Podcasts about World Health Organization

From the BBC World Service: Pharmaceutical giant Merck has scrapped plans worth more than $1 billion to expand its operations in the United Kingdom, blaming a lack of government support. It's the latest pharmaceutical company to curb investments there. Also, Mexico plans to slap tariffs of up to 50% on cars from China and other Asian countries. And, there's a warning from the World Health Organization that workers worldwide need better protection from extreme heat.

From the BBC World Service: Pharmaceutical giant Merck has scrapped plans worth more than $1 billion to expand its operations in the United Kingdom, blaming a lack of government support. It's the latest pharmaceutical company to curb investments there. Also, Mexico plans to slap tariffs of up to 50% on cars from China and other Asian countries. And, there's a warning from the World Health Organization that workers worldwide need better protection from extreme heat.

Dr. Jen Layden, Senior Vice President for Population Health and Innovation at ASTHO, discusses her previous experience in data modernization and what's to come as she takes on her new role; Dr. Rick Neitzel, professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, talks about the University's partnership with Apple to study hearing and the impact of noise pollution; ASTHO invites state agencies to apply to be one of four states chosen for an in-person ethical wastewater surveillance training opportunity; and ASTHO welcomes new member Dr. Meg Sullivan, Deputy Secretary of Public Health Services at the Maryland Department of Health.  University of Michigan: Collaboration with Apple and World Health Organization studies sound exposure impacts on hearing ASTHO Web Page: Ethical Analysis for Infectious Disease Wastewater Surveillance Training Opportunity Meg Sullivan Bio  

Dr Michael Ryan, Deputy Director General of the World Health Organisation, discusses the issues of child poverty ahead of the Child Poverty and Wellbeing Summit in Dublin.

Guest post by Stanley Olisa Half the world still live without access to essential health services. Thats the stark warning from the World Health Organisation. When illness strikes across Africa and Asia, families are forced into impossible choices: pay crippling out-of-pocket costs or go without treatment altogether. For too many, the result is fatal. From pneumonia in Bangladesh to malaria in Kenya and maternal complications in Nigeria, the story is consistent. The poorest are locked out of healthcare systems designed to leave them behind. But a new tech-driven model is starting to change that. A Digital Lifeline Helpster, a global non-profit platform, is leveraging technology to close life-threatening healthcare gaps. Its model is simple but radical: connect vulnerable patients directly with donors, hospitals and volunteers in real time. The goal is to bypass the bottlenecks of traditional aid and get treatment to those who need it most, when they need it most. The platforms data from Africa and Asia reveal just how urgent the crisis is, and how tech innovation can be part of the solution. The Conditions Claiming the Most Lives Pneumonia remains one of the leading killers of children under five in Bangladesh, accounting for 12% of child deaths. In rural Kenya, severe malaria dominates case records, with more than 3.4 million new cases and 11,800 deaths each year. One seven-year-old girl endured three days of fever before Helpster matched her family with a donor. The $109 treatment cost was impossible to cover. Without digital intervention, she would not have survived. In Nigeria, the challenge is even larger. With 68 million malaria cases and 194,000 deaths recorded in 2021 alone, the country accounts for nearly a third of global malaria deaths. Alongside this, obstetric emergencies such as pre-eclampsia and placenta praevia regularly appear in Helpsters case logs. Healthcare at Catastrophic Cost Behind these statistics are families who simply cannot pay. In Bangladesh, rural households earn around $155-175 per month. Treating pneumonia costs $170. A breech delivery can cost $265. In Kenya, severe malaria treatment averages $109, while pneumonia is $133. Just 28% of Kenyans have health insurance, and even then many say it is unaffordable. In Nigeria, treatment for malaria or surgical conditions ranges from ?20,000 ($25) to ?180,000 ($230). Yet fewer than 10% of Nigerians have insurance, leaving 190 million to pay out of pocket. When half of Nigerians earn just ?63,126 ($41) a month, according to 2025 data, these costs are catastrophic. Barriers That Keep Care Out of Reach For families in Bangladesh, Kenya and Nigeria, the obstacles to healthcare are strikingly similar. The first is economic. With households bearing most of the cost, even a basic hospital stay can wipe out a months income. Distance is another barrier. In rural areas, hospitals may be hours away, reached only by dirt roads or unreliable transport. For a mother in labour or a child with a high fever, those delays can be fatal. The shortage of medical staff deepens the crisis. Doctors and nurses cluster in urban centres, while rural facilities operate with skeletal teams. Many who are trained leave for better prospects abroad, draining already fragile systems. Social and cultural factors also hold people back. Women often need permission to seek care, while marginalised groups are treated with suspicion or neglect. And when families finally reach hospitals, corruption and empty drug shelves too often greet them instead of treatment. Digital health services are expanding but the poorest remain excluded, a cruel irony of progress. Scoring Poverty, Prioritising Urgency This is where Helpsters model shows its strength. By applying digital poverty and urgency scores, the platform can prioritise cases based on household income, family size, location and living conditions. In Bangladesh, the average poverty score is 118/250 with an urgency score of 22/26. In Kenya, ...

The cost of alcohol abuse in this country is absolutely phenomenal. Worldwide, I can't even imagine what it would be, but here in this country it's bad enough. A report that came out last year from the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, the first of its kind since 2009, found that: The cost of alcohol abuse in terms of alcohol harm based on disability adjusted life years is $9.1 billion. $4.8b associated with disability-adjusted life years from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) $1.2 b associated with disability-adjusted life years from alcohol use disorder $281m - intimate partner violence (for alcohol use disorder alone) $74m - child maltreatment (for hazardous drinking alone), $2.1b in societal cost of road crashes where alcohol was a factor $4b in lost productivity associated with alcohol use, including FASD, crimes and workplace absenteeism $810m, predominantly in health and ACC spending. Peter Dunne, in an article in Newsroom this week, argues that these costs are a result of a decades-long failure in policy. He says when he was working for the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council way back in the late 70s, they undertook the first national survey of New Zealanders' alcohol consumption and drinking patterns. The most dramatic finding, he says, was that 9% of drinkers were responsible for two-thirds of the alcohol drunk. Of all the alcohol consumed in the country, 9% of drinkers drink two-thirds of it. He says that told you there were binge drinkers, problem drinkers, who made up a minority of the population, and a minority of the drinking population, but consumed the most, and that's where education and policy should have been directed. However, around the same time that survey came out, the World Health Organisation came up with its own policy and advised that government interventions should focus on reducing alcohol consumption levels overall to reduce the number of alcohol-related problems, rather than focus on specific groups. So you've had broad-brush, once over lightly programmes, you know, general, ‘hey guys, you know, it's not what you drink, it's how you're drinking', the general programs. And that, he says, has failed. Most people do know how to drink sensibly. They'll enjoy a glass or two of wine occasionally, and that'll be that. A couple of beers on a hot day after a surf. Fantastic. Then there are those of us who board a sky-sailing pirate ship to whiskey Valhalla and it's hoots way hay and off as Caitlin Moran put it. And sometimes that's fine, and sometimes that's not. When you set out to lose control, chuck everything in the air and see where it all lands, sometimes it lands you in a police cell, or hospital, or in the bed of someone you shouldn't be with. And that's when the trouble starts. Peter Dunne argues that we need to do away with the broad-brush approach and focus on the binge drinkers, the problem drinkers. Targeted policies for that 9 to 10% of the population who cannot drink sensibly, who do not drink moderately, and who are causing all of the harm. Do you need to be told how much you should drink, when you should drink it, like not when you're pregnant? Do you need to be told that? Do you just switch off when you drink and think, oh for heaven's sake, who on earth are they talking to? I know all of this stuff. Do we need to be focusing on the people who need to hear the message, all that money going into general education, redirected to those groups who need to hear the message most, and putting more of the money into the rehabilitation and the turning around and the changing of dangerous drinking behaviours? That is a hell of a lot of money to spend on disordered drinking, on problem drinking. And it's not you, probably, or you. But over there in the corner, it's us. And we're the ones that need to hear the message, not them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski recapped her dream vacation in Ireland, analyzes her heritage, and hosts book club.  The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01 

Welcome to the Olink® Proteomics in Proximity podcast!  Below are some useful resources mentioned in this episode:  Olink tools and software·       Olink® Explore HT, Olink's most advanced solution for high-throughput biomarker discovery, measuring 5400+ proteins simultaneously with a streamlined workflow and industry-leading specificity: https://olink.com/products-services/exploreht/  UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project (UKB-PPP), one of the world's largest scientific studies of blood protein biomarkers conducted to date, https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/learn-more-about-uk-biobank/news/uk-biobank-launches-one-of-the-largest-scientific-studies  World Health Organization (2003). Adherence to long-term therapies: evidence for action (PDF). Geneva: World Health Organisation. ISBN 978-92-4-154599-0 Research articles and news·       Thermo Fisher Scientific's Olink Platform Selected for World's Largest Human Proteome Studyhttps://ir.thermofisher.com/investors/news-events/news/news-details/2025/Thermo-Fisher-Scientifics-Olink-Platform-Selected-for-Worlds-Largest-Human-Proteome-Study/default.aspx·       Hamilton Se-Hwee Oh et al 2025. Plasma proteomics links brain and immune system aging with healthspan and longevityhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-025-03798-1. Nature Medicine (2025)·       Song, Y., Abuduaini, B., Yang, X. et al. Identification of inflammatory protein biomarkers for predicting the different subtype of adult with tuberculosis: an Olink proteomic study. Inflamm. Res. 74, 60 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00011-025-02020-9·       Ferhan Qureshi et al 2023. Analytical validation of a multi-protein, serum-based assay for disease activity assessments in multiple sclerosis. Proteomics clinical application 2023·       Dhindsa, R.S., Burren, O.S., Sun, B.B. et al. Rare variant associations with plasma protein levels in the UK Biobank. 2023 Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06547-xhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06547-x·       Sun, B.B., Chiou, J., Traylor, M. et al.  Plasma proteomic associations with genetics and health in the UK Biobank. 2023 Nature, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06592-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06592-6 https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurheartj/ehac495/6676779·       Eldjarn GH, et al. Large-scale plasma proteomics comparisons through genetics and disease associations. Nature. 2023 Oct;622(7982):348-358. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06563-xhttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06563-x#Sec44·        Carrasco-Zanini et al 2024 Proteomic prediction of common and rare diseases. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-03142-z . NatureMedicine volume 30,  pages2489–2498 (2024)·       Watanabe K, Wilmanski T, Diener C, et al. Multiomic signatures of body mass index identify heterogeneous health phenotypes and responses to a lifestyle intervention.https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02248-0·       Petrera A, von Toerne C, Behlr J, et al. Multiplatform Approach for Plasma Proteomics: Complementarity of Olink Proximity Extension Assay Technology to Mass Spectrometry-Based Protein Profiling. (2020) Journal of Proteome Research, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jproteome.0c00641·       Multicenter Collaborative Study to Optimize Mass Spectrometry Workflows of Clinical Specimens. Kardell O, von Toerne C, Merl-Pham J, König AC, Blindert M, Barth TK, Mergner J, Ludwig C, Tüshaus J, Eckert S, Müller SA, Breimann S, Giesbertz P, Bernhardt AM, Schweizer L, Albrecht V, Teupser D, Imhof A, Kuster B, Lichtenthaler SF, Mann M, Cox J, Hauck SM. J Proteome Res. 2024 Jan 5;23(1):117-129. doi: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00473. Epub 2023 Nov 28. PMID: 38015820 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.3c00473·       Wei, S., Shen, R., Lu, X. et al. Integrative multi-omics investigation of sleep apnea: gut microbiome metabolomics, proteomics and phenome-wide association study. Nutr Metab (Lond) 22, 57 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12986-025-00925-0·       Liu, L., Li, M., Qin, Y. et al. Childhood obesity and insulin resistance is correlated with gut microbiome serum protein: an integrated metagenomic and proteomic analysis. Sci Rep 15, 21436 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-07357-z·       Zhang, Xiaotao et al.Modulating a prebiotic food source influences inflammation and immune-regulating gut microbes and metabolites: insights from the BE GONE trial. eBioMedicine, Volume 98, 104873 (2023.).  10.1016/j.ebiom.2023.104873·      &nb...

