New years so often bring with it new changes, and for many of us diets are frequently first of the list, even if our ability to maintain them is inconsistent. Few are better with diets than Dr Michael Mosley, as Carl Marsh finds out.
I know you didn’t initially train at a university to become a doctor, and after leaving worked in banking for a couple of years; what made you have a change of heart to give it all up and study medicine?
I originally studied politics, philosophy and economics as I was really interested in economics, and then I went into the City [of London] and then decided that frankly, making money was not what I was most interested in. I was more interested in what makes people tick psychologically and what makes the body tick, so that’s why I switched over and trained as a doctor instead. What has been a part of my professional life ever since has been in understanding what the human body does, how it does it and the interactions between the body and the brain. It was very unusual in those days, although much more common now, to go from doing one degree to then studying medicine.
The Royal Free Hospital [Medical School] where I trained was very relaxed at the time and took quite a lot of people who had more unconventional backgrounds, so that’s how I ended up being a doctor. If I had continued on in medicine, I probably would have ended up becoming a psychiatrist, but I got a bit disillusioned with psychiatry. That’s why I applied on the spur of the moment to the BBC, who then offered me a thing I thought I would do for a couple of years. That was 30 years ago, so I am not going back into medicine any time soon!
How do you stay in touch with all things medicine if you are not actually practising in it?
My wife is a GP now, and she puts into practice a lot of the things that I talk and write about, so I get a lot of feedback like that. I also get a lot of people that stop me in the street to say how well they have done on the 5/2 Diet [where you fast for two days out of five in a week], or whatever it might be, or how they have reversed their diabetes by doing the Blood Sugar Diet. I talk to a lot of doctors as I get invited to a lot of medical conferences, and they treat me as one of their own.
I was about to ask you about the 5/2 Diet as I got on that for a time because of yourself, and for me, it was very worthwhile.
Oh good, good, I am pleased to hear it. It has really taken off in the last six years. The reason I got into it in the first place was discovering I was a Type 2 diabetic; I was looking for something else, and that’s why I made the BBC2 Horizon documentary Eat, Fast And Live Longer. And in the course of that, I kind of invented the 5/2 Diet – I wrote the book after I did that documentary. As a result of that book and television programme, there have been many more scientific studies being done on the 5/2 Diet.
What else will you be talking about on tour?
What have we learnt in the last six years and that sort of stuff; I’ve been trying to make it easier for people with a new version of it. I’ll also be talking a bit more about other forms of intermittent fasting because there is a new kid on the block called Time-Restricted Eating which has become the number one trend in the US, mostly for the under-30s.
How does that differ from the 5/2 Diet?
It has some of the same principles. The idea is that you have more extended periods without food fasting but in this particular version, what you do is extend the overnight fast where you finish eating at 8 or 9pm at night, then don’t eat again until say midday the next day. I’ve been involved with the scientists who developed that, and I have done one of the very few human trials on that.
Dr Michael Mosley, St. David’s Hall, Wed 27 Feb. Tickets: £25.50/£21.50 wheelchair users. Info: 029 2087 8444 / www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk