The Wellness Scoop - Can Inflammation Affect Your Mood? Healthy Ageing & The ‘Ferritin Face’ Trend

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

Can inflammation really affect our mood and mental health? Could eating more plants help us age better? And what on earth is “ferritin face”? This week, we explore the fascinating connection between our immune system, inflammation and mental health, and unpack new research suggesting a plant-rich diet could influence markers of biological ageing. We also look beyond the scary headlines linking sugary drinks with stomach cancer, and dive into the viral “ferritin face” trend — including why low iron may be going unnoticed in so many women. Plus, why you definitely shouldn’t diagnose an iron deficiency from TikTok. The Way 30-day trail: https://www.thewayapp.com/wellnessscoop Send your questions for our weekly Q&A to ⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠ Pre-order your copy of Rhiannon's brand-new cook book for kids: ⁠'Ready, Set, Cook!' ⁠ For more from Rhi and Ella:  Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order your copy of Rhi's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up to Rhitrition+ and join Beat The Bloat HERE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. I am genuinely so excited about today's sponsor because it's the way. Honestly, if you have listened to me any time over the last few months, you know I have become a little bit evangelical about this app and I honestly recommend it to everyone.

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because, you know, most of us just don't need more big decisions every day to make, Ella. No, exactly that. We've got decision fatigue, haven't we? So this is so nice because you just follow this path of meditation, which is led by Henry, the founder who's just the most amazing teacher, and he makes it seem somehow just incredibly simple, but exceptionally profound at the same time, which is a very rare skill.

And I've been using it too. Yes, I've now finally begun a meditation journey, and I've been doing some of the shorter practices on busy days because I completely understand why you talk about it so much, Ella. It really is a nice intro in for me. Yeah, it is, and I'm so glad. Anyway, it's helped me feel so much calmer, less reactive. more present. It all sounds like huge claims, but I just say, please, please, please try it if you're

struggling with stress or overwhelm. You just got to give it a go. And the lovely thing is that everyone listening can definitely try it themselves. Exactly. So you can get a 30-day free trial, so just try it every day for a month. It'll change your life. All you do is head to thewayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop. Yeah, that's thewayapp.com forward slash wellness scoop. Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. As always hosted by us, I'm Ella Males. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And after a decade in this wellness industry, we both know how overwhelming and confusing health information can be.

And that's why we're here to cut through the noise with our podcast. It's so nice to see Rhee. I feel like summer has gone on. And I don't need to be ungrateful for it because there's been so many amazing bits. but the summer holidays for me feel like they have reached an eternity. And I really miss routine and I really miss being in person with Ray. And this is the last day of the school holidays. And so I like really want to be grateful.

But oh my God, I can't wait for routine. I can't wait for routine. I can't wait to see Rui in real life. I know. And I've got so much to tell you and catch up. We'll have to wait until after we've recorded this episode. But life is a million miles an hour. So Ella, would you like to share with everybody what we're going to be discussing today? I would. Okay, today we're going to be talking about an interesting new study looking at inflammation and how it may affect depression, anxiety, our mental well-being. Whether eating more plants could help us age better, probably know the answer to that, but always good to get some more evidence. Do sugary drinks really double your risk of stomach cancer? There's some big new topics to talk about in that and this meme that's going around of whether or not a Coke, as in a Coca-Cola, really does take 12 minutes off your life every time you have a can. Then on a

our trends. What is ferretin face? We had cortisol phase. Apparently this is the new TikTok thing. We're going to talk about that. But obviously that relates to low iron, which is a very important topic, particularly for women. And so we're going to look at as well when you should actually get your iron levels checked. And yeah, the be all and end all. And then re, yesterday, we were in London and we were rushing for the train, made it just about. And as I was like rushing in one of those things, I've gone like back to school shopping, pee, shoes, you know, all that kind of stuff. The handles, the bag were broken. So I was like under my arm. It was really hot and sweaty. I was like, come on children. Anyways. And then I went past this lady and she was like, oh my God, I'm listening to you

right now. No way. And she'd go on a scoop in. Yeah. And I was like, that must feel so creepy for her. God, like listening. And I'm suddenly like, hey. If you're listening now, you were the lady when Ella had all her bags. I know. I was like some like flabby stress sweaty. Yeah, probably not my best self. Anyways, I thought you'd like that. real life. I love it. I love it when you all come and say hi and that you tune in. I think it's wonderful. And also, we are just real people here. Just, you know, behind the scenes trying to hold it all together like everybody else. Ella, apart from the fact, obviously you're desperate to get back into routine. How are you? I am medium. I would say if you asked my husband this morning, he'd be like, she's complaining about much.

I don't know. I feel, I don't know. I'm not like... You're not yourself. Yeah. You know, the main thing is, I feel, I feel. I feel. feel like I'm really out of, yeah, routine and like new house, new area, new school starting, new kind of everything, new commute into London. I don't think I'm the best person with newness. And so it feels right. Like, I don't genuinely, and I'm understanding this, like I don't have any regrets. I feel like we've done 100% the right thing. But it's just this, yeah, all the newness. And I'm not so, and I think that's affecting my nervous system. So I'm not sleeping very well. And that, you know, when you don't sleep well for weeks on end, you do feel a bit nuts, don't you, sometimes?

