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Some lucky folk claim to never get a cold or take days off work. Can we become more like them?
15:05 UTC Tuesday, 24 January 2017
Every now and then one pops up at work, down the pub, in the park, outside the school gate, or in your own family’s mythology. The person who claims never to get sick. Colds brush past them without leaving so much as a sniffle. They laugh in the flushed face of flu, spray hand sanitiser in the rheumy eyes of infection, and never take a day off work. They appear to be superhuman, with the kind of kickass immune systems the rest of us mere ailing mortals can only dream about as we dissolve another 1,000mg vitamin C tablet and hope for the best. What are their secrets? Can we become more like them? Do they even exist?
“I hardly ever get a cold, bug or infection,” says Lore Lucas, a 97-year-old Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor who has lived in Glasgow since 1946. “I never drank or smoked, I sleep well and I like a little rest during the day, preferably in bed, or rather on the bed … just shoes off.” What about her diet? “I have been known to have a great dislike for cheese,” she replies, “and I really do not like the Scottish specialities mince, haggis, or porridge.”
During her professional life, first as a maternity nurse in Geneva, where she lived after fleeing Nazi Germany in March, 1938, and then as an office secretary, Lucas never had a day off due to sickness. Did she get ill after the war? “By that time, I was fully aware I would never see my parents, sister, grandparents, ever again,” she says. “Very traumatic … but matters turned much to my favour when I got married in 1946.” Lucas, who has one son and granddaughter and has been a widow for 30 years, puts her exceptional health down to a combination of good genes and a good life. Oh, and a good game of bridge. “To keep active, I play a lot,” she confesses over email as “my hearing aids do not work too well on the phone”. “I am quite addicted, I play in various clubs, and enjoy a social game at home.”
On average, each of us will get around 200 colds in a lifetime. Though some appear to suffer more than others, there is no evidence or, indeed, research on why, or if, that is really the case. “It’s pretty much hearsay and self-reporting,” says Dr Natalie Riddell, a lecturer in immunology at the University of Surrey and spokesperson for the British Society for Immunology. “I need more evidence before I can believe these people really exist.” Though there is no scientifically proven link between lifestyle and enhanced immune function, the immune-boosting industry and our unshakeable belief in it continues to flourish like flu during fresher’s week. Nutritional supplements alone, thought to be one of the world’s fastest-growing businesses, are predicted to be worth $60bn (£48bn) by 2021. As the American writer Eula Biss notes in her excellent book about vaccination, On Immunity, “building, boosting, and supplementing one’s personal immune system is a kind of cultural obsession of the moment”.
Meanwhile, for doctors and immunologists, the notion of superhuman health remains at best unproven and at worst a fiction. This is because of the highly individual and complex nature of our immune systems, which are almost as specific to each of us as our fingerprints. “Some of us inherit a set of immune system genes that are particularly good at dealing with one particular virus,” explains Daniel Davis, professor of immunology at the University of Manchester and author of The Compatibility Gene, which explores how immune system genes shape our biology. “But that is not to say that you or I would have a better or worse immune system. All it means is that you would deal with a particular flu virus better than me. There is an inherent diversity in how our immune systems respond to different diseases and that diversity is essential to how our species survives disease.”
Much of this diversity comes down to our inherited genetic makeup. “The greatest diversity in all of the 25,000 genes that make up the human genome is in our few immune system genes,” Davis explains. “That means that the genes that vary most between us all are the ones that influence the immune system.”
This unparalleled diversity makes generalisations about stronger or weaker immune systems meaningless. It also throws into question the benefits of all the products out there claiming to boost our immunity; antioxidants, vitamin C, hot lemon and ginger tea, garlic, echinacea, or wheatgrass. Do any of them work?
“The bottom line is that we simply don’t know,” Davis says. Or, as GP and Guardian contributor Ann Robinson puts it: “Keep your scepticism wrapped around you like a cloak.”
So why do some people simply seem to be better at fighting infection than others? “Maybe people at the top end have been primed through early exposure to bugs, fully vaccinated, and so on,” Robinson says. “Each person is wired to be slightly better at fighting off some illnesses and slightly worse at fighting off others,” is how Davis explains it. Both also point to growing evidence that our gut microbiome – the range and quantity of microbes in our guts – impacts the immune system. So there is a link between diet and immunity? “It’s a hot topic,” Davis says, carefully. “Although gut microbiome directly affects the immune system, precisely how isn’t yet clear.”
Everything you need to know about colds (but were too bunged up to ask)
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For 55-year-old architect Jenny Hunter, who “very, very rarely gets ill”, lifestyle and attitude play a part. “My mum didn’t tolerate illness,” she recalls of her childhood, the first five years of which were spent in Australia. “If I thought I was ill she would send me to school and say I’d feel better. She was right … brutal, but right.” What does she do to maintain her health? “My grandfather used to have a cold bath every morning but I don’t have any secrets or perversions,” she laughs. “I have a good diet, keep busy, and I do yoga, pilates and running every week. And I do think happiness plays a part. My default setting is that life is good.”
