Too much information, Michael!

London - Hollywood actor Michael Douglas has been reported as claiming that his throat cancer was caused by oral sex.

Crikey. Is this one celebrity health revelation too far? Shall we file it in the Too Much Information section, in a folder stamped with We Didn’t Need To Know That in blood-red ink?

When stars get ill we can all sympathise - and, of course, I do - with their plight.

We wish them well and hope they get better soon.

Yet there can be such a thing as celebrity over-sharing; spilling too many beans about their debility - as I’m sure Douglas’s wife Catherine Zeta-Jones will point out to him in no uncertain fashion, in between issuing bulletins about her treatment for bipolar II disorder.

Of course, the world knows she recently ‘proactively’ checked into a healthcare facility for 30 days. ‘She is doing a really good job of getting balanced. I am proud of her,’ said her husband, neatly bringing us up to date on his wife’s condition as well as his own.

So, good for the Douglases.

Their lives have not been easy over recent years; severe illness has been a trial for them both. Yet like Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy, Adele’s throat polyps or Jeremy Kyle’s testicular cancer, don’t you think there comes a time when we sometimes know just that little bit too, too much about health issues affecting celebrities?

Especially, yes, when they have got something to promote, such as a lovely new film or book or television series?

To be scrupulously fair, this was not exactly the case with Angelina Jolie. The 37-year-old actress wrote an article in the New York Times last month about undergoing a preventive double mastectomy.

She had the procedure after learning that she carried a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which sharply increased her risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

She stated: ‘I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy - but I hope it helps you to know you have options.’

This, of course, is very noble of courageous Angelina, but does it really, really help other women?

It certainly helps Angelina, whose stock as a selfless supporter of others - both as adoptive mother and UN ambassador - has been burnished all the more in recent days, but the truth is that the procedure is not right for everyone, not even everyone with exactly the same condition as hers. While some health campaigners are pleased that Jolie has raised awareness of genetic testing and available options, other medical experts fear that her public declaration might over-emphasise BRCA mutation occurrence and promote misunderstandings about the risks involved for those who do test positive.

And Jolie only had the operation in February - how can she be so sure so soon what the future holds for her?

Having said that, any lingering misgivings I might feel certainly faded at the sight of Jolie on the red carpet in London this week, her first public appearance since her mastectomy revelations.

With a reconstructed bust, she looked healthy, beautiful and alluring, with adoring partner Brad Pitt at her side.

The significance of this image should not be underestimated.

Angelina shows that she is not less of a woman or of a beauty without real breasts - and that is a positive and powerful message to communicate to women everywhere, cancer sufferers or not.

In Michael Douglas’s case, the 68-year-old actor is doing the rounds to promote Behind The Candelabra, his well-received biopic of Liberace.

His latest cancer revelations came when he was responding to a questioner who wondered if his well-documented history of smoking and drinking may have led to his illness.

‘No, because without wanting to get too specific,’ he replied, before getting too specific, ‘this particular cancer is caused by HPV (Human papillomaviruses) which actually comes about from cunnilingus.

‘It’s a sexually transmitted disease that causes cancer. And if you have it, cunnilingus is also the best cure for it.’

Douglas bravely endured six months of treatment after discovering he had stage four throat cancer in the summer of 2010. He initially believed that it was his years of carousing that had led to his illness, but then in the interview this week claimed that the particular strain he had suffered with was caused by HPV.

Doctors, however, doubt that it was the sole cause - and surely his ‘cure’ was meant in jest?

Perhaps he really does believe that more exposure to the virus will boost his immune system, but whatever the truth of the matter, it feels like the world has now been invited into his bedroom in the most clod-hopping way.

Perhaps Douglas revealed his diagnosis because he thought people should know that it can happen? If so, that is admirable.

However, doesn’t he have a greater responsibility towards his family?

Most women would agree that his wife, Catherine, must be appalled by his revelation - and what about his children? As embarrassing dad revelations go, it could hardly be worse.

Ultimately, it is an excellent example of something that should have been left unsaid.

Yet once stars get going, there is no stopping them invading their own privacy.

By revealing their innermost health issues, do they really feel they are doing a public service?

Or is it just another heap of self-serving coal to stoke up the furnace of their own ferocious egos - the belief that we are interested in absolutely everything about them, up to and including things that would normally remain strictly confidential between a patient and their doctor?

Sometimes it seems an illness is not really an illness until a celebrity has suffered from it - and suffered far worse that you ever will.

Others really do try to help.

Holby City actor Ben Richards has divulged that he has had bowel cancer - in the hope that his experience will encourage other men to see their doctor if they have similar symptoms. He ignored his warning signs - and ended up having a tumour removed.

On the Jonathan Ross chat show, Jeremy Kyle revealed that he cried on the operating trolley before his testicular cancer operation. ‘It makes you think so much about life,’ he said obligingly.

Elsewhere, on a documentary about herself made by herself, Beyoncé revealed that she had a miscarriage before getting pregnant with her daughter; Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne have shared the news of son Jack’s multiple sclerosis; and once she got her voice back, the singer Adele wasted no time in revealing that the polyps on her vocal cords required surgery.

And what’s this? That darling of the tabloids, Kim Kardashian, has psoriasis; the American actress Selena Gomez was hospitalised with an iron deficiency, which she said was due to being ‘very malnourished’ and eating too much junk food; Halle Berry has opened up about her diabetes; and in the introduction to her latest cookbook, Gwyneth Paltrow spilled the borlotti about why a period of illness encouraged her to adopt a different, healthier way of eating.

What was wrong with her?

In the book, she describes the summer afternoon she had a migraine and a panic attack (‘it took me hours to get my equilibrium back’).

She was diagnosed with a benign cyst on an ovary, a nodule on her parathyroid, a thyroid ‘not functioning properly’. She was also severely anaemic and vitamin D deficient, with a ‘congested liver’, high stress levels, a lot of inflammation and ‘my hormones were off’.

I gave these symptoms to a doctor friend of mine who snorted and said: ‘A congested liver is meaningless, no proper doctor would ever use that term. A migraine and panic attack means you take a couple of paracetamol and sit down in a darkened room for an hour or so, not entirely change your diet and write a book about it.’

But Gwyneth is a celebrity, so the normal rules don’t apply, especially when it comes to intimate matters of health.

As film director Sofia Coppola commented: ‘In a magazine recently there was some personality talking about some private health issue. . . And I thought: “Why not keep that private?”’

Exactly. Michael and the gang, please take note. - Daily Mail