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Inside Health

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Series that demystifies health issues, bringing clarity to conflicting advice.

Series that demystifies health issues, separating fact from fiction and bringing clarity to conflicting health advice.

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Inside Health: Free Vit D for kids, Exercise & depression, Asthma inhalers feedback, Fungal nails, GP pilots

29/10/2013

Free Vit D for kids, Exercise & depression, Asthma inhalers feedback, Fungal nails, GP pilots

BBC Radio 4 - Inside Health, Free Vit D for kids, Exercise & depression, Asthma inhalers feedback, Fungal nails, GP pilots

Vitamin D for all kids; Exercise for depression? Fungal toenails; Manchester GP pilots

The call for under-fives to be given free vitamins; Fungal nail infections; Extended GP access and 'virtual' bed pilots; Is exercise an effective treatment for depression?

Current recommendations advise that parents should give children under five Vitamin D supplements, but most parents do not follow this, and Vitamin D deficiency is now widespread, leading to a resurgence of rickets. To combat this, England's Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies is now recommending that free supplements be available to all children under five.

Following the publication of a new Cochrane review into the evidence behind advocating exercise for people who are depressed, there were very different conclusions in the medical press; ranging from suggesting exercise was as good as antidepressants, to the other extreme that there was not much evidence that it helped at all. But is exercise an effective treatment or not? Gillian Mead, Professor of Stroke and Elderly Care Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, was lead author of the review.

Fungi occur naturally on our bodies but thrive in warm, damp dark places like shoes. If you have healthy nails and a normal immune system, it is hard for the fungi to get a foothold. But if your nails are damaged, creating a portal of entry for the fungus, or your immune system is compromised because of some underlying health issue, then infection becomes more likely. But how are they best treated? Ina Farrelly is a senior podiatrist at Mile End Hospital in London.

We often hear how difficult it is to get a GP appointment. It is an issue that has been picked up recently in the debate about pressure on A + E departments. So how can access be improved? In North Manchester, a group of GPs are trialling web based solutions that blur the boundary between hospital and community and out-of-hours GP clinics and normal surgeries. Dr Frederic Thomason is working on the pilot.

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