6 Weeks To Fix Their Gut Health!

We've recruited three individuals to see if we can improve their health markers simply by changing their diet in 6 weeks. — My energy levels are probably the lowest they've ever been in my life. I'm menopausal. I wake up with hot flashes and my anxiety has also gone through the roof. — I don't feel satisfied with food I'm eating. Around 60% of what you put into your mouth is processed foods which could increase your risk of developing cancer, heart disease or diabetes in later life. Apart from the health risk, people on a poor diet feel tired and foggy most of the day. — I feel apathetic most of the time. The lack of sleep is causing me a problem. I'm feeling really tired. — Our three participants will undergo baseline tests to assess their critical health markers. We put them on the Zoey personalized nutrition program for the next 6 weeks and I alongside our head nutritionist Dr. Fedria Amati and chief scientist Professor Sarah Barry will check in with them along the way. Once the 6 weeks are done, we'll retest and see if dietary changes can make a real difference in such a short time. — If I was to give up and not follow this program through, I would be really disappointed in myself. If I could improve my diet, I might be a better mom, a better wife, be a better person. Really, — I'm just hoping this Zoe thing is going to help. — Shall we have a look at your results? Good morning. Um, so I'm just about to unbox my Zoe gut test. It just arrived this morning. Um, so yeah, really excited. It's time to start understanding your body. Yes. Let's My name's Lucy. I'm 27 and I'm from London. I work at Batsley Dogs Home and I'm a matchmaker for the dogs there so they can find their perfect forever home. — My job is quite strenuous like emotionally and mentally seeing animals that haven't had the best start in life and you know hoping that you can do everything you can for them hoping that you can turn it around for them. Trillions of microbes call your body home. They may hold the key to your health and wellbeing. It's time to get to know them. I work full-time and I'm always tired. My energy levels are really low. So that's why I tend to lean on the convenient meals just so I can whip past the shop, go home, pick something up to shove in the oven or the microwave, and then just not really think about much else. I feel like my energy levels are probably the lowest they've ever been in my life, but I don't feel like my energy levels are because of my job solely. I get home straight away from work and I struggle to stay up past 9:00 p. m. Even when I wake up in the morning at 6:00 a. m. after a full 8 9 hours sleep, I feel like I could just go straight back to sleep again and I'm just constantly tired. So, this is just the test in here. Cool test. Yay. I just want to feel like more life in me and just feel like my body is running smoother. Are we excited to do the test? Let's go. — All three participants are going to be doing Zoe's gut health test. A very easy to do at home test where we collect a stool sample. We extract the DNA and then from that get all the information about the microbes and can put our analysis together to feed that back to you. Gut health is the essence of our total health. It's only in the last 20 years we've discovered the existence of it. It's that missing link that explains a lot of the problems we've had in understanding nutrition and health. We are now living in a world where more people suffer with chronic diet related diseases compared to even when people used to die of things like smoking. Now our diet is deadlier than that. We're now starting to understand that we have this whole new ecosystem, our gut microbiomes, these trillions of bugs that live in our gut that we know impact many aspects related to our health. Everything from our risk of cardiovascular disease, cognitive related disorders like Alzheimer's right through to our risk of certain cancers. — Gut health could explain why one person gets a disease and another one doesn't. When everything else is equal, including even their genes and their upbringing. Inside your gut, we have thousands of different species of bacteria plus all kinds of other organisms. It's that ratio of the good bugs to the bad bugs that is our health index. And we want to see that changing over time, ideally going upwards.