I just think change as a human being is such a difficult thing. And I don't think anybody is actually equipped naturally to be able to handle massive life changes just like it's a breeze. You know, I think we all massively, any transition, any life transition, even the seasonal transition and shifts can affect people, let alone massive life changes. I hate you. I understand. I think when you're going through something that's very different in your environment, it's, yeah, it's hard to feel like yourself again. Yeah, so I'm excited for like the girls to actually start their school, have a bit more time, be able to exercise, get outside. And again, I don't want to be ungrateful for my children. I just want to be honest because I feel like I'm a generally very positive person. So I don't want people to be like, oh my God, she's lying. But I love my kids. But I'm like desperate for a day by myself. I can understand that. Mine are back now already. My little one just started school and it's been a really big emotional roller coaster.

Yeah, it is mega. It's the first time in six years just to put it out there to everyone. I'm sure most of you will know the feeling or, you know, if you don't, it means for six years I've basically had someone else around every Wednesday and Friday and then suddenly now they're not there. Well, just a few weeks, three and then you'll have your next sidekick. And then I'll have the next little one. But no, life is really busy for me at the moment.

And I just wanted to say as well, a big thank you to everybody who tuned in last week and has pre-ordered ready set cook. So the big scary move because I haven't, oh, I will have done today. This comes out Monday the 7th. So I will have announced it on social media today. But I wanted to give wellness group listeners the exclusive the week before. And I was getting all muddled with my dates. But thank you to everyone that believes in the cause for children's nutrition and getting kids cooking more. Those of you that haven't tuned in, you don't know, I announced that I'm releasing a book for children which I've never done before in over 10 years called Ready Set Cook.

I'll pop the link in the show notes, but that was very emotional. And I feel like announcing that has been career-changing, Ella, to be honest. I'm taking loads of different leaps of faith. You know, Ella sat down with me, just so everyone knows. And she spoke to me the other week. and we often share this on the podcast how there are certain subjects that can be quite triggering for us to discuss

and do you know when we discussed the weight loss and the current inspiration in the industry with different names being in the media and how Ella and I have always would you use that language that we've shied away from discussing weight loss Oh my gosh I have been like

I said this to read the other day even when we used to get you know this is in the early days of delicious Celia see people who were, you know, really new to eating a plant-rich diet and eating, you know, it's very natural, loads of home cooking, you know, loads of beans and all the rest of it, which when I started, delicious yellow was incredibly novel. And you got this amazing feedback from people being like, I've bought your books or I'm using your app, I've cooked like this for the last couple of months, I feel amazing.

But if they ever included in feeling amazing that they'd lost some weight and it was in a really like positive, healthy way, maybe some just slightly excess weight that they didn't feel great about and there was maybe more linked to not as healthy dietary choices. We would never, I mean, you can hear me like being so choosy about my words now. We would never ever share that feedback anywhere because we never, you know, there was this absolute fear of talking about weight loss and people, because people had this real feeling, I would say kind of in the public, whether that was in the media or certain people within the social media space, that healthy eating was an eating disorder and that the two

so conflated for a while that it made it really impossible to ever talk about healthy eating and weight loss in the same sentence because there was this, you know, and I found that on a personal level incredibly difficult, like I was Stephanie accused, you know, of, yeah, prompting eating disorders and by, yeah, being a huge advocate for eating well. And I think we have moved past that now, but not everybody has. And I think that fear of triggering anybody in a negative way lingers with the both of us. A hundred percent. And we were talking about this the other week because I wanted to launch, because my master's

degree, ironically, is in obesity risks and prevention. And when I set up the retrition clinic and I started clinical practice, I've helped clients have weight loss for years, years. But I never speak about it online because like Ella, I don't want to trigger that it's a conversation, it's difficult. but I feel with the current landscape with JLP ones and the media and of course obesity now, we've got to remember it's moved up to one in three in primary school age children. The rates are going up.

I feel like it's something we have to talk about. So I've designed this weight loss course as well on Retrition Plus. I've invited Giles Yo to come and do a talk, Professor Giles Yo, who will discuss, you know, molecular and a chronology in all the genes and all those different areas. And Federica and Marty to do GLP ones, I'll discuss weight loss. and it's been something that I've never done. And Ella was like, this is crazy. She's like, this is going to help so many people.

She's like, why, why aren't you? Why don't you just put it out there? So I'm doing it. I'm putting it out there. Children's Nutrition book, my weight loss course is up. And I feel like it's a moment for big leaps, Ella, September. And that's what I'm doing. So again, there'll be a link to that.

I'll pop in the show notes. But I feel that this podcast has really given us because of you listeners, thank you so much to everyone. The lovely lady that stopped Ella with her bags of her kids, all of you make us feel like we can actually have nuanced discussions that help. Yeah, 100%. And also, can I just say, I know I was really whiny this morning. I'm so happy to be here.

