Intermittent Fasting and Future Goals

Welcome to Zoe Science and Nutrition, where world leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health Room hums with anticipation Conversations fade Stage lightights glow against a packed audience as hundreds of people settle into their seats. Some have traveled for hours. Others have brought notebooks full of questions All of them have come for the same reason to get answers For the first time ever, our Zoe science and Nutrition podcast left the studio behind for a live recording We brought together a live audience of Zoe investors and gave them the opportunity to ask their biggest questions about food, health and the latest science directly to the experts that they know so well Professor Tim Specter, Professor Sarah Berry, and Dr. Federica Aamarti all joined me on stage. And for the first time, this episode isn't shaped by a script, a producer or even a guest. It's shaped by the burning questions that people brought with them. The questions range from the deeply practical to some of the biggest debates in nutrition How quickly can changing your diet improve your gut microbiome? Does eating thirty plants a week really make a difference Our oats healthy is sacking helping or harming us What should you do after a course of antibiotics And how should we think about weight loss drugs, dementia prevention, and the many nutrition claims competing for our attention every day I was terrified before doing this, but actually it ended up being a lot of fun. conversation between experts and audience. spontaneous, insightful, and sometimes surprising With no retakes and no shortage of curiosity This special episode captures the excitement of a landmark first for the podcast very first live NA Welcome everybody to what is a bit of a milestone for the podcast. This is the first time we've ever done a live podcast recording This is also the first time we've ever had all three of our Zous spokespeople together in one show. So're about to discover whether or not We should have done this ages ago, or this is like a disaster and too many opinions all in one room So I know you're all really excited about the audience Q and A and ready to go. But I thought before we could kick it off, I was going to ask each of you just one question. starting with your tip What does Zoe mean to you Is this a yes or no? No. You're even allowed more than a sentence two Well, Zoe means life in Greek And it certainly changed my life from When I first met you nine years ago now, and It changed me from you know, a dull academic to a dull entrepreneur. scientists, but it's really allowed me to do what I was doing on a very small scale Talking about gut microbe, but just talking to small rooms of academics smallm amounts of people reading my work. to brring those messages to hundreds of thousands and millions of people. in a way that wouldn't have been possible before. And as it's grown and the company has evolved We're seeing this as a very long term mission It's pretty hard at the beginning of it to see anything long term because are we going to survive a year? know Will I strangle Jonathan after the first few meetings? when academics and business people clash, then often theres are fireworks. But We got through that honeymoon period and we can now see this really important future and I see you know, this really important role for myself now you know, the media stuff I'm doing and the stuff waiting for Zoe, it's all coming together as a real mission to change the way We all think about food and the importance of food and give us extended healthy life and that all brings it back to the mission of Zoe. So it's really now very close to my heart. And that's for me what Zoe means. It's bringing the science to so many more people that couldn't have had it before It's really lovely. Sarah I would say for me, it's about putting science into action. so I've been like Tim, an academic scientist for over twenty five years. I've run more than thirty randomized controlled trials And yes, I'd spend years doing these studies, years applying for the funding, years recruiting people, years analyzing the samples, years Writing it up, getting it into a manuscript Did it make a difference? Well, I'm sure none of you have ever read any of those manuscripts. So I think what's really exciting is that we rarely as academics, ever have the opportunity to communicate our research at the scale that we've been able to through the podcast, but also put into action research findings in the way that we do at Zoe from the own research that we do at Zoe, in these hundreds of thousands of people, at the scale brepth and precision that we could never ever do in an academic setting but also to be able to have all of the incredible resources that we have at Zoe that turn scientific information, scientific findings into actionable advice that actually really makes a difference And I've had the most exciting eight and a half years of my life. It's just been so fun. I don't consider it work my Zoe journey. I get up and I'm just so excited because the opportunities that we have' just so fun as a scientist So I love all of that. but I am tempted to ask you to share your initial experience when we first tried to get you involved with Zoe. Do you want the censored or uncensored version I think they won the uncensored version. Okay. so I got an email from the esteemed professor, Tim Spectre, who actually works in a different department for me I'm in nutritional sciences. He was in genetic epidemiology. Even though he had already published well selling nutrition books, he was still just dabbling in nutrition because God forbid he's not in our department and dares to call himself a nutrition scientist Sorry,sim. She was one of the nicer ones. Yeah. so imagine what the others were like That's quite true. Anyway, I had an email from Tim to ask me would I come to talk to him about my muffins Everyone likes Sarah's muffin So what he did realize is that I had a lot more to offer than just my muffin recipe. And so he asked for me to come back and meet you and George, the other founder And I remember meeting both of you and going back to one of my colleagues after saying, Oh my God, I just met these two crazy guys, they think they can pull off a thousand people post pantal study in nine months. Bearing in mind the kind of trials we did, we would have probably twenty people over three months doing this But you know what they say, there's a thin line between genius and madness And what you did prove to me is that actually it's pure genius, no madness, and that Tim, you have learnnt to be a lot less rude actually. And I do love working with you. and Federica What does that mean to you So I think for me, I came from sort of the other side of it. I was a public health scientist by training, but I was a clinical nutritionist. I was working one on one with people trying to really make an impact on their lives individually. And when I was introduced to him before I met Zoe I was asked if I could help him with his Bible, also known as Fautul Life, the first one, the Big toome. And I was so excited to work on that because it was an opportunity to write a book that Thousands of people would read and it had so much information in it and it was so applicable. And so when Tim said, I'm working on this project, it's called Zoe, I think you'd enjoy it The potential impact that I thought I could help to bring to this company to Zoe in reaching millions of people with evidence based advice that could change their lives at such scale just