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Michael Hugh Mosley (22 March 1957 – 5 June 2024) was a British television and radio journalist, producer, presenter and writer who worked for the BBC from 1985 until his death. He presented television programmes on biology and medicine and regularly appeared on The One Show. Mosley was an advocate of intermittent fasting and low-carbohydrate diets who wrote books promoting the ketogenic diet. He died on the Greek island of Symi on 5 June 2024.
Mosley attended boarding school in England from the age of seven. After attending Haileybury College, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford, before working for two years as a banker in the City of London. He then decided to move into medicine, intending to become a psychiatrist, and studied at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School (now part of UCL Medical School). He became disillusioned with psychiatry after a placement in the specialty during his degree course, and decided not to practise medicine after passing his final examinations in 1985.
Mosley described himself as "quite religious" until around the age of 20 and considered becoming a priest.
In 2011, Mosley made a series titled The Brain: A Secret History on the history of psychology and neuroscience. During the series, while describing the methods that are being employed to identify the anomalies in brain structure associated with psychopathy, his personal test results revealed he himself had these candidate brain characteristics.
Mosley presented a two-part documentary, Frontline Medicine, in 2011, with episodes titled "Survival" and "Rebuilding Lives". These programmes described the recent medical advancements that allowed for improved treatment of military personnel injured in battle in Afghanistan, and examined how these new techniques were being used in emergency medicine in civilian casualties in the United States and Great Britain.
Mosley's documentary The Truth About Exercise, first broadcast in 2012, highlighted how different patterns of exercise might help achieve health benefits, the danger of sitting for prolonged periods and revealed how certain are unable to gain significant improvements in aerobic fitness (VO2 max) by following endurance exercise programmes. His own genetic type can gain many of the benefits of exercise, primarily improved insulin response, through short, high-intensity training sessions as suggested by the research of James Timmons.
In January 2013, Mosley presented The Genius of Invention. In the documentary named The Truth About Personality, which first aired on 10 July 2013, Mosley explored what science can tell people about optimism and pessimism and whether people can change their outlook.
In 2016 he presented the BBC Four documentary Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility.
Mosley, along with a group of medical specialists, presented a BBC Two documentary series titled The Diagnostic Detectives which aired in 2020. In the series, each programme is centred around the group of doctors who choose to tackle a patient's problem.
In 2021, Mosley presented a three-part series, Lose a Stone in 21 Days, for Channel 4. On the programme Mosley suggested that people could lose a stone () in 21 days by calorie restriction to only 800 calories a day. This advice was considered dangerous by some medical experts and the programme received criticism on social media platforms. Beat, a UK charity supporting those affected by , wrote the following day that "the programme caused enough stress and anxiety to our beneficiaries that we extended our Helpline hours to support anyone affected and received 51% more contact during that time".
Mosley presented the series Just One Thing on BBC Radio 4, in which each episode explored a single action a person could take to improve their health. Suggestions covered a wide range including reading poetry out loud, taking hot baths in the evening, playing a musical instrument, Nordic walking, and cooking tomatoes to increase their health benefits. The series launched in March 2021; , 102 episodes had been broadcast with three more, sharing the title "Exercise Clever", scheduled for 13, 20 and 27 June 2024. These were later pulled. An interview he recorded at the Hay Festival less than a fortnight before his death was broadcast as part of the series and as a tribute to him. In it, he was praised as "one of the most important broadcasters of recent decades" and he confessed that he found it challenging to practise many of the health tips he had advocated on his programmes and that he had found the results of a personality test confronting.
It was through this documentary that he learned about the 5:2 diet from neuroscientist Mark Mattson who published a paper on the diet with Michelle Harvie and 14 other scientists in 2011. In the original trials, the 5:2 diet does not follow a particular food pattern, but instead focuses entirely on calorie content.
In early 2013 his book The Fast Diet, written with Mimi Spencer, was published by Short Books.
