Former Embarrassing Bodies presenter Dr Dawn Harper has revealed she has been diagnosed with type 1.5 diabetes after ignoring warning signs for 15 years.
The television doctor and former NHS general practitioner discovered she had the condition, formally known as latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, despite maintaining a slim frame, a healthy diet and an active routine.
Dr Harper first received an alert about her blood sugar while co-hosting the Channel 4 medical series Embarrassing Bodies, which she presented for nine years alongside Dr Pixie McKenna and Dr Christian Jessen. Producers regularly put the presenters through fitness, blood and stool tests to compare their physical health with the patients appearing on the programme.
Following a long day of filming, a researcher approached Dr Harper to discuss unexpected lab results from tests taken alongside a patient. The guest was a 44-year-old woman of the same height, 5ft 4in, who also had three children of identical ages to Dr Harper's own family.
While the guest was morbidly obese, Dr Harper weighed eight stone with a body mass index of 19.5. However, routine laboratory examinations showed elevated blood sugar levels.
"I just wanted to flag, Dawn, that some of your test results came back a bit strange," the researcher told her. "It's probably a lab error, but you might want to get your blood sugar levels checked. According to this, you're prediabetic."
The medical crew had examined their fat cells under a microscope, assessed their gut flora and conducted an HbA1c blood test, which tracks glucose attached to red blood cells over the preceding two to three months. Although Dr Harper's daily dog walks and weekly 30-mile cycle rides left her with a flourishing gut microbiome and fat cells less than half the size of her companion, her blood sugar placed her in the prediabetes range.
Dismissing the reading as an anomaly because of her active schedule and healthy diet, Dr Harper ignored the finding and carried on working.
NHS Health Check Alert
The issue resurfaced 15 years later when Dr Harper moved house with her husband and registered at a new general practice. Staff summoned her for a routine NHS health check, prompting a telephone call from a concerned diabetes specialist nurse.
"You need to take this seriously," the nurse told her, scheduling a follow-up appointment for three months later.
Dr Harper attempted to improve her numbers by attending a yoga retreat and completing a juice cleanse ahead of the second test. Despite feeling in peak physical condition, her blood sugar ratio rose to 6.5 per cent, confirming an official diabetes diagnosis.
Having worked as an NHS GP for nearly three decades, Dr Harper had diagnosed thousands of patients with type 2 diabetes. She warned that unmanaged blood sugar causes extensive damage to blood vessels, nerves and internal organs, significantly increasing the likelihood of heart attacks, strokes and blindness.
Rising Diabetes Numbers In The UK
Government data shows almost five million people across the United Kingdom are living with diagnosed diabetes. Health officials estimate an additional 1.3 million individuals have the illness without knowing it, while 6.3 million Britons are prediabetic.
The condition develops when the body cannot produce or use insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas to convert blood glucose into cellular energy. Without adequate insulin, sugar builds up in the bloodstream, triggering symptoms such as excessive thirst, frequent urination, chronic fatigue, blurred vision and dark patches of skin.
Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells, typically appearing suddenly during childhood or adolescence and requiring immediate daily insulin injections. Type 2 diabetes accounts for most cases and generally develops in adulthood, driven by excess body weight, physical inactivity and diets high in fat and sugar.
Other rarer variations include gestational diabetes, which emerges during pregnancy due to hormonal changes, monogenic diabetes caused by an inherited single gene mutation, and forms induced by steroid medications.
Understanding Latent Autoimmune Diabetes
Further clinical examinations revealed Dr Harper had latent autoimmune diabetes in adults, commonly known as LADA or type 1.5 diabetes. First identified by medical scientists in the 1990s, the condition primarily strikes lean adults during midlife.
LADA shares characteristics of both major diabetes forms. Like type 1, it involves an autoimmune attack on pancreatic beta cells, but the destruction occurs far more slowly, allowing patients to manage blood sugar through diet and exercise for months or years without insulin.
Because patients often appear slim and fit, doctors frequently misdiagnose them with type 2 diabetes. Research suggests up to 12 per cent of Britons diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, approximately 350,000 people, actually suffer from LADA.
Misdiagnosed patients are routinely told to lose weight or prescribed standard medications like metformin, which fail to stop autoimmune cell destruction. Left unchecked, LADA can trigger severe complications, including diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening state where the blood turns dangerously acidic.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring And Diet
Dr Harper's physician has cautioned that she will eventually require daily insulin therapy as her pancreatic cells decline. For now, she manages her glucose through strict dietary choices guided by a continuous glucose monitor.
The wearable device, manufactured by Yuwell Anytime, records her blood sugar levels every three minutes. Dr Harper now serves as a medical ambassador for the company and believes the NHS should offer monitors to all prediabetic and diabetic patients for several weeks.
Tracking her readings revealed that bread was the hidden culprit behind her glucose spikes. For years, Dr Harper had eaten a ham and cheese sandwich daily while travelling to film Embarrassing Bodies, alongside weekend treats of sourdough bread with Marmite.
Dr Harper has since eliminated bread and certain high-sugar fruits from her daily meals, focusing instead on leafy vegetables and small portions of wholegrain carbohydrates.
She stressed that standard public health advice fails to address atypical cases, warning that anyone with elevated blood sugar must seek medical guidance regardless of their fitness level.
