Miriam Margolyes has bluntly opened up on her health and revealed a ‘foolish’ regret which would have helped her in old age.
The 84-year-old actress, who played Madame Sprout in two Harry Potter films, has admitted she’s starting to feel her age after years of not taking ‘care’ of her body.
‘I’ve let my body down. I haven’t taken care of it. I have to walk with a walker now,’ she said. ‘I wish I’d done exercise. It’s the most ghastly waste of time, except that it keeps you going. So, I’m foolish.’
However, she told the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine that she would ‘absolutely not’ consider taking Ozempic to help with weight loss.
‘Absolutely not. That’s for diabetics. You shouldn’t take medicine meant for people who are really sick,’ she added.
Ozempic is intended for adults over the age of 18 with type 2 diabetes, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 35kg or more.
As noted by Diabetes UK, people taking the medication should also have ‘additional psychological or other medical conditions that are related to obesity’.
‘Some people lose weight when they take Ozempic as part of their type 2 diabetes treatment,’ the charity explained.
‘This is because this drug slows down how quickly food is digested and can reduce your appetite, so you eat less.’
Instead, she thinks the solution is to scrap ‘food advertising on television’, to help promote a healthier lifestyle.
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Miriam has always been candid about her health over the years, and she admitted she will pursue assisted dying if she reaches a point where she is deteriorating in ‘pain and embarrassment’.
‘I don’t want to go through a slowly diminishing period of pain and embarrassment,’ she explained.
‘If a stroke meant I couldn’t speak, or I was doubly incontinent, or I lost my mind completely, I would ask to be put down. That’s because I want to be who I am. I don’t want to be less than I can be.’
Last year, Miriam spoke more about her life after being diagnosed with spinal stenosis, which is a condition that puts pressure on the spinal cord.
‘When I started kind of failing physically, I remember saying to directors and producers, please don’t show me clambering out of a car or climbing upstairs on my hands and knees,’ she said.
Speaking to the Radio Times, Miriam continued: ‘I didn’t want people to see that because I was embarrassed to see myself looking so pathetic.’
However, in the years since her diagnosis, Miriam has said that she’s met countless people who have thanked her for being willing to show how she manages her condition in the public eye.
She said: ‘I’ve met loads of people who have said I gave them the courage to do things that they never thought they could. So I’m very pleased about that.’
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