Health tip from Prince Charles: rely on ladies

Men, here's a health tip from Prince Charles rely on the ladies. In an interview with Men's Health magazine, which specializes in advice on building muscle and flattening stomachs, the heir to the British throne discussed his sometimes controversial ideas about health and spirituality. Asked how men could be encouraged to pay more attention to their health, Charles said: "Via the ladies, I'd have thought.

Photo: Health tip from Prince Charles: rely on ladies

"It's funny, the influence that women can have on getting us men sorted out is enormous," said Charles. "I don't know why it is, but so often men have to come up against a brick wall before they suddenly realize they have to alter their way of operating in order to improve their health." Charles, who celebrates the first anniversary of his marriage to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, on Monday, didn't say in the interview whether she or any other woman had influenced his own views on health.

The 57-year-old prince acknowledged that his advocacy of alternative medicine has provoked controversy and criticism. "There's been endless ridiculing and rubbishing, endless laughing, full stop," he said. "But is it so controversial to suggest that we are actually made up of mind, body and spirit and not just of the body?

"You know, I feel strongly we are missing a trick if we ignore traditional Indian and Chinese techniques that go back 8000 years, which are based on understanding man's position in the universe and on harmony. "It's terribly important to emphasize that modern conventional medicine has produced enormous advantages. A lot of us wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for them. But, perhaps people have come to think that conventional medicine has the answer to everything. In fact, an integrated approach using the best of traditional methods can be enormously valuable."

Asked whether alternative medicine needed to rid itself of quacks, Charles seized the opportunity for a dig at the press. "I'm afraid I could easily say the same thing about the profession of journalism," he told the interviewer. "It isn't easy getting messages across when you have to deal with some of the media reducing everything to the level of absurdity." Charles' office said the prince was happy to do an interview for the magazine's "best of British section," calling it a good opportunity to reach out to younger men. The edition goes on sale Monday, reports the AP.

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