Health Check

Hosted by BBC World Service

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324

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Health issues and medical breakthroughs from around the world.

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November 4, 202626 min

The challenges of thalidomide-related disabilities and age

The survivors from the generation of children born suffering the effects of thalidomide – limb deformities, sight and hearing problems, internal damage and more – are still living with the impact. And now, to add to the challenges they’ve faced for decades, they’re getting older. Health Check's Matthew Kenyon reports from an international conference of thalidomide survivors in the Netherlands. Also, a series of papers published in The Lancet argues that men’s poor health and premature death globally are not driven by biology alone, but by the environments in which they live and work - yet men’s health receives little attention in policy. Claudia Hammond is joined by BBC Brazil reporter Camilla Mota to discuss. Claudia and Camilla also look into a study from Iceland which found that schoolwide mobile phone bans were not associated with meaningful changes in adolescent mental health or related social and behavioural outcomes. And they discuss newly trialled custom socks that stiffen your foot, which scientists believe could make walking more efficient. And we hear from Professor Fiona Wood from the burns service of Western Australia, who pioneered the development of spray on skin that helped to treat Bali bombing victims in 2002. She's received one of the Royal Society’s most prestigious awards – the Royal Medal. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Jonathan Blackwell Image Credit: The Association of Thalidomide Victims North Rhine-Westphalia e.V.

October 28, 202626 min

First human case of Shamonda virus

The first human case of Shamonda virus has killed a man in his 60s in France. Claudia Hammond is joined by professor of epidemiology and global health at Boston University, Matthew Fox, to discuss how this cattle virus made its way into a human and the implications of this. Could staying active before surgery help prevent postoperative delirium? Health Check hears from Dr Jeffrey Huang, senior anaesthesiologist at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida and Professor of Oncology Science at the University of South Florida, who has found that regular physical activity before cancer surgery was linked to a 50% lower risk of developing postoperative delirium. Brown fat is a type of fat which plays an important role in keeping the body warm in cold temperatures, but new research finds it also could impact the likelihood of developing mental health disorders. Claudia speaks with cardiologist Dr Paul Cohen, associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism at Rockefeller University, to learn more. Claudia and Matthew also discuss whether wearing noise cancelling headphones while under general anaesthesia reduces post-operative nausea and vomiting? And what do our eyebrows really tell people about our confidence? Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Georgia Christie, Jonathan Blackwell & Helena Selby

October 21, 202626 min

Solving the mystery of allergies

In this week's Health Check, Claudia Hammond looks at a new study in mice that examines two longstanding questions about allergies: why do they often emerge only after repeated exposure to the allergen and why do people with one allergy often develop other allergies as well? Claudia speaks to a scientist who has been attempting to solve these mysteries; Dr Caroline Sokol, from the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in the Mass General Brigham Department of Medicine, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, and member of the Ragon Institute. Her paper has just been published in the journal Immunity. New research published in Sports Medicine Open suggests that air pollution, and in particular nitrogen dioxide, is associated with impaired performance in marathon runners. Jane Burston is founder and chief executive of a philanthropic foundation called the Clean Air Fund, which funds projects to reduce air pollution, and discusses the implications of these findings with Claudia. Joining Health Check from Berlin is Andrew Green. Reporting the latest news from the Global World Health Summit in Berlin, Andrew also discusses with Claudia the research findings that taking paracetamol may blunt our fear and make us more prepared to take risks. And they examine the results of a new study which investigated whether pre-school children are more creative than adults or whether they are just more confident. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Helena Selby and Jonathan Blackwell

October 14, 202626 min

What happens in the ovaries postmenopause?