Yeah. This is like, PEP in my step. PEP in my sleepy step. Because I was also so tired. And I was like, oh, we've got podcast recording. But I could literally fall asleep on the desk right now. But then when I see Ella and we start talking, I'm like, yes, we're back. I'm like, here we are. This is why we do what we do. So let's move on to our health headlines that matter.

As we keep saying, oh my goodness me, there's so many headlines at the moment. This one was a big one made headlines, you know, the one we pulled out. One sugar-packed soda a day doubles risk of stomach cancer compared to drinking one a month. The study reveals that was in the independent, but this was really picked up kind of across the board. And that is a scary headline that one sugar-packed soda a day. would double the risk of stomach cancer. But I think when you break it down, it's slightly less so. And it's much more relevant, actually, in some countries versus others. It's less relevant here in the UK.

But it's still super interesting and also quite scary. So we wanted to break it down. Ray, over to you. It does sound striking. And the data suggests that one sugar, sweet and drink day was associated with a two and a half times higher risk of stomach cancer. But that's compared to drinking less than one a month. So what's so interesting is that this was a large study sample size. So there were 112,000 people and they were plucked from two major long-running US studies.

278 of those people did sadly develop gastric cancer during the follow-up as well. But I just want to reiterate here that the overall diet is definitely something that's more likely than this one drink. Just while we go on, just to throw the nuance out there, we don't know what the overall diet was of these people. We can delve into that a bit more now. And it feels, I think, really relevant at the moment because in America, the stats are that two-thirds of adults drink these types of beverages a day. Now, we refer to them as sugar-sweetened beverages.

Now, that basically means your Coca-Cola. Pepsi. Fanta, whatever. Is Fanta even around now? Am I that out of touch? Is Fanta a thing? I don't know. I used to like Fanta.

I used to like Lilt. I don't know if that's even around anymore. It reminds me of like summer holidays. holidays when I was a teenager. Anyway, so obviously I don't think anyone's going around thinking, oh my gosh, Coca-Cola, it's so healthy. But what was interesting here in, and this is really the crux of the difference from country to country, is that what the researchers in this study were particularly interested in

were these drinks that were sweetened with fructose and specifically then high fructose corn syrup. And I'm just going to pause there for re to explain to us what high fructose corn syrup. corn syrup is. Basically, with all the discussions we've had on UPFs and the degree of processing that different items can undergo, it's one of the most heavily processed forms of sugar you can add. And actually, we don't have it in the UK. So we do not use high fructose corn syrup here purely because we know it can have a negative impact on our health. Now, I don't know why that's still allowed in the States. And I would have thought by now, perhaps they would have changed that. But

clearly not. It's one of the first things that is pulled out when you know people compare an American item to a UK item and they look at ingredient lists and they look at different e-numbers and we talk about artificial sweeteners and ingredients. But it has such a fast impact on your insulin and it's very difficult for your liver to break down. Your liver will do its job. But when you're drinking a large proportion of this at one go, it is difficult for your body to handle. And yeah, we don't use it here, Ella. Exactly. So if you look at Coca-Cola, for example, in the US, it's sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, and it's not over here. And what the research has found, and that's why the high-fructose corn syrup so relevant, is that it was the higher total fructose intake from these

drinks that was the association with these higher rates of gastric cancer. So that's your headline right there, essentially. And what the researchers are suggesting is that it's the high intakes of high-fructose corn syrup that potentially contribute to increased fat production, insulin resistance and inflammation, which could in turn play a role in this cancer development. And now we often talk about how you can't just take an animal study and say that will happen in humans. We know that. But interestingly, it is shown in animal studies to indirectly fuel tumor growth through

changes and how the liver processes fats, which is really interesting. So it doesn't necessarily mean that that's what's happening in adults. in humans, but there is just this interesting, it's building on existing research and thoughts that people have and ideas as to what these drinks might be doing for us. But as I said, more relevant for our US listeners because it's very rarely used here. Interestingly, on labels, as I understand from my research, is that when we have it here, it's not called high fructose corn syrup, it's called glucose fructose syrup, but it's the same thing. Do you understand that to be true? That's what my research was telling me.

Whilst the percentages of glucose and fructose are variable, and there is a marginal difference in the two, which, just to give you a little bit of biology, fructose is metabolized in our liver. Glucose can circulate and is broken down differently. And essentially, it's the load on the liver at a certain time. And I think what's so important to reiterate here as well is that this study is talking about people

that have these items daily. So if this is part, if this is how you're hydrating by reaching for your can of Coke, that's not hydration that's a healthy form of hydration. And I think that's really, really important to remember. So it doesn't suddenly make all sugary drinks bad, does it? It's just the fact that I think it's really important that we do draw upon the fact that, you know, these drinks aren't marketed as being healthy, but they've become everyday items for some people.

and it's really important to remember that even though we're not saying it directly causes cancer, it does elevate your risk of poor health if you're having them every single day. It does. And in the UK, as I said, very rarely use. Interestingly, though, and I find this so random, one of the products, like a more mass market product that uses the glucose fructose syrup that we're saying is this almost identical, not quite, but almost identical version that we have in the UK, is a cabri double decker. But I still do those.

