I first came across the Zoe programme when a bright yellow package arrived on my parents’ doorstep last year. My mother, like many, had been wooed by the TV personality Davina McCall into ‘living her best life’ by ordering a Zoe gut-health testing kit (at an upfront cost of £299, or £599 for the Plus plan).
Zoe is the invention of Tim Spector, the professor-turned-health guru who ran the Covid symptom-tracker app throughout the pandemic. It’s a personalised nutrition programme that promises to make you ‘feel’ healthier and improve your gut health, energy levels and even flatulence.
With their branded glucose monitors, my mother and her friends have become walking adverts for Zoe
It works by giving you what most know as a diabetes continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that measures your blood sugar levels after eating. Once you’ve spiked the device into the back of your arm, you eat a ‘test’ cookie, prick your finger, pop a poo sample in the post, and voilà, a full metabolic analysis is on its way to you.
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