The daily step count that cuts inflammation in half | Prof. Janet Lord

27:26So I'd love to talk a bit about what we can do, because I think you're now painting this picture that inflammation is playing a really big role, I think, in how many healthy years we're having to enjoy. But there's one intervention that I know that you've studied really extensively, and I understand that's exercise. I think lots of people listening is like, well, you know, I know that exercise is good for me, but what's that got to do with my immune system and inflammation. Can you help us understand, Janet? I can. Again, lots of ways. And as you said, we've known for a long time that the more physically active you are, you know, you reduce your risk of a whole range of diseases.

28:03You're likely to be longer lived and have a longer healthy lifespan. And it's now becoming clear that this might be because exercise reduces inflammation. And it does it in lots of ways. So if you're being very physically active, you're less likely to have too much adipose tissue, too much fat. So you've reduced one of those sources of that inflammation. By doing that, you've reduced the risk of your vessels being damaged. I told you earlier about inflammation reduces your muscle mass and strength. So you've reduced one of the causes of you feeling more frail and less able to function physically.

28:42The other thing that your viewers may not be aware of is that muscle itself actually can be anti-inflammatory. I didn't touch on that earlier, but moving muscle produces cytokines that dampen the inflammation down. Particularly, they educate immune cells to be anti-inflammatory. And so the more your muscle is moving, the more it's producing helpful cytokines to dampen the inflammation. and the more you sit, the less of those are being produced. So that's why we know that sedentary time is also important. So your viewers might struggle with this one. Help me to understand that. So they're two different factors.

29:26So the time you spent doing exercise is great. It's going to give you all of these benefits, reduce the inflammation, help you to be more anti-inflammatory. But if you then, say you do your 45 minutes of exercise in the morning, you go and walk the dog or you do a little jog, whatever you do for your exercise, and then you sit then for eight or 10 hours watching daytime television or you're at work and you're at your desk, you can undo a lot of that because the muscle will then not produce that dampening cytokine for that long period of time. So now we know that, yes, you need to be physically active, but also don't be too sedentary.

30:05If you're sitting, you've got a desk job or you're at home, you're retired now, perhaps every hour, get up and move around, even if it's just for 10 minutes. I think I'd understood why that might be good for my heart or something. There's always things like, you know, just having the muscles is good. But here you're describing the way that it's directly sort of almost orchestrating my immune system. Totally, totally. It turns out that your muscle is a major regulator of your immune system. It can make it less inflammatory, basically. And so if you're not moving, then say you get an infection, you're much more likely to have this overshoot with your inflammation.

30:42As long as you break that sitting time up, and then this pro-inflammatory system can't really get established. So you get up, you know, after an hour, move around and then, yeah, because sometimes, you know, you may not be able to, you know, stand up all day. I had a standing desk at work and so I did stand all day. So think about that one. That's another good one to think about. So one thing you're saying is don't sit for a long time. I need to walk around because then I'm getting all of these benefits from my muscles that are sort of dampening my inflammation. What about the exercise itself?

31:17I guess how important is that 45 minutes of something more intense? And what do you need to be doing to get the benefit to sort of fight this inflammation? Yeah. So we sort of class exercise in two broad areas as aerobics. So that's basically anything that raises your heart rate, gets you a little bit out of breath. And that is very good for reducing the inflammation, for helping your heart, helping your lungs, as well as your muscle function itself. And the other type of exercise is what we call resistance exercise. So that's strengthening. This might be band work or if you go to a gym, lifting weights.

31:53Or I always say to people, you don't even need to go to the gym, just go up and down stairs. And then, you know, that's a really good exercise. it's aerobic and it's resistance but the resistance is more important for the building of strength of your muscle and the muscle mass so ideally you need to do both the aerobic to bring the inflammation down the evidence is stronger there for aerobic bringing inflammation down and the resistance to keep your muscles themselves a good size and good function i always say you know worst thing you can do is an older adult is to go and get a bungalow or live in an apartment with no steps and you'll end up with bungalow legs.

