MT: Note for MT (“Mayo Clinic Diet”) [“Diet for two weeks only”] [released 2010]

Document type:	Declassified documents
Source:	Thatcher MSS (Churchill Archive Centre): THCR 6/1/1/31
Editorial comments:	The diet began circulating in the late 1970s. The annotations are in MT’s handwriting. It was found tucked into the front flap of her 1979 pocket diary, which was used until the General Election but not after. Accordingly it almost certainly predates her arrival at No.10 - a pre-election spruce up, in anticipation of an onslaught from the photographers. An interview with the Sun on 13 Mar 1979 (on this site) discusses the issue, but describes a different diet. Perhaps then she tried two different diets. The name is misleading: it has in fact no connection with the Mayo Clinic, which issued dislaimers, denials and writs against it with no effect for several decades, before producing a very different diet of its own in December 2009. Some handwritten notes follow the diet. You can glimpse the folded page tucked into its flap to the right of them.
Importance ranking:	Trivial
Word count:	1p