The average full term baby weighs just over 7lbs. One pound of that is the baby’s brain. Nature, via the mother’s body, devotes enormous amounts of energy into building the baby’s brain during and just after pregnancy. And as you’ve heard me say many, many times, the brain is the hungriest organ in the body and requires specific nutrients from the diet for proper structure and function.

So why, dear listeners, is brain development completely absent from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline update on pregnancy and child nutrition?

In this week’s episode I am a starting a teeny tiny beef with NICE.

Think Through Nutrition

The Food Programme

NICE Maternal & Child Nutrition Stakeholder List

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Unprocessed: What Your Diet is Doing to Your Brain*

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Called ‘the sunshine vitamin’ vitamin D is the only vitamin that the UK Department of Health and Social Care recommends that adults and children over the age of four should supplement daily because insufficiency is widespread. While there is some controversy about the threshold for deficiency in the general population, what is consistently observed is that Black and Brown communities have lower serum levels compared to white individuals in the same countries, and that this difference may contribute to some of the observed health disparities.

In this week’s episode I’m explaining why vitamin D levels can be so low in these groups, the potential implications, particularly in relation to brain health, and what you can do about it.

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Diabetes Risk Tool

The company I used for ny vitamin D testing (OmegaQuant) no longer offers this specific test.

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Is there a link between childhood trauma and stress eating? And what’s the deal with emotional hunger? I’m answering your questions on the psychological side of hunger in this week’s episode.

https://www.intuitiveeating.org/about-us/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/

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How to Build a Healthy Brain*

Unprocessed: What Your Diet is Doing to Your Brain*

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Original music by Juan Iglesias

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Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/strongerminds.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Going for a walk. Having a mindful cup of coffee. Keeping a gratitude journal. These common self-care practices can be helpful and have their place. But some of us have to go back a step. To the basics. In this week’s episode, I’m bringing you an absolute beginners guide to self-care.

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How to keep your teeth clean - NHS

Tooth brushing video

Flossing video

Register with a doctor - NHS

Feelings wheel

How to cope with financial worries - NHS

Sleep Hygiene

Instagram link to this post - to come

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I talk a lot about the importance of building a brain healthy lifestyle, but what does it look like in practice? In this episode, I share how I translate the research into simple daily habits for brain health.

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Unprocessed: What Your Diet is Doing to Your Brain*

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Getting your five servings of fruit and vegetables a day good for you. But why exactly? And more specifically, what are some of the nutrients in fruits and veggies doing for your brain? In this episode, I’m bringing you some fresh data on Antioxidants & Alzheimer’s disease.

Refs

Low Xanthophylls, Retinol, Lycopene, and Tocopherols in Grey and White Matter of Brains with Alzheimer’s Disease

Biomagnification

Supplements and dry AMD

Lutein zeaxanthin AD diagnosis

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Unprocessed: What Your Diet is Doing to Your Brain*

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why am I hungrier before my period? Am I addicted to cheese? And is it true that we confuse hunger and thirst? I’m answering your questions on hungry in today’s episode.

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Unprocessed: What Your Diet is Doing to Your Brain*

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Your stomach’s rumbling. You can’t concentrate. And if one more person annoys you… We experience hunger every day but what is it all about and how does it affect us psychologically? The intricate, complex and exceedingly clever science of hunger – including how it affects our mood - is the topic of this week’s episode.

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/strongerminds.

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