Begin Again with Davina McCall - Begin Again Moments: Your Health Matters!

Episode Date: May 11, 2026

In this powerful episode of Begin Again Moments, we bring together two standout clips from full Begin Again conversations, edited back-to-back around one vital theme: your health matters. Julia Bradbury opens up about her personal health journey, sharing how her cancer diagnosis forced her to completely rethink the way she was living, from stress and sugar to the pace of everyday life. She reflects on the changes that helped her rebuild her relationship with her body, her wellbeing, and her future. Dr Rangan Chatterjee then explores the importance of preventative medicine, explaining why symptoms are often the result of what’s happening across our nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, environment, and relationships. He shares why knowledge alone isn’t enough to create lasting change, and why understanding the role our habits play is the first step to transforming our health. To hear the full conversations, watch the complete episodes on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Do Health - The waitlist is open. Begin Again listeners get fixed early access pricing when they sign up today at dohealth.co/beginagain use code BEGINAGAIN Full episodes available wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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somebody won't commission that program? Can you co-develop that series? Need to be in four different places? Yes, okay, we can do that. We can get a car on standby. then we can get on a plane. Can do it. You can do it all. I lived that life. Sugar. Loved it.

Loved sugar. Breakfast, lunch, in between lunch, dinner, after dinner. Sugary cereal, 11s is donut, brownie on the road, pasta, carbs, refined sugar. You would have called yourself healthy, though, right? I called myself healthy because I was slim and I exercised every now and again, and I didn't have a problem with weight. now I know I was far from healthy.

So I know that you've had an issue with sugar as well. And I cannot impress upon people the more experts you talk to about sugar and refined carbs. So the pastors and the pizzas and the breads, those are refined carbs that turn to glucose very, very quickly. What is that white bread or brown, like, is bread fine? Refined bread. Bread. Sourdough, you might have, there's, sourdough is fermented. So there's a difference and it has benefits.

And people talk about that. But it's not what you want to do every day. No. So I have to tell you what sugar does to you. Sugar affects your immune system. Your immune system is present in every cell of your body. When you eat something refined, a refined sugar, a message comes through your gut.

This is very simplified forms. I'm not a doctor. This is stuff that I've learned as well from a host of experts. It sends out a message. And your immune system doesn't understand this onslaught of refined. foods because that's not what we've evolved to eat. Whole foods, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meat, fish. I mean, there's a whole, you know, we could go vegan or not. There's all these debates you can go down. But whole foods, our bodies understands. Refined foods, sugars,

sugary drinks, the immune system doesn't understand. So it has a choice. It can either break up the cell, which causes inflammation, or if it understands the food, the whole foods, it can replace and it can repair and replace. That's the good thing. No inflammation with that. So it's inflammation that is causing the damage and these foods cause long-term inflammation. And the only way I can describe it is sugar makes your blood sticky like Velcro

and then it doesn't work properly. And what you need to be doing is your immune system, we've all got thousands of cells, cancer cells, to deal with every day. Your immune system needs to be working on those. It's busy with all the other stuff that you're doing. The toxins, the sugar. You're making your blood's sticky. The immune system isn't working properly.

You're clogging up your liver and other bits of yourself. You're basically jamming everything. By the way, also has an impact on your brain health. They're talking about diabetes three being Alzheimer's. Big sugar. and if you're constantly full of sugar, if your blood levels are very high with glucose because you're snacking the way I did,

and it's always a refined carb or sugar, then you're also feeding your brain. Your brain needs glucose. Refined carb, yes. And they're fried. And they're fries. It's not great. I mean, I hardly eat crisps anymore,

but I was just thinking that's also... Yeah. It also affects your brain. So not at the same level, but what you've got is this inflammation going on everywhere. And that is when disease makes its way into your life. Diabetes, type 2 diabetes is on the rise.

It's going up and up and up. It costs about £3,000 a year to take care of somebody with type 2 diabetes. And at the moment, you've got people as young as 30 who are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. And their life cost, you can go blind. It affects every organ in the liver. I think that's the thing that people are like, well, it's, you know, you can treat diabetes. You can kind of take something for it. but actually there's a lot that goes on other complications from diabetes.

