coming from mom and dad, but it's just watching the experiences of my aunts.”

That's so interesting and thinking I do not want that to happen to me.

And in fact, there was a very good book that I read when I was a younger well actually not that young. I think it was on the today show and I interviewed a woman a writer named Leslie Bennett's and she wrote a book called the feminist mistake kind of a play on the feminist mistake. It was all about women who had sublimated all their ambition, who had stopped working or never worked at all. And after a period of time, their husbands divorced them or left them or sadly tragically passed away.

“And it was sort of about the importance of creating your own sense of purpose, your own financial independence. And that really really stuck with me. I mean, it reinforced what I think my parents had ingrained in us in their daughters anyway.”

And I feel bad because it's not to say raising a family and taking care of kids isn't a worthy thing to do, but it is. It puts you in a vulnerable position. Yes, exactly. That's the lesson I taught my daughters and you know 20 years of OBGYN practice. I would take care of these women through multiple life changes, right, you know, having kids at it and inevitably some of them divorce and watching them tell stories of. I haven't worked in 15 years and you know, and I would go home and tell my girls these stories, right, of you know, this could happen. There's no guarantees your husband could get sick. This is job, get a divorce, whatever and like what are you going to do, you know,

you've got to have a way to support yourself, even if you choose to stay home, you know, and that's amazing, but I'm just so driven by that that fear of, you know, and I live through my parents Bankruptcy, you know, so I saw the, you know, what at the time seemed like the worst thing that could happen and I just didn't want that for my kids. And I also think it's just, you know, even if you do take time to raise children, it's something that I think women need to think about, you know, I know so many of my friends and you hear stories of,

when it's not just empty, not syndrome, it's just that what now, and I think this, the secret to a happy life really is to find to have purpose and some of that purpose can be your children, but I also think that there has to be, it's helpful to have more than just kind of wanting to raise good successful kids.

I think to, to kind of feel passionate about something, to care about somethi...

For a long time, I, you know, was practicing and, and in a great institution and, but I felt like I was on a treadmill and I felt trapped.

And that, you know, had a great job, great money, great influence, but I always felt like I have to put on this costume every day and show up and, and it's a machine that I've, like, joined to have the financial security. And at this point in my life, I sit up in the morning with my cup of coffee and I look out and I live on the water, so I'm so blessed. And I look at the Gulf of Mexico and I'm like, I have choices. I have options. This is a lot of women don't have this, like, I can decide what I want to do with my day.

And I feel like I'm the luckiest woman in the world, you know, and so much of what I do is impacting the world and women and that's great, but I like sit there and I'm like, if I just wanted to stay home. A couple of days, you know, like, that's okay. A lot of people don't have that. No, no. And I didn't have that for a long time. And that was hard, you know, not having choice. Right. Like when that alarm went off at 3.30 every morning, you were, you know, doing the today show. Did you ever feel like you were on that treadmill and you had to get up and perform every day?

I loved it. I also felt like, you know, I was helping people understand the world, you know, I mean, I think, I had this big audience and this big sort of community that I was a part of that I could say, hey, I really think we need to do a story on X, Y or C.

“I think, you know, so I had a lot of input and a totally like I controlled my own destiny. I would say, can I go do an interview on this? Can we do a fun series called changing places?”

I'll fill in for Jay Leno and he can fill in for me and, you know, everybody can kind of pick something that they've always wanted to do and do it. So I had a lot of input.

But I think what's interesting for you as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, you as a physician can have such an impact on your patients. But it is a limited stage and to be able to use your expertise and your knowledge and for as much as people shit on social media. I think it is really, there are a lot of negative aspects to it. The fact that it provides this entree of and this, this, you know, really national, if not international stage where you can share important information that people are really hungry for.

“I think it's a really phenomenal thing and, and that is why you have been able to build your company and serve people in a much more, you know, a much broader, more expansive way.”

I mean, I'm doing the same thing I was doing. Yeah, yeah, I'm sitting across from Katie in an exam room with a time limit, you know, it's exact same conversation I'm having with my phone, you know, because when you're supporting on social you're talking to your phone, there's no one there. Right, usually, now it goes out to millions of people, but I'm just repeating the exact same behavior. Right, which is must be so incredibly gratifying to know that and you think, you know, you mentioned time limits and you, you know, a lot of women don't have access to the best doctor.

