← Great Company with Jamie Laing
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- [00:02]
Jamie Laing
Hello, everyone. My name is Jamie Laing and this is great company. Well, hello. Happy New Year. Happy New Year, Jemima. How are you?
- [00:15]
Jemima
I'm well. And how are you, Joey?
- [00:17]
Jamie Laing
Very good. 2025. I feel like it's going to be.
- [00:19]
Professor Tim Spector
A big year for loads of people.
- [00:20]
Joey
Yeah.
- [00:21]
Jemima
What's going to happen for you? Do a prediction.
- [00:24]
Jamie Laing
Prediction.
- [00:26]
Professor Tim Spector
I don't know how.
- [00:28]
Jamie Laing
I don't want to say it. I think some things are going to happen, but I can't. I don't want to say it.
- [00:32]
Jemima
Oh, my God. Okay. Don't say anything. That's way more mysterious.
- [00:35]
Jamie Laing
Yeah, well, I think otherwise it's one of those things where you're just sort of saying what your dreams want to be and maybe you should keep them to yourself.
- [00:40]
Jemima
Oh. Because otherwise they won't come true.
- [00:42]
Jamie Laing
They won't come true.
- [00:42]
Jemima
Fine.
- [00:43]
Jamie Laing
For anyone who hasn't listened to this show, my name is Jamie Lang. I'm the host of the show. And you are?
- [00:48]
Jemima
Pj.
- [00:50]
Jamie Laing
She's the producer.
- [00:51]
Jemima
Jemima.
- [00:51]
Joey
Producer Jemima.
- [00:52]
Jemima
Also known as pj. We got a DM from someone saying, hi, pj.
- [00:55]
Professor Tim Spector
No, we didn't.
- [00:56]
Jemima
We did.
- [00:57]
Professor Tim Spector
Wow.
- [00:57]
Jemima
It's happening.
- [00:58]
Jamie Laing
It's starting to kick on.
- [00:59]
Jemima
It's happening.
- [01:00]
Jamie Laing
Oh, my. By the way, I'll tell you one thing that I want to do this year.
- [01:03]
Jemima
Go on.
- [01:03]
Jamie Laing
I would like to do a. Maybe a small tour.
- [01:08]
Jemima
Really?
- [01:09]
Jamie Laing
Yeah, I think so.
- [01:10]
Jemima
That'd be fun.
- [01:11]
Jamie Laing
I think so. I'd like to do it. Yeah. So I would like to go and find some few people to really amazing people to interview.
- [01:16]
Jemima
Yeah.
- [01:17]
Jamie Laing
Do maybe three shows, live shows, live shows, live interview.
- [01:23]
Jemima
Around the world.
- [01:24]
Jamie Laing
Tokyo, maybe around the world, but definitely throughout the country. Maybe we do a few dates and we find some amazing people to do it with.
- [01:30]
Jemima
That would be really fun.
- [01:31]
Jamie Laing
Yeah, it would be amazing.
- [01:32]
Jemima
Let's make that happen.
- [01:33]
Jamie Laing
Well, I would love that. Yeah. So we're going to try and do it.
- [01:36]
Jemima
Okay. First episode of series two, kind of.
- [01:40]
Jamie Laing
Series two, kind of first episode. So we were thinking about who we wanted to put in the first episode. And what we kind of think of is it's New Year, new you trying to kick things off with a fresh start. And so that we have a lot of people who we've recorded with so.
- [01:54]
Professor Tim Spector
Many people to choose from, so many.
- [01:55]
Jamie Laing
People to choose on who we were recording with. But the person we chose is Tim Spector.
- [01:59]
Jemima
Professor.
- [01:59]
Jamie Laing
Professor Tim Spector. Now, if you don't know who Professor Tim Spector is, he's the founder of Zoe. He's a doctor of nutrition. He's a doctor of twins. He has incredible knowledge in this world of improving your gut and your mind and your body and what you put in your body reflects of what comes out. And I thought for the new year we would kick off with him because he is fascinating.
- [02:29]
Jemima
Yes.
- [02:29]
Jamie Laing
And what I truly know now and what he preaches and talks about is really our diet is fundamentally one of the most important things that we should take care of. And for a long time, I haven't really taken care of my diet because I've been a bit slack with it, not really focusing on it. And actually, if you focus on diet, not only does your health get better, you feel better, you actually, your brain, you feel happier and lighter and more focused and all those kind of things for the new year 2025, I think that's what people need.
- [02:56]
Jemima
Yeah. 100%. Your gut. The gut microbiome.
- [03:00]
Jamie Laing
Yeah. Correct.
- [03:01]
Jemima
And it's l. So, yeah, there's something called the vagus nerve which, like, connects your brain to your gut. But also what's interesting is, you know when you need a nervous poo, that's nerves in your brain affecting your gut, isn't it?
- [03:17]
Jamie Laing
Yeah.
- [03:17]
Jemima
So that's like a really normal thing. But like, I've never massively connected that. I'm like, oh, yeah, my nerves are affecting my gut and bowels.
- [03:25]
Jamie Laing
Yeah. So when you're feeling slightly anxious, that means you need to go to the bathroom quite a lot because it's affecting your gut.
- [03:30]
Jemima
We know that. We all know that, but we don't know that.
- [03:33]
Jamie Laing
Yeah, it's not.
- [03:35]
Jemima
I don't like scientific.
- [03:36]
Jamie Laing
It's not. It's not knowledge that we all.
- [03:39]
Jemima
Yeah, we colloquially know that.
- [03:41]
Jamie Laing
So we're going to discuss all of that today and discuss his business Zoe as well, which I'm really fascinated with. So I'm really excited for this. To kick things off with the new year 2025 with this one.
- [03:50]
Jemima
An excellent first episode for the year.
- [03:52]
Jamie Laing
Going to be amazing. So listen to you guys. If you've just joined the show, welcome. You can get in touch with us on our email. Great. Companyampproductions.co.uk or you can send us a.
- [04:01]
Jemima
DM on reat company podcast.
- [04:03]
Jamie Laing
Yeah. So please do let us know what you think of the show and if you haven't subscrib subscribed to it already, please do. It's going to be amazing. Year of some amazing guests. It's going to be incredible.
- [04:10]
Jemima
We've got some real corkers. Including this one.
- [04:13]
Jamie Laing
Including this one. So Here we go. Please enjoy this episode of Great Company with Professor Tim Spector.
- [04:21]
Joey
Hi, I'm Professor Tim Spector and I'm Great company.
- [04:30]
Professor Tim Spector
So if you had to look back at your life and you had to tell me, what's the scariest decision you've ever made, truthfully, what would it be?
- [04:38]
Joey
When I was a junior doctor, I decided to apply for a job in. In Brussels as a. As a junior doctor that involved speaking French. And I didn't really speak French, but I.
- [04:55]
Professor Tim Spector
At all, or just.
- [04:56]
Joey
No, I could read a menu.
- [04:58]
Professor Tim Spector
Okay.
