0:01

BBC Sounds, music, radio,

0:03

podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren

0:05

Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs

0:08

podcast. Every week I ask my guests to

0:10

choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd

0:12

want to take with them if they were

0:14

cast away to a desert island. And

0:17

for rights reasons, the music is shorter

0:19

than the original broadcast. I hope you

0:21

enjoy listening. My

0:42

castaway this week is the scientist,

0:44

Professor Tim Spector. He's challenged long-standing

0:47

ideas about our diet and how

0:49

it affects our health through his

0:51

extensive research into the gut microbiome,

0:53

the microscopic world inside each of

0:56

us. He's diverse, unique and

0:58

intimately involved in the great medical

1:00

mysteries of our age, rather like

1:02

Tim's CV. He's Professor

1:04

of Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London

1:06

and the founder of the Twins UK

1:08

Registry, one of the richest collections of

1:10

genetic data in the world. He's

1:13

a pioneer of a food revolution,

1:15

producing several best-selling books and a

1:17

tech entrepreneur. His COVID

1:19

tracking app, allowing millions of us to

1:21

record our health and symptoms, earned him

1:23

an OBE during the pandemic. Health

1:25

and food tracking versions now have

1:27

4 million subscribers around the world.

1:30

He was born into a medical family

1:32

and credits his mother's adventurous spirit with

1:34

nurturing his aptitude for taking calculated risks

1:36

in life and at work. He says,

1:38

when you change subjects, it's really risky.

1:40

You have to learn a new language

1:42

and you have to get accepted by

1:44

your peers and convince people to give

1:46

you money without a track record. But

1:49

I like throwing myself in. Professor Tim

1:51

Spector, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Hello.

1:54

So Tim, let's start with the gut microbiome

1:56

then. I mean, it's widely discussed these days,

1:59

but for something so vital, it does feel

2:01

rather intangible. It's not an organ in the

2:03

traditional sense. How would

2:05

you describe it? I call

2:07

it a virtual organ. It's like we've discovered

2:10

something that has a function that is

2:12

hard to touch, but there are trillions

2:14

of these microbes in the lower part

2:16

of our gut that are community. And

2:18

they're really like a community of chemical

2:21

factories. And if you think of them

2:23

in that way, like mini pharmacies that

2:26

change the food you eat into amazing

2:28

chemicals that have all these effects all

2:30

over our body. So once you realize

2:32

that, that they're producing vitamins and hormones

2:34

and key brain

2:37

chemicals that make you happy or sad

2:39

or full or hungry, and

2:42

all to your immune system, it gives you

2:44

a whole new concept of

2:46

really how our body works. Yeah, a line of

2:48

yours, I think is we are more bug than brain.

2:51

Yes, we are. And every time we go to

2:54

the toilet, we become more human, is

2:56

the other way of looking at it. So we're

2:58

continually turning these things

3:00

over, but they have 500

3:02

times more genes than we do. And

3:05

so we co evolved with them so they could

3:07

produce all the substances that we, poor,

3:09

weedy humans couldn't actually make ourselves. So we're

3:11

very dependent on them. And we've got to

3:13

start treating them right. It's a fascinating

3:15

field of science. And your recent research

3:18

about the microbiome and bacterial diversity has

3:20

made you somewhat of a disruptor, though,

3:22

in the field of nutrition. What are

3:24

your main findings for someone who hasn't

3:26

read your work? How would you summarize

3:28

that we've got so much wrong in the past? Because

3:31

we've treated nutrition as

3:33

this really simple concept of

3:35

calories, fats, sugars, proteins. So

3:38

all our advice has been to just

3:40

very simply reduce calories, reduce fats, reduce

3:42

sugars, and you'll be fine. So it's

3:45

one size fits all one size fits

3:47

all but also dumbing down what is

3:49

an incredibly complex science into these rigid

3:52

rules that have patently failed.

3:54

And actually, I spent the

3:57

last 10 years looking at the evidence, it failed to stack

3:59

up but these have continued for

4:01

various reasons, mainly the

4:03

food industry but also like a funding

4:05

for nutrition itself and like a recognition

4:07

of it as a real science. And

4:10

what does that mean for you as someone who's going into the

4:12

field and disrupting all of that? This

4:14

is what I love doing, challenging what

4:17

is accepted norms. I find that

4:19

really exciting. And I've always tried

4:21

to do research that is new and going to actually

4:24

change some ideas rather than just adding on

4:26

to what other people have done. One

4:28

of the most radical ideas of yours is

4:31

that calorie counting is not the best way

4:33

to lose weight. Why not exactly? A

4:35

number of reasons. It's really hard to do. Even

4:38

trained nutritionists can't do it properly. And

4:41

if you do manage to reduce your

4:44

calories, you will lose weight, but your

4:46

body reacts to compensate for

4:48

that. It slows down your metabolism.

4:50

It ramps up your hunger signals.

4:53

It's unsustainable and nearly everybody, even

4:55

in really controlled trials, 80, 90%

4:58

of people return

5:00

to where they were and some people overshoot.

5:02

And it's about time that that message got

5:04

out to people that it really doesn't work.

5:06

And low calorie foods that are

5:08

usually ultra processed are actually

5:11

making you hungrier. And so driving

5:14

those hunger signals. So you look

5:16

at a packet and say, oh, low calorie. I must get

5:18

that. It's full of chemicals. It's full of

5:20

other things. You'll overeat. You'll get

5:22

sugar spikes and things that cause

5:24

problems and it'll affect your

5:27

mood and everything else. So we've got to

5:29

move away from calories and start

5:31

looking at food quality and what actually

5:33

we're eating and think about our food

5:35

more. That's really one of my main

5:38

missions is to change the way people think about food.

5:40

So where is the hope?

5:42

Can we cultivate a good microbiome after

5:44

many years of unhealthy eating? Can we

5:46

create that inside ourselves? Absolutely.

