TRANSCRIPT: The 5:2 diet
WOMAN: I cannot believe this is my body.
CHRIS BATH: Tonight...
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Your health, your future is in your own hands. You can do something about it.
CHRIS BATH: the 5:2 revolution.
ROSS COULTHART: I'm into this!
He's transformed my life.
This is one of the easiest ways you will ever encounter to lose weight.
That's amazing!
Enormous interest in the scientific community all over the world.
ROSS COULTHART: I feel fabulous!
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Heart disease, diabetes, dementia, you just don't want it.
ROSS COULTHART: Go!
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: The tradition of feast and fast is built into our genes.
I just thank Michael for everything. It's the only thing that's been shown to ever extend life.
CHRIS BATH: Plus...
ROD STEWART: This is the interview. Smiling! ..tonight's the night.
CHRIS BATH: Born to rock. Rod Stewart.
MIKE WILLESEE: Is that you?
ROD STEWART: Shut up! What are we doing?! Always had a roving eye.
MIKE WILLESEE: Did you smoke dope?
ROD STEWART: I don't give a ----. That sounded a bit a bit gay. (LAUGHS) I've gone right off you! Where is he? How is the interview going? You're messing with my mind. Are we finished? (BOTH LAUGH)
CHRIS BATH: Hello and welcome to Sunday Night. I'm Chris Bath. Rod Stewart soon. But first tonight, there is a revolution sweeping the world. It's called 5:2 and it's changing lives, even saving lives. Millions have tried it successfully to shed a few kilos but modern science is now discovering the benefits don't end with weight loss. Regular fasting has extraordinary health benefits including reducing your risk of diabetes and dementia. It can even make you smarter. Ross Coulthart went to the UK to meet the man behind the 5:2 Revolution and went on his own journey, with impressive results.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: So 1, 2, 3, and then flat out. Go!
ROSS COULTHART: For the next week or so, I'm to be a 5:2 lab rat. What are these tests going to show me? What are you trying to find out?
DOCTOR: Hopefully they're not going to tell you've got any major problems.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Your health, your future is in your own hands. You can do something about it. This is one of the easiest ways you will ever encounter to lose weight. Very good! I do genuinely believe that.
ROSS COULTHART: While everyone else gets to eat, I'll be starving myself. Ah, the smells are driving me crazy. It's torture. Food, glorious food, and I can't touch a bit of it. Scientifically testing the notion that regular fasting IS incredibly good for you.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: It's the only thing that's ever been shown to extend life.
ROSS COULTHART: So much of what I have always taken for granted about food will be turned on its head.
ROSS COULTHART: I've also learned that all those years sweating in the gym have probably been a waste of time.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: I'm not telling you need to go the gym. All you need to do is three minutes of intense exercise a week.
ROSS COULTHART: (LAUGHS) I got to find somewhere quiet where there's no food.
GLORY PULJACK: I wish Michael Mosley was here. I would give him the biggest hug. He's transformed my life.
ROSS COULTHART: Now I'm hoping he's going to transform me. Dr Michael Mosley is the BBC science presenter credited with discovering 5:2. Hello. Michael Mosley, I'm Ross Coulthart.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Please come in.
ROSS COULTHART: A very hungry Ross Coulthart. (LAUGHS) From his home in the English countryside, the father of four with a background in science and medicine...
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Keep working everyone, keep working.
ROSS COULTHART: ..is leading a revolution, championing the surprising benefits of fasting. I'll bet there are thousands of middle-aged men and women watching this right now thinking, "Oh, God, not another diet story."
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: (LAUGHS) Yes. No, I despise diets. Before all this happened, I looked at diets I'd seen my father struggle with - he did the working man's diet, he did the drinker's diet, the businessman diet. He tried everything, he failed at all of them. And so everything I had read told me that diets don't work.
ROSS COULTHART: Michael didn't set out to discover a diet - he didn't even think he had a weight problem. As a child, he was skinny. As an adult, a little heavy around the middle but nothing to worry about - or so he thought. His father, however, always struggled with his weight and the problems that caused him.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: He died at the age of 73 and he was diabetic. And he had heart failure and he was going demented and he also had prostate cancer.
ROSS COULTHART: When did you first realise that you were heading the same way unless you did something about it?
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: It was, really - I went to see a doctor about something completely different. I was worried about a mole I had and she did routine blood test and she said, "I have some very bad news for you, "you're a diabetic. "We're gonna have to put you on medication "and your cholesterol, by the way, is also sky-high at the moment." I've discovered that my body is not the lean, long-live machine I would like it to be.