- [04:58]
Joey
And I could sort of bluff, you know.
- [05:00]
Professor Tim Spector
Bonjour.
- [05:01]
Joey
Yeah, exactly. And at the interview, that's exactly what I did, because the interview panel of 10 eminent professors spoke less French than I did. And so I had a conversation with some old duffer that they'd brought out who said, oe est que vous avais apris le francais, monsieur? And I said, you know, and they sort of clapped and I got the job. And then. And then I arrived in Brussels thinking I was going to have a month's induction. And basically within half an hour, I was shown. These are my 12 patients. Get on with it. And.
- [05:46]
Professor Tim Spector
You're kidding me.
- [05:47]
Joey
No, you know, they were cardiology patients and, you know, some of them quite severely ill and stuff, so. And yeah, it was definitely. That was. That was the deep end. But, you know, I didn't. Each of these decisions, you know, I didn't quite real. If I'd known how scary it was, I would have prepared a bit more. But that was, I guess, because, you know, you've got people's. You can make serious mistakes. That was probably the most scary part of my life, you know, going there. But, you know, it is the fastest way to learn and, you know, when you have to. And luckily, medicine has a bit of Latin base, so a lot of the conditions had the same name. It's just, you know, made a lot of mistakes with all the drugs and things like this that the nurses used to laugh at me. And, But. And occasionally when you saw the patients, they had their own words for things. So I had. I had a great consultation with outpatients, which was even more scary because you're a bit on your own there. You can't ask anyone. And you've got to, you know, being a doctor is all about pretending to be confident in things you don't really know much about. And this, this is all your training is this. And so I'm. Yes. And. And I kept saying. And this woman kept saying she had, you know, terrible, terrible Pain and it, you know, and it was all coming from the mattress, you know, and I was saying, and I kept saying, well, yeah, well, you know, it was going on for about five minutes and kept going back to this mattress business. So why don't you just change the mattress? And she looked quite shocked and it turned out that she was talking. It was the sort of colloquial world for womb matrice instead of mattress. So I'd made a few cock ups like this and that's, you know.
- [07:43]
Professor Tim Spector
You just changed the.
- [07:46]
Joey
Exactly. So there were some brilliant moments like this that I couldn't really share with anybody. But, you know, years later you can still laugh. But they were very forgiving, these patients much. And so after that time, I've always been very forgiving of anyone foreign who doesn't speak English and trying to get by with various colloquialisms and things like this. But yeah.
- [08:19]
Professor Tim Spector
Gut I'm fascinated with.
- [08:21]
Joey
Right.
- [08:21]
Professor Tim Spector
And I think this is one of the big things, like you said that recently, people are obsessed with because what we're putting in our bodies affects our brain. However, you do have people who don't believe that still and they think that there is no correlation between the gut and our brain and the decline of mental health. Can you talk to me about that and the sort of data that surrounds it?
- [08:43]
Joey
Yes, well, I think everyone believes there's a connection, but there'd be other scientists that said it's rather trivial and hasn't been proven yet. Whereas, you know, and these are people who are perhaps embedded in more solid areas of science like genetics, they say, oh, well, you know, you can explain it all. People are generally distrustful in science of new areas that they haven't been trained in. And initial thing is you just say that's a fad or that's driven by commercial interests. So you're creating something just in order to sell some probiotics or something. But there's no doubt there are very clear gut brain interactions. The number of studies of probiotics against dummy placebos show you can improve depression in patients. There are other studies showing just by improving diet of mild to moderate depressives, you can improve their symptoms to the same extent as antidepressants. And they've done lots of careful mouse studies where you can actually generate anxiety in some mice. Take their poo samples, put them into other sterile mice and those sterile mice become anxious. Get out of here. So in a way, yeah, anxiety and, and depression, you know, are partly infectious. What if you think about it in a different way, but which. Which sort of. Which A bit mind blowing, but if you start thinking about what microbes do, they're basically chemical factories. They produce chemicals, thousands of chemicals. Some of them affect the brain, like serotonin, or there's one called gaba, which is affected when you take Valium, for example, and there are probably many others that also affect the brain. And so if your microbes are stimulated in a way in your stool sample, it's like a soup of all these chemicals. You're putting them into someone else. Those chemicals are going to reach the brain of that person or that mouse and have an effect. So it does sort of make sense once you break down this idea of difference between, you know, poo and food and things. And just think of everything as chemicals.
- [11:21]
Professor Tim Spector
For anyone who doesn't know, can you explain what serotonin is and what GABA is? Just very briefly.
- [11:27]
Joey
They're both neurotransmitters, which means that they're produced in the body, in the blood, and they will have an effect on the brain in that there are receptors in the brain for these things. So your brain will react to them. GABA is a key one for stress responses, so that when you're taking a Valium, benzodiazepine or a Valium, you're changing these receptors in the brain, these GABA receptors, which will just calm you down. And so the fact that our microbes are producing these is, is a clear evidence of this brain gut connection. And serotonin is part of this whole process that comes from tryptophan and serotonin and then the dopamine pathways, where we have receptors for these, these chemicals which can change our mood, which can make us feel, you know, warm and happy, or lacking it, more depressed. And they're just two examples of the many chemicals that we still don't know about that is likely our gut are producing. And we know, for example, that nearly everyone, if you test someone with depression or anxiety, you'd have abnormal gut microbes on testing. When we sequence them, doing something like the Zoe test, we'd see far more unhealthy microbes than healthy ones. And the. We realized that most of the nerve cells, the second biggest set of nerve cells, are in our gut. So our microbes are always talking to nerve cells. And it's called our second brain is in our guts. So every time, you know, before an exam or stress, you know you're getting signals from your gut that are actually transmitted that should be in your brain, right? You say the two are really highly connected and this is why we get gut feelings and butterflies in our stomach and all these other things, because the two systems are highly connected. They're always talking to each other. And therefore this just tells us much more that in order to help our brain, we really need to get our gut microbes in order. In order to get our gut microbes in order producing the right chemicals, we need to feed them. Right? And this, this, this connect, this three way connection is, is really, really important. And a lot of our current mental health issues, and there's an epidemic of them at the moment, are due to the fact that we have abnormal gut microbes producing the wrong chemicals. And our brain misinterpreting these signals and thinking that we're actually iller than we really are. And this is this strange loop that we're probably in at the moment.
- [14:49]
Professor Tim Spector
This is the beginning of the year 2025. So people are listening to it and they are in their sort of zone at the moment where they're thinking, right new Year, New Me. And perhaps they are depressed, perhaps they're anxious, perhaps they're feeling low mo and they're not feeling great. You would say to that individual who's listening, first place is look at your diet and try and change that.