So they live in rural communities or underserved communities or they don't have insurance and, you know, so to be able to use someone like you as a resource is such a gift for so many people, you know, and so that must make you feel like a public servant really does.

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Learn more and pre-order your copy at theposlife.com. The new Prairie Menopause is now available for pre-order. The new Prairie Menopause is now available for pre-order. The new Prairie Menopause is now available for pre-order. So how did you end up as a journalist? You were an English major? I majored in American Studies, so American Literature and History.

And I learned how to write. I wrote for my school paper. During the summers, I was working at radio stations in Washington, D.C. Because I grew up right outside of D.C. in Arlington. And it seemed to be tailor-made for my personality and for the things I like to do and for my sort of insatiable curiosity. So I just applied for a job at ABC News when I graduated from UVA. And I really pursued it aggressively. I got my mom, I write about this in my book, to drive her cream-colored bug station wagon down to the Washington Bureau of ABC News.

“I said, "Mom, just wait for me here." She's parked on to South Street. I think it was.”

I said, "Go into the building." And I said, "Hi, me. I talked to Davey Newman." Because I knew Davey Newman was the producer of World News Tonight. And Davey Newman's brothers, twin brothers, Stephen Eddie Newman, had gone to high school with my sister Kiki. And so they said, "We can't just let you upstairs to the newsroom." So I saw a house phone and I called Davey. They said, "You can use the phone if you want." I said, "Great." I said, "Hi, Davey. This is Katie Kirk. You don't know me, but your brothers, Stephen Eddie, went to high school with my sister Kiki."

And I was wondering, "If I could just come up and say hi." And, you know, my dad always said, "I had Moxie," which is really what I wanted to name the book I wrote about my life in career Moxie.

But, yes, and then, ultimately, Davey Newman, I'm sure you wanted to get rid of me, introduced me to the deputy bureau chief Kevin Delaney, who hired entry-level people called desk assistants. We're basically, we're go for making coffees or oxen, you know, fetching, you know, ham sandwiches for free.

“Just like I imagine. Yeah, that's how I started. And I just worked really hard and tried to learn and then went to CNN when that started.”

My friend Wendy Walker, who's still one of my closest friends in the world, was going over to CNN and she brought me with her. And it's CNN. It was like a startup. So you could do all sorts of different things. And it was an onion and shop.

So I could even go out and do interviews and try my hand at on-air reporting. And it was so bad the president of CNN called and said, "You never wanted to see me on the air again."

Oh, my God, you're new to me. So I had to kind of fight and be scrappy every step of the way. But how did you overcome that? I was like, "Wow." Because I was like my first big break. I was reporting from the White House and learning how to save civic new, breash and ski and practicing all night and talking to my hairbrush.

It was a microphone.

And how do you get better? You know, I believe Malcolm Gladwell's right, you know, 10,000 hours.

“And, you know, I just looked around and I thought, "These people are good. They're talented and smarter.”

They can write and be in front of a camera. But are they that much better than I am?" No, they just have more experience. So I said, "I'm just going to try harder, do more." And then I worked in local news in Miami after CNN and then worked in local news in Washington. And that's where Tim Russell, who was the Washington Bureau Chief of NBC saw me because we were in the same building as the network, the local news people. And he saw me, you know, chasing Marion Barry, the mayor of Washington DC who had a lot of problems around.

And he asked me to come down to his office and said, "We have an opening as a deputy panic on correspondent. Do you think you could do that job?" And I, you know, of course, I didn't think I could do that job. But in the end, I was like, "Holy shit, I have nothing about the military. This is going to be a disaster."

“But I said, "I said, you know, I don't have a military background. But I think I could do it."”

And he said, "Okay, well, let's give it a try." And my foot in the door at NBC got me a job on an annual network. How old were you at that point? I had just gotten married to Jay. It was right before we got married because I remember I couldn't start until after our honeymoon. And I took all these kind of gun manuals with me on my honeymoon. Our honeymoon was studying like the difference between an F-16 and an F-17 and an A-1-A tank and, you know, all the different scrambled eggs that people wear on it.

