Inside Health

With over 50 confirmed cases of people in the UK with the Zika, Dr Margaret McCartney reviews the latest advice for people worried about the virus. Keyhole surgery for the hip. Dr Mark Porter finds out how hip arthroscopy is increasingly being used to treat problems caused by hip impingement. Sion Glyn Jones, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Oxford and consultant orthopaedic s...

Has media coverage of statins caused people to come off the drugs? An unusual neurological itch on the arms or back that is often misdiagnosed. Plus Ghrelin, the hormone that makes your tummy rumble and an unexpected surgical side effect that may help in the quest for people to lose weight. And the story of how Viagra was discovered.

Every three minutes somebody in the UK develops dementia, so when it's claimed that tailored computer brain training can reduce cases of dementia and cognitive decline by a third over a decade, people sit up and take notice. The research claiming the 33% reduction for the group of people whose "processing function" was targeted for brain training, hasn't yet been published - so isn't peer-reviewed...

What is Papilloedema? The condition has been in the headlines as an optometrist was found guilty of manslaughter after missing abnormalities in the eyes of an eight year old child. Plus, Margaret McCartney debates the accuracy of screening young people for Sudden Cardiac Death in Sport. How to diagnose early miscarriage in women who are bleeding in early pregnancy? And the serendipitous story of h...

Care.data, the scheme to build an enormous database containing the medical records of all English patients has been scrapped. Dr Mark Porter investigates the fall-out following the cancellation of this expensive programme, which foundered on concerns about confidentiality and public and professional trust. Chair of the national EMIS user group and Sheffield GP Dr Geoff Schrecker and GP Dr Margaret...

David Haslam, chair of NICE, discusses with Mark Porter how doctors should treat patients with 'multi-morbidity', the millions of people receiving many different drugs for many different conditions. There's plenty of trial data for starting treatments, but a dearth of evidence for stopping them! And one-shot radiotherapy during surgery for breast cancer may help 20,000 women in the UK. Rather than...

NHS health checks or 'mid-life MOTs' have hit the headlines as new research claims they are a success. The aim is prevention - of diabetes, heart attacks and strokes - but their introduction has been controversial amid criticism they are not evidence based or cost effective. Resident sceptic Dr Margaret McCartney debates the issues with National Clinical Advisor Dr Matt Kearney. And putting the fa...

The average five-year-old consumes their own body weight in sugar every year in this country - a scary illustration of the scale of the sugar problem. The new sugar tax is supposed to tackle this, but what's the evidence that a tax on sugary drinks alone will make a difference? Dr Margaret McCartney reviews the evidence from other countries, which have also used fiscal measures to nudge their popu...

Why asthma is both over diagnosed and undertreated. Professor Mike Thomas and GP Dr Margaret McCartney discuss this apparent contradiction and look behind recent headlines that half a million children in the UK could be taking asthma medicines they don't need. A new study finds that putting doctors under pressure or being a difficult patient may backfire, inducing them to make diagnostic errors. W...

Millions of anti-depressants are prescribed every year and more than half of people taking them have been doing so for two years or more. But how do you know when you're better and how can you tell that the time is right to stop taking them? Withdrawal symptoms are often confused with a return of the original depression so careful tapering of medication is crucial. Tony Kendrick, Professor of Prim...

The use of talc and its potential connection with ovarian cancer has hit the headlines after a court ruling in America. Given that nearly half the UK population uses talc to some degree GP Dr Margaret McCartney looks at the evidence and puts any link in perspective. PBC is an often missed condition that causes severe itching and fatigue with the resulting liver damage mistakenly associated with dr...

Up to half a million people in the UK could have it, but it's a condition that hardly anybody has heard about: Charles Bonnet Syndrome. It happens to people who are losing their sight through age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetic eye problems or glaucoma. They see vivid and often frightening visual hallucinations and these images are soundless. Judith Potts' mother Esme was in her...

The UK's first licensed e-cig, owned by a tobacco company, is now classed as a medicine paving the way for it to be prescribed on the NHS to help people quit. Robert West, Professor of Psychology at University College London and one of the world's leading experts on smoking cessation, and GP Margaret McCartney debate the issues. Asherman's Syndrome, a little known complication of surgery that is o...

