The Food Medic - S3 E3 - Food and Mood with Kimberley Wilson

Episode Date: July 23, 2019

This week Dr Hazel Wallace is joined on the podcast by Kimberley Wilson, who is a Chartered Psychologist specialising in Whole Body Mental Health. She intends to transform the way we treat mental illness by integrating psychological therapy with evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle advice. She is also a former finalist on The Great British Bake Off - which is a very cool addition to her impressive CV.On this episode Hazel chats to Kimberley about the role of nutrition in mental health, if “mood boosting” foods really exist, stress and gut disorders, and - Kim Kardashians famous appetite suppressant lollipops. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's better than a well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well-marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Grocer $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Hello, and welcome back to the Food Medic podcast. I'm your host, as always, Dr. Hazel Wallace.

I'm an NHS doctor and founder of the Food Medic, an educational platform which aims to pick apart the fact from fad when it comes to nutrition and other aspects of health. Now today I'm joined on the podcast by Kimberly Wilson who is a chartered psychologist specializing in whole body mental health. She intends to transform the way we treat mental health illness by integrating psychology therapy with evidence-based nutrition and lifestyle advice. She is also former finalist on the Great British Bake Off, which is a very cool addition to her very impressive CV. But before I introduce you to Kimberly, it's time to share this week's listener question. Now, if you're new around here, each week I take one listener question and answer it at the end of the podcast. You can tweet, Facebook or Instagram message me your questions

with the hashtag thefoodmedicpodcast. So this week's listener question is, is there any advice for nutrition in the treatment of PCOS? So if you're interested in finding out what the answer to this question is, make sure to keep listening to the very end of this episode. So Kimberly, you are a chartered psychologist with a special interest in nutrition and lifestyle. So can you give us a little bit of information about your experience so far, your clinical experience and also your academic background? Yeah, sure. So to qualify for chartership in the UK, you have to do undergrad and postgrad training. So I did a three year honours undergrad degree in psychology,

and then did a four years postgrad in counselling psychology, which included the masters. And I was a counselling psychologist at that point with chartership. And then I did an additional masters in psychodynamic psychotherapy as well and then in terms of my clinical experience so I started out everybody does a lot of like volunteer and trainee placements when they start out so I did mine working with children so I worked in a primary school and worked with children who were 7 to 11 and then I went straight into prison from there. So I worked. Working in prison. Working in prison, yes.

Just to clarify. I ran a therapy service in what was then Europe's largest women's prison. And then I left there. The prison was subsequently closed. I left a little before it closed. And now I work in private practice in central London. Oh, wow. I'm sure that working in a prison was super insightful.

It really was it was really incredible training and and experience and I think what it really taught me which I hope my current clients benefit from is the capacity to work in really difficult environments but also to try to learn how to build relationships with people who have had histories of very broken relationships. And I feel that if you're able to find a way to do that, then you're in a much better position to be able to help people because fundamentally all therapy is based on, is predicated on a good therapeutic relationship and you need to be able to create one of those.

And prison is one of the most difficult places to to do therapeutic work so yeah absolutely so let's start off with a really broad question what do we mean by mental health and what kind of things can go wrong with our mental health okay yeah that's a really good question um so i guess in very, very general terms, mental health is a sense of peace, of a kind of peace of mind, of well-being, and of a feeling that you can basically get on. You know, you can function, get on with your daily life, have good relationships, thrive at work, and feel that you have a general sense of equilibrium and control as you go through your life. And so I guess the flip side of that, what we consider kind of mental ill health or mental illness is any impairment in your functioning. So anything really that gets in

the way of your capacity to attend school or to attend work, to enjoy close and healthy relationships, because, you know, people have lots of unhealthy relationships, and we wouldn't consider that a good thing. So to be able to be part of healthy relationships, to be able to move forwards with your life and feel like you have a sense of control and power over your life. And if you don't have that, anything that gets in the way of that, that gets in the way of your functioning is probably on the way to what we would consider to be kind of mental illness or a problem at least.