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, it is not all over for ovaries once a woman is post-menopausal. In a study published in Aging Cell, researchers studying the ovaries from 28 women found that even though their reproductive function ceases, the ovaries remain biologically active and continue to change in the decades after menopause. Francesca Duncan from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Northwestern University and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging joins Claudia to discuss the findings. Joining Claudia from Ghana is Vanessa Apea, a genito-urinary consultant and HIV expert. Providing another piece of the food allergy jigsaw puzzle, they discuss new research which has found that eating eggs and peanuts in pregnancy and whilst breastfeeding does not protect infants from developing those allergies. Pooled tuberculosis testing could halve costs and help identify millions of missing cases, finds a new study published in The Lancet Global Health. The strategy involves testing combined samples from multiple patients and only individually retesting if a pooled test comes out positive. Joining Claudia to discuss are Mbuli Cyrille, technical assistant with the National Tuberculosis Control Program in Cameroon and Tom Wingfield, an infectious diseases doctor and researcher at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Claudia and Vanessa also discuss research just presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress 2026 in Vienna which has found that nail detachment and discolouration is more common among GLP-1, weight loss drug, users. Why might this be? And a new study, published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology suggests that late-night eating has been found to be bad for your liver. Health Check examines these findings. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Helena Selby & Jonathan Blackwell

October 7, 202626 min

Should we be worried about the plague?

This week, Claudia is joined in the studio by Clare Wilson, Science writer at The i Paper. After a 28-young woman who was studying infectious diseases in a lab in Siberia has died from pneumonia, Health Check takes an in-depth look at the plague, examines what we know about what has happened and asks how worried we should be about this news. A new series of papers from the journal, The Lancet, argue that the scale of young people’s digital media use and emerging evidence of harm justify preventative action now. Claudia Hammond speaks to Amy Orben, Research Professor at the University of Cambridge to discuss why it is difficult to gather evidence of harm, whether there is sufficient evidence of harm to encourage intervention and what these potential interventions could be to keep social media usage safe and moderate. Researchers have developed a ‘speech clock’ which can analyse a person’s voice and estimate their biological age from hundreds of acoustic and linguistic characteristics of their speech. Using machine learning, they recorded the voices of nearly 3000 participants from Latin America and analysed hundreds of features capturing how people speak and what they say. Machine learning models then generated an individual speech age gap - the difference between a person’s speech-predicted age and their actual age - which is associated with multiple independent markers of biological aging, brain health, cognition, social adversity and dementia. The results have just been published in the journal Science Advances. Claudia looks at the potential implications of this ‘speech clock’ and asks how useful it is to measure biological aging. And does sleeping with your dog disrupt your sleep? We tend to think that dogs disturb the sleep of humans, but not much research been done and previously results have been conflicting. A new study conducted in Ontario and published in PLOS One examines this very question, which Claudia discusses with studio guest Clare. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Jonathan Blackwell and Helena Selby

September 30, 202626 min

Do men and women receive different medical treatment?

Men and women are frequently treated differently by healthcare systems according to a review of global research published in the journal, PLOS One. Women with the same medical conditions as men are less likely to be offered the medical treatments offered to men such as surgery, statins, or strong painkillers. They are also less likely to be offered treatment for conditions like cardiovascular conditions, kidney disease and Parkinson’s disease. Claudia Hammond is joined by family doctor, Ann Robinson, to discuss. Claudia and Ann also discuss global disparities in access to dermatological care and the announcement that the Jehovah’s Witness ban on accepting blood components in transfusions has been lifted. Also, for centuries scientists have thought of the brain as a single, unified organ. But new research reveals that what we call the brain could be two distinct organs that evolved independently over hundreds of millions of years. Claudia speaks to Matthew Grubb, Professor of Neuroscience at King's College London, to ask what we can learn from this revelation and whether he now considers the brain to be two organs. And Paddy Ross, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Durham University, tells us about his research, that children are far more likely than adults to judge a person's emotions by what they hear rather than what they see. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

September 23, 202626 min

Could AI improve healthcare in low-income communities?

