29 January 2024 Pop Culture Podcast with Professor David Nutt

6:44PM Jan 28, 2024

Speakers:

Kat Brown

Helen O'Hara

Prof David Nutt

Keywords:

gaba

drink

alcohol

called

people

non alcoholic drinks

non alcoholic

harms

david nutt

week

brain

podcast

glutamate

horse riding

love

good

tea

drugs

effect

interesting

Recording recording wonder shouldn't be recording. Now I'm just suspicious but it's gonna be fine.

I once recorded over a Patrick Stewart exclusive about the X Men with BBC Radio seven and

once failed to press record on Joss Whedon.

How fucking hell? Oh my god. Did you primal scream loudly in your bedroom like

I did. I was still with him in the room when I realised

Welcome to pop culture, the podcast that brings soft drinks to the top of the menu. I'm Kat Brown Arts journalist, author and four years sober.

And I'm Helen O'Hara, film journalist, author and lifelong teetotaller.

What have you been up to this week?

Well, this week we've been in Gracia Wow. Oh my goodness,

this is brand new information. Tell me more.

You must remember cap we wrote the article a few weeks ago. Oh, my

memory is just not one to play with.

But yes, we basically written a piece discussing the same kind of things we do here on the podcast, interesting soft drinks, you might like to try laces that you can find them talking about pairing them with foods and stuff, which I think is something that drinkers think about and talk about quite a lot. Have you ever been out for a meal without somebody trying to decide whether to have red wine or white wine based on what they're having for dinner, but we didn't really talk about that with soft drinks. So So that's the kind of thing we got into in our article

and bless you for thinking that it only goes as deep as red or white talent.

I'm very ignorant on this. But yes, no, it is.

It's a it's a lovely article says the woman that wrote half of it. But also we've put in essentially the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat list of drinks, of restaurants of places making their own exciting things. So if you want to go and try any of those, then it's almost just like a written version of the podcast, and easier to try.

It was very nice. And also, I should say, it's a really good issue of Gracia, I was trying to find our article and I kept getting distracted by other ones going, Oh, I do want some winter skincare Actually, yes, please.

I got really overexcited and took the magazine to my local pub quiz, which I actually did when I got a proof of my book The other week and sort of took that out like it was baby's first week in the world. But unfortunately, I was so busy photographing the bloody magazine that we did really badly at the pub quiz. Paying attention at all Oh, I did use the mag actually as to sort of boost my attempts to try different drinks when I go to the pub quiz because usually I just have a non alcoholic beer and then maybe move on to like cordial and soda or have some tea or something like that. But they had some winter cocktail specials and I'm ashamed to say in an E for experience way I got sucked into the seven pounds 50 non alcoholic drink well no,

that would be a fair price as discussed on this podcast if there's really good stuff in it. So what was in this one?

It was seedlip were supposed to be fair when it was a new thing I tried and wasn't wildly excited about so it was it was a seed lip and then it was a fever tree pink grapefruit mixer, and I do like fever trees mixes and I do sometimes have them on their own but together it was just it was quite watery.

Oh no, that's a bit of a shame.

So I didn't love that. Fair enough.

I did try something new this week. So credit where it's due my local Sainsbury's it's a big Sainsbury's so it's a bit of a treat to go there. But my local Sainsbury's had a sort of end of shelf display of 0% Alcohol just for I guess, dry January and hopefully something they'll continue because it makes them much easier to find. But among the things on that display, there were some things that I have not particularly felt moved to try. So just non alcoholic versions of of big alcohol drinks, you know, so non alcoholic Gordon's non alcoholic Captain Morgan, and they had a non alcoholic Martini vibrante, which advertises itself as being like orangey, but also not sweet orangey we're talking about orange peel kind of stuff. And I thought it might be a little bit like rodina, which we've talked about on this show before, which is that very popular Italian sort of non alcoholic aperitif. So I brought a bottle home, had it with a bit of tonic tried it on its own. It's a bit much on its own. It's very medicinal at that level.

does feel a bit like you've taken a step from lightly flavoured sparkling water last week to just go come on non alcoholic version of alcoholic drink this week.

