Is the Zoe nutrition test worth it? Or Emperor's new clothes?

[hydroxyapatite]

I've read a lot about Zoe nutrition - a much hyped, expensive nutrition package which helps you to regulate blood glucose and blood lipids, and improve your microbiome profile.'

Has anyone done this and found it worth the money? Aren't they really just testing your cholesterol levels and finding out by using a £40 monitor what foods causing a sugar spike after eating? Therefore guiding a better diet?

I knew my blood sugar wasn't great.

For me the glucose monitor was the most useful bit, and that is a lot cheaper than the blood tests.

Check out glucose goddess / jesse inchaupse

She's just brought out a book

This is what I found too.

If your blood sugar has no issues, then you won't ever get out of the normal range. So the zoe test confirmed i had no blood sugar issues. What I did find random was there would be changes (but always still within the normal range) overnight when I wasn't eating anything, and I haven't found any explanation for that. My blood sugar was so steady in fact, that I found myself chugging cola and eating haribo just try and get a 'result', which never happened. So it actually made me eat worse.

The fats test showed I don't deal with processing fat so well, but I don't really know what Ican do about that, probably not much.

The microbiome analysis was interesting, but really so what? I don't eat badly, and other than general advice like eat more veg, they don't really know yet what can be done to improve the microbiome, so I didn't really learn much.

I found logging food a total pain - I cook mainly from scratch, so gave up aftera couple of days.

As others have said, the podcasts are useful, but I didn't really find anything else that useful, eg the 'coaching'.

Overall, I would say it promises a lot for the worried well, but delivers very little. If you really think you have blood sugar or cholesterol issues, get tests from your gp - this wont add anything. The data collection for the zoe project owners will be magnificent, and I'm sure will make them unbelievably wealthy.

I've been looking in vain for threads on mn with people raving about zoe and what it's done for them, but haven't found any. The general conclusion seems to be it's interesting, but no one seems to have got much more from it.

Well... being size 8, M&S implies that would mean measuring 32-25-35. Which at 5'9" seems kind of skinny to me. I'm almost 5'8", BMI about 20-22, and measure 38-29-39. So I know I'm a healthy weight now whereas if I measured 32-25-35 I can only imagine I'd be definitely or at least verging on underweight.

So if a 5'9" size 8 person loses half a stone, it sounds like they lost weight when they should NOT lose weight. if the only reason they lost weight was because of following Zoe food advice, that would make following Zoe food advice a BAD thing for them.

But then this is MN and it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if someone claimed they were size 8 & had a mass of 100 kg. Because I read it all here. And losing half a stone when you're 100 kg wouldn't make you underweight (if 5'9", although the miracle of being 100 kg & size 8 is not something I'm supposed to say "how ridiculous!" to even if I think it)

My only point is asking pp for more info before getting to the apparent conclusion that following Zoe Food advice was A Bad Thing for that person they were talking about.

Ah I've no idea what she weighed before - just your bog standard slim size 8 person

She got leaner from the Zoe, she didn't need to lose any weight obviously- but what disappeared is that softness and puffiness seen around belly and I'm guessing internal fat on organs

She's not Uber skinny - she's just lean now

I don't agree with those who say it is a waste of time. This is true only if you look at the information generated but choose not to act on it and make changes. I am doing Zoe now and am just past halfway through the programme. You get far more information than you could get from having separate blood sugar tests from the GP, or a cholesterol test - these things are still important, but the Zoe information gives an integrated picture of the way your body handles sugar and fat, an analysis of your current diet and your gut microbiome. Using this information it scores foods and suggests alternatives for a way to eat better for your own body. Of course much of it is common sense but you actually have a foundation on which to base your choices, not all of which are obvious. Having been eating low fat for a number of years I can now see that this was not my best weight management strategy. I process fat well but not sugar, so eating healthy fats alongside carbs actually makes my body tolerate carbs better, and although I am probably eating more fat I have actually lost weight. (This wasn't my primary goal). It is an investment in all senses but you only derive the benefit if you are prepared to act on the advice.

I think you need to remember that the community of users are early adopters and I would guess not really representative of the nation as a whole.
This is a tool which if rolled out to the wider community (as they say they want to) will be life changing for thousands. Compare Zoe to what people are currently told to do...... slimming world, weight watchers, one life. I think Zoe is much much much better

I’m now in my testing phase - I’m two weeks in, just finished the blood sugar monitor. I’m personally finding it fascinating. To visually see how different foods changed my sugar levels was eye opening. I can’t wait to get my scores:results at the end of the month

I should be getting my pack in October though not sure when. I was on a nls resus course and saw one of the consultant doctor’s wearing it and we got into a conversation about it. She said it’s really interesting to learn what does/doesn’t spike your blood glucose.

