Today I’m talking with Dr Sylvia Tara all about the internal and external forces that govern fat. How we gain fat, how we lose fat, why your body refuses to let go of fat and how you navigate the confusing diet and fitness world that is constantly telling us that it’s all about calorie balance.

It’s not that I don’t believe in calories (obviously they exist), but it’s certainly not the most important factor when it comes to weight control for a lot of people. And for too long, people who have failed on diets and find themselves on a downward spiral of negative emotions and feel that they don’t have anything to blame other than poor will power. Today, we are going to explain why that’s not necessarily the case.

Dr  Sylvia Tara has a PhD in biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. As a biochemist, she was driven to get to the bottom of fat’s mysteries and the reasons it vexes us, plus her own struggles with weight and dieting. Her book “The Secret Life of Fat” frames our conversation today and we largely speak about how Gender, Genes, Bugs and even Viruses can determine whether one person absorbs 120 calories and another can absorb 80 calories from the same bowl of cereal labelled as 100. Sounds impossible, but it’s true.

We discuss the complex biology of fat, how it resists loss, and what to do to remove stubborn fat. And stick around to the end of the podcast where I summarise the main tips to help you live a healthier life that balances an appreciation for why fat shouldn’t be demonised and how to live more metabolically healthier.

The topic of weight loss may make some people feel uncomfortable. I do my best to make our conversations as compassionate and approachable as possible but please exercise caution if you feel you might be triggered by these topics. Check out the show notes on www.thedoctorskitchen.com and sign up for my weekly Eat, Read, Watch newsletter.

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Today, I think I found my new favourite person. Somebody whose experience and intellect I respect and look up to. I am confident that if you love listening to this podcast you’ll love him too. 

And I’m going to put this out there. If you know anyone who works in the NHS. A nurse, doctor, physio, dietitian, administrator, manager, literally anyone. Gift them this book: THE PAIN-FREE MINDSET. Not just because pain is a silent epidemic affecting over 25 million people in the UK alone, but because this book is just as much about how we change our approach to healthcare from one of purely patient service, to one of patient empowerment. And this eloquently written book describes how, with an open mind, how we all can create transformative change for patients and ourselves. 

Dr Deepak Ravindran is an NHS consultant in pain medicine and what he describes as an ‘upstreamist’ with a trauma informed approach to pain practice. As you’ll hear today, he takes a truly holistic, trauma informed and integrated approach to pain management, who has a deep appreciation for the role of lifestyle, nutrition and the overlap between pain.

He has over 20 years of experience in Pain Management and is Clinical Lead in Pain Medicine at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, Berkshire, UK. He is also one of the very few consultants in the UK who holds triple certification in musculoskeletal, pain and lifestyle medicine.

Today we’re going to learn all about Pain. The origins of pain, how pain is your brains interpretation of nociceptive signals and how, specifically in chronic pain, this can be affected by nutrition, emotional history, experience, childhood and many other influences. Foods for pain, supplements, psychological therapies and more.

Strap in, because this is going to be a fantastically useful podcast, and I do hope you share it with loved ones, friends and family. Do check out newsletter www.thedoctorskitchen.com where I share recipes every week plus suggestions on what to read, listen to or watch every week.

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Eczema is the topic of today’s  conversation with Dr Ruth Cammish. An NHS GP, a GP trainer and the Regional Director for the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine in Manchester.  She has been a GP for 13 years, mostly working in a deprived inner city area and her own experiences as a patient with severe eczema has highlighted how holistic care is a vital part of any long term condition, especially chronic skin diseases.  You’ll hear about how  Dr Ruth suffered severe eczema her whole life, ending up on cyclosporin, an immunosuppressant medication and discovering topical steroid withdrawal. 

As a practice doctor, Ruth and her colleagues have been awarded a CQC ‘outstanding’ rating, twice, based on their approach to their patient  population which includes group consultations, an exercise class for COPD patients and their work for vulnerable patients.

On today’s podcast you’ll learn about:

• What eczema is and who it affects
• The link  with food intolerance and allergy
• “Topical Steroid Withdrawl” and how that  occurs
• The mechanisms behind eczema as a disease
• How to approach an eczema patient
• Environmental triggers - temperature, pollen, pollution, dust
• Household irritants - skincare products, beauty  care, clothing, laundry  detergents
• Stress and why it triggers the immune system
• Diet, Gut health, Nature therapy and more
• Supplements and Skin

Dr Ruth can be found on Instagram @drruthskinjourney and I really hope  you enjoy the show. 

Please see The Doctor's Kitchen website for full show notes on this and all other episodes

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Skin, lifestyle and diet. Perhaps some of the commonest things I get  asked about by patients, the doctor’s kitchen community and honestly one of the least understood at this point. In today’s episode we dive into acne, a bit about the gut skin axis, we also talk about Dr Harriet’s background in science from the lab to the plate or pill as well as our thoughts on collagen! Make sure you listen to  the end because I summarise my thoughts on diet, lifestyle and supplements for healthy skin, so you don’t want to miss that.

It’s always a pleasure having Dr Harriet on the pod. Her experience as both a frontline clinician, scientist and registered nutritionist really shows and I love chatting to her.

