One of the country's leading health experts has said one diet change will 'solve 90 per cent of your problems' in a conversation with leading nutrition guru Dr Michael Moseley. Professor Tim Spector, a professor in epidemiology at King's College London, who became well-known across the UK during the Covid pandemic, was speaking to Michael Mosley on the Just One Thing podcast.
Professor Spector said his key advice is to eat 30 different plants every week.
He said: "It’s 30 plants a week. If you could eat 30 plants a week, pretty much you solve 90 percent of your problems."
Michael asked: "And you mean 30 different plants?"
The gut expert explains: "Not 30 portions of kale, no, it’s definitely 30 different plants. And, I think it’s important to theorise what a plant is."
"A plant is not only a fruit, a vegetable, it’s also a nut, it’s also a seed, it’s also a herb or a spice mix," Prof Spector said.
Prof Spector also counts coffee and spices as plants. So, for example, meals like curry and various spicy foods will count towards eating your weekly intake of plants.
He added: "I actually count coffee as a plant, because it is a bean that’s been fermented, it has that good origin, that’s why it’s so tasty. That’s what I do, I get my 30 plants a week and it’s much easier than it sounds, for those of you who haven’t heard it before.
"It’s getting variety on your plate, in the morning, I have my nut and seed mix on my yoghurt, and in that mix, I have at least eight different plants."
Prof Spector added: "Every time you have curry, it’s been shown that if you have a teaspoon of spice mix, you’ve got the bonus of those polyphenols in there that are helping you, and that’s been shown in trials to work."
He said: "The other thing is if you are focusing on that rather than anything else, you don’t have to focus on calories because that will take care of itself.
"This is because by necessity, you are having a high fibre diet, obviously chips don’t count! I also wouldn’t count rice, for example, I feel rice is a very poor nutritious food, and neither does pasta.
"But you can think about all the incredible sources you can put on the pasta and the rice, like beans, legumes, you’ll start to think about food in a different way."
He added: "You’ll realise that food is not about macronutrients, it’s not about calories, it’s not about fats, sugars or proteins. It’s about these thousands of different chemicals in each plant that interact with our gut microbes and our immune systems."
Professor Spector is co-author of a study which found that patients who eat a Mediterranean diet, rich in whole grains, nuts, fish and vegetables, may have an improved response to treatment for melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer.
Adopting the diet which includes foods rich in fibre, unsaturated fat, antioxidants and polyphenols, was positively associated with the person’s response to a treatment called immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), researchers say.
ICB is a relatively new and highly successful treatment against severe cancers used in immunotherapy to boost the immune system.
These drugs cause the immune system to recognise, clear and destroy the cancer cells.
Experts believe the findings indicate that cancer patients could potentially be given lifesaving dietary advice.
Professor Spector said: “The connection between the diet, gut microbes and helping the immune system fight cancer is one of the most exciting areas of medical research.
“Our two publications clearly show the importance of a gut friendly diet on improving your chances of surviving a cancer.”
He added: “Medical practice is often falling behind the latest finding on diet and gut microbes, but I believe all cancer patients should now be given potentially lifesaving dietary advice such as increasing plant diversity, reducing junk food and adding fermented foods before starting therapies.”
Researchers found that diet appears to improve the effectiveness and tolerability of ICB.
They suggest that a key potential mechanism underlying this association between diet and immunotherapy response is the gut microbiome – the community of different bacteria that lives in our gut.
Last year, the group led by co-author Karla Lee and colleagues from King’s College showed that the composition of the gut microbiome at the start of treatment was a major factor in a patient’s response to this type of cancer treatment.
The new study looked at the dietary habits of 91 patients with advanced melanoma.
They were all treated with checkpoint inhibitors and followed for 12 months. And scans were used to measure the effect of the medication.
Dr Veronique Bataille, a melanoma expert at King’s College London who coordinated the trial, said: “Immunotherapy has revolutionised the treatment of different types of advanced cancer.
“But not all patients respond to immunotherapy.
“Our study shows that dietary habits are likely to play a role in improving the treatment outcomes and patient survival.”
Researchers at King’s College London together with scientists at the Netherlands’ University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), supported by the Seerave Foundation, revealed the results in JAMA Oncology.
You can listen to the Just One Thing podcast on the BBC Sounds website.
