Heart disease, more than any other health condition, is dominated by money and business. Even over the course of my career, I watched heart disease evolve from a low-tech world with few effective tools to a high-tech flurry of new technology—which is great. But it also “monetized” heart disease, making it exceptionally lucrative. More than most other areas of health, heart health is therefore dominated by money. And organizations built around heart disease, such as the AHA, are no different, now a half-billion dollar per year behemoth.

I knew in advance that Adam Kay might seem shy. In the new book, he writes: “Elton John was wrong about sorry being the hardest word – for me, it was ‘hello’. “How are you doing?” he asks hastily, as if wishing to skip the introduction altogether. He is 42 with an intelligent face and toffee-brown eyes with a dogged, anxious expression – he looks like a rather stressed cherub. He is immediately funny but it is not clear to what extent he amuses himself. He wears a T-shirt the colour of raspberry sorbet upon which is flirtatiously written, Not from Paris, Madame. He is from Brighton, born into a Polish Jewish family of medics (original name Strykowski) and grew up in London. And although he returned home on a delayed flight from Edinburgh at 3am (he has been trying out material there for a new touring show to be called: This is Going to Hurt … More), he shows no sign of fatigue. An old hand at sleeplessness, he denies himself coffee (explaining he has just given up caffeine). There are plenty of obvious adjectives one might apply to Adam Kay – clever, entertaining, articulate – but, as I listen, the one that keeps resurfacing is vulnerable. The author mentions that only about 20% of medical schools put their students through nutritional studies. The idea of "Undoctored" is that you will need to take your health into your own hands. Although he admits there are times that you will be most thankful for medical care for broken bones etc. With the NHS brought to its knees during the Covid pandemic, could we look to other health systems around the world for inspiration? I wrote This is Going to Hurt with a beginning, middle and end. I wanted it to be about the mental health of healthcare staff. I did what I set out to do and made a taboo subject an unmissable conversation. I have no plans for a second series, I’d hate to do one for the sake of it. But I am in the early stages of a new project which will hopefully become something, and, if it does, will be very different but, hopefully, people will watch it. Kay is still a big supporter of the medical community, despite having hung up his scrubs (Picture: Dusty Miller)Diabetes and much of heart disease are caused by a poor diet, yet we spend the rest of our lives on an expensive medication. It opens with a nightmare: his recurring nightmare of a baby he cannot save. But that is only the first of his agonies. His prat falling is vast in its scope, the self-destruction of an artist. Comedy is Kay’s forte but, as the first memoir related, he hung up his stethoscope after a tragic event: one of his patients lost her baby because of an unforeseen complication with her pregnancy and had to go into ICU for an emergency hysterectomy – and while it was not his fault, he felt it to be his responsibility and the catastrophic nature of it affected him profoundly. On the strength of talking to him, I’d say it still does. It also means that the nice dietitian you’ve been told to see by your doctor has, in effect, had an education bought and paid for by the food industry. You can no more expect to obtain unbiased, unscientific advice from a conventionally trained dietitian than you can from a salesperson from a soda company—because, in many ways, they are essentially one and the same. He refers to health care in the USA as an organization motivated only by profit. Of course, many people within the health care system are caring, loving professionals who honestly do want to help their fellow man. However, the system they're in bondage to is the same system we are in bondage to. Health care? Nay. Profiteering from our illnesses is more like it. Greed seems to run rampant throughout our healthcare system. As a matter of fact, the term "healthcare" seems to be a misnomer, for in reality it should be renamed "symptom care."

Ben Whishaw as Adam, with Ambika Mod as Shruti in the BBC drama This Is Going to Hurt. Photograph: Anika Molnar/BBC/Sister/AMCOn a more serious note, he reveals that the point where Whishaw as Adam goes infront of the General Medical Council and quotes the statistic that one doctor every three weeks in the UK takes their life, he is using Kay’s exact words.

Undoctored is the spark of a new movement in health that places the individual, not the doctor, at the center. His plan contains features like:

I'm Interested!

Yes – I was drawn by the obvious highs of the labour ward, never thinking about the lows that come alongside it. I loved the highs and couldn’t cope with the lows. Perhaps something more outpatient- or primary care-based. Most of my close relatives are GPs and although general practice has never been harder, my personality would have been better suited to it.

Foods that trigger insulin the most are therefore the most potent for weight gain, while their absence allows weight loss; the equation is quite simple.Now I understand him better, I understand his cruelty. He never extended kindness to himself. This book is breathtakingly sad, and I suspect that will anger him, too. I read Adam’s previous two books: The first as a medical student on the verge of graduation, the second as a medical intern and now I am reading his third book as a resident and it certainly hit closest to home. The writer was flattered by the interest in a second potential series of This Is Going To Hurt, starring Ben Whishaw, but said it was written as ‘a one and done’ (Picture: BBC/Sister/Anika Molnar) Avoid unnecessary antibiotics. There will be times when antibiotics are unavoidable. But steer clear of them for questionable indications, such as for a viral illness “just in case” it converts to a bacterial infection.