was so exciting to me. For me, Zoe is impact. That's what it represents All right we're gonna to move audience Q and A here. So I've got a question here from Fe Catstick. Nly, can I make beneficial changes to my gut microbiome by following Zoe's advice may a gate tend to start with this There was a small study about ten years ago that looked at a small number of people and sampled their st sample every day and they were also looking at their what they were eating every day and they were shifting their diets in certain directions. and they could see changes on a daily basis in the gut microbiome They were just looking at normal variation. They didn't try and justust make it super healthy. U so we have to extrapolate from that to our end studies where we've been doing projects where we clearly see changes within a month And so It's somewhere between a few days and a month depending on what you're looking at But I think Generally, it's really rapid In some microbes and in others, it's going to take longer I got a second question from Sophie Pelker. How long does it take for your gut microbiome to change once you've introduced thirty different types of plants a week Well again it We know that it depends where you start from. The worse your gut microbiome, the faster and the bigger the changes If you're alady at a really high point in your diet You're having lots of fiber and pererments and everything else It's going to be harder to see that difference These are really tough questions because all of you guys have really different gut microbiomes. You only share twenty percent with each other. So everyone's going to have a slightly personalized response to this in general, you'll see changes certainly within three months, even if you're at a quite a high level. and probably six weeks Would that then be the end of the change? Or would you expect that to continue to change? three months, six months elve month I expect you to keep going up But that's going everyone's going to have a different trajectory And I think we do see this and people telling me their results You know, they often see a sort of up and down trajectory, but generally creeping up But you might have periods where it is a plateau and it is hard to get. And you've been on that journey yourself, Jonathan with your fight against the antibiotics where you hn, Well you can and there's a six month period and absolutely nothing's happened and you feel a bit upset, but you know Then six months later, it does start to climb again. and we don't totally understand why that happens. Maybe it's the seasons or other factors orr there's some other stress Okay Diet isn't the only thing affecting I think what for me really is evidence for how increasing your plant diversity, getting to the thirty plants comes from our own randomized control trial that we did of Daily thirty. And so we put our daily thirty to the test. We gave participants either daily thirty or two other controls and then we looked after four weeks at how that changed the gut microbome I was even surprised myself how people having two scroups a daily thirty a day had after four weeks profound changes in their gut microrome But I think what was even more exciting is how quickly you can feel different. So whilst you might not see changes in your microbiome for a week or two and these big changes after a month, we know that people from changing their diet have improvements in mood, energy, hunger, alertness even within two to three days. And I think that should always be a real motivator of how quickly changing your diet can improve how you feel now as long as long term as well as your long term health Yeahes, so your brain might be better at picking up The healthy gut than actually the microbiome test because we've got this high evolutionary system that is really good at detecting what's going on. So listen to your energy levels and your mood I've got a question here from Rachel Dixson. Is eating thirty different types of fruit and veg a week enough for good gut health Or does it need to be the right mix just for me Also is eating the same thirty types of plants each week Bat Or is it okay When we think of thirty months a week, we want to introduce variety at every opportunity. Rather not be the same thirirty every week, try to change it with the seasons, try to experiment with new ingredients Thty plants a week is where the data has taken us so far There is a world in which thirty five, forty, forty five holds even more promise. Certainly that's what we see Fiber intake that thirty grams a day is great. But when you get to forty, fifty, sixty, even ninety grams a day on one of our podcast guests, right can still have benefits So with plants more is truly more, it's clear that it is one of the key ways to improve your gut health. As Tim said, there are other factors at play, but increasing your plant diversity is an amazing way to improve cut health overall All right, I've got another one here from Allan Murray. Buying all fruits and vegetables organic can be expensive. Which fruits and vegetables are most likely to have a high pesticide residue and are worth the extra cost for organic? And on the other hand, are the ones which usually have low pesticide residue Pesticides and herbicides, I think We use those terms interchangeably, but a lot of it is herbicides to stop weeds growing rather than than bugs And the main one is glyphosate. It's used extensively on wet crops like oats and rye used both to stop weeds growing, but it's also then used to dry the crops out And so I would say You know, Oat products have the highest levels of these pesticides. So that's the first thing you should always try and get organically because get excessive levels in some of these breakfast cereals if they're not organic Berries are particularly prone to problems and they also rot. and so they get sprayed a lot with chemicals Strawberries in particular always seem to come up in the high lists in both the US and the UK and most other other bearriers as well. Now It' like You know, I know you shouldn't always put things like raspries andings under the tap because it rather ruins them Buts there's always that weighing up the pros and cons of of doing that. And there's many Fruits and veg you don't have to worry about those with thick skin Oranges, don't to worry about avocados, don't to worry about Anything the really thick skin should be fine. Things with thin skin, the chemicals can get inside And if you just have me occasionally, I wouldn't worry at all But if it's part of your regular diet then Do make an extra effort to pay the extra money to get it organic. That would be my view. I think it's also worth remembering most of us aren't eating enough plants will stop. So get your amounts of plants up first. Organic frozen berries are actually much more affordable than organic fresh berries and obviously last longer. so that's a good tip. and pick the ones that you can afford organic, but remember, the benefits of eating them, whether organic or not, it is better than not eating them Ooh, there's what about oats? So that's a fantastic transition from Daniel Bellion here I see a lot of debate about oats in the morning Is it a healthy solution? let's say three times a week And I think we definitely need to go to Sarah on this one Well, we have an entire podcast on this, so go check that out Absolutely. I think oats are a fantastic option. I would caveat that though, saying the most unprocessed oats, so your steel cut oats that take longer to cook are the best oats to have. The ones that