if you go on social media seedor are

toxic seedor are going to give you

Alzheimer's seedor are going to give you

cancer but I've done lots of research

and there is absolutely no evidence to

show seed alls are harmful actually

they're beneficial for our health and

I'll come back to that but the problem

is that there is so much misinformation

out there about what we eat how we eat

and how it affects our health so let's

go into all of that Dr Sarah Barry is a

renowned nutrition scientist and

Professor with over 20 years of research

her work has reshaped how we think about

food metabolism and gut health Dr Sarah

Berry we have a lot to get through yes

so let's start with the food Matrix

that's so important because you can have

two foods with identical labeling same

nutrients and calorie value can have

entirely different impacts in terms of

how you metabolize our food and how it

impacts Downstream health effects

depending on how that food has been

processed now we also know the timing of

when we eat is really important for

example we found that snacking after

9:00 was associated with unfavorable

Health outcomes the worst kind of fat

around your belly for example this was

even if you were snacking on healthy

snacks really and we also know that on

average if you change the speed in which

you eat your food by 20% you reduce your

calorie intake by about 15% but where it

gets really interesting is there's

evidence to show if you chew your food

40 times versus 15 times it can result

in and then there's the menopause we've

conducted lots of research and one of

the most exciting things is that there

is principles which can reduce symptoms

by about 35% and so they are

this has always blown my mind a little

bit 53% of you that listen to the show

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much

[Music]

