Barry Groves

Barry Groves lives with his wife, Monica, in a small village in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. He originally trained as an electronic engineer and was commissioned in the Royal Air Force with which he served until 1982.

After marrying in 1957, Barry and his wife, Monica, became very overweight. They tried low-calorie dieting, inert fillers, sweaty plastic clothes, exercise, et cetera, with no long-term success. Then, in 1962, Barry discovered the low-carb diet. It worked spectacularly well - and still works today. Thus began his interest in the role of food types in the aetiology of obesity. He decided to leave the RAF at the earliest opportunity to research the subject.

He retired from the RAF in 1982, at the age of 45, and began full time research, later broadening the scope of his research to the relationship between diet and other modern 'diseases of civilisation' such as heart disease and cancer.

As a result of his researches, he realised that the perceived wisdoms, both of low-calorie dieting for weight loss and 'healthy eating' for the control of heart disease, were seriously flawed. The public were being misled largely, it seemed, to increase the profits of commercial interests.

He began to give talks and lectures, at first locally and then, increasingly over an ever-wider area. He has lectured as far afield as Western Australia.

Barry was a columnist writing about dietary and health matters for several health-related magazines such as The Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Caduceus and Namaste. He has also written columns for the Weekend Financial Times, The Oxford Times, and The Glade. He has also lectured in hospitals to medical professionals about the management and prevention of 'modern diseases' such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

His writing earned him the Sophie Coe Prize at the 2002 Oxford Symposium on Food History.

An International author, Barry has written a number of popular and more technical books which have been published in countries as far apart as Argentina and Russia, as well as all English-speaking countries.

With a doctorate in nutritional science from the distance learning university, Trinity College & University, gained from 20 years' research experience and a 60.000-word dissertation on the Politics of the Fluoridation of Public Water Supplies (Commercial version), he now divides his time between writing and giving talks to Womens' Institutes, Probus, and other groups and as a guest lecturer on cruise liners.

He is also currently:

• a director of the Foundation for Thymic Cancer Research
• a founder member of the Fluoride Action Network
• a founder member of THINCS -The International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics
• and an honorary member of the board of the Weston A Price Foundation

For five years he served as an elected councillor on the West Oxfordshire District Council where he was Chairman of the Public Health Committee.

Barry Groves does not confine himself to medical and dietary research. With a long-term interest in energy conservation, he and his wife, Monica, designed and built their own solar-heated house over three years from 1977 to 1980.

For relaxation, in 1982, he took up archery. With his compound bow, he became the British Clout Archery Champion in 1987. He retained this championship in the subsequent four years and in 1994, holding all the British Records in this discipline from 1989 to 1992.

In 1992 he entered the British Flight Archery Championships, winning at his first attempt with a British record. He has successfully defended this championship every year since and taken over 20 British records.

With a compound flight bow he designed and made himself, Barry won three Gold medals and broke two World records at his first attempt at the World Flight Archery Championships at Ivanpah, in the Mohave Desert, California, in 1996. He has now taken a total of eleven Gold Medals at international level with five world records.