The Wellness Scoop - Weight Gain Warnings, Healthy Ageing & 35 Supplements a Day

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Could gaining weight in your twenties affect your health decades later? This week, we unpack a major new study linking early adult weight gain with a higher risk of several cancers, and explore what it really means for long-term health. We also dive into the growing conversation around healthy ageing. Are constant snacking, refined carbohydrates and late-night meals ageing us faster than we realise? Plus, why Zone 2 exercise is having a moment, Slovenia's new dietary guidelines, the latest concerns around social media and children's health, and Kim Kardashian's revelation that she takes 35 supplements a day. Is more always better when it comes to wellness? Send your questions for our weekly Q&A to ⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠ For more from Rhi and Ella:  Order your copy of Ella's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quick Wins: Healthy Cooking for Busy Lives⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Order your copy of Rhi's new book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Fibre Formula⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Sign up to ⁠⁠Rhitrition+⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Wellness Scoop, your twice now weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we're both here as your host today. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rihanna Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know how overwhelming and confusing health advice can be. And that's why we're here with our podcast to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal. We have got some really good stuff actually in today's episode. I'm excited. Can you run a through the agenda. It's a very good one. We have the weight gain study that's making the headlines around cancer risk. The eating habits that researchers think could accelerate aging and why zone two

training is suddenly everywhere. And a very interesting one here, Slovenia's new approach to nutrition and public health and the growing debate around social media and children's well-being. We'll see where we're at with that now. And then our trend of the week will be Kim Kardashian, 35 daily supplements and weather we've gone too far with wellness. That's probably a definitive yes, isn't it? What's Elvin to why? Ella, how have you been? What have you been up to?

Oh my gosh, do you know a trend for next week that I was up to you this morning that I'm so excited to talk about? Is this optimization backlash? I saw the one line. Have you seen this? Yeah, guys will bring this to you next week because you might be wondering why it's missing from our agenda. I think it's everything this podcast kind of discusses week or week out.

So bring that on. Me too. And if you guys have seen anything on it, let us know ahead of time. We'll bring that to the show. But yes, I am good. It has been so rainy and rank. We always record this a week in advance.

And oh my gosh, it feels like we're about to do set. I'm wearing my like winter puffy jacket this morning. I was so tempted to put the winter coat on. But when you're listening to this now, anyone in the UK, I don't know where you're at around the world. But it will be a heat wave. So, you know. We're living all seasons all weeks.

Well, I actually, do you know, I was thinking of bringing it up and maybe I will next week, but it's the El Nuneo or Il Nino. Yeah, El Nino. Oh, is that this year? I thought that was next year because I keep saying it's for me like 45 degrees next year. So it's how global warming is impacting our summers moving forwards, but we are seeing the catastrophic impacts of the extreme temperature dips and changes now. But that's a bit of a serious subject. It is nuts, though, isn't it?

How, like, last week it was 36 degrees or whatever. I mean, it was just like dangerously, completely, like overwhelmingly hot. And now I am honestly wearing my winter puffy jacket this morning. Yeah, and the thing is, and I promise I'll deliver the proper stats on this, but so many countries around the world, I don't know where you're listening from, but are experiencing drought or extreme flooding. And it's very difficult. It's impacting our food infrastructure, of course, with what crops we have available,

what things are sparse this year. we're really going to be seeing the knock-on effect. So anyway, extreme weather changes. We're so British discussing the weather. The first thing we do. I know, but we just can't help us in our DNA, isn't it? It really is. How is your weekend, Ella?

It was so nice. I'll tell you one thing I'm obsessed with, which is rhubarb. I can't stop eating rhubarb compote. It's all I want to eat every single meal. That's good. I mean, like we said last week, I love rhubarb, but it does need, it needs the sugar. And a bit of vanilla, I think. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. So good. Do you put your vanilla. powder in. Yeah, I go fancy for my room valve. That's what I'm going to do tonight at my Cardo shop. I love it. I had a very well-nestute breakfast as well this morning.

Monday's always just a rush. It's that morning. The kids need lots of things on Monday, like recorder and stuff. Anyways. So many bags. So many bags. And then making sure, yeah, you've got everything from the weekend and then trying to like be vaguely dressed and out the door to make a train.

Anyways. And so I was almost in a half breakfast. And I was like, nope, I've got one minute to go. I did such a nice breakfast. mashed up some raspberries, which were kind of slightly going over so they needed mashed. But I much prefer than that way, because you know a bit funny about raw fruit. I know. She doesn't like it cooked.

No, no, you only like it cooked. I generally only like it cooked. Oh, you like it cooked. Because you can mash a raspberry. It's kind of like it's like stewedish. Anyways, with yogurt, I have vanilla yogurt, delicious. Hemp seeds, cheer seeds, cashew butter, chopped ate. I mean, it was quite like a light breakfast, but it was ready in, I'm telling you one minute.

It was so delicious and I feel pretty virtuous. I mean, you'd have loved my warm figs this morning, Ella. But my husband did it for me, actually. Nice one, Billy. I know, because I was so busy. What was the setup? Oh, it's just on toast. He just put them in the frying pan quickly and then smash them on the toast.

A bit of honey or anything. Yeah. My nice seeded toast. Nut butter on seeded toast. Oh my gosh. It's the pepper nut chocolate spread. Oh my God. Interesting with figs.