Dr Sarah Berry can you give me a little

bit of an overview over what You' spent

the last s of 25 years of your career

focusing on and understanding yeah so

I've spent 25 years starting out in

quite specific area looking at how diet

impacts our cardiometabolic health so by

this I mean lots of factors related to

cardiovascular disease like type 2

diabetes our cholesterol our blood

pressure our inflammation and then uh

more recently I've been looking at how

actually we piece together all the

complexity of who we are what we eat how

we eat um into how that actually impacts

how we respond to food and the

helpfulness of a food um most of my

work's been done through running

clinical trials so randomized control

clinical trials where I recruit various

people get them to eat various things do

loads and loads of different

measurements and look at how a food or a

nutrient or a diet might impact a

particular Health outcome and how many

of these individual pieces of our sort

of health and

lifestyle are you trying to piece

together to form this picture what are

those pieces the key pieces are who you

are MH so that's one of the key pieces

so by that I mean your genetics your

microbiome your age your sex your

menopause status all of those kind of

things the other is the food that you

eat and when we think about food we need

to think about it beyond the traditional

way that we thought about food in terms

of nutrients you know backup pack

labeling fat protein fiber carbohydrate

but actually thinking about food in

terms of the fact that on average each

food has 70,000 different chemicals and

these are contained within a very

complex food structure which we call

Food Matrix that modulates the impact

that those chemicals and nutrients have

so that's the second thing that we need

to think about so we've got who you are

the food that you're eating but the

complexity of that food and then how you

eat your food and by how you eat your

food I'm thinking about your lifestyle

while I'm thinking about are you

jetlagged how much sleep did you have

last night you know what's the order in

which you're eating your food within a

meal or over the day how stressed are

you feeling um when did you do physical

activity all of that also impacts how

you will respond to a food and then I

think the last piece of the puzzle is so

important that as nutritional scientists

I don't think we think about enough why

do you make the diet of choices that you

make so why do you choose to have that

for breakfast for lunch for dinner is it

because it's part of your culture is it

because that's how you're just feeling

emotion is it because you're sitting

with friends and it's part of that

social experience MH I think we're at a

really exciting time in nutritional

research because we're now able to

collect data at a scale breadth depth

and precision that we've never been able

to before that's allowing us to put

together all of those pieces of the

puzzle to start to see a clearer picture

so let's go into all of that let's start

with um the subject of the food Matrix

which is a a term I hadn't actually

heard before um in today what is the

food Matrix and why why do I need to

know about that so the food Matrix

simply puts the structure of food and

it's really important because we know

that food is so much more than just the

nutrients and chemicals it contains so

we know that food contains nutrients

that people are very familiar with like

protein fat fiber carbohydrate we know

that food also contains thousands of

other chemicals many of these we call

bioactives that you have heard of like

polyphenols you know vitam minerals

Etc but they're all encapsulated within

the structure of a food so think of an

apple versus Apple puree versus apple

juice they're all coming from the same

food but they have a different

structure and the reason it's important

is because we know that food structure

modulates the healthfulness of the

chemicals and nutrients within the food

and it's really really relevant now it's

really relevant now because our food

landscape has changed almost

unrecognized ibly to 50 100 200 years

ago we're now eating a lot of food where

the food Matrix the structure of the

food has changed and this is because we

use multiple different processing

techniques

so in simple terms if I were to zoom in

on a piece of food on a microscope y the

way that the the molecule of the food is

put together is now different to what it

used to be and that's having an impact

on my health so in simple terms it's

that we are

changing often through processing the

structure of the food now by processing

it could be our own processing when we

chew a food we change the structure take

a nut for example you have a whole nut

you chew it you break up the nut it goes

into your gastrointestinal tract it's

broken down further we also change it

using manual industrial techniques as

well so we use techniques like grinding

or we might use posterization for dairy

or you know Extrusion for some

carbohydrate rich foods we all of these

different techniques that also change

the food Matrix For Better or For Worse

it's a double-edged sword right and I

think this is what we need to remember

that everyone's demonizing at the moment

Ultra processed food you know it's

killing the nation 60% of our energy is

coming from a processed food yes we are

eating too much unhealthy food much of

which has been heavily processed but

processing can also be used to our

benefit and we have to think why do we

even process food in the first place

well we process it to make edible mhm I

don't want to go and eat a rice grain

that's not been cooked we make it safe I

want to drink pasteurized milk because I

know it's safer we want to make it

stable I think how long a can can last

and frozen vegetables versus fresh so

you're saving food waste we want to make

it taste good mhm um and we want to make

it convenient so there's all of these

different reasons that we use food

processing but when we think about the

healthfulness of a food we need to think

about it in terms of the processing

techniques that have been used as well

as the nutrient composition we can't

look at them in isolation in my opinion

and this is what I've done a lot of

research looking into and what has

processing gone

bad I think processing gone bad is when

you've change the nutrient profile of a

food such that it is unhealthy so in

simple terms it's too much saturated fat

too much salt um too little fiber too

little bioactives like polyphenols a

food that is very energy dense so you

eat it really really quickly so you're

eating too many calories you're eating

it before your hunger signals have got

to your brain say w Stephen you've had

enough and there's great research that

has been looking at how processing can

affect your eating rate the energy

density of food the nutrient profile of

a food and that's where it can go wrong

but where it can go right is you can

improve all of those things I've said

the stability the safety of the food you

can also um increase the what we call BI

accessibility so the availability of

some of the nutrients within a food as

well okay so I've got some snacks over

in the corner of the room here which um

I guess have been processed differently

mhm to have a different impact on on me

as the consumer gosh these look

delicious oh I hope they're salt and

vinegar Pringles you're going to eat

them look at this oh my gosh um so I've

got some mixed nuts here and I've got

some cookies some little pieces of

chocolate and uh some crisps so you were

talking about this processing something

so that I eat it faster and that it

doesn't like sort of satiate me or make

me feel hungry crisps We're a nation of

crisp

lovers um when you saying that about

something that makes you eat fast and

not realize that you've even eaten all

crisps were the first thing that came to

mind for me I love a crisp you love a

crisp we all love a crisp so I think all

of these first three foods the crisps

the chocolate the cookies you know if

compared to what would be a healthy food

they've all got less fiber MH they've

all got well certainly the the um

chocolate and the cookie it's got more

sugar um they won't have all of the

wonderful bioactives in them um um and

then with the crisps depending on the

type of crisp is probably quite high in

in salt but the chances are with those

three is that they are quite energy

dense so they have quite a lot of

calories per gram which is partly

because of uh the processing techniques

yet if you take a whole food like a nut

yeah now they're actually very energy

dense so they're very high in fat

they're high in calories

but actually because they're in their

original food Matrix how your body

handles them is quite different to if

for example they had been processed you

you mentioned something about my brain

takes a little while to figure out that

I've started eating yep so if I started

smashing these crisps down now how long

would it take my brain to realize that

I'd started eating to sort of catch up

and make me feel hungry yeah so there's

Lo lots of different mechanisms that

impact how full we feel how hungry we

feel related to a food there's different

hormones that are released from

different areas of our gut for example

that feedback signals to say either

you're full or you're hungry on average

I would say it takes about 10 to 20

minutes for the fullness to really

properly kick in now you could easily

have got through those well I could

easily have got through all of these

before under that 20 minutes I wasn't

aware that there was a delay but it does

make sense because there's certain foods

that I used to eat like like Pringles

and snacks and crisps and things like

that where I feel like I could eat two

Tu tubes of the thing before my body

even um realize what was going on and

are they in some way designed to

encourage that speed of eating and so

there are many people who will say the

food industry has specifically designed

these to make them firstly what we call

hyper palatable so to have the right mix

of fat sugar you know carbohydrate Etc

to make them really tasty and in this

case salt as

well

um I don't think the food industry is

out there to get us I think that what

the food industry were doing 50 years

ago versus what they're doing now is

quite different but some people say I'm

very naive I do believe the food

industry ultimately want to produce food

that's safe but also healthy for us

that's probably an unpopular opinion but

based on my interactions with the food

industry I believe that however I do

believe that these crisps are there

have been made to be flavorsome to be

palatable to you so that you do enjoy

them now whether that's that you then go

and overeat

them I think is yes a byproduct of that

um now it's not it doesn't take 20

minutes for all of the fullness signals

to kick in because as soon as you start

chewing something you start to release

different hormones and different sensory

characteristics of the food will also

trigger some sort of fullness but what

we do do know is that you have more of

these fullness receptors saying hey

you're full lower down in your

gastrointestinal tract and so if you can

get food to the lower gastrointestinal

tract that's when it says hey Steph

you're full now and these heavily

processed snacks that you've got

here would be typically absorbed higher

up the gastrointes because kind of the

hard work's been done and yet when

you've got something like a whole grain

or a nut typically that would be

absorbed lower down the gastrointestinal

stress tra where you got more of these

fullness signals so giving you that

greater feeling of fullness my

