Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Science Over Woo: Navigating Menopause Without The Hype
We challenge the wellness industry’s menopause claims and explain what actually works, from HRT to bone health. We unpack why wild yam cream can’t work, how bias and group pressure shape choices, and which tests and treatments improve life.
• why “natural” menopause fixes sound convincing but fail
• how HRT works, timing, and safety updates
• bone health basics, DEXA scans, calcium and vitamin D
• the limits of CGMs and biohacking in healthy people
• wild yam cream’s enzyme problem and skin barriers
• bias, identity protection, and why anecdotes spread
• practical steps to get evidence-based relief
Do yourselves a favor and go to your doctor and discuss the medical options
Proudly sponsored by COUP — helping brands cut through the noise with bold, smart marketing. Visit the http://coup.co website or book a meeting with us at. https://go.oncehub.com/RequestMeeting
Well, hello, smart women, and welcome back to the Why Smart Women Podcast. Today, as always, I'm broadcasting from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on the picturesque and very beautiful northern beaches. Sorry to brag. Hello, everybody all over the world. Thank you so much for joining me. And I'll be definitely speaking to you before Christmas is upon us, but I hope your trees are up and you're enjoying some excellent Yuletide or festive feelings about the place. By day and by night, she is a woo debunker. So we're going to chat today about the amount of woo misinformation and disinformation that is aimed at women who are perimenopausal, menopausal, and postmenopausal. And there are two reasons for this. One is that I am personally extremely interested in this subject excuse me. Ryder, stop pushing your bowl around. It's naughty. Come here. That's the big golden grudel pushing his bowl around. Come here. Come here. He looks at me like he's never been fed. So I am personally interested, and of course, I'm always interested in the amount of woo that is aimed at women. And secondly, and very excitingly, Kate is going to be starting her very own podcast on this very salient and important subject, aren't you, Kate?
SPEAKER_00:Hi Annie. Yes, I am. I'm going to be dipping my toes into the ocean that is podcasting. Okay. So thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:How are you feeling? Alright. I'm just a little bit something. I don't know what it is. I could have maybe drunk.
unknown:I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I had a couple of margaritas. Do you I don't know if that's just affected my stomach. But you would think I would be able to tolerate that, wouldn't you, wouldn't you? Well, I would have thought, given your training, I've worked hard. I have worked hard on training my system. On training that liver. To, you know, not sort of having a dummy spit every time I tip a marg into my mouth.
SPEAKER_00:Aren't mugs don't they have some kind of magical? Well, I was gonna say some kind of acidic component, which is surely the same acidic component as people get from drinking lemon water every morning. So I would have thought mugs are cleansed. It's cleansing. I'm cleansed. Basically, a detox.
SPEAKER_01:I have virtually done a detox on myself simply by drinking a salt crusted margarita. Two two of them. Parasites are gone. My parasites are gone. Um my energy, I think I've balanced my hormones. Do you do I seem balanced to you? And and your uh you've regenerated your stem cells. My Kate, your stem cells are a they're a sensitive subject, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00:They are, with me they are, yes.
SPEAKER_01:Because if those who are listeners who have tuned in regularly will know that Kate and Richard Saunders and I from Richard Saunders, who's the chief investigator for the Australian Sceptics, went to the Mind Body Spirit Festival where Kate was given the very sad news. Diagnosed. Diagnosed on the spot.
SPEAKER_00:How did he diagnose it? V visually. He vi visually diagnosed me. He looked at you? He can tell. I can have obviously just got the I've got the symptoms showing of no stem cells. Of no of having no stem cells.
SPEAKER_01:So that's the good thing, isn't it, about alternative medicine? Is that it can give you an immediate diagnosis, no pesky tests, and also a cure simultaneously, like in the same breath.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I very much appreciated that because not only did I not have to have a venipuncture, so I didn't have to have any blood taken, I just had to pay for an expensive MRI. Yeah. I didn't need to see any kind of um doctor professional who might have had some training in this area. He he was just able to visualize me with his eyeballs and he knew exactly what was wrong. And then luckily for me, he had the solution right there. What was the solution? It was a patch. It was a patch that uh that you wear on the back of your neck that uses your body's infrared light to generate stem cells.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, that tech, that technology It's in it's it's almost impossible to understand why Big Pharma haven't picked that up. It is. Wouldn't you think that someone, one of those, you know, geeks sitting around in one of the labs would have gone, I know there's this patch uh yeah, out there. So I mean that that whole patch experience I think is typical of our interactions with altmed alternate medicine to those who are not initiated into it.
