The Wellness Scoop - Food, Mood and the 2026 Wellness Trends to Watch!

Episode Date: December 1, 2025

This week we’re unpacking the stories shaping long-term health, from the latest research on ultra-processed foods to the global rise in childhood blood pressure. We look at a major new study linking UPFs to early bowel polyps in women under 50, what the data actually shows and what practical changes matter day to day. We also explore why hypertension in children has almost doubled over the past twenty years, what’s driving the trend, and the small, realistic habits that help protect heart health from early life. Alongside the big stories, we dive into two smaller but fascinating pieces of research: how gallery visits can lower cortisol and inflammation, and why speaking more than one language might help slow biological ageing. We pick up on last week’s GLP-1 discussion with a thought-provoking piece from The Cut on emotional blunting, appetite and pleasure, and round things off with the seven wellness trends set to shape 2026 including bone health, creatine, fibre, tech boundaries, cellular health and infrared workouts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Donate today at camh.cage.ca. when you're flying emirates business class sipping your favorite cocktail at our onboard lounge you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over fly emirates fly better Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly days of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're here as your host today. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Riannan Lambert. And after a decade in this wellness industry, we know it can be very overwhelming and confusing. And that's why we've created this podcast to cut through all of that noise and make healthier living, simple, fun and personal.

Today's show is jam-packed and actually I was expecting when we started the podcast beginning of the year to have tumbleweeds at this time of year. When we started, Rees said to me, she was like, do you think we'll really have enough to talk about in terms of new wellness news every single week? I think we were kind of up in the air whether that would be the case. But the end of the year, it's coming so thick and fast, it's unbelievable. So, yep, so much talk about. We're going to give us a first look inside the Lancet's new landmark EUPF event that she went to in Parliament, which is very, very exciting. I can't wait to hear about it.

The Instagram account where a man sings to animals and why that is pure joy. I don't know anything about this one, but can't wait. New study linking high UPF intake to early onset bowel cancer. Why art galleries could lower stress and inflammation in just 20 minutes, how speaking multiple languages might slow biological aging, the global rise in children's blood pressure and simple habits. that could protect heart health from early on. The emotional beige blanket effect. Some people are now reporting on GLP-1s. That was a fab article. I can't wait to get into that. And the seven wellness trends set to shape 2026 from bone health to fibre.

So, Rhee, we've got to get straight on into it, I think. Gosh, so much. And you're right. There are so many headlines. And I feel like the wellness news now is actually filtrating into what's usually Christmas food kind of month. It's really strange, isn't it? Do you know, Rie, I read something.

I will bring it to the show properly next. sweet because this is very top line. I don't have it in front of me, but I was reading an article last night, I think it was in the Times, about how Gen Z are kind of foregoing the Christmas excess, lots of alcohol and hangovers and all the rest of it. And they're really focusing on making the most of the last days of 2025 to hit their goals, which is so interesting because this time of year has traditionally been kind of, yeah, known as a moment of excess. And apparently that trend is really shifting. Well, I think it's really nice. I mean, yes, let's dive into it next week because there's definitely a lot to unpick and it's really interesting.

And I think I'll start with you all by just giving a tiny summary and we'll go into it in more depth next week of the evening that I attended at the Lancet reviews. So for everyone that doesn't know, the Lancet published lots of work and they had the founder of the UPF score, Carlos Montero, who is a scientist in Brazil. And if anyone's got my unprocessed platebook, you'll have read all about it or you've heard us discuss it on the podcast seller and I numerous times that ultra-processed foods are category four in what is called a Nova scale. And he had flown over with his team who have developed these incredible three new, brand-new papers looking at ultra-processed foods, what we're going to do about it, how they're linked to chronic diseases

and poor health outcomes. And the whole evening was hosted by Dr. Chris Van Tolercombe. And there was a special room of people. I felt very honored to be invited of scientists and health professionals and people in the industry. And there were lots of people there who did not put the hands up who were asked to you from big industry as well. I'm talking about the companies that probably own nearly every other company in the world attending. And it was a very, very interesting night.

I think one of the most striking parts of the evening was how we communicate this message. And they made it very clear that they don't want to demonize foods as well. So the baby formula example was used Ella in the conversation saying, look, we have to start differentiating like they do over in South America. on packaging items in a different way. So what they've suggested we need to do here in the UK, I mean, whether our government choose to listen

or embark upon this, I don't know. But they have a different sliding scale. So they'll put what level of processing on over the food is, one to four. So if it's four, it's like an ultra-process Mars bar, or four could be baby formula. And then there's another sliding traffic light scale of green and amber and red.

and within that you can have another marking. So baby formula, potentially maybe it would be green because it's really beneficial for a baby but also four at the same time. And then it would put a Mars bar as probably bright red and again a number four. So I think that was a really interesting consideration that they put on how we are looking at recategorizing foods

in this country. It is really interesting because you'll have it again where you'll have every now and again a tin of tomatoes or something like that. And yes, it might have a preservative and lots do, but some do, they will have added, might have an added preservative, as I said, or something like that in. But ultimately, whilst it then technically is an ultra-processed food, that's probably a cheaper tin of tin tomatoes allowing you to make a cheaper more cooked-from-scratch meal,

which ultimately we shouldn't, to your point, again, be demonising. Even if there are better return to as valuable, that's normally the cheapest option. It's important not to devenise that. So I think that's really interesting because it is quite unhelpful to some extent at the moment, the kind of black and white nature of UPFs. It's so unhelpful. And I think that's a really good example. Yeah, but it's about how can we help people? How can we help everyone navigate this conversation?