For decades, Africa's malaria strategy has focused almost exclusively on disease control through indoor mosquito management and personal protection — bed nets, indoor spraying, and individual-level interventions. But this approach alone isn't working. Progress against malaria in the African region has slowed significantly, with cases declining by just 5% since 2015 and mortality by 16%, according to the World Health Organization. Experts now argue it's time to shift from disease-centric, indoor mosquito management to more robust integrated mosquito management strategies. That means taking a tiered approach, starting with reducing mosquito breeding sites, treating water sources with larvicides, and then targeting adult mosquitoes. “The tendency will probably be to think about controlling mosquitoes when they are flying only. But they are actually more vulnerable when they are not flying, usually when they are in the water,” explained Silas Majambere, a medical entomologist and business manager of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East at Valent BioSciences. This approach, known as larval source management, has proven both cost-effective and sustainable. “The conversation is shifting away from just talking about a disease and saying, ‘How do we take those limited public health dollars and manage the mosquito so that we can manage multiple diseases for those dollars?'” said Jason Clark, managing director for global public health and forest health at Valent BioSciences. Some countries are already moving in this direction. In Benin, the government is framing mosquito control not just as a health issue but as an economic one. The government is focusing on tourism as one of the key pillars of growth for the country, and the presence of mosquito-borne diseases is a direct threat to that, explained Sinde Chekete, adviser to the president of Benin. “We believe that investing in mosquito control will ultimately bring resources, will bring revenue, because we'll be able to welcome more tourists … and reduce the overall cost of malaria,” he said. Chekete, Majambere, and Clark joined Devex Executive Editor Kate Warren to discuss the shift toward integrated mosquito management in a special Devex podcast episode sponsored by Valent BioSciences.

Send us a textLast month, The Lancet posted online an article from Stine Johansen, Fredrik Åberg, Emmanuel Tsochatzis and Aleksander Krag, titled "Screening for Advanced Liver Disease." The article aims to update the Wilson and Jungner criteria, initially developed in 1960, to address modern needs and issues. In this conversation, Professor Krag and Dr. Johansen join Roger Green to discuss their article. There are many nuances and high points to cover in this thoughtful, fairly lengthy conversation, but one key point is that screening a mass population for HCC or cirrhosis has an entirely different set of issues and criteria compared to the screening usually discussed on this podcast, which involves identifying a population at increased risk for MASLD or MASH and screening them. Also, healthcare is far more expensive than it was in 1960 with a plethora of high-cost ways to diagnose, treat and manage patients.As a result, the authors started with the 10 Wilson and Jungner criteria and added eight more. During this conversation, Stine emphasizes the need for a comprehensive clinical trial on this issue, and all panelists agree that LiverAIM is likely to serve as the study.

As The Met Office confirms that summer 2025 was officially the hottest on record for the United Kingdom, we're talking about working in that heat! The World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization have reported recently that millions of workers are exposed to heat stress, which affects their health, and their performance. They've both called for governments, employers, and workers to co-operate to develop adaptation strategies! Closer to home, unions such as GMB and Unite are calling for a 27oC limit for manual work to protect workers. So today I'm asking, is a maximum working temperature a good thing? Or just more red tape that's going to stop you getting on with the job? We spoke to Gary Mcyintire AKA Roofing Banksy and Sean Kelly to hear how they think heat should be dealt with in our industry. Plus, there's the pub lunch quiz and you'll hear the very best messages that we received.Catch Clive On Fix Radio Monday - Thursday 12 PM - 3 PM Across The UK On DAB Radio And Online At https://www.fixradio.co.uk/ 

In this episode, I'll be applying diagnostic criteria to two fictional characters: Sherlock Holmes (played by various actors) and Charlie (from the film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, played by Logan Lerman). As I journey through these characters' stories, you may see some related themes in your own life. At first, the episode will be a little…technical (with loads of medical jargon). But, stick with me. You might learn something about yourself. And, it may surprise you to learn about my view of diagnostic criteria…SPOILER ALERT for anyone who has not seen these characters portrayed in media (as I will be discussing specific moments). Also, my utilization of these films and characters is not an endorsement of their content nor their themes. Connect with me --> https://drmatmonharrell.bio.link/Written by Dr. Matmon HarrellReferencesAmerican Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Chbosky, S. (Director). (2012). The Perks of Being a Wallflower [Film]. Summit Entertainment; Lionsgate FilmsHautzinger, D. (2017). Sherlock season 4 recap: The final problem. WWTW PBS: Playlist Recaps. https://interactive.wttw.com/playlist/2017/01/16/sherlock-recap-end Konnikova, M. (2012). Stop calling sherlock a sociopath! Thanks, a psychologist. Criminal Element: Mysteries, Thrillers, & All Things Killer. https://www.criminalelement.com/stop-calling-sherlock-a-sociopath-psychologist-maria-konnikova/ Pentzold, C., Lohmeier, C., & Birkner, T. (2023). Communicative remembering: Revisiting a basic mnemonic concept. Memory, Mind & Media, 2, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1017/mem.2023.7Ramsland, K. (2013). A mindlike sherlock holmes. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201301/mind-sherlock-holmes World Health Organization. (2024). International classification of diseases (11th revision). https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#585833559 Hyland, P., Shevlin, M., McNally, S., Murphy, J., Hansen, M., & Elklit, A. (2016). Exploring differences between the ICD-11 and DSM-5 models of PTSD: Does it matter which model is used? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 37, 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2015.11.002 Music provided by Podcastle. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I hope you don't mind me sharing my continuing journey in raising awareness and money for dementia research. I'm releasing an album of my music (and it's not disco!) on 10th October 2025. Here I talk about my fears of writing a song about dementia and getting it wrong. I did care for two close relatives with dementia, but I will never know what it was like from their point of view.The first track from the album is out now. It's called Maybe I'm Gay. It's available to stream and download everywhere. Here's the link to Apple Music.All proceeds from the album, called The Gift, are in aid of the charity, Alzheimer's Research UK. It is estimated that 982,000 people are living with dementia in the UK today, rising to 1.4 million by 2040. In 2022 it was the leading cause of death in the UK. Globally the World Health Organisation estimates that 57 million people have dementia. New cases are occurring at the rate of nearly 10 million each year, which breaks down to about one new case every 3.2 seconds. In the UK, the estimated economic impact of dementia in 2024 was £42.5 billion, a figure that is expected to more than double by 2040.

Lead in gasoline powered cars have killed more people than those that died in World War Two. That's the astonishing claim of David Obst who, in his new Saving Ourselves From Big Car, lays out a strategy to kick our self-destructive automobile addiction. The former investigative reporter, who worked with Seymour Hersh on the My Lai massacre story and represented Woodward and Bernstein for All the President's Men, argues that the auto industry suppressed knowledge about lead's deadly effects for 70 years. More controversially, Obst claims electric vehicles are no better due to the lead in batteries. The only safe future is one without cars, he insists, pointing to car-free communities like Tempe, Arizona and Taipei, Taiwan as models for breaking what he calls our addiction to automobiles.1. Lead in gasoline killed more people than World War II Obst claims that from 1927 to the 1990s, lead additives in gasoline caused more deaths globally than WWII, citing World Health Organization statistics - though interviewer Andrew Keen found this claim conspiratorial.2. Electric vehicles aren't the solution Surprisingly, Obst argues EVs are just as dangerous as gas cars because their batteries contain lead. He points to Tesla fires in the California Palisades spreading lead pollution as evidence of this ongoing problem.3. The auto industry suppressed the truth for 70 years The Ethel Corporation (formed by Standard Oil, DuPont, and GM) allegedly kept lead's deadly effects secret through lobbying and silencing critics, including exiling Caltech scientist Claire Patterson who tried to expose the danger.4. Americans are "addicted" to cars Inspired by his granddaughter telling him "you are the traffic," Obst argues we must treat car dependence like any other addiction - acknowledging that 30% of gasoline is burned just looking for parking spaces.5. Car-free communities are the only answer Obst profiles successful car-free zones from Tempe, Arizona (6,000 residents, no cars allowed) to Taipei's bicycle-centric system, arguing for gradual implementation of car-free neighborhoods rather than overnight transformation.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Listen in to hear the latest news and views from the wine world in this month's Omnibus. Stories include harvest updates, wildfires in Europe and US, arrests in Champagne, controversy over To-Kalon name, World Health Organisation anti-alcohol lobby, Pinot Grigio on the rise in Australia, why you should visit the Finger Lakes, plus Coonawarra's “Wine and Woof Walk” and the great new trend - matching wine to books. Suggestions please of your favourite wine and book matches. Cheers to that!Find out more at wine-conversation.com

