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Zoe programme

P

Pollaidh

Member
Messages
16
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Has anyone tried the Zoe programme? It measures micro biome and tracks your glucose responses to foods you eat. It’s led by Professor Tim Spector.
 
I've looked at it and a friend and her husband did it. They were disallusioned as one had bad blood glucose control the other had a bad response to fats but good blood sugar control (but not diabetes). Their food recommendations were very similar. All the usual things you'd expect.
I think the cgm is a good tool to monitor your blood sugar but you can do this without Zoe.
 
Tim Spector and the others behind Zoe belong to the plant based diet camp i.e. vegetarian/vegan. So I feel that they make things more difficult for T2 diabetes control.

Thus unless you are a veggie/vegan, I feel that Dr David Unwin, Low Carb Freshwell and the 'What have you eaten today' thread in the Low Carb Diet forum are better sources of ideas.
 
I’ve seen it pop up on Facebook, I’ve not paid that much attention to it so can’t comment on what it would be like as a tool for managing diabetes. It seems to becoming a bit “gimmicky” as last I’ve seen they are getting you to eat bright blue cookies & pasta to determine what a food does to you, probably a digestive thing. Like @Jo123 says the CGM part would be helpful if you wanted to use it. My personal take is as diabetics we already know what foods to avoid for our diabetes (it could possibly flag up other intolerances) which is carbs so for me personally I wouldn’t bother with it.
 
Did a bit of background research on this and despite the free blogs and podcasts (which range from interesting to scientifically dodgy) one must remember that Zoe is a for profit venture. Participants pay around £2.5k for the devices and all data belongs to Zoe.

I'm guessing but I think that data will be leveraged at some point to inform providers of foods, additives, probiotics, medical devices, drugs, etc. Not necessarily a bad thing but at the moment they're just collecting data and are not authorised to give medical advice.
 
Jasmin2000 said:
Did a bit of background research on this and despite the free blogs and podcasts (which range from interesting to scientifically dodgy) one must remember that Zoe is a for profit venture. Participants pay around £2.5k for the devices and all data belongs to Zoe.

I'm guessing but I think that data will be leveraged at some point to inform providers of foods, additives, probiotics, medical devices, drugs, etc. Not necessarily a bad thing but at the moment they're just collecting data and are not authorised to give medical advice.
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Wanted to give you an informative & useful @Jasmin2000 - very interesting- think it’s best avoided IMHO
 
I’d be more inclined to get the free trial of the libre and self monitor. Before you apply it do a bit of research on how they work and their pros and cons and ask questions here. Log what you eat and do whilst it’s attached and you’ll soon see trends of what’s good and what’s not so good for you.
 
HSSS said:
I’d be more inclined to get the free trial of the libre and self monitor. Before you apply it do a bit of research on how they work and their pros and cons and ask questions here. Log what you eat and do whilst it’s attached and you’ll soon see trends of what’s good and what’s not so good for you.
Click to expand...
Precisely. While Zoe and the like aim to use this metabolomics data to generate general guidance for health, we all know that there are no generic answers and that each of us needs to determine what really works and what doesn't - even if the data says otherwise. (statins anyone?)
 
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