32:31So legs with less muscle and less strength. That's really interesting. I heard this on speaking to another scientist a little while ago, thinking about, you know, what you should do with your parents. And I definitely was brought up with this idea that, you know, as your parents get older, anyone gets older, like they should take it easy. They shouldn't have to carry their own bags. And he was saying, oh, no, you should make, you know, your parents carry the shopping upstairs if you really love them. Is that really true? Yeah, absolutely true. Yes. My mother, when we were looking for a home for her to move into when she was downsizing, she wanted a ground level apartment.

33:06We said, no, mom, you're getting one with stairs. You're on the first floor or the second floor. She wasn't pleased about it, but I think she enjoyed it. And you feel that basically you're giving her more years of healthy life. Absolutely. You're ground floor. You're not using those stairs. You're not getting that exercise for your muscles. And it's such a simple thing to do. So, you know, I always say to people for no other reason, every day, just going down your stairs 10 times, just for no reason, just go and do it as your exercise. And Janet, you're a scientist, so you like to talk about all the data and not about yourself.

33:34But I feel that I have to ask this question, as you said, you're one of the world's experts on inflammation. What do you therefore do for yourself as you think about exercise? Right. So I do a few things. So I exercise every day. So I'm a keen runner. I don't run every day now because I've now got a knee that's not in great shape. But I go to the gym, I swim. I do that four days a week. If I'm not doing that, then I will go out and do a brisk walk for about 30 minutes. But I always say to people, just do more than you're doing now. Don't get too worried about, oh, I've got to go and do 20 ,000 steps or whatever.

34:11Just do more than you're doing now. So we did a study, this 10 ,000 steps a day. Where did that come from? And where's the evidence base for it? And there wasn't one. You know, it was, I think it was the Tokyo Olympics where it was, it came into fashion. And so we looked at 200 older adults in Birmingham. We got them to wear a Fitbit and we looked at their steps. And then we looked at how much inflammation they'd got. The ones that were doing 3 ,000 steps a day or less had really high inflammation. The ones that were doing 5 ,000 to 7 ,000 had dropped it by 50%. By 50 %? 50%. Only at 5 ,000 to 7 ,000 steps?

34:46Only at 5 ,000. And the ones that were doing 10 ,000, guess what? They had no inflammation. So it turns out the 10 ,000 did have something. But I always say to people, if you're just doing the five and seven, you're going to have less inflammation than somebody who's only doing 3 ,000 steps a day. Going from like 3 ,000 steps a day to 5 ,000 to 6 ,000, you're like half the inflammation. Yeah. And you're saying that people at 10 ,000... They had no inflammation. Had no inflammation. Yeah. So that's not a correct, you know, because I think often we listen to this stuff on social media and people are doing three hours in the gym, you know, lifting their own body weight in both arms.

35:19Like anyone who knows me knows that I can definitely not do any of these things. But you're actually saying just walking 10 ,000 steps a day is enough to switch this inflammation level down low enough. Yes. And will that work even if you're also, you know, quite heavily overweight, given what you were describing before about the way that the weight was part of the problem? That's really interesting. So again, most of the studies where they've actually done an intervention, So they've got people to change their lifestyle. It does work best if you're overweight or obese. So those are the folks with that highest level of inflammation.

35:50And they will tend to drop their inflammation. They'll have the biggest fall if they then do an exercise intervention. So it's true that basically it makes sense, doesn't it? The more inflammation you've got, the more chance there is that you'll make a drop when you increase your physical activity. If you haven't got much inflammation to start with, then it's harder to get rid of it. you're doing more exercise than that 10 000 steps and that's because the benefits of exercise i guess it's not only for this inflammation it's for other things as well yes generally so just feeling good about yourself i think helps with your mental health as well um so just all around good and just feeling good at i'm a morning exerciser so i always exercise in the morning and i find it sets me up for the day the other thing i do um which which we we haven't discussed so far is that again a lot of your viewers will have heard about is intermittent fasting so i fast for one day a week so i have my last meal on a sunday evening and then i don't eat again then till tuesday morning oh wow so you're not just talking about like reducing not just reducing your time i didn't like that as much this sort of six hours feed but some people find they can't do the the full you have your last meal on sunday and then you miss all of monday Monday and then breakfast on Tuesday.

