My story

I grew up in Ioannina in northwest Greece, a city on a lake, surrounded by mountains, with a long history and traditions kept alive. I was lucky to experience early the things that actually sustain people: food grown and shared, time spent outdoors, connection around a table, a slower pace. I noticed as a junior doctor serving the remote mountain villages that the people living furthest from the hustle were often the most self-sufficient, the sharpest, and the longest lived. They needed us least.

I studied medicine in Athens, specialised in radiation oncology, and moved to the UK to be at the forefront of the field. I stayed longer than expected. Built a life, got married, and experienced another culture with its own deep relationship to food, spice, family, and tradition. Greek and Indian turned out to have more in common than most people would expect.

I dedicated twenty years to medicine. The last decade as an NHS Consultant in oncology. I worked hard to give my patients something the system rarely had time for: honest, nuanced, evidence-based conversations about their options. The uncertainties, the tradeoffs, the things the studies do not capture. I always tried to put things into perspective.

What those years confirmed, in ways I did not fully anticipate, was something I had seen long before medicine. That how people live shapes how well they live. Not as an aftermath of a treatment. As the foundation. The evidence on the benefits of lifestyle modification supports this clearly. How people eat, move, sleep, and manage stress, meaningfully reduces the risk of the chronic conditions that affect an ever growing number of people.