We’ve heard for years about the dangers of eating too much fat or salt. But there have never been recommended limits for sugar on Canadian food labels, despite emerging research that suggests the sweet stuff may be making more of us fat and sick. In the fifth estate’s season premiere, Gillian Findlay digs into the surprising science — and the reaction from the food industry — to reveal The Secrets of Sugar. Has the sugar industry been hiding an unsavoury truth from consumers?
We’ve heard for years about the dangers of eating too much fat or salt. But there have never been recommended limits for sugar on Canadian food labels, despite emerging research that suggests the sweet stuff may be making more of us fat and sick. In the fifth estate’s season premiere, Gillian Findlay digs into the surprising science — and the reaction from the food industry — to reveal The Secrets of Sugar. Has the sugar industry been hiding an unsavoury truth from consumers?
2013 • Health
It's common knowledge that humans share 99% of their DNA with chimpanzees. But is it true?
For 70 years we've waged war against harmful bacteria using antibiotics. But bacteria are fighting back and today more and more bacterial infections are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Drug-resistant superbugs are spreading; not just MRSA - also TB, pneumonia, e-coli. In Britain, hundreds are already dying of these infections - mainly the very young or the frail and elderly. But experts warn that unless we crack the problem, by 2050 we'll be facing a massive health crisis with over 10 million people dying of resistant bacterial infection worldwide every year.
2017 • Health
Look at a nature survivalist, rancher twins, a doctor who survived Ebola and the recipient of a cutting-edge cancer therapy to uncover the wildly advanced biology that keeps us alive against all odds.
S1E4 • Human: The World Within • 2021 • Health
Two procedures so formidable, they would not have been attempted even a few years ago. Surgical teams at the Queen Elizabeth are constantly pushing the limits of what is possible. But despite state-of-the-art diagnostic scanning, sometimes cancer surgeons don't know exactly what they are up against until they open the patient up on the operating table. Even with the most meticulous planning, sometimes they must resort to taking critical decisions live in the theatre. 74-year-old Jasmine Harkness has been referred to the specialist sarcoma unit with a vast tumour in her abdomen, weighing more than three stone - a third of her total body weight. It is consuming her, displacing organs including her stomach and liver. Unless it can be removed, she has just four weeks to live. Sarcoma specialists Sam Ford and Professor David Gourevitch can't be sure whether they will be able to save Jasmine until they open her up and inspect her anatomy. Such is the risk of this surgery - five years ago they would not have embarked on this intervention. Sue Sinclair, lead anaesthetist and matriarch of theatre, keeps the others in check - working alongside them as they battle to detach the tumour from Jasmine's organs and blood vessels, and remove it intact. Whenever it presses heavily on vital blood vessels, Jasmine's blood pressure plummets, placing her life in grave danger. It will take unwavering focus to keep her alive. The tumour has grown so invasively that it has crushed and displaced Jasmine's internal organs. Sam and David have a puzzle on their hands to identify what and where everything is. At times, dark humour is the only way to release the tension as they grapple with blood, guts and mind-boggling complexity.
2/3 • Surgeons: At the Edge of Life • 2018 • Health
Gloria Hunniford and Chris Bavin make sense of which foods we should and shouldn't be eating. Gloria reveals her own experience of being diagnosed as pre-diabetic. With headlines suggesting millions are at risk of developing diabetes, she exposes how changing your diet can stop the condition in its tracks, and perhaps even reverse it. Chris unpicks which fruit and veg are best to eat. After years of working as a greengrocer, even he's unsure if he's eating enough, and how those five-a-day really stack up.
S1E2 • Food: Truth or Scare • 2016 • Health
Follows two patients through groundbreaking 'first in-human' trials for CAR T-cell therapy, a treatment described as the beginning of the end of cancer. Not allowed to meet and separated by two floors of a hospital, 53-year-old Graham and 18-year old-Mahmoud are nevertheless bound together by their commitment to the treatment and their faith in the science. Terminally ill, the trial represents their only option. How do their ages and life experiences affect their physical and emotional response? For Martin Pule, the scientist who has developed the treatment, the responsibility of curing patients is both exciting and daunting. He knows he stands on the cusp of a breakthrough that could radically change the way we treat cancer. At the heart of this film is the complex relationship between the patients and the clinical team. How much hope can the patients be given when they are effectively going into these trials as human guinea pigs? The patients and clinical team must weigh up hope with realism and their response is a profound and revealing reflection of the human condition.
2019 • Health