girlfriend has said to me for many many

a year that I need to eat slower Y and I

thought it was like a spiritual thing

that she's into um to do with like

giving the food gratitude etc etc but

upon reading your work and having this

conversation today now I'm starting to

believe that she was right all along

unsurprisingly once again um and that

there is a a a scientific basis for

slowing down how fast I eat absolutely

we now know that eating rate is

important there's some fantastic work

that's being done by a professor kieren

Ford who's dedicated many years into

researching this and looking at how

changing the structure and texture of

your food can modulate your eating rate

and how also your eating rate can

modulate um how you metabolize the food

and how many calories you go on to eat

and so it's a great example you know I

talked about all of these different

pieces of the puzzle that's one of those

pieces so when we talk about how you eat

changing your eating rate so how quickly

you have your breakfast your lunch or

dinner or any of these snacks will also

Without You consciously thinking about

it change how many calories you eat

might change how quickly you metabolize

the food as well what's the sort of

KnockOn effects there so the research

that's been done by Ken Ford shows that

on average if you change the speed in

which you eat your food by about

20% you reduce your calories intake by

about

15% and that's due to where you're

releasing your hunger hormones how many

fullness hormones you're releasing Etc

so it's a really simple strategy and we

see this play out as well even in our

own evidence when we look in our zor

predict studies that fast eaters versus

slow eaters we see that once we're just

for lots of other confounders there's a

difference of 120 calories between What

fast eaters have over a day versus slow

eaters with the fast eaters eating more

calories compared the slow eaters and

there's even been clinical trials where

they get groups of individuals and say

okay slow down the rate at which you eat

your food over the next you know three

four five weeks they have another group

they say just eat at your normal rate

those people who are intentionally

slowing down the rate at which they eat

their food lose more weight than those

people who continue to eat at their

normal

rate see I always made this like weird

unfounded evolutionary argument to her I

was like well you know in the wild you

got to eat what you can so people eat

quick but um we're not in the world

anymore and the food choices that we

have are drastically different now so

yeah and also the food that is available

to many of us is the kind of food that

can be eaten really quickly so there's

some great research that's been

conducted that shows that heavily

processed soft textured type food can be

eaten 50% more quickly than the

unprocessed harder textured equivalent

so the kind of food that we're eating

now is quite different so you're eating

it really quickly you're overeating

because your hunger signals haven't got

there but it's that rate at which you're

eating what's an example of a soft

textured food versus like a hard

textured

food so we can use an example from a

study that was actually conducted in

1977 and this was published in the Lan

it was one of the first nutrition

studies published um in the lanet and

it's one of the first studies to show

the importance of the food Matrix and it

kind of got buried for many years and

this a study by uh the scientist called

habber where he fed individuals whole

apples MH he fed individuals the

equivalent amount of carbohydrate from

Apple puree it was exactly the same I.E

same nutrients same fiber same

everything else in it all that's

different is the apples are hard the

puree is soft and what he found was that

those people who were given the puree

even though they were given exactly the

same amount of calories ate that puree

or rather drank that puree three to four

times more quickly than when they had

the apples the equivalent amount of

calories so they were eating the same

amount of calories but three to four

times more quickly that's like 300% 400%

faster okay they felt less full so when

they measured their fullness and they

monitored that for quite a few hours so

going up to quite a few hours those that

were having the apples continued to feel

full for longer those were having the

puree didn't feel full as long

and what also happened interestingly is

those that were having the puree had

what we call a blood sugar dip so about

2 to four hours after having a high

carbohydrate meal we know that some

people have a dip in their circulating

blood sugar and we know from our own zo

predict research that actually this can

really increase your hunger levels yeah

and so we know from our research if you

are a Dipper I'm a Dipper hence I get

hungry quite often so in about two hours

I'm going to be eating one of these if

you're a Dipper you know your your blood

gluc is going below your Baseline levels

and so you get hungry you go on to eat

180 calories on average more at your

next meal because of that and so I mean

this research from 1977 I think is

fascinating it's that first research

really demonstrating the importance of

food Matrix and then since then I've now

over the last 10 years done lots of

studies with nuts with oats for example

that demonstrate you can have two foods

that have identical backpack labeling

identical nutrients ident identical

calorie value if you were to look at the

back of Lo but can have entirely

different impacts in terms of how much

energy you absorb how you metabolize

that food how it impacts your hunger how

it impacts Downstream health effects and

you've done some research on walnuts

right so we've done work on walnuts but

particularly on almonds so we've done

lots of work with almonds using it as a

kind of proof and principle of the

importance of the food Matrix now you

just took a bite of that and I could

hear the crunch the reason I could hear

the crunches cuz in almonds like most

nuts like many plant-based projects uh

products um there is a very um rigid

cell wall okay so that almond that you

you're holding there has thousands and

thousands and thousands of cells these

cells are tiny they're about 50 microns

okay you can't see them with the human

eye I can show you a micrograph okay um

but there's thousands in there now each

of those cells is smaller than a grain

of sand and each of those cells is

encapsulate cell walls is encapsulating

the fat so we know that in most of these

nuts it's about 50% they're about 50%

fat hence people say my gosh I can't eat

nuts they're high fat they're high

calorie now in all of those nuts the

fats encapsulated in this rigid cell

wall when you bit that you fractured

some of

those cell walls when you swallow it you

chewed it you chewed it a little bit I

assume a little bit yeah yeah I didn't

swallow it

when people chew it we know from these

lovely chew and spit studies or

mastication studies that we do that at

the point at which you swallow a knut

the particles I the size of the bits

that you're swallowing that you've

you've chewed are about maybe half a

millim to 1 mm in size now given that

the cell within or of a alut is about 50

microns that means when you're

swallowing within that what we call a

macro particle you got thousands of

cells they're intact where you've got

this lovely cell wall containing all of

this fat and so you're swallowing these

intact cells containing encapsulating

the fat so they're what we call very low

by accessibility they're not very

accessible to us this

fat now what happens as this passes

through your gastrointestinal tract some

of the enzymes can break down the cells

a little bit but actually a lot just

comes out the other end so I don't know

whether you've ever eaten a bag of nuts

and to your poo after none of your

business I'm joking okay go and do

that but you should

see some Alma particles you know like

when I'm you know being a mom when I've

I've looked at a lot of PE in my life

through my work but also through being a

mom you can see whole nut particles in

the Poo so nuts they just is it they

just don't break down fully so they

break down partially so you break down

about

10% in the mouth before you swallow so

about 10% of the calories become

available because the calories are

contained from the fat

Etc and then you probably break down

about another 60 to 70% as it passes

through your stomach your small

intestine your large intestine okay but

you have loads of material arriving at

your colon which is your large intestine

that's undigested which is good for two

reasons one because you're giving all of

this food to your microbiome which we

know is great for your health your

microbiome is having a party with these

nuts

but also if you are worried about eating

nuts because of their high calorie value

actually 20 to 30% of the calories are

just coming out the other end but where

it gets really interesting is if we then

take exactly that nut that you're

holding there and if I was to

industrially grind it so that I broke

all of those cells walls yeah so we're

breaking it down to less than 50 microns

so that you're releasing all of the fat

so it becomes 100% bi accessible either

you absorb 100% % of it but they could

have two identical back aack labels yeah

because if they're the same ingredient

all that's happened is you've ground

that nut to such an extent that you've

released

everything and so having that in its

whole form is beneficial because if you

are concerned about energy intake it's

reducing the energy it's providing this

amazing food for your G microbiome it's

changing also how you your blood changes

metabolically in that about 8 hours

after eating it and this is what I've

done lots of work on looking at how your

blood fat increases and decreases in

that immediate period after eating

either ground nuts or whole nuts but

once you grind it I'm not saying it's

necessarily bad because the upside of

that is all of the other good nutrients

contained within that cell like the

vitamin E and some of the other

components also become available so it's

this double-edged sword interesting but

that's what I think is so fascinating

about processing and about food Matrix

and why we have to move Beyond thinking

about food just in terms of the

nutrients because you can have two foods

with identical backpack labeling that

have different effects and we've seen

the same with oats we've been doing

studies as well where we feed people um

large oats so kind of you know like the

steel cck sort of old-fashioned porridge

or you feed people finally ground oats

and so we've done clinical trials where

on one occasion people come in and

they'll have 50 gr carbohydrate for

breakfast of these large oats then

they'll come in another day and they'll

have exactly the same oats but where we

ground them literally we've got students

just grinding them down so they're more

like a powder and the difference in the

metabolic response in that following six

hours after having either the large

traditional oats or these finy ground

oats is enormous and that's because of

gut absorption speed yes so with the

nuts what we're seeing here

is a difference in the amount as well as

the speed with the oats what we're

seeing is a difference in the speed so

we're see seeing a difference in the

rate because we know that the food

Matrix impacts the amount I with the

nuts the rate are with the oats and as

well as where the foods absorbed in the

gut and so you see about a 40%

difference in the post pangal glucose

response this is the increase in circul

blood glucose after you've had these

oats we see about a 50% higher response

