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Dr Rangan ChatterjeeDr Rangan Chatterjee

Let Food Be Thy Medicine: Use These 5 Food Facts Everyday To Heal Your Body | Tim Spector

Professor Tim Spector rarely eats bananas these days. He treats a glass of fruit juice as he would a can of cola. And, despite having to watch his blood pressure, he no longer restricts the salt he adds to food. Controversial views?

Dr. Rangan ChatterjeehostTim Spectorguest
Aug 16, 20232h 49mWatch on YouTube

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Partial transcript

  1. 0:00 – 7:33

    Eating 30 plants a week for gut microbes

    1. RC

      In terms of the good things people should be focusing on then, so we know the importance of gut health. In terms of those foods or the types of foods that you would love people to be focusing on more, what are they?

    2. TS

      Well, gut-friendly foods. So, you know, I'm hoping one day we'll have a, a nice label on the food that gives it a, like, a calorie score, a gut-friendly score. And, uh, you are seeing some of the, some of the companies starting to, to, you know, have these labels on it, but they're, uh, it's the Wild West. They can, anyone can put anything on it at the moment. You don't trust it. So what you gotta think of is what do your microbes want to eat when you're, when you're, when you're picking a meal. And generally, if you pick foods that your microbes are gonna be happy eating, they're gonna be good for you, and they're also gonna be good for the planet. So as a very general rule, uh, that's a pretty good one. And what microbes like to eat is they like to eat predominantly plants. They like to eat, uh, high-fiber plants that are, are complex, and, uh, they, um, like a variety. So there's no point only eating one type of salad every day, even if you love it. Do mix it up, uh, because we've done studies showing that the sort of sweet spot for the number of plants you should eat in a week is around 30. And, you know, w- that's not a precise number, but you should be aiming for at least 30 plants, uh, different plants a week. So bear in mind, that's so you, all the, you're generating as many species of microbes that can feed off all the chemicals in each of those plants. So it's, it's like the perfect nourishment for them, is to get that variety across the week.

    3. RC

      So if someone, let's say, loves broccoli, and thinks, you know, "I've gotta eat more vegetables 'cause I know it's good for me. I love broccoli. Okay, I'm gonna have broccoli five, six, seven times a week." Compared to not having that, I guess that would have an improvement. But are you saying that for that person, 'cause I think there'll be people listening to this right now-

    4. TS

      Who like broccoli

    5. RC

      ... who, who like broccoli or whatever. Green beans or-

    6. TS

      Kale. Kale is a big one.

    7. RC

      Yeah. Got their favorite one, and they-

    8. TS

      Yeah

    9. RC

      ... have that all the time. Can you just sort of expand on that for that person, that actually, that's great, but you might wanna think about expanding it more?

    10. TS

      Yes. I mean, so you gotta think of it as, yes, you love broccoli, and broccoli has lots of fabulous in, uh, nutrients in it. But it's gonna generate m- certain microbes that like eating the broccoli and the broccoli side of, side products. But if you just changed it slightly to, okay, I'm gonna have a bit of cauliflower, which is the same family, but it's got different chemicals, different nutrients, you'll introduce different microbes to your, to your gut. And eating both together would actually create different chemicals that wou- will be made by your microbes and have even better results. But if you are a fa- big fan of broccoli, you, you know, occasionally go for purple broccoli, which also has slightly different, um, nutrients in it-

    11. RC

      Yeah

    12. TS

      ... to, to straightforward ones. So it's, it's about thinking, uh, about how you can just subtly change. You, you know, you can still eat your broccoli, uh, but mix it in with other things that are similar, and try other ones. There's so many, uh, crucifers that are, uh, fantastic to eat. So I think that's, that's the idea. It, it's about mixing it up. It's about trying new stuff, and it's about enjoyment in food as well.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      So we all get into ruts, you know? However interested you are in nutrition, you know, even myself, I get into food ruts, and I sometimes have to go to a restaurant and say, "I'm gonna pick something-"

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... "new I've never heard of. Oh, that, I don't know what that is. I'll have that one." Um, or a str- uh, you go to a foreign country, and you know-

    17. RC

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... there's some vegetable you don't know what it is. Pick it. And I think that's what we've gotta, we've gotta change our attitude, that, uh, we have our comfort zone of, of, of particularly vegetables. That, uh [laughs] -

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. TS

      ... I think, you know, whether it's avoiding the ones from school, or it's actually wanting the ones from school. But, uh, realize that even within certain varieties like lettuces or cabbages, there are a huge range. Uh, you can now buy f- you know, cu- carrots with three different colors.

    21. RC

      Yeah.

    22. TS

      And they're all nutritionally different. So the way they're bred and, and, and, and the chemicals in them are different. So for your microbes, they're seeing them as different. You might call them all carrots, but they'll be different. Similarly, you know, different range of sweet potatoes, and, and, and baked potatoes, and there can be purples, and all these other things.

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      So it's that variety that's important. But don't get obsessed that we're only talking about different varieties of kale here, because the 30 includes, um, uh, nuts and seeds and, uh, herbs. We don't know exactly how much, but increasing studies, uh, are showing that just adding, uh, spices, spice mixes to your, uh, your diet e- every, at least, you know, a couple of times a week can enhance-

    25. RC

      Yeah

    26. TS

      ... your gut microbes. So increasingly, the evidence is, is building. It's this, the people who have the more diverse diets, uh, do better. So, um, snap yourself out of your routines, uh, whether it's for your salad or your breakfast, and, uh, and try and work this in.

    27. RC

      So, so you mentioned out of those 30 that you recommend as a ballpark figure- Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, uh, spices, lentils, and things like beans as well, black beans-

    28. TS

      Oh, yes

    29. RC

      ... chickpeas, all those sort of things.

    30. TS

      Yes. I mean, uh, and-

  2. 7:33 – 10:32

    Starting where you are: the 30-plant target as an aspiration

    1. RC

      For, for someone who may be on zero or, or five at the moment, and they hear 30, what does the research show in terms of... Yeah. Look, from wherever you are, even if you go from 5 to 10 a week, you're gonna get an improvement, aren't you? You're gonna improve the quality and the diversity of your microbiome. 30 may be the ultimate target, but for some people who can't achieve that, I guess we don't want them feeling bad about that. It's a case of, look, start where you're at and just see what you can do?

    2. TS

      Absolutely, yes. The 30 was just where we saw on the curve in the population that people sort of reached the maximum diversity. And of course-

    3. RC

      Oh, so going to 40 didn't really give them much more diversity.

    4. TS

      On average, no.

    5. RC

      On average.

    6. TS

      I mean, of course, you know, as, you know, we've talked about before, it's all individual, so there's lots of individuality, uh, here. So, you know, some people might be fine on 20. Others might need 40. We don't know yet. So we're setting a, a rough, rough bar.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. TS

      So don't knock yourself out-

    9. RC

      [laughs]

    10. TS

      ... if, if, uh, you're only on 28 one week, and you feel like you're a total failure. Um, i- you know, it, it's fine. I think it's, it's an aspirational goal. The more, uh, more important is to just keep it in mind.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      Your mentality, you're looking for that. Everyone has weeks where it's hard. They're working. You know, they're having to travel. Uh, they... You're not prepared, or you're at someone's house, and they're serving you boring food. You can't say, "Oh, is this all you've got?" You know? "This is terrible." Um, you, you know, it... We live in a practical world.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      And yeah, just on average, have that as an aspiration and, uh, see how you get on.

    15. RC

      But, but, uh, but as you, you said for your breakfast, which I find fascinating, you'll get 8 to 10, which almost insulates you from some of the issues that may arise with working late or traveling. And, you know, if you've got 8 to 10 on a Monday morning, you're in pretty good shape [laughs] going into that week. So just talk me through that breakfast again. We'll be back to the conversation in just a moment. Now, many of us struggle to find time to eat all of these incredible whole foods. That's why I'm a big fan of good quality whole food supplements like this one that's been in my own life for over three years now. It contains over 75 whole food source ingredients, vitamins, minerals, pre and probiotics, and can help us support our energy, focus, digestion, and our immune system. Athletic Greens are giving my audience a fantastic offer. One year's free supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first order. You can see all the details at athleticgreens.com/livemore or simply click on the link below. Now, back to the conversation. What I know is that people really enjoy the conversations I have with you. They feel really inspired to change. And I think hearing that you get 8 to 10 plants in a breakfast, I think may be super helpful for people. So would you mind just sharing that again? Exactly what do you do for breakfast when you have it?

  3. 10:32 – 16:29

    Spector's breakfast and why he changed it

    1. TS

      In my usual breakfast, which doesn't mean I have it every day, and I do vary it depending on where I am, uh, it's, it's now become a, uh, a full-fat yogurt, a, um, 50/50 with kefir, which is fermented milk. Kefir, uh, as it's pronounced in the US, uh, and which has even more mi-... So there's, like, two probiotics in that.

    2. RC

      Wow.

    3. TS

      With perhaps, uh, we think about 15 mic- microbial, 15 to 20 microbial species between them if you're lucky. So that's... Also, I've got a probiotic start as well. And then I will go to my, my jar where I keep, um, generally dried nuts and seeds, which I sort of collect as I go around, uh, supermarkets and other places, or markets and see, trying to find new ones.

    4. RC

      Wow.

    5. TS

      And, uh-

    6. RC

      It's almost like a hobby, a pursuit for you to see these things and pop them in this jar.

    7. TS

      It is, yes. And, uh, it, it varies. Sometimes it gets a bit low, and down the bottom I'm scraping the barrel, and it's a bit grainy and things.

    8. RC

      [laughs]

    9. TS

      Uh, and other times it's, it's, it's, it's over, over-bulging. But I- I, I, I am aiming to get, uh, you know, y- 'cause it's quite easy, the, the common ones. But the idea is, you know, you can buy easily the, you know, chia seeds and, uh, these ones, but y- you wouldn't wanna eat just those.

    10. RC

      Right.

    11. TS

      Um, so the idea is to, is to mix them up with common ones, and there's nothing ab- it's not particularly the ones that are expensive or not. It's just there's variety, uh, you, you can put in there. And I add also to that, you know, I got, for example, at the moment, some pomegranate seeds.

    12. RC

      Yeah.

    13. TS

      Um, and I just stick those in. Um, and, um, you know, what- whatever's around I, I will use, and whatever's in the fruit bowl I generally chop up. Um, I've... I used to eat a lot of bananas, but since I did my Zoe test and realized that they are really bad for my blood sugar, I've swapped them around and I use chopped up pears. Particular- pears and apples are particularly, uh, fine for me, and they will often go in. But anything I've got lying around will go in that mix. And I have that with a, uh, a double espresso, uh, which is also, um, people should know, a v- very good source of polyphenols and fiber, and is very good for your gut. And coffee drinkers are healthier and, uh, live longer and have less heart disease. So, uh, cof- so it's, it's completely the opposite.

    14. RC

      That's a, that's a great, that's a great study to refer to if we like coffee, isn't it?

    15. TS

      Yes. If you don't like coffee, it's a bit tough for you.

    16. RC

      [laughs]

    17. TS

      But I d- are you a coffee drinker?

    18. RC

      I, I am, very much so.

