Medical Evidence Matters with Liz Tucker

Oncologist Professor Robert Thomas, argues along with standard conventional cancer treatments - all of which he uses - that exercise and diet can play a pivotal role in improving cancer outcomes. Robert says for the newer biological therapies which require a patient to have robust immunity, research is revealing that a healthier lifestyle and gut health, can improve the chances of responding well...

Author and journalist Tom Mueller,  after meeting whistleblowers working in the US dialysis industry seven years ago, decided to investigate further. Tom argues what he found is a cautionary tale not just about dialysis, but about the impact on healthcare of for profit medicine in general. His book How to Make A Killing: Death, Dollars and the Business of Blood, contains one statistic that I found...

Investigative reporter Michael Moss has spent many years uncovering just what it is about processed and fast food that makes it so hard for many of us to resist. This is the final podcast of three that I am doing in conjunction with the  International Food addiction Consensus conference held on 17th May. Michael says he now believes from his decades of research, that particular combinations of  fl...

Psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke discusses how addictive substances like alcohol and drugs cause our dopamine levels to rocket, and reveals - perhaps surprisngly - that highly processed, high sugar food can also have a similar effect on our brains. This is the second podcast of three that I'm doing in conjunction with the International Food Addiction Consensus conference held in London on 17th May.  A...

Dr Rob Lustig discusses whether it’s really possible to become addicted to food, and if it is, does that change how we view those who struggle in their relationship with food? In our conversation, Rob argues that the phrase "food addiction" is a misnomer, and that the real issue is food additive addiction. He says all the medical evidence suggests that two additives drive this - sugar and caffeine...

In the last few decades, there has been a huge increase in allergy and allergic reactions, but why? Just what has changed in our health and environment to bring this about? Consultant NHS allergist Dr Sophie Farooque discusses one of the biggest puzzles in medicine. For example peanut allergies were almost unknown before the 1990s, but today it  and other food allergies are much more common. Sophi...

Dr Jason Fung argues that much of what we think we know about weight loss is simply wrong. Jason says that the critical factor in losing weight is hormones - not calories. He believes calorie counting is an overly simplistic approach. And that actually dieting may be the worst thing you can do, because it slows your metabolic rate which actually makes it harder to reduce weight in the future. Jaso...

Beth Zupec–Kania is a dietician and nutritionist, who has spent over 30 years developing very low carb -  otherwise known as ketogenic diets - to treat a range of both physical and mental health conditions. She has worked with many of the leading neurologists and psychiatrists pioneering this field. I heard Beth speak at a conference  Metabolic Psychiatry: Understanding How Modifying Metabolism Ca...

Dr Barbara Mintzes and Dr Joel Lexchin, have recently published a review paper on the weight loss drug Wegovy (generic name semaglutide). They discuss it and the new generation of similar obesity medications. The hype surrounding this new class of drugs has been huge, but is it justified? These pharmaceuticals are called glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists or GLP-1 for short. They work by stimulating...

Dr Mark Horowitz discusses why psychiatric medication has turned out to be far harder to stop than any one expected. For Mark, this is as much a personal as well as a professional interest. For as a patient, at one point he was taking five different psychiatric drugs. Ironically, although Mark was working in London at the Institute of Psychiatry, he found the mostly useful information about depres...

Psychiatrist Dr Georgia Ede argues that the medical profession has completely underestimated the huge impact of diet on our mental health. In her new book, Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind,  Georgia reveals improvements we can all make to our diet, and in particular, three different dietary approaches for those looking to improve their mental health. She suggests that early results from a range...

Dr Lisa Sanders, writes a column called Diagnosis in the New York Times magazine, which was the inspiration for the Fox medical drama House, M.D. .The show in which Hugh Laurie, playing Dr Gregory House, regularly managed to diagnose the most obscure of medical conditions. But today Lisa has arguably a rather tougher challenge than Hugh Laurie ever faced, she’s recently become the Medical Director...

