Welcome to this quarterly review episode with Sakina, science writer & researcher at Doctor’s Kitchen. Every quarter, we pull together insights from recent expert-packed podcasts into one episode - to make it easier to take action.

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Today, we dive into pain, which affects so many of us – whether it’s back pain, joint pain, headaches, IBS or chronic conditions like fibromyalgia and endometriosis. Even menstrual pain, often brushed off as “normal”, can significantly disrupt daily life. This episode is all about giving you tools and ideas to feel better.

 We cover:

• Invisible pain: Why it’s not just in your head and what you can do about it
• Anti-inflammatory foods: Easy swaps to ease pain & what to keep in your kitchen
• Daily wins: How small habits, like a 30-minute walk, can make a big difference
• Beyond willpower: Why healthy eating isn’t just about personal choices and how changes in our food system could make it easier for everyone to eat well

If you want to dive deeper into the full episodes:

• #276 How the immune system, nutrition and mindset affect pain with Prof. Dr Deepak Ravindran
• #271 Why Prescribing Food Could Fix the Healthcare Crisis with Jonathan Pauling

Papers we referenced:

• Chronic pain prevalence: Zimmer et al., Pain. 2022
• Nociplastic pain: Fitzcharles et al., The Lancet. 2021
• Anti-inflammatory diets and pain: Field et al., Pain Medicine. 2021
• WalkBack study: Pocovi et al., The Lancet. 2024

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Dr Mindy Pelz is back on the show talking about what foods to break your fast with, the fat burning potential of specific ingredients and how she thinks about cooking food for health and vitality.

I love talking to various thought leaders across the health and wellbeing space, which is why I’ll speak to a professor of immunology, a psychologist and a chiropractitioner all on the same podcast. You don’t get many people in the nutrition space willing to engage people from other disciplines that they don’t get along with.

I’ll be honest, some of the terminology I hear online like detox, fat burning and immune boosting does get my back up. But it’s also the simple way people think about complex subjects. In a similar vein you still get medical doctors referring to cholesterol as good and bad, which is completely incorrect. So we can’t be too judgmental.

I love chatting with and hanging out with Mindy Pelz, she’s full of energy, motivational and has helped countless women around the world take control of their health. Her new book, “eat like a girl” is a fantastic recipe book that dives into what and how we should be eating whether or not you choose to fast. We also cooked one of her recipes in the kitchen which was awesome.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

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Today we’re diving into how nutrition intersects with the complicated world of pain. Today I have former guest and colleague Prof. Dr Deepak Ravindran to talk to us about how our immune system can impact our perception of pain, the different types of pain patients and how we can do better as medical professionals in the management of chronic pain.

This topic covers IBS, pelvic pain, chronic cystitis, fibromyalgia, migraine, functional gut disorders, long covid and more. Pain cannot be explained by a singular pathway, and I think there is so much we could all learn from Deepak's insights on this topic.

We discuss the different types of pain patients, how the immune system trains our responses to pain, how trauma in childhood can impact our responses to pain and why food plays a pivotal role.

Deepak is Honorary Professor at Teesside University and has worked as an NHS Consultant in Pain management, he’s author of the “Pain Free Mindset” a fantastic book that I recommend to both patients and medical colleagues. His new role is Director of Lifestyle Medicine for a primary care network (PCN) of GP practices in Reading, UK, working upstream to bring these insights early in the chain of pain management.

We talk about the use of fasting, anti-inflammatory diets, the importance of gut supportive diets and key ingredients that could be useful for chronic pain sufferers.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - 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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We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

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I’m often asked by colleagues and patients for a full breakdown of what I say in clinic with patients with type 2 diabetes or who are at higher risk of this condition to help them better manage it before medications. But it takes time. And no GP in the NHS or elsewhere has over an hour to explain this in enough detail such that people can understand how to take action themselves.

The recommendations for medical professionals is for them to explore diet and lifestyle options before turning to pharmaceuticals for the management of type 2 diabetes. But with less than 10 minutes per appointment, this is an impossible task.

