Podcasts about twin studies

Matters Microbial #91: You Are What Your Genes Feed Your Microbiome May 16, 2025 Today, Dr. Emily Davenport, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology and Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State University, joins the #QualityQuorum to tell us about the research her team does, studying how our own genes impact our microbiomes.   Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: Emily Davenport Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode A description of GWAS (“Genome Wide Association Study”).  Here is an introductory video about the concept. An explainer on organoids. An essay about the diversity of the host microbiome (i.e. is there a “healthy” microbiome?). An article of the work of Dr. Sarkis Mazamian on how individual host genes and bacterial genes can impact the microbiome. A nice write up for Dr. Mazamian's work showing how host genes and bacterial genes can work together…or not. An oldish video of how the infant microbiome develops over time by Dr. Rob Knight's research group. An article on the same topic from Dr. Ruth Ley. An essay on the mucosal microbiota, rather than the fecal microbiome. An interesting member of the human microbiome, Akkermansia that might be related to obesity. Another interesting member of the human microbiome, Bifidobacterium, which appears to be associated with host lactose metabolism.  Yes, there is a Giant Microbes plush toy. An overview of the impact of host genetics on the microbiome by Dr. Davenport.  A definition of heritability. An overview of the Hutterites and how their study has advanced genetics. An explainer of the power of twin studies in genetics. A fascinating article about ancient dental plaque microbiome by Dr. Davenport and others. Dr. Davenport's faculty website. Dr. Davenport's research group website. Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com

If you've ever been curious about twins, nature vs. nurture, or how our closest relationships shape who we are, you'll want to dive straight into our latest conversation with Dr. Nancy Segal. From nature versus nurture debates to the unique bonds that connect twins, Dr. Segal shares her groundbreaking research and personal stories that reveal just how much twins can teach us about human behavior, relationships, and even ourselves. You'll hear incredible insights into the genetics of twinning, the emotional intensity of twin loss, and the surprising science behind topics like IVF, surrogacy, and even doppelgängers. Get ready for heartwarming stories, real-life drama including a remarkable court case about citizenship and twin brothers born through surrogacy to gay fathers—and plenty of wisdom from both Dr. Segal and Grandpa Wayne. Whether you're a parent of twins, know a set of twins, or have ever wondered what life would be like with a carbon copy of yourself, this episode is packed with unforgettable tales, expert advice, and thought-provoking discussions you won't want to miss. Stay tuned—these are stories you truly have to hear to believe! Nancy L. Segal is a distinguished researcher whose work explores the unique bonds between twins. In her studies, she discovered that twins whether identical or fraternal tend to grieve the loss of their twin sibling even more deeply than the loss of a parent. This remarkable finding highlights the profound kinship twins share. Segal's curiosity extends to the complex web of genetics and relationships, noting that identical twins share all their genes, which might, in theory, make their grief even more intense compared to losing a child, with whom they share only half their genes. While she has yet to study how the loss of a child compares to the loss of a twin, Segal continues to ask thought-provoking questions about family, genetics, and the human experience of loss. Dr. Nancy Segal is a distinguished professor of psychology, developmental psychologist, director of the Twin Studies Center, and published author. Dr. Nancy Segal is an American evolutionary psychologist and behavioral geneticist, specializing in the study of twins. She is the Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Twin Studies Center, at California State University, Fullerton. Dr. Segal has studdied twin relationships for her entire career and continues to the is day, whe has developed facsinating takes on the topic of twin relationships. Dr. nancy Segal was a recipient of the 2005 James Shields Award for Lifetime Contributions to Twin Research from the Behavior Genetics Association and International Society for Twin Studies. Dr. Nancy Segal has published nine books on twins, with the latest book detailing a high-profile lawsuit against the US State Department that almost reached the US Supreme Court, appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and countless others, and is a twin herself. Dr. Nancy Segal is a board certified expert in her field. Studying the unique twinship helps shape our understanding of genetics, our own relationships with ourselves and others, and the nature of genetic predisposition. Join us as we dive into the inner thoughts of Dr. Nancy Segal and the attributes she has given on this subject.   (00:00) Twin Grief vs. Parental Grief (07:45) Twins in Schools: Separation Myth (11:43) Girls Mature Faster Than Boys (18:08) Immigration Lawsuit Victory (25:21) "Record-Breaking Twin Separation Surgery" (30:54) Twin Studies: Genes vs. Environment (36:35) Twins' Cheating Case Victory (37:25) Public Policy and Genetic Testing (42:52) Holocaust Twins Reunion Journey (50:26) "Influences in Partner Attractions" (53:54) Oldest Holocaust Twin Survivor's Memoir (58:33) Exploring Doppelganger Similarities (01:07:38) Twin Cloning and Family Bonds (01:10:01) Family Dynamics and Shared Traits (01:14:34) Subscribe and Follow Our Channels Connect with Nancy drnancysegaltwins.org Connect with Reena Friedman Watts: - Website: bettercalldaddy.com - LinkedIn: Reena Friedman Watts - Twitter: @reenareena - Instagram: @Reena Friedman Watts - YouTube: Better Call Daddy Don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear a story of resilience and hope!    

What if everything you thought you knew about nutrition was wrong? Gabby Reece and Dr. Federica Amati unpacks the truth about food quality versus calorie counting, the dangers of restrictive diets, and the hidden impact of social pressures—especially on young women. She reveals the power of the gut microbiome, the importance of personalized nutrition, and the surprising insights from twin studies on diet and health. Plus, the conversation explores how AI could revolutionize nutrition science and why cooking skills are more essential than ever. If you're ready to rethink your relationship with food and take control of your health, this episode is a must-listen! SPONSORS Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @lumedeodorant and get 15% off with promo code GABBY at Lumedeodorant.com! #lumepod Fatty 15: Fatty15 is on a mission to replenish your C15 levels and restore your long-term health. You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/GABBY and using code GABBY at checkout for an additional 15% off your first order. Laird Superfood: Improve your protein intake and drink the best coffee in the world by visiting LairdSuperfood.com. Use GABBY20 for 20% off your purchase! CHAPTERS 00:00 The Impact of Nutrition on Health 04:06 Understanding Health Span vs. Longevity 07:59 The Role of Food in Social Connection 11:53 Barriers to Healthy Eating 16:02 Cultural and Economic Influences on Diet 19:59 The Misconceptions of Caloric Intake 24:03 The Psychological Aspects of Eating 27:58 The Fear of Food in Young Women 38:23 The Impact of Diet on Women's Health 41:53 The Obsession with Protein and Muscle Building 43:45 Fear and Misinformation Around Food Choices 49:21 The Role of Social Media in Body Image Issues 50:16 Transformative Stories of Dietary Change 54:38 The Importance of Gut Health 57:58 Navigating Antibiotics and Gut Recovery 01:02:14 The Power of Cooking and Food Preparation 01:10:14 Understanding the Gut Microbiome 01:20:10 Insights from Twin Studies on Diet and Health 01:21:22 The Impact of Gut Microbiome on Nutrition 01:23:12 Listening to Your Body's Nutritional Needs 01:24:40 Removing Fear from Nutrition Choices 01:26:15 Understanding Nutrition Science 01:28:46 Pregnancy Nutrition and Its Importance 01:34:05 The Controversy of Breastfeeding 01:42:14 Supporting Adolescents' Nutritional Needs 01:50:03 The Role of AI in Nutrition Science For more Gabby: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabbyreece/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gabbyreeceofficial The Gabby Reece Show Podcast on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeEINLNlGvIceFOP7aAZk5A KEYWORDS nutrition, health, food quality, health span, longevity, Mediterranean diet, barriers to healthy eating, cultural influences, caloric intake, psychological aspects of eating, women's health, diet, protein obsession, misinformation, social media, gut health, cooking, microbiome, dietary change, twin studies, gut microbiome, personalized nutrition, pregnancy nutrition, breastfeeding, adolescent health, nutrition science, AI in healthcare, nutrition education, food choices, health optimization Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We discuss the cycle of women being put on psychiatric drugs over the last seventy years, typically a trend of SSRIs and then switching to stimulants, and its relationship to femininity. The internet has caused many women to self-diagnose due feeling there is something wrong with them and then seek out the diagnosis. Many women, against all observable evidence, feel inadequate and that their must be something wrong with them if feel unable to keep up with the demands of motherhood or the increasingly hostile work environments of late capitalism. From the popular rise of Prozac to today's methamphetamine shortage, we discuss some of the reoccurring themes women describe when seek medication to "feel better".Plus, why women and girls are often told they "talk too much" (especially when good communicators), the never ending treadmill to nowhere of femininity, being outside the social fabric as a gay person, how economic demands create social avenues, the denial of social construction in gender norms amidst declarations of nature, and the problem with Twin Studies.

In this episode of the Gladden Longevity Podcast, Dr. Jeffrey Gladden interviews Dr. Timothy Spector, a leading expert in gut microbiome research. They discuss the importance of the gut microbiome for overall health, insights from twin studies, and the impact of diet and environment on gut health. Dr. Spector shares his journey from rheumatology to microbiome research, emphasizing the need for personalized nutrition and the role of diversity in the gut. The conversation also touches on the interplay between gut health, aging, and the immune system, as well as practical tips for improving gut health through diet and lifestyle changes.    FOR THE AUDIENCE:  * Take the ZOE quiz for free → https://zoe.com/how-it-works   * Use code ‘Podcast10' to get 10% OFF your supplements at our store → https://gladdenlongevityshop.com/     Takeaways    * The gut microbiome is essential for a functioning immune system.  * Genetics plays a minimal role in determining gut microbiome composition.  * Diversity in the gut microbiome is linked to better health outcomes.  * Eating a variety of plants can enhance gut health.  * Probiotics from food sources are more beneficial than supplements.  * The gut microbiome can influence mood and energy levels.  * Environmental factors have a significant impact on gut health.  * Restoring gut health can improve symptoms of various conditions.  * The gut microbiome acts as a virtual organ, interacting with the immune system.  * Personalized nutrition is key to optimizing gut health.    Chapters    00:00 Introduction to Gut Health and Microbiome Research  04:19 The Journey of Dr. Timothy Spector  07:14 Understanding the Microbiome's Role in Health  10:21 Insights from Twin Studies on Microbiome  13:14 Genetics vs. Environment in Microbiome Composition  16:30 The Gut Microbiome's Impact on Gene Expression  19:19 The Gut as an Ecosystem  22:13 The Complexity of a Healthy Gut Microbiome  25:32 The Role of Parasites in Gut Health  28:23 Diversity in Gut Microbiomes: A Key Indicator  31:11 Compensating for Modern Lifestyle Effects on Gut Health  33:32 The Importance of Diet and Gut Health  36:25 Understanding Prebiotics, Probiotics, and Postbiotics  41:16 Personalized Nutrition and the ZOE Test  44:12 Linking Gut Microbiome to Health Outcomes  52:59 Improving Gut Health and Addressing Symptoms  57:24 The Gut Microbiome and Immune System Connection  01:00:53 Aging, Inflammation, and Gut Health  01:04:33 Exploring ZOE and Its Offerings  01:07:53 Goodbye    To learn more about Tim's work and/or ZOE:  Website: https://zoe.com/   Instagram: @zoe: https://www.instagram.com/zoe   TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@join_zoe   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joinzoe1   Food for Life cookbook by Tim Spector: https://www.amazon.com/Food-Life-Cookbook-bestselling-gut-health-ebook/dp/B0CTCBR3VB     Reach out to us!       Website: https://gladdenlongevity.com/        Email: podcast@gladdenlongevity.com        Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Gladdenlongevity/       Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gladdenlongevity/?hl=en        LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gladdenlongevity       YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5_q8nexY4K5ilgFnKm7naw    

Join us for the 5th Annual JOWMA Conference: Transforming Healthcare Through Innovation & Research on January 5, 2025, from 8am to 5pm in NYC! Spend the day immersed in expert-led scientific sessions, hands-on surgical simulations, specialty roundtables, and a networking lunch tailored for healthcare professionals and students. PLUS, we're offering a full premed program with panels, roundtables, and networking dedicated to aspiring medical students.

