Annabel Croft, a former professional tennis player and participant in the television show Strictly Come Dancing, has spoken openly about the loss of her husband, Mel Coleman, who succumbed to cancer earlier this year. Coleman passed away in May 2023, just 16 weeks after receiving a diagnosis of stage four cancer, which evolved to cause fatal sepsis from a perforated tumour.

In her conversation on The Mid Point podcast, Croft reflected on her husband’s illness, explaining the rapid progression of his condition, which began with colon cancer and subsequently spread to his liver, kidneys, and potentially his brain. “It started with colon cancer, but it could have been across everywhere at the same time,” Croft stated. She detailed the moments leading up to Coleman’s decline, sharing that a flight to Portugal intended to offer him some respite may have exacerbated his condition, leading to the perforation of one of his tumours.

Croft, now 58, mentioned her belief that dietary changes might have positively influenced her husband’s treatment outcomes. “I will just say this because I think it’s important to pass on this information from what I’ve learned from the cancer specialist Dr Isabelle Cooper who treated him,” she said, indicating that doctors often lack nutritional knowledge in relation to cancer care. Croft conveyed her frustration regarding advice given to Coleman, particularly when he inquired about diet shortly after his diagnosis. “He said to the surgeon, ‘If I’m going to have to have lots of operations, what should I eat?’ and he said, ‘Oh, I have no idea about nutrition, I’ve never studied it’,” she recounted, illustrating the gap in dietary guidance available for cancer patients.

With her newfound knowledge, Croft stressed the impact that eliminating sugar from one’s diet could have during cancer treatment, stating emphatically, “you absolutely must not put any sugar in your body at all, and that includes carbohydrates.” She shared that Coleman had commenced a ketogenic metabolic therapy, focusing on a high-fat, low-carb diet, which reportedly showed a significant retraction in the cancer cells before his death.

Despite the tragic outcome, Croft emphasised that her husband maintained hope until the end. “The only thing I would say is he died with complete hope as to what he was doing,” she noted. The couple had been married for 30 years and shared three children, and Croft’s reflections on their life together and his battle with cancer highlight the challenges faced by families dealing with terminal illnesses.

Source: Noah Wire Services