Hello and welcome to Health Check from the BBC.
I'm Claudia Hammond and every week I'm here to dissect the latest medical news from around the world.
And to help me this week I have Dr Graham Easton who is Professor of Clinical Communication Skills at Queen Mary University of London.
How are you Graham?
I'm very well thanks.
That's good to hear.
In a moment we'll be hearing about the global treaty that's only the second in the 77 year history of the World Health Organisation and it's all about preventing and handling the next pandemic.
whatever it might be and what do you have for us Graham?
I'll be talking about a trial that has been looking at how treating high blood pressure intensively could reduce your risk of dementia And how when we're making decisions about our health,
the personal stories can be so much more powerful than the most robust scientific evidence.
Oh, we all love a story, don't we?
And we have the results of a trial of a weight loss treatment,
which this time doesn't come in the form of an injection, but as a pill.
But we're starting with the pandemic treaty,
which the World Health Organization has been discussing with member states for more than three years now.
The text has at last been agreed.
Only the second time in the WHO's 77-year history that an international agreement of this kind has been reached.
And the first was a tobacco control deal back in 2003.
Now,
the idea of this new pact is to avoid some of the competition for resources that was seen during the COVID-19 outbreak.