Transform your metabolism: 3 simple steps | Shawn Stevenson and Prof. Tim Spector

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In this insightful episode, Shawn Stevenson and Prof. Tim Spector, hosted by Zoe, discuss three transformative steps for improving metabolic health. The conversation touches on the critical roles of sleep, the impact of ultra-processed foods on metabolism, and the broader environmental factors contributing to metabolic health decline. Shawn and Tim share personal insights and research findings to provide actionable advice, including adjusting food choices to prevent blood sugar spikes and improving sleep habits to boost physiological well-being. This engaging discussion is packed with practical tips for enhancing metabolic health and maintaining a balanced lifestyle.

Highlights

Metabolic health in the U.S. is a major concern, with only 12% of the population being metabolically healthy. 💪
Ultra-processed foods can halve your metabolic rate, causing the body to inefficiently process calories. 🚫
Better sleep can lead to 50% more fat loss, emphasizing the power of rest in metabolic health. 🌙
Environmental chemicals and ultra-processed foods disrupt metabolic processes, making it hard for bodies to function. 🧬
Changing dietary habits to reduce blood sugar spikes can improve overall health and metabolic efficiency. 🍽

Key Takeaways

Only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy, highlighting a critical public health issue. 📉
Ultra-processed foods dramatically affect our metabolism, slowing it down significantly. 🍔
Sleep plays a fundamental role in improving metabolic health, with better sleep leading to increased fat loss. 💤
Environmental factors, including chemicals in food and air, contribute to poor metabolic health. 🌍
Adjusting diet to avoid blood sugar spikes can significantly enhance metabolic health. 🥦

Overview

In this engaging episode, Shawn Stevenson and Prof. Tim Spector join the Zoe podcast to dive into the world of metabolism and offer simple yet effective strategies to enhance metabolic health. The duo discusses how our modern environment—rife with ultra-processed foods and ubiquitous chemicals—plays a pivotal role in undermining our metabolic efficiency. They highlight the importance of understanding these factors to make informed dietary choices.

Shawn and Tim underscore the unexpected culprits behind metabolic illnesses, noting how seemingly small lifestyle changes can have a profound impact. They reveal how ultra-processed foods can slow down our metabolism by up to 50%, stressing the significant difference in how our bodies process these compared to whole foods. Their conversation extends to debunking myths around quick fixes, advocating for genuine lifestyle adjustments instead.

The episode wraps up with actionable insights into improving metabolic health, such as avoiding food that spikes blood sugar and enhancing sleep quality. By making these adjustments, listeners can significantly balance their metabolic health, shedding light on the power of holistic changes in diet and lifestyle. Shawn and Tim's dynamic exchange not only educates but also motivates listeners to make beneficial, lasting changes.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Metabolism The chapter titled 'Introduction to Metabolism' discusses the significant impact of sleep on metabolism. It references a study by the University of Chicago, which found that individuals who slept for 8 and a half hours lost about 50% more body fat. Sean Stevenson, the host of the Model Health show and author of bestselling books such as 'Eat Smarter' and 'Sleep Smarter,' emphasizes the close relationship between lifestyle choices and metabolism. The chapter also highlights a concerning statistic that only 12% of United States citizens are metabolically healthy, while over 60% of average Americans fall into an unspecified category impacted by metabolic health issues.
00:30 - 01:30: Impact of Processed Foods on Metabolism A fascinating study published in the journal Food and Nutrition Research compared the effects of consuming a whole food sandwich versus an ultra-processed food sandwich. The participants who consumed the ultra-processed food sandwich experienced a 50% reduction in calorie burn, indicating that the processed food blocked their metabolism. This reduction in metabolic rate signifies that consuming processed foods can severely impact one's metabolism. Metabolic disorders contribute to susceptibility to various health conditions, such as type two diabetes, illustrating the profound impact of dietary choices on metabolic health.
01:30 - 02:00: How Food Quality Affects Metabolism The chapter discusses the impact of food quality on metabolism, emphasizing the importance of managing insulin levels for metabolic health. Professor Tim Spectre, a top cited scientist and co-founder at Zoe, advises avoiding foods that stress insulin levels and suggests replacing them with high-quality fats. He highlights the significance of making dietary changes, starting with breakfast, to improve metabolic health.
02:00 - 04:00: Explaining Metabolism and Its Components In this chapter, titled "Explaining Metabolism and Its Components," the discussion kicks off with a tradition of engaging questions from listeners at Zoe Science and Nutrition, where world-renowned scientists share insights on improving health through research. The guest, Sean, expresses his pleasure in participating, alongside Tim, another regular contributor. The episode starts with a quick-fire round of listener questions, allowing only brief responses—either yes, no, or one sentence—setting the stage for a deeper dive into the topic of metabolism and its components.
04:00 - 06:00: Metabolic Health and Its Importance This chapter explores the concept of metabolic health, debunking common myths and providing insights into its significance beyond weight concerns. It clarifies that not all individuals with poor metabolic health are overweight and explains that having a faster metabolism is not inherently healthier. The chapter emphasizes the influence of diet and sleep on metabolic rates, underscoring the potential to improve metabolism through lifestyle changes.
06:00 - 08:00: Impact of the Environment on Metabolism The chapter begins by addressing a common misconception that metabolism is solely about converting food into energy, stating that this is incorrect. The conversation pivots to the topic of metabolism, noting that the podcast has not previously focused on this subject. Despite the frequent use of the term, there is a lack of understanding, prompting a discussion starting from the basics of what metabolism actually involves.
08:00 - 10:00: Ultra Processed Foods and Metabolic Health The chapter explores the concept of metabolism, emphasizing that it is far more complex than simply converting food into energy. It highlights the intricate network of events involved in metabolism, where energy is transformed and interdependent processes feed into one another. The chapter aligns with the principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another.
10:00 - 12:00: Role of Genetics and Lifestyle in Metabolism The chapter focuses on the fundamentals of how food, body fat, and oxygen contribute to the creation of energy in the human body. It delves into the different components of food that are involved in energy production and touches upon other elements besides food that get converted into energy, emphasizing the holistic nature of metabolism involving genetics and lifestyle.
