I’ve had some more insight into the Covid-19 virus through typing Respiratory clinic letters.  Some of these letters are on patients who are suffering breathlessness months after recovering from Coronavirus.  There’s a pattern emerging, as these patients often have diabetes as a co-morbidity, and are often overweight and not young.

Being overweight and not young seems to be a common denominator in all the departmental letters I’ve typed; Pain Medicine (painful, stiff joints), Cardiology (heart disease/hypertension), Dermatology (cellulitis and oedema), Ophthalmology (diabetes due to being overweight can cause many eye problems), and now Respiratory.  The body cannae tek it, Jim.

And still we have adverts for high sugar and high fat foods. When I eschew biscuits that are passed around in the office I’m looked on as a tad strange.  Factories are churning out millions of chocolate bars and sugary pap to satisfy the sweet tooth of the nation, and the NHS has to deal with all the problems this type of foodstuff causes.

More sugar in the diet causes more sugar receptors to form in the brain, causing a never ending craving for chocolate and the like.  Just 4 – 6 weeks on a sugar-free diet can change a person’s life around if they do it early enough.  The sugar receptors die away, and anything sugary eaten after around 4 – 6 weeks’ later tastes revoltingly sweet.  However, in the meantime come the sugar withdrawal symptoms of headache and fatigue to name but two, and anybody without will-power could most likely crumble and run for a Mars Bar.

It’s tough coming off sugar, and it comes down to mind over matter. The ones who succeed are able to stop feeling deprived because they can’t eat anything sweet,  and they’re usually also the ones who can tolerate the headaches without reaching for the aforementioned Mars Bar.  It’s all about not taking the easy option, but it’s worth it in the end, especially when Covid-19 is still rife.  Losing weight helps our chances of not catching the virus and overwhelming the NHS.

I look on sugar as poison.  This way of thinking certainly helps when you’re offered a biscuit!