- [15:09]
Joey
Absolutely, yes, 100% yes. But sadly, when you go and see your GP, they're not likely to do that. So this is why you have to do this yourself. And it's particularly hard because if you are in that depressed or anxious state, often your brain switches off interest in food and you just really see it as fuel. So it's really important for also people around you or in your family to actually help someone who is in that state to eat better. And there's even evidence that if you have more severe depression and you go on antidepressants, a third of them, third of them don't work at all because you have the wrong gut microbes inside you. So they're just never going to work. The microbes are actually breaking down the antidepressant chemicals and so they don't work, they're inactivating them. So again, really clear links between mental health, also the medications and food. But one of the most important things everyone should do if their mood is low is start to think about their diet. And this is something I wasn't really aware of until really fully until about a couple of years ago, how important it was when we first started putting people on, seeing what happened to people on the Zoe program. This is this personalized nutrition program and they get a gut friendly Diet, avoid sugar spikes, fat spikes, et cetera. One of the first things people noticed and reported back to us when they followed the plan was their mood and energy improved. So way before anything else, before they noticed even change in constipation or weight or even before their gut microbes, we could see a change. Mood and energy were the first things they noticed and quite big significant changes. And we've seen this throughout our studies as how even people shifting their whole diet or even taking. We've got a mixture called the daily 30, which is a high fiber prebiotic of 32 plants. We gave that in a randomized trial. And again, the most dramatic effects are on the brain rather than, you know, the rest of the body. So everything's telling us how crucial this, this link is between the gut and the brain. And I don't, I think it's been totally underestimated. And of course, you know, because we have this division in, in medicine between the brain and the body, psychiatrists generally who deal with depression haven't had any interest in the gut or in nutrition. And you know, we need to, we need to treat this, all the bits of the body in the same way and have a much more holistic approach and not see this as, oh, that's brain disease. That's, that's someone else's domain. It's all, it's all absolutely linked up. So anyone listening to this? Absolutely. If you've got any mood, energy problems, feeling a bit low, you know, those blues, then, you know, first thing to try, the safest thing to try is to, you know, overhaul your diet and keep your gut microbes happy.
- [18:38]
Professor Tim Spector
That's so interesting because if you, if you're not as sort of driven by sort of challenging the status quo, right, like yourself, and you go to the doctor and they say, well, you're depressed. You then label yourself as depressed or anxious and you go, well, I'm just depressed and anxious. And then you just say, well, that's what I am, rather than going, oh, hang on a second, maybe it's because I'm eating junk food or I'm eating something wrong or something else. Is there?
- [19:02]
Joey
Absolutely, yes. And I mean, you're treating the wrong thing. And anyone with, with gut problems knows that, you know, their mood is, is really low and it's not just the physical side of it, there's something else going on that's sending signals to the brain to say, you know, I'm sick, go into depressed mode, which, you know, we think is a sort of protective mechanism. Evolution has given a You know, depression as a protective mechanism says leave me alone, you know, you know, my body thinks it's under attack, you know, I'm just going to go into, under the duvet and, and stay there for a couple of weeks. So that's the sort of theory about why, you know, humans have depression, which has a mod, you know, some genetic basis as well.
- [19:57]
Professor Tim Spector
It's an evolution thing. Same with anxiety, because you think your, your body thinks it's under attack. So it's the flight of the fight or flight where you, you either fight it or you run because the saber toothed tiger is coming around the corner.
- [20:09]
Joey
Yeah, there has to be some advantage in some scenarios of it existing, otherwise it would have, you know, depression wouldn't be around because it would have been outbred. Because if you're, you know, depressed, male or female, and you'd spend all your time under the duvet, you're not likely to be running around, you know, having babies and keeping the genes going, you know, no one will find you. So clearly there had to be some survival advantage to outweigh the fact that you weren't the life and soul of the party. And it's that balance that is interesting. But I think in the modern era it's obviously quite different. Our genes were designed for a different time and so we have to get involved in that and realize that our brain sometimes gets it wrong. And so this is a whole area I'm really interested in.
- [21:08]
Professor Tim Spector
Yeah, I'm fascinated by the fact that with the mice who are anxious, their stool samples, their poo samples were given to other mice and then they became anxious. So ingesting, that's wild to me.
- [21:21]
Joey
And there, there are other, I mean what we, we also know is that we, when we live with someone, we start to share their gut microbes as well.
- [21:29]
Professor Tim Spector
So talk me through that. What do you mean?
- [21:32]
Joey
We did this big study about 20,000 people looking at how closely they were related to other family members, whether they were brothers, sisters, parents, even twins, identical twins. And so the sharing of their gut microbes, the species, do they share exactly the same strains. And there's a clear link between who you're cohabiting with. So you're going to be swapping microbes with your wife, for example. You have been exchange of them. You might have some, also if you had a dog, you might have some in common with your, with, with your dog. So in theory, the ability, you might be able to transmit some of these mood things from one person to another. They've done studies showing you can transmit possibly some obesity or thinning microbes from one person to another as well. We don't quite know how big an effect it might be, but in theory, all this stuff is quite possible.
- [22:38]
Professor Tim Spector
Just being naive to how do they go across, because I understand that. So if you're. If your wife or partner or sibling or housemate is feeling depressed, you can also start to feel their emotions. You can feel anxious or you can feel a bit low because the person that you're with is feeling that way. But how is that passed across? I just thought that was just because it was the general energy.
- [23:00]
Joey
Well, there might be some of that, but there's also the physical side of these microscopic organisms floating around in the air that you're ingesting all the time, that you're swapping just by being in the same bedroom or bathroom as someone else. We're talking tiny amounts of these things. But the studies clearly show that cohabiting, you get very similar microbes that the rest of the population don't have. So in your household, you're going to have a unique set of microbes that you and your wife share and no one else does, because one of you had it and has given it to the other one. We saw this in twins living together up to the age of 18. They share them and gradually as they live apart, they get less, they get, they lose that similarity. But living together, yeah, is definitely part of it. So some of these emotions might be driven by these microbes which then produce chemicals which might make you anxious or relaxed or increase your risk of obesity or make you more likely to lose weight. In mice experiments where they put them in the same cages, they found that actually you're more like you were better off being put in with a skinny mouse. And you and the skinny mouse microbes would be more effective than the obese mouse microbes. So if you're picking a friend, pick a skinny one to sit next to.
- [24:37]
Professor Tim Spector
This is fascinating.
- [24:39]
Joey
It is fascinating.
- [24:40]
Jamie Laing
It's fascinating.
- [24:41]
Joey
The world of microbes is this whole new world that, you know, none of us really sort of think, give much thought about, you know, and we haven't been able to study it really until the last 10 years.
- [24:55]
Professor Tim Spector
So micros are almost to the point where you can feel someone's. If you feel quite relaxed around someone or you can feel sort of anxious, it's because of their micros almost goes into your body and you can. I'm sounding like an idiot in front of you, but you know what I mean, you can start to feel that.
- [25:15]
Joey
Yeah, well, this is all in theory. We don't know. You can only do these experiments in actual mice because doing poo experiments in humans, you can do it, but it's quite complicated.
- [25:30]
Professor Tim Spector
And who would sign up to that?
