Dr Michael Mosley in a series about battling insomnia and sleep apnoea.Credit:SBS
Another mate,an emergency doctor on Sydney’s north shore,reports that his work last weekend was dominated by sporting injuries to 14-year-old boys and DIY injuries to men in their 60s.
A few years ago,my own partner was one of those men,falling off a ladder on a second-storey balcony while trying to saw off an overhanging tree branch. The much younger tree surgeon was due to come the following day,but what the heck,why wait? (Luckily a neighbour heard the thump that accompanied my partner’s fall and helped organise an ambulance. He returned home a few days later having recovered from concussion,but with pride severely dented.) The doctors in the ER said they couldn’t count the number of times they’d treated men in their 60s presenting after similar mishaps.
I couldn’t help reflecting on this following theuntimely death of much-loved 67-year-old British TV doctor and popular health guru Michael Mosley,who perished after an ill-advised trek across the arid slopes of the Greek island of Symi 10 days ago.
Of course,we don’t know,and are unlikely ever to know,whether Mosley accidentally took a wrong turn or purposefully decided to pick his way through baking,rock-strewn terrain for more than two hours in the hottest part of the early afternoon. He was an Englishman,after all,who’d only arrived the day before from a mild British summer and perhaps forgot,or thought he could beat,the force of the Greek sun.
But it is also possible he was in that same category of person who’d featured in my Scottish friend’s medical notes – determined to push his body to the limit. And yet,it was those same adventurous instincts which delivered in spades for health science and his TV audiences. If only he’d taken a cue from the locals,enjoying a slow coffee in the shade of the town square while the sun gradually spent its heat.
Broadly speaking,the trend towards vigorous exercise well into one’s later decades is entirely admirable. No one wants to be confined to the walker or the rocking chair for the last 20 years of life if they can avoid it. But the modern truism that 80 is the new 60,and 60 is the new 40,ignores the fact that not everyone’s body is going to get the memo.