Food as Medicine with Dr. Uma Naidoo
We all know a healthy diet is vital to physical well-being, but what about mental and emotional states? Is there a link between our cognitive function and diet? To help us answer these questions is Dr. Uma Naidoo, an expert in nutritional psychiatry and Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is also a Culinary Instructor at The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, a best-selling author, and a professional chef. Dr. Naidoo implements her clinical work by integrating her professional achievements in medicine, psychiatry, and nutrition to help change lives and empower her patients. In this episode, Dr. Naidoo elucidates the basics of nutritional psychiatry, how nutrition plays an essential role in our mental well-being, and how food impacts our brain’s functioning. We unpack the challenges around nutritional psychiatry, the role of a holistic and integrative approach to health care, and how an inflamed gut can lead to an inflamed brain. We discover what the vagus nerve is and what it does, how common leaky gut is, the difference between prebiotic and probiotic foods, what emotional immunity is and why it is important, and how to start eating healthily. Tune in to learn about the fascinating world of nutritional psychiatry and why we think like what we eat with Dr. Uma Naidoo!
Key Points From This Episode:
A brief background about Dr. Naidoo and her professional career journey.
What nutritional psychiatry is and her approach to practicing and teaching it.
We discuss the mental health crisis and the role nutritional psychiatry can play.
Dr. Naidoo unpacks the connection between our brain and our gut.
Discover why you should nurture and care for the bacteria in your gut.
How the food choices we make can damage or revitalize our brain cells.
Find out what foods can help alleviate anxiety and depression.
An outline of the foods you should avoid and the reasons why.
Why Dr. Naidoo recommends canola oil as an alternative for a healthy fat substitute.
Whether a gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, and processed food-free diet is good for everyone.
Learn how sugar and other processed foods can affect a person’s mood.
Advice for parents who want to transition their children off sugar.
The challenges of pursuing a healthy lifestyle and diet.
Navigating difficult social and cultural dilemmas of changing to a healthy diet.
She shares her approach to working with a patient and the steps involved.
Nichole runs through a list of food and Dr. Naidoo explains their effects.
Hear why eating at restaurants can have a negative impact on our health.
Whether we can get everything we need from the food we eat.
Tweetables:
“Nutritional psychiatry is the use of healthy whole foods and nutrients to improve your mental well-being. And it does not exclude the use of medications or other very important forms of therapy that can also help your mental health.” — @DrUmaNaidoo [0:04:01]
“The choices that we make in terms of our food are at the end of our fork, and they affect our mental health.” — @DrUmaNaidoo [0:06:13]
“It's pretty clear we need to find more solutions beyond just a prescription pad, and that it's not a one size fits all approach.” — @DrUmaNaidoo [0:07:38]
“One of the things we do very well in the United States is we are able to be very highly specialized in medical care. One of the things we don't do as well is integrate it.” — @DrUmaNaidoo [0:11:23]
“We are a country of food wars and diet dilemmas.” — @DrUmaNaidoo [0:34:25]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Massachusetts General Hospital
The Cambridge School of Culinary Arts
PrimaFoodie Email