The Wellness Scoop - Is Wine Good for You Now? Build a Better Relationship with Food & Stay Sharp

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Is wine actually good for you now? It’s a headline that’s everywhere, but what does the research really say? In this episode, we unpack the nuance behind the story, looking at alcohol, longevity and why the bigger picture matters more than any single drink. We also explore how to build a healthier, more balanced relationship with food, moving away from rigid rules towards a way of eating that feels sustainable, enjoyable and supportive of long-term health. Plus, a fascinating new study on “super-agers” offers a hopeful perspective on brain health, suggesting that staying mentally sharp for longer may be more possible than we think. An uplifting, empowering episode focused on helping you feel good, think clearly and support your wellbeing. Send your questions for our weekly Q&A to ⁠[e-mail]⁠. Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order your copy of Rhi's book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠ 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. Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. and as always we are both here as your host.

I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know it's just completely overwhelming and confusing because there's so much misinformation out there. And that's why we've created this podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living, simple, fun and personal. Exactly that.

It's always about inspiring and empowering you with your health. And also happy Easter, guys. It was Easter yesterday. I hope you all had a delicious, chocolatey kind of situation. Oh my goodness, I definitely did. And it's one of my highlights of the year. Do you know, I read the stat that there was a percentage. I can't remember what it is of parents that eat the kids' Easter eggs and have to go out and buy another one. It's like me with the gingerbread house at Christmas. Oh my God, I'm so like that. I'm like, where's it gone? I don't know. I love Easter. Can I just say I am not Scrooge, but I'm not a massive Christmas person. I just think there's a lot of complexity at Christmas, a lot of family dynamics that people have, a lot of pressure. to get it perfect and, you know, all the gifts. It's just, I find Christmas a bit much.

Well, it's highly pressured, especially, yeah, for everybody, regardless of if you're a parent or not, I think Christmas can be, like you said, so emotive. It's a lot of complexities in Christmas and Easter I love because it's just about having a lovely time and eating great food. Well, yeah, and also the weather's a bit better, and I'm all about that. The sunshine comes out, well, you know, it can be, it can't be, but either way, it does make a difference to our day. So coming up in today's show, we have got how to build a health, a more positive relationship with food, why guilt and restriction often work against us,

and the truth behind the wine and longevity headlines, because we get a lot of those, how to read health news with more clarity and confidence, the science of super ages and staying sharp for longer, and how to use your sleep trackers in a way that actually supports your wellbeing. Ella, I know that you've got building work going on at the house today, so you're still juggling that. How are you? How have you been?

How was Easter? Yeah, guys, if you hear any banging, I am so sorry. There are some carpets going down upstairs and carpets going down is a very noisy job at first. It turns out. No, I am so good. First Easter at home in our new house and just so grateful for that and just loving time outside, time with the kids. Yeah, loving the Easter holidays all around 10 out 10. Yeah, I mean, we went to my mother-in-laws for lunch on Easter Sunday, which was actually really nice.

And I did enjoy definitely the whole Easter account. I have to say the imagination, and I've been doing all sorts of Easter crafts. I am that person that loves watching Stacey Solomon's account and what's her name on Dragon's Den that has the crafting business. Sarah Davies. Davies, that's it. Yes, we've got really into that. But I'm really excited to be back wellness scooping, to be honest, because I feel I need the show so, so much. And I know that Easter is complex.

In the clinic for years, it's been a big thing. So I think we should start with our helpful advice today, Ella. Yeah, exactly that. We were talking about, we almost didn't do an episode this week. That sounds so dramatic. It wasn't dramatic. It was just, like, we nearly quit. We didn't really quit.

We just thought, you know what, is this the week that people want to hear from us? And actually, we were like, well, we love chatting to you guys. So we're going to be in your ears any which way. But also, it is this interesting thing. And we've talked about it a lot and it very much exists in the ecosystem that wellness scoop sits in but there is such a complicated relationship sometimes that play with all of this and like I know for me my worst question people ask me and I'm so kind of irritating in my answer is like what's your guilty pleasure I don't know how many interviews I've been else that in and I always say

like that is an oxymoron it's probably a very rude answer but I'm like you just need to remove that because it is an oxymoron like if something makes you feel guilty it is not a pleasure like Those two things can't sit together. You know, look, it's different if I'm like, oh, my guilty pleasure is the Kardashians. Yeah, you laugh about it. But when it comes to food. But it's not funny with food. And I also think it's such a shame.

