Strange Health

What is the vagus nerve and can you really reset it?

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 Mason

Is cracking my neck and knuckles bad?

Joint cracking is one of those habits most of us acquire without thinking about it. In our third episode, we turn our attention to one of the body’s most common and least understood noises. Knuckles, backs, knees and necks all feature, along with the enduring warning many of us grew up with: “Stop cracking your joints, you’ll get arthritis.” Is there any truth in it? And why can cracking feel so strangely satisfying?Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Clodagh Toomey, a specialist in musculoskeletal injury and chronic lifestyle-related diseases such as osteoarthritis, to give you the science behind the myths.Strange 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 from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MIlletArtwork: Alice MasonCan popping your neck cause a stroke?What makes joints pop and crack and is it a sign of disease?Joint pain or osteoarthritis? Why exercise should be your first line of treatment

Tonsils, kidneys and gall: why your body makes stones

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

Is detoxing your liver worth the hype?

Social media is full of green juices, charcoal supplements, foot patches and seven-day “liver resets”, all promising to purge the body of mysterious toxins and return it to a purer state. But do you really need to detox your liver?In the first episode of Strange Health, 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 wince and occasionally laugh their way through some of the internet’s most popular detox trends. They also speak to Trish Lalor, a liver expert from the University of Birmingham, whose message is refreshingly blunt: “your body is really set up to do it by itself.”Strange 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 Mason

Introducing Strange Health from The Conversation

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