Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, Chris and Xand dive into body temperature and how it can be challenged. How does the human body regulate its core and skin temperature? Can you change your body temperature from its average value? Should you challenge your body temperature by exposing yourself to hot environments? They explore the biology...
Nov 18, 2025•29 min•Ep. 71
Drs Chris and Xand continue their conversation about all-or-nothing thinking with Kimberley Wilson, Chartered Psychologist, author and host of the new mental health podcast, Complex. Chris and Xand want to know how all-or-nothing thinking interacts with out socio-politics, and how age and our relationship with social media shapes our tendency towards binary thought patterns. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co...
Nov 11, 2025•19 min•Ep. 70
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, Chris and Xand dive into the concept of ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking. What does it really mean, and why are our brains drawn to this black-and-white way of seeing the world? They explore how it shows up in everyday life, whether it can ever be helpful, and share practical strategies for recognising and chall...
Nov 11, 2025•29 min•Ep. 69
In a specially extended episode recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre in London, What's up Docs? explores the wonders of the human heart. "The heart is more than just a pump—it's a marvel of engineering and history, and in this episode, we're pulling it apart to see how it all works!” Join Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken as they discover how reliable the human heart can be - beating on average a hundred thousand times a day - that's more than 2.5 billion beats in a lifetime! ...
Nov 04, 2025•44 min•Ep. 68
In a special episode recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre in London, What's up Docs? explores the wonders of the human heart. "The heart is more than just a pump- it's a marvel of engineering and history, and in this episode, we're pulling it apart to see how it all works!” Join Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken as they discover how reliable the human heart can be, beating on average a hundred thousand times a day - that's more than 2.5 billion beats in a lifetime! The doctors...
Nov 04, 2025•28 min•Ep. 67
Chris and Xand continue their conversation about false memories with Dr Linda Henkel. The Docs are digging into the different research studies and experiments that have been done around false memories. They also discuss the concept of repressed memories, and Xand shares some of his own, potentially false memories. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or Whatsapp on 08000 665 123. Presenters: Drs Chris and Xa...
Oct 28, 2025•21 min•Ep. 66
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken untangle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, the Docs are returning to the topic of memory, delving into the concept of false memories. Chris and Xand are curious about how and why false memories form, whether there’s anything we can do to guard against them, and why they aren’t necessarily something we should worry about. They are joined once again by...
Oct 28, 2025•29 min•Ep. 65
Chris and Xand continue their conversation about napping with Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. They want to know why some people drift off easily while others struggle to shut their eyes. Beyond that, they explore how our ability and even our desire to nap changes depending on our age, and how it differs across cultures and regions of the world. From siestas in Spain to power naps in Japan, and from toddlers who fight sleep to adults who crave it, ...
Oct 21, 2025•24 min•Ep. 64
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, they’re asking, what’s the deal with naps? Some people nod off in minutes, while others can’t manage it at all. So why is napping so different from person to person? Is it actually good for us? Is there a “right” way to nap - and should we all be making time for it? Also, they uncover what’s really happening i...
Oct 21, 2025•29 min•Ep. 63
Chris and Xand continue their conversation about embarrassment with Dr Tiffany Watt Smith, a cultural historian interested in the histories of emotion and medicine. They want to know: how power and hierarchical structures in your relationships affect your levels of embarrassment, and how embarrassment functions within the context of other emotions. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or Whatsapp on 08000 66...
Oct 14, 2025•17 min•Ep. 62
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken untangle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, the Doctors turn their attention to the curious emotion of embarrassment - why do we feel embarrassed? They want to know how it links to blushing, how it differs from shame or guilt, and whether it might actually serve a useful, protective and even healthy role in our lives. To get some answers, they speak w...
Oct 14, 2025•28 min•Ep. 61
Chris and Xand continue their conversation about nature with Baroness Kathy Willis, Professor of Biodiversity at Oxford University. They look a little deeper into the relationship between nature and our health and wellbeing. They also discuss Kathy's thoughts on how society interacts with nature. These insights go beyond the science to explore the bigger picture of our relationship with the natural world. Plus, they discuss what we can be doing to help the natural world in return for helping us....
Oct 07, 2025•32 min•Ep. 60
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this special episode, Chris and Xand are out of the studio and into the woods, exploring something a little different - the connection between nature and our health and wellbeing. You’ve probably heard claims that just being in green spaces can boost your mood, help you recover from illness, and even lower your stress. But ...
Oct 07, 2025•29 min•Ep. 59
Chris and Xand continue their conversation with Dr James Rucker, a consultant psychiatrist at King's College London who is leading the European arm of a global trial of a psychedelic designed to treat people with severe depression. They discuss the history of psychedelics, the discovery of LSD and the popular (and often illegal) practice of microdosing. Is there any evidence to suggest that taking minute quantities of psychedelic substances will boost your brain function or mood? Chris and Xand ...
Sep 30, 2025•31 min•Ep. 58
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken untangle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. This week, Chris and Xand meet Dr James Rucker, a consultant psychiatrist at King's College London who is leading the European arm of a global trial of a psychedelic called psilocybin in a study designed to treat people with severe depression for whom other pharmacological treatments have failed. The use of psychedelics in b...
Sep 30, 2025•28 min•Ep. 57
Chris and Xand continue their conversation about fibre with Dr Deirdre Tobias, an obesity and nutritional epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. Together, they dig further into the relationship between our fibre intake and our microbiome. Plus, they delve into some of the socioeconomic aspects of increasing our intake of fibre. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs...