I may have stepped up a few too soon, too quickly. Yes, it was quite nice once I got some sparkling water in there and kind of watered it down a bit. But yeah, it's just quite an intense drink. This is not necessarily a diss recommendation, but just be prepared. You know, that says

as you've as you've gone and like spread your wings this week, I feel that I'm not going to hold back any more. Helen. I'm not going to wait until some technical time in August or something to bring out and not out wine or but the time will come maybe next week and we'll find we'll find the reason for that.

So tell me how what are we going to drink today?

Oh, I can't even lie. This was chosen purely on name alone. This is an m&s collection for his auntie. Yes, it is a fizzy tea drink. Gently fermented premium Darjeeling tea delicate with notes of peach and black currant. A key word on there was brute br ut which is usually used in fizzy wines and champagnes to indicate something that's dry. If again, you know how I feel about that. I was slightly confused though because I like most sort of grown up sparkling teas. I'm sort of used to perhaps being kombucha based and this does say there's a fermentation culture in there, but it doesn't say what culture. So I'm sort of wondering if that's like the supermarket own brand version of Coca Cola. And this is essentially the sparkling tea cola drink.

Okay, okay. Yes, because I'm not clear on where kombucha ends and fermented tea begins, you know, it feels like there's a room there, but let's, let's try some Cheers. Oh, it smells really nice. I will say that genuinely, I'm smelling the fruit that I'm supposed to be smelling in the tea, which is very exciting. Because usually when people say you know, oh, it has notes of grass cuttings and rubber tires. I think they're crazy.

Calm down. Julie golden. Well, exactly. It

was this actually does smell a fruit. Yeah. And there

is something called Bucha worry about it as well. Not quite in the same punch you in the nose way that kombucha usually has, but it's it's lighter, but it's it's delicious. It is really nice. I put these into proper nice glasses, as opposed to, I suppose what's the alternative children's plastic sippy cup? But it is quite nice to have something. Do you want some more?

Yes, please.

Oh,

listen to that phase.

hooklink length is I don't think I even had an Alka Seltzer for about 10 years after I first saw that advert, but it lives rent free in my head. Some adverts

do. So have we got any questions? Any messages from listeners this week?

We did. And I completely failed to make note of any of them. Because I've just been absolutely out of my tree with work this week. Thank you very much to everybody who's written we will do I say we I will do a better job next time. But Helen, you had some pals who actually wrote in with some questions, right? Yeah,

I was I was talking about this in our in our WhatsApp group chat. And a few people had questions for the podcast. So this one comes from Clarice Lockrey who's a fantastic film journalist for the independent and she asks, Is it socially acceptable for adults to drink Shirley Temples Now we talked about Arnold Palmer's before. That's one drink non alcoholic drink named after an American celebrity here is another so Shirley Temple is as many listeners probably not all will know, was a massive child star in the sort of 1930s. At one point, she was the biggest star in movies. No, you know, no limitations whatsoever. And she and that was when she was about five and she was an absolutely adorable muppet. With perfect curls, super cute on screen, super likeable won an Honorary Oscar, and I think gave up acting in her teens pretty much it was maybe one adult film, but basically, she just was a bit too smart to want to try and stay a star forever, and went off and did more interesting things actually became a US ambassador at one point in her life, you know, amazing, very serious, very serious woman. But there's surely temple the story goes, it was developed for her so that they would have you know, if the world's biggest star came into a Hollywood restaurant, the rumour is chastens. I've also heard the Brian Derby that they would have something to serve this this child star. And the interesting thing is that Shirley Temple wasn't a fan. So this is this is a drink that was made with ginger ale, a splash of grenadine and garnished with a Marisha. Now cherry,

what didn't she love about it? I mean, it sounds revolting.

Well, that's essentially what she said she was on NPR radio in 1986. And she said the saccharin sweet, icky drink. Yes. Well, those were created in probably the middle 1930s by the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood, and I had nothing to do with it. But all over the world. I'm served that people think it's funny. I hate them. They're too sweet. I assume she means the drinks, not the people. I'm not sure.

I'm sure that Shirley Temple with her Ambassador past has got excellent diplomacy and decorum. But God if that was me, after the 50th time of somebody go, Shirley Temple, you got a drink, throw it in their face.