And that was why it felt so relevant today. Because there's so much joy in food, in indulging with friends and family and just like having a great time and eating way too much chocolate in an Easterer account or drinking way too much wine, you know, over a big lunch. with your family or something, you know what I mean in these moments. Like, that can be a massive part of life. And I've always just looked at it and felt this frustration of like, well, there's kind of no point indulging if it just makes you feel guilty. Like, that's just crazy. Like, what are we doing? Like, we've got to be able to have a balance where we root our lives in nourishing food because we know that's so important for our health. And then we enjoy it. When we have a giant chocolate cake, we enjoy it. It doesn't make us feel guilty. But,

I know that's so much easier said than done and it can be so complicated and we just felt, really sees this all the time in the clinic, there's very much exists in the health and wellness world. We thought it was actually, instead of doing three headlines this week, we'll do two headlines,

and then we'll do a whole section on kind of guilt and food and managing that psychology and how do we indulge and love it and enjoy it and not feel it's a guilty pleasure or it prompt this all-or-nothing mindset of like, oh, I've eaten way too much this weekend, I'm not going to eat this week. I think like Ella said, I think it's a key time to just highlight the fact that relationships of food can be very complex and that can be driven by societal factors like what's your

guilty pleasure, what's in the media, what your food world is, so how you've been brought up around food, what's the expectation in your family at Easter time? What do they do? Do they have different relationships of food? You know, so many people might go around a parent's house or grandparents' house and they will be speaking about dieting or stepping on scales after Easter. And there's that language that is spoken very colloquially and casually, but actually it shouldn't be because you don't know the impact that's having on another person in the room. So it's a complicated dynamic, I think, to manage. And I've got a few stats here that, you know, at the moment.

And this is only an estimation because we know the numbers are probably higher, but 1.25 million people are living with confirmed eating disorders Ella in the UK. And that doesn't account for the people with disorder relationships of food where they haven't quite crossed over to it becoming an all-consuming psychological illness. But they do live with food noise and food guilt and shame every single day. And these can have such detrimental impacts on your life because it can inhibit these social occasions that Ella and I have said should bring so much joy. But for many people, they may feel stressed about it. And it's starting younger and younger. You know, young people, gosh, we've got ages 11 to 19.

you know, we've seen a prevalence in eating disorders. One of five young women, age 17 to 19, test positive for eating disorders. And, you know, it's happening in men as well. Because historically, it was associated with females, you know, around 25% of people affected in the UK now with eating disorders are actually male. So a quarter. So, and like I said, this is just the numbers of it rising, Ella. So it's an important discussion to have for sure. Yeah, it really is.

And as you said, and then there's, you know, just the general sort of not the, that necessarily is always fully disorders eating, but just that sense of guilt or shame that sits too often with food. And events, as we said, like Easter can sometimes trigger this. Where does that come from? It's a good question. And our relationship with food is shaped from childhood, essentially.

And it will be around the conversations in your house around Easter. It could have been a trigger, almost like we discuss epigenetics on the podcast, you know, one lifestyle event that can switch on a gene that then expresses differently. it's similar to like a switch in your head is how we describe it in training for disordered eating and relationships with food that once that switch has been switched on you've become aware of calories or food or food guilt then it's very hard to switch it off and then you have to start speaking internally to that extra voice that you've switched on in your head so

can I add to that really with the switch in our head is that also I know just like from looking at our audience stats our core audience are women similar-ish ages to us in the like 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s. We have some teens. We had our 14-year-olds. For sure. For people around the same age as us, we grew up in a moment where we had heroin chic, you know, where it was the heat, you know, magazine type thing. Circle of Shame.

