ZOE Science & Nutrition

Today we’re talking about gut microbes.

Professor Tim Spector often refers to the microbes in our gut as ‘mini pharmacies’. This is because they provide us with powerful chemicals that help support our health.

But not all gut microbes are on our side. In fact, there’s an ongoing battle in our digestive system between the beneficial bugs and those that wish to do us harm.

I’m joined by Tim Spector and microbiome researcher Nicola Segata join me to explore this microscopic war, and explain how simple changes to your diet could help tip the balance toward the good guys.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.
📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.Episode transcripts are available here.

Is fat good or bad for your heart? For decades, we blamed fat and cholesterol for clogged arteries and heart attacks. Now you choose low-fat yogurt to protect your heart, while others cook with beef tallow.

In this episode, Dr. Alice Lichtenstein, a world-leading expert on dietary fat and heart health, helps settle the debate.

Dr. Lichtenstein explains which fats protect your heart and which to cut back on, you'll learn what raises your cholesterol, and why the type of fat you eat matters more than how much of it you eat. You’ll leave the episode with some practical food swaps to protect your heart and live longer.

Have you swapped butter for "low-fat" alternatives loaded with sugar? Could that choice be working against your heart?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar

Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

01:33 The most common myth about fat, busted in one word

03:20 What fat actually is, and why your body needs it to survive

11:29 Why butter and beef tallow turn solid at room temperature

13:12 How saturated fat raises your risk of heart disease

15:36 Heart attack or stroke: which one saturated fat actually raises

17:12 Are all saturated fats equally bad for you?

20:07 The flawed rabbit study that shaped decades of egg advice

21:41 What actually makes your cholesterol go up

24:04 How high cholesterol quietly clogs your arteries

27:04 The 1960s study that proved swapping fat saves lives

30:32 How your liver secretly turns sugar into fat

32:37 The verdict on beef tallow and butter

36:32 Simple food swaps for a heart-healthy diet

38:10 Does eating more fat make you gain weight?

40:35 The truth about grass-fed beef and omega-3

42:53 Is beef tallow really a healthy fat?

44:40 Is fermented dairy actually healthy?

45:19 The checklist to delay premature aging

47:52 The pantry check that could improve your heart health

49:56 The 1990s mistake we made with low-fat yogurt

51:47 Why knowing your cholesterol numbers matters most

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra  

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

Dietary trans fatty acids and cardiovascular disease risk, Current Atherosclerosis Reports (2014)

Unsaturated fats, high-quality carbs lower risk of heart disease, American College of Cardiology (2015)

Effect of Low-Carbohydrate and Low-Fat Diets on Coronary Heart Disease, JACC (2026)

Rabbit models for the study of human atherosclerosis, Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2014)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Today we’re talking about the immune system.

It’s one of the most important systems in our body, yet it’s also one of the hardest to understand. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it working, and there’s no simple way to measure whether it’s strong or weak.

But when it fails, we certainly notice.

Everywhere we look, supplements and superfoods promise to ‘boost’ our immune system. But how many of these claims are actually supported by science?

Professor Daniel Davis joins me to explain how our immune system truly works, and what the evidence says is the best ways to support it.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

1 in 4 people have insulin resistance, which quietly raises your risk of heart disease and cancer, often without any change in your blood sugar.

And most of those who have it have no idea. It can remain completely hidden for years, with no obvious symptoms and no warning signs… But it can be reversed.

Today, Professor Rob Semple, a world-leading expert on insulin resistance, explains what insulin does in your body, why you need it to live, and what happens when it stops working properly.

By the end of this episode, you will understand how to spot the warning signs and have practical steps you can take to protect yourself.

If your last blood test came back "normal," how confident are you that it tells the whole story? Are you overlooking one of the biggest drivers of chronic disease?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar

Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

00:46 Why insulin might be the most important hormone in your body

01:53 What happens if your body stops making insulin

05:20 Why not having insulin used to be a death sentence

11:19 What happens to your brain when blood sugar drops too low

14:01 Why "just lower your insulin" advice can backfire

17:12 The shaky, sweaty feeling an hour after eating, explained

18:42 The exact moment insulin resistance turns into diabetes

21:47 Why high insulin can affect your ovaries

24:15 A visible skin sign that insulin levels are too high

25:40 The organs most at risk when blood sugar spirals

27:17 How common insulin resistance really is in the US and UK

30:23 Why your ovaries can be an early sign of insulin resistance

32:49 Debunking the online "signs" of insulin resistance

35:37 Is insulin resistance actually reversible?