So we're always thinking about functioning. If people have issues, and I guess that's one thing, like sometimes people have issues or problems, but if you can basically function, then you may not need to worry about getting that fixed in inverted commas, you know, so we all have a spectrum of mental health, we all have a spectrum of performance and functioning. And that's fine, as long as you don't feel as if it's impairing your capacity to thrive. Yeah, absolutely. I think we often use

phrases associated with mental health, maybe a little bit too flippantly, like I'm feeling anxious today, I'm depressed. And it doesn't mean that you have clinical depression. And I guess, like you said, it depends on how much that's impacting your functionality, what you can do every day, if you can go to work, if it's stopping you from getting out of bed. Yeah, totally. And, you know, things like people complain or worry about being shy or quiet. And actually, for example, there's nothing wrong, there's nothing pathological about being an introvert. It's just, you know, being on a different part of the scale of introversion and extroversion than other people. Yet some traits are looked on more favourably than others. So it's really about having a bit of awareness and having a bit of, I guess, space to understand that we all exist in different kind of parameters in terms of our personalities and the ways that we think. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a, you know,

self-proclaimed introvert over here, which lots of people don't really think because I guess my job's very public facing but yeah have you read that book quiet I haven't read quiet no um but also a big fan of um Brene Brown and or her work on vulnerability yeah and and it's one of the things that I do end up having to kind of almost coach clients through like is this really shyness or a problem or something bad or is it just that you're an introvert and just a quieter person you get drained when you're in big crowds and can we help you to be more accepting of yourself being that way um because often people have been maybe they've had parents that have said you know you need to be more outgoing or louder or more confident and it's not a confidence issue. It's just an introversion, extroversion issue, which is a completely

different thing. Yeah. Okay. So like I said at the start, I know that you've got a really special interest in nutrition and lifestyle and how that impacts our mental health. Can you tell us a little bit about how our lifestyles could negatively or positively impact our mental health and how we can kind of use that to our advantage I guess yeah sure again a really broad question and I think it starts from an understanding so when I when I talk about this and when I give seminars about kind of this area of research I start with an apology because psychiatry and psychology have really been guilty of a separation between the body and the brain. And so whenever we think about something going wrong in the brain,

we only address it through the head, either through talking therapies or through medications that are designed to only work on particular neurotransmitters in the brain. And that we are discovering more and more has been a really unhelpful way to look at mental health functioning, you know, obviously, because your brain is in your head, and it is nourished by the foods that you eat, and it is impacted by the chemicals that are produced if you move or if you don't move, if you smoke, if you drink, all of the substances that you take into your body. And also it's affected by the immune system. And so anything that affects the way your body functions will affect the way that your brain functions. And it's about really helping people to try to understand that the two things are absolutely connected and you can't separate

brain function from body function. So for example, we have very clear examples of ways that foods that you eat can impact how you feel. You know, if you've ever had a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, you know that it shifts the way that your brain functions. Either you feel more alert or the opposite, you feel kind of sleepy or drowsy. And that's a clear example of how these compounds in foods can affect the functioning of your brain. And the thing about foods is often that the effects on the brain are more cumulative. So caffeine and alcohol work very quickly, but the nutrients in foods or the impact on the brain of foods is much more accumulative and it happens slowly. So it's, you know, it's not a salad's going to shift the way

you think straight away, but an overall dietary intake of nutrients salad's going to shift the way you think straight away but an overall dietary intake of nutrients is really going to affect the way that your brain functions both its structure and and its performance so some of the things that we know are good for brain function are classics so there's nothing kind of earth-shattering here a healthy broadly mediterranean style diet lots of fiber lots of polyphenols so plant-rich foods regular exercise literally reshapes the brain and improves mental health getting proper sleep sleep is absolutely crucial for good brain function to the point where i will tell my patients that we can't start therapy unless we sort it out your sleep issues first there's absolutely no point in us doing clinical work if your brain doesn't have the capacity to

rebuild to build new connections and to reshape so sleep issues are a major concern in terms of mental health and we know that poor sleep is a preceding factor in things like depression and anxiety, bipolar disorder, even borderline personality disorder. So there are so many comorbidities between sleep and mental health function that I almost think it's almost pointless to try to do therapy if someone isn't sleeping properly. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I know people are fascinated by the role of food and mood, and I'm always asked

you know what are the best mood boosting foods and I'm really glad you brought that point up that it's not you know one certain food isn't going to absolutely turn you into like the happiest person ever and it's kind of what you do every day or what you do over a long period of time that makes the difference I think a lot of people are holding out for that magic bullet, especially when it comes to almost like future proofing our brains from Alzheimer's disease and depression. I know you've done some research into this. So when it comes to the research around Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, is it just the concepts that you've put forward now following a diet that's overall like plant-based, a Mediterranean-focused diet? Or are there individual foods that we can link to these diseases?

