Antibiotics, Statins and Pneumonia, Neurosurgery for Epilepsy
Inside Health
BBC
4.4 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2017
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Chief Medical Officer has warned of a "post-antibiotic apocalypse" and "the end of modern medicine". As antibiotic resistance increases, the options to treat potentially deadly infections reduces. Inside Health's Dr Margaret McCartney discusses the latest campaign by Public Health England to remind us all not to take antibiotics when they're not needed.
It's been over thirty years since there was a breakthrough in the treatment of pneumonia, but that could soon change....and from an surprising source. Researchers in Birmingham at Queen Elizabeth Hospital have been working with the cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, and discovered that this medication can turbo-charge our immune systems, helping us to fight infection. Dr Liz Sapey, respiratory consultant and researcher tells Dr Mark Porter about the exciting possibility of tablets that cost just a few pence each, being used to treat potentially deadly lung infections like pneumonia.
Epilepsy is normally controlled by anti-seizure medication but for a third of patients, pills don't work, and constant fits can have a devastating impact on the developing brain. Neurosurgery - removal or disconnection of parts of the brain where the seizures originate - is now done at a much younger age in patients with untreatable epilepsy. Operating on children takes advantage of brain plasticity. Mark visits Bristol Children's Hospital, one of four national centres which since 2011 have offered increased access to epilepsy surgery. Paediatric neurosurgeon Mike Carter is part of the national drive to operate on children before they are two years old, all to take advantage of brain plasticity. Mark meets 8 year old Lucy, 20 days after she had major surgery to remove a finger-nail sized portion deep in her brain. Lucy's father, Mark Nettle, describes how, before surgery, his daughter had suffered from multiple daily seizures with increasing weakness down the left side of her body. The possibility of ending these debilitating attacks made surgery an attractive option.
Producer: Fiona Hill.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, |
| 0:05.4 | The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's |
| 0:10.6 | Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Ryland, and comedy specials |
| 0:16.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommas Shranger Nathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, it's really all about the traitors uncloked. |
| 0:24.3 | So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.4 | Hello, thank you for listening to this edition of Inside Health. |
| 0:32.1 | I hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:33.5 | Coming up today, brain surgery for epilepsy, normally regarded as a last resort should it be considered earlier. |
| 0:40.7 | I meet a neurosurgeon who thinks surgery is underused, particularly in young children. |
| 0:45.8 | So this is you, Lucy, when you had all your electrodes put in your brain. |
| 0:50.2 | Do you remember? We had those little spikes in your head. |
| 0:52.1 | Yeah. |
| 0:52.9 | So this is the bit I was talking about. See, there's your dragon. There's his head. There's his upper jaw. There's his body. There's one wing. And there's his tail there, you see? And the bit of you that was causing the seizures was that bit under there, the bit under the rock under his chin right there. It's Lucy's dragon. And a novel use for statins. Could they help |
| 1:13.5 | fight off infections like pneumonia, adding another string to the drug's bow that might burnish |
| 1:19.5 | their somewhat tarnished image? Statins are like the marmite of the medical world. Some |
| 1:25.2 | physicians and researchers love them and some absolutely hate them. |
| 1:29.5 | And there is a massive drive to include them in research on one side and a massive drive to |
| 1:34.3 | limit prescription on the other. So it's really important to work out what the true sciences behind |
| 1:38.9 | them. But before that, a more conventional approach to treating pneumonia. |
| 1:44.0 | Antibiotics, we're wonderful pills, but don't ever think we'll cure all of your |
| 1:49.8 | ills. |
| 1:50.4 | So every time you feel a bit under the weather, don't always think that we could make you |
... |
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