Chips, Cookies, Ultra-Processed Food And Our Mental Health! Harvard and Stanford Physicians Look At The Food-Brain Connection

We have listened to two brilliant psychiatrists speak about nutrition and mental health. Let us introduce you to them. Dr.  Uma Naidoo “is a Harvard trained psychiatrist, professional chef, and Nutrition Specialist. Her niche work is in nutritional psychiatry and she is regarded both nationally and internationally as a medical pioneer in this more newly recognized field. In her role as a Clinical Scientist, Dr. Naidoo founded and directs the first hospital-based clinical service in Nutritional Psychiatry in the US. She is the Director of Nutritional and Lifestyle Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Director of Nutritional Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital Academy while serving on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Naidoo is the author of the recently released book, 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 sound diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues.” She was considered Harvard’s Mood-Food expert”.

Dr. Shebani Sethi Dalai is a double board-certified physician in Obesity Medicine and Psychiatry. She is the Founding Director of Stanford University’s Metabolic Psychiatry program and Silicon Valley Metabolic Psychiatry. Silicon Valley, a new center in the San Francisco Bay Area, is “focused on optimizing brain health by integrating low carb nutrition, comprehensive psychiatric care, and treatment of obesity with associated metabolic disease.”

Both physicians have recognized the serious adverse effects ultra-processed food has on our brains. Both Harvard and Stanford are thankfully looking at the rise of mental illness and lifestyle—in particular how diet affects our brains. Though one in five Americans live with a mental illness (depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia), conventional medicine does not typically ask for a food and nutrition history in the evaluation or treatment of mental health conditions. And then… there were these two brilliant physicians!

We at Healthshifter were very excited to listen to Dr. Mark Hyman’s interviews with both women. This post focuses on Dr. Hyman’s conversation with Dr. Dalai. Among other issues, the doctors discussed the connection between mental health and metabolic disease and how inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance may be root causes of many chronic brain illnesses (Parkinson’s, ALS, MS), including many psychiatric disorders (ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, Depression). 

Here on some of the many golden nuggets Healthshifter extracted:

• Research is undisputable that inflammation and insulin resistance are causes of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.
• Diet drives this inflammation and we can use diet to alter the course of these diseases.
• Sugar and ultra-processed foods (think chips, cookies, cake etc.) messes up our health.
• The single best intervention for our health besides not smoking is to not overload on ultra-processed foods with excess sugar and carbs.
• 5-10% of patients have an improvement in mental health by improving physical health.
• Studies have shown that in some patients with Schizophrenic Affective Disorder (psychotic behavior), those who went off ultra-processed foods showed a significant improvement in quality of life.
• Physician monitored ketogenic diet intervention (burning fat and ketones vs glucose and carbohydrates for fuel) to treat metabolic disease showed side effects of helping with brain disorders. Some patients decreased medication doses and improved their health.
• Two schizophrenic patients on keto diets reported a cessation of hallucinations.
• Studies have shown a doorway to the brain through food and how optimizing metabolic pathways can lead to an increase in energy and weight loss.
• Dr. Dalai uses keto diet and mitochondria support to improve function and the health of the brain—this can lead to a decrease in inflammation.
• ADHD and Autism are connected through diet. Autism rates have tripled over the last 20 years. Dr. Dalai suggests we are not feeding our brains the right fuel which makes our brain cells lazy, tired and not able to work properly.
• She hopes that within the next 5-10 years doctors will look at what we eat and obtain a detailed nutrition history at the initial patient intake.

Both Stanford and Harvard are looking at the rise in mental illness and how lifestyle changes, in particular diet, can improve symptoms and quality of life. For a deeper dive you can listen to both Dr. Dalai’s and Dr. Nadoo’s interviews with Dr. Hyman by clicking the links below.