Sliced Bread

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Sliced Bread podcast image

BBC Radio 4 FM

Sliced Bread Presents: Cold Defence Nasal Sprays

Sliced Bread series image

Cold Defence Nasal Sprays

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Cold Defence Nasal Sprays

Do nasal sprays help reduce the symptoms of a cold?

Greg Foot investigates two products which claim to help reduce the duration and severity of symptons of the common cold.

Two products dominate the market for nasal sprays that claim to reduce symptons of a cold -  Vicks ‘First Defence’ and Boots ‘Dual Defence’. But do they work?

Listener Leah got in touch because she catches lots of colds from her young son and wants to know if they can help her get over them more quickly. She  also wants to know if they’re safe to use regularly and how long you should take them for.

Presenter Greg Foot sniffs out the evidence and talks to a leading expert who’s dedicated most of his career to investigating cold remedies. 

This series, we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, drop us an email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send us a voice note to our new WhatsApp number: 07543 306807.

PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban

Sliced Bread Presents

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.

Documentaries

Podcasts

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast.

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast. Sean Farrington examines the spectacular failures of wonder products and businesses which had promised so much.

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up... Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.    

In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?  

Some of the world's most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world's most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? 

Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? 

The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand's fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.  

From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. 

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in February. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Sliced Bread Presents

Cold Defence Nasal Sprays

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4