Christmas 2025 - neologisms, longevity and unexpected research

It’s time for 2025’s festive fun!

Practicing medicine can be a very visceral experience - and the English language can’t always adequately capture the sights, sounds, smells. So Matt Morgan, intensivist and BMJ columnist, is creating medical neologisms, and joins us to share a few.

Madhvi Joshi, a GP in London, has written about longevity science, and we hear how the “biohacking” of internet influencers like Bryan Johnson is making its way into the consultation.

Navjoyt Ladher and Tim Feeny take us though this year’s festive research, and are joined by Anupam Bapu Jena from Harvard, who has been looking at self censorship in the time of Trump, and Melanie de Lange, from the university of Bristol, who has been investigating the impact of daylight savings time.

Reading list:

A dictionary for medicine’s unnamed moments https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2476

Science of longevity medicine  https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj.r2536 

Changes in diversity language in National Institutes of Health grant awards https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-087222 

Acute effects of daylight saving time clock changes on mental and physical health in England https://www.bmj.com/content/391/bmj-2025-085962