Strange Health

Body odour has a reputation problem. It is often treated as a hygiene failure or a social offence. In reality, it is biology at work, plus a big helping of culture.And yet people online are trying chlorophyll shots to make their BO smell better. Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt discuss what evidence there is behind this, plus some of the health conditions that can affect body odour.And we talk to Mats Olsson, a professor of experimental psychology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, who studies how humans perceive body odour.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

The vagus nerve has become the internet’s favourite body part. On social media, it is everywhere. People hum into their phones, gargle with theatrical enthusiasm, dunk their faces into bowls of ice water and poke at their ears in the hope of “activating” it.So in this episode we focus our attention on the body’s longest cranial nerve and ask a simple question: what does the vagus nerve actually do, and can we really hack it?Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Arshad Majid, a professor of cerebrovascular neurology at the University of Sheffield and an expert in vagus nerve stimulation.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MIlletArtwork: Alice MasonFrom decapitation to positive psychology: how one nerve connects body, brain and mindStimulating the pathway connecting body and brain may change chronic condition patients’ lives

The human body, it turns out, is surprisingly good at making stone. Give it enough time and the right conditions and it will go about crystallising minerals, hardening secretions and, in rare cases, turning tragedy into rock. Gallstones. Kidney stones. Tonsil stones. Salivary stones. And, in one of the strangest and saddest corners of medical history, stone babies.In our second episode, hosts Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol, take a tour through the stony side of human anatomy and ask why this keeps happening, where these stones form and which ones you actually need to worry about. They talk to Adam Taylor, a professor of anatomy at Lancaster University, who has spent years studying stones in both everyday and extraordinary contexts, including a rare genetic condition called alkaptonuriaStrange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Sikander KhanArtwork: Alice MasonStone baby: the rare condition that produces a calcified foetusOur bodies don’t just make gall and kidney stones – from saliva to tonsils, these are other ones to look out forBubble tea’s dark side: from lead contamination to kidney stones

Introducing Strange Health, a new podcast from The Conversation.Time and again, the health stories that go viral are the ones that make people recoil slightly before clicking anyway. Worms. Smells. Leaks. Stones. Toxins. The things you Google at midnight and hope nobody ever finds in your search history.Behind the gag reflex, there is usually a serious question. Is this normal? Is this dangerous? Has the internet just convinced me I am dying?That is why The Conversation has launched Strange Health, a new podcast series hosted by Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol. They take the health questions people are obsessing over online, especially the weird, gross or misunderstood ones, and examine them properly with the help of academic experts who are actively researching these issues. We ask where these ideas come from, what the science really says, and why misinformation spreads so easily when bodies get involved. Episode 1 arrives on January 20. Follow Strange Health wherever you watch or listen to podcasts to never miss an episode. The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Sikander KhanArtwork: Alice Mason