Meningitis B, Hormones and depression, Statins, Unexpected heart attacks

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 575 Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2015

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From this week all UK babies will be vaccinated against that most feared disease, meningitis B, the first country in the world to take this step. But the decision to include Men B in the national immunisation programme has come too late for parents, Freya and Ross. A year ago their baby daughter, Harmonie, nearly died after contracting the infection. Her arms and legs as well as the tip of her nose had to be amputated because of the resulting sepsis. Sue Davie, Chief Executive of Meningitis Now tells Mark that the vaccine is great news and will save many lives. But she hopes in the future that it will be offered to older babies and young children, as well as another at risk group, adolescents.

Mental health problems have long been linked to fluctuating hormone levels, at times of menstruation, childbirth and menopause. Dr Michael Craig who runs the Female Hormone Clinic at the Maudsley Hospital in London discusses the role of hormone replacement treatments.

Statins are the most commonly prescribed medicines in the UK. They work to lower the level of cholesterol in your blood. There's been considerable debate about when doctors should start prescribing statins and NICE, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, had been keen for GPs to be paid to put more patients on the cholesterol-reducing drugs. Dr Margaret McCartney outlines the controversy and NICE Deputy Chief Executive, Professor Gillian Leng, tells Mark that the health advisory body has listened to concerns and why their new statins targets are now to be tested in the field.

Young, healthy, sporty people don't get heart attacks. Except when they do. Dr Stuart Miller, Clinical Director of Sport and Exercise Medicine at the University of Bath admits that he was shocked when he had a heart attack, even though he cycles, swims and eats a healthy diet. Sanjay Sharma is professor of cardiology at St George's Hospital in London and he tells Mark how common unexpected heart attacks are.

Producer: Fiona Hill.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Rihalina. I'm excited. You're dead to me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Hello, thank you for listening to this edition of Inside Health. I hope you enjoy it. Hormones and mental health. We examine the evidence behind claims that H.R.T. and other hormone treatments
0:43.3	should be used more often to help women with depression. To take a statin or not to take a statin. That is the question.
0:52.1	But is it right to pay GPs to put millions more otherwise healthy people on the cholesterol lowering drugs?
0:59.5	Nice think so, or at least it did, it now seems to have changed its mind.
1:03.8	What we're doing, it's not a U-Tern, what we're doing is listening to some of the concerns that we had from GPs
1:09.0	and going to pilot it in practices to see if it really is that challenging to attain.
1:14.9	And heart attacks in middle age, a recognised hazard if you smoke a sedentary
1:20.1	or you're overweight, but quite a shock if you're a clean living cyclist
1:24.4	and a doctor to boot.
1:26.5	Heart attacks only happen to patients, they don't happen to doctors.
1:29.3	Not clean living sporty doctors like you.
1:32.3	It was not on my agenda, so this was a bit of a surprise.
1:36.3	I'll be discovering why heart attacks don't always follow the rules a bit later.
1:40.3	But before that, a world first.
1:43.3	As of this week, the UK has become the first place to
1:46.4	incorporate the new vaccine against the most feared strain of meningitis, men be, into its
1:53.1	routine immunisation programme, albeit after a lengthy delay due to protracted negotiations
1:58.4	between the Department of Health and the vaccine manufacturers GSK.
2:02.9	A delay that meant its introduction has come too late for 22-month-old Harmony,
2:08.3	who contracted Men B a year ago.
2:10.9	Her parents, Freya and Ross, first noticed something was wrong in the middle of the night.
2:16.1	But doctors at the local hospital couldn't find anything serious
	...

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