Strange Health – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.

Strange Health

The Conversation

Health & Fitness

Frequency: 1 episode/8d. Total Eps: 9

Strange Health from The Conversation dives into the science behind the most bizarre, viral, and sometimes questionable health trends dominating social media. Expect honest, engaging, and sometimes stomach-turning discussions. Hosted by Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, a GP and lecturer at the University of Bristol.

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Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - nutrition
24/08/2026
#3
🇨🇦 Canada - healthAndFitness
24/08/2026
#66
🇬🇧 Great Britain - nutrition
24/08/2026
#4
🇩🇪 Germany - nutrition
24/08/2026
#64
🇺🇸 USA - nutrition
24/08/2026
#23
🇫🇷 France - nutrition
24/08/2026
#31
🇨🇦 Canada - nutrition
23/08/2026
#4
🇨🇦 Canada - healthAndFitness
23/08/2026
#75
🇬🇧 Great Britain - nutrition
23/08/2026
#7
🇺🇸 USA - nutrition
23/08/2026
#26

Spotify

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https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/the-daily-2
8 shares
https://tcnv.link/2S1cahf
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RSS feed quality and score

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Score global : 63%

Publication history

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Introducing Strange Health from The Conversation

Tuesday, January 6, 2026 • Duration 01:54

Introducing Strange Health, a new podcast from The Conversation.

Time and again, the health stories that go viral are the ones that make people recoil slightly before clicking anyway. Worms. Smells. Leaks. Stones. Toxins. The things you Google at midnight and hope nobody ever finds in your search history.

Behind the gag reflex, there is usually a serious question. Is this normal? Is this dangerous? Has the internet just convinced me I am dying?

That is why The Conversation has launched Strange Health, a new podcast series hosted by Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol.

They take the health questions people are obsessing over online, especially the weird, gross or misunderstood ones, and examine them properly with the help of academic experts who are actively researching these issues. We ask where these ideas come from, what the science really says, and why misinformation spreads so easily when bodies get involved.

Episode 1 arrives on January 20. Follow Strange Health wherever you watch or listen to podcasts to never miss an episode.

The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.

Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Sikander Khan

Artwork: Alice Mason

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Is detoxing your liver worth the hype?

Episode 1

Tuesday, January 20, 2026 • Duration 33:55

Social media is full of green juices, charcoal supplements, foot patches and seven-day “liver resets”, all promising to purge the body of mysterious toxins and return it to a purer state. But do you really need to detox your liver?

In the first episode of Strange Health, hosts Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol wince and occasionally laugh their way through some of the internet’s most popular detox trends. They also speak to Trish Lalor, a liver expert from the University of Birmingham, whose message is refreshingly blunt: “your body is really set up to do it by itself.”

Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.

Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Sikander Khan

Artwork: Alice Mason

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Tonsils, kidneys and gall: why your body makes stones

Episode 2

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 • Duration 26:31

The human body, it turns out, is surprisingly good at making stone. Give it enough time and the right conditions and it will go about crystallising minerals, hardening secretions and, in rare cases, turning tragedy into rock. Gallstones. Kidney stones. Tonsil stones. Salivary stones. And, in one of the strangest and saddest corners of medical history, stone babies.

In our second episode, hosts Katie Edwards, a health editor at The Conversation, and Dan Baumgardt, a practising GP and lecturer in health and life sciences at the University of Bristol, take a tour through the stony side of human anatomy and ask why this keeps happening, where these stones form and which ones you actually need to worry about. They talk to Adam Taylor, a professor of anatomy at Lancaster University, who has spent years studying stones in both everyday and extraordinary contexts, including a rare genetic condition called alkaptonuria

Hosts: Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Sikander Khan

Artwork: Alice Mason

Is cracking my neck and knuckles bad?

Episode 3

Tuesday, February 3, 2026 • Duration 34:24

Joint cracking is one of those habits most of us acquire without thinking about it. In our third episode, we turn our attention to one of the body’s most common and least understood noises. Knuckles, backs, knees and necks all feature, along with the enduring warning many of us grew up with: “Stop cracking your joints, you’ll get arthritis.” Is there any truth in it? And why can cracking feel so strangely satisfying?

Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Clodagh Toomey, a specialist in musculoskeletal injury and chronic lifestyle-related diseases such as osteoarthritis, to give you the science behind the myths.

Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Anouk MIllet

Artwork: Alice Mason

What is the vagus nerve and can you really reset it?

Episode 4

Tuesday, February 10, 2026 • Duration 36:30

The vagus nerve has become the internet’s favourite body part. On social media, it is everywhere. People hum into their phones, gargle with theatrical enthusiasm, dunk their faces into bowls of ice water and poke at their ears in the hope of “activating” it.

So in this episode we focus our attention on the body’s longest cranial nerve and ask a simple question: what does the vagus nerve actually do, and can we really hack it?

Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Arshad Majid, a professor of cerebrovascular neurology at the University of Sheffield and an expert in vagus nerve stimulation.

Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.

Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Anouk MIllet

Artwork: Alice Mason

What your body odour says about you

Episode 6

Tuesday, February 24, 2026 • Duration 41:12

Body odour has a reputation problem. It is often treated as a hygiene failure or a social offence. In reality, it is biology at work, plus a big helping of culture.

And yet people online are trying chlorophyll shots to make their BO smell better. Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt discuss what evidence there is behind this, plus some of the health conditions that can affect body odour.

And we talk to Mats Olsson, a professor of experimental psychology at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, who studies how humans perceive body odour.

Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Anouk Millet

Artwork: Alice Mason

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Meet the mites that live on you: from demodex to dust mites and scabies

Episode 5

Tuesday, February 17, 2026 • Duration 35:45

You are not alone in your own skin. Millions of microscopic creatures live there too. Our skin is home to entire ecosystems of microscopic life. Bacteria and fungi get most of the attention, but mites are there too. Among the most common are demodex mites, tiny eight-legged relatives of spiders that live inside hair follicles and pores, especially on the face. Almost all adults carry them.

In this episode we explore what these microscopic housemates are actually doing on our bodies and why the idea of them can feel so unsettling. While demodex may be harmless, there are plenty of other mites that can cause problems, from dust mites, to scabies.

Hosts Katie Edwards and Dan Baumgardt turn this week to Alejandra Perotti, professor of invertebrate biology at the University of Reading, who studies the relationship between mites and humans.

Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Sikander Khan

Artwork: Alice Mason

Invisible skin mites called Demodex almost certainly live on your face – but what about your mascara?

Does light therapy work? The science of stroboscopic stimulation

Episode 7

Tuesday, March 3, 2026 • Duration 39:43

Light therapy sounds wholesome. Sit in front of a lamp. Feel better. But nowadays, it can also mean strapping on a flashing mask and watching your own brain generate kaleidoscopic hallucinations behind closed eyelids. In this episode, host Katie Edwards tries on a stroboscopic light mask being promoted by celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Rosamund Pike to find out what happens.

And David Schwartzman, a research fellow at the Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex, explains how stroboscopic light produces hallucinations in the brain, and how it's currently being trialled to treat conditions like depression.

Strange Health is a podcast from The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit news organisation. Full credits for this episode available here. If you like the show, please consider donating to support our work. You can sign up here for a free daily newsletter from The Conversation here.

Hosts: Katie Edwards from The Conversation and Dan Baumgardt, University of Bristol

Executive Producer: Gemma Ware

Editing and mixing: Anouk Millet

Artwork: Alice Mason

Strange Health – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Strange Health – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other28

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other28

Apple Podcasts

Spotify