After Hours with Dr Vincent

Dr Vincent | Where science gets personal

0.0 (0)
Science
Updated Weekly

🎙️ After Hours: Where science gets personal. From health and habits to parenting, addiction, beauty, and more — this is not a lecture, it’s real talk. Expect surprising insights, relatable stories, and sometimes controversial conversations. Honest, funny, and always human, this is science you can actually use. www.askdrvincent.com

6d ago

Food (mis)labelling: Can You Really Trust Food Labels?

Every time I walk through the supermarket, I’m reminded that most of us make buying decisions in just a few seconds. We trust what is printed on the front of the pack—whether it’s “Australian made,” “gluten free,” “organic,” or a high Health Star Rating—to guide those decisions. But after watching the recent Four Corners investigation into food labelling, I was reminded how important it is to look beyond the marketing. Food labels should exist to help consumers make informed choices, not leave them confused. When allergen statements are unclear, country-of-origin claims are misleading, or health ratings oversimplify nutrition, it isn’t just a marketing issue—it becomes an issue of trust and, in some cases, safety. As both a food scientist and a consumer, I believe honesty should always come before marketing. I don’t expect food to be perfect, but I do expect labels to accurately reflect what’s inside the package. Consumers deserve transparency so they can make decisions that suit their health, values and budget. Rather than chasing buzzwords or relying on a single rating, I encourage people to read ingredient lists, understand what they’re buying and remember that no front-of-pack claim can replace informed decision-making. The best food label is one that tells the truth—clearly, consistently and without compromise. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jul 30

The Male Health Crisis Nobody Wants to Talk About - After Hours #036

There is a growing health crisis that doesn’t show up on a blood test, an MRI or even during a routine check-up. It’s loneliness. We often think of loneliness as something that only affects older people, but the reality is that it can affect anyone, especially men. As life changes through careers, fatherhood and increasing responsibilities, many men slowly lose the friendships and routines that once kept them connected. What makes this particularly challenging is that loneliness is often hidden behind success, busyness or the belief that everyone else is coping just fine. Yet research shows loneliness is linked to poorer physical and mental health, reminding us that meaningful relationships are just as important to our wellbeing as exercise and good nutrition. I don’t believe the solution is simply telling people to “make more friends.” Real connection takes intention. For me, some of the best places to build friendships are through shared experiences, whether that’s joining a gym, a walking group, a community class or even attending a local workshop. The goal isn’t to leave with a best friend after one visit. It’s simply to keep showing up. A simple conversation, a familiar face or asking someone how they’re really doing can make a remarkable difference. Being alone isn’t the same as being lonely, and investing in our relationships with others, and with ourselves, may be one of the most powerful things we can do for our long-term health and happiness. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jul 24

The Best of Both Worlds - After Hours #035

One of the things I love most about hosting the After Hours podcast is that it constantly challenges my own thinking. Every week, Stephen and I explore questions that seem simple on the surface but quickly become much more complex. In this episode, we revisit one of the biggest debates in health: is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Along the way, we also talk about wearable technology, sleep tracking, the balance between data and intuition, and why living a healthy life is about much more than chasing perfect numbers. The more I learn, the more I realise that health is rarely black and white. It is about finding what works for your body while staying curious enough to keep asking better questions. Perhaps the biggest lesson I took away from this conversation is that longevity should never come at the expense of actually enjoying life. I want to live a long life, but more importantly, I want to live a healthy, happy and meaningful one. Whether it’s deciding if breakfast suits your lifestyle, learning something new every day, or resisting the temptation to obsess over every health metric on your smartwatch, I believe balance will always beat perfection. I hope this episode encourages you to think critically, stay curious and remember that sometimes the best health advice isn’t choosing one extreme over another, but finding the best of both worlds. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jul 20

Social Media and Health

Social media often gets blamed for making us less healthy. It fuels comparison, unrealistic expectations and an endless stream of conflicting advice. But after returning from the US, completing my first HYROX and reflecting on the conversations Stephen and I had in this episode, I found myself asking a different question. Could social media also be encouraging more people to move, challenge themselves and build healthier habits? The answer, I think, is more nuanced than a simple yes or no. In this episode, I share my own internal tug of war with social media. I admit that posting my HYROX result gave me a sense of pride, but it also made me question where the motivation was really coming from. We explore how technology can inspire us to walk more, exercise together and celebrate progress, while also recognising the dangers of comparison and turning health into a competition. My hope is that this conversation reminds you to use social media as a tool rather than letting it use you, and to remember that the healthiest journey is still the one that helps you become a better version of yourself, not someone else’s. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jun 25

