Your Food and Mental Health with Dr. Uma Naidoo & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I'm so excited about this episode. The question we have for you today, how does food affect your mental health? When people are thinking about their mood or potentially depression, we always talk about what you eat matters, especially for your gray matter. And to have this conversation with you, we're very excited to have a very special guest. Dr. Uma Naidoo, MD. She's a Harvard-trained, board-certified psychiatrist. She's a renowned chef. She's a nutrition specialist. She's really a triple threat of sorts. And she's director of nutritional psychiatry at Mass General Hospital and author of this brand new book, which I really did enjoy reading. It's called This Is Your Brain on Food: An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods That Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More. Welcome to our show.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Jim. And thank you for that great welcome. I really appreciate it.

This is such an important topic now, I feel more than ever. You know, we— people hear all the time about taking care of their physical fitness, and people know that, you eating food. They do it because it's good for your heart or it's good to lose weight. But rarely are we having this conversation about the food and the brain. So when I introduced you and we're talking about nutritional psychiatry, why don't we start there? How do you define that?

Absolutely. And that's a great question, Jim.

I think that most, like you said, most people might go in to see their doctor or their nutritionist or clinician and talk about food in relation to cholesterol or high blood pressure, even trying to lose a few pounds. But no one is making that connection or speaking to doctors or clinicians about food and the brain and the impact on mental well-being. And that's where nutritional psychiatry comes in. For many decades, I'm sure that you are familiar with the research where we looked at folate, methylfolate, magnesium, different nutrients, different vitamins. And what nutritional psychiatry does, I like to explain it because I—

forgive me for my sort of my interest and love of food.

So with my chef background, I like to think of it as nutritional psychiatry puts it together as a composed plate of food. And you never just eat one nutrient or one ingredient, but you do generally eat a plate of food. And what nutritional psychiatry does is it puts together the positives Certainly the foods, nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that you should embrace for different mental well-being in different conditions, as well as in my book I guide people to the things that they need to avoid, which are actually equally important because sometimes people are eating things that they don't realize are driving certain mental health symptoms. And so nutritional psychiatry does that in being able to really help people improve symptoms of their mental well-being. And in times like now, I would say fortify our mental health where there's so much uncertainty going on.

Hmm.

I'm wondering, you know, without— we're talking about the foreground. I'd love to get some background, just kind of a quick— what got you interested in this particular field?

Sure. I think it stems from my love of food in my childhood and growing up in a large Indian family where there are lots of cooks in the kitchen, but also lots of doctors and sort of scientists and Ayurvedic practitioners, believe it or not. So it was every— everything in one.

But that's where sort of for me the mind-body-soul connection came in, understanding mindfulness, meditation. I grew up around that, and I did carry that with me when I studied mental health and psychiatry.

But I also, because of coming from that background, I didn't really learn how to cook until much later in life because there were always too many mothers, aunts, older cousins in the kitchen cooking.

But I loved food, and for me preparing meals and learning— my journey into cooking was actually a very mindful, creative space, and I didn't know that until I tried it and would be, you know, calling home or emailing home to my mom for recipes. And as I realized that it was meaningful to me, I also understood in learning psychopharmacology and the devastating effects of some medications that there needed to be more that I offered a patient other than my prescription pad, which is a very powerful tool, but at the same time, when you are making or helping to make that clinical decision, I think there needs to be more than just take this pill and take it 3 times a day, and for me, that connection came from my background. I began to explore what I could say speak to patients about and clients about that they could be doing, whether it was movement, how they were eating, what they were eating to make a difference. And it started there. It started with that interest and it grew from studying, studying more because, you know, there's a big gap in nutrition education in medical schools and it's not something that comes naturally to too many doctors.

So, you know, you really have to go figure out a lot of that stuff if you love it and if you're interested.

Yeah. Well, you are uniquely qualified to dispense food as medicine, literally. Or you should and should not eat food. Can we talk a little bit about how diet impacts our mood? And you and I talked off camera about this connection between gut health and mental well-being, emotional well-being.

Absolutely.

