Professor Tim Spector has raised an alarm that our genetic makeup may not be well-suited to handle certain elements that are inherent to modern life.

Speaking on the Zoe podcast, Professor Spector pinpointed diet as the “number one obvious” factor that might be contributing to the surge in metabolic diseases we’ve seen recently. 

However, he worringly added there could be other factors at play that haven’t been truly discovered yet.

He said: “There are these pollutants and plastics, but we don’t yet know how much of a problem they are.

“We do know enough about ultra-processed food now to know that it is a definite real problem for everybody.”

Shawn Stevenson, a metabolism specialist, added his perspective by stating: “I’ll give you a very explicit reason why food is the number one: it’s because all of our tissues are made of food. Every single one of the trillions of cells that I mentioned is literally made from the food that we eat.”

This lends some scientific soundness to the adage ‘you are what you eat,’ especially when it comes to the complications surrounding ultra-processed foods.

Professor Tim elaborated: “The chemicals in these products themselves have effects on our body that our genes and evolution haven’t prepared us for. When you eat some of these junk foods that Shawn’s talking about, they regularly contain artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, and preservatives, and these are not things our ancestors ever encountered or we have genes evolved to.”

When your digestive system encounters products it’s unfamiliar with, it attempts to break them down by producing chemicals. Unfortunately, this approach often fails with ultra-processed foods, and the chemicals released by your gut can lead to metabolic problems such as diabetes and heart disease.

According to Professor Tim: “They can send signals to the rest of the body saying; ‘There’s something going on here. I don’t really understand it.’ It forms inflammatory signals or it stimulates the immune system, or it messes up the metabolic system.”

Some common compounds in modern foods, such as emulsifiers, can cause further issues by clumping together and damaging the gut lining. If the damage is severe enough, it can allow bacteria to leak from the gut into the bloodstream, increasing the risk of a wide range of metabolic issues.

In conclusion, Professor Tim noted: “So these are just a few of the possible ways in which our bad food environment is messing up our energy management system, and our metabolism, and that’s why we’re in this mess.”