SPEAKER_00:And you're using that word medicine quite wrongly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was. Yeah. Alternate, yeah, alternate medicine. It's either medicine or it's not medicine. It's not, it's just something, it's a patch. Yeah, or it's a band-aid with attitude.
SPEAKER_00:It's a band-aid with attitude. It's a band-aid with attitude. There was that aspiration. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01:Well, uh, amongst the psychics, I did notice there was there was a cornucopia of of of patches that did everything. Yes, yes. I know that I noticed that people lately have been wearing um uh glucose monitors on their arms.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah. Yeah. What is that for? Is that real? Continuous glucose monitoring. Well, it is real because the um insulin-dependent diabetics use continuous glucose monitoring for Yeah. So is that a good thing to do? Well, well, I guess you'd have to ask what you want to why? Do you want to know that? That that would be my question. My question would be if you are not relying on injecting insulin because you have a pancreas that isn't doing that. So if you're a fit, healthy person with a fully functioning pancreas and endocrine system, why do you want to know? Like why do you why do you want to know what you're Because your your body's taking care of that? Your body's been taking care of that your entire life. Well, uh that's to be gained.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well as you can buy them online um and they have now become the um, you know, the the sort of the patched jour. Um I am suspicious that ongoing monitoring of one's glucose levels has been linked to other conditions that it would then you would then find out if you had these other conditions. Like maybe it's been linked to weight gain or I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yeah, maybe. So you yeah, so you think I don't know. I'm just qu I'm wondering. I I think you're probably right. It's probably um so you can balance your hormone carbs your hormonal carbs. Your hormonal carbs. I don't know. So you're meant to be able to balance your k I don't know stems your stem cells, your lack of stem cells, yes. I I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:It certainly sounds like w it would be very big in the wellness So what what I think it is, for instance, you might eat a croissant delicious and then test if you have a spike in your would that be right? Which of course you would have a spike point of it. Then you could then I don't know, extrapolate from that if you're in the wellness environment. I'm not suggesting anybody does this. I'm trying to work out what the the the the so-called benefit you could then go, oh that spike didn't come down soon enough, I shouldn't eat croissants. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:No, I I'm I'm not sure. I I don't know, or or do you do you continuously monitor your glucose and and and have I don't know, I'm really making this up now. Peptides, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I see peptides every good and parasites. Okay, so we don't know what we're talking about. We don't know. So we don't all we know is that it is easy for um devices um and medications which have a reasonable and justified scientific usage to be misused in the wellness sphere.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I mean I think that that is wellness encapsulated, isn't it? Which is uh uh take something that has a sciencey word or a you know, a perhaps a basis in science. Maybe it started in science and then Well that would have started in science for sure. Yeah, and and then let's appropriate that into an area where it has no evidence and no need and sell it to people.
SPEAKER_01:Let's just you know go to where we're going to talk about, which is um menopause in the wellness sphere. Right. It's understandable that I would be drawn, let's say, towards a supplement or a patch if I'm having um mood swings, let's just say, that I haven't experienced before, correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you would be um I guess not all of us, because I mean I'm I myself my personality, my brain, my my way of thinking was to go straight to the GP and find the evidence-based science medicine diagnosis and solution. But I know that there are other people out there who um w feel like they want to try the the natural, and I know you can't see me because it's a podcast, but I'm using it. She's doing she's doing air quotes um as if that is somehow a better choice or a safer choice or a more natural choice. And I you can see I'm tripping over my words here because um hormone replacement therapy is actually replacing the hormones that your Easter that your ovaries used to make with bio-identical bio-identical hormones. That's what that's why it's hormone replacement therapy and not contraception, right? Um the the symptom relief that you may be able to get from an over-the-counter wellness supplement is that of a smarty. Is well yes, it not only that of a smarty, but it's not going to be the biosimilar equivalent of what you used to have. So as to how so that that way of thinking just doesn't sit it doesn't sit with me.
