Lenny: My mum lost her legs to diabetes – I’ve shed 3st to beat it
HE TURNED heads last month with his striking transformation from a larger-than-life comic to a trim stage actor.
Now Lenny Henry has revealed what triggered his dramatic weight loss.
The comedian said doctors told him to lose three stone after diagnosing him with diabetes – the deadly disease which cost his late mother both her legs.
He said: ‘I’m a bit diabetic, so I was put on a very strict diet. I’ve lost between two and a half and three stone. I was big. It’s lots of greens, lots of juice and lots of walking. Swimming is good.
‘You’ve got to eat no sugar and drink hardly any alcohol. You can’t Hobnob your way through the day.’
The 55-year-old, who this week won a Critics’ Circle award for his role in the play Fences, revealed he has also taken up ashtanga yoga – an athletic form of the exercise – to stay in shape. Diabetes can cause complications with circulation which can lead to infections and, in the worst cases, these can be treated only with amputation. Henry’s mother Winifred, a diabetic, had a double leg amputation before she died in 1998.
Although Henry did not give details of his condition, experts said it is almost certain he suffers from Type 2 diabetes, which is far more common among people over the age of 50 than the inherited Type 1 variant. Adults are 15 per cent more likely to develop Type 2 if either one of their parents has had it.
However, Douglas Twenefour, clinical adviser at Diabetes UK, said up to 80 per cent of cases can be delayed or prevented by losing weight.
Speaking at the South Bank Sky Arts Awards in London, Henry, who is in a relationship with theatre producer Lisa Makin, 47, said an added benefit was that he would not be ‘a heffalump running around the stage’.