Podcast 131: The best diet for mental and brain health according to a nutritional psychiatrist

Podcast 131: The best diet for mental and brain health according to a nutritional psychiatrist

In this podcast I talk to Harvard-trained nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Georgia Ede about how certain diets can affect our mental wellbeing, what foods help the brain function best, and what foods to avoid if we want to heal and improve our mental and physical health.

Dr. Ede, in both her personal life and practice, has found that making certain lifestyle modifications can help treat major mental health issues such as ADHD, depression, anxiety and panic attacks. Through her research, she has found that nutrition can help heal and restore brain function, empowering people to take back control over their mental state and their lives, without the stigma and negative side-effects so common to pharmacological treatments for mental distress.

For more on Dr. Ede visit: https://www.diagnosisdiet.com

Highlights from this episode:

4:13-How Dr. Ede changed the way she treated mental health

5:53-How nutrition affects mental health

8:16-What is mental ill-health, and how can food help?

9:00-Food myths, and the best way to eat for a healthy body and mind

18:35-Is there one diet that works for everyone?

24:00-How nutrition has changed her patients’ lives

31:32-The biggest obstacles to nutrition and mental health

43:00-Health and wellness trends to be careful of

44:00-What we need to know about going plant-based

49:40-How to do keto correctly

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Disclaimer:
The information offered in Dr. Leaf’s books and materials are intended to serve as guidelines for managing toxic thoughts, emotions, and bodies and not as a replacement for professional medical advice. Please discuss specific symptoms and medical conditions with your doctor. Any use of this information is at the user’s discretion. Switch On Your Brain, LLC and the author make no representations or warranties that any individual will achieve a particular result. Any and all express or implied warranties, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, are disclaimed. Switch On Your Brain, LLC and the author specifically disclaim any and all liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or application of any information contained in these materials.

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41 Comments

  1. Karen Tladi on April 16, 2022 at 6:02 pm

    This Podcast has bedn so informative and helpful. Thank you. I definitely learned a lot. Especially with mental health and diet.



  2. Charles Kenyon on April 16, 2022 at 6:04 pm

    I’m sorry Dr Ede had mental health problems when she tried a plant based diet. Her nutritional criticims have been addressed for along time by Dr Joel Fuhrman and others have gone into detail concerning various digestive difficulties. Unfortunately she advocates diets which clearly kills.



  3. Marg Neufeld on April 16, 2022 at 6:06 pm

    im disappointed to hear you speaking against a plant based diet, i believe that God provided us with plant based foods they are so rich in nutrients that have everything we need to be healthy. you also say that there have been no studies done on a animal versus plant based diet? there definitely have been studies done proving the damage that animal diets can cause including cancer and heart disease, have you read the book by T. Colin Cambell, PhD and Thomas M. Cambell MD called the China study, The most comprehensive study on nutrition ever conducted



  4. maplegingko on April 16, 2022 at 6:08 pm

    18:25



  5. AHCENE TELDJI on April 16, 2022 at 6:11 pm

    Great stuff thanks



  6. HumbleBrag on April 16, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    I see you!



  7. wOv0denowl3 s on April 16, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    The quality of food is also very important, meat is filled with hormones and lots of vegetables are grown using pesticides. One Ukrainian doctor also mentioned a sound idea that we should eat the food that our ancestors in our region ate. For example, my great grandpa did not eat bananas, so they are not so good for us. It is also built in our genetic system. And all of this also messes up our health.



  8. Misty Pack on April 16, 2022 at 6:15 pm

    I am 3 yrs post TBI. This is so important. Thank you for sharing. I am always listening and wanting to learn. May Gods Bless You



  9. Getta_io on April 16, 2022 at 6:16 pm

    If there is no research on plant based diet,
    so American Dietetic Association based their position on plant based diet on nothing?



  10. Sandra GREG on April 16, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    I was diagnosed with major depression when I was 16 years old in 1991. But it got really bad in 2005. In Feb 2004 for my step dad died and I wanted an antidepressant to get through the pain of losing my stepdad at the age of 58 when he had a stroke. I was given an antidepressant at age 28… and I was told from the general practitioner to not change doctors and to stay with him and he would take me off of it within six months because those ssris are only meant to be on for less than 12 months. I didn’t listen to him and unfortunately I change doctors because I needed a doctor in the same city that I lived in. I was labeled with major depression again in 2005… and I got worse after one year of being on the SSRI. That was 2005 and I started the wing myself off in 2007 and I did not get off of that one ssris completely until 2011 or 2012.
    Due to being on this one antidepressant for so long I lost the one decade that was probably going to be the most fun and that was my 30s. My thirties are gone and I will never get them back and I remember being extremely angry at the world in my 30s….