Because we have the evidence which we'll go into next week. They are harmful in excess. You know, we cannot deny the fact that we need. And that's purely because we're not consuming the nutrients we need to be by consuming these foods. It's not that these foods are inherently really toxic, as people online might want to say. It's because by consuming them, you are not consuming the whole food. the fiber, the protein, the vitamins, minerals. But there's one other thing to really highlight, I think, as well, which we'll also delve

into, which is the billions and trillions of dollars spent by the UPF industry, which we can go into next week, the stats and figures, the fact that even in my industry, nutrition and dietitics, some of these huge companies responsible for 50% of the sales of UPFs are the ones that fund educational courses for health professionals. There's a real dichotomy of how do you break away from. this bias, you know, you can have Coca-Cola funding a nutrition conference. It just makes no sense. You know, these sorts of things that we see again and again and again, the subliminal marketing and bite back, the youth company that we've discussed before, that campaign for transparency for

youth when it comes to marketing ultra-process foods were there. And one final thing I want to say, because I want to try and skim over this huge evening and delve into it next week is one message that really stood out for me, Ella. And Rita, I think. I think Lobo is how you say it. I'd never heard of her before. She's huge online over in South America and Brazil, millions and millions of followers. She's older than us. She's a cook by trade and she said that ultra-processed foods came in when women were driven back into the workforce. So it's a positive change. Females were beginning to gather, well, some sort of equality. We'd argue it's still not there financially, but still equality to go out and work. Men didn't step up and help fill

the load at home. So then cooking became non-existent. Yeah. And people then turned to convenience foods. And she said it's not a woman's job to cook. And she said, unless everybody cooks, we are never going to solve the food crisis we have today. And that to me, I know that there was all this research being presented. But to me, it really emphasized the wellness scoop and everything we tried to talk about, that it's these small things. You don't have to be a gourmet cook. You can just roast a tray of beans. it's the way that we're told and we're taught about food so I'm going to leave it at that because there's so many headlines for us to discuss today

but it was such a it was quite emotive don't get me wrong there were scientists getting quite angry and emotive about what they were speaking about there were mentions of names of companies you know a few finger pointing to a degree but also the bigger picture to me was labelling and getting people cooking and money

I can't wait to go into this in more detail next week but I do think the cooking point is so important and it's something I've always felt so passionate about because I remember early on when I started, it was this sense of you can't be a good cook unless you are a kind of like fully trained cordon blur. There's no hope for a cellar. I mean, it's just such a different way of cooking and it's phenomenal and to be highly respected and it's a real art and a craft. But equally I think it then sometimes I think that becomes quite a barrier for people then saying I'm not a good cook so I can't do a simple Monday night meal. And I think it's really, really trying to remember actually all of

us can cook those easy meals. Now, I'm not saying that making like puff pastry, you know, delicacies and beautiful layered desserts, it's easy. Like that bit becomes complicated and requires huge amounts of time and patience and learning and crafting. But cooking a stir fry or a quick, easy kind of curry type meal, I really passionately believe we can all. do and it's really within all of our grass but it's about empowering people you know to really differentiate home cooking i couldn't agree more and let's hope that everyone listening we love all your comments on spotify and we do do the listener questions on thursdays but i want to know that this is having a positive impact you know just inspiring people to get back in the kitchen and

you're right it should be for everybody and it is so alienating when i see these accounts of people we've always multiple methods and recipes that just seems so out of reach and take so much time. Just make your basic, even a pesto pasta is a humongous achievement because it's healthy and home cooked and you haven't resorted to a ready meal.

I totally agree and I think just to finish on there and I don't mean this in like a silly way. I mean it to myself, to you, to all of us, it's not condescending, but like if you do, you know, get home and you do quickly, maybe you blitz up a pesto and so you can put two different nuts in it and you can maybe about a handful of greens in it

as well. Cook your pasta. You add some peas or some edamarme to it. You put that all together. You're probably getting five plants, six plants in there. You're going to get a fibre pack meal. It's going to take you 10 minutes or so with very little washing up. And everyone in your household will probably eat it. And that is something to feel like you are winning. You do not need to be doing a Norrismith. And I'm not knocking her, but like you don't need to do a meal that's taken four hours to have a successful meal at the end of the day. And I think that's the beautiful thing. honestly no judgment lest us all get cooking a little bit more and just do our best and enjoy a christmas dinner because it's a balanced meal if you think about it so i have one recommendation

ella this week to kick off i found the best instagram account in the world oh my god tell me about it it feels like a really one i need to be getting on the bandwagon off i found a man that goes around all of the nature reserves and wildlife enclosures and he sings and plays a guitar to every animal imaginable from a parrot to a lion, to a monkey, to sea lions. And the way the animals react, it kept me up. I was going past 11 o'clock. What, it's really bad. I was in a proper squirrelhole.

But in a really lifting way, I was just watching these elephants walk towards this man in the middle of an enclosure and just start swaying and just stop mesmerized by music. And it goes to show animals connect like we do. His name, I think he's French, is Plum's Official

And this particular video is a lion walking towards him and the lion just lies down and rolls over and the female comes over to him and lies next to him and they just listen to him playing So Plumes, P-L-U-M-E-S-Officiel So in French, official is the most incredible Instagram account

That's all I have to say I love it, a positive scrollhole we'll put that in the show notes as well if anyone wants to get it. I love that. I stayed up quite late watching videos of a lady who lives in the northern, the most northern town in the world. So they have no sunlight now until February. The sun won't rise.

And they have these polar winters. And it was all her videos of going around living in a polar winter. And it was just amazing. I love that. I have seen those places. They say, oh, you should visit here because, you know, it's Christmas lights like 24-7 for the whole winter month. You love it, really?

