ZOE Science & Nutrition

It seems like every day, someone new mentions intermittent fasting. But what is it, exactly?  There are myriad options — from the 5:2 diet, with two days of extreme calorie restriction each week, to the warrior diet, which involves eating only raw fruit during the day and a mammoth feast at night. Whatever the approach, intermittent fasting involves restricting the window of time when you eat. Sup...

Diets rich in fiber are associated with good heart health and metabolic wellbeing. This type of diet can do wonders for our gut microbiome. With so many benefits, relatively low cost, and high availability, fiber should be a staple nutrient in our diets — but most of us have a deficiency.   In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Will ask: If fiber is so good for us, why...

Do our blood vessels hold the secret to long life? 60,000 miles long. That’s the length of the tube system inside us that transports blood, oxygen, and nutrients to the cells in our body.  If these tubes fail, the result can be fatal. In some cases, it’s a heart attack. In others, it’s a stroke, where the blood supply to the brain is disrupted, and brain cells are damaged or killed.  Heart attacks...

Most of us are familiar with the unpleasant feeling of being bloated. It can happen after eating specific foods or when you experience slower bowel movements. Sometimes, it can be a symptom of an underlying health condition.  To take a closer look at issues related to gas and bloating, we’ve invited a special guest this week: superstar gastroenterologist and Zoe’s US Medical Director Will Bulsiewi...

Our planet is overheating. Human society is creating too much carbon dioxide, stopping the sun’s warmth from escaping back into space. As earth gets hotter, its ice caps are melting, causing sea levels to rise, and submerging entire communities. Floods, droughts, and wildfires are already becoming much more common. Some effects of climate change are now irreversible, but there is still hope, and a...

Cholesterol in our food has a bad reputation. Many of us think of it as something to try to cut it out of our diet completely.  Yet new research could redeem eggs and other cholesterol-rich foods.  In today’s short episode of ZOE Science and Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: what happens when you eat high cholesterol foods?  Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/ Download our FRE...

In today’s world, we increasingly live our lives late into the night. Whether it's work obligations, socializing, or being glued to a screen, we ignore the sun's rise and fall.  But most of us are unaware that a clock is ticking away inside us.  It uses light to keep time and tells us when to sleep and eat. Should we listen? Or is this biological clock simply a relic from a past time? In today’s e...

Artificial sweeteners are everywhere. Not only in diet soft drinks but in many foods that you wouldn’t expect. You’ve probably eaten some today without realising. Sweeteners have been around for over a hundred years yet remain the subject of much debate. It's hard to know how they stack up next to the alternatives. In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: are ar...

Kanchan Koya grew up in a house filled with wonderful fragrances from the spices simmering on her grandmother’s stove. In India, it was a common belief that spices were more than just pleasant tastes. Ancient wisdom said they had medicinal properties, and it was common for household medicine cabinets to store dried spices, not pills. Kanchan grew up to become a molecular biologist, studying in the...

Vegan diets are increasingly popular. As more of us reduce our animal product consumption, countless new meat and dairy alternatives appear on our supermarket shelves. Manufacturers market these products as healthy options (unsurprisingly), but perhaps we shouldn’t be so quick to trust them…  In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: are meat and dairy alternativ...

We’ve all felt the effects of food on our mood, so it would stand to reason that dietary intervention for mental health would be well studied and a regularly deployed treatment.  But this is far from reality, as historically, psychiatry was only concerned with what happened from the neck up. In today’s episode, Jonathan is joined by Felice Jacka, Professor of Nutritional Psychiatry and Director of...

A recent study claims that eating a hotdog reduces life expectancy by 38 minutes, and eating salmon could extend it by 70 minutes. At face value, this data implies you can eat your way to immortality. Taken with a pinch of salt, it suggests you can offset the harm from poor dietary choices. But does food really work this way? In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah...

Biochemist Jessie Inchauspe heads into work one morning at a genetics lab in California. During the morning meeting, management offer staff the chance to self-test a new medical device. Jessie accepts.  She couldn’t have known this device would take her on a journey of discovery to reshape her health and help countless others do the same.   The device was a continuous blood sugar monitor, and it w...

