The dead doctor and a dicey diet: how a ban made a hero of Egypt’s rogue medic

Diaa al-Awadi claimed insulin was a fraud, smoking was safe and chemotherapy useless. But despite losing his medical licence and dying at early age, his reach continues to grow It had been a struggle with conventional treatments. For Fatima Adel, a 50-year-old author living in Cairo’s upmarket Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood, the misdiagnoses and medical errors she had experienced had began to erode her confidence in doctors. But when the videos of Diaa al-Awadi began circulating – an Egyptian doctor who spoke plainly, invoked the Qur’an, and told his audience that their bodies could heal themselves if they changed their diet – Adel, like tens of thousands of other Egyptians, listened. After years of not getting anywhere with easing her type 2 diabetes, she began following al-Awadi’s system in early 2024: stopping her medication and altering her diet. The first few months brought what felt like an improvement in her health. Then the deterioration began. “I felt fatigue I couldn’t explain, but didn’t connect it to [al-Awadi’s] system because people around me said I was looking healthier and I believed them,” she said. After a few months, she had tingling and numbness