— Pull your right knee to your chest for me. Give it a nice big hug. And then hands behind the knees. Stretch the leg up to the ceiling. Flex and point the foot. My name is Sarah and I'm 51 years of age and I am a physio and Pilates instructor. Thumb as you exhale. Scoop your tummy in. Squeeze your glutes. Lift up. I am also um a mom, so it's looking after two sort of teenage children. Come on. I take your dream to cuz that's going to end a disaster. — Oh, like every other mom, I'm sure, it's almost got busier as the kids are getting a bit older. There's just so many things to think about. keeping a house, uh, you know, keeping a job down and looking after two children. Yeah, it's tiring. I want to feel carefree and at ease. And I just really feel that if I could improve my diet and improve my health, I might be a better mom and a better wife and just be a better person really. I'm doing this Zoey journey with my husband, Rob. I've managed to recruit him. — It's great we're doing it together. We'll actually sort of egg each other on. Maybe a little bit competition as well, so that's always a good thing. She's probably slightly more competitive, but I tend to win more. — What are you cooking, Rob? — Bit of salmon, a ricardo. — We like healthy meals. We like to eat well, but sometimes with my busy life, that just doesn't happen. And it's grabbing a pizza from the freezer. I know that's not very good for my kids or for us, but when I'm tired and time poor, you make the wrong choices. Rob is a grazer, I would say. I hope he agrees with me there. — I do like to pack my lunch box with quite a few snacks, always crisps, always a bar of something. So, I'm really looking forward to as a family hopefully all eating more healthily because I feel like 5 years time they'll be out the door and not here anymore, which makes me a bit sad. We're following the real lives of all three participants who are starting the Zoey program to see if we can transform how they feel by just changing their diet in 6 weeks. To help them make this change, our three participants are going to be using the Zoey app to track their meals, eating habits, and overall progress. Being head nutritionist at Zoey, I'm really here to help each participant understand Zoe's core principles, go through any kinds of habits they need to try and stick to, and really kick off their journey. So, one of the ways that we can start timeless is if you guys walk me through like a typical day. About 8:00, I would have some toast. I've never been a breakfast person. I think I just want to know what to eat. Basically, changing your breakfast first is a really good way to change your diet. If you have a really good breakfast, you'll find that you're less hungry throughout the day. Start with a meal that most people have control over because they tend to be home or they can bring it with them. — I am grazing quite a lot. — Usually about 3:00 I get sugar cravings. So, sometimes I go and get a nice brownie from the cast. really nice Nutella once. — Knowing that more than 80% of us snack every day. So, what can I bring with me that's a healthy snack? What can you do to avoid buying that muffin? Well, you can help prepare by bringing healthy snacks with you and making sure that you're ready for anytime you get a bit peckish basically. So, bringing whole fruits with you, bringing mixed nuts with you. It is absolutely about convenience. Once you start to bring healthy snacks with you, it reduces the likelihood that you'll reach for what's closest or what's most available, which often isn't very healthy. It's really important to reduce the number of high-risisk processed foods that you're eating as a part of your regular everyday diet. These contribute to poorer health outcomes and don't need to be part of our diet. Another really simple switch is just this idea that we try to aim for 30 plants a week. And that sounds a lot, but it includes spices, it includes herbs, it includes buying things like mixed nuts, mixed beans, mixed lentils, and then you start to accumulate this variety. Plant diversity is essential for the gut. Every single gut microbe likes to eat a different type of food. If you don't have variety, then some of them will starve out and not be able to function properly. We have a plant counter fill out in the app, which you can use to track how many different plants you're looking to get throughout this process. This will hopefully help you to engage with more mindful eating habits. Yeah. So, you'll be thinking more about what you're packing in your pack lunch or what you're putting on your breakfast plate. And that's a really big part of that pivotal shift in how we think about food. That sounds really, really exciting. These principles are really about education, empowerment, and having the agency to make better choices, focusing on what we need to be adding more of instead of reducing. — What you Sarah, what your main drivers for taking this challenge on? I really want to just feel better in myself. I feel um much more anxious than I ever used to with the menopause. Prior to the

menopause, I've never felt anxious. I was calm. I was relaxed. Now, yeah, I can get quite flustered about things. My anxiety has also gone through the roof. I get real anxiety about driving. I hate feeling like a bundle of nerves and stress. I would just like to feel a bit more positive about myself. — At Zoe, we've conducted the world's largest menopause study. We now have data on over 100,000 per and post-menopausal women, looking at the burden of their symptoms, but also looking at how many diet and lifestyle factors interact with their symptoms. Interestingly, what our research at Zoe showed was that the most common symptoms were ones very much related to our cognitive function such as brain fog, anxiety, depression. You see, anxiety was affecting nearly 80% of women. That's huge. With a lot of women around menopause, — they actually don't eat enough food. And a lot of that is fear of putting on weight, fear of eating the wrong thing. — Um, but it actually ends up impacting your energy levels and impacting how you feel. The biggest misunderstanding about eating