Zoe UK first look: Personalised nutrition vs. DNA test, blood test, gut test, and more...!
Welcome to this week's vlog. Today we're going to be talking about Zoe, which is a personalized nutrition test. Inside this box are lots of things that I'm going to be walking you through in a second, as well as giving you my view on the landscape of some of the different sorts of tests out there, as they pertain to healthy eating.
With Earthy30, learn about the Zoe personalised nutrition test and watch as Simon Dean, unboxes the at-home Zoe test.
Who is behind Zoe, the personalized nutrition test?
The scientific brain behind Zoe is a chap called Dr. Tim Spector, who's written “The Diet Myth” and “Spoon Fed” among others. He essentially debunks myths around food and takes a very scientific stance on what's good, what's not so good and actually what we don't yet understand when it comes to nutrition science.
Besides Zoe, what other types of nutrition tests are there?
Let's start with discussing the testing landscape in general, because there are lots of different choices out there for someone who wants to learn a bit more about their diet and what they should be putting in their body.
The way I see it, you've got your DNA tests, blood tests, continuous glucose monitors, you've gut microbiome tests, food intolerance, tests, and then you've even got breath analysers. And I'm sure there are other ways to look at your diet as well. But they're the ones that I've come across the most.
DNA tests
Let's start with DNA tests. Before starting a Earthy30, I was VP Brand at a genetics company called DNAfit. We dealt with genetic reports including exercise, nutrition, sleep and stress, but there are other things you can learn from different types of DNA tests too, which include stuff like ancestry, risks of certain diseases, responses to medicines, and just kind of fun traits as well.
So you can see in the nutrition side of things, I have high carbohydrate sensitivity, low sensitivity to fats, I need a bit of help with detoxification, which looks like reducing my char grilled meats and eating more cruciferous vegetables. I've got an increased antioxidant need, increased omega three needs.
I'm gonna come back to this a bit later when we talk about the gut microbiome tests. But for me, in this stuff that there's no real bad news, there's just places where you can double down. No one's going to tell you that chargrilled meat is good for you because of the burn bits on it. I don't think anyone's going to tell you that eating more broccoli is bad for you either.
All in all, I don't think there’s anything bad in here. But as I'll go on to discuss, I don't know if it's the best advice for fine tuning your diet.
Now if you have a look at 23 and me, this is a bit of a different report. The first section up here is called health predisposition. I don't have many variants detected that would increase my risk of a certain disease apart from this age related macular degeneration, which is to do with your eyes and a couple of other bits and pieces.
In wellness,
Alcohol flush: reaction unlikely to flush
Asparagus odour detection: likely can smell
Misophonia: I'm very sensitive to noises. And it does say here that I'm more likely to hate chewing sounds.
So this this is this is really interesting all the stuff in here. But I don't think 23andme’s niche is really to say this is how you should affect your diet.
And then the last one I wanted to show you is the CircleDNA report. It's a massive report, it's 80 odd pages. And this test actually cost £500 and it uses something called whole exome sequencing, which means it looks at a larger section of DNA than some of these other tests like the DNA first and the 23andMe test.
And because of that you do get a bit more of a detailed response and you do get a lot of the same stuff that was in the DNA fit in the 23andMe. But I think what's most useful about the CircleDNA report is you've got these drug response sections. So I've just turned to one section here which is commonly prescribed drugs. You can see use as directed, increased starting dose, decrease starting dose and use with caution. My decreased starting dose includes morphine, which is interesting. And my use with caution includes Metformin and Sildenafil, which actually helps with erectile dysfunction.
I would say that if you're trying to make better food choices, what you find in these DNA tests is probably not the way to go.
Blood tests
So next up, we've got the blood tests. Now, the blood tests are interesting, because they're not really testing for nutrition. They're testing for biomarkers. So for example, I've done this test from Thriva. I've got some results about diabetes, testosterone, CRP, which is about inflammation, we've got a ferritin, cholesterol, liver, and vitamin D.
All in all, this wasn't testing for nutrition. However, if I had high cholesterol, it would probably recommend some nutrition choices. It's kind of the inverse of what some of these other tests are doing. I do think there's a role for these tests, especially if there were some flags in here, I think what I'd recommend is you take this to the doctor, and then the doctor will probably repeat the tests, and then either make lifestyle recommendations, or perhaps some kind of medical intervention. So these are interesting, but also, I don't think really a direct competitor of Zoe.
CGMs
Continuous glucose monitors, we've covered quite a lot on this channel as well. I've been using them for a while and I find them really interesting. You've got the raw monitor that is made by companies Dexcom and Abbot Freestyle Libre. And then you've got these other companies that build software on top of the continuous glucose monitors, like Levels and SuperSapiens, and in fact, Zoe.