The Christmas day, I thought of yesterday, because we went to the tent switching on of the Christmas lights in our local village, which was so cute and wholesome. Oh, I love those sorts of things. And re-work quickly. I'm going to bring you some sourdough next week. I think I've cracked it. Have you? Yeah, Monday, I will be bringing you a loaf of bread. They do look very fluffy now.

Like, I am watching your loaves. They looked really good. Yeah, they, honestly, I'm like obsessed. We had my daughter's school assembly this morning and she was like trying to hurry us out of their room. quickly this morning and I was like, I have to feed my starter. I must, because I must bake bread later. It's absolutely ridiculous. But anyways, yes, on to actually important things other than I will be bringing you some bread next week. Okay, everyone. Now we've got some heavy headlines to move on to, but they're very important because it's the health headlines that matter.

The headlines that have been hitting the press, ultra-process foods and the rise in early bowel cancer. So research among women find those who eat more ultra-processed foods. have a greater risk of early onset of polyps that can lead to cancer. Yes. So we know there's been a lot of headlines over the last 12 months or so about bowel cancer rising very fast, but particularly we're seeing this now in much younger people, in under 50s as well. And so this felt very relevant. So this major new study came out in JAMA oncology.

JAMA's one of the leading medical journals, as is the Lancet that we was talking about earlier. And what it showed is that women under 50 who eat a diet high in ultra-processed foods and a greater risk of developing abnormal growths in the bowel that can lead to cancer. It was picked up absolutely everywhere, as I said, because this question mark into what is driving this sudden rise in early onset bowel cancer is obviously something that people are very, very keen to get to the bottom of. So with this, the research team analyzed data from more than 29,000 women. So huge studies, as we would always note.

in the nurse's health study too. So that's something that's being conducted at Harvard. And from 1991 onwards, participants completed detailed food questionnaires every four years, noting how often they'd eaten each item over the previous 12 months. And then only those who'd had a colonoscopy, so had their bowel looked at in detail and had no history of polyps, inflammatory bowel disease or cancer were then included. It honestly is striking the findings as well. So compared with the women that eat, you know, the least ultra-processed foods,

which is around 3.3 servings a day, those that ate the most, which is quite a big difference, around 9.9 servings a day, had a 45% higher risk of developing conventional adenomas. And these are the early polyps that can over time progress to bowel cancer. So the researchers, they account for things like BMI, smoking, physical activity. And I know that it's just a questioner. They're taking every four years. But we have to look at the scale of this data. the association is still held. It's not just about lifestyle cluttering either. I think this is

really stark the fact that the amount of this food, like I said earlier, we're just not eating as much of what we need to be. No, and I think it's important to know that research is adjusted for BMI, smoking, physical activity, other things that we know can have an association with cancer, but the association still held as the high intake of UPS prompting these polyps, which can form into bowel cancer. And so the authors of the study talked through a few possible mechanisms as to why this might be the case. But UPFs obviously strongly linked to metabolic disorders like obesity type 2 diabetes, both of which we already know raise bowel cancer risk. But they were also keen to highlight the role of inflammation, which we've obviously been talking about a lot recently,

as well as damage the gut lining and the disruption of our gut microbes, all of which can contribute to abnormal growth, cell growth in your bowels. And I think what's important to say, as we talk about, obviously we bang on, I think would be fair to say about the importance of fibre and eating your 30 different plants and why it's so, so important to roast those beans and love those carrots and get excited about lentils. But it's because these are the foods that feed your gut microbes. And that is so critical to good health. And because of our high UPF intakes, as we know, just one in five adults now in the UK, for example, is managing to eat their five a day. And there was a piece of research that came out over the weekend showing we are eating

fewer vegetables in this country than any time in the last 50 years. And I come back to this weird world that we live in where health and wellness dominates, headlines, podcasts, Netflix shows, documentaries, you know, celeb magazines. It's everywhere. It's all over our algorithms. And yet we're eating fewer vegetables than ever. So we're not doing our jobs well enough. I see that as. And I just feel really both motivated but also really concerned about it and I think they're also very clear to say and I think it's very important that we highlight this as well that doesn't mean everyone who eats UPFs

will go on to develop cancer of course it doesn't and I think it's also it's not about the occasional Mars bar or the occasional sweetie or going to the cinema and enjoying some UPF popcorn that's not the problem here. The problem here is the huge intake and then the very small intake as we know only 4% of people get the fibre they need only one in five are getting the veggies they need every day like our balance is so off and even though

the study applied to women their researchers have said it's basically the same for men too and this trend of it's the under the age of 50 that's so stark because the amounts of cancer rates rising in that particular demographic it used to be something that was associated as we age you know like cancer and aging very very closely interlinked and I think the dietary changes like we said at the beginning we have to do something about how we must market foods, how foods appeal, the food environments. So what we need to be doing, as I know Ella and I discuss all the time to be positive to end this discussion, is reduce the types of EPFs that we don't really, do we really want to call them food? It's really interesting,

isn't it? There's a difference between a food and a food-like substance. Exactly, like a Ritz Cracker versus a sourdough cracker. Yeah, but also like Ritz Cracker is still it's delicious edging towards food whereas you do look at Harrybeau and like Harrybeau is not food it's really simple like it is not food it is a food like substance it is not food and I'm not saying like

you can ever eat Harrybeau ever again but it is not food and I do think not to be too extreme and we didn't plan to talk about some of today's show but like I personally do think this is important I have seen some things floating around that M&Ms and Cheetos for example could have warnings added to them saying

