The real reason the death rate has risen
One reader learnt to control fluttering in her chest by forceful coughing – and even standing on her head
Over the past century, bar the havoc caused by two world wars, life expectancy in Britain has increased remorselessly year on year, and by a further three years in the post-millennium decade. Then, quite unexpectedly, it went into reverse. There were 30,000 more deaths in 2013 compared with the previous years. This year, there are likely to be 60,000 more. That is massive.
Justin Madders, Labour’s shadow health minister, responded, if predictably, to the most recent figures released last week by blaming austerity, “as years of underfunding in health and social care take their toll”. This is an unlikely explanation, and it is more instructive to examine the specific reasons as to why so many more are dying than before.
They include a staggering (more than 100 per cent) increase in the number of fatalities following a fall – whether due to head injury, the complications of fractured bones or pneumonia from lying undetected on the floor at home.
Austerity does not cause people to fall, but muscle weakness, unsteadiness and low blood pressure certainly do – all well-recognised adverse effects of overmedication in the elderly. It is no coincidence that the decline in life expectancy growth should parallel the threefold increase over the past 15 years in prescriptions issued by family doctors.
Magnesium benefits
The putative benefits of magnesium supplements in ameliorating several medical conditions – irregularities of heart rhythm, fibromyalgia, muscle cramps, diabetes – that can be due to chronic deficiency of the mineral, is confirmed by several readers.
For some years now, a woman in her mid-seventies has been troubled by bouts of fluttering in the chest, due to multiple ectopic beats, which she learnt to control by a variety of measures, including forceful coughing and standing on her head. Recently, they had become a lot more frequent until, earlier this year, she chanced upon an article on magnesium deficiency and wondered whether this could account for the fluttering. She has not had a further episode since taking a daily magnesium supplement. For good measure, her previously modestly raised blood pressure readings have also returned to normal.
The potent acid suppressant drug omeprazole is probably the commonest cause of magnesium deficiency – by inhibiting its absorption from the gut – with adverse consequences, as reported by a couple of readers. “I endured excruciating leg cramps for many weeks,” writes one woman; for another, it caused severe aching of the legs and weakness of the hand muscles. For both, their symptoms resolved with a daily dose of magnesium.
Diabetes disaster
Finally, my thanks to a reader for passing on her salutary experience of participating in the costly (£80 million) diabetes prevention programme, paid for by the NHS, though organised through commercial companies, in line with the Government’s policy of creeping privatisation. She was referred to the programme in the usual way after a blood test revealed she had the dubious condition of prediabetes (her blood sugar levels being in the upper range of normal). She duly attended her first appointment, only to discover it had been cancelled: “They had both my home and mobile numbers… No messages received.”
She did a bit better at the second appointment, when a further blood test was well within the normal range. This did not count, she was told, as she still qualified for the programme. Perversely, perhaps, she decided to persist with the sessions that involved being weighed each time and “encouraged to up your exercise and down your sugar intake”.
Come July, by which point the numbers attending had dwindled away, she was due to have another blood test to assess her “progress”. This too was cancelled.
“The programme is wellintentioned, but chaotically managed,” she writes. “It must be costing the NHS a fortune.”
Caveat emptor.