5:49

And this is one of the things, you know,

5:51

why in a way I was switched from genetics

5:53

where all you can do is blame your parents

5:55

to the microbiome where you can

5:57

actually, everybody can make. their

6:00

gut microbes better and you can often do

6:02

this in just a few weeks. Just

6:05

by feeding them the right foods,

6:07

ignoring calories, just making sure

6:09

you're getting plenty of diversity, you're getting your

6:11

30 plants a week, eating

6:13

the rainbow, you're having your fermented foods, you're

6:17

eating a time window that allows your gut microbes

6:19

to rest. So taking breaks

6:21

is important. Yeah, I mean, just like

6:23

we need to sleep and relax and our body has

6:25

a really clever circadian rhythm

6:27

that allows us to then use

6:30

that nighttime to repair all that hard work

6:32

we've been doing in the day and all

6:34

those cells repair. So our gut microbes need

6:37

to rest as well. So no point late

6:39

night snacking, keeping them up all night. Finally,

6:41

we all need to cut down ultra-processed food.

6:43

That's the probably, you know,

6:45

maybe the number one thing we're all doing

6:47

wrong in this country is because of

6:49

this calorie message, this low fat message, this

6:52

low sugar message, we've ignored the fact that

6:54

we eat four times more ultra-processed food than in

6:56

France, Italy, Spain, and

6:59

it is literally killing us. Well,

7:01

we're here to talk about microorganisms, but of

7:03

course also music. So I think we'd better go

7:05

to your first desk, Tim. Tell us about

7:08

your first choice today. Life

7:10

on Mars by David Bowie is

7:13

my chosen one to start off with because I

7:15

sort of grew up with David Bowie. He was

7:17

my first album I bought as a kid and

7:20

I sort of worshipped him, knew all the lyrics and

7:23

get very emotionally attached. And I just

7:25

love the complexity of some

7:28

of these songs and the fact he evolved

7:30

over his career, reinventing himself, which in retrospect,

7:32

suits me. I didn't realise it at the

7:34

time. I got very upset when he changed.

7:38

But now he can relate to it. But now I love all his

7:40

changes he made and I'm only regret as I never

7:42

saw him live. Why this track in particular?

7:45

Just reminded me of my rather tormented teenage

7:47

time. I was a very sulky

7:49

teenager and Life on Mars, you know, it

7:51

was all about other lives and what else

7:53

is out there. And so for me,

7:55

that was very important. David

8:03

Bowie and Life on Mars So

8:29

Tim Spattie, you were born in

8:31

London in 1958. Your mum Juno

8:33

was a physiotherapist originally from Australia.

8:35

I think your dad's Bolly an

8:37

eminent pathologist. How did the two

8:39

of them mate? Because I think they were quite different

8:41

personalities. Yes, it's always a

8:43

mystery to me how they actually got together

8:46

because they were so different. My mother had

8:48

come over on a boat with

8:50

her mates from Australia to work as

8:52

a physio in London hospitals. I

8:54

think they met at a hospital party

8:57

and we're in Bloomsbury, I think is where

8:59

they met. He was taken by

9:01

her energy and looks and

9:05

she was taken by his wit and braininess.

9:07

Sounds like the perfect combination. Most of

9:09

her other boyfriends had been sort of muscular

9:11

skiers and tennis players. When my parents married

9:13

and they found out really my father wasn't

9:15

interested at all in sport or he couldn't

9:18

catch a ball or swim or he said

9:20

he was too heavy to swim. She

9:23

made sure that my brother and I really got into

9:25

all these activities and she was a state

9:27

swimmer in Australia but she didn't

9:29

want the same brutal regime just

9:32

in one sport so she gave us a whole

9:34

range of things to do. So what kind of

9:36

sports? Did everything really

9:38

cricket, rugby, soccer, swimming,

9:41

ice skating. She

9:44

sent us off skiing because we

9:46

couldn't go as a family. Horse riding,

9:49

nearly everything that you could do,

9:51

trampolining, karate. We had

9:53

a full schedule. That's that sort of

9:55

full Olympic schedule there that you're

9:57

describing, everything but the curling.

10:00

So you had a very active childhood. What about your

10:02

diet growing up? What did the family eat? Unfortunately,

10:05

my mother's skill was not in cooking. She

10:07

was the only person I know who could

10:09

actually burn peas So

10:11

it was a sort of Australian cuisine of the 1950s

10:15

She got better. It wasn't great diversity

10:17

I would say and it was a medical

10:19

family as you say your mom was a

10:21

physio your dad was a pathologist And

10:24

obviously a medical career can mean very long hours and

10:26

would have back then did you get to spend much

10:28

time with your dad? When you were growing up? No,

10:31

we were really brought up by our mother.

10:33

He was either

10:36

in his jacket and tie even

10:38

on the beach or He

10:40

was in his office Working or doing

10:43

stuff so and because he didn't play football with

10:45

us or anything just the odd walk we so

10:47

we used to have a holiday in Cornwall and

10:51

Go for walks, but didn't really see much of

10:53

him, which was a pity looking back

10:55

and it's very different to the way You know, I

10:57

think Parents now treat their

11:00

kids So you didn't have that kind of

11:02

common ground where you could come together Sharing

11:04

a hobby and connect were you fascinated by his

11:06

world even though, you know The image of him

11:08

in the office in his shirt and tie sounds

11:10

a little bit remote, but maybe interesting to a

11:12

kid It was a mixture because I was a rebel

11:14

I was make sure he wasn't going to tell me

11:17

what to do And so I fought against being a

11:19

doctor until the very very last possible moment. He wanted

11:21

you to be a doctor Did he he

11:23

wanted to be a doctor? Yes, and you realize I

11:25

had the potential to do it I think he realized

11:27

my brother didn't or had different interests. He was much

11:29

more artistic But you know, I

11:31

did the wrong a levels initially and I did

11:34

everything to sort of say I'm not being pushed

11:36

into that direction But eventually he convinced me he

11:38

said this if you don't know what you should

11:40

do being doctor a it's quite good

11:42

fun Being a medical student He'd

11:44

been mentoring Graham Chapman who was one of the

11:46

Monty Python team and told him the same to

11:48

just get your medical degree Then be a comedian

11:50

and see so the same to me. He was

11:52

like, you know, you can be like Graham Chapman

11:54

You don't have to do medicine. That's a pretty

11:56

good sell. It was a good sell and it

11:58

eventually works. I switched out levels in the last

12:01

year and scraped into medical school.