like not recommended for human consumption because some of the ingredients they contain. And again, I'm not trying to kind of demonise the whole thing. But it is this interesting thing. If those aren't foods, they are so different to a carrot. But I think what's so deceptive, I agree of you completely. And I really hope everyone can see that with, you know, confectionery. But I think what's so difficult about this industry is the foods that look like the crackers, the bread, you know, the everyday meals that appear to be everyday meals, but we know there are actually potato flakes that are mashed

together with a lot of other ingredients to create something solid instead of just a potato that's sliced normally and made into a crisp. I think it's those delicate differences that unless you're educated in the nutrition industry, it's really blooming hard and it's

so upsetting, isn't it? So I think what we can do is just how everyone, like we said at the beginning, we're going to all cook a lot more. We are going to eat a lot more whole grains and pulses and legumes and get excited about our food because I think we need to get the love back. I think we've lost a love. And I know your book's coming out Ella with so many inspiring recipes and I'm writing the fiber formula because I'm so passionate about this subject, but we really need to remember we need to look after our tummies. We need to look after

our bowels and that is eating happy, lovely whole foods. I don't know how else to say it. I totally agree is how do we reignite a love of cooking again? And I think it is. is this, I'd be so curious what our listeners think. I mentioned Nara Smith earlier and, you know, if you don't know her, she's like kind of exploded on socials and she's this completely stunning, like wildly beautiful, very young model and mother of three or four small children, lots of small children. And she cooks everything from scratch and that's the whole premise, but she'll make, like, like Coca-Cola or she'll make Oreo ice cream from scratch where she hand makes the Oreos from scratch. I make the ice cream from scratch. Everything's from scratch. So some of it becomes satirical,

like she'll say my toddler wanted a peanut butter and jam sandwiches and then kind of five hours later the sandwich is ready because to make every component of that from scratch including the bread takes a long time as I can tell you from my sourdough of Sasha but she's not allowed it but I do think I worry I actually it's very fun to consume the content and lots of the meals are absolutely beautiful but it is a kind of three or four hour process to get something on the table but the easiest way to reduce UPFs is to cook from scratch more and how do we get people feeling inspired empowered excited to cook from scratch again and not feel like it has to take three or four hours actually feel like it's not going to take that long at all. And I saw a stat the other day

that was really, really telling actually about all of this. While you find it, Ella, I think the only way is prepping at the weekends because my weekdays, when I get back from work sometimes if it's late and it's dark and then I've got to get the kids from school and then I'm rushed off my feet. So I'm trying to do their homework at the same time as cook, at the same time as get them changed or tidy up. And then it's bedtime. If I hadn't prepped anything, I would just not be hitting these goals. I feel like the work-life balance we have in this country is so backward because we just haven't prioritised the opportunities. And like we said, with women being in the workforce at the same time as men, who is there doing the home stuff? I know. So 62% of 30 to 45-year-olds

in full-time work say weekday dinners are a daily stress. Yeah. 64% of UK adults say, lack of time stops them from cooking healthy meals at home. So I think if that is you, just know you are clearly in the majority here. But I just think it's really telling. And I think that is a big question, an interesting one to think about how we answer collectively as like, how do we get everyone feeling empowered and excited and looking forward to cooking as something that they enjoy and something that can be a positive in the day, which is so difficult. It is. But everybody listening, let's keep sharing things we've enjoyed, tips were taking home. I think Ella and I have some ideas which might help on inspiration and keeping you motivated as well.

But just a little note, I really want to say that if you are under 50 or even over 50, you just notice changes in your bowel movements, please go to your GP. Please do not leave it. Anything that's not normal, that's not usual, that's not right, they will not be annoyed with you. Just book that appointment and please get checked, especially any bleeding, get checked. Do you remember there was that absolutely excellent campaign? It must have been a very long time ago now, which is don't die from embarrassment. month. Oh yes. Because we're embarrassed to talk about our poo. Don't be embarrassed to talk about your poo.

Which moves us on to something completely different. Thank goodness, Ella, because it was a heavy start. Yeah, let's get positive. This is such a nice one and with maybe having a little bit of time off over Christmas, looking to do lovely things with friends and family over the next few months. This is such a nice one for inspiration, which is going to art galleries can improve our well-being. We're going to just do a quick headline on this one, but it's just a lovely reminder again of how, yes, we've got to get excited about cooking, oh, Tuesday night stir fry. But your healthy habits do sit outside of that. It is a whole lifestyle. And I saw

this in The Guardian and it was a study that came out a few weeks ago and it showed that visiting an art gallery and specifically viewing original works. And I think the key thing is that it's not the same as looking at it on a screen. It's going in being absorbed by the art, the picture or the painting or the photograph or the sculpture or whatever the piece of art is and really absorbing it and they were saying that in that setting in the art gallery setting and just looking at artwork can lower your cortisol so your stress hormones by around 22% and the people who they were looking at in this it also reduced their key inflammatory markers by almost 30% so they're going down almost a third it's amazing just amazing you know I've never been into art but what

I did try recently was frameless in marble arch in London and you can go go into these types of art galleries now. And for free, a lot of the time, sometimes the national ones, you can go in for free. And they've got interactive walls with paintings and music that's playing. And that must have the same impact. So I really just think going out and focusing on something you normally wouldn't, like Ella said, that art.

What a beautiful statistic. And I'm sure you'd get something similar from going to listen to lovely carols or to go to a, you know, a kind of Christmassy church service or to go to a lovely play or something. I can't imagine that the impact alone is just from absorbing the artwork. I think it's by being absorbed in something so far away from you

and that kind of removes you from your life and it just feels really... Like a moment of... Yeah, a moment of wow. Yeah. I think every of those times, you know, we discussed hobbies before Ella, if you love going to look at galleries and visit museums,

that must be so good for your health. If you love reading, you know, I love singing, anything you can do for your... yourself that isn't basically on our phones, isn't them? Do you know what? It's so funny. I can't sing for the life of me. Like, you literally have never met someone more toned out. But everyone can sing.