well is that you have to eat as little as possible to eat well. Decades of diet culture have led us here. So, the biggest revolution that can happen in someone's diet and the way they think about food is understanding that eating more of the food that's good for them is actually going to help their goals. I did wonder that sometimes. I'm thinking I'm always trying to cut down. — Yeah. And Rob, tell me about you. — Got quite an active job. Um, so I'm pretty hungry actually. — Yeah, most of the day. My name is Rob. I'm 50 years old. I was working in the city of London and I'm now a local handyman. When I'm working at a client's house, it's difficult to go out and get food. So, I normally take a pack lunch, a roll, sandwich, crisps, whatever. I'm up on my feet all day long. don't feel particularly satisfied with food I'm eating. [snorts] Depending on what I eat, I can get sugar spikes and after that they can drop down and I can feel really tired. That's pretty good. I'd always fall off to sleep easily, no problem, out like a light, but then I'd wake up at probably 3:00 or 4 in the morning. If I'm feeling really tired the next day, I'm grumpy. I'm not in a good mood. We've found in a number of our Zoey studies a real clear link between poor sleep, not only in terms of the length of sleep, but also the quality of sleep and disregulation of your gut health and your microbiome. — I do have an underlying issue. I think I'm just hoping this improvement on diet is going to help you sleep better. I just blame that for everything. [snorts] — I think people are very surprised at the speed of these changes. It doesn't take years or matters of weight loss to feel different. Most people can see effects much shorter periods of time. And that's hopefully what these three people are going to show us. — The Zoey gut tests that our participants did at the start will give us our baseline score to track their progress. These are measured out of a thousand and are based on the ratio of good bugs to bad bugs. Rob has a score of 539, which makes him around average for the UK population, which doesn't have a great diet. It still leaves plenty of room for improvement. — We're also going to be doing blood tests, which we don't normally do, — but this will allow us to look in detail at the changes, for example, in blood sugars and blood fats over time to see if we can show a difference in just 6 weeks. Rob's blood test showed me something rather striking. — Hi Rob. — Hi there Tim. — The reason um I wanted to have this call is to discuss something a little bit worrying on your blood tests. — Right. — There were two results that really worried me. uh one was the triglyceride level which is a marker of the fat that goes up after meals and that was significantly higher than normal. — Oh dear. — So that was uh a bit of a shock actually. And the other one is that your good cholesterol was actually low. So when you put them together it increases by about fivefold your risk of heart attack. Something at that level suggests you've got a major metabolic disturbance that you're not dealing with it well. It may be causing fatty deposits around your intestines, around your liver. — Mhm. — And the most likely explanation is that it could be genetic. That's the first thing to ask if you know anyone who's had those problems before. — There are um instances of heart attacks.

Uh my granddad had yeah a couple of heart attacks. one of my uncles. — What age? — Um, youngish, I think 50s. — That's significant. The good news is that most people doing the Zoey program do reduce their triglycerides. If we can improve your diet, you know, we can get them back towards normal because the choices you make every day on your food, the most important you can make for your health. I think this really illustrates it. until now, you know. So, it should be empowering to you to realize that you're the one that can shift your health and reduce that risk. — Fingers crossed. Thanks so much. — Okay. Bye, Rob. Good luck. — Cheers. Thank you. — It's quite ringing cuz he seemed very concerned about me. — Well, yes, obviously. Um I'm actually in a way pleased cuz it's better better, you know. Um, so it's great that I found out now and I'm young enough to hopefully turn it around. And good news is that they can be reduced through eating a healthier diet. So I'm hoping following the Zoey program, it's going to reduce these triglycerides. Morning. So it's Monday morning of the first week. I'm off to the gym this morning. Um, I would say I'm feeling quite good. — I think I'm on day four at the moment. I've started eating breakfast and I've had morning energy, which is something that is really new to me. It's — day five now. I'm actually feeling more energized. Maybe it's a coincidence. I'm not sure. Enjoying the healthy foods I'm eating now. — The Zoat helps you to be more mindful about the food you're eating by snapping your meal and giving you instant feedback on how well it's nourishing you and your gut health. The meal score at Zoey considers all the different elements of that meal and combines them together in order to give an overall meal score with a 100 being really good and zero being not so healthy. But really importantly, what the meal score does is it considers how the different foods may interact with each other in order to influence the overall healthfulness of that meal. And it's really important to think about our meals and our diets that way because we don't tend to eat nutrients in isolation or foods in isolation. I've been feeling really good. I think my only apprehension at the moment is can I keep this up? Historically, I usually last about a week or so and then I'll kind of peter off. — Hello Lucy. — Hi Tim. — You did a microbiome test. Is that right? And you did some blood tests. We'll do the blood test first. Most of them are fine actually, but we saw one that troubled me which was a marker of your blood inflammation. We saw levels that definitely not as low as you would like. So you had a level around four. Normally you want a level more about one. And that just suggests that in the past you've been eating foods that mess up the signals