Video captions, looking back at Michael Mosley's career Article information Author, David Sillito Role, Media Correspondent June 9, 2024
Updated 1 hour ago
It is no exaggeration to say that Dr. Michael Mosley has changed people's lives.
For those who feared that ever-increasing belt-tightening waistlines were an inevitable, depressing part of life, his upbeat and experimental approach to improving health offered a solution that seemed to work for many.
Tributes are now pouring in for the TV and radio host and author, who for more than two decades produced shows and books that were watched, listened to and read by millions.
And many of them say he inspired them to change their lives.
For publisher Emma Waring, his Fast 800 recipes offered a way to “lose weight while enjoying satisfying, delicious meals.”
Reacting to his death she wrote: “Thanks to him I have lost over six and a half stone in weight and am healthy for life. Very sad news.”
While some studies have cast doubt on his weight loss methods, former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson said Mr Mosley was “a hero to me” for losing more than seven stone (44kg) and enabling him to stop taking medication for type 2 diabetes.
“Words cannot express how shaken I am by this news,” he wrote on Sunday. “Through his courageous, science-based journalism, Michael Mosley has helped thousands of people recover and get well, including me.”
There are many others who have been inspired by his work.
For example, actor Benedict Cumberbatch adopted the 5:2 diet to lose weight for his role in the BBC drama series Sherlock.
Author Jeanette Winterson was so inspired by him that she wrote about the dramatic effects fasting can have on cholesterol, joint pain, and overall health.
Then one day, when I gave Mosley a brief interview at a public event, I was struck by the line of people who had lined up near him to offer their thanks.
Cure diabetes with diet
It all grew out of Mosley's own life experience, having been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2012.
This led him to research what solutions cutting edge health science could offer, test them, and tell the world.
“I wrote The Blood Sugar Diet because I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes,” he said.
“I wasn't particularly overweight – I weighed about 86kg – and didn't look particularly fat, but that was because a lot of the fat I was carrying was internal. I was TOFI (skinny on the outside, fat on the inside).”
In a 2020 television interview, he said he had cured his diabetes in 2012, and eight years later, “I'm the same weight as I was then and my blood sugar levels are completely normal.”
The core of his weight loss program was fasting.
He recommended reducing your food intake to about 800 calories per day for two days each week.
But his “Blood Sugar Diet” and “5:2 Diet” also introduced many people to a burgeoning field of medical research that was beginning to question some of the assumptions about healthy eating.
After years of being told fat was the enemy, sugar, carbohydrates and an increasingly processed and narrow variety of foods are now being blamed.
Claire Yates, from Buxton, Derbyshire, believes Dr Mosley “saved my life”.
She is one of many people who contacted BBC News to tell how Dr Mosley has impacted their lives, and said that as a type 2 diabetic, his book “changed everything for me”.
“I've been following him religiously ever since,” she said.
“I've seen him twice on tour and he's changed my life ever since. I've cured my diabetes and lost weight.”
The 48-year-old called him “an absolute legend” and said her “heart breaks for his family.”
Another person who got in touch, Akila Lingam, added: “He continues to be an inspiration for anyone with pre-diabetes, diabetes or high cholesterol. He has provided another option to reverse these problems with diet and exercise.”
Image caption: Michael Mosley falls prey to leeches
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
It was an unexpected burst of fame for him, who had just left banking and medicine to start producing science shows for television.
One of his ideas as producer was “Trust Me I'm a Doctor,” a show hosted by Dr. Phil Hammond that paid tribute to his friend and colleague, Dr. Phil Hammond, who was much more than a lifestyle guru.
“He didn't just want to talk about lifestyle measures, he wanted to challenge the medical establishment, he wanted to talk about the huge inequalities in healthcare,” he told BBC News.
He was a really influential person, he says.
“I think his legacy will live on. Anybody who met him will always have a smile on their face because he was a loving, kind, generous person with a mischievous laugh that was a little bit contagious. So I'm really sad, but I'm really proud and lucky to have had him in my life.”
Ulcer Wars
Michael Mosley's interest in self-experimentation was sparked by a 1994 BBC Horizon TV episode called “The Ulcer Wars”, which explored the search for a cure for ulcers.
The show featured Dr Barry Marshall, who had ulcers himself, trying to prove that ulcers were caused by infection and not stress.
“I've found that almost all of the great medical discoveries, whether it be vaccines, anesthetics, or whatever, have been made by self-experimenters.”
Dr. Marshall identified and cultured a species of bacteria called Helicobacter pylori and became convinced that it was the cause of the majority of stomach cancers and ulcers.
This discovery transformed the treatment of ulcers and set Mosley on a career path that would make him famous.
He became a producer-turned-host and began a series of television self-experiments: he infested himself with tapeworms, bit into the world's hottest pepper and endured a televised colonoscopy.
It was fun, quirky science to watch, but it was always driven by a deep desire to uncover research that could actually improve people's lives.
GonzoScience
A chronic insomniac, his work on sleep reflected a growing body of research showing how important sleep is to every aspect of our health.
His dietary advice for diabetes is rooted in research such as that of Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University and his Diabetes Reversal Trial, and is co-author of The 8 Week Blood Sugar Diet.
One of Mosley's final sessions was with Professor Tim Spector, an evangelist for the importance of gut health and the microbiome (the body's own microorganisms) in maintaining good health.
Most of us have known for a long time that exercise, more nuts, oily fish, and green vegetables, and less processed foods are good for our diets.
Michael Mosley had the rare gift of getting people to actually try things.
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