It's just people sound different. That's what I've always said. Okay. They sound different. In my cases, they sound absolutely horrible, but different. I'll take it. Different. Horrid, but different.

I think I've said before I've been doing therapy the last few months, which has been really interesting. But the therapist that I see is very interested in the nervous system and things like that. And she was saying how amazing it is to sing. And she said it's so just like, kind of liberating. And if anyone lives near me, they honestly, it's absolutely hilarious. I'll like go on my dog walk and I'll put my really cheesy playlist in. I love like Elton John.

You know, I love Taylor Swift, like Lady Gaga. I mean, I'm really like a cheesy gal. And I will just be belting out the hits as I walk with the dogs. And it is so amazing. You kind of take in the view. Oh my gosh, I'm loving it. I must look insane. But there's no one then.

Who cares? It's like... Well, sometimes I go around the corner and someone is there. We've all been there and you look around, you look, oops. And I have to say, if someone did that in the middle London, you would give them a little bit of a raised eyebrow. Yeah, oh my gosh. If I walked around like high bark, like one of the busiest parks in the world,

I think it would be, whereas, yes, I bump into like one or two other dog walkers. Anyway, the only other thing to say on this headline was that the people who were studying the artwork and enjoying the art galleries also reported better mood and a stronger sense of connection. So just to remember, yeah. It's not all about your stuff, right? It's also about maybe doing something like that on a weekend. Yeah, it's so refreshing. We've got to remind ourselves, it is that age-old connection, isn't it?

It is trying to fight the modern society we live in and staying connected to what makes human beings, human beings, which I really really respect. Get off our screens and do something that inspires us. This episode of The Wellness Scoop is sponsored by Stripe and Stair. I have been wearing their pants and their PJs, since the start of the year, and it is honestly the only brand in my draw now. Me too. And I don't think you really think about underwear until you try these,

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But before you go into it, very sadly, I feel like we are the country in the world because everybody speaks English. We're not good at this. Oh, I know it's absolutely terrible, isn't it? But an inspo to download Juolingo maybe or something. I sent this to me. my mum, because she's obsessed with her streaks, won't you a lingo? But there was a major new study that found the more languages you speak, the less likely you are to experience accelerated ageing. People who only speak one language had a noticeably high risk of growing old before their time. Bad news for us in UK. While the most protective effects appeared in those who were trilingual or spoke even more. Do you know, there are some songs that I bet everybody knows in a different language. Just have a thing. There are some, we all know some different languages

in different musical songs like Frereo Jaka or something that is a different language I like that you set the bar really low for us I was wrapping my brains but everybody the study was published in nature ageing and it analysed data from 86,000 so 149 people

age 51 to 90 what a huge spectrum across 27 European countries of course and those who spoke multiple languages had a significantly smaller gap between the biological and chronological age. And the researchers suggest it's almost like a mental gymnastics that we have to juggle several languages that may support healthier cognitive aging. So the unclear bit is whether the benefit comes from the learning bit of the new language or is it maintaining the fluency or is it the switching between the two. But either way, Ella, I think that mental gymnastics

is an unbelievable skill. Exactly. Because you often see other studies talking about how things like crosswords are good for your brain. So again, it's that mental gymnastics, isn't it? It's keeping our brain super, super engaged. There's a lot of things out there at the moment that's saying AI, chat GPT, terrible for our brain health because we get so lazy. I was actually reading an interview last night

with Marina Abramovich, the modern artist, and she was saying she wants to live to 103, which is when her grandmother got to, and she's determined not to get to dementia, which her mother had before she died. So she said, I started learning telephone number from telephone books so that she would just again is that mental gymnastics that's such a good idea i am finding one really helpful thing about one of my children being in school is that i'm

having to relearn certain things or i'm definitely going back and looking at things i haven't looked at at a very base level but in a long time and that that's learning too i'm enjoying that actually like i mean sometimes i feel oh my goodness me that's just one more thing i need to do like refresh my knowledge on x y or z and learning phonics definitely felt like learning a new language as we know from my slip a few weeks ago spelling things out in phonics we are there but it goes to show if we reframe how we think about tasks that become a chore like the cooking like the homework like the extra bit of abbin we have to at the end of the day let's just use every step up the escalator as extra movement every bit of thinking as mental gymnastics yeah i love it okay

and our last headline for today we're going from a negative two lovely little positives back to a negative, unfortunately, but glad we got the good ones in there in the middle. This one is just honestly, not to sound overly reductive, really sad, which there has been a global rise in children's blood pressure. So youth hypertension has nearly doubled, raising long-term risk for heart disease and chronic illness. Yeah, I find it really difficult when we discuss children full stop, that children of hypertension are, as we know, at a greater risk of developing heart disease and it is the number one cause of death globally. And sadly, we know that children who we know that if they're overweight or obese at a younger age are unlikely to ever lose

that weight too. That's a statistic we have. And that is from a major review published in the Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, Ella. Yeah, exactly. So just to be clear, high potential is the same as high blood pressure. And what they've showed is that global rates of hypertension of high blood pressure in children and teenagers under the age of 19 have nearly doubled. So they've risen from 3.2% of the population, and this is globally in 2000 to 6.2% in 2020. That is a big jump very quickly. And you might think, oh, it's sub 10% of the global population. It's not that many. Well, it translates to about 114 million young people worldwide who are now living with hypertension, which is absolutely huge. I think it's important to add on to that as well.