Health Check discusses the role of AI in healthcare after the announcement that the Gates Foundation will put hundreds of millions of US dollars towards AI access in low-income communities, with an emphasis on integration in healthcare. Claudia Hammond is joined by Graham Easton, Professor of Clinical Communication Skills at Queen Mary University of London, to ask how AI is already changing the ways in which doctors work. Health Check reporter Georgia Christie investigates whether the increasing usage of weight loss drugs is changing the products restaurants and food companies are offering to a wider population. Also, Jessica Ringshaw, clinical neuropsychologist at King’s College London, talks to us about how anaemia in pregnancy is linked to differences in babies' brain development. Babies born to mothers who were anaemic during pregnancy have smaller brain volumes than babies born to mothers who were not according to Jessica’s new study. And when did you last read a book? Fewer people are reading for pleasure, but getting lost in a good book has repeatedly been linked to substantial cognitive benefits. Claudia and Graham discuss the power of reading and how storytelling can help develop empathy during medical training. Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Jonathan Blackwell

September 16, 202626 min

Expanding reproductive choice in women's sports

The Spanish Football Association has announced a new programme that will make fertility treatments such as IVF and egg freezing available to female players and referees, but what difference will it make and how does this move compare to support offered for professional sportswomen globally? Margie Davenport, Professor in Kinesiology, Sport and Recreation at the University of Alberta and retired Team Canada synchronized swimmer explains. Three kinds of heart attacks that primarily affect women have been redesignated 'primary' attacks in an effort to improve diagnosis and treatment in an area of medicine where women have historically been 'deprioritised'. BBC health reporter Philippa Roxby explains the changes. In rural Rwanda dust is hard to escape - it’s on the roads, in the fields, and for those living in homes with bare-earth floors, it’s dusty inside too. This has serious effects on air quality in the home, especially for children who are playing or crawling on the ground. Our reporter Ahishakiye Jean d’Amour is in Bugesera district in the east of Rwanda to find out about an organisation called Earth Enable who have developed a safer flooring at an affordable price. Also, the latest on the global rollout of the RSV vaccine. Plus, eye drops to help you see better at night. Image: Spain's players pose for a team photo before the FIFA Women's World Cup Europe Zone Qualifiers, group C, football match between Spain and England at Mallorca Son Moix Stadium in Palma de Mallorca, on June 5, 2026. (Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP via Getty Images) Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Hannah Robins and Georgia Christie

September 9, 202626 min

Addressing the risks of period pain in childhood

There is still a lot unknown about why period pain can be so intense for some and not others. To find out more, Claudia Hammond speaks with Dr Melissa Lenert, research scientist at the University of Michigan in the Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Centre. Her new research examines what early risk factors are associated with the intensity and onset of period pain in adolescents. Claudia is then joined by Rebecca Katz, Professor and Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, who has just returned from the 9th World One Health Congress in Lisbon, Portugal. We hear about the public health threats she has been monitoring, including a measles outbreak in Sweden linked to a music festival. And Health Check listener, Philip in Lagos, Nigeria, got in touch with a question about the link between asthma and the eye condition keratoconus. We spoke to Dr Kareeshma Wadia, a cornea, cataract and refractive surgeon based in Mumbai, India, to get him an answer. Rebecca also brings us the development that researchers have identified antibodies that could combat alpha-gal syndrome which can cause allergies to meat. And, does the temperature of your morning cup of tea increase your risk for oesophageal cancer? Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producers: Jonathan Blackwell and Georgia Christie

September 2, 202627 min

Vaccinating against skin cancer

Usually when we think about vaccines, we imagine preventing viruses, but could mRNA vaccine technology also be used to reduce skin cancer recurrence? Claudia Hammond discusses the latest trials of this technology with Dr Matthew Fox, professor of epidemiology and global health at Boston University. Then, reporter Rogelio Navarro brings us to Mexico City, where researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico are developing a rehabilitation program that makes recovery from brain injury more fun. We hear how a videogame - Cañonazo - is helping patients regain mobility without feeling like they’re in physical therapy. What does it really mean to be hormonal? Claudia speaks with endocrinologist and author of the book Signals, Dr Saira Hameed, to understand how complex the body’s hormone signalling is, the problems hormone malfunctions can cause, and what we can actually do about it. Claudia and Matthew also discuss how speaking multiple languages can slow brain ageing, and whether major album releases, like Taylor Swift or Harry Styles, increase the number of traffic fatalities? Presenter: Claudia Hammond Producer: Jonathan Blackwell and Georgia Christie