12:03

Well we'll come back to that but for now we want

12:05

to hear your second disc today Tim Spector, what's it going

12:07

to be? This is Dance of

12:09

the Nights from Prokofiev's Romeo and

12:12

Juliet. Why have you chosen it?

12:15

Because it reminds me of going to Sydney

12:17

Opera House and in the

12:21

early 1990s when I was on sabbatical in

12:23

Sydney and we

12:25

had a fantastic time living in a house

12:27

near the harbour working there and

12:29

of course it goes back to my Australian roots and the

12:31

fact that I spent several years of my

12:34

life there both I went to school there with my

12:36

brother for about a year

12:38

and I've been back doing sabbaticals. Dance

13:39

of the Nights from Prokofiev's Romeo

13:41

and Juliet played by the Royal

13:43

Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazi.

13:47

So tell me more about your school days Tim,

13:49

you obviously had potential but you've described yourself as

13:51

quite a late starter. Why did it

13:53

take a while for things to click? A

13:55

combination of lack of attention, overconfidence,

13:58

minor design. dyslexia and being left-handed

14:00

meant I sort of no

14:03

one could read in my writing. And

14:05

I was rebellious

14:07

so very few teachers sort of could

14:09

get anything out of me and I

14:12

was always trying to the absolute minimum. There wasn't

14:14

much that actually interested me, you know, I was

14:16

more like just be annoying the person next to

14:18

me. But did you have flair?

14:20

Were there certain subjects that did capture your

14:22

attention that you excelled in? The

14:25

prize I ever won was the Junior

14:27

Art Prize. I was good at art strangely

14:30

and I wasn't encouraged to do that by

14:32

either of my parents. So your dad

14:35

talked you around about getting into medicine

14:37

and trying to get into medical

14:39

school. You did get a place eventually but you

14:41

actually took a year out before you went I

14:43

think and worked as a hospital porter. It

14:46

was the early days of people doing, you know,

14:48

before gap years were popular and so most people

14:50

didn't do them. But I

14:53

decided yeah it's a great time to travel and

14:55

do things so in order to

14:57

get the money together I did various jobs

14:59

and I was lucky enough to just walk

15:01

into a job at the Middlesex Hospital as

15:04

a porter. And the first day they sent

15:07

me straight into the operating theatre to hold

15:09

the lights for an operation. You

15:11

know there was no sort of two weeks of initiation

15:14

and processing. So what was that

15:16

like? The first day they had

15:18

an emergency Caesar section. I was

15:21

a pregnant lady and in

15:23

those days big incision. I was holding the

15:25

lights and this big white

15:28

belly's there and the scalpel goes across

15:30

and blood starts coming out

15:32

and I fainted. There's a big crash and then

15:36

they had to take me away. But I

15:38

love the camaraderie of working behind the

15:41

scenes in the operating theatres. It

15:43

also told me I was going to be useless

15:45

as a surgeon. That's the thing very early on

15:47

I knew this is not for me. It's time

15:49

to get your third disc if you wouldn't mind.

15:51

What's it gonna be? So

15:53

at school you had to decide whether you were gonna be

15:56

for the Beatles or for the Rolling Stones.

15:58

And if you were a real... a bad

16:01

boy like me, he was definitely a rolling

16:03

stone fan. So I think I've seen three

16:05

of their farewell concerts in the last

16:07

30 years. And the track

16:09

I particularly like is Paint

16:12

It Black. And

16:14

that's because it's quite

16:16

a dark melancholy

16:18

tune that just resonates. And

16:20

I do remember hearing

16:22

it multiple times as I was driving

16:25

back to my father's

16:27

funeral, which happened when I was about

16:29

21, still a medical student. So he

16:31

was only in his 50s. He was only

16:33

57, yes, and happened very suddenly.

16:35

And I was on a skiing holiday with friends. And

16:39

my girlfriend at the time came and said, you know, sorry,

16:41

you know, your dad's died. They've been trying

16:43

to get ahold of you for three or

16:45

four days, days before mobile phones. So

16:48

I was a bit stunned. And

16:50

I had 14 hours by myself in

16:52

a car driving across France in

16:55

snowstorms to get back on

16:57

the ferry, listening to the radio and

17:00

listening to music. And

17:02

this reminds me of that time

17:05

that I was reflecting, yes,

17:07

there was sadness, but there was also this sort of anger

17:10

that I hadn't got to know him. I was just

17:12

about to sort of qualify as a doctor, we could

17:14

have had, you know, chats, I could have sort of

17:16

caught up. So this feeling that,

17:18

yeah, I never really knew my father. And

17:22

it was an odd mixture of emotions. The

17:49

rolling stones and

17:53

painted black tint. You

18:00

either die to just fifty, haven't even you

18:02

early twenties? He said He barely got to

18:04

know him and thence you know he said

18:06

he found herself as the executor of his

18:08

will Pitch must have been really tough. Exactly.

