Dr Michael Mosley, the bestselling author whose stellar diet advice and TV appearances made him UK's most well-known doctor - as body is found in search

Dr Michael Mosley is one of Britain's most well-known doctors, who rose to fame with television appearances and a string of best-selling diet books.

A major operation was launched to find the famous doctor after he vanished while hiking alone in Greece on Wednesday. 

This morning police discovered of a body at Agia Marina around 30 minutes walk from Pedi where he was last seen.

Officials said the coroner had been informed and was travelling to Symi from Rhodes. It has not yet been confirmed if the body is his.

Born in Calcutta, India, Dr Michael Mosley attended boarding school in England before reading PPE at Oxford. 

His father worked as a banker in Hong Kong and the Philippines and he said it was part of the overseas banking culture for parents to send their children to boarding school.

But Dr Mosley told The Sydney Morning Herald in 2019 that his mother Joan was 'heartbroken' at sending him away and said she would rather have kept him and his older brother John at home.

He tried his hand working as an investment banker before retraining as a doctor. He wrote on his website he realised investment banking 'wasn’t the industry for him' before deciding to retrain.

Dr Mosley studied medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London before leaving to join the BBC as a trainee assistant producer.

Dr Mosley made a string of science and history documentaries over 25 years, rising to become a presenter and an executive producer at the corporation.

In his journalistic career he has worked alongside the likes of John Cleese, Jeremy Clarkson, Professor Robert Winston and Sir David Attenborough.

He devised and was executive producer on three of the most popular science and history programmes of the past decade: Pompeii – The Last Day, Supervolcano and Krakatoa.

As a presenter he made a dozen series for the BBC, including Medical Mavericks, Blood and Guts, Inside Michael Mosley, Science Story, The Young Ones, Inside the Human Body, Eat, Fast Live Longer, The Truth about Exercise, Pain, Pus & Poison and The Genius of Invention. 

He is also working as a presenter on Trust Me, I'm A Doctor on BBC 2. Alongside his screen work, Dr Mosley is well known for his dietary advice after publishing bestselling plans including The Fast 800 and the 5:2 Diet.

Following the success of Eat, Fast & Live Longer, Dr Mosley co-authored a book called The Fast Diet with Evening Standard journalist Mimi Spencer in 2013. 

He is one of the leading advocates of intermittent fasting, low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets.

The diet doctor has also published a book on using diet to improve sleep, called Fast Asleep, after revealing he suffered from chronic insomnia.

Dr Mosley regularly appears on his podcast Just One Thing as well as the BBC's The One Show.

His latest book, The 8-week Blood Sugar Diet, was published in December 2015 and became an international bestseller. 

He has won numerous awards, including being named Medical Journalist of the Year by the British Medical Association in 1995.

As well as having a column in the Daily Mail, Dr Mosley writes for The Mail on Sunday, The Times and The Independent. He is a regular columnist for Focus magazine and Eureka.

He married Clare Bailey in 1987, after meeting in medical school, and they have four children together. Dr Mosley and his wife, who is also a Mail columnist, have just completed a nationwide tour together called: 'Eat well, sleep better, live longer.'