12:00 - 14:00: Impact of Sleep on Metabolism The chapter discusses the intricate relationship between sleep and metabolism, highlighting how it's not just food that influences metabolic processes. Importantly, it emphasizes the role of sleep in ensuring that when food is consumed, it is efficiently converted into usable energy by the body, particularly at the mitochondrial level.
14:00 - 17:00: Foods to Support Metabolic Function In this chapter, the focus is on foods that support metabolic function. A key topic discussed is the process by which the body converts food into energy, using bread as an example. The chapter references a study published in the Food and Nutrition Research journal, where subjects participated in a crossover study involving the consumption of sandwiches, highlighting the body's metabolic processes.
17:00 - 18:00: Concluding Thoughts In the concluding chapter, the speaker discusses the difference in food quality by contrasting two types of cheese sandwiches. One is made with whole multi-grain bread and real cheddar cheese, while the other consists of white bread and a cheese product, often referred to as 'cheese singles.' These singles, notably from the brand Kraft, are legally not allowed to be called cheese because they do not meet certain standards required for a product to be labeled as such. The discussion is part of a study where subjects consumed both types of sandwiches to compare and document the effects.

Transform your metabolism: 3 simple steps | Shawn Stevenson and Prof. Tim Spector Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 our sleep has a huge impact on our metabolism scientists at the University of Chicago did a study when test subjects get 8 and 1 half hours of sleep they lost about 50% more body fat Sean Stevenson is the host of the model Health show his bestselling books eat smarter and sleep smarter look at the close relationship between our lifestyle and Metabolism only 12% of United States citizens are metabolically healthy and over 60% of the average Americans is now
00:30 - 01:00 made of ultr processed food there was this fascinating study published in the journal food and nutrition research they had test subjects consume either a whole food sandwich or a sandwich of ultra processed food when people ate the processed food sandwich they had about a 50% reduction in calorie burn it blocked their metabolism what does it mean if someone is metabolically unhealthy a disordered metabolism predisposes you to all kinds of conditions like type two
01:00 - 01:30 diabetes and heart disease Professor Tim Spectre is one of the world's top 100 most cited scientists a professor of epidemiology and my scientific co-founder at Zoe the number one thing for metabolic health is you need to avoid foods that are really going to stress your insulin levels you should replace those with good quality fats for many people that just means changing their breakfast and so Tim what's your go-to breakfast my go-to breakfast is
01:30 - 02:00 welcome to Zoe science and nutrition where World leading scientists explain how their research can improve your health Sean thank you for joining me today it is my pleasure to be here and Tim always great to have you here me too so Sean we have a tradition here at Zoe where we always start with a quick fire round of questions from our listeners we have very strict rules you can say yes or no or if you have to a one- sentence answer okay are you willing to give it a
02:00 - 02:30 go I'll give it a shot all right are most people metabolically healthy no can you always tell if someone has bad metabolic health because they will be overweight no is a faster metabolism better for your health not necessarily and Tim can the type of food you eat change your metabolism yes can change in how you sleep improve your metabolism definitely and finally Sean
02:30 - 03:00 what's the most common misconception about metabolism that is just about converting food into energy and it's not absolutely not well I think that's what brilliant introduction into what we're going to get into now firstly we've never done a podcast specifically on metabolism and secondly I really don't understand what it is despite the fact that the word has come up so often so actually I'd love to start right at the very beginning Sean what is metabolism and why does it
03:00 - 03:30 matter from a rudimentary perspective it's converting food into energy but that's looking at energy through this very isolated vanilla way you know there's this entire microcosm of events and metabolism is really about the sum of all the different pieces that can create and generate energy and that feed into each other and for me it's really based on that principle of energy cannot be created nor destroyed it can only be converted from one form into another and
03:30 - 04:00 so this energy exchange even if we're looking at that very vanilla version of it of food is creating energy where does the food come from what are the pieces and parts of the food that create the energy and there are other things besides food that are getting converted into energy for us as well and whether that's body fat whether that is you know oxygen and how it relates to all these different pieces there are literally
04:00 - 04:30 millions of parts and inputs that determine metabolism it isn't just food and even from the perspective of food being used as energy right the end point being the mitochondria which we'll get to I'm sure and talk a lot about when we eat a food it doesn't just become energy it gets converted into a currency that our body can actually use our body runs on a certain currency and so there's so much work involved in converting that food into the currency that our body can use and sometimes that conversion
04:30 - 05:00 doesn't happen right our body isn't converting everything that we eat into that currency that we're using and Sean could you talk me through that maybe in a very simple way like let's imagine I eat a piece of bread let's use it actually a good example since you mentioned bread all right there was this fascinating study published recently in the journal food and nutrition research and they had test subjects to and this is a crossover study so everybody's doing both things to consume a sandwich
05:00 - 05:30 of either whole multi-grain bread and cheddar cheese or a sandwich of what they deem to be ultra processed food which was white bread and cheese product and here in the United States like craft is a big cheese company that's what I grew up eating but it's called craft singles because they can't legally call it cheese there's not cheese in the cheese and so it's this kind of cheese product right and so they had test subjects to consume both sandwiches at different parts of the study now keep in
05:30 - 06:00 mind these sandwiches are have the same amount of protein fats carbohydrates and the same amount of calories but when they ate the two different versions of these sandwiches very different things happened with their metabolism in particular the expenditure of the calories they consumed so when people ate the processed food Sandwich versus the whole food sandwich they had about a 50% reduction in calorie expenditure or calorie burn after eating that processed food sandwich something happened and
06:00 - 06:30 to to create a very simple understanding it basically created metabolic clogs it blocked the body's ability to use that energy efficiently and to get rid of it and so what does our body do it's going to do what it can to protect us and if even that means holding on to some of these calories to try to figure out you know what to do with this later at some point and not to mention all the other pieces
06:30 - 07:00 that come along with that it's not just the calories from the food and and as Tim knows this as well there's a lot of other compounds that come along with ultra processed foods whether this is you know dilates whether this is you know pesticides and all these other things that can disrupt our metabolism and so when it boils down to it if we can just kind kind of consolidate this whole idea when we're choosing to eat a certain food it's not just this calary
