Prof Tim Spector

speaker

1,755 appearances 15 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 15 Sep

Prof Tim Spector’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 15 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 4.

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ZOE Science & Nutrition · The science behind food that isn’t food, why you love it and why you should not fear it all | Prof Tim Spector & Prof Sarah Berry · 10 Sep 2026 podcast

you know, l less addicted to sugar.

But it turns out that, you know, no such thing as a a free a free lunch and

Turns out that we do pick up these chemicals and our bodies do react with them and what we're seeing is they react in slightly unpredictable ways and

Everyone might be reacting to one chemical and not to another.

And that's why it's particularly worrying that we're now faced with a whole range of chemicals, all of which can influence the gut microbiome in some way.

Which we still don't know exactly whether it's good or bad or what it's doing, but it's definitely changing our gut microbes.

And you know, apart from artificial sweeteners, uh nearly all of these foods have emulsifiers in them.

And they stick the foods together.

There are at least twenty odd emulsifiers you commonly find in

Um foods like carrogenin, like lecithin, like uh the gums, uh guar gums, etc.

And there have been some careful studies showing that they affect the gut lining as well as the microbes.

So we think they're you know causing problems for our microbes, making them stick together, or altering the gut lining, which can cause leakiness.

And so

All of these chemicals in some way have the potential to uh cause us problems.

Not all of them do.

And there might be some ones that are harmless, but at the same time we know enough of them

are problematic.

There is some evidence about dyes as well.

So I think the reason they've been uh taken off the list by the EU and more recently in the US is because there are, you know

quite a lot of pr certainly preclinical evidence that they they are harmful and rather unnecessary, you know, just to add colouring, why would you take a risk on a food uh if you're not sure?

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