IQ is, to say the least, a fraught concept. Psychologists have studied IQ—or g for “general cognitive ability”—maybe more than any other psychological construct. And they've learned some interesting things about it. That it's remarkably stable over the lifespan. That it really is general: people who ace one test of intellectual ability tend to ace others. And that IQs have risen markedly over the last century. At the same time, IQ seems to be met with increasing squeamishness, if not outright disdain, in many circles. It's often seen as crude, misguided, reductive—maybe a whole lot worse. There's no question, after all, that IQ has been misused—that it still gets misused—for all kinds of racist, classist, colonialist purposes. As if this wasn't all thorny enough, the study of IQ is also intimately bound up with the study of genetics. It's right there in the roiling center of debates about how genes and environment make us who we are. So, yeah, what to make of all this? How should we be thinking about IQ? My guest today is Dr. Eric Turkheimer. Eric is Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. He has studied intelligence and many other complex human traits for decades, and he's a major figure in the field of “behavior genetics.” Eric also has a new book out this fall—which I highly recommend—titled Understanding the Nature-Nurture Debate. In a field that has sometimes been accused of rampant optimism, Eric is—as you'll hear—a bit more measured. In this conversation, Eric and I focus on intelligence and its putatively genetic basis. We talk about why Eric doubts that we are anywhere close to an account of the biology of IQ. We discuss what makes intelligence such a formidable construct in psychology and why essentialist understandings of it are so intuitive. We talk about Francis Galton and the long shadow he's cast on the study of human behavior. We discuss the classic era of Twin Studies—an era in which researchers started to derive quantitative estimates of the heritability of complex traits. We talk about how the main takeaway from that era was that genes are quite important indeed, and about how more genetic techniques suggest that takeaway may have been a bit simplistic. Along the way, Eric and I touch on spelling ability, child prodigies, the chemical composition of money, the shared quirks of twins reared apart, the Flynn Effect, the Reverse Flynn Effect, birth order, the genetics of height, the problem of missing heritability, whether we should still be using IQ scores, and the role of behavior genetics in the broader social sciences.  Alright folks, lots in here—let's just get to it. On to my conversation with Dr. Eric Turkheimer. Enjoy!   A transcript of this episode will be available soon.   Notes and links 3:30 – The 1994 book The Bell Curve, by Richard Herrnstein a Charles Murray, dealt largely with the putative social implications of IQ research. It was extremely controversial and widely discussed. For an overview of the book and controversy, see the Wikipedia article here. 6:00 – For discussion of the “all parents are environmentalists…” quip, see here. 12:00 – The notion of “multiple intelligences” was popularized by the psychologist Howard Gardner—see here for an overview. See here for an attempt to test the claims of the “multiple intelligences” framework using some of the methods of traditional IQ research. For work on EQ (or Emotional Intelligence) see here. 19:00 – Dr. Turkheimer has also laid out his spelling test analogy in a Substack post. 22:30 – Dr. Turkheimer's 1998 paper, “Heritability and Biological Explanation.” 24:30 – For an in-passing treatment of the processing efficiency idea, see p. 195 of Daniel Nettle's book Personality. See also Richard Haier's book, The Neuroscience of Intelligence. 26:00 – The original study on the relationship between pupil size and intelligence. A more recent study that fails to replicate those findings. 31:00 – For an argument that child prodigies constitute an argument for “nature,” see here. For a memorable narrative account of one child prodigy, see here. 32:00 – A meta-analysis of the Flynn effect. We have previously discussed the Flynn Effect in an episode with Michael Muthukrishna. 37:00 – James Flynn's book, What is Intelligence? On the reversal of the Flynn Effect, see here. 40:00 – The phrase “nature-nurture” originally comes from Shakespeare and was picked up by Francis Galton. In The Tempest, Prospero describes Caliban as “a born devil on whose nature/ Nurture can never stick.” 41:00 – For a biography of Galton, see here. For an article-length account of Galton's role in the birth of eugenics, see here. 50:00 – For an account of R.A. Fisher's 1918 paper and its continuing influence, see here. 55:00 – See Dr. Turkheimer's paper on the “nonshared environment”—E in the ACE model. 57:00 – A study coming out of the Minnesota Study of Twins reared apart. A New York Times article recounting some of the interesting anecdata in the Minnesota Study. 1:00:00 – See Dr. Turkheimer's 2000 paper on the “three laws of behavior genetics.” Note that this is not, in fact, Dr. Turkheimer's most cited paper (though it is very well cited). 1:03:00 – For another view of the state of behavior genetics in the postgenomic era, see here. 1:11:00 – For Dr. Turkheimer's work on poverty, heritability, and IQ, see here. 1:13:00 – A recent large-scale analysis of birth order effects on personality. 1:16:00 – For Dr. Turkheimer's take on the missing heritability problem, see here and here.    1:19:00 – A recent study on the missing heritability problem in the case of height. 1:30:00 – On the dark side of IQ, see Chapter 9 of Dr. Turkheimer's book. See also Radiolab's series on g. 1:31:00 – See Dr. Turkheimer's Substack, The Gloomy Prospect.   Recommendations The Genetic Lottery, Kathryn Paige Harden Intelligence, Stuart Ritchie Intelligence and How to Get It, Richard Nisbett ‘Why our IQ levels are higher than our grandparents'' (Ted talk), James Flynn   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter (@ManyMindsPod) or Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss twin studies, behavioral genetics, and the logic of evolutionary psychology with host, Nathan Gershfeld Paper mentioned : https://tinyurl.com/j3c7tbt7 Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Watch this episode on Youtube!   @BeatYourGenes Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website:  http://www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : http://www.TrueToLife.us  Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus - Licensed for use

Studies now show that as much as 70% of personality is determined by genetics. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/779/29

On this episode of The AUXORO Podcast, Dr. Nancy Segal and Zach discuss the twins who survived the brutal medical experiments in Auschwitz, the myths surrounding the "nature vs. nurture" debate, Dr. Josef Mengele aka The "Angel Of Death" who conducted the twin holocaust experiments, the landmark Minnesota twins study 'Born Together, Reared Apart' that changed the public consciousness on twins, why parenting is overrated, and more. Guest Bio: Nancy Segal is a professor at California State University, an author and one of the most prominent twin-study researchers on the planet. SUPPORT THE AUXORO PODCAST BY SUBSCRIBING TO AUXORO PREMIUM (BONUS EPISODES & EXCLUSIVE CONTENT): https://auxoro.supercast.com/ DR. NANCY SEGAL LINKS: Website: https://drnancysegaltwins.org/The Twin Children Of The Holocaust: https://drnancysegaltwins.org/the-twin-children-of-the-holocaustGay Fathers, Twin Sons: https://drnancysegaltwins.org/gay-fathers-twin-sonsDeliberately Divided: https://drnancysegaltwins.org/deliberately-dividedTwitter: https://twitter.com/nlsegal THE AUXORO PODCAST LINKS:Apple: https://apple.co/3B4fYju Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3zaS6sPOvercast: https://bit.ly/3rgw70DYoutube: https://bit.ly/3lTpJdjAUXORO Premium: https://auxoro.supercast.com/Website: https://www.auxoro.com/ AUXORO SOCIAL LINKS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/auxoroYouTube: https://bit.ly/3CLjEqFFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/auxoromagNewsletter: https://www.auxoro.com/thesourceYouTube: https://bit.ly/3CLjEqF To support the show, please leave a review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This nudges the algorithm to show The AUXORO Podcast to more new listeners and is the best way to help the show grow. It takes 30 seconds and the importance of getting good reviews cannot be overstated. Thank you for your support:Review us on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/458nbhaReview us on Spotify: https://bit.ly/43ZLrAt 

In this episode, my guest is Dr. David Linden, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the author of many popular books about the brain. We discuss individual differences between people — focusing on differences in how people sense the world around them and the roles that chance, heredity, and life experiences (even in utero) play in determining our physical and cognitive traits. We discuss the bidirectional connection between the mind and body and how our thoughts and mental practices (e.g., meditation and breathwork) impact our health. We also discuss the link between inflammation and depression. We also discuss Dr. Linden's terminal illness diagnosis, his mindset during chemotherapy and what his diagnosis has taught him about the mind, gratitude, time perception and life. This episode also covers sensual touch, cerebellar function, and epigenetic inheritance and ought to be of interest to all interested in neuroscience, genetics, psychology and human development.  For the full show notes, including articles, books, and other resources, visit hubermanlab.com. Take our survey and get 2 months of Huberman Lab Premium Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman ROKA: https://roka.com/huberman Levels: https://levels.link/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) David Linden (00:03:59) Sponsors: ROKA & Levels; Huberman Lab Survey (00:07:54) Sensory Touch & Genitals, Krause Corpuscles (00:16:46) Sexual Experiences & Sensation (00:19:14) Human Individuality & Variation; Senses & Odor Detection (00:30:25) Sponsor: AG1 (00:31:22) Visual Individuality; Heat Tolerance; Early Life Experiences & Variation (00:40:28) Auditory Variability, Perfect Pitch (00:42:08) Heritability & Human Individuality: Cognitive & Physical Traits (00:49:36) Heritability, Environment, Personality; Twin Studies (01:00:12) Sponsor: InsideTracker (01:01:19) Development, Chance; Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance (01:07:37) Single Generation Epigenetic Inheritance & Stress; Autism (01:15:52) Sleep Paralysis; Cerebellum, Prediction (01:23:47) Nature vs. Nature, Experience; Linden Hypothesis (01:30:37) Mind-Body Interaction; Chemical Signals (01:39:10) Inflammation & Depression (01:43:35) Neuroplasticity, Inflammation & Mental Disorders; Microglial Cells, Exercise  (01:52:15) Fads & Science (01:55:16) Mind-Body Communication; Cancer  (02:03:28) Mind-Body, Mediation, Breathwork (02:07:30) Atrial Fibrillation, Synovial Sarcoma, Heart  (02:14:22) Gratitude & Anger; Chemotherapy, Curiosity & Time Perception (02:19:58) Death, Brain & Future Prediction, Religion & Afterlife (02:24:15) Life Advice; Time Perception & Gratitude (02:34:35) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Social Media, Neural Network Newsletter Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Brian Boutwell is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Mississippi who specializes in “quantitative genetics, with a focus on environmental and psychological risk factors for antisocial and violent behavior.” He has a TED talk, numerous articles in Quillette, and has been published in many journals. Here we discuss his upcoming meta-analysis on twin studies soon to be published in Nature. We discuss the following two articles: Behavioural genetic methods by Willoughby, Polderman, and Boutwell in Nature. Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fify years of twin studies by Polderman, etc. in Nature. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/four-strands/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/four-strands/support

Tara sits down with Dr. Tim Spector, M.D., an award-winning epidemiologist, best-selling author, co-founder of Zoe Nutrition and professor at Kings College, London. Their conversation weaves together the story of how our genetics, our diet and even the partners we choose all relate back to plasticity and our microscopic internal landscape.-----Food for Life is now available for purchase-----Follow Dr. Tim Spector on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tim.spectorFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/proftimspectorTwitter: https://twitter.com/timspector-----Visit Dr. Tim Spector's Website: https://tim-spector.co.uk-----Visit ZOE Nutrition's Website: https://joinzoe.com-----Follow Zoe Nutrition on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zoe-----Listen & Subscribe to ZOE Science and Nutrition Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1611216298-----Follow Dr. Tara on Social Media:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtaraswartTwitter: https://twitter.com/TaraSwartLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taraswartTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drtaraswartReinvent Yourself with Dr. Tara is proud to be supported by MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and their Executive Education programs. “MIT: Join us in building a better world.” For more information on MIT Executive Education, including details about Dr. Tara's six-week course, “Neuroscience for Business,” simply visit executive.mit.edu today. An extraordinary first step toward Reinventing Yourself.Reinvent Yourself with Dr. Tara is proudly supported by Emotional Wellbeing by Raffles Hotels & Resorts. A true luxury is not just about what you do, it's about how we make you feel. For more information on Raffles Hotels & Resorts, including details about their curated wellbeing programs, simply visit Raffles.com today.

