Fans of the late, great Dr. Michael Mosley will be treated to one last fantastic documentary hosted by the health guru.
Filmed last year, the three-part Channel 5 programme sees the former Mail columnist decode the wonders of the human body and discover everything from why bones break as we age to pioneering cancer treatments.
Dr Mosley, who died of heat exhaustion aged 67 while on holiday in Greece, puts his own body under a microscope and subjects it to experiments to test the health of his heart, saliva production and how his body copes with a dip in icy water.
In the first episode, which airs on Thursday at 8pm, Dr Mosley heads to Fife to meet Thomas, who suffers from a common neurological condition and is about to undergo pioneering brain surgery.
The 71-year-old suffers from essential tremor, which affects around a million Britons and causes involuntary shaking or trembling.
Michael Mosley, who died this summer while on holiday in Greece, puts his own body through its paces in the three-part series, testing his heart health, saliva production and even taking an icy dip.
To test a new heart disease predictor, the former Mail columnist undergoes the procedure, which involves having a dye injected into his bloodstream to make his blood vessels show up on the CT scan.
Essential tremor is almost ten times more common than Parkinson’s and tends to affect people over 65.
But for Thomas, the symptoms began in his 40s, when he first noticed his right hand shaking.
By the mid-fifties, both his hands and his head were shaking, and things were getting worse.
But now Thomas is heading to Dundee for potentially life-changing surgery.
The innovative procedure uses a beam of ultrasonic waves to target a small group of cells in a part of your brain called the thalamus, which is involved with movement.
Doctors hope this will create a circuit breaker that prevents Thomas’ brain from sending too many of the confusing messages that cause his uncontrollable shaking.
Fitted with a brace to help him stay still, Thomas remains awake throughout the surgery to ensure the beam does not affect the parts of his brain that control his speech.
If you deviate even slightly, you could be left speechless or paralyzed.
To check his brain function, after each ultrasound, Thomas’ doctors ask him to draw a spiral on a piece of paper.
The three-part series sets out to decode the wonder of design and engineering that is the human body, inviting viewers to see our bodies in new ways and understand how they work and how the body changes as we age.
In the first episode, Dr Mosley heads to Dundee to meet Thomas, a man who suffers from tremors and is about to undergo pioneering brain surgery.
At first, he is barely able to leave any marks on the page.
But after seven rounds, his hand stopped shaking enough for him to make a full spiral.
“I’m very grateful,” Thomas says. “I noticed a change right away. I’ve improved a lot more than I thought I would.”
“It will make a difference that will change your life.”
Later in the episode, Dr. Mosley meets 76-year-old Allen, who is about to find out if his experimental cancer treatment has been a success.
Allen was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma (a type of blood cancer) a few years earlier.
“They said there wasn’t really much they could do to cure me,” he explained.
Before his diagnosis, Allen was a police officer in London and spent nine years as Princess Diana’s personal protection officer.
He began to notice symptoms of cancer once he retired to Dorset, around the same time that a family of Ukrainian refugees came to live with him.
After their diagnosis, they decided to stay and help care for their host.
“I had already planned and paid for my funeral,” Allen said.
“I didn’t think I’d be here much longer.”
But then Allen was given a lifeline by his medical team in Southampton: a treatment known as CAR T-cell therapy.
Throughout the episodes, the doctor continues to search for answers to burning questions such as: Why do our joints creak? What happens when we catch the flu? Can we help our brains stay fit as we age? How do doctors replace a hip?
The revolutionary new cancer treatment works by boosting the body’s immune system, helping it detect and fight cancer.
T cells (the body’s fighter cells) are removed, modified in the laboratory, and reinjected into the bloodstream.
These gene-edited cells now have a turbo-charged ability to track down and eradicate cancer cells.
The approach doesn’t work for everyone, but Allen thankfully receives some bright news at his checkup: he’s in complete remission.
He was previously riddled with cancerous tumors, but his scans now appear clear.
Thanks to innovative treatments like this, Dr Mosley explains, we are now six times more likely to survive cancer than we were 40 years ago, even though one in two of us will be diagnosed with it at some point in our lives.
Equally astonishing technologies have emerged in recent years that address another major health problem facing Britons: heart disease.
Almost a quarter of all deaths in the UK are due to cardiovascular problems.
But a new test developed by researchers at Oxford University claims to be able to detect heart problems long before symptoms appear.
By looking at the fat surrounding the heart’s vessels, scientists can detect early signs of inflammation in the arteries, which could indicate a heart attack later on.
To test it, Dr. Mosley comes in for the procedure, in which a dye is injected into his bloodstream to make his arteries show up on the CT scan.
In the episode we also see the doctor bravely signing up for a slightly more stimulating experiment: swimming in cold water.
Speaking to cold water devotees, as well as trying it himself, Dr. Mosley reveals that when you swim in cold water, your arteries narrow, which makes your heart work harder to pump blood, strengthening your muscles.
Immersion also releases hormones that are said to increase the body’s metabolic rate and improve mood.
Some regular swimmers even claim that it also helps improve their immune function, ironically preventing them from catching the common cold.
Finally, Dr. Mosley examines why our bones become more fragile as we age.
To investigate bone health, she returns to Oxford University, this time to meet with Professor Sue Black.
She explains that bones, although they may appear solid from the outside, are actually very alive and moving inside.
As we age, hormones like estrogen that fuel these bone cells begin to decline.
However, after menopause, estrogen levels decrease, causing bones to weaken rapidly.
Microfractures begin to form, which often fail to heal on their own.
The disease, known as osteoporosis, is incredibly common, affecting one in five women and one in 20 men.
To protect our bones as we age, we need to consume plenty of calcium and vitamin C, as well as continue doing weight-bearing exercises, such as running and dancing.
The episode concludes with Dr. Mosley agreeing to have a camera inserted into his nose to observe his larynx and revealing the shocking fact that humans produce enough saliva each month to fill an entire bathtub.
In the next installment of the docuseries, he… Check out hip replacements, stress, and three things you can do at home to lower blood pressure without joining a gym.
