What's Up Docs?

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing. In this episode, they explore something that affects every one of us - body odour. Body odour plays a significant role in our emotional and social lives, and even in our health. Chris and Xand explore what body odour actually is, where it comes from, and why it varies so much from person to person. They also examine the many ways we try to mask our natural scent and separate fact from fiction when it comes to what our body odour can tell us about each other and our health.To help unpack it all, they’re joined by Matthew Cobb, Professor Emeritus of Zoology at the University of Manchester, whose research explores how smell evolved and how animals use it to navigate and communicate.If you want to get in touch, you can email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08000 665 123.Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken Guest: Professor Matthew Cobb Producer: Jo Rowntree Assistant Producer: Dr Samara Linton Researcher: Dr Samara Linton Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar Visual Producer: Leon Gower Technical Lead: Reuben Huxtable Digital Lead: Richard Berry Composer: Phoebe McFarlane Sound Design: Melvin RickarbyAt the BBC: Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith Commissioning Editor: Rhian RobertsA Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Welcome to What's Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken explore the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing.In this episode, recorded live at Hay Festival, they're joined by Professor Devi Sridhar, Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, to ask how we can live longer, healthier lives. They dig into the difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, and why the latter is falling in places like the UK. Devi unpacks the biggest factors that shape how well we age, from diet and exercise to mental health and the environments we live in, and shares what decades of working across countries and health systems has taught her.They challenge the idea that health is simply a matter of individual choice, exploring how the society you're born into can shape your chances of a long and healthy life more than any supplement or wellness hack.If you want to get in touch, you can email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08000 665 123.Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken Guest: Professor Devi Sridhar Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar Editor: Jo Rowntree Researcher: Grace Revill Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable Video Producer: Leon Gower Digital Lead: Richard Berry Composer: Phoebe McFarlane Sound Design: Melvin RickarbyAt the BBC:Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith Commissioning Editor: Rhian RobertsA Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.