18:11

My parents are divorced a few

18:13

years earlier. Rather messy divorce he

18:15

hadn't really. Sources: Any of

18:18

his affairs out, and it was

18:20

a real mess unraveling a lot

18:22

of his personal life hundred know

18:25

about the saddle us at. That

18:27

stuff compounded your sense of not. Known him last

18:29

and I think so yes exactly and

18:31

going through his stuff and realizing he

18:33

was doing he with name is. Actually,

18:36

Writing I found out a a

18:38

book for the public can social

18:40

pathology about how stress and environment

18:42

can affect diseases and links and

18:44

pettiness? There wasn't enough of it

18:47

to carry on. Say you're going

18:49

through all his stuff slowly trying

18:51

to understand the father you know

18:53

you never really had those deep

18:55

conversations with then sat but I

18:57

did get speak love his friends

18:59

and are in a he. Was

19:02

surrounded onto them navigate some of the tributes

19:04

to and that people voting any status at

19:06

the time and. And. He was

19:08

sat pre famous in his field. He

19:10

did work on contests and he was

19:12

an extremely bright scientists it in his

19:15

I right down states thinks that was

19:17

an amazing teachers well and so many

19:19

people said he inspired them to spell

19:21

well in a why didn't I have

19:23

have that connection with the might have

19:25

my pin a My brother and I

19:27

don't have much of a thing. Might

19:30

were decent man at impact. I.

19:32

Don't know why I'm I'm I guess

19:34

he was pretty just waiting for ist

19:36

to mature enough that so he could

19:38

have proper conversations, consistent and can interact

19:41

at the physical level. And maybe that

19:43

was it that I've come to terms

19:45

with it now thing move more than

19:47

I had of so I'm not. I'm

19:49

not saying the angry anymore me name

19:51

and. Where you angry at the time. Yes,

19:54

there was a set of anger and

19:56

had lots of dreams. recurrent

19:58

dreams that he'd sudden reappear

20:01

having been living

20:03

in Brazil or Paraguay and come out and

20:05

said okay I've you know just had to

20:07

disappear for a bit I've come back now.

20:09

Yeah. It was interesting how my subconscious was

20:12

sort of trying to find a better ending

20:14

for you. Exactly. But it's

20:16

interesting that you said about his unpublished

20:18

book because it sounds like he had

20:20

epidemiological leanings then. So he's talking about

20:22

social disease and the impact of our

20:24

environment. I wonder whether the path that

20:26

you've taken you feel like you've got

20:28

closer to him through your work. Absolutely

20:31

yes no I mean I think all the things

20:33

that I've done he was probably most

20:36

proud about me writing books for the

20:38

public and explaining in simple language what's

20:41

going on and how our environment affects

20:43

our health. At the time you lost

20:45

your dad you know you'd been quite a rebel even

20:47

though you were taking the route that he'd been so

20:49

keen for you to go on. I wonder whether going

20:52

through all of that changed your attitude, changed

20:54

your approach to life. I didn't

20:56

realise that at the time but looking back it

20:59

probably was a bit of a turning point

21:01

in my career and I went from really

21:04

just trying to cruise and

21:06

just get 51% when he

21:08

needs to get 51% and

21:11

have as much fun as possible to say well actually

21:13

could I actually be good at this and if I'm

21:15

good at it could I actually enjoy it. Tim

21:18

you know you lost one parent very early and the

21:21

other is obviously still here has lived

21:23

so long. I wonder if that's been

21:25

a driver in some of your research

21:27

you must have reflected on the apparent

21:29

contrast at playing your own genetic makeup.

21:32

Yes so my mother's 91

21:34

and my father was in a diet

21:36

of 57 so is it

21:38

a bit like a roulette you know which genes have you got

21:41

and certainly up to very

21:43

quite recently I believe that genetics was the

21:45

predominant force in that but

21:48

increasingly we see that genetics are not

21:50

that important in aging and age related

21:52

diseases and it's

21:54

highly likely now that you

21:56

know my father died he died suddenly

21:58

from a heart attack sleep without any

22:00

notice. He probably had a very poor

22:03

diet, lack of exercise and a

22:06

bit of genetics. Actually lifestyle is

22:08

much more important than I ever

22:10

thought. And my mother has

22:12

been super active even into her

22:14

80s, was sort of doing qigong

22:16

and swimming and all kinds of physical

22:19

things that kept her going and her diet was much better.

22:21

I think I've taken a

22:23

more positive view now than

22:26

certainly I did 20 years ago. Once

22:30

you qualified as a doctor, you went to Belgium

22:32

for a year to work despite not speaking

22:34

French. Well, I bluffed my way at

22:36

the interview. So there was this

22:39

exchange scheme where you

22:41

swapped places with someone from another country.

22:44

And that year it was someone from Brussels,

22:47

a French speaking Brussels. And I said, well,

22:50

I can read a menu in French. And

22:52

I did GCSE French. I can

22:54

do this. And so they

22:57

had an interview with 12 doctors, but

22:59

they'd brought in one French specialist to

23:01

grill me in French. But

23:04

luckily his French was worse than mine. Ou

23:07

esque vous avait a prior la

23:09

français, monsieur spectre. And

23:11

so I managed to say one

23:14

phrase and they all applauded. And so

23:16

I got sent there. Then the trouble began when I

23:18

actually got there. Well, exactly. And

23:20

how did that go? Well, it

23:23

was very stressful, but I learnt fast,

23:25

probably the most stressful three months of my life

23:27

as I had to get up

23:29

to speed very fast. It's time for track

23:31

number four, Tim. What do you want to take with you next?

23:34

So my fourth choice is Fleetwood

23:37

Mac Dreams. And

23:40

this is because it

23:42

reminds me of those really first three

23:45

months in Belgium. So

23:47

I'd come back exhausted, my

23:49

brain completely full of French, trying

23:51

to relax. And I discovered this

23:54

album and kept playing and playing. And I think it's absolutely

23:57

amazing. And I love the lyrics and.

