Inside the Living Body

58:57

In just over 100 days, a new coronavirus has taken an unprepared world by storm, infiltrating every corner of the globe, sending entire nations into lockdown, killing thousands and infecting countless more. Across the world, governments are scrambling to react, hospitals are struggling to cope and an increasingly anxious public are starting to panic. The world's media is awash with data, information and misinformation. But what are the facts? What is COVID-19 and why is this strain of coronavirus so dangerous? What happens in our bodies when the virus attacks? How does this compare to previous pandemics? What do all the the numbers really mean, and how can data modelling help us look for an exit strategy? This programme investigates the scientific facts and figures behind the biggest public health crisis in living memory, and explores the latest research from the frontline of the medical and scientific fightback.

Horizon • 2020 • Health

28:29

If you were told you could get fit with just a few minutes of exercise a week would you believe it? Anja Taylor looks at whether exercise impacts aging and if changes in your mitochondria resulting from exercise effectively retard aging.

S1E2 • Catalyst: Season 2 • 2017 • Health

44:10

November 22, 1963. The entire world is in shock. President Kennedy has just been assassinated during a trip to Dallas. Even Khrushchev himself seems touched by the tragic news. In a surprising coincidence, South Vietnamese president Diem was assassinated twenty days earlier, in a coup organized by his generals... The players are changing, but the Vietnam war drags on. America's new President Johnson sinks his country further into the quagmire of war. Close to three million young Americans discover Hell - the jungle, the unbearable heat, and the Viet Cong, with its tunnels and traps. For the first time, television plays a special role in the war. In 1968, the images of the terrible "Tet Offensive" revealed to the population the fiasco which took place in Vietnam: the massacres, the abuses of American soldiers and the obvious rout of their army. Soon the United States has no choice but to recall its troops; a victory for the communist world... But the USSR emerges from it ruined. Weakened by its various campaigns around the world, it will not experience the same success in Afghanistan. Soon, the "satellite" republics will resume their rights, overthrowing in turn the regimes imposed by Moscow. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire collapses... The red flag with the gold star dismounted from the roofs of the Kremlin. This is the end of the cold war. The war of the worlds ends.

S1E6 • Apocalypse: War of Worlds 1945-1991 • 2019 • Health

42:25

COVID-19 is far from the first pandemic to wreak havoc in the world. A long line of infectious diseases have devastated and in some cases destroyed entire societies. Almost all of them started in animals and made the jump to humans. We are terrified of pandemics. And with good reason. Infectious diseases have cost the lives of countless people over the centuries, devastating families, towns, and even societies. The Black Death spread across Europe and Asia in the 14th century leaving millions dead in its wake. Between the 15th and 18th centuries, European colonists brought smallpox to the Americas, the Pacific region and to Australia. In Europe, the 17th century saw a series of major epidemics. And at the end of the First World War, more people died of the Spanish flu than on the battlefield. This documentary examines the causes of these epidemics - whether it be lack of hygiene, interaction with animals, overcrowding, or the growth of cities - and how people travelling helped to spread disease and promote pandemics. It also sheds a light on the impact these infectious diseases have had on politics and societal change. Today, the world is facing COVID-19. Measures such as quarantine and lockdowns are being rolled out in an effort to control the spread of the virus; and, just as our ancestors did before us, some are questioning how effective they are. Over the centuries, scientists managed to develop treatments and medicines to help control or even eradicate infectious diseases. Virologists are facing that task again with the coronavirus, as the world frantically searches for ways to overcome a pandemic which threatens our modern way of life.

2020 • Health

58:53

Of all the diseases that plague humankind, malaria has put up one of the longest, toughest fights. More than 200 million people fall ill and 600,000 die of it every year, making it among the world's deadliest diseases. The vast majority of those fatalities are young children - an average of one child every minute. But medical science may now be at an exciting turning point. Filmed with intimate access to key scientists on four continents, this documentary tells the inside story of the development of a new malaria vaccine that could change the very nature of the fight. It's hoped that the vaccine, dubbed R21/Matrix-M and developed by many of the same team behind the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, will be the first to meet the World Health Organization's target of 75 per cent efficacy.

2024 • Health

91:09

Food Choices focuses on how the food we consume affects not only our personal health, but that of the entire planet. Filmmaker Michael Siewierski takes an in-depth look at how the consumption of animal products has a long-lasting, negative effect on the earth’s biosphere. Not only does he report on facts relating to the unethical treatment of animals raised for human consumption, but he also addresses the addition of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and antibiotics to animal feed. This trickle-down effect results in the poisoning of both our bodies and the planet.

2016 • Health