from the ground oats versus the laros

and that has subsequent impacts on

hunger hormones fullness hormones

insulin release etc etc and what role

does fiber play in this because fiber is

becoming quite popular now they're like

putting it in drinks and stuff like that

and I I there was some candy in America

when we were recording over in uh New

York which had like it said like 15

grams of fiber added to this like

candy so fiber is a really interesting

one and it's a really interesting one

because we know we're not getting enough

fiber M so we should be getting at least

30 grams of fiber in the UK and it's

similar in the US we get on average

about 20 grams of fiber 95% of us are

not having enough fiber fiber is the one

nutrient that we know consistently is

associated with beneficial health

effects reduce reduction in many cancers

reduction in cardiovascular disease

reduction in levels of obesity type 2

diabetes Etc you know it's an amazing

nutrient fiber and we don't get enough

of it just to pause there then why is it

so good for us because I mean it sounds

like a super molecule the way you just

described it so it's good for us for

many different reasons and there's loads

and loads of different types of fiber

and the different types of fiber are

good for us for slightly different

reasons really simply put we've got

soluble fiber and that's great for us

because it impacts things like

cholesterol absorption as well as other

factors related to how quickly we

metabolize food Etc then you've got uh

insoluble fiber which is the kind of

fiber that for example are in those nuts

because fiber in those nuts is actually

the cell wall so most cell walls of

plants are just fiber that's great for

us because it's fued for our microbiome

it helps bulk out our store so reduces

our Transit time how quickly the our poo

basically passes to our colon reduce the

risk of colon cancer and so forth but

largely because it is the food upon

which our microbiom have their party

produce all of these wonderful molecules

that we no impact so much related to our

health but we don't get enough of it and

we don't get enough of it because we're

not eating the right types of food that

we have in high amounts so having any

kind of fiber is going to improve our

health having fiber that's added

artificially back into food is going to

be better than having no fiber so the

kind of bars that you're talking about

that say are added fiber great having

fiber though from the whole food is

always going to be better and so with

nuts fiber is essentially the the cell

walls of the nuts so it's having that

role in reducing that bio accessibility

that we talk about at slowing those nuts

down so that's always going to be better

having that fiber in the whole food in

its original structure in the way nature

intended but having any kind of fiber is

better than having none and in a nation

or or you know many nations where we're

not having enough if we can get some in

our diet even if it is processed fiber

it's better than fiber in my opinion one

of the um big revelations in my

household has been just getting some of

these bad snacks just out the house and

replacing it with um healthier whole

snacks and I say that because the sort

of the very definition the very like

sort of use case where we snack is when

we typically don't have a lot of time

where hunger kind of crept up on us in

between a meal um and so we make fast

decisions it's not a very considered

decision um and I was reading

that there's been some studies done

where they took sort of two groups and

gave them typical snacks versus healthy

snacks and they found a pretty

significant reduction in cardiovascular

disease yeah so this is one of my

studies okay um and we looked at how

changing people's snacks can impact

their health and the reason we're

interested in this is because we're a

nation of snackers in the UK as in many

countries so we know that about 25% of

our energy comes from snacks that's

phenomenal and so what we wanted to do

is look at if we do a really simple

snack

swap can we improve People's Health and

so we ask people to change 20% of their

energy from either having typical UK

snacks MH or having 20% of their energy

from alond nuts for 6 weeks and then we

looked at various Health outcomes at the

beginning of that six weeks and then at

the end of that six weeks we said keep

everything else the same we provided all

of these snacks to them we provided the

typical UK snacks we spent a lot of time

designing these so we did lots of

research where we looked in the UK and

it's the very similar in the US what are

the typical snacks so basically we

designed these muffins that ultimately

were having a bit of a potato chip or

crisp a bit of a chocolate biscuit a bit

of a cake just like imagine all put in

one muffin I mean we didn't go and get

those and just stick them in one muffin

but we worked out what's the nutrient

profile in the UK in the us that comes

from snacks and then we designed a snack

product that was quite highly processed

that reflected that nutrient profile so

it's quite high in saturated fat high in

sugar high in refined carbohydrate low

in fiber people had to eat 20% of their

energy from these muffins which my kids

loved um or 20% from the almond nuts at

the end of that we measured lots of

health outcomes one of which was a

particular measure that we do to look at

people's vascular function so their

blood vessel function it's a measure

called flow Medi dilation it tells us in

really simple terms kind of how healthy

the blood vessels are and what we found

was the Improvement in blood vessel

function following having almond nuts

versus having typical UK snacks equated

to a 30% reduction in cardiovascular

disease that's crazy and in what period

of time six weeks in six weeks and do

you know what I think's

really interesting about this is it's

one simple single dietary strategy

and snacks are under our own control

typically I what I have as a snack isn't

determined by my fussy kids what high

have as a snack quite often isn't

determined where I am at that point in

time because I can bring my snacks with

me it's a really simple single diet

strategy that can have a big size effect

and I think that that's really important

it is really important though Stephen at

this point that I do say that I have

actually had funding from the alma board

of California and they did fund uh that

study although the way we conduct our

RCT the funders have no impact over the

study design or you know they don't get

to see the all data or or the paper

before we're publishing it but I just

think it's always important to declare

conflicts of

interest we've seen this though play out

in other studies with other nuts or

other snack substitutes so it's not

unique just to almonds it's a great

illustrator of how changing our snacks

can improve our health and we we really

are a nation of snackers um you

highlighted one of the stats there that

in the UK and in the US about 25% of our

energy comes from snacks 75% of the

energy that's coming from those snacks

is coming from unhealthy snacks this was

taken from The Zo podcast uh in

mediteran in Mediterranean countries

only 14% of energy comes from snacks

which is half of the UK and 85% of

British people report snacking compared

to 10% in France and in the UK we have

2.5 to three snacks per day which

translates to six or seven eating events

a day um and this has massive impact and

our glucose spikes and drops throughout

the day causing metabolic chaos and

that's part of what I was thinking as I

was as I was thinking about this is um

if I'm eating that muffin that you made

which resembles the sort of typical

British composition of a snack it's not

necessarily just that That Snack is

going to impact me it's that my next

Food choice because I ate that snack is

going to be different because I'm on

that I might be on a glucose roller

coaster here so I might end up making a

worse food Choice thereafter which then

might impact my maybe my sleep because

I've got a little bit of sugar in me

when I'm settling down to go to sleep

and is there the sort of not Downstream

domino effect because of that one snack

choice so I wouldn't say that you've

made a one bad snack choice and that's

it your day's over damn it you know

you're stuffed I think that you

highlight an important point though that

what we choose as a meal does have knock

on effects on what might happen later in

the day so for example if you have a

really refined carbohydrate breakfast or

snack then you're more likely to have a

blood sugar dip which we know from our

research is more likely to make you um

more hungry eat more calories have lower

mood have lower energy and be less alert

but I think you know

snacking can be used to our advantage

snacking can be used to our advantage

because we know it accounts for such a

huge proportion of our energy intake

because we know on average that you know

70 75% snacks that we do come eat in the

UK and the US are not helpful snacks and

because we know that actually just

transitioning from those to healthy

snacks can have a big impact but I think

it's really important to be thinking

about not just the type of snacks you're

having but the time of day that you're

having the snacks and we published some

research recently where we looked in a

thousand individuals at people's

snacking habits because it's not

actually been looked at much I mean you

think everyone snacks you think there'd

be loads of science out there about

snacking there's lots of science out

there about the different you know foods

that we might snack on but not really

much looking at snacking habits and

there's a lot of controversy out there

about whether we should be grazers and

we are a nation of grazers you know we

well I certainly graze but many people

we know like you said you know 80 to 90%

of people do have multiple eating events

throughout the day are you taking these

away from you for self-control I am a

little bit Yeah I think uh the the smell

of the chocolate and the cookies is

testing me and in Janu I'm not trying to

be tested there we go um

and what we have never really fully

understood is is snacking per se bad are

you having multiple eating events so

eating six times a day which we nearly

do in the UK and the

us or is it about the type of food we're

snacking on so should we revert back to

having the three main meals the

breakfast the lunch the dinner or is it

okay to have multiple meals as long as

it's healthy food so we looked at this

in our cohort of a thousand individuals

where we taken lots of measures related

to what they're eating when they're

eating how they're eating it as well as

lots of different Health outcomes and

what we found was that the frequency of

eating within reason was not a problem

so if people were grazing having

multiple eating events as long as they

were eating healthy foods it didn't

matter having multiple eating events so

snacking per se wasn't a problem as long

as they were healthy foods okay cuz

there's been a long

I guess raging debate about how many

meals you should have a day some people

just eat one meal a day some people

probably five or six meals a day and

you're saying it doesn't necessarily

matter as long as what you're eating is

healthy yeah I mean I will always as a

cautious scientist cave it within reason

but our research showed people having

six eating events a day I you know six

different occasions that they're eating

food or three eating events as long as

they were eating or snacking on healthy

foods it did not impact their health

outcome

and this is I guess controlled for

extreme cases where someone's maybe

eating at 1:00 a.m. in the morning or 2:

a.m. in the morning yeah so we also

looked at timing because I think that's

something that we haven't given enough

attention to in nutrition science and

it's a really exciting new area of

research that we're starting to

understand the timing of when we eat is

really important and what we found was

interestingly 30% of people were

snacking after 9 at

night and we found that if you snack

late at night I feel

attacked and this is a l in line with

you know other published research from

very tightly controlled clinical trials

we found that if you snack late at night

that that was associated with

unfavorable Health outcomes so uh worse

adosi so worse kind of fat around your

belly for example um higher levels of

inflammation worse levels of blood lipid

so you know cholesterol that sort of

thing and we found that this was even if

you were snacking on healthy snacks

really and this isn't especially

surprising because there's this whole

new area in nutrition called chronon

nutrition which is all about the timing

of eating and we now are really starting

to understand that every cell in our

body has its little body clock has a

clock every cell has a clock and that

clock is shaped by when we eat as well

as the light day cycle and if we're

eating out of sink with those clocks

those millions and trillions of clocks

in our body we know that we process the

food slightly differently we metabolize

it slightly differently and it may have

a different impact on our health and

that's what our research showed as well

so eating after

9:00 isn't great for your health just a

double down on that I have had a

long-standing

hypothesis that when I eat later at

night it is making is it is basically

increasing my belly fat now I I don't

have any science to support this but

there's a and also the way that I feel

when I wake up is radically different if

I've eaten close to my sleep time so I

had this weird hypothesis that I'm

basically putting food into the machine

and then I'm like turning the machine

off while it's processing so it's kind

of like not processed it properly yeah I

mean that's kind of a simple terms

what's sort of happening okay you know

our body needs to rest overnight just

like our mind does ourselves our

metabolism needs to rest overnight and

if you're not giving your body your

cells your metabolism your got

microbiome Etc that time to rest things

get Disturbed a little bit and what's

really interesting is you said that

you'll feel different the next day if

you eat late at night there's some

really fascinating research that came

out about one or two years ago where

they looked at giving exactly the same

calories and Foods over the day within

the same time period but on in one group

of individuals having most of the

calories earlier and in another group

having most of them later in the day now

those that were having them later in the

day woke up feeling more hungry which is

kind of like counterintuitive isn't it

but it fits in with what you just said

yet those people who are eating the

calories earlier in the

day woke up feeling less hungry and this

is why as well the evidence shows early

Tim restricted eating so time restricted

eating where you're eating within a

particular time window those people who

are practicing earlier in the day tend

to do better in terms of the health

outcomes whether it's weight

inflammation cholesterol than those

practicing later time restrict eating

when they have their last eating event

later in the day and that's cuz they're

eating in in in time with their body

clocks with these millions and billions

of little cell

clocks I have um had a weird observation

which is sometimes sort of quite rare

these days I have to wake up super early

to get on a flight and it means that I'm

disrupting my sleep maybe getting up at

4:00 or 5 in the morning and for some

bizarre reason if I'm if I wake up at

say 4: in the morning morning to go and

get a flight I am starving but if I woke

up at 9: that same day I would not be I

would probably not get hungry till about

2: p.m. and I've never managed to sort

of really figure out why disrupting my

sleep causes me to be ridiculously

hungry whereas typically I don't

honestly eat breakfast I typically eat

about midday or 2 p.m. so I think that's

probably a lot going on there it's

getting a little bit outside my of

expertise but I can certainly comment

from work that we've done and I'm

familiar with so what we know is that

sleep duration sleep efficiency what we

also call Sleep midpoint so the midpoint

in which you sleep impacts your hunger

levels we know that your hunger and your

fullness hormones change as you sleep so

we know that short sleepers people who

you know are getting up too early so

when you're getting up for your flight

then your hunger and fullness hormones

might be perturbed and we know that

short sleepers or if you've had a a poor

night's sleep you tend to wake up more

hungry than if you've had a good night's

sleep this isn't from my own research I

always have to cavey at that but this is

what some of the research is showing but

that also if you've had a poor night's

sleep You Reach For Less healthy food

and there's a study that was conducted

at Kings College London by my colleagues

called the Slumber study um and this

really nicely illustrates how just

changing how much you sleep can change

your dietry choices and in the Slumber

study they asked people who were short

sleepers to practice sleep hygiene they

gave them no dietry advice they just

said practice good sleep hygiene I you

know no screens late at night no

physical activity caffeine alcohol Etc

late at night dark and

room and then they just monitored lots

of different things in these individuals

and what they found was that those who

were able to extend their

sleep actually made healthier choices

such that they reduced jued without

being told to their intake of free Sugar

by about 10 G oh really without being

given any

advice so they slept better they atat

less sugar they made the decision to eat

less sugar without being told

to that correlates it's it's been such a

revelation I think in my my life over

the last I'd say two to three years is

realizing the downstream impact of sleep

and a bad night's sleep cuz it was one

of the things that I think growing up

especially you as an entrepreneur when

you're like consuming a lot of like

hustle preneur you know culture and it's

all like sacrific to sleep work seven

days that you assume is um take it or

leave it like it like you assume it's

often the first thing you think that you

can sacrifice in the pursuit of

productivity yeah well this is what I I

thought growing up and then in the last

I so all I think all 20 30 olds think

that yeah and do you not think yeah and

anyone that's like has I think probably

an involuntary amount of I say

involuntary but I mean just because of

the decisions they've made amount of

professional pressure or like shift

workers or anybody or even parents I

guess

um

they probably see sleep as second due to

some other kind of priority in their

life and when I shifted that and I I

made adjustments to my calendar and my

schedule to try and prioritize sleep the

downstream impact of it has been

profound in a way that I could never

measure or articulate fully but just

everything seems to be better so like my

relationships with my partner um my

ability to think straight um my

motivation to go to the gym that day um

the work that I do everything so it's

there's been this big sort of radical

adjustment where I now see sleep as

actually the the starting point for all

these other choices that I make good or

bad um and that's kind of what your work

is highlighting yeah I think it's that

we have to think of these four pillars

together of Health we can't look at diet

on its own can't look at sleep on its

own can't look at stress on its own we

can't look at physical activity on its

own so if we want to improve our health

through diet I think we must be looking

our sleep

habits which we can to a certain extent

control not always I know some people

have to work shift some people don't

have a choice they're woken up by their

kids Etc we need to look at our stress I

know that's one of the hardest things to

change um we need to look at our

physical activity and our diet and they

are all so interconnected and the

predict studies that were done at Zoe

found that sleep affected metabolic

responses as much as the macronutrient

content of the meal what is what is that

what is that saying so this is some

research that we published where we

looked at people when they'd had a good

night's sleep and we looked at people

when they'd had a bad night's sleep and

we looked at their post meal post

prandial glucose response so that

basically means after having your

breakfast that's got some carbohydrate

in it how much does your blood glucose

increase we call this the post frangel

glucose response because post prangel is

Greek for postmeal and so it's a term we

use a lot in the science and we looked

at um

individuals postmeal glucose response

when they'd had a good night's sleep and