you get in these sachets that have all sorts of additives, emulsifiers, sugars goodness knows what added. No, I wouldn't consider them healthy. You know, it's just kind of the old fashioned traditional loads. Look at the back of pack labelling, it will just say oats. The reason that they're good for you is because they have lots of nutrients, lots of micronutrients. They're very high in different micronutrients. They're also one of the few that are also high. Cereals are also relatively high in protein, but they're also high in a particular fiber called beta gllucan. And beta gllucan, we know once you get to a certain dose which you can, if you're having pomage regularly, can significantly reduce your cholesterol levels, but particularly reduce your LDL cholesterol, which is your bad cholesterol. So I would consider them a hot healthy breakfast as well as healthy because of the other micronutrients fiber that's in them Now I would say I'm someone who doesn't have very good blood sugar control, and I've worn one of these continuous glucose bondes quite a few times eating oats, including on that podcast, Sarah. And my experience is I've yet to find oats that are cooked over the hob that don't spike me. But I know Federica, you told me that there is a tip for people who are like you know would maybe like to have oats, but for whom honestly, you know even the ones know pretty much everything that you buy standard that you can find in the supermarket, still leading to this really big spike and collapse Federica, what did you tell me Soaking your oats overnight is a really fantastic way to have them. It doesn't make the starches more readily available in this home way cooking does. it also increases the availability of some of the micronutrients that Sarah described. And so overnight oats is a really fantastic way to consume oats and it means your breakfast is ready in the morning and you'd have to think about it, which is really good I think as well, Jonathan, we can consider it as a foundation of the breakfast rather than the standalone breakfast. If you can add in other sources of healthy fats and healthy protein, you're going to balance out your blood sugar, even if you typically get a spike from it. It'll keep you fuller for longer. You won't be on that roller coaster. So add nut butters to it or add nuts seeds these kind of toppings and then you're really kind of boosting a foundation that's very good with added plants and diversity as well Federica, you just mentioned resistant starch, which conjures up this image of like the starch that's really unwilling to be where it is. What does it mean? So resistant starch is a type of pseudo fibber, it's ty of fiber that basically reaches the furthest part of your colon. It's a slower fermentable fiber and R are starving for this type of fiber. They're also in things like green bananas and other whole grains And they're especially good to feed our gut microbiome and the gut microbes that produce these helpful metabolites called short chain fatty acids And these are incredibly important for our society signaling. So Sarah just mentioned, Porridge is one of these foods that helps to keep you full for quite a long time, especially when it's cooked well, balanced well. And one of the reasons is because the resistant starch fermentation resulting in short chain fatty acid production. stimulates the nutrients sensing cells in our gut that release hormones like GRP one and PYY And that happens quite a few hours after you eat because it's in the distal part of your colon So it's a real good way to help you feeling satiated for longer and to feed your gut microbes what they love. And a tip to get extra resistant starch is, you know after you've madeade your potatoes or your as Federica prefers pasta U you put it in the fridge overnight. Reheat it and it's g forty percent more resistant starch in it. So actually it willll have more fiber the next day and it willll fill you up more and it's more nutritious. so it's reallyally weird that, you know leftovers can be healthier than the fresh. So does that mean that you get less of the blood sugar spike as a result of turning it from like the normal From sugar to fiber, essentially, that's what it's doing. It's transforming the starch into a form that is can't be digested in the early part of the colon and it can only be digested by the microbes further on. So always make more pasta and stick it in the fridge. Tim's tip is absolutely right. Cooling your starches increases resistant starch All right, this is definitely one for you, Sarah. I have a question here from Jen I find it really hard to not snack in the afternoon. What can I do to get me through to dinner time pretty much describes Me every day. What can you tell us, Sarah snacking itself is not bad for you. It's about what you snack on. We know in the UK and in the US and many countries, we get between twenty per to twenty five percent a quarter of our calories from snacks. That's huge And I think rather than demonizing snacking, we should be embracing it if we are a snacker as a really simple single dietary strategy to improve our health I've run a randomized controled trial where the only thing I changed in individuals was their snacks. I said keepep everything else the same. After just six weeks People improved their blood lipids, so their cholesterol, their blood vessel function, to such an extent, equated to a thirty percent reduction in cardiovascular disease risk just from changing their snacks. And that shows the power of snacking. The problem is is in the UK, many of us snack on the wrong food. We know again, from our own Zoe predict research that about forty percent of people that put in loads of effort over their main meals andndo it all by eating were really poor quality snacks. And we do have a problem that there aren't enough pre packaged snacks out there Something I'm incredibly excited about is that we as Zoe, will be launching our own snack bar that we have all created that is, I think, the answer to snacking in the UK And what's really exciting is we've really taken a different approach to snacking. Why no one else has done this before? I do not know It's a snack bar that's packed full of healthy protein, it's quite high in healthy protein. It's packed full of fiber. It's got whopping eight grams of fiber. So if you're snacking two times a day, having two bars a day, which is what's typical in the UK, two snacks a day, you're going to be getting nearly twenty grams of fiber. and it's a diversive fiber because each bar has twelve to thirteen different types of plants The other thing that's really exciting about this snack bar is that we've created it to make sure that the matrix or the structure of the plants that are in it are intact And we know that's important because we know it impacts how quickly you digest it, where you digest it, and what's left over for your gut microbes to absorb. And then lastly, the icing on the cake is we've made the texture be quite chewy. So it's hard to guzzle it down. know We live in this broken food landscape where so much of the food is soft textured. so you eat it so, so fast You'll have eaten two snack bars before you've even registered that something's got to your tummy And so intentionally, we've produced a bar that is hard in texture, that you slow down how much you eat. And we know again from our own Zoe predict research that this means that you have better metabolic health, you consume less calories later in the day. So it's just the perfect, perfect food snack. down. Hi, I'm Professor