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 claims that nicotine is a cure for dementia:

• how nicotine acts on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors
• why nicotine patches were studied in Alzheimer’s and mild cognitive impairment
• what the trials actually found
• and how wellness culture can take a tiny grain of scientific plausibility and inflate it into certainty.

Along the way, Kate and Annie talk about mental endurance, physical endurance, resilience, and why pushing through hard things, whether that’s running long distances, navigating midlife, or learning to think critically, changes the way you move through the world.

A conversation about science, scepticism, stamina, and why “interesting” is not the same thing as “proven.”