Highlights, speakers and takeaways from our 2025 conference — covering the latest science in metabolic health and lifestyle medicine.
This year's conference was another outstanding event that saw over 20 world-renowned experts convene in London to share their knowledge. In preparation for the video recordings being published on our YouTube channel for everyone to benefit from, you can read a summary report of this year's conference by Dr Mimet Meleigy below.
We're also getting closer to tickets going on sale for our 10-year anniversary conference on 16th and 17th May 2026 in London. Now, without further ado, let us handover to Dr Meleigy…
The Public Health Collaboration's 9th Annual Conference was held on 31st May and 1st June at The Light in Euston, London. A passionate group of global experts, clinicians, and community health practitioners gathered to discuss low-carb nutrition, metabolic therapy and lifestyle interventions for chronic disease. The combination of cutting-edge research, expert panel discussions, and health transformation testimonials made this a landmark event in advancing metabolic health and transformative healthcare.
Sam Feltham, PHC Founder and Director, chaired the conference and opened with a jovial welcome. Dr David Jehring, Chair of Trustees, followed with a stark reminder — 25% of UK adults are obese, costing the NHS £16 billion annually, with this being the tip of the iceberg, as 90% of chronic diseases are now known to stem from metabolic dysfunction. He urged a move away from costly GLP-1 agonists to more sustainable, root-cause solutions such as real food, behaviour change, and scalable patient support.
Dr Eric Westman, Director of the Keto Medicine Clinic at Duke University, kicked off the keynote presentations with a historical overview of low-carb diets, noting their use in diabetes type 2 long before insulin was discovered, while dispelling them as a 'fad'. Challenging the outdated 'calories in, calories out' model, he clarified that it is insulin, and not calories, driving fat storage. He emphasised that the constituents of low-carb diets remain unchanged and consistently outperform low-fat diets for weight and glycaemic control.
Dr David Unwin, the renowned NHS GP who has helped over 50% of his type 2 diabetes patients reach remission using low-carb diets, discussed the weighted topic of GLP-1 agonists. He explained their appetite-suppressing and insulin-raising mechanisms, highlighting their potential effective use in obese and diabetic patients who are unable to control appetite or blood glucose unaided. For food addiction cases, these drugs offer short-term relief, but sustainable change must come from lifestyle and behavioural interventions.
Ellen Bennett RD introduced Liberate, PHC's digital programme tackling ultra-processed food addiction through abstinence, behaviour tools, and patient support. With over 80% retention and a 41% drop in addiction severity, Liberate has shown major improvements in mental health and weight control. Dr Jen Unwin, a clinical psychologist, continued the discussion, explaining how ultra-processed foods are hyperpalatable and often engineered to be addictive, hijacking the brain's reward and dopamine systems much like alcohol or drugs.
On day two, Professor Thomas Seyfried challenged the genetic mutation model of cancer, pointing to mitochondrial dysfunction as the true origin. Cancer cells are metabolically inflexible, relying on glucose and glutamine fermentation due to impaired oxidative phosphorylation, creating a therapeutic window for treatment. He promoted the 'press-pulse' strategy, combining ketosis, calorie restriction, and glutamine inhibition to capitalise on this vulnerability.
Rounding off the conference was The Future of Healthcare panel, led by Dr John Schoonbee, Global Chief Medical Officer at SwissRe, tackling systemic failures in global health and spotlighting metabolic dysfunction as a major cause. Dr Schoonbee noted life expectancy has plateaued since 2010, driven by insulin resistance, yet mainstream medicine ignores this. The panel pushed for habit-based education, a rebrand from 'low-carb' to 'metabolic health', CGM access, and political will to shift from sick care to true prevention.
The PHC 2025 Conference evidenced chronic disease as being largely preventable and often reversible, through metabolic health, real food, light, and behaviour change. Challenging mainstream dogmas and diet recommendations, while rebuilding a healthcare system rooted in prevention and patient empowerment, remains essential.
