Podcasts

 

Do you listen to podcasts? I confess to being an addict, although within a very restricted range of subjects. The topic that has interested me most of late is nutrition.

There are many streaming or downloadable recordings out there around this theme. What should you be eating or not eating to lose weight, to slow the ageing process, improve your gut biome, what is the new superfood etc. etc. But how frustrating they can often be!

Some can go on for more an hour. Perhaps considerably more, talking all the way around the subject and seemingly never getting to the nitty gritty, the reason why I started listening after being attracted by what was promised in the heading or sub-heading. Many a time I have given up, despairing of the host and his 'expert' guest or guests ever getting to the specifics I want to hear.

There are exceptions, however, foremost among them the late, lamented Michael Mosely, whose Just One Thing series had a limit of fifteen minutes, in fact less as they were originally BBC Radio 4 broadcasts and radio programmes always have to leave room for announcements. Thanks to him I now eat beetroot and various other food items that I previously tended to bypass, am more aware than ever of the importance of exercise and that you don't need to go to the gym to stay fit, how fortunate one is to be surrounded by greenery, and so on.

I first became aware of Mosely at Heathrow Airport, where I bought a copy of his book on the microbiome to keep me company on a long-haul flight. I was hardly aware of anything called microbiome and its significance until then. Then there were his television programmes and newsletters from his Fast 800 dietary business, although that is primarily for people who want to lose weight in a healthy manner without starving to death. Why aren't there programmes for people like me who want to put on weight? Healthily!

Mosely was clearly remarkably active, although by no means working alone in his various enterprises. Indeed, there seems to be a remarkable number of medical practitioners, or former practitioners, who have found it more rewarding to produce podcasts and/or radio or tv programmes than simply treating patients personally. If only more of them were less garrulous and got to the point before listeners like me turn them off.

PS Midsummer is well behind us now, but my Midsummer Revelry story in the June issue of The Mantlepiece magazine can still be read online at https://issuu.com/themantelpiece/docs/themantelpiece_june_2024