24:00

also reminds me of meeting my

24:03

wife who just happened to be working

24:05

there in the hospital in

24:07

the ward. She was a final

24:09

year medical student there that

24:12

actually decided to take care of me. So

24:15

she felt sorry for me. She saw me

24:17

at one of these big grand rounds with

24:19

about 500 people and I

24:21

was presenting a case very badly and

24:23

he's being told off by the old

24:25

professor and so she

24:27

came and found me and said I think I can take care

24:30

of him and help him out. And Veronika

24:32

has been doing that ever since. Fleetwood

25:04

Mac and Dreams. Tim, you

25:06

and Veronika returned to the UK

25:08

to pursue your respective medical careers.

25:11

In 1992 you set up a

25:13

large twin study. Now initially you

25:15

were studying arthritis and osteoporosis. What

25:17

were you hoping to achieve? The

25:19

aim was to do something fun that no

25:22

one else had done. So I

25:24

went around the country for three months looking

25:26

for something to do, thinking what

25:28

area do I move into. And

25:31

after beers with various colleagues

25:33

around the UK I came across a geneticist

25:35

who said you should, called Brian Sykes, he

25:37

said you should do a twin study. And

25:41

I said cool I've heard about those. There's some

25:43

nice little ones and no

25:45

one's doing it in the UK.

25:47

So I said okay that's

25:49

going to be what I'm going to do. I'm going

25:52

to set up a twin study and

25:54

amazingly got a grant and

25:57

then we got all kinds of media help because

25:59

people love. seeing pictures of twins in all

26:02

the big newspapers at the time. We got

26:04

on TV, getting volunteers and

26:06

this was all before the internet of course. We

26:08

had to do it the old-fashioned way and

26:11

built up this huge cohort of twin

26:13

volunteers. They loved coming

26:15

down to London with their twin. We

26:18

used to do a whole series of tests on them and

26:20

give them feedback and things and then as

26:23

it got on we did more and

26:25

more PR, we did parties for them.

26:27

Parties? Yeah. Oh, parties like? Twin parties?

26:29

Well, they were frightening

26:31

actually because these were mainly women

26:33

and at one

26:35

point we had about a thousand twins at a party

26:38

that we had at St Thomas's on the lawn and

26:41

I do remember giving them too much to drink. They

26:43

were great fun and so they loved being

26:45

something special and super altruistic, came from

26:48

all over the country and

26:50

gave their body and their time for

26:53

science and eternally grateful for

26:55

them and I realised that

26:58

they wanted to do everything. So they would be

27:00

coming for the day from all over the country,

27:02

meet their twin, they wanted

27:04

us to study as much as we possibly could. So

27:06

we moved very quickly from just doing x-rays

27:09

of their knees and getting their

27:11

bones checked to looking at

27:13

their lungs, looking at their heart, looking at their

27:15

brains, doing psychology

27:18

tests. Yeah, and the psychological side

27:20

is fascinating because it's still going strong. 30

27:22

years later 16,000 twins have been studied

27:25

I think and as you say it's not

27:27

just physical, I mean you're asking questions about

27:30

everything. The only limit was my

27:32

curiosity and the ethics committee. So

27:35

we asked them about politics, political

27:38

views, found that voting to

27:40

get out of Europe for example, Brexit

27:42

had a strong genetic component as did

27:44

voting Labour and Tory. Only

27:47

Liberal Democrat didn't have a genetic

27:49

component, obviously environmental just

27:51

depended where you were. Did

27:53

studies on personality,

27:56

anxiety, we did studies on hoarding,

27:59

sexuality. as well and

28:02

it was really hardly anything if you could ask

28:04

it in a question we could do

28:06

it. Sense of humour was another one. Is

28:08

that genetic? It depends on the joke. So

28:13

you said virtually everything turned out to be

28:15

genetic? Nearly everything yeah. Found a

28:17

few things that weren't. Which football team

28:20

your support wasn't and whether

28:22

you like Mr Bean or not. Disk number five

28:24

what are we going to hear next and why? So

28:27

the next one is Putting on the Ritz which

28:30

is a strange choice but it's from the film

28:32

soundtrack of Young Frankenstein with

28:35

Gene Wilder playing Dr. Frankenstein

28:38

and he's basically

28:40

doing a double act of

28:42

tap dancing with Peter Boyle

28:44

as the monster he's created

28:46

and it's hilarious.

29:12

Putting

29:19

on the Ritz from the film soundtrack

29:21

to Young Frankenstein with Gene Wilder as

29:23

Dr. Frankenstein and Peter Boyle as the

29:26

monster. Team Spectre around

29:28

2011 you actually had

29:30

a brush with ill health yourself you

29:32

were in Italy what exactly happened? I

29:34

was at the top of a peak about

29:36

3,000 meters we've been ski touring

29:38

which is a way

29:41

of strangely walking uphill on

29:43

on skis and been a tough

29:46

week and suddenly I

29:48

didn't feel very well and my

29:51

vision was blurred and skiing

29:54

down I fell over several times which was unusual

29:56

for me and got to the

29:58

bottom realize I had double vision And as

30:02

a doctor realized that is not a good

30:04

sign, there's usually no good things

30:06

come out of it. Normally it's a stroke, multiple

30:08

sclerosis, or a brain tumor. And

30:10

so I had worried several

30:13

weeks working out what it was. It turned

30:15

out to be a small, tiny micro stroke

30:18

in one of the vessels supplying my nerves

30:20

to the eye. It did get better in

30:22

three months, but I was left

30:24

with high blood pressure and

30:27

a sort of feeling of impending doom

30:29

in a way. You would have been not

30:31

far off the age that your dad had been when

30:33

he died. Yeah, I was about four years

30:36

before the age he died. And

30:39

thinking before that, that I was sort of

30:41

immortal and a super

30:43

healthy middle-aged guy. And

30:46

realizing that suddenly I'm starting

30:48

plopping all these tablets, I'm having

30:51

medical checks, am I heading exactly

30:53

the same way? And

30:55

I started really shifting also

30:59

from the epidemiology

31:01

of populations to saying, well, what do

31:03

I do? I was really

31:05

selfish. I said, what advice

31:08

does an individual do to

31:10

try and make sure they do this? Now,

31:12

I was reasonably convinced I

31:15

wouldn't live much longer than my father.

