One day in 2012, Dr. Michael Mosley headed into the hospital for a check-up with his family doctor.
The British television producer and presenter was worried that he might have developed melanoma on his skin.
He rolled up his sleeve and had a blood test done before being sent home to await the results.
“Good news: your skin is fine,” the doctor told him.
“The bad news is you have type 2 diabetes.”
The diagnosis brought Dr Mosley global recognition, launched a health journey that would impact the eating habits of millions of people and invite criticism from other medical professionals.
The popularity of intermittent fasting
After being diagnosed with diabetes, the next logical step was immediately medication.
But Dr. Mosley said, “Fine.”
“My father had type 2 diabetes and died from complications despite being on medication,” he said in an interview with The House of Wellness in 2020.
“So I thought this wasn’t a good idea.”
Dr. Mosley had heard about intermittent fasting before and immediately began researching it.
“Like you, I thought that was weird,” he admitted.
His research led him to connect with neuroscientist Mark Mattson, who had published a paper on the 5:2 diet the previous year with 15 other scientists.
The 5:2 diet is a type of intermittent fasting in which you restrict calories for two days a week and continue with normal calorie intake for the remaining five days.
By this point, Dr Mosley had been working for the BBC for several decades, presenting and producing a number of science programmes.
He couldn’t deny that his diagnosis would be of interest to viewers.
“I persuaded the editor [BBC science program] “Horizon commissioned me to make a film to explore whether intermittent fasting could reverse diabetes,” he said.
Dr. Mosley did not believe his experiment would work, but he remained optimistic.
By the end of the program, Dr Mosley had lost 9kg and his blood sugar levels were “completely normal”.
The episode garnered an astonishing audience of 3 million, especially as it aired during the London Olympics.
“It was a total surprise,” Dr. Mosley said after the experiment was completed.
“And I didn’t really understand it.”
Diabetes is in “remission”
“At each stage I have relied on other people’s science,” Dr. Mosley said.
To try to understand what had happened to his body, Dr Mosley contacted Professor Roy Taylor from Newcastle University.
“The doctor basically said that the sudden weight loss had flushed fat out of my liver and pancreas,” he said.
Dr Mosley said Professor Taylor had already demonstrated he could “put diabetes into remission” in 12 patients.
“That’s the word he uses. He hates the word ‘reverse’ because it has a permanent connotation and if you put on fat there’s a good chance it will come back.”
“He was the one who explained the science to me. He had all the science behind it. He was one of the leading diabetologists in the world. But nobody believed him. All the other doctors said it was nonsense.”
“He said, ‘I see a lot of patients who have lost weight and reversed their diabetes. Can you explain that to me?'”
Bestsellers and the “Fasting Fever”
Soon after, Dr. Mosley teamed up with food and fashion writer Mimi Spencer to write The Fast Diet.
The book became a best-seller in Britain, with The New York Times saying that Dr Mosley had “hooked Britain on fasting”.
Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall told the Guardian that the diet has left him “lean and sharp”, adding: “I feel like I’m part of a health revolution.”
The book’s success has not been without criticism, however.
Shortly after the report was published, the UK’s publicly funded National Health Service (NHS) published a statement on its website.
“Despite its growing popularity, there is a lot of uncertainty about IF. [intermittent fasting] The evidence is seriously flawed.”
Scientists have conducted many studies on the benefits of intermittent fasting on rats, but there haven’t been many trials done on humans.
According to Diabetes Australia, intermittent fasting can be safely done by people with diabetes, but there are some things to consider, such as consulting your doctor beforehand.
“The study was limited in time frame and it is unclear whether individuals can sustain intermittent fasting long term,” Diabetes Australia’s website says.
A few years later, in 2021, Dr Mosley presented a series on Channel 4 called Lose a Stone in 21 Days.
The programme claimed it would help people lose one stone (6.4kg) in 21 days by restricting their calorie intake to 800 a day.
Beat, a UK charity that supports people suffering from eating disorders, wrote that “the programme caused so much stress and anxiety for beneficiaries that they extended their helpline opening hours to support everyone affected, and received 51 percent more calls during that time.”
From medicine to television
Born in Calcutta, India, Dr. Mosley moved to England with his family as a child.
He studied philosophy at Oxford University before going on to medicine with the goal of becoming a psychiatrist.
But in 1985 a disillusioned Dr Mosley joined the BBC as a trainee assistant producer.
He produced a number of shows, including the 2004 series Inventions that Changed the World, with then Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson.
His influence extends to Australia as well.
In 2021 he presented the series “Australia’s Health Revolution” on SBS, followed three years later by “Australia’s Sleep Revolution.”