37:02So I find that incomprehensible since I know how grumpy I would already be by lunchtime. How does it make you feel? People say, well, don't you feel really tired? I say, no, it's the opposite. Actually, I feel wired. You know, you feel really alive. And that's because one of the things the fasting does is it stimulates cortisol in the body, which, you know, perks you up and it's the awakening hormone. So you feel alert. But we also know that whether you do the full fast like I do or you do that six hours, that fasting period where you've got the 18 hours of fasting, it stimulates anti-aging process in the body, including dropping inflammation.

37:39But it also stimulates a process called autophagy, which in the body basically gets rid of all the debris and the damage in your body. And fasting does that. So we know roughly how fasting works now. So it's like a little hoover going around the body, hoovering everything up and getting rid of the rubbish. And how long have you been doing this for? I've been doing this since my 30s, so over 30 years now. And did that start coming out of your scientific research? Not at all. No, no. To be honest, I had a lovely American auntie called Aunt Maureen. And she used to say it's for detoxing your body.

38:12And so it was a big thing at the time. And so I said, OK, I'll give it a try. And then later when I began looking at aging and trying to find out how it worked, then sure enough that's when I discovered actually what it really does is it does it is a detox because it gets rid of the rubbish in the body but it drops inflammation down and it in turns on lots of anti-aging processes. Is that a big part of what means you're continuing with this like it feels like you're doing this really healthy thing for yourself? Yeah I think so I even got my husband to do it now it took me a long time to persuade him but he's been doing it now for about seven years and we'd never go back to not having a fasting day.

38:47That's amazing so what else can we do? Okay, so if you don't want to do the fasting or the intermittent fasting, just what you eat as well can help. So we've mentioned microbiome already. So if you can get a nice diverse microbiome by lots of different fruit and vegetables in your diet, pulses as well. Most of you will have heard of pre or probiotics as well. Try and have a really varied diet. So that will help. The other thing is specific things in your diet. So things like unsaturated fatty acids, so vegetables, oils and fish oils we know are anti-inflammatory. So they will bring the inflammation down.

39:27So specific foods in your diet will help as well. And do we understand yet the exact microbes that we might be trying to support in our diet? Or is that like we hope one day we'll understand how that links through to the inflammation but we're not there yet i think we're getting nearer so there's specific bacteria that seem to be really helpful and and educate your immune system and keep the inflammation down one of them are called the firmicutes so we are beginning to understand that and then the bad guys the pathobiance things like staphylococcus is in there so we are we're beginning to understand we're just trying to i think the people working in that area are fine-tuning exactly which ones are doing which bit of the pro-health agenda, really.

40:13So that's where the field is, and particularly which foods might stimulate or allow them to grow in the gut. Do you know someone who's making an effort to stay fit and healthy? Share this episode with them. Janet's cutting-edge research could help them adjust their approach and add more healthy years to their life. I'm sure they'll thank you. Now, you talked about fasting, and you obviously go for something that's very impressive. but I think we know, you know, even from our own Zoe research that it's, you know, it's very hard for most people to manage to fast and you're even more than 24 hours.

40:48But there's been a lot of interest in time-restricted eating. So not eating what the average American or British person does, which is probably for like 16 hours a day, but for a shorter time period. Is there any evidence about that having any effect on this inflammation? There is, yes. Yes, so that time-restricted eating, so whether you do six hours of eating and 18 hours of not eating, yeah, the evidence is there. A lot of it is still in the animal studies, in mice and what have you. So when they've put mice on this intermittent fasting, they live longer, they live healthier. But there have been studies in humans as well.

41:26A lot of them not for a long length of time, it might be three or six months. But in those studies, yes, they bring the inflammation down. and some of the other risk factors for say cardiovascular disease are down as well so their lipids and their cholesterol change as well so yes it does seem that in humans it's definitely going to help what i'm understanding from you is so much of this is about somehow switching off the inflammation so why would not eating help switch my inflammation down is like turning on this process of autophagy so you're getting rid of damage in the body and damage in the body is another thing that can cause the inflammation.

