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Health Check: 20/04/2011

20/04/2011

BBC World Service - Health Check, 20/04/2011

People who can’t forget, link between autism and anorexia and a possible malaria vaccine?

The brains of people who can’t forget, could autism cause anorexia and will there ever be an effective malaria vaccine?

Malaria kills over a million people every year.  Will there ever be an effective vaccine? Work to find one began almost a century ago but now one malaria vaccine is being trialled in seven sub-Saharan African countries on 15,000 children and results are due at the end of this year. But when will it be rolled out across the regions of the world affected by malaria? Professor Brian Greenwood School of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine explains the latest in vaccine research. 

How exceptional is your memory? Most of us forget most of what happens to us on a daily basis. But a rare group of people who don’t forget a thing, is exciting neuroscientists. It is calling it super autobiographical memory.  Ellen Mahoney reports on this extraordinary group of people and the scientists who are trying to work out what’s different about their brains.  

What’s the link between autism and anorexia? Anorexia is the most common eating disorder, while autism spectrum disorders cover a whole range of problems with communication and social skills - including difficulties in understanding other people’s thoughts and emotions.  

But could anorexia in some people be a manifestation of undiagnosed autism? New research is underway to get to the bottom of this unexpected link. Claudia Hammond  talks to John Morgan, Head of the Yorkshire Centre for Eating Disorders in Leeds and consultant psychiatrist at St George’s Hospital in London

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