ZOE Science & Nutrition

Could mushrooms hold the secret to better gut health, lower cholesterol, and can they protect your brain?

Today, Professor Robin May, a leading microbiologist and the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, explores why our interest in mushrooms has exploded. He explains why they are not just another vegetable but could hold the key to better gut health, brain health, immune health, and lower cholesterol.

By the end of the episode, you’ll know which health claims about mushrooms are real, which are exaggerated and where the science is just too early to trust. You’ll have a solid understanding of what mushrooms are really doing inside our bodies and how to unlock the secret health powers they hold.

Should mushrooms become a regular part of your weekly shop rather than an occasional side dish? And if fungi have evolved alongside humans for millions of years, what else might they reveal about the future of nutrition and health?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

03:32 Are mushrooms closer to humans than plants?

06:20 What is a mushroom, really?

10:46 Why we’re eating more mushrooms now

12:14 The hidden nutrients inside mushrooms

13:56 Can mushrooms boost vitamin D?

15:35 The sunlight trick for healthier mushrooms

17:27 How many mushrooms give you enough vitamin D?

18:01 The mushroom with 500x more vitamin D

20:25 The mystery compound found in mushrooms

22:00 Should you take mushroom supplements?

24:30 Do all mushrooms contain this rare compound?

26:22 Can mushrooms help you live longer?

28:35 Can lion’s mane protect your brain?

30:24 Do mushrooms really boost IQ?

34:21 Can mushrooms affect your immune system?

36:40 How mushrooms feed your gut microbes

38:20 Should fungi live in your gut?

39:45 The fungus that lives on your head

41:50 Can mushrooms lower cholesterol?

43:21 Are you cooking mushrooms wrong?

45:25 Should you eat raw mushrooms?

47:21 How to make mushrooms taste better

49:25 The easiest way to eat more mushrooms

52:17 Robin’s top mushroom tip

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

A Review of Mushrooms as a Potential Source of Dietary Vitamin D, Nutrients (2018)

Ergothioneine: an underrecognised dietary micronutrient required for healthy ageing, British Journal of Nutrition (2023)

Ergothioneine: A Stress Vitamin with Antiaging, Vascular, and Neuroprotective Roles?, Antioxidants and Redox Signaling (2022)

Mushrooms & longevity, Nature (2025)

Lion’s mane & nerve growth factor, Journal of Biological Engineering (2023)

The Relationship between Mushroom Intake and Cognitive Performance, Nutrients (2024)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.

Episode transcripts are available here.

Today we’re exploring the impact of ultra-processed foods on young people.

One of the big reasons ultra-processed foods have become so widespread is convenience. They offer quick, easy meals for people short on time - and few groups are more time-pressed than parents trying to feed young children.

But does this convenience come at a cost?

I’m joined by Harvard professor Dr Andy Chan, whose research is helping us understand how early exposure to ultra-processed food can shape future health.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily 30+

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here

Listen to the full episode here

If you feel like you can’t stop eating, constantly crave junk food, or struggle with overeating, this episode will change how you see food. 

Michael Pollan, one of the world's most influential science writers, joins Professor Tim Spector to explain how ultra-processed food may drive food addiction, override fullness signals, and keep us craving more. Together, they explore why foods high in sugar, salt, and fat can feel so hard to resist, and what we can do to fight back.

Michael and Tim unpack how the modern food system changed over the last 50 years, and why many ultra-processed foods are designed around “craveability.” They explain how these foods may stimulate the brain’s reward systems, why fibre and plants help us feel fuller, and why cooking more meals at home may help reduce overeating without calorie counting.

The episode includes practical ways to regain control of your eating habits, reduce cravings, feel better and live more healthy years.

If your cravings feel impossible to control, is it really a lack of willpower, or is modern food engineered to keep us coming back for more?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

04:04 How monoculture changed modern food

08:52 Are we basically made of corn?

12:58 The 3 ingredients engineered to drive cravings

14:32 Why ultra-processed food keeps you hungry

15:44 Why governments subsidize junk food

18:01 How fast food changed family cooking

20:00 Is ultra-processed food destroying family meals?

21:46 What happens when you stop eating plants? 22:55 Your gut microbes are eating too

25:31 Caffeine and the world’s most used drug

26:26 Michael Pollan quits caffeine for 3 months

28:35 Is caffeine addiction actually harmful?

29:11 Coffee and heart disease risk explained

32:34 Why workplaces normalized caffeine 33:40 The simplest way to stop overeating

35:30 Did food companies convince us cooking is hard?