SPEAKER_01:No, well, it shouldn't sit with you, but the the the the issue is that I just want to say first up, I've never had a mood swing. I'm just incredible. Me neither. You should ask my children. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ask David. Um, so and I have been on HRT for a long time. Um, because I managed to investigate the data, um, the flawed science but behind the big study that came out that linked HRT to breast cancer. Yeah. And we found in that study that they hadn't controlled for smoking, obesity, etc. etc. Is that right, Kate?
SPEAKER_00:That's right. And and they misinterpreted that data and garbled the message such that it became HRT causes breast cancer. Causes cancer. Yeah, I think also of uh ovarian cancer and fallopian tube cancer. Yeah. Um and they've now completely reversed their messaging on that. But it just means that there was a 25-year period where women were denying. I mean, yeah. Oh, I mean, and also f forget years and years before that, you know, where my grandmother, who was born in the 1920s, I mean, imagine. You can only imagine what she had to endure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So what what have you had to endure?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've had to endure really very little because I as as in You're so young and amazing. Because that's right. Because of my lack of stem cells. No, because I have um luckily the um support of my wonderful family, but I've also got the education and the uh opportunity to be able to access really amazing doctors. So uh and and I actually work in a in an area where you know So you're informed. So I'm informed. So when I am having hot flushes, and hot flushes for me was the first thing that I noticed. I know it and actually, do you know what, Annie? It took me a weirdly long time to work out what was happening. And I know I've just you know espoused how amazingly you know helpful. No, but I get how literate I am, but I I know I get it. I would have hot flushes and and I mean I it it took me months and months and months before I work it out. You dingus. Obviously, it's this. Well you just adapt.
SPEAKER_01:I think we just something happens and it just sort of goes into the case. Becomes the new normal until you go, hang on a minute. Wait a second. I shouldn't be waking up in drenched sheets.
SPEAKER_00:No, and also why is he quivering under the duna and I've got 28 fans on? Um and so and then I was put on uh a non-hormonal treatment uh for for hot flushes, which was um been approved by the FDA for a long time, but was just new to Australia, probably two years ago, and that was amazing. That fixed the hot flushes beautifully, and that was perfect. But then I had a DEXA scan and found out that my um spine had a bit of osteopenia, so therefore so just just unpack um DEXA scan and osteopenia for me. So a DEXA scan is a really low dose x-ray, and it um I had only my my big bones done, so I had only my spine and my hips, but I mean too. Yeah, I think some some people do limbs as well. Um I mine's in my hips. Mine is in my spine, which I believe is a better place to have it than in your hips. Go you.
SPEAKER_01:So just still no stem cells, though, don't don't don't be bragging about your good hips.
SPEAKER_00:Um and I guess that that was the um defining that that was almost like a differential diagnosis for my GP, who is a women's health GP, um, because there's overwhelming evidence that um replacing estrogen helps you to hold on to the spine that you've got. So uh until I had a DEXA scan.
SPEAKER_01:And you're you're an ultramarathon runner, are you not? Yeah, I am so that was enough that all the which is exactly the same um I don't know, I went into this whole environment with exactly the same mindset because I go to the gym every day and I lift weights. And I was virtually smug. Yeah, no, I was smug. I was also very smug.
SPEAKER_00:I was very I was extremely of the opinion that that Useless that I was not going to be osteo- Yeah, wouldn't you think that all that pounding would have protected your I guess not enough. Not enough. And I suppose I'm so I'm I again you can't see me because it's a podcast, but I'm I'm slight. Very slight. Um so uh heavier heavier bodies do better because uh the whole point is like load bearing.
SPEAKER_01:Um that's right. The doctor said the same thing to me because when I went and got the result and I was flawed and sat there questioning the validity of it, I said I do so much weight bearing. Yes. And she said, Yes, yes, you do, but this is the result of it. And also, besides not being very heavy, yeah, um, I also she said it it it's related to low vitamin D.
SPEAKER_00:So my vitamin D was uh perfect. So my the See, and yet again, bragging. So I here is a brag. Yeah, here's a weird brag. Yeah. My blood tests, I had a full blood count done, so I had my uh thyroid uh hormones done and I had I had everything done, my cholesterol, I had everything. Nice. And when you look up textbook results in a textbook, there's just a picture of me. I could not have been more normal, more perfect and normal. Yeah, so I guess it's just then a matter of genetics. So I look exactly the same as my mother, who looks exactly the same as her sister, who looks exactly the same as my grandmother. Um, in in terms of our body habitat. So I think, you know, there's only a certain amount you can do to fight your genes. And interestingly, it um my mother, who is now 75 and is extremely fit, still swims kilometres and kilometres every day. Wow. Um she looks amazing. I met her the other day. Yeah, so she's she's been on a bisphosphonate, um, which is one of those bone reabsorption drugs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That you can have to stop your so that works by stopping your body reabsorbing your bones for calcium, which is why you have to have a calcium supplement with it, because your body's got to get calcium from calc.
