Your instincts can be the best doctor

A FASCINATING study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm published this week suggested humans have evolved to be able to pick up subtle signs of infection in other people.

The research involved infecting volunteers with E.coli bacteria and some with a placebo, then asking others to assess how sick they were just from looking at their faces — and they showed an uncanny ability to pick those who had been infected.

I think our ability to spot when someone is ill is even stronger with people we know. On numerous occasions I’ve seen parents who had a feeling that something wasn’t quite right with their child when it wasn’t apparent to me, only for it to turn out their child was indeed unwell. I’m sure it’s because they are unconsciously picking up on subtle clues.

That’s what happened to my sister a few years ago. When she put her baby to bed one night she got a feeling something was wrong. She called her GP but because he didn’t have a temperature or other symptoms — ‘He just didn’t look right’ — the GP dismissed her.

She went to bed but couldn’t sleep. Still worried, she got up and drove to A&E. There they discovered her baby had meningitis. If she’d delayed for a few hours, he would have died.

So listen to that little voice in your head. It’s evolved over thousands of years to keep you and your loved ones safe.