The Root Cause Medicine Podcast · Rupa Health

The Science of Nutritional Psychiatry: Ease Anxiety and Boost Your Mood: Episode Rerun

·1 hr·4 clips

Naidoo calls the kitchen “the pharmacy” and says spices and herbs have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties.

The episode opens with a straightforward frame: mental health is connected to the food system, and people can still make useful choices within that reality. Dr. Kate Kresge introduces Dr. Uma Naidoo as a Harvard-trained psychiatrist who specializes in nutritional and metabolic psychiatry. The conversation also points to the books that helped bring her work to a wider audience. From there, it sets out a practical scope. The host asks for advice that patients and clinicians can actually use, and Dr. Naidoo responds with a mix of clinical language and plain explanation. She talks about what to look for in an intake and describes the kinds of questions that can help uncover root causes. The episode then turns to the link between anxiety, depression, and what people are eating. Fiber comes up as important. Magnesium does too. Hydration matters as well. Sugar intake gets close attention, including how it can show up in familiar foods like flavored yogurts. The conversation does not linger in theory. It keeps moving toward what a person could do next. One example is swapping a sugary habit for berries and cinnamon. Another is building a hydration plan slowly enough to stick. Dr. Naidoo describes increasing water intake one glass at a time with meals, with calming teas in between. The pacing is the point. The story makes clear that behavior change often fails when it is too big or too fast. She also shares a patient example where a long-standing bathroom avoidance pattern was part of the clinical picture. The change took weeks, not days. That slower process led to fewer urinary infections and less pain, which reframed the emotional issue as something tied to daily life. The host keeps pushing on the intake questions that most often get missed. That keeps the conversation curious rather than promotional. Dr. Naidoo explains that the right questions can reveal unusual but meaningful factors. The episode keeps returning to the idea that food is not a magic answer, but it is often one of the first places to look. The tone stays warm and clinically literate instead of dramatic. Technical terms appear when they help, then get translated into patient-facing language. The closing stretch broadens into a reminder that mental health is part of overall health. The guest and host end with encouragement that still feels practical. The listener is left with the sense that treatment can be more specific, more curious, and more connected to everyday habits than people usually assume.

As heard by us

A grounded look at how food, labs, and mood connect.

Dr. Uma Naidoo frames mental health in a wider way here, linking it to food, labs, and everyday habits rather than treating symptoms in isolation.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when your mood questions circle back to food, nutrients, and the body.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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