ZOE Launches #bluepoopchallenge to Help People Learn About Their Gut Health

BOSTON, May 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- ZOE, the healthcare technology company conducting the largest in-depth nutrition study globally (PREDICT) and the team behind the ZOE COVID Study app, which has played an important role in the fight against COVID, today launched the #bluepoopchallenge to encourage people all over the world to get insight into their own gut health. Based on research by scientists working with ZOE published in the peer-reviewed journal Gut, the #bluepoopchallenge is a simple and inexpensive test anyone can do at home to measure their gut transit time, and learn about their microbiome.

Coming to life through bright blue muffins, ZOE invites participants to visit bluepoopchallenge.com, where they will be guided to bake their own muffins or, in the U.S., purchase them at cost. To begin the challenge, participants eat two muffins for breakfast and track the time it takes until blue-green poop appears. After participants enter their gut transit times on bluepoopchallenge.com and answer a few simple health questions, ZOE will reveal fascinating and fun gut health insights based on comparing them to thousands of participants in ZOE's research studies.

As part of the ZOE PREDICT study, researchers asked thousands of participants to eat specially-prepared blue muffins so they could measure their transit time. The simplest way to measure gut transit time, they found, was to eat a distinctively-colored food to see how long it takes to come out the other end. In the study published in Gut, ZOE's scientists found that transit times varied from less than 12 hours to many days, with an average time of around 29 hours.

The research team also found that gut transit time is not only affected by diet, lifestyle and hydration, but also by the trillions of bugs living in the gut, known as the gut microbiome. To explore the links between transit time, gut microbes, and health, ZOE analyzed the gut microbiomes of each blue pooper and collected significant data about their diet and health.

Dr. Sarah E. Berry, Reader in Nutrition Sciences at King's College London and co-lead author of the new study noted, "There are several scientific ways of measuring gut transit time, such as swallowing special capsules or a small wireless device." She added, "But these methods are complicated and invasive and can't easily be done at home. Our data shows that transit time, tracked with blue dye, is an indicator of gut health, and is better than other non-invasive methods available."

The tests revealed that shorter transit times were generally associated with better health, less abdominal fat, and healthier responses to food. Findings also showed differences in diet and gut microbiome composition between people with shorter and longer transit times, with specific foods and strains of bacteria associated with speedier or slower poops. Those with longer transit times had more microbes that feed on protein along with fewer fiber-loving bugs that produce helpful molecules called short-chain fatty acids, which are linked to better gut health. It was also discovered that people with slower poops were more likely to have a greater diversity of microbes in their gut, which is often associated with a healthy gut. This suggests that more microbiome diversity may not always be a sign of better health for people who don't poop very often. Moreover, people with very fast transit times, suggesting they had diarrhea, tended to have a less healthy gut microbiome.

Professor Tim Spector, Epidemiologist from King's College London, who started the PREDICT study program and is scientific founder of ZOE explained, "The key to health and weight loss lies not in the latest fad diet or calories consumed, but in the microbes inside us." Spector continued, "The Blue Poop Challenge is a simple way to find out what is going on in your gut. All you need are a couple of blue muffins and a spirit of curiosity to take that first step."

The #bluepoopchallenge aims to spread ZOE's mission of helping people reach their best health by discovering how their body works. With their first-of-its-kind at-home test kit and personalized nutrition program, ZOE can help consumers improve their health and reduce weight by reducing dietary inflammation and improving their gut health by retraining their body from the inside out.

"You can change your microbiome in weeks; it doesn't take years," said Jonathan Wolf, co-founder and CEO of ZOE. "But first, you need to understand what is going on inside your body. The Blue Poop Challenge is a fun and engaging program designed to drive awareness of how important your gut health is. As I tell my kids, once you realize you are feeding your microbiome with everything you eat, it transforms how you think about food."

About ZOE
ZOE is a healthcare science company helping people understand their body's responses to food. By using machine learning combined with large scale human studies, ZOE is decoding the impact of nutrition on health.

ZOE leads the PREDICT Studies and the ZOE COVID Study, which are the world's largest community powered research programs of their kind in nutrition and COVID-19 respectively.

Located in London and Boston, ZOE was founded by Professor Tim Spector of King's College London, data science leader Jonathan Wolf and entrepreneur George Hadjigeorgiou. ZOE was named one of the Deloitte Fast 50 Rising Stars in 2019 for the company's contribution to science enabled by technology and machine learning.

For more information on ZOE's mission and science, visit joinzoe.com.

Issued and released by:
Fiana Tulip
Head of Communications, ZOE
817.691.3031
[email protected]

SOURCE ZOE Health

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