Sarah Berry and I am completely obsessed with snacks. As a nutrition scientist, I spend a lot of time analyysing large scale dietary data. and one of the most striking findings from our Zoe research is what we call the snacking blind spot. We observed that about a quarter of our daily calorie intake comes from snacks, essentially making it a hidden fourth meal Strikingly, forty percent of people who have put immense effort into preparing a high quality nutritious lunch and dinner end up falling into a gap where convenience takes over in the afternoon. That specific data is why the team developed the Zoiga Health Bar, a snack bar built with over ten distinct plants, designed by our scientists to prioritize exceptional plant diversity From a formulation perspective, we also wanted to address that afternoon gap by creating a nutrient dense option that aligns with rather than distrpts the nutritional quality of your main meals To do that, we intentionally preserve the natural intact structure of many of the plant's ingredients. As a result, the bar is wonderfully chewy and that texture is entirely deliberate. It requires you to physically slow down your eating rate, ensuring that you savour the snack at a much more measured and natural pace With such a range of plants inside, it has seven grams of plant protein, eight grams of fiber and less than four grams of sugar It's still a little sweet though, thanks to the seventy percent dark chocolate and the raspberries and goji berries, depending on which flavour you choose You can find out more about the new Zoe Gut Health bar at Zoe d. com forward slash snack bar. A lot of food that we eat is designed be pre digested or pre chewed. Maybe Tim, could you talk for a minute about like why is that Yeah, it's the way the food industry has been designing food, you know, since about The late nineteen sixties, seventies has been slowing building up this portfolio of foods, and they realized that it's much easier to work with foods if you strip them of the outside shell of the plant, so you get rid of the kernel, the fibrous bits that contain nutrition They're hard to manipulate and they also makeake it more like it's going to go off So that's the reason white rice is there because white rice doesn't go off whereas brown rice will go rotten if left in a mill. So that's where our ancestors worked out. sameame with flour and you know, brown flour and white flour You clean it out of all the other stuff and then it will last much longer. And also they're able to manipulate all these plants just taking the inside bits of it out getting rid of anything hard. and so they can heat it up, they can pressurize it, they can, you know, make it look like a potato in a pringles or a Dorito You know, even if it's made of rice And they also realized that some people just like eating baby food all their life You know, where evolutionary idea is that you know goes to mother's milk and there's a little bit of weaning and a bit of squash banana. and some people stay in that state for sixty years Many people on chewing at all, anything And you know that's why you go to fast food places and those burgers, buns are incredibly soft You know, you don't really need teeth to eat them And we're in this state. So it's partly that they've adapted to this very sort of infantile way of eating But also it's incredibly cost effective for these industries to make foods like this. And they also know that The softer it is, the faster you can eat it. the more You overcome your normal fullness and you'll keep eating much more of it and they'll sell more of this stuff and they don't mind. you just get fat. You know, that's all good for business. So the pre chude basically means you're just going to sort of wolf it down. you won't even realize you're full and you're sort of onto the second bar before your brain has even realized the f will in there, you know, the big bag of Potato chips or whatever it is, and you just don't even notice you're eating it I think critically, by stripping out the fibers that Tim's talking about, we aren't activating these society signals as well. So you're eating quite a lot of energy energy dense food, quite a lot of calories in them You might get a little bit of sxiety from the stretch receptions in your stomach. They sense something is there But because it's smushy, it's absorbed so quickly in the small intestine so high up. then there's nothing happening after that to say there's still food going through and it's nutritious. So by making it so nutrient lacking and low in fiber, You can eat quite quickly, eat a lot of it, but actually still feel hungry half an hour later This is excellent for profits becausecause to Tim's point We have this enormous amount of food available in terms of calories per person, it's about four thousand calories a day per person available in the food system but they're not satiating calories So it means that we're buying more and they're able to market more products and we still continue to eat more and more. But it's not helping us in terms of society or nutritional status or fiber Thank think Sarah did a study but chewing The lovely Spit studies. Yeah. Oh my ch and Spit studies. Yeah. so we've done studies where we've looked at feeding people identical foods where you just change the structure of the food, so you just change the texture in the way that Tim's talking about how the food industry changed the texture. But where you'll give people, for example, large porridge versus finely ground porridge, backacu pack labeling' the same, Nutrients' the same, ingredients are the same. All you've done is changeed both the texture and the structure of the food It changes obviously how much you chew it, but it changes actually how your body metabolizes and processes it. It changes to Federica's point, where you absorb it. The larger, more intact plants are absorbed lower down your gastrointestinal tract that are packed full of these GLP one fullness receptors When the food industry are finally grinding, breaking up everything softer texture, it's all absorbed higher up You don't, therefore, like Federica said get that kind of fullness We also know that how much you chew your food also determines how full you feel as well And if the food is already marsh, you're not chewing it Both you and Federica got were very excited about the idea that the bar was something you had to chew. Is this why that was such a big deal for you both Yeah. so by chewing it, Y That itself will feed back some sort of satiety fullness signal, but more importantly willll slow down how fast you eat the food by having that harder texture. And that's really important because we know if you look at two foods, one that could be minimally processed and one that is processed, even if they're similar foods, you get about a fifty percent difference in the rate at which you eat it That results in at least a fifty percent difference in how full you feel from the food, but also a difference in how many calories you go on to consume after. There's a wonderful phrase that one of my colleagues who works in food texture, his entire career is about food texture, that he often says, which is very practical based, put the crunch back into your lunch. It's a simple strategy and there's studies to show you could have a soft burger, soft patty Soft bun, soft lettuce, or you could just crisp it all up by putting the crisp, the crunch back into it. means you're chewing it more, means you're slowing down. And what the studies show is you'll consume less of that food and you'll