You might also like
Changes to the bacteria that live inside all of us are responsible for increasing the number of people with allergies, suggests new research. The programme investigates this claim by conducting a unique experiment with two allergic families in order to find out just what it is in the modern world that is to blame.
Our hard-wired stress response is designed to gives us the quick burst of heightened alertness and energy needed to perform our best. But stress isn’t all good. When activated too long or too often, stress can damage virtually every part of our body. Sharon Horesh Bergquist gives us a look at what goes on inside our body when we are chronically stressed.
Growing up in the streets of Dundee, actor Brian Cox was surrounded by tobacco. His entire family either smoked it or chewed it and yet Brian reveals, he never took up the habit. To find out why not, Brian travels to Virginia in the US to discover how the habit of smoking kick-started the British Empire and created a global market of addicts.
3/4 • Addicted to Pleasure • Health
Eat less, move more. That’s been the mantra of the weight loss movement for decades. But as those who have fought the battle of the bulge will tell you, there’s a lot more to obesity than just too much junk food or too little willpower.
The Nature of Things • 2015 • Health
Psychopaths have long captured the public imagination. Painted as charismatic, violent predators lacking in all empathy, they provide intrigue and horror in equal measure. But what precisely is a psychopath? What is it that drives them to cause harm, even kill? And can they ever be cured? Presented by psychologist professor Uta Frith, this is an in-depth exploration of the psychopathic mind including one of the most notorious of all, Moors murderer Ian Brady. Through an ongoing correspondence between the Horizon team and Brady, the film features some of the very last letters he wrote. The film also features a series of candid interviews with prison inmates who not only describe their crimes but why they think they committed them. Horizon explores not only how each individual's crimes were shaped by their own life experiences, but also gives an insight into how these people think and behave. Working with the world's experts in the field, the film sheds light on the biological, psychological and environmental influences that shape a psychopath. And it looks to the future, with groundbreaking research that suggests a lifetime of incarceration is not the only option to manage violent and dangerous psychopaths.
There’s a factory inside you that weighs about 1.4 kilograms and runs for 24 hours a day. It’s your liver: the heaviest organ in your body, which simultaneously acts as a storehouse, a manufacturing hub, and a processing plant.