14/12/2013 GMT

In this month's Health Check, Dr Ayan Panja and Claudia Hammond will be looking at how the arts can improve our health. Shanghai correspondent John Sudworth will be finding out how traditional Chinese folk dancing is reducing the risk of heart attacks and obesity in the over-50s. Ayan joins a choir to discover the benefits of singing for patients with breathing difficulties, and we sit in on a seminar in Chicago where medical students are being helped to empathise with their patients through the medium of comics.