Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)

Dr David Unwin FRCGP works at the Norwood NHS Surgery in Southport near Liverpool, UK where he has cared for the same population since 1986 as a family doctor. To date 136 of his patients with T2 diabetes have achieved drug-free remission. Published in BMJ Nutrition, this gives a remission rate of 51% at 33 months duration of a lower carb diet, one of the best results for any clinic in the world.

For the past few years he has been a UK Royal College of General Practitioners expert clinical advisor on diabetes. In 2015 he was made Royal College of General Practice National Champion for Collaborative Care and Support Planning in Obesity & Diabetes. In 2016 he was the proud UK National winner of the NHS Innovator Of The Year Award for published research into lifestyle changes; working with patients’ personal health goals as an alternative to drug therapy in type 2 diabetes –so that his GP practice spends £68,000 per year less than expected on drugs for diabetes.

Dr Unwin’s work has been covered by both BBC, C4 & C5 television, The New Scientist, The Times, The Daily Mail and The British Medical Journal. Further recognition came recently when David was invited to become an ambassador for the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on diabetes.

Helen is a Registered Dietitian and Registered Associate Nutritionist having completed a BSc Nutrition and Dietetics and MSc Human Nutrition at the University of Surrey. She was Director of The Lifestyle Club from its inception in 2021 as a free pilot to March 2025, where it became a QISMET accredited service commissioned by GP surgeries across the UK for their patients with type 2 diabetes.

Her interest in type 2 diabetes started when she witnessed the devastation the disease caused her dad, and she is determined that remission using a real food diet is promoted by the NHS and reflected in the NICE guidelines. Helen is a member of the Medical Working Group for the Nutrition Society.

Dr McCormack was a GP for 30 years and was a GP partner in Warrington up until April 2015. She was also a GP Trainer, and was the Named GP for Safeguarding Children for an area of 300,000 people. Over the past 30 years she has seen the incidence of diabetes go up five fold in her town, something that has been echoed nationally. Dr McCormack wants to do what she can to reverse that trend.

A GP in Cheltenham, Dr Lake has had a long term interest in preventive medicine. After seeing the lack of dietetic advice in the NHS he set up a weight management research project in primary care in collaboration with Tescodiets. The project used practice nurse weight management expertise combined with TescoDiets online nutrition support. It produced results comparable with all of the best current commercial providers, and was commissioned by the local PCT cluster. The project won the GP Awards Clinical Team of the Year, Nutrition award in 2012. Dr Lake was also involved in getting cycling on prescription commissioned in his local area.

Dr Jen Unwin was the former Chair of the UK Association for Solution Focused Practice and the winner of the British Psychological Society, Karen Ehlert Lifetime Achievement Award in Clinical Health Psychology.

Dr Unwin has spent her professional life interested in the role of hope in chronic disease and how it can be used to bring about behaviour change and improve quality of life. Her insights teamed up perfectly with Dr David Unwin’s interests in bringing about drug-free type 2 diabetes remission. For nine years they have been running group sessions in primary care to achieve just that, so far for over 100 patients, saving considerable amounts on de-prescribed drugs. Both doctors were featured in a BBC TV documentary ‘The truth about carbs’ that was seen by 3.7 million viewers.

Since retiring from the NHS, she has devoted her time to learning about, researching and helping others with sugar addiction. She has published a book called ‘Fork in the Road: A hopeful guide to food freedom’, the proceeds of which are for the Public Health Collaboration.

Trudi is Chief Executive of the registered charity X-PERT Health, which specialises in the research, development, implementation and audit of structured education for the public and healthcare professionals internationally. Trudi’s first degree in Nutrition and Dietetics was obtained in 1993, followed by a teaching qualification in 1998 and a doctorate in diabetes in 2004.

As the founder X-PERT Health and the author of the portfolio of X-PERT Programmes, Trudi has trained over 1,000 healthcare professionals to become X-PERT Educators, which has permitted the delivery of structured education to over 200,000 people at risk of, or diagnosed with, diabetes. She has published widely and has demonstrated that implementation of the X-PERT Programme is a cost saving strategy that not only results in statistically significant improvements in all clinical and quality of life indicators but also reduces the requirement for prescribed medication.

Her ambition is to further develop professional and patient education systems that increase competences to enable people to successfully manage their long term condition, improving health and well-being, and saving healthcare costs.

Campbell is a GP in the South West of England. He has focused on metabolic health for more than a decade. He works within the NHS and in the private, corporate and voluntary sectors – which has involved working across a breadth of locations including prisons, schools and many workplaces. His background in sports and exercise medicine and in quality improvement have informed his approach to optimising metabolic health at an individual, organisation and community level. Campbell also works as a GP at Combe Grove in Bath, the UK’s first metabolic centre.