    19. TS

      But most people don't realize that there's more fiber in, uh, the average, uh, cup of coffee than in a glass of orange juice, and we all know what orange juice does to your blood sugar. So I think it's changing our idea of what's healthy-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. TS

      ... and what's unhealthy. Because just for context, 10 years ago, I was eating a, you know, a bowl of muesli with some low-fat milk, uh, a cup of tea, and often a bit of, a Tropicana orange juice. And that's terrible for me, because this gives me a very large sugar peak, which is, uh, my blood sugar goes up from its, uh, n- normal level overnight to over two or three times what it is into a pre-diabetic range. So I h- uh, stress my insulin levels, and as it comes down, I get a sugar dip, and that makes me more tired and more hungry several hours later. And increasingly, if I do that every single day, as I did do, it causes stress on the body, increased inflammation, and, uh, alters my metabolism, so I will put on weight very gradually, and, uh, not feel as good as I would do-

    22. RC

      Yeah

    23. TS

      ... if I wasn't having those peaks. So, uh, and this is, you know, only new science and new technologies teaching us that... 'Cause based on those macronutrients I was having with my muesli and my, uh, tea and my, my low-fat milk, it was a very low-fat breakfast, which ticked all the boxes in, you know, USDA guidelines or-

    24. RC

      Yeah

    25. TS

      ... whatever they are. And most GPs would say, "That's a, oh, pretty good breakfast there. You're, you know, you're healthy. You're not having eggs and bacon or whatever."

    26. RC

      Yeah.

    27. TS

      Uh, and it turns out, for me, you know, h- it was processed muesli, and you can buy expensive ones, but they're still pretty much ultra-processed. There might be one or t- if you're lucky, one or two nuts in there. But far outweighed by the negative effects of the sugar.

    28. RC

      Yeah.

    29. TS

      So I think that's the, that's the big shift I've made. So I think breakfast is probably the most crucial meal of the day for a number of reasons. You know, we can discuss some of the other ones. But for people who do like breakfast, do like eating it, it's the one... W- we can all change ourselves. Generally, we're in our home, we're in control of the situation, and we've got into a rut, 'cause we- most of us have a very similar breakfast every day, and it's the one that's easiest to change and change all our habits.

    30. RC

      Yeah.

  4. 16:29 – 20:33

    The Paris croissant and individual blood sugar responses

    1. RC

      What happens in Paris? 'Cause you're very in tune now with your body. You measure blood sugar regularly. You measure mic- your microbiome regularly. You're, you're in tune with how you feel after certain foods. So I get it. You're in Paris. You get tempted by the smell. You look at it, you go, "Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna have that." So number one, were you measuring your blood sugar at the time when you had that croissant? And number two, what did you feel? Like, could you tell, "Man, I'm..." Like, were you hungrier? Was your mood off? Were you... You know, what were some of those things that now that you are in touch with this that you were quite aware of in a way that you may not have been in the past?

    2. TS

      So yes, I, I was tempted. And who, who can go to Paris and resist a croissant? You know, I mean-

    3. RC

      I get it. [laughs]

    4. TS

      And, uh, I think we've all gotta realize that, you know, uh-

    5. RC

      There's nothing wrong with that either

    6. TS

      ... there's absolutely no problem with it. And as long as you enjoy it, and it's a good one.

    7. RC

      [laughs]

    8. TS

      And, but if you, you know, if you do feel it's stodgy, and you feel it's just been reheated, don't eat it. But if it's a good one, absolutely eat it and enjoy it. Um, you may wanna try and have a yogurt afterwards, but I couldn't get one. Um, yeah, so I, I had, I had the croissant, and, uh, uh, I was... My sugar went up to, uh, 10 and a half. I was-

    9. RC

      10 and a half?

    10. TS

      Yeah.

    11. RC

      Can we just give some guidelines to people who are not familiar with those terms? I know what 10 and a half is. Um, what should it be for people, or what should they be looking for, the range?

    12. TS

      Well, so my resting one is about five and a half, um, when I wake up in the morning, five millimoles. And- Uh, you'll have to do the calculation in the US, um-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. TS

      ... milligrams. [laughs]

    15. RC

      We can stick to that. Five. Yeah.

    16. TS

      Uh, w- which, yeah. And so, uh, it, uh, uh, normally, y- well, I say normally, uh, we know from the, the ZOE PREDICT studies, there's about a tenfold difference in how people respond to the same croissant. So there's no ou- but the average of if you took 100 people, they would go from maybe 4 and a half to about, uh, 6 and a half. Okay? So you get a small increase in your blood sugar when you have something, uh, like a, a croissant or a, a baguette or a bit of white bread, and so that, that's a normal response. We all go up a little bit, but there are some people that go up less, and there's some people that go up more. There's about a tenfold variation that we saw in our study.

    17. RC

      Tenfold from what? The, the lowest rise to the top rise?

    18. TS

      Yes. Yes.

    19. RC

      Wow.

    20. TS

      Yeah. So-

    21. RC

      And you went up to 10 and a half?

    22. TS

      Yes. And I mean, I've been higher than that, you know?

    23. RC

      Yeah.

    24. TS

      And, um, if I had my orange juice, it would've, you know, taken it over 11. The same as with, I have a, a bagel, which I used to think was fairly healthy. Um-

    25. RC

      But for, for context of people, I know it's possibly not quite the same thing 'cause it's, you know, blood sh- it's a continuous monitor as opposed to a, you know, let's say an HbA1c, a three-month average. But, you know, on that, 6.5 or above is type 2 diabetic, if that's your average, right? 6 to 6.5 in the UK. Well, 6 to 6.4, I guess, is pre-diabetic in the UK. I think it's 5.7 to 6.4 in, in, in America. Um, so 10 and a half is clearly very, very high. You certainly wouldn't want that to be happening day in, day out.

    26. TS

      No, exactly. And after it, you know, I, I do feel more tired, and, uh, I sort of regret my croissant [laughs] after that. There's a feeling of sort of, uh, full of guilt, you know? Especially when you can see the result, result in your blood. You get this instant sort of, um, "Oh, dear. Why did I do that? Um, wasn't that good," you know? But-

    27. RC

      [laughs]

    28. TS

      ... um, I'll try and find a better one next time. Uh, but, yeah, and you do f- I find that three hours later, I am feeling hungrier than I would've done if I had my, uh-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. TS

      ... high-fat breakfast, which suits me. Um, but I do realize I'm, I'm different, and my wife is quite happy to have lot, lots of croissants and, uh, doesn't have any, uh, blood sugar-

  5. 20:33 – 29:52

    Personalized nutrition and building a resilient microbiome

    1. RC

      And so there's a few terms that have come up so far, Tim, like fermented foods, polyphenols, ultra-processed foods, um, breakfast potentially being the most important meal, and I definitely wanna come to those four points specifically, 'cause I think there's a lot to say on each one. But we, we are talking a lot about this personalized nutrition, uh, your company ZOE, these continuous blood sugar monitors. Let's take an overview. We're understanding more and more now with science, with research, that we all respond differently to foods. The truth is, I've just seen people thrive on a whole variety of different diets. We know humans have always been opportunistic omnivores, right? Our diets can wildly vary depending on where we live on the planet, geography, climate, all these kind of things. So personalized nutrition potentially is gonna help us explain this. Why are some people crushing it on a low-carb diet? Why are some people crushing it on a whole food plant-based diet? Do you think personalized nutrition potentially is the missing piece here?

    2. TS

      I think personalization is a key missing piece of the puzzle that we really haven't paid attention to, and could help a lot of people in deciding which food to eat. And to do that, we've gotta do away with the fact that one size fits all advice works, and that it's all about the simple reductionist ideas. We are all omnivores, but we're all different. We're all unique. We've all got totally unique gut microbes, and I think we need to, um, both think of foods that are gonna help our gut microbes, which are all gonna be individual, but also to get to the other, that other half of perfecting our nutrition, it absolutely has to be personalized.

    3. RC

      Yeah. You mentioned about improving our gut microbes. Have you got evidence at the moment that, let's say, let's say someone has currently got quite a barren gut microbiome. They've not been nourishing it. Let's say their diet hasn't been good, and there's all kinds of other lifestyle factors like stress and sleep deprivation that, that can impact the gut, of course, which we can maybe touch on later. Their gut microbiome is not in a good place, so certain foods at the moment may have a certain response. Certain foods may spike their blood sugar. Do we know yet if they then spend a few months working on their gut microbiome, aiming to increase the amount of plant foods, the amount of diversity, and they improve the health of it, it's more robust, it's more diverse. Do we think then at that point the same food might generate a different response because their microbiome's different?

    4. TS

      We believe that's, uh, potentially likely, but we haven't been able to prove it.

    5. RC

      Right.

    6. TS

      There aren't enough longitudinal studies. So the evidence base is that that makes sense, that that's what we see cross-sectionally. So if you just take people at one point in time and you compare them to lots of other people another point in time, we see that, you know, there's a correlation, but we don't know it's causation. And it's slightly difficult because we know that there's a two-way process. If you're sort of unhealthy and you're giving off inflammation from having too much sugar peaks, it's gonna affect your gut microbes-

    7. RC

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... in that direction, so make them worse, and attract sort of unhealthy microbes. And at the same time, we know that if you- Can dampen down those unhealthy microbes, you can actually improve things. So certainly in, in rodents it works like that. What we don't know is yet i- in humans, but we're gonna have the answers pretty soon as people, for example, doing the ZOE test get retested, and we can see the people that have really changed their gut microbes, you know, can they change their, um, their responses. My, my guess is that i- it's, it's not gonna be quite as easy as that, and it's not gonna happen overnight.

    9. RC

      No.

    10. TS

      I think it's a very slow process that could take, you know, months and years, uh, as you change your physiology. But we do know cross-sectionally that people who've got robust gut microbes do react less to, say, um, ultra-processed foods, and we've got some data now, uh, again, from about 20,000 of the ZOE participants that, um, uh, that snack- snacking is also, um... You can tolerate snacking better if you've got a good set of gut microbes. So there's a sort of interaction going on cross-sectionally that we're seeing that, uh, I'm hopeful, you know, we'll, we'll see-

    11. RC

      Yeah

    12. TS

      ... i- in real life. So I think that's the aspiration that, in fact, that's what I tell people, is that the idea is to build up this really robust community of microbes, which are, I think, best thought of as like, uh, y- your own personal pharmacy. So you wanna have a pharmacy that's well-stocked. You don't just wanna only have paracetamol and Calpol. You know, that's, you know, and a Band-Aid. You want the h- you wanna have everything at your disposal. And to do that, you gotta f- give everything to your pharmacy. You have it mass, supplied with everything it needs. So, you know, microbes are pumping out these healthy chemicals, and if they do that, your body's in better balance. It can then deal with these stresses.

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      And it's not just stress of food. It's stress of everything. It's the stresses of life. It's, you know, dealing with poor sleep. It's dealing with, um, uh, everyday problems as well.

    15. RC

      Yeah. What, what I've found in practice, Tim, this is without any, uh, of this kind of high-tech testing. I remember certain patients who were quite reactive. They, they, they felt they were reacting to quite a few different foods in sort of an intolerance. And as I helped them improve various aspects of their health, you know, reduce stress, physical activity, better sleep, yes, and gradual changes to their diet, which no doubt would've incru- would've improved the health of their gut microbiome. Over a period of time, sometimes maybe two years later, they would report back, and I've experienced this myself actually, that certain foods that I used to find problematic, I no longer find problematic, or those patients no longer would find them problematic. They would no longer, in many ways, feel that they were intolerant to those foods. Now, I find that fascinating, because I don't have any data to prove this, what was going on there. But I suspect that working on these four pillars, food, movement, sleep, and relaxation, with them, [lips smack] helping them improve the health of their guts, it made them more resilient. It gave them more of a buffer so that a couple of years later, they, they, they just have got more, as you say, more resilience. I guess like a garden, isn't it? Where if the garden is well-stocked, it's got diverse plants, you know, it's less likely that one species or one foreign species or a weed is gonna be able to overtake it all and overgrow it, because you've got that resilience. Is that, is that a fair analogy?

    16. TS

      It is, and I think the thing we've forgotten is that the way the mi- a lot of the way the microbiome works, the chemicals that they produce, is through the immune system. And so most of the things we're talking about is having also a really well-balanced immune system that isn't overreacting, you know. And a lot of people's, currently these modern food allergies, et cetera, are caused by an immune system that's, uh, just out of kilter. It's either overreacting or underreacting.

