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Healing + Human Potential
Heal Your Gut to Boost Mood, Energy + Focus: The Science You Need to Know | EP 84
00:58:57
Could your gut be the real reason you’re tired, foggy, or inflamed? In this episode, we explore the surprising ways your gut health affects your mood, energy, focus, and even long-term inflammation. We unpack the connection between food and...
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- [00:00]
Dr. Tim Spector
We always say, as mpic, it's the biggest breakthrough in my medical career. It has a chance to really save hundreds of millions of lives. The benefits outweigh the risks for people who are obese or have strong reasons for diabetic control to take it. Anyone who's a practicing doctor realizes people who can take it regularly massively reduce their risk of death. Heart disease, cancer, mood and food are very tightly linked. And the second biggest collection of nerves outside the brain is in our gut. We believe that quite a lot of anxiety and depression is actually caused by what's going on in your gut. Probiotics can have effects that are nearly as good as antidepressants, sometimes more.
- [00:40]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Wow.
- [00:40]
Dr. Tim Spector
But so can a gut friendly diet. We should be first of all always thinking of what can I do through diet alone. If we can control the inflammation in our guts, then whole of our immune system, whether it's attacking your thyroid or your knee joint, is going to be better controlled. No doctors are really addressing how everyone with these immune conditions should get their gut microbiome in the best place possible because it acts as a brake on the inflammation.
- [01:04]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
What are some grounded or practical ways to make it easy for people to incorporate 30 different plants a week?
- [01:11]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, what I do is welcome back.
- [01:14]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
To the Healing and Human Potential podcast where today we're going to break down the truth about gut health. What foods can really help you thrive as well as ozempic. And if coffee is good for you, we're also going to touch in on alcohol. All the practical ways to help you live more optimally and health. Our guest today, Dr. Tim Spector, is a world renowned epidemiologist and best selling author transforming the way we see food and the microbiome. And so whether you're new to the gut health conversation or you're looking to deepen it, today's conversation is going to inspire you with practical things you can do to elevate your energy, your mood and your overall health. So happy to have you here. Thanks for being here, Tim. I wanted to kind of dive in to talk about Ozempic because I know this is a really popular topic right now and I'm curious specifically your thoughts on it in general, but also how it may support our mental and gut health.
- [02:06]
Dr. Tim Spector
Okay, well, we're diving into the deep end.
- [02:08]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Diving right in.
- [02:09]
Dr. Tim Spector
Don't mince your words. Okay, let's talk about GLP1 type drugs because we always say ozempic, but actually hardly anyone uses a zempic now. But it's, it's that big family. And there's about 20 of these drugs now being in development. So I think it's the biggest breakthrough in my medical career and it has the chance to really save hundreds of millions of lives. So it's not a trivial thing to knock it. I know a lot of doctors and scientists are a bit, you know, black or white on the issue. You know, it's either great or you should avoid at all costs. But I think anyone who's a practicing doctor, as I am, realizes the importance. And people who can take it regularly, as in these trials over five years, massively reduce their risk of death. Heart disease, cancer, even dementia, Parkinson's disease, autoimmune diseases, reduces inflammation. It has effects way beyond even just the weight reduction as well. But the caveat is that so far, the benefits outweigh the risks for people who are obese, who have a body mass index over 30, or have strong reasons for diabetic control to take it. And it has additional benefits on gambling, drug addiction, smoking and alcohol. So it's like, wow, this thing does everything okay. But side effect profiles are such that one in a thousand people have serious side effects, end up in hospital. And quite a few, you know, it varies, but, you know, some, it's somewhere between 1 in 6 and 1 in 10 will have some unpleasant side effects that mean that they'll get vomiting or nausea, and quite a few find it hard to keep going. And of course, most of the people in the US are getting it from compound pharmacies or online without any supervision. And clearly, if it has the supervision of a nutritional therapist or a sort of health professional, you're going to do much better and still stay on it. So many people are trying it in the US Many people are seeing if they can come off it because it's too expensive, and then they generally fail and have side effects. So that's the playing field. And there's also a lot of people are taking it who don't really need it. They're just what I call a little bit chubby and they just want to look good in the gym in a few weeks. And for those people, I think there is a risk which we don't really know about yet. And people should be aware, this is quite a drug that really does affect your whole body and it particularly affects bits of your brain, which is, I think what you're getting at is it affects the appetite centers in the brain, but that also can affect your addiction centers, which may as well as it's good stuff in stopping your smoking and drinking may Just subtly change your personality so that if, like me, you're a bit of an entrepreneur, you don't mind taking some risks. It's possible that this might just dial it down a bit so that you're not quite the same person, personality wise as you, as you, as you were now, you know, like all traits. So they come with, you know, like gambling or risk taking. There's always a good and a bad side, but it just might change people in ways they hadn't thought. So I'd get people to think twice about taking it if they don't really need it.