Yes and no. So a lot of the research suggests that DHAs and EPAs, so omega-3 fatty acids, are potentially very helpful in protecting the brain. And that would make sense because those fats form the structure of the brain cells. DHA helps your brain cells to fire. So they are absolutely crucial and they are essential fats. And essential means that your body can't synthesize them themselves. You have to get these foods from your diet, these fats from your diet. And if you're not getting them, then your brain is going to be deficient in them. So one of my prime foods, if we're thinking about protecting your brain long term,

is really thinking about oily fish and seafoods. The lead researchers in this area of nutritional psychiatry, Felice Jacker, Professor Felice Jacker out of Australia, says fiber and polyphenols. And that's about feeding your gut microbiome because your gut microbiome produces as a byproduct, these short chain fatty acids, which can support the health of your brain cells. So they cross over into the bloodstream, travel up in the bloodstream into the brain, cross the blood brain barrier and protect the brain. And so really making sure you're getting lots of whole grains,

lots of beans and legumes, lots of plant foods to provide enough fibre for your microbiome is crucial, as well as these kind of polyphenol-rich foods, which are your deeply coloured fruit and vegetables. And that particular researcher, Felisa, she was involved in the SMILES trial, right? Yeah, she led the SMILES trial, yeah. So can you tell us a little bit about that one? Happily.

What a name as well. She's such a lovely person. So yes, it was a landmark trial, not in terms of the size of it. So it was going to 36 participants. But in terms of the structure of it. So it was the first nutritional intervention RCT. So it took a group of people who had both poor diets and a diagnosis of depression and split them into two groups, randomised them into two groups.

And one half got the dietary intervention, so a dietary improvement meeting with dieticians. I think they got food packs as well and were taught how to make basically Mediterranean style meals. And the other group were provided with befriending intervention. So, and we know that befriending, you know, talking to people helps support and improve depression. And at the end of 12 weeks, a third of the people in the dietary arm were in remission. Everybody had improved. So both the befriending and the nutrition arms of the of the trial but the nutrition side had improved more and a third of them were in remission so they wouldn't be classed as as depressed at the end of the three months and that's incredible you know we don't want to get overexcited we don't

want to tell people we you know it would be insulting to tell people with depression that it's just about improving your diet because depression is a complex and multifaceted disorder and it's not all one disease diet than it is to get into therapy. It's easier to do that, you know, than to go through some of the other proven treatments could improve outcomes for depressed people. And anything that does that is incredible because our rates of depression are rising. Our rates of treatment-resistant depression are rising. Depression by next year is likely to be the leading cause of disability across the world

so really anything that helps improve the outcomes for patients is incredible yeah absolutely now you not only have a professional interest when it comes to food you're also a big foodie as i am and you featured on the great push bake-off which is like the best um i don't know it's not the best part of your resume but it's a very cool part of your resume um so wait first of all how was it did you enjoy it i did enjoy it i had a great time it was it was baking camp right every week down to somerset to bake in a tent like it was stressful it was it was really intense so you're working really hard during the week but also then coming home and testing your recipes and trying to get it into the timings and then going down on Friday night and then filming all day Saturday and Sunday

and in the first few weeks they were kind of 16 hour days you know so it was really exhausting but it was also you know I'm never going to get that experience again so yeah I had an absolute blast and obviously met some amazing people that I'm still friends with so well that's so good to hear and obviously GBBO is famous for their cakes and if you're British then you've I'm sure you definitely have watched the show some people may not know what it is but essentially it's like it's a bake-off. And these cakes are like super indulgent. They're just like extraordinary. They look amazing. They probably taste amazing.

But we often assign foods like this terms like bad or indulgent. What's the danger of assigning moral labels to food, do you think? And how can we essentially create space in our lives for this kind of food without imposing that judgment on ourselves yeah so i think the problem is that kind of moralizing about foods and splitting it into dichotomies of good and bad it falls into a very human brain trap of wanting simple answers so your brain works on heuristics these rules of thumb so that it just wants to make a very quick decision about something without having to bother thinking through the nuances or the complexities or,

you know, the context. It just wants a quick answer, yes or no. And in some ways, that's very helpful, right? So back in our evolutionary history, we had to make a decision about whether something was harmful or not. Using a broad rule of thumb probably helped us from, you know, dying by trying too many different things. But it's much less relevant now. And it's much less, it's almost irrelevant in our food system. And I think one of the problems is that cutting things into these very extreme dichotomies really drives anxiety. Because if you label a food bad it completely takes a nuance out of it so is eating cake four times a day is your main meal a good idea probably not but is having cake at a birthday party for your friend you know sensible socially acceptable reasonable pleasurable yes