07:00 - 07:30 conversation and Tim and I talked a lot about this when I when I had him on my show it's so much bigger there are all these and this is the term I want to share with everybody epic caloric controllers they're these epic caloric controllers that are determining how our body is processing the food that we're eating and so today we're going to expand from the conversation of just calories and understand that our metabolism when it boils down to it it is the conversion of food into energy
07:30 - 08:00 yes but there are all these other really wonderful factors for us to pay attention to and today I want to help everybody to just refine it to some very simple ideas because it it can be complex obviously there's so many pieces to cover but today I want to share some of the like top things that are the Epic caloric controllers that we can apply in our lives to make better choices and to have a more efficient metabolism overall that study you refer to was that
08:00 - 08:30 short-term metabolism or long-term because I think people often get confused because in a way the long term might be more important as as it as the body resets whether it's from exercise or eating yeah do you want to try to help us through that because I always find that you know one of the hardest things when we talk about metabolism is this the short-term reaction of the body and then what's the sort of what's the longterm rate that's such a great question that only you would ask of
08:30 - 09:00 course what we're looking at here is exactly that was a short-term effect right so there's a 50% reduction in expenditure of calories in the short term but long term what does that look like well the body's going to find a way to get rid of a lot of that energy but there's this residual effect as you're doing that day after day after day and this kind of compounding reverse interest in a way and making it harder and harder and harder for us to have that long-term energy expenditure and so it's just taking a snapshot and that's
09:00 - 09:30 the thing about these studies they're always looking at things in these snapshot moments and life is so much more Dynamic you looked at these two different meals that looked almost the same like in theory they're like bread and cheese bread and cheese but one is sort of ultr processed and one is sort of much more whole grain and natural and real cheese and you're saying that metabolism is the way that you convert food into energy but although both of them had the same number of calories so you think that like the metabolism has to be the same you're saying that with this ultr processed food somehow your
09:30 - 10:00 body's metabolism was completely different and it sort of held on to like a whole bunch of those calories and stored them as as fat basically whereas with that more natural food it sort of it sort of burnt them up even though they were the same calories did I understand that right now we can't say the study doesn't reveal whether or not it's getting stored as fat okay per se but the body is slowing down its processing of that energy there's going to be a tendency especially over time that more more of that's going to get
10:00 - 10:30 stored as fat but as Tim mentioned in the short term it can just be everything's kind of slowing down your body from my perspective is just trying to figure out what to do with this stuff because it is newly invented and you know based on the the things we really evolve eating where we have a level of efficiency and our bodies are incredibly intelligent and resilient so they could figure out how to how to process that cheese product you know if it's forced to but ideally is that optimal probably not it amazes
10:30 - 11:00 me that so many of you watch And subscribe to this show we now get more than 2 million views a month on YouTube which is a number I find very hard to comprehend two years ago when we started this podcast I guess it would be a few thousand of you turning in at most and that the show would serve mainly to keep our Zoey coaches informed about the latest science so they could help our members I felt pretty great when so many chose to tune in from the start and that many continue to tune in each week so
11:00 - 11:30 we'll continue making Zoe science and nutrition and do everything we can to keep making it better and if you appreciate this there's a simple free favor that you can do for us in return hit the Subscribe button below that's it thank you and on with the show I think the the following question that was one of the top questions that we had was around metabolic health so just as I think I'm still a bit confused really about exactly what metabolism is I'm definitely also confused about what
11:30 - 12:00 metabolic health is what does it mean metabolic health and I love that this is a big part of the conversation today because you know when I graduated from college I studied nutrition I studied biochemistry and I was not taught about quote metabolic Health all right it's just like even in my first nutritional science class you know we were first of all we were taught the food pyramid this was the the '90s my teacher the professor was because basically you know
12:00 - 12:30 he came in and he shared that you know if you want to lose weight you um expend more energy than you take in right as simple as that if you want to gain weight you consume more calories than you expend and that that was it if you want to stay the same they need to be the same and a little side note and I don't talk about this often but my teacher was significantly overweight and I'm not saying that you know this was a character flaw or anything like that but I'm sure that he was doing a lot of the things that he was trying to teach us
12:30 - 13:00 but they just simply weren't working for him and he just needed in his mind I just need to cut more calories I need to do better and we start to punish ourselves because this Dogma that we've been taught isn't working out and it does work for some people it does work for some people because at the time he's teaching us and he's applying we need to eat s to 11 servings of quote healthy whole grains every day and that's the basis of our diet and so some of the principles that I took from that is
13:00 - 13:30 basically you know if it's white it's not right all right so no more refined carbohydrates I'm not going to eat this regular pasta that I grew up eating let me get whole wheat pasta right I'm not going to eat the white bread that I grew up eating in in the United States is like Wonder Bread and Bunny Bread and now I'm going to eat whole grain bread I'm going to eat a lot of brown food and this is not taken into account my unique metabolic fingerprint right so these are some of the things
13:30 - 14:00 that go into our own unique metabolic fingerprint and our own unique metabolic health and part of that is our own unique microbial fingerprint and what if somebody has a hard time with their microbial makeup trying to process a lot of these quote healthy whole grains what's that what is that going to do to their metabolic Health what is that going to do to their energy uh assimilation and expenditure right all this stuff matters and we can't have this kind of cookie
14:00 - 14:30 cutter approach to things and so an example that really like it stayed with me for years that I couldn't understand and I would go to this Chinese food restaurant that was right off campus and I was like wondering why the the store owner and their family I would go around the time when they're having their lunch and they were like eating white rice and like steamed vegetables and I'm just like why are they eating white rice don't they know that you know this is so much better for to eat a brown rice and
14:30 - 15:00 what it was truly if you you know my wife is from Africa as well she's from Kenya and they've been eating white rice for a long time yes there can be parts of the container or the brand of certain things that can add fiber but they can also be a gut irritant for a lot of people as well and so I think some people our ancestors figured out centuries ago that if we want to efficiently process this food without side effects if we're looking for caloric energy right if that's our goal
