Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

The Life Scientific

BBC Radio 4 FM

The Life Scientific: Episode 4: Sir Michael Marmot

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Sir Michael Marmot

Episode 4

Episode 4: Sir Michael Marmot

BBC Radio 4 - The Life Scientific, Sir Michael Marmot

Jim Al-Khalili talks to Professor Sir Michael Marmot about his work on how stress kills.

Jim Al-Khalili talks to Professor Sir Michael Marmot. As a junior doctor he decided that medicine was failed prevention and went on to discover what he calls Status Syndrome.

When Professor Sir Michael Marmot was a junior doctor he decided that medicine was failed prevention.
To really understand disease you have to look at the society people live in. His major scientific discovery came from following the health of British civil servants over many years. The Whitehall studies, as they're known, challenged the myth about executive stress and instead revealed that, far from being 'tough at the top', it was in fact much tougher for those lower down the pecking order. This wasn't just a matter of rich or poor, or even social class. What Marmot showed was the lower your status at work, the shorter your lifespan. Mortality rates were three times higher for those at the bottom than for those at the top. The unpleasant truth is that your boss will live longer than you.

What's more, this social gradient of health, or what he calls Status Syndrome, isn't confined to civil servants or to the UK but is a global phenomenon. In conversation with Jim Al-Khalili Michael Marmot reveals what inspires and motivates his work.

Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Podcasts

Factual: Life Stories

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future.

Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work, finding out what inspires and motivates them and asking what their discoveries might do for us in the future

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Life Scientific

Episode 4: Sir Michael Marmot

Genres

Formats

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4