So one of the mechanisms that I talk about in my book, which is actually the theme and background background for how I describe the different foods throughout the book is the gut-brain axis, which, you know, people have heard about. They've heard about the microbiome. But in mental health, there's really a burgeoning amount of research that is connecting gut bacteria, their impact on foods, how these— how different substances get produced. And where it starts is that the gut and brain, although they're far apart in the body, start from the very same cells in the embryo. And they divide and grow, and our gut forms and our brain forms. But then the gut and the brain are also physiologically, anatomically, and biochemically connected by the vagus nerve, which is our 10th cranial nerve. And I like to call that the vagus nerve a 2-way superhighway because it's, it's bidirectional flow of information back and forth. And it helps people to understand that the is if food, although food digestion begins earlier than that, when the food is in our gut, whatever is happening there is directly going to be interacting with the gut, the gut lining, and the connection to the brain through the vagus nerve. But another, a few other helpful facts about this gut-brain axis are that serotonin is called the happiness hormone, and it is the reason that doctors will prescribe an SSRI like Prozac or Zoloft, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. But more than 90% of the serotonin receptors are found in the gut. Another way that then people start to understand, well, if the receptors are there, then there's an impact from my food. The other— and I feel that for now, for the here and now, it's very important for people to also know that a very large component of our immune system is in our gut. So how we eat in terms of healthfulness, immune-boosting foods, anti-inflammatory foods, all of those good things really help our guts thrive. But the microbes in the gut then help boost our immunity or keep us in a mentally fit state, but also physically important because of the current pandemic. And I think that that just helps people to understand that there is this connection between what we eat and then how we feel Emotionally.

So I bet a lot of our listeners are really curious to know what are the specific foods that potentially could contribute to these challenges in our mood or depression, the things we should move towards and maybe some that we should avoid.

Sure, absolutely. So I think that some of the things that have had a very positive impact for mood— I'm going to start with spices because people don't think of that first.

And I'm not necessarily going in order of effect. I'm really trying to offer slightly different information.

2 spices, saffron and turmeric, actually hit the high notes with clinical trials of depression. And saffron is not something in a culinary way that we use much of the spice, but it actually has a very powerful effect. So it is the one rare occasion where I might think with someone if they really want to use nutritional psychiatry measures along with foods that they may consider a supplement. Turmeric, on the other hand, you only need a small amount of turmeric, even a quarter teaspoon, but always with a pinch of black pepper in your meals. And if you don't cook, as I didn't for many years, you can always add it to a soup, a smoothie, or a tea to have the benefit of turmeric, which also has very powerful other effects, but also an antidepressant effect. So good to add to your food. Then there are the omega-3 fatty acids. And I would prefer that people try these through foods first. And it's easily obtained in really well-sourced sockeye salmon and other fatty fish like mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines. And if you're plant-based, you know, you can get shorter-chain ALA from things like flaxseeds, chia seeds, basil seeds, algae, and certain nuts. And a neat trick that I think people may appreciate is that our bodies are not very efficient in converting short-chain, the ALAs, to DHA and EPA. So one thing that I learned along the way is that becomes more efficient in our body when curcumin is present. And curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric. So my hack there is if you're having a chia pudding, add in a little bit of turmeric and pinch of black pepper because it help the conversion if you happen to, you know, not want to eat seafood or are more plant-based.

So, you know, those are a few ways to get started.

And then there's including things like the healthy fats from olive oil or avocado that really are bringing back anti-inflammatory and rich antioxidant substances to your brain, which help.

Those are some of the few foods to get started.

Oh, and we'll put— we'll list those in the show notes as well as having links to your book. What about things that could contribute to these ailments, these challenges? Maybe do people do not realize that they're eating that they should maybe avoid or reduce?

Absolutely. So it turns out that nitrates, which are often added in preserved meats and processed meats, are actually a driver of depression and worsen depression, so that's one to watch out for. Things like trans fats, you know, in things like margarine and shortening and hydrogenated oils actually have been shown to be linked with higher levels of aggression, so staying away from things like trans fats is probably a really good idea because sometimes when people are not experiencing a good mood or feeling a little bit low. They can also be a little bit irritable or feel a little bit on edge and angry. So it's an important one to think about and know. Artificial sweeteners unfortunately worsen mood. The ones that were worse there were aspartame, saccharin, and sucralose.

So, you know, just be aware of that.

And then, you know, the refined sugar and things like baked goods and candy And, you know, the sugar and high fructose corn syrup, people know that these are not good for our physical health, but they actually have been shown to be linked to studies regarding mood. So, so something to, to, to keep in mind as well.

The artificial sweeteners, where, where do they usually hide?

