Inside Health Folgen

There are growing concerns about the widespread use of PPIs, the acid suppressing family of drugs used to treat indigestion and the most prescribed in the world. They are recommended to be used for weeks in typical cases of heartburn, but most people including Mark, take them for months or years. But one reason why PPIs are being used so widely is to protect the lining of the gut from aspirin and combining these two drugs may also have benefits against cancer. Mark hears preliminary findings on the so called chemo-protective effects of aspirin. And radiotherapy is a crucial part of modern cancer treatment so why does it get so little attention compared to drugs? Plus why radiation and smoking are particularly poor bedfellows.

The Hepatitis B vaccine has been added to the childhood national programme joining the 5 vaccines already given to all young babies at 8, 12 and 16 weeks. Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection & Immunity at the University of Oxford, and Chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, explains why.Margaret McCartney and Mark Porter visit men in north London looking for the physical and mental benefits of community sheds. The obesity paradox - can being overweight sometimes be beneficial? Gavin Murphy, British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Leicester and Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, debate the latest research suggesting that obese people are more likely to survive heart surgery than their slimmer peers. Are clinical trials good for you? We examine the evidence behind conventional wisdom that people taking part in research tend to fare better - whatever their illness.

Are we on the cusp of a new era where computers rather than doctors will be doing the diagnosing. Ali Parsa, founder of Babylon Health, believes we are and is developing an online tool using artificial intelligence that diagnoses quicker and more accurately than a doctor. He debates the issues with resident sceptic Dr Margaret McCartney. Mark Porter visits the world's first national tissue bank for pancreatic cancer, set up to aid research into a disease that has seen no outcome improvement for over 40 years. Plus statins and muscle aches; could the drugs' bad press in the media actually increase the odds of people experiencing side effects - the so called nocebo effect?