What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You

How the Smartphone Could Revolutionise Healthcare

Dr Eric Topol, one of the world’s leading cardiologists, reveals how the smartphone has the potential to revolutionise healthcare and create far more targeted treatment for patients.
Eric, who has been listed as one of the top ten cited researchers in all of medicine and has been voted the number one most influential physician-leader in the United States, explains the huge range of tests that phones can now carry out, from assessing kidney function to controlling asthma. And with technical attachments, phones can also do full body ultrasound scans, skin, eye and eye tests. All in real time and far cheaper than using conventional hospital technology.
But the real game changer is the wearable biosensors that can be attached to patients and their phones, collecting data 24 hours a day. Information that can then be fed back directly to patients and their doctors. This can help doctors spot drug interactions,  discover which drugs work for which patient, assess how  a patient’s genetic make-up may affect how they respond to a treatment or medication. All of which will enable doctors to treat diseases earlier and more effectively, and potentially even prevent illnesses developing at all.
Eric argues that this individualised approach will help put patients at the centre of their own care and bring what he says is the long over due democratisation of medicine.
Dr Eric Topol is the  founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research Institute and has also advised the UK’s NHS.
You can sign up to the mailing list to the podcast and be first to know when a new episode is published at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com and also find out more about the pod there.
The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at liztucker.substack.com
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou or via PayPal at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com
 

First Drug Company to Be Accused of Racketeering in a US Court- The Neurontin(Gabapentin) Story

This week’s podcast is about one of the world’s top selling drugs, Neurontin (generic name Gabapentin).  And it centres on an extraordinary court case which for the very first time accused a drug company, Pfizer and its subsidiary Warner Lambert, of racketeering, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act, a piece of legislation that was actually brought in tackle organized crime.
The company had been accused of  encouraging doctors to use Neurotonin not just for its approved use, but for several unapproved uses, something that is known as off-label marketing and is illegal in the US. It had attempted to market the drug for bipolar disorder, neuropathic pain and migraine. Despite the fact that in the judge’s words there was “little or no scientifically accepted evidence that Neurontin is effective for the treatment of bipolar disorder,  neuropathic pain or migraine”.
Detailed detective work by the plaintiff’s expert witnesses revealed how data was distorted and  inconvenient evidence buried to suggest the drug was effective. And the shocking discoveries in this decade old trial continue to be highly relevant for patients and doctors today.
Telling this story is Dr John Abramson, who  was one of the expert witnesses in the trial, who spent nearly two years forensically examining thousand of documents to uncover the truth. John is based at Harvard Medical School, where he teaches health care policy. John has written several books about the pharmaceutical industry and consults as an expert in litigation involving the industry.
 
You can sign up to the podcast mailing list and be first to know when a new episode is published at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com and also find out more about the pod there.
The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at liztucker.substack.com
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou or via PayPal at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com
 

What Happens When the Doctor Becomes The Patient?

Neurosurgeon and author, Mr Henry Marsh, pioneer of the awake craniotomy, a brain surgery performed while the patient is still awake, discusses the ethical dilemmas and realities of the surgeon’s role. And he explains why he thinks doctors need a certain level of self-deception and exaggerated self-belief.
But after decades of treating patients, frequently for dangerous and life-threatening conditions, it was a huge shock as Henry describes in his latest book, And Finally, when he found himself diagnosed with prostate cancer, which was treatable but not curable.
So just how does a doctor cope when he becomes the patient?
 
You can sign up to the podcast mailing list and be first to know when a new episode is published at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com and also find out more about the pod there.
The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at liztucker.substack.com
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou or via PayPal at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com

Has Medicine Been Too Slow to Explore the Benefits of Fasting?