The ribbons and stuff on their uniforms. So I got married in 1989 and I was born in 1957. So I had just turned like 32. But I spent my 20s really focused on work and really wanting to get to a position where if I did have children. And, you know, women have to kind of navigate all this

at least I'd be in a position where I wasn't just starting. I thought, first of all, I hadn't met anyone.

So I mean, I dated but nobody who was really marriage material. And I really just wanted to have the flexibility to move. I didn't want to have to work with a partner and say, "I don't know, is this going to be good for you, professionally?" I was just free as a bird to really pursue my own personal ambitions. And then, you know, by the time I had a baby, I was pregnant with Ellie.

I had gotten the job at the today's show. So I had a very serendipitous journey professionally. But it was also backed up by the fact that I had worked really hard.

“And, but I was also, I think there was, for me, I probably less so in medicine.”

There was an element of luck because I think TV journalism, there's a subjective nature to it. And I was just kind of at the time just what the doctor ordered at the today's show. They had had a transition from Jane Poly to Deborah Norville. The audience didn't really respond to Deborah Norville. And they kind of wanted to go back to someone who honestly was not as beautiful and perhaps threatening to a morning audience.

So there I come along and I ended up being put in that position and then it was kind of off to the races for me. So you did that for 15 years? Well, I did the today's show for 15 years and then I became less move as who was head of CBS brought me over to the CBS evening news. And I did that for five years. Were you the first?

I was the first solo at Barbara Walters and Harry Reesner.

I'm really dating myself. I had done it at ABC News and then Connie Chung had did it. Connie Chung did it for a nanosecond with Dan Rather at CBS. But I was the first person woman to be the solo anchor. In other words, there was no man involved and it was a big deal at the time.

And that was really one of the things that motivated me. I thought I wanted little girls and little boys to see a female could handle that job with confidence and confidence.

That's real and plus 15 years as much as I loved my job at the today's show.

Like any job 15 years is a long time.

And it started to feel a little repetitive and I think I just wanted a new challenge.

“So that's why I went to CBS and ended up being a very challenging experience for me because CBS was quite old school.”

I think patriarchy and I think between the internal kind of sexism and the external sexism of an audience not necessarily being ready for a female anchor. And in the evening news format, the most traditional audience. And then we on top of that tried to rejigger the format a bit tried to make it a little more accessible and viewer friendly. It just was, it was a lot too much too soon for an audience. And while I was very proud.

Mary Clare of the journalism I did on the today show.

I did so many hard hitting important interviews.

I think because of the nature of the today show. People remembered me or identified me more with the fun kind of softer fluffier content. And so I think it felt a little bit incongruous for people to see me in a role that was 100% serious that really didn't allow me to show my personality at all. The only kind of can be conveyed when you're interacting with a co anchor you're doing something fun and I think it just it just I think felt to a lot of viewers. What happened to her? Did she have a lobotomy?

Like she used to be fun and funny and friendly. And I think it was just kind of like a hard adjustment for people to make me in this role. Looking back on it, I'm glad I did it. But I think for a lot of reasons it was probably not the right decision.

“So here's what I remember about you when I think about Katie Kurt, like before I got to know you and you know, I didn't watch the morning.”

I was in med school. I was in residency. Yeah, I was, you know, delivering a baby at eight in the morning with you know. I remember, of course, you know, who you were that you were cute and fun and stuff. I remember having a call it as a doctor, you know, having a colonoscopy on national TV. I remember when you got breast cancer and talked about it.

I remember when your husband died and I remember you had two kids, two girls. I had two girls. Yeah. And then Katie Kurt Media. Yeah.

So what made you say, I'm going to do this. I'm going to start my own company. Well, you know, I had done really all the same. You know, the big jobs in network news still to my surprise.

“Honestly, that I was able to kind of reach the pinnacle of the industry after CBS and after that really didn't go that well.”

I stuck with it for five years. I knew that I wanted to keep working. And at one point, I think I was asked if I wanted to go back to the today show. But by then, I had sort of already committed to doing a syndicated talk show. And an afternoon talk show.

It turns out, I mean, they're great. And there's so many people who are good at it. Obviously Oprah was the queen. But for me, it didn't allow me to really dig into important issues. I think afternoon talk shows are a little more infotainment.

