Health in a web shell

If there ever was a time when we needed to step back and take a deep look at what we eat and drink, now is it. With the incidence of cancer, heart disease and lifestyle illnesses rising, this series by BBC that often appears on BBC Earth and also on Netflix dives into the murky waters of what we think we know about health and what the truth really is.

There are many episodes, and this one called Truth About Alcohol, is among many BBC special one-hour episodes busting various myths on alcohol, losing weight, eating meat, the difference between diet and exercise, off the counter processed food, medicines and antibiotics and so much more. There is literally an encyclopaedia waiting to be unearthed, and the health of a people, at stake.

How often have you glanced through the papers, and been perplexed at a new study that disses an earlier one? Having watched many episodes, each one is like a stand-alone that you want to keep watching, to find out the truth about various myths that we believe to be truths. In the alcohol series — the show deals with it scientifically, and makes you stop in your tracks. The team, consisting of Javid Abdelmoneim, an emergency room doctor (there are various hosts), a moderate drinker, doubles the recommended limit specially for the series, and then goes on to share the latest science and research after he is experimented upon at a sleep lab. Then, with a bunch of sports teams on how alcohol makes you eat junk food, or even how eating before a drink is good, with an alcometer to prove it! The team on each of these episodes has done their research, and has credible hosts. Like the doctor who walks through beliefs, adding a new scientific edge to them.

For instance, the age-old old wives tale of having a heavy greasy breakfast for a hangover is just that! A tale! Obvious too, if you were to see the trickle of oil on a plate of classical English breakfast! Or for that matter, how wines might have got the go-ahead, but even in wines, there are some with high resveratrol, and white wine apparently is not one of them!

What I particularly liked is that while there are interviews with doctors, researchers to bust various myths, the series of controlled group experiments makes it more believable. For instance, in the episode dealing with weight loss and diets, there are groups who diet only, and one that diets and exercises, each compared over a specific period of time. We won’t tell you the result, watch it for yourself to ascertain. Unless you have walked the path, you are no better than an observer…

There is a scientific bend of mind and the experiments are pretty much there to see. Instead of a straight laced documentary on health, this is interactive with ordinary individuals as subjects. A pretty apt way to get to the bottom.

Watch it, and make healthy choices, because clearly even if the Indian continent is busy waging wars of religion and politics, the British and NHA have their thumb on the health of the nation. Directed and created by David Briggs, these episodes are very interesting, skim through heresay, shaff the truth out of the rubble of information one is constantly bombarded with.

Truth About Alcohol and other BBC health series
STAR RATING: 4
MUST-WATCH: If there is no end to learning, this particular series makes you unlearn some myths

HT19