15:00 - 15:30 with this thing we might want to get rid of this because it can create some gut irritation for some people and so getting that background education and not being taught what metabolic health is which is what is right for me right now to efficiently process my food to feel good to of course a body composition can come into the mix as well it's like a out picture and your opening like rapid fire
15:30 - 16:00 question was can we have out picturing of fitness and still be metabolically unhealthy absolutely but it is a part of the equation there are all these different parts and so you know ultimately and the most recent data here in the United States and again I think that the number of course it can shift a little bit but I think it's pretty close only 12% of United States citizens are metabolically healthy only 12% only 12% that should be outrageous like blow our minds but the question is again this is what we're talking about what does that
16:00 - 16:30 mean what is metabolic Health well in this particular study they were looking at you know triglyceride levels they were looking at HDL and LDL ratios they were looking at yes body composition body fat percentage and things like that but it's still looking at things through a very small frame so I'm not going to be the guy that comes on this show and tells you this is exactly what metabolic health is Sean I've always always thought of you know I have this problem
16:30 - 17:00 writing books to you know to the public to try and explain metabolism yeah and my editor says what is metabolism metabolic Health well the best way I described it and I love your thoughts on it is it's the energy management system of the body and its efficiency it's how all the bits in the body work together and how efficient it is or whether it's inefficient and it's having to work too hard to keep the house warm or cool or whatever ever it is is keeping it
17:00 - 17:30 exactly at that right temperature all the time regardless of what you're doing do you think that's a a reasonable way to absolutely efficiency is such a key word in this but that can be misconstrued because we can be very efficient in converting that white rice into glucose and shoot up our our blood glucose have a huge response from insulin yeah it's sufficient to convert that into energy but is that metabolically healthy for us and so we've got to take into account
17:30 - 18:00 that efficiency means multiple things as well yeah it means not having side effects and means you know not having other things happen to the system that make it go wrong I guess I was just thinking that you were talking about the you know the white rice and then the brown rice and the white bread and and the brown red and you know both Tim and I have both done the Zoe test team where was part of it you you get your own blood sugar and probably you know many of the listeners um on this podcast uh have also been members of done that
18:00 - 18:30 and I think one of the things that I remember being most shocked by was a whole bunch of things that I thought were really healthy because they were Brown and so like the first time I ate brown bread and I spiked my blood sugar so much and just like Tim my wife's blood sugar spiked a lot less than mine which was sort of annoying and like brown rice like off the roof so definitely have had that personal experience you're talking about about how your metabolism is dealing with this not at all in the sort of nice easy way that I had always assume because I've been told that this stuff was sort of
18:30 - 19:00 fine for me yeah and that can be explained through a number of mechanisms right one could be inflammation there could be this inflammatory response that's causing some disruption with how your body's handling that and that reminds me of a study this was conducted by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recently and they found that and this is a huge issue that people AR talking about in relationship to metabolism inflammation yes but specifically neuroinflammation and these researchers were looking at hypothalamic inflammation so the
19:00 - 19:30 hypothalamus is kind of glorified as like a master gland in our brain that's controlling a lot of things Downstream it's integration of our nervous system and our endocrine system so our hormones and also our nervous system and what they found was that people who had inflammation in their brain hypothalamic inflammation had the accumulation of more belly fat and body fat Downstream and a higher level of insulin resistance now here's the catch people with more insulin resistance and
19:30 - 20:00 more body fat also had higher rates of inflammation in their brain so it's like this Vicious Circle that's creating all this metabolic unrest so their metabolic health is suffering because of inflammation in their brain but it's just it's the chicken or the egg scenario like which one came first you know which one's causing which and of course I'm I'm holding back on sharing Solutions right out of the gate but I got to share one really quickly if that's okay I got to share one could you couldn't wa so some researchers at
20:00 - 20:30 Auburn University uh here in the US found out that there's this really remarkable food that can help to address this neuroinflammation it's a food that's been used for thousands of years of course and it's ooc canthal Rich extra virgin olive oil they found that it was able to reduce inflammation in the brain specifically helping to repair and support the blood brain barrier because part of the reason this inflammation epidemic is happening in the brain is
20:30 - 21:00 that things are getting into the brain that that shouldn't be there there's a breakdown of the bloodb brain barrier that's happening because of the environment that we live in we could get into all the different reasons why but it's Mayhem and if people are wondering like is my brain inflamed chances are yes you know especially if we're not metabolically healthy and the question would be well why doesn't my doctor know this the brain is very protective you know this isn't something that you're going to to notice per se unless you have very very
21:00 - 21:30 sophisticated Imaging and all these different tests done it's just a place that we're not looking but I'm telling you right now and people that are listening to a show like this they're always ahead of the curve and so you're going to hear more about this in the Years coming up I'm sure about neuroinflammation the downstream effects with metabolic health and also body fat causing more neuroinflammation and you're saying the magic properties of extra Virg olive oil on the brain as well as in you know other things that
21:30 - 22:00 might have been studied before yeah and one of the benefits of that extra virgin olive oil is it tends to be anti-inflammatory yes you mentioned a few minutes ago this idea that like only 12% of adults in the US are metabolically healthy which is like an extraordinary number and I know that across Europe and the rest of the western world you know these numbers are not very different I'd love to understand like what that means and you know Tim you're a you're a doctor what does it mean if someone is metabolically unhealthy you know for their long-term
22:00 - 22:30 Health well classically it's been associated with many common disorders so the main one has been type two diabetes so you're much more prone to have type two diabetes if things are unstable in a way and that just means that your the amount of insulin you're producing relative amount of sugar is out of kilter and therefore there's more stress on the system therefore you're more likely to end up with type two diabetes also means you're more likely to have increased risk of heart
22:30 - 23:00 disease uh increased uh blood lipids and inflammation in your arteries your blood pressure is more likely to be raised therefore you're going to get hypertension and then get strokes Etc and increasingly it's also been linked to uh brain disorders as as we were discussing but the big one at the moment is the increase in uh dementia which has also been termed as type 3 diabetes because of increase in both conditions in in in many countries
23:00 - 23:30 so having a disordered metabolic condition really predisposes you to all kinds of conditions and there's probably many more that we don't yet associated with it just because your your basic system is not functioning properly which means that the rest of the body is struggling to keep up as well so as well as these individual problems that we're seeing with glucose and sugar and ins in and blood