36:47 Why your weight matters more than your BMI number

38:53 The DEXA scan that revealed hidden visceral fat

41:14 Why white bread might not be so different from a can of Coke

43:56 Why one type of exercise burns blood sugar best

45:17 Do you really need two hours in the gym to see results?

46:38 How stress directly changes your blood sugar

48:32 Why irregular sleep might be hurting your blood sugar

49:38 The one piece of advice for anyone worried about insulin resistance

55:00 Why insulin resistance may have once been a survival advantage

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra  

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

Insulin resistance is a risk factor for 12 types of cancer, Nature (2026)

Association of insulin resistance with cancer, American Journal of Cancer Research (2016) 

Global prevalence of insulin resistance, Frontiers in Endocrinology (2025)

Risk Reclassification Beyond BMI, (JACC) (2026)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Today we’re talking about food additives.

Take a look at the back of some ultra-processed packaged food and you’ll see a long list of unfamiliar ingredients. Complex, sciencey sounding names that most of us can barely pronounce.

These are called additives. But what exactly are they? How are they tested? And, most importantly, are they truly safe for us to eat?

Food policy expert Professor Marion Nestle joins me to explore how additives became so deeply embedded in modern food production — and why, now more than ever, it’s essential for you to understand the things that are hiding in your food.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

There's a hidden fat that matters more for your health than your weight.  This is visceral fat: it wraps around your organs, raises your risk of heart disease and cancer, and builds up even in people who look slim and healthy. 

In today’s episode, Professor Jimmy Bell, a world-leading expert in measuring visceral fat, explains how we can shrink this dangerous belly fat in just 12 weeks.

Jimmy explores why two people can weigh exactly the same and carry completely different amounts of this hidden fat, what it is, where it hides and why it matters.

By the end, you'll have a completely new understanding of body fat, and what it really means for your long-term health.

If your weight has stayed exactly the same for years, what do you think is happening underneath it?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar

Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

02:47 The DEXA scan result that didn't match how thin he looked

09:46 Why your body composition can get worse even while your weight stays the same

11:47 What does it actually mean to be "skinny fat"?

14:06 The real reason some people end up "skinny fat"

15:58 Why people carrying more fat might actually be happier

18:10 How visceral fat sends inflammatory signals through your body

21:50 Why having almost no body fat can also make you unhealthy

25:19 Could a supermodel have more visceral fat than a sumo wrestler?

26:44 Why your body stores visceral fat around your organs on purpose

28:08 Why visceral fat is the first fat to disappear when you diet

29:22 How your diet directly reshapes the fat in your body

33:25 How long it actually takes to change your body fat

35:47 Does Ozempic actually get rid of visceral fat?

37:05 Why dieting alone can quietly cost you muscle

38:55 What does yo-yo dieting actually do to your body?

41:20 The pattern he sees again and again in long-term dieters

42:39 Why being thin is no guarantee you don't have visceral fat

44:07 Why diet alone won't get rid of visceral fat

45:24 The exact mechanism that makes exercise target visceral fat first

49:03 Why inflammation and visceral fat together wreck your metabolism

49:50 Why any amount of alcohol is bad news for visceral fat

51:32 How fast visceral fat can actually shrink (as little as 12 weeks)

54:14 Why menopause redistributes fat to your belly

57:20 Resistance training: the single best thing for visceral fat

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra  

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

Fat cell turnover in humans, Nature (2008)

New study investigates ‘optimal’ diets for healthy aging

Study of visceral, subcutaneous, liver and pancreas fat changes after 12 weeks, Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice (2023)

MRI assessment of adipose tissue fatty acid composition, Obesity (2024)

Phenotyping, Body Composition, and Precision Nutrition (2024)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Today we’re talking about sleep.

The more scientists study sleep, the clearer it becomes that it’s not just about resting our bodies - it’s much more than that. In fact, sleep is the foundation upon which a healthy diet, exercise, and overall wellbeing are all built upon.

So what happens when that foundation is shaky?

Recent research suggests that poor sleep quality may significantly increase your risk of heart disease and even heart attacks.

Dr. Nour Makarem joins me to explore the powerful connection between sleep and heart health - and why both too little and too much sleep is a cause for concern.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Why can’t you lose weight, and why do modern diets fail?

Today, Harvard professor Daniel Lieberman explains how evolution shapes hunger, body fat, food cravings, and modern food mistakes. You will learn why eating well can feel so hard in today’s food world.

Using themes from Daniel’s new book, Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet and Eating Well, we explore how our modern food environment explains weight gain, failed diets, and confusion about what to eat. We discuss calorie counting, ultra-processed food, hunger, and why there may be no single “best” diet for everyone.

