Millions of people for many different reasons, are almost a couple of weeks into a (temporary) sobriety. We’re not going to talk about whether that’s a good idea or not, that’s a conversation for readers to have with their health care providers. However, we have been doing some investigation into some of the popular choices people make to replace their absent alcohol and some of them might be just as unhealthy as that beer!

Read on to find out if your favorite drink is on the nice or naughty list!

Are you ready to find out which organ YOU are? Take the quiz, and don’t forget to leave a comment letting us know your results!

Every hour in the US, a spinal cord is injured and a life changed as the dialogue between body and brain is disrupted. Read on to discover how a healthy, intact nervous system manages everything from dancing to digestion and all at a speed of more than 100mph!

I am really worried about climate change and time is running out to prevent devastating sea level and temperature rises but why aren't we seeing the same sense of urgency in our consideration of type 2 diabetes?

The world health organization guestimates that every year 150,000 people lose their lives as a direct result of climate change but that same organization calculates that 1.5 million people die from complications of their type 2 diabetes.

If that's the death rate with approximately 10% of the developed world's  population diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, what's going to happen when we get to the 30% diagnosis figure that experts suggest we'll reach by 2050???

Interestingly, using our cars less, reducing meat consumption and eating more plants would reduce both our impact on the planet and our likelihood of developing this horrible disease.

Food for thought perhaps?

Receptors truly unsung hero’s of the major management systems of the body - our endocrine (hormones) and nervous systems. Without receptors, the insulin that controls our blood sugar, the serotonin that helps our mood and the estrogen that helps us grow a new life, are all useless.

Modern medicine has harnessed the discovery of receptors, creating drugs that use the science of these receptors to treat an enormous number of human ailments, everything from that itchy bug bite, to high blood pressure and even prostate cancer.

Read on to find out more about these hidden, microscopic structures that make human life possible.

To be clear, we absolutely believe that COVID-vaccines are crucial to ending the Pandemic but the WHO’s recent recommendation of the first ever anti-malaria vaccine (and the first vaccine to target a parasitic infection) reminded us that there are many other horrible diseases that have been (almost) eradicated, thanks to successful vaccination programs.  

Like, for example, German measles (rubella). Prior to Stanley Plotkin’s vaccination, for a mother-to be infected with the rubella virus in her first trimester, the potential consequences were huge. If she didn’t miscarry because of the infection, she had to wait out many anxious months to know if her newborn would be in the 80% subsequently born with congenital rubella syndrome, a collection of life long problems, including cataracts, deafness, heart defects and cognitive disabilities.

But whether it’s rubella, tetanus or even smallpox, when that shot protects us against disease, it’s not the vaccine that’s doing the heavy lifting, it’s our very own, amazing immune system.

Join us to find out why your vaccination is only as good as your immune system!

Dr. P

There are many organs we can’t manage without but I’m struggling to think of another vital organ that’s as unappreciated as the prostate. Let’s face it, if you’ve heard someone talking about their prostate I guarantee it’s because it’s causing trouble. Yet when it’s young, healthy and working away saving our species, people never bother to mention it.

Here at B&B, we think the prostate is way overdue for its moment in the spotlight and it’s high time to redress the balance. We hope after reading, you’ll agree too!

What takes only 30 seconds to detect yet every year, often without warning, disables and kills millions of people? Something that can be measured in the supermarket or on our sofa, with no expensive lab equipment required? A silent ninja that we can obliterate, often with just a dietary tweak or a little more exercise, but we don’t because we don’t know it’s lurking within us?

Read on to find out more about the “silent killer” that is hypertension, and the science behind those numbers.

If we picked up our favorite health and wellness supplement and instead of “natural” it said “might be fine but has not been through the meticulous safety testing that all prescribed medicines have to undergo”, would we put it down again and walk away?

It's easy to think that these over-the-counter supplements, all delightfully plant-based or organic or natural products are worth trying to regain the pep in our step or ward off the common cold- after all, if they don't work, it's just a few lost pennies, right?

But what if these supplements are not only a much more expensive way to get nutrients than from real food, but might actually be harmful to our bodies as well as our bank balance?

Intrigued?  Read on and let us know what you think.

Two thousand years ago, the Romans considered the liver to be every bit as important as our heart and brain but over the centuries, we lost interest in and enthusiasm for our liver, relegating it to a walk on part in the story of our gastrointestinal system.

With this post, Body and Bones wants to right that injustice and we hope that reading about just a few of the hundreds of things the liver does for us every day, will help to create a renewed appreciation of this most valuable and unsung hero within.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be thrilled by the heart-pounding, muscle-straining efforts of over 10,000 Olympic athletes yet, sadly, as athletes have since the original Olympics 3000 years ago, some of the competitors will have used performance enhancing drugs and many will get away with it. But what if, even with a 100% effective drug testing program, the fairness of athletics and other sports is merely an illusion?  What if we need to rethink our ideas of what is and isn't fair, what is and isn't cheating?

Intrigued?  Read "Is it fair to ban performance enhancing drugs" and then tell us what YOU think!

Nothing good’s ever associated with viruses, right? And variants? They give us even more to worry about except ….. without the cellular processes responsible for the dreaded viral variants, we wouldn’t be the gorgeous, sophisticated species we are today! Read on to find out why if we want the plusses of evolutionary progress, we have to embrace, or at least accept, viral variants too!

This morning, more than a hundred and fifty million women worldwide swallowed their tiny tablet and spent a few moments in quiet reflection, marveling at how something so small, is so important in their lives.

I’m kidding of course.

Because as the Pill celebrates its 61st birthday, it’s lost its celebrity and sparkle and most users have very little idea how it works, they just hope that it does! Read on to learn more about the Madonna of all prescriptions, so iconic, yet mysterious that it needs only one name, the Pill!

The emergence of almost untreatable “super gonorrhoea” and increasing difficulty in treating urinary tract infections is terrifying but not surprising - the medical community has been sounding the alarm about bacterial mutations and antibiotic resistance for the last couple of decades.

Read on to find how the behavior of bacteria is creating one of the largest global, public health challenges ever and one that threatens to make the current Corona virus pandemic look like a walk in the park by comparison.

What should we do with an organ that whilst vital for almost every aspect of our health, misbehaves so frequently that every minute, 240 Americans will be written a prescription to replace it?

Clearly, invite them in to tell their side of things!

How can a liquid be so sophisticated and vital that no lab on earth can make it?

And what’s in that liquid that’s so important people will do almost anything, legal and illegal, to get more?

Read on to find out more about blood, especially those microscopic red blood cells, arguably the key to life as we know it.

Wow, the recent “Think you know how to get pregnant?” and “Why you can’t catch the Corona virus from the vaccination” posts generated so many thoughtful follow up questions from our wonderful Body and Bones, well, we just had to try and answer at least some of them.

So read on and see if you’ve been wondering about the same things.

Getting pregnant by accident is a world-wide phenomenon with half of all pregnancies across the globe thought to be unplanned. Perhaps it’s not so surprising when studies show that women wanting pregnancy information, question their friends and family as much as they quiz their doctors, yikes.

Read on and find out if you’re a good resource for your friends or if you should definitely be sending them straight to their OB-GYN!