Hi all - can I join the thread please...? 🙂

I'm on day 8 of the ZOE trial, and have been blogging about it day-by-day with pics and results of experiments here, if anyone is interested:

https://wellitywellness.com/tag/zoe-trial/

I've not had the results yet, so can't comment on its overall value. My two cents so far - and disclaimer upfront in that I am a bit of a Tim Spector fan girl (read all his books) and follower of the ZOE podcast, which have collectively helped me dig my way out of a difficult time in my life and have driven a lot of positive changes to diet and lifestyle already as a result (e.g. increased biodiversity, cutting out ultra-processed food etc.).

So, in terms of the actual trial, I've gone the whole hog - though I totally get people's concerns around the aggressive use of data, re-packaging of 'common sensical' advice and of course the expense. Curiosity got the better of me here, is all I can say!

Speaking personally, I'm really finding the blood glucose monitor insightful - oats and cous cous are off the table for evermore, that's for sure - but I only now realise I could have done that just by buying a £60 quid Libre 2 off Amazon instead... Though then I wouldn't be getting the microbiome analysis too - I've not received mine yet, but I guess you could argue that having it is a bit of a moot point: your microbiome not something you can change over night, so whatever the results yo get, you'd have to take a long-term approach to improving it through diet and lifestyle choices over time anyhow.

I found the first day tests straightforward and the morning cookies at least pretty tasty - struggled a bit getting blood for the finger prick test, but nothing to write home about.

I had one 5 minute blip on the app when it stopped looking up foods, but aside from that pretty good. I am not enjoying the little quizzes, but that's because I've come into this very familiar with the subject matter through the podcast and the books - they would be helpful I think if you were coming at it fresh here. I agree that the 'coaching' is pretty minimal / AI driven, and the support is limited - though in fairness I haven't had cause to use it much.

Is it emperor's new clothes...? In terms of understanding your blood glucose reactions, getting insight into the content / health of your microbiome and the longer-term step change it heralds into individualised nutrition, etc., I don't think so personally - but ultimately you could skip the trial, save your money and still follow the general advice to pretty much the same end...

Anyhoo, I'll be updating the blog for the next week and look forward to joining in with the thread here as well!

I've finished mine - and have written two fairly detailed blog posts about.

The first talks about blood glucose experimentation and the second is a bit of an essay about the nature and value of the ZOE trial as a whole.

Hopefully these will be useful to people!

Thanks for that, wellity.
So... I see that they gave you numbers compared to other ZoeApp users. My question is, where is the threshold that says what is too much blood sugar spike? Maybe everyone who uses ZoeApp is desperately unwell; or maybe they are all in the safe zone. Your blood sugar is supposed to vary in response to what you eat. Or are they trying to argue that everyone should be flat lined all the time in response to everything they eat, ideally?

Both me and dp gave up on it. The tests and the analysis were interesting but my gut biome was good, sugar processing good and fat processing v good. Dp's gut biome was poor and his sugar and fat processing poor. We eat exactly the same meals and tbh the meal suggestions we had were v similar. We didn't really like the recipes so we gave up.

Dp will continue to use a blood glucose monitor sporadically as he is pre diabetes and I think it made him really think about it. But tbh it's because he is obese and the best way for him to address this would be losing weight and Zoe is less about that and more about what you eat.

I've done it and while I think it has been useful and interesting in some ways, it didn't give the answers I was hoping for.

I was on a very strict diet and exercise plan for a while (only 9 weeks, so manageable). While doing this, I have to admit, I felt amazing! But it wasn't sustainable long term as I had literally cut out everything (no alcohol, no caffine, no sugar, no gluten, no dairy, fairly low in fat). I lost loads of weight and was happy with the results. But when I started eating a more normal diet I started feeling tired at times again. I was hoping Zoe would tell me the thing that was causing that. But my sugar processing was very good as was the fat processing. It did tell me I had very low gut biodiversity but the balance overall was good which seemed to be more of their focus.

I did find it useful monitoring my food but I can't be bothered long term. I have made changes to my diet based on feedback though

According to the app, your blood sugar levels should range between 3.9- 7.8 mmol/L throughout the day. "Normal" blood sugar spikes would go from a baseline level of 4.0 - 5.5 mmol/L, "moderate" would be to 7.8 - 11.0 mmol/L and "high" to 11.1 mmol/L and above. So in short, people need to eat in such a way that doesn't spike the blood sugar more than between 6 - 8 mmol/L throughout the day.

