Vagus Nerve Stimulators

Sliced Bread

BBC

Health & Fitness

4.6 • 634 Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do Vagus Nerve Stimulators help your mental health?

The vagus nerve could be one of the most important body parts you might never have heard of. It's a large nerve that connects major organs like the heart and lungs to the brain and studies have found that stimulating it with electrical pulses can lead to dramatic improvements in some people with depression and other mental health conditions. Those trials were for medical devices implanted into the chest, but listener Karin has seen commercially available versions that you wear over your ear.

But do they work? Karin joins Greg in the studio along with leading experts in the field to do a deep-dive into the studies and separate out the science fact from the marketing fiction.

All of our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at [email protected] OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807.

RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM PRODUCERS: SIMON HOBAN AND GREG FOOT

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast fan.
0:03.0	Consider this your invite to the UK's biggest podcasting party.
0:06.7	We're heading to Sheffield from the 4th to the 6th of July
0:09.0	for the BBC Sounds Fringe at the Crossed Wires Festival.
0:12.8	We'll be joined by some of the biggest names in podcasting,
0:15.3	including Sarah Cox, Charlie Hedges, Russell Kane,
0:18.4	and some bloke called Greg James doing his Radio 4 show called Rewinder.
0:23.2	You can watch live shows of your favourite podcasts, and the best part is free.
0:28.0	To book your free tickets, go to crossedwires.org slash fringe.
0:34.4	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts.
0:43.2	Hello, I'm Greg Foote and welcome to Slice Bread,
0:46.1	the BBC Radio 4 show that investigates the Wonder products promising to make you happier, healthier or greener.
0:49.2	Each episode, I run one of your suggested wonder products through the evidence mill
0:52.8	to find out if it is indeed
0:54.2	the best thing since sliced bread or marketing BS. And today's suggestion comes in from
1:01.8	Karen Webster from Kent. Welcome, Karen. Hello. Thanks for joining us in the studio. What
1:06.7	wonder product would you like us to investigate today? So I'm interested in vagus nerve stimulation devices.
1:14.3	I originally got introduced to these for a family member
1:17.8	and it was recommended as something that could help with symptoms of being overwhelmed
1:22.5	and calming in the moment.
1:25.1	And I've seen that they're advertised to help with things like
1:28.8	depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, all sorts of claims around them. There seems to be a lot of
	...

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