When Food Meets Medicine | The Functional Medicine & Health Podcast

Dr. Remí Olukoya, PharmD sits down with Dr. Katie Cozart — board-certified geriatric pharmacist and the Resilient PharmD — to talk about the conversation most families never get to have: what polypharmacy is really doing to the aging brain.

This episode covers anticholinergic burden, prescribing cascades, the Beers Criteria, deprescribing, and the specific medications every caregiver should know by name. Plus: what to say at the pharmacy counter, how to build a medication timeline that actually helps your doctor, and why silence is costing Black and Brown elders their cognitive function.

The medication list is not a life sentence. This episode is your starting point.

New episodes every Tuesday.

One in ten women of reproductive age has PCOS. Most of them were told the same thing at diagnosis — here is a pill, here is Metformin, and if you can, lose some weight. That is the conversation. And that is the end.

In Season 2 Episode 7 of When Food Meets Medicine, pharmacist Dr. Remí Olukoya sits down with Jillian Greaves RD — functional dietitian, women's health specialist, and creator of the PCOS Root Reversal Program — to have the conversation most clinical appointments never make time for.

What this episode covers:

What PCOS actually is — and the new name PMOS that better reflects its systemic nature. Why four women with PCOS can have four completely different symptom pictures. Why long-term Metformin use depletes B12 — causing fatigue and brain fog that looks exactly like PCOS. Why the contraceptive pill depletes B6, folate, magnesium, and zinc — and what low B6 does to your mood and serotonin production. Whether berberine and Metformin can safely be taken together. The biggest diet mistake women with PCOS make. Whether PCOS can be reversed. And why remission never comes through restriction, punishment, or extreme diets.

Plus — three real listener questions answered at the Pharmacy Counter.

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at pharmaplansystems.com

What happens when your antidepressant stops working? What does grapefruit have to do with your psychiatric medication? And why does a psychiatrist call MAOIs the OGs of antidepressants?

In Season 2 Episode 6 of When Food Meets Medicine, pharmacist Dr. Remí Olukoya sits down with Dr. Nicole Washington — board-certified psychiatrist, women's mental health specialist, and host of The Nickel podcast — for one of the most honest and accessible conversations about mental health, medication, and food that you will hear anywhere.

What this episode covers:

Why grapefruit interacts with so many psychiatric medications — and what your liver has to do with it. The antidepressant zombie myth — and what a psychiatrist actually sees when medication causes emotional blunting. When and why MAOIs are still prescribed for treatment-resistant depression — and why the food conversation becomes critical when they are. The tyramine interaction that makes certain foods dangerous on specific antidepressants. Why lithium patients need to pay attention to their sodium intake. Why women are the most important person in their own ecosystem — and what happens to everyone else when they go down. What Dr. Nicole would put on every psychiatrist's wall. And the answer to the question this show is named after — what does When Food Meets Medicine mean to a psychiatrist?

Her answer: food is not alongside medicine. Food is a category of medicine.

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at pharmaplansystems.com

Resources:

• Book https://pharmaplansystems.com/physical-book
• App https://pharmaplansystems.com/app
• Meal Plan https://pharmaplansystems.com/meal-plan Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://pharmaplansystems.com

Bitter melon tea lowers blood sugar. Sorrel lowers blood pressure. Moringa thins blood. But your doctor didn't warn you because clinical textbooks were built on Western diets, not Caribbean kitchens.

Millions of patients taking lisinopril, metformin, ACE inhibitors, and beta-blockers eat the foods their grandmothers taught them—foods with biologically active compounds that interact with their medications every single day. Yet these interactions are absent from standard pharmacology databases and medication labels.

Dr. Marissa Toussaint, a board-certified family medicine and culinary medicine physician, explains why this gap exists, how food-drug interactions work in Caribbean, African, and South Asian communities, and what culinary medicine looks like in practice. She's built her entire clinical practice around one conviction: your culture is not the obstacle to your health. It is the starting point.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why bitter melon, sorrel, moringa, and turmeric are missing from food-drug interaction textbooks

• How Caribbean foods lower blood pressure and blood sugar synergistically with your medications

• Why asking patients what they actually eat at home is the foundation of safe medication management

• How to honor cultural identity while keeping patients safe on therapy

• Why pharmacists and physicians must expand their knowledge beyond Western and Mediterranean diets

If you take medication and eat food from your cultural tradition, this episode is for you.

📚 Get the Book – Foods That Clash With Your Prescriptions: https://pharmaplansystems.com/physical-book | 📱 Download MediMeal Safe App: https://pharmaplansystems.com/app | 🥗 Get Your Personalized Meal Plan: https://pharmaplansystems.com/meal-plan

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://pharmaplansystems.com

Your blood sugar number is not a verdict. It is not a death sentence. It is not a measure of how hard you have tried. It is a data point — and it is your body trying to tell you something.

