Take your health into your own hands

I'll start by introducing me and the research I've been involved with in Manchester over the past decade. We'll look at the problem of breast cancer in the UK and other countries, and all the factors that increase the risk of developing the disease. We'll then hone in on the lifestyle factors: weight, alcohol, exercise and smoking and I'll go over the work we are currently doing to reduce breast cancer risk in women in the National Breast Screening Programme. We'll consider when during their life times women gain weight and the many causes of this, and finally move on to how we can prevent it.

Stroke is when the blood supply to our brain is disrupted, causing part of the brain to die. It kills around 5 million people every year across the world, but despite decades of scientific research, we still have almost no treatments for it. One answer to this problem might lie in our body’s self-defence mechanism, the immune system. Research performed in Manchester suggests that the way our immune system responds to stroke may actually make the brain damage worse. I will discuss what strokes are, what actually happens in the brain when they occur, and why targeting our immune system might be

Our bodies are colonized by trillions of bacteria that live on our skin and in our intestines. Over the past decades we have begun to appreciate how co-existing peacefully with these “good bacteria” is important to keeping us healthy. Bacteria in our intestines help us to digest our food and have profound effects all over our body - even our behaviour and mood. Our immune system helps to keep these bacteria under control and this balance is disturbed in diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Plus, we can use “good bacteria” to treat disease – from probiotic yoghurts to poo transplants!