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
And that might explain the so-called French paradox of red wine drinkers having less heart disease, which does seem to be fairly consistent in the literature. So overall, it's bad for your health. But if you're interested in heart health and you feel you have, you know, you...
you like a drink or it's the social norm where you are in order to get you out socially that's also important then red wine is the thing to go for and if you can't get that artisan cider So apple cider, it's fermented. If it's the real stuff rather than fake ones, we'll have the apple peel on it. And when that's fermented, that's another healthy source. So, yeah, but you're right.
I think we're going to sing... There's some really good low alcohol alternatives on the market now, certainly big in Europe, in Germany and Spain, all kinds of really good low alcohol beers. And, of course, as kombucha and tibicos are getting more common, people are drinking these as alternatives, and it's great to see it in New York and L.A. at least.
you are getting these often many restaurants having these as choices. So I think people do want something else other than water or something really sweet. And that's where alcohol filled the gap. But if we can fill it with other things, they'll be much healthier for us. Yeah.
Well, if you're aware that it's probably making the US gut even worse than the average European gut. In our studies so far, we've seen much worse levels of good to bad bugs, less good bugs in the US than in the UK. You could say that is diet related. We don't know how much that is, you know,
the fats and the sugars and the lack of fiber, or it's specifically these, these chemicals and these additives, but certainly we should be phasing these out. And, you know, it's still a problem in Europe. It's not like to think, you know, there's, there's some, you know, we live in a magical land of, uh, milk and honey where, you know, everyone's healthy.
Um, obesity rates are virtually the same in the UK. Now we're, we're catching up the U S so, um, uh, And we have nearly as much of this highly processed foods as they do in the US. But yeah, I think in every country, we should be outlawing these additives, calling them out, calling for research.
And neither in Europe or in the US does any manufacturer have to show that these additives are not harmful to gut health. And you think about it, you've got these emulsifiers that glue your microbes together and they stick onto your gut lining, cause leakiness.
You've got artificial sweeteners which disrupt your gut microbes and make them send off really weird signals, increasing your risk of diabetes. And these other ones that may potentially lead to cancers. And I just think we've been far too soft on the companies doing this.
And it's good to see it start finally being mentioned in the US because we've been talking about it in the UK really for at least five years now. And it's interesting it took a political campaign to start the discussion. But we need to get much more wary about all these things, but also not get rid of every single processing of food because they're not all harmful.
And that's one reason we've come up with this tool But I think from May, people in the US will be able to use in a beta version. They can download. And I think we'd love to see how your listeners get on with that when they go to a store and they can actually get these five grades of processing and in terms of risk.
So, you know, they look at an aisle, they can see different breads, and you should have the full range. They all look the same because they make the most terrible claims. They all say they're healthy, they're full of vitamins, they're packed with protein, you know, all this nonsense.
But actually, they can be really different in terms of the ingredients and how they affect you, your overall health and your gut health. And also... The other factor that hasn't been featured before about these foods is they're constructed to make you overeat them, the so-called hyperpalatability.
I don't know if you've heard of that term, but it's what the food chemists use to mix the fats, the sugars, and the salt to trick your brain into just overeating it. And so that's another feature we've put in there, as well as how quickly it dissolves in your mouth so you don't even notice you're eating it in front of the TV. You just finished a whole bag of chips without...
you know, even realizing you've eaten anything. So it's, you know, we're trying to combat the really clever guys who have been developing these foods for 50 years now with some devices to help poor old consumers.
Well, this is all through this science and nutrition company, Zoe, that I co-founded eight years ago that's been doing really well in the UK, and we're bringing it to the US. There's various levels of it. So for free, we have a podcast called Zoe Science and Nutrition, which just invites scientists on to talk about nutrition, which is doing very well. We've got...
newsletters and other free things, just you can subscribe to the ZEI website on that.
Oh, it's great to chat. See you in person soon, I hope.
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