Circle of Shame. Like, yeah, do you remember the double page spreads that would circle, like, celebs on the beach? And it would be like, here's a role of fat. here's a little patch of cellulite. Let's weigh them on national TV. Yeah, like Victoria Beckham, exactly, on that show famously. So we grew up in a very odd environment when it comes to body image. And I think people speak so openly about that that it didn't necessarily trigger a kind of

eating disorder, but it did flip on that switch, as you were just saying, of awareness between food and body image and kind of conscious of body image. Yeah, I mean, it was just an era of like completely emaciated stick thin as the ideal. I mean, I've heard it in so many shapes or forms in the clinic and some families will say to female members in their household, I remember this one saying, our family should never weigh over X amount stone. You know, the women in our household should always be, should always be a certain weight. And you hear all sorts of things that they have to live with that. And there's also cultural elements massively. It can stem to religion, dare I say it too. There's some beliefs around the world

that women and men should be within a certain size of shape or it equates to a sin, essentially. So it can have deep rooted meanings, but from a young age, we're taught to label foods. And I think this is when we discuss the moralisation of food a lot as good or bad or healthy or treats and things we've earned essentially. Earning felt like a massive part of that cultural context. reflect back on it of like I've gone on a run so I've earned this chocolate bar burn X calories exactly I've yeah I've been to the gym so I've earned my dinner yeah and it's very toxic and instead of saying well actually you know it's Easter you know you don't do that every day let's just reframe the conversation we don't eat Easter eggs

every single day of the year we don't do huge Christmas Christmas dinner every single day of the year there's sometimes occasions but the problem is the demonization of food then makes you feel like you've failed. Yeah, exactly. And then the thing is, and this is what I was so keen to talk to you about today, because I feel like I see this all the time, is this sense of, well, I've eaten too much on holiday this week or I've eaten too much over Easter weekend or on Christmas or whatever I've been stressed at work. So now I'm not eating sugar ever again. I'm not eating this ever again. I'm, you know, you have these self-imposed rules, which again, I just want to say, I think this is really normal. This isn't about a full-blown eating disorder or that's a completely different kettle of

fish. This is just about like, I don't feel great in myself today. And the way I think about it is to say, well, I'm going to go all or nothing here and I'm going to put something off limits. But restriction, again, it's so normal, but it doesn't help, is it? Well, I'm told all the time, a lot of clients, I'm all or nothing. You know, I can't just have that one pack of biscuits in a house because I will eat all of them. I would actually say that with work, a lot of work, that becomes breakable, but it depends how willing you are as a person to identify that or address it, because the problem with this restrict cycle is that it becomes a thing. And you can have an eating disorder, which is classified as a psychological illness, or disordered eating, which embarks upon the same cycle. You eat the item

of food, you feel guilt and shame, therefore you restrict the food, therefore all you can think about is that food and then it's impossible to never go near it again with that all-enuff and mindset and then when you eat it again, you've put even more emphasis and ownership on that food being something so bad that then you restrict again and the cycle of binge eat restrict becomes ingrained. And you erode yourself esteem in a way because you've told yourself you're not going to do it and then you've failed because you've done it and again if you look at your food environment and I think one of the things that people often say like I'm not going to eat this for X amount of time is sugar for example.

And like, we just live in a really sugar-filled society. And so not doing that is nigh on impossible, I mean, I think. And so you're setting yourself up, you're at least setting an incredibly high barrier for yourself and then feeling guilty that you can't maintain it. But maintaining it is now and impossible in the world that we live in. And I understand that for some people online, I've seen prominent voices state they're doing a sugar detox or they're going to give up sugar forever. And I know it comes from a good place because,