If you're confused about the health effects of fats, you are not alone. You've probably read the headlines - fats are killing us! Then found claims they’re actually healthy in the same publication the following week. Saturated fats have been touted as the worst of all.  While there’s ambiguity around other fat sources, saturated fats are universally demonized. But are they really the super villain...

Keto has been promoted as a magic bullet for weight loss by its supporters and slammed as dangerous by its opponents. It's no surprise - completely removing almost all carbohydrates is not what most people consider ‘a balanced diet’. With carbs off the table, Keto diets involve a dramatically increased fat intake. At the same time, drastically reducing carbs means starving our gut microbes of the...

The word ‘processed’ has become synonymous with being unhealthy. The mainstream media encourages us to detox from processed food or offers us ‘10 easy ways’ to stop eating it.  But nearly everything we consume has undergone some type of processing. In today’s short episode of ZOE Science & Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah ask: If most of what we eat is processed, can it really be that unhealthy for u...

A mummified man found in the mountains of Italy on a nutrition science podcast? Have we gone completely off track?  We haven’t - we promise.  This unfortunate soul could be the key that unlocks an entirely new understanding of human health.  This mummy, discovered in an alpine snow drift by two hikers, gives us a remarkable glimpse into the surprising dietary choices of our ancestors. In today’s e...

We’re excited for you to hear our NEW bitesize podcast: ZOE Shorts. Some of you requested some short-form episodes, so we delivered! In between the longer episodes, Jonathan teams up with world-leading nutrition researcher and podcast regular Dr Sarah Berry to tackle one hot topic from nutrition science in just 15 minutes. From saturated fats to vitamins, time-restricted eating and much more, find...

From blueberries to salmon, kale to acai, it seems like anything and everything can be classed as a superfood these days. Supposedly they can prevent cancer, reduce inflammation, and even help you live longer… In today’s short episode of ZOE Science and Nutrition, Jonathan and Sarah look at the history of superfoods and ask: are some foods really more ‘super’ than others? Or is this just another m...

It’s a biological process that we need to stay alive. Yet too much of it leads to disease and a shorter life.  Inflammation is the immune system’s response to an outside event it thinks is dangerous. This stimulus could be an injury, like falling off your bike or an infection by a virus or bacteria. But inflammation can also be triggered by our food in the hours after we eat.  But if this natural...

It’s no exaggeration to say that bread shaped modern humanity - it was the cultivation of wheat for flour that transformed our ancestors from hunter-gatherers to city dwellers.  Today, millions of us start the day with a slice of toast, and most lunches in the US and UK are wrapped in a slice of bread or a burger bun as a cheap, flexible, and delicious energy source. But modern industrial processe...

Coffee’s earliest consumption dates back millennia when the tribesmen of Ethiopia used its ground-up berries to help aid concentration during prayer.  Arriving in Europe in the 17th century, Coffee quickly began to replace beer and wine as a favourite breakfast drink.  In the 20th century, coffee was blamed for high blood pressure and heart attacks, and more recently linked to a rising epidemic of...

You may have heard there are bugs in your gut. But do they matter?  Today, the evidence shows the answer is a resounding yes. This ecosystem of tiny microbes living in our bodies is one of the most exciting areas in medical research, linked to everything from metabolic to mental health. So while many of us have heard that gut health is essential, few of us understand why and what we should do to s...

Today we’re talking about fat, a delicious component of our food with a terrible reputation.   Fats have been broadly associated with weight gain and heart disease until recently. A mountain of new scientific evidence suggests this is wrong and that it's not as simple as ‘all fat is bad’. Indeed, eating more healthy fat might actually reduce heart disease for many people.   In today’s episode, Jon...

Our transformation into coach potatoes happened in the blink of an eye. Only 100 years ago, most people relied on manual work to make their living.  Today, things are different. Many of us live our lives in front of a screen. Online shopping and remote work mean some of us don’t need to leave the house at all. So how bad is this for us?  The answer is now clear: Low levels of physical activity lea...