It is billed as the most scientific diet plan ever, pioneered by world-renowned scientists and based on data from the world’s largest global study of nutrition and health.
The promises are bold: Lose half a stone in 12 weeks, feel “80% more energy,” prevent heart disease – and all without counting calories.
Before starting the diet, dieters are sent a series of DIY tests to do at home.
These relate to how each individual responds to sugar and fat, the quality of the all-important “friendly” bacteria in the gut that govern hunger and satiety, and many other things. , intended to accurately measure how well food is digested.
The results allow experts to score every food to indicate how healthy it is for an individual’s genetic makeup. This, they say, will allow users to make smarter eating choices. But nothing is wrong.
This diet was devised by Professor Tim Spector. Professor Tim Spector is probably best known as the founder of his ZOE Covid symptom tracking app, which provided key insights into the changing nature of the virus.
Before being repurposed by the pandemic, Professor Spector’s main research area was personalized nutrition. This is the theory that our weight is determined in part by how our bodies process certain foods, and this varies from person to person.
As proponents claim, some people seem to gain weight after eating a few bowls of pasta, while others remain completely slim.
This diet was devised by Professor Tim Spector (pictured). He is probably better known as the founder of his ZOE Covid symptom tracking app, which provided key insights into the changing nature of the virus.
Professor Spector said: But eating according to your body’s physiology can help reduce inflammation, which has been found to be linked to diabetes and heart disease, and can help you feel less sleepy and hungry. And weight loss is a pleasant surprise.
Called ZOE (Greek for life), the plan costs a staggering £559 for a yearly subscription to test kits and apps. Since launching in April, he has over 300,000 customers signed up worldwide.
So is this finally the weight loss answer we’ve all been waiting for?
57-year-old Julie Holton lost one stone in seven months. She says it’s the only diet she’s had that has helped her lose weight after menopause. And after sticking with the plan for three months, 51-year-old Paul Sculfor says he had a “burst of energy” and stopped taking afternoon naps.
Others say they’ve been “overwhelmed” by the information about their bodies and have “lost weight and become healthier.”
But some experts are still not convinced. They say the barrage of information on the plan creates an obsession about eating right and an unhealthy focus on meal scores.
And the cost of £559 a year or £399.95 over four months is to pay for recommendations to eat more vegetables and cut down on sugar and fat, much like the recommendations posted on the NHS website. is a heavy price to pay.
And there’s the question of whether the benefits of our microbiome—the bugs in our gut that are said to play a role in everything from weight gain to improved mood—are overstated.
I failed my diet, but ZOE saved me
Photo of Julie Holton, 57, and her son
Julie Holton is no stranger to failed diets.
The 57-year-old, pictured with her son Thomas, has struggled over the past decade to lose her two post-menopausal stones.
“I’ve tried everything: low-carb, plant-based, psychology-based programs,” says Julie, who lives in Florida and owns an antiques store.
‘Nothing worked. I was confused because I didn’t think it was bad to eat. I eat porridge for breakfast, rice and chicken for lunch and dinner, and lots of vegetables.
She signed up last year after hearing about ZOE from her doctor. “The muffins were terrible, but the test was super easy,” she says.
Julie loves the monitor. One night she had a chicken burger and she got really tired.
“I checked my app and my blood sugar was down.” Julie made a dramatic overhaul of her diet. “My porridge scored low, so I replaced it with an egg-white omelet and had a salad with seeds and nuts for lunch,” she said.
She lost the stone in 7 months.
she said: “At first, I was a little obsessed with checking my blood sugar and checking scores on all my foods, but now I’m in a rhythm.”
So what exactly is a ZOE? When a user places an order, he is sent two large yellow boxes containing a number of self-test tools.
One of the first things users do is send stool samples to ZOE scientists to test their microbiome. Professor Spector’s team checks 30 bacterial species (15 “good” and 15 “bad”) for signs of appetite regulation and weight management.
Next up is a test that measures how your body responds to foods high in fat and sugar by eating specially formulated muffins that are also in the box.