42:02It will stimulate your immune system. And what autophagy does is get rid of that damage. It removes the damage in the body. So again, you've lost one of the on signals. And of course, if you're doing that intermittent fasting, you will also drop the adipose tissue. So again, you're getting rid of another on signal. And because you're reducing the inflammation, Remember I said the inflammation itself can bite back on the immune system and suppress it and cause it to be more inflammatory as well. So you're removing lots of on signals for inflammation with that intermittent fasting. That's fascinating.

42:42Now, of course, as we talked a lot about the things that we can add, if you like, to reduce this inflammation, I feel we haven't talked a lot about what is it in our environment that might be creating that long term inflammation. And I know this is something my co-founder, Tim Spector, talks a lot about. And he tends to start with food. But I'd love to know, like, from your research, and I guess the research that you study, what's going on in our environment in 2025 that is, you know, leading us to have higher levels of inflammation that then we're struggling to turn off? Well, certainly, as you said, diet is in there.

43:20So we're eating, a lot of us are eating a diet that isn't promoting a good, healthy microbiome, a nice, diverse microbiome. But I think the other thing is, as I touched on earlier, is sedentary time. We are really sedentary human beings now and we have not evolved to be sedentary. So most of the data now is showing that when you actually accurately measure people's physical activity, that as we get older, we're doing less and less physical activity. And if you look at 65-year-olds, only 10 % of men are being physically active enough. So following the chief medical officer's guidelines of 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week.

44:02And ladies, it's even less. It's down below 5%. So Janet, only 5 % to 10 % of people once they're 65 are actually following the general guidelines about how much activity. That's right. Yeah. So there are lots of research that's done by a questionnaire. So asking people how physically active they are. And we're humans. We tend to overestimate a little bit. But in studies where they've actually got them to wear a Fitbit or some sort of thing that's measured how active they are, then the figures are much lower. And in the over 65-year-olds, they're in that 5 % to 10%. This reminds me a lot of what I hear about food, where it's the same thing where you look at how much fiber, for example, people are eating in the US or the UK.

44:42It's at the same sort of level versus the guidelines. Yes. So there's this huge mismatch. How much of this is like people just don't have enough willpower? And how much of this is that we sort of built our lives in a way which is just at odds with how we're meant to live? And therefore, somehow, if we could redesign our life a bit, a bit like you said with your mother and making sure that there are stairs to go up and down. How much of it is sort of somehow designing your life better to solve it? I think a lot of it is people, you know, that they've got very busy lives. you know, our lives now, you know, people often be commuting, perhaps a long time to work, or even if they're working at home, you know, they're sitting at home, they're largely sedentary.

45:23And I think a lot of the time, people probably just not thinking about it. You know, I think once you speak to people, and you explain, well, you know, why we age, why we lose muscle, why our immune system might not be working, and some of the ways that they can avoid that. So, like I said, getting up every hour and moving around, being less sedentary, trying to up their step count. I think once it's there in the front of people's minds, I think they're more likely to then do something about it. I think people like to know why, not just nanny telling them, you know, you've got to do this. They want to know, well, why?

45:57Why should I try and do my 10 ,000 steps? Why should I not sit and watch daytime television all day? Why should I go upstairs? I think if people know why, I think they're more inclined to try and do that. That's really interesting. So if someone's listened to this and saying, Janet, you totally convinced me, I want to have all those extra healthy years and I need to help my immune system to sort of switch off this inflammation. I'm interested in exercise. You've been very clear about this. I'm interested in food. Do we understand anything about specific types of food that could help to reduce inflammation?

