Interview Dr Michael Mosley

INTERVIEW
averick
MICHAEL
A former banker, qualified doctor, experienced television producer and presenter, and rather brave
self-experimenter, Michael Mosley can usually be seen on our televisions being tested, screened or
scanned. Many of us would baulk at the idea of being infected with a disease or eating our own blood;
but for Michael, it’s just another day in the office. Louise Wates writes
28 OPTIMUM NUTRITION | AUTUMN 2015

INTERVIEW
Image: BBC/Ed Miller. Copyright BBC
Doctor, television presenter and (I
hope he will forgive the description)
one-man lab rat, Michael Mosley
is an interesting man. Affable and with a
mischievous smile, he is an unassuming
kind of chap who is possibly recognised
more for what he has done, rather than
his name. He has been on our television
screens for a decade, so I hope he won’t be
offended that when (after our interview)
I asked friends and acquaintances if they
had heard of him, many shook their heads.
But when I said “he’s the TV presenter
who infected himself with a tape worm
and made a black pudding out of his own
blood” their faces lit up with recognition.
It’s possibly because of this kind of
recognition that The Guardian newspaper
once referred to Michael as “Auntie’s stunt
presenter”, an accolade which seems to
amuse him, but with which he doesn’t quite
agree. “I don’t really do stunts,” he says.
“I mean on the whole I do these things
because I think they’re tremendously
interesting.”
More recently, he
even had plasma
from his own blood
injected back into
his face
Through the BBC’s Horizon
documentaries, Michael’s body and brain
have been put through diet, exercise,
scans and infection. He has even had
plasma from his own blood injected back
into his face. But it’s not so unusual.
Many scientists have experimented on
themselves, or been experimented on.
Michael’s own inspiration was Nobel
laureate Barry Marshall, the Australian
doctor who discovered that ulcers were
caused by bacteria.
Michael explains, “Barry was convinced
that stomach ulcers are caused by a
previously-unknown organism called
Helicobacter pylori — couldn’t convince
anyone else, so he swallowed it himself and
induced gastritis. He treated himself with
antibiotics and showed that basically you
could cure yourself of ulcers, which were
regarded as an incurable disease.”
At the time, Michael was working
behind the cameras — for 20 of his 30
years at the BBC he was a producer
and executive producer. But the Barry
Marshall programme was the catalyst
for him stepping in front of the cameras.
“That got me really, really interested in
self-experimentation in the first place,”
he says. “I pitched the idea of doing the
history of medicine told through selfexperimenters
to the controller of every
BBC channel for about 15 years. Eventually
I got in front of the controller of BBC4
and she said ‘you seem enthusiastic why
don’t you do it’.” The result was Medical
Mavericks, which aired in 2009.
Michael laughs at being called a “stunt
presenter”, but doesn’t entirely agree with
it. “Generally there is a purpose,” he says.
“The only reason I quibble with the word
‘stunt’ is because I only do these things
for a reason, whatever the reason may be.
So when I was doing the 5:2 diet [during
which people follow a low-calorie diet for
two days in the week ] I put myself on a
kind of fasting, but there was a purpose
to it — I was genuinely curious and I’d just
discovered that I was a diabetic so I wanted
to do something about it.”
But what about making the black
pudding from his own blood? Was there a
reason for that?
“I concede that one,” he laughs. “The
rationale for that was a bit thinner than
most. We debated that one. In the end I
think probably that one was down more to
curiosity than anything else.” He pauses for
thought. “Ah... yup... no, the producer was
very keen on it.” The argument for doing
it, he explains, was that it demonstrated
the nutritional qualities of blood. “I went
‘hmmm... not sure’,” he says. “In the end it
was kind of curiosity rather than any higher
purpose, I must admit.”
When I confess that the black pudding
story put me off watching the whole series
about blood, he says he’ll tell his producer.
“We had a lot of debate about it because
I thought it was a bit gruesome and I
thought it was a bit... er... it was a little...
you know. It wasn’t my finest moment but
it was certainly an experience.” He says he
had felt “absolutely fine” about eating the
black pudding.
“It was just like black pudding,” he says,
“just a little less salty than your average
black pudding. It was a curious thing to do
— but not a terribly elevated thing to do.”
Perhaps, surprisingly, there is a limit to
what Michael is prepared to do in the name
of science — or in the name of curiosity.
“My wife is a GP and she debates these
things with me, [whether] they have a
sense of purpose, [or] are they likely to be
dangerous. I said yes to tapeworm but only
to beef tapeworm as they are harmless —
the pork tapeworm is quite dangerous.”
His own tapeworm infection was part of a
wider study. “You go into a village in Africa
you don’t know who’s got hookworm,
tapeworm, whatever it may be, and so they
wanted healthy volunteers. When I was
infected I was also collecting stool samples
and sending them off to Liverpool.
“I wouldn’t have done hookworm
because there wasn’t a particular project
it was allied to, and hookworm is fairly
unpleasant.”
Michael also discusses his projects with
his children. Undergoing genetic screening,
for instance, could flag up conditions that
might potentially affect them, and so he
makes sure that his children would want to
know. So far, they do.
In the long-term, self-experimentation
has seen him make changes to his lifestyle.
After trying the 5:2 diet he now advocates
it as The Fast Diet through a website and
book of the same name; although he says
that it may not suit everybody.
“I’ve always said I don’t recommend it
to children, to pregnant mothers, to people
who want to get pregnant or to people who
have a history of food issues. Beyond that
I’m sure it’s not going to suit everyone.
Some people try it and it doesn’t suit them
at all. I think that’s true for any form of
diet.”
If you can stick to any diet, he says,
you will probably lose weight. “But I
think there are additional benefits which
come from intermittent fasting which go
beyond simply weight loss — but I think
there are some people who just find it
psychologically difficult.” He adds that
trials are ongoing, studying who will stick to
the diet and who won’t.
Recently, a three-part Horizon special
What’s the right diet for you? looked at
whether overweight people fell into one of
three groups: feasters, constant cravers or
emotional eaters. After taking the online
quiz, Michael found that he was a constant
craver. But he doesn’t seem surprised. “I
have a tendency to go around and munch
things if I see them,” he says. “So in my
house we tend to ban them all because if
there’s chocolate lying out on the surface
I will eat it. If there’s cake lying out on the
surface I will eat it.”
It’s surprising, considering his knowledge
and borderline risk of diabetes. “That’s
why these things are almost never about
knowledge,” he says. “I’m constantly
tempted — particularly by sugary things,
despite everything I know.
“My daughter has now forgiven me for
eating her Easter egg once when I came
across it. She was eight or something
like that — she’s 15 now but she still
remembers it and reminds me of it.”
Creating circumstances in which you are
less likely to be tempted will help, he says.
AUTUMN 2015 | OPTIMUM NUTRITION
29