I think she would justify it as well in 1988. Apparently, she actually had to file a lawsuit to prevent this drink being bottled and sold under her name. So she really wasn't a fan. So yeah, there are versions that have lemon soda, or lemonade or orange juice, I guess instead of the ginger beer or ginger ale rather. But yeah, it any way you look at it, it's going to be pretty sweet.

It's genuinely just sounds like something that I invented to make in a sort of dream cafe for my parents. When I was about seven. I think my brother and I tried to flog them something called Copel. And yes, that was literally just coke and apple juice. Do not recommend also just surely when you're five, you just want a milkshake or eliminates and somebody go, here you go. Here's something with a garnish. You're like, what's the garnish? Why would I want that?

I mean, yes, but hear me out if you are the world's biggest movie star at the same time, and this looks like more of a grown up drink. So it's kind of served in others kind of hurricane glasses, those those sorts of glasses with the curve. I think they're hurricane glass. They're served in those, you know, they look clear and bright and very red thanks to I guess the grenadine and also they have a very shiny maraschino cherry on top so I can see If you were a girly girl and someone presented that to you, I can see it being being attractive at that age. And honestly, I mean, in terms of clarice's question, I feel like if you're an adult go for your life. Why not have fun?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And also Marish, you know, cherries, do a comeback. What could be camper are more appropriate for now than just going on? I would like to share the temple.

I know. I think it's I think you're right. I think it's do a comeback. So yes, absolutely. To Shirley Temple. So I have a second question here, which is from Sarah Cook, who is an author her book diaries of murders was published this just last year, and it is extremely spicy people. So do be warned or alerted. I make no judgement. So she asks, is there a good non alcoholic dry red wine? Now cat? I know this is something you've looked into? Well,

firstly, Sara, as I've basically read avatar about 25 times in the last year, I will be buying your book immediately. Thank you very much for that. Secondly, the answer my answer, as I'm sure your own research has shown is no sadly, wanting to try and find a red wine that has that body that oomph that delicious middle to it, that sort of keeps you drinking it in a lovely big glass in front of a fire in a pub or at home or something. It's just really difficult to find with non alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately, that is somewhere where the alcohol is sort of kicking in. However, if we try and think about it in a different way, there are some people who aren't doing some really interesting things. I keep being served adverts for Wednesday's domain, who have excellent reviews more widely. They do two types of non alcoholic wine and this one is called sanguine or perhaps in French, some greens on green but that were so long ago since I did my languages degree that it may as well not exist. Helen McGann who we had on for our New Year's episode was also very much long that wine is still like the worst of all the non alcoholic drinks but she did really rate Zeno which calls itself alcohol liberated wine, which I rather love. That's a bit of flair.

I just get the image of like alcoholic freedom fighters are something amazing.

Do you hear the people drink? No, you don't. The other option that she suggested was Torres which I've definitely seen very commonly on the Nanak sections of big supermarkets and she really like flagged up then Metiria range I think they've been going for like 20 years or something. And then for for I literally just pick this up off the internet, but I do love Good Housekeeping, unashamedly. Good Housekeeping is number one alcohol free red wine is by Dibble Tolley, and it's called the very cautious one Shiraz 0%. So Sarah, if you could very kindly just go and try all of those and report back by next week's episode. I'll be delighted.

Fantastic. So quite a lot on our to do list in terms of trying all of these, my goodness. But we do have an exciting guest with us this week as well, don't we? Well, we do. I was so excited to get the opportunity to chat to him. Helen, sadly weren't able to come due to kitchen gate. You have been having a new kitchen fitted this week. Yes, the lovely men from Ikea are being lovely. But also it's a nightmare. And I don't recommend it.

Exactly. But actually, no, I'm not gonna say that. That is the worst thing. So it'll be lovely when it's all over. Yeah, so we're childbirth. Lots of really crap things anyway, it'll be fabulous. I went along to go and speak to Professor David Nutt, who is essentially a heartthrob of science. Amazing. I learned about him through newspaper headlines like years ago and about 2009. He was at the time and had been for about 10 years. The government's drugs are I'm still not sure what Azaria is apart from like outside of Russia, but he was in charge of sort of advising on drugs policy and that sort of thing. And he had written an article in which he had shown some research that basically ecstasy was less dangerous than horse riding. And I think the problem there is that there's horse riding, and there's horse riding, there's like being led around by somebody on the end of Shetland pony, and then there is eventing, there is a serious business horse riding. I got into it to a lesser extent about 10 years ago,

this is horse riding.