Yeah, I know. Chocolate figgy breakfast for me. And then I have my second breakfast. It's obviously being pregnant now. I have two breakfasts in the morning. And then in Pratch, they'd ran out of matcha and ran out of porridge this morning. So they gave me a free yogurt pot.

That was actually quite a nice start to my morning. The guy was like, I'm really sorry when I then asked for match. And he's like, we don't have that either. Oh, my God. I love it. Yeah, there was a good start to the day, actually. But yeah, I love our Wellness Keep Star Breakfast. Any other good updates from you?

No. Honestly, the weekend has just been full of football with my eldest son. And I don't want to bore you all with that because, believe me, It's just a lot of standing around. But I'm back to my hot baths because of these weather changes and this lavender dirt bubble bath that I put in, which I really love. And I actually got to bed on time, first time in ages. Because I've become a bit of an insomnia recently.

We both went to parties at the weekend. This is quite a novel situation for us. Do you know what it's funny, though, because mine was a daytime party. That's what I prefer now. That's what I plan for my husband's 40th for daytime party. It was so lovely. Anyway, we were driving home. we're both saying, like, we don't spend enough time with friends,

and we definitely need to make so much more an effort to do it. But then we can talk about this another week. But the new trend at the moment is to celebrate loneliness. And it's so, yeah, it's the big TikTok trend at the moment. It's like POV, you know, point of view. I didn't know what that meant for so long. Have you still not? Oh, my gosh, I've used that one for a while.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm so uncool with this stuff. POV, you've got no friends. This is what you do. And it's so torn about it because part of the, me loves it because I feel so strongly that we all struggle and we don't talk about it enough. And so we sit here and we're like, yeah, I'm good. I'm fine. And actually, maybe I'm really not. And this is going and that's going on. And we're all struggling with our own things and our own way on our own timelines.

And so one thing I do like about social media is normalising like, I feel lonely or I feel or X or Y. But it's a weird like clickbait celebration also of something that's really sad. And it's almost like taking, I don't know, I'm really torn. Do you see where I'm going? I do, because it's the opposite of your concept of you want to go on a silent retreat. Yes. But this is very much, let's normalize being addicted to our phones and not actually talking to real people. There's a deeper underlying meaning to it being on TikTok.

Yeah, there's a kind of glamorization of something which is inherently quite sad. And something we all feel, I actually shared on my sub-spect, there's this piece that was that I saw from Pandora Sykes all about the grief of adult friendship and about how actually maintaining friendships as adults, particularly in the stage of life that lots of us are in at the moment where work is really all consuming. You know, if you've got other responsibilities like young children, you just don't, you know, the level of like military planning it takes to see a friend and you book it like three months in in advance.

That's my diary is and things I really look forward to. Social interactions are booked in months in advance. For sure. But there is a kind of like, it was just a really beautiful piece about this grief of losing that spontaneity. You know, when you're younger and you just see. your friends all the time because these institutions like university school, they create that framework where you can be quite lazy because you see your friends all the time. And as adults and then life

gets busier and busier and more complicated and you're more further apart from each other, you lose that. It's one, the reason's like, I love this every Monday because you know you had that connection with each other, which is so nice. Anyways, so I've been thinking a lot about that. And then I saw this celebration of it because I love the conversation of it, but the glamorization of it. I'm not sure. Let's do a trend deep dive into it. Yeah, let us know if you've seen this, what you think. It's been really on my mind this morning. Anyways, health headlines that matter, guys. We have got a really cool pickup that we found on the new national dietary guidelines in Slovenia. I went on a really deep dive on Slovenia's government website reading this. Very impressed. Because it's so cool.

I think we really need to take a leaf out of other countries' books and really celebrate what they're doing and also try and implement things that we can here. So right at the top of their new dietary guidelines, It states that the recommendations, of course, are based, obviously, on available scientific evidence and the contemporary understanding between the relationship between nutrition, health and about sustainability, sustainable development. Now, the goal is, of course, to help the people of Slovenia to have this long-term, healthy, sustainable approach to living because I often feel like at the moment nobody's thinking that far ahead. And that was why I ended up reading and reading and reading because it's so interesting. like they in these new guidelines they explicitly state that food choices have consequences not only for individual health but also for healthcare systems very important rural development food security and the environment and as we said like at the top of the page it's saying it's the best

scientific evidence of course but it's not just about nutrition it's also about health sustainable development and i think it's so interesting that like it's not just about specific food recommendations which will kind of chat about some of those in a sec but actually more this kind of wider understanding, almost philosophy underpinning there. And the guidelines state that healthy diets should promote health as a complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease, which is one of the big criticisms in the UK, that we have such a focus on treating things, but not on preventing things.

Because it's so old, Ella, everything that we've got here, every guideline. I mean, look at the calorie equation being 120 years old. It was back then when things were discovered, vitamins, it was purely for. for the prevention of disease or being seriously sick, like vitamin C for scurvy. And we just don't seem to have moved forwards from that level of let's just not get sick. Let's try and be better long term.

We just have and move forward. How do we genuinely improve our health as opposed to how do we not get scurvy? That's exactly it. And this lovely one health that's called framework recognizes that human health food and environmental sustainability cannot be separated. And it really argues why

these resilient food systems should be supported by us all and why we need to be aware of planetary well-being, which let's be honest, is definitely not on politician's lips right now here or in the States. No, exactly. And it's interesting, obviously, we talked a few weeks ago about France, updating their dietary guidelines. And it was quite similar in loads of ways. It's this broader shift of thinking about how do we really support the country's nutrition in a way that feels genuinely long-term sustainable. And so then a few interesting things to pick out from Slovenia that they recommend now 50 grams in dried weight,

so about 100 grams cooked of beans and lentils per day. I love it. I mean, this is what we've been talking about for so, so long. And also, that's going to save you a lot of money if you're replacing your animal produce with that. Yeah, exactly. So you're talking about kind of half a tin of drained lentils or chickpeas, for example, each day.

