Mosley's own health battles pushed him to seek answers

Maria Lally reflects on the life of a TV presenter and author who changed not only his own health but that of a generation

- Maria Lally

Written under a post on the local Rhodes Facebook group, discussing the disappearance of Dr Michael Mosley a few days ago, was the comment, "He's such a genuine person, passionate about helping others," while another wrote, "I owe him so much," before explaining how one of his books "practically saved my life".

I first interviewed Michael in 2019. I knew all about him of course. He was one of the UK’s most well-known doctors and presented several BBC documentaries, appeared on This Morning, and wrote several bestselling books including The Fast Diet in 2013, which sold more than 1.4 million copies. It was revolutionary in popularising the idea of intermittent fasting, which until then few of us had ever heard of.

The next time we spoke was a few months later in April 2020 when the UK had just been thrown into lockdown. He explained how he and his wife, Clare Bailey Mosley, a GP and author who he’d met at medical school and married in 1987, had been looking after two of their four grown-up children, Dan and Jack, who had been displaying Covid symptoms.

This was before Covid tests were available, but the couple – both medically trained – believed their sons had the virus and had been caring for them at their home. They had done this with a Mosley-esque diet of gut-friendly foods such as yoghurt and sauerkraut, turmeric smoothies, and “Clare’s healing chickenbone broth”, which was one of Dan’s favourites.