Professor Tim Spector called for certain foods to be kept out of our diets and advised people should be focusing on one kind of food to fight off viruses
Nutrition guru Tim Spector says what we eat can bolster our body’s defences against viruses and potentially help avoid serious consequences like long Covid. The professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and founder of the Zoe health app believes there’s a strong link between our immune system and gut health – identifying inflammation as a key factor behind severe complications.
Spector highlights how a flourishing gut microbiome is essential for strong viral resistance – especially against bugs like Covid-19 – whilst also stopping an overactive immune response that’s often blamed for the lingering symptoms seen with long Covid. He said: “We now know that most of our immune system is in our gut and the way it gets its signals, and it understands what’s going on around it is through the gut. Microbes healthier your gut microbes.”
In comments first aired in November last year, he went on to say: “The more diverse they are, the better you’re going to be able to control your immune system. And this means it’s going to react appropriately to, say, a covid virus. It’s going to try and kill it, but without overreacting and killing you.
“So people eating a junk food are going to have an inflamed gut microbiome that’s trying to put out fires all over the place. And so when a real virus comes along, it’s not able to pin it down. So if you want to have the best immune system, you need to make sure your gut health is in the best possible way. I can’t stress enough. It’s plant diversity. It’s fermented foods, and it also means not having ultra processed foods and getting plenty of fibre in there.”
Prof Spector cautioned that pandemics are becoming more common and serious, encouraging people to rethink their eating habits ahead of future outbreaks, reports Bristol Live. The nutrition expert says particular foods should ideally be eliminated from our meals, and those of our youngsters, as Britain now “leads Europe in ultra-processed food consumption, with a staggering 57% of our daily food intake coming from these products.”
According to Tim, ultra-processed foods are “edible food-like substances” which extract ingredients from genuine food, then remove crucial elements such as fibre, since it cannot be easily manipulated. “They take the essential extracts from food and they combine them in different ways,” he explained.
“They have to add glues, chemicals and additives to stick stuff together and to make it look like food again.”
Prof Spector has urged people to aim for 30 different plant varieties each week and champions fermented foods such as kefir for maintaining gut health. He outlined the vast advantages of these foods, explaining: “In particular, they seem to support your immune system, which is so vital to fighting allergies, infections, cancer and ageing, thanks to their interaction with your resident gut bacteria.”
Yet he cautioned against consuming sweetened, additive-laden yoghurt just once weekly, stressing the importance of high-quality products eaten in modest portions throughout the day. He referenced a US clinical study which discovered that people who consumed four to five small helpings of fermented food daily demonstrated markedly better blood indicators of inflammation and immune function after merely two weeks.
“So, if you have one or two portions daily, you will likely also benefit,” he said.