23:30 - 24:00 vessels the whole system is just working too hard I think is the way I see it and therefore your body can't repair itself as well as well as it could otherwise and also you get this other problem of inflammation coming in uh due to the fact that your Basic Energy System is not not really on its top game it's starting to wobble I'm trying to think of an analogy and I haven't got a very good one but is isn't my analogy a bit like you know I know I need to have the oil always needs to be topped up in my
24:00 - 24:30 car you know it's one of those things that they do when they check on it you know in order for it to run fine and my car runs these days for like 10 12 years without anything going wrong anymore but if for some reason I let all the oil like run low and I keep running it then I know I'm sort of causing all this damage to this car and my car is going to like something's going to go horribly wrong after like three years or four years is that how I think about it's not like this big collapse immediately it's like an ongoing yeah it's damage well whether it's your car or it's the boiler in your house that's leaking in order to
24:30 - 25:00 keep your house heated at the perfect temperature you're having to sort of put more fuel in it's less efficient and uh every now and again it's going to break down or and and cause other problems I think that's probably more the way uh to see it and you might end up with rust in the system and and things that wouldn't happen if it was really in its in its tiptop state but there in lies the problem with trying to cons validate metabolic Health into is it the oil
25:00 - 25:30 right we've got engine coolant we've got uh gasoline right to run your car we've got even the windshield wiper fluid could be a problem if it starts raining right it's all of these factors that are impacting the performance of our human vehicle right and so we can't consolidate it and wonderful researchers are trying to like that study that I mentioned with the 12% right we're looking at cardi metabolic factors but what what about how your body is hand handling insulin and blood sugar and all
25:30 - 26:00 these different things but none of none of these things are happening in a vacuum and they're all affecting each other at the same time there isn't a cell in your body that's not being affected by the activities of all of your other cells we have trillions of cells and it's a cellular Community I like I like this idea all your cells are working together in harmony that's let your anal you know these systems are working really great what are the simple things that have changed that means that you know now you're describing almost everybody is not being metabolically healthy and presumably 100 years ago
26:00 - 26:30 they were what what are the what are the key things to use one word to kind of Encompass it's the environment the environment that we're existing is very different than a 100 years ago very very different and whether this is the environment exposure itself you know there are billions and billions and billions of newly invented chemicals that are released into the environment here in the us alone and this is allowed by the way by the EPA the Environmental Protection Agency supposed to be protecting uh we're and that's the thing
26:30 - 27:00 too we are a part of the environment as well we tend to separate humans and environment we're a part of the environment and so just the air that we're breathing is different and you know recently I was having a conversation about these P chemicals or these forever chemicals that are just a part of our lives today and he the ones on Teflon and uh you know the frying pans and uh cookwar and things Dupont thanks to DuPont you know this is back
27:00 - 27:30 around the 1940s and Teflon um which again just look at this incredible Innovation but now the the result of that the Fallout of that is that 98% of people tested on planet Earth I'm talking about from Alaska to Hawaii 98% of people now have DuPont's chemicals in their blood and the researchers had to go back and look at blood from uh pre that time you know uh around and it was from from soldiers to
27:30 - 28:00 find blood that was clear of these compounds and so the air we're breathing the chemical exposure whether whether it's through uh you know cooking and the fumes and this is going back to another thing about our metabolic health and energy we're using it's not just the things we're eating it's also what we're inhaling as well is used as energy and conversion and so obviously the food our food culture is very very different than
28:00 - 28:30 our ancestors and you know I've been talking a lot about this and and shouting this from the rooftops and one of my latest projects really helped to to create a shift in this conversation uh my book eatsmarter a few years back and talking about this processed food environment Ultra processed food environment and according to the bmj actually over 60% of the average American's diet is now made of ultr processed newly invented food but the the numbers are even worse worse for us children and this was published in jamama the Journal of the
28:30 - 29:00 American even worse for UK children than us ones most recent data ah yeah this is and this is the thing as that's being implemented deeper into the culture those children are now going to p and it's just going to get worse and worse so about 70% of Us children's diet is made of ultra processed newly invented food and that number is just continuing to climb and this isn't just a US phenomenon obviously but the question is what what is that what are what are ultr processed foods humans have been processing food for a
29:00 - 29:30 very long time all right just to be clear if you're taking that olive olive oil for example where does it come from we're doing a process to get the olive oil out of the olives but traditionally it's a cold process is a stone process you're smashing the oil collecting the oil it's very simple right Ultra processed foods on the other hand is when you have a field of corn that somehow someway gets turned into a box of Lucky Charms it's so much perversion
29:30 - 30:00 and and things that happen all these different chemical additives you know the processing of even creating this genetically modified weird corn in the first place but for us and I grew up in you know a glorified food desert here in the United States this was just food you know I didn't know that it was bad for me it's just what we were exposed to and it's cheap it's very tasty as it's designed to be and for us it's just food I didn't know that there was a difference between say you know wild caught salmon and fish
30:00 - 30:30 sticks you know I didn't know that there was a difference and so I'm going to prefer the fish sticks with with with copious amounts of ketchup by the way I'd love to bring Tim in here both on specifically here I guess we're talking about these Ultra processed foods and you know do they impact metabolic health and then I think also interested in you know Sean's talking about quite a number of different ways that might be affecting our metabolic health and I'm curious like as you're thinking about these like what are you most worried about you know as people thinking about this what should they be most worried
30:30 - 31:00 about they think about themselves and their and their children for 20 years I was studying genetics and there's a lot of data showing that genes are important in modifying our metabolic health and where we put the fat and the internal fat and we've discussed this um before so you know I believe that it it was genes were really important but what's clear is the last 50 years where you know levels of Skyrocket our genes
31:00 - 31:30 haven't changed at all so our genes were really well adapted for the environment our ancestors had and that meant you know we had the right energy control to get the right blood pressure to have the right amount of you know fat on our body to be able to process foods correctly and now we're getting this onslaught of not only pollutants but all these Ultra processed foods that make that our genes really weren't geared up to deal with