SPEAKER_01:So, why don't I have one? I'm disappointed. I feel left out of the calcium supplement.
SPEAKER_00:Cohort. More is not more when it comes to calcium supplementation. So you really do need to have a good think about how much you're eating and cheese. Yeah, so cheese and dairy. Well, when I had a look at my diet, um, the recommended intake is uh 1,200 milligrams.
SPEAKER_01:Means nothing to me.
SPEAKER_00:That's uh just what it looks like that's so that's your target, 1,200 milligrams. Um a glass of milk is maybe Oh no, I'm gonna get this wrong. So people can pip people can correct you. Correct me. And they will. Well that's the will so that'll be really good. But a glass of milk is gonna be something like 200 milligrams. So if you have two lattes a day, they so you're up to 400, maybe five milligrams.
SPEAKER_01:What I just gotta say about the cheese thing is that I was doing really well on the cheese until last night when Ryder put both pores up on the counter and then had a good old chew of the whole block. So his calcium score is gonna be his calcium score. It's gonna be amazing. It's gonna be amazing.
SPEAKER_00:But things like so there's a little bit of calcium in meat, not a lot, there's a little bit of calcium in eggs, not a lot. It's really dairy, but I was getting not even to really halfway when I when I sat down. Wow. Yeah. So do you not just eat and eat enough of that? Well, no, so I guess I was having I was having toast maybe for breakfast. Yeah. With what on it? Well, maybe veggie mut so probably a little bit of butter, but vegemon, I I I was having one or two full cream lattes, so that was really helping. That's good. So I've just had to have some yogurt. I mean, sh it's not yogurt. It's not a challenge to eat. More cheese. So that is amazing. But then I also take one tablet of calcium.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I want to go and talk to someone because I'm not taking any calcium. Um I'll tell you an interesting thing though, years and years and years ago, I was sick and they didn't know what was wrong with me. And that is interestingly enough what started my investigation into the whole med thing because I was told told a lot of crap by everybody. And uh I had I had a parathyroid tumour and my parathyroid, and he asked if I was taking calcium supplements. Yes. And I wasn't nothing to do with it. Anyway, they took that out and I was fine. Yeah, good. And that was because of those that fantastic uh systamoebe scans, which was awesome. I love science. Um so all right, so back to this notion of um menopause and what can actually help us and and what is just bunk. So what we know about information is that once we hear disinformation or information of any kind, we are more likely to retain that initial piece of information as opposed to the refutation of it. We don't even hear the refutation of it. Also, there's a very strong brain bias that if we hear something repeatedly, it has a lot of traction in the brain. So that repeated notion, it becomes a social norm. And then on top of that, we've got the in-group-out-group bias. So if I am on, if I'm surrounded by my friends and we're all talking about wellness and somebody's taking a yam thing, what is that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, wild yam cream.
SPEAKER_01:Yam cream. Wild yam cream. So if I'm in a group and some one of my friends is having hot flushes and she's taking wild yam cream, and then another one of my friends says I've been having this really good peptide supplement, then I that is my in-group, and we have this strong thing called identity protective cognition, which means that I do not want to separate myself from my group. I do not want to be um expelled from my group by holding an opinion that is antithetical to them. So I'm much more likely, even if I do have some doubts, to stay in the in-group and not go to the out group. Do you find that in your dealings with people in the world?
SPEAKER_00:Well, of course. And I am trying myself to be more aware of surrounding myself with people who just agree with myself and having that echo chamber of don't don't keep talking to me then, because that's all I do. Well, I mean, I suppose if if I were really trying to grow as a person, I would seek out 100% we would. Yeah. It's true. Um, but then but then I I'd talk to somebody who disagrees with me and says that wild yam cream cured their um menopause symptoms, and then I think, no, I've just better retreat back to the safety of my own clever scientific friends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, well, I I think we must always ask in a conversation with somebody that um doesn't agree with you, is what what am I trying to achieve here?