Josef Mengele was a great guy! Just very misunderstood. Wait, no. I'm thinking of someone else. Josef Mengele was a MONSTER. His complete and total lack of empathy for anyone not a member of Hitler's nonsensical racial purity dream boggles the mind. He saw his experimental patients at the Auschwitz  concentration camp as nothing more than lab rats who happened to kind of look human. His experiments were cruel and misguided. And mostly dealt with identical twins. Child twins. And saddest of all - his cruelty did not stand out amongst his peers. He was but one of many, many monsters. A product of Nazi brainwashing that had gone on for so long, reality had been inverted. Evil was good, and good was evil in many ways. We look at all of this today. And sorry for the timing! It was a voted-in topic, and is probably about the LEAST festive topic we could Suck this week. But - I did find it fascinating and hope you do too. And next week will be lighter - I promise! :) Hail Nimrod and Happy Holidays! Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation: We gave a total of $37,547 to the Bad Magic Giving Tree! Thank you for helping us make the holidays extra special for 53 families and 125 kids :) And we also were able to contribute another $1612 to our scholarship fund.Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/CY7-CVYhu0wMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

Get early access to our latest psychology lectures: bit.ly/new-talks5 The comparative study of identical and fraternal twins is a powerful method for identifying the relative contributions of genes and environments to individual differences in behavioral, physical, and health-related characteristics. Studies of reared-apart twins provide even more compelling ways to approach this same class of questions, given that the co-twins were raised in different homes, communities and/or countries, so were unable to influence one another. This talk first reviews the different types of twins and the logic behind twin designs before presenting findings from past, recent and current studies of twins who grew up separately. Here, the focus will be on the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart and the Fullerton Study of Chinese Twins; however, research using reared together twins, virtual twins (same-age-unrelated individuals reared together who replicated twinship but without a genetic link) and unrelated look-alikes will also be described with reference to family relations, tacit coordination, personality similarity, and bereavement. The vast body of evidence indicates that genetic influence is pervasive, affecting virtually every measured human trait, but environmental factors also play a role. The occasional abuse of twin studies must be recalled to prevent their future occurrence. --- Prof. Nancy L. Segal, PhD is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Twins Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton. She has authored over 250 articles and six books on twins; her seventh book, Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart was released in November 2021. Dr. Segal's 2012 book, Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study, won the 2013 William James Book Award from the American Psychological Association. She was a speaker at a TedX event in Manhattan Beach, California (2017), and delivered invited addresses at the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (2018) and the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, in Florence, Italy (2019). She was also an invited participant in a debate on parenting organized by Intelligence Squared in New York City (2019). Dr. Segal's work has been featured in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She has appeared on national and international television and radio programs, including The Today Show, 20/20, Long Lost Lives, AirTalk (NPR) and Hidden Brain (NPR). Dr Segal can be contacted via email at: nsegal@fullerton.edu, and you can learn more about her work on: drnancysegaltwins.org -- The Weekend University's mission is to make the best minds and ideas in psychology more accessible, so that you can use the knowledge to improve your quality of life. We release 95% of our content for free and don't run any ads during the show. That said, we'd love to expand our reach and get the knowledge shared by our speakers into the hands of more people so they can benefit too. So, if you're in the mood for doing a random act of kindness today, and helping others improve their lives in the process, it would make a huge difference if you could take just 30 seconds and leave a short review on your favourite podcast provider - whether that's iTunes (https://bit.ly/iTunes-podcast-review), Stitcher (https://bit.ly/stitcher-podcast-review) or Spotify (https://bit.ly/spotify-podcast-ratings). In addition, we'll pick one review each month and that person will get a free ticket to our monthly online conference, which usually costs £50. Thanks for your time and I hope you enjoy the show! -- Links: - Get our latest psychology lectures emailed to your inbox: http://bit.ly/new-talks5 - Check out our next event: http://theweekenduniversity.com/events - Prof. Segal's website: http://drnancysegaltwins.org - Prof. Segal's books: https://amzn.to/3EMVOfb

Nick Jikomes talks to Dr. Jonathan Schaefer about the link between adolescent cannabis (marijuana) use and psychosis. Jonathan has a PhD in clinical psychology and he is currently a research psychologist at the University of Minnesota Institute of Child Development. His research focuses largely on the relationship between people's environments that influence their mental health. He has conducted a number of longitudinal studies using cohorts of identical and fraternal twins, which allow him to tease apart the role of genetic vs. environmental factors in different psychiatric outcomes. The conversation  focuses mainly on recent twin studies Dr. Schaefer has done looking at the relationship between adolescent cannabis (i.e. marijuana) use, and psychosis. They talk about what psychosis is and what factors are linked to it, historical work on the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis, and the results of Jonathan's recent twin studies & what they mean.USEFUL LINKSSign up for the weekly Mind & Matter newsletter[https://mindandmatter.substack.com/]Download the podcast & follow Nick at his website[https://www.nickjikomes.com]Buy books by M&M guests[https://linktr.ee/mindandmatter_books]Athletic Greens, comprehensive daily nutrition (Free 1-year supply Vitamin D w/ purchase)[https://athleticgreens.com/partner/d3...]Organize your digital highlights & notes w/ Readwise (2 months free w/ sub)[https://readwise.io/nickjikomes/]Follow & Support Nick's work[https://linktr.ee/trikomes]Learn more about our podcast sponsor, Dosist[https://dosist.com]Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/nickjikomes)

We're trapped in a web of narratives. Right now, the United States is crippled by an obesity epidemic that's getting bigger, made worse by the endless wave of related "facts" coming at us from every screen. If there is a pill for every ill, why are we so sick? Shawn Stevenson has been on a 20-year mission to learn and research where we went wrong and how we can get out of this mess. Forget about "burning fat" and instead learn the facts that will free us from this prison of chronic illness. Shawn's exit strategy is to share information from an objective place, without an agenda, and truly respect the human body as a complex lab. Your value is not based on a number. Fat is not your enemy, it's more of an overprotective parent. Let's step back, look within, and see what we find. We also talk about: The current state of health A nuanced approach to obesity and weight loss Fat: what it is and why we need it Gut health and immunity  The biology of fear  How do we move forward? Sponsors: Get discount codes sent directly to your phone. Simply text brand name or keyword to 380-600-3030 NutriBullet | Use code “ALMOST30NATION” for 20% off at https://www.nutribullet.com/ (nutribullet.com) Beekeeper's Naturals | Go to https://beekeepersnaturals.com/pages/shopthehive (beekeepersnaturals.com/almost30 )or use code ALMOST30 for 25% off your first order. BetterHelp | Visit http://betterhelp.com/almost30 (betterhelp.com/almost30) for 10% off your first month. As a BetterHelp affiliate, we may receive compensation from BetterHelp if you purchase products or services through the links provided. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. House of Wise | Use code “ALMOST30” for $20 off your order at https://houseofwise.co/ (houseofwise.co) EM Cosmetics | Go to emcosmetics.com/almost30 for 15% off your first purchase.  Resources: https://themodelhealthshow.com/podcasts/ (The Model Health Show Podcast ) Read: https://eatsmarterbook.com/ (Eat Smarter: The Ultimate Guide to Upgrading Your Mind And Body ) Website: https://themodelhealthshow.com/ (themodelhealthshow.com) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnmodel/?hl=en (@shawnmodel) Obesity Rate: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight) Twin Studies: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005243222102 (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm199005243222102)  Epicaloric control: https://themodelhealthshow.com/7-factors-control-calories/ (https://themodelhealthshow.com/7-factors-control-calories/) The Microbiome Solution: https://themodelhealthshow.com/the-microbiome-solution/ (https://themodelhealthshow.com/the-microbiome-solution/) Covid + Obesity: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm) What is stress and fear doing to our immune systems?: https://themodelhealthshow.com/dr-bruce-lipton/ (https://themodelhealthshow.com/dr-bruce-lipton/) Statin link to increased risk of Diabetes: https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/statins-heighten-type-2-diabetes-risk-30-in-susceptible-patients (https://www.uspharmacist.com/article/statins-heighten-type-2-diabetes-risk-30-in-susceptible-patients) Ohio State University study on Blood Sugar and Compassion: https://news.osu.edu/lashing-out-at-your-spouse-check-your-blood-sugar/ (https://news.osu.edu/lashing-out-at-your-spouse-check-your-blood-sugar/) Inmate study on link between nutrition and aggression: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551402/ (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7551402/) Join our community: http://almost30.com/membership (almost30.com/membership) https://www.facebook.com/Almost30podcast/groups (facebook.com/Almost30podcast/groups) Podcast disclaimer can be found by visiting: https://almost30.com/disclaimer (almost30.com/disclaimer).  Find more to love at...

Human Genetics, Twin Studies

Learn about the roles of nature and nurture in shaping our lives, with Dr. Nancy Segal, a leading expert in twin studies.   Nancy Segal, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton and Director of the Twin Studies Center. She has authored over 250 scientific articles and six books on twins and twin development. She is also a twin herself.   Dr. Segal chats with host Dr. Chana Davis (a geneticist, and mother of twins) about how twins are studied, and what we have learned about the roles of genes and environment on height, intelligence, personality and more. They also share personal reflections on how we can apply this knowledge to the way we live, parent, and think about ourselves.   Dr. Segal also shares a preview of her latest book, entitled Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart. Resources Dr. Segal's website and books: https://www.drnancysegaltwins.org Dr. Segal's faculty profile at Cal State Fullerton International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki Studies Meta-analysis of the heritability of human traits based on fifty years of twin studies (Polderman et al, 2015) Identical twins carry a persistent epigenetic signature of early genome programming (van Dongen et al, 2021)

1980 would change the lives of Robert Shafran, Edward Galland, and David Kellman forever. Each had been living separate lives as young men growing up in New York during the 1970s. When a case of mistaken identity led Shafran to Galland, a beautiful story started to emerge of long-lost twins, each adopted to different parents in their infancy. As news of the remarkable story spread, the mother of David Kellman also noticed. Could it be that the story of long-lost twins was actually one of long-lost triplets? The story was an instant success, and the young brothers enjoyed their new found fame . . . for a while. But secrets, buried for years, threatened their joyful reunion. To date, nothing has captured the imagination of psychological researchers quite like identical siblings. Are we products of our genetics or of our environments and life experiences? How does our DNA and our environment interact together to make up who we are? What are some of the unethical and horrifying ways identical siblings have been used in the name of research? Join Drs. Micono and Morelos as they discuss twin studies.