A recent scientific brief from the World Health Organisation, explained that anxiety and depression had increased by 25% worldwide over the first year of the Covid 19 pandemic. The massive rise was mostly down to social isolation and multiple stress factors like fear of infection and financial worries.  It's important to know that we can actually control our mood to some extent. It's possible to boost our so-called happy hormones in natural ways, by opting for specific foods, activities and behaviours. So how can we stimulate the production of these hormones and neurotransmitters? Why do they say that oxytocin is the love hormone? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: ⁠At which time of day do we burn the most calories?⁠ ⁠Why does the cold make us need to pee?⁠ ⁠How can I meditate without meditating?⁠ A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance. First broadcast: 10/6/2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shortsightedness or myopia affects long distance vision, preventing people from seeing objects over a few yards away. You may remember we covered the subject on Do You Really Know? a while back and that it has been labelled an epidemic due to ever increasing prevalence worldwide. It's estimated that a third of all people suffer from myopia, and the World Health Organisation has suggested that half of all human beings in the world will be shortsighted by 2050, with excessive screen use and a lack of time spent outdoors largely to blame. If you simply can't stand contacts or glasses, laser surgery is another option. It's been in fashion since the turn of the century and according to Optegra, over 15,000 Brits choose to go down that route each year. Can all shortsighted people get laser eye surgery? How does the laser work? Does it work every time? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the latest episodes, click here: ⁠What is Sisu?⁠ ⁠What does Mercury in retrograde mean?⁠ ⁠Does the Mediterranean diet lower risks of dementia?⁠ A Bababam Originals podcast, written and produced by Joseph Chance. First Broadcast: 2/4/2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth speaks to Professor Owen Bowden-Jones from Central North-West London NHS Foundation and Mr Arun Sahai from Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals NHS Trust, both in the UK. The interview covers an editorial they wrote with Professor Paul Dargan on responses to non-medical and medical ketamine use, including concerns about the increasing harms from illicit ketamine and excitement about the potential therapeutic value of ketamine. We apologise for the sound quality at points during this episode, but we promise its worth the listen! · Ketamine and its uses [01:15]· Why ketamine is listed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organisation [01:59]· The differing uses of ketamine: an essential medicine, a novel therapeutic drug, and a recreational drug [3:00]· Ketamine's damage to the urinary tract and the liver [04:30]· Available treatments for the physical harms of ketamine [07:45]· Whether substance use treatment services in the UK are fit-for-purpose when it comes to ketamine [11:06] · Some of the reasons why is ketamine a popular drug now [15:38]· The potential therapeutic value of ketamine for many disorders [17:29]· The importance of communicating information to people who use ketamine [19:19]About Arun Sahai: Mr Arun Sahai, PhD, FRCS (Urol), BSc (Hons.), is a Consultant Urological Surgeon in Functional urology (bladder dysfunction, incontinence, uro-neurology and urinary tract reconstruction) at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals NHS Trust and an Honorary Reader within King's College London. He is the current chair of the section of functional and reconstructive urology at the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS). He is the lead for undergraduate education in surgery for King's College London. His research interests include various aspects of benign bladder dysfunction and prostate cancer survivorship. He is active in both commercial and non-commercial clinical trials and has published more than 100 peer reviewed international papers and more than 15 book chapters. About Owen Bowden-Jones: Professor Owen Bowden-Jones CBE is a Consultant in Addiction Psychiatry at the CNWL Club Drug Clinic, London and an Honorary Professor at University College London. In 2010, Owen founded the CNWL Club Drug Clinic, an innovative service offering treatment for emerging drug problems, including novel psychoactive substances and club drugs. National roles include President of the Society for the Study of Addiction, Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Policy Fellow at the University of Cambridge, trustee at the charity Student Minds and Registrar at the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Owen is the past-Chair of the Faculty of Addictions at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and was previously a national clinical adviser to Public Health England. Original editorial: Responding to medicinal and non-medicinal ketamine use https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70075The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal. The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good afternoon, I'm _____ with today's episode of EZ News. Tai-Ex opening The Tai-Ex opened up 64-points this morning from yesterday's close, at 24,244 on turnover of $4.1-billion N-T. Expert: High Temps as Tropical Storm Heads to Japan Forecasters say Taiwan can expect high temperatures today as a tropical storm heads towards Japan. Meteorologist Wu De-rong says weather in Taiwan will be sunny both today and tomorrow, with highs in the north reaching 37 to 38 degrees Celsius. The Central Weather Administration has issued a head alert for Taipei and New Taipei in the north, as well as Chiayi County, Tainan City, and Taitung County. And afternoon showers and thunderstorms are expected in mountainous areas. Wu says those traveling to or from Japan should be on the lookout for (密切注意著) Tropical Storm Peipah, which is expected to hit Japan's Shikoku and southern Honshu islands today. From this weekend heading into next week, Wu says moisture from the south will increase, leading to a chance of thunderstorms and heavy rain in the afternoons. And also for travelers, he adds that a tropical disturbance in the South China Sea could affect Hong Kong and Macao on Monday next week. (NS) US Health Secretary RFK Jr hammered by lawmakers US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has defended his leadership and vaccine policies during a grilling (審問，指責) by lawmakers on Capitol Hill. It follows the departure of several top officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nick Harper reports from Washington. Congo Suspected New Ebola Outbreak Kills Over a Dozen Congo's health minister says a new Ebola outbreak is suspected of causing 15 deaths among 28 people with symptoms. It's the 16th outbreak of Ebola in the central African country, and the minister says the fatality rate, estimated at nearly 54-percent, showed the gravity (嚴重性) of the situation. The suspected cases included four health care workers. They all had typical Ebola symptoms such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea and heavy bleeding. The World Health Organization said it dispatched its experts to Kasai province to strengthen disease surveillance, treatment and infection prevention and control in health facilities. It is also delivering supplies including personal protective equipment, mobile laboratory equipment and medical supplies. And the W-H-O says Congo has a stockpile of treatments and of the Ervebo Ebola vaccine. Peru Commission to Vote on Reserve for Uncontacted Tribes A commission in Peru was scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to create a long-delayed reserve in a remote stretch of the Amazon that would protect five uncontacted tribes from outside encroachment. It would be in the Loreto region near the Brazil border, and is roughly the size of Jamaica. The reserve would safeguard uncontacted tribes vulnerable to disease and exploitation, but faces opposition from logging interests and political resistance. The vote follows decades of delays and comes as Congress debates changes to the Indigenous Peoples in Isolation law that could weaken protections by allowing periodic (定期的) re-evaluation and possible reduction of reserves. That was the I.C.R.T. EZ News, I'm _____. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

On Today's Episode –One of our favorite returning guests, Dr. Bonner Cohen stops by and talks Canada Wildfires with Mark. The guys then dip into the World Health Organization and their most recent ridiculousness. Tune in for all the FunBIO -https://www.cfact.org/bonner-cohen/ Cutting Threat of Giant Wildfires By Axing Harmful Clinton-Era Forest Policieshttps://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2025/07/22/cutting_threat_of_giant_wildfires_by_axing_harmful_clinton-era_forest_policies_1124281.html "Litigation City: World Health Organization Affiliate Classifies Gasoline as “Carcinogenic”https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jul/15/litigation-city-world-health-organization-affiliate-classifies/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's happened to most of us at least once. A condom breaks, it turns out the girl forgot to take her pill, or you got carried away and had sex even though you didn't have any condoms. These things happen, but the aftermath can be anxiety-inducing for a number of reasons.  A World Health Organisation report from May 2024 said that sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia, gonorrhea, trichomoniasis and syphilis in particular are on the rise. For example, the number of new syphilis cases among adults aged 15 to 49 increased from 7.1 million in 2020 to 8 million in 2022. The report suggested that a lack of screening was largely to blame. What are the other main types of STIs then? What about the risk of unwanted pregnancy? What's the best way to protect myself? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: ⁠What is auto-brewery syndrome?⁠ ⁠What are five foods that make us happy?⁠ ⁠What is the Queer movement?⁠ A podcast written and realised by Joseph Chance. First Broadcast: 22/6/2024 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Global Mental Health Crisis – A Call for Urgent Action Episode Summary In this episode of the Breakfast Leadership Show, we dive into the staggering findings from the World Health Organization's latest report revealing that over one billion people worldwide are living with mental health conditions. The data paints a sobering picture of the economic and social toll of untreated mental illness, including lost productivity, rising healthcare costs, and alarming inequities between high and low-income countries. We explore why mental health is more than just a healthcare issue — it's a fundamental human right and a strategic imperative for leaders and organizations everywhere. The conversation connects global statistics to the workplace, emphasizing that mental well-being is essential for organizational success, employee retention, and sustainable growth. You'll also hear practical strategies for leaders to take immediate steps in supporting mental health within their companies, from fostering a culture of openness to investing in accessible resources and support systems. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why over one billion people are affected by mental health conditions worldwide — and what this means for all of us. The economic consequences of poor mental health, including its impact on productivity and organizational outcomes. The widening gap in access to care between high and low-income nations, and why this disparity must be addressed. How leaders can make mental well-being a central part of workplace culture. Actionable steps organizations can take now to invest in employee mental health and avoid greater long-term costs. Why This Matters Mental health is no longer a topic we can afford to sideline. It's a human rights issue that directly influences organizational resilience, performance, and innovation. The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of investment. Resources and Links Read the full WHO report: WHO – Over a billion people living with mental health conditions Breakfast Leadership Blog article: Over One Billion Minds in Crisis: Why We Must Scale Mental Health Services—Now Books by Michael D. Levitt: Burnout Proof Workplace Culture Toxic Workplace Help Community (get Workplace Culture book for just $7!) Burnout Help Community (get Burnout Proof book for just $7!)  

The topic of the  first episode of Evidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis Affected Contexts is Self-Help Plus (SH+), a stress management course developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) supported by Elrha's Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC) and the EU Horizon 2020 programme.SH+ is based on cognitive behavioural therapy and aims to reduce psychosocial distress and improve coping. It has been implemented in humanitarian settings such as Ukraine, Uganda, and South Sudan. Sarah Harrison, Acting Director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement MHPSS Hub, explores SH+ through interviews with Ken Carswell,a Mental health Specialist from WHO and Lidiia Kasianchuk, a psychologist from Ukraine with experience of implementing SH+.Key resources practitionersPsychological interventions implementation manual: integrating evidence-based psychological interventions into existing servicesSelf-Help Plus (sh+): a group-based stress management course for adultsThe Self-Help Plus (‎SH+)‎ training manual: for training facilitators to deliver the SH+ courseSelf-Help Plus (SH+) online orientation courseDoing What Matters in Times of StressResearch & further readingSelf-Help Plus (SH+): a new WHO stress management packageGuided self-help to reduce psychological distress in South Sudanese female refugees in Uganda: a cluster randomised trial Effectiveness of a WHO self-help psychological intervention for preventing mental disorders among Syrian refugees in Turkey: a randomized controlled trialEffectiveness of a WHO self-help psychological intervention to alleviate stress among healthcare workers in the context of COVID-19 in China: a randomised controlled trialEffectiveness of Self-Help Plus in its digital version in reducing anxiety and post-traumatic symptomatology among nursing home workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: secondary analysis of randomised controlled trial dataHighlighting Complementary Benefits of Problem Management Plus (PM+) and Doing What Matters in Times of Stress (DWM) Interventions Delivered Alongside Broader Community MHPSS Programming in Zummar, Ninewa Governorate of Iraq“Doing What Matters in Times of Stress” to Decrease Psychological Distress During COVID-19: A Randomised Controlled Pilot TrialEvidence from the Frontline: Mental Health in Crisis Affected Contexts is a six-episode mini-series produced by the MHPSS Hub and Elrha for practitioners working in humanitarian and crisis contexts, the series highlights interventions and practical insights from experts in the field. It will explore critical topics including effectiveness, implementation, adaptation, integration into existing programmes, human resources, costs, and the importance of cultural and contextual relevance.

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski discusses some of her favorite animated movies, pre-caps her trip to the UK and Ireland, and explores Irish Folklore.  The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01 

Imagine a factory where the workers come in for eight hour shifts. At the end of each shift, a whistle blows to signal that it's time to pack up and go home. It's eight hours of work and then time to punch out. There's a new and different working trend among young adults that's been labeled as “grind culture” or “hustle culture.” Works days are marked by a work hard and don't go home mentality, all in an effort to increase production and climb the ladder. The World Health Organization reports that four hundred and eighty-eight million people around the world are putting in more than fifty five hours a week at work. As Christians, we are to work as unto the Lord. We are to be hard workers who pursue excellence. But if the motivating factor to our hard work is about bringing glory to something or someone other than God, then we are engaging in idolatry. Teach your children to see work as an act of worship, without sacrificing time with family, and time with the Lord.

We often use the expression in research, medicine and science that we 'stand on the shoulders of  giants' which is to mean that all of what we know today was because of those bold doctors, scientists, that did the work that we now accept as true. What isn't often added is that those 'Giants', the pioneers were publicly ridiculed, and disagreed with for years before their work became appreciated. And often when their research and discoveries were accepted it was in silence, without public acknowledgement.Here is Dr. Artemis Simopoulos who, in my view is one of those 'giants' of medicine and research, and as well as a student Aristotle ... some 2,500 years later. Enjoy this brilliant mind of  a person whose work, truth,  is finally being recognized globally by the World Health Organization, UNESCO, to name a few institutions that know a 'Giant' when they see one.Facebook Group about Keto: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ketonaturopath/BLOG: https://ketonaturopath.com/Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ketonaturopathYouTube channelwww.youtube.com/ketonaturopath———————————  OUR COURSE ——————————PSMF 30 day course: https://www.thebiointegrationcode.com/courses/PSMFChallenge———————————  WHERE WE GET OUR WINE (an affiliate link) ——————————Dry farm wineswww.dryfarmwines.com/ketonaturopath—————————Where we get our Genome SNP analysis done ———————————Strategenehttps://bit.ly/3iqCfka————————————Where you can get your labs done——————————————https://www.UltaLabTests.com/ketonaturopath————————————  WHERE WE BUY OUR SUPPLEMENTS  ————————————Wellevate: https://wellevate.me/karl-goldkamp   or call them: 855-935-5382How to use Wellevate https://youtu.be/1ulC0LLIc5cWhy get a Wellevate account to get your supplements??1. They have more brands than anywhere else to choose from;2. Their prices are 20 -50% lower than anywhere else; compare and you'll see3. This is where most physicians have their account4. Been in existence for nearly 30 years working with physicians and health practitionersHow to get your Wellevate account1. Open the link: https://wellevate.me/karl-goldkamp and registered2. Reply to their verification email3. Explore their website. And make sure you subscribe to my channel! CONTACT:Questions, INQUIRIES:Karl: drgoldkamp@ketonaturopath.comJudi: support@ketonaturopath.comSharing the metabolic strategy we used to regain our health and discoveries that will help you reclaim your vigor, and physique faster than you thought possible! No tricks, No marketing malarky, just the honest opinion of our own experience, 16 years of clinical medical practice, and having to save our own lives. 

