Tune into the podcast with Tim Spector for some fascinating insight on your gut microbiome and your immune health.

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• Why you can justify eating dark chocolate
• What makes poo transplants necessary for some people
• Why our guts aren’t as healthy as they should be

Links Mentioned in Episode:

• Personalize your Nutrition!
• Order Cate Stillman’s new book “Master of You”
• Join the Changemaker challenge!

Show Highlights:

• The diversity of microbes in our bodies is 30 per cent lower than fifty years ago
• Gut microbes, when disrupted, are a major cause of obesity and diabetes but they are also essential for health  Thousands of people are now having poo transplants – many with significant success
• Much of our food is contaminated with low levels of antibiotics used in farming, making us fat
• Microbes enjoy eating the polyphenols in dark chocolate which may keep us slim
• A diet of junk food can dramatically reduce healthy gut microbes in only two days  
• Increasing the diversity of our diet will increase our microbes, our health, happiness and lifespan

Timestamps: 

• 14:47 Small batch fermented foods as personalized medicine 
• 20:09 Fecal transplants and why they can be effective
• 26:29 Microbiome and epigenetic studies in identical twins
• 36:57 Polyphenols in dark chocolate and why it’s good for your gut

Favorite Quotes:

• “This is one area of science where we’re turning very much towards personalization. We’re realizing that the reason everything hasn’t added up in these nutritional guidelines and that health guidelines haven’t worked for everybody when it comes to our guts and inner health, is because we all respond in slightly different ways. We all need a different recipe, there isn’t one size fits all.” – Tim Spector
• “Microbes are changing over life. They’re not the same ones we were born with although we have our own signature. A forensic detective will always know whether it’s your microbes or my microbes that have been travelling around the world. They will change day to day, week to week, year to year, to some extent. Half of the microbes are fairly constant and half are changing. And so with those changes, it changes the community. They will produce different chemicals that can have an effect on our bodies in all kinds of ways.”  – Tim Spector
• “We need to take a more global look at this. There must be a reason why these hunter gatherers never get heart disease, diabetes or cancer. We should take a lesson from our ancestors and these other groups of people that live in very harsh environments.” – Tim Spector 
• “The key is variety. It’s not the same kale smoothie, it’s 30 different plants a week. And that includes nuts and seeds.” – Tim Spector

Guest BIO: 

Tim Spector is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Director of the TwinsUK registry at King’s College London. His current work focuses on the microbiome and diet. He also runs the crowdfunded British Gut microbiome project. Having published more than 900 research articles, he is ranked in the top 1% of the world’s most cited scientists by Thomson Reuters. He is the author of three popular science books. The most recent “The Diet Myth” published in over ten languages. He is a regular blogger, with over 7 million recent downloads. He features regularly in the media.