For Riddell, lifestyle plays a significant part in the functioning of our immune response. “The immune system is not solely governed by genetics,” she insists. “One of my research interests looks at how stress can negatively impact immune function. We have seen a dampening of immune responses among, say care-givers, versus the non-care-giving community.”
Thomas Walters is a writer and retired academic who refuses to tell me his age but concedes that he is “probably in his final decade”. He has never seen himself as a person who gets ill – in fact, the only illness he can recall having as an adult is shingles, “which passed amazingly quickly”. His lifestyle, like those of all the people I speak to who claim to never get sick, is balanced, moderate, social, and suffused with a positive outlook. “I drink a reasonable amount – one glass of wine a day and sometimes whisky,” he tells me. “I’ve always walked as often as possible. I did smoke for a brief period … Gauloises, because I liked France and the blue packets, but I gave up easily. I sleep extremely well, enjoy my dreams, and have very few nightmares. I tend to work until 10pm and have just finished a book about a late-Victorian architect. I would say my brain is as good as it’s ever been.”
Does he think his good health might be inherited? “I’m three-quarters Welsh peasant and one-quarter French peasant,” he notes. “Tough people. Plenty of my relatives checked out in their 90s, although my parents didn’t live to a great age. My father had a very stressful career and my mother had cancer and died in her mid-60s. I’ve never had that kind of career stress.” Later, Walters emails me with a warning: “Remember, even the healthiest of whales has barnacles growing on it, and bears the scars from scraping against undersea rocks. I recall a Hindu sage who once said: ‘The body itself is a disease.’”
Part of our fascination with the idea of superhuman resistance to illness is the way we view health itself. Not as “a transient state that we may be exiled from without warning”, writes Biss in On Immunity, but as an identity. “Health, it is implied, is the reward for living the way we live, and lifestyle is its own variety of immunity.” For doctors and immunologists, this not only demonstrates a false understanding of the way the immune system operates – the innate and acquired systems working in tandem to neutralise infection so that a cold is, in fact, evidence of an immune system working robustly – it is an unhelpful, even dangerous way to view illness.
“It’s why doctors worry about positive-psychology arguments,” says Robinson. “It implies that if you ‘succumb’ to illness, you’ve somehow lost. Beware the lure of positive psychology if it suggests you’re weak if you get ill.” Perhaps we should view viruses not as the enemy but as the educators of our immune systems. “We might view colds as little boosts and challenges to our immune systems,” Robinson says. “Maybe when we get over a virus we should remember not to moan about the cold but to give thanks to our immune system for fighting it.” Does she believe in the phenomenon of people who never get ill? “I can see neither the evidence nor the benefit of so-called superhumans,” is her reply.
“It’s pretty hard to know whether there is such a phenomena,” Davis agrees. “For me, there is an exceptionally important message in this. All the great tragedies, from slavery to the Holocaust, have come down to a misunderstanding of the differences between people. Not only is our greatest human difference nothing to do with how we look, it is down to our immune systems, and there is no hierarchy in them.” For Davis, narrowing the diversity of our immune systems, even if it were possible, would be undesirable. “That kind of misinformation can lead to people saying we can create humans that are better than others. I strongly believe that is not the case.”
As far as Walters is concerned, “we can do nothing about any of it other than take care of ourselves”. So does he have any tips on how to become, if not superhumans, then our most healthy selves? “Maintain a constant high pitch of curiosity,” he replies after some thought.
• Some names in this piece have been changed
How to never get ill
• Be realistic. There is no such thing.
• Don’t smoke and don’t drink too much alcohol.
• Wash your hands regularly but remember that infections are mostly passed on through proximity. “If you want to avoid a person’s cold on the tube you are better off moving carriage than using hand sanitiser,” says GP Ann Robinson.
• Exercise regularly, moderately and remember to rest. There is evidence that regular exercise, which improves circulation, can boost immunity, though to what extent is unknown.
• Manage stress. “The best established link in terms of how lifestyle impacts the immune system is that stress levels relate to your immune system’s behaviour.” says Professor Daniel Davis. Chronic longterm stress produces cortisol, which neutralises immune cells.
• Immunise, immunise, immunise: if you’re likely to be at increased risk of infection, whether through chemotherapy, long-term steroid use, or pregnancy, get yourself vaccinated.
• Maintain a healthy and varied diet, but don’t go overboard. This connects to the latest research around the importance of our gut microbiome. “A lot of the chemicals important to our immune system originate in the gut,” says Robinson.
• Sleep well. “Sleep has a massive impact on the immune system,” says Dr Riddell. “It’s under the control of circadian rhythms and disturbing it can throw out your immune system.”
• Stay connected. “If there is one thing that’s the enemy of wellbeing it’s loneliness,” says Robinson. “Get out there and connect with people … if not with their viruses.”
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The whole picture, the whole time