to your immune cells and then your gut is just slightly inflamed. It's a marker that you've perhaps been suffering from a long-term period of, you know, having weight problems, stress problems. I don't know whether you've ever suffered from mental health problems, but that's another way this can happen. — At the beginning of 2025, I went through quite a significant breakup. I left that breakup feeling quite insecure. When I'm feeling stressed or down or any sort of negative emotion, I do tend to eat my feelings. Believe in that relationship. I ended up eating as much as I possibly could. I think I just need that guidance to, you know, fully sort of swerve and eat healthy again. the gut health score. It was a low result because you have not so many uh good microbes and too many bad microbes. They are driving this problem in your blood and that is probably giving you this fatigue and loss of energy. Lucy has a gut score of 337 and means that she's below average even for the UK which doesn't have great gut health. So it means that our immune system is not working optimally. Definitely this is someone that we can really help in a big way with diet. — Made me feel like I was listening to like what like a tarot card reader or something like Mystic Tim cuz I was like that's funny. I've gained weight and I've had turmoil. you know, this stress was making my body stressed, which was making me tired, which was affecting my life, which was making me more stressed. And then it's how that vicious cycle goes on. So, I feel apathetic most of the time. It's a bit of a hard one to kind of say out loud. I mean, a lot of

the time I find it hard to make decisions and stick to plans and form new habits. If I was to give up and not follow this program through, I would be really disappointed in myself and it would feel like a bit of a failure on my part. We're just discovering that gut health has a major impact on your mood and on most mental health conditions because we know there's a connection between what happens in the gut and brain. There's a large nerve called the vagus nerve which is responsible for communicating between the two. And so if you have a lot of inflammation going on in your gut, these chemical signals that are produced by the microbes will pass through the vagus nerve into the brain causing brain inflammation and that sends signals to the whole of the brain that it's in distress and therefore you get anxiety and depression. So you put all this together, one of the leading causes of poor mental health is actually coming from your gut. — As scientists, we're very much used to looking at biological numbers. So numbers like your cholesterol numbers, your blood pressure numbers. We rarely ask people about how they feel. We're asking participants to complete a questionnaire weekly to log their mood, their energy, their hunger. If you're feeling good, you're more likely to sustain that healthy diet and you're more likely then to see an improvement in that biomarker later down the line. Hello again, Rob. Hello, Sarah. For the first time, Sarah. So, let's talk about your results. Sarah's gut score is 715, which puts her above average, showing she has pretty good gut health, but it also shows that we still have plenty of room for improvement. She could help many of her menopausal symptoms actually get better by improving her gut scores. You're probably in the top 10 to 15% of the population. — And that's before she started. — Yes. So that's really good news. — Now Rob, you have a pretty average British gut. — That's disappointing. — I'm only average. — Exactly. — We eat pretty much the same thing. Obviously at home we do. Um so I was surprised about at the difference. We think the gut health score reflects your past diet up to that point, your illness history, how many antibiotics you've had, your gut health is a really good indicator of your current resilience to aging. So for you, Sarah, what I'm seeing is overall a pretty healthy picture. You've got really good foundations to build on, whereas Rob's metabolically a bit fragile, shall we say. It's a really key moment. I think treat it a bit like a blood pressure that you might check every year to see how you're doing overall. Okay. All right. I think we'll leave it there. Brilliant. Thanks so much. — Thank you so much. — I'm really happy about that. I think it kind of encourages us and inspires us to keep going and keep going. — Keep eating the right way. — Gut health tests were sent to our lab in Trento, Italy, which is probably the world's leading center for microbiome sequencing. This is one of the few labs in the world that are focusing on sequencing and analyzing only the microbiome. Starting from the stool sample, we extract the DNA and then we have a machine that reads the DNA and produces a lot of uh data that is sent to DOI for understanding the function of our gut microbiome. This lab is unique because is focusing only on the most advanced way to analyze the microbiome which is called shazomics. Short genomics is a technique that can see every possible micro, bacteria, fungi and archa present in a sample. I remember 15 years ago when we started studying the microbiome, we could make sense only about 30 40% of the gut microbiome species that are present. Now we are arriving to 80 90% thanks to all the members that are providing their data. the largest analysis that uh is done in the world is done at Zoey right now. So, it's week two on Zoe now and the morning after my work's party. I had a really good time, but um I'm definitely feeling it this morning. Lots of crisps, lots of pizza, lots of drinking. It was fun to like kind of let my hair down, have fun with my friends, you know, eat or drink freely without thinking, but I don't know. I feel like it's just going to be really hard to carry on like this when my lifestyle and my socialing is so involved with drinking. It was nice, but I did feel guilty as well at the same time. Lucy's been feeling a little bit down, so I think it'd be a good idea if she

