Why Thierry Henry, 48, Had to Cut Processed Sugar from His Diet

Thierry Henry will turn 50 next year. And before hitting that milestone, he’s started to think more about his health.

Speaking to Men’s Health, he reveals that although he’s not someone who tracks weight or counts calories, preferring to just work out incredibly hard instead, with his sixth decade looming, he started to wonder what was happening inside his body. And that led him to Neko Health.

For those that don’t know, Neko Health is a preventative health clinic, where patients go to check everything from their heart attack risk to skin health. The service is followed up with an immediate consultation with a GP, and more recently has added body composition analysis to its arsenal of checks too.

Henry visited the clinic late last year. Ands he explains, it had a major impact on his diet.

Thierry Henry: I was about to turn 48. If your car is old, you bring it to the garage to see if everything is okay. Sometimes we don't check what's happening with our bodies. I'd rather know, because it's better to act than react. I've always believed that. I just wanted to know: how can I improve and be better and have a better life later on, so I can enjoy life with my kids?

I went there, and I was blown away – blown away first and foremost because it's non-invasive, and you can have a little discussion with the doctor explaining to you straight away what happened – it’s not an email filled with all these technical terms, where you need a Latin degree to understand what they're saying, and you’re like, ‘hey, can I get a normal explanation that a human being can understand?’ In one hour you’ve had your blood flow, grip and how your heart is going tested, and you go home knowing if you're going to be diabetic in 5, 10, twenty years.

I can share that my blood sugar level was elevated, and if I carried on, in twenty-five years, I might be close to being diabetic, so that's why I was like, no more sugar. I went on a seven-month diet of no processed sugar. That’s only changed recently. I went to France the other day, and I had good pastries, and now once every two or three months I can have a burger, but not five burgers in a week. You can always treat yourself, but now I'm a bit more aware of what goes in.

Yes, it did. If you don't take care once you've been told [the risks], what are you doing? So yes, obviously it did have an impact. I encourage people to go, because sometimes people don't want to know [what’s wrong]. They might be scared of what might happen, but the best thing is to know, so you can try to avoid something happening before it’s too late.

I did recently, and everything has improved. There's some stuff that’s still missing, like I have to take some supplements that I'm now taking. But I encourage everyone to go: it will change people's life, in terms of avoiding life or death situations. People always try to take care of everything, but sometimes not so much their body, or they do it when it's too late. You only have one, so make sure you take care of it.

Click here to find out more about Neko Health scans.

Daniel is Men’s Health UK’s Features Editor. He’s a writer and editor with a decade’s worth of experience covering health, fitness, tech and sports. In his time at Men’s Health, he’s written about everything from Black men's mental health to The Rock's cheat days and has logged training time with NFL footballers, Olympic gymnasts and the British Army. In his spare time he enjoys fitness of all kinds, from deadlifts to long runs, and is always on the lookout for his next challenge.