31:30 - 32:00 and also the abundance of food the the fact that there is unlimited food which our ancestors never really had uh so I think it's the inability to deal with a the abundance and the U different types of food that are are causing this problem uh in most of the population what's interesting is that there do seem to be some people in all population are protected against this so even in the
32:00 - 32:30 most obese countries you'll find about 25% of the population that can stay slim and um we don't really understand why that is but everyone else has ballooned over the last 50 years so I think we have to really have a hard look at what we were hardwired for our system and try and get back as close to that which means not only changing what we're eating but also our patterns of eating you know so going from our current six
32:30 - 33:00 episodes of eating every day back to perhaps what our ancestors were doing as two large substantial meals and also our exercise patterns not being as sedentary better sleeping patterns all all these things that would then get us back on the same wavelength as as our genes have determined you know the way to uh for our energy to be stored our our metabolism to be working maximally gut health is Health become a Zoe member
33:00 - 33:30 and start listening to your gut with a comprehensive atome test kit and personalized nutrition program our personalized Food Scores change how you think about food for good and photo food logging lets you instantly see how meals score for your body you can't put a price on your health but if you did Zoe's worth it most of what we've been told about food is wrong listen to your gut and feel better in weeks become a Zoe member for today do we understand how these ultr
33:30 - 34:00 processed foods can end up damaging your metabolism because I think I'm listening to this story that says it's not as simple as just like you're eating too many calories I think that was where you started Sean right and there's all of this food that is just profoundly different from anything we had before but do we understand at all how this works we know there are a number of potential mechanisms do disagree with you think Sean but I don't think we know which ones of them are the most important um we really haven't done enough study
34:00 - 34:30 on Ultra processed foods it's like been a taboo subject mainly because big food is managed to Lobby government to make sure that that you know in the US and the UK we're not doing enough research on this because it's you know we can't touch cheap food that's for the masses that's political you know we can't go there but there are a number of possible mechanisms one one is the speed of which you eat is much different with ultra processed food so it it might bypass some of these um evolutionary mechanisms
34:30 - 35:00 for feeling fool so that's that's that's one that all our ancestors would have make takeing much longer to eat that food therefore feeling full those the signals would have come in which they don't come now then you've got the actual um the softness of the food which means that you don't trigger you know it's like baby food we're eating so your jaw doesn't get the same workout and there's evidence that the jaw of children now are receding but
35:00 - 35:30 if you've seen this that um dentists are very worried that every 10 years our our our Jaws are getting smaller because they're just not used to actually eating real food so you know that's crazy you're basically saying that they don't eat it's sort of like you're not working out your jaw muscle enough and your your jaw is actually not growing yeah many people actually spend the whole life eating baby food now this is phenomenon it's called vanish Vanishing caloric density right so we have these foods like a Cheeto for example and it's like
35:30 - 36:00 so robust when you first bite into it then it disappears right and it gives this illusion of crunch and density and so also we'll continue to eat a lot of it and overeat it and it's designed to be that way because the way that we evolved we have certain senses and receptors that are very sensitive to flavor and like a overabundance of flavor and so it's them having the right designing the right amount amount of intense flavor but then to be able to
36:00 - 36:30 back off with other with other compounds and just put it at this right level and also if we're eating a a a quote real food right there's a certain amount of chicken that you might eat and you're just like I'm done with this chicken like I can't eat another bite or the same thing would hold true you know with eating an avocado per se like as we're eating a real food our bodies start to rebel against it like that's enough I've had enough it doesn't happen like that they they're ad is literally I bet you can't eat just one that's the Fredo
36:30 - 37:00 Mantra all right they're literally saying you can't just eat one of these chips you're going to eat the back and you got to fight yourself to stop eating it it's designed to be that way it's brilliant but it's also kind of like a Dr Evil level of of Brilliance and sort of terrifying isn't it the way you describe like we've carefully designed this so you're going to be unable to stop eating it um we're going to beat your jeans yeah all that evolution is worthless you're powerless in our control and of course the chemicals in these
37:00 - 37:30 products themselves have effects on our body that again our genes and evolution haven't prepared us for so many of them are totally artificial in in that they come from like the petrol industry for most of the artificial sweeteners and they can disrupt the gut microbes and they produce chemicals that can themselves cause diabetes in in other animals and send off antimetabolic signals to the rest of the body so when you eat some of these these junk foods that Sean's
37:30 - 38:00 talking about they contain regularly contain artificial sweeteners and MiFi preservatives and these are not things that our ancestors ever encountered or we have genes evolved to so when they get down to the level of our gut microbes who would normally be processing them they encounter them they bash into them and when they they see something like an artificial sweetener they produce chemicals in response to tr break it down they can't break it down but the chemicals they
38:00 - 38:30 produce can go on and make you more lik to get diabetes they can send signals to the rest of the body saying there's something going on here I don't really understand it it's like an alert signal it forms inflammatory signals or it uh stimulates the immune system or it messes up the metabolic system and that's what lots of basic research has shown and you get similar effects with emulsifiers which glue some of these products together these potato chips and things always contain these glues to
38:30 - 39:00 make make it look like real food and when your your microbes encounter them you get similar results they can Clump together so they don't work very well they get stuck together and these Amalfi also affect the gut lining so that you get leakiness of bacteria across into the blood and that can cause other metabolic disturbances so these are just a few of the possible ways in which uh you know our bad food environment is is messing up our energy management system
39:00 - 39:30 our metabolism and that's why we're in this mess we we talked about a number of different causes behind this metabolic disease do you think that food is the number one or how do you think about that yeah I see it as definitely the number one obvious one that's that's really changed I think yes there are these uh pollutants and Plastics but we don't yet know how much of a problem they are yet we know there are we don't know how big it is you know we should be
39:30 - 40:00 very wary about it but I think we do know enough about ultr processed food now to know that is a definite real problem for for everybody uh these other ones we're just starting to get information on them I give you a very explicit reason why food is the number one is because all of our tissues are made of food every single one of the trillions of cells that that I mentioned is literally made from the food that we eat and so we're determining what we're making our tissues out of and also the energy that our bodies are running on is
