Health Check

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

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?

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Everyone experiences unwanted thoughts from time to time. But how does it feel to be trapped in a constant cycle of intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviours? This is the reality of life for many people with obsessive compulsive disorder, a common - but commonly misunderstood - mental health condition.

Today's episode is dedicated to understanding OCD and how it’s treated. Claudia Hammond visits an inpatient OCD treatment unit, Seacole Ward in the United Kingdom, where she meets Albert and Emily who explain what it’s like when life is governed by OCD, and consultant psychiatrist Dr Ilenia Pampaloni who likens intensive treatment to "bootcamp" where patients must face their worst fears 24 hours a day. Claudia is joined in the studio by Dr Bruce Clark, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London, to tackle some ingrained OCD stereotypes and dissect the common phrase, "I'm a bit OCD". Bruce offers advice on how to spot early signs of OCD and explains how he stays hopeful because the condition is so treatable.

Details of organisations offering information and support with obsessive-compulsive disorder are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline

Presenter: Claudia Hammond

With recent heat waves in many regions of the world, including parts of Asia, Europe and North America, Claudia Hammond speaks to Eran Bendavid, Professor of Medicine and Health Policy at Stanford University, about his global study which suggests that older people face dangers from heat exposure at much lower temperatures than previously thought.

Claudia is joined by genito-urinary consultant and HIV expert, Vanessa Apea to discuss the ongoing mpox outbreak in Madagascar. It is the largest ever outbreak of mpox in the country, with authorities dividing vaccine doses into fifths in order to try and offer some protection to as many people as possible.

In addition, Claudia and Vanessa discuss how inflammatory activity may be underrecognised in people with darker skin tones and they also investigate how the immune system adapts as people reach more than 110 years old!

And we hear from Dr. Sriman Swarup, practicing oncologist based in Phoenix, Arizona, about what doctors minding their own business on a flight really think when they hear the words on the tannoy “Is there a doctor on board?”

Presenter: Claudia Hammond