- [05:49]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Are there some themes that you're seeing or people are seeing around the personality changes besides like the gambling and things like that? Are there anything that you can share?
- [05:58]
Dr. Tim Spector
The experts I've seen who've been treating like 20,000 people on this aren't seeing anything clear because they've been dealing mainly the obese patients. The people who don't really need it are not going to their medical practitioners. So we're not really getting good data on what's happening. So that's why it's a really unclear picture at the moment. But if you do suffer from an addiction, then it's probably one of the best ways to get off alcohol or drugs at the moment that we have. And so for those people, that personality change is a bonus. All I'm saying is there's a red flag around this other idea that it could long term change you, but there just isn't any hard data that I've been able to find about that. And there's hardly even any stuff on the gut, how it affects your gut microbes. We do know that gut microbes can produce small amounts of this gut hormone, GLP1 themselves, and we do naturally produce it. So some of these microbes might enhance it. And there's many companies claiming they've got products that naturally produce it. Most of these are in tiny amounts that probably don't have any real effect. We don't know of any major disturbance to the gut on regular users as yet, but the numbers studied have been tiny. And this is something that with my company Zoe, we want to look at because we think we've got probably a couple of thousand GLP1 users who have done the Zoe nutritional program that we could look at their gut microbes. And so that's an ongoing project which I think will be really, really fascinating to see what, what other effects there are of this drug because it seems to do much more than just wait, you know, and the effect on the Immune system, et cetera, seems to be quite marked.
- [07:52]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah. Be interesting to keep finding out and watching that. And I, and I also know that you talk about how coffee supports the microbiome and I know you're a big fan of that and I would love to hear a little bit more about that. I personally can't have coffee. My body doesn't break down the, whatever the gene is that would have it break down. So I'll use dark chocolate. But. And so anything you want to plug about dark chocolate being good for you, I'm happy to hear it. But what, what are your, what's your experience or what's the research here about coffee and microbiome?
- [08:24]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, coffee is a great, a great example of so nutritional fads and myths. So over the last 30 years it's been seen as the most evil thing you can drink and suddenly it's had a revival and suddenly it's the best thing you can drink. I've seen this in my career and I published on it. You know, I published a paper over about 30 years ago saying it caused cancer. It didn't, by the way, but it was, but it was a typical sort of scare story that I'm not proud of today. But now we definitely know from the epidemiology that regular coffee drinkers have less cancer and less heart disease than people who do drink that drink, say, tea. And not that tea is unhealthy, but there seems to be something extra in the coffee and we wondered why that was and we think it's related not to the caffeine because you get similar effects with decaffeinated coffee. So I don't know whether you can have decaf coffee or not. We did discover that there's one microbe in the guts. So we studied about 100,000 people's gut microbes in the US and the UK from the Zoe studies. And there's this one particular microbe that's very fussy, only drinks coffee and it's called Lawson abacta, named after a Dr. Lawson. And it's specialized and it wait, it's waiting around, hanging around. It's probably a new, in tiny amounts just waiting for you to have a drink of coffee and then it's going to explode and reproduce, have babies and get. Become a really big deal. And we think some of the chemicals that it produces as a side effect are healthy for your heart and the rest of your body. So it's a great example of how we need to feed our gut microbes in a very diverse way because they're such super specialists that they're not going to be content with just having kale salad every day. They want a big variety. And so this is just the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to be able to find all all these new microbes that we didn't know about, all these specialists and this is very much part of our ongoing research now we've got a database of 250,000 people we can study with all their diet information, all their health data and all their gut microbes. And these are all the Zoe members that are consented to do research as well. So it's a really cool, exciting time to be studying the gut microbes. So sorry if I get overexcited by it all.
