The BMJ Podcast

Average body temperature is 37°C, right?

That was the conclusion of Carl Wunderlich in his magnum opus, The Course of Temperature in Diseases - Wunderlich published that in 1868, following his extensive collection of body temperature readings - and 37°C stuck. But, it’s not as simple as that

Philip Mackowiak, emeritus professor of medicine, and now history of medicine scholar in residence, at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, has been interested in temperature for a long time. He joins us to explain how Wunderlich measured temperature, and what he actually found.

Read his editorial:

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5697

Assessing young people with possible eating disorders can be complex for a variety of reasons. Building a therapeutic relationship with a young person with a possible eating disorder and their family is key to enabling a thorough assessment and ongoing management, but it introduces difficult issues regarding confidentiality and risk.

In this podcast we talk with the authors of two practice articles, which give advice on spotting and treating eating disorders in young people.

In a linked podcast, we speak to the mother and daughter authors of a What you patient is thinking article, who describe what it's like for a family to experience a child with an eating disorder.

Read the articles:

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5328

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5378

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5245

As journal editors, we’re aware of the fact that we have a role to play in scientific discourse - that’s why The BMJ has been so keen to talk about the way in which scientific knowledge is constructed, through our Evidence Manifesto.

We also know that money has influence in the scientific literature - which is why we have a zero tolerance policy for financial conflicts of interest in our educational content.

Where do journal editors fit into this?

The first step into investigating that is to find out if journal editors receive payments from pharma and device companies - and new research, published on bmj.com does that.

Jessica Liu - internist and assistant professor at the university of Toronto, and one of the authors of that study joins us to discuss.

Read the full research:

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j4619

If you're a patient in the UK, increasingly, your first interaction with the healthcare system won't be the traditional face to fact chat with your doctor - instead you'll have a telephone consultation.

The prevalence of these telephone consultations is increasing, and being promoted by CCGs and private companies who administer them - usually as a cost saving measure.

Now new research published on bmj.com looks at these phone consultation - how often they happen, how patients feel about them, and how much money they actually save.

In this podcast we're joined by Martin Roland, emeritus professor of health services research at Cambridge University, to find out more.

Read the full research:

http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j4197

Should we welcome plans to sell off NHS land?

The government seems likely to back the recommendations of Robert Naylor (national adviser on NHS property and estates) to raise capital by selling off inefficiently used assets, but Kailash Chand (GP) worries that services could be threatened and that public consultation is lacking.

Read the Head To Head article: https://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j4290

In the UK - type 2 diabetes now affects between 5-10% of the population - and accounts for around 10% of our total NHS budget. For the individuals affected, treatments are effective at helping control glucose levels - however, the sequela associated with the disease - vascular problems, and a life expectancy that’s 6 years shorter - are still an issue.

However, for some, remission seems to be a possibility.

To discuss we're joined by Mike Lean, professor of human nutrition at the university if Glasgow, and co-author of an analysis, published on bmj.com, which impels doctors to make sure that type to diabetes remission is coded properly.

Read the full analysis:

http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j4030

The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds.

A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of Edinburgh, and published on bmj.com, looks at where the World Bank has come. The series is , and the articles will cover;

Why the World Bank matters to global health

The World Bank’s turn to Universal health coverage

How the Bank’s trust funds are being used to fund specific projects - and why it’s hard to know what those are

The Global Financing Facility - grants and loans supplied together,

and finally, creating a market out of pandemic risk

In this fourth interview, Genevie Fernandes a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh discusses a new model of combing grants and loans in the Global Financing Facility.

Read the full analysis:

http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3395

The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds.

A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of Edinburgh, and published on bmj.com, looks at where the World Bank has come. The series is , and the articles will cover;

Why the World Bank matters to global health

The World Bank’s turn to Universal health coverage

How the Bank’s trust funds are being used to fund specific projects - and why it’s hard to know what those are

The Global Financing Facility - grants and loans supplied together,

and finally, creating a market out of pandemic risk

In this third interview, Janelle Winters a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh explains what the bank's trust funds are, and why it can be hard to tell what they're funding.

Read the full analysis:

http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3394

The world bank was set up in 1944. In the aftermath of the second world war, the institution was there to give loans to countries rebuilding after the conflict. Their first loan went to France - but with stipulations about repayment that set a tone for future funds.

A new series, authored by Devi Sridhar, and her team from the University of Edinburgh, and published on bmj.com, looks at where the World Bank has come. The series is , and the articles will cover;

Why the World Bank matters to global health

The World Bank’s turn to Universal health coverage

How the Bank’s trust funds are being used to fund specific projects - and why it’s hard to know what those are

The Global Financing Facility - grants and loans supplied together,

and finally, creating a market out of pandemic risk

In this first interview, Devi Sridhar, professor of global health at the University of Edinburgh explains why the bank matters for global health.

Read the full analysis:

http://www.bmj.com/content/358/bmj.j3339

This week we’re at the over diagnosis conference in Quebec Canada, Preventing overdiangosis is a forum to discuss the harms associated with using uncertain methods to look for disease in apparently healthy people - and is part of the BMJ’s too much medicine campaign.

One of the ways in which the public’s attitudes and wishes around health is measured are citizen or community juries - set up in a similar way to a criminal jury - with an information gathering, and a deliberation phase - recently one of these citizen juries discussed, whether abortion should be allowed in Ireland (they decided “yes”).

We're joined by Rae Thomas, from Bond University and Chris Degeling, from the University of Sydney, who have both been using citizen juries to look at over diagnosis.