- [25:32]
Joey
Ethically tricky to say we want to give you depression or you want to do this, you can't do that. But we did study something recently. We just published last year a paper on coffee. And it just illustrates how fussy microbes are. So there's a microbe in all of us called Lawsonibacter that only drinks coffee, okay? And if you drink coffee, you've got bags, you've got masses of it, okay? It loves. It's growing, it's there, it's very happy. You're nourishing it every day. And it gets all the fiber from coffee and breaks it down and, and probably helps us, you know, reduce our fat levels and do other and things, good things for the heart. But if you don't have. You're not a coffee drinker, you're a tea drinker. You still have small levels of this microbe sitting there that have been transferred, perhaps from a kiss, from a coffee drinker, or it's just been in the air and it's waiting. You're not born with it, you get it as a kid, and it just sits there in this shriveled form in your gut, waiting for that first cup of coffee when it can bloom and have wild sex and carry on. So that just gives you an idea of, you know, how detailed our gut microbes are, you know, and how important it is to eat all these different foods. Because Dorsey, the bacteria is just the one that does coffee that we know about. But there's, you know, thousands of others waiting for you to have these interesting foods for it to go crazy.
- [27:10]
Professor Tim Spector
But, but maybe teach me the understanding of that. So if I'm, if I'm starving, that if I'm not giving and if I'm not feeding it coffee and it's staying dormant, then what happens? Is it negative or it doesn't matter.
- [27:25]
Joey
Doesn't seem to matter. It's patient. It just sits there waiting in a suspended animation form. It doesn't seem to use up much energy. It shrinks down into a small size. Microbes often can go into spore formation and, and, and spend years, you know, just waiting.
- [27:45]
Professor Tim Spector
But, but I, I don't. Now I'm gonna change. I don't drink coffee. I don't drink coffee because I find that the caffeine sends me absolutely loopy. Am I missing out that, the fact that I'm not having sex within my body.
- [27:57]
Joey
Yeah. I think your, your Lawson ab actor is very upset. They said what, you know, why is this guy, he's not being very friendly. Why can't he have just over the occasional cup of coffee? And I was, he'd be very happy if you give it decaf. So you're worried about caffeine? Yeah, that's. There are thousands of other chemicals in, in coffee that are important and equally likes decaf. So just have, give it some decaf occasionally.
- [28:27]
Professor Tim Spector
So coffee is a good thing.
- [28:29]
Joey
Coffee is a health drink. It's a good thing. It reduces your risk of heart disease by about 30%. And that's because.
- [28:37]
Professor Tim Spector
Are you kidding me, Tim?
- [28:38]
Joey
I'm not kidding you. No.
- [28:40]
Professor Tim Spector
It reduces my chance of heart disease by 30%. And heart disease is one of the biggest killers we know. Correct.
- [28:47]
Joey
Yeah. And between.
- [28:49]
Professor Tim Spector
Can someone get me a coffee?
- [28:50]
Jamie Laing
Honestly?
- [28:52]
Joey
Yeah. You know, the only other thing that comes close is perhaps green tea. Green tea is also good for the heart. Heart disease perhaps slightly less of an effect, but it's also consistent. But black tea doesn't cut it. Black tea is perfectly fine. It's, you know, it's, it's a healthy drink. But it doesn't seem to have those, those same benefits. We think that's because of the chemicals in them are different so that they're all to some extent fermented. So microbes of. When you take a coffee comes off, you know, the, the big pod, it gets broken in the ground and then for several days microbes in this hot climate, wherever they are, will then break it down into lots of different chemicals and then you roast it and then you grind it. Etc, that gives it two things. It's got lots of fiber. A glass, you know, a big mug of coffee has probably more. The same amount of fiber as an orange juice, slightly more. And it's got these natural defense chemicals called polyphenols that give it the bitterness that Mike. That feed your microbes as well. So it's got, you know, it's, it's a perfect example of really good gut, gut friendly foods.
- [30:14]
Professor Tim Spector
So someone listening to this right now, who is starting their new year, you would say drink coffee.
- [30:20]
Joey
Yeah. And if you don't like the caffeine, have decaf. And if you don't like taste of coffee. Yeah. Go for green tea. You get, you know, to have some similar benefits. But these are, these are all the things we're, you know, we're just learning about changing the way we think about Food. And that's really what, you know, I'm trying to do is move us away from this rather simplistic view of food and drink as calories and fats and sugars and all this nonsense that we. We've been taught for the last 50 years and embrace the fascinating complexity of it and realize it's one of the most exciting areas of science today. Rather than, you know, what I was taught, it's the most boring.
- [31:01]
Professor Tim Spector
Speaking of disease, there's a rise of bowel cancer in young people. Why is this?
- [31:07]
Joey
This is interesting. It's a study we're doing a part of, a big $30 million study with the US that we're. I'm leading, the UK arm of. And it's. There are lots of theories for this, and part of this study is to really try and crack it down. One is pollution. Things like microplastics in the air, things that we haven't really been studied properly. And we don't know how we know that they're around. We don't know how big those effects are. It could be other pollutants that we know about, such as from traffic, diesel, et cetera, or it could be, again, due to our poor diets, affecting our gut microbes. Because there are increasing correlations between certain gut microbes and cancer that if you have a certain microbe in you, you have, like, a tenfold increase of getting colon cancer in the next five years. And we don't know whether that is actually causal or it might be a very early sign. We don't know if the microbes causing it or just a microbe that happens to live once the cancer's started. Because some of these cancers can be around a long time in microscopic amounts that you can't see. So we're exploring all this stuff, but I think the microbiome has got to be the main driver of this. And I think poor diets is the most likely thing that's changed in young people.
- [32:52]
Professor Tim Spector
When we say the rise of bowel cancer, what are the stats? Like, how many people, how young?
- [32:58]
Joey
There aren't clear, precise stats on this, but if you speak to colorectal surgeons, it used to be incredibly rare below the age of 40. And increasingly they're seeing this from the age of 20. So this whole new group of people coming forward, because they used to say there's no point screening anyone until you're in this country over 60. It's earlier in other countries, but it's clear there isn't a clear line as there used to be. And so it's just that they kept seeing more and more younger cases occurring. They're still rare, so, you know, they're still less than, you know, 1% of the total. But colon cancer is one of the most common cancers that people get and die from. So total numbers are actually large. Yeah. So again, these are some new conditions that a bit like, you know, but if you think of what, what are the new conditions that are happening in young people that weren't around 50 years ago? You know, IBS is another one that's really common now. That was really rare food allergy. When I went to school, there wasn't a single person in my school with a food allergy. Now it's pretty hard to find someone who hasn't got a food allergy.
- [34:25]
Professor Tim Spector
Even in restaurants. Do you have any allergies? That's the first thing you ask.