    17. RC

      Yeah.

    18. TS

      And I think that's also the key to this, that the chemicals your microbes produce are gonna keep all the, the lining of your, uh, the gut, where most of your immune system is, all those cells in the perfect condition, the right tune, so that they're not gonna overdo it. And if you get that system right, then you're in this better balanced state. You know, it's like you're generally fitter. It's like an athlete-

    19. RC

      Yeah

    20. TS

      ... who can do all kinds of things. But I, I think it does take time.

    21. RC

      It does take time, yeah.

    22. TS

      And I think, and I think what your point is, is that, you know, in the modern world, we're looking for a quick fix.

    23. RC

      Yeah. [laughs]

    24. TS

      And everyone says, "Oh, I've got, you know, my s- tummy hurts when I eat this. You know, I've got, I think, um, I'm sen- getting sensitive to this. I want a quick fix, so I've gotta cut it all out." And people just... We need to really educate people that it's a journey. It's not like there's a three-week course, and you cut this out your diet, and you're done. It's, you know, you need to-- We've got a such a long way to go back to the guts of our ancestors that didn't have these problems, that you can't do that in six weeks. You know, this is months. This is years. And, but it's worth doing.

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. TS

      And, and it's not a hard thing to do, and it can be a, a pleasurable thing to do, and I think that's what we're... It's changing that mindset that everything's gotta be fixed quickly.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. TS

      A quick diet, a quick, uh, healthy snack bar or whatever, you know, uh, some pills, to saying, "Okay, this is a journey. I'm gonna change my idea about food. And once I do that, I'm gonna build up this, slowly build up this resistance." Like you, you know, y- you, if you were an athlete training, and you wouldn't expect to be super fit, uh-

    29. RC

      No

    30. TS

      ... and run, and run a marathon in, in, in, in four weeks. So that's the real difference, and I think, I think we're, we're in agreement here. And it's, and it, and it, they all connect with each other, so.

  6. 29:52 – 34:16

    Sleep, exercise and the holistic ZOE test

    1. TS

      And the microbes, you know, we talked... We didn't know when we started these studies how important things like sleep would be on your blood sugar responses. And-

    2. RC

      Can you speak to that a little bit?

    3. TS

      [lips smack] Yeah, so, uh, we, uh, the- This crucial study, the ZOE PREDICT study, was 1,000 people all eating foods at the same time in precisely the same manner. We've replicated this now thousands of times. And it turns out that if you got poor sleep the night before, you had like a 30% greater, uh, sugar spike eating a identical meal.

    4. RC

      That's incredible. The same food-

    5. TS

      Mm

    6. RC

      ... but the way your body handles it, the-

    7. TS

      Yeah

    8. RC

      ... the potential damage or the inflammatory consequences of that food are completely different depending on your sleep. That, that's huge, isn't it?

    9. TS

      So, yeah. And also, the, you know, the way you r- reacted, uh, you know, there was obviously a link also, people who did a lot of exercise had, had lower peaks than those that didn't, so that was another factor. When did you last do your exercise? And, you know, whether you, what sort of meal you had the night before also influenced the next day, so, and how much gap you had in that, that time. So things that you wouldn't even have thought about, um, are, are all coming together. And, uh, they all interact a lot through the, uh, gut microbes as well. So it's not like they're all in- independent, they're sort of working together with each other. So we know that shift workers, for example, who get poor sleep, have poorer gut microbes and higher sugar responses. So, uh, we also, we've just done a study on, um, what we call social jet lag-

    10. RC

      Mm

    11. TS

      ... of people whose, uh, big party people at weekends, and there might be some people listening who, who can, uh, say that, you know, very good during the week and then they get, um, uh, go to bed at completely different times, and they s- change their clocks at weekends, and they have, uh, you know, on the Monday morning, bigger, uh, sugar spikes, and their microbes are also, um, uh, suffering as, as a consequence. So everything's about getting this balance right between all, all parts of the body. And because of the technology we've got now in measuring microbes and measuring these sugar responses, you know, we, as you said, we can suddenly start to see, see it and not just, uh, guess it.

    12. RC

      How tricky does this get as a scientist? Because it's not just looking about food, is it, and saying, how does that food affect me with my current gut microbiome? You know, should I eat more of them? Should I eat less of them, depending on my sugar response? Because as you've just mentioned, there's other inputs going in. How stressed you are, how sleep-deprived you are, what time you had your previous meal the night before. So how easy is it or how difficult is it to actually make a, to draw a conclusion what this food does for me or you or for anyone else because of all the other inputs that are there as well?

    13. TS

      When we do the ZOE scores, for example, once you've done the test, it is a holistic test.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. TS

      So, so we are accounting for your sleep, your exercise, and your meals, and your age, your-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. TS

      ... weight, all these things together. So, and, and we've talked about sugar peaks, but we haven't talked about the fat peaks, which is the other part of the, the test is that we're looking at how fast the fat, uh, is dispersed from your body, which we know in some people is very slow.

    18. RC

      Mm-hmm.

    19. TS

      So if you's still got lots of fat, uh, molecules hanging around in your blood at six hours after a fatty meal, that irritates the blood vessels, causes inflammation, and is gonna cause the same sort of metabolic problems. So it's combining all those things together, gives you a holistic score about which foods are better and which are worse for you, and so you can make those choices. And at the same time, you know, we do give people lifestyle advice, advice, re- you know, if you're sleeping terribly, you're doing shift work, and you're only getting four hours sleep a night, it's gonna be really hard to, whatever you're eating, to be healthy. So I think increasingly, the advice on exercise and, uh, uh, and, and food and sleep and stress are all, uh, related.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. TS

      Um, so absolutely, and, and that, that, you know, I know that's, that's your, your core, uh, teaching.

  7. 34:16 – 53:17

    Beyond dietary dogma and ultra-processed food

    1. RC

      I love that there is a line in your book where you say you're very unlikely to be average. Something to that effect. And it was very powerful because what I've seen time and time again is that different people respond to seemingly quite different diets. And this is why I sort of, I'm very much diet agnostic, in the sense that I support minimally processed food, I support eating, in inverted commas, real food as much as you can. But I personally don't like to put myself in, in a camp anymore, or a belief system or, or a religion around food because the truth is, I've got patients who follow a whole food low carb diets. Some are doing e- excellently well. I've got some patients who are doing a whole food vegan diet superbly well. And so therefore it's like, well, I can't say that this is gonna work for you or not. And I kinda feel as a healthcare professional that my job is, yes, to give the best advice I can, but also to kind, trying to stay open-minded, trying to be agnostic in terms of which diet I subscribe to, and go, "Well, actually, what would you like to do? What are your beliefs?" 'Cause I, I could have a particular opinion, and then my patient might come and go, "Look, I've got a moral problem or an ethical problem with eating animals." So okay, well, if that is the case, I have to be able to give you advice [laughs] in the context of your beliefs. So I think this whole idea of... Uh, you know, you, you also said that the science is now telling some of us what we already knew. I think that's really powerful because I think a lot of us kind of know that, oh, the diet that my mate's on, I, I kinda tried that, it didn't work well for me. But your research, I think, has given that a lot of scientific validity now, which I think is very helpful for people.

    2. TS

      Yeah. Well, I think what you've just said, uh- What you just said about, um, [lip smacks] uh, giving your patients the choice, it is very refreshing. But, uh, most people in the medical profession don't do that, and we're told there's one recipe. You know, it's not a menu. Um, and all the experts... And I, I've been told off for writing these things in newspapers. I got some sort of vitriolic, uh, correspondence when I was, uh, talking about the, the diabetic, uh, diets and, um, [lip smacks] you know, going on these liquid, uh, milkshake diets to cure your diabetes, saying, "Well, listen, that's fine, but, you know, these, uh, high-carb, low-fat approaches may not be right for everybody. And, you know, let's also do the same thing but perhaps with, uh, low carb, high fat, which seems to be successful." And, you know, people would attack you from both camps, um, saying, you know, "No, no, no, ours is the right way." Uh, you're right. And that's because there's this huge sort of cognitive dissonance that people just saying, "Well, I've been doing this for 10 years. This is my life. This is what I do." And the whole academic scenario keeps going round that. They get more grants to do that. They can't be seen to, you know, be talking like us, uh, to say, "Well, clearly, uh, if you look at the world, you know, there's a huge range of different diets in healthy places." These blue zones, they don't all eat the same thing. They don't make sense at all, other than in this idea that, you know, you find the, the food that suits you. With, you know, there's a few certain rules like, yeah, not eat, uh, don't eat ready meals [chuckles] and, uh, junk food all the time. Um-

    3. RC

      I think we'd be hard-pressed to find any camp around nutrition who would disagree with that. Is there anyone who would disagree with that? Actually, some would. Some would say it's all to do with calories, wouldn't they? And actually-

    4. TS

      Yes

    5. RC

      ... it doesn't matter where they come from.

    6. TS

      Well, people in it from the food industry and those that they pay, and they have a lot of influencers, uh, you know, who, who, uh, go around saying this stuff, saying you shouldn't blame, uh, companies that, you know, have extra chemicals in their food to make it taste good 'cause it's important that it's low fat and it's low, low... And it hasn't been proven to be harmful. So there i- there are people that do still project that in the same way that people were promoting, you know, low, low-tar cigarettes. Um, [chuckles] you know, it's not very different. You say, "We haven't proven they're bad for you, uh, because the, the studies haven't been done. Just 'cause it's got chemicals in it, we shouldn't knock it." And in, in a way, it's the, the same people knocking the, um, uh, uh, pure food movement, the clean eating movement, sort of going the other way and say, "Well, let, let's not go overboard, and it's fine to eat lots of, lots of chemicals." Uh, so I think... But y- you won't find many, um, academics saying that. That, that's definitely true. But I think we do have to, um, make this distinction, and that's why I wanna keep coming back to it. There's, there's almost e- almost everything, you know, vast amount of people do agree that eating plants, uh, is good and avoiding large amounts of regular ultra-processed food is bad. And outside that, I think, uh, you know, there is quite a lot of room for individuality and finding what works, not only in what you eat, but also how you eat. And I think that's, that's the other thing that's been coming out of our studies is, um, you know, it's not just what you got on your plate. It's, you know, whether you break it into s- into portions, what time of day, what you did the day before, how much sleep you got. You know, it's incredibly complex, this, this whole, this whole idea. And once you throw all those balls up in the air, uh, it, it, it's really interesting to see how, you know, the perfect way they could fall for some people and, uh, how others would do really badly, um, through that mix if they get it wrong just because of dogma. Just because that's the way everyone does it round here. That's the time everyone has their tea around here. That's the, you know, you've gotta have your breakfast because, uh, uh, you know, that's the way everyone's done it for the last 50 years.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. TS

      Um, I just want, you know, people to question all this stuff and start saying what works for you.

    9. RC

      Yeah.

    10. TS

      Because a lot of this, this dogma about we must do it this way, we must have, you know, it's like snacking. You know, why, uh, why do we suddenly start snacking about, uh, 30 years ago?

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      And this idea of a healthy snack and, oh, it's high protein, low fat, healthy snack, free from gluten, you know? I mean, did we need it? Were we really gonna faint, um, i- if we didn't? No. And, you know, you only look around the world and see how... And, and I think we don't do that nearly enough, is, is make these comparisons with other countries that are much healthier than our, our own to say, "You know what? It isn't normal to have six meal events in a day around the world." Um, doesn't suit, uh, most people.

    13. RC

      I, I read this article in The Guardian a, a few years back. Um, I think, you know, there was some book out about the French, and I think it was something of to do with why French kids don't misbehave or something, something like that. You know, there's a, there's a punchy, uh, kind of probably misleading headline. [chuckles]

    14. TS

      Why French, French wives are always skinny or something like that.