So artificial sweeteners can, can hide in, in diet soda. They can hide in things that are called sugar-free because they are not technically refined sugar or the way that we think about it. So it might be just making sure that you understand a food label and that it's not hidden there to sweeten something. I remember someone who told me recently that they bought a healthy ketchup, and ketchup is a food where tons of added sugar are contained, most in many types of ketchup, not every single type.

But she bought this very innocently thinking this is a really good option.

But when she read the book, she realized that sucralose is an artificial sweetener, and they were using that to bring that slightly sweet taste to the ketchup that she bought.

So that's a good— you know, checking the food labels becomes a very important part.

For example, there is an organization that has found at least 200, up to 250 other names for sugar on food labels. So really knowing that people mean sugar on a food label becomes important because you may think, oh, this is—

there's no sugar in this.

And it's not that it'll be labeled sugar-free. It is that you don't realize that that's another name for sugar. And I think that us as consumers really knowing a little bit more about food labels would be a good thing when it comes to things like added sugars, other names for sugar, but also that something may be sweetened using an artificial sweetener.

And I know we're going to do another episode specifically talking about concentration and ADHD, maintaining, maintaining our focus in a world, you know, which is, which is full of distractions as it is. But the food sometimes that we ingest don't make it any easier.

They make it worse.

I make a, like a golden milk sometimes with like, like an almond milk.

Yes.

And I add the pepper in there also as well. And it just maybe a little bit of ghee. Yeah. And I feel fantastic.

It's one of my favorites. So it's very warming and soothing and it actually has some good benefits to your brain.

So it's wonderful. And you have recipes in here and it's also the footnotes was really impressive having written, you know, my book earlier this year.

Yes. Congratulations.

It's like, must be like 500 plus.

Exactly. So the way that it happened, Jim, is I looked at probably upwards of 700 references to, to weed, to sort of sort through and weed out what, what was most relevant to the book.

And then we made an editorial decision to include the endnotes in the book so that someone, you know, like yourself was reading through a chapter. And we tried to make— I tried to make the information digestible, pardon the pun, but, you know, so that but people understand, you know, a super science audience, you know, wants to know more and can actually look up that reference, go find the article, but they know that it comes from a certain journal or certain online reference, and I thought that was important because, you know, this is no longer a soft science. There's a good amount of evidence developing. Does that mean that Absolutely everything is 100% all of the time. In nutritional science, that's never the case.

But at least we provide—

providing the studies that you can look at and decide for yourself.

We talked about the link between your food that you eat because you're in a unique position where you really can— you uniquely qualified to dispense food as medicine. And we talked about mental health and we talked about the brain, the the gut connection. Now we want to take this into areas of stress and anxiety, whether it's stress eating or how foods could actually contribute to anxiety and what foods potentially could lower and reduce anxiety. I know we have a lot of questions often about connection between food and ADHD.

Sure.

And so let's, let's jump into this. And I really encourage everybody, if you haven't listened to our first episode where we define nutritional psychiatry and we talked about this brain-gut connection, to listen to that or watch that episode first. But what, what, as you're seeing patients and, you know, with the success of this book, you're getting so many people reaching out to you on social media and podcasts.

Yeah.

Let's talk about stress eating and the stressful time and the relationship between stress and food.

Absolutely. You know, I think that because it's such a stressful time, Jim, I like to— I like for people to understand that our brain is involved and I like them to maybe take a moment to just not feel too blamed and feel badly about the fact that we may have picked up a few habits that we didn't want to in the pandemic. But because our brain is involved when we are stressed, our brain becomes hypersensitive to the rewards of tasty, high-fat, and high-sugary foods. And I'm not talking about the healthy fats in these foods.

I'm talking about the somewhat unhealthy ones.

So our brain gets used to these and then craves them more. And I think that understanding that this is somewhat at the background of, of how we may be making these not-so-great food choices is helpful for people.

I think that then doing 2 things that I think are important: checking out your environment, and if, you know, you have a little cupboard with— you have a lot of ice cream in the fridge or cupboard with a lot of cookies, and these are the things we want to slowly move out, move on, and replace with some healthy whole foods, which can be delicious.

