Prof Tim Spector

speaker

2,014 appearances 16 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 5d ago

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

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 16 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 4.

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ZOE Science & Nutrition · Most replayed moment: What The Science Says About Supplements | Prof Tim Spector & Prof Sarah Berry · 23 Jun 2026 podcast

This is a throwback to the post-war years where they did studies of people who'd suffered famines or had major deficiencies.

And the early nutritionists would discover that someone, for example, had hardly any zinc in their diet.

were getting lots of infections.

So they had zero zinc, their blood levels were zero, and these groups were getting recurrent infections.

If they were placed with zinc, then they got better.

That's been translated 50 years on to say that if you add zinc to anybody at whatever level, it's going to boost their immune system or aid their immune system.

And is that true?

It's rubbish.

There's no evidence that additional zinc...

has any enhancing effects on your immune system once you've relieved the deficiency.

And zinc deficiency is incredibly rare if you're not in one of these extreme situations.

So that allows any food manufacturer to add a little tiny amount of zinc to any food, and they can then claim it boosts immune function.

Makes me feel very angry.

because people are being misled.

And this allows big food manufacturers to stick labels on foods that are blatantly unhealthy, contain 30% sugar with a healthy label saying enhance or boosts your immune system.

when the science really doesn't back it up.

And we are prevented in many other areas from giving real advice of things that can actually be beneficial for your system.

So Big Food has made sure that these really old-fashioned, out-of-date science stays there and that they can, just by adding tiny amounts of whether it's copper, manganese, zinc, niacin, whatever, made artificially to bad foods, can now give it a health claim.

It's ridiculous.

It should be stopped.

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