25 grams, that's dried weight again, a soy food. so we're thinking like tofu, soy milk, catamame, and then it also has about 200 grams of fish or seafood per week. But it's so it's quite a small amount, to be honest. They've got red and processed meat as something that should be limited. So it's suggesting about 43 grams a day, which again, that's a lot less than lots of people do. But again, real, there's preference for white meat where meat is consumed,

but obviously trying to replace lots of that with these bean and lentils. So, yeah, it was just really interesting. The other thing that was a really interesting really that they had is it used to have, like most guidelines are kind of, you know, don't drink too much. They now recommend complete abstinence from alcohol. I know. We're at that point. And I know this may seem very worrying for people listening because actually it's such a stark

contrast to Slovenia's guidelines compared to here. But I would say they're stepping up and actually helping the people of Slovenia. They've had enough. It really does give that kind of take, doesn't it? You know, even just the recommendation of nought three eggs a week, most people are having that a day at the moment over here. So we really need to be more in touch with how lucky if you are privileged enough to have these conversations we are to be having them in the first place and what access we have. Yeah. Anyway, it's just a really interesting.

It feels to me like such a nice way of thinking about food, which is that we don't need a label. You don't have to be a carnivore, an omnivore. a vegan, a vegetarian, a flexitarian, you don't have to call yourself anything. But it's moving towards this like kind of genuinely like nourishing way of eating well. We are really prioritising foods that are great for us and great for the planet. But equally you can include these other foods that you really like, but it's about a genuine sense of balance. Anyway.

It's not all doom and gloom. No. To give you an insight here in the UK, I forgot to say at the beginning, I've tuned up with the Food Foundation and Veg Power. And they're going to reach maybe a million children in September this year. with a new campaign on teaching parents how to implement beans and pulses in schools and how to get them into diets. Because we just have a perception here in the UK that the foods that Ella and I talk about all the time are just not flavorsome, our bland, are poverish-type foods.

Yeah. So it's very interesting. Anyway, I think it's this thing where we often in the UK think we're so great and we are so great, love the UK. But it's interesting. You see just all these other countries in the world really. having this kind of pioneering progressive approach and I just want us to have that here. What else will we got more conversation on social media in the press this week? We won't delve up too much on this but just a quick.

Although all the headlines today, maybe the time this comes out, says that Kirstama is thinking about his legacy now and as part of that, he would quite like to now put through the band on social media. So that's quite interesting. But there was a report submitted by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. That's the largest voice in the medical profession in the UK because it represents 22 different royal colleges. They warmed of an epidemic of harm among children and they compared it and said social media is the new smoking. So that was the headline.

Yeah, everywhere wasn't it? It's the new smoking social media and it was picked up in every single outlet. So we were there for that one. Let's keep pushing that conversation forwards. And we have another pick up here on Y Zone 2 exercises having a moment. And Ella, fill us in what is Zone 2 and what is Zone 1? Exactly. We had like so many different things when you wanted to fill you in on.

So we've got two chunky headlines, three pickups, because there's just so much health and wellness stuff in the news at the moment. This was interesting. There was a cardiologist. Now, I don't want to pronounce his name wrong, but Dr. Hiraj Bullock from the Leeds General Infirmary and authored a book called Heart Reset 40. So there's quite a lot.

You know, when people share a book, there's often quite a lot in the press. about this. But it was an interesting one because he was talking about the sweet spot for cardiovascular health being something called zone two training. And essentially you can divide heart rate training in terms of your heart rate when you're exercising into five zones. So one being really gentle exercise. So that's like 50, 60% of your maximum heart rate. Zone 5, Barry's Boot Camp, 90 to 100%. So just walking at a very peaceful pace to Barry's Boot Camp to cardio sprints on a treadmill. Yeah, so zone two, we're in the middle here, so maybe 60, 17% of your maximum heart rate.

So you're going, power walking, exactly that. But you could actually sustain that pace for 30 to 60 minutes or more. So, and you could still hold a conversation. So exactly that power walking. It's all the people that go on hikes, I'd say, and that they go for walks with communities. Exactly that. And basically saying from a cardiovascular perspective, that zone 2 training is so powerful. supporting blood pressure, increasing your good cholesterol,

amazing for your blood sugar control, and that can be supportive of the functioning of your mitochondria, which helps with energy production. So anyway, I just thought that was quite nice to hear because we've heard so much about exercise in the moment and how we need to be getting more of it and more of it, more of it. Obviously, we talked about 10 hours a week last week. But then you hear cardiologist saying,

actually, there's zone to your power walking. Almost that's so good for you. Cycling, I guess, as well. If you're lucky enough to live somewhere that's really, relatively flat and safe to cycle, go for it. Or cycling to work. Yeah, exactly. So just knowing, if you're trying to improve your exercise at the moment,

there's real power in kind of gentle, doable exercise. Power walk with a girlfriend, cycle to work. I love it, Ella. It's a great one. So we now have our first headline, which is a big one, but we'll break it down for you as speedily as we can. And it's weight gain in your 20s could increase cancer risk fivefold. Now, once again, you know, there's always this talk about weight as a generic thing,