It's so interesting because cabbries have had to change their makeup as well, haven't they, because of the amount of cocoa available, you said. It's called chocolate flavouring, isn't it? It's not chocolate. And also, Mr. Kipling. Yeah, in the UK we have this thing called Battenberg cake. Oh my gosh, I love it. It was like one of my favourite things.

Do you? Or my brother used to love it. Freaks me out. Oh, so, just to explain to everyone listening, they're like checkered windows of cake. Actually, thinking about it, it must sound quite revolting, but I used to love it. It's so sweet. pink and yellow checkered square looks like a little chessboard

and around it you have like like an iced royal cake you have marsy pan that goes around the edge and it's in a long loaf that's surrounded with marsy pan obviously not great for your health but tastes absolutely as I think delicious that is a Battenberg cake

and that's what Mr. Kipling on one of those old brands I think my grandparents used to buy their like fondant fancies oh I love to those when I was little that was our like favorite trait. See, I prefer a Battenberg. But there you have it. So it's very interesting. It's obviously used in the food industry more widely than we'd realized and it is not a great addition. I think we can agree. No, clearly not. And again, adds to a bigger picture, surprise, surprise,

but more research to show sugary drinks have been previously linked with obesity, type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, as well as a higher risk of several types of cancer. But as we said, none of these things also exist in a vacuum. We know that sugary drinks aren't obviously the only dietary factor associated with stomach cancer. We've also got, as we know, processed meats, heavily grilled or charred foods, and also our low fibre, fruit and veg intake. So I think the headlines sound way scarier than the science when you look at it. But I do think particularly for American listeners, it's an interesting note to be mindful of high fructose corn syrup, which you probably already knew. Yeah, you probably did already know.

And lots of you would be very frustrated, I'm sure, because you've probably been asking for this ingredient to be changed for a long time. But how does it link on Coca-Cola? So there's the viral 12 minutes off your life claim that is circulating. 12 minutes calculated exactly. So how did we come to that number, Ella? Yeah, I don't know if you guys have seen it, but we've seen it kind of doing the rounds bit on social media,

being like, yeah, every time you drink a can of Coca-Cola, you lose 12 minutes of your life, which seems quite extreme. So I was thinking out like, why, where did this come from? Because this is obviously not like a clinical study. And basically where it originates from is a study from 2021 at the University of Michigan. And it created something called the Health Nutritional Index. And researchers analyzed more than 5,800 different foods and estimated how individual servings could expect healthy life expectancy. So essentially minutes of life lived in good health. And for a serving of sugar, sweetened drinks, their model came. up with roughly 12 minutes of healthy life lost. So it's not going to actually play out, obviously, in such a black and white way. But I think it is interesting that... Just soak out. It's 12 minutes. It's like the 10,000 steps a day from the Olympics and then this study has just suggested 12 minutes. And obviously, if you smoke, if you don't eat well, you know, genetic factors, all of those will probably have a much bigger impact on your lifespan. But, you know, perhaps we need

headlines like this, although it is quite demonising of a specific food, but we can't pretend it's healthy. Yeah, I mean, there was more research than looking into it. So in the UK, there was research looking at 123,000 people, obviously big data set that found that drinking one sugar, sweet and beverage a day was associated with a 50% higher risk for developing fatty liver disease. There was a big paper in nature medicine in January 2025 that looked at about 184 countries. In that research, estimated that sugary drinks were attributable to 2.2 million new cases of type 2 diabetes and 1.2 million new cases of cardiovascular disease globally in 2020. So kind of when you put this together with this increase in gastric cancer, with this increase in risk for fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc. It's just this interesting thing where like everywhere you go, you see Coca-Cola, you see Pepsi, you see all these drinks there like everywhere. you know, even in like children's soft play. And they are so normal and it's so normal to drink them.

It's too normalized. Yeah, and it's weird if you don't drink them. Like, as I said, you know, I definitely think people think my children are weird that someone can get to seven and never having tried any of these drinks. And actually then when you start to the research, you're like, you know what? I don't think we need these things in our lives. What's interesting is that these headlines are still circulating even though the sugar tax technically was labelled a success. So there was a tax on these beverages. Countries that were heavily researched originally were places like Brazil, I believe, Mexico of sugar-sweetened

beverages and obesity rates. And what a debate that sparked in the scientific community was that you had a few researchers came out saying, oh, sugar is the cause of obesity, which obviously we know it's not. It's in the overall diet lifestyle and environmental factors. But it sparked this humongous debate and between different scientists that were researching this. And that's why and when the sugar tax kind of came around. Is it the same same sort of time? Carlos Montero developed his Nova scale on ultra-processed foods from one to four because he was looking at rates in his country of obesity and thinking, well, you know, I think it's more than just the corn syrup or just the Coca-Cola. I think it's everything. But clearly these messages need to be out there in the public domain.

