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The body of missing British TV presenter and author Dr Michael Mosley was found on a Greek island on Sunday morning after days of searching, his family said.
Mosley went missing on the island of Symi on Wednesday afternoon, after being spotted among rocks on a rugged stretch of coastline by people on a boat, including the local mayor and journalists.
Mosley’s wife said her husband took the wrong route while hiking and collapsed in a spot where his body would not have been easily seen before reaching the marina.
“Michael was a courageous man, which is what made him so special,” Dr. Claire Bailey Mosley said in a statement. “It is devastating to lose my wonderful, funny, kind and talented husband Michael. We had a very blessed life together. We loved each other so much and were so happy together.”
Mosley, 67, was well known in Britain for his many programs on the BBC, regular appearances on television and radio and his column in the Daily Mail newspaper. He was best known outside Britain for his 2013 book “The Fast Diet,” which he co-wrote with journalist Mimi Spencer. The book proposed the so-called “5:2 diet,” which promised to help people lose weight quickly by reducing their calorie intake for two days a week and eating healthier the other five days.
He then introduced a rapid weight-loss program and made several films about diet and exercise.
Mosley often pushed his body to extremes to see the effects of his diet and lived with tapeworms in his stomach for six weeks for the BBC documentary “Infested! Living with Parasites”.
Tributes to Mosley began pouring in even before the identity of the body was confirmed.
“In person he was exactly the kind of person you see on television: instantly likeable, really funny, enthusiastic, he had a natural zest for life and he was always very generous with his time,” his co-writer Spencer told BBC Radio 4. “He never bragged, he was quite a modest man.”
Tom Watson, former deputy leader of Britain’s Labour Party, called Mosley a hero and said that by following the doctor’s diet books, Mosley had lost nearly 100 pounds (45 kg).
“It’s hard to describe how upset I am by this news,” Watson said on the social media platform X. “Through courageous, science-based journalism, Michael Mosley has helped thousands of people get well. I am one of them.”
Dr. Saleha Ahsan, who co-hosted “Trust Me, I’m a Doctor,” said Mosley had a talent for putting people at ease and explaining science to a general audience, “not just to a niche scientific group, but to everybody.”
“Michael is a national treasure and has a great personality,” Ahsan told the BBC.
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver said Mosley’s research and TV show had served the public well and changed the conversation around health issues.
“What a wonderful, loving, kind and gentle man he was,” Oliver said on Instagram.
Claire Bailey Mosley thanked the people of Symi Island who worked tirelessly to find him.
“Some people on the island who had never heard of Michael worked from morning to night without anyone telling them anything,” he said. “My family and I are overwhelmed by the outpouring of love from people around the world. It’s clear Michael meant a lot to so many of you.”
The island’s mayor, Lefteris Papakalodoukas, told The Associated Press that he was on a boat with reporters when he spotted a body 65 feet (20 meters) off Agia Marina beach. He said Mosley was lying face down near a fence.
“We zoomed in on the camera and found out it was him,” he said.
Ilias Tsavaris, a bar manager at the marina, said he received a call from the boat asking him to confirm the sighting, after which he climbed the hill.
“When I went up I saw what looked like a body,” he said. “You don’t see a body every day, this isn’t a war zone, it’s summer, you should be out swimming and having fun.”
According to local media reports, while police officers were carrying Mosley’s body, one of them fell on a slope and had to be carried on a stretcher. The body will be taken to the nearby island of Rhodes for a post-mortem examination.
Mosley has four children with his wife, who is also an author and health columnist.
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