    15. RC

      Yeah. So exactly. And, and, and actually, what was really interesting is that the one thing I do remember from the article was, I think they were just saying that actually in F- in France as a, as a culture, there's not much snacking, or certainly French kids, actually you eat what you eat at meal times because after that meal time, when it's, when the doors close on mealtime, you ain't getting anything else until the next mealtime. And I think actually the French are- There's something we can learn from the French, I think, here in, in Britain. But in terms of foods, you just mentioned, uh, and I very much agree with this, that it's not only what you eat, it's how you eat. It's also when you eat, right? All these things play a role, which I think your research is, is really helping to showcase. Um, but why, you know, the French, for example, you know, they don't do a rushed meal typically like we do. We- they won't have their, you know, let's say they've still got their healthy lunch, let's say, they're probably not gonna be having that in front of their computer whilst answering their emails. And I know that to be the case, that it's still ... 'Cause I, I had a interview with a French journalist about 18 months ago, and I asked her, I said, "Hey, look, you know, we hear this about the French. Can you just tell me, is this still part of French culture?" She said, "Yeah, absolutely. The only place where this appears to be different now is in Parisian offices of international firms," this was pre-pandemic, uh, when she says that the sort of international culture of having food at your desk seems to be infiltrating. And I found that's interesting. So in terms of your research on personalized nutrition, I wonder what are some of these non what's on your meal, uh, components, what, what, what, what, what has your research shown up? Is there any sort of insights you've got for us?

    16. TS

      Well, our basic plan, which we've been doing for the last three years, is to give thousands of people, um, identical meals and see their responses to them, and then start giving those meals at different times and see how that affects them. And, um, we haven't yet got into the details of snacking or not, other than that we know that if you snack, you will, uh, a couple of hours before a meal, your metabolic response to that meal is poorer than if you didn't snack.

    17. RC

      Okay. Just say that again, 'cause I think that's really important. If you do snack before your meal, your metabolic response is poorer at the next meal.

    18. TS

      Yes. Yes.

    19. RC

      Um, and just for people who are listening who don't understand that, what do you mean by metabolic response?

    20. TS

      So what we're measuring is these, uh, peaks in your, in your blood, um, uh, in, in three ways. One is your blood sugar level, which normally goes up about 30 minutes after you've eaten, and that is your blood sugar and your insulin level, um, get a little surge, and that's normal after you eat. Uh, and we also measure your lipid levels, so triglycerides, th- one of the commonest fats in, in blood, and they go up after a meal. And they, we look at those six hours after a meal. And at the same time you can measure something called inflammation, which is like the irritation in the, in the blood, uh, and you can measure those levels. So those three markers, we think that people who have food that gives them regular spikes of these things, uh, large spikes so that they're lasting longer or the fat is hanging around for a long time before it goes back to normal, uh, long term will have more metabolic problems, gain weight, and have, uh, increased hunger, lower energy, and that's what we're showing. So what we're trying to do is to match what people, um, eat with these responses and how they eat with these responses, and we're finding that so many things influence the height of that response, even with the identical food. So the timing of the day, uh, and whether you had something like a snack just before it or you had a, for example, a, a, uh, a high-carb, uh, breakfast before the lunch, uh, will in- interfere with that second meal.

    21. RC

      Right.

    22. TS

      So it's all connected is what I'm saying. So this is why, uh, and it's not just the French, but the Italians, the Spanish, all the Mediterranean countries really don't snack, uh, at all like we do. They don't usually have a big breakfast, and many of them skip it, and they, but they would always have a, a decent sized lunch where they take time out, at least half an hour to eat it, and in the evening they would have, you know ... And they don't eat in their cars, they don't [chuckles] eat in, in front of the telly. Uh, they sit down to have them, and they have more to eat but they have less snacks. And, and I think this is probably where we've been going on. It's not just about calories, uh, it's about the way we're eating and how that's changed in the last 30 years. I mean, obviously the f- the quality of the food's also really important because it is so much better in those southern Mediterranean countries, uh, than what we're eating. But I think-

    23. RC

      Better, better in what sense, Tim? Less processed, less sort of ultra-processed and highly processed foods? What, what ... When we say better, what do we mean by that?

    24. TS

      Yeah, no, sure. Yeah, very right to pull me up on the, on those terms.

    25. RC

      No, I'm just [laughs]

    26. TS

      Because, uh, you know, the whole point of what I'm writing about is that we shouldn't gauge quality of food by calories and fat level, uh, or even sugar level. It, it's about, uh, the natural, uh, products, things that resemble the actual plants they came from rather than some derivative, uh, put together as 20 chemicals. So people have different, um, definitions of what ultra-processed food is, but if it's 10 or more chemicals and you don't, none of them are the original ones, uh, you know, it, that, it's, it's not corn, it's the corn syrup or it's the, uh, the extract of something-

    27. RC

      Yeah

    28. TS

      ... that's ultra-processed food that has nothing to do with the originals, is poor quality food. In the UK, uh, we, 50% of our meals are ultra-processed by those definitions. In the US it's 60%, and in countries like, uh, Portugal in Europe, it's 10%.

    29. RC

      Wow. There you go.

    30. TS

      And it's not because Portuguese are rich. Uh, for those that don't know, it's just because they don't have a culture of- ... eating this kind of, uh, cheap ready meal, uh, frozen foods that we've been overrun with. And it's no surprise that in Europe, you know, we are the fattest, and in the world, the US are the fattest. It's, it's a direct correlation.

  8. 53:17 – 1:01:34

    Artificial sweeteners and resetting our taste

    1. TS

      and, um, I've had arguments with these, these companies and, you know, and they have these pressure groups and, you know, action against sugar, and they're sort of sponsored by the artificial sweetener companies and, um, it, uh, and their view is, "Well, show us the study that proves it's dangerous." And I would say, "Well, you don't do that for drugs. You have to first prove it's not harmful." [chuckles]

    2. RC

      Yeah. Show us the study that proves it's safe, right? But in "The Diet Myth", I think you spoke about artificial sweeteners, and I'm pretty sure you expressed a bit of concern about them. Uh, so what is your current view on artificial sweeteners?

    3. TS

      All the data suggests that when you do a clinical trial and you give kids or, uh, overweight adults, um, uh, either two cans of, of fizzy drinks with sugar or two cans of the diet equivalent, uh, and you do that for six months or, or so, you do not see any difference in weight or, uh, diabetes risk or any other metabolic parameters. So there's no clear benefit from swapping from someone from a sugar drink to, uh, a, a diet drink. Except- Uh, maybe for, if you, if your dentist. Okay? So the dentists like it because definitely it, it, it's, uh, good for your teeth. Um, and so that, just that fact alone, think about it. In each, you know, the average can will have maybe 150 calories, so people have two a day at least. That's 300 calories less. Why are these, why are these kids and these adults not losing some weight? Now, it wouldn't be massive, but, you know, we're told that that would be about 15% of our, um, intakes, right?

    4. RC

      Yeah.

    5. TS

      So if you believe the calories in, calories out, actually they should lose weight. They don't. So clearly, in my view, something else is happening, uh, metabolically to the, to these individuals. Either their brain is being reset by the sweetness chemicals, so it's at a neural level, or, uh, something is happening metabolically and you are getting some change in insulin in ways we still don't understand, and I've put myself with monitors and given myself sucralose, and I can see, uh, I, I do get a sugar peak, uh, and my insulin peaks strangely-

    6. RC

      Wow

    7. TS

      ... with the sweetness, which I can't explain. Or more likely, it's affecting our gut microbes, and so they don't know how to deal with these chemicals which are all derived from things like petrol and, um, uh, paraffin, uh, very ultra ... Things that we're never supposed to eat, and so they, they produce weird chemicals in response, and those chemicals then have a reaction on our body which, um, interferes with the metabolism, and in a way either makes us put on some weight or, or predisposes to diabetes in the same way as the sugar. So, uh, we don't know the mechanisms yet. There may be differences between them. They definitely work in different ways, and some people might be okay with some and not with others because, you know, I admit everyone is, is unique. But I think the whole idea of, uh, reducing sugar by just adding, uh, unlimited amounts of these chemicals, which is, you know, one side effect of the, the sugar levy-

    8. RC

      Yeah

    9. TS

      ... um, has to be thought through, and we should be weaning people off ultra-sweetened products which make them more likely, particularly kids, to, to seek sugar and avoid sour things, which may be good for them. Uh, and that's my major worry. So, um, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing whether stevia, for example, which would appear to be the more natural of these ones, does have any particular benefits. But I suspect that this whole sweetness thing, by artificially creating these, these sort of flavors that people crave, um, is gonna have some other knock-on effects down the line that we don't know about. We should be treat-- teaching kids and, you know, a- adults how to go back to enjoying things that, uh, like water or like teas and, um, uh-

    10. RC

      Yeah

    11. TS

      ... herbal teas and things that have a bit of interest in it rather than this, this blunderbuss massive amounts of sugar-

    12. RC

      Yeah

    13. TS

      ... uh, whether it's fake or real.

    14. RC

      It's amazing, you know, my kids are sort of 10 and seven at the moment, and it's amazing how many of their friends don't drink water.

    15. TS

      They're allergic. [laughs]

    16. RC

      No, but you know what? It's kind of, it, it's, it's, it's really sad actually on-

    17. TS

      Mm

    18. RC

      ... on a, on a deep level because think of, if you think about it in, in terms of our evolutionary heritage, we could never have survived if we didn't drink water, right? You know, [laughs] 500 years ago, I don't think we had the choice to not drink water. Whereas now we have that choice, and I suspect it's because it's been conditioned out of them, uh, via society, by various choices that they've been given, um, because I just fundamentally cannot believe that a human being cannot drink water. But I, but just to be super compassionate to parents who are listening who might struggle with their own children, I get it. I get it can be tough, but actually it's very unnatural to not, to not drink water.

    19. TS

      No, I totally agree. But I think it's, as you said, part of conditioning and, uh, you know, I go into the water business i- in the book in a fair way and, you know, we've been conditioned that tap water is perhaps bad for us, and, uh, it tastes bad or, um, has m- metallic things in it, or there've been, you know, history of you go abroad and everyone said, "Well, don't, don't drink the water. You know, what are you gonna... It could be deadly." Uh, and that, that fueled this whole rise in, um, mineral waters and, uh, this con that basically, you know, Pepsi and, and Coca-Cola and Nestle take tap water and they, they just stick it through, uh, a processing plant and, um, rebottle it, uh, minus any taste and, uh, do that. But, uh, and then, then have to add some, uh, flavorings to it as they, they were doing with, um, for kids to add a twist of fake lime or, uh-

    20. RC

      [laughs]

    21. TS

      ... orange to make it palatable.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. TS

      Uh, no, a- absolutely, I think we, really important we get kids' taste back, re- reset the thermostat away from the super sweetness that, uh, i- is the problem.

    24. RC

      But, but-

    25. TS

      'Cause they, they can't then appreciate other foods because in a way, everything's set so high-

    26. RC

      Yeah

    27. TS

      ... uh, that they need it. And I-

    28. RC

      I, I love that phrase, reset the thermostat. That's exactly what it is, really. Um, I think, I can't remember how I put it in my, in my very first book. Uh, the, I, I wrote about, you know, if a child, you know, 100 years ago, you know, the taste of a ripe peach on a sum- you know, a nice, in the peak of summer, that would be like a treat. It would be, "Man, this is so gorgeous and sweet." Whereas I think if you're used to having things like Haribos or, um, you know, every day- And that becomes your definition or your normal. Sweetness is a packet of sweets, then of course a peach no longer holds the magical allure that it used to.