- [11:03]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
No, I love it, I love it and I feel like it's becoming more and more popular and I think for good reason. And so I want to hear all about how we can be educated and learn about our body and all the different links. So we'll unpack that here. In terms of coffee and emotional well being is there what are you seeing in terms of correlation?
- [11:20]
Dr. Tim Spector
I've not, not seen anything in our data on that. No real difference between tea and coffee. And of course it's difficult because tea has some benefits, particularly green tea may be as powerful as coffee. And the data do suggest that although it's mainly in Asian green tea drinkers rather than in sort of Europeans or Americans. Matcha looks it's like you're having a bit of a revival. Saw quite a lot of matcha in LA recently, although usually it's with so much vanilla and sugar I can't drink it. But very hard to find unsugared matcha. But if you do, that's concentrated green tea and we think the, the evidence is building that's very high in these defense polyphenols which are good for your gut microbes. And it's also got some caffeine but other calming chemicals in there. So we're going to hopefully look at that next and see if we can find if there's a particular matcha microbe that likes it and is converting the green tea into these good chemicals for your body and your immune system. But yeah, I quite so for not people like you don't like coffee, I would say, you know, try matcha as a, as a health, health drink. That's also quite tasty.
- [12:43]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, I noticed that maca, the root feels like it's almost revving my engine in a deep way. Whereas caffeine can feel wiry more surface and anxious producing for my body. And so just, you know, testing different things out I think is helpful. But I love the research you're finding with the microbiome. And I think a lot of people are going to be excited to hear that coffee does their microbiome. And I also know that you talk about eating clean and the quality of food in your books. What should we be eating? How can we be more educated about what to eat for our health?
- [13:16]
Dr. Tim Spector
As a general principle, you should start thinking about the quality of your food, not the calories or the quantity. And that's a really major step. And that's something I talk about in my books. And that's what the Zoe principle is. We do not discuss calories because calorie counting really doesn't work for the vast majority of people. And it distracts you from the quality of the food and encourages big food to sell you crappy products. So I think we ought to be banning the C word really from nutrition and thinking about quality, not calories. I think generally thinking about food in from the point of view of your gut microbes is a really helpful thing to do. So we've always thought of food as fuel, as if we were some empty furnace just burning it up and using it and seeing what was left over. And I think that is very much the wrong analogy was if we think of ourselves as, you know, we're gardeners and what fertilizer we put in is really important for our inner garden. And so this is why things like the diversity of the plants you put in, the, you know, getting. And we've come up with this slogan, about 30 plants a week, which is based on some old research we did about 10 years ago that said that was the sweet spot. It's probably not exactly 30, but it, it sort of works as an idea. And of course, plants are nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, different colored plants. They all count. It's not as hard as you think to, to get the 30. It's about eating the rainbow, getting the polyphenols in. We used to not know why the rainbow was good, but now we know it's these defense chemicals that actually act as fuel for your gut microbes. So your body can't process them, but your microbes can, the majority anyway. And the other one is eating regular fermented foods that feeds your garden. And increasing studies show that having at least three portions a day within a week can actually improve your immune system. And we did a big study with Zoe of 10,000 Citizen Scientists who volunteered who weren't on fermented foods, said, I'll try it for a couple of weeks, taking at least three portions and over 50% of them got significant improvements in mood and energy and appetite within within a week. So I think these are real effects that everyone can try. Then it's, you know, just thinking about cutting out those highly processed foods, you know, and with, you know, how to spot them. Well, we've got a new score out. We're just about to publish and roll out in a beta of a free app that should help people say what they are. But, you know, we're surrounded by them in the US but not all processed foods are bad. So I think we have to work out what the worst offenders are and what still the jury's out on because you can't easily get rid of 60% of all food. It's just not practical. So there's that and then, you know, Finally, I think another tip is time restricted eating, which I'm a big fan of changing when you eat your meals. Not I'm not talking about reducing calories, but just compressing it so that you give your gut a rest overnight. At least 14 hours is the optimum, but try and do over 12 and it doesn't matter if you don't do every, every single day. What's important in all of these rules is that you do 80% of the time, but you do it for, you can maintain it for years. And that's really what we're trying to build. We're trying to build people's habits so that they're moving in that direction.