You know, they think they might be helping people. And I understand where that comes from. And perhaps for some people, it might kickstart healthy relationships for food. But for most people, they're still not allowing themselves permission to be able to trust themselves. And this is the biggest thing as trusting your body. If you do not have trust with yourself, it isn't your fault. It is the food environment, predominantly speaking. But we have to learn to navigate that for our own health and our own sanity because permission

reduces the likelihood of binging and by telling everybody they don't have permission to eat a certain item of food for a prolonged period of time. There's a huge depth of complexion within that. And I have actually asked for, got some voice notes for us today as well, Ella, on that moralisation of food, the cultural differences as well from some of my team. My psychologist in the clinic, Dr. Suki Bilku and our registered dietitian with eating disorders, Lisa Waldrum, because chronic guilt and stress around eating is not good for anybody. Food being moralised, restriction. We don't have any enjoyment left or neutralisation of food. No, exactly. Okay, so just before we go into this, I love where you always say, like, to really think about, like, eat regularly across the day,

you know, so you're not starving. So that, again, is that sense of you're not like urgently needing something, you know, I think that's really important. Make sure you're including really nourishing meals alongside that. So again, like, you are actually full. and not feeling like you're craving things because actually it's your body saying, I'm really hungry. And I think that's so important. And remember, you just don't need to earn your food. And can I paint a little picture?

If your favourite thing in the world is that bag of candy kittens or that... Oh my gosh, have you tried the new sour ones? Yeah, I've got those at home. In the green packet. Me and Ella are slightly obsessed. But if you don't allow yourself that one item, that's when the problem occurs. It's much better off to allow yourself with full. permission, give yourself a number if it helps to have 20 sweets or whatever you want to do,

than to end up binging on them a week or two later because you've restricted them to the point where all you can think about is that one item of food. And then it would have been much better. I mean, who cares? It's just 20 sweets versus, you know, a whole bag and then the feelings that come alongside it. So allowing yourself to eat enjoyed items is, I think I did that in my TED talk, because I did a TED talk about relationships with food. And that one statistic is so valuable for so many people. And that's when I think we discussed it on the pod before,

having it at a time you wouldn't normally associate eating that item instead of having it at nighttime, have it in the morning and break the cycle. I absolutely love that. It's such good advice. Okay, should we go into your voice notes? Yeah, so I thought the first one to share is a psychologist's perspective. So Dr. Suu Kiboku, she specialises in working with eating disorders from ages 7 plus. So she's seen a whole spectrum.

She's remarkable. She's obviously HCPC registered. She's a clinical psychologist. Let's hear what she has to say. The main thing is, I guess, like, you know, not to during these times to keep going, to persevere, to acknowledge that we're on this road to recover, whatever that might look like.

And difficult emotions will accompany us on the way. A bit like passengers on a bus, you know, guilt will come in, shame will come in. Catastroization might come, whatever it might come in. they are like little passengers, they come and they go, a bit like the clouds too. So if you want to use that better for that, you know, the weather, you know, whether it's interchangeable, so is our emotions too. And really just to kind of, I guess, kind of, there's no one way for recovery to happen

when it comes to food. So find your way, find what helps, you know, build your toolbox, build your toolbox, not just with your own self-skills, but with skills with other people, too, like relational tools, I call them, going for a walk with your, with a partner. know go but walk of a dog, for example. I always find Suki brings so many different elements and ways of reframing the cop, it's what she does for a living, but reframing the conversation and I think it's so helpful. And we also have an added note from our eating disorder dietitian, Lisa Waldron.

Something that comes up a lot in clinic is managing special occasions, be it Christmas, Easter, eat, or any moment where food feels more abundant. It's important to recognise that eating more, enjoying, lots of different foods or celebrating through food is not something you need to earn or undo or feel guilty about in any way. It can really help if we zoom out. So remembering that one meal, one day or one week doesn't define your health or your relationship with food. Your body responds to patterns over time. So that can be across weeks, months, even years. So rather than fixating on a period of indulgence, try to see the bigger picture of it as part of your overall intake and self-care.

so it's not a case of all or nothing. It's also useful to kind of think about and remember that humans have always marked important moments with food. So across cultures and throughout history, feasting has been a traditional part of celebration, survival, connection, meaning. And these kind of soul foods aren't just about nutrition. They're about enjoyment, about identity,

and feeling part of something, that bigger belonging feeling, including them in our lives feeds our soul. Now, guilt often shows up when we believe, believe we've done something wrong, but enjoying festive foods, eating more than usual or leaning into those traditions isn't wrong. It's a deeply human thing. Food guilt serves no helpful purpose. The food's already eaten. It doesn't change that. So instead of asking how do I undo this, try asking yourself, what could support me next? So that might be having something like a regular

meal, having a glass of water, getting some fresh air, chatting to a friend, or simply returning back into your usual rhythm. So you don't need to compensate for enjoyment. You're allowed to eat to celebrate and to feel at ease with food, especially in these moments. Oh, we'll really thank you so much for bringing those to the show today.

