Michael Caine Reveals the Truth About Health Anxiety

“Michael Caine” is trending. Oh-oh, not another one…

But it turns out he is not dead. Instead the Rotherhithe-born actor seems to be paranoid about his health. “My days are numbered,” was the headline on one newspaper story about how he is constantly worrying about dying.

What is Michael Caine’s New Turn?

Caine, born Maurice Joseph Mickelwhite, told The Sun he puts a lot of effort into warding off his fears. “I’ve had to cut back on the drinking and I’m always looking up what’s the best thing against cancer, so I’ll eat that or do this or not do that,” he said. This all seems out of character for the hard-man hero of Zulu, the Italian Job and Harry Brown.

But Caine’s starring role as the eponymous  Alfie (left) in the 1960’s gave us an early portrayal of hypochondria, when his character was terrified of tuberculosis. Today the actor says his latest fears have been triggered by wanting to see his grandchildren grow up. “I’ve lost 30 lbs just because I want to see my grandchildren. They’re twins of six and a boy of seven. I’d like to get to 17 for the boy.” Uncannily, Alfie expressed a similar thought during a health screening: “And once there’s a kid in your life, it ain’t your bleedin’ own.”

Past Exploits: Reason to Worry?

Let’s get one thing straight. Caine has not spent his life looking after himself too carefully. The London lad told David Letterman in 1998 that he had outdone the notorious hell-raiser Peter O’Toole’s (left) legendary alcohol tolerance – two bottles of vodka a day to O’Toole’s single bottle of brandy.

Caine’s 2010 autobiography “What’s It All About?” recounts going on a bender with O’Toole while serving as understudy to the future Lawrence of Arabia star in a West End play. He awoke in an unknown Hampstead flat beside O’Toole and asked what time it was. O’Toole replied: “Never mind what time is it. What fucking day is it?” Two women were in the flat and O’Toole gave him some advice: “Never ask what you did. It’s better you don’t know.” As it turned out, they had binged from Saturday through to Monday and were due on stage in a matter of hours. “I never went out with Peter again,” Caine told Letterman.

Now one of the world’s most accomplished actors with 163 films to his name, 84-year-old Caine is fit enough to keep working and says he will keep it up as long as the roles keep coming.

Health Anxiety

He might be suffering from a mild form of hypochondria, which is now more politically-correctly known as Health Anxiety. NHS Choices defines Health Anxiety as “excessive worrying about your health, to the point where it causes great distress and affects your everyday life.” Caine’s fears seem typical, given his devotion to health fads which can supposedly fend off cancer.

According to the NHS common signs are: “Avoidant behaviour – avoiding medical TV programs, GP appointments and anything else that might trigger the anxiety” and “Constantly seeking information and reassurance – for example, obsessively researching illnesses from the internet.”

This can be as minor as simply worrying about certain habits or as extreme as being convinced you have a serious illness despite medical assurance that you are fine. A headache is seen as a brain tumour and a sore throat is always the start of something serious.

The British Journal of Psychiatry relates Health Anxiety to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as minor everyday things cause dysfunctional behaviours.

When I Feared the Reaper

I never finished reading Michael Caine’s autobiography. Coincidentally, it was as I read about his father’s agonising death from liver cancer and his friends’ deaths from cancer that I experienced my own crippling Health Anxiety.

This was my intense final year of A-levels, when I also worked in a shop 11 hours per week. I had had a small lump in my throat for a number of years and for some reason I became fixated on it. The doctor who had initially checked it had not been concerned and said it should go away. Three years later it was still there and I found that googling “lump in throat” left me terrified.

There were plenty of other anxiety symptoms. I paint as a hobby and was intrigued by the words “Contains Butonome Oxime” on one paint thickener, even though its data sheet said “Limited evidence of a carcinogenic effect.” I cleared my room of all my paintings and art equipment, anything that could have touched what was probably less dangerous than a five-minute walk through London’s congestion zone.

More and more fears came: sawdust, alcohol and mobile phone radiation (which is nonsense by the way). I joined a gym and swam 50 lengths a day – not for the exercise but so I could tell if I was physically weakened by something. After a counselling session, a doctor’s appointment and a referral to a consultant, I eventually stopped panicking.  I began to swim fewer lengths and by the time I finished college I started enjoying life again. I can still have irrational fears when tired or stressed but understanding their underlying cause has helped me manage things. With one in three of us experiencing mental health problems at some point in our lives, I am glad that at least my obsession was self-preservation rather than destruction.

After enjoying decades of good health Michael Caine might be right to worry that his luck has now run out and that some form of cancer is about to catch up to him but he might just be voicing the excessive fears that plague many of us.

If you found this interesting, you may like Sophie Eliza’s mental health story.  Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

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