The late Dr. Diaa Al-Awadhi (1979 – April 2026), an Egyptian physician specialising in anaesthesiology and intensive care, was the founder of the "Tayebat System", a dietary approach based on selecting certain foods and avoiding others that spread widely through Arabic-language social media in recent years. He became one of the most controversial figures in Arabic health content, and his story ended with his removal from the Egyptian Medical Syndicate's register followed, weeks later, by his sudden death.
Early life and medical career
He was born in Egypt in 1979 to a family from Sharqia Governorate, studied medicine, and specialised in anaesthesiology, intensive care and pain management. According to his Arabic Wikipedia biography, he worked in the intensive care department of Ain Shams University until 2023. His specialty was not nutrition — a point his critics frequently raised.
His idea: returning to the tayyibat
Dr. Diaa called for a return to natural food and a reduction in processed food, and set out detailed lists of allowed and forbidden foods together with rules for eating — eat when hungry, stop before fullness, rotate protein — which his followers summarised in tables, files and apps. He spread his ideas through long videos and live streams answering followers' questions, which is why the lists expanded and changed over time and why sources differ in their details.
The foundation of the system is the duality of "tayyib and khabith": food humans knew before modern industry versus what factories produce. Hence the daily permission for rice, potatoes, dates, butter and sugar, and the ban on chicken, eggs, milk, legumes, white flour and hydrogenated oils.
Spread
The system spread quickly in Egypt and other Arab countries — by mid-2026 international media were reporting on its popularity as far away as Yemen — especially among people with obesity, diabetes and digestive complaints, driven by followers' testimonies of weight loss. Large communities formed around it on social media, along with websites collecting the lists.
Controversy and the official response
With spread came criticism. Doctors objected to banning staple foods such as milk, eggs and leafy vegetables, to daily reliance on high-sugar foods, and to the implication that the system can replace the treatment of chronic disease. The gravest issue was reports of followers stopping their medication — insulin in particular — in reliance on the diet; New Lines Magazine, for example, reported the case of a teenager with diabetes who fell into a coma after stopping insulin.
- 10 March 2026: the Egyptian Medical Syndicate's disciplinary board struck him off its register in his absence and suspended him from practising medicine. Its published grounds said he had generalised limited research hypotheses to healthy people without accredited clinical evidence, made claims about diabetes, kidney transplantation and cancer that contradict medical and nutritional consensus, and exposed patients to risks such as stopping life-saving medication. His clinic was also closed.
- 3 May 2026: Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation, acting on requests from the Ministry of Health and Population and the Medical Syndicate, barred media outlets from publishing or circulating any video, audio or written material by him.
- 8 June 2026: Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health warned against the diet after recording cases that deteriorated when patients stopped insulin or diabetes medicines — some needing emergency and intensive care — and cautioned against excluding basic food groups without medical reason.
Death
He died in Dubai in April 2026, at the age of 47. Authorities reported that he died of natural causes, from a heart attack. His death prompted a wave of sympathy among his followers and a counter-wave of questions about the relationship between his diet and his health — questions to which there is no documented answer and on which nothing should be built in either direction.
Afterwards
Press coverage in mid-2026 indicates that the system continued to spread after his death and that the communities around it kept sharing the lists, while health authorities' warnings continued. This site aims to document the system and its teachings in an educational, organised way — including these official positions — not to promote it, while always emphasising qualified medical consultation before following any diet and never stopping any medication or treatment except under a doctor's supervision.
Sources
The system's rules and lists are taken from Dr. Diaa Al-Awadhi's published explanations and his followers' summaries; presenting them here is documentation, not a recommendation. Health information and factual statements are based on:
- Arabic Wikipedia — ضياء العوضي (Diaa Al-Awadhi), accessed 20 October 2026.
- Shorouk News — نظام الطيبات.. ماذا قالت عنه الهيئة التأديبية لنقابة الأطباء في حيثيات شطبها لـ ضياء العوضي؟ (the Medical Syndicate disciplinary board's grounds, in Arabic), 5 May 2026.
- Al Khaleej — بسبب نظام الطيبات.. قرار مصري حاسم بشأن فيديوهات ضياء العوضي (Egypt's media regulator bans his content, in Arabic), 3 May 2026.
- Masrawy — بسبب "نظام الطيبات".. تحذير عاجل من الصحة السعودية (Saudi Ministry of Health warning, in Arabic), 8 June 2026.
- Al Ain News — «نظام الطيبات» يصل إلى السعودية.. تحذير رسمي من اتباع «العوضي» (in Arabic), 8 June 2026.
- New Lines Magazine — How an Egyptian Doctor's Fad Diet Turned Deadly, 30 July 2026.
- Al Jazeera — Don’t eat your greens? A diet taking Yemen by storm has doctors worried, 3 July 2026.