And, but yeah, and I never got good enough to have a, you know, to get up those serious levels, but I fell off my horse into the sea. And that was upsetting enough. You did. It was very funny. GoPros but yeah, just the number of injuries like serious really unfortunate injuries from people who love horse riding, but doing it at high levels. It's yeah, more so the next to see but obviously this didn't wash with the government and it wasn't the messaging that they wanted. So Professor David was fired and set up a new company with a load of his colleagues who also jumped ship and joined him and their organisation basically went into drugs, research and analysing the dangers. Dave, as he very kindly let me call him has worked in all kinds of different areas around psychiatry over the years of his career. And one of the reasons why we were talking is because he's done loads of research, obviously on drugs but also a Round alcohol, like alcohol is delicious, but also in and of itself as ethanol. Like the form that you know we drink it as he's been working in a really interesting area of not just trying to get alcohol is bad because you know spoiler we know that but trying to find like a really compelling alternative to that something that recreates like the functional aspects of alcohol like the convivial aspects of it. One of the reasons why humans drink alcohol is oddly to feel closer to other humans. So last year, I read in The Times a brilliant feature by the science editor Tom Whipple really amusing and entertaining in which he tried this drink that David nuts had been working on called sentier. The idea being is it gives you that to drink buzz, without there being like any risk. And

so you're not gonna you're not gonna time your third drink wrong, and then go a bit too far and feel terrible the next day, you're just gonna stay at that to drink level. Is that the idea? Yeah, exactly. Amazing.

And it takes maybe an hour or so to get out of your system. I tried it at an event last year. And again, it's not understandably recommended for people in recovery. And lots of people do have like strong feelings about not drinking anything that's even 0.5% like our Frizzante is, which is about sort of the alcoholic strength of a ripe banana. But I didn't know I get a buzz from caffeine, I get a buzz from sugar. And I was just really interested to see where this Sat and also that time with illogical was bloody funny and very compelling. And I did I did get that but I was I felt more expansive, I felt chattier I felt funnier, which obviously meant that I clearly wasn't sort of fallen dead flat. But what was really interesting was I came home like, absolutely out of my tree with excitement and got my husband to try some and he does still drink alcohol. And the effects on him were negligible interest. So they haven't done any research on on whether the effect on people who do still drink like mind altering or take any mind altering substances is different to that if you if you don't, but yeah, I really enjoyed it. I'm not necessarily sure that I would drink it all the time. But I think for anybody who does want to still have that feeling, then you know, go for your life. I mean, I've just sort of spent four years getting used to not having that feeling. But it was very nostalgic, and a nice way to have the desirable side of things back.

I fascinating Wow, can't wait to hear more from him. Here's cat talking to David Nutt.

With Cynthia, you've really focused on making, I suppose what's now described as a functional alternative to alcohol. Why was that and what led you there?

Well, the story goes back really to my first day in medical school, when I saw amongst my contemporaries and my peers, rather amazing deleterious effects of alcohol, escaping from home for the first time and 18 year olds going out getting drunk and having lots of problems. And as a doctor every day in clinical practice, I see someone that's been harmed by alcohol. And actually, for the first I suppose it was like 20 years of my research career, I was trying to find ways of reducing the harms of alcohol. But that's very difficult because the alcohol are very, very diffused, in fact, of harms almost every organ in the body in 2005. And I was in favour with the government and leading the Department of Trade and industries foresight programme, we've spent a year brainstorming about how we can reduce the harms of drugs. And it came to us one day that maybe we can never block the harms of alcohol, in which case we need to replace it. And I started thinking about that then, and I've been working on it ever since it was a 20 year programme. And the first output of that is this drink called sentier. And sentier is a drink which is targets the neurotransmitter in the brain called GABA, which is the primary target for low doses of alcohol when people drink small amount of alcohol. In fact, most people drink alcohol to get a GABA effect, because that's the effect that relaxes them and allows social interaction. That is the main beneficial effect of drink. We've essentially made a drink which contains herbs, it also contains substances which promote the effects of GABA in the brain. And it does what it says on the bottle. It helps people relax and chill out and engage socially