And, you know, it's funny. I'm such a dichotomy, actually, because I do have this very bubbly outgoing personality. I mean, I think I've gotten less bubbly as I've gotten older. But Katie Kirk Media is hardheaded. Yeah, I'm actually a serious person underneath kind of my, my abusive.

A bubbly personality. So a talk show wasn't kind of the best fit for me. So then I went to Yahoo because I saw the media landscape shifting from linear to digital.

And then after Yahoo, never really realized fully or never really became the digital behemoth.

I was hoping it would be in journalism. So here I was, I'd done a documentary series for Nat Gio. I had done a couple of other documentaries. And I remember taking a walk with a good friend of mine, Donna Rockwell, smile of its who tragically passed away after a hernia operation.

She had a pulmonary envelope.

And it was just crushing. I just loved her so much. And she had worked at CNN with me. And as a producer, and then she had become a therapist. And we took a walk around the reservoir here in New York City.

“And she said, you know, you should just do your own thing.”

You know, why do you need a big network infrastructure? And it's true. I mean, it was at that moment that disintegration, the ability to go direct to consumer to an audience was within everyone's reach and only growing. And meanwhile, linear television news, like I said, yeah, was really declining just because of the paradox of choice, if you will. So I thought, I'm going to do my own thing.

I can feel very liberated. I don't have corporate people breathing down my neck. I don't have pressure for ratings.

“I can really turn my lens on topics that I think are important.”

Cancer research and cancer screening. And, you know, that colonoscopy, you know, after my husband Jay Stath really started me on a lifelong journey of advocacy. Not only for cancer, but other things.

You know, I did a documentary of like second to producer documentary about ALS.

And I'm very interested in medical and news and science, you know. And I think it's because of my, my learned experience, you know, I had to understand what was going on with Jay when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He wrote, I think in your book, I read, you, you were just like anybody else. He were like researching and trying to call, you know, people in New York and, you know, you just, I call it. I call like pharmaceutical companies in Israel.

If I read, they had a anti-Encho genesis drug or a monoclonal antibody. And I had, I learned everything about at the time about approaches to cancer therapies. And, you know, sadly, the same drug that had been used since the 50s, five a few in Luka Warren, was basically the first line treatment and there hadn't been many advances. And when Jay was diagnosed, it had metastasized so much. It was all over his liver and a stage for colorectal diagnosis back then was the prognosis as my doctor told me. And one of those little corner rooms in New York hospital, he said is bleak and it was, but I wanted to make sure that no stone was left unturned.

And anyway, I have found my cancer work so rewarding. And it's really been, been therapeutic for me a way to honor my husband. You know, Ellen Carrey, Merit Clear, was six and two.

Yeah, Jay did not, you know, and never got to know their dad. You know, when I took those aptitude tests in high school, they all said I should be a social worker.

I've always kind of had a lot of empathy, but I think to be able to really focus on this has has given me so much purpose. I mean, you can tell and I think you alone, whether you realize it or not, because I'm on the patient end, right? And I'm prescribing colinoscopy. You took so much of that fear away, just by being brave enough to just deep stigmatize it and you really normalize to me, the colonoscopy. I don't think people even knew the word colonoscopy. I mean Ronald Reagan back in the day had polyps.

I don't know if you remember this, you're too young, but that put colon cancer and sort of colonns, if you will kind of front and center. I think Regis Filbin had one. I didn't share much about my husband's illness because that wasn't mine to share.

“And it was really important for me to preserve our privacy. It was so traumatic going through that. How long can I imagine?”

And diagnosis nine months. Okay. And you know, my brother's, we're writing about it and your brother.

There was like two years, a sophageal, but in widely metastatic a diagnosis. I remember telling me that. Yeah, and he did all the treatments and you know, it was never going to be good for him.

And he held on for a couple of years, but yeah, you're just so, and it was colin. So trying to get over there to see him and because he lived out of state and you know. And a sophageal is one of the fastest growing cancers. And they think it might be because of parents Sarah syndrome. He was a smoker. He quit, but he had been a long time smoker and he had had reflux his whole life. Don't they think Mary Claire that some of the reflux medications might mask some of the, some of the signs of a sophageal cancer. What are they called?

