British TV presenter Dr. Michael Mosley reached millions by being his own guinea pig

RHODES, Greece – Dr. Michael Mosley was his own guinea pig.

In the name of science, the British television presenter put his body to the test by ingesting tapeworms, injecting snake venom and letting leeches suck his blood.

What didn’t kill him made him more popular, and he reached millions through BBC programs like “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor,” other TV and radio appearances, and through best-selling diet books.

In the end, his death occurred while walking under the scorching sun on the Greek island where he was on vacation.

Greek police said on Monday there were no signs of foul play, although an autopsy was underway to find out the cause.

Here are some things you should know about Mosley:

Mosley, 67, was found dead on Sunday, four days after he disappeared on the island of Symi.

His wife said he took a wrong turn on what was supposed to be a short walk to the next town and appeared to have passed out.

The path would have taken him along or along a steep, unforgiving slope, strewn with rocks and with no shelter from heat that reached 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit).

His body was found a few dozen steps from the water.

“He almost managed to reach his destination,” Lefteris Papakalodoukas, mayor of Symi, told Greek Alpha television. “It was just another 10 meters (33 feet) to the beach. But it must have been at that moment that his strength abandoned him.

Clare Bailey Mosley said her family took comfort knowing her husband almost made it to safety.

“He made an incredible climb, took a wrong turn and collapsed where he could not be easily seen by the extensive search team,” she said in a statement.

After graduating from Oxford University, Mosley became an investment banker before returning to school to become a doctor. After qualifying for a career in medicine, however, he made another dramatic career change. He trained as a production assistant at the BBC and this eventually led to an on-camera profession.

Mosley was widely admired for his ability to communicate complex science clearly and for his willingness to be the subject of experiments that made others shudder.

In a BBC program called “Infested! Living with parasites,” he swallowed tapeworm cysts. He used a “pill camera” to explore his insides and was watching on an iPad in an Indian restaurant when he first saw the tapeworms attached to his intestine.

“I screamed, ‘Holy shit! There’s a tapeworm in me! The other customers seemed very surprised,” he said. “I was delighted, but at the same time, it was horrible.”

When he was diagnosed with stage 2 diabetes in 2012, Mosley turned to health sciences and developed a diet that overcame the diagnosis and became the basis for one of his books.

He later popularized intermittent fasting and low-carb meals through his 2013 book, “The Fast Diet,” which he co-authored with journalist Mimi Spencer, who proposed the so-called “5:2 diet.” to minimize calories two days a week while eating healthily the other five.

His “Just One Thing” radio series, launched in 2021, advocated for simple changes that could transform health and well-being.

“I remember him as a bright spark who, although now sadly extinct, will live on through his influential ‘Just One Thing,’” said Mark Miodownik, professor of materials science at University College London, who worked with Mosley. one of his best and most influential communicators. His warmth and connection with the audience was remarkable.”

The search for Mosley began when he failed to return after leaving his wife and friends and going for a walk on the beach at Agios Nikolaos, close to where he was staying.

Searchers on foot, divers in the water, helicopters and drones from above, and groups scouring the coast in boats spent four days searching for Mosley.

CCTV footage, believed to be the last sighting of him, showed him walking through a village with a black umbrella to protect himself from the sun.

But footage released on Monday appeared to show him running down a rocky slope next to a fence and falling out of sight where his body was later found.

On Sunday, a boat with the mayor and a group of journalists was examining the rugged slope when a cameraman saw something dark among the rocks.

The mayor took a photo of the camera screen and enlarged it.

“It has good resolution,” he said. “It was the missing man.”

Ilias Tsavaris, bar manager at Marina Agia, said he walked up the slope after receiving a call from the boat asking him to confirm the sighting.

“When I went up, I saw something that looked like a body,” he said. “You don’t see a dead body every day, it’s not a war zone, it’s summer, you should have fun and swim.”

Clare Bailey Mosley thanked the people of Symi for their tireless search for a man they did not know.

“Some of these people on the island, who had never heard of Michael, worked from dawn to dusk without being asked,” she said.

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Melley reported from London. Associated Press writer Costas Kantouris contributed from Thessaloniki, Greece.