This programme explores the way our experiences shape our minds and bodies as we make the journey from the most helpless to the most sophisticated organism on earth. Dr Chris and Dr Xand van Tullekan uncover how we develop new skills - whether riding a bike or learning to walk.
This week, we meet a girl whose heart has formed outside her ribcage, a man who can spend nine minutes underwater without taking a breath, a woman who is growing a second skeleton and a paralysed man who is regaining movement thanks to a chip implanted into his brain that can 'read' his brain signals.
1/6 • Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston's Casebook • 2017 • Health
In this episode, Gabriel uncovers the cases of an engineer who fixed his own heart, a toddler whose bones were repaired before he was even born and a girl whose immune system attacked her own brain. We meet a man who can taste words and find out how his condition is helping develop new ways to enable blind people to navigate and even recognise colours. And we encounter a man who was immobilised by MS but can now cycle and scuba-dive thanks to a pioneering new treatment that has reversed his disease.
6/6 • Incredible Medicine: Dr Weston's Casebook • 2017 • Health
Brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor studied her own stroke as it happened -- and has become a powerful voice for brain recovery.
2012 • Health
These days, transplant surgery saves thousands of lives every year and almost everything, from heart to eyes, can be replaced. But in the beginning, transplants killed rather than cured, because surgeons didn’t understand that they were taking on one of the most efficient killing systems we know of – the human immune system.
3 • Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery • 2009 • Health
Michael explores the final months of foetal development - a time when infants grow strong and develop the vital survival tools they need to take their first breath. He meets a girl born with a rare disorder who was saved from the brink of death by a drug trial that made medical history by creating manufactured bone for the first time, examines the results of a study by Dr Suzanne King into whether unborn children can be affected by stress, and witnessed the critical moment of the first breath and the beginning of a new life.
3/3 • Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You • 2015 • Health
Like many, Michael Mosley wants to get fitter and healthier but can't face hours on the treadmill or trips to the gym. Help may be at hand. He uncovers the surprising new research which suggests many of us could benefit from just three minutes of high intensity exercise a week. He discovers the hidden power of simple activities like walking and fidgeting, and finds out why some of us don't respond to exercise at all. Using himself as a guinea pig, Michael uncovers the revealing new research about exercise, that has the power to make us all live longer and healthier lives.
