Andrew Lansley, like Andrew Marr, was almost killed by exercise

The old joke — ‘my only exercise is acting as a pallbearer for friends who exercise’ — is no laughing matter for Andrew Marr. He has been interviewed on his own show this morning and revealed what induced his stroke: a session on a rowing machine.

“I’d had two minor strokes, it turned out, in that year – which I hadn’t noticed – and then I did the terrible thing of believing what I read in the newspapers, because the newspapers were saying what we must all do is take very intensive exercise, in short bursts, and that’s the way to health. Well, I went on to a rowing machine and gave it everything I had, and had a strange feeling afterwards – a blinding headache, and flashes of light – served out the family meal, went to bed, woke up the next morning lying on the floor unable to move. And what I’d done, I’d torn the carotid artery, which takes blood into the brain, and had a stroke overnight – which basically wipes out a bit of your brain.”