46:34So there are specific foods. So I've mentioned the polyunsaturated fatty acids. They're definitely anti-inflammatory. So we know that. They're probably the ones that's got the most evidence. Vitamin D that a lot of your viewers will have heard about. We know supports your immune system as well as helping muscle and bone. So that's another one. and then there's others that you know your listeners may not have heard of there's one called astaxanthine which is the red color in salmon and in vegetables and that also is anti-inflammatory so yeah we do we do know quite a bit but probably the most work has been done on the polyunsaturated fatty acids so what i'm understanding is firstly like these you know sort of these healthy fats you're describing that you get in sort of oily fish and olive oils and things like this are really good but also we now understand that what do you call it astaxanthine which is actually you said like a red color like red food salmon the red color and red color in food and we actually know that that specifically has anti-inflammatory properties yeah that's amazing i'd never heard that so there's a lot we can do with exercise there's a lot we can do with food is there anything else that affects inflammation and i guess one of the things in my mind is like there's so much discussion about being somehow more mindful and less stressed and how stressful life is.

47:53Is that all hocus pocus or is there any science in that? No, not at all. So we do know that stress in the body will certainly, again, promote some of the features that we think of as ageing. So cortisol, I've mentioned quite a few times, is what we call catabolic. So it breaks tissues down and its role in the body is part of your flight and fight response. So if you're in danger, when we were the hunter-gatherers, you need to be able to run away from that saber-toothed tiger. So you up your cortisol, you up your adrenaline. And if they're there for a short length of time, then they're good. They break down your tissues, they produce energy.

48:32But it's like the inflammation, you don't want them there for a long time. So when they're there for a long time, then they can carry on breaking the tissues down, increasing your chance of osteoporosis and sarcopenia. So stress, yeah, when it's chronic, again, it's like the inflammation. Short term, acute, you need it biologically, but long term, you really don't want it around. And that cortisol also suppresses your immune system. It sounds much worse than I would have expected. You're saying like, literally, I'm really stressed for a long period of time and it's going to break down my muscles and all sorts of cells in my body.

49:08Yeah, and again, most of your viewers will recognise that when you're stressed, you're more susceptible to infections. if you're going through a stressful period you get coughs and colds and all manner of things because your immune system is suppressed one of the reasons it's worse as you get older is a your immune system doesn't function as well as you get older but also like everything else in the body there's balance so when you have a stress you make the stress hormone cortisol but you also make another one called dhea and that's pro building your muscle up it supports your immune system but as you get older you go through a thing called the adrenopause so your viewers will have a bit of menopause which is losing your sex hormones so adrenopause you'll lose the ability to make dhea so you haven't got the counterbalance to the cortisol anymore so you're out of kilter so anytime you have a stress as an older adult you're making the cortisol but you can't make as much dhea to balance it so you're more stressed as it were hormone wise and when does that start to happen?

50:1230 years old, I'm afraid. Yeah, about 30 years old, you start to go through the adrenal pause. Oh, so this happens really early in life. It's one of the earliest pauses. So anyone listening to this... And males and females. It's a gradual decline, but by the time you get to 70, you've only got about 10 % of the DHEA that you had as a 20-year-old. Only 10 %? Yeah. And so that means it's cortisol, which you're describing... Which you make all the time. That doesn't decline. Your ability to make cortisol stays with age but dhea you lose your ability to make so you're good at getting stressed but worse getting unstressed is that what you're saying yes that's fascinating and you're then describing how this cortisol also directly has these like bad impacts expresses the immune system breaks tissues down and again just as you said about inflammation like short term to be able to stress is fine yeah but long term it's a real problem yes yes and does this also then tie back to this description about about why you might get flu in your 70s or 80s and you can end up in hospital, but when you're in your 20s...

51:12That's right. You can't make the counterbalance and you've got an immune system that doesn't function as well anyway as you get older. So the two together are just killers. Last thing that I haven't heard you mention is sleep. Yeah. Does it matter? It does. It does. Again, it's a relatively new area thinking about the impact on aging, but we do know that there's a sweet spot. It's like a U-shaped curve. So if you sleep for approximately six and a half, seven and a half hours, then your risk of dying is at the lowest. But either end, so if you're down at four to five hours or if you're over at 10 hours, then you've got a higher risk.