but we cannot deny the fact that the more adipose tissue you have, the more predisposed you are to different types of cancers. And just give us a dictionary definition of adipose tissue. So the fats that sit around your organs, extra fat that we aren't using for energy every single day, stored tissue fat, which is natural to a degree. Of course, women have a lot more stored fat than men naturally, that's completely normal too. We are all meant to be different shapes and sizes, but I also want to

approach us a bit of kindness because we know that weight and body size is actually not a choice as people may portray it before we delve into the stats. No, there's nothing simple or straightforward here, which makes these conversations really difficult and it's always that balance of this is really important information, but it needs to be done with the nuances involved. But there was a new study that came out of Sweden. And what it's suggesting is that when weight is gained can matter almost as much as how much weight is gained, which is very interesting. So this is from researchers at Lund. I hope they said that right. University, they were analysing data from more than 620,000 men and women and tracking their weight changes between the ages of 17 and 60 comparing them with later

cancer diagnosis. We already know that obesity, of course, which is when you go over different thresholds of weight gain. So that's one of the highest thresholds, is linked to 13 different cancers. But now we believe it may be associated with another eight. And this study, it looks at the timing, and I just want to reiterate risk factors. It's not that you will develop this.

It just increases the risk. And what the research has found was that becoming obese, of course, at any age, increases the risk. But for most of those cancers, greater risk factors were seen amongst people who developed obesity before the age of 30. And for women in particular, okay, I'm going to list this off here. It was associated with a five-fold increase in womb cancer risk, 67% higher risk of pancreatic cancer, a doubling of kidney cancer risk and a 76% higher risk of meningoma. So, Ella, do you want to say what the male, because it's actually different?

Yes, different risks, exactly, although still there. So for men developing obesity in their 20s was associated with a five-fold increase in liver cancer risk, doubling of pancreatic cancer risk, a doubling of kidney cancer risk, and a 58% higher risk of colon cancers. Now, obviously, all those numbers sound really scary. Because they're very high and they are very statistically meaningful. Yeah, and we're talking about a huge data pool as well of people involved in the study, you know, over 600,000 people. But I think it's really important as well because obviously one of the big issues that we have in this country at the moment is a rising rate of overweight and obesity in childhood. And the more information we then get, that does feel incredibly important.

Again, you know, we look at the food environment, school meals, the way that we're being raised today, what's on offer. Available for children, changes in food. palette preferences and it's easy to say, oh, it's okay, people can just do what they want, but you start to look at this data. And it really does emphasize a need for kind of really, really huge drastic change. And it's a need for Slovenia's health approaches here and something that looks forwards. Yeah, 100%. And it's interesting because then when they look at the reasons this might be, and these are just like beliefs that they have looking at their data, but potentially one of the explanations as to why it's so relevant this weight gain earlier on in your life is

this cumulative exposure. So obviously, you know, as re-said, there's more of this adipose tissue there for a longer period of time. So if you develop obesity earlier on, so in your 20s, you could then spend decades longer exposed to the metabolic hormonal inflammatory effects of excess body fat compared with someone who gains the same amount of weight later in their life in their 60s or 70s and reaches really quickly. And this is not to shame anyone. This is, we know how complicated all of this is. But it's important to understand what we're talking about

in terms of this cumulative, metabolic, inflammatory effect of excess body fat because the excess adipose tissue does have an impact, isn't it? Because it can cause major dysregulation, our bodies of our hormones. And I think for females in particular, what you'll have noticed from the list of cancers that we discussed, hormones do play a large role. And you may have noticed for men as well, a liver cancer risk was mentioned

and it wasn't for females. That reason is under the age of 30, most females have estrogen that prevents a lot of weight gain from going around those organs in the middle. But the problem we're seeing is when you are rapidly gaining adipose tissue, it's inevitably going to end up there

as well as on the other areas, the hips and the things that we hormonally are predisposed to in comparison to men. And that only escalates then when we go through perimenopause and menopause when the fat distribution changes towards the middle more as well. And we've already got stores there, which we're not meant to have technically had a vast amount of. So the impact then changes tenfold. So hormones and fat play a humongous role. But it also stems back to cholesterol. And cholesterol is good for our body. But of course, we can't infiltrate. We cannot. keep up our gallbladder, our liver, our detoxification system naturally.

We're not consuming enough fiber in the Western world. We know this. We're not pushing everything through. So our digestion's poor. Our hormones are out of whack. We're gaining weight and we're not eating the foods that help push them through. So body fat does play a role because it dysregulates those natural processes that keep the body performing optimally.

Yeah, that was so helpful. Thank you, Ray. And as we said the beginning, this is not to say. that it's inevitable. These are risk factors and it's all about relative risk and obviously cancer risk is also influenced by lots of other factors. Genetics playing a huge one, smoking, alcohol, physical activity and diet quality. It's not this in isolation. Epigenetics, what you said, is like a switch that's switched on and body fat switches that on. So for so many people, a risk element is then switched on straight away when you become obese before the age of 30 and

lots of professors, especially Charles Yo, who we adore and have on on this podcast, explain this so beautifully that, you know, we have risk factors our whole life. It's up to us whether we switch them on or off. In this case, it's our environments that are changing those for us. It's a headline

that I think is a stark reminder. Okay, guys, we are going to pop to an ad break now, and when we come back, we have got such a good one. We are going to be talking about whether your diet is aging you and the link between our skin health, our longevity and what we eat. The 2006 Chevrolet Equinox awarded the most dependable compact SUV in the U.S.