it does. I tried it just on a whim going along with some colleagues. And I mean, I hadn't drank alcohol in over four years and hadn't had anything more exciting than a than a coffee in that time. And it blew my mind. The effect was extraordinary. Does it have more of an effect on people that don't experience those brain changing chemicals more often? Well,

we haven't studied that systematically, because that's a very complex and expensive experiment to do. We don't have the results. People who drink commonly and maybe heavily tend to get less effective because we know that alcohol dampens down the GABA system you get tolerance. And if you're tolerant to alcohol, you're gonna be tolerant to send to people like you who have been alcohol abstinent for more than a few weeks will have reset their GABA receptors so you'll get the maximum effect and as you described as an effect, which is probably adequate for most people.

Why do we need alcohol? But ethanol? Specifically, it's not giving anything to us nutritionally, it's a poison. And yet, I feel that my first 30 odd years on this planet would have probably been a bit safer, but felt a bit more boring without it. What's the deal with booze?

That's the fundamental question. And the deal is that humans are social creatures. The power and strength of humanity comes from us working together as tribes or now as communities and populations. And we'd like to work with other people. But at the same time, we also have a degree of anxiety when we meet new people. Classic example is, why do we go to parties, we go to parties, because we want to meet other people. And in meeting other people gives us all sorts of benefits, not least you often find your mate at a party, but going to a party full of strangers, everyone knows that feeling of being a bit tense, a bit anxious. And that's actually a natural, inherited, evolutionary useful, biological phenomenon. It's better to be slightly apprehensive of other people than ghosts blindly into a trap, for instance, but that anxiety gets in the way. And some people you know, won't even go out. Some people are so anxious, they won't go into the home. And most people have been anxious in social gatherings. And alcohol, when it was discovered, was discovered to reduce that anxiety and promote social social interaction. And the majority of people drink simply for that reason. But the problem is, until sentient, the only drink you could drink it would improve social interactions and reduce social anxiety was alcohol and 10 to 15, maybe 20% of the people who population who drink they struggled to keep within the levels which you need for just the socialisation and they tend to get into the other levels where you get this in the vision, addiction hangovers, etc. And you can avoid that if it's very difficult to avoid that because people try but they fail. Given we drink it

to be convivial into oil, the wheels, if you like of sociability, how has the way that we use alcohol ended up with it being so harmful to other people? I mean, this is obviously going back a little bit now. But your organisation drugs science, when you did a study of all sorts of different drugs, yes, some of the famous street drugs came out top in terms of individual harm, but alcohol was top overall and one of the top for for the most harm to other people. That feels completely contradictory.

Yeah, well, I think the reason that alcohol still exists in most societies is not as prominent in Islamic societies, although we still know Muslims drink. The reason it exists despite the harms is because it does get benefits. If he didn't get benefits, he would have disappeared. Because the majority of people who drink alcohol are not dependent. They're not drinking it because they have to deal with withdrawal or cravings. They're drinking it because they enjoy the effect. Talk

to me about GABA, because you've been part of this, since I understand your supervisor pretty much discovered it in the early 70s. Is that correct?

My tutor at Cambridge, there was a guy called Jimmy Mitchell and he was one of the physiologists who discovered that the brain is a chemical organ up to that point, it was thought that the brain was an electrical organ that it was essentially like a ginormous computer, or we didn't have computers in those days. In those days, the analogy was a phone system, you know, the, the network interchange, for telegraph, telephone exchange, lots of plugs going into sockets and electrical connections. And then he and many others worked out that actually communication between neurons was not electrical, it was chemical. And the on switch of the brain is a chemical called glutamate. And the off switch is what he discovered is a chemical called GABA. And that was to balance you have to have a perfect balance. If you have too much glutamate, you become hyperactive and you have seizures. And if you have too much GABA, you fall asleep. So you have to have this balance. And this balance, actually, in evolutionary terms is remarkable because GABA and glutamate are one step away in the metabolic and energy metabolic pathway, which is finding in all organisms. So GABA goes back to the very, very first life forms, and glutamate does too. And what's happened is they slowly been adapted from being parts of the energy cycle to being neurotransmitters, but whenever you make glutamate, you will always make GABA. So there's always that balance. So it's very easy to protect the brain from too much excitation by releasing GABA.

