Our ancestors’ diet: surprising discoveries from a 5000 year old iceman

ZOE Science & Nutrition

ZOE

Nutrition, Education, Science, Health & Fitness

4.6 • 5.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A mummified man found in the mountains of Italy on a nutrition science podcast? Have we gone completely off track? We haven’t - we promise. This unfortunate soul could be the key that unlocks an entirely new understanding of human health. This mummy, discovered in an alpine snow drift by two hikers, gives us a remarkable glimpse into the surprising dietary choices of our ancestors. In today’s episode, Jonathan discovers some secrets held by our ancestors by speaking to two outstanding guests: Frank Maixner works at the Institute for Mummy Studies in Italy and travels the world uncovering the secrets of our ancestors. Tim Spector is a co-founder at ZOE and one of the top 100 most cited scientists in the world. Download our FREE guide — Top 10 Tips to Live Healthier: https://zoe.com/freeguide Timecodes: 00:00 - Intro 00:10 - Topic Introduction 01:45 - What happened thirty years ago high in the mounts on the border between Italy and Austria 03:02 - Who was the Iceman? 03:39 - What happened to him and what did we discover about him? 05:10 - How old was he and what do we know about his lifestyle? 06:01 - What was he eating? 09:02 - What’s surprising about his health? 11:56 - The Iceman & mushrooms 13:08 - Iceman’s microbiome 14:13 - The most surprising information about the Iceman’s microbiome 15:27 - What’s microbiome diversity? 17:30 - Iceman’s origins 17:56 - The start of a new academic discipline 19:41 - Finding out about salt miners 21:02 - What did these salt miners eat? 23:05 - How plant-based was their diet? 23:39 - Did they eat dairy? 25:05 - Their diet diversity 26:40 - What do their microbiomes tell us? 32:31 - What does this mean for us? What is the actionable advice? 36:24 - Summary 38:16 - Goodbyes 38:40 - Outro Episode transcripts are available here. Follow Frank: https://twitter.com/frankmaixner Follow Tim: www.instagram.com/tim.spector/ Follow ZOE on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe/ This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Zoe, Science and Nutrition, where world-leading scientists explain how their
0:04.9	research can improve your health.
0:10.8	Why would a podcast on nutrition and health run an episode on a mummified man found in
0:15.8	the mountains of Italy?
0:18.2	Have we gotten completely off track?
0:20.5	We haven't, I promise.
0:24.8	It turns out that this unfortunate soul could be the key that unlocks an entirely new understanding
0:29.9	of human health.
0:32.9	This mummy, discovered in an alpine snow drift by two hikers, gives us a remarkable understanding
0:38.6	of how we lived 5,000 years ago.
0:43.0	New technologies have allowed scientists to examine every inch of him, from the contents
0:47.8	of his stomach to the health of his arteries and even his gut bacteria.
0:53.0	Together, this provides a remarkable glimpse into the surprising dietary choices of our ancestors.
1:01.1	The story of this discovery is a lot of fun and we're joined by an incredible guest to help tell it.
1:07.2	Frank Maxner has one of the most exciting jobs in the world.
1:10.5	He works at the Institute for Mummy Studies in Italy and travels the world uncovering the secrets of our ancestors.
1:17.8	We're also joined by Tim Specter, my co-founder at Zoe and one of the world's top 100 most
1:22.6	cited scientists to help us understand the implications of these discoveries for our health today.
1:29.6	Frank and Tim, thank you for joining me today and I had to say I'm very excited to have a mummy
1:34.6	scientist on the podcast. I'm sure that like many of my listeners, you know, as a young child,
1:39.2	I was obsessed by Egyptian mummies and the idea of doing something and now we get a real mummy
1:44.7	scientist to talk to. And so why don't we start at the beginning of this story in modern times?
	...

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