I met Michael Mosley in 1995, when he asked me to audition to present a TV series he was creating called Trust Me, I’m a Doctor. He wanted someone who wasn’t afraid to take down their own profession and I seemed to fit the bill. I liked him immediately, and we discovered we had a lot in common: raised abroad, the privilege of private school and Oxbridge and driven by escaping the fate of our fathers (mine died at 38 by suicide, Mike’s in his early 70s from the complications of diabetes). And we’d both married wonderful GPs to keep us on track.

Michael had stopped being a doctor and he needed someone who still was to take the flak. I was in a medical double act called Struck Off and Die, with Tony Gardner, and we used to ridicule doctors who preferred the glamour of the TV studio to the prospect of examining haemorrhoids in some chilly provincial surgery. But Michael was so enthusiastic and persuasive. He also knew I was Private Eye’s medical correspondent, MD, and that I had broken the story that far too many babies were dying after heart surgery in Bristol. If I presented his series, he promised to put the full weight of the BBC science unit behind the show and that I could expose countless other medical scandals. Doctors would hate me but he would protect me, like a wise older brother. How could I refuse?

Michael was both exhilarating and exhausting to work with. He had an encyclopedic mind, very strong ideas about what made a gripping story and no time for tedious political excuses. He paid meticulous attention to the science and we exposed a huge range of appalling NHS scandals, which he called “you bastard” stories, alongside his true passion, which was for spreading useful and usable evidence to stop people getting sick in the first place.

Little things, added together, made a big difference: standing up, standing on one leg, walking briskly, breathing slowly, napping after lunch, green spaces, cold showers. We wrote a book together, combining scandals, science and self-help. We did five series in five years, won awards and celebrated with bad karaoke and dad dancing, which Michael assured me was good for your health. But he always had an eye on the next project.

I knew my Mosley days were numbered when he got very enthusiastic about self-experimentation and asked me to have bowel screening on camera to “demystify the process for patients”. It was our first big argument. I was too young to warrant bowel screening and I didn’t want millions of people seeing my bowels. So Mike took up the challenge and went front of camera.

He embraced the human guinea pig persona with characteristic vigour (intestinal cameras, tapeworms, snake venom, needles, ice baths) but I’m glad he turned down pubic lice. When he discovered he had type 2 diabetes in 2012, he set about experimenting with intermittent fasting to see if he could lose weight and reverse it. He did. I told him it wasn’t a solution for everyone and that fasting and calorie restriction could exacerbate eating disorders. But his books became bestsellers and he toured the world and inspired people from all backgrounds to change their behaviour. His Just One Thing podcasts were listened to by millions and he relaunched Trust Me… without me. I was a bit prickly but he gave the next generation of TV doctors their break.

We kept in touch and he would graciously plug my Edinburgh festival fringe shows, while I would pretend to follow his cold showers advice. We once did squats together and both farted loudly on the downstroke. The resultant laughter was a bigger challenge for the pelvic floor but much better for our health.

Above all, Michael was a risk-taker who sought and served the truth with the zeal of his missionary ancestors. We even made a film explaining why people take insane risks on holiday (your risk compass goes awry). You have to love a doctor who can’t quite take his own advice and self-experiments to the end. Mad dogs and Englishmen. I miss him.