I was fascinated to see that unlike, well, pretty much any other neurotransmitter I can think of dopamine obviously being the one that's getting the most press at the moment that GABA can be used in food and drink. How does that work?

Every cell in the functional cell in any life form contains GABA right? So can you anything you eat to get GABA in it, but also GABA turns out to have this not just as much embolic role, but also most of the GABA is in the cell doing metabolism, but it also has been adapted and it started being adapted in very early organisms as a signalling molecule, and so it can be released to make small and medium, single cell organisms move towards each other it can be used in plants. When a plant is attacked by an insect is StarSeries GABA to communicate between the cells and possibly between other plants is being attacked. And in humans, it is released to essentially control the complex activity, which is the whole of the Brain Centre isn't about taking GABA in it's unclear as to whether GABA in food would get across into the blood and get into the brain. We think that doesn't happen or it happens at a very low level. sentier is a drink which contains molecules which modulate the effects of GABA. And that gets that's why raised the explanation with you about plants, releasing GABA plants released GABA as a trophic communicator. But they also make many molecules which enhance the effects of GABA, probably to make the GABA they released do more and wait. The plans we use incense here are chosen because they have these GABA activators or these molecules which increase the effects of GABA. And when they get in the brain, they make brain's GABA work a bit more effectively.

That was what I thought was happening. Well, certainly, as you explained at the centre, and then when I was looking up about GABA labs a little bit more and finding out that Japan is starting to over the last few years, bring out GABA food and drinks and that sort of thing that from the description seemed to be a little bit like how we describe drinks and supplements with CBD. And over here, the idea that they're sort of relaxing and everything with drinks with GABA in sort of counters of a functional drink in the same way as sentier, or is it just more secreted?

In a interesting question. I've tried it, I don't think I would double works. When I've tried it. It's very popular in Japan. And it's you can get even get GABA chocolates. I was quite a bit sceptical about this for a long time, because of what I've said just a minute ago that we know that GABA struggles to get into the brain. In fact, it doesn't really get into the brain. But this is where the whole story becomes quite interesting. This is something I've learned in the last few years, I didn't realise quite how important GABA was in the gut. Because I'm a brain scientist. Yeah, but there's actually a lot of nerves in the gut. And it turns out that the nerves in the gut also can be responsive to GABA, they have receptors on them, similar GABA receptors to the receptors in the brain. So it's possible that when you take GABA in in foodstuffs, or as some supplement, you are stimulating the nerves in the gut, and the nerves in the gut, of course, go into the brain because they don't just control this activity of the gut, gut nerves send signals to the brain. So it is possible that GABA in the diet might have a brain effect. And it was an interesting Japanese paper just a couple of years ago, proper scientific studies suggesting there was an effect, which I presume is to the gut nerves rather than through the brain. But then there's another more interesting twist to this is that you've probably heard of that microbiome endlessly. Yes, quite quite well, it turns out and this is something I'm learning about at a rapid pace. Many of the beneficial bugs in the microbiome utilise GABA, or other GABA active substances that can be turned on by GABA acting substances. And so it may be that GABA promotes gut health as well, as well as giving you relaxation in the brain. We have not yet proven that sentier promotes gut health. We are writing grants and setting up studies to do that it presents so I don't want to make that claim. But it is very interesting how much of the good microbiome and seems to be GABA dependent,

a new project a new product that you have been working on for quite some time, and which is obviously still under development and testing and trials and everything. Can you tell me about Al Carell?