have a better metabolic response. Is this why you like crisp sandwiches I love my crrisp sandwiches All right, I'm gonna move us on before there's any fighting in that corner of the couch we are going to talk about brain health and mental health because we've had lots questions around this. And I know that Tim, this is something that you've been very excited about over the last year, and we have some exciting upcoming books. So Let me start with the first question from Andrea Fridas What evidence supports the link between gut health and mental health How strong is the current research on this? I think it's a really serious topic because Every person with a brain disorder, I prefer to call them brain disorders then separate mental health from degenerative brain health. It's all the same organ And and really there isn't really a separation between mind and body is just another organ that's going wrong In every condition studied, this an abnormality in the gut microbiome when you compare cases with the D and controls without it So everything that goes from dementia, Alzheimer's Parkinson's disease all the way through to autism, to schizophrenia, to deression, anxiety, PTSD obsessional disorders, everything omething's going on in the gut microbone. Now that's association. It doesn't necessarily mean It's causation and It's quite hard to do their studies because You'd have to test someone and then wait ten years in a cohort to do that the the field is too young. So we have to rely on mouse studies to really show us what's going on. I don't do mouse experiments, but have to read about and These mouse studies are really good at showing mechanisms are possible. Obviously, humans are not mice, but really clever experiments have taken transplants from one mouse to another. You take an anxious mouse, you take their poo, you transplant it into a germ free, sterile mouse, you can make that mouse anxious And by using antibiotics and things, you can reverse that process There are also some experiments where they stool samples from humans with depression or anxiety and they've transplanted sterile mice with them and they've reproduced those symptoms They've also done that for other mental health disorders like psychosis. and schizophrenia So There really is P prettyretty good evidence that there is a link between the two There's also really interesting links in brain diseases like Parkinson's which is, you know a shaking palsy, but it's associated with dementia and that's really increasing at the moment and when they look back A their history, they find that ten years before, The majority of people who developed these brain symptoms had really bad constipation and gut problems. and they're finding that the gut microbiome in those people was abnormal ten years before and had proteins who were being formed because there was inflammation in the gut microbiome. And we think the link is the microbes themselves But it's actually this whole concept of inflammation because microbes are controlling our immune system. Something goes wrong, the immune system goes out of control, you get extra inflammation And that's why This applies to all brain diseases, not just one or two. This is very much a holistic problem, and that's why we're facing this epidemic in this country. For you It's really clear the links between gut health and brain health are really strong. and there's a lot of increasing data that shows that from experiments with mice on one end, but these examples, you're talking about people developing constipation and gut problems like ten years before they develop a brain disease And the second thing I heard you say, which is really striking is that this divide between mental health problems like depression and anxiety and what I guess I would have thought of as brain health problems like dementia, For you isn't really real. These are all just one group of things that are going wrong with your brain. And inflammation for you is maybe this key explanation for the link between the food and your gut health and what is happening in your brain That's right, you know, psychiatrists have divided the Rind disawers into three hundred and sixty different conditions And all of them have no diagnostic tests. They're just a group of symptoms that Every five or ten years, psychiatrists agree this goes together with this and They all overlap, they all have the same risk factors They all end up having multiple symptoms overlapping by after a period of twenty years and The genes, I used to be big into genetics The genes for rescular these are all the same There's no big difference It looks like it's just one disease that's just presenting differently at different times in life, maybe you know at different exposures. So I think we need to step back and take a much more holistic view of mental health and realize that know the one thing we've been overlooking and psychatrists have never really talk about is how important the gut is and how important our diet is. Wh we've got the biggest nerve in our body runs from our gut to our brain and eighty percent of the traffic is from the intestine to the brain, not the other way around Whereas the rest of the body the nerves all run most of the signals from the brain to the rest of the body. whereas The gut is the opposite The the go be seen to be directing the brain I think once you sort of change this paradigm, we can start to really get to grips with it. and people see the link between mood and food Yeah that's what we saw in these our trials in all the Zoe studies we do, whether it's of daily thirty of the, you know, the the method study fermented foods F thing that changes is the brain symptoms I've got a question here from Dr. Saz Guscott The fermented foods data on inflammation is striking Given how tightly we now link inflammation to depression Do you think that fermented foods are one of the more underrated mental health interventions Would either of you like to take that short answer is yes Fermented foods probably work in a different method by a different mechanism. They're acting synergistically together. So just because you're having fermented foods alone you know, will help particularly inflammation. we don't know, but it's highly likely that adding thirty plants on top of that is also going to help and no one's really no one's yet done that study. Amanda Howe says, My family doesn't believe me When I suggest that nutrition and lifestyle changes can significantly impact their future risk of dementia Am I right And what would you say to convince them in now more than two sentences Tough one too There's a whole wealth of information. There isn't one blockbuster study that does it But there's clear data showing that Oh Th things associated with poor diet are associated with increased risk of dementia We know that mouse brains don't develop without a healthy gut microbiome So we know there's a link between the brain function and this, we know that bad foods are associated with it. and there's unlimited observational or epidemiology studies making this link. There's also one of the biggest risk factors for dementia is type two diabetes. main Rispector for type two diabetes is poor diet poor gut microbiome So you know, I would just say, ask any epidemiologist and so they'll say there's overwhelming evidence eighty percent of dementia is preventable with lifestyle and nutrition prevention eighty percent Amanda, hopefully that's good enough for your family Good luck. We covered a lot of ground in this episode If you have a friend who isn't an expert on nutrition