Health Check

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive condition where the brain gradually becomes more damaged over a number of years, leading to serious movement and cognitive problems. It is difficult to study the earliest stages because people are not aware they have the disease, but there is one very special group of people who might hold the key. They live in villages of the northern Peloponnese in Greece and near Naples in Italy, and they have a very rare genetic mutation which means that they will almost certainly develop the disease. For years Professor of Neurology Marios Politis, who is also director of the Neurodegeneration Imaging Group at King’s College London, had wanted to study this tiny group or people. Many of them had never been abroad before, so persuading them and organising a trip to London was not an easy task, but in the end 14 of them made the journey, and thanks to their generosity, Professor Politis’ team made an extraordinary discovery. For decades dopamine has been considered to be the main brain chemical affected when someone has Parkinson’s disease. The team’s new research challenges this view of Parkinson’s and backed up what they had suspected for a while; that the brain chemical serotonin is heavily implicated in the early stages of the disease. The work has just been published in the journal Lancet Neurology. The Chinese authorities say the practice of taking organs from executed prisoners without their consent came to an end four years ago. But a former war crimes prosecutor has concluded that prisoners of conscience in China are still having organs removed for transplants; despite official denials from China. The allegations have been examined in detail by a tribunal set up by the charity End Transplant Abuse in China, or ETAC. Over the past two years Matthew Hill, the Health Correspondent for BBC in the South West of England, has been examining these allegations and has this exclusive report for Health Check. Very long hours at work can put you at risk of burnout, but unemployment is not good for your mental health either. But how much do you really need to work to start seeing the benefits of having a job? The answer is rather less than you might think. Daiga Kamerade-Hanta, senior lecturer in sociology and criminology at the University of Salford, studied data from more than 70,000 people in the UK, and the results, which have just been published in the journal Social Science and Medicine, were quite unexpected. (Photo caption: A picture of a human brain taken by a positron emission tomography scanner, also called PET scan – credit: Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from Sarah Boseley. Producer: Helena Selby

Chinese vaccination rates are claimed to be a great success, but is that the whole picture? Every country has its own challenges to deal and China’s include the vast size of the country, mass migration into cities and the birth of 15 million children a year. Their goal is 90% vaccination coverage. Have they achieved it? Reporter Madeleine Finlay has just been to a symposium in London on vaccination programmes in China, and she reports back for Health Check. Thanks to a vigorous vaccination campaign that started in the 1960s, Taiwan has, like all but three countries in the world, succeeded in eradicating polio. There has been no polio infection there since 1983, but there are still survivors of polio who contracted the virus before that time. Some of them belong to the Chinese Taipei City Wheelchair Dance Sport Association and often get together to take part in wheelchair ballroom dancing. BBC’s Cindy Sui went to visit wheelchair dancers Vincent Kuo and Ivy Huang, who told her how dancing even helped them find love. What advice would you give your younger self? Psychologists at Clemson University in the US surveyed nearly 200 over 30 year olds asking this very question. Their answers fell into three main categories; things they wish they had done differently about the way they thought of themselves, choices concerning education and choices about relationships. Professor of Psychology Robin Kowalski was lead author of the study, which has just been published in the Journal of Social Psychology. (Photo caption: A child receiving a vaccination shot at a hospital in China - credit: Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from BBC Health and Science correspondent, James Gallagher. Producer: Helena Selby

