How Does Food Impact My Mood?

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How Does Food Impact My Mood? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Tonya K. From In Goop Health asks, how does food impact my mood? Hey, it's JJ and today I've got nutritional psychiatry pioneer Dr. Uma Naidu. With me now. Michelin starred chef David Boulay describes Dr. Uma as the world's first triple threat in the food as medicine space. She's a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef, graduating with her culinary school's most coveted award and a nutritionist specialist. And fun fact, as a child she was fascinated by space travel and wanted to be an astronaut. She'll be right back to answer this question. Stay with me.

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I thank you for asking that because it's really not that obvious to a lot of us that in fact we are what we eat and therefore we are in control of how we feel emotionally through the food choices we make every single day. When I speak to people about this, I try to explain what I call five key concepts to understand the science behind it. Because I do feel that when we understand how things, things happen, it makes us feel like we can better control what's happening to our bodies and more importantly, to our brain. So neuro oxidative stress is how food can damage or revitalize our brain cells and, you know, by the true choices we make. And I'll run through a quick list at the end of this. We stress because neuro oxidative stress on the brain, and that then impacts how we feel. There are also foods that we eat that are somewhat unhealthy, highly processed, highly sugared, which lead to inflammation in the brain, which we call neuroinflammation. So foods can either increase or decrease this inflammation. Neuroplasticity is how foods can increase or decrease brain growth. So actual brain cells. And again, here it's the health of our brain cells, the health of our body, environment, how we eat, the biodiversity of our microbiome, all related to really healthy brain cells and health of the brain overall, which then impacts all our emotional states, including depression, including anxiety, including stress. I like to use the word emotional immunity because I understand this to be how foods can boost or lower our immunity through how we eat. So, you know, understanding that we have a healthy immunity at all times has become even more important these days. Eating foods to boost our immunity and that being part of a healthy diet is also extremely important. And it's helpful to know that if you're taking good care of your physical health, you can actually really also be taking care of your brain health in the same way as well. One example there is, you know, eating foods that are rich in vitamin C amongst others. And then we come back again, full circle to the very important gut brain connection. Because in terms of how, you know, we, how food impacts our mood. The gut brain connection directly mediates this through the vagus nerve, the anatomical connection between the gut and the brain. And it turns out that more than 90% of the body's serotonin receptors are in the gut. And because they're in the gut, it means two things. If you've ever been or taken an antidepressant medication, such as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, otherwise called SSRIs, such as fluoxetine, otherwise called Prozac, or Sertraline, otherwise called Soloft, you may have initially experienced some gastrointestinal side effects. And this is because of the location of the serotonin receptors. These medications directly impact our mood through how they manage the serotonin levels in the brain. So if you understand, therefore that Many more than 90% of the serotonin receptors are in the gut, you can therefore understand how this direct link between the gut and the brain makes much more sense if what we're eating through our mouths goes to our stomachs and our gut. Those foods, those substances, those nutrients, or in some cases the antinutrients, because they're the unhealthy foods, directly impact the serotonin receptors through how they get modulated throughout gastrointestinal system. And this affects our brain. So the gut brain connection becomes important from two perspectives. The actual anatomical link between our gut and our brain through the vagus nerve, as well as the fact that there's so many serotonin receptors in the gut. And those are just two of the most important points for you to remember in terms of understanding how food affects us and understanding that we are in fact, what we eat.

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert.

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