but he's showing signs that they'd like to make some changes to improve their health thenen this episode could be the perfect introduction The chances are One person in the room at our live Q and A asks the exact question that they're struggling with From what to do after taking antibiotics to advise for the family member who's starting GLP one drugs Send them this episode and help them on their journey. All, I'd like to switch topic here. We had a number of questions here weight loss drugs from Dominiic H. What would your number one piece of advice to people starting out on weight loss drugs be? And I think that's definitely for you, Federica Great question. My number one piece of advice would be to actually start the dietary change before you start the drugs The most common side effects of these drugs are gastrointestinal side effects, diarrhea nausea, constipation, reflux If you set your gut up success before you start these drugs The likelihood of suffering these side effects is lower and the likelihood that you willll have efficacy at a lower dose higher. Prepare before you start. during treatment Nutrient density, every bite of food counts And I've got a for question also about GOP Oes from Claire Lane What effect did GLP one agonists have on the gut microbiome? Does it make it less diverse as people taking them are tending to eat less well. whilst taking them. We don't have loads of data on this. It'd be good to have more, but the data we do have shows that there are gut microbiome changes with GOP one medication They're associated with the slowing of the gut transit. So gut mbility slows right down. And that in itself changes the environment that gut microbes are reproducing and living in our Diet absolutely changes as well. So depending on how your diet changes in this time You can either see an improvement in the gut microbiome or if you're just eating bad food, but less of it Th then obviously, we see negative changes These drugs absolutely interact with the gut microbiome. We're just starting to understand how we can preserve gut microbiome health. health, but also how the actions of the gut microbes you have can actually amplify and better the effects of the drug And that's, I think, where the really exciting scientists coming out on that, how we can help I' got microbiome make these drugs more effective and more tolerable. possible to use these GLP one drugs and actually improve your diet or actually is that sort of an illusion These drugs offer an opportunity to improve your diet in a way that will improve your gut microbiome compition, improve your health. are able to prepare for the drugs and improve your diet significantly during treatment The long term effects and the beneficial effects on your gut microbiome are real But if you don't do anything, if you just take the drugs and think this is a silver bullet, then the likelihood is it willll go the opposite way and you'll be squandering an opportunity to improve your health And'd go even further, I'd say It's a real disgrace that the government who is saying they're trying to roll this out to people are spending taxpayers' money on this really expensive drug without giving people clear mechanisms to change their food behaviour. This is an incredible opportunity. the NHS is squandering. So that's where most people will take the drug Lose weight They'll stop taking the drug put the weight back on, they'll go back to their old ways. And it really is a national disgrace if we can't use this long term and we need tools like the Zoe app, which a trivial fraction of the cost of a drug to be given in conjunction with. I've got a question here from Becky Tucker him. If you were given responsibility, for improving the country's health over the next ten years What are the three biggest changes you would make? to the food environment rather than to individuals behavior Great question, and there's a reason I'm not a politician. The first one would be to have strict rules about food should be served in government run institutions Something's very easy to do You just say in schools, in universities, in, you know, public places hospitals We don't want any of the medium and high risk ultra processed foods That'd be number one ery easy to do We've got, you know, got our new Zoe classification makes it really clear. That would cut out twenty five percent of the foods that are causing the most damage. to our population, I would ban at the same time, you know, vending machines and thingsings like this that are also making our health staff really unhealthy. My second one would be to pass a rule saying that any clearly unhealthy ultra processed food is not allowed to have health claims on the packet to f consumers particularly parents of children that are being targeted with these high in protein, low calorie, low fat, high in vitamins, all this nonsense for really unhealthy rubbish. And Tim, is that a big issue It's a huge issue Most people are completely fooled when they go into supermarkets some about what to buy and they're trying to do the best for their family. They think they're doing it because they see nice pretty pictures or cartoons or people of happy, you know farmers U getting this products and It's all a lie and other countries have taken these steps So they'll be the first Two things I would do Um But our third one would be to teach about food and health at school And we've dropped that now It should be taught as a primary subject justust like reading and writing, everyone needs to know how to a few simple meals and understand food If you don't understand it, it's going to be a mure loss for the rest of your life manyany people are not being told how to cook O need to microwave I've got a question here from Michael Burnham Teams visibility across the media is impressive. The message around the negative impact on UPF is cutting through However There seems to be very little evidence that the UK goovernment is moving to address this issue What else can be done And I think it'd be interesting also to talk about the situation not just here in the UK, but More broadly We's start with Sarah I think that absolutely enough is not being done. I do believe that there are efforts that are being made to use processing in a way that can improve health rather than damage health. but I think it's too little too late in the journey. And I think we're in disastrous times when it comes to the food that we have because it's not just about what's on our shelves, it's about what we have become accustomed to. So we have become accustomed to cooking foods that take two minutes in a microwave And know this feuts into what Tim said at his third point. We're bringing up children that aren't educated to be able to cook. And I think that it's not just about therefore putting taxes on all UPF foods. We have to think of the bigger picture. And there is a big problem as well, Jonathan, that Ultra processed foods are fifty percent cheaper than equivalent, minimally processed food. And so there's a very difficult task that the government has that we don't widen disparities. And so because of that, we're stalling. And I think the other thing that's a big problem is in the scientific community as well, there's a lot of discourse around ult to processed food. What is it about it that's bad for us? And because of that, again, we're stalling. We're never going to know exactly what additive emulsify cocktail mix is bad for us. We need to embrace the fact that there is too much heavily processed unhealthy food and we need to act fast, but there's too