So interesting headline. I don't like it when we talk about death. However, I think we've given that some background. Yeah, I do too. And I think although those headlines were kind of slightly out of context to an extent, I think when you look at the bigger picture, actually, I think probably the fearmongering is in a way not the worst thing. Because actually when we look at the impact of these drinks and they are things that people drink on a regular basis, it's actually really shocking. Yeah, I agree. It moves us on to a very different headline, headline two today. which discusses our mental health and again, inflammation. So I feel like when inflammation is used, it's very clickbait. I think people are fascinated, aren't they?

There's all sorts of books and diet plans and all sorts of things. And I think everyone's a bit confused, but this was in The Guardian this week. That's true. And the headline was, is it true that mental health is affected by inflammation? And that just felt really important. But before we get into the ins and outs of our mental health. health and the impact that inflammation may or may not have. Just remind us when we're talking about inflammation, what are we actually talking about?

So the technical part of inflammation, so you don't really want your body to be in a permanent state of inflammation, but it is a normal immune response. So when your body is under threat or you're coming down with something, inflammation almost helps your white blood cells circulate really quickly around the body and, you know, do what they need to do to repair or fight. and you might have seen at school those old images and textbooks that you've got AI now, which is, I mean, if I had had these AI images of the immune system when I was at university, I think I would have, I would have aced it compared to probably the grades I did in the end get,

because wow, it breaks it down. You see these amazing phytocels getting really quickly to the site of infection because your blood vessels, vasodilate, so they get wider and bigger and you're inflamed and everything gets to the site. It's like if you have a cut on your finger and you get that little raised red sore mound that develops around that cut, that's the sight of inflammation because it's all your white blood cells coming together very quickly to fight off what we need. But, you know, we also have lower levels of systemic inflammation which can occur constantly, which is what we don't want. So if we're carrying extra weight from obesity as we age, this naturally happens. and there's one particular marker that scientists like to use,

which are signaling molecules called cytokines, which are a type of immune cell that talk to one another inside the body. And this is where the study leads on, Ella, because some cytokines have shown that they affect the brain and how we feel. So the talking that goes on between the immune response and our brain, they might also be having this interaction. It's so, so interesting. And so that is the kind of hypothesis, I think,

people have right of why inflammation might be then affecting our mood and whether it can then contribute to mental health challenges, depression, anxiety, etc. And there was some really interesting associations that were brought up in this article. So there was one study. Now this was following children, but it followed nearly 5,000 children. And it found that those children that had high levels of the inflammatory cytokine, IL-6, by 9. And despite these children having no signs of, tool of depression at this point. They were then more likely to experience depression by 18. And that's just one study. It's not just children. There was another study in adults. They found a correlation between developing an immune-mediated inflammatory disease and having previously being

diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, including depression and anxiety. So obviously none of these are exact to telling us what's causing what. But it just adds to this interesting body of evidence that immune health and mental health probably a lot more interconnected. and interwoven than we once thought or that we maybe think of every day. And one of the things I personally have always found really interesting really, I don't know if you feel the same in my career, is this sense that like, okay, so take today, okay, I'm really tired, I'm overstimulated, I kind of can't quite be bothered sort of thing.

And it's so much easier to just eat some crisps and eat some bread and get a takeaway. way. And I'm not, we all have days like that. So, you know, I'm not demonizing it. But it's hard in those moments to kind of imagine that those decisions are just like, you know, you're thirsty and you see a Coca-Cola and you like the taste, you grab one, that that would affect the inner workings of your brain. It's one of the things I always felt was really frustrating when it came to nutrition and inspiring people to sort of shift their diet is that like you don't have this tangible impact. And we talked about weight loss a minute ago. When you're talking about weight loss, it's a lot more tangible, right?

Like shift your diet and in a month's time, you'll be able to have like an really clear difference probably in terms of a number on a scale or the way your genes fit, etc. But when it comes to the inner workings of our mind, our body inflammation, etc., we don't have that. And so I think it is important to talk about how these things might affect us on a more kind of cellular level.

What do you think? It's like a tale as old as time. It's like a, chicken and egg. It's the constant debate in life, isn't it, with the actions we take every day, the outcome of how we feel, is it really cause or effect? It's the constant question that scientists ask again and again, but it makes absolute common sense. I'm sure every scientist, every immunologist would agree there is 100% a connection between these illnesses or diseases and the impact, of course, on our mental health, our brain chemistry, perhaps how the, I mean, we know, for instance,

when in motherhood, and I was looking at this the other day, because your brain changes and it changes with every pregnancy you have or a degree of trauma that you have, you can wake in that area that becomes hypervigilant, the state, you know, there's so many chemistry changes that aren't measured. And I think what's really interesting here and perhaps most fascinating is that The studies on people with rheumatoid arthritis have found that cytokine blocking drugs, so anti-inflammatory drugs, can improve their mood as well as treating the underlying inflammatory disease. And arthritis is one of those really brutal diseases that people live with, and we just need to learn so much more.

