Self medication

Of course we all self medicate to some extent. We attempt to avoid all the palaver of seeing doctors or going to hospital by trying some recom-mended medicine or diet or exercise routine.

Except that some people think they actually know better than doctors, take things to an extreme and cause themselves and others serious harm.

It's horribly sad when people are convinced they can cure their cancer with some sort of natural remedy or unusual health regime, and end up not only not being cured but maybe dying much sooner than they would have done.

It's even sadder when parents harm their own children by subjecting them to an extreme diet - vegan or macrobiotic or whatever - which children can't digest properly and which lacks vital nutrients. Even when the child is visibly sick and in need of emergency medical treatment, they still insist the diet is health-promoting and refuse to give it up.

I just wonder how anyone can be so stubborn and so irrational as to pursue a self-chosen "treatment" based on nothing but subjective belief.

A Florida mother who fed her three children on a strict vegan diet of raw fruit and vegetables was jailed for life for killing her 18 month old son. He was severely malnourished and weighed only 17 pounds (8 kilos) when he died.

If I had some severe illness, I would never presume to know more than the doctors and pursue some eccentric regime I'd seen on social media or heard someone gossiping about. I'd assume the doctors knew better than me, even if they might sometimes get things wrong.

Self medication has its limits.

Meatlessness

Next year I will have been a vegetarian for 50 years. Right through my childhood and most of my twenties I happily ate meat, and then overnight I rejected it.

What happened was that I stayed for a week with a couple of gay friends in their Welsh cottage. I discovered they were both vegetarians and I thought it would be absurd for me to insist on making meat dishes for myself. So I decided to eschew (what a lovely word!) meat for the week.

When I returned home I realised I hadn't missed meat for a second and as vegetarianism was supposedly a healthier diet - and meant not killing animals - I thought I might as well continue to avoid meat.

When I met Jenny, who was a meat eater, and told her I was a vegetarian, she decided to join me. And the rest, as they say, is history. We were (and are) both fit and healthy and never saw any reason for going back to meat.

I'm glad to say I've never faced any active hostility from meat-eaters. In general people accept my meatlessness quite matter-of-factly. The only person who seemed totally bemused by it was my mother. I had to keep reminding her I was a vegetarian as she kept "forgetting". No, mum, I don't eat pork sausages.

So I have Ron and Paul to thank for my conversion 49 years ago.

PS: Researchers at Loma Linda University in the States have shown vegetarian men live on average 10 years longer than non-vegetarian men - 83 years compared to 73 years. For women, being vegetarian added an extra 6 years to their lives, reaching 85 years on average.

Food for thought

I'm reading a fascinating book by the American nutritionist Michael Pollan, who says all nutritional and dietary advice should be viewed with great scepticism as we actually know very little about what happens to food inside the human body.

The typical food item contains so many substances, many of them not yet even identified, that it's pretty hazardous trying to predict what that food will do to us after we eat it.

Also, every person has a unique metabolism that processes food in a unique way. So how a food will affect my body is quite different from how it affects someone else's body.

One person will get fat and develop heart disease, while another person eating the same food will stay thin and have a healthy heart.

Food is far more complex than nutritionists make out, but if they admitted how little they know about food and what it does to our bodies, their reputations would plummet.

One splendid example of ill-informed pronouncements was the advice to cut down on saturated fats to avoid heart disease. When people did so, the incidence of heart disease in fact rose. The advice turned out to be based on guesswork and supposition rather than solid evidence.

I must say I generally ignore nutritionists' advice, as I know that advice can change radically from year to year, often totally reversing the previous accepted wisdom. I just try to eat a healthy range of foods, including as many raw foods as possible.

One thing many nutritionists agree on is that what's known as the Western diet - lots of processed food, foods full of sugar and fat, food lacking vital vitamins and minerals - is wreaking a huge toll of chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. So I also try to avoid such foods.

Common sense is probably more reliable than the latest dietary dictum.

Pic: Michael Pollan

An uphill struggle

It's surprisingly hard to change one's dietary habits. We're used to eating certain foods in certain quantities at certain times and altering that in any way can be an uphill struggle.

I'm fairly thin, but I can put on the pounds very easily. If I didn't keep a constant watch on my weight I could put on a stone or so quite quickly. But adjusting my diet to lose a few pounds is not that easy.

It seems simple enough to eat smaller portions or avoid fattening foods or skip a meal, but the reality is less simple. I might aim at a small portion but if there's more on offer it's too tempting. I love chocolate and ice cream and I'm not giving them up in a hurry. I'm attuned to three meals a day and giving one up is usually beyond me.

If you're used to having tiny portions, or not eating chocolate, or not having a midday meal, then you can just carry on. But if you're firmly in the grip of bad habits, breaking them can be tough.

Social events are treacherous, as there are always piles of unhealthy food - cakes, pastries, muffins, chocolates. It's only polite to nibble a few of them. Refusing everything on offer just prompts awkward questions.

I have at least broken the pack of biscuits habit. I used to eat an entire pack of biscuits at one go. Two or three weren't enough, I just had to keep eating until the pack was finished. Now I have one biscuit and that's it.

For most things, I have plenty of will power. But when it comes to serious dietary changes, will power deserts me. I need a ruthless Aunt Lydia to keep me in line.

*Aunt Lydia: the enforcer in The Handmaid's Tale
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Thanks for all your kind thoughts about my mum. She died at 5.15 am this morning (Sunday)

Diet deceit

We posh middle class folk like to think we eat much more healthily than those frightful working class oiks, but it's not true. We've been exposed as hypocrites and frauds.

New surveys* have revealed that well-off households have equally unhealthy diets and their children are actually more likely to be overweight or obese. So much for that little delusion of superiority.

We middle class types like to make out we're busy stuffing ourselves with fruit and vegetables and wholesome, unadulterated food untainted by heart-clogging nasties, but we're a load of charlatans.

We come on so virtuous and sensible, but on the quiet we ignore those impressive bowls of grapes and peaches displayed for our visitors and sneak into the cupboards for a few squishy cakes and ready meals.

We say screw virtuous, I'm pissed off, today's a shambles, nothing's going right and I'm going to eat that entire packet of luxury chocolate brownies because then I'll feel much, much better.

Or we think, I've spent all day eating sensibly, I'm crammed with stuff the experts approve of, now I'm entitled to relax and have something unhealthy, I've earnt it. Where's that box of raisin fudge?

Even if we manage to avoid these noxious titbits at home, we get offered them outside. All my relatives believe a cup of tea goes hand in hand with the best of the local bakery, decked out with as much cream, sugar, fat and icing as possible. A blanket refusal is of course the height of rudeness, so a few tactful mouthfuls have to be consumed.

So I'm hardly surprised by the revelations of hidden hypocrisy in those swish suburban avenues. There's many a grubby secret behind the fragrant net curtains. Dietary deceit is the least of them - but that's another story.

* International Journal of Obesity and Food Standards Agency (UK)