And I hope that was helpful. If you guys have any follow-on questions to this, though, please, please do email them to us. Hello at Wellness-scoop.com or pop them in Spotify. Put them in the comments, question box, whatever it is. And we can keep going on this conversation

if it's helpful. Yeah, 100% all I want is my candy kittens now, so I will be snacking on those later this afternoon. Our headline two, completely different. Against the grain, Ella, wine lovers live longer than beer drinkers. Here we go again. It was in The Times, another alcohol-fueled headline. Yes, okay, this one was very interesting. Obviously, we've got to say before we go into this, overall, we know concretely alcohol,

unfortunately, for lots of people, is linked to worse health outcomes. that is the foundation of this conversation. Those headlines can get confusing and I'm going to show you one in a minute where it gets really confusing. Compared to people who rarely or never drink, where you do those stats. So yes, compared to people who rarely or never drink,

heavy drinkers are 24% more likely to die early, 36% more likely to die from cancer and 14% more likely to die from heart disease. We know it's not a good thing. So this story isn't about alcohol, obviously being good like Ella just said. It's about the consumption and I guess what type of

alcohol you're consuming. Exactly that. And so in this, research has looked at 340,000 UK adults from UK Biobank again. My mum was probably part of that cohort. They were asked about their alcohol intake tracking their health over an average of 13 years. And crucially, they compared people drinking similar amounts of alcohol with different types. That's what this research is looking at. So it's wine versus beer, cider or spirits. And what they found among moderate drinkers that wine drinkers had a lower risk of early death than those drinking beer, cider or spirits. For heart disease, specifically, wine drinkers had a 21% lower risk of death, while even a low intake

of beer cider or spirits was linked to a 9% high risk of cardiovascular death. So the difference here, to be super clear, isn't about drinking or not drinking. We know concretely not drinking is better, but I think this was an interesting look at the different types of alcohols and that actually they could potentially be having. a different effect on our health. Of course. And then you've got to consider the quality as well, how the alcohol is made itself. So let's discuss why it might be. I mean, the one thing that you'll see, again, doesn't make alcohol good, but wine does contain more polyphenols, especially if it's red wine,

including resveral, which comes from a grape, which is a powerful antioxidant, which may support heart health. In fact, we do have lots of research about that particular isolated antioxidant itself. Does reduce inflammation. It can help with blood vessel function. and limit oxidated stress. So we all get stress every day from external factors. And oxidative stress happens daily, but by consuming more antioxidants, I would argue you're probably better off eating red grapes

than drinking the wine, but, you know, both factors there. And then the lifestyle around the drink, we have to look at that because wine drinkers have a very different culture to, you know, if you think of wine to beer drinkers, people often, if you're lucky enough to be in somewhere like Cape Town or you're in a vineyard and you're having a delicious lunch or in France with a glass of wine alongside it. That's a very different culture to, I'm going down the pub on a Friday night or a Saturday night,

to have several rounds of beer or watching the rugby of football. Now I'm stereotyping here. I know this is not the case for everybody. No, but the researchers were saying a very similar thing, that the lifestyle often around wine tends to be that you often drink wine with or around a meal rather than in isolation. And actually what they also showed was that wine drinkers, on average, tend to have healthier overall diets.

They tend to be more affluent and have better access to health care. So it's not just the wine alone. It's that actually it's often symbolic of a slightly different lifestyle pattern. And obviously, this is also an observational study. So, you know, it can't prove cause and effect. So it's definitely not saying that wine itself is driving the benefit. It might just be reflective of a observational study. broader lifestyle but as re said there are also elements like the polyphenols in the wine that have give

it an advantage over spirits or beer but what i wanted to bring to you today re so that was the times headline that that you read out or give me the other against the grain wine lovers live longer than beer drinkers so it's kind of ambiguous but it doesn't say drinking wine will make you live longer right okay i didn't read it as that then we have from the sun boozing can cut your chance of dying young by up to 25%. I mean, I'm sorry, but they should be held accountable. Same study. That's just outrageous.