    And I heard about dr. Peter breggin way back in 2009 or 2010. His books help me to Wing myself off of this one SSRI …and I can tell you for certain that my diet has helped me so much.

    My life coach Diane Donohue has helped me so much and she poured her life into me after my mom died in 2018 when I was 42. Diane came into my life in 2016 in April through Toastmasters .. and 2 years later she became like a second mom to me and she’s very knowledgeable health and life coach. She worked in the medical field for 20 years before becoming a health and life coach

    And she taught me about diet and clean eating and eating alive foods and getting off the processed foods. And I noticed it took about a year or a year-and-a-half after my mom died and by the summer of 2019 I was feeling quite well well even though I had stopped this SSRI back in 2012.

    And now my life coach and my friend Diane Donahue is in heaven…
    She had stage 4 cancer and she had it for 9 years or almost nine years and she’s no longer suffering and I am very very grateful for her coming into my life and for our lives intersecting when they did.

    I have learned so much about eating alive foods and how they help heal my brain even after stopping this SSRI about 10 years ago.

    I stopped this 1 SSRI sometime around 2011 or 2012 and it is 2022 now. If I wasn’t 47 years old now – I probably would consider becoming a nutritional psychiatrist. I have a masters in business. I got that in 2011. I do not know how I was able to concentrate because I believe I was tried to hating myself off of this medicine in 2009 when I started my master’s degree program

    I am anti-psychiatry and I don’t believe in the medical model of the baloney that is spewed by the big pharmaceutical companies… that you need a pill to bring the Brain into balance!!

    I don’t believe any of that. It is very damaging to the brain to start taking antidepressants or benzodiazepines or mood stabilizers. And mood stabilizers aren’t really mood stabilizers. What they really are is anti-seizure medications! And the psychiatrist don’t tell their patients that they are really used off-label. And then we got the antipsychotics which caused horrible side effects including the one that nobody wants you nobody wants their mouth to be slapping crazy nobody wants their hands to be flapping in the air

    and it was very hard for me to get off that one SSRI and I thought maybe when I started tritating myself off of it I noticed that it was very difficult for me to get through those few 5-6 months of tritating myself down.

    It was an uphill battle and I did not have a therapist to help me. I did not have a friend that knew what I was doing. I wasn’t going to a clinic that was helping me get off this one antidepressant and unfortunately I did gain weight.

    And that’s what in 2018 I listen to my friend and my life coach and I lost 80 lb of pure fat. It took me a year-and-a-half to do it.

    But the inflammation in my body went down and my brain really got clear! Thank you DD for your LOVE.
    Dr. Peter breggin is absolutely correct when he said in your interview with him that the number one thing people need is people need love



  11. Katherine Lydon on April 16, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    Dr Atkins was on the right path back in the 1970s, in my opinion. I understand not everyone will agree with my comment.



  12. Lana Sar on April 16, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    Admire Dr. Ede! Going against mainstream beliefs takes a lot of courage. Confirming here that animal-based diet helped me with anxiety attacks and depression that I had, besides reversing reactive hypoglycemia and being a part of the protocol that helped me get rid of daily debilitating migraines (Stanton Migraine Protocol).



  13. Tiffany Champagne Martin on April 16, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    hi



  14. DeskTime Time Tracking on April 16, 2022 at 6:17 pm

    Thank you for covering this topic. Another type of "food" for the brain, in our opinion, is podcasts. One of our favorites is I Can’t Sleep Podcast that revolves around sleep and mental health. If you want to find similar ones, check out the list here https://desktime.com/blog/why-listen-to-podcasts/



  15. Rahul Shaw on April 16, 2022 at 6:19 pm

    Nice video



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  17. Thomas Pc on April 16, 2022 at 6:20 pm

    Interviewer is too fast in conversation. If avoided the same can make more well



  18. Guus Peters on April 16, 2022 at 6:21 pm

    Hey. I enjoyed the video so much! I have been trying to look for a knowledgable vid like yours that educates the topics in this YouTube video. 👩‍⚕️ The description at 1:32 is my favorite. Your explanation is similar to the vids of Doctor Ethan. Ethan’s videos are totally informative and I really learned a lot for my school! He is a cool Dr in Europe.