- [34:28]
Joey
You know what I say when the waitress or waitress asked me? I said, no, I'm too old. And it's absolutely true. They just stop asking people if you're, you know, over 50. I've got an allergy. Under 50, you probably have, you know, it's like, wow, this, this huge cutoff. And you say, well, how did that happen? So I think when you start thinking of these, you know, these allergies, these weird cancers, you know, ibs, so these mental health conditions, you start saying, what. What could be a common factor? The most likely is our diet.
- [35:10]
Professor Tim Spector
Hello, I'm Jamie Lang.
- [35:11]
Jemima
And I'm Sophie Habu.
- [35:13]
Professor Tim Spector
And we have been married for a year.
- [35:14]
Joey
One whole year.
- [35:16]
Professor Tim Spector
Join us as we navigate marriage life, hear wild stories from our listeners, and meet some of our favorite celebrity couples.
- [35:22]
Joey
That's right. Each week we dive into the world of newlywed bliss.
- [35:26]
Jamie Laing
Is.
- [35:27]
Professor Tim Spector
Is that what it is? Bliss, Jamie?
- [35:29]
Joey
Just pretend that we're newlyweds.
- [35:30]
Professor Tim Spector
One year down and a lifetime to go.
- [35:33]
Jamie Laing
Love you, honey.
- [35:34]
Professor Tim Spector
Listen, every Monday, just search newlyweds wherever you get your podcast. What is your idea of diets? Do you think they're a good thing or are they a bad thing?
- [35:53]
Joey
Well, the word diet to me conjures up a bad thing.
- [35:58]
Professor Tim Spector
Why?
- [35:59]
Joey
Because it's like a punishment. It's like, okay, it's January. I'm feeling a bit chubby. You know, I'm a bit slothful. I'm going to go for the next month. I'm, you know, not. Not going to be any carbs or I'm just going to have some product out of, you know, powdered low calorie soup. I'm going to go on the Cabbage diet and fart myself to death. You know, I'm just going to eat raw liver. Raw liver. You know, these are what traditionally been these, these diets that people said, oh, you can reset your body. And the diet industry has been conning us for, you know, 60 years into the idea that you can do something temporary and it's going to have some magical effect on your body and it's all complete bollocks. I mean, you know, and because, you know, these short term fixes just don't work, you have to have a long term approach to this and the body reacts brilliantly. Every time you, you restrict the calories to any meaningful way, your body ramps up the hunger levels and it reduces your metabolism so you don't, you don't burn up the energy as you should do.
- [37:29]
Professor Tim Spector
Explain that in simple terms for someone who doesn't understand, what does that mean?
- [37:33]
Joey
If you say the normal female would be eating 2,000 calories a day and you're going to go on a special diet, you've seen something in a magazine and says, okay, we're going to go on the 1200 calorie diet, okay, Eating whatever it is or it comes in a magic powder or whatever. So every day you 1200 calories. So therefore the theory is you've got 800 calories less every day. You should be losing, you know, you lose, you know, a kilo a week and you do that for 10 weeks, you lose 10 kilos. That's the theory. The reality is that you, you lose for the first two weeks and then your body says, hang on a minute, if this continues, we're not going to have much left. We need to change the thermostat here so that the, we're not burning energy at the same rate. We're going to shut down a lot of the body systems so that they're running much slower, much more efficiently and so we can get by on less calories, okay? So we're not going to start damaging our muscles or lose anything essential. So your metabolic rate really drops. So you just, you know, totally relaxed all the time. Probably means you also get a bit tired because your brain says if you want to save energy, just go and lie on the sofa, right? Don't, don't do anything too much. So you feel a bit lethargic. Retroactive rate goes down. So that means your rate of loss of weight won't go at the same rate. It starts to, starts to balance up. And at the same time in your brain, your hunger levels are ramped up. So appetite is switched on massively. So the longer it goes on, you're getting an extra sort of 5% every week of the hunger level. So every time you walk past the fridge, that signal to open the fridge and have some ice cream or something gets more and more intense. And so these two things conspire so that after about four, four to six weeks, when you've achieved some weight loss, it becomes absolutely irresistible. You know, you can't lose much more because your, your metabolic rate is really low. And it's so tempting to go back to that fridge because of the appetite signal is just focusing on eating, eat more all the time. You know, you just wake up and say, you know, visions of your fridge. So that's, that's what the reality is and that's why we need to be focusing on, and we talk about this in the book about quality of food, not, not calories. Wow. Because you need to be changing the message to your brain, particularly on appetite, you need to not do this suddenly. And that's why, you know, this book is full of 100 healthy recipes, that they're generally going to be good for your gut health, your blood. You know, you're not going to sugar spikes, not going to fat spikes, but they're an abundance. There's, you know, you can have as much as you like and because they're full of fiber, they're full of things that fill you up more, that will not stimulate your appetite signals, will not cause inflammation, not mess up your gut microbes. And I think that's, that's what people need to understand is there's no point in doing a one month diet. I really don't believe in them unless you're going to address the quality issues and these other long term ones because you need to change the way you're thinking about food. For decades, the idea of these quick fixes every January with a reset is patently failed. You only got to look around you and see how many people are overweight and obese who do these regular purges, you know, these, these punishment diets. The only people it helps are, you know, diet companies and gyms and people selling slim fast products and other such rubbish. Focusing on the quality of food, not, not calories is key and that will change. And also eating times and things like that, it's not only what you eat, it's how you eat. Spending more time over it, giving your body time to feel full, giving your gut a rest overnight. This time restricted.
- [42:17]
Professor Tim Spector
If you had to sort of structure someone's day and what they should eat. What would you say that looked like?
- [42:23]
Joey
Well, first I say no one's day is going to be exactly the same. And I, what I want people to do is to experiment. Okay? Don't believe everything you've been told. Don't believe what your mum told you. You know, you may be someone that doesn't need breakfast, right? You may be someone like me that eats their breakfast after 10:30, 11.
- [42:43]
Jamie Laing
I do that.
- [42:44]
Professor Tim Spector
Yeah.
- [42:45]
Joey
Or you might be someone that really is super hungry as soon as you wake up and therefore you need something and you need to be eating regularly. They're perhaps, you know, three groups of people. So find out which one you are. But use breakfast as your the best time to experiment. So you know, and experiment with different foods. You know, that's why we set up Zoe to see whether you better with carbs or fats. But if you can't, you know, afford Zoe at the moment, then just experiment yourself with different breakfasts and see how you feel three hours later. Do you feel lethargic? Do you feel energized? You know, listen to your body much more Because I think we've not been told to do that. So that's really important. And then. But I would advise everybody, whether they're having breakfast or not, to give themselves a longer, longer break overnight for the gut to recover. Which means don't do late night snacks, you know, no late night kebab on the way home, damn it, no, no bickies and, and, and milk, you know, just as you're going to bed. All these things are really not, not ideal. You want to get all your snacking in, around, around your meals if you're going to, and give your gut and your gut microbes the time to recover because they again, super specialized teams come out at night and repair your gut and they really help your immune system and we think that's really important for your metabolism and energy levels, et cetera. So I feel much better since I've started doing that and many other people do as well. So that's. Think about the timing of your food as well as the quality of your food.