met someone who's turned their life around with Zoe. — My gut results when I first started was around about the 400 mark. Zoe, it was really poor. I felt very lethargic. I felt very fat. I was quite stressed out. I didn't like [clears throat] me as a person. — I definitely relate to that one. Yeah, I just feel fat, sad, tired all the time. When I look in the mirror, I don't exactly see the person that I want to see. I used to be a lot slimmer and it does affect my self-confidence. I think I would like to see myself in more of a positive light. Was a real eye opener when I did my gut test and looking at the things that were going to really affect it positively and also negatively as well. My last one, which I did six months ago, I was at 802. — Oh, wow. It was a really big difference. Yeah, that's amazing. — Now I've got so much more energy. I am really, really infused by doing things and I feel more confident. The one thing I keep saying is that tomorrow's a new day and sometimes it dips down and it goes up, but there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel for you. That's really reassuring because the biggest part about this journey is accepting that I am work in progress. Yeah. And progression isn't always linear. You can have those peaks and troughs. Know that, you know, after this much time, it's really helped with you has really given me that motivation to keep carry on. I've had that confirmation now that changing my diet really can make a difference. It is having real world effects on other people and this is how it looks so far down the line. — It's going to have a direct impact to my energy levels, my weight maybe, so be more reason to power through. I've just finished at the gym. Had a good session. I've been eating out and at friends and family over the last few days. Not been quite so easy eating his own way and feeling a bit sluggish, but back at the gym and feeling a bit more energized now. So, really happy about that. These three individuals we're asking to do quite a lot. Change their diet and lifestyle in ways they perhaps hadn't thought about. So on that journey they're going to be some major challenges, major temptations. — Fridays often we have pizza Fridays because by the end of the week I'm sick of cooking, tired of cooking. — There's a nice Italian around the corner we like to go to. — The kids love pizza. That's one of our favorites. Breaking food habits can be tricky and harder than you expect because so many of our food habits are entrenched in the food environment we live in. I am surrounded by fast food. You just walk down my high street and there is just takeaways everywhere. After a long day of work, coming home not really wanting to cook and then just smelling that amazing takeaway. It's really hard to resist. We don't live in a food environment that's easy to support a dietary change for health. And that's why it's important to have tools that you can take with you to help you navigate this environment. So, if you don't mind, I'm going to open your fridge and I'm just going to see what's going on. — Okay. — Plant-based cheese alternative. A quick glance to the back of pack is not making me feel super confident. Let's scan and see what the app thinks. The overall score is 47. Enjoy in moderation. So tortilla is a really good example. We all know these aren't healthy foods, but we want to have some fun stuff, right? Yeah. — Overall score 45. So enjoy moderation. Not an everyday food, but something you can definitely have in your cup of your friends around. The app scores food out of 100. 100 being the healthiest. Whether it's the diversity of the plants that are in the food, whether it's the amount of fiber, whether bioactives like polyphenols, all of this contribute to this score to tell you how healthy it is. These spreads are actually created in a way that is a good alternative, but I wouldn't say they're healthpromoting. Okay, so proactive olive oil spread, medium process, — and processing risk is higher ratio. — A subsection of the food score is Zoe's processed risk scale. — High-risisk processed foods often have really misleading front of pack labeling. They are not there to help you improve your health. They're there to help sell more food products. Now you can do the same with things that are convenient like this red and white quinoa sache. So boop enjoy frequently processing risk no risk because [clears throat] the kind of processing that this quinoa has undergone is just literally par boiling it to make it more convenient. There is nothing else that's been added or modified that could make it harmful for your health. The Zoey processed food risk scale is designed to help you navigate the myriad of processed foods that exist in our environment. Now, this is designed to help you pick out the ones that are actually problematic for your health and know which ones are actually okay to include in your weekly shop. — So, it's week three on Zoe. I've been eating a lot of plants and stuff, trying

to get to 30 plus a day. — Eating more beans. Didn't used to have beans. — Lots more beans and lentils and things. — It's a 95. Absolute winner. It's a bit like a game where I just want to eat more plants. So, that's really helped so far. Keep on thinking positive about it. A lot of users that come to us, you find that they've tried a lot of the very restrictive diets. They're miserable. They're unhappy about it. And so, what we've done is we've worked to solve the one problem we know our users have. One of the problems have is not that they don't know what to do about how to improve their health. It's really hard to stick to their habits. And so if I've decided that I want to not eat chocolate every day for the next week, the hardest part is not making that decision. It's actually sticking to it. One of the main thing we wanted to do with this new app was building upon positive reinforcement. And so we think about encouraging users to add something to their plate or make a swap of something that's a healthier choice rather than telling you what you should be removing from your plate. We believe that it's much more important to be positive and support users in changing their diet and that's what will make the changes last. — Hello. You all right? Just got some dinner that I've made. — Oh wow. Look at that. Yeah, I've really enjoyed trying all these different recipes and different foods that I wouldn't have tried in the first place. So, I'm eating like 40 different vein plants a week. So, — you inspire me, which is really good. — Thank you very much. That's really sweet and touchy. — Most people underestimate the effects of poor diet on their health. The average person in the UK is probably having less than 10 different plants a week. Whereas we know to be healthy, we want to get that to three times that amount. Of all the simple changes you can make, increasing your fiber is the most important. Every 5 g of fiber can increase your lifespan by about 11%. 