By the end of the episode, you’ll have some simple ways to make better food choices and will know how to make healthy choices easier.

If your body evolved for a world where food was scarce, what does that mean for how you eat today?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar

Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

03:34 The 3 reasons evolution changes what you eat

07:28 Why supermarkets make healthy eating harder

10:51 Why sugar and fat are so hard to resist

12:12 Are humans really fatter than hippos?

13:20 Why your brain burns so much energy

14:25 Why humans evolved to hold onto fat

16:06 The 3 hidden costs behind body fat

18:23 How cooking changed the human body

19:15 Why raw food may not be natural for humans

22:08 Did farming make humans less healthy?

24:49 How processed food transformed what we eat

28:22 Why modern food triggers ancient cravings

29:48 What the paleo diet gets wrong

31:08 Why there is no real paleo diet

31:55 Why calorie counting can mislead you

33:05 Why hunger beats willpower

34:20 Why weight loss often comes back

35:56 What you need to know before buying food

36:53 Why no diet is truly optimal

38:24 What the healthiest diets have in common

40:08 Are your genes really making you gain weight?

41:40 The simple shopping trick Daniel uses

43:46 Why the 8-hour sleep rule is wrong

45:25 Why stress makes you crave comfort food

51:30 Why simple diet rules fail

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra  

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

Fed Up: What Evolution Reveals about Food, Diet and Eating Well by Daniel Lieberman

Comparing dietary variation between tropical hunter-gatherer groups to the Paleo Diet, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2023)

The carbohydrate-insulin model: a physiological perspective on the obesity pandemic, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2021)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Today we’re talking about vitamins.

Walk into any pharmacy or supermarket and you’ll find a shelf stacked with brightly coloured jars promising better immunity, stronger bones and sharper minds. Of course, I’m talking about vitamin supplements.

But despite looking like medical products, supplements aren’t held to the same rigorous testing standards as medicines. So how much of what they promise is actually backed by science?

I’m joined by Dr. David Seres to help cut through the confusion and uncover what the science really says about vitamin C, vitamin D, and even the mysterious multivitamins.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Could 12 everyday high-fibre foods really help lower your risk of heart disease, dementia and some cancers? 

The world is obsessed with protein, but fewer than 1 in 10 people eat enough fibre. But this year, fiber is making an unexpected comeback.

In this episode, legendary chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and ZOE’s Chief Scientist Professor Sarah Berry ask whether fibre is another food trend or a powerful part of our diet that we have overlooked.

Taking inspiration from Hugh’s new book High Fibre Heroes, they explore how fibre feeds your gut microbes, helps you feel full and slows the release of sugar into your blood. And, by the end of the episode, you’ll know how to eat more fibre without costly ingredients or difficult recipes, and how to turn familiar foods into simple meals packed with flavour.

Are you buying more protein while overlooking the foods your body may need most? The answer could already be in your cupboard, freezer or fridge.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

🌿Let your gut microbes snack on the ZOE Gut Health Bar

Build healthy habits. Download the ZOE app today and start your trial for just £2.30 for your first week. 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

00:57 Why the protein craze may be distracting us

04:51 How fibre may lower your disease risk

10:11 How much fibre do you actually need?

12:03 Why low-fibre food can leave you hungry

14:19 What 30g of fibre actually looks like

16:20 Why fibre diversity matters

18:51 Is fibre maxxing actually healthy?

21:08 The fibre mistake that can cause constipation

21:33 Has the world gone too far on protein?

23:25 Are most of us already eating enough protein?

25:42 How meat can push vegetables off your plate

28:20 Why healthy eating has to taste better

31:01 The 12 everyday foods that boost fibre

33:18 Why frozen peas are a healthy shortcut

35:00 Can frozen peas be healthier than fresh?

36:24 How to make frozen peas taste better

38:28 The mistake that ruins carrots

39:58 Why roasting makes vegetables taste better

42:24 What makes carrots so healthy?

44:31 Can cooked carrots be healthier than raw?

48:06 Kale vs cabbage — which is healthier?

52:18 How to make cabbage actually taste good

53:48 The easiest way to use more beans

54:24 How to start eating more fibre today

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

The Appetite Reset by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Smart Snacking Guide: How to feed your gut, fuel your day, and snack without guilt

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra  

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

High Fibre Heroes: How to turn 12 everyday vegetables into 100 joyful, health-boosting recipes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

ZOE’s PREDICT studies: What we’ve learned

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.