In Season 2 Episode 4 of When Food Meets Medicine, pharmacist Dr. Remí Olukoya sits down with Sarah Hormachea MS, RD, CDCES — registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator based in Denver, Colorado — for one of the most honest conversations about diabetes management you will hear anywhere.

What this episode covers:

How to use blood sugar as information rather than a source of shame. Why starting diabetes medication does not mean lifestyle changes have failed — and why medication and food work best in tandem. The three food changes a diabetes educator would make in five minutes with any patient. Why diabetes is progressive — and why nobody tells patients this at diagnosis. How what you eat around your medication directly affects how well it works. Why the diabetes food conversation has to be culturally honest — and what to say when your doctor tells you to stop eating your traditional food. How to manage semaglutide nausea through food choices. The one diabetes food myth Sarah wants to retire forever.

For every person managing diabetes who has ever stared at a blood sugar reading and felt shame instead of curiosity — this episode is for you.

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Learn more at pharmaplansystems.com/podcast

Your metformin prescription says twice daily — but 50% of monolingual patients only take it once because the label is in English, and no clinician asked if they understood. After three years, their A1C hasn't budged. Healthcare calls it non-compliance. It's actually a system failure.

Registered Dietitian and Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist Lorena Drago joins Dr. Remi to expose the hidden gaps in diabetes medication counseling: the dosing confusion caused by language barriers, the B12 depletion metformin causes (and why salmon, not liver, is the food your patient will actually eat), the GI side effects that drive patients to quit therapy, and the false choice between culture and health.

Key takeaways:

1. Verify dosing comprehension in the patient's primary language — English-only labels are a medication safety failure.

2. Metformin depletes B12; screen long-term users and recommend culturally relevant food sources, not generic supplements.

3. Timing metformin with meals prevents GI side effects that lead to abandonment.

4. Real diabetes outcomes require asking what foods matter to the patient's family — that's clinical, not optional.

For anyone managing diabetes, prescribing for multicultural populations, or counseling patients on medication and food: this is the conversation your clinic needs.

Resources:

- Book: Foods That Clash With Your Prescriptions — https://pharmaplansystems.com/physical-book

- MediMeal Safe App — https://pharmaplansystems.com/app

- Personalized Meal Plan — https://pharmaplansystems.com/meal-plan

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://pharmaplansystems.com

Eight months without sleep. Night sweats at 3 AM. Brain fog so thick you forget words mid-sentence. Two doctors called it stress. Nobody checked her hormones. And that's the problem we're solving today.

In your 40s, estrogen begins to decline — and the symptoms (brain fog, mood swings, irregular periods, sleep disruption, weight changes) are often misdiagnosed as anxiety, depression, or stress. The result? Women are prescribed antidepressants, sleep aids, and blood pressure medications before anyone has even checked their hormonal status.

Dr. Tope Roberts, a Family Medicine physician specializing in women's health from Calgary, Canada, joins us to explain the clinical picture of perimenopause, why women are being missed, and the treatment options you deserve to know about.

Key takeaways from this conversation:

1. **Perimenopause is a clinical diagnosis that requires hormonal assessment first.** If you're in your 40s with brain fog, fatigue, mood swings, or irregular periods, your doctor should be checking your hormones — not just treating symptoms in isolation.

2. **Estrogen decline affects multiple body systems at once.** Cognitive function, sleep, mood, metabolism, and joint health are all influenced by estrogen. Treating one symptom while ignoring the hormonal root perpetuates suffering and often leads to unnecessary medications.

3. **Not every woman needs hormone therapy, but every woman deserves to know her options.** From lifestyle strategies to menopause hormone therapy (MHT) to targeted medications and supplements — the choice must be informed and made by you and your care team together.

Dr. Roberts brings both scientific rigor and patient-centered compassion to questions about hormonal health, nutrition during perimenopause, and the medications that interact with hormonal transitions.

Resources:

📚 Book — Foods That Clash With Your Prescriptions: https://pharmaplansystems.com/physical-book

📱 MediMeal Safe App: https://pharmaplansystems.com/app

🥗 Meal Plan: https://pharmaplansystems.com/meal-plan

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://pharmaplansystems.com

Welcome to Season 2! We're diving deep into the conversations that matter most: pediatric medication safety and what happens when growing bodies meet prescriptions designed for adults. Most pediatric medications were never formally tested on children—most drug data is extrapolated from adult studies. So what does that mean for your child's safety?