31:17

And I do remember discussing this with my kids,

31:19

partly as a joke, so when they were being

31:21

a bit mean to me. What's that based on?

31:23

Because you've got the kind of psychological toll of

31:25

losing your dad early, but also you were a

31:28

doctor. So which bit of you was in charge

31:30

of that sort, do you think? Well,

31:32

it was a mixture because obviously at that time,

31:34

I was heavily into genetics. So I

31:36

said, obviously, I share 50% of my gene with my

31:38

father. He died suddenly at 57. I've

31:42

just had a cardiovascular incident, which may

31:44

or may not have been chance or not.

31:47

Not quite sure. But now I've got high blood pressure.

31:50

I could end up the same way. And the

31:53

rational side said, well, I am healthier. I

31:55

do a lot of exercise. My mum seems to be

31:57

OK. So but you

31:59

don't know. think logically, particularly. But

32:01

as I approached that 57

32:04

year point, it did become more

32:07

important to me. But I think it

32:09

also triggered me to really make some changes to my

32:11

life and focus

32:14

my attention really on all the things that

32:17

were hard for other people to get this

32:19

personal lifestyle information that

32:21

is so hard for the general public

32:23

to get this overlapped with

32:25

me suddenly going to the internet and

32:27

trying to seek out solutions

32:29

and realizing that it was really,

32:31

really hard. The information that was coming at

32:34

you was so complicated. So you decided to

32:36

turn your own nutrition around because even though

32:38

you were very active, you had put on

32:40

a certain amount of weight, I think, you

32:42

started exploring some new theories about the relationship

32:44

between health and diet. What was your thinking

32:46

at the time? I started

32:48

off thinking that meat was bad. And

32:51

so I went vegan for about

32:53

six weeks until I realized I couldn't give up

32:55

cheese. I was very weak

32:58

willed when it came to cheese, but I did give

33:00

up meat for several years completely. But

33:02

then I realized that the science

33:04

was evolving and that meat really wasn't

33:06

the problem. It was getting

33:09

enough plants in your diet and my

33:11

whole understanding of the gut microbiome and

33:13

how you have to feed that properly. So

33:15

started to predominate the nature of

33:17

the gut microbiome. And this is where it

33:20

connects with the work that you've done in

33:22

twins. You've got these people who are genetically

33:24

identical, but you had started to discover that

33:26

actually their microbiomes were very different. Yes,

33:29

that was an aha moment for me, because I've

33:31

been looking for at least 10 years in

33:34

identical twin pairs to see what was different

33:37

because they have identical genes in all their cells

33:39

in their body. It was like looking for a

33:41

needle in a haystack. If you could find what

33:43

was different, maybe that would tell us why all

33:45

of us are different, why some people get disease

33:47

and others don't, because they have

33:49

the same genes, they have same upbringing, same environment

33:51

for the first 18, 20

33:54

years of life. So there's got to be something there. And it turned

33:56

out that the microbiomes

33:58

are really very different. So

34:00

can you put a number on it? How different are we talking?

34:04

They only share about 25% of

34:06

their microbes with each other and

34:09

hardly more than unrelated individuals.

34:12

So this research formed the basis for Zoe,

34:14

the health kit that enables people to find

34:16

out their own response to different foods and

34:18

then to adjust their diet accordingly. You know,

34:21

in the years that followed, that was developed

34:23

and it became hugely popular. It is expensive

34:25

though Tim, I mean, £300 that they're about

34:27

to sign up and then a monthly subscription.

34:30

Do you have any worries about the idea that

34:32

you're reaching a worried well rather than the people

34:35

who are at the sharp end and really need

34:37

the help? Yes,

34:39

it's always on our minds. But I think

34:41

if you're launching any new product, you

34:44

need those people who are going to be early

34:46

adopters, going to be enthusiasts in order

34:48

to refine the product. It's like saying who are the

34:50

first people that bought a mobile phone. You

34:53

need those people to drive it, to give you the

34:55

enthusiasm, to give you the

34:57

financial stability to make that product

34:59

better and cheaper and more accessible

35:02

for everybody. We're talking the

35:04

same price as people pay for gym membership. But

35:06

I hope that the broader things

35:08

we're doing educationally like Zoe

35:11

Podcasts, which is free, which

35:13

millions of people now listen to, a lot

35:16

of my social media posts, etc.

35:19

They're all accessible. So the idea is that we

35:21

can educate more and more

35:23

people and a subset will be doing these tests who

35:25

have that money and spread the word. It's

35:27

time for some more music, Tim. What's your sixth

35:29

choice today? Louis Armstrong, live, all

35:31

of me. And

35:34

it reminds me of

35:36

a time, again, I was

35:39

a student and I'd

35:42

sold my scooter, motor scooter to a friend.

35:45

And he was in York and had an accident

35:47

on that bike and ended up with a paralyzed

35:49

arm. And he

35:51

was in hospital for weeks and weeks and weeks

35:54

and he used to visit me. And he asked me

35:56

to bring him some music to cheer him up. He

35:58

suggested Louis Armstrong. and since

36:00

that time I've always associated Louis

36:03

Armstrong with cheering up music

36:06

and very emotional

36:08

for me and it also reminds

36:10

me how people get through hardship

36:13

and he's been amazing

36:15

and never complained about his injuries

36:18

or problems, just got on with

36:20

life and he can still even

36:22

one-handed beat me at golf. Louis

36:45

Armstrong Louis

36:58

Armstrong, all of me, for your friend

37:00

Michael, to Inspector. You were

37:02

awarded an OBE in 2020 for your work

37:05

on the COVID Zoe Symptom Study. Now that

37:07

became the largest citizen science health project with

37:09

four and a half million users, I think,

37:11

for the app that you developed. Tell

37:14

me how you and your team created it

37:16

because it was extraordinarily quick to turn around.