And scientists now know that there is this relationship. I think our immune system and mental health, it makes absolutely. sense. But that's not to say that if you just eat a healthy meal, you're suddenly going to feel incredibly better. We're talking, of course, over the 80, 20% of the time, over the course of time. And it makes sense because our gut bugs and our immune system, let's remember the link. Our bugs that live in our gut, they're trained by our immune system. They live and reside in the same area. And if they're getting good food in your microbiome is getting good food, it makes perfect sense your immune system may be able to respond differently and then different signals

that are involved of our serotonin production, the happy hormone that are also attributed to you by our gut bugs can perform better and do their job. I honestly think the first trial that we had I think it was in around lockdown time with Professor Jacker, Felicia Jacker and she did the smiles trials and we talk about it a lot in nutrition research because she showed that there were links between the Mediterranean diet and reduced rates of depression and depression being more effective than clinical therapy and interventions for depression. So there is a link between how we live,

how ill we are, how poorly we are, and our mental health. I don't think we can deny it. Really interestingly, on a kind of gentle segue from that, actually, really, is that there was some new information published yesterday, which is that there's a new breakthrough that some scientists have had looking at, interestingly, to add on to what we were just saying, Emmy, long COVID, PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis, as you just mentioned, and multiple sclerosis, all conditions which have this, well, is very different and have very different causes, they all suffer from chronic exhaustion.

That's a kind of common thread. And profound fatigue, brain fog. So as I said, triggered by different events, could be a viral infection, could be psychological trauma, and they previously been considered very separate and related disorders. But by examining the DNA structure inside the cells of people living with these five diseases, scientists found the diseases appear deeply connected because all five showed signs of a similar, they called it systems failure of the body's immune response. And I think it's so interesting.

And I had something called postrotaki Cardia syndrome, which is very similar to ME. and very similar to non-COVID and had this chronic exhaustion that was so crippling and completely changing my diet and having this obsessive focus on gut health and rebuilding my immune system and rebuilding my gut health and also looking at kind of mental well-being and stress reduction had such a profound impact on my symptoms and it was always very confusing as to why in the more research we've had the more interesting and kind of clear it's become as to why that could have been the case and it's not a magic answer but anyway I just I just thought it's super interesting, the immune system is it's so important, goodness me.

So important. And when you are living with an impaired one, you know, for any reason, shape or form, you know, that is going to add, like you said, another level. And let's look out for more research in those areas, as Ella said, because it's undeniable, the link. And interestingly, I remember speaking to Professor Daniel Davis and he wrote in this article that although, you know, of course, there are several lines of evidence that point towards an overlap between the immune system mental health that, you know, as scientists, we haven't worked out yet who specifically could benefit and which parts of the immune system are evolved or how safely they can be targeted. So if we could obviously pinpoint this in time with research, how fascinating that would be

if we could learn where the exact impact is taking place. And we could really help people because Ella and I will discuss it later on. I mean, there have been, I know we say it like Ella said, but there are hundreds of headlines. And I keep seeing, you know, there was another one about mental health crisis yesterday, children and rates and all sorts of things rocketing. And it makes sense to Ella and I that in a world where our environment and our diet are declining, that mental health, poor mental health is increasing. Yeah, because, you know, as we talk about, you know, we take just inflammation in this sense.

Like it's not just obviously about your diet, it's regular movement, stress management, Loads obviously of plants and fibre is part of our diet. It's good sleep. It's not smoking. It's maintaining a healthy way. It's all of these factors together. And ultimately, like, we're really struggling with almost all of them. It's very interesting.

Anyway, on to our third, I feel like this episode's going to go on forever, guys. Hope that's okay. On to our third and final headline of today, which was, this headline comes from the independent, going vegan for just a month, slowed signs of aging in the body study finds. Yeah, this was in the independent. It's a really interesting one again, following on from inflammation and the fact we've been discussing one little piece of the pie, which could be the nutrition. And a new small study, I will stay, found that when you consume a vegan diet for just four weeks, it altered biological markers that are associated with aging and inflammation. Now, it is small and tiny. But we do have research like this, lots of research that when people consume more plants and vegetables, these sorts of biomarkers are explored and found. So the research is in this particular headline that made it into the press examined blood samples from just 50 adults, half of the

meat eaters and half of them vegans, who consumed a similar number of calories or energy, you know, the same amount of energy in the meals each day. Okay, and the calories, we know calories, you know, they're not all equal and all the rest of it. But it's important here because I think people often assume if you're going to like a plant-based diet, you're a little bunny rabbit and you're just going to eat a nibble of, you know, crudetase, which is not the case. Generally speaking, I think, but also very much not the case here. So it's not like the vegan group benefited from a reduction in calories versus the meat eating group. It was the same. I think it's really important because after just one month, researchers found that there had been

changes in DNA methylation, which really, can you explain to us what that means? Methylation is one of the most important areas that as a nutritional scientist, we also like to look at because they're markers of epigenetic change, which means across our lives. I think I've used the analogy of the switch before, like a light switch. You know, different life experiences, stress, illness, many different things we can switch on. and we can estimate our aging by measuring the degree of DNA methylation, so changes within our DNA and biological aging. So it's like a chemical change that scientists look at.

