Mike Stroud (physician)

Last updated

Mike Stroud
Born
Michael Adrian Stroud [1] [2]

(1955-04-17) 17 April 1955 (age 69)
Alma mater University College London and St George's Hospital Medical School
Occupation Physician
Known forPolar expeditions
Human endurance expert
SpouseThea (née de Moel) m. 1987
Children2
Website http://drmikestroud.com/

Prof Michael Adrian Stroud, OBE, FRCP (born 17 April 1955) is an expert on human health under extreme conditions. He became widely known when he partnered with Ranulph Fiennes on polar expeditions.

Contents

Early life

Stroud was educated at Trinity School of John Whitgift in the London Borough of Croydon. He obtained a degree (intercalated BSc) from University College London in anthropology and genetics in 1976, before qualifying as a medical doctor from St George's Hospital Medical School, London in 1979. [1]

Medical career

After qualifying, and working junior hospital jobs, Stroud specialised in nutrition and gastroenterology. He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1984 and a Fellow in 1995. He has studied human endurance under extreme conditions based on personal experience including running marathons in the Sahara and trekking across polar ice. He has worked for the Ministry of Defence researching the nutritional needs of soldiers in action and the effects of heat and cold on human performance. In 1998 he became a Senior Lecturer in Nutrition and Medicine and a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust and in 2017 he was given a personal Professorial chair in Clinical Nutrition. He has taken time out from his medical career over the years to participate in various expeditions.

Expeditions and endurance

Stroud was the doctor on the In the footsteps of Scott Antarctic expedition in 1984–1986. He joined Ranulph Fiennes in 1986 to attempt to journey on foot to the North Pole unsupported. In 1992/3 Stroud and Fiennes made the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic continent, although they were unable to cross the Ross Ice Shelf to reach the open sea. Drinking isotope labelled water and collecting regular blood and urine samples, Stroud discovered that their energy expenditure averaged nearly 7,000 calories per day, with one ten day period that averaged over 11,000 calories per day. [3] [4]

Stroud, together with Fiennes, is a supporter of rigorous exercise to help slow down the aging process. He points out that historically the human body is pre-tuned to undergo bouts of hard work and in particular can cope remarkably well with endurance events in hot climates. He argues that our current sedentary lifestyle conflicts with our body's design and is leading to the health issues that an increasing proportion of the Western world is experiencing today.

In 2003 Stroud and Fiennes both completed seven marathons on seven continents in seven days in the Land Rover 7x7x7 Challenge for the British Heart Foundation. [5] [6]

On Tuesday 22 July 2014 Stroud joined four others (Chris Buckton, Barry Robson, Mark Harding and Ian Smith) in kayaking 77.3 miles across the English Channel on sit-on-top kayaks helping to raise money and awareness for Macmillan Cancer Support and Heroes on the Water UK. This took 19 hours 21 minutes during which he never left the kayak. It is believed that this is the first time this has been done before in this direction as paddling South is notoriously difficult. [7] [8]

Other work

Stroud was the on-screen expert on endurance performance for all 3 of the BBC TV series SAS: Are You Tough Enough? and then presented his own BBC series The Challenge . He also featured as the main participant in one of the BBC programmes Through the Keyhole hosted by Sir David Frost.

Personal life

Stroud married Thea de Moel in 1987; Thea died in September 2018. They have a son and a daughter. [1]

Honours

Stroud was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1993 Queen's Birthday Honours "for Human Endeavour and for charitable services". [2] On 20 December 1994, he was awarded the Polar Medal "for outstanding achievement and service to British Polar exploration and research". [9] [10]

In 1995, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Shackleton</span> Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874–1922)

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ranulph Fiennes</span> British explorer (born 1944)

Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, 3rd Baronet, commonly known as Sir Ranulph Fiennes and sometimes as Ran Fiennes, is a British explorer, writer and poet, who holds several endurance records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition</span> 1955–58 expedition to Antarctica

The Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958 was a Commonwealth-sponsored expedition that successfully completed the first overland crossing of Antarctica, via the South Pole. It was the first expedition to reach the South Pole overland for 46 years, preceded only by Amundsen's expedition and Scott's expedition in 1911 and 1912.

<i>Marathon des Sables</i> Annual ultramarathon in Morocco

Marathon des Sables, or MdS, is a seven-day, about 250 km (160 mi) ultramarathon, which is approximately the distance of six regular marathons. The longest single stage (2009) was 91 km (57 mi) long.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wally Herbert</span> British polar explorer

Sir Walter William Herbert was a British polar explorer, writer and artist. In 1969 he became the first man fully recognized for walking to the North Pole, on the 60th anniversary of Robert Peary's disputed expedition. He was described by Sir Ranulph Fiennes as "the greatest polar explorer of our time".