- [17:22]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah. And for people that are like 14 hours of not eating, you can slowly work your way towards that. I just got off a call with my doctor who I was doing more like 17 and she was, based on my hormones, was saying to cut it back to more like 12 to 14. So it's good to listen to our bodies and, and to see but those habits, I think we stop getting hungry after a while or you have tea and really give your gut a break. Essentially.
- [17:47]
Dr. Tim Spector
We did a huge study and about a third of people hated it. So, you know, maybe, you know, anyone listening, just because it, you know, some people get on with it doesn't mean everyone does. We're all very individual and, and the key is to try it, try these things. But don't, don't beat yourself up if it's not for you. There are lots of different approaches to.
- [18:08]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Health and for me it was harder the first week or two getting into intermittent fasting or restricted Eating and so just understanding that habit of when you eat and getting hungry just to give yourself some space to find out if it really can work for you. But with the fermented foods, are there specific ones that are better in terms of the microbiome supporting it?
- [18:29]
Dr. Tim Spector
There is. There are certain. I mean, getting for high numbers of microbes, but particularly those with a rich variety of them. So most people know, say yogurts will have typically around three or four, and most of them are just artificially added by the manufacturer. And if they've got too much sugar in them, you could kill off the microbes so that they're not working. So obviously the purity of the product is also important. But I'm a big fan of things that have got like over 20 or 30 varieties of microbe in them, such as the kimchis, the kombuchas, and a new class called tibicos, or water kefir, which is, you know, is quite a flexible way of eating these things. So. But, you know, they're all good. And I think the key is not to get obsessed with one. It's to try a small amount of lots of them and try and incorporate them into your regular meals as well, in ways we haven't done before. So adding yogurt, you know, onto the side of your plate, if you're having a spicy dish or mixing it, you know, kefir into a curry, you know, adding sauerkraut to salads, you know, having kimchi with your cheese, you know, these things are. And in my cookbook, there's various ideas we came up with of ways you can introduce it regularly into, into your diet. So I think it's being a bit more innovative. It's not saying I must just sit and, you know, have my shots, otherwise, you know, I can't go to work. It's trying to, in addition to your. Your meals to make them more appetizing. I think the whole point is, can we make your food and drink more interesting? But, yeah, but I'm a big fan of the kombuchas. You know, I love them. And there's lots of ways to have your ferments.
- [20:32]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
And I hear variety, I keep hearing variety. And so what are some grounded or practical ways to make it easy for people to incorporate 30 different plants a week?
- [20:41]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, what I do is I start. It's always good. If it's breakfast, you can get a lot of them in. So that would be. I generally have a full fat Greek yogurt. I'd have a mixer with dairy, milk, Kefir and I would have, I add a jar, what I call the diversity jar of nuts and seeds. And these are mixed nuts and seeds. And so that often gives me eight to 10 plants because they're different ones, each type of seed. You know, you can find all kinds of these things. So that's an easy way. And you add a few frozen berries in there, you've got 10 to 12 plants. You know, on a Monday morning that's pretty good. You don't have to do much else to get up to your 30. It's adding a teaspoon of mixed spices to your dish that's been shown in clinical trials to actually improve your gut microbiome. So you, you know some of these concentrated spices and herbs that you don't need very much of them to have a real impact. So it's, it's about adding more to your plate. It's about adding different colors. So you might get those Persian carrots that are purple and add those, you know, or your different colored eggplants. They all count as different plants for your gut because the chemicals are different. So I think once you get into the habit, it's not that hard. And what is hard is I noticed when, you know, when I was traveling in the US if you're away from home, it's pretty tough. So that's why we came up with a prebiotic supplement called Daily 30, which is 30. It's actually 34 freeze dried plants, including seaweed and eight different types of mushroom. Gives you that rich variety of things you can't always get. And you sprinkle, you could sprinkle that on top of your peanut butter on toast or you on your avocado or I like it on my yogurt. And that's an easy way to get you not only 5 grams of fiber extra a day, but you're also getting in a very unprocessed way this variety of real freeze dried plants and, and fruits.
- [22:57]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, I was going to ask you about probiotics because I know that that can obviously support the gut. Empty stomach. Does it matter what. Talk just a little bit about probiotics.