And it's really, really interesting. And to add on to Ella's point, that misconception that vegan diets is all about low energy because actually to make the plate the same as the meat eater's plate, it would have had to been substantially bigger. You know, it would have been piled up with, a lot of lower dense energy foods to create the same amount of energy within the two groups. So they weren't just relying on one vague measure of age. They actually used two different epigenetic clocks.

So one estimated the biological age, like I've just explained from DNA methylation. And both suggested that the biological aging had decelerated in the vegan group. And there were also changes to the immune system, Ella, which leads on from our last headline. Yes, exactly that. So the vegan group appeared to have lower levels of neutrophils, which is type of immune cell that's involved in our inflammatory response and then higher levels of a type of white blood cell that helps regulate the immune response. So that's obviously all really good news. And I think what's crazy, obviously is a really small study. So, you know, nothing can be set in stone. But it's only four

weeks. And in that time, there was some really clear, measurable molecular changes. And I think what's so interesting, as we were just saying, so many of these things, they feel whether you choose to have a chickpea salad or like a kind of on the go not so healthy meal deal as thing. I don't mean to deem nice thing, but I just as a really easy example, like you think it might not make all the difference, but actually there is such evidence that our nutrition really impacts our biology at a molecular level. And it's so interesting. And I think to say like this isn't about becoming fully vegan almost certainly. It's almost certainly the benefit here is coming from a huge amount of fruit, veg, whole grains, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes,

other plant foods, which we know in study after study are associated with long-term better health. There was another study, a much, much bigger 1,000 people that showed the people whose diets were very rich in these plant foods with much less red and processed meat, had an 86% greater chance of healthy ageing at 70s. So I don't think, for people, you know, listeners really enjoy having dairy and they really enjoy having fish and meat. It's not like you can't eat those things for health, but I think it is, it's just one more example of why this abundance of plant food is so incredibly important. Yeah, plant-based nutrition, the technical term doesn't mean vegan.

And it's been used by the food industry, right, a lot. And the reason I wrote that book, the science of plant-based nutrition is because I wanted to create an encyclopedia for people to try and encourage the fact, look, if you like your meat and you like your cheese, have a lower amount of it, but just include more vegetables and plants and fight. Again, it links back to fiber. It links back to diversity. It links back to color because we both know a vegan diet could also be full of ultra-processed foods. You know, it's how you choose to build the food upon your plate. And food labels, the reason they can be so contentious is because it still is up to you. You can eat a very, healthy omnivore diet and a very unhealthy one, just as you can, with vegan diets. So I think there's

just so many misconceptions, Ella, but what's so interesting is what you've said about seeing molecular changes in four weeks. That ties alongside gut health research that comes out saying that when you change your diet to include more diversity in plants like the American gut project, it can take up to a week or two weeks to notice gut microbiome changes too. So you can influence heavily, probably your immune system, your gut health, by just having more vegetables, diversity and fiber on your plate. Yeah, and I always think just interesting to know, or I have always found it interesting to know, as you said, that we vegan and plant-based are not the same thing. And again, the researchers were really keen to emphasize that what we were talking about here wasn't vegan food

as such. It was plant-based food in the sense of, yeah, fruit, veg, beans, etc. Because obviously you can have a very processed vegan diet and I think the thought is that that wouldn't give you the same benefits. And actually just for a point of reference, vegan as a term was invented back in 1944 and it was created to separate

vegans from vegetarians so anyone who, to have no animal consumption whatsoever and fully for animal rights reasons, obviously huge respect for that. Whereas plant base came from the 1980s from an American doctor called Dr. Thomas Colin Campbell

he was a professor of biochemistry at Cornell and he created a plant-based diet as a way of describing a high-fiber vegetable-rich diet. He interestingly later added whole food to it so it was a whole-food plant-based diet and he created that to distinguish a health-focused plant-based way of eating

from a vegan or vegetarian diet which as I said they predated but they were created for ethical moral reasons. So actually on a kind of like very literal sense the two are completely different, completely, completely different. But how wild that now in the modern world, and that's what I think hasn't helped the cause formal plants on people's plates, either because these terms are often misunderstood still.

It's still the food labelling, isn't it? And it's not helped the situation. No, and I think people feel like they have to go then 100%, and that's just not necessarily appealing or feasible, etc., for the vast majority of people, more, like more is more is more. Yeah, it's so interesting. Our trend is funky today. Our trend is good. I have to be honest, this was an Ella find. I hadn't seen this one. And then I was like, this is so crazy. Ferretin face Ella. Do you have it from Vogue? I hope not. Well, I

somehow on my phone have like accidentally, I think, signed up for, I think it's like a Google health headline notification, actually very helpful for the job. Very helpful for us. I don't think I meant to do it. Anyway, I sometimes get these notifications. So I got one the other day being like, have you got ferretin face? I was like, what the hell is this? I mean, it is the most common deficiency for women and teenagers, iron.