You're in a much higher risk of cancer if you've got type 2 diabetes. So I went, okay, I'm not going to snack anymore. So I'm not going to eat in between meals because I don't want that sugary roller coaster. And I don't want that constant flat line of sugar. So I stopped snacking, which I found easy to do after three weeks. It was hell for the first three weeks. So when you feel the pan, go for a walk or do something else. Yes.

Jump up, do star jumps. Phone a friend. It's sort of like an addiction, isn't it? It's like distract yourself. a little bit. Do something else, but don't succumb to the snacking. Snacking helps really moderate your spikes. So that's good. And change your breakfast. I do a double breakfast. I have eggs. I have avocado. I'll have a bit of protein for the night before, maybe some leftover chicken, a free-range chicken or some sustainably caught fish or a little bit of that. And I'll put that on my plate with

my veggies. I drizzle my olive oil because it's good for my cancer. Polyphenols, high in polyphenols, squeeze some lemon, great for the veggies, mixed of greens, big plate, love it. Then my pudding is blueberries. Yes, berries. My yogurt. I do coconut yogurt and nuts and seeds. But I love it. And I used to about 11 and people go, where do you put it?

But they've always said to me, you eat so much. But I love that. That carries me through till the evening. Amazing. And I don't get sugary cravings. It took about four weeks for that to become a habit. Yes. And for that to make sense.

Now when I have a sugary craving, I only eat the dark chocolate after I've eaten my main meal. Yes. And I will use dark chocolate and blueberries. And there are some really good keto things out there that are low carb. And they are naughty and they have got sugar in them. But they've got honey maybe or maple syrup. And I'm not saying they're healthy. But if you do want that sugary thing, they're so much better than zero cocoa.

milk bars, which have got all this crap in emulsifiers and texturizers and all that in it. Cortisol is driven by stress. And if you've got an inflamed body environment, that's going to drive the cortisol as well. So stress is something that isn't spoken about enough when it comes to health. One of my close friends who was diagnosed with breast cancer, her very old. school oncologist who's not into the nutrition and the genetics and all the stuff I care about, but he said to her, stress, handle your stress. Don't be stressed. I wonder if you're a bit like me in that we're very busy, you've got lots of things, hustle, hustle. I don't think I'm stressed.

But you are. I don't know. Am I stressed? Yes, we are stressed. We are. Yes, you are. Yes, you are. We are because of our lives. Show me somebody in today's world that isn't stressed. If you've got social media, you're stressed. If you've got emails were stressed. If you've got a career, you're stressed. If you've got a family to look after, you're stressed. If you're not sitting around... I mean, even our tribal ancestors were stressed.

Any moment, there would be an attack or they have to get up and move because another tribe is coming to take their territory. They might be not eating for days and they don't know where the next bit of food is coming from. Stress is a part of life. But it's that resilience and it's that handling it, but also accepting it and trying to find a way of dealing with it.

So our tribal ancestors walked all the time. They were outside most of the time. They ate a very healthy diet which had no refined carbs, no sugar, you know, apart from the fruit. They were counteracting their stress with this outdoor moving lifestyle. We don't do that. We stay inside. We look at blue screens. We don't move as much.

I know exercise is incredibly important to you. But is there a certain types of exercise. Is there a million more stressed and get your heart rate going? Do you do the other non-stressy exercises? Do you do the yogas? Do you do the walking? I have sort of an exercise jigsaw now. I do weight training twice a week, really important.

Muscles, as you know, are not just to look the way that they do. They actually, they now know that muscles pump proteins, healthy proteins into your blood. The muscles have been redefined as an endocrine system, part of your hormonal buildup. We need muscles not just to look the way that we do. So really important to stay strong. Signs of longevity, strong legs, grip strength. And can you do the farmers carry? Can you carry more than half your body weight in both hands?

I didn't know that. Can you hold that for more than a minute? Sign of longevity. Oh, wow. Getting up off the floor. Can you get up off the floor without using your hands? Sign of longevity. All of these things, people go, oh, I can't.