absolutely and it's about really understanding the nuance that no food is inherently bad it's all about the context and that context is both your individual diet and personal health the social context the cultural context situational in terms of what's happened in your day all of that impacts what and whether you should be eating something or not yeah absolutely i think you just touched on a really important point that food isn't just nutrients or fuel it's also like family and experience and like sitting around and enjoying it um one thing that i guess we all have in our lives are foods that are really comforting i know for me when i go home to orleans like apple crumble and custard that my mum's made is like my comfort food. But in terms of the literature and what's available,

is comfort food a real thing? So it's interesting. There's a little piece of research that came out just recently that suggested that, yes, comfort food is a thing, but it didn't seem to matter whether it was something healthy or unhealthy that you're eating. It seemed to be just the act of eating that that shifted mood but I think more broadly yes like let's have a conversation about comfort food because I think comfort food gets a really bad rep 100% and people look at it

as you know a sign of weakness and you're not being controlled enough or you're not being mature enough you know as if it's a childish thing to do. But there are a lot of biological reasons why comfort food is a thing. One of those is literally our biology from birth. So from birth, food was wrapped up with our relationship. Our first relationships were predicated through food, which is the baby being fed by the parent. And there's no way that you can separate being held and cradled and cuddled and kept close from the intake of food at that same time. And we know from animal trials

that that connection between taking in a food and the comfort and security of that relationship is embedded deep in the mind. And that forms the foundation of how we then build the rest of our personalities and our outlook on the world. So that sense it's already ingrained and then there are the other kind of evolutionary factors which is you know the way that when you talk about someone you like you might consider them warm you know they're a warm person and someone who you don't like or don't get on with is cold. And the reason we use those kinds of definitions is because when we developed language, essentially, again, in our evolutionary history, we didn't have enough space in the skull, literally,

to build new areas of the brain to deal with language. So language is kind of piggybacked on our already available neural networks. And the emotional reasoning networks just piggybacked on our temperature sensing ones so they were already in there as part of our basic biology and so there's a way in which that feeling of warmth is associated with something good and something safe and so that's one of the reasons for example that comfort foods tend to be warm and hot foods whether it's a bowl of soup or custard jacket potato you know people don't talk about comfort ice lollies or comfort

so there's something about that sensation of physical warmth that provides more general sense of calm and soothing so those are just two examples. But absolutely, yes, I think comfort food is a thing. I don't think it's a problematic thing, depending on how often you're turning to it to support you, right? So if you get home from work, and it's a miserable day, and you've argued with your best friend, and it's raining, and your feet are wet, you know, I'm not going to argue that you shouldn't have a piece of cheese on toast or a bowl of custard because it will make you feel better it's not going to fix anything but if it's going to make you feel better that's fine as long as then you are going back and sorting that stuff out with your friend and you know and you're dealing

with the issue it's comfort food and comfort eating is only a problem if it's the only thing you have to fall back on when you're struggling yeah i think that's a really nice way of putting it now we spoke about how as practitioners we tend to separate the mind and the body and you were apologizing on behalf of psychologists and psychiatrists i want to be apologizing on behalf of doctors that we like if anyone any patient brings up anything to do with their mind we're like oh no i promise they're not that bad but we do tend to separate the mind and the body and one condition where that overlaps a lot is irsobel syndrome or ibs and i see that from a medical point of view and we can prescribe drugs and things like that and also give dietary advice but there's like quite a large cohort of patients where they don't respond to either medical treatment or dietary treatment and actually when we kind of really drill down the

problem the issue is stress related do you see patients with IBS and what advice can you give to people who maybe feel like they're not getting anywhere with their management? Yeah, and IBS is like one of my favourite conditions. Not because, you know, I think it's easy or fun, because it really is that synergy between the body and the brain. It is a disorder of the gut-brain axis. And if anybody doesn't know what it is, it's a functional gut disorder. And when we talk about functional disorders, what we mean is that the function of an organ or a system is impaired without there being any presence of an actual disease so if we put a camera down into someone's gut we wouldn't find any polyps or any inflammation any issues but that person is still suffering from constipation