- [23:06]
Dr. Tim Spector
Yeah, probiotics always difficult because clinical trials show that it can work in certain disease situations. They've never shown they can prevent anything. So taking them as a sort of preventive has never been shown to be much good. But it's clear that they do work in many clinical situations and for example, in depression, anxiety. Quite a few studies have shown they can have effects that are nearly as good as antidepressants sometimes more.
- [23:39]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Wow.
- [23:40]
Dr. Tim Spector
But so can a gut friendly diet. So I think, you know, we should be first of all always thinking of what can I do through diet alone and whether that probiotic should be given as part of a kimchi, you know, prescription and a kombucha one where you're getting 20, 30 different types of microbe as opposed to trying to select one of those probiotic ones which may or may not suit the individual because we have incredibly different gut microbiomes. So we only share about 20% of our microbes with each other. So picking off an off the shelf probiotic with say two or three strains is not going to work for everybody. So until we start out, you know, really get to grips with personalizing this. I think I personally prefer using real fermented food as my medicine rather than these probiotics. But it's an evolving field. I think the industry is getting better and they're starting to do proper studies on in that area. So once something comes on, and that's amazing, I'm happy to embrace it because I think we might need all the tools we've got in order to treat some of these problems.
- [25:00]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah. And I appreciate the research that you bring and the honesty that you bring to it. And I really hear you saying that food is the best source and probiotics and probably having variety of different probiotics and strains also support the microbiome is good and I think that's really helpful and I'm sure we'll get to a place where it's personalized and I know we're not, we're not quite there yet.
- [25:21]
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- [27:40]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Details and apply today In America there's 20 million people that are affected by thyroid condition and 60% of those are not aware of that, of that they have a thyroid condition. I have Hashimoto's hypothyroid and I've found the connection between my gut health and my thyroid. And I don't know if you've seen that specifically or other issues around diseases or conditions around rooting back to the gut, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
- [28:10]
Dr. Tim Spector
Autoimmune thyroid disease is one of the commonest autoimmune diseases and I used to be a rheumatologist, so used to see a lot of crossover of people who had thyroid antibodies and then would present say with rheumatoid arthritis or something else. So it increases your predisposition and it is predominantly in females, but it's the whole family of disease. I don't, I don't see them as very different. You know, there's some reason that it turns into some people have a gut colitis, others arthritis Others, it attacks the thyroid. But in all of them there is a gut connection. And that is because most of the immune system, 70% of the immune cells are in the gut. And clearly they are getting some abnormal signals from the gut microbiome or it's probably a two way passage. So the immune cells might also be sending out chemicals disrupting your gut microbiome. And I think we're now much closer to realizing what's going on, that, you know, we inherit genes that give us a predisposition to these problems. But we never had as many cases until, you know, the last 30 years when something's happened and we're passing these thresholds and that's why many more people are getting it. Luckily they're getting it more mildly. So there's, you know, in the past, when I was seeing patients 30 years ago, rheumatoid arthritis was rarer, but much more severe. Now it's commoner, but generally milder. And the same, I think, is true for thyroid disease. So there's definitely a connection, and I think no doctors are really addressing is how everyone should with these immune conditions first trying to sort out their gut and get their gut microbiome in the best place possible because it, it acts as, you know, as a break on the inflammation. So if you can send those clear messages of calm from your, your gut microbes by feeding the right thing. Your gut microbes are essentially little chemical factories. They're pharmacies. You know, they're like compound pharmacies producing all kinds of things that you didn't know you needed. And your immune system uses those as signals. And the more it gets, the calmer it is. And if it's not getting those signals because you've been on a diet of junk food or you've had all kinds of highly processed foods irritating it and irritating the gut lining, your body thinks it's under attack and that then that stimulates your body to start attacking itself. And I think that's an emerging theory here, that if we can control the inflammation in our guts, then all of our immune system, whether it's attacking your thyroid or your knee joint, is going to be better controlled. And I think we see this all the time. And it's why in many of these studies where we're changing people's gut microbiomes, one of the first things we notice people when they report back to us is their fatigue and energy levels are improved. And as anyone knows, with an autoimmune disease, one of the first things they notice is how hard it is to get out of the bed in the mornings, how that inflammation slows you down, you get a bit of brain fog, all these other things that are associated. But we can definitely improve that with diet. And this is relatively new. If you said this 10 years ago, people would have just said you're a quack, you're a crazy alternative medicine guy. But now the science is catching up and people are listening. But doctors aren't very good at asking the right questions. So they don't generally say, well, what's your energy level like? But that's the first thing that changes when you improve your gut microbes and you improve your diet. And we've seen that in our ZOE trials of the Zoe program and also with fermented foods and with the Daily 30. The thing they all have in common is they're all improving the gut microbes. And the first thing you see is before you get the blood markers changing or anything is this self reported feeling of mood lifting and less fatigue, which is great news.