This is the basis of today's podcast. If I had an hour with you, or your loved one, this is how I would explain what type 2 diabetes is, why sugar control is so important and what things you can do to prevent or better manage the condition and even potentially put it into remission.

I would love to know your comments and feedback on today's episode, so if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment on YouTube and do share this with anyone who you feel could benefit from the information.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

📷 Follow on Instagram

🐦 Tweet me

We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Six conditions cause the majority of deaths in the world, these include dementia and cardiovascular disease. Traditionally, we’ve looked at these conditions through the lens of what goes wrong individually, such as blocked arteries around the heart or tangles of proteins that impair electrical signalling in the brain. But the common denominator is actually ageing.

As grandiose and esoteric as that sounds, ageing and the processes that govern ageing are what we need to be tackling if we want to better manage or even prevent these conditions of older age.

And with me to discuss why and how we age is Richard Faragher. He’s Professor of Biological Gerontology at the University of Brighton, and has dedicated his career to understanding the ageing process and what we can do to improve this inevitable phase of life.

As you can tell from today's episode, Richard is a passionate advocate for older people and can wax lyrical about the history of the gerontology field.

A few definitions before we dive into the episode I think will be helpful for people who are new to the research.

There are agreed “hallmarks” of ageing that are a description of processes, such as metabolism and DNA repair functions, that go awry as we grow older. Ageing is caused by these changes at the molecular level that lead to downstream effects like disease and degeneration.

Cell senescence is what happens at the end of a cell's lifespan, where they become dysfunctional and need to be removed by immune cells. However in older age, it can become more troublesome for your immune system to clear away these senescent cells and increasing inflammation ensues.

Senolytics are compounds or drugs that have been designed to selectively eliminate these senescent cells. And the hope is that they can mitigate a range of age-associated conditions like arthritis, cataracts, dementia and more.

Trigger warning. We discuss a graphic analogy for senescent cells using suicide, so I just wanted to give a heads up for anyone who might find that analogy uncomfortable.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - 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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Karen O’Donoghue is a champion for not only better bread, but also better food quality, choices and better growing methods.

We originally recorded this session in the studio as a recipe to be cut down and edited for YouTube. But when I watched it back I thought that this could easily be a podcast episode. The way Karen breaks down in simple terms the benefits of processes like soaking to maximise the accessibility of nutrients in the flour, is perfect for a long form listen. 

You can watch the full episode on YouTube if you’re interested in how this recipe turned out, but I think you’ll be able to imagine just how good it looked, smelt and tasted from our descriptions alone.

Karen and her company, Happy Tummy Co inform people about the need to spend more on health by spending more on better quality food, invest in the soil and re-engage with the food supply. You can check out Karen’s bread, recipes and idyllic bakery in Ireland at www.thehappytummyco.com PLUS, we cook up a bunch of different bread recipes on our YouTube channel, just search ‘Karen’ on The Doctor’s Kitchen to find the videos.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

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We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

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I recently had the pleasure of hosting a panel of experts at London’s Fortnum and Mason's Food & Drink Studio at their Piccadilly store to discuss the wonderful world of mushrooms with Tim Spector, Tom Baxter and Ester Gaya.

We discussed a range of topics including, what nootropic effects we know about with specific mushrooms and what research underpins this understanding. The use of psychedelic mushrooms and their potential uses in mental health and trauma. As well as how culinary mushrooms can enhance our health.

Tom Baxter, founder of The Bristol Fungarium, producing the UK's first organic certified medicinal mushrooms.

Tim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, director of the Twins UK study and one of the world’s leading researchers, trained in rheumatology and epidemiology.

Ester Gaya, Senior Research Leader in Comparative Fungal Biology at Kew Gardens, who have a strong track record in fungal diversity research and are home to the largest fungarium in the world, holding over 1.25 million fungal specimens.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

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We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

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Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption sounds so trivial, but I honestly believe that concerted efforts to increase this key measure of our diet quality would culminate in success. And by success I mean successfully improving people's health, but also increasing the wealth of our communities and alleviating our nation's food supply insecurity.

To explore this concept further with me is Jonathan Pauling, CEO of Alexandra Rose, one of my favourite charities and one that Doctor’s Kitchen supports.