37:02 How to identify ultra-processed food

38:25 Michael Pollan’s famous food rule explained

40:14 Why “plant-based” doesn’t always mean healthy

42:46 The Japanese habit that may reduce overeating

44:24 How food companies engineer craveability

45:25 Are food companies manipulating your cravings?

46:41 Why eating 30 plants a week matters

47:36 Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

Today we’re talking about wellness trends.

Social media has supercharged the wellness world, with new trends popping up and spreading faster than ever. It feels like we’re constantly being sold the next must-have product - each one a guaranteed route to better health that you simply can’t live without.

But how many of these trends are actually backed by science? And could some of them actually be doing more harm than good?

I’m joined by wellness expert Liz Earle and nutritional scientist Dr Federica Amati to separate evidence from exaggeration. From red light therapy to cow fat, they’ll reveal which trends are worth your time - and which are best left behind.

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily 30+

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here

Listen to the full episode here

10 million deaths a year. 

That is how many people are predicted to die from antibiotic-resistant infections if we do not find new treatments.

In today’s episode, Professor Martha Clokie and Professor Tim Spector explore the secret gut viruses, known as phages, being studied to fight deadly infection, target cancer cells, and to protect your gut microbiome. 

Martha is a world-leading expert on the mysterious phage and, for the last 20 years, has pioneered research to revolutionise the treatment of infections without antibiotics. She explains why antibiotic resistance is a growing global threat, why everyday infections are becoming harder to treat, and how some bacteria are now resistant to every antibiotic available. We explore how the viruses in our gut may help solve this problem, and how scientists may one day use them to deliver highly targeted cancer treatment.

By the end of the episode, you’ll have some ideas to help support a healthier gut ecosystem and understand how to increase the number of friendly gut viruses that live inside you.

The science is still early, but the message is clear: the small choices we make every day are shaping our long-term resilience to disease.

If viruses can help protect us from infection rather than cause it, how much of human health are we only just beginning to understand?

🌱 Try our science-backed and tasty wholefood supplement Daily30

Get our brand-new app and Gut Health Test designed by world-leading gut health and nutrition scientists to build healthy eating habits 👉 Join ZOE

Follow ZOE on Instagram.

Timecodes

00:00 Intro

01:34 The gut viruses scientists say we need to survive

03:19 There are more gut viruses than stars in the universe

10:50 The billion-year war happening inside your gut

13:10 The hidden system controlling your microbiome

14:42 What healthy microbiomes have that unhealthy guts lose

16:33 The gut viruses that may protect you from infection

17:38 Why your immune system allows trillions of viruses to live inside you

19:25 The natural viruses that kill salmonella

20:52 Why ageing may weaken your gut’s viral defences

22:05 Scientists still don’t know what most gut viruses do

25:12 The strange origin story of phage therapy

27:22 Doctors are already using viruses to treat deadly infections

28:02 Why antibiotics are starting to fail

29:07 The deadly infection crisis bigger than cancer

30:38 How factory farming fuels antibiotic resistance

32:27 The antibiotic resistance emergency is already here

33:25 The forgotten treatment abandoned after antibiotics

35:50 Why phage therapy may spare your microbiome

36:37 The dying patient saved by experimental viruses

39:41 Could phages replace antibiotics in the future?

40:50 The viruses scientists are using to target cancer cells

44:35 How diet shapes the viruses living in your gut

46:05 The surprising link between coffee and gut health

47:25 The foods that may increase healthy gut viruses

50:34 The future of gut health, cancer treatment and infection prevention

📚Books by our ZOE Scientists

The Food For Life Cookbook

Every Body Should Know This by Dr Federica Amati

Food For Life by Prof. Tim Spector

Ferment by Prof. Tim Spector

Good Mood Food (preorder) by Prof. Tim Spector

Free resources from ZOE

The Hormone Harmony Guide: Tuning Your Body’s Internal Orchestra

Eating for Better Brain Health: Your brain-gut blueprint

How to eat in 2026 - Discover ZOE’s 8 nutrition principles for long-term health

Live Healthier: Top 10 Tips From ZOE Science & Nutrition

Gut Guide - For a Healthier Microbiome in Weeks 

Better Breakfast Guide

Mentioned in today's episode

How gut viruses shape your gut microbiome

Phages to the rescue, Trends in Microbiology (2024)

Compounds in the foods we eat can trigger phage production, Gut Microbes (2020)

Microbiomes of garden vs supermarket produce, Nature (2022)

Phage Therapy at Belgium’s Queen Astrid Military Hospital, Viruses (2019)

Habitual coffee intake shapes the gut microbiome, Nature (2026)

Have feedback or a topic you'd like us to cover? Let us know here.Episode transcripts are available here.