37:19

I think the third week of March they closed, they

37:22

said to everyone go home and stop going

37:24

to work, go home, lock yourselves away. And

37:26

I was cycling home from St. Thomas's Hospital

37:28

along the river and I was saying that

37:31

this is very depressing. All these studies that we've been

37:33

doing are all going to come to an end. What

37:35

are we going to do? We can't just do nothing. And

37:38

by the end of my cycle trip I come at the idea of

37:41

using an app to at least use

37:44

the twins all over the country to log

37:46

in and what was happening so we could find out did

37:48

they have COVID or not and use that in some way.

37:51

And I spoke to my co-founders, George

37:53

and Jonathan, and

37:56

they said it's a fantastic idea but if

37:59

it's an app we don't. It has to be just twins, it

38:01

could be everybody. Then they

38:03

got the rest of the company together. There were

38:05

30 people in the company at the time and

38:07

they said, we'll stop everything. We'll develop an app

38:09

in five days. The

38:12

amazing happened and we launched this app and

38:15

within 24 hours because

38:17

of social media and lots

38:20

of help from the odd celebrity,

38:22

good old Stephen Fry, thank you, Stephen. We

38:24

got a million people in 24 hours and

38:26

then by the end of the

38:28

week, 2 million and then eventually 4 million and

38:31

people loved it and they still coming up to

38:33

me thanking me for that because

38:35

not only did we tell people what

38:37

was going on in their area but we gave

38:40

people a purpose. The

38:42

government had said, stay away, don't do

38:44

anything, we don't want your help. You've

38:46

got nothing to do and so people were actually desperate

38:49

to help out and so by feeling part

38:51

of this community, I think it was

38:54

really important. It's sad the government

38:57

tried to shut us down and didn't

39:00

adopt the app nationally which

39:02

would have saved many lives and

39:04

billions of pounds. Was that because they

39:06

had their own app and they thought that it was too

39:09

confusing to have to? They were developing

39:11

their own app. It was always next

39:13

week but it never quite came out

39:15

and it ended up coming out about

39:17

six months later and failed

39:19

rather badly. So it was

39:21

the old case of if we haven't developed it, we

39:24

don't want to adopt anything new. What were you

39:26

really finding, Tim? We were the only ones collecting

39:28

symptoms in real time so there

39:30

had been reports from Italy that people had

39:33

lots of smell from some doctors

39:35

we heard about so we put that into the app

39:37

and very soon we saw that yes, one

39:40

in five cases were presenting with lots of smell

39:42

at that time and this wasn't

39:44

on any government literature at all. No one

39:46

was aware of it so people were

39:49

only being told stay indoors if you've got a cough or

39:51

a sore throat or

39:53

a fever. They weren't told if you suddenly lost your

39:55

sense of smell so they were still going to old

39:58

people's homes and going to hospital

40:00

etc. So we found

40:02

this out, we publicised it, but

40:06

it took still an order at

40:08

time until the government actually acknowledged that

40:10

it was real and put it in the guidelines. I mean the

40:12

WHO put it before the UK government.

40:15

I mean I'm very proud of the team that

40:17

did that because I think we did save lives

40:19

and psychologically it was very important

40:21

for many people to feel they were doing

40:23

something. Tim, we're going to

40:26

make time for the music. It's your seventh disc. What's

40:28

it going to be next? The next

40:30

one is the jam. That's entertainment.

40:33

I love the jam. I was brought up really

40:35

in the punk era so it reminds me of

40:38

my student days, but also whenever we

40:40

put the jam on my kids, young kids,

40:42

used to go crazy and jump up and down on

40:44

the bed. I never understood why,

40:46

but they still do it today

40:48

which is really funny. It just reminds

40:50

me of my kids being small and cute. In fact

40:53

we could enjoy the same music and they

40:55

still like it. It's really amazing

40:57

and I've got a really

40:59

different relationship with my kids than

41:02

I had with my parents. I think it's

41:04

a generational thing and we're still very close.

41:06

This is for Tom and Sophie.

41:13

The jam

41:38

and that's entertainment for your kids,

41:40

Professor Tim Spetta. Now outside work

41:42

you have passions, you have travelled,

41:44

skiing, though I know that pursuing

41:46

those passions has put you and

41:49

your wife in danger before now.

41:51

You were actually involved in a

41:53

helicopter crash in 2018. That was

41:55

quite serious. What happened? We were

41:57

on a ski touring trip in Georgia. near

42:00

the Russian border. We weren't

42:02

supposed to take a helicopter but there was the

42:04

other lifts were broken so we had a day

42:07

of heli-skiing and

42:10

as we came into land he

42:12

must have tipped and the helicopter blade got

42:14

stuck in the snow and we flipped

42:17

over and crashed

42:20

down from about three or four meters.

42:22

It wasn't very high but

42:24

it caught fire and we were in

42:26

deep snow. It was a really

42:28

surreal experience. Completely upside down I was at the

42:31

bottom. Were you injured? Hardly at all. My wife

42:33

was at the top and got thrown to

42:35

the other side. We weren't wearing seat belts which might

42:37

have saved us actually. I could see

42:40

and smell the smoke behind us and

42:42

I remembered all those James Bond films where you only

42:44

have 10 seconds to get out before the helicopter blows

42:46

up. I didn't know how long we

42:48

had or if it would blow up and

42:52

managed to crawl out in

42:54

the deep snow and move away but I was

42:57

in the dark because it

42:59

was completely covered by snow or upside

43:01

down. I was extremely calm.

43:04

I think you need to react in two ways.