The study also found 8.2% of children in teens have pre-hypertension, so higher than normal blood pressure, but not quite yet in the diagnostic range. And this is particularly high in teenagers where it's over 10%, it's 11.8%. So it's very, very concerning. And again, this is a very big study. It's a meta-analysis of 96 different studies looking at that data across 21 countries and involving more than 400,000 children in adolescents. So it's just, again, it's this, really concerning environment that we have where our lives and our lifestyles and the way that we eat, they have just changed beyond recognition. It's such a fast pace. And it's yes, it's affecting adults, but oh my goodness me, it's affecting children. The big question is what happens in 20, 30, 40 years when these children are older. It's just, it's a really difficult thing. And I just want to say really quickly before we get in. I do think it's important as well to just really acknowledge. I really don't think either of us or anyone in this space would say this is any individual parent's fault. This is the fault for want of a better word of the food environment that we live in today.

Yes. And how toxic it is, how difficult it is to eat well, how much you're going against the status quo by not having ham sandwiches every single day. And I really, really don't think anybody should individually feel a responsibility. This is our responsibility as a collective and our government's responsibility. And I personally think they should bear a lot more responsibility than they do to fundamentally shift the food landscape. And the way that we look at nutrition and school meals, the fact that three out of five of the meats serve regularly to children are carcinogenic is absolutely extraordinary and shocking. You know, the fact that children in the UK eat more ultraprosal foods than anywhere else in the world, like we are not doing a good job by the next

generation. But it's not an individual parent's fault. And I just think it's so important that we say that. Thank you, Ella. I think, no, that's exactly it. We just want to discuss the topics. And what's so frustrating, Ella, is that this was discussed 10, 15 years ago at university for me. You know, nothing's been done. Nothing. Let's be honest. We knew childhood obesity rates were rising. We were discussing it. We were learning about it. Scientists were talking about it. And a decade later or more, we're still in the same boat. So we know that. Well, we're not. It's just getting worse. Well, getting worse. Yeah. It's getting worse. How old. And it's the major contributor to this issue because nearly 19% of children with obesity had hypertension, which isn't surprising because the more body weight you carry, the more pressure on your vessels, the more clog they become.

And compared with fewer than 3% of children at a healthy weight, it's just absolutely mad because we have to look at the components of the ultra-processed diets and that is high salt that contributes to blood pressure. we're looking at higher saturated fat levels, we are looking at higher sugar, we are just looking at poor diets, which has a knock on effect. If you look at the wheel of our health and all the little components, it impacts our sleep, it impacts our gut health, which impacts our mood, which impacts our motivation to exercise. And then the environment we live in is sedentary because we're all on our screens. And that's all teenagers, a lot of them, unless you're lucky enough to be sporty, which if you're not, like Ella and I, I won't, I definitely wasn't a sporty teenager. Oh, it wasn't not a sporty, right? Not at all.

Not at all. In today's society, I mean, I probably would be the TikTok dance generation where I would be doing TikTok routines on social media. I honestly, we need to do something. I think teens are so neglected because around the age of 14, particularly boys, and I've got two boys, it worries me so much. I actually had a chat with my husband, and we made a decision that we're going to really try and prevent the introduction of what do you call them game boys or playstations and for as late as we possibly can because for boys blood pressure rises sharply and there's a really critical window for screening and intervention and professor Steve Turner who is the president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health said that he fears that if we do not take urgent

action we are hurtling towards a public health emergency and that he's not alone in raising this alarm as we've discussed this has been spoken about for years but ever elevated childhood blood pressure does not resolve on its own and it goes into adulthood. And then before we know it, we've got higher risks of kidney disease, stroke, cardiovascular disease. It's all quite depressing, Ella. Yeah, it really, really is. So as we said, this isn't about individual responsibility. I think it's just another reflection on what on earth have we done to our food environment.

And how do we create a genuine U-turn to create a healthier and therefore fairer society, honestly, So it's a big and heavy headline, but I think it's important because I think we do need to be quite frank about how bad our health is. And I think ultimately so often action is only taken when you reach rock bottom. And sort of what else do you need to show that we're getting to rock bottom with our collective health? But we need the government to support. So it's all very well and this is what I write about a lot. Sorry, Reid. That's what I mean when I say action, like a genuine shift in our food environment, in regulation, in the way that food.

It's sold. Yeah, it's just the idea that... They need to help people. Yeah, a 9pm watershed ban on ads for children. It's just not enough. Like, that's a teeny tiny plaster. If you look at the average in low economic groups, I think one of the first study that said,

like the favorite food was chicken nuggets for a child. And if you actually asked somebody to go and make their own, it would cost triple, maybe double triple the amount to make their own by buying the chicken breast and then coating it and all that time and then the cost to cook it. So unless we have intervention, it's not as simple as just saying, well, make your own version of that food for so many people. And this is why it's a nuanced, huge discussion.

I'm really glad we talk about it, Ella, because we just care so much. Yeah, as I said, I actually feel it, like, not to be kind of critical of you or me or anyone else. But, like, I do, well, I am being out of me. Like, I do feel we're doing wrong. Like, I do think we're getting it wrong, the wellness industry. I think we should be honest. I think we're collectively getting it wrong. given the fact that the industry depends where you look but it's anywhere valued between

kind of two and six trillion dollars globally depending on what you include on it and the marketing spend it's so huge and yet we eat less vegetables than any time in the last 50 years our collective health is getting so much worse as shown by this and it's like what we're just not getting it right clearly the messaging is wrong do what i think hasn't helped in my world and this is particularly for registered dietitians because they have the protective title is that we care a lot about the language used around food, but we're not strong enough with the messaging of what is healthy and what is not because we're not allowed to be.