- [44:34]
Professor Tim Spector
What are your thoughts on Ozempic?
- [44:36]
Joey
I have mixed thoughts on it. I think it's an amazing blockbuster drug that when I was doing genetics that was what we were trying to achieve, right. So every genetic scientist would have loved to have found the gene that ended up this drug that can reduce 20% of body weight with relatively few side effects and reduce heart disease, cancer and dementia over five years, you know, by, you know, sort of Halving these rates. So it's an incredible set of drugs, these GLP1 drugs and there's many more and we're going to see more of them combinations. We're going to see tablet form coming out soon. So they're here to stay. Wow. So for anyone who is obese, anyone with diabetes, they are life changing. You know, people forget that someone living with obesity is, has a worse prognosis than the average cancer in terms of longevity. So we're changing that. So that's really important on that one side. On the other side, I don't think, you know, celebrities using it who might have, you know, the odd love handle or something they're not happy about, I think is very dangerous because about 1 in 6 people do have side effects with it.
- [46:11]
Professor Tim Spector
And what are the side effects?
- [46:15]
Joey
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea are quite common. And then less common. You can have inflammation of your pancreas, pancreatitis you can have. There's some rare cancers you can get in your gallbladder. So, you know, it's like any drug, there are side effects. But the studies, and as it goes out more in the wider population, you'll see more side effects than in the very controlled randomized trials where they sort of selected people very carefully. So I think we have to assume it's here, we ought to live with it. We've got to work out how we're going to deal with it as society. But it shouldn't be used by, say, a government to ignore the whole obesity question of why we're producing so many obese individuals that need these drugs, why the food companies are feeding us up so that pharmaceutical companies can then lower us down, lower us down again. So we've got to be at the same time as using for the people who have obesity now. We should be trying to stop the flow in the future. And that's what. Something that the last 20 years of government have failed to do dramatically. And that's what we desperately need and, and particularly for our children. Who are these future patients of Ozempic. How do we stop that flow, which we know we can? It makes no sense because it would also bankrupt the country. I mean, at the moment, I think it's one in six Americans have tried a zempic already.
- [48:04]
Professor Tim Spector
Get out of here.
- [48:05]
Joey
Yeah. And so that's what's coming our way.
- [48:09]
Professor Tim Spector
What.
- [48:11]
Joey
They'Re used to paying for it themselves, you know, or their, their plans. Hardly anyone in this country has used it relatively. But you can see the direction of.
- [48:21]
Professor Tim Spector
One in six in America.
- [48:23]
Joey
Yeah. I mean, one in three are obese. So that's, you know, okay, that's all right. That's telling you that 50% of obese individuals have tried it.
- [48:33]
Professor Tim Spector
Is there an impact on one's mental health using a zempic?
- [48:36]
Joey
Anecdotally there are stories, but there's not much good data as far as I know, other than there are some strange effects. It seems to have effects on the brain that reduce addiction. So it can stop use stops smokers, for example, craving nicotine. It can stop gamblers wanting to bet in the races. So it, that's insane. It can be maybe affecting these sort of hedonistic addictive centers of the brain, which on the one hand is good if you, you know, to get rid of some of those behaviors. At the same time it makes you slightly concerned there might be some long term changes to your personality or anything that go on if it, if it does do that. So I, I don't think we know enough about it yet.
- [49:32]
Professor Tim Spector
We were speaking before and you mentioned ultra processed foods and you said that 60% of the UK's diet is ultra processed foods.
- [49:42]
Joey
Yeah, that's correct. Which is the worst in Europe and for children it's something like it's over 70%. And the latest survey showed that was even higher than in the United States. So that's the highest in the world.
- [49:55]
Professor Tim Spector
Tim, what is happening? Why is that happening in the uk?
- [50:00]
Joey
The food industry has found that the UK is its best market. It's where they've managed to infiltrate themselves into government and all walks of life. And we are a population and a culture that has welcomed ultra processed foods and cheap, available, convenient foods more than virtually anywhere else in the world. So it's a combination of all these factors and we didn't have a strong food culture that was preventing it like you might get in Mediterranean countries or you know, Asian countries that have their own special cuisine. So we've embraced anything new, good or bad. And it turns out that, you know, we, we've been made slowly more and more addicted to these products and, and they've been, you know, lobbying governments to make sure that, you know, nothing prevents this slow increase and rise. And as they've, you know, tried to, they've maximized eating as foods, they've tried to make us convinced that we need extra food meal times. So that's why all these mid morning snacks and these afternoon snacks and these late night snacks have come in.
- [51:27]
Professor Tim Spector
You have some really early research about UPFs. What can you tell us about it? What are they doing to our bodies.
- [51:33]
Joey
They act in a number of ways on our bodies. We don't know which mechanism is the most important, but probably they act so that we overeat. So studies have shown that eating identical foods is ultra processed or not, makes you overeat by about 25%. That's their key property. Now, how they do that is by first they're very soft, so you eat them fast. They're like baby food. You don't actually have to chew them. And that's why children's jaws are actually getting smaller. And dentists are reporting there's enough room in the mouth for teeth because they're not chewing like we were evolved to. So jaw sizes have got smaller. So we're eating baby food. Many people, particularly in deprived areas, won't have breast milk. They'll have had formula feed. So they're basically ultra processed food all their life, which is a continuation of baby food. So this baby food gets absorbed very quickly, and you can ingest a lot of it before there's any signal going to your brain to say, I'm full. So that's, that's one mechanism, just as a physical one. The other is that it lacks fiber. So the thing they don't like to put in is fiber, because fiber fills you up so that you don't get those triggers from the fiber and the other real nutrients. And it also generally doesn't reach the gut microbes. So diets like this, totally lacking in fiber, won't help your gut microbes. So you get a denuded set of gut microbes as well. So you're only, you know, perhaps a third less species than someone who's eating things with fiber in it. And then you've got the other chemicals in there that make this fake food seem real. So you've got glues like emulsifiers and gums, and you've got preservatives, you've got colorants, and you've got artificial sweeteners, all of which have been shown to harm the gut microbes that they're in evolution not used to dealing with these totally artificial products you don't find in nature. And so they form abnormal chemicals that might send signals being pro or be making you put on weight or giving you diabetes. So it's a combination of these factors that makes you overeat them. And about one in eight people are addicted to them. So their brain lights up when they get these foods. And that's because they have brilliant chemists working for these companies because they pay them three times more than they would get in universities and they work out the exact amount of sugar, fat and salt you need to tickle the brain. And they're doing brain scans to work out. Exactly.
- [54:48]
Professor Tim Spector
Get out of here.
- [54:49]
Joey
How much that combination is that again, you didn't find in nature. And, you know, we've all pasted that pack of biscuits, those, you know, potato ish snacks that, you know, you can only have one, you know, say you can't just have one of it. You know, they're, they really are Moorish. You want to go back and have. They are delicious. But you also know, like, you know, I think the best example is something called Pringles, which I used to eat a lot of, but I realized they were making me sick.