or bloating or pain or diarrhea or some issue with the function. And one of the diagnostic criteria of a BIBS is stress. That psychological stress is one of the things we look for when we're trying to understand what's going on. And I think it's one of the ways that mental health has been undervalued in physical illness that isn't looked at when someone goes to their GP and says you know I've got gut problems really we should be not just looking at what you're eating but also what's going on because stress can increase stress hormones which then have an effect on your gut microbiome which can affect the speed at which food moves through your gut it can increase your sensitivity to what's happening in your gut,

and pain more generally. So there are lots of ways that psychological stress can have a physiological effect on the body. We know that, but people aren't really putting those two things together. So I see a lot of people with IBS, because I can look at the kind of the overlap between food and the brain. And one of the first things we have to do is help people understand actually how stressed they are. Because I think people get really used to working quite a high level of stress. You know, you're getting up really early, you probably haven't slept enough. And then you're going to do your like 6am spin class. And then you're going to work and you're trying to kind of achieve your goals and hustle all the time. And then you get home and should you make a proper meal because that's what everybody

should be doing you know all of these expectations that we have on ourselves and most people just don't realize that all of those are kind of ratcheting up the levels of stress they're experiencing all the time and that's going to go somewhere if you're not dealing with it it's going to come out it's going to be expressed in your body in some way. I always say to patients, your body can't tell the difference between mental stress and physical stress. Absolutely can't, no. We can, but it can't. So by, I guess, addressing those stressful stimuli in your life, and sometimes that can be your inbox, it can be WhatsApp, it can be social media that can help improve symptoms both mental health

wise and also physical health now both you and i are quite active in social media and i think it's incredible because it means like i can meet people like you i can connect with people who have things that i'm interested in and i might not meet in everyday practice but also it's full of just absolute nonsense which i'm sure you'll agree on and um deep breath we got this and i was listening to your podcast and you actually dedicated an episode to kim kardashian's lollipops which i was very vocal on about that time as well but i would love if you could kind of give just a little if you could give a snapshot into that episode what these lollipops are about what the claims behind these lollipops were made and what the science actually says yeah so I did that podcast mostly fueled by rage

just because it was so unfair so unfair it just felt like exploitation to the followers and the people who are also desperate because people get to a point of desperation with their bodies and they're willing to try anything and I think when you promote harmful and or completely ineffective treatments as effective and products as it's just it's exploitation and I don't like it so the podcast looked at the claims around the, I think they were flat tummy co lollipops. And they made a claim that they were evidence-based because they did this trial.

And I thought, well, that's interesting because presumably if this product was, this chemical was so effective, then everybody would be using it and they would be putting it in everything. So I went on a little scout to find the piece of research and it was just it was really shoddy it was just some tiny trial done on like four people and it was it was funded by the company which in itself isn't necessarily a problem but obviously means that there is a bias and a conflict of interest and there was no real

significant difference they only tried it once there was no real significant difference. They only tried it once, there was no replication. It was just it was so bad. And I realized, you know, obviously, Kim Kardashian doesn't care about me, even though obviously, we have the same name. And I'm not going to have the same influence over followers. But I felt like I just wanted to leave something out there in case anybody Googled these products, you know, that maybe somewhere on the fourth page of Google, my podcast would come up and they'd be able to at least understand what was happening.

And, you know, people, I want people to make informed choices. And if you want to buy flat tummy lollipops, go for it. But know the information and don't allow yourself to be exploited it's just it's outrageous yeah no it absolutely is i think that the premise of a flat tummy lollipop is just problematic in itself before you even it's just so bad i hope majority of people know that it's nonsense and if not hopefully this episode's useful yes um but definitely do check out kimberly's episode on that because it's nonsense and if not hopefully this episode's useful yes um but definitely do check

out kimberly's episode on that because it's really really interesting you actually like really deep dive into the paper as well like don't cross me because i get all sciencey okay so finally what advice can you provide to our listeners on how they can support their mental health through their diet and lifestyle like just basic tips sure the. The very, very first one, like I said, with my clients is sleep. And it sounds really boring. And I wish I could make it more interesting and like sound sexier. But honestly, what we know is that people who have poor sleep have a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease. And dementia is now the leading cause of death in the UK. It's expected to triple globally by 2050. But it is not an inevitable part of ageing.

