“I went from being a sporty, fitter than average middle-aged man, to a pill-popping, depressed stroke victim with high blood pressure,” he recalls. The event that prompted this change was suffering a mini stroke at the top of a mountain in his early 50s, after an energetic day of skiing in the Alps. I am virtually vegetarian, and eat far fewer starchy foods than I used to.” For lunch, I might have a curry, or some other heavily plant-based meal. “My breakfast now is a mixture of kefir and full-fat yoghurt with some berries and mixed nuts and seeds on top, plus one or two big cups of black coffee. Spector’s diet today is a far cry from what he used to eat: typically, muesli, orange juice and tea for breakfast – sometimes with toast and marmalade – and a tuna mayonnaise sandwich, packet of crisps and carton of orange juice for lunch. It really is changing the way our body works.” “Once people start seeing that there is this link between the food we eat, our microbes and our immune systems, I think that changes the way we think about food. “It’s that diversity of gut microbes that gives you a diversity of chemicals and, we believe, a healthier immune system and a better metabolism,” Spector says. Diversity cultivates a healthy microbiome – the micro-organisms living in our gut – which plays a vital role in digesting food, regulating our immune systems, and tweaking our brain chemistries through the chemicals they produce.

The Guardian Specter by Marc Lovell