September's Locked On Disco will be here shortly. You may have seen that for the past few months I've been putting the finishing touches to my debut album The Gift which is coming out in October. And the first track Maybe I'm gay is now available everywhere.Maybe I'm gay is on Apple Music.And you can stream on Spotify. The Gift journeys through protest, grief, joy, and self-acceptance. From the bold defiance of Maybe I'm Gay, to the intimate title track The Gift, the playful EDM-lite Not Just Friends, and the revelatory Hello God :-), the album explores what it means to live openly, vulnerably, and authentically. It's not a disco album.  But there's plenty of tunes to move to. And I hope to be moved by.Created in collaboration with AI tools, The Gift is both an act of self-discovery and a creative experiment — a reminder that music can be a mirror, reflecting who we are and what we hope to become.In this latest short podcast interlude I share my journey to creating Maybe I'm gay including all previously unreleased versions and demos.  Hopefully it will be an interesting insight into the inner workings of the latest AI music technology.More importantly, all proceeds from the album will go to Alzheimer's Research UK.  Dementia is the UK's leading cause of death, with 982,000 people currently affected — a number expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates 57 million people live with dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases every year.Every play, every download, every share of 'Maybe I'm gay' brings us closer to a cure for dementia. Please join in.Thank you.  XX F

The World Health Organization says a resurgence of cholera in a number of African countries is putting more strain on already stretched health services. The WHO says more than 400,000 cases and nearly 5,000 deaths have been recorded worldwide this year, fuelled by conflict, poverty and flooding. Also: President Trump cancels Secret Service protection for the former US Vice-President Kamala Harris, and why more Germans are opting for non-alcoholic beer.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight. Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment.Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.uk

Age & Attitude In this episode I'm talking with Colin Milner. He has a wealth of knowledge in regards to aging and I know that you are going to get so much value and inspiration from our conversation.  He is the Founder and CEO of the International Council on Active Aging (ICAA) and the founder of the active-aging industry in North America. A 42-year veteran of the fitness and wellness industry, Milner is recognized as an authority on the health and well-being of older adults. He has been named one of the “most innovative and influential minds” on aging by the World Economic Forum. An award-winning writer with more than 300 published articles, Milner has contributed to top academic and policy journals and spoken at events around the world. His insights have been sought by organizations such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the White House Conference on Aging, the World Health Organization, the World Economic Forum, the Olympics, and Fortune 10 company Apple. His work has been featured in major media outlets including CNN, Newsweek, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.Connect with Colin Milner www.icaa.cchttps://www.linkedin.com/in/colinmilner/https://www.facebook.com/colin.milner.16  Connect with Age & Attitude's Crew and SponsorHost: Malin Svensson info@nordicbody.com Sound Editor: Stephen Zipper:  szipper@hotmail.com Sponsor Nordic Bodyhttps://www.instagram.com/nordicbodyhttps://www.facebook.com/nordicbody Email:  info@nordicbody.comWebsite :https://www.nordicbody.com/Free Workout Video: https://www.nordicbody.com/Online Nordic Body Classes: https://www.nordicbody.com/calendarOnline Memberships:Experience https://www.nordicbody.com/experience/Commit https://www.nordicbody.com/commit/Transform https://www.nordicbody.com/transform/

Children deserve the safest possible healthcare, yet they remain one of the most vulnerable patient populations when it comes to medicines safety. Ahead of World Patient Safety Day on 17 September, we discuss challenges and solutions in paediatric pharmacovigilance with ISoP president Angela Caro-Rojas.Tune in to find out:Why we need a Patient Safety DayHow to prevent common medication errors in childrenHow to build child-friendly healthcare environmentsWant to know more?Visit the World Health Organization's campaign website to learn more about World Patient Safety Day and download campaign materials.You can also show support for the campaign by joining ISoP's free virtual event on September 18 and 19, or visit ISoP's YouTube channel to access recordings from previous Patient Safety Day events.For more on paediatric pharmacovigilance and ISoP's activities, check out these episodes from the Drug Safety Matters archive:The KIDs ListWhat's trending in pharmacovigilance? Join the conversation on social mediaFollow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, or Bluesky and share your thoughts about the show with the hashtag #DrugSafetyMatters.Got a story to share?We're always looking for new content and interesting people to interview. If you have a great idea for a show, get in touch!About UMCRead more about Uppsala Monitoring Centre and how we promote safer use of medicines and vaccines for everyone everywhere.