Dr Harriet Holme is a Registered Nutritionist (AfN), and former experienced paediatrician. After studying at Cambridge University, she worked as a doctor in the NHS for over a decade before focusing on nutrition. She has a PhD in genetics and is a lecturer in nutrition. 

Dr Harriet has authored two books 'Eating During Pregnancy', that she wrote to provide mums to be with credible information on pregnancy nutrition and ‘Postpartum Nutrition: An Expert’s Guide to Eating After a Baby’, to support new mums, and their journey through motherhood and weaning. Dr Harriet also has a number of virtual courses on nutrition on her website https://healthyeatingdr.com, the links to which are on the podcast show notes.

There’s also an article to support today’s podcast that  you can find on www.thedoctorskitchen.com website which lists some of the evidence base used for the recommendations and I hope you find it a useful resource.

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I’m super excited to have Poppy Jamie on the show this week. She is such an inspiration to all entrepreneurs out there and has accomplished so much in the space of just a few years of hard graft. As you will hear on the pod she has a beautiful way of translating wisdom for a wider audience and our conversation touches on William James, Carl Jung, Shakespeare, Viktor Frankl and many more. There is so much to learn from history and if we can find a way to be just that little bit more aware everyday, the benefits accumulate. 

Poppy launched the Not Perfect podcast and the Happy Not Perfect app after four years of aggregating behavioral studies and developing the app with neuroscientists, researchers, and her psychotherapist mom. 

Her debut book, “HAPPY NOT PERFECT: Upgrade Your Mind, Challenge Your Thoughts, and Free Yourself from Anxiety” is a best seller and it’s here that she introduces an approach to stretch our minds that she calls “the Flex”. And this is in order to create new, healthy thought habits and overcome challenges, whilst making us a bit more “psychologically bendy”.

Poppy was also appointed as the youngest member of UCLA’s Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital advisory board to consult on the wellbeing of students. She’s taken part at the first mental health talk series at Cambridge University, lectured at the UCLA Wow Summit on brain health, and delivered a TEDxTalk titled,“Addicted to Likes” about the psychological impact of social media and technology and how to reverse the damage which I recommend checking out.

I know you’re going to  love this one and do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can find on www.thedoctorskitchen.com, where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

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My producer was complaining about having to edit 2 scary pods back to back (one about the rise of fertility problems and the other about how machines will take over the world), so I thought I’d take a break from the frightening realities and bring some humour and personality back into the pod this week!

Feedback from the 100th episode was really positive and lots of you have  asked about me doing some more solo ones .. so here goes!

Today I talk about:

My information diet including the 1-2 books I read a week, podcasts I listen to and how I keep diversity in my content consumption

My hack for reading really fast

A review paper  I read about how to use microbe focused treatments to combat depression

Dairy fat in cheese and why it’s been paradoxically linked to better  cardiovascular disease

And if you liked this episode, you’ll love  my newsletter “Eat, Read, Listen” that you can find at www.thedoctorskitchen.com

Links to topics discussed in the episode:

Tech and ideas podcast - https://www.mfmpod.com/

How to take over the World - https://www.httotw.com/

The Brain health revolution podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/mk/podcast/science-under-attack-the-battle-between-past/id1474018356?i=1000449556409

A Microbiome-Driven Approach to Combating Depression During the COVID-19 Pandemic

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.672390/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Nutrition&id=672390

Biomarkers of dairy fat intake, incident cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality: A cohort study, systematic review, and meta-analysis

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003763

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You might have noticed over the last few episodes that I’ve been keen to discuss subjects slightly leftfield of nutrition and what I’ve traditionally talked about, but fascinating nonetheless. And I hope you as a listener, who’s time and attention I value so greatly, will trust me as I take you on a  bit  of a ride. Because ultimately, I hope you agree that the topics I share are always very important.

Mo Gawdat, who you may remember from episode #91 Solving Happiness is a person who I cherish and with whom I had a very impactful conversation with, on a personal level. He was the former Chief Business Officer of Google [X], which is Google’s ‘moonshot factory’, author of the international bestselling book ‘Solve for Happy’ and founder of ‘One Billion Happy’. After a long career in tech, Mo made happiness his primary topic of research, diving deeply into literature and conversing on the topic with some of the wisest people in the world on “Slo Mo: A Podcast with Mo Gawdat”.

Mo is an exquisite writer and speaker with deep expertise of technology as well as a passionate appreciation for the importance of human connection and happiness. He possesses a set of overlapping skills and a breadth of knowledge in the fields of both human psychology and tech which is a rarity. His latest piece of work, a book called “Scary Smart” is a timely prophecy and call to action that puts each of us at the center of designing the future of humanity. I know that sounds intense right? But it’s very true.

During his time at Google [X], he worked on the world’s most futuristic technologies, including Artificial Intelligence.  During  the  pod he recalls a story of when the penny dropped for him, just a few years ago, and felt compelled to leave his job. And now,  having contributed to AI's development, he feels a sense of duty to inform the public on the implications of this controversial technology and how we navigate the scary and inevitable intrusion of AI as well as who really is in control. Us.