Yes. So sentier is the first rung in a ladder, which will take us eventually to a concept we call our Carell. And the idea of ARCA rollin it's a little bit of a pun really it's an Arca Ral is to alcohol. What Ken Burrell is to sugar. Very good. And Earl, you put Cantarell in if you like sweet, tasty but can drill into your drinks, so you can get the taste without the calories. And our corral is a vision which we're in the process of trying to realise we invented a small molecule, similar sort of size bit bigger probably than alcohol, which you can put into any drink you like into any mocktail drink you like. But we'll give you a functional effect like alcohol, the similar low functional effects of sentience, so it's not going to get you drunk or intoxicated, because it won't work on those other systems. Alcohol works on to get you blind drunk. It'll only work on the GABA system at all. low level to give you a functional effect. And we've invented molecules that do that. And we're now in the process of making what is actually quite a big decision because to take a small molecule and put it through the food safety regulations will cost many millions of pounds. So we want to make sure we get the right molecule before we get investors to cough up to do that. But if we get this arc around molecule through food testing, then it can be an ingredient and we could basically licence it to any drinks company in the world whether you're making non alcoholic beer or wine or, or amazingly you can even put it into we've done these experiments, you can put it into liquids, which tastes like whiskey or brandy. These are SATs flavourings of whiskey, Brandy, etc, that you they use for catering which don't have alcohol in them, you can, you can take a rum flavour and you can add alcohol and you would you'd have a non alcoholic rum,

you have a second rung in the ladder of the functional drinks before we even get to alcohol, which was GABA, which I think I tried in non alcoholic beer in non alcoholic fizz and in a couple of other things. And the extraordinary thing about it was that it almost felt as though it was adding it was filling a hole that the drink sort of lacked before it something that might have been quite thin and not tasteless, but not very exciting suddenly became really punchy, can you tell me more about this

sentier comes in two forms comes in red and black. And we're having another one called Gold Elite. released later this year, it's a bit more of a sort of summery drink. But the next stage is called gavia. And what we've done there is we've taken the key GABA activating ingredients from sentier. And we put them into essentially a shot and it does a number of things, it obviously has the functional effects that it has, if you drink it in sentier. But when you put it into non alcoholic drinks, it does two other things. The first is it gives a flavour. So it makes the beer and strangely have interesting that often the wine tastes better. And it also gives you a bit of a mouthfeel. And that's one of the things with alcohol, non alcoholic drinks are very challenging, because they don't never basically just like lemonade, or they don't have a mouthfeel. Whereas gambir can be both functional and give you more of that excess oral experience that you get from drinking, which of course he's getting from most people is a significant aspect of the of the consumption of where

are we at with good beer potentially coming to market, your beer

and sentier. They're all food grade ingredients and all made the amounts we put into the individual aliquot its individual servings are compliant with current food safety levels. So we don't need approval because their beds, essentially the foodstuffs. We're hoping to get support from Innovate UK because we think this is could be really quite a big commercial success. It could could help UK PLC stick, it's claimed to be the world leaders in this kind of technology. So we are trying to get funding from the government to help co develop it with us. We're hopeful maybe within a year or so we'll be ready to start doing testing. Celebrate the fact you are absolutely there at the very beginning of this new technology.

It made everything even more delicious. So I'm thrilled by that. And Cynthia gold coming this summer. That's very exciting. On a nother note sort of still whirling around with brains. You spent 20 plus years working with people with ADHD. And I'm just wondering what you noticed about their relationship with alcohol and self medication?

Yes, what is complex, of course, because most people think that ADHD is simply a disorder of attention and concentration, but it's also a disorder of self regulation. So and also many people with ADHD have anxiety and depression as well. So it's like most mental illnesses. It's not a single monotonic phenomenon. So so that's my wife shouting at the dog. What do we know about ADHD and drinking? Well, we know and a number of things we know that people with ADHD often are relatively sensitive to alcohol, they can be more perhaps more vulnerable to using it partly for an anxiety reduction. But also because they do struggle with self regulation, they can have difficulties in controlling their drinking. And so it is a risk factor, it's a significant risk factor in drinking more than people want to drink.

