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107 results
  • Article
  • Article

Acid and the sexual psychonauts

| Alex DymockBen MechenLeah Moyle

How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.

  • Article
  • Article

Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles

| Alice White

Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.

  • Article
  • Article

Why I don’t like prescribing sleeping pills

| The Secret GP

Sleeping pills often seem a simple option for aiding sleep or when dealing with anxiety, but there are many risks, and our anonymous GP is not afraid to say no to patients.

  • Article
  • Article

Rethinking the placebo effect

| Anjuli SharmaSteven Pocock

The placebo effect has long been harnessed for both legitimate and fraudulent use, but we’re only just discovering how and why our bodies respond positively to dummy drugs, as Anjuli Sharma reveals.

  • Article
  • Article

Surviving sex work on the streets

| CharmaineJessa Fairbrother

In care at four, on the streets at nine, Charmaine has had a traumatic journey to reach life as it is now: no drugs, no sex work, looking after her mum, and enjoying her grandchildren. Here she writes honestly about her past.

  • Article
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Indian botanicals and heritage wars

| Sita Reddy

Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction

| Guy StaggJess Nash

Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.

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Getting the measure of pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.

  • Article
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The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming

| Hannah Partos

Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.

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Dying at home and the doctor’s role

| The Secret GP

Our anonymous GP talks about the bittersweet rewards of supporting a patient when he chose to die at home.

  • Article
  • Article

Identifying skin lightening agents in cosmetics

| Ngunan AdamuAmaal Said

Could your moisturiser be damaging your health? If it contains skin-lightening agents, the answer is yes. But this is an area where consumers definitely do not have the upper hand.

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  • Article

Thalidomide survivors in the 21st century

| Ruth BlueHollie Chastain

As thalidomide survivors enter their 60s, they look back on their lives and the legacy of the thalidomide catastrophe.

  • Article
  • Article

When skin bleaching goes wrong

| Ngunan AdamuAmaal Said

Warnings about permanent health damage don’t deter those using skin-bleaching products for years on end. Read the story of one woman who suffered from liver failure after years of striving to be paler.

  • Article
  • Article

When you don’t belong, you drink

| Tanya PerdikouNaomi Vona

In the third part of her exploration of belonging, Tanya Perdikou unpicks the addictions that have shaped her past and uncovers the connections that make recovery possible.

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  • Article

Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high

| Stevyn Colgan

The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.

  • Long read
  • Long read

Healthy scepticism

| Caitjan GaintyAgnes Arnold-ForsterPaul AddaeFranklyn Rodgers

Healthcare sceptics – like those opposed to Covid-19 vaccinations – often have serious, nuanced reasons for doubting medical authorities.

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Virtual reality and the fix of the future

| Stevyn Colgan

Virtual reality, with its complex sensory tricks, takes us beyond the real world. Find out how these potentially addictive experiences can harm us – or might even have therapeutic uses.

  • Article
  • Article

Sharing Nature: Over the rainbow

| Helen Babbs

Here’s your choice of the most meaningful nature photo on the theme of health.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life

| Aarathi Prasad

The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.

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The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols

What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.

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Rocking psychiatry with R D Laing

| Adrian ChapmanSteven Pocock

Turn on, tune in, drop out. Discover how six rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s link the ideas of famous therapist R D Laing with the era’s counterculture.

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  • Article

The poor child’s nurse

| Briony Hudson

Charming family scenes in Victorian ads for children’s medicines were at odds with some of the dangerous ingredients they contained.

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Sex in graphic novels

| Stephen Lowther

Sex and sexuality have long been explored in the history of the graphic novel.

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How Indigenous insight inspires sustainable science

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

The forest of the Amazon Basin is inextricably bound up with the lives of the Indigenous peoples living there. Find out how they feel about the forest, use what it provides, and try to protect it from aggressive commercial exploitation.

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  • Article

Sex work and critical campaigners

| Ella SmithJessa Fairbrother

When campaigners filmed secretly in the club where she worked, exotic dancer Ella Smith felt frightened and degraded. Here she speaks out about the attack on her livelihood.