Today we discuss:

Pandemic of AI and why the handing COVID is a lesson to learn from

The difference between collective intelligence, artificial intelligence and super intelligence or Artificial general intelligence 

How machines started creating and coding other machines 

The 3 inevitable outcomes - including the fact that AI is here and they will outsmart us

Machines will become emotional sentient beings with a Superconsciousness 

To understand this episode you have to submit yourself to accepting that what we are creating is essentially another lifeform. Albeit non-biological, it will have human-like attributes in the way they learn as well as a moral value system which could immeasurably improve the human race as we know it. But our  destiny lies in how we treat and nurture them as our own. Literally like infants with (as strange as it is to  say it) love, compassion, connection and respect.

Full show notes for this and all other episodes can be found on The Doctor's Kitchen.com website

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“For our children and grandchildren” was the dedication at the start of my next guests book, Countdown, by Dr Shanna Swan, and since reading the book I now understand why. Because a man today has only half the number of sperm his grandfather had. Essentially a 50% drop in sperm counts over the past four decades. But, as you will hear, this isn’t just affecting male fertility.

Dr Shanna H. Swan, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists. She is Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City where is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures and the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute.

After reading a controversial paper reporting the decline in sperm quality in 1992 by Carlsen and colleagues, and being part of a group tasked with ratifying the results, Dr Swan has gone on to further study this dramatic decline in sperm count around the world.

And for over twenty years, Dr. Swan and her colleagues have been studying the impact of environmental chemicals and pharmaceuticals on reproductive tract development and neurodevelopment. Her July 2017 paper “Temporal Trends in Sperm Count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis” ranked #26 among all referenced scientific papers published in 2017 worldwide and shook the world with media outlets declaring “Who is killing our sperm”.

Today’s podcast is controversial and unpopular, but I can’t hide away from this subject matter for fear of scare-mongering because it’s one that could actually affect me personally. I’m yet to have children myself and the data is frankly scary. And if there are pragmatic decisions to make at an individual level, such as reducing exposure to plastics, petrochemicals and pesticides then I’m lucky to be in a position to actually do something about it and I’ll share that with you the listener as well.

Today you’ll learn about

• The 1% effect
• The rise in testicular cancer, miscarriages, infertility as well as the reduction in sperm count and testosterone
• Endocrine disrupting chemicals and their lack of regulation
• Body Burden
• Whether phthalate or BPA free actually mean anything?
• What is the threshold for these chemicals and cumulative impact?
• The impact on menopause, erectile dysfunction, virility 
• What do we need to be talking about and campaigning for

Find out more about the book at thedoctorskitchen.com/podcasts, plus links to the studies and books mentioned in the show and sign up to the newsletter for a free 7 day meal plan.

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Can we beat ageing?  This is the topic of today’s discussion and whilst you might think this is yet another dive into our narcissistic tendency to want to live forever and reduce the appearance of wrinkles, the field of ageing and how to reverse it ( known as biogerontology) is actually about beating cancer, dementia, strokes and all the things that become exponentially more likely after the age of 50. 

Dr Andrew Steele PhD is a scientist, writer and campaigner based in London, and author of Ageless: The new science of getting older without getting old. After a PhD in physics from the University of Oxford, he decided that ageing was the single most important scientific challenge of our time, and switched fields to computational biology.

His latest book, dives into the history of ageing research, what we understand about ageing today as well as why in as little as the next few years, I as a doctor, might be able to prescribe a suite of anti-ageing drugs.

Today we talk about:

• The 10 features of ageing
• How we measure ageing
• Senescence, Autophagy, Fasting, Mitochondria, DNA damage
• Anti-ageing drugs and why senolytics are so exciting
• Metformin
• The supplements people are currently using for ageing
• Gene and Stem cell therapy

Do check out Andrew’s book, Ageless, and thedoctorskitchen.com for links to his YouTube channel and further work in the field of ageing.

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Today I am joined by Barbara Bray MBE- a TEDx speaker and director of Alo Solutions - a consultancy driving and delivering food safety in food supply chains and that helps develop sustainable nutrition strategies for food businesses.

Prior to consultancy Barbara worked in the Ugandan agri-business sector after graduation and then spent fourteen years in the chilled foods sector in the UK and France. Her roles covered food procurement, technical innovation and implementation of food safety systems.

As well as being a registered nutritionist, she is; Co-founder of the multi-disciplinary platform Healthy and Sustainable Food; Director of the Oxford Farming Conference; Member of the food and nutrition group at the Institute of Food Science and Technology (IFST); and Trustee of the Nutrition Society. In 2019 Barbara was awarded an MBE for services to food nutrition.

As part of her Nuffield farming scholarship her project ‘Vegetable Production For Specific Nutritional Need’ looked at international food policies and private initiatives to promote consumption of vegetables which benefit our health. 

On the show today we talk about:

• Regenerative farming
• Organic vs Inorganic
• Better farming techniques and the use of Agrichemicals
• What healthy sustainable diets look like in other countries
• How we can shape our food landscape
• The role of government versus the consumer

Check out The Doctor's Kitchen website for full show notes on this and all other episodes

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