<i>Discovery</i> Expedition British scientific expedition to Antarctica (1901 to 1904)

The DiscoveryExpedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839–1843). Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Wild</span> English sailor and polar explorer (1873–1939)

John Robert Francis Wild was an English sailor and explorer. He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration</span> Period of history from the 1890s to the 1920s

The Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration was an era in the exploration of the continent of Antarctica which began at the end of the 19th century, and ended after the First World War; the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition of 1921–1922 is often cited by historians as the dividing line between the "Heroic" and "Mechanical" ages.

The Transglobe Expedition (1979–1982) was the first expedition to make a longitudinal (north–south) circumnavigation of the Earth using only surface transport. British adventurer Sir Ranulph Fiennes led a team, including Oliver Shepard and Charles R. Burton, that attempted to follow the Greenwich meridian over both land and water. They began in Greenwich in the United Kingdom in September 1979 and travelled south, arriving at the South Pole on 15 December 1980. Over the next 14 months, they travelled north, reaching the North Pole on 11 April 1982. Travelling south once more, they arrived again in Greenwich on 29 August 1982. It required traversing both of the poles and the use of boats in some places. Oliver Shepard took part in the Antarctic leg of the expedition. Ginny Fiennes handled all communications between the land team and their support, and ran the polar bases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ginny Fiennes</span> British explorer

Virginia Frances, Lady Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, known as Ginny Fiennes, was an English explorer. She was the first woman to be awarded the Polar Medal, and the first woman to be voted in to join the Antarctic Club in recognition of her research work for the British Antarctic Survey and University of Sheffield into very low frequency radio propagation. Her husband was adventurer Ranulph Fiennes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward L. Atkinson</span> Royal Navy surgeon and Antarctic explorer (1881–1929)

Edward Leicester Atkinson, was a Royal Navy surgeon and Antarctic explorer who was a member of the scientific staff of Captain Scott's Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13. He was in command of the expedition's base at Cape Evans for much of 1912, and led the party which found the tent containing the bodies of Scott, "Birdie" Bowers and Edward Wilson. Atkinson was subsequently associated with two controversies: that relating to Scott's orders concerning the use of dogs, and that relating to the possible incidence of scurvy in the polar party. He is commemorated by the Atkinson Cliffs on the northern coast of Victoria Land, Antarctica, at 71°18′S168°55′E.

Oliver Shepard is a British explorer. He participated in the Transglobe Expedition, the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe from pole to pole.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Pole</span> Southernmost point on Earth

The South Pole, also known as the Geographic South Pole or Terrestrial South Pole, is the southernmost point on Earth and lies antipodally on the opposite side of Earth from the North Pole, at a distance of 20,004 km in all directions. It is one of the two points where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface.

Rebecca Stephens is a British author and journalist, known for being the first British woman to climb the Seven Summits, and the first British woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Leijerstam</span> British polar adventurer (born 1978)

Maria Leijerstam is a British polar adventurer. In 2013 she became the first person to cycle to the South Pole from the edge of the continent. Leijerstam started her expedition on the Ross Ice Shelf at the edge of the Antarctic continent, and cycled for 10 to 17 hours each day with no rest days, and the total distance cycled was 638 km (396 mi). Leijerstam's cycle was a three wheeled design, and she reached the pole faster than any previous skiing expedition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of women in Antarctica</span>

This is a Timeline ofwomen in Antarctica. This article describes many of the firsts and accomplishments that women from various countries have accomplished in different fields of endeavor on the continent of Antarctica.

Luke Robertson is a British and Scottish explorer, adventurer, endurance athlete and motivational speaker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Preet Chandi</span> British Army officer, explorer (b. 1988/89)

Harpreet Kaur "Preet" Chandi is a British physiotherapist and British Army medical officer who completed a solo expedition across Antarctica to the South Pole, finishing on 3 January 2022. In January 2023, she recorded the longest ever solo and unsupported polar expedition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bothie (dog)</span> Canine polar explorer

Bothie, also known as Bothie the Polar Dog, was a long-haired Jack Russell Terrier who was the only dog to travel to both the South and North Poles. Bothie was owned by Ranulph Fiennes and Ginny Fiennes and accompanied the team on the circumpolar Transglobe Expedition from 1979 to 1982.

References