I wasn’t able to protect my son from getting really sick
BESTSELLING AUTHOR, GP AND TV DOCTOR RANGAN CHATTERJEE TELLS HANNAH STEPHENSON HOW A PERSONAL NIGHTMARE CHANGED HIS APPROACH TO MEDICINE
WHEN bestselling author, podcaster, GP and TV medical expert Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s six-month-old son nearly died on a family holiday in France, it changed the genial doctor’s approach towards medicine.
“We went on holiday one
Christmas to Chamonix. I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
“I was in the kitchen when my wife called out to me. She had my son in her arms and said, ‘Rangan, he’s stopped moving’. I froze.
“He’d been very phlegmy that day, so I turned him on his front and tried thumping him on his back to clear his airway, as I thought he might be choking, but nothing was happening,” Dr Chatterjee, 43, recalls.
They made the hazardous car journey in the snow to hospital.
“When we got there, the medical staff were clearly really worried and put lines in his neck. Essentially, he’d had a convulsion because of low levels of calcium in his blood, which we found out later was secondary to low levels of vitamin D.
“It was pivotal for me, because not only was that the scariest thing to happen to any parent – we didn’t know whether he would make it that night, we thought we might lose him (he was in hospital for five nights) – but ultimately he nearly died from a preventable vitamin deficiency.
“That was hard for me to stomach. I felt a lot of guilt around that because I thought, I’ve been to one of the most prestigious medical schools in Edinburgh, I’ve got an immunology degree, specialist exams, GP exams, with all those so-called ticks, but I wasn’t able to protect my own son from getting really sick from a preventable vitamin deficiency.
“We were completely in shock. It’s just a bit of a blur.”
From that point, Dr Chatterjee set out to find out things he hadn’t learned at medical school.
“Modern medicine saved my son’s life, but they didn’t teach us about the impact of having a vitamin deficiency. I became obsessed, I would study nutrition, gut health and microbiology,” he explains.
This all happened a decade ago and inspired Dr Chatterjee’s more progressive approach, tackling the root causes of mental and physical health problems, rather than just treating them with medication.
His bestselling books – including Feel Better In 5 and The 4 Pillar Plan – are all built around this focus, including looking at lifestyle as a key part of the picture. Now his latest title, Feel Great Lose Weight, examines how people can adopt long-term habits for lasting weight loss, rather than any formal calorie-counting diet regimes.
It explores the roots of why people gain weight and how using a toolbox of techniques and lifestyle changes – without resorting to crash diets or endless gruelling workouts – can help build a better, healthier relationship with food and lead to sustainable results.
The GP’S career path has at times put him in the media spotlight, first as the host of BBC1’S Doctor In The House. His hit podcast, Feel Better, Live More, attracts more than
1.6 million listeners a month and has welcomed guests including Hollywood star Matthew Mcconaughey to share thoughts on their physical and mental wellbeing.
His work has been endorsed by the likes of Chris Evans and Fearne Cotton – but he doesn’t have a contacts book full of celebrities and doesn’t let fame go to his head. “Fearne Cotton invited me to do a Pengui Penguin Live event with her about a mo month ago. I just thought, ‘H ‘How does Fearne Cotton e even know who I am?”’
His passion to help others with a more whole approach to health and medicine remains at the core of his work: “It never came from the thought that I wanted to be on telly, that I want to be known. I’m not bothered about that. I want to change people’s lives.”
Living in Wilmslow, Cheshire, with his wife Vidhaata – who produces his podcasts – and their two children, now aged 10 and eight, has helped Dr Chatterjee stay sheltered from too much showbiz.
“When I do the school drop-offs, I’m unshaven, in my shorts, and I’ve a nine-year-old car with black gaffer tape keeping the wing mirror on,” he says candidly.
His late father, a consultant at Manchester Royal Infirmary, retired at 58 suffering from the auto-immune disease lupus. Then his kidneys failed and he was on dialysis for 15 years.
Dr Chatterjee became his father’s carer, along with his mother and brother, which is why he moved back to the North West of England from Edinburgh, he explains.
“Being a carer for my dad was my whole identity,” he reflects. “I’d be up at five, I’d shower him, shave him, give him breakfast, go to work and nip back at lunchtime to give him lunch.
