Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I am Ed Gamble, host of another BBC

podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like

Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, the Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylen,

and comedy specials from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Romesh Ranganathan.

However, and maybe I'm biased,

it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and podcasts,

listen only on BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Dr Mark Porter and thank you for downloading this

edition of Inside Health. I hope you enjoy it. In today's program, what your fingerprints can reveal about the

drugs you've taken and why the police are not the only ones hoping to harness the new technology.

Old drugs, new tricks. We examine the assent of amyptylene from out-of-favor antidepressant

to popular remedy for everything from migraine to back pain. And imagine not being able to remember a thing about what's happened to you so far today,

nothing that you've seen, heard or read, where you've been, who you've met or what you've done.

We answer a listener's question about the day she lost through amnesia.

But first some research that's been all over the news this week,

an international study showing a link between junk food and the risk of developing asthma and exma.

The coverage suggests that children who eat junk food more than three times a week are more likely to develop asthma and exma.

But eating just three portions of fruit and veggie week offered some protection.

Inside Health, Dr Margaret McCartney has been digging a little deeper. Margaret, is that a fair summary?

Yeah, no, I think it is. And I think the advantage of this study was it was a really very big study. Indeed, they looked at almost 800,000 children around the world and the impact of their diet and whether or not they were more likely or less likely to get asthma and eczema. And obviously there's been a big concern about the rates of asthma increasing and people are trying to find out really why that is, what it is about us now that seems to make us more likely to have these disorders compared with, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So I think this is very useful work, but it's an association study, which means that there was an increased association,

but it doesn't actually mean there was an increased cause. So we can't really say that junk food causes asthma, and I think that would be a step too far. But I think it's a very interesting association and deserving of further work. When they do these sorts of studies, though, presumably do they look to try and rule out other confounding factors? Yeah, and I think that's something that, you know, scientists would try and do.

They would try and reduce the risk of bias or things appearing to be differently from what they really are. So obviously there's reasons why children might have more junk food in their diet compared with other children, maybe children that live in more urban areas, for example. Maybe we're likely to have more junk food in their diet, or maybe children who are poorer, for example. but it's always very difficult to get rid of these biases altogether

so we can never be quite sure I think that they're not there. food in their diet or maybe children who are poorer, for example. But it's always very difficult to get rid of these biases altogether.

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