Dr Ali Ibrahim is a child and adolescent psychiatrist specialising in eating disorders. He trained in world leading centres, including Oxford and SLAM. He has worked with patients and families of all ages, including children, adolescents, and adults, as well as those suffering from severe and complex eating disorders. Ali is passionate about research and has published several high-impact peer-reviewed articles, two of which were recognised with prestigious national awards in the field of eating disorders. He is particularly interested in exploring metabolic and neurobiological underpinnings, as potential therapeutic targets, through dietary and lifestyle interventions. Ali is also a keen sportsman, who is fascinated by how physical pursuits, can help develop a mindset that takes us past perceived boundaries and limitations. He has taken part in the Zerofive100 and Zerofive500 fasted endurance events.

Dr Sadhra qualified at Saint Bartholomew ‘s Hospital in London in 1981 and he has been a GP partner at Manor Park medical centre since 1989. Manor Park medical centre in Slough has got a population of over 11,000 patients with 90% being from the South Asian subcontinent.

One of Dr Sadhra’s special interests is type 2 diabetes. Having practised and promoted a low carb approach for nearly 20 years and achieved excellent results, he is a passionate advocate of lifestyle management.

In 2017, he was the finalist at the GP awards for his work on lifestyle in type 2 diabetics. He is also a Governance Board member of the Central Slough Network PCN in Slough, which is the biggest PCN in Slough covering over 52000 registered patients.

Previous appointments include Clinical Assistant in the gastroenterology department and as a gastroscopist between 1990 – 2020 at Wexham Park Hospital, Director and Secretary for the Slough Health Care Community interest company, medical board member of Diabetes.co.uk and GP locality lead for Slough as well as having been the diabetes lead and prescribing lead and Chair for Slough primary care group.

His previous projects have included developing the Rapid access Chest pain clinic at the local hospital in the early 1990s, which continues to this day. Also, developing and sponsoring a community based health and well-being programme (Meri- Sehat) for the over 50s. Lastly, he has also created a pathology diagnostics service that includes insulin assays.

Ellen is an experienced Registered Dietitian with 5 years of working across the Midlands within the National Health Service (NHS). Her areas of expertise reside in supporting patients that may have an addiction to food and more specifically in obesity and eating disorders. Currently, Ellen is completing her PhD in Behavioural Sciences where she will conduct a feasibility RCT of a brief intervention that involves screening for food addiction among people who access dietetic services.

Ellen is passionate about the potential for 12-steps programmes and strengthening the research evidence-base underpinning these programmes. She is also the Operations Manager for Liberate.

With a proven track record of exceeding objectives, I bring a comprehensive skill set that aligns with the Scientific Advisory Board’s objectives within the Public Health Collaboration. My greatest attributes are analytical prowess and resourcefulness, I specialize in research design and grant project development. I am most passionate about building cross-sector and cross-disciplinary bridges and thinking outside the box to create a vision for the future.

Throughout my three-decade career in biomedical and healthcare research, I’ve been dedicated to driving innovation and enhancing healthcare. The ethos of my professional work is to empower and amplify those who are working to translate evidence into meaningful change in health. My recent work at a public health level for the NIHR couples with my private health consultancy work translating medical science evidence into practical principles. The principle of the power of N=1 and potential of citizen science to improve on guidance and public health education resonates strongly through my work and aligns with the ambitions of the Public Health Collaboration.

My experience positions me to make significant contributions through expertise in research methods, health policy, service improvement, and commissioning within the NHS as well as through strategical partnership building to build impactful programmes of work.

Key Accomplishments:

• Co-founding the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Strategic Research Partnerships Hub (SRPH), which amplifies cross-sector biomedical and healthcare research using our extensive network.
• Serving as a Senior Research Design Advisor on numerous successful grants in the UK, showcasing proficiency in grantsmanship, research methods, strategy, partnership building, and policy.
• Receiving a Doctorate for research on hormones, behaviour, and brain health in women at the University of Cambridge.
• Possessing expertise in funding strategy and delivery across esteemed national and international organizations (e.g., WHO, NIH, UNICEF, Wellcome Trust, MRC, CRUK, NIHR, UKRI).

With my multifaceted skill set and a history of success, I am well-positioned to significantly contribute to the Public Health Collaboration’s Scientific Advisory Committee, driving positive change in public health initiatives

Moira is a BANT Registered Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and a Full Member of the UK & International Health Coaching Association. She qualified with a diploma in Nutritional Therapy from the Institute of Optimum Nutrition and went on to specialise in using ketogenic metabolic therapy to support clients with chronic fatigue and serious mental health conditions.

Her background includes spending 20+years as a senior manager in the health service where she witnessed the difficulty of the increasing burden of ill health and the lack of adequate lifestyle support. She is a passionate believer that the transformation of health and health services can only happen when we address the underlying metabolic causes of chronic disease. Moira leads the development of Public Health Collaboration initiatives in Scotland including the delivery of two Scottish conferences.

With the generosity of Baszucki Group and crowdfunding donors, I am conducting a randomised controlled trial on ketogenic diet plus coaching for ADHD and associated depression symptoms.

My background originally was in physics. My health, including mental health, took a quantum leap forward when I changed my diet and lifestyle in 2016, at which point I began to pursue research questions in ketogenic nutrition. My publication history is here: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7954-8303

My full time job is as co-founder and CEO of MetPsy, where we use the principles of metabolic psychiatry to coach members to better mental health.