You are struck off. You have to sit. And I understand because we don't want to make people feel shame or guilt. And I think it's just such a difficult message to communicate in an emotively responsible way. And we're given no guidance on that. There's no training on how to communicate these public health messages. When I first came online,

I think I was the only registered nutritionist to have a social media profile. It was very alienating and I made mistakes along the way and nobody was telling me how to do it. I felt like we're all just left in the dark. That's just from my camp, you know, I don't think we're doing a good enough job. No, it's really interesting, very curious what our listeners think of how do we kind of collectively have a better impact. It's funny, we were talking completely, not on this, but last night my husband and I about kind of the wow. of waste creation that we have in the world because it came from microplastics. Anyway, we could

go on about this, but he said, maybe we just shouldn't call them bins anymore. We shouldn't call it bin collection. We should call it landfill collection. You should say, oh, I'm putting it in landfill. I thought it was quite interesting because how much more guilty do you feel putting in something in landfill than you do in the bin?

In the bin's quite soft. I'm just going to open my packet of apples from Macado and if it doesn't say recyclable on it, it goes straight to landfill. That is awful. We really need to take onus more. Do we need more of that in the world of food? But then we don't want to shame anyone as an individual. Very complicated.

Let's move on to our trends. We've got to pick up from last week Ella first because we spoke a lot about GLP1s, didn't we? And I think you found a really interesting piece in The Cut titled Life in Bage. Yes, I really like the cut. It's a branch of the New York Times. Anyway, it's one of my only online subscriptions, but I really like it. And they had this piece, which I read literally after we recorded last week,

and I thought it was just very fitting. And it was called Life in Bage, a GLP-1's worth a life devoid of pleasure. And it opened up with saying, you can gauge someone's baseline relationship to pleasure by how they approach a meal, which I thought was just interesting anyway. It was a very first-hand experience of this author,

this journalist, and then interviewing some of her friends and colleagues who had also tried GLP-1s the various different weight loss drugs. But she was just talking about how, yes, the food noise turned off, but her emotional world, she called it dulled. She said she wasn't sad, but everything was muted, like nothing to look forward to,

nothing exciting. And to start where she put it down to kind of post-holiday blues. And then she realized, she said, my brain felt swaddled in a beige blanket. Yeah, relatable. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And she said, once she experienced that, she went to talk to lots of other people who were on it to try and to sound like, am I alone in this? And she said she found so many people who felt the same. So the drugs were working for them. Their cravings dropped. The food's noise was quieting but that dampening down was spilling out way beyond meals into everything else and people just described losing their desire sort of well they're linked to depression as well we have we have to think that everything has a knock on effect it's not just as simple as all you just not hungry anymore

who's dealing with those other emotions yeah so it was that same she said it was like meh bleh numb flat take it or leave it and then they had a quote from one of the original scientists who worked on the glp1 creations who actually predicted it in this interview they did back with wyatt in 2003 and this guy jens warned that because these drugs work on the same dopamine reward pathways that drive motivation so you're dulling that down to quiet food noise but you therefore as a result might see it as we said spilling out and so you get this emotional blurring in some people anyway it's still all anecdotal that's not i'm not reading off any study or um kind of period reviewed piece here. But I just thought it was this really interesting look into the complicated

nature of these GLP ones which seem to be taking over and, you know, in due course, a humongous proportion of our society might be on. Yeah, it's really complicated. It truly is. I think there's so much we still don't know about the human body yet. Yet we take these drugs that have different interactions and who knows, we just have to watch a space. But without fixing the food environment and as we said it's like we it's like anything you've got to fix the root cause haven't you but it's too far so they just want to get the weight off save the NHS the money and totally and i don't i personally don't think there's i think that's not a bad option given the state of our collective health but we have to for the long term we can't be reliant on like fixing everything upstream you've got to

look downstream it's like a black mirror program it is a black mirror program it's like we are for the sake of trillions of dollars and huge profits, creating a very, very toxic environment that you must then pay to get out of. Yes. And if you don't have enough money, you're stuck in the bottom of the beige and the UPF. And then the NHS has to spend huge amounts of money, which is then tax money. I mean, it's, God, okay, guys, I feel like we're in a round of a hole. Let's get out. I knew this would happen with the next week. Oh, no, we're going to get to the last. Okay, so I found another trend, Ella. Well, I was asked by country and town. house to have a think about trends that I think are going to take over next year.

And it's really difficult because I've got this right most years and I often contribute to surveys for big companies on what I think's coming. And I predicted fibre, predicted UPF and all the different things I've seen before coming. So my contribution to this was things like creatine that everyone's going to go crazy over, which I actually have made a really good reel for I'm posting tomorrow dissecting creatine and collagen took me ages. Oh my gosh. Give us your very, very top line on it.

Top line is that when a study with only nine people saw benefits, we just don't have the research. And I don't think people know where. Again, where is it coming from? What actually are these supplements? And collagen was the most interesting one because there was a meta-analysis in August 2025. And I think I've discussed this before that looked at every bit of research ever done on collagen for the beauty industry, like skin, lasses, nails, hair. And they said that there was so many data errors that it was unbelievably biased. and the way the research was conducted is just not viable.

So there is no evidence that it supports anything that people are still shouting about on the internet. So I think collagen might do a nosedive next year. But anyway, this is what we said. Okay, so collagen down, creatine up is what you're going to do. Yeah, but I still won't take creatine unless I see more research. But you can check it out on the Retrition page tomorrow, but that is what I've said in a two-minute reel. It's been very hard to edit it down. I know it will bomb.

