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As part of its Changing Age programme and in collaboration with the Literary and Philosophical Society (Lit & Phil), Newcastle University is pleased to announce a lecture by writer and broadcaster, Miriam Stoppard, who will be speaking on the theme of ageing and health. Further details will be available nearer the date of the lecture.

We know quite a lot about how to lengthen life and stop ourselves from dying, but what information should we believe and what should we discard? Dr Stoppard attempts an analysis, discussing how she became interested in the possibility of defying age and how it is within our power to do so. It seems there is a media fanfare about some shortcut to longevity almost every month: if it isn’t calorie restriction it’s avoiding retirement – which is topical at the moment. Dr Stoppard sees her role as a sceptic, translating this into entertaining tabloid prose.

Doctor, businesswoman and writer, Miriam Stoppard obtained the degrees of MBBS, MD, MRCP while studying and practising medicine at London, Newcastle and Bristol Universities and in 1998 was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London. After several years practising medicine, specialising in dermatology, she entered the pharmaceutical industry, becoming a research director and managing director. Later she forged a career in television and currently writes a daily page for a national newspaper. She has also published more than eighty books on conception, pregnancy and birth, child care and development, and women’s health.