when they'd had a bad night's sleep and

what we found was within the same

individual if they'd had a bad night

sleep their postmeal glucose response so

after breakfast was a lot higher

than if they'd had a good night's sleep

so what this shows I think quite nicely

if we think back to what you said about

how you wake up more hungry when you've

not had enough sleep we know that people

make poor dietary choices for example

from the Slumber study and then we know

that the metabolic responses to those

are worse it just shows how you're kind

of creating this perfect storm and how

you can't think of it in isolation CU

firstly you're waking up and you're like

bloody hell I'm hungry secondly it's

like I'm not having that healthy

breakfast I want that Pano shocate or

you know whatever that's you giving you

that quick fix and then you have it and

you're going to have this massive blood

sugar pee compared to if you'd had a

good night's sleep and and made a

healthy choice we less hungry etc etc so

it's like creating this perfect storm

and it's all started with your sleep MH

and that's why I don't think we can look

at things in isolation anymore which is

how I have spent the previous 20 years

of my research looking at things in

isolation but that's cuz I've not been

had the luxury of being able to collect

the kind of data that we're now

collecting I get a lot of messages from

parents so uh because I'm not one yet I

don't fully understand what it is to be

a parent and the demands of Parenthood

so I'm going to defer to you on this cuz

the parents my children never slept they

never slept they did obviously but oh my

Lord how did you how did you survive

that as a parent like what's the was

there any strategies or tactics you put

in place to defend against exactly what

you just described the downstream cont

quences of sleep deprivation no because

the first four years of my children's

lives uh I was also I lost my father

when my um daughter a few weeks after my

daughter was born uh my sister and I

became full-time carers for my mother

who lived around the corner um I took a

career break looked after my mom with my

sister had two young children they

weren't sleeping I had to show up I had

to show up to help my sister look after

my mom it was about survival

I didn't think about what I ate when I

ate that was irrelevant it was about

survival to be there for my mom to be

there for my kids and whether it was

because asleep deprivation was also so

bad that it was just like driving bad

choices I don't know but there's points

in time in anyone's life that we go

through that are about survival aren't

there

and I think everything goes out of the

window and I'm not saying it should but

I think that when when you're in the

depths of whether it's sleep deprivation

because your children keeping you awake

or what I was going through you know my

mother had a de generative neurological

condition and seeing someone daily

deterior deteriorate like

that what you're doing physical activity

wise well I didn't have time to do that

what you're

eating quite often doesn't become a

priority now it's probably a time it

should be even more of a priority

because we know that what you eat

impacts your mental health you know

there's great research now showing how

important it is but when you're in that

fug of whether it's that you're

depressed or you're dealing with you

know trauma or whatever I think food is

one of the last things that you think

about making a priority and I think it's

okay you know when we talk about the

health situation in the US and the UK

with obesity On The Rise and things like

that we you people are now pointing at

things like a zmek as the cure for that

but when you speak about the role there

that stress and our life styles are

having on us and I was thinking about

some of the stats that have emerged

around anxiety and young people and them

being more um in depression rates

globally um maybe there's something else

that we should be thinking about which

is like the mental health mindfulness

piece of how that overlays with food

choices and because you know even the

food the ultr processed unhealthy foods

that are being attacked a lot these

days I mean to some degree they are a

consequence also of demand oh absolutely

so they wouldn't be making these things

if people didn't want them no and didn't

buy them so maybe if we focused more on

some of the mindfulness mental health

challenges we have in society people

would have more of a um a greater

ability to make better choices

themselves as well because I certainly

know in my life that if I'm highly

stressed or if things are difficult then

my ability to make better food choices

is significantly impaired yeah

absolutely I you know again this is what

the research shows the Sleep the stress

it impacts your ability to make choices

about lots of things but equally your

food choices you know what you're

talking about I think is so complex it's

where where's the responsibility for the

government where's the responsibility

for the food industry where's the

responsibility for us as individuals

where's the responsibility for schools

for example or for us as parents

educating our children we need to take

into account all of those different um

areas in order to improve the foods that

we're eating there is a problem that

these three dishes so the chocolate the

biscuits the crisps they are more tasty

or rather our taste buds our brains are

tricking us into thinking they're more

palatable and that's a problem do we say

to our children you can never ever have

them now I've certainly never taken that

approach I think it's all about balance

and enabling people to make the choices

that they make but I recognize if I'm

sitting there in the evening I'm a I'm a

bit stressed I've got a work deadline I

don't want to eat nuts I want to eat

those biscuits or those crisps and I

want a glass of wine with it I know

that's not the right decision I know

it's 10:00 at night but in the

moment that's the choice I probably will

make do you get frustrated with yourself

because you you know more about

nutrition than most people on planet

Earth yet you still find yourself making

at at times suboptimal nutritional

choices no I don't because I think

that it's really quite simple when we

think about the food that we eat I think

we're making it so complicated and I

think that do you know what if we eat a

good amount of fruits vegetables pulses

if we try not to eat too much heavily

processed foods if we try and get a bit

of diversity in our diet we're doing

okay so what if I go and have you know

bared chocolate as long as I'm not doing

all day every day mhm and I think this

kind of Health

optimization around

diet I think is taking away the pleasure

of food and you know I often say if a

food is too healthy to be enjoyed it's

just not healthy at all food is there to

bring us joy it's to bring us pleasure

it's part of our emotions it's part of

our culture it's part of you know our

social connections MH and I worry that

now there's a certain proportion of

society so hyperfocused

on that 1% gain in terms of the food

that they're eating that they forget all

of that pleasure so I think I have quite

a balanced approach because I know that

ultimately if you get the foundations

right the rest will follow but that

makes up

95% of what makes a food or a diet and

that's how we need to think about what

we healthy what do you think of

diets um because there's so many bloody

diets as

there I think

that there's so much neutrols out there

Nutrabolics there is so much

misinformation out there what you see on

social media versus what the evidence

shows is like night and day I mean

seriously and so when I think about diet

my view on

diets I mean there are some that there's

some good evidence you know eat plant

eat 30 plants a week yeah that's great

um go on a low calorie diet to lose

weight great but how are you going to

maintain that weight that's a whole

other question great for losing not for

maintenance um then you've got the

alkaline diet I mean I I don't

understand that eat alkaline foods but

your stomach is acidic so got no idea

how that works the blood type

diet I don't actually know what half of

these diets do because I do not

understand the

physiological theory behind them and so

do you know what though Stephen I think

if it works for you as an individual

fine do it but if it works for you at

the expense

of the pleasure of food at the expense

of enjoying life to the fullness that's

what I think is a shame like Tim

restricted eating I think there's great

evidence around time restricted

eating now much of it comes from very

tightly metabolically controlled studies

you know that are done Clinic where

people you know eat within a five or six

hour window so they have their first

meal at 10: their last meal at 4 in the

evening reduces inflammation reduces

body weight improves blood cholesterol

etc etc

etc I don't want to only eat six hours a

day I want to have dinner with my family

I want to have dinner with my friends I

want to go to the PB in the evening not

every evening I want to live