They do not have to not be tasty. This is very important. So Realizing that, understanding we've been in this situation and it's now continuing, how can we reset? It's also important for people to know that there's a sort of functional form of stress, meaning there's a form of stress called eustress, which is when, you know, if you're studying for a board exam, you have a test the next day, you might be a little anxious and you're focusing and you're hitting the books and you're trying to make sure that you don't have that cup a coffee too late because you want to sleep before your test, that's actually functioning. That's helping you function, helping you do well in your test. It's really when stress and anxiety tip over and we can't sleep and we can't function and we can't get to that Zoom meeting because we, you know, our hearts are racing and we're not feeling good is when we really want to think about how can we impact this in a good way. And that's where it's super helpful to know foods that worsen anxiety. And I know you won't be surprised to hear that refined sugar is one of them, but there are actually studies that show that these refined sugars worsen anxiety. And I've also seen it where someone considers themselves somewhat addicted to refined sugars and candy and cakes and the sort and suddenly decide on their own— I had several different patients at different times want to do a detox off of sugar and come off it suddenly. And when they body went from a ton of sugar to zero, they actually had more panic and anxiety be precipitated because you sort of like with any substance have to do it slowly and in a structured way. I think that's important to know that sugar actually worsens anxiety, but also someone coming off or trying to cut back on sugar may say, well, why don't I switch from a regular soda to a diet soda? And that's where the artificial sweeteners become a problem, because even those stevia can be okay in moderate quantities, in other things it actually worsens anxiety. So you want to watch out for that if you're adding that to your coffee, your tea, or you're having diet soda or other things. Even foods contain artificial sweeteners, so you want to be on the lookout for your— on the food labels for that. Another important one to know is that processed vegetable oils worsen anxiety. So these are often found in certain restaurant foods, but often in fast foods because the processed vegetable oils are less expensive and they tend to be used in bulk. So if you're, you know, if you're on that pandemic fast food diet, we may want to start thinking this is a good time to realize that anxiety gets worse because of that. And the other thing that did show up with anxiety was gluten. So it can, with certain people, actually worsen the anxiety. So if you struggle with symptoms of anxiety and it's not, you know, something where you can start using food as one way to feel better, then maybe start cutting back on gluten and seeing if your symptoms improve. But that was also found in the studies. Then in terms of things that you can do to feel better, you know, you can— we can go back to the omega-3 fatty acids in fatty fish, which actually have been shown to help anxiety as well. But you can also get plant-based sources in the ALA in chia seeds, flaxseeds, basil seeds, sea algae, things like that. And you can really try to fortify your anxiety by eating vitamin D-rich foods. So certain fortified milks, nut milks, and others, and then some foods with vitamin D.

Although, you know, the best source of vitamin D is direct sunlight.

It's one of the things that was shown to actually be helpful. And turmeric with a pinch of black pepper again showed up with anxiety. So that's another easy fix just by adding it into your diet, whether you cook, add it to a stir-fry, or if you don't, add it to soup or smoothie or a cup of tea or golden milk like you spoke about last time.

One of my favorites.

Very much so. When you were talking about the foods, the refined sugars, the things to avoid, the vegetable oils, the gluten, is that also— are those good foods to avoid also for ADHD?

Absolutely. So, you know, it turns out that there are other foods as well. But what I will say is that there are some individuals who— so definitely refined sugar, Gluten has also shown up, and with ADHD, sometimes I find individuals have a significant amount of anxiety. So you know, one of the things I want to share about my book is I used diagnostic categories because that's how we speak about it in mental health. But it doesn't mean that you have to carry a diagnosis to use food to improve your mental well-being. But it also doesn't mean that you have that people fit snugly into a box of diagnostic criteria. I think it's more about how you're feeling emotionally, checking this out and seeing things that you should avoid. And I say that because, like I said, sometimes someone with OCD has symptoms of depression, someone with ADD has significant anxiety. So avoiding gluten becomes important because studies have shown that it can worsen symptoms of ADHD and ADD. Dairy, specifically the, the A1 milk caseins, which are the protein. And now in our supermarkets we have A2 milk, so maybe try those if you're struggling with symptoms of ADD. And also using nut milks or goat or sheep milk may be an alternative because regular dairy milk has the A1 caseins, milk caseins in it. And you know, you won't be surprised that refined sugars can worsen. And then there's some correlation studies as well with artificial sort of stabilizers and colorants and dyes in foods that can potentially worsen symptoms as well. So just, you know, just to be on the watch out for those colorings and additives and try to stay away from those if you're having problems with ADHD.