Dr Robert Lufkin argues that modern medicine hasn’t paid nearly enough attention to the underlying causes of diseases, and has tended to treat symptoms instead. And in a controversial new book Lies I taught at Medical school, How Conventional Medicine is Making You Sicker and What You Can Do to Save Your Own Life, published by BenBella books, as evidence for his claims, he points to the epidemics...

This is the second episode of a  two parter about  a new investigation into the drug thalidomide, so if you haven’t listened to part one, please do go back and listen to that first. Thalidomide is one of the greatest medical catastrophes of the 20th century. It’s now thought to have been  responsible for around 100,000 miscarriages and disabled children. In this episode, journalist Jennifer Vander...

It was one of the greatest medical tragedies of the 20th century. In 1957, a new wonder drug was launched in Germany. It was marketed as an astonishingly safe sedative. Tragically, this could not have been further from the truth. For this was the drug thalidomide, and it would end up being responsible for around 100,000 miscarriages and disabled children. This week’s guest, journalist Jennifer Van...

Kim Witczak's life was changed for ever one tragic day in 2003 when her husband Woody killed himself. Several weeks earlier, Woody, who did not have a history of depression or mental illness, had been prescribed the SSRI anti-depressant drug Zoloft (generic name sertraline) for his insomnia. Kim sued the drug company Pfizer for wrongful death, later settling out of court. Pfizer did not admit liab...

GP Dr David Unwin has been a pioneer in the UK developing and promoting a low-carb approach for treating type 2 diabetes. In 2016, he won the NHS innovator of the year award for his work. His treatment approach has been so successful that  he has put around half his type 2 diabetic patients, who follow a low carb diet, into remission. And as a result, his practice, spends far less on diabetic medi...

Neuroscientist Dr Sabina Brennan argues that while we may be increasingly aware of the importance of physical health, we neglect the value of brain health. By giving our brains the right stimulation, she believes, not only can we increase our odds of either avoiding or delaying serious diseases such as Alzheimer’s, we may actually be able to build in resilience and slow down the ageing of our brai...

As a teenager, journalist Hadley Freeman spent over two and half years in hospital being treated for anorexia. In this interview, she gives a brutally honest account of her experience and describes how she was finally able to recover from what is one of the most puzzling psychiatric diseases. She has just published a book about her illness called: Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, and dur...

Dr Deepak Ravindran, a NHS consultant in pain medicine, reveals how we need to completely rethink our views about pain. Pain, particularly long term intractable chronic pain, can be one of the most difficult medical conditions to live with, making normal work or life almost impossible. Globally around 20% of people suffer from the condition. And getting the help they need can be incredibly difficu...

Colorectal surgeon Mr James Kinross reveals the remarkable impact that our microbiomes have on every aspect of health from the moment we are born. He argues that the biome may hold the key to understanding diseases as varied as cancer, bowel and auto-immune conditions. And that the rise of these conditions may be at least partially due to the disruption that’s been caused to our biomes, by the foo...

Dr Tanya JW McDonald discusses the use of low carb (otherwise known as ketogenic) diets for patients with epilepsy, Alzheimer’s Disease, malignant glioma and other neurological conditions. Remarkably, low carb diets have been used successful to treat  patients with epilepsy for 100 years, but fell out of favour when drugs were developed. However, in recent years there has been a resurgence in the...

Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University,  reveals the key role our body clock plays not just in controlling how and when we sleep, but in every aspect of our biology and health. He discusses his tips for getting a good night's sleep and what do when you just can’t drop off. And explores the huge toll that shift work takes on both our physical and mental health, so...

The idea of staying fit, young and healthy for longer, is something many of us would love to achieve, but just how possible is it? Dr Robert Lufkin, who has a particular research interest in the  science of longevity discusses the reality. He says the aim is not to live forever, or live longer when we are frail and ill, but to lengthen our healthy lifespan. When we age, the odds of us getting a ra...

Dr John Abramson, who has published several peer reviewed papers examining the data behind statins, discusses the facts you need to know before deciding with your doctor whether to take one of these drugs or not. Statins are drugs that lower cholesterol levels and the numbers of people recommended to take them continues to increase. Just this year, the UK’s National Institute of Clinical Excellenc...