10 years ago Jonathan helped develop its new mission - to improve access to healthy and affordable food for all. They built the ‘Rose Vouchers’ for Fruit & Veg Project to pioneer the use of financial incentives to help families on low incomes avoid food insecurity, nutrition insecurity and food related ill-health. From small pilots in London supporting 45 families, this work has now spread around the UK supporting 3,500 families every week.

The scheme works by giving families literal cash in the form of rose vouchers that can be used at local food markets in exchange for fresh produce. It’s increased fruit and vegetable consumption by a staggering amount as we’ll get into during the podcast, and I was genuinely shocked at some of the impressive numbers that Jonathan shared with me.

Today we explore the economic and health incentives for why this scheme should be adopted across every local authority and NHS commissioners to not only help the millions of people living in financial hardship in the UK, but also to alleviate the burden on our health system.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

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We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of the podcast is a fun one with myself, Mrs Doctor’s Kitchen (Rochelle) and Dr Anita Mitra where we explain a bit of Rochelle’s journey through pregnancy.

We discuss what she’s been eating, how I’ve been thinking about nutrition for her and what questions I’ve been dealing with over the preceding months to do with lifestyle, ingredients to support fetal development and prevent nausea.

Dr Anita Mitra is an NHS doctor based in London working in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, with experience in both clinical medicine and research. She’s worked in a research lab on the anticancer mechanisms of various phytonutrients and she has recently completed her PhD on the vaginal microbiome in cervical precancer.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

📷 Follow on Instagram

🐦 Tweet me

We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today's episode of the Doctor’s Kitchen I sit down with Sakina Okoko, science writer and researcher at Doctor’s Kitchen, to discuss the most impactful tips from recent pods: Brain fog, gut health, alcohol, spices to beat colds and more.

We have so many fascinating conversations with experts in their fields who not only expand our understanding of specific topics but also inspire us to change or add certain habits even in the office.

But with so much content that we’re putting out, there’s not always enough time in the day to listen to every single discussion. So we’ve pulled together our favourite insights from our recent episodes over the last quarter. Everything you need to know in one place!

If you want to dive into the full pod episodes, check them out here:

• #267 – Brain Health with Louisa Nicola 
• #263 – Gut health with Dr James Kinross 
• Bonus – Mindful drinking with Cami Vidal
• #253 - Healing herbs and spices with Simon Mills

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

📷 Follow on Instagram

🐦 Tweet me

We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s now so much research has shown that ultra-processed foods have been linked to high-blood pressure, heart disease and other serious illnesses, yet the average person in the UK gets a whopping 56% of their calories from UPFs, with an even higher figure for children. 

But all this information can be quite overwhelming. And what we need are strategies to overcome this problem rather than reminders of how bad the issues are.

Melissa has long been an advocate for making wholesome, healthy food at home and is passionate about providing solutions for people who are scared by the headlines, and keen to make cost- and time-effective changes that help us un-process our everyday diet.

Real Healthy is a life-friendly cookbook for time-poor people who want healthy food that’s quick, convenient and tasty, too. Melissa provides simple, doable, and delicious recipes to help you tackle those every day tricky problem areas – on-the-go breakfasts, al desko lunches, satisfying snacks, and easy to make sweet treats.

🎬 Watch the podcast on YouTube here

📱 Download The Doctor’s Kitchen app for free*

🌐 View full show notes, including guest details, on our website

*The Doctor's Kitchen App gives you access to all of our recipes, with specific suggestions tailored to your health needs and new recipes added every month. We’ve had some amazing feedback so far and we have new features being added all the time - check it out with a 14 day free trial too.

Do check out this week’s “Eat, Listen, Read” newsletter, that you can subscribe to on our website - where I send you a recipe to cook as well as some mindfully curated media to help you have a healthier, happier week.

🥗 Join the newsletter and 7 day meal plan

📷 Follow on Instagram

🐦 Tweet me

We would love to get your feedback on the subject matter of these episodes - please do let me know on our social media pages (Instagram, Facebook & Twitter) what you think, and give us a 5* rating on your podcast player if you enjoyed today’s episode

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.