Medicine and Science from The BMJ

This week we’ll hear why Donald Light, professor of comparative health systems research at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, thinks the innovation crisis in the development of drugs is more marketing rhetoric than reality. Also this week, a research paper on bmj.com looks at how subclinical psychological distress affects mortality. Tom Russ, Alzheimer Scotland clinical resear...

Marion Nestle is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University. She has written widely about food and nutrition, and is an iconoclast in the world of food politics. In this podcast she explains how economic forces have changed the food industry, and how that change is fuelling the obesity epidemic.

Over the decades public health has had many incarnations. Geof Rayner and Tim Lang (Center for Food Policy) argue that public health today needs an overhaul, and to focus on our co-existence with nature and relationships with each other. They explain why, and how. Many of the issues Dr Rayner and Professor Lang are concerned about are being taken up by the People's Health Movement. Member Jonny Cu...

In 2008 the rates of suicide in the UK began to increase. Is it a coincidence that this was also when the financial crisis hit? Ben Barr, research fellow in the department of Public Health and Policy at the University of Liverpool, explains what his study found. Those who've attempted to kill themselves once are at high risk of doing so again, but interventions to prevent this have been hard to fi...

It's increasingly obvious that acutely ill patients have received less than gold standard care. Deficiencies in training are often blamed. Paul Frost, consultant in intensive care medicine at the University Hospital of Wales, takes us through the admission of an acutely ill patient. Also this week, BRCA mutations and ionising radiation both increase the risk of developing cancer, but how do these...

A BMJ head to head article this week asks: "Are the causes of obesity primarily environmental?" John Wilding, Head of the Department of Obesity and Endocrinology at the University of Liverpool, and Tim Frayling, professor of human genetics at the University of Exeter, argue their cases. Also this week, David Williams, a consultant obstetric physician at University College Hospital London, explains...

This week we concentrate on diabetes "The difference between insulin management in type 1 and type 2 diabetes is rather like the difference between driving a sports car and driving a lorry," says Edwin Gale, emeritus professor of diabetes at the University of Bristol. He tells us why this means the newer insulins that have benefits in the treatment of type 1 diabetes may not be as good for type 2....

Schemes which reduce emergency admissions sound like a good thing, but Martin Rowland, professor of health services research, Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research, University of Cambridge, explains how they can go off track. And Mabel Chew gets some advice on the prognosis of children with acute coughs from Matthew Thompson, a senior clinical scientist in the Department of Primary Care He...

A head to head article this week asks: "Does celebrity involvement in public health campaigns deliver long term benefit?”. The British Heart Foundation’s Hands Only CPR campaign, featuring Hollywood actor Vinnie Jones, seems to be having positive effects. Maura Gillespie, head of policy and advocacy at the BHF, explains why. Also this week, care for the homeless is often fragmented and transient....

In the US, overly aggressive treatment is estimated to cause 30 000 deaths among Medicare recipients alone each year. Reporter Jeanne Lenzer has investigated the problem for the BMJ, and explains why she thinks profit driven healthcare is to blame. And, experience of treating rare conditions can take time to build. Rej Bhumbra, a surgical trainee in orthopaedic oncology, explains how his time in I...

Bariatric surgery is under scrutiny from NCEPOD, the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death, Ian Martin, NCEPOD's clinical co-ordinator for surgery, takes us through the highlights of its latest report. Also this week, Julie Paik, instructor and physician at Harvard Medical School, tells us about a new risk factor for primary hyperparathyroidism. And finally, some neuromuscul...

Deborah Cohen explains how a joint BMJ and Daily Telegraph investigation helped uncover problems with device regulation in Europe. Previous research has shown smoking reduces life expectancy by about a decade, but only by four years if you are Japanese. Sarah Darby, from the University of Oxford, explains why her new research shows they are actually just as unhealthy as their British counterparts.

Rajiv Chowdury, a research associate from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, explains why eating whole fish is better than fish oil - at least when it comes to cerebrovascular disease. Also this week Peter Doshi and Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration talk about the BMJ's open data campaign, and how publishing correspondence with Roche, the W...

This week, Al Mulley, Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, and Tessa Richards, BMJ associate editor, discuss the silent misdiagnosis: that of patient preferences. Removing pre-cancerous cells spotted through screening is the foremost defence against cervical cancer. However, a recent BMJ paper has shown that women who go through this have a fourfold risk of going on to develop cancer...

Last year 125 people died in Pakistan after taking contaminated cardiac medication. The disaster is one example of the dangers of counterfeit and substandard medicines, an issue the WHO is struggling to control. In this podcast we hear from Amir Attaran, Canada research chair in law, population health, and global development policy at the University of Ottawa, on the international wrangling he see...

Lasse Krogsbøll, from the Nordic Cochrane Centre, explains research into whether general health checks improve mortality and morbidity in the population. Also, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) this week announced plans to make trial data used as the basis for its decisions publicly available. BMJ Deputy editor Trish Groves finds out more from some of the key players in the campaign for open dat...

Helen Macdonald, assistant editor at the BMJ, talks to Neil Marlow, professor of neonatal medicine at University College London, about his update to the EPICure study looking at outcomes for extremely premature babies. Jane Feinmann talks to writer and surgeon Atul Gawande, about Lifebox – which has been chosen again as the BMJ’s Christmas appeal for 2012.

Is too much oxygen a good thing? Christine Roffe, consultant physician, Stoke Stroke Research Group, North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust, talks Mabel Chew, BMJ associate editor, through the evidence for routinely treating stroke patients with oxygen. And Russell Gruen, professor of surgery and public health, Alfred and Monash University, Melbourne, explains how and when tranexamic ac...

Many patients are following a wheat free diet, which they believe helps with their gastrointestinal symptoms, yet they don't exhibit markers of coeliac disease. Mabel Chew finds out from David Sanders, a professor of gastroenterology at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, about non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. Also, Fiona Godlee gives us an update on the open data campaign.

We know that speed bumps have an important public health role, but a Christmas BMJ paper shows they're also clinically useful, and can help diagnose appendicitis. Helen Ashdown, academic clinical fellow in general practice, University of Oxford, and Mike Puttick, consultant surgeon, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, explain. And want to know how many carrots you need to eat to balance out that festive ch...

The final article in the analysis series examining prison health in England and Wales is published this week. To sum up, Francis Crook, Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform - the UK's oldest charity examining prison conditions - joins us to discuss prison reform. Also this week, Myasthenia gravis; Jennifer Spillane, clinical research associate at the Institute of Neurology in London, exp...

You may well assume that a programme supported by organisations such as the World Bank and the World Health Organization does what it says on the tin. However, it turns out this is not the case with deworming initiatives in countries such as Africa and India. Paul Garner, co-author of the Cochrane review on the topic, explains what's going on. And Michael Wilson, instructor of medicine at the Mayo...

The authors of the recent meta-analysis on dietary sugar and body weight, Lisa Te Morenga, and Jim Mann, from the Departments of Human Nutrition and Medicine at the University of Otago, join us to discuss their findings. Also this week, the BMA wants doctors to be more involved in influencing policy on recreational drugs. Vivienne Nathanson, its director of professional activities, explains its ne...

An epidemiological investigation on bmj.com discusses the first probable case of human to human transmission of novel avian influenza A (H7N9). The author of the accompanying editorial, James Rudge, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explains what this means for public health. Also this week, we know that standardised mortality rates are tricky and have to be interpreted care...

US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health produced by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, has found that on almost every comparative measure, Americans fare worse than their counterparts from other developed countries. Steve Woolf, from the Department of Family Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, who chaired the re...