On the Mones

It’s my 49th birthday, and I’m feeling stronger than I did a year ago. After a family weekend at the Lonely Mountain Ultra, I’m reflecting on what it felt like to run my strongest race there yet, watch my children take on their own distances, and meet my husband at the finish of his 100-kilometre run. I’m also thinking about my friend, who kept going through a very tough day, and about the strengt...

This week’s On the Mones is a little different. After a deeply disappointing week for Sydney Swans supporters, I wanted to talk about what happens when a club you’ve believed in, and whose values you thought reflected your own, lets you down. I’ve always bought into the idea that the Swans had a different kind of culture: one that respected women, welcomed the queer community and stood for somethi...

I’m having coffee with my friends Sue and Richard, which means we inevitably end up discussing the important social questions of our time. Like: if you’re sitting in a quiet nail salon and another client is having a very loud phone conversation, are the rest of us now part of the call? Nothing she was saying was particularly private, but suddenly I, my nail technician and hers were all unwilling p...

What happens when On the Mones , Why Smart Women and The Skeptic Zone all end up around the same café table? You get Smart Moans Zone. Recorded at Calibrate Coffee, we’re joined by our very special guest Dr Angie from Atlanta, USA, for a conversation that somehow manages to cover cutting-edge medicine, pseudoscience, social etiquette and Australia’s noisiest birds. In this episode we chat about: T...

This week I am recording from my deck in the Sydney rain, wearing an Oodie, accompanied by the dog and a one-week-old baby goat called LeBron because apparently this is adulthood now. In this episode, I reflect on starting a new job in the same hospital, and the same physical department, where I worked for 15 years. It made me think about what it means to return to an old place without becoming th...

Recorded in the car with Annie, this episode begins with a very important question: why is Kate wearing a star-shaped pimple patch on her forehead? The answer leads us into testosterone treatment for hypoactive sexual desire disorder, hormonal changes through menopause, and the potential role of menopausal hormone therapy and testosterone replacement for appropriately selected women. Then we enter...

In this episode, I sit down with my friend Annie to talk about misinformation in science and healthcare and why the most confident explanation is not always the most accurate one. We unpack the difference between misinformation and disinformation, the idea of “inoculating” people against misleading claims, and why becoming more comfortable with uncertainty might actually make you happier. We also...

In Part 2 of my conversation with my dad, former marketing professor Graham Dowling, we turn to a deceptively difficult question: how do you market medicine? We talk about the decline of trust in medicine and mainstream media, why people often struggle to interpret numbers and risk, and how the same data can appear to tell very different stories depending on how it is analysed or presented. We als...

In part one of this conversation, I’m joined by Professor Graham Dowling; former professor of marketing at the Australian Graduate School of Management and Macquarie Graduate School of Management, branding expert, and my dad. We talk about what “big wellness” actually means, how health has expanded from something purely physical into something mental, emotional and social, and why wellness marketi...

In this episode, pharmacist Kate Thomas is joined by Annie McCubbin from the Why Smart Women podcast to unpack the myths, marketing and medicine behind cold and flu season. Together, they explore what the evidence really says about popular cold and flu remedies, including vitamin C, zinc, echinacea, andrographis, pseudoephedrine and phenylephrine. They discuss: • Can you actually shorten a cold?  ...

Most people think oncology is about chemotherapy. In reality, it’s also about uncertainty, teamwork, difficult conversations, and helping people navigate some of the hardest moments of their lives. In this episode, Kate talks to her husband David, a medical oncologist with more than 20 years of experience, about what the job actually looks like behind the scenes. They discuss multidisciplinary tea...

Part 2 of my conversation with sex therapist Georgina Whelan and we’re talking about the stuff people rarely say out loud about sex in long-term relationships. What is “bread and butter sex” and why does it probably deserve better PR? Why people need a transition phase between everyday life and intimacy? And why do we expect ourselves to go from work emails, school lunches, dishes, stress and Anti...

What actually is libido? Why do so many couples end up with mismatched desire? And why are so many people quietly convinced their relationship is the only one struggling with sex? In part one of this conversation, I sit down with Georgina Whelan from Sexual Psychology to talk about the reality of sex and desire in long-term relationships  without the cringe, the wellness fluff, or the unrealistic...