Dr Margaret McCartney reviews advice to pregnant women concerned about the Zika virus while Andrew Shennan, Professor of Obstetrics at King's College and St Thomas' Hospital in London tells Dr Mark Porter about the risks of infection closer to home - chicken pox. One in every one thousand babies born in the UK has congenital talipes, or club foot. This is where the foot points inwards and downward...

How low should you go when treating blood pressure? Mark Porter talks to the author of landmark study that was stopped early because the benefits of aggressive treatment were so convincing. This looks set to change the management of high blood pressure and millions more people in the UK will be taking extra medication. Dr Margaret McCartney debates the issues with Professor Tony Heagerty. Imagine...

Scotland is considering whether to add folic acid to staple foods like flour to protect babies against conditions like spina bifida. Frustrated at the lack of action by the UK government on the issue - despite government advisers recommending for 16 years that flour should be fortified with folic acid - the Scottish government is preparing to go it alone. Spina bifida is one of a group of severe c...

Dr Mark Porter unpicks the science behind the so called 'weekend effect'. Politicians have quoted research claiming that people are 20% more likely to die of a stroke at the weekend, while another much cited study finds 11,000 more deaths in people admitted at the weekend. But how valid are these figures and the research that generated them? Dr Margaret McCartney reviews the stroke data that has b...

Inside Health listener and keep fit enthusiast, David Heathcote, wanted advice on how far he should safely push himself when he's training in the gym. In this special programme about the health benefits of keeping active, Dr Mark Porter helps David to find the answer to his question about the exercise "sweet spot". If you struggle to screw the top off a jar, or use your arms to push yourself out o...

Prescriptions for nerve drugs pregabalin and gabapentin have risen dramatically in recent years and at the same time, concerns about abuse. Former prisoner and addict "Patrick" tells Dr Mark Porter that "gabbies" or "pregabs" are drugs of choice in jail and Dr Iain Brew, a GP who works in prisons, says misuse is a growing problem and there are examples of doctors being pressurised into prescribing...

As cars were banned from central Paris this weekend and the health risks of pollution hit the headlines, Mark Porter examines the statistic that pollution kills 29,000 people a year in the UK. And he visits a pioneering clinic at Southampton General Hospital where falls in the elderly are seen as a risk factor for underlying health problems; 'Having a hip fracture is like having a heart attack or...

For five years the Cancer Drugs Fund has supplied seventy five thousand patients in England with cancer drugs, but its days are numbered. Spiralling costs have led to a reduction in the number of drugs the CDF will pay for, meaning newly-diagnosed patients may miss out. Dr Mark Porter talks to Vicky Rockingham about the anxiety that reform of the CDF is causing. Vicky is a mother of two, working f...

Are league tables listing surgical outcomes the best way to assess your surgeon or are high risk patients being turned away as surgeons keep an eye on their figures? New data published this week list the clinical outcomes for heart surgery - cardiac surgeons are just one speciality from an ever expanding list of doctors whose performance is now published in league tables and subject to public scru...

Dr Mark Porter presents a programme devoted to questions from the listeners. Dr Mike Knapton from the British Heart Foundation answers a question about whether aspirin can protect against a second heart attack. A number of people asked about the treatment of vertigo. Vertigo is a symptom of a variety of conditions ranging from migraine and Meniere's, to strokes and tumours, but by far the most com...

From this week all UK babies will be vaccinated against that most feared disease, meningitis B, the first country in the world to take this step. But the decision to include Men B in the national immunisation programme has come too late for parents, Freya and Ross. A year ago their baby daughter, Harmonie, nearly died after contracting the infection. Her arms and legs as well as the tip of her nos...

Why more than 1 in 10 people having emergency abdominal surgery die within 30 days of their operation. Which thermometers parents should use and which they should not. Vitamins and dementia - a controversy dividing scientists. Could taking B vitamins lower the levels of the amino acid homocysteine and slow the onset of Alzheimer's disease? Absolute risk v relative risk.