In this episode, we explore the nature versus nurture debate with the help of behavioural genetics. In human development, what matters more - the environment or our genome? Join us for a deep dive into the fascinating research of twins and adoption. From the uncanny similarities of twins reared apart to the effects of different parenting strategies, we untangle what the research says about our genes and environment... and what it doesn't. If you have any feedback on how we can make the show better, please reach out to us. Our email address is hello@freshlenspodcast.com.

ZOE has been the source of some of the most groundbreaking research around nutrition and how the food we eat affects us individually. Formed three years ago when Tim Spector joined forces with Jonathan Wolf and George Hadjigeorgiou, ZOE was founded on the belief that new technologies could enable scientific research at an unprecedented scale, allowing us to understand individual responses in the real world.ZOE has given us a greater understanding of our highly individual responses to nutrients and stimulus, thanks to their pioneering studies. In this Table Talk we look back to the discussions we've had with Tim Spector, Jonathan Wolf and PREDICT 2 research lead Dr. Sarah Berry, and highlight the insight they've uncovered through their research.About our guestsJonathan Wolf, Co-Founder & CEO, ZOEJonathan is a cofounder and CEO of ZOE, a nutritional science company on a mission to help people eat with confidence.Previously he was Chief Product Officer for machine learning company Criteo, helping take the business in 7 years from start-up to NASDAQ IPO, 2,000 employees and over $1Bn revenue. Prior to this Jonathan worked at Yahoo, Atlas Venture and Boston Consulting Group.Jonathan attended Oxford University where he received the Gibbs prize for Physics and was President of the Oxford Union, and was then at Harvard doing a non-degree program.He has been a Foundation Fellow at Corpus Christi College Oxford since 2015.Dr. Sarah Berry, Senior Lecturer, Kings College London, and Research Lead, Predict 2Dr Sarah Berry’s research interests relate to the influence of dietary components on cardiometabolic disease risk; with particular focus on postprandial metabolism and vascular dysfunction. Since commencing her research career at King’s College London in 2000, she has been the academic leader for more than 30 human nutrition studies in cardio-metabolic health. Sarah’s ongoing research involves human and mechanistic studies to elucidate how markers of cardiometabolic health can be modulated following acute and chronic intakes of different fatty acids and interesterified fats, as well as studies to investigate the influence of cell wall integrity on macronutrient and micronutrient release from different plant-based foods. Sarah is also the lead nutritional scientist on the world’s largest ongoing programme of postprandial metabolic studies (the PREDICT studies), assessing the genetic, metabolic, metagenomic, and meal-dependent effects on postprandial metabolic responses.Tim Spector, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Director of the TwinsUK Registry at Kings College, London, and Co-founder, ZOETim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Director of the TwinsUK Registry at Kings College, London and has recently been elected to the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He trained originally in rheumatology and epidemiology. In 1992 he moved into genetic epidemiology and founded the UK Twins Registry, of 13,000 twins, which is the richest collection of genotypic and phenotypic information worldwide. He is past President of the International Society of Twin Studies, directs the European Twin Registry Consortium (Discotwin) and collaborates with over 120 centres worldwide. He has demonstrated the genetic basis of a wide range of common complex traits, many previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment.Through genetic association studies (GWAS), his group have found over 500 novel gene loci in over 50 disease areas. He has published over 800 research articles and is ranked as being in the top 1% of the world’s most cited scientists by Thomson-Reuters. He held a prestigious European Research Council senior investigator award in epigenetics and is a NIHR Senior Investigator. His current work focuses on omics and the microbiome and directs the crowdfunded British Gut microbiome project. Together with an international team of leading scientists including researchers from King’s College London, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts University, Stanford University and nutritional science company ZOE he  is conducting the largest scientific nutrition research project, showing that individual responses to the same foods are unique, even between identical twins. You can find more on https://joinzoe.com/ He is a prolific writer with several popular science books and a regular blog, focusing on genetics, epigenetics and most recently microbiome and diet (The Diet Myth). He is in demand as a public speaker and features regularly in the media.

Learn about the science of sourdough starters; and why identical twins aren’t so identical after all. Then, play along at home as we test your podcast knowledge with this month’s Curiosity Challenge trivia game.  Study of sourdough from around the world shows location doesn't matter for its microbes by Cameron Duke Intercontinental study sheds light on the microbial life of sourdough. (2021). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/ncsu-iss012621.php Kiniry, L. (2020). Why San Francisco does sourdough best. Bbc.com.  http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20200402-why-san-francisco-does-sourdough-best Landis, E. A., Oliverio, A. M., McKenney, E. A., Nichols, L. M., Kfoury, N., Biango-Daniels, M., Shell, L. K., Madden, A. A., Shapiro, L., Shravya Sakunala, Kinsey Drake, Robbat, A., Booker, M., Dunn, R. R., Fierer, N., & Wolfe, B. E. (2021, January 26). The diversity and function of sourdough starter microbiomes. ELife; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd. https://elifesciences.org/articles/61644 Identical twins aren't so identical after all by Steffie Drucker Jarry, J. (2021, January 24). Identical Twins Are Not Identical. Office for Science and Society. McGill University. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/identical-twins-are-not-identical  Guardian staff reporter. (2021, January 8). Identical twins are not so identical, study suggests. The Guardian; The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jan/08/identical-twins-are-not-so-identical-study-suggests  Machemer, T. (2021, January 13). Many Identical Twins Actually Have Slightly Different DNA. Smithsonian Magazine; Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/identical-twins-can-have-slightly-different-dna-180976736/  ‌Nicoletta Lanese. (2021, January 7). Identical twins don’t share 100% of their DNA. Livescience.com; Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/identical-twins-dont-share-all-dna.html  Jonsson, H., Magnusdottir, E., et. al. (2021). Differences between germline genomes of monozygotic twins. Nature Genetics, 53(1), 27–34. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-00755-1  Episodes referenced in Curiosity Challenge Trivia game: Chronotypes: https://www.curiositydaily.com/why-does-february-have-28-days/  Ants on stilts: https://www.curiositydaily.com/why-scientists-made-ants-walk-on-stilts/  Smellicopter: https://www.curiositydaily.com/the-dark-ages-werent-really-dark/ Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Meet the small DNA differences that make their mark by existing in the magical period of early development. We'll hear how mutations in the very first stages of human embryos have bizarre consequences for identical twins; and how even earlier in the process, sperm use selfish genes to get ahead of the competition. Plus, an immunologist untangles mRNA COVID vaccines, from efficacy numbers to delayed booster shots... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Tim Spector – epidemiologist, researcher & writer on the microbiome, nutrition & genomics and whose Zoe symptom tracking app is providing vital information about the Covid-19 virus. Tim is also well known for his approach to personalised nutrition. In his latest book - Spoon-Fed, why almost everything we've been told about food is wrong - Tim tackles some pretty controversial topics including calorie counting, the allergy epidemic, gluten-free, why coffee can save your life, and nutrition for mental health. Today we're going to chat about two of these topics – caffeine, and the role of the microbiome in mental health So the 1st myth is “drinking coffee is bad for your health” What does the evidence suggest is the safe upper limit to number of cups of coffee per day?  Is it OK to drink mostly coffee/tea and nothing else each day? “food only impacts the health of your body, not your mind” I've heard you on other podcasts discussing wild salmon as a good source of omega-3. If we are limited to supermarket shopping how can we best support our health with omega-3 i.e. is it tinned wild salmon? What natural probiotics in the form of fermented foods do you regularly add to your diet, and what are the easily accessible and affordable forms for general public? A good place to start for improved mental health is variety – eating 30 different plant species per week. Do you have a link to examples of these types of foods – perhaps you've used an infographic on social media we might include in the show notes or could you give us some examples? If you were in charge of public health & nutrition which 3 major changes would you make to improve diets and health of the nation? About Tim In the course of research, Tim Spector has been shocked to discover how little scientific evidence there is for many of our most deep-rooted ideas about food. much of the current advice about food and nutrition is dangerously inaccurate, misleading and often downright wrong In twenty-two short, myth-busting chapters, his latest book Spoon-Fed reveals why almost everything we've been told about food is wrong. Tim pays special attention to the scandalous lack of good science behind many medical and government food recommendations, and how the food industry holds sway over these policies and our choices. Spoon-Fed forces us to question every diet plan, official recommendation, miracle cure or food label we encounter, and encourages us to rethink our whole relationship with food. As a scientist, within the last few years, Tim focused all his energies in researching the microbiome, the large community of microbes that live in our gut, skin and body. Although the research is new and ongoing, we already know that these beings play a highly important role in our health and the current epidemics of obesity, diabetes, allergy and even depression. A small trail over the internet will expose you to thousands of theories on what to eat and what to exclude to be thinner, healthier, and happier. Following three years of exhaustive research, his book The Diet Myth was born, dispelling many nutritional myths and asking how our diets can improve the health of our gut microbes. Tim believes that Diversity, both in the food we eat and the microbes we feed is the key. The trillions of microbes in our gut play an important role in digesting food and producing a number of chemicals vital for a strong immune system. We know that the greater the number of different types of microbe the healthier we can be. This microbial diversity is achieved by eating a wide array of real and fermented foods, not excluding them. Tim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Director of the TwinsUK Registry at Kings College, London and has recently been elected to the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He trained originally in rheumatology and epidemiology. In 1992 he moved into genetic epidemiology and founded the UK Twins Registry, of 13,000 twins, which is the richest collection of genotypic and phenotypic information worldwide. He is past President of the International Society of Twin Studies, directs the European Twin Registry Consortium (Discotwin) and collaborates with over 120 centres worldwide. He has demonstrated the genetic basis of a wide range of common complex traits, many previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment. Through genetic association studies (GWAS), his group have found over 500 novel gene loci in over 50 disease areas. He has published over 800 research articles and is ranked as being in the top 1% of the world's most cited scientists by Thomson-Reuters. He held a prestigious European Research Council senior investigator award in epigenetics and is a NIHR Senior Investigator. His current work focuses on omics and the microbiome and directs the crowdfunded British Gut microbiome project. Together with an international team of leading scientists including researchers from King's College London, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts University, Stanford University and nutritional science company ZOE he is conducting the largest scientific nutrition research project, showing that individual responses to the same foods are unique, even between identical twins. You can find more on https://joinzoe.com/  Follow Tim on the following social media channels: Website: tim-spector.co.uk and www.joinzoe.com  Instagram: @tim.spector Twitter: @timspector  

We hear a lot about our gut microbiome and the links between our gut health, mental health and general health - what does this mean in practical terms and how does it apply to you? To help explain the complex interplay between our microbiome, our genes, the food we eat and how this can impact our health and our predisposition towards certain diseases is nutrition dynamo, molecule nutritionist Dr Emma Beckett.Emma’s enthusiasm for her subject matter is contagious and our conversation wanders over some fascinating terrain - we talk about environment versus genetics in shaping our microbiome and, in this context, the value of twin studies. Emma explains how food can influence gene expression and how genes can influence the way we metabolise, taste and experience food? Does coriander tase like soap to you? If so, find out why.Another of Emma’s passions is scientific communication and I found her take on this really refreshing. Emma gives us some tips on how to be a critical consumer of all the information about food and diets we are bombarded with plus some advice on what foods are the best to feed our microbiome and keep it as healthy as possible.Emma's social media handles:Twitter @synapse101Instagram @Emmie_101Facebook @Dr Emma Beckett - Food & Nutrition ScientistLINKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCASTAustralian Dietary Guidelines: https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/the-australian-dietary-guidelinesAustralian Guide to Halthy Eating: https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eatingHOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE PODCASTPlease tell your friends about the podcast and share it with them.Follow me on Instagram @amanda_wellbeing_podcastFollow my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/amandaswellbeingpodcast/?modal=admin_todo_tourIf you could rate and review the podcast on iTunes, that would be super helpful.Purchasing a book from my website is an easy way to support the podcast too. Here is a link to the books page: https://amandaswellbeingpodcast.com/books/Link to the Donate page on my website: https://amandaswellbeingpodcast.com/contribute/