And they know that obviously you've got a different reader, and that's not acceptable. In my opinion, that's so unethical. As far as headlines go, telling people to booze is just outrageously awful. What good clickbait. Like, I bet that performed so well. So well. I don't have any info on that.

But I bet it performed so well. And I think it's just that interesting thing that, like, it just shows what a study actually shows and what a headline or like the click-baty element is, is often so far removed. And if you just saw that headline, you'd be like, oh, my God, FAPA we keep going. Yeah, it's very interesting. Whereas actually, it's not true at all. Like, overall, alcohol increases health risks and like the higher intake of alcohol clearly worsens health outcomes. There's just no, there's no two ways around that there is just infinite amount of data to show the same, whereas this is a big study that shows potentially wine is a superior form of alcohol for your health.

It is not the same thing. We could be doing a nutrition lecture right now, to be honest. This is the perfect type of thing we would present to students in a lecture theatre is showing those two headlines with the same identical study and how different and fearmongering. I mean, both are not exactly fantastic, but the sun one there, basically. It's giving people what they want to hear. Like you said, they want an excuse. You said that with coffee before, Ellie.

You know, people want to hear that having copious amounts are good for you. So the takeaway is essentially that, you know, patterns of drinking do matter. What you drink matters. How, why, when. But ultimately, we all need to reduce our alcohol intake. Reid, just before we go to the next headline, because one of the things they picked up on wine was that it's often drunk, you often drink wine with a meal.

Why is that better for your health? It just slows the release of the alcohol and the absorption. So when you've got an empty stomach, you know, your body's just going. going to kick into action straight away and try and process that alcohol. But it's almost like pairing, imagine a glass of water and then you fill it with food. You know, the food's going to absorb a lot of that water and the same thing happens with alcohol. So it just releases ethanol slowly when you're looking at the toxin itself. It just slows down the release, which means you're less likely to fill the effects. You're less likely to binge drink because you're not getting

that instant feedback loop being activated, the reward of that fuzzy feeling that some people really enjoy when they drink alcohol. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home.

You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. You all know me. I'm about adding more in, not cut. things out, no fads, no diets, just evidence and transparency. And right now in the UK, everyone, 96% of us, that's 96% are not getting enough fibre. It's one of the lowest figures in the world. And I couldn't ignore it. So we've spent years obsessing over protein and other trends. And I'm delighted to share that after a year in the making, my new book, the fiber formula is

available to purchase. I have answered every question from gut health and energy, cancers and heart disease to aging skin longevity and even microplastics. Built on over a decade of clinical research, it gives you my fibre formula, 30 grams of fibre a day, 30 different plants a week, 30 twos and 30 minute meals plus 60 delicious minimally processed recipes to make it doable. I've done the hard work so the protein fiber and plant points are all laid out for you. So the Fiber formula is out now everyone. If you head to the link in the show notes, you can purchase it from any bookstore or on Amazon. And I'd love to hear your feedback. Let me know how you get on. Right. And our headline three, we're keeping going on our feel good episode today, which is that

have scientists uncovered the secret of super aged brains? Some people stay mentally sharp, well beyond 80, with recall powers of those decades younger. And researchers may have found what gives them a biological edge. Yeah, there's genuinely a positive story in aging research that suggests our brains may be far more resilient than we thought. And I think we tend to think memory decline is inevitable. But I love this. And I also read Ella, just off a side note, I saw on the news and I haven't looked into it yet because I thought we should do it on Wellness Scoop. They've discovered a Parkinson's really effective medication or potential cure for Parkinson's. They're looking at how exciting is that as well. There's a lot of good news I feel like actually within health and wellness at the moment. Especially looking at this. So some people in their 80s have memory performance that's comparable to someone decades younger. And these individuals are known as super ages. So scientists want to know what sets them apart. And they looked at 356,000 individual brain cells that were taken from donated tissues. And they compared five groups. So we've got one young adults, two healthy older adults. Three, the super ages, the ones we're discussing over 80. Four, the people in the earlier stage of Alzheimer's. and five, people with more advanced Alzheimer's. Exactly. And they're looking at the hippocampus, which is the brain's memory center. And it's really interesting what they showed is that super ages produce far more new neurons

