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Episode Summary
Dr. Uma Naidoo is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef, and nutritional specialist who founded and directed the first hospital-based Nutritional Psychiatry Service in the United States. In today’s episode, we sat down with Dr. Naidoo to discuss nutritional psychiatry, foods to help anxiety and depression, body intelligence, and ways to help menopausal brain fog and libido.
First, we asked Dr. Naidoo to explain how nutritional psychiatry works. She told us that nutritional psychiatry is a newer field within psychiatry that uses healthy foods to help improve mental health. While nutritional psychiatry is beneficial to our brains, it is not a replacement for medication, but rather a way to give people more tools and options for helping themselves along with medication. Our guts and brains are deeply connected, and when asked about the relationship between them, Dr. Naidoo explained that while they are two separate organs, the gut and brain are connected by the Vegas nerve and communicate to one another chemically. When a person eats healthy or unhealthy foods, the gut microbiomes are affected, and in turn, the brain is affected as well.
Because our gut and brain are connected, mental health issues such as anxiety and depression can also be influenced by our diet. Commonly consumed products such as caffeine, alcohol, gluten, and artificial sweeteners can all increase anxiety. To help decrease anxiety, a person should consider incorporating foods such as fiber-rich foods (vegetables, fruit, whole grains), fermented foods (kombucha, miso), chickpeas, turkey, spices such as turmeric with black pepper, and teas such as passionflower and chamomile into their diet. Insomnia can also be influenced by our diet, and foods that are melatonin rich, such as eggs and chickpeas, fruit juice made from tart cherries, chamomile tea, and fish rich with Omega3 fatty acids can help. For those who don’t eat fish, walnuts, hemp seeds, chia seeds, and supplements can also give you the Omega3 your body needs.
Sugar cravings are incredibly common, yet most people don’t know how to deal with them. 4 grams of sugar is equivalent to one teaspoon, and without realizing it, many people end up consuming too much sugar in their diet. Sugar can affect cognitive health and cause inflammation in the gut, so it’s important to be aware of how much you’re consuming and to find alternative foods to help curb cravings. Rather than cutting out sugar altogether, Dr. Naidoo suggested taking a smaller step and instead finding delicious alternatives to sugary foods you already like. For example, for those who eat salty snacks, putting kale or spinach in an air fryer and covering them with spices will give you the crunch you’re craving but in a healthier way. It’s also important to keep healthy food alternatives in your kitchen so that you can resist more sugary foods when cravings hit.
We also spoke to Dr. Naidoo about different diets that improve our gut and brain health. She talked about the Mediterranean diet, which contains plant rich foods such as avocado, legumes, chickpeas, poultry, and seafood, and the dash diet, a diet originally created for hypertension that has healthy whole foods. While both diets contain certain foods, they can be adapted or changed for people’s food preferences. As we discussed diet, Dr. Naidoo touched upon the importance of body intelligence. Many people struggle with starting to feel foggy in the afternoon, and to rectify it, they reach for caffeine or chocolate to perk themselves up. With body intelligence, a person can look at the foods they’ve eaten previously in the day to see if there’s a link between their diet and the exhaustion they’re feeling. If there is, they can adjust their food intake to help make them feel more awake during the day.
Finally, we asked Dr. Naidoo how to use our diet to help with menopausal brain fog and libido issues. For brain fog, she suggested antioxidant rich foods, whole foods, peppermint tea, green tea, hot and sweet red peppers, artichokes, and oregano. For libido, she said that dark chocolate, magnesium rich foods, coffee, nuts like almonds, pistachios, and walnuts, apples, pomegranates, onions, and saffron can help.
Dr. Uma Naidoo
Michelin-starred chef David Bouley described Dr. Uma Naidoo as the world’s first “triple threat” in the food and medicine space: a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef graduating with her culinary schools’ most coveted award, and a trained Nutrition Specialist. Her nexus of interests has found its niche in Nutritional Psychiatry.
Dr. Naidoo founded and directed the first hospital-based Nutritional Psychiatry Service in the United States. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) & Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at MGH Academy while serving on the faculty at Harvard Medical School.
She was considered Harvard’s Mood Food expert and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal.
Dr. Naidoo is also the national bestselling author of This Is Your Brain on Food.
In her book, she shows the cutting-edge science explaining the ways in which food contributes to our mental health and how a diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues, from ADHD to anxiety, depression, OCD, and others.
In this episode, we discuss…
- [0:01] Introduction
- [0:27] Guest Introduction
- [3:20] Start of Interview
- [3:34] Nutritional Psychiatry
- [7:39] Foods to Help Anxiety and Depression
- [12:57] Foods to Help Insomnia
- [17:47] Sugar and Health
- [20:57] The Mediterranean Diet and Dash Diet
- [23:40] Steps to Getting Healthier
- [28:35] Body Intelligence
- [31:33] Helping Brain Fog and Libido
- [36:59] Closing Thoughts
- [37:39] Outro
Useful Resources:
Dr. Naidoo’s Website I [https://umanaidoomd.com/]
Dr. Naidoo’s LinkedIn I [https://www.linkedin.com/in/uma-naidoo-m-d-93813860/]
Dr. Naidoo’s Facebook I [https://www.facebook.com/DrUmaNaidoo/]
Dr. Naidoo’s Instagram I [https://www.instagram.com/drumanaidoo/?hl=en]
Dr. Naidoo’s Twitter I [https://twitter.com/DrUmaNaidoo]
Dr. Naidoo’s Book
This is Your Brain on Food I [https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-is-your-brain-on-food-uma-naidoo-md/1136014372?ean=9780316536820]
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