95% of the population in the UK and the US are fiber deficient. Effectively starving your microbes of their key food, which is fiber. — I thought my diet was good, but uh I definitely didn't have enough fiber in my life. So, I'm just adding lots more plants and I'm having Daily 30 with every meal. — Daily 30 is a gut health supplement made with whole foods. It's a really simple way to add plenty of plants and fiber to your diet and it's something that basically everybody would benefit from. We put it on everything and I think it's really helping my menopausal symptoms. — Hi, just thought I'd do a quick video diary. It's Sunday morning. I've just played tennis with my son. I'm feeling more energized and actually my sleep remarkably seems to improved. I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or it's Yeah, because of the extra fiber and just the healthy diet I'm eating, but either way, it's all good. — So, this was a day I didn't score so well, — okay, — which was Friday, which is a work day, and it was a really long day for me. — There are challenges all our participants are going to struggle with. A big challenge is working through the day, snatching lunch very quickly, grabbing whatever's convenient. In the UK, we love to snack and about 25% of our calories come from snacking. — So, I started off with a good breakfast, had some yogurt with berries and things, but then couldn't have a salad. So, I end up having a baguette with an egg and seeds, but you can see how much lower that score is. And then Friday night was pizza night and that's why my score was lower. — With a healthy diet, it's all about consistency, not perfection. If we aim for consistency where 80% of the time we're able to stick to the behaviors that we want to foster, then in the long term that will serve us. — Just coming up to the end of week four on the Zoe program, there have been a few challenges, couple of parties and things like that. Being cooked for, it's a little bit harder to stick with the program. Um, you have to kind of go with the flow a bit more. — A few drinks, which we probably shouldn't have had. — Cutting back on alcohol can be difficult because of social pressures and ingrained habits. The Zoe program and our philosophy is that this shouldn't interfere with you socializing in any way cuz it's so important for your health. What we want to do is to just go to these occasions, do what you can in terms of eating and drinking correctly, but not worry too much about it. and the next day get back on track. — Hello. — Hey. — So, how's it been?

— I feel a lot more energetic and a lot more alert. — I don't binge on like really inappropriate food stuff. Saying that, the other day I did go and um stay with my family for a few days um to celebrate. I did have a couple of days a bit naughty and we had a big roast, we had some sweet, but I felt so sluggish and tired and run down afterwards like the next few days. — I really felt a difference and I started to feel like how I felt before this process. — Okay. — A lot of the time I find it hard to make decisions and stick to plans. So, I've been quite hard on myself. I think I am my own worst critic. — Seeing that score and it kind of like ruined my graph. — Yeah. really made me think about what I'd done. Like, don't beat yourself up. — Growing up, I always felt a bit different and like I didn't really fit in with people. So, when I got my ADHD diagnosis in 2025, it was honestly so affirming and it just made so much sense with everything. The main struggles that I face with the ADHD is definitely impulsiveness. I also really struggle with planning. That's why I reach for the convenient food, something I can just make there and then other than lots of steps. — At the beginning of this process, when I spoke to the experts, they said, you know, it doesn't have to be 100% a sort of 80/20 approach because — it's not realistic to completely — exactly — be disciplined and, you know, I'm still human. I still want to enjoy myself. — I'm glad that there is allowance for you to still be normal like human. I think the next thing going forward would be finding the right balance. — Yeah, — one day of bad eating doesn't spoil the summer. We all fall off the wagon every now and again. Doesn't really matter. It's the long-term plan that counts and that's what you should be focusing on. Long-term sustainability. That's what moves the needle. — So, it's week five. I'm just about to eat my breakfast. I just used to have a piece of toast with mama and that was it. Whereas now I'm having yogurt and nuts and seeds and fruit. I'm less grumpy, I'd say. Definitely makes me feel better. So much more energized and happier. — When I go to work, I normally make a pack lunch. That's changed quite dramatically. I normally have a salad with either eggs or tuna or sort of mixed beans and fruit and nuts basically. And um I'm feeling much fuller and uh less slumps in the afternoon. So that's a great thing. By improving just by small amounts your mood and energy levels that sends a feedback loop to your brain saying what I'm doing is actually helping myself every day. I'm never going to go back to my old habits. And I think it's this feedback loop that is really important. And that's really been the success of people who've followed the Zoey program. So, another week and I feel like I've done well mostly. I'm just so tired because had a pretty rough day at work. Typically, I would have liked a takeaway, something went