Lots of talk these days about ultra-processed foods (UPFs). Along with confusion about what in the heck they are or what they're not, how bad they are for us, and what ought to be done about them. A landmark in the discussion of ultra-processed foods has been the publication of a book entitled Ultra-processed People, Why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food. The author of that book, Dr. Chris van Tulleken, joins us today. Dr. van Tulleken is a physician and is professor of Infection and Global Health at University College London. He also has a PhD in molecular virology and is an award-winning broadcaster on the BBC. His book on Ultra-processed People is a bestseller. Interview Summary Chris, sometimes somebody comes along that takes a complicated topic and makes it accessible and understandable and brings it to lots of people. You're a very fine scientist and scholar and academic, but you also have that ability to communicate effectively with lots of people, which I very much admire. So, thanks for doing that, and thank you for joining us. Oh, Kelly, it's such a pleasure. You know, I begin some of my talks now with a clipping from the New York Times. And it's a picture of you and an interview you gave in 1995. So exactly three decades ago. And in this article, you just beautifully communicate everything that 30 years later I'm still saying. So, yeah. I wonder if communication, it's necessary, but insufficient. I think we are needing to think of other means to bring about change. I totally agree. Well, thank you by the way. And I hope I've learned something over those 30 years. Tell us, please, what are ultra-processed foods? People hear the term a lot, but I don't think a lot of people know exactly what it means. The most important thing to know, I think, is that it's not a casual term. It's not like 'junk food' or 'fast food.' It is a formal scientific definition. It's been used in hundreds of research studies. The definition is very long. It's 11 paragraphs long. And I would urge anyone who's really interested in this topic, go to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization website. You can type in NFAO Ultra and you'll get the full 11 paragraph definition. It's an incredibly sophisticated piece of science. But it boils down to if you as a consumer, someone listening to this podcast, want to know if the thing you are eating right now is ultra-processed, look at the ingredients list. If there are ingredients on that list that you do not normally find in a domestic kitchen like an emulsifier, a coloring, a flavoring, a non-nutritive sweetener, then that product will be ultra-processed. And it's a way of describing this huge range of foods that kind of has taken over the American and the British and in fact diets all over the world. How come the food companies put this stuff in the foods? And the reason I ask is in talks I give I'll show an ingredient list from a food that most people would recognize. And ask people if they can guess what the food is from the ingredient list. And almost nobody can. There are 35 things on the ingredient list. Sugar is in there, four different forms. And then there are all kinds of things that are hard to pronounce. There are lots of strange things in there. They get in there through loopholes and government regulation. Why are they there in the first place? So, when I started looking at this I also noticed this long list of fancy sounding ingredients. And even things like peanut butter will have palm oil and emulsifiers. Cream cheese will have xanthum gum and emulsifiers. And you think, well, wouldn't it just be cheaper to make your peanut butter out of peanuts. In fact, every ingredient is in there to make money in one of two ways. Either it drives down the cost of production or storage. If you imagine using a real strawberry in your strawberry ice cream. Strawberries are expensive. They're not always in season. They rot. You've got to have a whole supply chain. Why would you use a strawberry if you could use ethyl methylphenylglycidate and pink dye and it'll taste the same. It'll look great. You could then put in a little chunky bit of modified corn starch that'll be chewy if you get it in the right gel mix. And there you go. You've got strawberries and you haven't had to deal with strawberry farmers or any supply chain. It's just you just buy bags and bottles of white powder and liquids. The other way is to extend the shelf life. Strawberries as I say, or fresh food, real food - food we might call it rots on shelves. It decays very quickly. If you can store something at room temperature in a warehouse for months and months, that saves enormous amounts of money. So, one thing is production, but the other thing is the additives allow us to consume to excess or encourage us to consume ultra-processed food to excess. So, I interviewed a scientist who was a food industry development scientist. And they said, you know, most ultra-processed food would be gray if it wasn't dyed, for example. So, if you want to make cheap food using these pastes and powders, unless you dye it and you flavor it, it will be inedible. But if you dye it and flavor it and add just the right amount of salt, sugar, flavor enhancers, then you can make these very addictive products. So that's the logic of UPF. Its purpose is to make money. And that's part of the definition. Right. So, a consumer might decide that there's, you know, beneficial trade-off for them at the end of the day. That they get things that have long shelf life. The price goes down because of the companies don't have to deal with the strawberry farmers and things like that. But if there's harm coming in waves from these things, then it changes the equation. And you found out some of that on your own. So as an experiment you did with a single person - you, you ate ultra-processed foods for a month. What did you eat and how did it affect your body, your mood, your sleep? What happened when you did this? So, what's really exciting, actually Kelly, is while it was an n=1, you know, one participant experiment, I was actually the pilot participant in a much larger study that we have published in Nature Medicine. One of the most reputable and high impact scientific journals there is. So, I was the first participant in a randomized control trial. I allowed us to gather the data about what we would then measure in a much larger number. Now we'll come back and talk about that study, which I think was really important. It was great to see it published. So, I was a bit skeptical. Partly it was with my research team at UCL, but we were also filming it for a BBC documentary. And I went into this going I'm going to eat a diet of 80% of my calories will come from ultra-processed food for four weeks. And this is a normal diet. A lifelong diet for a British teenager. We know around 20% of people in the UK and the US eat this as their normal food. They get 80% of their calories from ultra-processed products. I thought, well, nothing is going to happen to me, a middle-aged man, doing this for four weeks. But anyway, we did it kind of as a bit of fun. And we thought, well, if nothing happens, we don't have to do a bigger study. We can just publish this as a case report, and we'll leave it out of the documentary. Three big things happened. I gained a massive amount of weight, so six kilos. And I wasn't force feeding myself. I was just eating when I wanted. In American terms, that's about 15 pounds in four weeks. And that's very consistent with the other published trials that have been done on ultra-processed food. There have been two other RCTs (randomized control trials); ours is the third. There is one in Japan, one done at the NIH. So, people gain a lot of weight. I ate massively more calories. So much so that if I'd continued on the diet, I would've almost doubled my body weight in a year. And that may sound absurd, but I have an identical twin brother who did this natural experiment. He went to Harvard for a year. He did his masters there. During his year at Harvard he gained, let's see, 26 kilos, so almost 60 pounds just living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But how did you decide how much of it to eat? Did you eat until you just kind of felt naturally full? I did what most people do most of the time, which is I just ate what I wanted when I felt like it. Which actually for me as a physician, I probably took the breaks off a bit because I don't normally have cocoa pops for breakfast. But I ate cocoa pops and if I felt like two bowls, I'd have two bowls. It turned out what I felt like a lot of mornings was four bowls and that was fine. I was barely full. So, I wasn't force feeding myself. It wasn't 'supersize' me. I was eating to appetite, which is how these experiments run. And then what we've done in the trials. So, I gained weight, then we measured my hormone response to a meal. When you eat, I mean, it's absurd to explain this to YOU. But when you eat, you have fullness hormones that go up and hunger hormones that go down, so you feel full and less hungry. And we measured my response to a standard meal at the beginning and at the end of this four-week diet. What we found is that I had a normal response to eating a big meal at the beginning of the diet. At the end of eating ultra-processed foods, the same meal caused a very blunted rise in the satiety hormones. In the 'fullness' hormones. So, I didn't feel as full. And my hunger hormones remained high. And so, the food is altering our response to all meals, not merely within the meal that we're eating. Then we did some MRI scans and again, I thought this would be a huge waste of time. But we saw at four weeks, and then again eight weeks later, very robust changes in the communication between the habit-forming bits at the back of the brain. So, the automatic behavior bits, the cerebellum. Very conscious I'm talking to YOU about this, Kelly. And the kind of addiction reward bits in the middle. Now these changes were physiological, not structural. They're about the two bits of the brain talking to each other. There's not really a new wire going between them. But we think if this kind of communication is happening a lot, that maybe a new pathway would form. And I think no one, I mean we did this with very expert neuroscientists at our National Center for Neuroscience and Neurosurgery, no one really knows what it means. But the general feeling was these are the kind of changes we might expect if we'd given someone, or a person or an animal, an addictive substance for four weeks. They're consistent with, you know, habit formation and addiction. And the fact that they happened so quickly, and they were so robust - they remained the same eight weeks after I stopped the diet, I think is really worrying from a kid's perspective. So, in a period of four weeks, it re-altered the way your brain works. It affected the way your hunger and satiety were working. And then you ended up with this massive weight. And heaven knows what sort of cardiovascular effects or other things like that might have been going on or had the early signs of that over time could have been really pretty severe, I imagine. I think one of the main effects was that I became very empathetic with my patients. Because we did actually a lot of, sort of, psychological testing as well. And there's an experience where, obviously in clinic, I mainly treat patients with infections. But many of my patients are living with other, sort of, disorders of modern life. They live with excess weight and cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes and metabolic problems and so on. And I felt in four weeks like I'd gone from being in my early 30, early 40s at the time, I felt like I'd just gone to my early 50s or 60s. I ached. I felt terrible. My sleep was bad. And it was like, oh! So many of the problems of modern life: waking up to pee in the middle of the night is because you've eaten so much sodium with your dinner. You've drunk all this water, and then you're trying to get rid of it all night. Then you're constipated. It's a low fiber diet, so you develop piles. Pain in your bum. The sleep deprivation then makes you eat more. And so, you get in this vicious cycle where the problem didn't feel like the food until I stopped and I went cold turkey. I virtually have not touched it since. It cured me of wanting UPF. That was the other amazing bit of the experience that I write about in the book is it eating it and understanding it made me not want it. It was like being told to smoke. You know, you get caught smoking as a kid and your parents are like, hey, now you finish the pack. It was that. It was an aversion experience. So, it gave me a lot of empathy with my patients that many of those kinds of things we regard as being normal aging, those symptoms are often to do with the way we are living our lives. Chris, I've talked to a lot of people about ultra-processed foods. You're the first one who's mentioned pain in the bum as one of the problems, so thank you. When I first became a physician, I trained as a surgeon, and I did a year doing colorectal surgery. So, I have a wealth of experience of where a low fiber diet leaves you. And many people listening to this podcast, I mean, look, we're all going to get piles. Everyone gets these, you know, anal fishes and so on. And bum pain it's funny to talk about it. No, not the... it destroys people's lives, so, you know, anyway. Right. I didn't want to make light of it. No, no. Okay. So, your own experiment would suggest that these foods are really bad actors and having this broad range of highly negative effects. But what does research say about these things beyond your own personal experience, including your own research? So, the food industry has been very skillful at portraying this as a kind of fad issue. As ultra-processed food is this sort of niche thing. Or it's a snobby thing. It's not a real classification. I want to be absolutely clear. UPF, the definition is used by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization to monitor global diet quality, okay? It's a legitimate way of thinking about food. The last time I looked, there are more than 30 meta-analyses - that is reviews of big studies. And the kind of high-quality studies that we use to say cigarettes cause lung cancer. So, we've got this what we call epidemiological evidence, population data. We now have probably more than a hundred of these prospective cohort studies. And they're really powerful tools. They need to be used in conjunction with other evidence, but they now link ultra-processed food to this very wide range of what we euphemistically call negative health outcomes. You know, problems that cause human suffering, mental health problems, anxiety, depression, multiple forms of cancer, inflammatory diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's and dementia. Of course, weight gain and obesity. And all cause mortality so you die earlier of all causes. And there are others too. So, the epidemiological evidence is strong and that's very plausible. So, we take that epidemiological evidence, as you well know, and we go, well look, association and causation are different things. You know, do matches cause cancer or does cigarettes cause cancer? Because people who buy lots of matches are also getting the lung cancer. And obviously epidemiologists are very sophisticated at teasing all this out. But we look at it in the context then of other evidence. My group published the third randomized control trial where we put a group of people, in a very controlled way, on a diet of either minimally processed food or ultra-processed food and looked at health outcomes. And we found what the other two trials did. We looked at weight gain as a primary outcome. It was a short trial, eight weeks. And we saw people just eat more calories on the ultra-processed food. This is food that is engineered to be consumed to excess. That's its purpose. So maybe to really understand the effect of it, you have to imagine if you are a food development engineer working in product design at a big food company - if you develop a food that's cheap to make and people will just eat loads of it and enjoy it, and then come back for it again and again and again, and eat it every day and almost become addicted to it, you are going to get promoted. That product is going to do well on the shelves. If you invent a food that's not addictive, it's very healthy, it's very satisfying, people eat it and then they're done for the day. And they don't consume it to excess. You are not going to keep your job. So that's a really important way of understanding the development process of the foods. So let me ask a question about industry and intent. Because one could say that the industry engineers these things to have long shelf life and nice physical properties and the right colors and things like this. And these effects on metabolism and appetite and stuff are unpleasant and difficult side effects, but the foods weren't made to produce those things. They weren't made to produce over consumption and then in turn produce those negative consequences. You're saying something different. That you think that they're intentionally designed to promote over consumption. And in some ways, how could the industry do otherwise? I mean, every industry in the world wants people to over consume or consume as much of their product as they can. The food industry is no different. That is exactly right. The food industry behaves like every other corporation. In my view, they commit evil acts sometimes, but they're not institutionally evil. And I have dear friends who work in big food, who work in big pharma. I have friends who work in tobacco. These are not evil people. They're constrained by commercial incentives, right? So, when I say I think the food is engineered, I don't think it. I know it because I've gone and interviewed loads of people in product development at big food companies. I put some of these interviewees in a BBC documentary called Irresistible. So rather than me in the documentary going, oh, ultra-processed food is bad. And everyone going, well, you are, you're a public health bore. I just got industry insiders to say, yes, this is how we make the food. And going back to Howard Moskovitz, in the 1970s, I think he was working for the Campbell Soup Company. And Howard, who was a psychologist by training, outlined the development process. And what he said was then underlined by many other people I've spoken to. You develop two different products. This one's a little bit saltier than the next, and you test them on a bunch of people. People like the saltier ones. So now you keep the saltier one and you develop a third product and this one's got a bit more sugar in it. And if this one does better, well you keep this one and you keep AB testing until you get people buying and eating lots. And one of the crucial things that food companies measure in product development is how fast do people eat and how quickly do they eat. And these kind of development tools were pioneered by the tobacco industry. I mean, Laura Schmidt has done a huge amount of the work on this. She's at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), in California. And we know the tobacco industry bought the food industry and for a while in the '80s and '90s, the biggest food companies in the world were also the biggest tobacco companies in the world. And they used their flavor molecules and their marketing techniques and their distribution systems. You know, they've got a set of convenience tools selling cigarettes all over the country. Well, why don't we sell long shelf-life food marketed in the same way? And one thing that the tobacco industry was extremely good at was figuring out how to get the most rapid delivery of the drug possible into the human body when people smoke. Do you think that some of that same thing is true for food, rapid delivery of sugar, let's say? How close does the drug parallel fit, do you think? So, that's part of the reason the speed of consumption is important. Now, I think Ashley Gearhardt has done some of the most incredible work on this. And what Ashley says is we think of addictive drugs as like it's the molecule that's addictive. It's nicotine, it's caffeine, cocaine, diamorphine, heroin, the amphetamines. What we get addicted to is the molecule. And that Ashley says no. The processing of that molecule is crucially important. If you have slow-release nicotine in a chewing gum, that can actually treat your nicotine addiction. It's not very addictive. Slow-release amphetamine we use to treat children with attention and behavioral problems. Slow-release cocaine is an anesthetic. You use it for dentistry. No one ever gets addicted to dental anesthetics. And the food is the same. The rewarding molecules in the food we think are mainly the fat and the sugar. And food that requires a lot of chewing and is slow eaten slowly, you don't deliver the reward as quickly. And it tends not to be very addictive. Very soft foods or liquid foods with particular fat sugar ratios, if you deliver the nutrients into the gut fast, that seems to be really important for driving excessive consumption. And I think the growing evidence around addiction is very persuasive. I mean, my patients report feeling addicted to the food. And I don't feel it's legitimate to question their experience. Chris, a little interesting story about that concept of food and addiction. So going back several decades I was a professor at Yale, and I was teaching a graduate course. Ashley Gerhardt was a student in that course. And, she was there to study addiction, not in the context of food, but I brought up the issue of, you know, could food be addictive? There's some interesting research on this. It's consistent with what we're hearing from people, and that seems a really interesting topic. And Ashley, I give her credit, took this on as her life's work and now she's like the leading expert in the world on this very important topic. And what's nice for me to recall that story is that how fast the science on this is developed. And now something's coming out on this almost every day. It's some new research on the neuroscience of food and addiction and how the food is hijacking in the brain. And that whole concept of addiction seems really important in this context. And I know you've talked a lot about that yourself. She has reframed, I think, this idea about the way that addictive substances and behaviors really work. I mean it turns everything on its head to go the processing is important. The thing the food companies have always been able to say is, look, you can't say food is addictive. It doesn't contain any addictive molecules. And with Ashley's work you go, no, but the thing is it contains rewarding molecules and actually the spectrum of molecules that we can find rewarding and we can deliver fast is much, much broader than the traditionally addictive substances. For policy, it's vital because part of regulating the tobacco industry was about showing they know they are making addictive products. And I think this is where Ashley's work and Laura Schmidt's work are coming together. With Laura's digging in the tobacco archive, Ashley's doing the science on addiction, and I think these two things are going to come together. And I think it's just going to be a really exciting space to watch. I completely agree. You know when most people think about the word addiction, they basically kind of default to thinking about how much you want something. How much, you know, you desire something. But there are other parts of it that are really relevant