I'm 60. Why not? Your sleep score is low. Are you getting enough fibroids? Ah! Make it stop! You might remember when Dr. Rang and Chatterjee was on this show and he said, knowledge isn't enough. I mean, there's more information and data available to us than ever before. And somehow, we've ended up actually checking an app to find out if we're tired. I know when I'm tired.

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Begin again listeners get fixed early access pricing when they sign up today at dohealth.com slash begin again. Use code begin again, all in caps. Go, go, go. I am talking and I'm sure you talk to a lot of people in the medical field or who like you started training as a conventional GP or doctor or even specialist, but who become disillusioned and exactly the same of you. See, there must be a way of preventative medicine becoming more of a thing. Does it drive you nuts that there does seem to be a much better way of treating people? And what an enormous difference it would make if we could do this on a much larger scale.

I mean, I know you've reached 250 million people. That is amazing. But I do feel like the general public are still. out there not making the changes that they could make that would really change their lives. Yeah, it used to drive me nuts, okay? When I first started, particularly when I started talking about this in public, you know, when I look at old videos or someone sent me my TED talk with the other day, which haven't seen in years, and I watched it, I'm like, wow, you were young and passionate back then.

And I'm a lot calmer these days. So yes, it drove me nuts back then because I thought there is a better way. and I want people to see this, I want to help people. And I still do, but it doesn't drive me nuts anymore. I feel I'm a lot more emotionally grounded these days. And I just feel that there is a lack of understanding. Like, we believe that when we have a set of symptoms, that we have a thing, that we have, let's say, a disease, right? Without understanding that that disease or that set of symptoms is an expression,

of a variety of different things. So yes, your genetics, right? So we're all born with certain genes. But then along with genetics, you have your nutrition, your movement, your sleep, your stress, what I call the four pillars of health, food, movement, sleep, and relaxation.

You've got your environment, your relationships, how you think about yourself, all those things interact with each other, and the expression of that is your symptoms. And so whilst diagnosed, can be helpful for some people. I'm never a big fan because if you label someone, they feel that, okay, I've got that hat now. Okay, I've got depression. So everything they see

then is through the lens of the fact that I have depression. Whereas if a patient came in with symptoms consistent with depression, I may not use that word. I might say, for example, look, in your life, so there were all these things going on. I think they're contributing to the way that you're feeling. Would you like help? Would you like me to help you understand what those things are and how we can start changing then? And then often, if they're able to,

and if I can connect well enough with them, they change those things, and they don't have as many symptoms. But the whole medical model, the modern medical model relies on us labeling people. And I've always had a slight problem with that. understand why it's helpful for some people, why it can be necessary, but I think it also means it's harder for some people to heal because they think, well, I've got the depression hat now,

and I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life. How many people do you think? Because I think this was definitely me due to, I think, my upbringing was that I was in a constant state of high alert, like all the time. But to the point where I thought it was my superpower, I felt like I'm so on it. I'm so, oh, go, go, go. My legs are always going. Like, I'm like, what's about to happen? And I used to think I can, like, work harder.

I was ambitious. And I love all of those things. And I like, I like being ambitious. I like loving working, all of that. But I have come to realize that my constant state of high alert was making me ill. It was actually having a physical effect on my body. How many people do you see or do you, do you meet who are in this? I mean, I've worked hard to try and help myself change that with some of the things that you've talked about, thanks to you.

How many people do you meet like that? It's very common. It's more common that I think many of us think we think we can keep pushing and keep working and keep working and keep. checking emails on Saturdays and Sundays and keep doing it week after week, month after month, year after year. But that generally for most people there will be a cost, right? Because I see it. I've seen it time and time again. People thought they could keep pushing and then they come in with depression, with their marriage having broken down, with an autoimmune disease. For many years, Devena, I have spent a lot of time seeing people with autoimmune illness.

and I can tell you more than 95% of the time, because I take a very extensive history, I don't just look at the symptoms, I look at what's been going on in the last 20, 30 years that's led to you having this condition today because it doesn't just start the week before or the year before. It's a slow buildup. And almost always,

within the six months preceding diagnosis, there is some significant stressor. Almost always. So I think for people to really understand this, you've got to understand what the stress response is. Right? So, and I'd always explain this to my patients, because stress is not good or bad, right?