“I coped very badly with his death. I just had this big void in my life that I didn’t know how to fill.
But it set me off on a journey of self-discovery. As an Indian immigrant in the UK, the things he would have been proudest of about me he never got to see.” While he’s quick to bat away questions about fame, Dr Chatterjee is still medical eye candy to some. He’s been dubbed ‘Dr Mcdreamy’ – after the fictional surgeon played by Patrick Dempsey in the hit TV series Grey’s Anatomy – and seems a little embarrassed when asked about it. “If that had happened in my 20s, it probably would have gone to my head. But the goal was never to be on telly or to have a podcast.
“The goal was to learn more things to help people, more than I’ve ever helped them before.”
He is sometimes recognised when he’s out and about, and people approach him about their symptoms, but Dr Chatterjee says it’s the same for every doctor.
“The fame thing doesn’t feel real to me. My kids don’t care, my wife sure as hell doesn’t care, my best friends don’t care.
So I’m not bothered about it.”
He’s remained busy during the pandemic, writing his latest book, still works as a GP one day a week and is about to host a new weekly wellbeing show on BBC Radio 2, featuring inspirational guests and a positive musical soundtrack.
As for the future, Dr Chatterjee reflects: “I feel the impact of 2020 is going to bite this year. We’ve been kept apart for so long, I worry about the mental health consequences. “I’m worried that when the economic pressures bite, on one level we may be on the precipice of a mental health epidemic. But I am an optimist, so the flip-side is I like to think we’ve remembered what’s important this year.
“I’m an optimist, so once we can start returning together and doing things together, I do feel hopeful.”
Fearne Cotton (pictured) invited me to do a Penguin Live event with her about a month ago. I just thought, ‘How does Fearne Cotton even know who I am?
Famous guest: Matthew Mcconaughey has been on Dr Chatterjee’s podcast
Feel Great Lose Weight by Dr Rangan Chatterjee is published by Penguin Life, priced £16.99. Available now. Dr Chatterjee’s new BBC Radio 2 show on starts on January 24 at 10pm.
Dr Rangan Chatterjee on one of his famous fans
FICTION THE STRANGER TIMES
by CK Mcdonnell, Bantam Press, £14.99, (ebook £7.99)
THIS is Irish comedian and author Caimh Mcdonnell’s new novel, his first writing under the pen name CK Mcdonnell.
It is a darkly comedic sci-fi/ crime/fantasy crossover, where Manchester’s The Stranger Times newspaper is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable, until some of the stories dismissed as nonsense turn out to be terrifyingly real. Alternating between sinister and silly, Mcdonnell’s writing is intelligently witty.
The story lopes along at an easy pace that swiftly immerses you in its bizarre happenings, with a motley crew of loveable eccentrics jostling for fan favourite.
After a slow start and a bit of backstory, Mcdonnell’s fantasy world begins to bloom.
THE CITY OF TEARS
by Kate Mosse, Mantle, £20 (ebook £9.99). Available January 19
HHH
THE St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of 1572, where thousands of Huguenots across France were slaughtered, is the focal point of The City Of Tears.
It’s the second instalment of The
Burning Chambers series, which plots an action-packed course across the ravaged landscape of the French Wars of Religion, perfect for readers who enjoy Mosse’s sweeping, fast-paced historical epics.
We’re back with Minou Joubert and her family, who get caught up in the horrors of the massacre and are forced to seek refuge in Amsterdam.
Despite its subject, the thrills never spill over into real horror, although the villainous Vidal injects some menace.
If you’re looking for an absorbing, undemanding read, this fits the bill.
NON-FICTION AGELESS: THE NEW SCIENCE OF GETTING OLDER WITHOUT GETTING OLD
by Andrew Steele, Bloomsbury, £20, (ebook £14)
HHH
IS ageing a treatable disease? Scientist Andrew Steele suggests it is in this book, putting forward passionate and engaging arguments with witty observations that can be laugh-out-loud funny.
However, despite his best attempts to explain complex biological terms and theories, some may find the detail challenging.
Although the book deals specifically with biogerontology (the science of ageing), readers may be left wondering whether social and financial structures could support extended lifespans. Nonetheless, it’s an intriguing and thought-provoking read.