Doctor in the house looks at athlone students

TV3’s brand new documentary series Doctor in the House continues next Monday as the team meets a group of students living in Athlone, while studying at Athlone Institute of Technology. With beer and chips being a staple diet for most students, Conor, Padraig, Brian and Paddy are no different. All in their 20s, the boys should be in relatively good health but the Doctor in the House team is at hand to give them a much needed check-up.

Produced by Independent Pictures in conjunction with the BAI, Doctor in the House aims to get households across Ireland thinking about their lifestyle and how they drastically alter their long term health for the better by introducing a number of changes to their everyday life.

In this episode, the doctors dip their toes back in the waters of student life and find serious health issues with hygiene, sexual health, poor diets and binge drinking.

They learn that Conor has a family history of heart problems and is concerned for his own cardiac health. Brian is addicted to sugar and video games. Padraig is a man who seems to be a little too fond of his pints and Paddy is the healthiest in this not so healthy student house.

Their terrible diets of fried foods combined with regular binge drinking sessions seem like the doctors’ worst nightmare but things get a whole lot worse when Dr Nina Byrnes discovers E.coli growing in their much loved microwave.

Dr Nina sends a swab to the lab to see how dangerous it is.

“It grew a very heavy growth of bacteria called E. coli. At the very severe end of E. coli, there’s a particular strain of E. coli that can cause kidney failure and death and that was growing in your microwave. They’re the kind of bacteria you would usually see growing in a toilet.”

Because they are a group of young and supposedly fit young men, Professor Niall Moyna ups the ante and builds gives them an exercise programme that will challenge their strength, power, speed and overall aerobic fitness, but can they live up to his expectations?

Each of the students is tested and trained to their limits as they follow an 8 week lifestyle overhaul to pull them back from the brink of life of bad habits and chronic illness.

At the end of the 8 weeks, the students are re-tested, but will the changes they’ve made be reflected in their results?

‘Doctor in the House’ episode 5 airs Monday 10th November at 9pm on TV3.