    29. TS

      Yeah.

    30. RC

      And, and I think it's just been this steady downgrading of our taste buds without-

  9. 1:01:34 – 1:17:57

    Snacking culture and nutrition in schools

    1. RC

      I think, I think it's such a important point. I want, I wanna keep just on the topic of children. Uh, when I was refreshing myself this morning, uh, with the book, uh, just as a, as sort of preparation for our conversation today. I don't think I'm giving away the book when I can read the last line.

    2. TS

      The hun- the punchline.

    3. RC

      Can I read the last line of the book? I think it's-

    4. TS

      Sure

    5. RC

      ... for me, one of the most important lines in a-

    6. TS

      Yeah

    7. RC

      ... in a book on foods. "Education is our main hope. We need to be teaching our children about real and fake foods with the same zeal that we teach them how to walk, read, and write." Tim, that really hit me when I, when I read it this morning. Um, you know, I, I've got two young kids. Until they went to school, I felt we had a pretty good handle on what they were eating, how much, when, you know, you know. Since going to school, particularly as they're getting older and older, obviously that, that control, and maybe all parents struggle with this-

    8. TS

      Mm

    9. RC

      ... goes away from you somewhat. But what's interesting to me is what is normal in schools now. Okay, now appreciate your kids are a bit older than mine. So I don't know if that, that's changed. I, I wonder if you had this experience when you were, uh, a, a dad of young kids, although maybe you weren't tuned into nutrition [laughs] in the same way as you are now. But there's a snacking culture that's promoted, right? So morning break is snack time. You have to have a snack, right? It's, you know, it's just, it's part of the school timetable. There's morning snack time, afternoon snack time, which of course y- we were mentioning before how snacking is a reasonably modern invention, certainly to the degree that we have it in this country. Um, I know this is controversial, but I wonder if you could elaborate on some of your views on nutrition in schools and what we possibly should be doing.

    10. TS

      Well, everything you said is, um, absolutely true around this country and probably, uh, very prevalent in places like Australia and the, and, and the US. And it is different from when I was at school. So we didn't have a, a mid-morning break for snacks. We were expected to last until lunch without fainting. And I think this, this whole idea, and it, it kind of all comes to this idea that, you know, you, you have to give kids regular food, otherwise their blood sugar level drops, and they're, uh, they can't concentrate and they run amok. And this, uh, this idea was probably came about... It was a brilliant idea probably for some marketing, marketing executive, uh, selling s- selling, you know, chocolate biscuits or, or, you know, one of these big companies. And so they started it, and then probably did a lot of really bad, promoted a lot of bad studies in nutrition departments to show there was some correlation between, uh, kids who ran amok and, uh, them not getting a, a snack at, uh, uh, 10:30, right? They didn't get a chocolate fix or whatever. They didn't get their Chocolate Finger. And th- and they did a correlation, they ran amok. Well, the fact that little Johnny who ran amok, uh, was the sort of kid who would just forget [laughs] to, to, to pick up his satchel or whatever, um, or, you know, had refused breakfast 'cause he was, you know, a bit hyper, um, it was irrelevant because that became ingrained in, in, uh, sort of pediatrics and in, uh, school education that it was really important to keep maintaining sort of high sugar levels, uh, in school. And it, and this is where the problems absolutely start.

    11. RC

      So wh- why, why, why I think this is so important, Tim, is because if kids get ingrained and conditioned with this from the age of three, four, five, six, seven, it is so hard to change that conditioning later. And, you know, we've not put this video out. I made it with, with Gareth last week, uh, about, you know, s- food in schools, and I personally believe in the current climate where one in three kids in the UK start secondary school overweight and obese, and we know how much the environment influences our choices, you know. And some would argue, are they even choices in a very obesogenic environment? I've really struggled to, to make the case that schools should have vending machines anymore with fizzy drinks and with chocolate bars, with crisps. I can't see the case for an ice cream van in the middle of a big secondary school anymore. But I feel sometimes as though saying that, it for some reason that's quite controversial to say that. It's almost as if, you know, when I'm speaking to teachers about it, and some teachers say, some teachers agree, but they say, "Well, I'm, we're too scared of parents and what they'll say, so we don't change anything." And other teachers say, "Well, we want our children to have choice." But I think- I don't think people understand true choice. I don't think they understand what goes on, the bliss point of food, how they're manufactured to particularly, you know, spike that dopamine beautifully well. So, you know, I don't think people get it, right?

    12. TS

      There- there's no choice. If you put a big pile of chocolate biscuits in front of me now, I'd have a nibble, you know? [laughs]

    13. RC

      Yeah.

    14. TS

      Because they're specially designed, uh, for that, and kids are so vulnerable. Um, but it ... I- I agree, it's like a religion. And, and, and some peop- And many parents feel, you know, they've been educated the same way, they've been indoctrinated-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... the same way, and they feel they would be really bad parents if they let that kid have a sugar dip or, you know, their energy level went down. Be- such is this dogma that, uh, if you don't have some carbs, you know, y- your sugar level drops, your energy goes down. And, and what we've shown in our recent studies in the PREDICT study is complete opposite. You actually have a sugar dip after you have a carb load. So it is the complete opposite of what everyone thinks. And, uh, and so what they're doing is they are giving their kid... If you give your kid a, a chocolate biscuit or whatever it is at, at 10 o'clock, they're gonna have a sugar dip, and a third of them will have real problems of fatigue and concentration for the next hour. We've, we've s- done these studies in adults, not in children, but it, you know, it, there are, we see these sugar dippers, they don't know they're dipping 'cause we've got these monitors on them. They don't know what's happening. Uh, and they report their concentration levels, their fatigue levels. And it is not because they're not eating, it's, it's after they've had that, uh, sugar load. Uh, in our case it was muffins, but the point is exactly the same, that it is madness to think that, uh, this happens. And you only gotta look... I mean, I, I was in Tanzania, um, with this hunter-gatherer tribe, and I get asked this all the time, you know, oh, um, everyone needs breakfast otherwise you can't concentrate. Um, they didn't have a word for breakfast, uh, because it didn't exist. Uh, no one was there, you know, up at dawn getting everything ready to, uh, otherwise they couldn't make it through the day. Nobody ate anything before about 10:00, 10:30, um, and usually just waited till lunch. But the, the point was that these people, you know, they would go hunting, they didn't need, uh, the equivalent of a chocolate biscuit to, uh, keep them going, otherwise they'd faint. Uh, evolutions, you know, wouldn't do that. You know? It, it's madness. And so we've actually been poisoning ourselves with the exact opposite. Uh, and but as you, as you can see from the reaction of teachers and parents, it is so ingrained, this idea, that, uh, you're a bad parent if you don't do this.

    17. RC

      Yeah. And then what it, what... Um, the other thing which happens, and I know many of my listeners will resonate with this bit in particular, that what it does is that when you're trying to educate and bring up your kids to know the value of food and know the value that it's for physical health, mental health, and mood, focus, concentration, et cetera, et cetera, if you subscribe to the view as idea that schools should be the model educationally, behaviorally, but also nutritionally, then you just start to create that friction where, oh, well, Mommy and Daddy are telling me one thing at home-

    18. TS

      Mm-hmm

    19. RC

      ... but, like at school... You know, yesterday my son said, uh, you know, I said, "How- Guys, how was it in, you know, school?" And everyone goes, "Yeah, you know what, you know what my friends had today? They had pizza and chips for lunch." Um, and we don't... You know, what's really tricky is that I'm not saying that that is something that no one should ever eat, right? I get it. But I actually feel that schools are taking away some of the parental choice and responsibility because why not let parents decide if and when they wanna give their kids a bit of sugar or, uh, a cake or a dessert? I know what I'm saying is against the grain of what a lot of people now think, um, but, but I really do think schools need to, need to take this seriously.

    20. TS

      No, I think they need to take responsibility because what they are doing is, is for the rest of that kid's life, they're dictating what's normal.

    21. RC

      Exactly.

    22. TS

      And, and, and so, yeah, you can have parents that are stricter or more relaxed, but y- your idea of authority and what's, you know, the way the rules are-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. TS

      ... is that the rule is L- L- Little Johnny has, uh, you know, a carb break at, at 10 o'clock and another one at 3:00, and he has, he can eat whatever he likes at, at lunch. And that is just plain wrong. And w- you know, and it, it all... And it's, again, because of brainwashing, you know, you can't blame any of these two-

    25. RC

      No, no

    26. TS

      ... 'cause there is no, there's no great expert that stands up there f- you know, uh, you know, in Eng- England we got Jamie Oliver who, who tried to do this and got a lot of, you know-

    27. RC

      A lot of flak

    28. TS

      ... um, a lot of flak for trying to, to do this. But he didn't take on really the whole concept of how much you need to eat during the day. And, you know, this, this idea, I was brought up on, uh, this, that grazing was better than gorging. Uh, I talk about it in the book and-

    29. RC

      You do, yeah

    30. TS

      ... and it, it ended up this pathetic study of about, you know, 10 people, uh, done 30 years ago that, um, doesn't stand up to any scrutiny, and yet this one study, you know, has, had, had ramifications because obviously this whole industry came around it and people felt, you know what? It's really important to keep people, um, you know, topped up. And, uh, how are you gonna top up these kids? 'Cause otherwise they'll go crazy. And so suddenly it was a, a guilt thing. If you, if you took it away and then they did something, then the parents would blame them, and then that, then it-

  10. 1:17:57 – 1:31:42

    Fewer meals, fasting and when to eat

    1. RC

      but Tim, right, you me- you mentioned before, and let's, if we go back to your personalized nutrition studies. So I can't stop thinking about what you said before, that if you snack or, or in some of, in some patients, if they snack before a meal, it changes their metabolic response to that meal. So I wonder if we could just dive into that a little bit. So let's say you're gonna have your dinner at 6:00 PM, but at 4:30 PM you have, I don't know, a cake, piece of cake, you know, with a cup of tea. How might that impact the same meal that someone has at 6:00 PM if they've not had that cake?

    2. TS

      Well, it's gonna vary for different people-

    3. RC

      Yeah

    4. TS

      ... because I've told you there's this, uh, unique response. But we're generally seeing a higher, uh, insulin and glucose peak, uh-

    5. RC

      If they've snacked before

    6. TS

      ... if they've snacked before. So there'd be more stress on the body, uh, having snacked than if they hadn't eaten at all. Um, it will depend on the time of day and other things like this, 'cause again, it, it's not- ... a simple, you know, black and white type relationship.

    7. RC

      Sure.

    8. TS

      But, but everything that you eat, you do before you have whatever it is you're eating has a role in that response to that meal. And so, uh, for most people who have anything to eat before that time, uh, that will induce a sugar surge, will cause an even bigger one in the subsequent meal. Okay? So, so this is why once you start thinking of food in a different way, as a chemical reaction in a, in your body, you realize that you don't want to have these big sugar peaks, these fat peaks after food. You want to, you know, you accept some of them, but you want to balance it for your body so that your body's not overreacting all the time and in a sort of stressed, inflamed state, which is what we think is happening, uh, for people on very bad diets. They're just constantly stressing the body. The insulin's being pumped up, inflammation levels go up, vessels start getting inflamed. Long-term stress equals weight gain and, you know, concentration problems and, uh, energy problems. So what, you know, getting a good night's sleep, having a good rest between meals, um, trying to work out whether you should be eating your food early in the morning or, uh, late at night, depending on your particular circadian rhythm. All these things are important, but absolutely we should be eating less meals. We should just be having two decent meals a day, um, rather than this standard six, which we are now, uh, being told it is still the right way to eat. Oh, and by the, you know, just happen to be this, these, these, uh, cheap snack foods you can, you can buy that parents are told is good for their children, you know, and it's just complete nonsense. Uh, we have to break that cycle, realize, break it down again, and start, you know, people experimenting and getting people used to, and kids particularly. You know, you imagine a child that's used to eating six or seven times a day, how do they cope with a fast? You know, the, the, you know, after two, two hours they're, they're conditioned to start looking for something else to eat. Uh, whereas the French kid, the Spanish kid, the Italian kid, they'll be patient. They'll wait, you know, and they'll wait for some decent food, and I think that's the other thing. It's this conditioning that's-

    9. RC

      Yeah

    10. TS

      ... maybe just as bad as this metabolic, uh, problem. So-

    11. RC

      Yeah, and I, I think the, the uncomfortable truth for, for many of us as parents [laughs] is that our behavior can also condition our own kids, right?