So, I mean, it's going to go down well. Yeah, it made me laugh. So that the water's ferretin face and do you have it, as we said, that was from Vogue. but this has been picked up in all sorts of titles like BuzzFeed, Allure, etc. It's got traction on TikTok, you know, what's new there. And, you know, we obviously had cortisol phase before that we talked about, which is when you get kind of puffy from stress. Ferritin face essentially is when you're looking like really pale or washed out.

Because ferretin is, we're talking essentially about an eye deficiency here. And apparently your signs of having your ferretin face, so essentially having iron deficiency and how that might look up from an aesthetic perspective. is a pale or washed out skin, a dull complexion, dark under eye circles, dry or cracking, skin and lips, hair thinning or shedding. Which obviously could be so many different things. I was about to say not necessarily low iron, right? No, although as someone who is currently anemic and taking 300 milligrams of ferrous sulfate in pregnancy, can I just say that that has stabilized my levels and I'm now officially just low in iron rather than deficient, so it does work.

But yeah, these obviously are symptoms. And when I was anemic, I didn't have cracking lips or hair loss. So I just, I take a lot of these things with a pinch of salt. But it is really important to be aware of your health. And if you do feel you have permanent dark circles and you are losing hair, all these sorts of things should, I think, warrant a visit to your GP anyway. Of course, self-face felt like a kind of silly trend. Ferritin face is obviously silly in the sense of like, yeah, it was slightly ridiculous.

but actually it's kind of underlining something that's really quite important. There was a JAMA report from 2024 that showed 34% of women aged between 18 and 50 were iron deficient. And it's a real issue, isn't it? Yeah, I'd say it's higher because what we now know is that we've actually changed the markers for iron in this country as well to what is classified as low for women depending on their age. and if they're menstruating, if they're pregnant, you know, that that marker and that number that we've been measuring for years

could actually be incorrect. It could be wrong. And also, now we're talking more about women's health and we're learning more, things like heavy periods that perhaps before we just took for granted, we know now are not normal and you do deserve to access help with that. But that could also predispose you

to requiring more iron than the average person anyway. I think there's just so many factors. involved. Essentially low iron stores, just to explain it as well, you can still have them without being classified as anemic because anemia means you don't have enough healthy blood cells to get the oxygen around your body. Whereas your ferretins, when you're looking at the two different blood test results, reflects how much stored iron you have, which is equally important. But as women, we go through these secular, you know, levels changing consistently over a period of time. And, you know, fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, shortness of breath, restless legs,

hair shedding, all of these sorts of things can be happening. Yet you can have a blood test result that was saying that your iron's normal and it's just not right. So it's being looked at. It's another one of the women's health areas, Ella, that's being explored. For sure. And sometimes linking it to our appearance is the best way to get it to catch on and get people interested and curious and wanting to know more. And in that sense, it's great. I completely and utterly great. And also, it could be relevant in your 40s because people tend to associate iron deficiency, I think, with that menstruation age and younger women. But for perimenopause, there's also these unpredictable cycles throughout women's lives. And we know, of course, in some Asian

cultures, people can experience menopause, I think it's like up to five to ten years earlier than Caucasian. So for so many women around the world, this will be impacting them massively. So while this trend is a bit ludicrous, you know, you don't want to go around labelling someone. Like, I'm naturally very pale. I guess anyone could think I have ferretin face all the time. You know, you don't want label. But what about people that naturally have darker skin? They're never going to get labeled with ferretin face yet they could be more at risk of being iron deficient. It's crazy. It's very, very true. Well, Rhea, I've never looked to you and thought, oh, she must have ferretton face. I don't know. when you were describing it, I was thinking of myself going, hmm, bit dull at the moment, bit pale.

Oh, my gosh. I know, but they're basically, you know, the World Health Organization uses a marker, so everyone knows, of below 15 milligrams per moladers as a cutoff for iron deficiency in women. Well, other studies have suggested it is below 30. So you're looking at double. And in 2025, so last year, a Lancet review proposed that anything below 50 should prompt a closer look. And this still hasn't caught on. so many women are being missed off the mark, Ella, and it's not okay.

I love that. No, it's so good. So yeah, silly trend, but actually a very important one in the end. Amazing. Well, guys, thank you so much for listening. It's just so nice to be here with you. On Thursday's episode, we are going to be talking about whether stress has a big impact on our digestion. We're going to be talking a bit about kind of back-to-school, healthy shortcut sort of thing, creatine, MCT oil, and a whole lot more, as always. So we can't wait to see you then. Have a great day. Have a lovely week, everyone.

Thank you for listening. Bye.