Spectator Life

Britain isn't a country geared up to deal with extreme heat. We lack cool spaces to retreat to; our homes and gardens are often better suited to rainy winters than the hot, balmy summers we associate with the med. But with an extreme heat weather warning issued by the Met Office and with large parts of England and Wales being affected in the coming days, it's wise to take precautions. People vulnerable to extreme heat are likely to experience 'adverse health effects', while the rest of the population could suffer heat exhaustion and other heat-related illnesses that are not usually visited on these shores.

The world's richest man – who, beyond Tesla and Space X, is known for naming his first child X AEA-12 – generated more headlines this week, when he announced on the American television show Saturday Night Live that he has Asperger syndrome. ‘I know I sometimes say or post strange things, but that’s just how my brain works,' he explained. Asperger syndrome, first described in 1944 by the Austrian paediatrician Hans Asperger, is a lifelong condition that is part of the autistic spectrum. As a child, Hans Asperger appears to have exhibited some features of the very condition named after him, such as remoteness and talent in language.

As the Covid vaccination continues to roll out across the country with impressive speed and daily numbers of cases continue to steadily fall, the allure of the gradual release of lockdown restrictions into the sunlit uplands of something resembling a more normal existence grows stronger by the day. Unfortunately for many people – latest estimates suggest up to 200,000 in the UK – the long term effects of having been infected with the virus continue.

'I don’t wear a headband. If you want to, you can!' says karate World Champion Jordan Thomas. 'Don’t disillusion me, Jordan!' I bark, perhaps a little aggressively. I’ve watched three seasons of Cobra Kai in a week and I am all about a karate headband / floppy fringe combo. Kick-ass comedy drama Cobra Kai is a spin-off of ’80s classic The Karate Kid. Resurrecting the original actors, it follows underdog Daniel LaRusso (now 'chopping prices' and 'kicking the competition' as the owner of a successful car dealership) and his high school nemesis, sneering country club bully Johnny Lawrence (now knocking back beer for breakfast).

It remains the case that for most people free NHS tests are only available for those taking part in pilot schemes, who have been asked to have one by health professionals, or in people or families showing symptoms of the virus. This means that some people are now looking to private providers to get tested before seeing loved ones and although many such providers are offering tests for a fee now, how do you know which are high quality and which should be avoided? For a start, always look for a home test kit that is CE-marked as this shows it meets the European standards for medical testing and is also approved for sale in the UK – do not use any test without this approval mark.

The text below is the basis of a talk given by Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs, at the Spectator annual health debate 2016. The debate was entitled: ‘Can we trust health advice?’ Before answering the question of whether we can trust health advice we must first ask: ‘Which health advice?’ It varies so much over time and between countries. In 1979, the government advised men to drink no more than 56 units of alcohol a week. This was later reduced to 36 units, then 28 units and then 21 units. Last month, the Chief Medical Officer reduced it once again, this time to 14 units.

In As You Like It, Shakespeare suggested that there were seven ages of man. Sadly, he himself didn’t experience all of them; he shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of only 52, precisely 400 years ago. You could also say that the human male has seven sexual ages, marked by a gradual decline in activity. But can we stress that word ‘gradual?’ The fall-off over several decades really is very slow. Even some doctors don’t appreciate this. Only recently one of us acted as an expert witness in support of a man who had wrongly been told by a surgeon that ‘males can’t expect erections after the age of 40’. So let us look at these seven sexual ages. The future may be brighter than you think… 1.

“Wire your booze cabinet up to the mains so you can’t get into it!” says Jason Fox, the former Royal Marine Commando and Special Forces Sergeant who’s best known for barking orders on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins. With wine o’clock starting earlier each day for many of us, as we crawl the walls in isolation, I’ve asked Jason for his take on lockdown drinking. “It’s not the answer really. It’s great fun and I enjoy having a drink, but I won’t allow myself to drink all day. It doesn’t make you feel better about yourself.

Difficult facts can be conveyed in a sensitive, non-judgemental and compassionate manner; indeed, this describes the daily practise of medicine. When obesity rears its head, however, a significant number of my colleagues in the health professions display a cognitive dissonance and determination to deprive patients of the unvarnished facts that they would not dare hide with conditions such as cancer. Prioritising their own “feelings”, they patronise the obese by taking offence on their behalf, preferring to virtue-signal, accusing those “ insensitive “ enough to want to state the facts of “fat shaming” or victim-blaming.

With the spring almost upon us, now’s a great time to up your fitness game. Whether you’re in training for a race or sticking to a new year fitness drive, it makes sense to track your progress and keep reminding yourself of how well you’re doing. Mentally, it can be hard to keep at it, so why not employ a bit of tech to help you along the way? Along with their generally more featured and app led cousins smartwatches, these pieces of technology have come a long way in recent years, and with ever evolving health technology, they’re only likely to get more sophisticated and better tuned to your needs. What kind of fitness tracker is for me?