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Bring it with SAP Grow, AI Cloud ERP for any size business. We've got our next headline, which is more, I'd say, wellness industry-driven, which is about aging, Ella. Exactly that. Okay, so that was quite a heavy one, but I do think incredibly important to talk about, even though it's difficult. So I hope that gaze and pause for thought was helpful in some way, shape or form. I'm sure you guys all saw the headlines about that as well. Right.

Headline two, I saw this in The Guardian. This was a couple of weeks going out and I was like, I need to interview me on this. I'm glad she brought it out because she's in the hot seat. It is a fun one. Well, when I say fun, yeah, let's miss bust. It is quite fun. Okay. So the headline is your diet aging you.

Obviously, you know, aging is such this like insane industry in this country and, well, everywhere and kind of anti-aging this and anti-aging that and, you know, trying to kind of preserve youth in a Benjamin Button fashion is a billion-dollar industry. But diet and aging, how much truth is there in this? So I'm going to go through all the points of the article and then I want to ask me, essentially true or false, but with all the nuance and caveats and amazing info that she always gives us. Okay, is your diet aging you, one, because you're eating all day long? So the article argues that basically lots of us are essentially grazing for like 16 hours a day.

Every time we release insulin, which helps regulate blood sugar but can also promote cell growth. Some researchers suggest that constantly being in this fed state could contribute to visceral fat accumulation and increase the opportunity for cellular damage. That's where our anti-aging comes in. Rhee is there good evidence that constantly snacking accelerates aging? No, essentially it's definitely oversimplified. But also it depends. where you live in the world, who you are, what circumstances you have, regularly grazing,

depends on what you're grazing on. Right. And actually there is an argument for lots of people in the UK in particular that it is not helping us because obviously we're not choosing the nuts and the seeds and the fruit to grazons. We're not hitting our five a day or fibre target, as we know. We're choosing ultra-processed foods because that's what our diets are predominantly made of. and that seems to be all that's available to buy on the go unless you're making your snacks at home.

You're snacked in. You're snacked in, which I will say is larger in our heads than some of the images now I am seeing online, which are a bit worryingly small, but full of saturated fat, salt, sugar. So it just depends on your starting point as well. And also who you are. What condition you might have something underlying? What type of work do you do?

You are a surgeon? Are you a pilot? Are you pregnant? like me and you have to eat all the time. I honestly think we could all take a leaf out of these researchers book and not snack so often and give it a three or four hour break in between, but it's circumstantial. Yeah. And we want to, yeah, upgrade our snacking a little bit, but it's not true that you're going to be super, super wrinkly. No. Just because you had a few extra snacks. Exactly. But yeah, I get what they're saying

of insulin release and I do appreciate the blood sugar effect, but it does depend on what you're eating and who you are. Okay, so it's even better if we can have like three or four hours and have a more balanced snack. Pretty much. Love it. Okay. If you're a diet aging you because you're eating too many refined carbohydrates, true or false, this is looking at something called advanced vacation and products and the idea that repeated

spice and blood sugar from refined carbohydrates, which you're a big part of our diet and our snacking can increase this AGE as they're called formation and that's bad for our aging. True. actually an element of truth here because the more sugar we have, and I'm referring to glucose as sugar, so carbohydrates, refined carbohydrates, white bread. Not fruit sugar because that's fructose. Yeah, definitely not fruit sugar at all. Good differentiation to make and not fear anybody there. But when we have too much sugar circulating, we stiffen proteins and it's a process called glycation and it does actively age us. But you have to be having an extreme amount. And I'm

talking about eating these things in isolation. It's like if you had candy floss, every single day rather than just at the funfare. I don't know why I picked that example. It's quite archaic. Okay, but like I like having chocolate every day. That's different. You like dark chocolate and that has an element of fat in it as well and it's not releasing a lot of sugar.

So it's not the nice chocolates. This is the lollipops, the skittles. But if you were having a healthy diet and you had one lollipop every day. It's fine. Not aging you. Aging you if you're eating breakfast, lunch dinner, full of refined carbohydrates with very little healthy fats, proteins. within your diet.

So it's causing our blood sugar roller coaster. You're not able to store enough and your insulin isn't working effectively. We develop a risk of type 2 diabetes and we do have more ages in our overall diet. So yes, refined carbohydrates, too much in excess too frequently can age us. Love that, but not.

Guys, we are not talking about tonight for dinner making this because this is what I'm going to make. I'm going to make like a lovely lentil ragu with tin tomatoes and some meat. and some Chitaki mushrooms, and I'm going to have that with like a normal pasta. That's fine. The normal pasta is not the problem. No, definitely not.

And again, if you're an athlete, you'll want to be having refined carbs before a match. So that's very different too. So it's a lot of nuance. Love that. Okay. Is your doubt aging you because you're cooking in very high temperatures? Really is just like nodding emphatically. So I'm going to pass that straight to you.

Yeah. Do you know what? This is a really interesting one. And I think it refers to barbecued foods and those sorts of things. The study here in the article cited was that three slices of bacon fried for five minutes contains more than 91,000 ages. Which is what we were just talking about. Compared with frying tomato at just 23. But again, this also links to the red and processed meat there within that particular component.