After reading your book, you know, I realized that food could be not only nutritious but also delicious.

Also always important, right, for compliance, for people to stick with something. Exactly, because it's— if it's not tasty, you know, people are going to think, well, why should I give up something I enjoy?

That and the fact that, you know, when you know that you can eat a ton of food foods and just choose from them and not have to give up things. I think that just psychologically speaking, you feel, feel a lot better.

And parents apply this for their, for their children.

Absolutely.

They'd be looking at if to be able to change. Is it a slow process with it in terms of their—

It is.

And, you know, although I'm an adult psychiatrist, Jim, when we're talking about food, we're not— as long as someone doesn't have a food allergy or intolerance, or say celiac disease where you have to avoid gluten. These are simple eating principles based on healthy whole foods with specifics in each chapter based on what we spoke about of foods to embrace and foods to avoid. So it becomes part of— it can be part of a family eating plan, to be honest, that everyone can try and sort of see how people are doing. I think that where someone has more symptoms, and I mean, I still prescribe medications, and I should say that because Medications have saved the lives of some of my patients. So I want to be clear that if someone is suffering, that they should reach out to a doctor, clinician. And it doesn't preclude or it doesn't mean you have to not use foods. You can use food no matter what you're doing. It's just one of the tools in your toolkit in a holistic approach to feeling better.

So by all means, people, people can always embrace a healthier diet and tasty, tasty recipes too.

And colorful also. I know you have like all the colors that are there.

Absolutely. And it turns out that, you know, eating the color of the rainbow can be a little bit of a cliché, but the colors actually speak to the phytonutrients and the rich antioxidants in the different, say, berries and different vegetables.

I mean, think red peppers, green peppers, all the different types of lettuces and that type of stuff. But they're actually super important in terms of feeding the microbes and the gut gut with nutrients that they need, plus the antioxidants for our brain.

So it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's one of those things that, you know, we should be paying attention to and we can.

That's fantastic. Again, what you eat matters, you know, especially for your gray matter. We say that a lot in our community. And how can people find out more about your work and want to go deeper?

Absolutely.

So the book has a ton of endnotes. So you read the chapter and you can look up the references. You can find me at umanaidoomd.com, which is my website. And please subscribe to our newsletter. We try to put out important information on a regular basis. And follow me on social media where we also put out information, which is @drumanaidoo. We have a link to the book and the link—

there are links to the book on my website as well.

Fantastic. And we'll also put that in the show notes at jimkwik.com/notes, including links to your social media and also for people to get your book and your website as well. And as always, I feel like when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. So I want to encourage everyone to take a screenshot of this episode, whether you're watching it on YouTube or on Facebook or on your podcast player, And tag Dr. Uma, tag myself. And so we see it. And one thing that you're going to do, maybe one food that you're going to add or something you're going to subtract out of your daily diet.

I love that.

Like you share that with your fans, your followers, your friends, your family, and you get to integrate it more in your own life and hold you more accountable. And you get to pay it forward also as well. I will repost some of my favorites, as I always do each week for our show. And again, I bought a couple extra copies of your book.

Thank you.

And I will gift a copy to one person who does that at random.

Awesome.

Thank you. Any final words for our listeners?

I think that where people care about their brain health, and I'm so excited for the work that you're doing, I think that it's not that difficult.

I think that food is an easy way in within our grasp, within our control to improve our brain health. And I think if it's one message I'd like to share with them, it's that eat for your better brain health. Your physical health will, will follow too.

But your brain health, your brain will thank you.

Yeah, 100%. Well, thank you so much for being on our show again, and thank you again for everyone who's listening, and we'll see you on our next show.

Thank you, Jim.

Take care.

Hi, Kwik Brain. It's your brain coach. I want to thank you so much for watching this video. 3 things to do. Number 1, make sure you share this, because when you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Update your learning so you can update other people's learning as well. Number 2, make sure you subscribe Subscribe to this channel so you don't miss a thing. Because if you miss a video, you miss a lot. And finally, make sure you hit that bell so you're notified and you find out when we put out the latest and the greatest. One extra thing: if you want really close attention, then text me. Here is my phone number: 310-299-9362. Did you remember that number? 310-299-9362. Shoot me a text and we'll stay in touch. Ask me your burning question, and I wish your days be full of lots of life, lots of love, lots of laughter, and always lots of learning. I'll see you in our next video.