Sep 23, 2025•18 min•Ep. 56
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken clear up the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. In this episode, they want to answer some of the most important questions about dietary fibre. What is it and why do our bodies need it? They’ll explore the best sources of fibre - both natural and processed - and unpack the growing trend of fibre-enriched foods. Also, they’ll discuss easy ways to add more fibre into our dai...
Sep 23, 2025•29 min•Ep. 55
Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken continue their conversation with Dr Mindy Cairns, Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist and Associate Professor at the University of Hertfordshire. They discuss how mental health issues can contribute to back pain, what women can do to manage back pain during pregnancy, and the difficulties of living with long-term back pain alongside other medical conditions. Plus, are there any types of beds and chairs that are good for our backs? If you’d like to share you...
Sep 16, 2025•20 min•Ep. 54
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. On the agenda this week is back pain. It’s a condition that will affect around 80% of us at some point during our lives, with low back pain being the single leading cause of disability worldwide. Joining Chris and Xand in the studio to discuss the science behind these statistics is Dr Mindy Cairns, Specialist Musculoskeletal P...
Sep 16, 2025•29 min•Ep. 53
Chris and Xand continue their conversation with Professor Stella Volpe, head of the department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in the United States. They talk to Stella about her work as a sports nutritionist, specialising in diabetes and obesity, about whether athletes need to think about magnesium differently, and the relationship between magnesium and diabetes. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covere...
Sep 09, 2025•19 min•Ep. 52
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around health and wellbeing. In this episode, the Doctors turn their attention to the mineral of the moment - magnesium. Hyped up on social media, Chris and Xand want to dig into the different roles magnesium plays in regulating the human body, what happens when we’re deficient in magnesium, and whether we should be supplementing magnesium. To find out, Chris and Xand s...
Sep 09, 2025•28 min•Ep. 51
Chris and Xand are back with a bonus episode, as they continue their conversation with Dr Chi Eziefula, Associate Professor in Global Health and Infection and menstrual health expert. They talk about how menstrual health is covered in medical school, delve further into the stigma that still surrounds it, and what institutions are doing - or not doing - about it. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or Whatsa...
Sep 02, 2025•17 min•Ep. 50
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the confusion around health and wellbeing. In this episode, the Doctors turn their attention to the menstrual cycle. Menstrual health and periods are still surrounded by myths, misunderstandings and stigma. So what are we getting wrong? They're interested in understanding what the menstrual cycle is, the benefits it provides, the stigma that surrounds it, and the issues associated wi...
Sep 02, 2025•29 min•Ep. 49
Sshhh! Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken are back to hear more about noise in this episode of Doctors’ Notes. Continuing their conversation with Charlotte Clark, Professor of Environmental Epidemiology at City St George’s, University of London, they dig deeper into the science around environmental noise and its damaging effects on our health and wellbeing. Charlotte tells Chris and Xand about her research exploring the effects of noise on children’s learning and development, as well a current proj...
Aug 26, 2025•17 min•Ep. 48
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken cut through the noise around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. This week, Chris and Xand speak to Professor Charlotte Clark, Environmental Epidemiologist at City St George’s, University of London. She explains how being exposed to transport noise over long periods of our life can have disastrous consequences for our cardiovascular systems, brains and minds. But how big a problem is this?...
Aug 26, 2025•29 min•Ep. 47
Urine for a treat in this week’s Doctors’ Notes, as Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken continue their fascinating conversation with Dr Kate Bramham, Consultant Nephrologist at King’s College Hospital and Reader at King's College London. In this bonus episode, the Docs delve into the issue of chronic kidney disease and why some communities are disproportionately affected by it. They also explore the effectiveness of kidney transplants and hear how kidney function differs between men and women. If yo...
Aug 19, 2025•19 min•Ep. 46
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. Chris and Xand have always found the kidneys somewhat mysterious and elusive, going all the way back to medical school. Now they want to understand what makes this pair of organs so complex, and why they are so much more than simple filters. How do the kidneys work? What can happen when they go wrong? And how can we keep them ...
Aug 19, 2025•29 min•Ep. 45
Chris and Xand continue their discussion with Dr Yusur Al-Nuaimi, Consultant Dermatologist at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and Clinical Lead for the British Hair and Nail Society. They dive deeper into the science of nails and the vital clues they can provide about a plethora of serious health conditions. Plus, Yusur tells Chris and Xand about what first piqued her interest in dermatology, and the research she has carried out in this field. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or ...
Aug 12, 2025•18 min•Ep. 44
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing. This week, Chris and Xand are exploring the topic of nail health. As well as being useful tools on our hands and feet, nails can also be important signs of many diseases and disorders. But what exactly is a nail made of? How did nails evolve? And what should we be doing to keep them strong and healthy? They speak to Dr Yusur A...
Aug 12, 2025•29 min•Ep. 43
Chris and Xand continue their conversation with Professor Sophie Scott CBE, a leading expert in the neuroscience of laughter from University College London. They explore what sets real laughter apart from fake, how children pick up the habit of laughing, and whether faking a laugh can make you feel better. Plus, they ask Sophie how she first became interested in laughter research. If you’d like to share your thoughts on this or any other topic covered on the podcast, you email us at whatsupdocs@...
Aug 05, 2025•18 min•Ep. 42