INTERVIEW
“There’s quite a lot of evidence that the
stuff you see is the stuff you will eat.” But
willpower “is grossly overrated” he adds. “I
have a range of strategies of which one is
simply to not have it in the house. I adore
chocolate — I have a very sweet tooth.”
The Fast Diet, however, does mean
eating less food for two days of the week.
If Michael is a constant craver who will
munch his way through whatever treats fall
in his path (regardless of ownership!) how
does he manage? Here, a certain amount of
will power does come into play, although he
believes it is made easier when you know
you are not actually depriving yourself.
“You can exert the willpower to go, ‘Not
today. Today I’m not eating any of these
things, I don’t care. I won’t have the pizza,
I won’t have the chocolate, but I’ll have it
tomorrow.’ And then tomorrow comes and
maybe you do but maybe you don’t. If you
say ‘I’m never going to eat chocolate again’,
then you kind of give up and scoff the
chocolate bar in front of you. If you think ‘I
can have it tomorrow’ generally speaking I
can exert enough willpower.”
An advantage to the 5:2 diet, he says,
is that by becoming truly hungry and then
eating vegetables, we can educate our
taste buds to enjoy healthier food. “There
are physiological advantages, psychological
advantages,” he says, “but also the fact
that if you eat healthier foods when you get
hungry I think it retrains your palate.” In the
past he would advise others to eat more
vegetables even though he didn’t do so
himself. “But these days I do ‘cause when
I get hungry I eat vegetables, and I find I
actually enjoy them.”
Yet despite his knowledge and his more
educated palate, Michael says he would
still give in to unhealthy foods. Even bacon,
which has been said to knock minutes off
one’s life, is something in which he will still
indulge, although these days not very often.
“How long does it take off your life?” I
ask.
“About half an hour, I think,” he laughs.
“But alternatively if you go for a run that’s
going to add about half an hour to your life,
so you can kind of compensate to some
extent.” On the occasions he does eat
bacon, he appreciates it. “I’m conscious
that if I’m going to eat it I may as well
enjoy it.” His children love bacon too, he
says, but aren’t worried about long-term
implications. “They’re not persuaded by
the knocking half an hour off your life —
they don’t care at this age.” But they have
adapted to a household ban on fizzy drinks
and most fruit juices.
Because science is increasingly able to
probe more intricately into human biology,
diet isn’t as straightforward as it was once
thought to be, and because of this Michael
believes people shouldn’t be afraid to
experiment. “Our problem is that as we
get a better understanding we realise the
world is much, much more complicated; so
it’s no longer simply saturated fats — it’s
also down to the type of fats. You can also
throw in the fact that genetics makes it
much more complicated.” Because of this,
he is “a great fan” of self-experimentation.
“I think people should experiment with
themselves,” he says. “There is an
advantage to being a bit mindful, to trying
different foods, seeing what effect they
have on you, but also whether you enjoy
them.”
Ultimately, though, he believes that
getting away from processed foods is
important. “I’m a great believer on the
whole that at its core, there is a simple
message that processed foods are
generally bad. The more processed they
are, the worse they are for you, and the
closer you can get to the real food the
better. But it’s also difficult because
processed foods tend to be, by their very
nature, tasty.
“We have this idea it’s fat, it’s sugar,
but the reality is most of us don’t fill our
faces with a bowl of sugar, we don’t drink a
pint of cream — but if you put them in the
freezer and mix them up we have ice cream
and, blimey, we love ice cream!”
Michael’s new series ‘The Extraordinary
Making Of You’, produced in partnership
with the Open University aired on BBC2
in September. Check the BBC iPlayer for
availability.
30 OPTIMUM NUTRITION | AUTUMN 2015

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