They're called the proton pump inhibitors.

So I won't even take them anymore. Right. So, and I went from a yearly colonoscopy and I had a range to have an upper GI at the same time.

Because my brother had died of the sophageal cancer and I had lifelong like my whole family, we all have reflux.

“And I remember like getting there that day and I'd done the colon prop and everything and they're like, hey, you're, we're covering your colonoscopy with the upper GI is going to be like three or four thousand dollars.”

And I just threw my credit card down, you know, because I needed peace of mind. Right. And I thought, what did normal people do? I thought that so much when I was being treated for breast cancer. The day of, I've gone through the emotions of the prep and, you know, his death and okay, we're going to go do this and what if they find something and I just thought, my God. And I thank God and they ended up getting most of it covered on the back end, but I was a lot. I have a question, though, since we brought up the subject and I imagine some of your listeners and viewers might have acid reflux.

So now, is it to people, what do they do for acid reflux? Now, if those things seem to be associated with the sophageal cancer more aggressive scopes. You have to look and see, there's no, we don't have a good screening task like a blood test for the sophageal cancer. They do for the symptoms of acid reflux. So they are less aggressive with certain medications. They're trying to do lifestyle and diet and nutrition and if they're obese, we get them on a GOP one because sometimes the pressure of being, I mean,

I mean, instead of just throwing everyone immediately on these medications, what do they call it? I'm trying to remember what was the name of the drug though. There's two next EM. Yeah. And there's another one. Yeah, a mepresol and a pentopresol are the two main PPI and then there's H2 blockers, which block the acid production and then there's there's one that turns off the pump that makes the acid.

So, but instead of addressing like for me, I had H by Lori and so once we got that managed, I never, I rarely rarely have reflux anymore. My whole family had H by Lori.

“So I think we're getting better at the root cause because of the rise in a syphageal cancer, I think, has, I mean, correct me if I wrong, prompted physicians to rethink how they treat acid reflux, right?”

Yeah. So I see, I'd love medicine. I'm so interested in which I've gone to medical school. Life moves quickly between spring break, graduations and work that never seems to slow down. You may not have time to wander for them all, hoping something works, or stand in a fitting room second guessing every option. We need clothes that fit, feel right, and make getting dressed the easiest part of your day. That's why so many women love daily look. Daily look is the number one highest rated premium personal styling service for women.

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You're a bit stressed out, but you're a bit stressed out. You're a bit stressed out, and then you're a bit stressed out.

You're a bit stressed out, and then you're a bit stressed out and then you're a bit stressed out. You're a bit stressed out, and then you're a bit stressed out, and then you're a bit stressed out.

Why is I used to go and watch the news to learn things? And now I like watch the conservative media, and then I'll watch both, because I want to know, are we somewhere in the middle?

“Everyone loves Katie Curry. I think journalism is a really tough industry right now, really tough business, but it's never been more important, honestly, and I think that we have parallel versions of truth.”

I think that we have media organizations that primarily serve as propaganda arms of the current administration, and then we have other media organizations who are labeled as liberal, who I think actually are doing more fact-based journalism.

You could say, oh, they're not giving this administration credit for anything, they're attacking it all the time, but I think this is.

We're living in such unprecedented times where institutions are being done away with journalism is being dismissed and disrespected and distrusted, and it's just a very crazy time, because you have information coming to you from every direction. When I got into journalism, it was very, there were very few outlets, and now everyone's a journalist, everyone can give their version of the truth, everyone can give their opinion, and it's just very confusing for the average news consumer. So my parents, my father passed away, but mom and mom has dementia, but you know, while she was still watching things, and definitely my in-laws, my father-in-law just died this year, my mother lost still doing it.

“Only watch certain news channels, they're only getting news from one source, right?”

And that's all they know, and they are convinced that this is true, but never occurred to them that maybe this is biased media because they watch the news to get the news, and they don't think of it as liberal or democratic, you know, or as conservative or anything, they just think it's the news, but they only watch. Yes, all day, every day. I had to have a special TV put in our house, so my father-in-law wouldn't be in the room with me, because it just would go on all day. And these are good people who went to college, who, you know, in their 70s and 80s are just nonstop, you know, while they're awake, this is on, and they're being fed these messages over and over again, and they don't see anything wrong with it.