DOCTOR: A third of your body is fat.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Thank you... (BOTH LAUGH) ..for making that point so emphatically.
ROSS COULTHART: Worried by the diagnosis, Michael went searching for solutions and along the way, filmed his journey of discovery for the BBC.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Right. It is now 10:30 at night and I am hungry.
ROSS COULTHART: To save his life and have a healthy future, he first had to look back.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Our story begins in the Dust Bowls of America during the 1930s. There was a terrible drought. Food was scarce. The whole country was in the grips of the Great Depression. You would imagine that in such difficult times that life expectancy would fall. But in fact, it rose. During the darkest years of the Great Depression - 1929 to 1933 - life expectancy increased by a remarkable six years.
ROSS COULTHART: On the face of it, that sounds very surprising. But Michael's own experience was that his own well-fed lifestyle was harming his life expectancy. During his documentary, he put himself through a battery of tests.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Luigi's face tells me that what I'm about to hear is not good news.
DOCTOR: The abdominal fat is around 30%. Abdominal fat is really the bad guy. The higher abdominal fat, the higher the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, no doubt about it. It's also a risk factor for cancer. So basically your cardio-metabolic profile, it's not good.
ROSS COULTHART: What many of us laugh off as harmless belly fat is actually a killer. And don't be fooled - you can look thin on the outside and still be fat on the inside.
DR CLARE MOSLEY: He didn't look overweight 'cause he is quite long-limbed and he had started to have a little bit of spreading around the middle but a lot of middle-aged men do.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: It was all coating my internal organs. And there's a thing called metabolic syndrome and I bet a hell of a lot of Australians have metabolic syndrome and they don't know it. You can be apparently skinny and still have it. And you still have your internal organs coated with these layers of fat and it's doing all these sorts of bad things.
ROSS COULTHART: The more Michael investigated the science, the more he came to believe in the possible benefits of intermittent fasting. But the proof would be in the pudding, or in his case - the lack of it.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: OK, I've decided I'm going to try this fast which is going to be a 3.5-day fast and all I'm going to have is... lots of water, black tea and one 50-calorie cup of soup a day. Now... Oh, God, I have never done anything quite like this before so I imagine it's going to be really tough. Reasonably sure.
What researchers say is that we are descended from a long line of cavemen and cavewomen, if you like. So the tradition of feast and fast is built into our genes and that's how it is. So fasting, or at least involuntary fasting, going without food for periods of time, would have been incredibly normal. And that is incredibly abnormal now.
My delicious miso soup here. Give it a bit of a stir here with the hotel pen because there's no other cutlery around. Mmm. Health. 25 calories worth. What they know from the science is that you fast, everybody fasts broadly overnight. You stop eating at about 8:00 in the evening and you probably don't eat again until 7:00 the next morning. What's happening in your body when that is going down is that your body switches from essentially go-go mode into repair mode. Your proteins start to be broken down, old cells get cleared out, the junk goes. As soon as you start eating again, that process goes into reverse. So when you go without food for even 10 hours, repair starts to take place, if you go without food for 24 hours, 36 hours, more repair occurs.
ROSS COULTHART: Is it the case that until comparatively recently in human history, we didn't eat three square meals a day?
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Absolutely. And, in fact, until relatively recently, we ate a maximum of three. You know, when I was a child my mum would say, "Don't eat between meals." Now we eat six, seven times a day because we snack.
ROSS COULTHART: When we eat a lot, we produce more of a growth hormone called IGF1 which increases activity in our cells - they divide and create new ones. But fasting lowers the levels of IGF1 meaning fewer cells are created. Instead, the body focuses on repairing existing cells. The proof is inside this mouse which has been genetically engineered with low levels of IGF1.
MAN: This little mouse right here holds the world record for longevity extension in a mammal.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Oh, right. That's remarkable. It is the periods without food which your body has the opportunity to do spring cleaning. Because the rest of the time, it just wants to get on with life.
MAN: And the good news is with your fasting diet, you dropped to almost half.
ROSS COULTHART: At the end of his fast, Michael's results were extraordinary.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: I have massively decreased my risk of a whole range of age-related diseases. The big question in my mind at the moment is - can I do fasting once a month for however long it takes?
ROSS COULTHART: And that's how he came up with the 5:2 diet. He knew most of us would find lengthy fasts difficult. But again, science provided the solution. Evidence showing that even two days a week of minimal food intake can bring maximum benefits.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: The basics are that you eat normally five days a week and then for two days a week you cut your calories down to a quarter of their normal level.
