Hungry for Change · Episode 7 · Eat
Dr. Uma Naidoo: Your Brain on Food
With Dr. Uma Naidoo
We often embark on a healthy diet with goals like improving fitness, losing weight, enhancing digestion, promoting cardiac health, and extending longevity.
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These are conversations and personal perspectives, not individual medical advice.
In this conversation
A little more context.
We often embark on a healthy diet with goals like improving fitness, losing weight, enhancing digestion, promoting cardiac health, and extending longevity. While these benefits are undeniable, we frequently overlook the profound impact on the brain. Recent studies have highlighted the influence that diet can exert on conditions such as anxiety, depression, ADHD, and many others.
Dr. Naidoo is a physician known for being a triple threat in her field, she is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, a professional chef, and a nutrition specialist. Her wonderful work has led to her being regarded nationally and internationally as a pioneer in the field of nutritional psychiatry.
She is the author of This is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods that Fight Depression, Anxiety, and More. Through her passion for food and nutritional psychiatry, she shares her expertise on the integration of food, mental health and medicine.
Full episode notes & timestamps
Join us as we discuss the microbiome, anxiety, alcohol, ADHD, and much more!
(00:00) – Intro
(01:04) – Dr. Naidoo’s views on health
02:29 – Recent research connecting diet and mental health
03:53 – The effects of gluten on mental health
07:03 – Debate around gluten and pesticides such as glyphosate
07:32 – The microbiome as the second brain, connection to mental health
10:11 – What foods contain the worst ingredients
12:17 – The effect of sugar on the microbiome
13:48 – What diet can help with anxiety?
16:58 – Glutamates and the gut
18:56 – Benefits of quitting alcohol
23:16 – Superfoods for mental health
25:47 – Supplementation, magnesium deficiency
28:26 – Thoughts on tryptophan
29:36 – Artificial sweeteners
31:39 – Dr. Naidoo’s recommendation of having different colored foods
32:36 – Treating ADHD through diet
34:47 – Thoughts on red meat, omega-3 and omega 6 ratios
37:00 – Keto diet helping anxiety and other benefits
40:22 – Closing thoughts and Dr. Naidoo’s book “This is Your Brain on Food”
Follow Dr. Naidoo:
Website: https://umanaidoomd.com
Follow me:
Natruly: https://www.natruly.com/
Around the table
What stayed with you?
A question, a different perspective, something you’re trying. I’d love to hear it.
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