than typical older adults. In some cases, the level of these new neurons was roughly double, whereas people with Alzheimer's, new neuron growth was significantly reduced. So they're seeing something completely different going on in their brain. and they believe the research is that this comes down to a set of chemical switches that control how these genes behave. And in these super ages, their switches were linked to neuron growth. They stayed open and active, keeping those memory circuits strong.

And in Alzheimer's groups, those same switches were gradually turned off, even before the major symptoms appeared. So basically, what they're seeing is that actually the systems that are supporting renewal are doing something completely different. and this could open up a completely amazing ability to develop drugs that acts like wedges to keep these switches open and mimic the amazing resilience proteins that super ages seem to naturally produce. And just to add why that's so amazing.

So the neurons in your brain are the parts that send signals where synapses in your brain. So constant messaging. And obviously the more you've got, the more pathways in your brain, the more active your brain, which is obviously a good thing. because if you compared it, like Ella said, to those of Alzheimer's that have less and those switches are not on in the same way, they're gradually being turned off.

It makes perfect sense why our memory improves and all the other areas of our brain health. And it does mean in the future now that we can get drugs that act like wedges to keep those switches open. It would, you know, mimic those resilient proteins the super ages naturally have and support the brain's ability to keep generating new cells. I would argue that diet health and lifestyle, as we've discussed before, brain health, plays a huge role with why super ages are super ages here. And also perhaps they are learning the piano or they're doing a new hobby maybe. Perhaps they're learning a new language. I don't know.

I'd love to know more. I love that. Anyway, it just felt, as you said, really, there's a lot of interesting breakthroughs and amazing advancements happening in health. And so it's nice to feel. Yeah, today we follow. Let's just bring you good news only, basically. Okay, so we are going to look at our trend for this week.

We mentioned it last week, I promised to bring it to you. Here it is. This was some research that actually came from Aviva, and they did a big report called The Story of Health anyway. And what they were looking at was there millions of people are now wearing wearable devices to monitor their sleep. But the impact isn't always positive. So around 20 million people in the UK and are tracking their sleep,

that's unbelievable. I mean, there must be nearly almost half of adults, which also is insane when we look at therefore the number of people engaging in health and wellness, clearly enough to spend, you know, none of these things are really cheap, often hundreds of pounds on a device to track health and wellness. And yeah, you know, 4% of us eating our fibre. I know we always say that stat, but like 1 in 5 us eat our 5 a day, whatever it is. It's like, oh, we're just getting health and wellness so wrong.

It just drives me crazy. we're so challenged on the basics and yet we'll spend so much money on these kind of things that we want to fix it and they just don't fix it. And what we can see instead is two and five of those people say they feel anxious after a poor sleep score. More than half say that a bad sleep score negatively affects their day. One in four says tracking actually keeps them awake at night and around a third have reduced tracking because the pressure it creates. And it's like, what are we doing? I was debating whether I share this or not. But when I do talks, I go to lots of different places.

You do lots of corporate talks, don't you? Yeah, corporate talk offices or even lectures at a uni. And they're different audiences every single time. And the types of questions you get from those audiences varies massively. Now, I gave one particular talk last week, and I was just bombarded with questions on supplements, on gadgets, on what should I take? Or my diet's this, what should I do? What test should I do? I gave another talk in a very different environment

and the questions were more based on well, can you apply what you're saying to women when only men have been research? You know, there are very different questions or what simple thing can I do every day? I'm so busy. And I think there's a definite divide in society and I talk about this a lot

so please don't take this the wrong way, everybody listening, but we call it in the nutrition world and I want to be transparent so you understand and it's valid. Everyone is entitled to valid opinions And I've really debated whether I say this today because I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But we call it the worried well

where actually most of us are capable of like Ella said, sleeping without a tracker, eating well every single day. Yet we buy into these trends and gadgets and quick fixes. Whereas actually the people that need this information the most are the people that aren't even able to eat well every single day. And those of us that can just don't do it because we're still looking at quick fixes.

