Sliced Bread

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Sliced Bread Presents: Hay Fever Treatments

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Hay Fever Treatments

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Hay Fever Treatments

What works to help with the symptoms of hay fever?

Are hay fever treatments the best thing since sliced bread - or marketing BS?

What works to help with the symptoms of hay fever?

The better weather’s here but for the millions who have hay fever that just means a runny nose and itchy, streaming eyes. And for some people it’s seriously debilitating – listener Richard got in touch because his wife can’t go out and play with the kids in the spring and summer months.

 In this episode I’m investigating the treatments that claim to help. I speak to an expert from Allergy UK to find out what works and whether - as listener Lisa wonders -  the generic or own-brand versions work as well as the more expensive branded ones. And could a hay fever injection be the one-shot solution Richard’s wife is looking for?

Also, you might have heard about the gut microbiome…but did you know there’s a nasal microbiome too?! I’m finding out about some new research which shows probiotics could play a role in treating hay fever.

This series we’re testing and investigating your suggested wonder-products, so 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 WhatsApp number: 07543 306807.

PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban

Sliced Bread Presents

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

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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.

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