Health risks, practical dieting tips discussed in medical show

Dr. Michael Mosley shows the pill-cam he swallowed in an episode of “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.”

It comes as a surprise that British TV presenter Dr. Michael Mosley hasn’t extensively discussed the disease he suffered from in his program, “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.” It’s also the same illness that inspired him to invent the much-buzzed-about “5:2 Fast Diet,” also known as “intermittent fasting.”

Mosley, who hosts the program in the United Kingdom, was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes a few years ago, but he was determined to reverse it, not with medication, but by altering his eating habits and significant lifestyle changes.

He was in Manila recently to promote Season 7 of “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor,” which premieres at 10:15 tonight on BBC Earth, Cignal Channel 245.

“The message still isn’t out there that this is a preventable disease,” he said. “People think that they can treat it with medication. They’re told by their doctors that this isn’t an irreversible disease.”

The series provides an in-depth analysis of various health and medical issues such as weight loss, obstructive sleep apnea or snoring, the effects of sleep deprivation and cancer. The first episode of Season 7 addresses mental health, which the medical journalist also considers the world’s biggest health problem these days.

“We’re trying to do some groundbreaking experiments in every program,” Mosley disclosed. “This particular one is unusual because we start with a mental health special, looking at things like stress and depression.”

In the program, Mosley finds out that there has been no new drugs or therapy on mental illness in the last 20 years. “Not much had moved in the treatment to depression,” he said. “Pharmaceutical companies are less involved, but we need to look at the alternatives—and that’s part of the message of the program, looking at nutrition and other things.”

“In ‘Trust Me,’ we like to challenge ideas,” he said. “That’s why we do a lot of collaborations with universities, and they like it because we can recruit people to take part in the experiments.”

Mosley, who studied Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, also takes part in research and experiments. In fact, he once swallowed a pill-cam to see how parasites live in human bodies.

But, he still has a long list of topics he wants to explore in the program.

“We have looked at sleep, but we’d like to do more of it because it’s an important subject,” he said. “Exercise, again, is a topic that comes up, and I’d like to do some more on yoga.”

In the latest season, viewers will also learn how much is too much alcohol, why people should worry about air pollution, the benefits of eating oily fish and consuming coconut oil, how to increase the levels of Vitamin D in the body, and if turmeric can truly prevent cancer.