Lazier lifestyles ‘have turned us into homo sedens’

Bodies require 3,000 daily calories for nutrition, but have no hope of burning them off, says academic

MODERN sedentary lifestyles make it impossible for people to get enough vitamins and minerals, an Oxford academic has said, as he backed a super-supplement that claims to radi- cally improve health. Dr Paul Clayton, of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour, warned homo sapiens had become “homo sedens”, a species that no longer engages in enough physical activity to warrant the number of calories needed to sustain it nutritionally.

But he believes that a supplement could help and has become the scientific adviser for a “super-pill” called Lyma, which has been created based on evidence from more than 200 studies and more than 20million hours of research. The supplement, which prom- ises to reduce anxiety and insomnia by 70 per cent, shorten colds by 37 per cent and increase antibodies by 32 per cent, is also backed by scientists at the University of Westminster, who conducted trials into one of its ingredients.

It is unusual for academics to support supplements and Dr Clayton, former senior scientific adviser to the government’s Committee on the Safety of Medicines, has refused to get involved with any companies before.

“Most supplements only have a talismanic quality, it’s like carrying the bones of saints around in your pocket. But this group has started to move away from hype-based nutrition to something with a strong evidence base.

“I have to be able to defend this to my colleagues at Oxford and for the first time I am pretty confident this will work,” he said. “This is not just about looking better and feeling better, this is about real health benefits.”

Lyma contains health-boosting ingredients such as ashwagandha, lycopene, which is usually found in tomatoes, turmeric, yeast sugars proven to boost the immune system, keratin, citicoline to protect the brain, K2Vital for bone strength and cholecalciferol, a type of vitamin D that helps calcium function in the body.

Dr Clayton said people with a good diet should not need supplements, but his own research has found that to get the correct nutrition, people should be eating around 3,000 calories – far too much for sedentary lifestyles.

In fact, he believes one of the healthiest times to be alive was in England in between 1850 and 1885 when, if you re- move child mortality statistics, many Victorians lived into their 80s and beyond, and died without experiencing decades of ill health and disability.

The secret to their longevity was physically demanding lifestyles and healthy, unprocessed food, he said.

“People who say you can get all your nutrients from a well-balanced diet don’t know what they are talking about, we’re well beyond that now.

“We’re all time-poor, buying food that is ultra-processed, which has all the calories but no nutritional value.”