- [55:21]
Professor Tim Spector
How much were you eating?
- [55:22]
Joey
Well, I had too many, obviously, but if I had one, I was okay. But, you know, you can't just have one. And after you had about six or 10 of them, you know, the chemical flavors started overcoming and you really felt quite nauseated. But some people just keep going because this addictive quality of these foods. So, yeah, it's, the more you get into it, the more frightening it is. And basically the UK has been used this massive experiment and the food companies absolutely love the UK and they control the government. They've controlled the nutrition committees that advise the government. Nearly the majority of people on those committees have received money or funds or grants from these big companies and it's entirely corrupt. But I think people are talking about it more. And there was a big Lord's inquiry last year, which I was a part of, which the government is going to answer soon, which pointed this out and came out very strongly to say, we do need protection, we need government protection against these companies, against this food environment. It's not about individuals lacking willpower. Some people have no choice. They're just surrounded by all these foods. There's no fresh food. It's a very uneven playing field because these foods get cheaper and real food, real food and farming and getting the real stuff gets more expensive.
- [56:57]
Professor Tim Spector
And so these companies are literally killing us.
- [57:00]
Joey
Yes, that is frightening, but, you know, it is frightening, but it's not unexpected. When cigarettes started to take a hit, the cigarette companies started investing in these food companies. And so the same people in the 1970s and 1980s, those same tactics that worked so well for cigarettes for so long. Get out of here now. Working in the food. In the food.
- [57:27]
Professor Tim Spector
It's not that tactical.
- [57:29]
Joey
It is, yes. What, yeah, they, they know exactly what they're doing and it's sinister. They don't want to add healthy stuff to it. If you know, it was very interesting. I heard of a beer company that, that experimented. They wanted to do the right thing. They said, let's add some fiber to our beer to see if this could be a nice healthy way of getting fiber. So they added some soluble fiber in there and it tasted great. No problems. But they did some taste tests and people were drinking 20% less because it filled them up. So they had to get rid of.
- [58:07]
Professor Tim Spector
It because they weren't drinking enough.
- [58:09]
Joey
So even if one food company wants to do the right thing, and there was a head of one of the companies, Danone wanted to start making healthy food but they started losing money and so he, he got sacked by the, the shareholders. So it needs a, it needs the government to come in and say, we've got these rules. You've all got to stick to it because you know, these companies just, you know, they want to make money. They're companies, that's what they do.
- [58:40]
Professor Tim Spector
Wow.
- [58:41]
Joey
We shouldn't expect otherwise if we're so gullible as to pretend that, you know, they'll be working in our interest.
- [58:49]
Professor Tim Spector
But if you're an individual, right. Listening to this again and you can't afford Zoe for whatever reason and it's the new year and you can't get that and you're surrounded by UPFs and there is no fresh food and that's expensive, what choice do you have? What do you do?
- [59:06]
Joey
Well, you choose the least bad UPF and things like lots of canned products that are cheap. You know, for 40 pence you can buy a can of beans and you're getting all protein and fiber and nutrients in that in a way that just takes two minutes to cook and eat. So I think, I don't think there's any case where you can't, you don't have access to some good food. You may not know what it is and you may need educating to think it doesn't. Good food doesn't have to be a fresh, expensive steak. It can be a bag of frozen peas, it can be some frozen spinach, it can be various beans even. There are some baked beans that are relatively healthy. So that's hopefully what I'm trying to get people to do is think about food differently. And especially if you move away from meat and you pick your vegetables carefully, you can eat well on a budget.
- [60:16]
Professor Tim Spector
Do you eat meat?
- [60:17]
Joey
I do eat meat once or twice a month.
- [60:19]
Professor Tim Spector
That's it?
- [60:21]
Joey
That's it. Yes. I did go completely meat free for about six years. I got a bit of B12 deficiency and I got fed up with taking vitamins. So I find having an occasional bit of meat sorts that out for me. And I'm nothing against people doing that, having occasional bits of high quality meat, but I really am against people having regular low quality meat because not only is it bad for your health and takes up room on the plate where you can't put healthy plants, but it's the worst thing you can do for the planet as individuals. It's not about giving up your car as individuals. If we want to make a statement about climate change, we should be reducing our red meat intake.
- [61:12]
Professor Tim Spector
Can you reverse the impacts of consuming UPFs?
- [61:16]
Joey
Absolutely, yes, you can. The beautiful thing about the gut microbiome is whatever state you're in, you can reverse it and make changes within a few weeks.
- [61:29]
Professor Tim Spector
That quickly?
- [61:30]
Joey
Yes. So, and this is what we've seen in the Zoe studies is that, you know, the microbiome is improving rapidly and the worse you are when you start, the quicker that happens. And it can happen at any age, whether you're, you know, 20 or, or 80. We can all improve our gut microbes and you know, everything, everything is, is very positive because, you know, I used to write about genetics and changing your genes. You, you can't change your parents very easily, you know, and this is, you know, really important that everyone can improve their gut microbes and if they improve their gut microbes, everything else flows from that. Immune system's better, their mood's better, their brain's better, they'll feel better. Guess less diseases, less inflammation. You know, everyone should be trying this and feeling positive about a change, particularly in January.
- [62:35]
Professor Tim Spector
Tim, we've spoken about so much, you know, your book we haven't even really touched on. Zoe, the business that you co founded. And as I, it's the beginning of the year, right? People are wanting to change themselves. They want to better themselves, especially in diet, as we've been speaking about. They can get your book. But if, if someone wants to get Zoe, why would you say it's a good thing?
- [62:55]
Joey
I think it's the best way to fully understand your body and how you respond to food. It's a fantastic educational tool as, because as you learn about your body, you know, you start to learn how food affects you. There's nothing quite like when you put that glucose monitor on, on your arm. You see how your average breakfast of muesli or orange juice affects you, and you know it. From that point on, you'll never think of that food in the same way again.
- [63:25]
Professor Tim Spector
So just, just quickly to caveat that, so you, you put it on, you put it onto your arm, you have the app, you go onto the app and you, and it, it, it shows you the spikes that you have in glucose or different areas that it, that affects you. Right?
- [63:37]
Joey
Yes. I mean this is just one, just dial back a bit. If you purchase the Zoe program, you're getting separate tests. You get a glucose monitor which measures your sugar spikes after a set meal. You get a little thing that captures your blood painlessly through a vacuum which measures your blood fat after a meal to see how much fat is left floating around in your blood six hours afterwards. And you get a microbiome test and through a stool test which is done genetically. And those three are put together to then as an algorithm to go into an app which you then use to log your meals, to plan your meals, to get recipes, to really change the way you think about food long term. And you can keep checking in to see how you're doing and what you're, your average score is for the week, et cetera. So it's pushing you in certain directions based on your own biology. And then you can get a retest of your gut health to see have you improved in six months, et cetera, et cetera. And we've done a big randomized trial of this because most of these plans never get tested properly. But we're based on science, so we test everything. And clear difference between government type diets which tell you to reduce your calories and eat more fruit and vegetables. The Zoe program was far superior to that in all these domains, particularly as we mentioned, things like mood and energy as well as a little bit of weight loss. So that's what people learn from. And it's very educational I think is, and for many people it is transformative. They've said it's completely changed the way I think about food in their life. So if you, if you value your health and your food, then you know, I think it's, it's an investment worth, worth making. We also have another product that for people who want the simple approach, it's called something called Daily 30. We have 32 freeze dried foods, plants and six fungi that you can just add to your food, your whatever, sprinkle over your breakfast every day. And we've shown that if you do that again, you get significant improvements in your gut microbiome even more than a probiotic.