40:00 - 40:30 made from the food that we're eating and so if we've got you know our mutual friend will Boltz who he went to school for like forever you know 15 years or something to be a top tier gastroenterologist he was not taught that when he's looking at his patients's gut health or looking at you know their the stomach the large intestine the small intestine that all of those organs are made from the food that his patient
40:30 - 41:00 has eaten all right so the organs responsible for digestion assimilation and elimination are made from the food that the people are eating itself right Cardiology same thing we've got these experts looking at the heart health and the cardiovascular health of their patients I know the very best in the field these are my friends and colleagues they're not taught that when they're looking at their patient's heart or their arteries or their veins that they're looking at their patients food that they've eaten let alone what the
41:00 - 41:30 blood is made of and the list goes on and on and on so that's why food is so powerful to affect change is because it's making all of the parts and so if we are going to improve our metabolic Health we've got to make our parts and our energy out of the best things possible what do you say Sean to people that say it's not about food it's we can just tweak the mitochondria mitochondria Jonathan are these little uh bits of the cell that we call them the batteries of the cell and so all our cells have this
41:30 - 42:00 little mitochondria and they have their own set of genes and things and there are many people out there who are selling products um to enhance your mitochondria and if you just tweak those mitochondria just a little bit give them a little 5% more we can reset everything i' be interested in your your views on that rather than this more holistic view that we've been talking about do you think there is a quick fix through our mitochondria I'm sure there are things
42:00 - 42:30 that can affect the the the efficiency and health of the mitochondria at a micro scale but it is this whole system function by the way just to give some context with the mitochondria about 10% of our body's Mass about 10% of our weight is made of the mitochondria all right we have a ton of mitochondria in our bodies and so there isn't one thing that's just going to fix all of that and make it run better and keeping that in mind the mitochondria really the end destination for certain
42:30 - 43:00 processes to take place right the quote burning of fuel but even with that even with that there are so many steps proceeding that and there are so many steps after because if we're just talking about in the context of quote burning fat well I was taught in school like lipolysis right which is the freeing of the fat to be used as energy but it still has to make it it way it still has to make its way to the
43:00 - 43:30 mitochondria right we're not just again we can't just address the mitochondria we've got to address all of the efficiency of this energy getting released to even get there and to be used in the first place I'd Love Actually to talk about you know what can our listeners do and what are the actions and before we talk about food you actually wrote a bestselling book called Sleep smarter is there any role for Sleep within improving their and maybe just help us to say like if we were going to try and run through now like what are the things you can really
43:30 - 44:00 do what would you be saying to that absolutely so sleep is another one of these epic caloric controllers or epigenetic controllers and I think the best way to paint this picture is from scientists at the University of Chicago and they did a ward study all right in a controlled setting crossover study looking at how does our sleep impact our metabolism all right and so they had test subjects to get ample an
44:00 - 44:30 ample amount of sleep for about two weeks so this was eight and a half hours of sleep but they put them on a calorie restricted diet all right just to mon monitor weight loss and body fat loss as well and so yeah they collected all the data another part of the study again it's a crossover study so they have a wash out period now they sleep deprive them all right they put they're on the same diet and different sub test subjects are doing different things at different times and they're contr it's a controlled environment they're eating the same amount of food same amount of calories but now they sleep deprived
44:30 - 45:00 them and they're only getting five and a half hours of sleep collect all that data for about two weeks after they compiled the data when test subjects were well rested they lost about 50% more body fat Mass doing the same exact thing they're eating the same amount of calories but by getting more sleep they lost more actual body fat all right if we're looking at this through the lens of metabolic Health the metabolic health Health was improved when they were getting better sleep now here's a part
45:00 - 45:30 of study that I don't talk about a lot where is that energy coming from when they're Lo quote losing weight where is that energy coming from when they were sleep deprived they were losing more muscle upwards of 60% more of the weight loss because they were in a calorie restriction but they were losing more of their muscle tissue which is going to make you more metabolically unhealthy long term right so our sleep has a huge huge impact on our metabolism and it might be the big outside of the
45:30 - 46:00 food itself that we're eating the other major controller for us to pay attention to and Sean is there one thing that I could do to improve my metabolism that I could start doing today there are dozens of things of course but if I was to consolidate it down to I could do two really quick one number one would be what is the biggest disruptor of our sleep today factually it is our technology so the number one thing in
46:00 - 46:30 the environment that I would recommend people to do we've got tons of data on this if you're on your screen right before bed that light that's shooting into your brain is throwing off your circadian clock your cell every cell in your body is getting out of sorts and just trying to figure out what time it is because we evolved being connected to this 24-hour solar day and so we have this artificial daytime essentially when we're on our devices right before bed and it suppresses our Mel tonin and increases our cortisol so you could be
46:30 - 47:00 physiologically like you can be exhausted and just pass out but you're not going to go through your sleep cycle efficiently so my recommendation give yourself a little bit of a a tech curfew now again I know that we we're adults and we don't like restriction even the word curfew still brings up bad feelings for me but giving yourself a little bit of a screen curfew but here's the rub we cannot take away something that is so uh attractive for us like our cell phone
47:00 - 47:30 right like Instagram and all these things that are designed to keep us hooked and entertain we've got to replace it with something of equal or greater value that's the key and so what can you put in that place that 30 minutes or an hour if you want to get crazy off your technology you know this what it's going to be unique to you so some people love to read you know you can read a physical book they still exist um you can listen to an audio book or podcast um I'm guessing I can't just eat chocolate that's not the right swap I
47:30 - 48:00 mean choc Tim knows this as well the quality of the chocolate like there's some good chocolate out there that can be always tells me off for wanting to eat at 11 so I like the idea that you're now telling me that in order to put my phone away I'm allowed to eat my on your pillow that's as a matter of fact having a cup of maybe like some hot cocoa or cacao with some Rey mushroom which has been firmed to improve our uh Rim sleep non- RM sleep overall sleep time that's a good idea and I've been known to do that a time a time or two and because there's
