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His research career spanning over three decades has uncovered the genetic basis of various common diseases, challenging prevailing notions that attributed them primarily to ageing and the environment.
No fads, no nonsense, just practical, science-based advice on how to eat well’ Daily Mail, Books of the Year Food for Life’ by Tim Spector offers a refreshing and informative perspective on nutrition and its relationship with our health and the environment. With his expertise as a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology, Spector presents complex scientific concepts in a clear and accessible manner. The book covers a wide range of topics, including the gut microbiome, food choices, and the impact of food on the planet. Practical tips provided at the end of each chapter and a useful appendix of food tables enhance the book’s value as a reference guide. Practical tips: Each chapter concludes with bullet-pointed tips, offering concise and practical advice for readers. These tips make it easier to apply the knowledge gained from the book to everyday life. There are a couple of things I really like. At the end of the food chapters there are TLDR bullet points with some key takeaways on managing your intake of all the food groups. I also liked the debunking of many of the tabloid stories about superfoods and all the things that supposedly cause cancer (what Ben Goldacre used to refer to as the Daily Mail's "Oncological Ontology Project"). Other findings seem counterintuitive, but are often deliciously reassuring. Two cups of Americano coffee provide more fibre than a banana. You can reheat rice; unopened mussels won’t kill you; and eating meat doesn’t give you cancer (though “replacing 30% of traditional burger meat with mushrooms or fungi would be the equivalent of taking 2m cars off the road”). Some sources of nutrition are more beneficial together, like corn with beans, or “a glass of red wine daily with friends”. Replacing sugar, salt, fat and gluten with weird and untested chemicals is usually pointless and probably dangerous, and the 1980s advice to change butter and cream for margarines and vegetable oils was “one of the biggest health scandals ever”.If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us Spoon-Fed was written before the pandemic but it covers ground that is as relevant now as ever. For weeks, I had been reading alarming headlines on the link between low vitamin D levels and an elevated risk of dying from Covid-19. But Spector’s chapter on vitamins convinced me that vitamin D pills are not a panacea, despite the way they are currently being marketed. “Overuse of vitamin D supplements has been linked in several trials to weakened bone density, as well as increased falls and fractures,” Spector writes. A well-researched and informative book ... Great to see academia catching up with the real world. Natural Products
Food is our greatest ally for good health, but the question of what to eat in the age of ultra-processed food has never seemed so complicated. However, his aim in this book is not to give advice. Our gut microbiomes are so different that, in human studies, there is an “eight- to tenfold variation in individual insulin, blood sugar and blood fat responses to the same meals”, and so every person’s ideal diet is different, and should be based on sensible choices from a position of knowledge. Why do so many people still fervently believe that margarine is healthier than butter? The great beneficiary of this belief has been not consumers but the margarine industry. Spector shows with great clarity that “the greatest obstacle of all” when it comes to getting accurate information about food has been the food industry. Like the pharmaceutical industry, the vast multi-national food companies have influenced nutritionists with gifts and sponsorship. Spector reveals that industry has also funded huge amounts of nutrition research, influencing the information that we receive on everything from the safety of artificial sweeteners to the question of whether we can eat large amounts of red meat with impunity. From the bestselling author of Spoon-Fed and The Diet Myth, a comprehensive guide to the new science of nutrition, drawing on Tim Spector's cutting-edge research.
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Spector writes as a food lover... Every person's ideal diet is different, and should be based on sensible choices from a position of knowledge. Food for Life is a feast of that knowledge... A valuable reference book to keep on a kitchen shelf. Guardian This isn’t by any means a book on dietary regimes, but it provides the latest evidence from respected academics on all areas of food that enable the reader to make informed choices. Both books are by their nature very comprehensive. Both seek out to discuss all types of food, though approaching them from different angles, Saladino with a view to our environment, and Spector with a view to health. Understandably there are quite a few areas of overlap. However, there is a not so positive aspect revealed as Spector looks into studies and reports health impacts of foods with his epidemiologist hat on. There are still so many don't knows! This man is an expert in his field! Surely we can have some certainty! When we say to each other, "You know what they've come up with now? Only lab grown salmon! Only a theory that certain mushrooms can cure Alzheimer's!" this is who I am picturing for the mysterious "they": a research scientist conducting clinical trials and referring to peer-reviewed papers in trustworthy publications. Instead, we learn that yoghurt trials were funded by Danone, and other trials are too small, or unrepeatable, or fail to rule out other factors influencing the results. And some journals are not that trustworthy!
Food has shaped the way we have evolved over the last million years. When we started to cook our food, our digestive tracts slowly became shorter as a result of the more easily absorbed cooked foods. Our brains became larger thanks to this increased nutrient intake, with a major part dedicated to our senses, in particular those neuronal areas related to food." A brilliant deep-dive into how food affects our wellbeing – and more importantly, what we can do about it. Enlightening and empowering Liz EarleI just read Chris Van Tulleken's book on UPF and he mentioned Tim's book here a few times so I thought I would give it a go.
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