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
Avoid glyphosate and all these kind of things that can irritate your immune system. But it's about really building up the good guys. And that's what the science is telling us, that that's really important. And I think that's a positive message. It makes it sort of easier for people.
to go out and, you know, enjoy richer foods because a lot of, a lot of my patients I remember when I, you know, years ago were frightened of eating because they'd read, oh, you know, eggplants are going to make me worse. I can't have tomatoes. They're terrible, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's a terrible thing to be frightened of food.
And I want to make sure that people aren't, there really is nothing out there that people shouldn't be eating in small, moderate amounts. What are your thoughts about the food sensitivity tests? Most of them are rubbish, is the quick answer. When you speak to allergy consultants, they'll tell you, yeah, most of them are not repeatable. There's no common standard.
And the only way to do it is a real food challenge test. where you actually challenge someone in a clinical setting. So again, that whole industry is there just often ends up fright, making people frightened of foods. And if they realize that, you know, it's the opposite, you would just want to have more of everything. But if you have everything on your, you know,
by definition, you're not gonna have too much of anything.
There is certainly a large gut-brain connection that is equally important. So the second biggest collection of nerves outside the brain is in our gut as well. So you've got the immune system there, you've got the nervous system there. And just like we're talking about the immune system, it's also interacting with the nervous system. And if you've got inflammation in your gut,
those signals are going to go straight to your brain. And we believe that quite a lot of anxiety and depression is actually caused by what's going on in your gut because your brain is getting the wrong signals. It thinks it's under, you know, it's ill and it should be shutting down and, you know, going back to bed and, you know, not going out with your friends and, and isolating.
So there's increasing evidence that there's a crucial two-way link between the brain and the gut and that food, as I said, in these clinical trials has been shown to actually work as well as antidepressants. So mood and food are very tightly linked. And I say in all our studies, Mood is the first thing that changes.
So if anyone is considering changing their diet, do try and think, what's my mood like? What's my energy level like? How does this make me feel? And this can be as soon as three hours after a meal. We've shown that some people, like myself, are rather sensitive to sugar spikes. So if you have a high-carb meal, so say, you know,
traditional granola breakfast, which we used to be told was healthy, or oats. You might, three hours later, notice a bit of a mood dip. You're fatigued, you're not feeling great, and you end up searching out maybe more chocolate or carbs, or a sugar matcha in McDonald's, whatever it is. And just listen to yourself and say, well, maybe that was my breakfast that did that.
It's trying to be mindful about what you're eating and try and listen to your body. I mean, obviously, you know, we do offer people things like these glucose monitors and all this technology and apps and things that will tell you what to do. But it's good to start with the basics and see if you can pick up these clues yourself. for free before doing all that.
And it's not something I ever thought was possible, you know, 10 years ago. So I'm very much learning what makes me feel good and bad. And there's no doubt that what I eat definitely affects my mood. And my mood has definitely improved since I quite radically changed my diet.
When you say I'm pro-dairy, I write my books. These are the epidemiological studies on dairy. I'd like to draw a difference between fermented dairy and non-fermented dairy. Okay, so milk and cream, there's no evidence they are good for you. I like to say that. So I would say I'm neutral on dairy. You're really not going to be any worse off if you don't have non-fermented dairy in your life.
And I'm not impressed by the studies of raw milk. although it does have some microbes in it, they're a bit random, the ones that are, and no real evidence, unless you live on a farm, that you're healthier, but it might be just living on a farm makes you healthier rather than milk. So I wouldn't spend huge amounts of money on raw milk, especially as there's a risk of illness.
And the data around drinking milk for women – There's no evidence it helps their bone health now. That was a myth probably propagated by the industry. It doesn't help fractures, although I used to tell my patients it did because that was the common belief. Excess of it will give you a bit too much saturated fat.
Now, the evidence for things like cheese eating and yogurt, which are dairy products, is actually more beneficial. So the science does support they are useful and that maybe just they're good carriers of microbes that are helping our inner gut. But there are probably limits to it. I mean, I probably have too much cheese myself. I'm a bit of an addict. And that does contain saturated fat.
So, you know, you have to place some balance there. But, yeah, so that's it. Fermented dairy, fine. Non-fermented, take it or leave it. And if you don't like it or your lactose intolerant like most of the world is, yeah, don't eat cow's breast milk. Sometimes we forget where it comes from, but yeah, it is kind of weird that we do that. It's pretty terrible for the planet as well.
Yeah, it is dropping in most countries, actually, and there's a generational change as well. So I think it does depend on a lot of this is driven by young people rather than older people giving up necessarily. The evidence, I mean, certainly for gut health, Alcohol is generally bad for gut health. We did some studies on this. There are a couple of exceptions.
We did find that drinking one to two glasses of red wine had a beneficial effect on your gut health, whereas drinking white wine or spirits or beer did not. There's probably a sweet spot where just drinking a little bit of it is a bit like drinking concentrated grape skins. And we know that they have very high levels of polyphenols.
And it's even more than grape juice because the fermenting process actually increases the number of these helpful defense chemicals. I've been criticized for actually telling people to drink. If they want alcohol, go for something that is healthier for your gut.
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