Call the Midlife Read Online Free PDF Page A

nose, her lips almost criminallyalluring. Totally hypnotic. Luscious shiny waves of dark brown hair, tinged with vapour trails of grey. Even her fingers are spectacular.
    ‘What can I help you with today, Mr Evans, another steroid shot for your myriad allergies?’
    I am the most hysterically allergic person she has ever tested. I suffer from seven different pollen allergies alone.
    ‘No thanks, I’m fine on the hay fever front at the moment. I am here instead on behalf of the nation’s – who knows, world’s – midlifers.’
    ‘Ooh, intriguing. Pray, do tell.’
    I explain that I want to know about age-specific health issues for us folks somewhere in the range of forty to seventy. (The more I have researched and thought about this book, the more I have come to the conclusion that the midlife spread is wider than it’s ever been – in a very good way.)
    ‘Ahhh, hang on a moment.’ She presses a wonderfully clunky button on the vintage grey-and-white intercom machine in front of her. A small red light illuminates. ‘Mrs Lewis, see if Dr T can take my eleven o’clock. Mr Evans is here for a bit of digging.’
    Right, that’s it, I was in. We were in.
    ‘As I see it, we are faced with an increasingly worrying, incalculable and unanswerable problem,’ says Dr Ed. ‘In as much as we are keeping people alive for much longer than is good for either them or the rest of the world. Yet no one has the balls to ask why. And I furthermore suggest we would be much better off letting nature take its course a little more.
    ‘Dinner parties aren’t better for being longer, they’re better for being more fun, or more engaging or more stimulating. Films can become interminable if they start to drag, as can those dreadful best man’s speeches. I find holidays too wretched if they go on too long. Why should life be any different? Surely, ninety is the absolute tops we should be aiming at. After that, unless nature dictates otherwise, everyone but the Queen should be put out to grass and have done with it.’
    That’s why Dr Ed’s ten health issues that over-forties should beworrying about (see page 25) has a top three many of us might not have expected.
    ‘The thing about my “top three”, as you like to refer to them – your joints, bones and muscles – is that they may not be directly life-threatening but they very much dictate the quality of your life while you are still here. The vast majority of people spend their whole time faffing around worrying about the things that might kill them – none of which matter if you can’t have a decent time while you still have oxygen in your lungs and your wits about you.
    ‘If you are able to still move, you’ll be amazed how that will continue to help maintain your health. Stretching, exercise, massages, saunas and steams. Lots and lots of water. Greens, fish, meat. And the crossword and reading to keep the old grey matter ticking over.’
    What’s the number one thing we can do to improve our health?
    ‘Oh that’s easy. Choose your parents well. Ha ha! Good, strong, healthy parentage is the gold star when it comes to the school of preventative medicine.’ She’s now guffawing.
    ‘Good genes are second only to luck in the superhuman stakes. Some people do everything wrong and nothing right, yet still manage to outlive the rest of us. Entirely unfair, but then again like so much in life. Bad luck makes good people better. Good luck makes bad people even more of a pain in the backside.’
    Thirty to fifty are our golden years in health terms, according to Ed. The time when time itself and our maturing years have least influence on our aches, pains and unmentionables.
    ‘Thirty-five can be a bit iffy on the gout and testicles front, but other than that you’re pretty much clear. Approaching your half-century, beware of shingles and dreaded blood pressure – that’s a killer waiting to happen. Stress is a huge factor, although exactly why, nobody really