The Food-Mood Connection: Diet Directly Impacts Emotional Health

Uma Naidoo, MD, recently spoke with Oncology Nursing News® to explain the connection between the gut and brain, and how the food individuals eat can affect emotional health.

Naidoo, a nutritional psychiatrist and director of nutritional & lifestyle psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the author of the acclaimed book This is Your Brain on Food, available on amazon.

Naidoo explained that “the gut and brain emerge from the same exact cells in the embryo. They then form the organs and develop apart in the body. They then remain connect throughout life by the tenth cranial nerve or vagus nerve, which I like to call a two-way superhighway, which allows for chemical messaging back and forth, between brain and gut and gut and brain. In addition, more than 90% of serotonin receptors and serotonin is made in the gut.”

Through this connection, she added, “food actually can impact our emotional health.”