Inflammation: Why Your Body is Quietly on Fire

This episode, Stephen and I finally dove into a topic that I have been wanting to tackle for a while: inflammation. And I want to be honest about why I find this so frustrating as a scientist. Eighty percent of our illnesses and diseases are rooted in inflammation, yet it is consistently one of the most overlooked health conversations out there. Unlike a broken arm or a deep cut, inflammation hides. It shows up as brain fog you brush off as a bad night’s sleep. It shows up as that low-level tiredness you keep blaming on a busy week. We talked about how conditions like PCOS and endometriosis were dismissed for decades, not because patients were wrong, but because the signs were subtle and the pattern was slow. That is the insidious thing about inflammation: because it does not demand your attention the way an obvious injury does, most people put it in the back burner until it has compounded into something far harder to reverse. The key message I kept coming back to is this: know yourself, look for the pattern, and do not wait for a crisis. From there we got practical. I shared the two atomic habits I genuinely believe make the biggest difference when it comes to managing inflammation over time: hydration and plants. Water is unglamorous advice but it is foundational, and I pushed back on the obsession with apps and tracking. We actually discussed a study showing that people with pre-existing sleep issues who started obsessively recording their sleep scores ended up sleeping worse because of the anxiety it created. The same principle applies more broadly: a little bit of honest self-awareness trumps drowning in data. I also launched a seven-day challenge on my Instagram, asking people to include four different colored vegetables in at least one meal per day. The digestive tract repairs itself every three to five days, so within a week of doing this consistently, you will feel the difference in energy, regularity, and even skin quality. Four vegetables, seven days. That is not a diet overhaul, that is just the beginning of a new pattern. We also had a genuinely fun conversation about food, including Stephen’s wife’s complicated relationship with lamb, the correct way to cook Brussels sprouts in an air fryer (dark soy, mirin, sesame oil, a little crisp on the outside), and the surprising botanical reality that tomatoes, coffee, and chocolate are all technically fruit. I also shared something personal heading into the recording: the next day I was flying to Dallas and then Austin to appear on ShopLC again, this time for two shows including a Monday primetime slot broadcasting to 70 million US households. I still get nervous before those moments, but I talked about something I genuinely believe, which is that the energy you put out matters. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates!  Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jun 21

Ultra Processed Breakfast - After Hours #031 and Newsletter Issue #12

Breakfast might seem like an odd place to start a conversation about the global food system, but it turns out to be the perfect lens. When Stephen and I sat down to record this episode, we weren’t planning to go deep on ultra-processed food or body image or the cultural architecture of what we eat before 9am. But that’s exactly where we ended up, and I think it’s because breakfast is the one meal that most of us treat as automatic. We reach for the same thing every morning without much thought, which is precisely when food engineering does its best work. I’ll be honest: I skip breakfast a lot. That habit goes back to growing up overweight and counting every kilojoule, and it’s a pattern I’ve never fully shaken. Sharing that on the podcast felt a little exposed, but I think it matters, because what we eat is never just about nutrients. It’s about history, self-talk, and the quiet stories we carry about our bodies. The cereal aisle was where things got genuinely interesting for me. We used Weet-Bix, Cornflakes and Sultana Bran as the baseline, then held them up against Nutri-Grain, Coco Pops, Froot Loops and Milo cereal, and the contrast is pretty striking once you start looking. The branding on those ultra-processed products is doing a lot of heavy lifting. “Nutri-Grain” sounds medical. “Made with whole grain” sounds responsible. But when you actually read the label, you’re decoding marketing far more than you’re understanding nutrition. That same pattern plays out across the whole food system, and it gets more dramatic when you compare Australian and American products side by side. The same pasta sauce, the same bread, the same mince, but with meaningfully higher sugar and fat baselines in the US version. Eat the “same” diet across both countries and you could be taking in 10 to 15 percent more calories without changing a single habit. We honestly feel that, this week's After Hours newsletter is one of our most practical yet. Plus, we now have a mobile friendly version too: After Hours Newsletter Issue 12 Enjoy your Sunday evening and have a great week! With my best Vincent After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jun 11

Immunity: Flu Season, Vax and the Autoimmune Trap - After Hours #031

Winter is here in the southern hemisphere and cold and flu season is already making itself known. In this episode, Stephen and I dig into how the immune system actually works, and the first thing I need to clear up is the biggest misconception in the wellness space: you do not want to boost your immune system. A system that is over-activated is called autoimmune disease, and there are close to a hundred of them. What you want is an immune system that is calibrated, not supercharged. We also go deep on vaccination, including why I think flu shots are more important than most people realise, how vaccines act as a training program for your immune system rather than just a one-time fix, and the genuinely alarming research linking regular immunisation across a lifetime to lower rates of dementia and Alzheimer’s. We also talk honestly about why so many parents feel hesitant when it comes to infant vaccination, and why I think the medical system needs to do a better job of having that conversation before the delivery suite rather than during it. The second half of the episode is the practical stuff: hydration in winter (your brain will lie to you about being thirsty), sleep as a non-negotiable reset for your immune function, and food as medicine. I wrap up with a story from our recent US trip where I picked up a loaf of bread at the supermarket and checked the best before date. It was nearly a month away. At room temperature. What followed was an ingredient list I can only describe as the longest thing I have read all year, and I pride myself on knowing food additive codes. That bread was not bread. We are what we eat, and this episode is a reminder of exactly why that matters. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe
Jun 7

In the Kitchen - After Hours #030

Everyday things we do in the kitchen that may be sabotaging our health and wellbeing. After Hours is where science gets personal. Hosted by Dr Vincent, your friendly neighbourhood scientist and Stephen!This podcast is part of the Ask Dr Vincent on Substack. 🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode📩 Weekly newsletter every Sunday at AskDrVincent.com 📺 Full video episodes every Thursday after 5pm Let’s be mates! Get full access to Ask Dr Vincent at www.askdrvincent.com/subscribe

🎙️ After Hours: Where science gets personal. From health and habits to parenting, addiction, beauty, and more — this is not a lecture, it’s real talk. Expect surprising insights, relatable stories, and sometimes controversial conversations. Honest, funny, and always human, this is science you can actually use. www.askdrvincent.com

Creator

Dr Vincent | Where science gets personal
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

37
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© Dr Vincent - Always consult your doctor
Show Website

After Hours with Dr Vincent

Self-Improvement

Self-Improvement

Updated Semiweekly