SPEAKER_00:Yes, right? Yes. So I mean the wild yam cream is interesting because there are people who will die on that hill, on the wild yam cream hill. And phytoestrogens, so estrogens that are plant derived. Yeah. Um made in a lab. Yeah. And the pro progesterone, progestins, actually actually is probably what they are, that are made from plants, uh, you know, d derived in the lab. Yeah. From from plants. And wild yam is the precursor of the progestines that are made in in the lab.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So it's a cruder version, is that correct?
SPEAKER_00:So it's I guess what it's it's come from some it's come from a place. It's come from an actual place. What what they then do though is they go, Who's they? Uh, the cookers who are cooking up the wild yam cream, they go, Well, we'll put it in a cream and then you can rub it on your legs. Yeah. And But it has are you saying um it has the same active ingredient? It has the same active ingredient. But sadly, what you don't have that the petri dish has is the enzyme that converts it. So your body does not contain the enzyme that converts diostrogen, which is the chemical structure that's in the wild yam, into a useful progestin. So you're putting wild yam on your skin. Yeah, it's making soft. And your and it's made your skin soft. And I think it's very if you can liken it to rubbing potatoes on your legs and thinking you've made vodka. Like that's the sort of equivalent. I've put I've rubbed myself in mashed potato and now I'm now I'm drunk on vodka.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. All right. So let's just be super clear about this, because it's I I I see uh for my sins, I follow a lot of these um purveyors of Alt Med um menopausal um products, and I see a lot about um this wild yam. And if you're um not schooled in the science of it, it sounds perfectly reasonable, and that's the problem. That's right, it sounds perfectly communal, as this as the Simpsons would say. It's right, because here it is, it's wild, it's natural, it's n and you've got the appeal to nature bias, yeah, right? Um, it it's wild, it's yammy, and it's been founded in some science. It's got an element of science in it, but I think that is so fascinating. So let's just be super clear about it.
SPEAKER_00:That our bodies do not have the enzyme that is going to activate the the I mean that assumes that it gets through your skin, which is the greatest barrier your body has. You know, it keeps the insides in and the outsides out. That's literally its job. So you're assuming by putting wild yam cream on your skin that it's small enough to get through the the dermis. The d well, yeah, all those skin cells that are super they're so well packed together, you you actually stay, you know, a person and well otherwise you'd wash your hands and your hands would fall off. Well, yeah, that's right. You don't dissolve into the bath. Um so assuming that it's small enough to get through your skin, assuming it's lipophilic enough to get through the fat that's in your skin, so it can't be a water-soluble molecule, it has to be a lipophilic molecule. Yeah. And then it's so it's it's hurdled all of those barriers and it's made it into your bloodstream. Now what?
SPEAKER_01:It's like an Olympian hurdler at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:It's an Olympian hurdler. It's done.
SPEAKER_01:It's all out, it's in the bloodstream.
SPEAKER_00:Rum through all of those barriers. And now it's in your bloodstream.
SPEAKER_01:What? Now what happens? Now, well, then it's searching. It's searching for an enzyme. That you we don't manufacture. That we don't have. Alright. So it clearly it's just a heap of crap and useless. But people It's very prevalent.
SPEAKER_00:People are so I did a I I did a TikTok video on wild yam cream just explaining all of what I've just said. You saw that one. And there were a very, very large number of comments saying wild yam cream absolutely saved my menopause. And look, great, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Well, well, hang on. So let's just okay, and and then we're then we're in the extremely difficult land of um anecdotes and of um hang on, I've had a mental block. Then we're in the very difficult land of anecdotes and causation and correlation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, uh and also the fact that you haven't actually sought proper treatments. You've missed out on the benefits. So the overwhelming evidence that estrogen replacement of estrogen lowers cardiovascular risk in later life, you've you've missed out on all of that.
SPEAKER_01:And dementia.
SPEAKER_00:And dementia because you've been diverted down a path of no evidence.