The research that Professor Tim Spector has been involved in has been ground-breaking in revealing our highly individualised responses to food. In his latest book, Spoon-fed, he details how almost everything we've been told about nutrition is wrong. Join us for a fascinating conversation with Tim about his book, and find out why he thinks that we need to have honest discussions about food, how to challenge outdated thinking about nutrition, and how the industry has to play a leading role in improving health. About Tim Spector Tim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Director of the TwinsUK Registry at Kings College, London and has recently been elected to the prestigious Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He trained originally in rheumatology and epidemiology. In 1992 he moved into genetic epidemiology and founded the UK Twins Registry, of 13,000 twins, which is the richest collection of genotypic and phenotypic information worldwide. He is past President of the International Society of Twin Studies, directs the European Twin Registry Consortium (Discotwin) and collaborates with over 120 centres worldwide. He has demonstrated the genetic basis of a wide range of common complex traits, many previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment. Through genetic association studies (GWAS), his group have found over 500 novel gene loci in over 50 disease areas. He has published over 800 research articles and is ranked as being in the top 1% of the world’s most cited scientists by Thomson-Reuters. He held a prestigious European Research Council senior investigator award in epigenetics and is a NIHR Senior Investigator. His current work focuses on omics and the microbiome and directs the crowdfunded British Gut microbiome project. Together with an international team of leading scientists including researchers from King’s College London, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts University, Stanford University and nutritional science company ZOE he  is conducting the largest scientific nutrition research project, showing that individual responses to the same foods are unique, even between identical twins. You can find more on https://joinzoe.com/ He is a prolific writer with several popular science books and a regular blog, focusing on genetics, epigenetics and most recently microbiome and diet (The Diet Myth). He is in demand as a public speaker and features regularly in the media.

It’s Write Reading In Bed Month! We’re joined by one of our favourite guest hosts, Laura Frey (Reading-In-Bed), for her bi-annual visit. We had lots of good stuff to say about this critically acclaimed novel. Listen! Today also marks the … Continue reading →

Twin Studies have been used for decades to settle the age-old Nature vs. Nurture debate about human behavior: are we hardwired to act according to our biological blueprint, or does our environment influence our behavior or gene expression? Twin Study research has helped find answers to questions on space travel, obesity, IQ, and much more. Empirical evidence has settled the debate for good. The answer? We are both Nature AND Nurture. But what about a Digital Twin…and what can it teach us? A digital twin is a real-time digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity. This replication is used to find the root cause of issues -or- experiment with changes before they are implemented in real-time. Neil Calvert and his company LINQ model your business with a digital twin – helping organizations experiment with future opportunities before investing in change and transformation. Think of it as Twin Studies for organizations – offering decisions based in evidence.

Twin Studies have been used for decades to settle the age-old Nature vs. Nurture debate about human behavior: are we hardwired to act according to our biological blueprint, or does our environment influence our behavior or gene expression? Twin Study research has helped find answers to questions on space travel, obesity, IQ, and much more. The post Decisions Based in Evidence with Neil Calvert appeared first on Influence Ecology.

Twin studies have been a staple in psychological research for over a century. But many people don't know about the critical assumptions implicit in conducting these studies. Shane and Abraham break down the history of twin studies and the weaknesses that plague them. Remember that you can reach us directly at 775.525.0908, at info@wwdwwdpodcast.com, through the comments below OR on social via @wwdwwdpodcast or #wwdwwdpodcast.

the weekend show ep 8 | We watch the documentary "Three Identical Strangers" and question whether the debate over nature vs. nurture really matters...

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Dr. Nancy Segal is Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Twin Studies Center, at California State University, Fullerton. She's been the recipient of many awards and distinctions. She served as Assistant Director of the Minnesota Center for Twin and Adoption Research, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, from 1985 to 1991. She's also the author of many books, including Entwined Lives, Indivisible by Two, Someone Else's Twin, Born Together-Reared Apart, and, the latest one, Accidental Brothers: The Story of Twins Exchanged at Birth and the Power of Nature and Nurture. The central theme of this episode is Dr. Segal's latest book, Accidental Brothers. We start the conversation with some personal questions, about what it was for Dr. Segal to live as and have a relationship with her fraternal twin, and also what she deemed to be the most interesting findings coming from the MISTRA (Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart). Subsequent topics include: studies with identical, fraternal and virtual twins, and triplets, and what they teach us about human nature; how people express themselves more fully as they get independent from their family; the nature vs nurture dichotomy, and also nurture via nature and nature via nurture approaches; the role of chance in people's lives; epigenetics and the prenatal environment; how behavioral genetics might inform parenting practices; and related subjects. Time Links: 01:08 Growing up as a fraternal twin 04:12 Findings from the MISTRA 08:50 The Colombian virtual twins 12:33 When twins reunite 14:37 What happens when people get independent from their family 17:11 Passive gene-environment correlations 18:46 Nature vs nurture 21:03 Does genetics set upper limits to our potential? 23:33 Have twins studies a WEIRD effect? 25:22 The role of chance in children's development 27:21 Twin studies and parental uncertainty 29:29 Studies with triplets 30:55 Epigenetics 33:38 Prenatal environment 34:36 Diversity in human societies 40:11 Nurture via nature 41:07 Behavioral genetics and parenting practices 46:23 Follow Dr. Segal's work -- Follow Dr. Segal's work: Faculty page: http://psych.fullerton.edu/nsegal/ Personal website: http://drnancysegaltwins.org/ Twitter handle: @nlsegal -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORD, AND HANS FREDRIK SUNDE! I also leave you with the link to a recent montage video I did with the interviews I have released until the end of June 2018: https://youtu.be/efdb18WdZUo And check out my playlists on: PSYCHOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/ybalf8km PHILOSOPHY: https://tinyurl.com/yb6a7d3p ANTHROPOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/y8b42r7g