Claudia visits the University of Sussex to undergo a novel treatment for her spider phobia. She meets Professor Sarah Garfinkel, from Sussex University in the UK, who has trialled a new technique which involves tuning in to the beat of a heart and finding a quicker way to dampen down and reduce arachnophobia. Does this new technique cure Claudia of her long term hatred of spiders? And does it allow her to get closer to Terry the tarantula? Have you ever worked in a big open plan office where there are daily thermostat wars? It is often a problem in air conditioned offices, with some people preferring a cold ambient temperature and others feeling so cold they have to bring in extra items of clothing to wear. Women generally prefer higher indoor temperatures than men, which is well supported by survey evidence, but could it have an impact on cognitive performance? New research from the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, looking at the differences in gender for the first time, suggests this is the case. Dr Agne Kajackaite is lead author of the study, which has recently been published in the journal PLOS One. When women are pregnant they release more of a hormone called relaxin. This hormone peaks in the first and third trimester; helping an embryo successfully implant in the uterus, and also helping to relax the ligaments in the pelvis to aid childbirth. An orthopaedic surgeon in the US noticed that when his patients had stiff, frozen elbow, they eased during and after pregnancy and he wondered whether this was due to their increased levels of relaxin. A team then conducted a study in rats to see whether injections of relaxin could help with frozen shoulder, a condition where connective tissues around the joint become thickened and stiff. It can cause a lot of pain and make it very hard to move. Mark Grinstaff, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry and Medicine at Boston University in the US, tells Claudia that the injections seemed to work in rats, and that the use of relaxin could be a very promising treatment for other musculoskeletal diseases. The results have just been published in the journal PNAS. (Photo caption: Young child surprised by a wasp spider – credit: Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from BBC Health and Science correspondent, James Gallagher. Producer: Helena Selby

The Tour de France starts next month and athletes competing will be undertaking an extraordinary feat of human endurance, spending three weeks battling up mountains and cycling more than 3000km. But despite benefitting from lighter bikes and advances in nutritional science, the times they achieve have not changed that much in the last 35 years. And new research has confirmed that humans are indeed close to reaching their physiological limits of endurance. Herman Pontzer, Associate Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology and Global Health, and his team at Duke University have been studying people doing all sorts of extreme endurance events; including a race from one coast of the US to the other where competitors run a marathon a day, six days a week for almost five months. They reveal a clear metabolic ceiling to human endurance, suggesting that the maximum effort that humans can sustain over days, weeks, and months is strongly tied to our ability to consume calories. The results have just been published in the journal Science Advances. In the UK there is a national cervical cancer screening programme which invites women between the ages of 25 to 64 for tests every three to five years. The test is commonly known as a Pap smear test and involves a nurse inserting a speculum into the vagina to take a cell sample from the cervix. Women often find the test uncomfortable and attendance rates at cervical screening have reached a 21-year low in the UK, so researchers are now looking towards a new method - self-testing - which is already part of the national screening programme in the Netherlands and Australia. And it is about to be introduced in other countries as well, as Hannah Fisher reports from London. As children get older, their bones become denser and stronger and peak maximum bone density occurs when adults are in their 30s. By the time people reach old age, women in particular are at risk of osteoporosis, where bones become so weak that they can fracture. But new research on the prevalence of osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis, has surprised researchers, who have found that men between the ages of 35 and 50 are more at risk than women. Allison Ford-Wade, Professor of Health, Exercise Science and Recreation Management at the University of Mississippi, is lead author of the study, which has recently been published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. (Photo caption: Tour of Italy cycle race – credit: Luk Benies/AFP/Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from family doctor Ann Robinson. Producer: Helena Selby

It is well known that it is healthier to eat fresh food than processed food, but it tends to be assumed that this is because the processed food is often high in salt, fat and sugar. But if a person eats ultra-processed foods with the same nutritional value as fresh food, would they gain weight? According to a lab experiment done recently, the answer is yes. Participants ate on average an additional 508 calories per day on the ultra-processed diet and after two weeks gained an average of two pounds. Kevin Hall from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases was senior investigator on the study, which has recently been published in the journal Cell Metabolism. The controversy surrounding the athlete Caster Semenya is raising awareness of differences of sex development, or DSD. There are about 40 different known pathways an embryo can take towards DSD, affecting the production of, or sensitivity to sex hormones, which in turn can impact on genital development and fertility. This is very rare; in the UK for example, just 150 children are diagnosed each year. A new report out this week from the British charity DSD Families is calling for children, young people and families living with different sex development to be given a voice and a better say in their healthcare. Angela Robson reports for Health Check. It is the time of year that is traditionally the start of the summer swimming season in the US. A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, warns that this is also the peak season for injuries caused by the chlorine, bromine and acid used to disinfect pools. Data shows that more than 4,500 people visit hospital emergency departments each year as a result of these chemical injuries. Michele Hlavsa is chief of the Health Swimming programme at the CDC. (Photo caption: A selection of processed food and drink – credit: Getty Images) Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond with comments from Matthew Fox, Professor of Epidemiology and Global Health at Boston University, USA. Producer: Helena Selby