An instant diagnosis for our neurotic nation

Just in case anyone was worrying that we were not a nation of hypochondriacs, we have now been given some interesting news. While one in three of us think we have a food allergy, in reality only 2 per cent of us suffers from such a complaint. It is a telling statistic and one that confirms the image of a slightly neurotic Britain endlessly fretting about its health.

Why we should be so prone to health concerns is puzzling. After all, we now live longer, have better diets than ever before (or at least we eat more than ever), are better cared for than before, with access to wonderdrugs once undreamt of, and today we have much better access to medical information than an old copy of The Household Doctor, every hypochondriac's bible.

Yet perhaps this very access to such a wealth of information is part of the problem. Every newspaper now has its health section, there are television programmes and digital channels devoted to wellbeing, and the internet provides instant aids to self-diagnosis. We can find any number of ways of convincing ourselves that we are ill, and we often do. This epidemic of heightened psychological sensitivity to food places an unwelcome burden on the National Heath Service.

It has certainly proved a lucrative phenomenon for the manufacturers of vitamin supplements and other pills and potions. It has also fuelled the boom in homeopathy and other "alternative medicines" which, for the most part, are only useful in so far as their practitioners provide a sort of human placebo effect – counselling for those who feel they have no one left to turn to, substitutes for friends and family.

Homeopaths and quacks also serve as useful outlets for anxieties when our other troubles are settled. As Professor Tom Sanders of Kings College London says: "The less people have got to worry about, the more they worry about things in their food." Perhaps we should have our heads examined.