- [32:34]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
And even me hearing just from, I had a doctor appointment yesterday and I've had, I'm 41, I've had a thyroid condition since I was 14 or so. And if it's ever unstable, it's, it points back to my gut. And so I just want to be a voice and a story for people that right now I'm not changing my medication because I'm going to clean up my gut even more. And because once I do that, then my thyroid does stabilize because I've done it the other way where I've tried to change my thyroid medication and it didn't stabilize. So that, and really addressing it from the gut has helped me stabilize it and not need to change my thyroid medication. But I'm just thinking about, most people don't know that they have gut issues. What are some symptoms that would tell them that their gut is out of balance?
- [33:19]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, you're right, there may be none. So there may be no way to tell. But you've got to really sort of focus in on knowing your body. You know, one is transit time and think how long it is from eating to when everything passes through you. And you know, the closer that is to, we think between 14 and 18 hours, the more likely you are to have a good gut health. You don't want to have bloating or constipation and diarrhea, particularly after meals, that would be a sign that it's irritated. Having some heartburn at night is a sign that things aren't perfect either. It's Quite hard though to know that. But if you combine that with feelings of tiredness and you notice after certain meals how it really, really affects you, I think that's important. But certainly a lot of patients with autoimmune disease do end up with constipation or really irregular bowel movements. So there's just no consistency in what's going on. And that's a sign that things aren't good if they need laxatives or, you know, it's a sign you're really not, not healthy and you should be going at least, at least once a day to the toilet. Just means you're not getting enough fiber. And 90% of Americans are deficient in fiber. So even if you're better than average, you're still not likely to be hitting the fiber targets. And that's probably because all the promotion at the moment is for hitting your protein targets.
- [34:58]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Which is what?
- [34:59]
Dr. Tim Spector
Yeah, I mean, you know, in the U.S. you know, last month I couldn't believe how much protein advertising is out there. It's like unbelievable. It's a lot of the hype over protein and you think, well, no one's protein deficient. You know, the average American has twice as much protein as they need and yet nearly everyone's deficient in fiber who's fighting for fiber, you know, so, so hopefully you, you'll fight, you'll fight for fiber and you know, and anyone with any immune problems should be fighting for fiber because that just in itself is, is anti inflammatory and protein doesn't do a thing for your, your immune system, you know, unless you're in a desperate starvation state. So, yeah, it's, it's focusing on the important things that you can do something about I think is really important.
- [35:50]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah. And I love how practical what you're sharing is. And I know sometimes healing the gut, like leaky gut, for example, can be hard. So I present as if I were to have like a really great microbiome. And I can tell that some of my, just because I do a lot of lab tests and I care, I can tell that my body doesn't always absorb the nutrients that I feed it. And so what are some of the most powerful and practical things people can do to heal their gut, especially when they've changed their diet and things like that, maybe going a little bit deeper into some of the nuances because I know there's an intelligence in the gut for the bad bacteria that want to live and they hide behind, say, biofilm. And so like there's, it gets more, they're sneaky. And so I would love for you to share some of the more powerful protocols that you've seen work to help.