“Right, and I think that's such an important point because I think sometimes each side demonizes the other. Yes, and I think a lot of it is the content that they are consuming.”

And that's shaping their worldview inevitably. And to your point, in many homes, it's kept on 24/7, and they're not necessarily getting a different perspective. I believe that the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, which has quite a conservative op-ed page, that I am a big fan of legacy media, NPR, PBS NewsHour, network newscasts. You know, I know MSNBC has a particular bent. I know Fox News has the opposite bent. You know, you really have to learn to be an educated news consumer.

And you have to consider the source of everything you read and get it from multiple outlets. I think it's one of the quintessential problems of our time.

And, and how do we, how do we come together when we see things so differently?

people are getting affirmation, not information. We're looking at sources that basically confirm our belief existing biases.

This is sounding a lot like the women's health initiative. I mean, the exact same thing in a much smaller scale. What happened with that? Right. Well, let's talk about that. You know, when that broke. So I was doing the today show. And in fact, an article in, in, in the New York Times magazine written by Susan Dominus, who's a great reporter at the New York Times talked about.

“Now, not only the stud, and I'd love, you know, much more about this than I do, Mary Claire, but not only was the study flawed in terms of the subjects that were being evaluated for HRT, right?”

Right. But then the reason the study was stopped got misinterpreted and misreported.

So I think it was kind of those two things coming together that stopped research into hormone replacement therapy. The downstream effects of this have affected an entire generation of women's health, outside of reproduction and probably including reproduction. But like, you were on the ground, you know, being fed reports, you know, like you got to read this or whatever, but like, do you remember, like it was the number one medical news story of 2002, this estrogen causes breast cancer, right, mess.

“And I've had a few experts on the podcast, they're they're cut up, you know, for the next few weeks, who were there like on the research and talking about like the fights behind and like this alternative view of the results.”

And, you know, and it just played out behind closed doors and it just feels so much the polarization and and you know, the paternalism and the, you know, we know what's best and not allowing women to have a voice in their own care.

Right. Can you like give me a synopsis of of what you've learned happened, it was a billion dollar study, which but weren't the women mostly.

Well, the outcome of the study was heart disease, is she going to have a heart attack or not, right, you know. Are is giving her hormone therapy at whatever age, going to decrease her risk of a heart attack and that was the observational data said that, but, you know, in medicine, we have to have control randomized. They went with an older study group because it takes a while to have heart attack, but the women were obese, had multiple risk factors probably already had cardiac existing cardiovascular disease. They weren't getting cats or any evaluation of their coronary arteries before they were giving the major teen averages was 63.

Not 51, which is when we started hormone therapy, you know, that day and which is an usual time, so they reported not only does it not help heart disease, but it will increase your risk of breast cancer. And that risk never reached statistical significance and it was only in the arm that took estrogen plus progesterine plus they excluded women with hot flashes because they know they were in placebo like there were so many little things that really skewed the results. We use this data all the time, now that we can say if you start young there seems to be there is a protective effect if you don't have existing cardiovascular disease to protect you.

You know, you will have a heart disease later in life, you know, if you if you were on HRT, but that was like doing and looking at certain ages if you start before 60. Our with n10 years of your menopause there is cardiovascular protection, but if you start older there is not so like all that new there was zero nuance when they reported it, but it was a hell of a new story.

“Right, but I think the big panic was this breast cancer risk right and it was a very, very small person.”

We want great relative risk, which is hard for me to understand, I do this work every day versus individual risk. So the absolute number of women who had breast cancer from taking the combined therapy of a very old medication. We don't use anymore was like one case out of a thousand per year, but it was 25% higher than the baseline rate and so they reported 25% increased risk of breast cancer. You know, and and what's cure the hell out of women, it's cure the hell out of me as a young, you know, resident and we were terrified and we were waiting, you know, we weren't even allowed to see the study when headlines came out.