But what we do know, and I wrote so if anyone has the Science of Nutrition Encyclopedia, look up the page on Amines. So I explain and have lots of diagrams that break down the thermogenes. effect of food and also what happens when we burn food and it becomes carcinogenic. So there is strong evidence and medical consensus to favour those lower cooking temperatures like stewing, like making your ragu over a high heat rather than, you know, direct flame methods that you're seeing the restaurant that look really impressive, don't they? When they get the frying pan, there's a flame like grilling, and barbecuing. And that's because you don't want to form these harmful chemicals and carcinic compounds. Even when you burn food, that's the formation of these carcogenic compounds. It doesn't mean

a bit of burnt toast is going to harm you. But we do need to minimize deep frying and barbecuing and keep it as occasional cooking methods. Okay. What about if we're eating too much saturated fat and not enough fibre? Well, yeah, that is a risk factor, definitely, but not for aging particularly with aesthetics and that sort of thing. So as we know, we're not hitting our fibre targets. I feel like it's all I talk about, Ella. It goes, just we're not getting it. Saturated fat has a key driver of the immune system, whereas it's our overall diet that matters more. I'd say it's your overall diet, but we are overconsuming saturated fat. But it's probably not particularly affecting your aging. No, but it's affecting how well you age. So it will be affecting

your heart health and it will be affecting the chances of you living healthy when you're in the elderly stage of your life because of the systemic inflammation over time. But we don't focus on individual parts of the diet. I can't just isolate saturated fat. It's saturated fat alongside salt, alongside sugar, minimal activity, you know, a lack of fiber in the diet. So your overall diet is a much better way to look at your aging rather than just one component. Because one of the other arguments is that your diet is aging you because you're not getting enough healthy fat. So that leads on from that very nicely.

Yeah, and we love the discussion of Omega 3. And it's completely and utterly true that we need. those amygothrase because in research they're linked to lowering inflammation and those amygothrase support our brain our brain is 60% fat we need it for our cell membranes we need it for our heart health links to reduce risk of neurogenitive diseases I could go on and good for your skin good for the skin but like we said amygothrary crisis I mean honestly everybody we just need less saturated fat and more olive oil in our diet yeah and that will support your aging as well as you're maybe not aging well because you're not eating enough colorful plants. Yeah, exactly. And you mentioned skin

there as well, by the way. Skin, there's a huge link with healthy fats and colorful plants, components, particularly dark-colored berries like anthocyanins that are linked to brain protective. Components, plants, every dermatologist will know, I mean, look at the skincare products you buy. I mean, they're marketed as cherry cream or orange extract or citrus this. And that is because of the vitamin C and the antioxidants that plants can contain. So we know. that does help with anti-aging massively. Okay. And the final one to ask you about is you're not aging well because your diet is too acidic.

Now, this feels like a throwback. Tell us about this. It's a throwback, isn't it? To the scary anti-cancer claims and that Bell Gibson era that we've discussed at the very beginning of the Wellness Cup in what year was that 2013, 14? Yes, something around that. Yeah, the kind of fake brain cancer lady in Australia. Really scary.

In fact, the reason when I went to university, I was sold before I became a nutrition student back in the singing era, I was sold the whole, you want your diet to be alkaline. Lots of people just kind of floated that theory. They're really overstated theories. Your body buffers a homeostasis regularly, so it keeps you at a very stable, neutral sort of pH. You know, and that's why we love water, and our body hits that lovely neutral 7 pH. but honestly, if you're slightly acidic or slightly alkaline, you will die. No food you eat is going to change the acidity because your body does that for you with homeostasis. So if you're a healthy person, your kidneys and lungs, tightly regulate your blood between that nice sweet spot of 7.35 and 7.45.

Food does not change it. You cannot cure cancer through this component. And often actually the claims that acid forming foods that meet dairy and process cards, we have discussed due ages can cause our body to become acidic isn't true. It cannot change our pH directly. There's no science to back that up, Ella. Your kidneys do a great job at excreting extra acid. It's true, though, that your diet can age you. Yeah, absolutely. Ultimately, and that's in subtle changes that are hard for scientists to measure, like your skin, like your hair, like your nails. Although I will hit amidst there are genetic factors that influence all of those

things as well. It's a very close tight rope that you're walking, aren't you, with aging? Genetics play such a big role too, but you cannot deny that you will age better if you eat well, generically, most of the time. I feel like that needs so nicely to trends. First of all, you've got a clip to play us, right? I do. So this is actually a trend that Liv, Olivia Atwood was speaking about on one of her podcast clips. And it's called Office Face. What's Office Face? So Office Face, So office phase because you know you don't get any air to your skin. I'll let her describe it. Have a listen to this clip.

You turned up today and you looked, you look beautiful, but you are now starting to look like... But I look ugly now. There's a thing and it's proven on social media called Office Air. Have you heard about this? No. So basically the evidence is people putting up clips on Instagram, they go to work, their makeup looks perfect, they look fresh, flawless.

When they leave, they look rancid. Right. But nothing's happened in that time part of. from sitting at their desk. Right. So the theory is that office air makes you ugly. Okay, all right. So that's the excuse that I've got, is it?

Because, I mean, I don't think I've ever turned up to work with a fresh blowout, dewy skin and flawless makeup. I generally look like I've been dug up when I turn up to work. I don't spend much time in an office. I guess this would be the closest it gets as an office for me. Yeah, see where I am in like two hours, see what I look like. Well, I can tell you now, I can literally before my eyes, you are getting ugly. Wow.