In this box is a continuous glucose monitor, and I've got it on my arm now. I'm wearing it and it's very much part of the Zoe methodology. Their goal is to understand how your body responds to certain food types. What you don't want are massive peaks and troughs in your blood glucose levels. This leads to inflammation and increased risk of obesity and other diseases. Instead, what you want is more controlled spikes and smaller troughs. This is something that Zoe believe in. And it's one of the three things inside the Zoe test.
You can see, I've had exceptional blood glucose control today. I've only had a very small spike around breakfast time. CGMs are definitely in, and definitely good.
Microbiome Tests
Here we've got the likes of Atlas. Thrive is another one. What these tests are looking to do is examine the makeup of your gut microbiome. There's lots of different bacteria in your gut. And these help break down foods into useful compounds that we can use for energy. They also help some of the bad stuff kind of stay out of the bloodstream by making sure that the gut lining is nice and intact.
This is really interesting, because when I first started to question the efficacy of my DNA test results is when I heard about a gut microbiome study conducted by Tim Spector of Zoe.
They found that in identical twins, so people with the same genetic makeup, that they only shared 34% of the same gut microbiome and actually just random people, they share about a 30% of the same gut microbiome.
It seems to me that gut microbiome has a lot more variance just based on:
What you eat
Where you live
Your lifestyle
How stressed you are
How much you exercise
If you had large courses of antibiotics
If you lived with animals
These things all affect your gut microbiome. And I think that your gut microbiome has a bigger influence on how you process foods than genetics.
Once again, the gut microbiome test is part of the Zoe protocol. So on day one, you send off a stool sample, and you will get there back in the context of your other results. And you'll get this whole health picture.
Food intolerance tests
Next up, we've got food intolerance tests. Now, question mark over these tests, because they don't have a fantastic rep in the food industry. That said, I do feel like I might have some intolerances, because occasionally I get a bit caught off guard when I go to the bathroom. And I don't really have the consistency or consistency that I really would like. So I did a test the other day, it was the York test. And I look forward to seeing what my results are.
Breath analysers
And then the last one I wanted to cover is a category of test called breath analysers. What these breath analysers are doing is looking at the carbon dioxide content in your exhaled breath. And based on the ratio carbon dioxide, they will be able to tell whether you are metabolising, fats or carbs. And based on the reading, they will be able to say, well, actually, today, you could have fewer carbs, or today you could have more fats or adjust your meal in some way. Also, as it pertains to exercise, they might say, well, actually, if you want to get the most out of this exercise session, eat a bit differently. And I haven't used these myself. But again, it's quite interesting. I wouldn't say this is looking at specific foods, it is more looking at meals and the macro content, the proteins, fats and carbs, content of these meals and when best to eat them and place them out throughout the day for performance.
Let’s talk about the Zoe personalised nutrition test!
So where does that leave, Zoe? Inside this box, we've got a bunch of stuff.
We've got muffins
Gut health test
Blood sugar sensor or CGM,
And the finger prick test.
So we've talked a bit about why CGMs have a role and indeed why we like to use them because they give you this real time feedback on blood sugar levels.
We've talked a bit about gut microbiome, and how if you've got various different bacteria in your gut that may help or hinder digestion. In actual fact, Earthy30, the channel that you're on right now, asks you to eat 30 different plant based foods each week on top of whatever else you're eating, whether it's meat or fish or whatever, because then you're feeding your gut microbiome, a diverse range of fibre, and you're getting all the micronutrients and phytochemicals and all the stuff that leads to a healthy you so Earthy30 is very aligned to the gut microbiome thinking.
Then there's this: the finger prick test. Now this is not to do with blood sugar. This is to do with blood fat. In just the same way that your blood sugar levels increase after eating, your blood fat levels also do the same thing, but it's a bit slower.
And you can't measure this spike in the same way that you measure a glucose spike through the CGM. You have to measure it from the blood using different protocols. So what you do here is drip and blood into a paper card that looks a tiny bit like your COVID natural flow test. You put drops of blood in the well and then the blood creeps off and then you can send it off to the to the lab and they're going to tell you your fat response.
It's not random. It's actually based on the muffins. Zoe send you special muffins and you have three for breakfast, wait four hours fasting, then have two for lunch, wait two hours, then do the blood test.
This standardised approach to your response to these muffins will tell you about your blood fat response. What Zoe hopes to do is take in combination, the CGM data, the gut microbiome data, the muffin test blood fat data, as well as your starting nutritional habits which you've had to do an app in the first place.
They will give you a well rounded, they will give you a well rounded, highly scientific, personalised nutrition approach. And we're going to look at that in a bit more detail in coming videos.
Thanks for tuning in.