Does that make sense? I was debating whether sharing it, but it was so obvious. It's honestly, I totally agree with what you say, and it's so easy I also want to say, as someone who's really struggled with health anxiety in the past. It's very valid, everybody. We're not saying it's not.

It's really easy to be the worried well because you are bombarded with information and also, you know, my algorithms always showing me like all the ways I'm going to die. Yeah, but you're not good enough, that we're not doing enough. And then you hear the stats of, you know, almost one in two people will get cancer. Like, it's really easy to worry. And I just want to say that that's also kind of completely normal

with the information you're given. But equally, as you said, Rhea, I think it is important to like hold a mirror up to us, not on an individual basis, but as a collective, that like, probably more of us could make that stir for supper. Probably more of us could go on a half an hour walk. Probably more of us could do a 10-minute hit Pilates, whatever, YouTube video to get moving. but we want easy answers because we're overwhelmed with life. And as a result, we're so quick to be like, oh, wear a tracker, that will sort it out. I mean, I've seen it in the clinic over years, but the observations when you go in to do, as a health professional, this is what's very difficult.

You're going to community-based projects and you are helping them understand that, you know, having a red apple is good for you or a green apple a day. And then you're going to other different environments. And it's, you know, a 500-pound test on intolerances that you're being questioned. and there's different things. And we all are exposed to inadequacies in the healthcare system and knowledge gaps. And it's a big gaping problem because there's so much discrepancy across the socioeconomic Board of Health that we are all left at every end of the spectrum, utterly overwhelmed and confused regardless of what state you're in. And yeah, I really hope that here on the Wellness

Scoop that we're helping all of you, no matter your background or where you're from, that we're able to help you all. That's the goal. Yeah, 100%. And we said it last week, like, I just think there's something in our Q&A about dropping the need for perfection. And like, you know, we did talk last week about seven hours and was like 18 minutes being the sweet spot. But it's like, we know we need roughly seven to eight hours-ish. We know we need to. I don't want to know, Ella, on a bad day. I know it's a bad day, like we said. Oh, I'm like an insomniac at the moment. It's really, I've never had it before but basically for the last few months my kids have woken me up and then they only wake up shortly but now i'm jet-lacked i'm awake from like two to four every night and i'm really not stressed

like just like clara it's not stress waking up it's just when i gotten so used to it anyways it's so hard to break i sat till five this morning though and i'm like i'm feeling so good yeah gosh i'm dying inside at that five a m no i feel like i might be breaking you through anyway but yeah i think it's just look we talked about at the beginning of this episode around food and keeping a kind of sense of balance where we can ground ourselves in butter beans and quinoa and indulge in Easter eggs and pizza and margaritas and equally like we can go to sleep and wake up same-ish time most days because that's really good for us but we can also not worry on the days we don't sleep well or we go to bed really late because we stayed up late having a brilliant time with our friends or there was something happening that you just had to do

maybe a work deadline for a piece of work that's really important to you or your career is really important to you and that's okay and I just think hopefully this is a nice rapper in the sense of like balance is such a generic word in the world of wellness and I don't think it's often used with that integrity but like you can't be perfect no remember my favorite saying that my cliche Riannan lecture saying is we are as unique as our personalities have said it my whole career and it's true And if anyone listening, maybe you've got a condition, maybe you do have a cancer or a bowel disease or something that makes you unique. You deserve unique nutrition. No one deserves to be put into one camp, regardless of who you are, where you are. We all just deserve so much better. And that is why, yeah, we're here. So thank you for listening. We've got a lovely show actually coming up on Thursday.

We had a really good mix of questions, didn't we, Ella? We really did. We were going to be talking about all sorts of things, cycle-sinking, microwave. waves, electrolyte hype, eating for your cycle, yeah, loads and loads of things. So we'll see you on Thursday. Bye.