really easy, but look at me. That's a whole pan of veg. Obviously, that's going to be nothing leftovers. I'm not going to scoff that all in one go. But, um, I think the main thing is I've kind of conditioned myself to make really healthy choices. And I feel like I really noticed like the hyper palibility of like naughty food. I could see why I was so like hooked on it. [snorts] And I feel like it actually hurts me now to eat it. Like my stomach hurts. [snorts] — So yeah, I'm pretty pleased with the choices I'm making. — A good diet is about enjoyment. It's about conviviality. It's about sharing the food with people you love. It's about learning to cook well and doing that in your own time. learning about flavor and texture and color, focusing on what we need to be adding more of instead of reducing. More plant diversity, more ferments, better protein quality, and making sure that you're embracing mindful eating. All speak to the power of the joy of eating and of adding abundance to your plate. — So ultimately, Zo is about creating habits that last a lifetime. — Now that the 6 weeks are done, we'll retest them and see if these dietary changes can have such an effect in such a small time. So, I'm get my results tomorrow. I am excited cuz I feel like it'd be good to see what difference has been made, if any. Obviously, the apprehension is that it's only been 6 weeks, so would there be much difference? I'm also quite conscious of the few times that I've gone off the rails a bit and gone to the pub a couple of times. That's what I'm worried about really. I've seen difference so I'll be happy with that as it is. But any change in the numbers would be really

good to see. It's always nerve-wracking getting results because I feel really good and I'm hoping that my results reflect that. — So, I had pretty high triglycerides, so be good to find out a little bit more about those and hopefully they've dropped down. That'll be good. — Yeah, something I'm really excited for, but a little bit nervous. A little bit more nervous than I thought I'd be actually. Being a professor in nutritional sciences at King's College London. My research over the last 25 years has involved lots of randomized control trials particularly in the area of diet and I'm here to give the participants their final results. — Hi Rob. Lovely to meet you. — Hi Sarah. Have a seat. — Thank you. — So how have you found the last 6 weeks? — Really enjoyed the food we've been eating. It's been more exciting. It's been tastier. — I am eating more which is amazing. So adding more to my plate rather than restricting myself. — Nice. Let's move on to look at your results. Rob, we're going to start with you. And what I'm is looking at your gut score. So you started at 539. What we found was that you went up quite significantly and you went up to 587. This is out of a score of a thousand. What I'd expect is that it will just continue to improve even more. — Well, that's yeah, great to hear. We also measured something called triglycerides. — Yeah. — Your initial triglycerides was very high. It — was quite high. Yeah. — It was quite worrying just how high they were. But the great news is they've come down a lot to almost within a healthy range. Your triglyceride levels are a lot lower than they were at the beginning. — Fantastic. It's good news. — I'm delighted by Rob's results. I think it just shows how rapidly simple changes to the diet can have such a dramatic effect — that will result in long-term significant health benefits. — Really pleased how it's gone. Really nice to see that eating really well has caused tangible benefits in the numbers. I feel like I've gained all this knowledge now and I can just carry that forward for the rest of my life. — Yeah. The other thing that we looked at was some of the self-reported data. This is where I think the results also get really interesting. We've been asking people weekly to log their mood, their energy, their hunger. — These are self-reported symptoms, but we found they're absolutely crucial in really working out what's going on inside our brains when we change our diets. — The data shows this doubling in your sleep quality. — Oh wow. — That is a huge amount. — I'm totally shocked my sleeps improved. I kind of thought that was there forever. I'd be waking up at I don't know 3 4 5. I don't ever wake up such anymore before 6 now. No. — So it's just crazy how the difference in sliding day. It really is. — Alertness. — Yeah. — 60% increase in alertness which is amazing. So you must be doing very well at work at the moment. — Well, better. Yeah. — So well done Rob and Sarah. Should we see how you've got on? I hope this isn't a competition over who's improved. It's always come to — Sarah's gut score was 715 which puts her above average but she is going through the permenopause and is having symptoms related to that. — So Sarah we're going to start with you with your gut score as well. — Yours went up by phenomenal 134 points to 849. So that's fantastic. Your questionnaire data. Yeah. So, we looked at your menopause symptoms. At Zoe, we've developed a menopause symptom tracking scale and what it involves is tracking 20 different symptoms. And so, you get a total score out of 100 with 100 meaning that you have a greater burden for menopause symptoms and zero meaning you have no burden for menopause symptoms. You started with a score of 45, right? So, that shows that your symptoms were having quite a big burden. some of the psychological symptoms like anxiety, mood, those kind of symptoms. — I couldn't understand why I was feeling very flat about life and just feeling really anxious about driving and all these things that used to not bother me at all were becoming a real problem and I've definitely found that they have got better. — So the data supports that you went from 45 down to three. Brilliant. — Which is quite outstanding. — Yes. We saw that you had an 81% reduction in anxiety. — Yes. That to me is what's the most exciting thing is actually finally feeling a bit more like myself. Permenopause struck when I was about 45 and that's when I felt like I was unraveling a little bit. I was catastrophizing everything and all the

