Talk Evidence is back, with your monthly take on the world of EBM with Duncan Jarvies and GPs Carl Heneghan (also director for the Centre of Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford) and Helen Macdonald (also The BMJ's UK research Editor).

This month Carl talks about evidence that restricting your diet might improve health at a population level (1.50)

Helen talks about the data on a drop in alcohol consumption amongst Scots (7.04)

A listener questions the team about their take on Tramadol (13.45)

Helen talks about the problems with the trials we use to regulate drugs (18.00)

And Carl explains why drug shortages aren't just a Brexit problem (31.30)

Reading list:

two years of calorie restriction and cardiometabolic risk (CALERIE): exploratory outcomes of a multicentre, phase 2, randomised controlled trial
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213858719301512?via%3Dihub

Immediate impact of minimum unit pricing on alcohol purchases in Scotland: controlled interrupted time series analysis for 2015-18
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5274

Design characteristics, risk of bias, and reporting of randomised controlled trials supporting approvals of cancer drugs by European Medicines Agency, 2014-16: cross sectional analysis
https://www.bmj.com/content/366/bmj.l5221

Crisis in the supply of medicines
https://www.bmj.com/content/367/bmj.l5841