    12. TS

      Mm-hmm.

    13. RC

      So what they see us doing, and if we've, let's say, picked up habits that maybe ideally we would change but we haven't, yet our kids are around us and seeing it, they're also gonna pick up that as well, and I think, you know, I say that as a reminder to myself, just be careful how much you snack. You know, it's not, it's not like looking down on anyone. It's, it's purely understanding that we, we're all susceptible. Um-

    14. TS

      But these religious, you know, but, uh, I'm a big fan of, you know, fasting and, and virtually every religion has had fasting in there as a way of training, um, you know, as, as a sort of health thing and bonding the community together. But I think it's a great training for, for kids, uh, to be able to fast for a period of time.

    15. RC

      To-

    16. TS

      To realize that you don't, you're not gonna die if you don't [laughs] eat, you know, and you, you just wait until the next day or, uh, you know, when the sun goes down or whatever it is. Uh, and, and it's very sad that we, you know, it's slowly being lost and certainly in the Christian world it's virtually lost. Uh, and it's only the other, other religions that do it. But, uh, but bringing back, you know, some non-religious fast day-

    17. RC

      Yeah

    18. TS

      ... um, for the whole family might be a, a fun thing that everyone should do, you know, that, um-

    19. RC

      Well-

    20. TS

      With a big feast at the end to-

    21. RC

      Yeah

    22. TS

      ... uh, to celebrate.

    23. RC

      Yeah, you're right. This sort of feast famine type pattern that we've no doubt had in evolution. How can we bring that back? When you say you're a fan of fasting, um, what do you mean by fasting? Because if I don't clarify this, we'll get a ton of questions afterwards. What do you mean by fasting? Are you talking about intermittent fasting? Time-restricted eating? How many hours? You know, all those questions will come up, so I'd love to know what i- what does Professor Tim Spector think of fasting?

    24. TS

      Well, firstly, uh, everything in moderation, so I'm not, uh, someone who believes in multiple day fasting. Um, you know, I've never fasted for more than 24 hours and, uh, I d- wouldn't recommend it. Uh, but I, I do think just in general principle, the idea of going on a fast psychologically is really important so that you remember what hunger's really like, and you remember that you can distract yourself from hunger, and that also you can paint a nice picture of, you know, having this enormous breakfast the next day, and amazingly, you can fall asleep and get around it. So until I started doing it, I, I didn't believe that was sort of possible. [laughs]

    25. RC

      Yeah.

    26. TS

      So I, I thought, "I'm too weak. I'm not gonna be able to do that." But so the, just the principle of any, any fast, um, it, it's quite a just a thing to do for your own psychological wellbeing, I think. Uh, to realize that we've, you know, we've got this, we've got these chemicals in our brain and they're telling us to do this and, but you can switch them off, you can divert them. You know, when you don't have to, it's fine, and most of us, we'll come across some medical thing that we have to fast.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. TS

      Uh, but y- we're usually just distracted by that medical thing that we do it, and if you t- and that, that's interesting that, uh-

    29. RC

      Yeah

    30. TS

      ... that's quite easy. Um, but when you do it voluntarily, it's somehow harder. So the principle is I, I like it. Um, I was a big fan of, uh, intermittent fasting- When it first came out, because it allowed you to, um, eat less food, but not in a restricted way. So you could have a-- you could pick what the food was you were gonna eat, and you just had only a quarter of the amount on that day. And I don't think it was shown to be better than any other diets, but you could stay on it for longer because you had the variety. You could change it all. It wasn't dull. It didn't, you know, didn't interfere with, uh, anything else. And, um-

  11. 1:31:42 – 1:51:35

    Refined carbs, oats and using glucose monitors wisely

    1. TS

      Yeah, I mean, I think if I tried to say, well, I, what have I learned, without knowing what my results were, just looking at other people's results, is that many th- You know, there's a proportion of people that are really sensitive to carbohydrates, and there's a proportion that aren't, and it's hard to tell. Obviously, if you've got a lot of perhaps diabetes in the family, you might suspect that that's, that's, that's true.

    2. RC

      Is that refined carbohydrates and whole food carbohydrates?

    3. TS

      Yes. Yeah. It, it is. I mean, I, the more ref-

    4. RC

      Got it

    5. TS

      ... the more refined, the worse, but it, it's a spectrum. There isn't a, an absolute cutoff, no.

    6. RC

      Uh, just, but as you expand there, just to share my own experience, 'cause I have used the CGM, continuous glucose monitor, a couple times. I don't use one regularly, um, but I did earlier on in the year, and I've, I've got one on at the moment. And last week over dinner, it was pretty healthy meal, and I think the carb with it was sweet potato mash that my wife had made. Oh, man. I can't remember what it went up to, but it was a big rise on, with my blood sugar, about an hour, maybe an hour, hour and a half after the meal, which really surprised me. And I found with other things, like if it's a few boiled potatoes or a small amount of white rice, actually, it doesn't anywhere near to the same degree. Now, there's a few other things I need to tweak, and I need to replicate with different foods just to see which one it was. But sweet potatoes are considered, you know, a healthy carb, a whole food carb. Sure, it was mashed, so that was, you know, that's changed it somewhat. But that was really interesting for me, because I may have continued eating that, but that will definitely make me think again about how much do I wanna have this if it's gonna push my sugar that high. So that, I guess, speaks to what you're saying and what you're finding with people. Some people are exquisitely sensitive to carbs, even whole food ones.

    7. TS

      And yeah. And there's, and different carbs. So, you know, there will be some things that, you know, there's a difference between pasta and rice, and, and bread for some people. And, and, and understand there's a huge difference, you know, b- within those ranges, and I mean, uh, people will say, "Okay, well, uh, porridge is healthy, isn't it?" Most people tell me, "Oats, that's healthy." But, you know, for me, they're not. But, you know, I tried three or four different types of, um, uh, oat porridge, and what that tells you is the more refined, the more ground up, the more it's been s- uh, factory made, and it, quicker it is to make, the f- the higher my sugar peaks go.

    8. RC

      Yeah.

    9. TS

      So as a general rule, if you pick things that are less refined, less processed, and take longer to cook, it's because, you know, their outer coating is, uh, you know, that, that, those, that energy is stored much, much, uh, and it's harder to get out. So, so steel cut oats, things you have to, you know, cook overnight, don't have half the sugar peak of an identical, um, you know, Quaker Oats, uh, instant meal, which for me is just like pure sugar. So I think it's te- telling the-

    10. RC

      Yes. So hearing porridge is healthy doesn't mean anything.

    11. TS

      No.

    12. RC

      For who? Sorry to interrupt. If you are enjoying this content, there's loads more just like it on my channel, so please do take a moment to press Subscribe, hit the notification bell, and now back to the conversation.

    13. TS

      And it's the structure of food.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. TS

      It's, you know, 'cause you've broken down that oat, it, it can be in its whole form. You can have it, you know, cut. You can have it rolled. Uh, you know, or you can have it so finely powdered and dry, air dried that, th- that sugar just, you know, rushes out, and you've got, haven't got any fiber. So understanding the differences between foods, I think is, is a, is a really important lesson, so that we mustn't over categorize. Again, reduce everything to saying, "This is good. This is bad." Within each category, there are, are good and bad foods that we all need to learn about. And it's like hummus and chickpeas or-

    16. RC

      Yeah

    17. TS

      ... you know, almonds and ground almonds, you know. They, they have totally different amounts of things in them when the structure changes.

    18. RC

      Given how much data we can learn about ourselves through continuous sugar monitors, are we not getting to the point where it's almost in every single person's best interest to at least do a two-week trial with one of them to at least say, "Oh, man. I'm having that every day. Maybe I shouldn't be having that"? Obviously, you gotta be careful with people's relationships with food, and food is so much more than just the blood sugar response [laughs] , isn't it? But I don't know. Have you got any comments on those things?

    19. TS

      I think, um, people can get obsessed with-

    20. RC

      Yeah

    21. TS

      ... uh, blood sugar monitors, and there are people, you know, get ob- obsessed about all kinds of things about food and, and reducing it to purely a sugar peak, uh, is not the right answer.

    22. RC

      Yeah.

    23. TS

      Because y- you can go down completely the wrong direction, and just by adding double cream to everything, you can dampen down the sugar response.

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. TS

      But it doesn't mean that eating, uh, you know, a bucket full of dou- double cream every day is good for you. So, um, I think you've gotta see it in the ho- in that holistic light of all the things-

    26. RC

      Yeah

    27. TS

      ... we've talked about, and your fat response. Some people can cope with a lot of fat. Other people can't. And there are good fats and bad fats as well. So it, it's just part of the equation. But I, I think it does give people, like, an insight into, you know, the fact that- Something we shouldn't necessarily need. Orange juice actually is not a health food. And it's, uh, you know, it's pr- should be in the alcohol category or something like that, that you take, um, it's not good for anybody really. Um, which y- if everyone did have a glucose monitor on every time they, they had a, a glass of orange juice, they would see. It's, uh, you know, the same as a Coca-Cola. And it would just be- put them in the same sort of category, and so you say, "Well, okay, um, that should go in the same..." So it would, it would change people's ideas of things. And I think, you know, I, I- there will be a watch soon that do- I, I think probably within five years, that does the same as a-

    28. RC

      Yeah

    29. TS

      ... a glucose monitor. And once that happens, everyone w- like counting steps and things, they'll probably want it. But I think we have to be very careful we don't, don't then over r- you know, make the same mistakes-

    30. RC

      Yeah

  12. 1:51:35 – 2:00:29

    Polyphenols and fermented foods

    1. RC

      Just to finish off this conversation, Tim, uh, we've mentioned polyphenols and fermented foods. We didn't go into that much detail on either one. Could we just briefly go through what are polyphenols, why should people think about getting more of them in, how can they do that? And then potentially the same for fermented foods as well.

    2. TS

      So polyphenols used to be called antioxidants, and they are a group of well over 1,000 different chemicals that are in plants, in all plants to different levels, and they're defense chemicals that plants use to defend themselves against sun or, uh, predators. And, uh, they are often, when you eat them, have a slightly bitter taste, uh, can cause astringency, just like if you have a, uh, a really old red wine, it gives that, that taste on the tongue. That's because the skin of the grape has a lot of these polyphenols in it. And, uh, they are in, uh, brightly colored foods. They're in slightly bitter foods, and they're in complex foods. And so they're in things like coffee, dark chocolate, red wine, uh, extra virgin olive oil, uh, nuts, seeds, berries particularly. So these are all health foods. And these polyphenols, we now know, are useful for us because they feed our microbes, and those microbes then convert them into other healthy chemicals. We can't really use them ourselves, so it's quite interesting. It's... They really are like specific fish food that we're eating-

    3. RC

      Wow

    4. TS

      ... uh, that, that provides us then, you know, then they... these chemicals then get back into our bloodstream and dampen down inflammation and keep us healthy. So that's really important, and there's big differences between foods. You know s- like the choice of a cooking oil between, you know, uh, a highly refined vegetable oil and an extra virgin olive oil is massive. Um-

    5. RC

      Can you see that in ZOE as well?