life so what can we do that takes that

principle of that diet

but we still benefit from

it and this is what's great again about

the research that we're doing at zo

we've done this study called the bigf

study the big intermittent fasting study

we had 150,000 people sign up and we

said look we want to see if what we find

in tightly controlled clinical studies

plays out in the real world because we

always have to think how does all of

this evidence play out in the real world

does it matter and we said just limit

your eating window so the time from your

first to your last meal to 10 hours so

that means if you're having your first

meal at 10: you're having in the morning

you're having your last meal at 8 in the

evening MH that's correct isn't it

sure my paral cannot do maths um that's

quite doable for most people I can have

my breakfast at 10:00 I can finish my

last meal at 8 I mean yeah I do like

munching on my chocolate late at night I

could probably still live a happy enough

life doing that and we found people

could do it we found as well that people

who practiced it within two weeks they

felt better they had better energy

better mood um you know they were

feeling a lot better they also lost

weight many people wanted to do this

because they wanted to lose weight and

we actually see from evidence that

people practicing time restricted eating

even if they're told not to change their

calorie intake just by limiting the

eating window on average reduce the

energy intake by about 300 calories on

average there's been a big debate around

this um conversation around fasting

calorie restriction and some people say

that it's basically the same thing and

that you've kind of proven that to some

degree so we know that in most instances

if you practice time restricted eating

you unintentionally reduce your energy

intake and the data shows that on

average from the studies that published

is about 300 calories obviously depends

on the duration the reduction in body

weight also we know is dependent on the

eating window so the smaller the eating

window the greater the reduction and

body weight but there have been some

studies that actually control the amount

of calories that people eat but have

some people having it in a bigger eating

window some in a smaller eating window

and what these Studies have shown that

if you have the same amount of calories

but you change the period in time in

which you're eating your food there is

an additional benefit on metabolic

Health there is a benefit in terms of

blood lipids in terms of inflammation

independent of calories Okay so

Tim restricted eating has some benefit

independent of calories

consumption yes but the bulk of the

benefit is due to uh a reduction in

calories so there's some benefit

independent calorie restriction but the

bulk of the benefit that we see is due

to a subconscious or unintentional

reduction in calories and I think this

is when we're thinking about diets I

think we need to think about how easy is

it to implement is there any evidence

behind it and 99% there isn't for the

ones that there is evidence like Tim

restricted eating can we do it in a way

that still enables us to live our life

that's sustainable and the sustainable

point I think is really important

because there's now some new evidence

emerging around consistency MH and the

importance of consistent eating

patterns and I think this is fascinating

so there's research showing that if one

day you're having three meals and then

the next day you're having nine Mees and

the next day say you're having six meals

and the next day you're having four

meals that troubles your body it's like

whoa hold on I'm used to having you know

four eating events a day and this is

important to bear in mind when we think

about snacking if you're typically a

snacker then fine carry on snacking as

long as it's on healthy food and as long

as you have your last snack before 9: at

night if you're not a snacker having me

just vouched for the great benefits of

snacking don't start snacking because

you don't want to be

inconsistent and this new evidence

emerging around the consistency of

eating and there's some research done

actually quite some time ago that

started this idea I think is really

fascinating so try and have a consistent

eating pattern same applies to sleep try

and go to bed at the same time get up at

the same time we've done some work uh

around social jet lag don't know if

you've heard of that term uh I think

I've heard of it what does it mean so

social jet lag is where you have an

inconsistent sleeping pattern throughout

the week so for example for many maybe

20-year old or students they might go to

bed at a sensible time in the week and

go parting and crazy at the weekend or

for someone like myself I go to bed late

at night because I'm late night working

parenting Etc and then at the weekend I

catch up so if you have more than about

a one and a half

hour uh increase or decrease in sleep

between your work days or weekend days

Etc that's called social jet lag MH so

it's a bit like jet lag going from one

country to the other and what we know is

and we've published on this from our own

zo predict research people who

experience social jet lag so have this

inconsistent sleeping pattern make poor

dietary

choices they have more inflammation they

have a different gut microbiome

composition now it might be because of

the dietary choices but again it just

plays into this whole idea that we're

talking about that we can't just think

about the food in isolation we need to

think about how we're eating out our

lifestyle Etc what else is on your

Nutrabolics

list what things bring to mind that a

lot of people believe I mean there's a

big debate raging at the moment about

seed oils because we had uh incoming um

American I guess he's a politician um

RFK Jr say recently seed oils are one of

the most unhealthy ingredients that we

have in foods and the reason they're in

Foods is because they're heavily

subsidized they're very cheap but they

are associated with all kinds of very

serious illnesses including body-wide

inflammation which affects all of our

health it's one of the worst things you

can eat it's almost impossible to avoid

if you eat any processed food sorry I'm

laugh to laugh this is like Nutrabolics

Beyond Nutrabolics but please I that's

basically it he said if you're eating

any processed food you're going to be

eating seed oils and he advocates for

replacing seed oils with beef Tallow

which is in the UK is referred to as

dripping which is pure beef fat and is a

saturated fat and he's actually selling

T-shirts um RFK Jr at the moment that

say make frying oil Tallow

again so what so seed oils what is this

weird debate that I've seen raging on on

my Instagram about seed oils I've like

managed to avoid it like I've just not

paid attention to it but I see the word

seed oils all of a sudden everywhere

okay so seed oils I think is at the top

of the neutr bolics list I I it blows my

mind what you've just read me it

seriously blows mind I've done lots of

research on seed oils so I can talk from

my own research as well as all the

evidence spaces out there there is

absolutely no evidence that is credible

evidence when interpreted in the correct

way to show seed oils are

harmful what is a seed oil so a seed oil

is an oil from a seed so the most common

seed oils in the UK is rape seed oil

which is also known as canola oil in the

US and many other countries followed by

sunflow oil the most common seed oils in

the US are soybean oil followed by rape

seed or oil followed by sunflower seed

oil and there's about three or four

arguments that people use to say that

seedor are bad for us and if you go on

social media I mean this is a perfect

example of Night and Day between

scientific evidence and what's on social

media if you go on social media seedor

are toxic seedor are going to give you

Alzheimer's seedor are going to give you

cancer seedar are going to kill

you you look at the evidence

it's totally the reverse now you can

have sensible boring scientists like me

say seedor is a really good for you you

could put that as one of your assets or

whatever you call it or adverts for this

m so we could say seedor are really good

for you Steven or I could tell you

seedles are toxic they're going to kill

you everyone's trying to kill us with

seedles what's going to get more clicks

probably the toxic seed oil narrative

and so the sensible science there's no

Silver Bullet there's no like you know

crazy inflammatory argument the sensible

science isn't going to get the click so

unfortunately the voices of reason and

often it comes from boring academics

like myself not saying other academics

are boring but sensible academics like

myself that give the you know the

balance we we don't get a voice we're

not being heard which is one of the

reasons that you know I wanted to come

on this show because of the

misinformation and we have to get the

voice of reason out there we have to get

the voice of reason so things like that

to do with seed alls are not what's

dominating the

headlines so what people say in terms of