Can you really control your weight? There are two schools of thought on this: one believes that nothing is within our control and the other believes everything is within our control. But what if the truth is somewhere in the middle? Annie and Lauren explore just how much control we have over our weight and provide helpful perspective on an age-old question. What you’ll hear in this episode: What studies say about how much genes influence weight What studies say about how much genes influence height Twin Studies, The Secrets of The Eating Lab and The Minnesota Starvation Experiment How we adjust our eating when we feel we are being observed The two camps: we can control all the things and we can control none of the things How much control do we really have over our weight? How your body responds to decreases in calories Ideal weight vs ideal weight range What happens when you try to “pause” on an escalator Process versus outcome goals How weight range relates to body composition Getting clear on your goals How your pre-disposed body type relates to your weight How to find your weight range     Resources: 53: Secrets From The Eating Lab: Dr. Traci Mann Secrets From the Eating Lab Episode 9: Two Sisters, Two Bodies: Growing Up Together In A Body Obsessed World Episode 4: What A 70-year-old Starvation Experiment Taught Us About Dieting Body Respect Learn more about Balance365 Life here Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or Android so you never miss a new episode! Visit us on Facebook| Follow us on Instagram| Check us out on Pinterest Join our free Facebook group with over 40k women just like you! Did you enjoy the podcast? Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play! It helps us get in front of new listeners so we can keep making great content. Transcript: Annie: Welcome to Balance365 Life Radio, a podcast that delivers honest conversations about food, fitness, weight, and wellness. I'm your host, Annie Brees along with Jennifer Campbell and Lauren Koski. We are personal trainers, nutritionists and founders of Balanced365 together we coached thousands of women each day and are on a mission to help them feel healthy, happy, and confident in their bodies on their own terms. Join us here every week as we discuss hot topics pertaining to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing with amazing guests. Enjoy. Welcome back to another episode of Balance365 Life Radio. Before we dive into today's topic, I want to share a super sweet review we got on iTunes last week from Blonde Lauren, which I promise it's not our Blonde Lauren. She says "This podcast is nothing short of life-changing. With all the negative information and images thrown at women in regards to our bodies this podcast is like a ray of sunshine. I listen to this podcast religiously as I walk the neighborhood and it always puts a smile on my face and helps me conquer the day. Jennifer, Annie and Lauren are so relatable and I feel like we were really friends and I just love that." Thank you so much. To everyone who takes the time to drop us a note in our email inboxes or leaves us a review on iTunes, we read them all and they all mean so much to us. Okay. Let's talk about today's episode. We have been talking about this topic in a roundabout way on previous podcasts, but we wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the topic. Can you control your weight? A lot of fitness professionals think you have all the control while some of them think this is a losing battle, why even try? On today's episode, Lauren and I discussed how much control you really have over your weight and I think you might be surprised. Enjoy! Lauren, how are you? Lauren: Good. It's us again. Annie: It's just us again, poor Jen is having some audio difficulties and she wanted to be here, but we are sticklers for sound quality on our podcast and it just wasn't gonna cut it, right? Lauren: Yes. She likes to compare her sound now to my sound when mine wasn't working because she thinks it was terrible. Annie: Well, you know, we've had this, I think we've talked about this on the podcast before, but sound quality. And I thought when we started this podcast, like you would just plug in a microphone and hit record and then you just piece it together. Lauren: I feel like it should not be this hard. It's really fun for us. Annie: It's really hard and especially because you and I have both moved and, maybe Jen's even moved, but when you move, like then you're changing a different recording location and that can affect the acoustics and so, yeah. Lauren: And then the technology on top of all that, sometimes it just does not work out. Annie: Yeah. But we're not complaining Lauren: It might sound that way. Annie: We actually, I really enjoy the podcast. I really, really enjoy doing it. But it's just been a little bit more difficult than we anticipated. So, and especially getting the three of us together in three time zones, like, you know. Lauren: There's always some disaster. Annie: Always. Lauren: The morning of recording. School's canceled or sick, a kid is sick or the heat went out, but we always figure it out. Annie: Yeah. We piece it together. Lauren: Yeah. Annie: We're scrappy in a good way. So we're talking about a really interesting topic and it comes up pretty frequently in our community and that is, can you control your weight? And I think it's really interesting because it seems like there's kind of varying answers to that question and it kind of depends on who you ask. But there's this idea that we can control everything, right? And we can absolutely control our weight. We have total control. On the other side of the spectrum there's this like, "No, you don't." There's people that say you don't have any control at all. You don't need to bother with trying to control your weight or manage your weight. It's just, it is what it is and you're just stuck with it. Whatever it's at and we wanted to dive into like what the real answer is. Do you have any control of your weight? And it's something that we've kind of, I feel like, talked about in a roundabout way with various guests on the podcast, but we haven't specifically addressed like this. Lauren: Right. This one question. Annie: Yeah. And on paper it seems to boil down to simple math, right? Which I think is where we get kind of the, "Yes, you can control everything about your body and your weight." It's "Eat fewer calories than you consume and weight loss will happen," right? And you'll get the desired outcome. And we have- Lauren: And we talk about that too, right? Like we talk about its weight loss does come down to calories in versus calories out, but that's not the whole story. Annie: Right. And we have professionals in our industry that will say that you just need dedication and self control and commitment and then you can have the body of your dreams, right? Like, whatever, whatever body you want, which I think is where we see a lot of the, I don't know if this is still a thing, I don't actually read these sorts of magazines anymore, but at one time, health and fitness magazines used to have like a celebrity on the cover of their magazine. It was like, here's the Jennifer Aniston Diet, or here's the Jennifer Garner diet or whatever. And I used to think like, "Oh, if I just eat what she eats, if I work out, like she works out, then I will then look like Jennifer Aniston. Lauren: Right. And, I can't remember her name. Do you remember the actress's name from that movie? Zack and Miri? Annie: I don't even know that movie. Lauren: Okay. It's a funny movie. I can't say the whole name of it because it's not appropriate. But she was on the Ellen show and, they were showing a picture of her own magazine and talking about like what she eats or whatever. And she was like, you know, it doesn't matter what I eat, this is genetics. Like, this is what I would look like regardless. I would look pretty similar to this. Annie: Right. Lauren: So, you know, people are congratulating her and she's like, "I didn't do anything special. This is just how I'm built." Annie: Yeah, exactly. But you're jumping ahead of the outline. Lauren: Oh, I'm sorry. Annie: Okay. I guess we can sign off now. No, we'll use that as a great segue because it does, it sounds really easy on paper that if you just do what she's doing or, you know, I think, yeah, I get questions, you know, like about my arms. Like what, what arm workouts are you doing? Lauren: Yeah. Annie: It's genetics. Like, maybe years of softball has played into this but it's where I carry my fat. It's how easily I build muscle. And, I think, it's known that our genes control or have an effect on our weight, but it's a little bit, we've been a little bit gray on how much control. Lauren: Right? So we have, like you said, the two camps, the "you have total control" and "you have no control." And surprise surprise, we fall somewhere in the middle. Annie: Yeah. And if you listen to Traci Mann's podcast, which if you haven't listened to it, we'll link it in the show notes. It is a wonderful podcast. She is just a wonderful woman professionally and personally. She's just a good human. She wrote the book The Secrets of the Eating Lab and inside there she compared, she shared a study and it compared the weight of more than 500 adopted children with their biological parents and their adoptive parents. And so this, the idea behind the study was that if learned eating habits, if you could just willpower and self control and you know, do all the things, if learned eating habits have more of an impact on weight then the children should have a weight that mirrors more like their adoptive parents and if genetics had more of an impact, then it should, their weight should be closer correlated to their biological, their birth parents. But what they found was that the children's weight correlated strongly with the weight of their biological parents and not all with the weight of their adoptive parents, which I think is fascinating. Lauren: It is fascinating. Annie: And additionally, a study also she shared in the science, studies, Secrets from the Eating Lab, study from the Secrets of the Eating Lab. They did a study of identical twins that were raised in separate homes, which I think is like interesting enough that there's twins that were raised separately enough to study. Lauren: Can we get the story behind that please? Annie: But there is, there were enough studies, as a way to make sure that they didn't share the same eating environment. Right. So it was a way to tease out that environment was a role in this study. The study looked at 93 pairs of identical twins raised apart and then a 154 pairs of twins raised together. And the results showed that the weights of the twins, whether they were raised together or apart were highly correlated, which again goes to show that our genetics, our biology has a large impact on our weight and those studies and in addition with some other studies what largely contributed, to scientists concluding that our genes account for about 70% of the variation in people's weight. Lauren: Right. Which is huge. Annie: Which is, yeah, which is huge and I don't know, some of you may be listening in and think that that's way more than you anticipated and some people will be like, "Oh maybe I have a little bit more control than I thought." Like it kind of depends on where you fell on that spectrum. If you were like, I can control all the things and, and get whatever body I want if I just have enough self willpower and dedication and self control, this might be shocking news for you. On the flip side, if you were like, I don't have any control, I'm stuck. I come from a long line of people that look like x, y, z. This is just as is what it is. You might have a little bit more wiggle room than you thought. Lauren: Right. So you have about 30% of your body weight is in your control. Annie: Yeah. Lauren: Is what this is basically saying. Annie: And what I think is interesting about this is, Traci Mann also shares, I mean obviously we're not researchers, we're not scientists. So we're pulling this information because we are evidenced based. We don't want to just feed you information because it sounds convenient or because it works for our philosophy or our brand. But for reference she also compare us that genes play about an 80% role in height. And I think that's such an interesting study because you don't see anyone being like, "Oh, I just wish I could, if I just had more self control or willpower, I'd be taller." Lauren: I could get taller. Annie: Yeah. But so often we see people talking about their weights like that. Like, "Ah, I just, I need to quit being lazy or I just need to get my butt to the gym. And then I, you know, I'd get rid of this, you know, fat on my hips or whatever," you know, but you don't hear people talking about their weight or their height, like they do their weight, but it's pretty comparable in how much control we have. Lauren: Right, right. A little less in height. But still really close. Annie: Like you're not over there trying to be taller. Lauren: No- Annie: I mean, maybe heels. Lauren: It's interesting that both of my parents are relatively tall and both of my sisters are, well, they're all like more average size and I am smaller. Don't know where that came from, but it did come from somewhere. Annie: Yeah. Well, and you know, we kind of talked about this, how genetics in the two sisters podcasts where we had Janelle and Jen, cofounder Jen, had her sister on and they have very different body types and they were just, they had a really beautiful story about how Jenelle looked like all the women on one side of the family. And Jen looks more like all the women on the other side of the family. And I just, I think there's a lot of beauty in looking at your family tree and like seeing that. It's not just like body parts, it's like seeing your grandmother, your aunt, your sister, like elements of them. And I think that's just beautiful. Lauren: Not to throw a wrench into this discussion either, but now there is, sort of, more relatively new study called epigenetics, which is like how your environment can turn on or off certain genes, which is also really interesting and I'd love to, I haven't looked into this yet, but I'd love to kind of look into that too that aspect and that might be the 30% that you can control, right. I'm just making that up, but it's something to consider. Annie: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That is, I've never, I don't even think I've heard of that term, to be honest. So I'm curious to learn more about that. Lauren: You know, it's relatively new. I think it's, they're learning more and more about it but there is some studies out there. Annie: Fascinating. Lauren: Yeah. Cause we have, we have a lot of genes and different things determine which genes get turned on and which genes don't. Annie: Yeah. Lauren: Just a little side note. Annie: Interesting. And I feel like I'm now distracted by that. Lauren: I'm sorry. Annie: Refocus. So our genes, just to recap that first point there, our genes have accounted for about 70% of the variation in people's weight. So, again, that's just saying that our biology, our genetics make up a lot of, determine a lot of how we weigh or what we weigh. But that doesn't mean that you're totally out of control. But additionally, our genes can even control how much weight we gain. And this was another study from the Secrets From the Eating Lab that there was even studies where participants were fed the same amount of calories, and the twins gained varying amounts of weight for it. So for example, pairs of twins that were overfed by a thousand calories. Again, if this boiled down to just math, if it worked out on paper, you know, a thousand calories equals this percentage of pounds of body mass gain a week, they should have all gained the same amount of weight. But what happened, pairs of twins that were overfed by a thousand calories a day gain to anywhere from nine to 29 pounds. So in other words, we aren't in conscious control of how our bodies use calories or energy, which I think is fascinating. And you know, if you're listening to this and you feel like I hear this a lot, women comparing like what they eat to their girlfriends or what they eat to the men in their lives and it's like, "Oh, I feel like I look at a Snickers and I gain weight" or you know, "My husband has trouble." I just met with a personal training client yesterday and she actually is having trouble putting on weight and I'm sitting here on the opposite end of the spectrum. Like, I have no problem putting on weight, it seems. Lauren: Right. Annie: And so I just think that that's again to show that our genes can even control how easily we gain weight, lose weight, put on muscle mass, don't gain muscle mass. Lauren: It's super interesting too because we are still learning about how all of this works. Like even now, researchers are still asking questions and they still don't know everything about how all these genes play into weight and metabolism and metabolic rates do differ between people. I think it's, it's not as significant as maybe some people have been led to believe, like if someone has a fast metabolism but it can differ a little bit. Annie: Right. Lauren: Which is what's happening probably with, you know, your client who can't gain weight. Annie: Yeah. And there's so many factors to be considered like environment and like what they do for their, what their, like, habits are, and how their relationship with food and their relationship with exercise. So it's like oftentimes multifactorial. But in the studies of these two are really interesting, especially because we've talked about, we have another podcast, The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, you know, studies like that just aren't even allowed anymore because they're considered unethical. Like, and it can be hard to study people's eating habits. And Traci Mann talks about this in her book because the minute people think that their eating habits are being studied, they change their eating habits. They like get all self conscious and they start doing different things that they wouldn't normally do if they didn't think that they were being watched for eating. I mean, I do that when, like, when I'm out and I feel like, you know, all of a sudden I'm at this nice restaurant or whatever and I think people are looking at me, I'm like, "Oh, I better put my napkin on my lap and not spill and use the right fork and put my fork down between every bite. Breathe. Not just inhale all my food. Annie: Anyways, getting back to our genes. Lauren, this is something you've talked about a lot in our workshops and our podcasts and our program, but that your body has a pretty kick butt weight regulation system and that can often override conscious efforts to change your weight. So for example, you cut calories, your body may in response slow your metabolism, resulting in fewer calories burned or you ramp up exercise and your body secretes hormones to increase hunger, which happens to me all the time. Like I exercise, I actually get hungrier. And so I often eat more and you've talked about that before, that your body's like pretty smart like that. Lauren: Yeah. Well your body, its main goal is to keep you alive, right? And so when you cut calories or you're not eating as much, or cut calories drastically, I should say, because that's what most fad diets do, your body thinks that you're starving. It doesn't know that you are doing that on purpose and that you're going on a diet. And so it does everything in its power to help conserve what energy you have and get you to eat more calorie dense foods. So that's another big reason why you crave high energy foods when you cut calories, you know, because your body wants that energy. Annie: Exactly. And many dieters, I know I've experienced this, I'm sure you have too, have maybe experienced a feeling like your body doesn't want you to lose weight. Like you're fighting against your body and it usually looks like something like this. You cut calories, you experience some excitement and exhilaration of initial weight loss and that's followed by an increased drive to eat and/or not move as intensely as you have been, which leads to weight regain because you go back to eating the food you were eating or not moving as much. And then that's followed by guilt and maybe even this sense of hopelessness. And that's something that Linda Bacon talks about in Body Respect, which is another wonderful book if you haven't read that and she just note that that's because you can only cheat biology so long. Like as you were talking about, your body is trying to, it cares about you a lot. it wants to keep you alive. Lauren: And that's like the unconscious part of ourselves. I think it's the reptilian, it might be the reptilian part of the brain, right, that controls that. And so you literally don't have control over those things. Annie: Right. And Linda Bacon has this, I think it's really kind of refreshing, it feels like it just takes the pressure off of me personally. But she has the quote in her book, again, Body Respect that "Diet failure is no more a sign of gluttony or lack of character than breathing deeply after exertion indicates lung failure or shivering in the cold weather evidences weakness." Like that's, this is the desire to eat, the desire to not move as intensely, the weight regain, that is all what exactly what we would expect from someone that's dieting, that's trying to cut calories. This is what your body is made to do and it's trying to do this because it's what it thinks is best for you. And it's a normal and expected response. So, I guess what we're just kind of boiling this all down to say is that you might not have as much control as you, some people lead you to believe. And what we talked about in the Traci Mann podcasts was that you have a little room, a little wiggle room, and one of the things that she suggests, because I know some of you might be listening and thinking like, "Crap, I wish I had more control over my weight" and we don't want you to feel discouraged from making changes if that's what you decide. But Traci Mann really encourages people to have a weight range versus a specific weight. And, I think that that's a really great idea because so often we hear women that they have this like ideal weight and that ideal weight is pulled out of thin air. It might be their pre-pregnancy weight, the weight when they got married, the weight they graduated high school. It might not even be realistic. And to think that your body can sit at one stable weight throughout the day, the week, the month, the year is just not attainable. That your weight ebbs and flows throughout again, the day, the week, I mean, if I weighed myself in the morning versus night versus Monday versus Friday versus the first of the month versus the end of the month, I would probably get six different body weights. Right. And it could range, you know, and you know, fluctuate five, six, seven pounds. And that this is normal and especially seasons of life, you know, if you're, you've got to, you've just given birth or you know, maybe it's winter and you're not as active, you're not outside as much. Your schedule is really busy because you're an accountant and it's tax season and you're working more and not hitting the gym as much. It's normal. And for this reason, a range seems to be a lot more realistic versus maintaining a single number throughout the year. Lauren: Yeah. So if you just kind of are aware but also going with the flow, like if your weight is up five pounds or down five pounds and just being okay with it instead of again pulling back that pendulum cause that's going to start that extreme pendulum swing over again. If you can just, like Jen says in our workshop that we do, in her Mario Kart example, if you can just move the wheel slightly to the right or to the left instead of extremely turning right or left, you'll be much better off. And also, Traci Mann also talks about this weight range. So there's a certain weight or there seems to be for people a certain weight that is dependent, like we said on many different things that if you go below that, that's when all of those biological changes start happening. Like your appetite increases and your metabolism starts to slow down to conserve some energy. So instead of, she says there's a weight range that your body is comfortable at and you can make changes to get to the lower end of that weight range. And so that's where you have, that's where you can control. So you can't control exactly what rate, but you can control where in that range you say. Annie: And the beautiful thing about that weight range is when you find it, you'll often find that it feels effortless to maintain or that you don't have to work near- Lauren: or close to Annie: -as hard. You have the perfect analogy in our workshop, that we share every now and then about riding an escalator. And when you're dieting hard, when you're trying really hard to maintain a weight that's below that range, it often feels like you're riding, trying to go up a down escalator and like, you're working, working, working, working, working. And the minute you want to take a break or rest or hit pause, it's like you're right back to where you started. And the idea is that when you find that range, you can move it around, give or take a little bit, but it's not like exerting all of your effort, all of your brain power, all of your energy to achieve this weight, either above or below that range. Because she also found in that book, she also found that the opposite was true to that getting people to gain weight out of their range was also equally as difficult as trying to get them to live below the range. Lauren: Yeah. Annie: Yeah. So with that being said, another suggestion we have in addition to the weight range versus a specific weight is to focus on your health behaviors versus weight. And, we've said this for a while, that your weight is not a behavior and for so many reasons we can't always control our weight and trying to do so is really, really difficult. And one of the things Jen talks about too is a lot of this can boil down to are you valuing your weight or are you valuing thinness or are you valuing health? And, you know, and again, no judgment Annie: There's been, I spent a lot of my life valuing thinness. I wanted, I didn't care if I was healthy, I wasn't even thinking if I was healthy or what I was doing, the behaviors I was utilizing, the tools I was utilizing to get to a certain weight was healthy if it was sustainable. I wasn't really even concerned with that. I just was so focused on getting that weight or getting that look, my body to look a certain way that I kind of forgot about health unfortunately. And again, I could just, I have a girl crush on Traci Mann, I could just talk about her all day but at the end of that podcast, she encourages that if you're eating balanced meals most of the time, not getting too full, you're not under eating, you're exercising a little bit throughout the week, you're managing your stress that whatever weight you find yourself at doing those things is good enough. And I think that, like, gives me like a, almost, I can almost breathe like a big deep breath, like a sigh of relief. Like I don't have to do all of these things and then I'm validated by reaching that goal weight that like, "Okay, I did enough." It's like, well, let's focus on what, like, actually our behaviors are and if those encourage health, then we're on the right track regardless of what we weigh. Lauren: Right. When I was at my thinnest, my behaviors were not healthy. Annie: Right. Lauren: And when I was at my heaviest, my behaviors were not healthy. Annie: Right. Lauren: So, you know, focusing on those healthy behaviors, I have settled in the middle. Annie: Yeah. And, you know, one of the ways, we've talked about this before, one of the ways, I think the easiest ways to kind of what we're talking about almost is process versus outcome goals. And a lot of times women have outcome goals. They want to be the size eight. They want to be the size four, they want to be 130 pounds, 150 pounds, whatever it is. And those are all outcome based goals, which are fine. But I think what's really, really a key is to, if that's a goal of yours, to also think about how you're going to get there and write goals around the how. So okay, you want to run a marathon? Like how am I going to get there? You want to drop 10 pounds, how am I going to get there? The how is the behaviors. Lauren: Right? And if you're in our Balance365 program, you'll notice that that's how we set up our program, right? So when you're checking off your habits, that is a process based goal. So you're checking off whether you had that, you know, half plate of vegetables or quarter plate of vegetables or whatever your goal is, you're going to check off if you did whatever your movement goal is. And those are process goals and not outcome goals. Annie: Yeah. And those are things that we can control more often than not. Lauren: Right. Annie: Versus our weight. Like I can do all the right things and for whatever reason, still not hit that goal weight. And I see that happen a lot. We see that happen a lot where women are exercising, they're eating some more fruits and vegetables, they're getting more sleep and they step on the scale and their weight hasn't budged and they feel like deflated. They're like, "Ugh, this was worthless. I didn't do anything. I'm not any further along towards my goal." And it's like, "Wait a minute, you're exercising, you're eating fruits and vegetables, you're sleeping more, you're doing all these really great things for your health and your body. Like, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because you didn't lose a pound." Lauren: Right. Annie: The last point I want to make when it comes to, can you control your weight? And I just, this has been absolute ultimate freedom for me is to accept the body type you have and work with it, not against this. And we oftentimes make the comparison between Jen's body and my body because Jen and I are pretty close in age. We've both had three babies. We're both personal trainers. We're about the same height, but there is probably, I don't know what she weighs now, but, there's probably about 50 pounds, 40, 50 pound difference between the two of us and for Jen to look like me or for me to look like Jen is just, like, ridiculous to think that that could happen. That's kind of what, going back to what we were talking about it at the beginning of the podcast about, you know, to think that I could just diet like Jennifer Aniston and therefore look like Jennifer Aniston is just absurd. Right? Lauren: Right. Yes. Annie: But honestly, this has given me, accepting my body type has given me so much peace of mind and like, I can just own my big thighs and my broad shoulders and I don't feel like I have to, like, whittle them down because I'm not, like, I'm not going to, I can, again, like Traci Mann says, I can maybe be a little bit heavier, a little bit lighter within that range. I'm still going to have thick thighs. Like it just, you know, and for a girl that her first diet and exercise book was Thin Thighs. Like, that's all I've ever wanted was the long lean legs. My mom had long, beautiful lean legs and I was like, "Why didn't I? Why did I get my dad's legs?" But now that I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to have thick thighs and that's just the way it is and this is what works for my body and Oh, guess what? They can actually be a really powerful asset in the gym. And these are some aspects that I like about them." I don't love everything about them. That's okay. But again, like I don't love everything about my kids all the time. I still love them. Lauren: Right. Annie: It's like, it doesn't have to, like, you don't have to love every single aspect of your body to love it as a whole, which is something we've also talked about. But, making peace with like, "Okay, I've got a big nose or I've got small hands or big trap," I don't know, whatever it is that you feel like you've been working to fight, like, making peace with that has been really, really impactful in my body acceptance journey. Lauren: Yeah. And one thing I want to circle back to because, I was going to mention this too and you mentioned it and I think it can be really powerful for people, is taking your body type, right? Cause like we have mentioned multiple times in this podcast, you can change a range of your body, your body fat, your weight, but you're not going to change your body type, like that is not going to change. So looking at your body type and think you can think about like, okay, so what is with this body type? Like what am I going to be good at? What does my body type give me an advantage in? And like for Annie, that's like weightlifting and powerlifting and being strong and so you can look at what is that for you. And it might help with this acceptance piece and this body love piece because it's not all about what you look like, but at the same time being, having your body help you be good at something can be really empowering too. Annie: Yeah. That's, we say when you look at your body like an instrument instead of an ornament. Lauren: Yeah. Annie: You know, what? Like, okay, what does, you know and being grateful for what my body does allow me to do or can help me do, can also be really, really special. But, I think that that's, you know, there's a lot of ways you can work on self love and body acceptance, but, that has been really, really powerful for me to just say like, "This is my body and it's, you know, maybe not what I've spent a lot of my years working towards. But like it's, it's still pretty great. It's not better or worse than any other type of, than your body, then Jen's body, than Jennifer Aniston's body, like this is my body and I'm going to take care of it the best way I can, like, thick thighs and all. Lauren: And you know, it's, it's funny because there are a lot of women out there who idolize your body type. Annie: I know. Yeah. That's been, so people, the funny thing is, is this happens to me a lot, which I love, I'm appreciative, but women will comment on the things that like I feel the most self conscious about. You know, like, oh, I, you know, or the funny thing is about my arms. I'll get a lot of comments about my arms. And it's like, well, if you look at the back of my arms, they're covered in stretch marks and it's, which I'm fine with. I again, I've made peace with, it's like I had stretch marks way before pregnancy. I had stretch marks on my arms and my hips when I hit puberty, I just, you know, just genetics and growing and- Lauren: I do too, I have them on my legs. Annie: Yeah. And I think it's just so interesting. And I do this to other women. Women can see beauty in my body or find appreciation in my body or aspects of my body. And then the same elements on their body, they hate on, they berate themselves, they have shame about, and it's like, "Hey, you know what? We all have a lot more in common than we probably think we do stretch marks and cellulite and pimples and gray hairs and wrinkles. And should I keep going?" Lauren: All of it. It's all normal. Annie: It is all normal. If you have a body, you probably have a lot of that or all of it. Some of it. If you have none of it, then that's cool too. Lauren: That's fine too. We love all bodies. Annie: We do. We are pretty inclusive here. So anyways, so I just want to recap. You know, it boils down to what Secrets from the Eating Lab Traci Mann showed, that Linda Bacon and Body Respect has done some extensive research on is that our genes and biology play a pretty big role in our weight. And it's not as simple as you can control it all and you can have the body you want. It's not as simple as you don't have any control at all. It's somewhere in the middle. And what we would encourage you to do is find the weight range that you can live your best life at, your healthiest life at, where you aren't working tirelessly to, you know, maintain a certain weight that's above or below that weight range that allows you to do the things, the activities, the behaviors that you want to do and feel good about yourself. Lauren: Can I add one more little thing? Annie: Absolutely. Lauren: Can we talk for just a second about body composition changes? Because this is a hunch I have because I don't think any studies have been done. I asked Doctor Traci Mann on that podcast, and I don't, I don't know of any studies that have been done, but this weight range seems to be not totally, like it's weight, right? It's not just like a fat percentage range, right? Like we have seen people change their body composition and their weight stays the same. And, so I was talking with someone in our Balance365 program last week, who was worried about working to, she wanted to lose weight for many reasons and different reasons, health reasons, and just not feeling comfortable in her body, right. And, but she was put off by this whole weight range topic. Like "Should I even bother?" Was like the kind of talk we were having. And one thing is acceptance, doing your healthy habits, your behavior-based goals. And then also I think for a lot of people, something really important is building muscle, is keeping your muscle. And I know Annie you have experienced with that, even more than I do if you want to just talk about that. Annie: Yeah. Well, my weight range, has, I guess since since I've quit dieting, which has been six, seven years, it's been a process of over the course of six, seven years, has stayed probably within 10 pounds. But I think, I've also had, you know, some babies in there, my body composition within that 10 pounds has changed pretty dramatically. And, you know, I attribute, so when Dr Traci Mann is talking about a weight range, I feel like that is absolutely me. For me to drop below my, that 10 pound weight range, it takes a lot, a lot of effort and I cannot sustain, I've tried it many times, just more just as an experiment. I've had some performance goals that I've had a hunch that maybe if I were a little bit lighter doing things like Crossfit, gymnastics would come more easily. I just can't do it. Like, and I shouldn't say I can't, I'm not willing to, to make the sacrifices and the changes that would go along with achieving that weight loss, at least not in this point in time. And I say that very objectively, I'm not, I'm not emotionally tied to my weight anymore. But my body composition has changed quite a bit. And I would say, although my weight is in the same range, my body looks different. I have considerably more muscle and less fat. Lauren: And I would echo that too. I'm about almost a year and a half postpartum and I am sort of getting to the lower end of my weight range. Like I can just tell based on my past experiences and you know, and, but my composition is different because I have not been working out as much as before I got pregnant. Right. Because I had a baby and a lot of things have changed and I've been doing the minimum exercise that, you know, I've just been doing what I can and that's good enough for me. But I know that if I want those body composition changes, it's not going to be me losing more weight. It's going to be me adding more muscle, pretty much. Annie: Yeah, absolutely. Which, you know, just in my experience when a lot of women come to me and they say they want to lose weight or they want to look more muscular or they want to look like they lift, that's something I hear common. You know, I just, I want to look like I lift, I want to have more muscle. What they mean is they want more muscle, less fat, not even necessarily weight loss. They and that's, you know, to each their own. But that's me, that's, you know, I really don't care what the scale weight says. I want to be able to do the things that I want to do in the gym and do the activities that allow me to play with my kids and go skiing and, you know, have the stamina and the energy and do fun tricks to with the kettlebell. Lauren: Yes, that's the best part. Annie: One arm push ups maybe eventually. But yeah. So, but I think that's just getting clear on what you really mean, you know, when you're talking about like, if the scale said x amount of weight, would that really change anything if you look the same or, you know? Lauren: No. Annie: Yeah, it wouldn't. Yeah, that's a good point. Lauren: Yeah. So I just wanted to add that little caveat because I've heard people in the interwebs, I've read conversations about this being a negative thing, right? This set weight range and it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be a negative thing. One, It gives you a lot of freedom, right? When you realize, like you had said, it's not all on you, like you can try as hard as you can try, but you're not going to change your body type. But also you can, even though if you may not be able to change your weight any further, you can change your body composition if that's a goal of yours. Annie: Absolutely. And yeah, I really side on the, like, if you feel like you've been dieting and your body is really, like, fighting you because it's, you feel like you're hungry all the time or you don't have a desire to get up and move or exercise because you don't have any energy or your sleep is crap. Like these are things that we would expect and that's normal. And to me that's like, "Oh good. It's not me. It's everyone. It's, like, I'm not just lazy. I'm not just weak. I don't need more self self discipline or willpower." Like, that's, you know, I think that's honestly, I think that that's as a fitness professional, I think that's a lazy excuse to tell a client like, "Oh, this is your fault. You know, you did this, you just need to be more dedicated. You just need more willpower." It's like, if that's the only solution or the only answer I have for someone that's coming to me with some goals, that's like, I'm not a good coach. Lauren: Right. And this is where, you know, education comes in, right? Because for that specific, you know, for that personal trainer, it may be easy for them, right? Because that's their genetics and that's their weight range that they can easily maintain. But that doesn't mean that that's true for everyone else. Annie: Or fitness and food are their profession. And- Lauren: and they work tirelessly. Annie: They work tirelessly to be in the gym and they get a lot of movement because they're, you know, in the gym, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM working and helping people exercise and their environment is curated to support those goals. You know, that's, I would try to be really cautious about how I talk about my exercise because, you know, I find myself just with my job in the gym multiple times a week. So it's easy for me to show up 30 minutes early and get a quick workout. It's not like that for everyone. You know, I have a little bit of a leg up just because of my profession. Lauren: Right? Annie: Yeah. All right, good talk. This was good. Lauren: Good talk. Annie: Good chat. Lauren: We got a little off track, but- Annie: Well, let's, no, you know, sometimes it goes sideways but I think- Lauren: Hopefully they enjoy the conversation. Annie: Yeah. Well yeah, I mean if they made it this far. Lauren: Congratulations to you! Annie: You win! If you want to continue the discussion, if you want to, you know, revisit the podcast with Traci Mann, we did ask her like, "Okay, how do you find this weight range that's right for you?" And really what she's offered was trial and error. It was like, it's really person specific. There's no, like we can't offer a flow chart, you know, like, is this, you know, is this yes or no? That would be really cool if we could, but if you want help navigating and exploring like "Am I in a weight range that's comfortable for me?" Maybe it's a little bit higher than you thought or you want to move to the lower end of that weight range and you need some help with your habits and your behaviors. Please join us in our free Facebook group Healthy Habits Happy Moms, we'd love to help you. There's a lot of really great women in there, we're in there. Lauren, Jen and I are in there often answering questions and we'd love to see you in there to continue with the discussion. Yeah? Lauren: Yes, please. Annie: Yeah. Alright. Thanks, Lauren. We'll talk to you later. Lauren: Alright, bye.