Literally before my, I can see it now. Can you believe what you're actually hearing? Can you need to think? Listen, listen, all I'm saying, Dullen, you turned up today and you looked, you look beautiful. But you are now starting to look like... But I look ugly now? No, you're just starting to look like a melted Wellington boot. Office air.

So, there you go, Ella. Well, what's your verdict? I mean, okay. Let's take this back. First of all, I'm actually a big Olivia Atwood fan in the sense of I've... I don't know a huge brand about her. I think she's... But I loved her documentaries on plastic.

surgery and things like that. I'm a huge fan of transparency. We haven't yet had our argument about Gwyneth Poutreau to come guys. But I like celebrities who are honest, right? Like they look ethereal. I like celebrities who are honest, even if it's not great about what they do or don't do, what they eat or don't eat, because I think it's much more helpful in some ways for people to understand that nothing in always mean more than like someone who's clearly had so much work done, looks completely different from any normal human who's had like four hours of hair and makeup and who is so slim and toned

and it's like, oh my God, I'm so lazy. I never exercise. I love eating burgers and I just rolled out of bed looking like this. I've not done anything to myself. I think that just makes people feel really bad about themselves. Like they're not good enough. And actually these people, yes, they're genetically blessed, but they have also had teams and nutritionists and chefs

and personal trainers and all the rest of it. And that is why they look the way they do. although I'm sure they looked very lovely to start with. And I like people who are honest. So I really liked her investigation into things like plastic surgery and looking at what people do. I like how honest she is about that. You know, she is so straightforward and transparent about the amount of work she's had done. I love that because I would hate to have that amount of work done because I would hate to

integrate those procedures. So I'm not going to look like her. I like understanding that golf. I really like it. But I will have to say here, we have to say evidence is really different to, picks on TikTok. What was the word she, because I know lives is pointing fun of it. They're just having a laugh, live and Pete.

But at the beginning she said, and it's like real on social media. I kind of think it is true. But that's just the normal working day. Like you're exhausted by the end of the day. But doesn't it link to what we were just talking about with your diet aging? Which is that like I feel like whenever and I don't really sit in an office anymore. But when I used to sit in the office, I would never drink enough water. I wouldn't see sunlight for like eight hours.

I wouldn't ever move my body even though I knew. should go for like a 10 minute walk. I drank way too much coffee and ate far too many snacks. I'm not sure any of that made me leave at the end of the day glowing. I didn't make you ugly. I mean, it's quite a drastic thing. I know they're joking. No, but it's that like inherent glow. Do you know what I mean? You know when you've like been outside for a walk and you're kind of fresh and happy? Because you've got blood flow in your cheeks. That's it. Okay. Whereas when you've been stagnant for like 10 hours and you're dehydrated and overly caffeinated and you've had far too much sugar. Or air conditioning.

Air conditioning dries out your skin massively. So I think it is a real thing. Yeah, I mean, okay, yeah. So don't feel bad if you're sat in office and you don't feel your best when you emerge from it at the end of the day, it's normal. The next trend is our Kim K. 35 pills. Oh, Kim. Oh, my gosh. So he sent me this clip and it's funny because you sent me this clip and then like five minutes later,

I had an email from Penguin talking about the dietitian from the clip and her new book, Hanrock to take supplements. So we have got a voice note from Josie, who originated lots of this conversation, which I'm excited to play for you guys. But essentially, yes, Kim Kardashian has gone viral for saying she takes 35 supplements a day. She said, I have pill fatigue and she's taking some clips from the press. The American style recently admitted that she feels so-called pill fatigue, a sense of exhaustion from taking a large amount of pills and dietary supplements every day during an appearance on the podcast, Goodhang, which is hosted by Amy Pola. Have you ever listened to her?

Who's Amy Polar? I'm a massive podcast. I don't think I've done to it. I think it might be really bigger in the States. We're not. I'm not down with all the American. Producer Will is not as big in the States. Maybe not as known here, but I'm sure it's huge. Anyway, on that podcast, she was interviewing Kim Kardashian, must be huge of Kim's a guest,

and revealed that she takes around 35 supplements every day to maintain her health, and she divides those into three doses a day. So essentially three times a day, she's taking like 12 pills. It's quite a lot. I'm not surprised she's fatigued. I would feel very fatigued by that. It is too much. Let's hear, because Josie's a fabulous dietitian,

let's hear Josie's take on this. No wonder Kim is feeling fatigued. 35 supplements a day is a lot. And it's really important for anyone listening to this story to understand that it's really not necessary for health either. Once you get into that kind of volume, there's so many limitations to consider. First being how they interact with one another

and even the nutrients that you're eating in your food. When you start stacking multiple supplements, you can get competition for absorption. For example, minerals like iron, calcium and zinc can compete for each other. Then you've got the issue of accumulation. So yes, some nutrients are water soluble, which essentially just means that they come out in your urine. Think bright-colored urine after taking too many B vitamins. So some people might be familiar with that.

But others actually are fat soluble like A, D, E, and K. They can accumulate. Similarly, so can iron. So it means essentially they are stored in the body, meaning over time that can build up. that's not necessarily a good thing. While high-dose antioxidant supplements in some studies have been shown to potentially blunt some of the body's natural adaptations to exercise, so this is less about building up in the body, but more about disrupting the normal signals in the body that respond to exercise

and in essence help us get fitter and recover better. So again, it just really challenges this idea that more is always better. And to be honest, even when people are trying to be careful, it can be really easy to accidentally take too much, which investigation I actually found supplements being sold online that had doses up to 12.5 times higher than their safe upper limit. And in some cases, inconsistent or confusing labeling made it difficult to know exactly how much consumers were getting.

