Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?

One of my favourite radio shows is Sliced Bread on BBC Radio 4. Greg Foot investigates products making bold claims, from vitamin supplements and hay fever remedies, natural deodorants and bottled water, to energy drinks and barefoot shoes.

Greg talks to experts - scientists, academics, doctors, dietitians and so on - to gather evidence and he crunches the numbers and does experiments. This help him decide: Are they the best thing since sliced bread, or marketing BS?

You can listen to all episodes here (also available to download as podcast episodes)

If you prefer to read, there is a selection of written articles here

We all need to be critical of the marketing messages we are bombarded with and now we have scores of influencers on social media telling us what we should be spending our money on too. Sliced Bread is a breath of fresh air and encourages all to dig a little deeper before automatically believing the hype.

For health and social care students I recommend these two quick reads to get you started:

• How good are painkillers at targeting specific types of pain?
• Is no and low-alcohol beer better for you than a regular pint?

If you want Greg to investigate something, you can contact him and his team by emailing sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or send a WhatsApp voice note via the number 07543 306807.