Dr Jason Fung a kidney specialist, and one of the world's leading pioneers in low carb diets and intermittent fasting, reveals why modern medicine has been so slow to explore the  benefits of fasting and discusses its benefits not just for type II diabetes but for a range of other metabolic and neurological conditions.
For decades, patients with type II diabetes were told to eat a high carbohydrate diet, despite the fact that their problem was that their carbohydrate levels were already out of control.
A major study published back in 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals, had shown that  intensive best practice management of type II diabetes actually increased the death rate from the disease.
But despite this, treatment remained largely unchanged. Yet emerging data now suggests that the majority of type II diabetes patients can not only reverse their disease with diet, they can also prevent it developing and so stop many of the life-changing side effects of the disease, so why did it take so long for medicine to discover this?
 
You can sign up to the mailing list to the podcast and be first to know when a new episode is published at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com and also find out more about the pod there.
The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at liztucker.substack.com
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou or via PayPal at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com
 
 
 

Why The UK Does Poorly For Some Cancers & The Devastating Impact of Covid on the UK’s Cancer Services

In the final part of his interview, Professor Karol Sikora, one of the world's leading cancer experts and a past director of  the WHO Cancer Programme, explains why the UK does poorly in the treatment of some common cancers and the reforms he believes are necessary to change this.
And Karol goes on to discuss the devastating impact that Covid has had on the UK's cancer services, which led to palliative care being halted and now means that patients are presenting with much later stage cancers, which are far harder to treat. He argues we will see the results of this in a higher cancer death toll in years to come.
Professor Karol Sikora worked in the UK's NHS for over 35 years and until recently was also the Chief Medical Officer of Rutherford Health, a private company providing proton bean therapy centres.
 
To sign up to the podcast mailing list and be first to know when a new episode is published, go to whatyourgpdoesn'ttellyou.com
The podcast's host, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director.  You can follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at liztucker.substack.com
 
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou or via PayPal at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com
 

How To Be A Savvy Cancer Patient

Professor Karol Sikora, one of the world's leading cancer experts - an oncologist for 44 years and a past director of the WHO Cancer Programme - talks about his experience of treating cancer over the last four decades, and  explains what cancer patients really need to know. He believes those who take an active interest in their care are in the strongest position to get the best treatment, so knowing how to navigate the health care system effectively can make a huge difference.
He talks about his experience in the UK's NHS, but much of his advice will be useful to patients in many other countries too.
 
What Your GP Doesn't Tell You is hosted by Liz Tucker an award winning medical journalist, and former BBC producer/director. You can find out more about Liz and the podcast at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com, subscribe to Liz's Substack newsletter with weekly podcast updates at liztucker.substack.com and follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker
And if you would like to support the podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com

Why Does Medical Science Know So Little About The Female Body?

Journalist Gabrielle Jackson reveals how the  research for her book Pain and Prejudice uncovered just how little medical science understands the female body. Astonishingly, it turns out that most of what we know about human biology comes from the study of men, male animals and male cell lines.
Up until the 1990s, women were largely excluded from medical trials. The result of this is that there are many drugs in use today that were never trialled on women.
And in fact, eight out of ten drugs that were taken off the market by the  US Food and Drug Administration between 1997 and 2000,  were removed due to the greater health risks for women.
As Dr Janine Clayton, Head of the Office for Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health Center puts it: "We literally know less about every aspect of female biology compared to male biology".
 
What Your GP Doesn't Tell You is hosted by Liz Tucker an award winning medical journalist, and former BBC producer/director. You can find out more about Liz and the podcast at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com, subscribe to Liz's Substack newsletter with weekly podcast updates at liztucker.substack.com and follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker
 
And if you would like to support the podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com
 

SSRIs - Serotonin Hypothesis, Drug Effectiveness & Emerging Data About Sexual Side Effects

Professor Joanna Moncrieff discusses the serotonin hypothesis, the evidence for the effectiveness of SSRIs, and the emerging data about SSRI sexual side effects.
 
What Your GP Doesn't Tell You is hosted by Liz Tucker an award winning medical journalist, and former BBC producer/director. You can find out more about Liz and the podcast at whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com, subscribe to Liz's Substack newsletter with weekly podcast updates at liztucker.substack.com and follow Liz on Twitter at @lizctucker
And if you would like to support the podcast you can do so at patreon.com/whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com