    Go check out his page out and give the medical student a subscribe! 👉 #DrEthanEducation



  19. Sabrina Carder on April 16, 2022 at 6:22 pm

    Omg! I’m so glad I found this podcast!! 🙏🏻 I have been dealing with anxiety and depression very bad since 2016! I’ve had and lost so many jobs because of it and it makes me look bad. I am on paroxetine for anxiety/depression and it definitely helps but I also go through migraines. I really want to change my diet and see if that helps



  20. kristi p. on April 16, 2022 at 6:23 pm

    Thank you so much for this!! Such great information!! 🙏🏼♥️



  21. Brenda Smith on April 16, 2022 at 6:25 pm

    Thank you Dr Caroline



  22. maplegingko on April 16, 2022 at 6:26 pm

    Highly important topic. Maybe our mental health crisis is a toxic food crisis.



  23. Ache Brasil on April 16, 2022 at 6:32 pm

    Wow! Simply wow! I always thought this and now I have you both to confirming it. Thank you!



  24. Maia Allman on April 16, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    My wish is to reduce my son’s symptoms of autism by diet.



  25. Moshe Dabash on April 16, 2022 at 6:34 pm

    Too many ads



  26. Sami Abdul on April 16, 2022 at 6:34 pm

    Hi! I really loved watching this video, but ast I was watching, I noticed there were some captions that were a little bit goofy. Sometimes words weren’t reflecting what was happening in the memes you were showing. This is a common issue but there are some easy fixes! Youtube studio allows you to make these changes as well as other sites that can make the edits for you. 360 million folks globally rely on closed captions to understand the videos, better captions help make videos more inclusive to the deaf and hard of hearing community 🙂



  27. Hackyourbodymindsoul on April 16, 2022 at 6:35 pm

    Really Nice👍



  28. Rudy C. Zamora on April 16, 2022 at 6:36 pm

    Thank You Dr. Leaf



  29. Ahmed Ali on April 16, 2022 at 6:37 pm

    Podcast EP25 What they don’t tell you about Mental Health and Self-care with Chitra Balakrishnan

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRsQfp-cQWo



  30. JBB BJJ on April 16, 2022 at 6:42 pm

    Loved the video but very disappointed that the Impossible Burger was depicted as a healthy food option (unless I misunderstood). This is an extremely processed food with numerous harmful chemicals and products. This Includes MSG, disguised as "yeast extract"



  31. BV Lee on April 16, 2022 at 6:47 pm

    Keto



  32. healthy life on April 16, 2022 at 6:49 pm


  33. Vito Padilla on April 16, 2022 at 6:51 pm

    cool check out this food podcast ya will enjoy!!!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaZ1M0dseKXWREb2yWPcqnA



  34. BRIDGE35 on April 16, 2022 at 6:51 pm

    Awesome content with practical approach. Enjoyed Dr Georgia Ede. Always sharing



  35. iLoveBeaches🏖 on April 16, 2022 at 6:51 pm

    I am plant based with occasional seafood as my body tells me I need it. I listen to my body😊



  36. Seth Rakes on April 16, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    Ketosis is our backup system, so living a Keto lifestyle means you are perpetually living in backup mode. And now you have no backup system if you ever burnout on Keto.

    We are frugivores and should not be eating the chopped up remains of animal carcasses. Our bodies are temples of God, not graveyards.



  37. maplegingko on April 16, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    One meal a day. Highly recommend.



  38. Mags H on April 16, 2022 at 6:56 pm

    Interesting information that is applicable and engaging. Thank you both for the wonderful interview and making this information available to the people.



  39. Virginia Houseman on April 16, 2022 at 6:57 pm

    Hey there. This was so insightful! I’ve been trying to search for a video like yours that breaks down the ideas in this video. 👍Your vid is like the videos from this awesome health enthusiast Dr. Ethan! Doctor’s explanations are insightful and he really helped me on my studies. He is a knowledgable medical student.

    I suggest you check his channel out and give Doctor Ethan a like! 👉 #DrEthanCare



  40. Laura on April 16, 2022 at 6:59 pm

    I got sucked into the fish oil supplements but then found the science Brian Peskin did.



  41. Rebecca Garner on April 16, 2022 at 6:59 pm

    Thank you for sharing this information!! Dr. Leaf you have changed my life and I was able to go through a difficult season and thrive with applying your tools. Now Dr. Ede is a new favorite ❤️❤️