51:49So too little and too much sleep are bad for you. And the sweet spot is about six and a half and seven and a half hours. And again, that low level, that four to five hours, again, is a stressor. You know, you're awake because you've got higher levels of this cortisol. It's your awakening hormone. There's lots of things in the body, but it's the awakening hormone. So when you wake up in the morning, it's because you've had a surge in cortisol. And as you get older, unfortunately, you tend to wake up earlier because you've got that cortisol, but you haven't got the counterbalance as well. So you wake up earlier, you don't sleep for as long and your sleep quality isn't as good either.

52:27So, you know, you tend to be waking up constantly in the night. And does the sleep have any direct beneficial impact on inflammation? and I'm just asking because I feel like when you have a good night's sleep somehow you just wake up feeling refreshed everywhere. To be honest that needs looking at there's really not enough. We did a tiny study years ago but it was probably too small to find anything trying to see if there was any correlation between sleep duration and inflammation but it needs to be done on a bigger study. I mean part of what I'm taking away from this is we know a lot about how important inflammation is for our health but it sounds like there's a lot of things that we don't yet really understand in terms of how this inflammation is being controlled?

53:05Exactly, exactly. We need to understand more about the precise causes in each person because they will vary. In one person, it might be because they're not being physically active enough. In another person, it might be their diet. It's going to be different. And how they deal with that, some people might have really good off-switches and so they can, as it were, offset their lifestyle choice or whatever they're doing. And other people might not have really good off-switches and they're going to be much more susceptible. And Janet, is there a future where I'm going to be able to go to see my doctor and get medication to solve the fact that my inflammation is too high?

53:44Oh gosh, that's a good question. Yeah, there is. There's certainly work in that area. Some of your viewers may have heard of things, the polypill, where they're trying to think, is there a medication? And the polypill contains things like statins, like antihypertensives, folate to help you regenerate tissues, and certainly anti-inflammatories in there. So there's certainly some of the medical profession that do want to promote that idea. And certainly there's merits there. And statins, we haven't spoken about really drugs at all, but statins, we did some research a few years ago now showing that they correct one of the defects in the immune system.

54:22So they make a cell called a neutrophil, which kills bacteria. They make it work better. and they also reduce the inflammation when a person's got pneumonia. So statins, as well as keeping your cholesterol down, also seem to promote a good immune system. Yeah, I think in the future there could be pills that will do it and won't have the side effects. With the drugs, you've always got to think about the side effects, whereas diet and exercise, hey, what's not to like about them? And it sounds like there isn't like a magic breakthrough drug that's just we're all going to be hearing about next year.

54:57Well, that's really interesting. So there are quite a few trials going on looking at some different drugs that tackle different aspects of ageing processes. So looking at the core ageing processes. Some of them are existing drugs. Again, one is metformin, which is used to treat type 2 diabetes. There are others that are looking more at things in the diet that might be able to tackle or cause anti-aging processes. So, you know, there are studies with those. There's one component called quercetin, another one called fissatin. And what they do is they stimulate anti-aging processes. So those trials are ongoing.

55:40We just don't have the answer yet. But give it five or 10 years and that's the way the field is going, I think. Janet, you've offered so much different great advice, which is great, but also maybe a little overwhelming. Let's say I wanted to share one piece of advice with my sister who I'm actually talking to later today and it's like something she could do tomorrow. What would it be? For me, it would be increase your step count. Be more physically active. That would be the number one thing. That would be the number one. Number two would be reduce your sedentary time. So very closely linked. That would be my advice.

56:19Because I think it's something that everybody can do. And as I said, don't worry about your current level. Just do a bit more. I would like to try and do a quick summary. And Janet, please just correct anything that I've got wrong. The thing that springs straight to my mind is this amazing study you did that said, You know, when people got up to 10 ,000 steps a day, you saw no inflammation. And that is like a very achievable target. And, you know, a lot of people, particularly people who are now working at home, you can be way, way below that. But like that is manageable. That's not saying you have to pump iron for two hours or run a marathon or indeed fast for 36 hours.

