A new approach to eating the right food
A company called Zoe (it’s Greek for ‘life’) has developed an interesting approach to selecting the best food for your body.
The science behind it is based on understanding each person’s individual response to different foods. The factors that influence that response are a function of the trillions of microbes that live in the gut, plus how we clear away fats and sugars contained in meals. The gut microbes influence our health in a number of ways, including our immunity and weight, as well as our mental health. Dr Tim Spector, one of the three co-founders of the company, has studied this area for a number of years, starting with a study of twins and trying to understand what made identical twins different. Zoe funds the Predict studies (Personalised Responses to Dietary Composition Trials) which together with existing research have been used to develop the science behind Zoe.
The two Predict studies were carried out in the USA 2018 and 2019. The company then diverted its resources into Covid when the pandemic hit in 2020, signing up over 4 million volunteers in the UK, USA and Sweden to predict who has the virus and to track infection levels in real time (they were the first to identify a loss of taste and smell as one of the symptoms of Covid). The Covid study was, they claim, the largest public science project of its kind anywhere in the world. I participated in this study and found it a much more interesting way of understanding the pandemic than listening to some of the wilder proclamations by the media.
So here’s how the programme for eating the right food works.
You sign up on the Zoe website for a programme of tests which can be done at home. So popular has the programme been that at that time there was a waiting list of over 200,000. In my case the test kit arrived a couple of weeks later. The kit was expertly packaged with easy to follow instructions. At the same time you download two apps onto your mobile phone. One is the main Zoe app where you log your meals; the other is to help you measure and record your blood sugar levels.
To get started there are three tests, all done in the first couple of days. On Day 1 you eat a breakfast and lunch of muffins provided in the pack and begin the blood sugar monitoring. You also take a finger prick blood test to show how your body deals with fats and a poo test which will reveal your unique gut microbiome. Both these tests are mailed back to Zoe for analysis. The results are due around six weeks later.
To measure blood sugar you attach a patch to your arm, (provided in the pack) which stays there for the first two weeks. The patch contains a chip (not the eating kind!). Pointing your phone at the patch with the app open gives you an instant blood sugar reading. Taking readings over the day, especially before and after eating, and after exercising, allows the app to collect a record over time of how your blood sugar varies; this can be linked back to foods you have eaten and recorded on the Zoe app. At the end of two weeks you are reminded to remove the patch.
Shortly after I removed the patch I received a text telling me when my blood sugar spiked and encouraging me to look at how this coincided with particular meals. In my case the consumption of crisps and a Thai curry boosted my blood sugar by more than normal. Interesting! My blood sugar lows were correlated with breakfast eating (I regularly eat porridge and fresh fruit at this time of day).
Once all his initial work is done it’s down to you to log your meals on the Zoe app. This is a bit of a faff but they try and make it easy by allowing you to scan the barcodes on different foods which then immediately show up in the app, increasing the speed of recording. You can also create recipes for those meals you eat frequently allowing you to reduce the time it takes to log each meal.
A couple of weeks after submitting my initial tests I received my results. These came in the form of two reports, both over 50 pages long. The first told me about my gut microbiome and the relative abundance of good versus bad bacteria. It computed a score showing the balance between the two, mine came in the high (positive) range. The second report was an insight report which told me how my blood sugar and blood fat responded to different meals. I scored well on the first and poorly on the second measure compared to people with a similar age and sex. All these calculations allow the app to record score for meals I eat during the day, while at the same time showing me my blood sugar and blood fat responses to individual items of food. The aim is try and achieve a blended score of 75+ per day. The report makes the point that it isn’t about counting calories, well-illustrated with a comparison between a doughnut (200 calories and a Zoe score of 23) and 1.5 oranges (also 200 calories but a Zoe score of 70).
I have been working with this information for around two months at the time of writing. It has been interesting seeing the scores of foods and aiming to get a good score each day. Most noticeably I have found I am much less hungry between meals and have seen an uptick in my energy levels. That said, you will be challenged by this if you eat a lot of pre-packaged meals as these tend to score poorly; or if you lunch out on sandwiches every day as these score poorly too.
With the results comes continued access to the app for a further number of months (prices in the next paragraph) which will allow you to see your daily scores and plan your meals accordingly. There is also a chat line for queries which I’ve already used; responses were quick and personable.
None of this come cheap; it’s £299.99 for the test kits and then there are a range of subscription options; £59.99 one month, £39.99 per month for four month, £35 per month for four months or £24.99 for twelve months. All the details can be found here:-
Will this take off? It deserves too in my view. The size of the wait list is a good sign of the level of interest in the subject. It would help if they could get the cost down with scale. I do wonder whether the customers for this will have the discipline to stick with it. But boy does our society need it, given the endemic represented by obesity. What do you think?