It's because two minutes long. Okay, I am loving this. So we're thinking collagen down, creatine up, then you've got bone health. I love that we might be thinking about bone health more. That's really nice. I think we need it. I think it's about time that, well, we're starting to think long term. If you think about it, fiber, so I'll be releasing fiber formula march.

And by that point, I'm hoping people will be discussing calcium and vitamin D in more depth because we know that fiber helps our gut, but what about the skeleton that carries our body in the first place? I think we're going down to the core. We're getting there. We've got health being topical. We're looking at where everything's absorbed and where everything goes, but what carries our bodies? Everybody nearly in this country gets some osteopenia on the way to osteoporosis once they go through menopause and females anyway.

And it's not good. We have really high rates and early checks like Dexas scans are rising in popularity. People are paying privately, Ella, in the wellness industry, you know, the kind of those that have the money to get their bone health checked. I love that. That's really nice. I think we could think about this for January actually. Yes. How do we actually improve our health span?

Because we're talking about, as you said, this long-term approach, things like, how do you actually improve your bone health? Because calcium is not just from milk. It's a much more complicated thing like that. You know, in Asia where they drink much less milk and much less dairy, they have much fewer rates. Let us know. But we could do a nice kickstart January episode with how to increase your health span. It could be fun. I love it.

I love it. And then obviously I'm going to go into creatine and look at the re-trition post, but we're seeing cognition benefits in very tiny small-scale struggle. So watch that space. It's not just about people that live away. However, it's still, from the strongest research we have, more effective for vegetarians and vegans, because you find a lot of creatine in animal. See, I'm getting them mixed up already. They're both the buzzwords. I called them the two Cs in my real. I love it.

The two Cs. But the creatine, you get it from animal produce. So if you are a veggie or vegan, you might see more benefits from taking it than otherwise. And then your favorite, Ella, I think, Ping Minimalism. Ping Minimilism is one of my favorite little expressions. What's ping? Well, it's just like, ping, here's minimalism. Oh, the ping of your phone.

We're minimizing the ping of our phone. I love it. Okay, so digital minimising our devices, our screen time. Yes, that's it. Setting more boundaries. Like it's the Gen Z, like you said, coming up to Christmas, they're focusing on different ways of looking at things. I think they've really kickstarted this movement

because it's their generation that grew up with phones. And then I think the next trend is your trend that you tried. infrared workouts. Yeah. I'm having fun with this. So yeah, hot infrared based Pilates bar classes, which are becoming so popular. He here, hydration, very, very important, kind of being aware of that. But they are interesting. I think what we'll see next year, actually, if I'm going to add on to this as a prediction, I think we will see hopefully some more research onto infrared and red light because there is so much out there, be that kind of LED masks for skin, fine lines, etc. Be that these workouts, there is a lot of people focusing on LEDs and infrared and the potential benefits of it.

Or, you know, generally quite positive moment, but probably just not enough research. So I'm hoping we get more of that next year. Me too. Me too. Because it's still the, I take the, well, I use the infrared mask because it is the most research benefit for skin over collagen. that is a better investment. And long term, save you so much money if you're buying supplements every month. Which leads me on to number five, which is everyone's getting MOTs. Yeah, these health MOTs, we obviously did one earlier in the year, which was quite fun. I agree. I can see that being a big trend next year. And then I'm not keen on this. This wasn't my suggestion.

It was another contributor. I obviously contributed to fibre and commented on the nutrition bits, but cellular health. So looking at things I know we don't have research for yet, which is how our mitochondria works in our cells. And what we've discussed, when was it? We discussed NAD plus supplements, NAD. Oh, really early on. So I think we're probably due a little catch up on those.

Because I have to say, so send your health, so where you kind of, your mitochondria, very important part of your body, but it's where energy production is, right, right? Yeah, yes, like a little turbine. Yeah. So very, very important. And I am seeing so much of this online and on socials and people injecting NED plus and things like that. So whilst I'm not with you, sorry, whilst I am with you or not being a massive advocate of this being a trend, I agree this will be a trend next year. I think we will talk about cellular health, NED plus, mitochondria, energy production, etc. I think we'll be talking about it's a lot. And in 10 years, like another prediction, we will have evidence for certain things. How fascinating would that be. And then the final trend. which I hope, because I'm still nervous about having a fibre book, Ella, I just think it's poo and everybody's just not, um, poo is just not easy to talk about or sexy. But with only

4% of us getting enough, um, I think fibre's going to be really huge. I hope because that's my plan to try and get people, well, we both are. Let's try and get more fibre in everyone. I totally agree. I totally agree. Well, guys, if you've made it to the end here, solid effort. Well done. Life is one of the longest ones we've ever done. Yeah, there was a soapbox moment. But thank you so, so, so much for listening. That was such a fun episode. I personally really, really enjoyed it. I forgot to say at the top as well, I told you guys that we were going to do a special event on the 16th of December, a kind of pre-book coming out evening. You can get the book, but we can see each other, get the book signed, etc. Where is that, Ella? It's going to be this lovely independent book shop called Book Bar and their one in Chelsea,

because that was the most central one. It's going to be on the 16th, 630 to 8.30. Yeah, you'll get the book first, but also you can get it signed and everything. It will be so lovely. There's a limited number of tickets. I will put the booking link in the show notes if anyone wants to join. But I would love to see that. You have to go now because they're going to go really quickly.

So if anyone wants to go on the 16th of December, go say hi to Ella. That sounds great. I wish I could go, Ella. It'll be really fun. I know I'm not around on that day, but I'd love to go. You're going on holes. I am. have an amazing week. Yes, we can't wait to see you on Thursday. Thursday will be fun as well.

We're going to be talking about the best chocolates in the market, which is, let's be honest, something we all need before Christmas. So we'll see you on Thursday.