Mosley's The Fast 800 Keto advises a three-stage diet plan for weight loss: stage 1, a very low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet; stage 2, a reintroduction of carbohydrates with intermittent fasting; stage 3, a low-carbohydrate Mediterranean diet.
Red Pen Reviews gave Mosley's book The Fast 800 Keto a score of 58% for scientific accuracy, but concluded that the diet "should cause weight loss and improve health in most people who have extra weight and/or type 2 diabetes, but some aspects of the diet may be unnecessary and make it harder to follow". The review also noted that Mosley's Fast 800 Keto is not a long-term ketogenic diet and the insistence on a low-carbohydrate intake for the long-term Mediterranean diet is not necessary.
In 2002, Mosley was nominated for an Emmy as an executive producer for The Human Face with John Cleese. In 2017, Mosley was awarded an honorary doctorate of Science by the University of Edinburgh.
In a 2019 BBC documentary on sleep, Mosley revealed he had chronic insomnia. His book Fast Asleep, on the subject, was published by Atria that same year.
An initial post-mortem established that, based on the position of his body and the lack of any fatal injury, Mosley had likely died from natural causes at around 4 pm on the day he disappeared. Toxicology and histology reports were anticipated. An inquest, held in Buckinghamshire in December 2024, reported that the cause of his death was "unascertainable" and that his death was "most likely attributable either to heat stroke (accidental) or non-identified pathological cause".
Death
On 5 June 2024, Mosley went missing on the Greek island of Symi while on holiday with his wife. He left St. Nikolas beach to walk to Symi Town, approximately away, where they were staying. His body was found on 9 June, on the rocky slope outside the wall of a private resort called Agia Marina. It appeared that he had taken the wrong path after leaving the town of Pedi. His body was found after being spotted by a British journalist who was on a boat with the mayor and ERT TV journalists. It was located from a restaurant and from an area earlier searched by his four children, who had all flown out to support the search.
Television
Six-part series. Four-part series and a Best of Series episode. Also referred to as Inside Michael Mosley. Topical films about science. Three-part series. Co presented with Alice Roberts. Four-part series between 24 January and 14 February. Co-presented with Mark Miodownik and Cassie Newland. A Horizon (BBC Television series) documentary. Total of two episodes as a part of Horizon 2014–2015 series. Episode 7 of Horizon 2014–2015 series. Three-part series. The Wonderful World of Blood BBC Four The Victorian Slum BBC Two Five-part series. Five-part series. The Secrets of Your Food BBC Two Three-part series. Co-presented with James Wong. Three-part series. Three-part series. Three-part series tackling type 2 diabetes in Australia. Two-part series. Six-part series. Three part series. In partnership with Flinders University. Four-part series. Three-part series. Mosley's final TV series. Two-part series. Televised adaptation of Mosley's BBC Radio 4 series Just One Thing. Michael Mosley: The Doctor Who Changed Britain BBC One Posthumous Appearance. Narrated by Hannah Fry.
Radio
105 15-minute episodes
See also
Selected publications
External links
Categories: Official Website, 1957 Births, 2024 Deaths, 2020s Missing Person Cases, 20th-century British Journalists, 20th-century British Male Writers, 20th-century British Medical Doctors, 20th-century British Non-fiction Writers, 21st-century British Journalists, 21st-century British Male Writers, 21st-century British Medical Doctors, 21st-century British Non-fiction Writers, Alumni Of New College, Oxford, Alumni Of The Ucl Medical School, Bbc Radio 4 Presenters, Bbc Television Presenters, Bbc Television Producers, British Food Writers, British Radio Presenters, British People Of Armenian Descent, British Science Journalists, British Television Presenters, British Television Producers, Celebrity Doctors, Date Of Death Unknown, Diet Food Advocates, Fasting Advocates, Fasting Researchers, Formerly Missing British People, Low-carbohydrate Diet Advocates, Medical Journalists, Missing Person Cases In Greece, Missing British People, People Educated At Haileybury And Imperial Service College, People From Beaconsfield, Science Education In The United Kingdom
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