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Airdate: The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs

This 2 part UK series on SBS features Dr Chris van Tulleken from Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.

On Monday SBS premieres a 2 part UK series, The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs.

This features Dr Chris van Tulleken from Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.

Last year, doctors in the UK handed over a billion prescriptions, a 50 percent rise in the last 10 years. Dr Chris van Tulleken (Trust Me, I’m a Doctor) knows drugs save lives, but he believes Britain’s prescription drug binge is dangerous. To find solutions, he takes over part of a busy GP surgery in East London to try and take patients off their pills and treat them in other ways – but this can be dangerous.

Filmed over six months, Dr van Tulleken embarks on the experiment of his life, taking his patients on tough physical and emotional journeys. With worried doctors and a reluctant public, the results are dramatic. Persuading Britain to go cold turkey from their prescription pill habit could be the hardest thing this doctor has ever done.

Episode One:
Dr van Tulleken starts his experiments by seeing what the steep rise in prescription rates means for patients, and discovers that a person born today might easily consume 100,000 pills. His first patient, Wendy, has been taking painkillers for the last 20 years to deal with chronic pain in her shoulder. Chris is determined to prove to her that the drugs don’t work, but Wendy will need a lot of convincing. He devises an experiment – two weeks’ worth of medication with a twist: some of the pills are placebos, and some are the real thing. She doesn’t know which is which and she must record her pain levels.

Monday, 20 March at 7.30pm on SBS.

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