    6. TS

      Um, well, it's reflected in the scores.

    7. RC

      Yeah.

    8. TS

      So we would give a different score to vegetable oil than we would for, uh, uh, extra virgin olive oil, both depending on the quality of the fats, but also its effect on your, your gut microbes. So all of the scores do reflect, uh, polyphenols and, um, f- the fermentation, which is the next, uh, thing we're talking about, which also affects the gut. So polyphenols are really important, and, uh, but it's... But you've got to understand a bit more about the food. So chocolate, for example, all chocolate has some polyphenols in it, but it's only in the cocoa part of it, not the, um, the artificial bits and not the sugar and not the milk.

    9. RC

      Which is why the dark chocolate is the, the preferred option.

    10. TS

      Dark chocolate is packed with it. Milk chocolate is, is, has very little and is overridden by the sugar. So again, it's, it's all about the quality and looking at the labels and seeing what's on the food.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      And, you know, difference between picking a really brightly colored lettuce or a, an iceberg lettuce is massive, um, in terms of the difference of the polyphenols. So the color of the leaves and the way the, the lettuce is w- gives you a, a different indication of how many polyphenols it's got.

    13. RC

      So what are we looking for when we're picking our lettuce?

    14. TS

      Um, you're looking for one with loose leaves, um, that is brightly colored, uh, often different colors, reds. Uh, and that's true for a lot of foods. So generally, it's a bit like the berry. The brightly colored berries-

    15. RC

      Yeah

    16. TS

      ... have more of these things than the other ones do. So this is a, you know, we're just understanding this, this sort of science. So some, some of the things we thought were good for us aren't, and, uh, uh, this is another thing to look out for. So polyphenols are really good. Fermented foods are anything that has live microbes in it. Uh, so it's like probiotics na- naturally occurring in food. So by the time you're eating it, it's actually got live microbes that can still replicate and produce chemicals. And so everyone knows yogurt has that, but kefir has, uh, several times more microbes than yogurt, and it's a thinner version of it. And then you've got, um- Or, or, uh, you've got kombucha, which is fermented tea, which is becoming more popular, which has even more than kefir in it, and has, uh, different fungi and yeasts

    17. RC

      Wow

    18. TS

      So often up to 30 different microbes you can find in a, in a proper kombucha. And you've got then, uh, sauerkraut used, uh, you know, in Central and Eastern Europe, which is fermented cabbage. And of course, going one level above that, you've got kimchi, um-

    19. RC

      One level above that in terms of the number of microbes?

    20. TS

      Number of microbes and diversity, because you've also got, as well as cabbage, you've got, uh, you've got garlic, you've got chilies, uh, you've got, uh, onions, and other peppers and things. So the more complex it is, often the, the greater the richness of the, the microbes.

    21. RC

      And that's super helpful because sauerkraut is known to be a... For people who are, you know, who read about gut health, they know that sauerkraut is one of those fermented foods that's really helpful. But this idea that you can upgrade to kimchi because it's not just cabbage, it's like going back to the very start of this conversation, the diversity. It's got more plant foods in it, therefore, um, it's gonna, you know, feed more and more microbes. That, that's super helpful, I think.

    22. TS

      Yeah, and there's-- And then you move on to the g- If you like Japanese food, of course, anything with miso in it is, uh, is, is really important because miso is fermented soy. And so there's plenty of, um, fermented soy dishes that you can get as well, but, uh, tempeh and, uh, other o- other ones like this. So fermented food is really big. Uh, be careful you don't buy ones with vinegar in it-

    23. RC

      Yeah

    24. TS

      ... that are killed. And, uh, you know, try and smell the... When you open, open it, check it hasn't got vinegar in it, and you can usually tell by the smell if it's, if it's live or not. And having a small amount every day is what I try and do. Uh, there's no point in having a, a, a feast once a week. We know that these things die out, so for practical reasons, try and have a small shot of one or two of these every day. And that's why if you have it at home in your fridge, you're near the-- for breakfast or your first meal, you've got it, uh, or you have it l- you know, at night when you come back.

    25. RC

      I, I love that. That reminds me of what I talk about a lot, which is like I... You know, a lot of people who listen to the show know that I do a five-minute strength workout every morning whilst my coffee's brewing. It's a habit that I've stacked onto that, so I never miss it, 'cause I never miss my coffee, so I never miss that little five-minute workout every morning. And I always say that I, I found that little regularly actually has a very powerful effect on the body no matter what habit it is, what-- no matter what behavior we're trying to bring in. And I guess bringing that into gut health as well, a little bit every day with a fermented food is better than binging on the whole jar maybe on, on a Sunday when you have more time, something like that.

    26. TS

      Yeah, and I've changed r- And I... And cheese is the other thing, of course, which we forget is, is fermented if it's real cheese. But, um, you know, we're not talking about Kraft slices. We're talking, um, uh, that, you know, your... Cheese that doesn't have to be unpasteurized, although that helps 'cause you do get extra microbes if it's raw milk cheese. Uh, but most cheeses are good. The ones with, uh, blue lines and fungus on them or have even more microbes.

    27. RC

      Yeah.

    28. TS

      And just having a small amount of that every day i- is absolutely healthy. You know, there's a myth that cheese is bad for your heart and things. Absolutely no evidence that's true. Um, a small regular amount of that had, you know-- And instead of, um, a pickle that might be high in, in sugars and, and salt, a traditional English pickle, you know, try sauerkraut or kimchi with it.

    29. RC

      Yeah.

    30. TS

      Uh, and I think increasingly you can just build this into your, your daily diet so you are having these things regularly. And you just have something in the fridge you just pop on your plate as an extra. You know, and I think that that's what I found, is having the ingredients ready around you so you can just add them, whether it's, you know, the original seed mix or it's the, the kimchi pot or the-

  13. 2:00:29 – 2:08:21

    Carnivore diets and keeping diversity

    1. RC

      Just before we finish off, Tim, I think it's an important point to make that something I'm observing a lot is that a lot of people, or certainly, you know, there, there's a s- significant amount of people who struggle to increase the amount of plants in their diet. They get symptoms, they get bloating, they don't feel good. And you will have seen this online, uh, as I have, that there is a growing movement towards more and more severe diets, more and more restricted diets. Now, a lot of people follow these days, uh, what, what has been called a carnivore diet, which is, you know, all meat or predominantly, uh, meat with very few other things in it. And I know people, I know patients actually, and, and, and I know people who are thriving on these diets compared to how they felt before. A lot of people say, um, "My joint pain's gone. Um, I've got more energy. My skin's better." So therefore, you can see from their perspective that they're feeling better compared to where they were before, yet they're now hearing someone as respected as yourself talk about all the, the benefits of plant foods for the gut microbiome. And I think a lot of these people feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. They, they want to apply what they're learning, but they also know that they feel better on a, on quite a wildly different diet. Um, have you come across this, and do you have any kind of thoughts on that?

    2. TS

      Yeah. Well, like you, I've had people write to me saying, "I've been on a carnivore diet for two years, and I feel great. You know, I don't understand what you're on about." You know, um, and I say, "Well- Everyone is different. You could have a unique set of gut microbes that seem to, uh, cope with this. But my worry is that although initially changing from, say, a har- high-carb diet or an ultra-processed food diet to carnivore diet, y- you, you will get, uh, you will feel better in a number of ways. Long term, I worry that, you know, we are omnivores, and our gut microbe diversity does depend on giving enough to feed. If you're only eating meat, uh, you're gonna have a very limited range of gut microbes to produce all these chemicals-

    3. RC

      Yeah

    4. TS

      ... and vitamins for you. So I would just urge those people, you know, not to give up meat, but to start introducing small amounts-

    5. RC

      Yeah

    6. TS

      ... of regular different plants. It doesn't have to be huge quantities, but, uh, you know, it doesn't have to be starchy ones either. It could just be, you know, the leafy green ones, which there is a, a variety. You know, certainly nuts and-

    7. RC

      Yeah

    8. TS

      ... and seeds and mushrooms are, you know, also good. Uh, you know, we've, we haven't talked about mushrooms, but-

    9. RC

      No

    10. TS

      ... I've, the last few years I've become a real big fan, you know, of this is an amazing source of protein and, uh, nutrition that, um, I think is, you know, probably gonna sa- end up saving the planet as, uh, as we move forward. But, you know, there are lots of, um, nuances. But it, there isn't one size fits all.

    11. RC

      Yeah.

    12. TS

      And there may be people out there who don't need 30 plants a week. I'm not, uh, saying-

    13. RC

      Yeah

    14. TS

      ... it as absolute rule. Uh, I'd love to do some studies on these people.

    15. RC

      Yeah.

    16. TS

      Uh, so it'd be fantastic if some carnivore dieters did the ZOE study, and we could look at their gut microbes.

    17. RC

      Well, I have someone-

    18. TS

      Mm

    19. RC

      ... who I'm gonna ... Someone just for you, actually.

    20. TS

      [laughs]

    21. RC

      Someone who is literally thriving and has tried-

    22. TS

      Yeah

    23. RC

      ... vegan diets before, has tried low carbs, and literally finds that going full carnivore. And I know this lady super well, and she is thriving. High energy, high cognition, can work all day, can, can run marathons. I'm like, there's something going on here where she is thriving on this diet, and so I'm gonna ... I, I'd love to know, so I'm actually gonna talk to her and put her in touch. So-

    24. TS

      Well, you know-

    25. RC

      'Cause that'll be interesting, wouldn't it? What's actually going on in the microbiome?

    26. TS

      Yeah. Well, I mean, w- you know, hopefully in five years we'll be looking back at this and say, "Well, we didn't know much, did we?" You know, because science-

    27. RC

      I'm sure we will

    28. TS

      ... science is, uh, exciting, and it's always changing. And, you know, our views, you know, we, we found a year ago this, this microblastocystis, which is in one in four British people have this parasite. It's not a microbe, it's a parasite, that a few years ago you'd have had to go to the tropical medicine place, and they'd have given you powerful antibiotics to get rid of it. 'Cause they said, "Oh, you, that will give you traveler's diarrhea." Now we know that it's associated with good health and lower fat levels. And-

    29. RC

      Isn't it associated with lower autoimmune risk as well potentially?

    30. TS

      Yes. It, it dampens-

  14. 2:08:21 – 2:31:58

    Personalized testing, fish myths and diversity over superfoods

    1. TS

      ... spending six months trying to do it yourself. Uh, but I think the general principle is that these devices, these tests, the microbiome testing, all these things that input into these predictions are gonna get much cheaper, much-

    2. RC

      Yeah

    3. TS

      ... more available. And we're all, we're gonna be using a, an app, uh, I think that's personalized for us, you know, within, within five or 10 years.

    4. RC

      Wow.

    5. TS

      I, I, I just think it's the most, only logical way to deal with a complex problem because, you know, I've just given you a, a little snapshot of how complicated these things are-

    6. RC

      Yeah

    7. TS

      ... by just eating one meal. And but if this is reduced by some algorithm to tell you your score is this, you can then make some lifestyle choices based on that, and then have a much... You know, do two weeks of that and see does that work for you or not, you know? Um.

    8. RC

      I, I think the, the, the, the real beauty of doing it individually is that you're really empowered to make a change when you see it on yourself, right?

    9. TS

      Mm.

