Michael Mosley 'collapsed' during holiday hike

The family of missing TV presenter Dr Michael Mosley confirmed that his body was found on the Greek island of Symi on Sunday morning.

Many tributes have been paid to the TV doctor and columnist, who popularised the 5:2 diet and starred in shows such as "Lose a Stone in 21 Days".

It was a "heartbreaking end" to a major search operation, said The Sun . The 67-year-old had taken a 2.2-mile walk back to his holiday accommodation alone on Wednesday afternoon through tough terrain in "scorching temperatures".

"He so very nearly made it," said his wife Dr Clare Bailey Mosley in a statement yesterday. After an "incredible climb" he "took the wrong route and collapsed where he couldn't be easily seen".

She said it was "devastating" to have lost her "wonderful, funny, kind and brilliant husband".

Born in Calcutta, India, Mosley was sent to boarding school in England at the age of seven and went on to study at Oxford. He trained in medicine at the Royal Free hospital in north London.

"The Fast Diet", his "groundbreaking" first book published in 2013, "changed the way a nation ate", said Katie Rosseinsky in The Independent . "Everyone from celebrity chefs to politicians to the colleague you bumped into in the kitchen seemed to be singing its praises."

In 2002 he'd received an Emmy nomination for his behind-the-scenes work on John Cleese's documentary "The Human Face" and, from 2008, "started making appearances in front of the camera".

Mosley will be remembered not only for his "popularising and explanation of science", fellow TV doctor Phil Hammond told Sky News , but the fact that he was willing to experiment on himself. "He would eat the tapeworm. He'd have the sigmoidoscopy. He'd smoke a cigarette and see what it did to him."

He was simply, said Dr Saleyha Ahsan, his co-presenter on "Trust Me, I'm A Doctor", a "national treasure".