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Science Weekly

The real science of weight loss with the US’s leading nutritional scientist

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.21K Ratings

🗓️ 7 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kevin Hall spent 21 years at the US National Institutes of Health and became known globally for his pioneering work on ultra-processed foods. In April he unexpectedly took early retirement, citing censorship under the Trump administration. Now he has co-authored a book with the journalist Julia Belluz that aims to bust myths and challenge wellness orthodoxy on everything from weight loss and metabolism to supplements and wearables. Hall tells Ian Sample what he wants us all to understand about diet, exercise and weight loss, and what led to his departure from the job he loved. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:11.5

When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed as Donald Trump's health secretary,

0:17.0

he came with promises to tackle the broken food system.

0:24.2

We shouldn't be giving 60% of the kids in school processed food that is making them sick. We shouldn't be spending 10% of the SNAP program

0:30.4

on sugar drinks. And for one researcher at the forefront of nutrition science, this seemed like good news.

0:39.0

The rhetoric is spot on on those topics, and that's one of the reasons we were excited to

0:43.0

have the potential opportunity to expand on our research and provide answers to the questions

0:48.2

that Americans deserve.

0:50.7

Kevin Hall is admired by scientists around the world.

0:55.0

His groundbreaking research at the US National Institutes of Health

0:58.9

involves getting volunteers into the lab

1:01.5

and studying in minute detail how the modern food environment affects their bodies.

1:09.4

But when his findings didn't fit the administration's narrative, he says they were

1:14.9

downplayed. The top researcher for the National Institutes of Health shocked the scientific and medical

1:20.7

communities this week by announcing his early retirement and blaming it on censorship from

1:25.3

RFK Jr.'s administration.

1:28.0

The Department of Health and Human Services has rejected his claims of censorship.

1:34.4

Now Kevin's on the outside, continuing to follow the evidence.

1:38.9

In his new book with journalist Julia Ballouz called Food Intelligence,

1:42.8

The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Har harms us, he interrogates everything from fad diets to glucose monitors

1:50.0

and supplements. These kinds of hacks and trends of supplements and wearable devices

1:55.7

and things like that have had limited capacity to change people's behavior over long periods of time.

...

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