In this premiere episode, Dr. Remi Olukoya sits down with Dr. Mariam Yusuf-Oghome, Consultant Pediatrician and Nutrition Specialist, to reveal the gaps in pediatric drug research, the hidden food-drug interactions that change how medications work, and what every parent needs to know before their child takes a prescription. From amoxicillin and orange juice to seizure meds and protein intake, you'll learn how what your child eats directly impacts whether their medication actually works.

Key Takeaways:

1. Children are not small adults—their metabolism, anatomy, and biochemistry are profoundly different, yet most pediatric dosing is based on adult data.

2. Food-drug interactions in children are real and often invisible to parents, affecting drug absorption, metabolism, and blood levels in ways most families never hear about.

3. Pediatric nutrition isn't optional—it's foundational to medication effectiveness, disease prevention, and long-term health in growing bodies.

Dr. Mariam brings two decades of clinical experience, specialized training from Boston University and UC, and a fierce commitment to child advocacy. She believes the conversation between food and medicine has to begin long before a child ever needs a prescription.

Subscribe to When Food Meets Medicine wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more at https://pharmaplansystems.com

Season 2 of When Food Meets Medicine launches August 4th. In this solo preview episode, Dr. Remí Olukoya, PharmD — licensed pharmacist and founder of PharmaPlan Systems — walks you through what is coming: 12 episodes, 11 specialist guests, and the most culturally specific food-drug interaction conversations the show has ever had.

This season covers: food and diabetes medication, antidepressants and food, menopause treatment options, cultural diets and kidney disease, PCOS and hormones, prenatal medications and food safety, pediatric medications, and a solo deep-dive on neurological medications and food.

If you are managing a chronic illness, caring for someone who is, or working in healthcare — this season was made for you.

Subscribe on Spotify so Episode 1 lands in your feed on August 4th.

Free food-drug interaction guide:

pharmaplansystems.com/free-guide

Ask a Pharmacy Counter question:

instagram.com/medimealsafe — comment QUESTION

Email Dr. Remí: [email protected]

Keywords: food drug interactions, pharmacist podcast, medication safety, food as medicine, chronic illness, diabetes diet, kidney disease nutrition, menopause medication, PCOS diet, prenatal nutrition, pediatric medication, neurological medications, cultural nutrition, patient education, pharmacy podcast

When Food Becomes Medicine: A Metabolic Approach to Cancer | Season 1 Finale | When Food Meets Medicine — a health podcast, functional medicine podcast, and medical podcast series hosted by Dr. Remí Olukoya, PharmD.

In this season one finale, host Dr. Remi Olukoya welcomes Dr. Nasha Winters, a naturopathic oncologist who was diagnosed with terminal stage 4 ovarian cancer at 19 years old and given three months to live. Twenty-eight years later, she has not only survived but has dedicated her career to understanding the metabolic approach to cancer, working with over 10,000 patients and co-authoring the foundational text The Metabolic Approach to Cancer.

This conversation explores the Warburg effect and why cancer cells metabolize glucose differently, how mitochondria serve as sensors that respond to our dietary and environmental choices, and the critical food-drug interactions that can determine treatment success or failure. Dr. Winters shares research showing that fasting less than 13 hours per night was associated with 36% higher breast cancer recurrence, and discusses how her clinical retreats demonstrated measurable metabolic changes within just four days of intervention.

For patients navigating cancer, caregivers seeking to help, and clinicians wanting to expand their understanding of integrative approaches, this episode offers science-backed insights on creating a metabolic terrain that supports healing alongside conventional treatment.

What you will learn in this episode:

• The Warburg effect and why cancer cells use glucose differently from healthy cells
• How mitochondria function as sensors, translators, and responders — and what that means for cancer
• Why 93% of Americans are metabolically compromised and what to do about it
• Fasting research: how 13 hours of overnight fasting reduced breast cancer recurrence by 36%
• Critical food-drug interactions including grapefruit, tamoxifen, St. John's Wort, and curcumin at high doses
• The chronotherapy evidence: why the time of day you take chemotherapy changes how well it works
• Why the terrain — not just the tumour — determines treatment outcomes
• How to find a therapeutically trained oncology nutritionist
• The preconception research: what your father ate affects your disease risk in your lifetime

Resources mentioned:
The Metabolic Approach to Cancer — Dr. Nasha Winters
Ravenous — Sam Apple
Circadian Code — Dr. Sachin Panda
Fasting Cancer — Dr. Walter Longo
drnasha.com | Tend the Terrain podcast | Tend the Terrain Substack
MediMeal Safe app — pharmaplansystems.com
MediMeal Plan — pharmaplansystems.com
Foods That Clash With Your Prescriptions — Dr. Remí Olukoya

Find When Food Meets Medicine on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Amazon Music.
Subscribe so you never miss an episode: pharmaplansystems.com/podcast

Disclaimer: This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your physician, pharmacist, or healthcare team before making changes to your diet, medications, or treatment plan.