From her groundbreaking televised colonoscopy to her breast cancer journey, Katie Couric has turned personal experience into powerful advocacy for the health issues medicine has overlooked. This week on unPaused, Dr. Mary Claire Haver sits down with Katie Couric, award-winning journalist, founder of Katie Couric Media, co-founder of Stand Up To Cancer, and author of the New York Times bestseller Going There. Katie spent 15 years co-hosting the Today Show, served as the first solo female anchor of CBS Evening News, and has interviewed nearly every president, world leader and cultural voice of the last four decades.

Together, they explore Katie's journey from growing up in Arlington, Virginia, where her parents instilled the importance of education and financial independence, to breaking barriers in network news while navigating profound personal loss. Katie opens up about losing her husband Jay to stage four colon cancer when her daughters were six and two, how that tragedy launched her into cancer advocacy, and why she made the decision to have a colonoscopy on live television — a moment that changed screening rates across America and took the stigma out of a life-saving procedure.

The conversation dives into the Women's Health Initiative and its lasting aftermath. Katie and Dr. Haver unpack how flawed research and sensationalized reporting created decades of fear around hormone replacement therapy, leaving an entire generation of women without adequate treatment for menopause symptoms. They discuss emerging therapies for breast cancer survivors experiencing severe menopausal symptoms, including selective estrogen receptor modulators like bazedoxifene combined with conjugated estrogens (Duavee), which allows estrogen to reach the brain, bones, joints and skin while blocking estrogen receptors in the breast tissue.

Katie reveals she is producing a new documentary that will expose the stark disparities in medical research between men and women. She shares the statistics that drove her to make this film: women were not required to be included in clinical trials until 1993, female crash test dummies with anatomically correct bodies were only recently developed, women take an average of four years longer to be diagnosed with diseases, and while two out of three Alzheimer's patients are female, only 12% of Alzheimer's research funding focuses on women. The film will connect the dots on systemic sexism in medicine, from the dismissal of women's pain in emergency rooms to the 40 FDA approved treatments for erectile dysfunction versus the lack of approved testosterone therapy for women.

They explore postpartum depression and psychosis, with Katie recounting her reporting on the Andrea Yates tragedy in Texas, where a mother suffering from untreated postpartum psychosis drowned her five children. Both women discuss their own experiences with intrusive thoughts after childbirth and how mandatory screening protocols emerged from that tragedy, though gaps in maternal mental healthcare remain.

Katie explains why she continues working, driven by a sense of purpose and the responsibility to use her platform for public service during a time when science and journalism are under attack. She discusses the crisis in media literacy, the erosion of trust in institutions, and how consumers are getting affirmation rather than information from news sources that confirm their preexisting biases. The episode examines what it means to stay engaged and visible in midlife, the importance of purpose beyond motherhood, and why women living longer but not living well is one of the defining health challenges of our time.

Guest links:

• Katie Couric Media
  
• Katie Couric (Instagram)
  
• Katie Couric (TikTok)
  
• Katie Couric (Facebook)
  
• Katie Couric Media (Instagram)
  
• Katie Couric (YouTube)
  
• Katie Couric (X)
  
• Katie Couric (LinkedIn)
  
• Katie Couric (Substack)
  
• Next Question with Katie Couric (Apple Podcasts)

Books:

• "Going There" by Katie Couric
• "The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much?," by Leslie Bennetts

Articles:

• The Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study (KEEPS): what have we learned? (Menopause)

Other Resources:

• For Love & Life: No Ordinary Campaign
  
• Everything WRONG With Modern Media (Rich Roll)
  
• “Women Have Been Misled About Menopause,” by Susan Dominus
  
• Why Women Are Our Best Bet in Alzheimer’s Research (Us Against Alzheimer’s)