To my surprise, people don’t react to a very loud electronic noise, even when it’s really close to them….

I think people are insensitised to so much these days. They seem so unaware and so separate from their surroundings, missing most of what’s around them, dulled by their internal troubles perhaps, as well as their external phones.

I’m amazed by how often people almost walk into me, and not only those on their phones. People walk out of doorways without looking right or left, meander along pavements, stop suddenly without wondering if someone else is right behind them. If people drove cars like people walk around, there’d be carnage on the roads. Despite my loud siren and my very bright lights, I find that it’s only really ‘ Oi ‘ that is guaranteed to work. ‘ Excuse me’ isn’t anywhere near as effective…

It’s a shame that you have to be rude to be seen.

I do usually acknowledge an acknowledgement with a smile and a thank you, so I can sleep at night.

Well I could if it weren’t for the bloody spasms that are once more on the increase, especially my right leg, which rarely seems still these days.

Tomorrow night, Pia and I have a slightly bizarre sounding night ahead. I booked tickets via O2 Academy to see… wait for it…. a Mexican band that plays Morrissey ( from The Smiths ) songs….

First of the gang to die. Ole!

Since no one, and I mean NO ONE, reacts to the sound of the bicycle bell that I have on the handlebars of my powered wheel  attachment ( my Triride ) I ordered something else on the internet.  It’s battery powered ( rechargeable via a USB ), and it’s a brilliant, literally, light and siren combination.

Amazing what you can get for £10.

The only trouble is that it’s f******* scarily LOUD.

I’ll attach it today, if I can, and look forward to startling all those people who think it’s perfectly fine to completely ignore the persistent ringing of a traditional bicycle ?.

Let the fun begin….

Before my injury, i was a little bit obsessed with always proving myself… to myself.

Never being satisfied with anything physically that I achieved was how it always was, in my head.

Not ‘ softening up’ was always there, in my head, and to that end I’d invariably wear too few clothes in cold weather, in my kayak, in the rain, or on my bike, or whilst skiing – just to make myself suffer the unpleasantness, and beat it.

I still have that ( silly ) objective. Now it manifests itself as not wearing a hat or gloves when I’m out in my chair… my hands can be so cold that they hurt quite a lot, yet I don’t put on the warm(ish) gloves that I have in my pocket… or the thin woolly hat that is in my other pocket.

And I do genuinely get a sense of achievement from doing that.

Yes, I’m a bit weird.

I met someone today that by complete chance , whose sister had been ( somehow) ‘ inspired ‘ by this diary.

This  ( high achieving, alpha female ) lady has recently accepted  a double mastectomy as an alternative to an almost certain ‘worst fate’ for her and her daughters.

It made me cry to hear her story, and that somehow this diary had helped.

This diary wasn’t supposed to have a purpose, and I maintain that it still is nothing other than the notions of a guy that fell off his bike… but I’m ever so touched to hear that **** has got something from it ..

And I’m in tears again.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-25/australian-of-the-year-2017-winners-alan-mackay-sim/8212

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-25/australian-of-the-year-2017-winners-alan-mackay-sim/8212694?pfmredir=sm

Having had real battery dying issues on Monday night, with coming to a stop in the middle of the road several times, my faith in my power wheel had been a little shaken.

When you find yourself in a situation that you really, really didn’t expect to be, and you have to finally accept it, because you have no other choice ( that involves staying alive ) it does make you more alert to the world around you where in fact you do have choices.