And that's one of the things people think, oh, we're getting older and it's going to happen. No, and you can read that on the NHS website. It is not an inevitable part of ageing. And there are things that you can do to reduce your risk of things like depression and Alzheimer's disease, which I really hope people can take on board. So sleep is the first one. Anything you can do to improve the quality and duration of your sleep. Make sure that you're not drinking alcohol in the evenings because that can impair the quality of your sleep. Avoid coffee after two o'clock because that can again delay the release

of the hormones that help you to get off to sleep keep your room dark and cool try to keep a regular bedtime all of that stuff which you've heard a billion times but i'm just saying it again um try to eat a as we said a mediterranean style vegetable legume nut rich diet lots of olive oil lots of oily fish if you don't eat fish then try making sure you get your essential omega-3s in a an algae-based supplement any way you can get those omega-3s would make me as your psychologist very happy um essentially anything that's good for your heart is good for your brain so when we advise people to kind of exercise regularly that up regulates the hormones that build new connections in your

brain and that's both aerobic exercise and weight-bearing exercise older women for example who weight lifted and not obviously not olympic lifting just kind of regular resistance training exactly regular resistance training had fewer lesions in the brain than their peers who did not so they had stronger brains Try to keep your stress down. So address any causes of stress as soon as you can because chronic stress, again, lots of elevated stress hormones is corrosive to the brain.

It literally causes the brain cell bodies to die and the dendrites, the connections to pull back and atrophy. Oh, God. It's really bad, guys. So deal with stress. Don't just try to kind of push through or don't be a martyr, basically, to the stresses in your life as far as you can,

as much as possible. And similarly, we know that social support really helps reduce people's experiences of stress and gives them much more resilience. So make sure, you know, as much as you're hustling, as much as you're trying to build an enviable life that you're not neglecting your friendships your relationships you're investing in those because those are the things that are most linked to well-being and and longevity and good brain health as you get older nice thank you so much no problem so interesting

before you go though let everyone know where to find you. Sure. So I am foodandpsych, pretty much everywhere on socials, just F-W-O-D-A-N-D-P-S-Y-C-H. And my clinic is monumentalhealth.co.uk, and you can email me there if you want to. And you have a great podcast. Oh, yes, the Stronger Minds podcast.

Thanks. Stronger Minds podcast, which is on Acast and Spotify and everywhere else. Amazing. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I can't wait to listen back. Okay, guys, so that was Kimberly. I hope you enjoyed the episode. It was absolute pleasure to speak to Kimberly and learn all about mental health and also how our lifestyle plays a role. Now on to this week's listener question. The question was is there any evidence for nutrition in the treatment of PCOS? Now let's just take it back to basics. PCOS stands for polycystic ovarian syndrome. It's very common affecting one in ten women here in the UK and is diagnosed by having two of three of the following.

Cysts on the ovaries which is often seen on an ultrasound scan, evidence of raised androgens which are sex hormones including excess body hair or acne or raised testosterone which can be seen on a blood test and having irregular or absent periods. Majority of women with PCOS also have a degree of insulin resistance and this is where nutrition comes into play. So there are several different medical treatments for PCOS including drugs like metformin which improves insulin sensitivity and the contraceptive pill which helps regulate regulate periods. However, like I said, diet and lifestyle definitely have a role to play. Now, in terms of diet and PCOS, there is no one diet that will treat or prevent it from happening. But there is some evidence for a low glycemic

diet. Now, when I say low glycemic, I'm referring to the glycemic index or GI which is essentially a ranking system showing how quickly your blood glucose rises after you eat different carbohydrates. So low GI foods typically cause your blood glucose to rise slower than high GI foods which may improve insulin levels in people with PCOS. A low GI diet can usually be achieved by replacing refined carbohydrate foods, so things like sugary food and drinks, white bread, white rice, things that are refined and high in sugar, with whole grains which have higher fiber and also are lower GI. Healthy fats are also super important for the production of sex hormones, which is why the Mediterranean diet is often recommended. So that's rich in mono and polyunsaturated fats like olive oil, nuts and

seeds and oily fish. Now if you haven't listened to my podcast with Dr. Anita Mitra from season one already then I suggest checking that one out because we deep dive into women's health in general we also talk about PCOS. Also make sure to check out my website thefoodmedic.co.uk for more articles on PCOS and lifestyle written by our resident dietitian Maeve and student contributors. So in summary there is no one diet that's going to treat or prevent PCOS but a healthy balanced diet in general is going to help manage your symptoms. So again, thinking about a low GI diet that is rich in healthy fats. Okay guys, that's all from me this week. I hope you enjoyed the episode. Make sure to tune in next week when we hear

from Nadia Krodok, who's going to be talking all about body image.