------------------Support the channel------------ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenter PayPal: paypal.me/thedissenter ------------------Follow me on--------------------- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDissenterYT Dr. Matt McGue is a behavior geneticist and Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where he co-directs the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research. Dr. McGue has authored or co-authored and published over 375 articles in academic journals. His h-index according to Google Scholar is 103. Dr. McGue participated in one of the greatest scientific endeavors of all time, the MISTRA (Minnesota Study on Twins Reared Apart), alongside big names of this type of research, like Thomas Bouchard, Nancy Segal, Auke Tellegen and David Lykken. Here, we talk about Behavioral Genetics; MISTRA; the types of studies done in Human Behavioral Genetics; what the studies with twins and adoptees tell us about human nature; some of the most interesting finding from the MISTRA; responses to people who only care about socialization; gender differences; and the concept of race and ancestry in Behavioral Genetics, and its implications. -- O Dr. Matt McGue é um geneticista comportamental e Professor Regente de Psicologia da Universidade de Minnesota, onde ele é codiretor do Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research. O Dr. McGue é autor ou coautor de 375 artigos em jornais académicos. O seu h-index, de acordo com o Google Scholar, é 103. O Dr. McGue participou numa dos maiores feitos científicos de sempre, o MISTRA (Minnesota Study on Twins Reared Apart), ao lado de grandes nomes deste tipo de investigação, como Thomas Bouchard, Nancy Segal, Auke Tellegen e David Lykken. Aqui, falamos sobre Genética Comportamental; o MISTRA; os tipos de estudos que se fazem em Genética Comportamental Humana; o que é que os estudos com gémeos e adotados nos indicam acerca da natureza humana; alguns dos mais interessantes achados do MISTRA; respostas de pessoas que apenas querem saber de socialização; diferenças entre os géneros; o conceito de raça em Genética Comportamental, e as suas implicações. Dr. McGue faculty page: https://cnbd.umn.edu/bio/cnbd-faculty-staff/matthew-mcgue Dr. McGue's MOOC on Introduction to Human Behavioral Genetics: https://www.coursera.org/learn/behavioralgenetics -- A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS: KARIN LIETZCKE, ANN BLANCHETTE, JUNOS, SCIMED, PER HELGE HAAKSTD LARSEN, LAU GUERREIRO, RUI BELEZA, MIGUEL ESTRADA, ANTÓNIO CUNHA, CHANTEL GELINAS, JIM FRANK, JERRY MULLER, FRANCIS FORD, AND HANS FREDRIK SUNDE! I also leave you with the link to a recent montage video I did with the interviews I have released until the end of June 2018: https://youtu.be/efdb18WdZUo And check out my playlists on: PSYCHOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/ybalf8km PHILOSOPHY: https://tinyurl.com/yb6a7d3p ANTHROPOLOGY: https://tinyurl.com/y8b42r7g