many excuses happening Internationally, it's important to reconize that at least ve and probably maybe double that number of countries have now producce national guidelines to say that ultra processed food however they define it is unhealthy and should be avoided. And the UK is not one of them And the UK has resisted this through its nutrition committee, which sits supposedly independent and says there just isn't enough evidence to say that ultra processed food is bad for us But all these other countries disagree and are moving forward with legislation to do it It's worse than that. The government recently announced that they might lower the price of biscuits and other ultra process foods to help families. We need to really think about subsidizing healthy food and making whole foods much cheaper than these ultra processed foods so that they become the obvious choice. That's what got to be one of the levers that we have to look at Great transition to my next question, which is from Karen Boyd The American food guidelines have changed recently The pyramid is now the other way up Will the UK follow suit The United States Department of Agriculture have these guidelines that they change every ten years. and most countries follow their guidelines because they you know, they're thought to be You know, the ones that So lead the world in this and Ten years ago they're actually quite similar to the current UK guidelines and that they mainly deemonize fats Uh, you know, They're sort of favoring starchy foods They do say don't have lots of sugary drinks They say eat more fruits and vegetables, have a bit of fish. Um and They were sort of bit on the fence on protein and And whatever. they didn't mention ultra processed food at all, didn't mention gut health at all Now the new guidelines They mention fermented foods being good. They mention that the microbiome is really important for the first time E, they mentioned that ultra processed foods are bad and shouldn't be given to children including any sugary drinks under the age of four or even artificial sweeteners under the age of four, which is something the UK says it' fine and where they went a bit Weird is they then said, you know, but you should have even more meat and butter Already, the average American has twice as much meat as the average European and they're saying no, that's not enough. You need to have these protein levels that are right up here, but you've also got to do this other stuff and have a ton of vegetables. Do you think they should be eating more red meat? No They don't need to be twice as much as the Europeans, let alone four times as much. At that level, particularly when most of it is processed and poor quality. it's going to increase the cancer rates, it's going to increase heart disease rates. The more meat you got on the plate How can you squeeze your thirty plants? It's very hard There's no room, spepecially those big American stakakes By the time you finished that, even your salad seems Very hard work Iually I think there's a great transition to the next question from Sona Castro. because it's about intimitive fasting which is definitely new science Is intermittent fasting suitable for women especially those who are post menopausal This question comes up a lot because I think on social media Wen are singled out and said this is highly dangerous. and It's not safe for women. it's only safe for For men And there's big disparity When you look at the studies that have been done They're virtually all in men And they're virtually all in young men O exception to that is the Zoe Big IF study, one hundred fifty thousand or so people did, and I think sixty five, seventy percent were women So it's the largest group of women doing intermittent fasting And we found that actuallyctually, you know, two thirds of people regardless of being male or female, really benefited from it They got Bet mood, better energy. They had less bloating And they enjoyed it. A third didn't It is personalized There's absolly no evidence that it's harmful As long as it's not extreme And I think what we're talking about is really quite modest ones of twelve to fourteen hours without eating which is not the same as going three days without eating I would say it really depends. A lot of women who do try admittent fasting sometimes take it to the extremes, as Tim said, and actually what we do know is that because women are often subjected to diet culture A further way to restrict your diet is probably not going to help you An overnight fast makes sense physiologically, so just not eating at nightt timee is a good idea Don't make this into another rule where it leads to further restriction because I think that's where harm can happen O anxiety or stress or mental angst. Can I actually add something to this? know given that Zoe, we have run one of the world's largest studies actually in peri and post menopausal women. And what we know is that peri and post menopausal women metabolize their food differently We know that they have different perceptions of hunger. And so I think from a very practical point of view, in terms of the question that's been asked around intermittent fasting is that actually, it's not so much probably the duration of the fast that matters here, it's about the timing of the fast. What we know is that if you consume calories later in the evening You wake up more hungry, the next day, you have worse metabolic responses the next day. And given that our own research shows that post menopausal women already have more exaggerated responses, already are more hungriry or reready more prone to put weight on in the wrong places Maybe focus not so much on thinking, o my God, have I eaten in a ten hour window, but think about focusing on, okay, let's try and not eat after eight o'clock tonight or ten o'clock tonight. All right, I think we've got time for one final question from the audience. and Sarah Rodriguez asks perfect world What is the best food to eat you're fast So I'd like to use myself as an example, before I started my journey with Zoe, despite being a nutrition scientist for twenty years by then, I did start my breakfast with panishocol, croissants. And boy, I'd be hungry and hungry a few hours later. and then having met him and heard all about his breakfast and gave it a go And I tell you what, I feel full for four hours, which for me is perfect, but the quality of the foods I'm getting are fantastic. And most of you will probably, if you followed him, will know what his breakfast is. So it's a mix of cafees. so you've got all those wonderful happy bugs dancing around in your bowl Greek yogurt, so you've got a whacking amount of healthy protein as well. And then whatever mixture of nuts, seeds, berries, et ccetera you want to put in, I add a bit of nut butter as well. Kes me full, I'm getting plant diversity. Obviously I add my daily thirty scoop on top as well. It's nice to have like a favourite breakfast, but I actually change it. So in the winter I love a porridge. but in the summer I absolutely love overnight oats, avocado on toast. I love crispy eggs, extra virgin olive oil, makeake it hot, Th crisp them, delicious. They're so good. My girls love them too. So it's nice to change your breakfast up, but what Sarah' described there is a really good combination of healthy fats healthy proteins, a variety of fibers and plants flavour and enough food to keep you satiated, because we actually also know from our own research that having a really satiating and nutritious meal When you whenever you break a fast, if you your te, it