Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, right?
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Not so, according to British science and health guru Dr Michael Mosley.
Dr Mosley will bust this myth and others at his Wonders of the Human Body event at Civic Theatre on Wednesday night.
"I'll be exploring the amazing capacity of the brain and one of my favourite parts of the body - the human gut and its microbiome," said Dr Mosley, who is known for his BBC TV shows and popular fasting diet.
He'll reveal the best ways to keep the gut and brain in good shape, based on science.
Dr Mosley's renowned 5:2 diet is based on intermittent fasting. It involves eating a Mediterranean diet five days a week, then cutting down to 800 calories a day for the remaining two "fasting" days.
Research shows that giving bodies a break from food, through intermittent fasting, can provide health benefits. These include weight loss, overcoming type 2 diabetes, prevention of disease (including cancer) and increased life expectancy.
Dr Mosley, whose latest book is titled The Fast 800, said intermittent fasting was "very good for shrinking your waist and cutting your risk for things like dementia and improving the quality of your gut bacteria".
"The great thing about the human body is its resilience and ability to bounce back if you treat it right."
He said inflammation was a "huge part of why we age and why things go wrong".
"I'll be talking about the best anti-inflammatory diet and the sort of foods you need to eat to encourage good bacteria that produces anti-inflammatory agents."
At the event, Dr Mosley will talk about a new form of fasting called "time-restricted eating".
It involves eating only during a 12-hour period each day [6am to 6pm, for example]. This can be extended to eating only during an eight- or ten-hour period each day. This follows research that showed a 12-hour period away from food was enough time to provide significant benefits.
Most adults eat across 15 hours of each day, which does not leave enough time for cell repair pathways to fully engage.
"The long-term health effects of this can be disastrous, loading the body with chronic physiological stress."
The event starts at 7.30pm.
13 things we eat and drink
- Red meat: "I'm OK with meat. I think if you eat it a couple of times a week that's fine. Red meat is a good source of iron."
- Bacon: "I love bacon but have it rarely. I don't think it's a terribly healthy thing. Processed meat is not so great."
- Butter: "I'm a fan of it. I do think the arguments about saturated fat are overdone, particularly when it comes to dairy. I'm a big fan of full fat yoghurt and things like that. We drink full fat milk these days and we have butter, not huge amounts though."
- Margarine: "Hate the stuff. It's a horrible processed food. I try to keep as close as I can to real foods."
- Dairy: "Dairy has quite a lot of good stuff in it. The Australian Heart Foundation recently changed its guidelines and said there's no particular benefit from low-fat dairy, so why bother?"
- Eggs: "Big fan. I have eggs most days. The idea that eggs are bad for you and increase cholesterol is almost a total myth. They have lots of protein, nutrients and vitamins."
- Wheat: "It depends. We know fibre is good for your gut bacteria and microbiome, but it doesn't have to be wheat. I eat oats. Gluten intolerance is on the rise. That's a genuine thing. I love bread so it's very difficult. I tend to go for rye bread and the dark stuff."
- Vegetables: "Try and get as rich a variety of colours as you can because those colours all represent different phytonutrients. Now I eat a lot more veg and a lot less pasta and carby stuff."
- Fruit: "You're better off eating fruit that's not too sweet. Unfortunately, things like melon and grapes are almost pure sugar. I tend to go for apples, oranges, pears. I eat the whole thing down to the stalk. Most of the goodness is in the skin, obviously not in the case of oranges. With mangoes I also eat the skin."
- Sugar: "I try to avoid it. I still have a sweet tooth for chocolate, which is regularly voted the world's most addictive food. I'm yet to shake off my addiction to that."
- Chocolate: "There's lots of fibre and good stuff in cocoa. It's the sugary stuff which is not so good. I can eat a square of dark chocolate and not feel the need for more. When I eat the milky stuff, I eat the whole thing and feel terrible afterwards."
- Alcohol: "There's quite good evidence around the benefits of red wine in moderation. It seems to be better than any other form of alcohol. It has higher levels of phytonutrients. I wouldn't describe it as a health drink. I have the odd glass of red wine."
- Coffee: "I'm a big fan of it. There's lots of evidence that drinking four or five cups a day is quite good for you because of its interesting nutrients. People are very variable in their response to coffee."
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