seedor is firstly our intake of seedor

has increased 100 fold the last 20 30 40

50 years and with that increase in seed

oil intake so has cancer increased so

has cardiovascular disease increased so

has obesity increased so has Alzheimer's

etc etc so must be to do the SE oils

well what else has changed in that 50

years we're more sedent we eat loads of

these other it's heavily processed foods

that got all of these other ingredients

in you know the sugar the this the that

so much else has changed you know you

can't put it all down to the fact that

at that point in time seed oils were

also changing we also know that about

60% of the seed oil that we eat is

actually in these heavily processed

unhealthy Foods so it's the first

argument they say and you see these

beautiful figures that they put out

where you see on one axis the intake of

cedor you see on the other axis um you

know uh o over time you'll see uh for

example like rates of cancer and you see

rates of cancer or rates of

cardiovascular disease going up lineally

with the intake of seed oil but we have

to think what else has changed in that

time the other arguments that they use

are theoretical arguments based on

biochemical Pathways and I spend an hour

teaching this to our undergrad and I'm

not going to bore you with that

biochemical

part but they talk about the ratio of um

a particular fatty acid which is Omega 6

which is found in high levels in seed

oils and omega-3 which is another fatty

acid and they talk about how having lots

of seedles changes this ratio makes uh

this pro-inflammatory state because it

increases a particular Downstream

chemicals etc etc

what we know from kind of theoretical

biochemical Pathways and enzymes Etc

doesn't actually play out in humans

we're so clever we have all of these

mechanisms in place to control

inflammation to control oxidative stress

to control Downstream impacts of foods

and so this argument that is also used

to say that Omega six fatty acids so the

main fat that's found in many of these

seed ORS is pro-inflammatory

is not supported by any evidence it's

not supported by tightly controlled

clinical trials if anything it's shown

to be anti-inflammatory that levels of

in inflammatory um circulating Mo

molecules actually

reduce and yet they use this kind of

theoretical argument or what they've

seen in a Petri dish for example or in a

test tube so where is this narrative

come from where where did it originate

from that seed oils were were toxic was

it just one of those things that just

snowball I think it's one of those

things that snowball and I think it does

fit in with the whole uh argument that

people are using against old processed

food it does fit in with other other

narratives that are going on I think

some people can be very clever in

cherry-picking research so there's a

study called the Sydney har study and in

this study this was done in the 70s and

this is a study that's used often to

advocate for the toxic effects of seed

oils and in this study uh males that had

had a heart event or a heart attack of

sorts uh were uh randomly allocated to

either increase um

their omega-6 so this particular type of

fatty acid that we is in seed oils um in

their diet by having lots of seed oil MH

or they were asked to just follow their

normal diet which is quite high in

saturated fat and what they found is

those that increased their seed oil

intake went on to have worse Health

outcomes now the problem with that is is

that in those days the majority of seed

oils underwent an industrial process

called partial

hydrogenation and partial hydrogenation

produces a very harmful fat called trans

fats you might have heard of trans heard

of the word yeah and so they were eating

this seed oil in the form of a margarine

or fat spread that had undergone partial

hydrogenation and therefore was full of

trans fats trans fats increase

cholesterol trans fats increase

inflammation trans fats are bad fast

that's why they are not in our food

supply

anymore and so of course that seed oil

was going to cause worse Health outcomes

but it's not how seed oil is consumed

now and so it's that clever cherry

picking of evidence that often supports

a lot of the neutr bolics that's out

there yeah and you know people

you know with all these studies out

there and with some studies having less

rigor

and studies that aren't don't have sort

of the randomized control element or

what's the other term for a study where

they do um they look at like 50 studies

at once so they're met analysis we do

randomized control trials so these will

be trials where there's always a control

arm will randomly allocate some people

to an intervention like seed oils and

some people to control could be

saturated fat could be beef Tallow

that's been done and then we look at

different Health outcomes we follow them

over a period of time or it could be

that I ask you for a month to have seed

oils and then next month have beef

Tallow for example and then we'll look

at different Health outcomes compare how

you responded to one versus the other

and then what we do as scientists is if

there's enough of these clinical trials

these randomized control trials we put

them all together into what's called a

metaanalysis and we look what does the

metaanalysis show so for example for

seedor there's met analysis for example

of um about

42 uh randomized control trials where

they comp seed oils to other fats

showing consistently that there is no

harmful benefit that actually there's a

reduction in cardiovascular disease

because the particular fat that's in

seed oil has a really potent cholesterol

lowering effect so it's actually

beneficial for our health yet beef

Tallow is full of saturated Fair it's

full of ptic acid which is a particular

type of saturated fat that we know is

bad for us there has been studies and

these studies were done many years ago

when uh beef Tallow was actually used

comparing seedor with beef Tallow seedor

always were came out better seedor

always reduce cholesterol compared to

beef Tallow reduced inflammation Etc

reduced cardiovascular risk factors

you're very passionate about this I am

because I've researched I as a research

active scientist where I've run

randomized control Charles and I tell

you what you sweat Blood and Tears I

love my research but it's bleming hard

work doing a clinical trial you know

getting ethical approval recruiting

people changing people's diet running

dietary studies is really hard because

it's not a case of giving them a pill if

I'm going to give you seedor I've got to

think well how am I going to do that

what am I what instead of what what am I

taking out of your diet to give you that

how am I going to make sure the rest of

your diet is control so once you run

studies yourself and you sweat at that

blood and tears and then you see this

nutriol this misinformation out there

it's really bloody frustrating but it's

a good thing that people like yourself

are leaning into the mediums now of like

podcasting because it's worth saying

that as it relates to the sort of

transfer of information it's typically

people who have either a platform or who

are great public speakers or great sales

people that are ultimately going to like

resonate the most reach the furthest

with their information irrespective of

whether that information is is credible

so it's good to see more and more people

that are are in the research now sort of

stepping away from the research

laboratory and coming into environments

where they can provide counteracting

information and as someone that's on my

own Journey To Figure to sort of weave

through all of this information to find

out what's right for me um it's

difficult and for a lot of people it's

super difficult I mean the way that I

kind of my own framework for this is I

listen to things and then I don't don't

necessarily trust one source to be true

but I I I almost like wait

the authority experience and the rigor

behind how they've arrived that

information and then I guess I perform

my own meta analysis across lots of

different people that I speak to and

guests and information that I get to

find the sweet spots where the sweet

spot for me is many people have said it

that I think have a lot of sort of rigor

and authority and um

uh experience in that subject matter so

then I accept it to be true whereas I'm

not going to go on Instagram and see a

real popup in it says that I don't know

putting sugar in your eyeballs is good

and I'm not going to crack on with it

just because the person's got Charisma

and I think in the world we live in

where there is now this decentralization

of information which has its upsides and

its downsides we all need to have our

own decision framework um set aside what

is true but I think yours is more

rigorous than most so many people get

their information from One Source many

people trust one source

and you're right that as academics we're

rarely given a platform yeah and this is

what I valued most actually about what

I've done at Zoe well being able to do

the kind of trials that we're doing but

being able to have a platform not just