Covid and other bugs have ripped through the Inside Health team, so we find out why everyone seems to be getting sick at the moment and if we will be facing a torrent of infections for months or even years to come. We see how easy it is to buy antibiotics online and why scientists are worried about it. And can ketamine and its mind-altering powers can help free people from addiction to alcohol? Get in touch: InsideHealth@bbc.co.uk ..read more

In the UK, around a third of British children have tooth decay. Just among the under-fives, it's a quarter - a figure that rises significantly in the most deprived areas. Tooth decay can cause speech development issues, embarrassment for children and in 2023, 15 million school days were missed due to tooth pain or treatment. There’s a financial cost too – in 2023 in England alone tooth extractions under a general anaesthetic cost the NHS £41 million. And it's totally preventable. So, how can we stop teeth rotting in the first place? One way initiative announced by the new Labour government is ..read more

Olympic cyclist Sir Chris Hoy is calling for more prostate cancer testing after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Prostate cancer can often present without symptoms, and for people like Sir Chris, this can mean it isn't diagnosed until it has spread and become incurable. Unlike breast, bowel, or cervical cancer, there is currently no national screening programme that routinely invites men for prostate cancer testing. Instead, men over 50 can request what's known as a PSA blood test from their GP, but it's not automatically offered. Sir Chris wants that to change and is calling for the tes ..read more

The first drugs to slow Alzheimer's progression have been making headlines around the world. For researchers in the field, the arrival of these two therapies called Lecanemab and Donanemab is testament to decades of advancements in the field of Alzheimer's research because for the first time they go further than modifying the symptoms and have been shown in trials to slow down cognitive decline. For patients and families these treatments offer hope that the amount of quality time they'll have together could be lengthened. Around the world regulatory bodies are weighing up their effectiveness ..read more

Have you ever thought about how you breathe? For many of us, the 20,000+ breaths we take each day go underneath our conscious awareness. But every now and then, a short-lived spout or a chronic case of breathlessness can remind us just how vital good breathing is for our health. But can we all breathe “better”? Some wellness trends suggest so... James Gallagher gets to grips with mouth-taping: the practice of taping the mouth shut during the night to promote exclusive ‘nasal breathing’. Many claim it has improved their sleep, their athletic performance and even given them a more chiselled jaw ..read more

There are so many campaigns now to stop stigma and embarrassment - from Davina McCall talking about the menopause to Idris Elba campaigning for black men to get their prostate checked. And when we asked for your stories of how embarrassment impacts your health, our inbox was flooded with stories of incontinence, IBS, genital problems, skin issues, fertility troubles, fatty lumps and more - along with the huge and varied ways these issues are affecting your lives. So, how does embarrassment affect how we behave regarding our health, how can doctors and our health service adapt to alleviate it ..read more

If you have a rare genetic disorder, new technology that allows your genetic code to be analysed means you could have a diagnosis within weeks. Before, people with rare diseases would often go their entire lives without a diagnosis. It's a revolutionary advancement but does it change how patients are treated or help improve their wellbeing? Presenter James Gallagher meets Lisa whose daughter Jaydi was born with a rare genetic disease that affects her growth, speech, eyesight and a number of other conditions. We hear the story of Lisa and Jaydi's journey to diagnosis through Exeter University's ..read more

James is in South Wales where he's wired up and locked inside a cryo-lab to discover the impact of cold on the human body. A temperature of 10C seems pretty mild doesn’t it - yet James is shocked at the profound stress it puts on his body. Today we discover why cold is a killer and what you can do about it if you’re struggling to heat your home. Presenter: James Gallagher Producer: Gerry Holt ..read more

Trials of a cancer 'vaccine' have begun and presenter James meets Steve, one of the first patients to trial the new treatment, Steve remembers his shock at being diagnosed with colorectal cancer in his 40s and tells the story of how he became involved in this pioneering research into tackling cancer. The vaccine is based on the same mRNA technology as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine and James heads to the University of Cambridge to find out how the early work into cancer vaccines became the foundation for the rapid rollout of the covid vaccine. In the lab, molecular biologist Dr Anne Will ..read more

Mpox is spreading and it’s been classified a public health emergency by the World Health Organization. Presenter James Gallagher meets Professor Trudie Lang from the University of Oxford who has been working in the areas affected to discuss what it means for people in the countries it’s already reached and whether its spread can be stopped. James also puts your questions on statins to Professor Naveed Sattar, and we hear the story of Simon who works in the outdoors as a landscape manager. He was having bouts of severe illness and was struggling to understand what was behind it. The answer? He ..read more