"The American Diabetes Association (ADA) generally recommends the following target blood sugar levels: Between 80 and 130 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) or 4.4 to 7.2 millimoles per liter (mmol/L) before meals. Less than 180 mg/dL (10.0 mmol/L) two hours after meals."

So you have until 2 hours after the meal to get below 10.0 & then consider yourself still in healthy zone. I think that's what that statement means. Is < 10.0 mmol/L 2 hours after a meal, the threshold that ZoeApp uses?

Tim Spector makes the Financial Times....

https://www.ft.com/content/abe98fe9-bf58-461b-aa9a-313ed9a49f82

I’ve done it and found it interesting. For me it wasn’t worth the money as I came back as very good in all categories and my personalised plan is just ordinary healthy eating- lots of fruit and veg, pulses, olive oil, some fish, whole grains - Med diet basically- and I already knew all about that and could have saved my money. No rogue foods to avoid or issues to address.

Perhaps if I’d had a more varied response to the tests then the personalised advice might have made more difference. Can’t complain really- like grumbling you paid for a doctors check up and all was well or paying for a year’s home insurance and not getting burgled 🤷‍♀️

It’s bollocks

@JacketAndJumpet I sort of agree because my scores were all good.
However....one reason I wanted to do it was because of family history. My mum (now very very elderly) has pre-diabetes (she's not remotely overweight), and there is a strong history of heart disease on her side of the family.
I was interested to see my response to fats.
Mine came out as 'Good' (something like 59%) but that was my lowest score. The others were over 80% 'Excellent'.

So what that told me was I need to be a bit careful with saturated fats.

And also keep up the good stuff I do.

😂There's always someone who believes the world is flat.

Happy to enter into a sensible discussion, based on science.😀

Thanks for the link to the FT article.

I signed up to it and swiftly cancelled when I realised it's only actually a week of the arm monitor thing and the rest is just diet advice. I like gadgets and data but I don't need diet advice based on one week.

I'm just short of a year in to my Zoe experience and feel like starting my own blog even if it's just to link to on all the millions of Zoe threads that are appearing/returning at the moment!

This time last year I was approx 3 stone heavier (at least, avoiding scales has been one of my favourite things for the last decade), my blood sugar was two points off type two diabetes, high blood pressure, no sleep, anxiety ridden and knackered. I thought I knew how to feed myself healthily but most of what I thought was good for me was wrong (daily quick porridge sachet - might as well have just eaten sugar!). In my life as a chubster I've done WW multiple times and Slimming world (lost 4 stone, gained 6 🤷🏻‍♀️) so I know my faddy weight loss plans!

My testing showed extremely poor blood sugar and blood fat processing abilities as well as a shoddy microbiome. So a year in? I have to follow a much more strict regime than most to make up for my rubbish north eastern genetics, the beetroot and sweet potato I had been eating were NOT the good choices for my body I thought. I eat tonnes of nuts, pulses and much much less meat (so far so mediterrainan) and I am leaner, fitter, way off diabetes in a recent blood test. I sleep well and most of my anxiety is reduced.

The education is very gradual, you don't change things overnight but in small steps and if you are someone like me who has always been the fat friend it's the best thing I could have done for my 50 year old body. If you are already mostly living off a vegan diet and slim then it's probably old hat and no help at all but for me it's a life changer and hopefully a life extender.

Although right now I could do without good old Tim appearing everywhere even I, a proselytising devotee, think he's running the risk of overexposure!

I've not RTFT ...
I think for many people it wouldn't be worth doing (at the current price). If you're 'worried well' or just want it as a weight loss method probably don't bother.

However, DH and I signed up before Xmas, him first. He's quite badly prediabetic, has been monitoring his glucose with pinprick tests and urine strips for years as his dm was T2 . For him the CGM (he's bought some more) and scores are very useful tools.
I wanted to do it because my HBa1C was the same as his and I have PCOS which is associated with insulin resistance and my cholesterol is borderline high. It turns out that my glucose response is nothing like as extreme as his.

Going forwards he's extended his membership, I probably won't as if a food is ok for him it'll be ok for me. It's really encouraged us to eat better - in particular discovering (to his surprise) that we both like beans and lentils.

I also think that the overall project is a good idea, to get data and continually update the models based on new info. There may be an issue that people doing Zoë are a biased sample - people who give a shit about their nutrition.