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Hypochondria: a side effect of the ageing process
Is ageing a medical condition? In 2002, the British Medical
Journal asked British doctors to name any ‘non diseases’ which were
being redefined as medical conditions. Top of the poll came ageing.
Doctors themselves are often to blame. Ageing itself is not a
medical condition; nor is the menopause or childbirth. But menopause
and childbirth have certainly become ‘medicalised’, with the notion
that some kind of intervention is necessary for health and
well-being. So why not ageing?
We are an extraordinarily health-conscious society. We know
about the good effects of diet and exercise. We receive new and
often contradictory warnings almost daily in our newspapers and on
radio and television (and, I must admit, in the columns of laterlife).
Recent alerts include the dangers of taking Aspartame, the
artificial sweetener, or eating red meat and getting Crohn’s
disease. Oily fish is good, but if you eat it more than twice a week
you risk getting too much mercury and other undesirables from our
polluted oceans. Vitamin supplements can harm if taken in excess.
All this makes us worry, and worry itself can make a person ill.
A health care survey by Norwich Union revealed that we constantly
make a self-diagnosis on the basis of vague symptoms. Something like
60% of paranoia about health was created by soaps and the media and
15% of their poll showed a lack of faith in NHS diagnosis. Convinced
that a diagnosis is wrong (and to be fair it sometimes is) we
medicate ourselves with supplements, instead of asking for a second
opinion.
Self-medication isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it can be
if we stop taking the prescribed treatment without notifying the
doctor, or fail to check for drug inter-reaction with a prescribed
treatment, or try a supplement that has an iffy reputation or take
more than the stated dose. It’s always worth remembering that for
anything to be effective, it also has to be potent.
Ageing may not be a medical condition, but conditions do occur
with age. So as we get older we are more likely to hear news of
those around us succumbing to a chronic ailment or a serious
disease. A friend of mine recently had a hip replacement, so when I
get the odd pain in my hip, I wonder whether I might need one at
some time in the future. Not unreasonable, I think - only the most
minor form of hypochondria. And who hasn’t had a moment’s personal
worry when learning that a friend is diagnosed with cancer?
Hypochondria is a side effect of the ageing process.
Side effects aren’t always bad. The value of the placebo, or
fake pill, is that it gives researchers a chance to check whether a
drug is effective or not. But many placebo trials report an initial
improvement in those on the fake pills, and the question arises:
could it ever be ethical to give a patient a placebo in place of the
real thing?
Similarly, there is evidence that if you warn people that the
drugs they are given have certain side effects, more people than
expected do experience them. It would however, be totally unethical
to withhold that information.
Faced with all this health warning input, how do we survive it?
There’s evidence that just by thinking positively you get a boost to
your immune system, although that doesn’t mean ignoring any
persistent physical symptom. (Fat chance, some might say, knowing
that hypochondriacs tend to visit their doctors rather often.)
Moderation in all things, whether it is red meat, oily fish,
artificial sweeteners or vitamin supplements, is a helpful approach.
And it wouldn’t hurt if we took health warnings with just the
tiniest pinch of salt….
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Talkback is a
regular feature in laterlife.com run by
journalist and author Helen Franks. 