- [66:06]
Professor Tim Spector
Wow.
- [66:07]
Joey
So that's an easy, you know, I wouldn't want people to stop there. Yeah. But at least they can See, well, I can take this stuff that is giving me some diversity because 32 plants. We want people to get at least 30 plants a week. Some people find that difficult. This is a way to, you know, nudge you towards that. That goal at least make you think about food differently and about particularly supplements differently. You know, because it's a whole food supplement. It's not a chemical powder that you have to sort of froth up on, mix and, you know, smells weird. It look, you know, this is real, real food. Also, you know, we have quite an instructional podcast about nutrition.
- [66:47]
Professor Tim Spector
It's amazing every week. That's amazing.
- [66:48]
Joey
Very well. The Zoe podcast. And that's free for everybody.
- [66:52]
Professor Tim Spector
And it's a fantastic podcast. Tim. I'm. I feel very inspired to kick off my 2025 in a good way. We like to end the conversation with eight questions. Are you ready for this?
- [67:03]
Joey
No.
- [67:04]
Professor Tim Spector
Good. What's the saying or phrase that you'd want people to take away from this interview and conversation?
- [67:11]
Joey
The food choices you make every day are the most important you can make for your health.
- [67:16]
Professor Tim Spector
Best compliment anyone's ever given you for your work.
- [67:21]
Joey
The Queen giving me an OB for Covid.
- [67:25]
Professor Tim Spector
That's a good one. That's a good one.
- [67:27]
Joey
Which was a real surprise because I thought everyone hated me, particularly the government. So, yeah, that was a shock.
- [67:36]
Professor Tim Spector
Just quickly, just quickly on that. Why do you think everyone hated you, Zoe?
- [67:41]
Joey
During COVID was an anti government alternative view of the information. We were doing stuff that the government wasn't doing properly. They wanted to shut us down. They refused to endorse us. And we kept going and we had a huge following and many supporters and I'll always be probably most proud of what we did in that. And I think I still get people coming up to me in the street saying, thank you for what you did. You saved my mental health.
- [68:11]
Professor Tim Spector
Wow.
- [68:12]
Joey
Just by feeling we could contribute because people every day were reporting their symptoms in their area and getting feedback. And so we had an incredible. It was an incredible feeling, incredible time. Restored my faith in the public, really, that it's a perfect example. It can work and could work again. The future, the next pandemic.
- [68:36]
Professor Tim Spector
No, don't say that to me. What scares you most about your research?
- [68:40]
Joey
That it's always going to get more and more complicated and I'll never find the truth.
- [68:46]
Professor Tim Spector
When was the last time you cried either?
- [68:49]
Joey
Watching a film on the plane for some reason. On a plane. I blub on a plane.
- [68:54]
Professor Tim Spector
Everyone.
- [68:57]
Joey
It's something about altitude perhaps that just sort of releases those glands but more sadly, it was probably the. The funeral of Michael Mosley, who was a friend of mine, and there was a private funeral that was very moving.
- [69:13]
Professor Tim Spector
What is something that you can't let go of?
- [69:16]
Joey
My latest idea.
- [69:18]
Professor Tim Spector
What's something that people are most embarrassed to admit with Gut Health.
- [69:23]
Joey
No one likes to talk in this country about how many poos they have.
- [69:26]
Professor Tim Spector
A week, whereas I'm fine with it.
- [69:28]
Joey
In Belgium, they couldn't stop telling you or bringing you samples. Are you serious? Yes. Look at this one. This is a bit green, isn't it? That's a yellow, you know. No, in England it's. Oh. I never looked down.
- [69:45]
Professor Tim Spector
To my. My. My wife sent off a stool sample and she sent it to the wrong address, so it got sent back to her two weeks later. So who posted through the door was a sample of her poo. It's unbelievable.
- [70:03]
Joey
Yeah. Poo in the post. It's a whole new concept.
- [70:07]
Professor Tim Spector
What turns you off?
- [70:09]
Joey
I think it's too boring and obvious and administrative.
- [70:13]
Professor Tim Spector
What turns you on?
- [70:15]
Joey
Any new idea? I'm easily excited by new thoughts, hypotheses and how the body works.
- [70:23]
Professor Tim Spector
What do you like most about yourself?
- [70:25]
Joey
That I'm easily bored. Love that.
- [70:30]
Professor Tim Spector
That's my favorite. That's so good, Tim. Thank you so much. That's fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on Great Company. That was amazing.
- [70:39]
Joey
Thank you.
- [70:40]
Professor Tim Spector
That was so good. That was amazing.
- [70:45]
Jamie Laing
That was a good one to kick things off with.
- [70:46]
Jemima
So good. Amazing. I feel inspired. Inspired to go and make some changes.
- [70:52]
Joey
Yeah.
- [70:53]
Jamie Laing
And just like live a real sort of good, healthy life in the best way. Look, we can have cheat days and we can do different things and sure, we can have a drink here and there and smoke and be happy, but also take care of what you're putting in your body, I think is really important.
- [71:06]
Jemima
And some absolutely mad, mad facts.
- [71:09]
Jamie Laing
Oh, my God.
- [71:10]
Jemima
The ups. Everyone's jaws getting smaller. That blew my mind.
- [71:13]
Jamie Laing
Crazy.
- [71:14]
Jemima
Crazy.
- [71:15]
Jamie Laing
I even forgot about that just now.
- [71:17]
Jemima
Yeah, I know. So good. I mean, not good, but such an interesting fact.
- [71:20]
Jamie Laing
An amazing way to start 2025, right? I absolutely love that. Guys, listen, if you want to get in touch, please do. We want to hear your thoughts. You can send us an email. Great CompanyProductions.co.uk, or you can send us a DM@Great Company podcast, also on YouTube and tick tock and everywhere as well. And please subscribe to the show because it makes so much difference to the show. I cannot tell you. It's amazing. Are you ready for next week?
- [71:44]
Jemima
I'M very excited for next week.
- [71:46]
Jamie Laing
Okay, well, we're not going to say who it is. Okay. A little secret. But it's going to be amazing. So we'll see you next episode for another episode of Great Company.
- [71:58]
Joey
Da da da da da da da.
- [72:02]
Jamie Laing
Da da da da da.