    10. RC

      When it's not someone else's data. I actually, I nearly got a blood sugar monitor at the start of the summer, and I think I just got busy with the book edits, which frankly took me all summer. [laughs] Um, I thought, "Oh, I'll get that in, and then I'll, I'll play around with, with, and seeing, you know, what happens to my blood sugar after certain meals." So I didn't get that, but I did get the sleep, uh, tracking device, which I think is, is certainly from what I can tell, one of the best ones out there. And what's really interesting for me is that if I eat close to my bedtime, within, within two hours of bedtime, it takes a lot longer for my heart rate to drop at night. And y- I can see that in real time when I've played around with it and, and that affects, you know, your readiness score the next day and how much you've recovered, and it affects, certainly for me, my levels of deep sleep. So when I see that consistently and play around with it, I'm like, "Ah, okay. I know that that is not suiting me." So I've literally changed that, so I won't eat now. Very rarely will I eat within two or three hours of bed. It's very much, even if I get that pang at 9:00, 9:30, I'm like, "You know what? I'm not gonna do it." And, and that, A, the feeling goes 'cause half the time you're not really hungry, it's just you're a bit bored and you just want something in your mouth. But I kinda see the same thing with blood sugar monitoring, right? It must be when you see it for yourself, you're then empowered to make that, that, that change. Have you seen anything or have you done any work yet within the data about eating close to bedtime? Because I'm guessing in Spain, yes, they eat late, but I think they go to bed later as well, don't they?

    11. TS

      Yeah. Everything's later, so it's like jet lag. You're just sort of, uh, uh... They never go to bed before 1:00. So, um, yeah, you can tell-

    12. RC

      So they may still not be eating for two hours before bed potentially.

    13. TS

      Yes.

    14. RC

      Yeah.

    15. TS

      Yeah, they wouldn't go to bed straight after eating, no.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. TS

      So, and they wouldn't eat in the morning, so they'd have a longer... 'Cause I mean, you got the, you got the, you're looking at it just from one point of time.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. TS

      Whereas actually you might say, "Well, actually, you know, what about your metabolism at lunchtime, you know, after you've had that?" I mean, yeah, it- it's all related.

    20. RC

      Yeah.

    21. TS

      I mean, what did you have the day before, and should you be exercising before or after meals? You know, how does that change your metabolism?

    22. RC

      But that, that, that's only blood sugar though, isn't it? 'Cause you guys are measuring three things, blood sugar, uh, triglycerides in the blood, and also, um, what was the other thing you're measuring? Inflammation. So you're measuring three things. Can you get a lot of that from just the blood sugar? Because a lot of, lot of self-experimenters are getting the blood sugar testing and doing that, but you obviously in your testing are doing it a lot more. You know, there's, there's two more parameters, so what, what can we take from that?

    23. TS

      I mean, yeah, I mean, blood sugar alone certainly picks up things like having a real pre-diabetic tendency, you know, knowing whether you really have a problem with carbs, the sugar dips. Um, but it doesn't tell you whether you should be replacing everything with fats or not because some people have problems with fats and they don't... If you just, easiest way to get a bet- good blood sugar reading is just to have fat. You just put butter and cream on everything, and it wipes out the sugar response. So everything that's just based on sugar has always got that flaw that, um, you're never quite sure whether you're doing yourself more harm or not because you don't know what your, your six-hour, um, triglyceride is, whether those fats are gonna be hanging around your body all overnight, uh, causing inflammation, giving you heart disease, all these kind of things which-

    24. RC

      Yeah.

    25. TS

      So I think it is important to do both, but you can certainly get a lot of insights and it's just, I think, just psychologically really important to suddenly when you, it's the instantaneous bit of the sugar that, you know, on your phone you can actually see things going up when you thought something was healthy. You know, so I, I changed for a while to eating porridge for breakfast. Oats, oat, and there was this huge myth that oats were amazingly good for cholesterol and, uh, your heart and, uh, particularly in the US, this massive campaign. And you have all these varieties. I tried about four or five different, uh, oats and I thought felt I was really being healthy, but then I saw my, my sugar levels were really high.

    26. RC

      Wow.

    27. TS

      Um, until I got to, uh, those steel cut stuff that you had to sort of boil overnight and, uh, was really thick. Uh, you know, hard to digest and then that was the only one that sort of worked. And you see these real-life experiments for yourself. And then g- I gave one, a monitor to my wife and we're having the same meal, and you see her quite happily, uh, tucking into bread and toast with no sugar rises at all, and me, you know, all over the place. So-

    28. RC

      Yeah

    29. TS

      ... that, those sort of little insights will stay with you forever-

    30. RC

      Yeah

  15. 2:31:58 – 2:42:14

    Practical takeaways and the case against calorie counting

    1. TS

      First thing is to realize that everyone's unique. Okay? So once you realize that, um, you can explain a lot of the way you, you interact with health and food and exercise and your environment. And you sh- be free to, to self-experiment, and I want everyone to get out there and realize the amazing amounts of good, interesting foods are out there, and that I don't want people to read this book and get worried about, uh, themselves and, uh, the food environment and chemicals and whatever. It's really important that people remain, uh- fascinated about food and enjoy it because it's, it's incredibly powerful bonding human experience, eating. So I want people to experiment, try some new dishes you've never tried before. Um, try going for a week without meat, or if you, uh, try, uh, only eating vegetables, or try skipping breakfast. Try doing things in a different way, so exercising, uh, after you've had your meal rather than before it. Um, try mixing everything up really. And, uh, the important thing to realize is that if you can, um, start to think of everything you put into your body is important, um, not just for the pleasure it gives you immediately, your metabolic responses, but also, uh, you're feeding your aquarium, if you like, or your, your tank of gut microbes. Uh, and they can produce chemicals to make you feel happy and relaxed, and try and find that, that right balance. And it can take all of your life to find that, but, um, if you can do it in a way that's fun and enjoyable, then, uh, that's, that's the most important thing. So people shouldn't be stressed out about this. They should really take it as, as a positive challenge to try and improve themselves by, uh, understanding more about food and teaching everyone else about it. And I think we- we've all got so much to learn, and it's such an exciting area at the moment, that I really want everyone to be passionately involved and everyone to be a citizen scientist.

    2. RC

      I think a lot of people hear information about food and gut health and inflammation and the immune system, and often they get confused. So you are renowned as a global expert on these topics, and so I thought maybe we could start with the question: Why is gut health so important?

    3. TS

      Because it's a crucial organ in our bodies, and it is one of the few things that we can really control. So there's a huge range of gut health across the population. We know that we've lost half of our gut microbes compared to perhaps even 50 or 100 years ago, and that's affecting us in many ways. And yet it's not like genetics that you can't change. It's something that all of us can improve, and all of us needs to understand more about gut health, um, so that we can improve many things in our life very simply just by altering our food choices. So it's, i- it's becoming apparent that it's, uh, something that the public can change. You don't need doctors, you don't need specialists to do it. It's all within our power to really nurture and improve our, our, our gut microbes, which in turn are key for our gut health. So it influences, yeah, all, everything to do with our body, our mood, our brain, and, uh, our metabolism, our weight, et cetera.

    4. RC

      Yeah, a lot of people think about gut health and digestion, and they think, "Yeah, the gut's... If I can get my gut functioning better, my gut's gonna feel better." But as you say there, it's not just about your gut, is it? It's about many different things in the body.

    5. TS

      Yeah, it's not... I mean, as you said, I think in the past people have said gut health, oh, that just means, you know, to avoid heartburn or-

    6. RC

      Yeah

    7. TS

      ... bloating or constipation or whatever it is, and now we know it's nothing like that. Even if you feel perfectly normal, you can have poor gut health, which is gonna affect how long you live, uh, how many chronic disease you get, whether you get allergies, whether your immune system's gonna fight off COVID, uh, all kinds of things. Uh, and your mood the next day, your sleep, all things we hadn't even thought were related. So we have to think much more widely when we talk about gut health. I think it's nearly a sort of, uh, uh, it's like talking about holistic, a holistic view of your body-

    8. RC

      Yeah

    9. TS

      ... uh, that comes back to the, you know, the ancient Indian teachings that says it all comes from there, which if you said it that way, sounds a bit pseudoscience. But if you just, instead of that, you call it the gut microbiome, then it's starting to make, uh, sense again.

    10. RC

      Yeah. You mentioned that what's really great about the science of gut health is this idea that we don't need to go and see a doctor or a specialist. We can manipulate it. We can change it for ourselves. Now, as a fellow medical doctor, that's something I'm incredibly passionate about, is how can we disseminate information to people that means they can be, I guess, the architects of their own health, rather than need to rely on other people. What have you found since you started spreading that through your books, through your podcast, you know, through all these mediums that you use? What sort of feedback have you had?

    11. TS

      Well, amazing feedback really of, of people writing me letters, sending me presents, um, all kinds of messages saying that just reading my, my book, um, either The Dart Myth or Spoon-Fed, and saying it changed their way they thought about food, and actually they taught the rest of their family, and suddenly they're feeling healthier, they're feeling better. And there's nothing quite like that as a doctor-

    12. RC

      Yeah

    13. TS

      ... to feel that you've made, not just a change to someone for a few weeks, but actually changed something probably for the rest of their life, and that's incredibly empowering for me, [laughs] uh, to, to know that you, you know, just by writing some books and, and talking on podcasts, you can actually change people's attitudes long term. And so that really is a major motivating factor for me, rather than the hundreds of papers I've written that, you know, only a few academics read. I think getting these messages out and doing doctors out of a job is really what, um, is, it spurs me on, and probably you too.

    14. RC

      Yeah, for sure. And, and Tim, you know, I've been really- Thinking long and hard over the past few years, what does it mean to be a medical doctor? For me, at least, in 2022. Because when I was at medical school, I always imagined it would be, you know, I would make impacts by seeing people and helping them change their lives and, you know, one on one, do some tests, make some changes. And of course, that has incredible value. But I've realized more and more, if we do our jobs right through spreading this information through the media, through podcasts and books, I kinda feel we're still doing our job as a doctor, just in a very different way.

    15. TS

      Well, reaching many more people and being much more efficient about it, and not trying to just sort out the short-term problems, which I think is what modern medicine's still unfortunately dealing with, and predominantly dealing with pharmaceutical solutions to those problems, and that's just the way it's set up at the moment.

    16. RC

      Yeah.

    17. TS

      So I... But I think we are seeing more and more. Well, I, I'm things optimistic is, is, uh, you know, doctors like you and, and many others who are suddenly, uh, having a voice and speaking well, because it was very hard to find any, any doctors 10 years ago that were, uh, you know, prepared to do this without feeling they were gonna be ridiculed or told off by their peers or, you know, would simply not have the right language to appeal to, uh, the general public. So I think we're certainly... I mean, it was a bit more advanced in the US, I think.

    18. RC

      Yeah.

    19. TS

      But, but certainly in the UK, we've been very behind, with doctors really scared to, to talk out and, and say what they think.

    20. RC

      Yeah. In terms of practical things, we mentioned that improving our gut health can improve all kinds of things in the body, and you mentioned food as a powerful driver, um, as a powerful tool to use for our gut's health. What are some of the things that people should think about bringing into their diets to improve their gut health?

    21. TS

      Well, the first thing I think is to, to realize that we're not really in an obesity crisis, we're in a food crisis. And that's because we've lost an idea of what good food is. And the first thing to do is to realize, you know, the difference between good and bad food and forget a lot of what we've been told about calories and fats and sugars, and the fact that you can really tell a, a product by its calorie count or its percentage fat on a st- on a label. And most people don't really realize, you know, the difference between ultra-processed foods and whole foods, uh, because they're the same category. You know, a bread is a bread for most people. And so I think the first thing is to just realize that actually mo- virtually all the population don't fully understand what food is. So I think educating more about what food is, is really important. Realizing that quality is something we should be talking about, and we should absolutely stop talking about calories. So in a way, that's the first mindset shift, um, I would like people to, to do. And everything we're doing now and, and doing with the company ZOE is to completely ignore, uh, the C word.

    22. RC

      Well, I wanna get to ZOE and personalized nutrition shortly, because I think that is really revolutionizing the way we are all going

Episode duration: 2:49:48

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