Embarrassing Bodies

Episode 1/8, Monday 5th March, 9pm, Channel 4

The nation's favourite doctors are back for 2012 - as well as seeing a host of new patients in the clinic, they will also be exploring a tropical assortment of embarrassing souvenirs that can be brought home after a trip abroad.

Dr Dawn and brand new Embarrassing Bodies tropical diseases specialist, Dr James Logan, pack their bags and head for Thailand to beach-comb for holidaying Brits, offering on-the-spot medical advice to those with tropical troubles.  Dr Dawn meets 34 year-old, Troy who has a pain in his testicle, warns a group of freshly tattooed young men about the dangers of the Hepatitis B virus; and talks to a boxer who thought he was going to die: following a mosquito bite, he developed a flesh eating bacterial infection that rotted his healthy skin tissue.

With Dr Christian and Dr Dawn ever-ready to shed their inhibitions, they strip into white shorts and T-shirts and climb into a giant globe for a lab experiment -Dr James exposes them to a swarm of hungry disease free mosquitoes, designed to show why some people have more "insect appeal" .  Who will be most attractive?

Dr James also volunteers to take part in brave task: infecting himself with hookworm parasites.  In a world first, with the help of Dr Quentin Bickle at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, James sees them entering his skin with special imaging. Around 750 million people are infected with hookworm worldwide, causing ill health in tropical countries.  In this unique two month experiment, Dr James suffers an invasion of hookworms which tunnel into his skin, flow through his blood stream and attack his intestines, in an effort to not only educate holidaymakers about the symptoms, risks, effects and treatment, but also to show the surprising beneficial effects hookworm can have on your health!

In the EB clinic, Dr Pixie is shocked by a case of coffee enema addiction -the first time she's ever seen anything like it.  Can she persuade 41 year-old Carol to quit her seven year, daily habit and help her re-educate her bowel?  Dr Dawn meets 24 year-old Kat who, after having a baby 13 months ago, leaks urine when she coughs; and Dr Pixie meets 23 year-old Kaspers who has scabies on his penis, which is causing unbearable itching. 

Also tonight, Dr Christian meets 59 year-old Jennifer who, in 1974, was one of the first generation of women to have breast enhancement surgery.  After a succession of operations, complications and implant ruptures finally she had the implants removed and twenty years on Jennifer says that her chest looks like a ‘deformed bagel'.  With 30% of women needing further surgery on breast implants after ten years, Jennifer is not alone and Dr Christian explains that she will need major reconstructive surgery.

Meanwhile, Dr Dawn shows tourists in Thailand a cocktail of colourful stools at the EB poo-bar - can they tell a healthy poo from a problem one?  Dawn sends her own deposit off to the lab to be tested...