Strange Health

Collagen marshmallows are now a thing. So are collagen crisps. If neither appeals, you can stir collagen powder into your morning coffee. Social media is full of products promising to replenish the collagen we lose as we age. The claims extend beyond firmer skin and fewer wrinkles to healthier joints and improved gut health. But what happens to collagen when we eat it? And can these products persuade our bodies to make more?Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt are joined by Joan Chang, a collagen researcher and senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, who explains why the answer is more complicated than a scoop of powder and how collagen really works in the body.Watch Strange Health on YouTube or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you've got a question about a viral trend or video you've seen and you'd like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at [email protected]. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

Some people are so worried about sunscreen that they're swapping factor 50 for beef tallow. Coconut oil and olive oil also have their supporters in the world of homemade sunscreen. Meanwhile, other social media creators warn that conventional sunscreens contain dangerous chemicals, interfere with our hormones or prevent us from making vitamin D.So what does the science say? And what happens to your skin when you swap a tested sunscreen for something from the kitchen cupboard?Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt are joined by Charareh Pourzand, a pharmacologist at the University of Bath and an expert in sunscreen. She explains what different types of ultraviolet radiation do to our skin, and how much sunscreen you really need.Watch Strange Health on YouTube or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you've got a question about a viral trend or video you've seen and you'd like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at [email protected]. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

Social media offers plenty of tips how to relieve a migraine. Some people swear by a large Coke and McDonald’s fries, which has gained the nickname of a "McMigraine". Others recommend hairclips on your eyebrows, or putting your feet in hot water while cooling the back of your head with spoons.But how much science is there behind these remedies? And why can migraine make you feel so dreadful long before your head starts hurting?In this episode, our guest is Amanda Ellison, a professor of neuroscience at Durham University to explore what happens in your brain during a migraine and if any of the internet's migraine hacks could actually work. Watch Strange Health on YouTube or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you've got a question about a viral trend or video you've seen and you'd like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at [email protected]. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

Cottage cheese is a TikTok sensation. Social media creators are blending the curdy, clumpy white stuff into everything from cookie dough and chocolate brownies to flatbreads and even slapping it onto hot dogs. All in the name of protein.Naturally high in protein and relatively low in fat, cottage cheese has been embraced by fitness influencers who claim it can help build muscle and burn fat. But does the science support these claims?In this episode, we hear from Dominic Farsi, a researcher at King's College London and at Teagasc in Ireland, to get the facts about cottage cheese – and understand how much protein we really need.Watch Strange Health on YouTube or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you've got a question about a viral trend or video you've seen and you'd like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at [email protected]. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

We're back with a new season of Strange Health, the podcast from The Conversation, that investigates the odd, awkward and occasionally disgusting questions raised by our bodies and the health trends surrounding them.This season we’ll be looking at cottage cheese, which seems to have escaped from the back of the fridge and become one of the internet’s favourite foods, investigate some of the alarming claims circulating about sunscreen, and look at whether migraine hacks online really will alleviate your headache.Hosts Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol, tackle a new batch of questions that have been fascinating them or sending them down unexpectedly strange research rabbit holes.Episode 1 of season two arrives on October 13. Watch Strange Health on YouTube or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan BaumgardtExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

Period scooping sounds like something you would only hear in a biology lab, not while doom-scrolling TikTok. Yet earlier this year, videos claiming you can “scoop out” your period to avoid the mess and shorten the whole thing racked up millions of views.In this episode, we hear from Sally King, a visiting fellow at King’s College London, about why you can't shorten your period, and why you need to be careful about upsetting the pH balance of your body. She also gives us her perspective as a menstrual physiologist on other period hacks, including menstrual blood face masks, and drinks that some influencers say can shorten your period.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you've got a question about a viral trend or video you've seen and you'd like us to delve into the science behind it in a future episode, please email us at [email protected] credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here. If you've got a questeionHosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice MasonMenstrual health literacy is alarmingly low – what you don’t know can harm youWould you put period blood on your face? What science says about ‘menstrual masking’Your vagina cleans itself: why vagina cleaning fads are unnecessary and harmful

Light therapy sounds wholesome. Sit in front of a lamp. Feel better. But nowadays, it can also mean strapping on a flashing mask and watching your own brain generate kaleidoscopic hallucinations behind closed eyelids. In this episode, host Katie Edwards tries on a stroboscopic light mask being promoted by celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Rosamund Pike to find out what happens.And David Schwartzman, a research fellow at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, explains how stroboscopic light produces hallucinations in the brain, and how it's currently being trialled to treat conditions like depression.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice MasonCan a psychedelic-induced mystical experience really improve your mental health?SAD lamps: do they work? Experts explain how they help the winter blues

Body odour has a reputation problem. It is often treated as a hygiene failure or a social offence. In reality, it is biology at work, plus a big helping of culture.And yet people online are trying chlorophyll shots to make their BO smell better. Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt discuss what evidence there is behind this, plus some of the health conditions that can affect body odour.And we talk to Mats Olsson, a professor of experimental psychology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, who studies how humans perceive body odour.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MilletArtwork: Alice Mason

You are not alone in your own skin. Millions of microscopic creatures live there too. Our skin is home to entire ecosystems of microscopic life. Bacteria and fungi get most of the attention, but mites are there too. Among the most common are demodex mites, tiny eight-legged relatives of spiders that live inside hair follicles and pores, especially on the face. Almost all adults carry them.In this episode we explore what these microscopic housemates are actually doing on our bodies and why the idea of them can feel so unsettling. While demodex may be harmless, there are plenty of other mites that can cause problems, from dust mites, to scabies.Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Alejandra Perotti, professor of invertebrate biology at the University of Reading, who studies the relationship between mites and humans.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Sikander KhanArtwork: Alice MasonInvisible skin mites called Demodex almost certainly live on your face – but what about your mascara?How often should you really be washing your bedding? A microbiologist explainsScabies outbreak in UK and Europe – what you need to know

The vagus nerve has become the internet’s favourite body part. On social media, it is everywhere. People hum into their phones, gargle with theatrical enthusiasm, dunk their faces into bowls of ice water and poke at their ears in the hope of “activating” it.So in this episode we focus our attention on the body’s longest cranial nerve and ask a simple question: what does the vagus nerve actually do, and can we really hack it?Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Arshad Majid, a professor of cerebrovascular neurology at the University of Sheffield and an expert in vagus nerve stimulation.Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of BristolExecutive Producer: Gemma WareEditing and mixing: Anouk MIlletArtwork: Alice MasonFrom decapitation to positive psychology: how one nerve connects body, brain and mindStimulating the pathway connecting body and brain may change chronic condition patients’ lives