43:06

You either sort of panic and scream

43:08

or I was just in this

43:10

surreal shock. Yeah I was

43:12

extremely calm. I was the last one out. We

43:15

managed to walk away before it. We worried it was going

43:17

to explode and I

43:20

was so calm I actually took a video of

43:22

it. It was an experience that made me think I

43:25

was lucky to survive that. Only about 50%

43:27

of people have non-fatal

43:30

accidents in those helicopters when they do crash.

43:33

Just reaffirmed that life is for living and

43:35

you've got to get on with it. That

43:37

was the moral of my story. Don't

43:40

do anything dangerous again. So it

43:42

hasn't put you off future adventures? No. Well I'm

43:44

glad to hear that Tim because speaking of remote

43:46

places I'm about to cast you away to your

43:49

desert island. I think it's going to be right

43:51

up your street. You've lived

43:53

as a hunter-gatherer briefly so I'm imagining

43:55

that you are feeling quite positive about

43:57

the challenge of the island. You think

43:59

you're be able to fend for yourself, deal with

44:01

whatever it throws at you? Absolutely, yes.

44:03

Hopefully I'll be finding things to eat

44:05

there. How will you

44:08

be with a solitary life? Any writer

44:10

knows they go away and write books.

44:13

As long as I've got a purpose, I'm

44:15

quite happy to be on my own and I do actually like

44:18

having some time on my own to really get

44:20

my thoughts together. Well, one more disc

44:22

before we cast you away Tim. Your final

44:24

choice today please. What is it?

44:26

This is my hero Elvis. Hard

44:29

to pick one of his songs but In the

44:31

Ghetto is the one I've picked and Elvis is

44:33

of course the only person I can

44:36

do a vaguely good impersonation

44:38

of as in karaoke.

44:43

As the snow flies On

44:49

a cold and gray Chicago morning

44:51

a poor little baby child is

44:53

born in the ghetto and

45:00

his mama cries because

45:05

if there's one thing she don't

45:08

need is another hungry mouth to

45:10

feed in the ghetto. Elvis

45:13

Presley, In the Ghetto. So Tim, I'm going

45:15

to send you away to the island. I'm giving

45:17

you the bible, the complete works of Shakespeare

45:19

and you can take one other book. What

45:21

would you like? I'll

45:24

pick Tale of Two Cities by

45:26

Charles Dickens. Ah, the best

45:28

of times the worst of times. Why A Tale of

45:31

Two Cities in particular? It's

45:33

one of the few books I've read several

45:35

times so I know I can read it

45:37

more than once without getting bored. It's a

45:39

mixture of history and fiction and

45:42

it's also the idea

45:45

of a person who has two different

45:47

lives and can live different lives in

45:49

different countries and different languages and sort

45:51

of suits my chameleon

45:54

personality. You

45:56

can also have a luxury item for sensory

45:59

stimulation or to make life more enjoyable.

46:01

What would you like? Currently

46:03

I'll go for a fermenting set. Now we're

46:05

back to the gut bacteria. Yeah,

46:07

so I can ferment anything on the

46:10

island and create new foods and tastes

46:12

and smells and

46:14

that would keep me occupied for

46:17

several months I think. I'd be very happy because

46:19

I'm into my fermenting phase of life at the

46:21

moment. What are you currently fermenting? Everything

46:24

I can really, so things like

46:26

mushrooms, I'm fermenting chilies, red peppers

46:29

as well as kombucha and

46:31

green peas and creating

46:35

what I call kimchi which is my own

46:37

form of kimchi which is just any rubbish

46:39

from the bottom of your fridge that

46:42

you just put into salt and you can

46:44

create a delicious dish. Delicious is

46:46

an interesting word. Is it all possible?

46:50

90% of the time it's delicious, 10% it's

46:52

revolting. Well I suppose you'll

46:54

have plenty of time to explore the 90% of the

46:56

island. Finally, which track of

46:58

the eight that you've shared with us today would

47:00

you rush to save from the wave first Tim

47:03

Spector? It's a tough choice but I'll

47:05

probably go with Louis Armstrong. Keep me

47:07

happy. Professor Tim

47:09

Spector, thank you very much for learning to see

47:11

it at your desert island discs. My pleasure. Hello,

47:26

it was a lovely chat to Tim and

47:28

I do hope he's taking full advantage of

47:30

all the time he'll have to cultivate a

47:33

diverse microbiome while he's on the island. There

47:35

are more than 2000 programs

47:37

in our archive which you can listen to.

47:39

We've cursed away many scientists and doctors over

47:41

the years including some Michael Marmot and David

47:43

Knott. You can also hear some of the

47:45

musicians chosen by Tim too including Louis Armstrong,

47:48

Keith Richards at the Rolling Stones, Kristy McVie

47:50

of Fleetwood Mac and Paul Weller from The

47:52

Jane. You can find all of those programs

47:54

if you search through BBC Sounds or

47:56

on our own Desert Island Discs website.

48:00

for today's programme was Giles Aspen,

48:02

the production coordinator was Susie Roylens,

48:04

the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovski

48:07

and the producer was Sarah Taylor. The

48:09

series editor is John Goudie. Hi,

48:32

this is Christa Young. I just wanted to let you

48:34

know that Young Again, my podcast for

48:37

BBC Radio 4, is back. I'm telescoping two

48:39

bits of the story together. That's okay. It's

48:41

only memory. It's only show bits, we can

48:43

say what we like. In

48:45

Young Again, we're joined by some of the

48:47

world's most intriguing people. Bill was the CEO

48:50

at Microsoft at the time. And I ask

48:52

a simple question, if you knew then what

48:54

you know now, what would you

48:56

tell yourself? Be very, very careful about

48:59

the people you surround yourself with. I

49:01

gave too much power to people who

49:03

didn't deserve it. Subscribe to

49:05

Young Again on BBC Sands. I'm looking

49:07

forward to your company.