- [36:39]
Dr. Tim Spector
People really heal and get rid of the sneaky critters. Is that right? So we've just, we're just about to publish a paper about what defines good gut health. And it, we used to think it was about diversity and just purely counting the number of different microbes. And that's what most gut tests do. But we now know that there are 100 microbes that are related both to the food you eat. So they change and they're also related to your health outcomes. It turns out that about a third of them are new. They don't even have names. Just shows you how fast this field is moving. And what we've shown is that as you increase the number of good microbes, you squeeze out the bad ones. So I don't think we need a specific diet to get rid of the bad ones, other than to crowd them out by really feeding properly those good microbes with everything they need so that there's no spare nutrients left for the, for the bad guys, because they tend to feed off, you know, when there's spare sugars around, when, you know, there aren't enough good guys so they're not mopping it all up super efficiently. And this, this allows space for the bad guys to grow. And they like sugars and spare fats and things like this the good guys can't deal with. So I think that's, that's a really important concept that. So whatever it takes to improve your, your good microbes, which again, comes back crucially to this diversity. So a lot of people changing their diet, they say, oh, I can't eat too much fiber. It makes me bloated. You know, I've got to just stick to my beige food or whatever it is. So realizing you don't have need large quantities of anything, you need small quantities of lots of different things. Some people say, oh, I gave up beans because, you know, they gave me too much gas. Well, again, it's about cutting down the quantities of that to tiny amounts and building it up so that you can build up those good microbes and so small, small portions of variety. And if you're really struggling, then, you know, you might want to add in things like, you know, that prebiotic mix I was talking about. If you then layer in the fermented foods as well, that's another way that you can stimulate the good guys to, to improve. And we've, we've seen those changes in our studies as well. And yeah, you know, there's no magic bullet. You know, again, it's giving your gut a rest if you can. Not late night snacking particularly, and avoiding antibiotics. Another thing we haven't talked about. The average American takes three or four times as many antibiotics as the average Scandinavian. The amount of antibiotics used dropped dramatically during the pandemic. The pandemic. So. And, you know, people survived. So that's. That's a real damaging factor to your good guys. So if you, and if you, you know, keep any course down to a minimum, take fermented foods around the time you're taking it is. Is another useful tip as well. Yeah. So, you know, I don't think there's any specific that you do. And everyone needs to find out what they can eat and avoid the worst highly processed foods, they are going to have really negative effects. So things like the emulsifiers, the artificial sweeteners, they can really impact your gut microbes in a bad way. So stick to whole foods if you possibly can.
- [40:31]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
It's good to hear this because I've been on protocols where I've taken three antibiotics that were more pharmacy grade, in addition to two natural ones like black olive or black walnut and oil of oregano, things like that, to really break down some of the things that I've had with gut issues. And what I'm hearing you say is a bit different in terms of just feed your body the environment. That'll help it thrive and it'll push the bad guys out. And I don't normally hear a doctor really promote so much food as the pharmacy. Right. Like the farm being the pharmacy, quote, unquote. This. My assistant has a hat that says farms, not pharma. And it just comes back to really trusting our body's intelligence to heal itself under the right conditions. So removing some of those sugars. You were saying something about fat. What is there a specific kind of fat?
- [41:25]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, good quality fats. So remove bad. So realize that all fats are not equal and that we shouldn't demonize fats and we certainly shouldn't be demonizing seed oils just because they're seed oils. There's no hard evidence that in clinical trials that, you know, they do you any harm. And they're certainly better than eating beef tallow, which is being promoted politically now. But, you know, extra virgin olive oil, massive Spanish studies for eight years show that people who have that regularly, you know, cooking with it, having it on salads, get, you know, less of all these kinds of diseases. So, yeah, so it's, it's, it's trying to feed the good guys, squeeze the bad guys out, not focus on these, this concept of detoxing. Because I think that's the big difference. I'm sure most people who come on here will be talking about ways to get rid of the toxins from your body and etc. So I don't believe in any of that. You know, we've got kidneys and liver which have had millions of years to evolve to be the perfect detox vehicles. Yeah, we want to stop getting more toxins in us, definitely. You know, if you have organic foods and 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, is telling us that that's really important. And I think it'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 it in, you know, in small, in small, moderate amounts.
- [43:33]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
What are your thoughts about, you know, the food sensitivity tests?
- [43:36]
Dr. Tim Spector
Most of them are rubbish, is the quick answer. You know, when you speak to allergy consultants, they'll tell you, yeah, most of them are, you know, not repeatable. There's no, there's no common standard. And the only way to do it is a real food challenge test where you actually challenge, challenge someone in a clinical setting. So again, that, 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. And, but if you have everything on you, you know, by definition, you're not gonna have too much of anything.
- [44:20]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, that's what I'm hearing you say. Healing the gut is a physical thing, but it affects us in terms of our emotional well being, our relationships. Can you speak a little bit to that?
