This Is Your Brain on Food

An Indispensable Guide to the Surprising Foods That Fight Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, OCD, ADHD, and More

By: Uma Naidoo MD

Narrated by: Uma Naidoo MD, Deepti Gupta

Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

Eat for your mental health and learn the fascinating science behind nutrition with this guide from an expert psychiatrist.

Did you know that blueberries can help you cope with the aftereffects of trauma? That salami can cause depression, or that boosting Vitamin D intake can help treat anxiety?

When it comes to diet, most people's concerns involve weight loss, fitness, cardiac health, and longevity. But what we eat affects more than our bodies; it also affects our brains. And recent studies have shown that diet can have a profound impact on mental health conditions ranging from ADHD to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, OCD, dementia, and beyond.

A triple threat in the food space, Dr. Uma Naidoo is a board-certified psychiatrist, nutrition specialist, and professionally trained chef. In This Is Your Brain on Food, she draws on cutting-edge research to explain the many ways in which food contributes to our mental health and shows how a sound diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues.

Packed with fascinating science, actionable nutritional recommendations, and delicious, brain-healthy recipes, This Is Your Brain on Food is the go-to guide to optimizing your mental health with food. 

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio. 

©2020 Uma Naidoo, MD (P)2020 Hachette Audio

Critic Reviews

"Dr. Uma Naidoo unveils a truth that I wholeheartedly endorse: What we eat affects our brains. Her incisive research and scrumptious recipes are an ode to enhancing mental acuity." (Lisa Mosconi, PhD, director of the Women's Brain Initiative at Weill Cornell and author of The XX Br)

"In a very real sense, we are our brain's architect in terms of both structure and function. And without question, food may be the most powerful influence on our brain's destiny. Building on leading research, This Is Your Brain on Food provides everything you need to craft a nutritional program focused on optimizing brain health and performance." (David Perlmutter, MD, author of Grain Brain and Brain Wash)

"If you want to improve your cognitive function, mood, and mental health, read this book!" (Dr. Josh Axe, author of Keto Diet)

Waste of precious time.....

There is no question the author is intelligent. However, 80% or more of all examples are related to studies of mice! Well, I’m sure there is a scientific correlation between humans and mice, I’m not going to base my diet on what a mouse eats! The content is very repetitive, its effectiveness is highly questionable due to its disconnected examples. On one hand she slams the western diet yet continues to make example after example about the benefits of eating meat. Again, the author is without question bright, but the efficacy of this information is questionable. Of course they’re always nuggets you can learn from any book, this one is just lacking.

Great for anyone with a brain-based disorder

As a cognitive behavioral neurologist, many patients ask me about what foods they should eat to keep their brain healthy. Although I have been recommending the Mediterranean diet for years to reduce one’s chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease, I didn’t know the data for some other common brain disorders, such as anxiety and depression. Dr. Naidoo does a great job of presenting the data for these and many other disorders. I particularly liked that she shared the details of the studies so that the reader can make up their own mind whether to follow a particular recommendation or not. I also like that she warns the reader against extremism. I will be recommending this book to my patients who want to know more that the basics about how to use food to help their brain-based problems.

Avoid

While there is good evidence that food can be used as medicine, the author of this book cherry picks data to support a predefined conclusion that aligns with their beliefs.

Healing for the whole family

Some of the illnesses described in this book have affected my family with no healing in the spite of the high cost of trying to find help to treat them. So to hear that these illnesses healing involve diet and not only medication or than most of the time only a change in diet has been proven to heal these illnesses, has been an experience compared to seeing light at the end of an extremely dark tunnel.
In the past , my family was able to solve many health issues like allergies and low school performance by food elimination to pinpoint what was the cause of the symptoms after being told by doctors just to take anti histamines medicine when symptoms appeared but not resolving the problem that had a great impact in my children lives and school performance. Eliminating food that exacerbated the symptoms and using supplements like pollen, local honey, apple cider vinager for instance,
my family were able to regain our lives back.
However, these mental illnesses , we never thought could be eliminated by the implementation of a better diet.
Thank you to the doctor for taking the time for sharing this hopeful information that for sure will give hope to every lucky reader of this book and the people around them.

unaware of other perspectives.

The author assumes a lot about people and their circumstances. Also the chapter on libido was very one sided focused on men only and their ability to reproduce. Libido should be about fun not men producing enough sperm to continue to over populate the planet. Women's loss of libido is too often tossed aside as unimportant while men's is glorified.

it would probably be better if it were more balenced in focusing on pleasing your partner and having a good time and not JUST reproduction. As well as if there were whole seperate chapters for men and women so we could to read them or not without hearing about the glorified sperm count.

Genuine and educational!

This is an amazing ebook that I enjoyed very much. As a vegan there are just a few things I didn’t agree with which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5. Even so, it reaffirmed time after time that our western diet is killing us and that our personal food decisions truly affect our personal health. I’m happy to be in control of my healthy food choices enabling me to feel as well as possible. Thank you for your hard work in sharing this book with us! We all need educated.

You need to listen to this

This book is incredible. After listening to the audio version, I’m going to purchase a hard copy for reference. As a nursing student and mental health patient, I found this information incredibly helpful. Thank you Dr. Naidoo!

Incredible

What an incredible book! So informative and so interesting and I finished it in a few days because I couldn’t put it down. I love the accompanying PDF because it is a lot of information. The speakers voice is so comforting and relaxing and I enjoyed listening to it every morning

An incredible display of scholarship that improved my health immediately

I was very interested in the connection between nutrition and mental health as an undergraduate in Psychology at U of O in the 1970’s. As it turned out we were nowhere near knowing such things at that time. How far we have come! Great work by Uma Naidoo for making the complexity of the research since accessible and the practical advice empowering.

love it!

definitely going to use this as a resource for myself and my patients! very insightful