SPEAKER_01:No evidence. But for the but you you you'd have to say for the people that have commented that have felt that the wild yam cream has been amazing, and they are going to go out into their environment and they're going to talk to their friends. Girlfriends, their girlfriends, and they're going to say it's amazing, and then they're going to get online and they're going to order it. And then what they've got as well is motivated reasoning. I want to be able to say, especially to a naysayer like you, I want to be able to say I am better, and you're just in the pocket of Big Pharma. I want that. Oh, if only I were in the pocket of Big Pharma. If only all of us were, we're all shills. We're all wealthy. All us debunkers. I know. And you're right at the forefront of it. Oh man, you're actually dealing with evil pharmaceuticals every day.
SPEAKER_00:No, but sadly for no no kickback.
SPEAKER_01:No kickback. It's coming. It's because I'm getting double. Yeah, it's for promoting science. Um, so let's go back to menopause. So, all right, so we've sort of covered the notion of identity protective cognition, in-group, out group bias, confirmation bias, right? We've got that sort of we know that that's happening. What how can we effectively or most effectively counter the narrative? What do we do?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that is so hard to do.
SPEAKER_01:Because it's mocking someone is not working, it just will not work. No, no. I I think that yeah, I don't know. Have you had any Okay, let okay. Let's just go back to okay. We've got wild yam. What what are some of the other products that are aimed at the at the ever-burgeoning mm uh menopause market?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm a seed cycling.
SPEAKER_01:Can you talk to me about this seed cycling? I want it bad. Yeah, you want it. You need it.
SPEAKER_00:You you need to be able to eat the appropriate seeds. So what do you mean seeds? Sunflower seeds or uh the one seeds that have the correct amounts of, and now I'm gonna make this up, selenium or whatever micronutrients. Macro that that then um balance and support your cycle throughout the cycle. And that's seed cycling. So you eat, I don't know, you eat what? You eat pumpkin seeds for the first week and then you eat different seeds for the second week, and then you eat different seeds and seed cycling.
SPEAKER_01:I've never you don't know much about it, I don't want to know about it. No.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, look, if you like seeds, I don't particularly.
SPEAKER_01:But if you do, get like fill your boots. Eat your seeds. But hang on, so then okay, so then I I'd go downstairs. I mean, that's the truly convenient thing about living here. Yeah, yeah, you just go down to Woolies.
SPEAKER_00:I I've got so much access to seeds. You do, you do. They're all and and the woolies have got that macro range that they're organic. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's funny, I was having a conversation with a family member who told me they were eating, you know, they only ate organic something. I said, Well, that's pointless. Yeah, well, completely pointless. Completely pointless. But also And they were stunned and because it's four times as much. And everything's organic. I mean, it's just mad. It's mad. It's like they don't I mean the the the the I think the premise is it's like the anti-GMO. It's the same sort of principle. When actually GMO, if you look at it, actually is incredible. Is incredible and uses it it it means that we can actually use less pesticides. And so it's actually beneficial. And feed the populations because everything is not about white middle class people. Is it surprising? What is it?
SPEAKER_00:What I thought it was. It is mostly about it. It's not all about me.
SPEAKER_01:It mostly is about you. Thank goodness. You're slightly exceptional because of your no stem cells. Yeah, that's right. So, okay, so we've got the seed cycling, which is rubbish. We've got wild yam. What what else is aimed at women? I see supplements a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Supplement, there are there are a lot of uh supplements that are branded peri or menopause.
SPEAKER_01:They are now because it's the new black.
SPEAKER_00:And I think that the fact that menopause is the new black is great because at least now we are able to talk about it. Which is really good. We don't all just have to sit in our houses on our room sweating and thinking we're the only ones and everybody else has got it completely together and when the new one's. Yeah, it was crying in the kitchen because they don't know like why they went there. Um So I do I love I love that, but of course then it's being jumping. Mean being co-opted by big wellness without uh necessarily any of the data and evidence to support the claims that these products are making. And it's I mean it's perfect for them. It's it's a perfect topic and stage of life for big wellness to co-opt because they're women who are trying who are in a change, you know. Most mammals after they've stopped reproducing, you know, once they've reached the end of their reproductive life, they just die.
SPEAKER_01:We don't die. We don't die.
SPEAKER_00:It's really good, but it means we have to have menopause and then and and then the live with live with the changes. And so what a great opportunity. There's a whole there's 50% of the population are gonna go through it. And it's a captive audience and everybody wants to feel better because it you And why shouldn't they? And why shouldn't they feel better?
SPEAKER_01:And And as we know, wellness um and alt alt med is aimed mainly at females.