here too. I mean one is how do you feel if you don't have it and sort of classic withdrawal. And people talk about, for example, being on high sugar drinks and stopping them and having withdrawal symptoms and things like that. And the other part of it that I think is really interesting here is tolerance. You know whether you need more of the substance over time in order to get the same reward benefit. And that hasn't been studied as much as the other part of addiction. But there's a lot to the picture other than just kind of craving things. And I would say that the thing I like about this is it chimes with my. Personal experience, which is, I have tried alcohol and cigarettes and I should probably end that list there. But I've never had any real desire for more of them. They aren't the things that tickle my brain. Whereas the food is a thing that I continue to struggle with. I would say in some senses, although I no longer like ultra-processed food at some level, I still want it. And I think of myself to some degree, without trivializing anyone's experience, to some degree I think I'm in sort of recovery from it. And it remains that tussle. I mean I don't know what you think about the difference between the kind of wanting and liking of different substances. Some scientists think those two things are quite, quite different. That you can like things you don't want, and you can want things you don't like. Well, that's exactly right. In the context of food and traditional substances of abuse, for many of them, people start consuming because they produce some sort of desired effect. But that pretty quickly goes away, and people then need the substance because if they don't have it, they feel terrible. So, you know, morphine or heroin or something like that always produces positive effects. But that initial part of the equation where you just take it because you like it turns into this needing it and having to have it. And whether that same thing exists with food is an interesting topic. I think the other really important part of the addiction argument in policy terms is that one counterargument by industrial scientists and advocates is by raising awareness around ultra-processed food we are at risk of driving, eating disorders. You know? The phenomenon of orthorexia, food avoidance, anorexia. Because all food is good food. There should be no moral value attached to food and we mustn't drive any food anxiety. And I think there are some really strong voices in the United Kingdom Eating Disorder scientists. People like Agnes Ayton, who are starting to say, look, when food is engineered, using brain scanners and using scientific development techniques to be consumed to excess, is it any wonder that people develop a disordered relationship with the food? And there may be a way of thinking about the rise of eating disorders, which is parallel to the rise of our consumption of ultra-processed food, that eating disorders are a reasonable response to a disordered food environment. And I think that's where I say all that somewhat tentatively. I feel like this is a safe space where you will correct me if I go off piste. But I think it's important to at least explore that question and go, you know, this is food with which it is very hard, I would say, to have a healthy relationship. That's my experience. And I think the early research is bearing that out. Tell us how these foods affect your hunger, how full you feel, your microbiome. That whole sort of interactive set of signals that might put people in harmony with food in a normal environment but gets thrown off when the foods get processed like this. Oh, I love that question. At some level as I'm understanding that question, one way of trying to answer that question is to go, well, what is the normal physiological response to food? Or maybe how do wild animals find, consume, and then interpret metabolically the food that they eat. And it is staggering how little we know about how we learn what food is safe and what food nourishes us. What's very clear is that wild mammals, and in fact all wild animals, are able to maintain near perfect energy balance. Obesity is basically unheard of in the wild. And, perfect nutritional intake, I mean, obviously there are famines in wild animals, but broadly, animals can do this without being literate, without being given packaging, without any nutritional advice at all. So, if you imagine an ungulate, an herbivore on the plains of the Serengeti, it has a huge difficulty. The carnivore turning herbivore into carnivore is fairly easy. They're made of the same stuff. Turning plant material into mammal is really complicated. And somehow the herbivore can do this without gaining weight, whilst maintaining total precision over its selenium intake, its manganese, its cobalt, its iron, all of which are terrible if you have too little and also terrible if you have too much. We understand there's some work done in a few wild animals, goats, and rats about how this works. Clearly, we have an ability to sense the nutrition we want. What we understand much more about is the sort of quantities needed. And so, we've ended up with a system of nutritional advice that says, well, just eat these numbers. And if you can stick to the numbers, 2,500 calories a day, 2300 milligrams of sodium, no more than 5% of your calories from free sugar or 10%, whatever it is, you know, you stick to these numbers, you'll be okay. And also, these many milligrams of cobalt, manganese, selenium, iron, zinc, all the rest of it. And obviously people can't really do that even with the packaging. This is a very long-winded answer. So, there's this system that is exquisitely sensitive at regulating micronutrient and energy intake. And what we understand, what the Academy understands about how ultra-processed food subverts this is, I would say there are sort of three or four big things that ultra-processed does that real food doesn't. It's generally very soft. And it's generally very energy dense. And that is true of even the foods that we think of as being healthy. That's like your supermarket whole grain bread. It's incredibly energy dense. It's incredibly soft. You eat calories very fast, and this research was done in the '90s, you know we've known that that kind of food promotes excessive intake. I guess in simple terms, and you would finesse this, you consume calories before your body has time to go, well, you've eaten enough. You can consume an excess. Then there's the ratios of fat, salt, and sugar and the way you can balance them, and any good cook knows if you can get the acid, fat, salt, sugar ratios right, you can make incredibly delicious food. That's kind of what I would call hyper palatability. And a lot of that work's being done in the states (US) by some incredible people. Then the food may be that because it's low in fiber and low in protein, quite often it's not satiating. And there may be, because it's also low in micronutrients and general nutrition, it may be that, and this is a little bit theoretical, but there's some evidence for this. Part of what drives the excess consumption is you're kind of searching for the nutrients. The nutrients are so dilute that you have to eat loads of it in order to get enough. Do you think, does that, is that how you understand it? It does, it makes perfect sense. In fact, I'm glad you brought up one particular issue because part of the ultra-processing that makes foods difficult for the body to deal with involves what gets put in, but also what gets taken out. And there was a study that got published recently that I think you and I might have discussed earlier on American breakfast cereals. And this study looked at how the formulation of them had changed over a period of about 20 years. And what they found is that the industry had systematically removed the protein and the fiber and then put in more things like sugar. So there, there's both what goes in and what gets taken out of foods that affects the body in this way. You know, what I hear you saying, and what I, you know, believe myself from the science, is the body's pretty capable of handling the food environment if food comes from the natural environment. You know, if you sit down to a meal of baked chicken and some beans and some leafy greens and maybe a little fruit or something, you're not going to overdo it. Over time you'd end up with the right mix of nutrients and things like that and you'd be pretty healthy. But all bets are off when these foods get processed and engineered, so you over consume them. You found that out in the experiment that you did on yourself. And then that's what science shows too. So, it's not like these things are sort of benign. People overeat them and they ought to just push away from the table. There's a lot more going on here in terms of hijacking the brain chemistry. Overriding the body signals. Really thwarting normal biology. Do you think it's important to add that we think of obesity as being the kind of dominant public health problem? That's the thing we all worry about. But the obesity is going hand in hand with stunting, for example. So, height as you reach adulthood in the US, at 19 US adults are something like eight or nine centimeters shorter than their counterparts in Northern Europe, Scandinavia, where people still eat more whole food. And we should come back to that evidence around harms, because I think the really important thing to say around the evidence is it has now reached the threshold for causality. So, we can say a dietary pattern high in ultra-processed food causes all of these negative health outcomes. That doesn't mean that any one product is going to kill you. It just means if this is the way you get your food, it's going to be harmful. And if all the evidence says, I mean, we've known this for decades. If you can cook the kind of meal, you just described at home, which is more or less the way that high income people eat, you are likely to have way better health outcomes across the board. Let me ask you about the title of your book. So, the subtitle of your book is Why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food. So, what is it? The ultra-processed definition is something I want to pay credit for. It's really important to pay a bit of credit here. Carlos Montero was the scientist in Brazil who led a team who together came up with this definition. And, I was speaking to Fernanda Rauber who was on that team, and we were trying to discuss some research we were doing. And every time I said food, she'd correct me and go, it is not, it's not food, Chris. It's an industrially produced edible substance. And that was a really helpful thing for me personally, it's something it went into my brain, and I sat down that night. I was actually on the UPF diet, and I sat down to eat some fried chicken wings from a popular chain that many people will know. And was unable to finish them. I think our shared understanding of the purpose of food is surely that its purpose is to nourish us. Whether it's, you know, sold by someone for this purpose, or whether it's made by someone at home. You know it should nourish us spiritually, socially, culturally, and of course physically and mentally. And ultra-processed food nourishes us in no dimension whatsoever. It destroys traditional knowledge, traditional land, food culture. You don't sit down with your family and break, you know, ultra-processed, you know, crisps together. You know, you break bread. To me that's a kind of very obvious distortion of what it's become. So, I don't think it is food. You know, I think it's not too hard of a stretch to see a time when people might consider these things non-food. Because if you think of food, what's edible and whether it's food or not is completely socially constructed. I mean, some parts of the world, people eat cockroaches or ants or other insects. And in other parts of the world that's considered non-food. So just because something's edible doesn't mean that it's food. And I wonder if at some point we might start to think of these things as, oh my God, these are awful. They're really bad for us. The companies are preying on us, and it's just not food. And yeah, totally your book helps push us in that direction. I love your optimism. The consumer facing marketing budget of a big food company is often in excess of $10 billion a year. And depends how you calculate it. I'll give you a quick quiz on this. So, for a while, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was by far the biggest funder of research in the world on childhood obesity. And they were spending $500 million a year to address this problem. Just by which day of the year the food industry has already spent $500 million just advertising just junk food just to children. Okay, so the Robert V. Wood Foundation is spending it and they were spending that annually. Annually, right. So, what's, by what day of the year is the food industry already spent that amount? Just junk food advertising just to kids. I'm going to say by somewhere in early spring. No. January 4th. I mean, it's hysterical, but it's also horrifying. So, this is the genius of ultra-processed food, of the definition and the science, is that it creates this category which is discretionary. And so at least in theory, of course, for many people in the US it's not discretionary at all. It's the only stuff they can afford. But this is why the food industry hate it so much is because it offers the possibility of going, we can redefine food. And there is all this real food over there. And there is this UPF stuff that isn't food over here. But industry's very sophisticated, you know. I mean, they push back very hard against me in many different ways and forms. And they're very good at going, well, you're a snob. How dare you say that families with low incomes, that they're not eating food. Are you calling them dupes? Are you calling them stupid? You know, they're very, very sophisticated at positioning. Isn't it nice how concerned they are about the wellbeing of people without means? I mean they have created a pricing structure and a food subsidy environment and a tax environment where essentially people with low incomes in your country, in my country, are forced to eat food that harms them. So, one of the tells I think is if you're hearing someone criticize ultra-processed food, and you'll read them in the New York Times. And often their conflicts of interest won't be reported. They may be quite hidden. The clue is, are they demanding to seriously improve the food environment in a very clear way, or are they only criticizing the evidence around ultra-processed food? And if they're only criticizing that evidence? I'll bet you a pound to a pinch of salt they'll be food-industry funded. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that a little more. So, there's a clear pattern of scientists who take money from industry finding things that favor industry. Otherwise, industry wouldn't pay that money. They're not stupid in the way they invest. And, you and I have talked about this before, but we did a study some years ago where we looked at industry and non-industry funded study on the health effects of consuming sugar sweetened beverages. And it's like the ocean parted. It's one of my favorites. And it was something like 98 or 99% of the independently funded studies found that sugar sweetened beverages do cause harm. And 98 or 99% of the industry funded studies funded by Snapple and Coke and a whole bunch of other companies found that they did not cause harm. It was that stark, was it? It was. And so you and I pay attention to the little print in these scientific studies about who's funded them and who might have conflicts of interest. And maybe you and I and other people who follow science closely might be able to dismiss those conflicted studies. But they have a big impact out there in the world, don't they? I had a meeting in London with someone recently, that they themselves were conflicted and they said, look, if a health study's funded by a big sugary drink company, if it's good science, that's fine. We should publish it and we should take it at face value. And in the discussion with them, I kind of accepted that, we were talking about other things. And afterwards I was like, no. If a study on human health is funded by a sugary drink corporation, in my opinion, we could just tear that up. None of that should be published. No journals should publish those studies and scientists should not really call themselves scientists who are doing it. It is better thought of as marketing and food industry-funded scientists who study human health, in my opinion, are better thought of as really an extension of the marketing division of the companies. You know, it's interesting when you talk to scientists, and you ask them do people who take money from industry is their work influenced by that money? They'll say yes. Yeah, but if you say, but if you take money from industry, will your work be influenced? They'll always say no. Oh yeah. There's this tremendous arrogance, blind spot, whatever it is that. I can remain untarnished. I can remain objective, and I can help change the industry from within. In the meantime, I'm having enough money to buy a house in the mountains, you know, from what they're paying me, and it's really pretty striking. Well, the money is a huge issue. You know, science, modern science it's not a very lucrative career compared to if someone like you went and worked in industry, you would add a zero to the end of your salary, possibly more. And the same is true of me. I think one of the things that adds real heft to the independent science is that the scientists are taking a pay cut to do it. So how do children figure in? Do you think children are being groomed by the industry to eat these foods? A senator, I think in Chile, got in hot water for comparing big food companies to kind of sex offenders. He made, in my view, a fairly legitimate comparison. I mean, the companies are knowingly selling harmful products that have addictive properties using the language of addiction to children who even if they could read warning labels, the warning labels aren't on the packs. So, I mean, we have breakfast cereals called Crave. We have slogans like, once you stop, once you pop, you can't stop. Bet you can't just eat one. Yeah, I think it is predatory and children are the most vulnerable group in our society. And you can't just blame the parents. Once kids get to 10, they have a little bit of money. They get their pocket money, they're walking to school, they walk past stores. You know, you have to rely on them making decisions. And at the moment, they're in a very poor environment to make good decisions. Perhaps the most important question of all what can be done. So, I'm speaking to you at a kind of funny moment because I've been feeling that a lot of my research and advocacy, broadcasting... you know, I've made documentaries, podcasts, I've written a book, I've published these papers. I've been in most of the major newspapers and during the time I've been doing this, you know, a little under 10 years I've been really focused on food. Much less time than you. Everything has got worse. Everything I've done has really failed totally. And I think this is a discussion about power, about unregulated corporate power. And the one glimmer of hope is this complaint that's been filed in Pennsylvania by a big US law firm. It's a very detailed complaint and some lawyers on behalf of a young person called Bryce Martinez are suing the food industry for causing kidney problems and type two diabetes. And I think that in the end is what's going to be needed. Strategic litigation. That's the only thing that worked with tobacco. All of the science, it eventually was useful, but the science on its own and the advocacy and the campaigning and all of it did no good until the lawyers said we would like billions and billions of dollars in compensation please. You know, this is an exciting moment, but there were a great many failed lawsuits for tobacco before the master settlement agreement in the '90s really sort of changed the game. You know, I agree with you. Are you, are you optimistic? I mean, what do you think? I am, and for exactly the same reason you are. You know, the poor people that worked on public health and tobacco labored for decades without anything happening long, long after the health consequences of cigarette smoking were well known. And we've done the same thing. I mean, those us who have been working in the field for all these years have seen precious little in the ways of policy advances. Now tobacco has undergone a complete transformation with high taxes on cigarettes, and marketing restrictions, and non-smoking in public places, laws, and things like that, that really have completely driven down the consumption of cigarettes, which has been a great public health victory. But what made those policies possible was the litigation that occurred by the state attorneys general, less so the private litigating attorneys. But the state attorneys general in the US that had discovery documents released. People began to understand more fully the duplicity of the tobacco companies. That gave cover for the politicians to start passing the policies that ultimately made the big difference. I think that same history is playing out here. The state attorneys general, as we both know, are starting to get interested in this. I say hurray to that. There is the private lawsuit that you mentioned, and there's some others in the mix as well. I think those things will bring a lot of propel the release of internal documents that will show people what the industry has been doing and how much of this they've known all along. And then all of a sudden some of these policy things like taxes, for example, on sugared beverages, might come in and really make a difference. That's my hope. But it makes me optimistic. Well, I'm really pleased to hear that because I think in your position it would be possible. You know, I'm still, two decades behind where I might be in my pessimism. One of the kind of engines of this problem to me is these conflicts of interest where people who say, I'm a physician, I'm a scientist, I believe all this. And they're quietly paid by the food industry. This was the major way the tobacco industry had a kind of social license. They were respectable. And I do hope the lawsuits, one of their functions is it becomes a little bit embarrassing to say my research institute is funded [by a company that keeps making headlines every day because more documents are coming out in court, and they're being sued by more and more people. So, I hope that this will diminish the conflict, particularly between scientists and physicians in the food industry. Because that to me, those are my biggest opponents. The food industry is really nice. They throw money at me. But it's the conflicted scientists that are really hard to argue with because they appear so respectable. Bio Dr. Chris van Tulleken is a physician and a professor of Infection and Global Health at University College London. He trained at Oxford and earned his PhD in molecular virology from University College London. His research focuses on how corporations affect human health especially in the context of child nutrition and he works with UNICEF and The World Health Organization on this area. He is the author of a book entitled Ultraprocessed People: Why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food. As one of the BBC's leading broadcasters for children and adults his work has won two BAFTAs. He lives in London with his wife and two children.

