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Health Check: Livers that live longer than we do

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A doctor Transporting a Human Organ

2022/11/02 GMT

Livers that live longer than we do

BBC World Service - Health Check, Livers that live longer than we do

The hundred year old transplanted livers still going strong

Ebola update; long-lived livers; measuring skin colour; weighted blankets

Claudia Hammond discovers that some livers have the potential for extraordinary longevity and after a long life in a transplant donor, can survive for many more years in a transplant recipient. Livers over one hundred years old, called centurian livers by researchers, have been identified and many are still going strong. The new study has important implications for the future of liver transplants because donated organs from some older-age people were also found to last longer than those from young-age donors, a finding that Dr Christine Hwang, from the University of Texas in the USA and study co-author, tells Claudia upturns conventional thinking about the healthiest livers to transplant.

The accuracy of forehead thermometers as well as pulse oximeters on darker skin is an issue that's received widespread attention, but what about the medical need to accurately measure skin pigmentation for psoriasis, eczema, skin cancers and other health conditions? Dr Ophelia Dadzie from the British Association of Dermatologists and the Hillingdon Hospital in London has been developing a scientific way to measure skin colour. Her method uses eumelanin, a skin pigment, and she's created a new scale to objectively assess peoples’ skin colour.

And BBC correspondent, Dr Smitha Mundasad, joins Claudia and reports on the growing Ebola outbreak in Uganda, the risks of herbal supplements on our livers and brings the latest evidence on the health benefits of the weighted blanket.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Fiona Hill

(Picture: A doctor Transporting a Human Organ for Transplant. Photo credit: Photographereddie/Getty Images.)

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