Dr. Tim Spector
speaker
158 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 27 Jan
Dr. Tim Spector’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jan 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Saw quite a lot of matcha in LA recently, although usually it's with so much vanilla and sugar, I can't drink it. But yeah, Very hard to find unsugared matcha. But if you do, that's concentrated green tea. And we think the evidence is building that that's very high in these defense polyphenols, which are good for your gut microbes. And it's also got...
some caffeine, but other calming chemicals in there. So we're gonna hopefully look at that next and see if we can find if there's a particular matcha microbe that likes it and is converting the green tea into these good chemicals for your body and your immune system. So for people like you who don't like coffee, I would say try matcha as a health drink that's also quite tasty.
As a general principle, you should start thinking about the quality of your food, not the calories or the quantity. And that's a really major step. And that's something I talk about in my books. And that's what the Zoe principle is. We do not discuss calories because calorie counting really doesn't work for the vast majority of people.
And it distracts you from the quality of the food and encourages big food to sell you crappy products. So yeah, I think we ought to be banning the C word, really, from nutrition. And think about quality, not calories. I think generally thinking about food from the point of view of your gut microbes is a really helpful thing to do.
So we've always thought of food as fuel, as if we were some empty furnace. just burning it up and using it and seeing what was left over. And I think that is very much the wrong analogy was if we think of ourselves as, you know, we're gardeners and what fertilizer we put in is really important for our inner garden.
And so this is why things like the diversity of the plants you put in the, you know, getting, and we've come up with this slogan about 30 plants a week. which is based on some old research we did about 10 years ago that said that was the sweet spot. It's probably not exactly 30, but it sort of works as an idea.
And of course, plants are nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, different colored plants, they all count. It's not as hard as you think to to get the 30. It's about eating the rainbow, getting the polyphenols in. We used to not know why the rainbow was good, but now we know it's these defense chemicals that actually act as fuel for your gut microbes.
So your body can't process them, but your microbes can, the majority anyway. And the other one is eating regular fermented foods that feeds your garden. And increasing studies show that having at least three portions a day within a week can actually improve your immune system.
And we did a big study with Zoe of 10,000 citizen scientists who volunteered, who weren't on fermented foods, said, I'll try it for a couple of weeks, taking at least three portions. And over 50% of them got significant improvements in mood and energy and appetite within a week. So I think these are real effects that everyone can try. Then it's, you know, just thinking about cutting out those
highly processed foods, you know, and with, you know, how to spot them. Well, we've got a new score out. We're just about to publish and roll out in a beta of a free app that should help people. say what they are, but we're surrounded by them in the US. But not all processed foods are bad.
So I think we have to work out what the worst offenders are and what still the jury's out on, because you can't easily get rid of 60% of all food. It's just not practical. So it's that. And then finally, I think another tip is time-restricted eating, which I'm a big fan of. Changing when you eat your meals.
I'm not talking about reducing calories, but just compressing it so that you give your gut a rest overnight at least 14 hours is the optimum. But try and do over 12, and it doesn't matter if you don't do it every single day. What's important in all of these rules is that you do it 80% of the time, but you do it for... you can maintain it for years. And that's really what we're trying to build.
We're trying to build people's habits so that they're moving in that direction.
We did a huge study and about a third of people hated it. So anyone listening, just because some people get on with it doesn't mean everyone does. We're all very individual. And the key is to try it, try these things, but don't beat yourself up if it's not for you. There are lots of different approaches to health.
There are certain... I mean, getting for high numbers of microbes, but particularly those with a rich variety of them. So... Most people know, say, yogurts will have typically around three or four, and most of them are just artificially added by the manufacturer. And if they've got too much sugar in them, you could kill off the microbes so that they're not working.
So obviously the purity of the product is also important. But I'm a big fan of things that have got like over 20 or 30 varieties of microbe in them, such as the kimchi's.
the kombuchas and a new class called tibicos or water kefir which is you know is quite a flexible way of eating these things so but you know they're all good and I think the key is not to get obsessed with one it's to try a small amount of lots of them and try and incorporate
them into your regular meals as well in ways we haven't done before so adding yogurt you know onto the side of your plate if you're having a spicy dish or mixing it you know kefir into a curry you know adding sauerkraut to salads you know having kimchi with your cheese you know these things are and
in my cookbook there's various ideas we came up with of ways you can introduce it regularly into into your diet so i think it's being a bit more innovative it's not saying i must just sit and you know have my shots otherwise you know i can't go to work um it's trying to in addition to your uh your meals to make them more appetizing i think the whole point is can we make
your food and drink more interesting. Um, but yeah, I, so, but I'm a big fan of kombuchas. Uh, you know, I love them and, um, there's lots of ways to have your ferments.
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