And once that gene got out of the bottle, it just stopped all the research and it's tracks didn't it and I still get confused about the estrogen progesterone combo because if you have your reproductive organs, you need something to protect the lining. You need progesterone. Yeah. So because the the endometrium, the lining of the uterus, the inside, like where the baby's grow, where your periods are made is highly sensitive to estrogen.

It's it builds this tissue out right and progesterone makes you shut it at th...

And if you just have estrogen going on and on and on that tissue will just continue to grow and divide and for some women that becomes hyperplastic and then maybe malignant.

So we can give you a progesterone and negate that risk. You know, I was going through menopause kind of right around the time I became anger of the CBSE. So I didn't want to be like Arthur Brooks and brought to you. You know, did you have flashes? I didn't really have hot flashes. I had night sweats, but I also wanted to stay mentally sharp. You know, I didn't want to have a brain fart in the middle of the evening news.

“So I started. I went on the patch and then I took bioidentical progesterone at night. I sometimes forgot, honestly.”

And and I loved it. And I would have stayed on it forever. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that. I would have talked to my doctor, obviously. But then I was diagnosed out of the blue was press cancer and it was hormone receptor positive breast cancer. Now quick question while I have you doctor. Was that caused by my HRT and progesterone? No, when we look at the data, so there were other trials. There was like a keeps trial and a Corona style and other things in Europe. They actually didn't use the print pro that we used in the US. So the estrogen only arm, which was Perman, equine estrogen.

Yeah. You know, of course. You had a decrease, 30% decrease relative risk of breast cancer. So the estrogen only arm estrogen was very protective. We think because it's an anti-inflammatory and lower their their risk. And though the women who were on HRT at the time of their diagnosis had lower stage in better survival rates. So a certain amount of women are going to get breast cancer and we're working on why that happened.

Yeah, because I have the women on HRT especially modern HRT and most women do not have a family history. Uh-huh. Most breast cancer is a one-off. Right. It's like 82% or something, right?

So you being on HRT at the time of your diagnosis probably led to an earlier stage diagnosis for multiple reasons.

“One we think it plumps up the cells so that they're easier to find. Right. Did you feel a note or you just went in for a routine mammogram?”

And that you are usually getting regular screening because you're going to your doctor to get your refills and they're getting your mammograms. Right. And also I'm kind of hyper. Yeah. My health, because I miss a single mom. Yeah.

So yeah, your HRT did not cause your breast cancer. It was probably feeding those cells that had had a malignant transformation from a healthy cell to a malignant cell. And so they, because you had estrogen receptor positive. So we all have estrogen receptors on the breast cells. And then if they, when they go through the malignant transformation, they might retain those receptors. So we can use those receptors to attack the cancer cell and put you on blockers and things.

So I don't know if you were on a eyes or any of the aromatase inhibitors or tomatos, I am now. You weren't in my mind. I am an astrosol. Yeah. What upsets me though of getting back to the women's health initiative is that for 30 years,

this research really dominated.

Like it was never really done.

And I feel like if this study had not been stopped. And I remember interviewing Bernadine Hilly, who was the female head of NIH, which was great. I thought, well, if that study had not been halted, they probably now would have some kind of therapy that would bypass any kind of estrogen in my breast. Or, or so they do, you know, they do. Yeah, let me tell you about it.

But I know there's vaginal estrogen. You can use vaginal estrogen today. There is a medication called basodoxifen, which is a sperm. A selective estrogen reagently or basically. It binds preferentially to different estrogen receptors.

We have alpha and beta. It's very high tech. So serums are things like, tomoxifen is a sperm. Okay, it preferentially binds.

So what basodoxifen basically?

“I think people think of like the thing in your blood.”

So it's a pill, though. So yeah, so basodoxifen is a pill. They've combined it with pomeran and it's called duvet or duvet. And duvet allows that estrogen to get to your brain, your bones, your joints, my skin, your skin. Thank God.

But it binds and blocks the estrogen receptor and downregulates in the breast. Well, why hasn't my, I love my doctor? Hang on. So they're doing studies right now in high risk patients who had stage zero cancers. And so far, the early data is showing that on this duvet,

they are not seeing, they're seeing decreased recurrence. Wow. So we're getting there. But there is hope. So my patients who are high risk.

We're talking to them. Or anyone who was like bleeding or severe breast tenderness.