You mentioned earlier that most soft drinks and non alcoholic drinks too tastes like lemonade or similar and I'm wondering, do you have any non alcoholic drinks that you particularly enjoy any of that have sort of made the cut

for a while while we were developing sentier I was quite interested in these very low alcohol versions of Martini C's very low alcohol Vermouths as the base of mixers and that plus say atonic modules that actually gave us quite a bit of confidence that what we were doing would make sense because Sentio by itself as you drink it actually has a strong complex taste and most people drink it with mixers and and that's an interesting sort of precedent has been set with these no alcohol removed in the past until we had sentier that's what I was drinking.

Another thing that's really struck me as I'm sorry to bring this up again, but it was such an iconic line. When in 2009 You were supposedly ditched by the government for that excellent status. out more people being harmed by horse riding than ecstasy. Is there anything that you would prefer that people had taken away from your time working with the government then apart from that, you know, very eyecatching stat? Or is that still something that you think is the biggest takeaway,

my biggest contribution is the scale of harm as the graph you referred to, which showed that alcohol was the most harmful, largely because it's the most widely used drug. And that's actually not only my most influential publication, it was published in 2000, referenced over 2000 Times and other papers. But it also, interestingly, the European Department of Justice funded a replica study in with European experts, and that came to the same conclusions. And then subsequently, both Australian experts, then just very just last year in New Zealand experts, repeated the whole process and came to the same conclusion. So in all Western societies where alcohol is freely available, it is the most harmful drug because it is so widely used. And it's widely used for the reasons we discussed earlier, because most people enjoy it, and most people get something positive from it. But what we've got to think about are those that 15 to 20% of people who suffer consequences. And you know, we won't get rid of the use of alcohol. But what we've tried to do with gamblers and centre is, is develop alternatives so that people can get what they what most people want, without putting themselves at the risk of the harms of alcohol, like dependence or liver toxicity, etc.

That's an amazing note to end on. Thank you so much. That was

amazing. I feel like I've got several science books to read now as a result,

science books, yes, but his books are actually to use that terrible word accessible, low Rich, I mean, like you can actually read them without falling asleep or desperately going to sort your laundry or something like that. I just love him. And I don't mean love him in a patronising Oh, an older gentleman who's very successful and charming sort of way. I love what he's doing. I love his entire ethos. And I think we are truly lucky to be living in a time in which we coexist alongside Professor David Nutt. I'm also definitely going to go and get us a bottle of sentier Yes, whether we wait until the summer to try the new one, or I just prepare some dark and Stormies with it. But I think that'd be nice. Also, because I've never heard you giggly about anything that isn't an actor from Supernatural. Or a really good afternoon tea.

Hey, I'm not giggly about the actors and supernatural. It's the characters in supernatural. I'm in love with very different thing. Call me Dean Winchester, even if you don't exist, it's fine. I'm up for trying anything. I feel like this is for me at least this is one of the main points of this podcast is to broaden my horizons beyond Diet Coke and elderflower press A and try some new things that will be fun. Yeah,

and I feel like I've been patronising you, Helen and holding you back. Just protecting you from the dangers of non alcoholic beer.

Well, here I am drinking a nought point 5% Fizzy tea you know sweats Whoo, what next? Well, point 2% something else?

God well look, if you've got anything that you'd like us to try in our in our weekly tasting sessions, please drop us a line at pop culture drinks podcast@gmail.com or on Instagram where we're at pop culture drinks podcast, Helen and I also on Twitter, by all means just message us directly there. We don't have one for the podcast because frankly, life is too short.

Yeah, we were setting up so many accounts already. It seems like enough. We've also

got a lovely bookshop front where you can shop all our favourite books about non alcoholic things, including by us by Professor David Nutt by more of our guests and just people that we like and think are amazing. So if you go to bookshop to org and search in the shops for pop culture soft drinks podcast, you will find us there.

And that is it for this week's episode. Do consider of course subscribing, or leave us lovely five star review on your podcast provider of choice and we will be back here next week for more soft drinks chat when we have a very exciting episode.

Oh god, you're really gonna hate us.

You are. But you know what? It's worth risking a little hate for this one.

Low keep drinking sign off what's happening with that?

I feel like I still need to work on our slogan if you have ideas for slogans, by all means hit me up as well. But really, it's still a work in progress. Okay, well,

we'll keep going, buddy. Glad to hear that. Have a lovely week, everybody. See you soon. Cheers.