48:00 - 48:30 these precursors in cacao in chocolate where it comes from um like tryptophan you know that that help convert into melatonin down the road so the screen curfew feel that with something of greater equal value time with your significant other maybe um you know maybe some intimate time like it fill it with something that feels good the second thing would be to control your environment that you're sleeping in and to create a sleep Sanctuary the human brain is always looking for Automation
48:30 - 49:00 and so if you're going into a room to and you want to go to get some great sleep but you're getting into your bed and this is where you do a lot of your work it's where you do a lot of your scrolling your brain is going to be looking for that behavior all right so make your bedroom tech-free to the best of your ability and make sure that you get some here we've got some blackout curtains around but if you got external light pollution some researchers at Cornell University found that just even putting a light behind the test
49:00 - 49:30 subject's knee was enough to disrupt their sleep cycle all right so our skin has photo receptors as well so get the room nice and dark and cool and to the best of your ability keep the technology out of out of your bedroom make it a sleep Sanctuary thank you Sean so Tim what are the best foods to support our metabolic function if you going to give us a brief outline of someone what what actional advice someone might be able to take we know that you need to avoid foods that are really going to Peak your
49:30 - 50:00 blood sugar and stress your insulin levels for many people changing their breakfast so not having their normal Morning cereal or granola uh not having their orange juice which they would otherwise think is healthy cutting out some of those fruit smoothies that they've been told are super healthy so changing in a way what you believe is healthy food and this is this is what people learn when they when they would do the Zoey program but um I think
50:00 - 50:30 cutting out their sugar spikes is probably the number one thing for metabolic Health if if you had a tip which means that you should replace those generally with higher fat foods good quality fats obviously and plants that have high fiber content so that you're dampening down any any sort of sugar spikes particularly if you're you're prone to this or there's metabolic diseases in in the family and so Tim what's your go-to breakfast my go-to breakfast is uh a full fat Greek
50:30 - 51:00 yogurt mixed with uh milk cafir and with um berries from the freezer and I generally use the the Zoe daily 30 mix now on top of that to give me extra fiber and uh lots of different plants amazing I have so many more questions but unfortunately I have hit time so I'm going to trying to do a quick summary what was quite a complicated topic and Sean and Tim
51:00 - 51:30 please uh keep me honest so the biggest thing I'm taking away is that like only 12% of Americans are metabolically healthy and you're saying that that number is very similar if you're in the UK or Canada or or wherever um and that's a problem because your metabolism is what's turning food into energy and if it's not working well actually the end result is either lots of very serious diseases but also you know weight gain and all the results that we see around around us I think the other thing I take away is like the
51:30 - 52:00 culprit SCS have changed a lot like you both talked a lot about Ultra processed food and I never heard anybody talk about Ultra processed food when I sort of first started Zoe with Tim eight years ago so that's a really profound change and Sean you shared this amazing study where you were saying like literally you had people eat exactly the same sandwich right but one was like a sort of regular sandwich like my grandmother might have eaten and this other one is like this sort of artificial bread and this AR icial cheese likee uh substance and you're saying they actually found that your
52:00 - 52:30 metabolism like slowed down by half with this ultrapress food so exactly the same number of calories it looks the same on the outside but your body is responding really differently and I think it's another example about how like just thinking about calories clearly doesn't help us to understand what what happens and how the food we're eating is having this profound impact on us in a way that I think many of us didn't realize then I think we talked about Ultra processed food and the the way that it affects us and you know one of the things you both talked about is the
52:30 - 53:00 way that it's like baby food so you like eat it and it you don't even realize you're full and it gives you like this intense flavor but then it disappears you have to like keep taking one and these these companies even proudly advertise the fact that it like bypasses all your controls and you just can't stop so there's something quite wrong about that and then Tim you explained that for you a lot of the reasons why you you think now this Ultra processed food is so harmful is the way that it sort of messes up our micro biome and uh I have to say when you describe the food being full of glue I don't know about
53:00 - 53:30 you but I don't really like the idea that my food is full of glue um it's definitely not like a big ingredient that they put on the front but like these glues and sweeteners are somehow affecting the microbiome and they kind of cope with it and then it's sending these chemicals that are sort of messing up our our microbiome but then we did come to some like really positive actionable advice um and I love the fact it's not just about food and so Sean I think you said like sleeping better that there these experience that show that like sleeping better can have a profoundly positive impact on your
53:30 - 54:00 metabolism and you said if you were just going to pick two so you have a whole book I'm sure with many more clues and we'll have a link to that in the show notes but if you want to think about two Tech curfew so get the screen turned off before you go to sleep but be honest no one likes a curfew so you need to replace it with something better so how do you find something else to do in the in the half hour before you go to sleep that sort of um Unwin and I I'm going to really think about that I think that's um that's really interesting I'm also
54:00 - 54:30 going to make sure my wife listens to this bit because we have a constant row about the fact that she brings her phone uh into um the room and she willon never listen to me but maybe she'll listen to you Sean and the second one is sleep Sanctuary so don't associate the place you go to sleep with where you're working like keep that separate otherwise your brain is sort of going to start immediately thinking about things which I I love as an as an idea and then we came back to food and Tim you said like your number one tip for metabolic Health actually is to avoid foods that Peak your blood sugar that actually that
54:30 - 55:00 sort of spike in blood sugar and collapse is the very particular thing that you're concerned around metabolic health and so that means you really want to swap out foods that are leading to these really big blood sugar spikes and we talked about some of those earlier in the conversation that actually just because they're brown doesn't mean that they don't spike your blood sugar and that what many of us who are in their 40s or over we talk about this food pyramid is full of foods that we're told are healthy but actually you know if you eat a lot of brown bread you're going to have these big spikes so you just need
55:00 - 55:30 to moderate that the biggest place to fix this is your breakfast because many of us don't realize just how sort of bad our breakfast are for us in terms of those blood sugar spikes and so if you want to be like Tim then you want to have like much more high quality fat rather than sort of this low quality carbohydrates and so you went full fat Greek yogurt and cfir and berries and daily 30 to add all the sort of um the right plants on top top and that powers you for the through to lunchtime it's done pretty well so far yep brilliant
55:30 - 56:00 Sean thank you so much I can tell there's many other things we could have covered so I I hope we can get you back in the future it would be an honor this has been awesome thank you so much been so much fun Tim thank you also thank you oh