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XE's Dr Chris Van Tulleken delves into The Truth About...
Xtreme Everest investigator Dr Chris Van Tulleken has recently stared in the BBC series The Truth About... looking closely at the medicines we keep in our cabinets and the calories we take in.
It's said that we spend £2.3 billion every year on items from our chemists to combat ailments from headaches to indigestion. Going in search of the truth behind these items, Dr Van Tulleken looks at how these medicines work within our body through a series of experiments and tries to find out if the medicines we are buying are actually making a difference or for example if we would be better off buying a lemon and honey to treat a cough.
During the episode, Chris also meets with another XE investigator Alan Richardson, who works as a sports physiologist at the University of Brighton, to delve into the science behind relieving sore muscles often experienced by runners. By taking three groups and placing one in a hot bath, one in a cold bath and one control group asked to just take a seat, Alan and Chris saw that there were differences in the groups asked to sit in baths., in that the distraction of a hot or cold temperature helped to alleviate some of the pain. A few days on from the event, both groups experienced less pain which can be explained by the cold bath helping to reduce the inflammation due to a reduction in blood flow, whereas the hot water allowed an increase of blood flow to the muscles helping to move pain away. The surprising find was that there was little difference in the hot and cold baths showing that both can help to alleviate pain.
Moving on from this the pair test the over the counter cream remedies to see if these actually do help. Testing both a hot and cold cream on his legs and using a thermometer directly into his muscles, Dr Van Tulleken showed that despite both creams providing a cooling and heating sensation there is no effect on the muscle's temperature but both create a distraction which could help someone forget about the pain they are experiencing.
As well as looking at our medicine cabinets, Chris has also investigated our calorie intakes on another episode in the series. Taking nine randomly selected supermarket foods, he looks at if the product actually reflects the packet in terms of calories. Surprisingly, only one of the nine items matches with all the others falling either below or up to 10% above what they are listed at.
Another tip learnt on the programme is that we don't need to visit the gym to help us burn off the calories from our favourite treat, but simply running the hoover and duster around our house can help keep us healthy.
A link to the episodes mentioned above and others in the series, can be found on the BBC iPlayer here.
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