As well as being unexpectedly paralysed, I find myself being unexpectedly divorced too.  As I have come to accept that reality, I have found myself looking around and tuning into other people’s marriages, in a way that I’d never have done before.  It is no doubt controversial of me to even write about this, but since I’m in it, it qualifies me to.  The paralysed get divorced more often than the non paralysed for lots of reasons. Paralysis is pretty upsetting for the victim…… depression is normal,  bitterness is normal, anger is normal, blame is normal, unemployment is normal, apathy is normal, tears are normal, having to move house is normal, not being able to go on normal holidays is obviously normal, limiting other people to doing limited things when they’re with you is obviously normal, etc etc.

It’s no wonder they get left!

I don’t think that many of those reasons are why I’m going to be single, but for sure some of them are in there, whether admitted to, or not.

Anyway, that list isn’t exclusive, not all of it, to the paralysed.  Normal people get quite a lot of those things too, in life, and more besides, particularly the psychological bits.

As I look and listen, I realise how many people are not that happy.  And frankly, it’s their marriages that are the main issue. They just aren’t in love any more.  They’re not even in like.  They just soldier on through, getting on each other’s tits pretty much all of the time.  They don’t really like each other’s company, but deny  each other ‘ the permission ‘  to have fun elsewhere, through some misguided possessiveness that says ‘ you can’t have fun, unless I have it too ‘. (  NB ‘Fun’ doesn’t mean/include  sex with other people.)

What the f*** is that about?  Women are worse for clamping down on their male partner’s  activities,  I’d say (though it can definitely be a mutual two way strangulation, or just one way from the male.  As I hear it mostly from men, I have more evidence from a male’s perspective  ) , but I can’t fathom why that should be. My own marriage was always based on not limiting each other, right from the outset, and I definitely wasn’t limited either, and my wife neither.  If I had been limited, my reaction would have been to do it anyway, with extra, but that didn’t really happen.  I was definitely aware that other blokes just ‘ couldn’t believe my luck ‘ but ffs that is just ridiculous!  You do not get betrothed to cage your partner, unless you’re disturbed.  But lots of people, most people, start doing that straight away, and then continue to do that until they divorce or die.

I see just how many people would be a lot happier divorced than where they are.  But there is another way…. just calm the f*** down and loosen the chains.  I know so many lovely couples, who spend all their time denying each other freedom to have more fun.  I must stress that that was not my own situation.

The marriage vows should be altered to  ‘ love, honour and let him/her go out and have a laugh whenever it’s possible, if he/ her wants to ‘

But there’s not much chance of that happening,  sadly.  Instead, marriage rates will fall and divorce rates will rise, as people don’t want to be encaged for ever.

But it’s all so avoidable.

PS not every single marriage is like I’ve described.  There are some good ones! I’m tempted to name a few good ones, but in doing so there’d be an assumption that if yours isn’t in the list….

There were 21 teams in the school parents charity quiz.

We were only 8, not 10 like all the others.

I was actually quite good, compared to most of the 8, but clueless at things like ballet and opera ( since I just can’t do that stuff – too much of a Philistine )

As it’s a school full of bright kids, it follows that there must be a lot of smart parents.  Unfortunately, none of them were in our team.

We bought the most wine for charity, and  came a magnificent 21st out of 21.

Every cloud has a silver lining, however,  and the wooden spoon that I received has proven very useful for stirring the fairly unpalatable concoctions that I have to drink every night to make my compromised internal organs work ..

The team offered to come back with me and help me into bed etc, which was so kind, and actually would have been good, as I ended up stuck outside the flat, unable to open a blimmin door, with 3 mobile phones and the landline all unanswered.

Anyway, eventually I was assisted… although I confess to have been a bit f***** off by then.

Not being able to reach a door handle, that’s just an inch too far away, whatever you try, is a bit upsetting sometimes. And when 3 people are within 10 metres  and ignore 4 phones,  it doesn’t help.  I think everyone would understand that?

Anyway,  I don’t dwell on these things.

But coming last in the quiz? Bad. But we didn’t use Google  to find answers to pretty obscure quiz questions, which people do of course do now.  I know, because I’ve done it myself…… as in cheated.

I’m also ok with/at bending the rules at cards too. The kids never notice, which adds to the sense of achievement.

I don’t however cheat at other board games.

I had a lovely time when I went on my wheel down to the Thames yesterday. I don’t look at the river with sadness any more, missing my time spent on it; I just appreciate it for what it is, instead. It was cold yesterday, it was a very clear blue sky, and brilliant sunshine. At low water the river looks at its tamest, and best, and with the sun shining off the water, it’s beautiful.  I loved being there.

I started writing my book, too.