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Health Check: How athletes prepared for Doha heat

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Athlete at night in a stadium

2019/10/02 GMT

How athletes prepared for Doha heat

BBC World Service - Health Check, How athletes prepared for Doha heat

Many athletes struggled with heat and humidity in Doha. How did they prepare?

Athletes and Doha heat; Red meat and health; The Vagina Bible part 1; Bone implants; Melanoma treatment success.

Athletes have been competing under gruelling conditions of heat and humidity this week at the World Championships in Doha. It regularly tops 40 degrees C there. So ahead of the competition, some athletes trained in special heat chambers to help prepare their bodies for the climate. But what happens when they do this? Hannah Fisher visits St Mary’s University in London to explore the physiology behind this training technique.

Claudia talks to American gynaecologist and author Jen Gunter about her new book The Vagina Bible. It’s a detailed guide for a general audience on this part of the female body. Dr Gunter says it’s essential for women’s health to talk openly about the subject, and tells Claudia her do’s and don’ts for taking care of this part of the body.

Just as artificial joints for hips and knees have transformed the lives of people whose joints have worn with age, so bone implants can help those whose bones have been damaged through injury or cancer. Initially it was hard to make sure that both bone implants and artificial joints attached firmly without breaking, but both the materials used and the methods for attaching them to existing bone have improved. But there's another challenge - the danger of joints or implants becoming infected. Medical researcher Melanie Coathup at the University of Central Florida is trying to tackle this issue. 

The Guardian’s health editor Sarah Boseley is with Claudia to explain the latest row over whether red meat is bad for our health, and an extraordinary ‘breakthrough’ in treating the skin cancer melanoma with drugs that allow the patient’s immune system to seek and destroy the cancer cells.

(Photo caption: An athlete warming up in a stadium at night – credit: Getty Images)

Health Check was presented by Claudia Hammond 

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker and Paula McGrath

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