Seeing double? It’s not your imagination - birth rates of twins have been rising sharply, and twin studies are now, more than ever, influencing various disciplines. Everyone from economists, to religious scholars, to scientists see the value in studying twins. Nancy Segal, author of “Born Together-Reared Apart: The Landmark Minnesota Twin Study,” talks to us about the far-reaching effects of twins. And if you’re not a twin yourself, don’t feel left out, because what we learn from twins can lead to breakthroughs that impact us all. Segal, a professor of psychology at California State University, Fullerton, explains how twins can teach us about nature vs. nurture, parenting styles, and preventative medicine.

The days get drearier but the podcast gets more delightful with top drawer guest, writer, teacher, mentor, Keith Maillard! We talk about his new novel Twin Studies, writing research, relationships, Bakhtin, Refuse: CanLit in Ruins and some very enjoyable pets of CanLit. All tangents will be satisfying.

Lynn Koplitz is a prominent standup comedian who may be seen performing regularly at the Comedy Cellar. Her new standup special, "Hormonal Beast," is available on Netflix. Jessica Kirson is a prominent standup comedian who may be seen performing regularly at the Comedy Cellar. She may also be heard regularly on "The Howard Stern Show." Dr. Nancy Segal is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton, and is the director of the Twin Studies center. She is the author of the new book "Twin Mythconceptions: False Beliefs, Fables, and Facts About Twins."

Lynn Koplitz is a prominent standup comedian who may be seen performing regularly at the Comedy Cellar. Her new standup special, "Hormonal Beast," is available on Netflix. Jessica Kirson is a prominent standup comedian who may be seen performing regularly at the Comedy Cellar. She may also be heard regularly on "The Howard Stern Show." Dr. Nancy Segal is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fullerton, and is the director of the Twin Studies center. She is the author of the new book "Twin Mythconceptions: False Beliefs, Fables, and Facts About Twins."

It's the world's biggest podcast! In today's episode, Garrett throws Evan a party to top his roast from last year, they re-enact a climactic scene from every anime ever and it's all egg-tastic when they play a round of "Exploring the Amazon" All that and much more on today's episode of Evan and Garrett Take On The World! Featuring tunes from our friends Sidney Gish, Twin Studies and Burns Like Fire!

Twins raised apart their entire lives have surprisingly similar lives and behavioral traits. Nancy Segal has been studying these rare twins for decades, and her research is fascinating!

In this months Cafe Scientifique Dr Giles Yo from the Institute of Metabolic Research at the University of Cambridge askes the question: Are my genes to blame when my Jeans don't fit?. He explores the behind our metabolism and fat storage and asks if these play a more crucial role than our environment in determining our weight. We also answer audience questions that reveal how our weight may also be affected by what happens when we're in the womb and how twin studies are crucial in understanding the role of our genes. Plus, we give you a heads up on what to expect at next months event! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

In this months Cafe Scientifique Dr Giles Yo from the Institute of Metabolic Research at the University of Cambridge askes the question: Are my genes to blame when my Jeans don't fit?. He explores the behind our metabolism and fat storage and asks if these play a more crucial role than our environment in determining our weight. We also answer audience questions that reveal how our weight may also be affected by what happens when we're in the womb and how twin studies are crucial in understanding the role of our genes. Plus, we give you a heads up on what to expect at next months event! Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

A five-year study followed more than 1,700 children and found that depression in preschoolers is primarily predicted by two factors. Christie Nicholson reports