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Welcome to the column that puts YOUR health first

June 14, 2024 14:39
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5 min read

Welcome to the first edition of Shot in the Arm, our monthly look at health. On this page I’m planning to write about everything from abscesses to zinc deficiency, and from the latest medical breakthroughs to the state of the NHS.

If you’re wondering why there’s a need for this information, well it’s something that affects us all. Especially us. You don’t have to be a doctor to diagnose a strong tendency to hypochondria among Jewish people. In films such as Hannah and Her Sisters, Hollywood’s most famous Jew, Woody Allen, invested his own on-screen persona with a morbid fear of illness, and we all laughed heartily because we recognised ourselves.

That’s definitely not the reason why so many in our community are doctors and dentists, but it is a happy coincidence that we can run through our symptoms with the person sitting next to us in shul.

I’ve always felt great empathy with Allen’s neurotic alter-egos. When I get a cold I always assume it’s pneumonia, if it’s tummy ache I start googling cancers of the digestive tract. Luckily for me I’ve been able to utilise this obsession in newspaper health pages, and the BBC even let me loose on a range of science TV programmes, from Watchdog Healthcheck to Health: Truth or Scare.

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Health