- [44:30]
Dr. Tim Spector
There is a breath, 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 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, yeah, 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 thinking that 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 have a high carb meal, so I said, 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 know, you're not feeling great and you end up searching out maybe more chocolate or carbs or a, you know, a sugar matcha in McDonald's, you know, whatever it is and just listen to yourself and say, well, maybe that was my breakfast that did that. It's, 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 that will apps and things 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, I quite radically change my diet.
- [47:26]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, me as well. And I know in the wellness communities the conversation is controversial around pro dairy or not to do dairy And I'm curious. I know you're pro dairy, as I'm assuming if you're not lactose intolerant, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.
- [47:43]
Dr. Tim Spector
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 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, but although it does have some microbes in it, that's a bit random the ones that are. And no real evidence unless you live on a farm, which, that you're healthier. But it might be just living on a farm makes you healthy 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 all 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, 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, so. 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 you're 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.
- [49:48]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, yeah. Is there any new research about alcohol that has surprised you? I know that 4.5% of alcohol use has decreased in 2023 and, you know, more people are looking for alternatives just because of the side effects of mood and how it deteriorates your brain depending on the usage Any new research that surprised you?
- [50:09]
Dr. Tim Spector
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. So we did find that drinking one to two glasses of red wine had a beneficial effect on your gut health, whereas drinking white wine, you know, or spirits or beer did not. There's probably a sweet spot where just drinking a little bit of it is, 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 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. 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 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 that's fermented, if it's the real stuff rather than fake ones, we'll have the, the apple peel on it. And that, that is when that's fermented, that's, that's another healthy source. So yeah, it's. But you're right, I think we're going to be seeing 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. You know, in New York and la, 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.
- [52:45]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, yeah. And I know the food standard is very different in terms of the US and Europe where the US will have more additives. And preservatives. What should we be aware of, for those of us in the US around how that affects our microbiome?
- [53:01]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, if you're aware that it's probably making the US got even worse than the, the average European gut. In our studies so far, we've, 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, 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 milk and honey where, you know, everyone's healthy. Obesity rates are virtually the same in the UK now we're, we're catching up the US so, and you know, we have nearly as much of this highly processed foods as they do in the U.S. but yeah, I think in every country we should be outlawing these additives, calling them out, calling for research. Neither in Europe or in the US does anyone, 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, you know, increasing your risk of diabetes and these other ones that, you know, 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 at least five years now. And it's interesting, it took a political campaign to start the discussion, but we need to be 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 that I think, you know, from May, people in the US will be out to use in a beta version they can download. And I think we very love to see how your, your listeners get on with that when they go to a store and they can actually get these five, 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 will 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. 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 even realizing you've eaten anything. So it's, you know, we're trying to combat the really clever guys who've been developing these foods for 50 years now with some devices to help poor old consumers.
- [56:47]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
I feel like that's the only way it's really going to shift. Talk to us more about what you're doing. I know my audience is going to want to stay connected and hear about what you've got going on. Tell us more about this and how they stay connected.
- [57:00]
Dr. Tim Spector
Well, this is all through this science and nutrition company, Zoe, that I. I co founded eight, 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 is very, you know, just invite 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 Zoe.
- [57:32]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Website on that and we'll make sure to put the links in the show notes here below. Thank you for your time, Tim. Thank you for what you're doing in the world. I'm so grateful that we've connected, especially right now. I know I'm going to do a whole new revamp on some of the practical things that you've shared here. So really grateful for you and the work that you're doing.
- [57:50]
Dr. Tim Spector
Oh, it's great to chat. See you in person soon, I hope.
- [57:54]
Host of the Healing and Human Potential podcast
Yeah, I would love that.
- [57:56]
Alyssa Nobriga
Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world. Starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference and if you're finding value in this podcast a cost free way to support us is by following us. It does help us grow and we are so grateful. As a thank you gift we will be sending you one of the most powerful tools that you can use on any area of your life to help you tap into your full potential so that you don't let fear hold you back from really stepping into into your dreams. All you have to do is leave a review on Apple or Spotify, submit a screenshot of that and upload it to Alysonabriga.com podcast. Once you do that we will send you this incredible gift. I have so much more magic I want to share with you and I cannot wait to do that soon but for now I just want to say thank you so much for being an example of what it's like to live with an open heart and mind in the world.
- [58:44]
Dr. Tim Spector
Sa.