"Trailblazers with Garry" is a new series from Global Health Matters, where host Dr Garry Aslanyan sits down with trailblazers — thinkers, leaders, and influencers shaping the future of global health — for short face-to-face conversations, available in both audio and video formats. It's a chance to get to know the people behind the work and hear their perspectives on the current global health landscape.In this Trailblazers episode, Garry sits down with Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, to talk about the future of public health education, learning health systems and the core competencies tomorrow's leaders will need to make an impact on public health.Related episode documents, transcripts and other information can be found on our website.Subscribe to the Global Health Matters podcast newsletter.  Follow us for updates:@TDRnews on XTDR on LinkedIn@ghm_podcast on Instagram@ghm-podcast.bsky.social on Bluesky Disclaimer: The views, information, or opinions expressed during the Global Health Matters podcast series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of TDR or the World Health Organization.  All content © 2025 Global Health Matters.

Send us a textIn this episode, I (Turo Virta) share my personal journey with alcohol—growing up with a dad who drank daily, going out every weekend in my 20s, and where I'm at now: only having a few drinks occasionally.For years we heard that moderate drinking might be good for you, maybe even protective for the heart. But newer, higher-quality studies tell a very different story. What seemed like “benefits” often came from healthier, more affluent people being compared to less healthy non-drinkers—not from alcohol itself.Here's what we now know:The World Health Organization makes it clear: there is no safe level of alcohol use when it comes to health risks, especially cancer (WHO source).Harvard researchers also confirm that even light to moderate drinking increases risk of several cancers and may shorten life expectancy (Harvard source).In this episode, I break down:Why even “a glass of wine a day” isn't harmless.The link between alcohol, cancer, brain health, and sleep.My own reflections on cultural drinking habits in Finland and Italy.Practical ways to be more intentional—like swapping in alcohol-free options or making social drinking the exception, not the norm.

In this shorter Mini Motivation episode, host Amelia Phillips and Professor Heike Bischoff-Ferrari discuss Omega-3s, their benefits, how to test and track, whether supplementing works and top tips for supplementing, based on the DO HEALTH Trial. To listen to the full episode on the stunning results of the DO HEALTH Trial listen to their previous episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3oBEKhGC6tkarx7mF9NlLK?si=4f8228bf1f514862 When supplementing, Amelia recommends the following dose: Omega-3 (1g per day= 330mg EPA + 660mg DHA) taken with food. Vitamin D (2000IU per day, ideal to test your levels first), taken with food ideally in the first half of the day. Liposomal spray (under tongue) ideal for better absorption Consider Omega index test (goal is an Omega Index of 8-12%) If you would like brand suggestions please email or DM Amelia. About the guest: Professor Heike Bischoff-Ferrari is an expert in aging medicine and aging research from the University of Basel Switzerland. She did her training in Switzerland and the US at Harvard Medical School. She is serving as a board member of the Clinical Consortium on Healthy Aging of the World Health Organisation and coordinates the “Global Consortium in Health Span Extension”. She is also the principal investigator of the DO-HEALTH trial. About Prof. Heike Bischoff-Ferrari: https://do-health.eu/user/heike/ DO HEALTH Trial: https://do-health.eu/ VITAL Study: https://www.vitalstudy.org/ About the host: Amelia Phillips is an exercise scientist, nutritionist, and published researcher (BSc, MNut) with a career spanning 26 years in health. She is the co-founder of Vitality360, a functional health platform that helps people gain deep insights into their health and make targeted changes for lasting vitality.A respected media presenter, Amelia has been featured on Channel 9’s hit show Do You Want to Live Forever? and is dedicated to helping people build a life of energy, connection, and purpose at any age or stage of life.Instagram: @_amelia_phillipsHave a question? Email: ap@ameliaphillips.com.auFind out more at: www.ameliaphillips.com.auDiscover Vitality360: https://v360.health CREDITSHost: Amelia Phillips Guest: Audio Producer: Darren RothMusic: Matt Nicholich Production Partner: Nova Entertainment Pty Ltd Healthy Her acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy informationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski explores Victorian history (again), talks curio shops, and reads your ghost stories.  The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01 

Dr. Laura welcomes Dr. Esther Sternberg, M.D., a Professor, Research Director, Speaker, and Author of the books Well at Work, Healing Spaces, and The Balance Within, to the podcast to talk about wellness at work and how workplace environments impact employees. Dr. Sternberg shares her career journey from her start in medical family practice through to becoming the Research Director at the Andrew Weil Center of Integrative Medicine. She and Dr. Laura talk about what factors impact health and overall wellness at work and how these can be improved.Dr. Sternberg delves into the insights in her book Well at Work and explains the seven domains of integrative health as defined by the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. Sleep, resilience, environment, movement, relationships, spirituality, and nutrition are the seven domains, and they include things like how quickly we bounce back from stress, how clean our air is, and access to nature. Dr. Laura and Dr. Sternberg examine how office design, environmental location, common spaces that encourage relationships, and even temperature all play a key role in our workplace health. The conversation sheds light on how work isn't simply a place to invest time into productivity, but can positively or negatively impact our overall lives, and how redefining workplaces is a vital part of future discussions. “... if you're feeling too stressed or too activated, you want to do something that will tone down that stress response so you can perform at peak... If you're too stressed, you freeze, you're unable to focus. You're unable to do the job, the task at hand. So what helps you to move that stress response from the extreme danger zone back to performing at peak is places where you can go offline a little bit, where you can effectively meditate even though you're not sitting there with crossed legs in a lotus position in a yoga studio, although having spaces where some people can do that is is also beneficial. But a space, for example, [like] the gardens. To just walk in the gardens, to just take your brain off the computer for a while and focus on the green, on the plants.” - Dr. Esther SternbergAbout Dr. Esther Sternberg, M.D.:Dr. Esther Sternberg is internationally recognized for her discoveries in the science of the mind-body interaction in illness and healing, and the role of place in wellbeing. She is a pioneer and major force in collaborative initiatives on mind-body-stress-wellness and environment interrelationships. A dynamic speaker, she engages her audience with passion for her subject and compassion as a physician. Through stories, she provides listeners with many take-home tips to help them cope with stress and thrive, and to create wellbeing spaces wherever they work or live. Dr. Sternberg's three popular, highly readable, informative, and scientifically based books are inspirations for lay persons and professionals alike, seeking answers to the complexities and 21st-century frontiers of stress, place, healing, and wellness. Her award-winning book, WELL at WORK: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace (Little, Brown Spark, 2023) was named a Top Ten Lifestyle Book for Fall 2023 by Publishers Weekly and received the OWL (Outstanding Works of Literature) Longlist Award. Her two previous science-for-the-lay public books, Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being and The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions, are landmark in its field. Healing Spaces was recognized by the President of the American Institute of Architects as an inspiration for launching the AIA's Design and Health Initiative and has inspired the implementation of healing spaces in hospitals across the country and around the world. Currently, Research Director, Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine and Founding Director of the University of Arizona Institute on Place, Wellbeing & Performance, she holds the Inaugural Andrew Weil Chair for Research in Integrative Medicine and is a Research Professor of Medicine with joint appointments as Professor in Psychology, Architecture, and Planning & Landscape Architecture, and in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness. As Senior Scientist and Section Chief, National Institutes of Health (1986-2012), she directed the NIH Integrative Neural Immune Program, Co-Chaired the NIH Intramural Program on Research on Women's Health, and chaired a subcommittee of the NIH Central Tenure Committee. Dr. Sternberg has advised the World Health Organization; the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; the International WELL Building Institute; the Royal Society, London; the Vatican, where she was presented to Pope Benedict XVI; and has briefed high-level U.S. Federal Government officials, including the Surgeon General, National Institutes of Health leadership, and the Department of Defence. Her two decades-long research with the U.S. General Services Administration, using wearable devices to track health and wellbeing in the built office environment, is informing healthy design standards and COVID re-entry across the federal government and the private sector.Among other honors, she moderated a panel with the Dalai Lama, was recognized by the National Library of Medicine as one of the women who “Changed the Face of Medicine,” served as a member and Chair of NLM's Board of Regents, and received an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine from Trinity College, Dublin, on its 300th Anniversary. She has authored over 240 scholarly articles, edited 10 technical books on the topic of brain-immune connections and design and health, and writes a monthly blog for Psychology Today, it has garnered tens of thousands of readers on subjects including stress and illness, gratitude and wellness, and place and wellbeing. She co-created and hosted the PBS Television Special, The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg, and is frequently interviewed in the lay press and media, including NPR, BBC, CBC radio; PBS, ABC, CBS 60 Minutes, Overtime television, the Washington Post, LA Times, U.S. News and World Report, Reader's Digest, Prevention Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and numerous podcasts, among others. She received her M.D. from McGill University, and trained in rheumatology at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, Canada.Resources:Website: EstherSternberg.comBook: “Well at Work: Creating Wellbeing in any Workspace” by Esther M. Sternberg, MDInstagram: @dresternbergLinkedInLearn more about Dr. Laura on her website: https://drlaura.liveFor more resources, look into Dr. Laura's organizations: Canada Career CounsellingSynthesis Psychology

The World Health Organization and the World Meteorological Organization say "urgent action" is needed to protect workers from heat stress in a warming world. As B.C. continues to navigate more extreme heat in the coming days, advocates are raising awareness about working conditions in hot weather. Dr. Melissa Lem, a family physician and president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, joins the show to discuss heat stress and how to best protect workers.

