Annabel Croft's heartache over her late husband Mel Coleman's cancer

Annabel Croft believes her late husband Mel Coleman would have survived his cancer for longer if they'd been warned sooner that sugar and carbohydrates spread the disease. 

Former professional tennis player and Strictly star Annabel's husband of 36 years passed away in 2023, aged 60 after he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.

Mel died just eight weeks after he was diagnosed with the terminal illness. 

Annabel told how before going in to see a doctor and receiving the bombshell news, she had told worried Mel everything would be fine. 

But after being told he didn't have much longer to live, Annabel said they were not advised immediately about nutrition - and she fears chocolate and other sugary foods hastened Mel's demise until he eventually died from sepsis. 

Annabel, 58, said: 'People don't realise this. He had stage four cancer. It started with colon cancer, but it could have been across everywhere at the same time. But it spread into the liver, it was spread into the kidneys, even possibly into the brain as well. 

'But what he actually died of was sepsis and there was a perforation from one of the tumours. 

'We'd gone on this flight to Portugal thinking he was going to get some sunshine and some respite from all of his treatment. 

'I think maybe on that flight it may have just swollen something and perforated one of the tumours.' 

Annabel, speaking on The Mid.Point podcast, went on to describe when symptoms began showing. 

She said: 'We were making the bed one day and he just turned to me and he said 'I haven't told you this Annabel, but I've got these funny pains in my side and they're just not going away, they're getting worse'. 

'It never dawned on me that it could be something so absolutely catastrophic. 

'He went off to have some scans done. And then a couple of weeks later the scans came through and clearly the medical profession were absolutely horrified by what they'd seen because they knew that he wouldn't have much time left. 

'Outside before we went in, Mel had said to me in the car park 'I'm really worried about this meeting', and I said 'Oh, don't worry about it - of course it's going to be fine. You know, maybe you just have a cyst that's going to have to be removed'. 

'But the very first thing out of the surgeon's mouth was 'I'm afraid your life expectancy's not very good'. 

'We both were spinning. The surgeon said 'Well, I've drawn the short straw, and I'm the one who's had to deliver this news'. 

'Worse than that - I will just say this because I think it's important to pass on this information from what I've learned from the cancer specialist Dr Isabelle Cooper who treated him - I've since learned that if you have cancer you absolutely must not put any sugar in your body at all, and that includes carbohydrates. 

'But when he had just had this news delivered he said to the surgeon 'If I'm going to have to have lots of operations, what should I eat?' 

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'And he said 'Oh, I have no idea about nutrition, I've never studied it - if you feel like some chocolate why don't you have some chocolate'. 'And of course in hindsight, now knowing what I know about cancer treatment and through a specialist who deals with it and studies it all day long, that any sugar, glucose that goes into the body will divide that cell and spread it. 

'He went on ketogenic metabolic therapy and that is basically fuelling your body on fat and meat. 

'On the last scans just before Mel died, it was showing a massive retraction of the cancer cells. 

'So the work that they were doing was working and it's just so tragic that he died of sepsis. 

'The only thing I would say is he died with complete hope as to what he was doing.

'They'd already told him he had very little time left and that he had to get his papers in order. And that was the very first meeting we had.' 

Annabel also told how she has recently been helping her daughter move house and it had inspired her to clear her own home - but she's unable to discard Mel's old toothbrush. 

She said: 'I am looking to move. I want to move out of a family home that I've been in for about 25, 26 years but I'm just trying to do it slowly before D-day comes when I really have to move out. 

'It's taken me two years to start addressing his (Mel's) clothes in the wardrobe. I did that this week which was quite hard. I did his shoes a few weeks ago. It's obviously a lot of memories. It's painful. 

'When I move home of course I'm going to keep hold of a couple of things. 'It's emotional but I think it needs to be done. 

'I still haven't been able to clear his toothbrush. It's put into a little cabinet in the bathroom. But I cannot bring myself to throw it every time I look at it and pick it up. 'That's the one thing I just don't know when I can do that.' 

It comes after Annabel heartbreakingly admitted she 'may never' date anyone else again after her husband's death.

In a candid new interview with The Times, the Strictly star said: 'I've had people asking for dinner dates. I'm, like, "You have no idea!" I’m not anywhere close to that.

'It gives me the heebies to think about it. It’s never say never, but I wouldn't mind if it was never.

'Still, I don’t want to feel doom and gloom for the rest of my life. Mel would have wanted me to be happy. I try to live in the moment, to stay as present as you possibly can. It’s the only way to be - like a sportsman.'

The pair married in 1993 and share three adult children, Charlie, Amber and Lilly.