Laura Delano, was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder when she was a teenager and would go on to spent 13 years receiving psychiatric care, both as inpatient and outpatient. In the process, she accumulated more and diagnoses, and was given more and more drugs. But as she explains in her new book: Unshrunk – How the mental health industry took over my life and my fight to get it back, published by Monoray, there was a problem, Laura wasn’t getting better.

Despite being a high achieving student for whom it had once appeared a glittering future awaited, her life had fallen apart. She had dropped out of university, was unable to hold down a job and had tried to kill herself.

Then one day Laura had a life-changing epiphany - was it possible that rather than the care and medications she was receiving helping her, might they actually be causing her problems?

Gradually over several years, she weaned herself off all her medication – no easy process given the withdrawal effect of many psychiatric drugs . But the impact was transformative and today Laura has completely turned her life around.

So what went wrong with Laura's care? And why was the medical system unable to recognise how the treatment was making her worse not better?

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 https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 15 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Investigative journalist Charles Piller explains the remarkable story of fraud he has uncovered in Alzheimer’s Disease research, which he discusses in a new book: Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s. Charles argues the result of this is that Alzheimer’s research and treatment has been set by years - if not decades.

He goes on to discusse the trial data on which several Alzheimer’s drugs, including Aducanumab, Lecanemab and Donanemab, were approved. Charles says the data is unconvincing and the side effects – including brain swelling and bleeding - concerning.

Doctored: Fraud, Arrogance and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer’s by Charles Piller is published by Icon Books.

Charles Piller is an investigative journalist who works for the journal Science. His work has also been published in a number of other publications including The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Charles has won a number of journalism awards for his work and is also the author of the books Gene Wars and The Fail-Safe Society.

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 https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 15 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Kerry Bone, a herbalist who has spent 40 years working in the field, joins the podcast to discuss just what the evidence is that certain herbs and spices might benefit our health.

Today we are bombarded with so much confusing information telling us what to eat, when to eat, and often how particular medicinal plants are particularly beneficial to our health.

So, today I hope our conversation gives the opportunity to find out what the latest data suggests.

One area Kerry discusses is pain managment. He explains that research now indicates that the painkiller paracetamol has a poor safety profile (something also discussed in my podcast with NHS pain consultant Dr Deepak Ravindran) and is not very effective, so reveals we thinks we should also be looking more at herbal alternatives such as curcumin and Boswellia.

And Kerry reveals the herbs and spices that he takes every day.

Kerry Bone is the Principal of the Australian College of Phytotherapy. He also founded the Masters of Health Science (Herbal Medicine) course at the University of New England in 2004, and served there as Associate Professor from 2004 to 2012. He is co-author of more than 40 scientific papers on herbal research, and currently serves on the editorial board of the journal Phytomedicine. In addition, he has written a number of textbooks on herbal medicine and is also a co-founder of the company Mediherb.

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 https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 15 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/