In the latest SI Voices podcast, host Hilary Ratcliffe speaks with Connie Mutunhu, former President of Soroptimist International Africa Federation (SIAF), about efforts to raise awareness of cervical cancer and expand access to the HPV vaccine for girls across Africa.Statistics provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) state that cervical cancer is the second most diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women in Africa. Each year, around 80,000 women are diagnosed and 77,000 die—figures WHO calls unnecessarily high.To address this crisis, SIAF together with the Soroptimist International Clubs of Nairobi Central and Dubai Gulf (SIE), 'The Room', and the UN Health4Life Fund—has launched 'Let's Chat', an AI-powered digital tool that connects users with trusted health experts for personalised conversations.This is a long-term, large-scale public awareness programme. SIAF is working to establish mobile health clinics to reach underserved rural communities, while also producing leaflets in multiple languages and using social media to spread accurate information. Their efforts aim to dispel persistent myths—such as the false belief that the HPV vaccine causes infertility—which discourage families from vaccinating their daughters. Connie highlighted both the progress already made and SIAF's intention to build partnerships with Soroptimist Clubs outside Africa to strengthen ongoing efforts to prevent cervical cancer. 

Salt is a common ingredient in many foods, and it's essential for our health. Salt is made up of sodium and chloride, two minerals that help regulate fluid balance, blood pressure, nerve and muscle function.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adults should consume less than 5 grams of salt per day, which is equivalent to about one teaspoon. However, most people eat more than that. But how much salt do we need, and how much do we actually consume? What happens if we eat too much salt? Does that mean we should avoid salt altogether? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions! To listen to the last episodes, you can click here: ⁠What's the meaning of rizz, the 2023 word of the year?⁠ ⁠Can we really multitask effectively?⁠ ⁠What is the Honours list and who is on it this year?⁠ A podcast written and realised by Amber Minogue. First broadcast: 14/09/2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was lucky to be able to talk to Dr. Artemis Simopoulos about her life's work on essential fatty acids and genetics. She has been the foundation for much of what we know about the importance of omega 3, and the omega 6: 3 ratio and why that is so important.She her works, of over 365 scientific papers, and having edited over 50 books in her field is evidence of her overwhelming work she has done over the last 50 years. From arguing with Senator George McGovern  in the 1970s over what was to become the Nutritional Guidelines for nearly all western countries, to ushering in the era of precision personal medicine through genomic analysis. This podcast is about the importance of her work, and how the World Health Organization and UNESCO is working with her today on making sure her work will be a 'corner stone' for their future nutritional and dietary recommendations.

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski enters her gothic era, discusses her recent movie watches, and researches Art Nouveau and Art Deco.  The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01 

A deeply personal album of protest, love and self-acceptance — created with AI, powered by vulnerability, and released in support of dementia research.London, UK – August 2025 — After decades behind the decks, DJ-turned-artist F Monday steps into the spotlight with his debut album The Gift, out 10th October 2025. Blending protest pop, soul, and singer-songwriter sensibilities with hints of Latin and bossa nova, the record is both deeply personal and boldly experimental.The lead single, Maybe I'm Gay, will be released on 29th August 2025 across all streaming and download platforms.“It captures my experience as a cis gay man — feeling different, othered, and at times excluded, even within the LGBTQIA+ community. Over time, I found self-acceptance by recognising that many of those feelings are universal — and that being queer is universal too,” says F Monday.The Gift journeys through protest, grief, joy, and self-acceptance. From the bold defiance of Maybe I'm Gay, to the intimate title track The Gift, the playful EDM-lite Not Just Friends, and the revelatory Hello God :-), the album explores what it means to live openly, vulnerably, and authentically.Created in collaboration with AI tools, The Gift is both an act of self-discovery and a creative experiment — a reminder that music can be a mirror, reflecting who we are and what we hope to become.Importantly, all proceeds from the album will go to Alzheimer's Research UK.  Dementia is the UK's leading cause of death, with 982,000 people currently affected — a number expected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. Globally, the World Health Organisation estimates 57 million people live with dementia, with nearly 10 million new cases every year.Spotify users can pre-save Maybe I'm Gay now by clicking here.The Gift — released 10th October 2025. Every play, every download, every share helps bring us closer to a cure for dementia. Please join in.

It might be time to have to talk about what happens when things get really bad and the government even gets nervous. There has been a Continuity of Government plan for decades, but things took a major turn with the introduction of the Patriot Act in 2001. Just because the World Health Organization was thwarted this time around, everyone can see that it will come back again in a different form, or when a different administration is in place. Or perhaps after the next global pandemic that they warn us is right around the corner. Do we have a contingency plan for our communications systems or will the West be sent to the Stone Ages with the flick of an internet kill switch? The Octopus of Global Control Audiobook: https://amzn.to/3xu0rMm Hypocrazy Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4aogwms Website: www.Macroaggressions.io Activist Post: www.activistpost.com Sponsors: Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com Promo Code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACROChristian Yordanov's Health Program: www.livelongerformula.com/macro Above Phone: abovephone.com/macro Promo Code: MACRO Van Man: https://vanman.shop/?ref=MACRO Promo Code: MACRO My Patriot Supply: www.PrepareWithMacroaggressions.com Activist Post: www.ActivistPost.com Natural Blaze: www.NaturalBlaze.com Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/macroaggressionspodcast

In 2013, 9-year-old Ella Roberta died from a severe asthma attack. She became the first person in the United Kingdom (and possibly the world) to have “air pollution” listed as the cause of death on her death certificate. Her mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, founded the Ella Roberta Foundation and has become a global voice for clean air. Globally, the World Health Organization says that air pollution is associated with 6 to 7 million premature deaths every year. Addressing the cause of these deaths would also go a long way to addressing climate disruption. And since talking about climate has become so politically fraught, should we reframe the conversation to focus on taking care of our air? Guests: Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, Founder, Ella Roberta Foundation Sheila Watson, Deputy Director, FIA Foundation Susan Joy Hassol, Director, Climate Communication  Highlights: (00:00) Intro (03:00) Rosamund shares details of Ella's young life and her early asthma attacks (08:00) Ella becomes first person to have “air pollution” listed as cause of death (13:00) Rosamund's work sharing Ella's story and raising awareness about air pollution (20:30) How poisonous transportation emissions are and policy tools to reduce them (26:00) Economic development does not need to sit contrary to healthy air  (27:00) Dieselgate and the work of the True Real Urban Emissions initiative  (31:00) Extreme heat can make air pollution more deadly (37:00) Why we shouldn't use the term "climate change”  (43:00) Finding ways to connect with people on climate based on their priorities (49:00) How to convey the seriousness of climate threats while also empowering people to feel that they can make a difference (52:30) Climate One More Thing For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you'll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2013, 9-year-old Ella Roberta died from a severe asthma attack. She became the first person in the United Kingdom (and possibly the world) to have “air pollution” listed as the cause of death on her death certificate. Her mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, founded the Ella Roberta Foundation and has become a global voice for clean air. Globally, the World Health Organization says that air pollution is associated with 6 to 7 million premature deaths every year. Addressing the cause of these deaths would also go a long way to addressing climate disruption. And since talking about climate has become so politically fraught, should we reframe the conversation to focus on taking care of our air? Highlights: (00:00) Intro (03:00) Rosamund shares details of Ella's young life and her early asthma attacks (08:00) Ella becomes first person to have “air pollution” listed as cause of death (13:00) Rosamund's work sharing Ella's story and raising awareness about air pollution (20:30) How poisonous transportation emissions are and policy tools to reduce them (26:00) Economic development does not need to sit contrary to healthy air  (27:00) Dieselgate and the work of the True Real Urban Emissions initiative  (31:00) Extreme heat can make air pollution more deadly (37:00) Why we shouldn't use the term "climate change”  (43:00) Finding ways to connect with people on climate based on their priorities (49:00) How to convey the seriousness of climate threats while also empowering people to feel that they can make a difference (52:30) Climate One More Thing Guests: Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, Founder, Ella Roberta Foundation Sheila Watson, Deputy Director, FIA Foundation Susan Joy Hassol, Director, Climate Communication  For show notes and related links, visit https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts *** Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on Patreon, you'll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. Sign up today. Ad sales by Multitude. Contact them for ad inquiries at multitude.productions/ads Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski admires Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes, unpacks Coraline, and and discusses the importance of fashion.  The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01 

All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton were honored to welcome Michael Ellenbogen as guest to the show.   About Michael Ellenbogen:   Michael Ellenbogen was diagnosed with Young-Onset Alzheimer's Disease at the age of 49. Prior to his diagnosis, he was a network operations manager for a Fortune 500 financial institution. Difficulty with work-related tasks eventually led to his early retirement.   As a world-renowned International Dementia Advocate & Connecter, he has been featured in nationally syndicated TV, radio and other media outlets. He has written for blogs, newspapers, journals and websites and shared his personal perspective as a guest speaker. Michael served on the PA Alzheimer's Disease Planning Committee and other advisory councils. He testified before the government, and has three letters published in the U.S. Congressional Record.   He was a regular speaker at NAPA and was featured in the ADI's 2012 World Alzheimer's Report. He represented the U.S./World for people living with dementia at the World Health Organization in Geneva. He is interested in motivating those with Alzheimer's to raise their voices and reduce the stigma surrounding the disease. Michael wrote about his journey with the disease in his book entitled “From the Corner Office to Alzheimer's.”

How do you stay clear, calm, and precise when every word counts and there's no room for error?Staying calm and focused while translating high-stakes conversations in real time isn't just a language skill — it's a masterclass in communication under pressure. And for Giampaolo Bianchi, simultaneous interpreter for the United Nations and World Health Organization, it's a challenge he meets with presence, precision, and a whole lot of preparation. In this expanded conversation from our Spontaneous Speaking series, Bianchi offers a behind-the-scenes look at how he prepares for — and performs in — moments where being calm, in control, and adaptable are essential.“We don't translate words — we translate ideas,” Bianchi explains, highlighting the mindset shift that allows interpreters to go beyond language and convey meaning with clarity and nuance. He shares the role of rigorous preparation, physical grounding, and mental focus in his work, and explains how tools like note systems, pre-session rituals, and active listening help manage cognitive load during live interpretation.In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Bianchi and host Matt Abrahams explore how the principles of simultaneous interpretation apply far beyond the booth — offering valuable strategies for anyone who needs to communicate effectively under pressure, adapt in the moment, and ensure their smartest communication happens without a script.Episode Reference Links:Giampaolo BianchiEp.197 Prep or Perish: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (1 of 3)Ep.198 Pause and Effect: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (2 of 3)Ep.199 Blunder Pressure: Mastering In-the-Moment Communication (3 of 3)Ep.203 No Script, No Problem: Final Secrets to Speaking Under Pressure (Bonus)   Connect:Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart PremiumEmail Questions & Feedback >>> hello@fastersmarter.ioEpisode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart WebsiteNewsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.ioThink Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTubeMatt Abrahams >>> LinkedInChapters:(00:00) - Introduction (02:42) - Becoming a UN Interpreter (03:50) - Staying Calm Under Pressure (05:03) - Translating Emotion, Not Just Words (06:10) - Memory and Focus Techniques (07:51) - The Power of Preparation (09:17) - Pre-Meeting Rituals and Readiness (10:34) - Handling Mistakes in Real Time (11:44) - Interpreter Habits in Daily Life (12:45) - The Final Three Questions (17:28) - Conclusion  *****This Episode is sponsored by Stanford. Stay Informed on Stanford's world changing research by signing up for the Stanford ReportSupport Think Fast Talk Smart by joining TFTS Premium.        

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski discusses The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde and the history of the macabre. The OFFICIAL Songs of The Week Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ULrcEqO2JafGZPeonyuje?si=061c5c0dd4664f01

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski shares her hot take on Benson Boone, rants about technology, discusses the representation of bodies online, and invents a Hot Dog food truck.