On the third day, the customer replaces breakfast and lunch with high-fat muffins, pricks blood in the evening, and sends them out for analysis. It is designed to calculate how quickly saturated fat is cleared from the bloodstream after a meal, a marker of heart disease risk.
On day four, users do the same with muffins that are high in sugar but not fat.
Your body’s response is tracked by a continuous blood sugar monitor. It’s a small circular device stuck to the back of her upper arm that monitors her blood sugar levels in real time 24/7.
This sensor is one of ZOE’s key selling points. These devices are well known as part of the treatment for patients with type 1 diabetes. Blood sugar levels must be closely monitored at all times because the disease leads to dangerously high blood sugar levels and patients must regularly inject drugs to keep them under control.
However, in the ZOE plan, the sensors are worn by healthy people. The goal is to track blood sugar peaks and troughs after eating a particular food. It is said that the feeling of satiety lasts for a long time.
In a study published last year by Professor Spector’s group at King’s College London and other scientists at Harvard University, participants who experienced extreme drops in blood sugar levels two to four hours after eating had, on average, more blood sugar than others. 9% were shown to be hungry.
ZOE users are required to log everything they eat while wearing the monitor in the app. The app is connected to sensors so algorithms can associate foods with blood sugar responses.
They are also encouraged to eat different foods and see their blood sugar response via the app.
“People with unstable blood sugar levels are more prone to inflammation, gain weight, and are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease,” says Professor Spector.
After 3 weeks, users will receive results in 3 reports. These reports detail responses to sugary and fatty foods and the balance between good and bad bacteria.
In the meantime, the app uses analytics to calculate scores out of 100 for millions of everyday foods. The lower the score, the less your body can handle it.
The goal is to reach a score of 75 at each meal, and anything below about 25 is marked as bad. A personalized weekly meal plan created by the app does the hard work.
Professor Spector explains: For me, bagels are his 2 points. Because bagels raise blood sugar significantly, the fat they contain stays in the blood, and they contain very few ingredients to help your microbiome.
“The app may tell you to eat every two weeks instead of every day.”
But according to Dr. Duane Mellor, director of nutrition at Aston University, the spikes and dips in blood sugar aren’t all that important. “For type 1 diabetes, these sensors are effective because they need to be able to determine how much insulin to inject based on the rise in blood sugar. But that’s because they’re not producing enough insulin. is.
“For others… it’s normal for blood sugar levels to rise after a meal and usually subsides within a few hours.”
Dr. Mellor questions the accuracy of glucose tracking. “There are a number of hormones that can interact with blood sugar levels and affect outcomes. Hormones released when we wake up can cause particularly high peaks in blood sugar,” he said.
“Strong post-meal exercise triggers a release of adrenaline that keeps blood sugar levels in check longer. I have to eat 4 times.
What about the evidence linking abnormal blood sugar levels to obesity and heart disease? “Tracking doesn’t always lead to better blood sugar control,” says Dr. Mellor. , you can learn to better listen to your body’s hunger signals by choosing foods known to keep us all fuller for longer.
ZOE users have to log everything they eat while wearing the monitor in an app that connects to the sensor. This allows algorithms to associate food with glycemic response (stock image)
A 2018 review of available evidence in the British Medical Journal concluded that continuous glucose monitoring is no more effective for weight loss than educational sessions by a trained nutritionist.
There are also questions about what ZOE defines as good and bad bacteria.
Glenn Gibson, Professor of Food Microbiology at the University of Reading, has spent 20 years studying the complexity and impact of gut bacteria.
he said: To know which gut bacteria someone has, you need to take samples every few weeks. Dr. Mellor adds:
“Do you really need to pay £400 for a fancy test to find out that eating more broccoli and apples is good for you?”
Dr. Mellor believes the risks outweigh the benefits. “Checking your blood sugar response every time you eat something is the same as the obsessive calorie counting seen in people with eating disorders,” he says. We are just using technology to justify
One nutritionist concerned about personalized nutrition is Los Angeles-based Destiny Moody, who primarily works with athletes and whose continuous blood glucose monitors are popular with sports enthusiasts.
“They always want to be one step ahead of everyone else,” she says.
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