might be eleven, twelve if your me or Sarah might be earlier in the day, it helps you to sustain energy levels and have better nutritional choices later in the day. So Begin with breakfast is one of our principles because if you have a very good breakfast, it actually does set you up well for the rest of the day We don't have time for any more Q and A from the audience, but just a wrap up I'd like to get One quick answer from each of you if that's all right about what you're most excited about for the next el months and we had a number of questions from our audience around this. And maybe let me start with you, Federica Okay, so I've I'm really excited about what we're learning of how we can better understand the messages that happen within our bodies. So whether these are the appetite regulating hormones that are so popular now, but also what Tim described how the vagus nerve communicates with our brain. There's some really exciting science emerging on how Things like vagus nerve stimulation and Mitigating our stress can actually impact our nutritional health because our body is one and how stressed we are, how well we modify these things actually affects how we absorb nutrients from our food. So I'm really excited about that from a science point of view, as well as really excited to see how the gut microbiome science that we've been able to contribute to is helping to shape the future of medicine whether it's through colorectal cancer, early conorectal cancer research that Sarah' involved in, and some of the type two diabetes research that we've been able to unpick. So those two, for me as a scientist and as a clinician, I'm like It's so exciting Sarah I am most excited about the Gut Health bar coming out. and about the fact that we staying true to Zoe values are going to put it to the test. And so my science team, our science team, are going to be running a randomized controled trial which will be publicly available for everyone to see the results. So we're taking a big chance, but actually I don't believe we are. My hypothesis is And we will see people consuming o gut health bar versus a standard breakfast bar. We will see significant improvements in how people feel their gut health, their microbiome, etceter. And I'm willing to bet something on it. You name it all better Dinner on you Sarah. Dinner on me. if we don't see these improvements and this is how confident I am, I will take you all out for dinner. W Not to Mc onon old say. but talk coura for coming Last but not least, Tim Well, it's probably not a big surprise to think I think the next year is going to be the year of the brain. and how we can tell more and more people about the gut brain connection, how we can you know people outside this room who aren't Aficionados can start to see the links themselves between the terrible food environment and their poor mental health and the rise in dementia. and you know, I think all our studies are now really gearing up to be looking at these factors much more. Every time we do a Zoe study, we're going to be looking at mood and energy and all these brain things first I'm told these in the apps like we used to in the COVID studies when people were looking at their mood, so people can track their mental health, just like they track their blood pressure and everything else And I think people will see these These changes and hopefully this will lead to a real revolution in how we see food. and see this is the real antidote to the epidemic of brain diseases that we're having at the moment and you know we can start to spread the word. And the microbiome stuff hopefully will also give us clues because we've now got this database of You know, over a third of a million people know of which a fifth have got some depression, and we can actually highlight microbes that we can target in the future prebiotics and probbiotics. So Yeah, I'm super. excited that, you know, We can tackle the hardest problem of all, which is, you know, getting getting our brains healthier and we all need them Jonathan You're always the host, so you never get asked the questions. but I think it would be great to hear from you your Zoe journey or what you're most excited about the next twelve months Oh, that was mean. I wasn't expecting that. I actually think it came up in one of the audience questions. I think the thing that I'm most excited about is that we are finally starting to have an impact on the conversation about the central role of gut health, and on the other hand how we're really fighting this ultra processed food, and it is just so bad for us. And when I first got involved In Zoe, you know we're talking about personalizing advice. we're definitely talking about gut health. We didn't talk about the ultra processed food at all. And I think I was very excited by the ability to use all of this data, very large scale. That was my background to give this personalized advice And over time and I think Tim has felt the same way, I've just got angrier and angrier as I understand the reality of the food that's sur us and just how terrible it is. And you can't even know, right? It has these labels that tell you this stuff is great for you. It's high in protein. It's good for your family. And then you realize like I've been feeding my children terrible stuff. I've been feeding myself terrible stuff I optimistically believe that we are starting to change that conversation. So I am really hopeful that in a year we will have more positive things to say about how actually the industry is being forced to make changes because of the demands from Not just people in this room, but people listening to their podcasts, people involved with Zoe all over the world That actually can have this really amazing impact on people's health. So I think that is what I am most ptimistically hoping for an environment where there seems like loads of terrifying things like AI and Wars and all the rest of it This excites me Well, thank you for turning it back on me, which you're not supposed to, Sarah. That brings us to the end of our first ever live podcast. I thought it was a lot of fun. It was brilliant to have the audience actually reacting. Thank you so much supporting Zoe, many of you from the very early days. Thank you for being in the audience and listening to us And that brings us to the end. Thank you very much Hosting this podcast means I get to quiz world leading scientists every week about how to improve my health But I'll be honest with you. for a long time, my snacking habit was completely out of sync with the science. I hidd an energy slum grab a snack bar and usually inhale it in two bites while looking at my phone I knew that the ingredients were a bunch of artificial additives and emulsifiers But honestly, I was hungry And usually there was nothing else healthy to eat It wasn't until our chief scientist Sarah Berry explained the physics of snack foods on this show that it finally clicked. Highly processed bars are engineered to be eaten fast, and release their sugar immediately. whichich in my case caused a shock, spike and then crash in my blood sugar leading a few minutes later to a collapse in my energy and a spike in my hunger In my opinion This is a cynical move by big food companies to make us eat more. I was furious. But Sarah said she thought we could solve this She came back a year later. with the Zoe Gut Health bar and I had done something completely radical She'd left the natural cell structures of the plants intact The first time I tried a sample I realize you physically cannot rush it. It tastes great