little small stuff would really affect me and I just don't feel that way now. I just feel more in control. I feel my mood swings are less and I feel a better mom for it. — For Sarah, it was great to see extra improvements, reducing anxiety and her menopausal symptoms have improved. That's fantastic. — You're seeing this after just 6 weeks. I think the future's really exciting. Research now shows that if you change from the typical UK diet to an optimum healthy diet, at the age of 40, you can add up to 10 years onto your life. At the age of 70, you can add even six years. It just shows the power of nutrition at any time in your life. — It's genuinely remarkable. — I'm amazed by that. For me, that was telling me that I'm doing something right and that I am looking after my body and hopefully I'm going to have a nice long life and be around for my kids. — Oh, so who won then? Count up. Hi Lucy, lovely to meet you. — Nice to meet you, too. — I'm hopeful that we have some good results. — Lucy has a gut health score of 337, which compared to the average person in the UK is poor. She has a problem with her immune system and inflammation. — So, the good news is overall your gut health score has gone up, which is fantastic. So, it's gone from 337 to 398. — Oh, nice. — Gut health is absolutely crucial to our well-being. This virtual organ affects our metabolism and how much weight we might be gaining, our mental health, and it's also crucial for our immune system, regulating inflammation, and regulating how we respond to everything from aging to cancer. That's really good cuz I was worried that there was going to be no difference because there were a couple of times where I did sort of stray off it a little bit. So, you know, went to the pub, had some drinks, had some like takeaway food. Food is there to bring us joy. It's part of our social connections. culture. And so, I'd be really careful not to beat yourself up. — So, should we go on to look at some of the health measures? — Yes. — So, if we look at inflammation first, you had quite a high CRP. CRP is a measure of inflammation. It's really important because we now know that inflammation, chronic inflammation, underpins many of the chronic diseases that many of us are suffering. And so what we want to aim for is a kind of diet that minimizes our levels of chronic inflammation. The great news is your CRP level has reduced by 13%. — Which is a really big reduction again after just 6 weeks. So I'm really pleased to see that. That's really good because I think that's the measure I was most sort of concerned about. I feel relieved and quite optimistic as well about things going forward. Okay. So, should we have a look at some of the self-reported data? So, this is where I think the data gets really exciting. Would you say that you felt more hungry, less hungry? — Less. The food noise is definitely almost gone. — Great. So, the data supports that. So, you've had a 30% reduction in feelings of hunger. — Oo, that's good. — Your energy levels increased by threefold. — 300% increase in self-reported energy levels. That's amazing. — I think that adds up definitely. Obviously, myself, I have felt better. But even people in my life have said they've noticed I seem a lot more present, a lot more energetic, a lot happier, a lot more peppy than than I was before. It's wonderful seeing these kind of changes because you realize, okay, it's all very well seeing an improvement in triglycerides or these other measures, but actually how you feel in the here and now is so important. — I'm delighted with Lucy's progress. It's great to see her gut health score improving and the fact she's got so much more energy really is a fantastic bonus. — I feel like it's one of the best things I've done really. and having the numbers backing up how I actually feel just reinforces it even more. Before this, I was starting to feel really hopeless. So, finding something that I feel like I've learned so much about nutrition, about myself, about what works. It's almost like I've cracked the code and like I've struck gold dust or something. — Wow. So, that is the end of week six. I can't believe I've made it. I've really enjoyed it. Actually, — I thought it might be a bit of a fad and I didn't see the benefits of doing it, but both our moods have improved. — I'm actually just feeling better in myself. — More energy, more positive, happier. It's amazing really. — I feel like I know a lot more about my body and where it's at the moment. Going forward, it's only going to get better. So, I'm definitely going to keep up eating this way.

This journey has sort of shown that I'm capable of a lot more than I thought I was. — I'm so proud of our participants from different starting points. They've all managed to improve their general health, their mental health, their physical health just 6 weeks. Hopefully, this will inspire you to make similar changes yourself for the benefit of your health. I think it's amazing to see Sarah, Rob, and Lucy say they now understand their food in a completely different way and that living according to Zoe principles improved their gut health and created sustainable daily habits. It's taken myself, Federica, and Sarah many years to develop our gut supplement, Daily 30, and the Zoey app. Many people told us they understood the importance of eating 30 plants a week, but they found it difficult to do this consistently. So, we created Daily 30, a blend of over 30 different plant ingredients. We ran a randomized control trial on the original recipe, which helped us inform the formulation we use today. Sarah, Rob, and Lucy have made a big change to how they eat. And it's really hard to do this alone. And that's why we developed the Zoey app to provide a personalized program to navigate through the ultrarocessed food that surrounds us and guide you on what changes you need to make. Over the last decade, we've analyzed data from tens of thousands of Zoey members, studying how food affects our gut microbes, our metabolism, and ultimately our health. If you'd like to learn more about Life on Zoey and start your own gut health journey, tap here.