This week on On the Mones, Kate sits down with Annie McCubbin for a conversation about what happens when real science collides with wellness marketing. They unpack: why creatine isn’t just for gym bros how creatine actually works in muscle and in the brain what the evidence does, and doesn’t show for cognition why “mechanism” is not the same thing as “proof” They also dive into the growing online...

In Part 2 of my conversation with Jean Kittson, we get into the real mechanics of midlife, beyond the punchlines (although there are still plenty of those). We talk about the juggle of full-time work, mortgages, and the mental load of budgeting in a phase of life that’s meant to feel “settled”… but often doesn’t. Jean shares her perspective on working in midlife; what shifts, what matters more, an...

In Part 1 of this conversation, I sit down with one of Australia’s most loved comedians, Jean Kittson, to explore the unexpected path that shaped her life and career. We start at the beginning, a shy child growing up in a family where her dad’s love of comedy, gags, and joke-shop tricks quietly set the tone for what was to come. Jean shares how she “fell” into drama almost by accident, thanks to a...

In this special episode, Kate sits down with her daughter Audrey on the week of her 18th birthday. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by adulthood, or underwhelmed by the milestone, Audrey describes herself as simply “whelmed.” They talk about what turning 18 actually means today: the excitement of voting for the first time, the freedom to walk into an over-18 venue (even if you choose not to), and t...

In this episode of On the Mones, Kate reflects on what it means to grow up as a young woman today as her daughter Audrey turns eighteen and prepares to vote for the first time. Named after Kate’s grandmother, born in 1925, Audrey represents three generations of women who have lived through enormous social change. From marriage bars that forced women out of the workforce, to the feminist movements...

This episode starts on a Sydney oval before sunrise. Kate reflects on her weekly Wednesday run, the quiet rituals of turning up, the characters who share the track, the sociology of shared spaces, and the reminder that the ability to move your body is never something to take for granted. From there, the conversation moves into medicine. After watching The Pitt, Kate unpacks a common myth about mor...

In this special field-trip episode of On the Mones, pharmacist Kate Thomas heads to the Mind, Body, Spirit Festival in Sydney to explore one of the most fascinating corners of the modern wellness economy. Between handmade pottery and beeswax candles are stalls offering EMF harmonisers, orgone energy devices, pet psychics, structured frequency water, cannabinoid oils and crystal healing. Some of it...

Can yoga, Pilates, tai chi and breathwork actually help menopause symptoms, or are we all just stretching our way through the placebo effect? In this first official Peri-odical Review, pharmacist Kate Thomas looks at the evidence behind mind-body exercise in perimenopause and menopause. What does the research actually show, where do these practices genuinely help, and where does wellness culture g...

In Episode 13 of On the Mones, Kate shares a recording from a special event held with women from a women's shelter. The day began with breathwork and mindfulness overlooking the ocean, a moment to pause, breathe and arrive. For some of the women attending, simply leaving the shelter and coming to the event took enormous courage. Kate then spoke about hormones, perimenopause and what is actual...

In Episode 12 of On the Mones, Kate explores a word many women recognise instantly: difficult. Recently Australian activist and former Australian of the Year Grace Tame was described publicly as difficult after speaking out politically. Whether or not you agree with her views, the label landed because women everywhere know that word. The one that appears when women stop being agreeable. Kate refle...

In Episode 11 of On the Mones, pharmacist Kate Thomas sits down with Dr Sarah Farrell, GP and principal of Sydney Women's Wellness, to tackle two major midlife health topics that do not get nearly enough honest airtime: breast awareness and genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM). On breast awareness, Kate and Dr Farrell cover: What breast awareness actually means today and how it differs f...

My first baby turns 21. So naturally, I sat him down with a microphone and asked him to explain perimenopause to the boys. What does a 21-year-old man think hormones are? Do young men talk about menopause? If boys had menopause, what would happen? There are one-word answers. There are finish-the-sentence confessions. And somewhere in there, a mother realising her son is now a man. Then Episode 10...