A little bit of stress is actually really good for us. It helps us perform at our best. It's that chronic, unrelenting stress that we don't recover from that causes all the problems, right? So let's think about what the stress response is because it's one of the most important responses in our body. So let's imagine it's 200,000 years ago and we're just hanging out in our Hunterser Gatherer tribe, doing our thing, right? If I had just seen a predator, a lion approaching the camp, in an instant, I would activate my stress response. Okay, so certain things would happen.

So what would happen? Okay. my blood pressure would go up so more oxygen can get to my brain. My blood sugar would go up to deliver more glucose to my brain. My blood would become more prone to clotting. Why? Well, if that line was to attack me and cut my skin, instead of bleeding to death, my blood would clot.

That would save my life. My amygdala, the emotional part of my brain, would go onto high alerts, which means I'm going to be hypervigilant. I'm going to hear every single pin drop because this is an emergency situation. These things are bloody fantastic in the short term. The problem is, for many of us these days, is our stress responses are not being activated by wild predators.

They're being activated by the state of our daily lives, our email inbox, our to-do lists. The multiple social media channels we're trying to stay up to date with, the lack of boundary between, between work and home, where we're constantly working now for many of us on Saturdays and Sundays. But if that's your state because of your daily life, well, that's what we call anxiety. Right. So the stress response is about the right amount of stress.

And for many people, that chronic stress is what is really, really affecting us. I'd go as far as say it's killing us. And we know that 80 to 90% of what comes in to see a doctor in any given day is in some way related to stress. And just to finish your stress for a moment, I mentioned the things that get activated when our stress response is triggered. What about the things that get switched off? There's two big things that get switched off, right, which I think will really resonate with people. Number one, your gut function, right? How many people around the UK and around the world have problems with their guts?

One study suggested that 80% of UK adults experience some form of gastrointestinal complaints every year. And yes, diet plays a huge role, but in my view and in my experience, the number one role is stress. Because if you're stressed out, your body has switches off digestion. Because the focus is on getting out of the emergency situation. We should be digesting foods in a really relaxed and calm state, right? which many of us are not. I mean, terrible. The other thing that gets switched off is our libido.

Now, this is really, really common, right? More and more people are complaining of low libido. I'm seeing it in younger and younger age groups. Over the last five years, I would say I've seen so many young men and women, late teens, early 20s, complaining of low libido, right? Which is remarkable. There's many potential causes, but the number one cause is stress. Because if you think about it, if your body thinks that actually you're in danger,

your resources go to running away from the lion, they don't go to thinking about, you know, chilling out and procreating with your partner. So managing chronic stress is arguably one of the most important things that people can do. And here's the thing, people are struggling with their diets and wondering how they can make changes. And I think, although I'm a huge proponent about to making changes to your diet. Actually, if you manage your stress levels first, you'll find the diet you change is much easier because a lot of the time, we manage our stress levels with sugar. Yes. Right? So we keep reading, we keep doing the sugar detox or hearing on podcasts or reading, oh, I need to cut out my sugar. And you can apply this to any behavior,

frankly, DeVina. And this is kind of that really what I've tried to tackle and make change at last. It's basically this idea that you'll never change your behavior unless you understand the role that behavior plays in your life. Yeah. Right? Take alcohol. In January, how many people are trying to quit alcohol? They can do it for two weeks, for three weeks.

But if alcohol is your way of managing the stress in your life, you can white-knuckle it for three weeks and quit. But you'll end up going back to the levels you were drinking before because the underlying root cause of your alcohol was your stress levels. So a sort of big thing that I talk about in chapter 1 is that knowledge is not enough, which I think is going to be quite controversial for some people. We think that if we get people enough knowledge about sugar, about alcohol, about stress, then they'll change their behaviors. But I've seen it time and time And again, knowledge by itself is not enough to facilitate change.

You need self-awareness. You need insight. You need to understand. Oh, right. That's why I go to sugar. That's why I go to alcohol. Oh, that's why I spent three hours scrolling Instagram in the evening. When I keep trying to stop, I didn't realize what role that was playing in my life.

Does that make sense? Totally.