A thought-provoking discussion with Prof Felice Jacka, author of Brain Changer: The latest cutting edge science on how diet can affect your risk of anxiety and depression, and influence the health of your brain. We also talk about mental health-related diet and lifestyle tips, the gut microbiome and fermented foods to improve mental health and so much more.     Bio:    Professor Felice Jacka is Director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University in Australia, founder and president of the International Society for Nutritional Psychiatry Research, and immediate past-president of the Australian Alliance for the Prevention of Mental Disorders. She holds Honorary Principal Research Fellow appointments at the Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children's Research Centre, and the Black Dog Institute. Professor Jacka's current research focuses closely on the links between diet, gut health and mental and brain health.   You feel how you eat.   Professor Felice Jacka's love of food led her to question whether what we put in our mouths every day affects more than our waistline. Felice set out on a journey of discovery to change the status quo and uncover the truth through rigorous science. Beginning her PhD in 2005, she examined the association between women's diets and their mental health, focusing on depression and anxiety.   What Felice found fundamentally changes the way we think about mental and brain health, and the importance of the nutrition-mental health link.   Her book, Brain Changer explains how and why we should consider our food as the basis of our mental and brain health throughout our lives. It includes a selection of recipes featuring ingredients beneficial to mental health. It also highlights the practical things we can do to help prevent mental health problems in the first place and offers strategies for treating these problems if they do arise.     This is not a diet book to help you on the weight scales. This is a guide to good habits to save your brain, improve the lives of future generations, and to optimise your mental and brain health at every stage of life.   Topics discussed:   Prof Jacka’s mental health challenge The link between nutrition and common mental disorders Pyscho- immunology Neuroscience Hippocampus, Mental Health and Diet Quality of Diet and Mood A review of epidemiological studies around the world Early life nutrition and emotional health Diet: a leading cause of premature death in men Mental Disorders: Leading societal disability burden Depression response to medication and treatment Diet and reduced risk of depression Diet quality and hippocampal volume Randomised Control Trial and Intervention Study Challenges The Smiles Trial Challenges Social and Dietary Support for Depression The Smiles Trial Results- First step to Nutritional Psychiatry https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30591059 Cost-saving of treating depression with diet Diet, exercise and giving up smoking International guideline for lifestyle psychiatry Dietary strategies to improve mental health Vegetable diversity and fibre Olive oil and Fish The problem of Ultra-processed foods Gut and Brain Health Sleep Quality and Mental health Obesity and mental health Adoption by the medical community What is step Zero in Nutritional psychiatry? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31480057 The influence of “Big Food" Risk factors and lower lifespan of people with major psychotic disorders Other risk facts impact depressed cohort “Lifestyle medicine" Preventing depression in kids Creating the right environment through policy Food marketing and Big Food Protecting the health of our children: mental and cognitive Felice’s depression and anxiety disorder The impact of exercise on sleep and mental health The flow-on effect of improving diet Cooking and preparing food Professor Ted Dinan podcast- experts on Gut-Brain Axis https://podcast.nourishmeo