(Newstalk) - Eating cheese and chocolate, and drinking red wine is the key to losing weight.

A leading scientist from the UK says everything we think we know about diets is wrong.

Professor Tim Spector of King's College London says successful dieting is actually all down to the bugs living in a person's gut.

He says instead of depriving ourselves of our favourite foods, we should eat them as our gut bacteria also enjoys them.

Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival, he said: "We ingest these microbes and they end up in our gut, where they diversify with the new foods we introduce over the years".

"The more diverse foods we eat, the more varieties of microbes in our bodies, which makes us healthier".

"Throw in some probiotics like yoghurts and cheese, along with nuts, seeds and oils to nourish the microbes...Avoid processed foods and they are limited in microbe levels because they are mainly made up of chemicals".