There's also a common misconception that supplements are natural and therefore safer, but in reality, they're regulated as foods, not medicine, so supplements don't need to prove effectiveness before they are sold or put on your supermarket shelves. And testing also isn't mandatory. As a result, quality and dose can really vary from product to products, and you can't always assume that a product is safe or the labels are accurate. So that's why supplements are really best when used in a targeted way, not as something that you blindly stack.

It's also important to stress, though, that it's not about no supplements being superior, as we do definitely have good evidence for certain supplements in specific situations. For example, vitamin D in people with low sun exposure or with darker skin, iron, when there's a confirmed deficiency, vitamin B12 for vegans, and folic acid for preconception and pregnancy are just some that have really good evidence behind them. There's also some specific situations, for example, for those who are really active or competing in sports, where certain supplements can have that ergodogenic aid, which in essence just helps to help athletes recover and perform a bit better potentially as well. So an edge, but certainly not a replacement for diet and

lifestyle. But again, these are really specific targeted interventions. So at this point of polysubmentation, so basically taking a lot of supplements, as we see here with Kim, taking 35 a day, we're really moving beyond what we have good clinical evidence for. But what we do have strong evidence for in terms of supporting our long-term health is the pattern of how we eat over time. So we see that patterns that have lots of whole foods, variety, balance, diets like the Mediterranean or the dash diets, consistently outperforming supplementation for outcomes. like cardiovascular disease and cancer risk, not because of any single nutrient, but because of how foods work together as a whole. So again, coming back to that pattern of eating being really important here. So the moral of the story is food always wins first. So if you can get what you need through food, it should reduce your need to take supplements in the first place. But again,

some supplements can definitely have a use. One way to help you get more of what you need through food first, what I like to say to people is to try looking at your weekly food. shop. So if you're buying more variety of different fresh produce or even frozen and tin produce can be really beneficial. So thinking like really colourful fruits and veg, different proteins with a heavy focus on plant proteins like beans, lentils and soy, whole grains, as well as healthy fats from nuts, seeds and olive oils and herbs and spices. Getting that sort of variety from this whole, these whole foods can be really beneficial in terms of nudging you towards eating more throughout the week. So try and pack these in in your food shops where you can. Hopefully that helps,

More of the story, Food Fair always wins. It's interesting. Look, guys, we'll talk about this next week, this optimization backlash, which was kicked off by Stephen Bartlett. And as in it's a backlash against Stephen Bartlett, loads of people weighing in on it.

Maybe we should have brought that up. You know, his clip that everybody's talking about the two glasses of alcohol, yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, it's about time that podcast had a little bit of retribution. Yeah, and I think this will go into it in detail next week. Not to go into it, But it's this sense of like it is, it's like this pill fatigue.

It's just at what point is wellness just dull and like joyless? Can we work out the cost of 35 supplements? Well, also because I'm sure Kim Kay only has the best. And that is astronomical. Yeah, humongous. But it's just also, and I just feel so strongly on this at the moment, that there's a joylessness to living your life in such a rigid way. And it's a very delicate balance.

We talked a minute ago about, you know, the really serious consequences of not looking after your health in some regards, like the increased cancer risks in some cases and like not looking after your health is not something to be taken lightly. It's incredibly important for our long-term health and well-being that we take care in general terms of our health. But this kind of optimization of wellness, which is 35 pills a day, is just dull. Like what fun is it?

I don't know. It's like I went to this party, big deal, guys. on Sunday. I had two glasses of wine. I had such a nice time. And I feel like that was wellness for me. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I danced sober at mine, obviously. Love it. I can't dance going to dance for. I don't need alcohol to have a good time. Yeah. And you don't. But it's the sense of like, you know, I don't know of like we don't have to live our life by like a wellness schedule with 35 pills. 35 pills. It's just ludicrous. Let's just put that to what it is. no one can afford that and equally, I mean, who can remember that? Oh my gosh, she must have her PA coming up to her with a little, you know, pack every few hours.

Pill time, quit, pop this, is your water off you go. God, I'd throw that all up. I know. Anyways, okay, I'm really excited for next week, this optimization conversation. If you guys have read things that you think's interesting on it, you have an interesting viewpoint. Please, please, please, please let us know in the comments because actually I'd be so interested to take all of that in. and we can have quite chunky chat about it, I can't way. We'll be back obviously on Thursday.

We'll always hear on Thursdays. We've got so much good stuff on that one. It's a really good one. Can you be healthy and thin? We're questioning Ella, aren't we? Hair loss as well. We had this amazing question from a listener, basically saying that talking about some kind of beauty standards,

and they said I was really struck by how it seems like any time there are these really thin people, comes out that it's not all natural, quite like what we were just talking about with celebrities. Even in real life scenarios, it seems like very thin people I know end up either having an eating disorder or chronically skipping meals because they're busy or have severe health issues that contributes. To be honest, it feels discouraging like can you either prioritize health or being thin, but it is impossible for both to be true? Is this just an indication of our unrealistic beauty standards or are we actually getting bigger as we have access to more ideally healthy food?

It's so many interesting things in that question and comment from our listeners. So we are going to delve into that. Lots of other things as well. But I think it's a really, really interesting question. So come back on Thursday for that. We can't wait. See you then. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets?

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