GLORY PULJAK: I am extremely proud of myself. I look in the mirror now and I just think I cannot believe this is my body. I can't believe I have done this. John, do you want some fried rice?
ROSS COULTHART : Glory Puljak is a teacher and a mother of two who has become a 5:2 convert. Her battle with weight began after having children.
GLORY PULJAK: I couldn't stop with a little bowl of chips, I had to eat my son's chips. I had to eat my daughter's leftovers. So it wasn't just my meal I was eating, it was leftovers as well. My arms were humongous. I didn't have a double chin, every time I turned, I was a triple chin. My stomach had dimples all over it and no matter how many times I laid flat, I still had dimples on it.
ROSS COULTHART: At her heaviest, Gloria weighed 82kg and her blood sugar levels were dangerously high. Then she saw Michael's documentary, read his book and tried 5:2. She's lost more than 20kg in a year – three dress sizes. She's also turned around her risk of diabetes. Her blood sugar levels are now normal, much to the delighted surprise of her doctor.
GLORY PULJAK: She said, "I can't believe how healthy you are. "You are the healthiest you have ever been "even before you had kids." So I was just... I just thank Michael for everything.
ROSS COULTHART: We are all getting fatter, aren't we?
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: We are. And it's very striking, particularly in the UK, the US... ..and in Australia. Australia's been shooting up the obesity ranks, as you well know. I think you're probably about number four or five at the moment. We're only number seven. The Americans have slipped down to number two, behind Mexico.
ROSS COULTHART: I have to say, there will be a lot of Australians quite shocked to hear that they're fatter than Brits.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: They're fatter than the Brits but the New Zealanders are even fatter than them. So you're doing slightly better than your cousins across the water.
ROSS COULTHART: Now here's something to make us think - fasting may also make us smarter.
MARK MATTSON: We are finding by putting electrodes in the brain of animals that during fasting their brain cells are more active.
ROSS COULTHART: So we're actually cleverer when we are fasting?
MARK MATTSON: Yes. And that again, if we go back to evolutionary considerations it makes sense - if you haven't been able to find food, your brain better be functioning well.
ROSS COULTHART: It dates back to when we were cavemen. So, I am a starving caveman. I am hungry. In order to catch food, I've got to be sharp and agile. Is it as simple as that?
MARK MATTSON: Exactly right. If you are not sharp and agile, you are not gonna compete successfully, you are not gonna get enough food to survive.
ROSS COULTHART: Professor Mattson's studies have also found that fasting increases the ability of mice to remember and learn and it decreases their risk of dementia.
MARK MATTSON: In the humans, all we can say is there's some epidemiological data that suggests that people who overeat are at risk for Alzheimer's disease.
ROSS COULTHART: As I neared the end of my fast, there was one final tip from Michael Mosely about a little thing called exercise and how most of us are doing it wrong.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: So we've just passed a lady and she's kind of jogging which is fair enough, but unfortunately, unless she puts in a few bursts, unless she decides to try and sprint up this hill ahead of us, it's probably not going to do her much good. It's better than nothing but it's not a fabulous...
ROSS COULTHART: So, she's wasting her time?
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Pretty much, unfortunately.
ROSS COULTHART: Michael's view is that those hour-long gym workouts are 57 minutes wasted. Instead, intense bursts of exercise, as little as three minutes a week, are the key to longevity. Go! I'm into this. 2, 3, 4...
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: We're descended from hunter-gatherers and when you look at hunger-gatherers, what they do, they have periods of feast and famine. And they do lots of workout in the gym? No, they do not.
ROSS COULTHART: Up a bloody hill too! 50...
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: They have periods where they do quite a lot of walking but interspersed they have short bursts where they are either running away from something or running to catch something. They have very, very short bursts and our bodies seem to be designed for that.
ROSS COULTHART: After the famine but before the feast came the results. How did my fast change me?
MAN: Let's have a look.
ROSS COULTHART: I'm 98.8 kilos. I was 104.5kg. That's amazing.
MAN: That's quite impressive, isn't it?
ROSS COULTHART: Yeah, I'm pretty happy about that.
MAN: 98.8 kilogram. Should we check your blood pressure?
ROSS COULTHART: And the good news didn't end there. My blood pressure and glucose levels had returned to normal. Before the fast, they'd been a little on the high side. Long-term, I was risking type 2 diabetes. Not anymore. Fantastic. In a small way, my personal journey mirrors Michael Mosley's.
DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: I have gone from being somebody at high risk of diabetes and heart disease to somebody who is currently, you know, the last time I looked at the calculator it said I was going to live to 90.
CHRIS BATH: Ross Coulthart reporting.