56:57The second thing that I'm amazed by is this idea that my body fat creates inflammation. and that we now understand that one of the reasons why being overweight is so bad for your health is because it's actually pumping, you know, it's actively doing something. It's not just this dormant thing as I'd understood it. And the third thing that I'm really shocked by is that when I'm stressed, I'm creating this cortisol, it's actually breaking down my muscles and damaging my bone, which probably only makes me even more stressed, which is always the danger of knowing a little bit more about what's going on.

57:26But that's amazing. And what you've been studying all this time is the way that all of this, your diet, you know, being too sedentary is driving higher inflammation. And we now know that this inflammation is sort of central to why we age, you know, heart disease, dementia, and indeed even like why it slows our muscle growth, which also causes us problems as we, as we get old. And that the issue is not just that switching inflammation on, it's the fact that we're losing this ability to switch it off. And so it's sort of permanently like on at a low level instead of being switched off. And that's a really big problem because it's suppressing our immune system and causing all of these problems.

58:05And that as our immune system gets older, we lose the ability to fight infections. And this inflammation is just making that worse, which again means that when you get sick in the winter, suddenly you're getting sicker for longer than before. There are other things you were saying that can both help and hurt. So you said for many women going through menopause, for example, is a big shift and your inflammation rises because you've lost the estrogen. But on the other hand, you know, if you can build up more muscle, whoever you are, you can reduce inflammation. And therefore, I think your key tips you're saying is make sure you're doing exercise, even just steps, like just whatever you are, if you can do more steps tomorrow, you're going to really make a difference.

58:45But also don't just think about it as exercise and then being stationary, which I think I'm often guilty of of saying, well, I've done the gym. So now I can just sit down for the rest of the day and you're saying it doesn't work you need to you know get up every hour you said and if you can design your life somehow to achieve this so the good thing for me is i'm addicted to drinking tea so one of the things i've done is like my studies at the top of the house and the kettles at the bottom of the house that forces me to go up and down and what you're saying is i might actually be fighting my inflammation just because you're going up and downstairs and you're reducing your sedentary time i'm the same my studies in the loft and the kitchen's down two floors below Whatever I do, I mustn't put a kettle up next to the study.

59:26No, definitely not. That's how I look after myself. And don't go to a bungalow. You yourself are doing something rather remarkable, which is fasting for more than 24 hours, because you think this is sort of switching on all of these systems to keep you younger. And I guess the other big thing that we talked about was food, and that we know that the diet not only is improving our microbiome, but is having this big impact on our inflammation, reducing the inflammation. and it's many of the classic things that we talk about on this podcast but it's really interesting that you focus a lot on the healthy fats that are supporting us like the olive oils and the oily fish and that indeed it might be that there's this red color that is in salmon and certain vegetables might itself be one of the things that's also contributing so anything important that i missed there janet i know i don't think so i think you've captured it all yes yes i mean my takeaway is we now understand that a lot about what is making us age.

1:00:22And it's not just inevitable that basically by the lifestyle choices we make, we can have a very big impact on - You can really slow it down. You can't stop it, but you can really slow it down. Now, if you listen to the show regularly, you already believe that changing how you eat can transform your health, but you can only do so much with general advice from a weekly podcast. If you want to feel much better now and be on the path to live many more healthy years, you need something more. And that's why more than 100 ,000 members trust Zoe each day to help them make the smartest food choices. Combining our world-leading science with your Zoe test results, Zoe is your daily companion to better health for life.

1:01:02So how does it work? Zoe membership starts with at-home testing to understand your unique body. then Zoe's app is your health coach using weekly check-ins and daily guidance to help you shift your food choices to steadily improve your health. I rely on Zoe's advice every day and truly it has transformed how I feel. Will you give Zoe a try? The first step is easy. Take our free quiz to find out what Zoe membership could do for you. Simply go to zoe.com slash podcast, where as a podcast listener, you'll get 10 % off. As always, I'm your host, Jonathan Wolfe. Zoe Science and Nutrition is produced by Julie Pinero, Sam Durham, and Richard Willen.

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