SPEAKER_00:Of course, because we're the easiest target. I mean, I guess we are more invested in our own health, I would say, uh broadly, you know, m men typically aren't as interested or I would say you know maybe take as good a care of themselves.
SPEAKER_01:Or no, I mean there's there's there's plenty of data around that. And also, you know, with the with the patriarchy, um, you know, there is more pressure on us to remain younger, um, skinnier, prettier for longer. For longer. As opposed to men who simply become fabulous and sort of I don't know. Silver foxes. Silver foxes and yeah. More distinguished. They just become more it's so irritating, it's so unfair. But it's true.
SPEAKER_00:And also the fact that m most of the trials are done on white men. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So therefore the treatments work really well in in that cohort and less well in if you're in other cohorts.
SPEAKER_01:So there's a I mean that that's a very large topic of the Yeah, the the way that women's women's women's profiles are left out of are left out of the scientific analysis, and we know that to be true. So Yeah, so so so we know that these the supplements, um the cream, etc., um, is all aimed at women and that the market is huge and that because of in-group bias we're more likely to to accept it. And I guess we've just got a job on our hands to keep uh doing what we do, which is trying to say just listen listen to the science. But the problem is the science is being constantly um devalued.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and also the science hasn't got that real emotive language. No, it hasn't. So it's not certainty. Oh the certainty. So it's not nearly as sexy um or uh as um easy to to get on board with. Um the messaging is a lot more nuanced and it just doesn't sell nearly as well as you know, as there's the wellness work.
SPEAKER_01:100%. And as we know by our interaction with the um because Kate and I appeared at the Occidental Hotel for the Skeptics Conference, um Skeptics Panel, beg pardon. And at the end of um our um little chat, there was a woman who appeared who was very angry with us and blamed us for a number of things, like her neighbour's child's inability to play sport anyway, which was fantastic. Um but she was quoting um have we read RFK's book? Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't, sadly. W Kate? Good lord, what's wrong with you? Maybe if we get it on an audio book, listen to it to it just on a loop.
SPEAKER_01:Just listen to it on a loop, it's really good. When I need to go fall asleep. Yeah. And we know that that RFK, besides anything else, promotes and has always promoted his own alternate um products. Yeah. It's some notion that these people are just, you know, in there because they're for the good of humanity and and they just want to restore us to our natural state where we eat properly and and and and breathe well and run around and I don't know, get enough exercise or something. And it's just complete it's complete nonsense because what they're actually trying to do is just sell us their products.
SPEAKER_00:It's also interesting that we need we need to remind ourselves that we take our social cues from America. So for her to be in an Australian pub saying, Have you read an American politician's book is is I think telling about how ingrained we are. Enmeshed with America.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Interesting. Hadn't thought of that. This should be your podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Well, funny you say that, Annie. Because I'm thinking of how podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Is this an intervention where you're gonna come in with David and go, Annie, this is not working? Kate's taking over.
SPEAKER_00:I'm taking over the podcasting world.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and that will be interesting. Well, we'll we'll see. We'll see. People will people will can feed that back to me. Yeah, and they will. Yeah, they will. Don't you worry about that. You'll be getting to it. Yeah, I'll be saying nice things about you. Thank you. Because you are a really good communicator, and we need um good science communicators. So, on that note, I will bid you farewell. You can go back to your ultra marathon running. Thanks. Hope you're feeling better. I'm alright, thank you. Thank you for asking. Um, the tequila's really helping, I think, in its own way. Um, I feel cleansed. You are you look cleansed. Thank you. Uh and I'm going to go about my business. So, to all the women out there, especially those that are perimenopausal, menopausal, postmenopausal, um go to the science. Just go to the science, go to your GP. Um, there's been as we that that. that theory that promulgated that women shouldn't take HRT has been tossed out the window. Um it it's safe and there is no reason why anybody should be suffering from this these awful symptoms which can actually almost ruin your life if they're severe enough. So not to mention your relationships. Your relationships. Well I include that in your life. Yeah. I mean it affects everything. So do you know do yourselves a favor and go to your doctor and discuss the medical options. I have done it, Kate has done it and we're living examples, aren't we? We are of these of magnificent females. The wonder of science. The wonder of science. So thank you so much. Thank you Kate very much please come again. Thank you listeners and as always stay safe stay well keep your critical thinking hat on. See you later. Bye.
