Become a Sustainavore!

Eat for your health, the planet, and your values.

Become a Sustainavore!

Eat for your health, the planet, and your values.

Sustainable Dish Episode 249: Dr. Tommy Wood

 

Dr. Tommy Wood is a neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the University of Washington. His research focuses on brain injury and brain health across the lifespan. 

In this episode, Dr. Wood presents straightforward information on nutrients needed for a healthy brain and good cognitive function.  He covers why they are essential and the food sources where these critical elements can be found. 

It will come as no surprise that most of these cognitive building blocks are best obtained from animal-sourced foods.  

During our conversation, Dr. Wood reviews the following:

  • Choline
  • Iron
  • DHA and EPA
  • Creatine
  • B12

Plus, he explains why it’s more important to focus on building muscle rather than losing fat when it comes to brain health.

This is a must-listen for anyone concerned with optimizing brain function and preventing cognitive decline.

Rather watch this episode on YouTube? Check it out here: Episode 249: Dr. Tommy Wood

 

Resources:

Nourish Balance Thrive

The Daily Mail Article: Edinburgh Becomes First European Capital to Commit to Taking Meat Off the Menu in Schools in Bid to Reduce City’s Carbon Footprint

British Society of Lifestyle Medicine

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Marty Kendell: Optimising Nutrition

Elsie Widdowson

 

Connect with Tommy:

Instagram: @drtommywood

Podcast: Better Brain Fitness 

 

Episode Credits:

Thank you to all who’ve made this show possible. Our hosts are Diana Rodgers and James Connolly. Our producer is Emily Soape. And, of course, we are grateful for our sponsors, Global Food Justice Alliance members, and listeners.

If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join.

This podcast was made possible by LMNT, my favorite electrolyte company.  The all-natural sugar-free powder tastes great and gives you the perfect amount of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you perfectly hydrated. 

Check out my Salty Grapefruit Limeade made with their limited-time grapefruit flavor. Plus, you can get a free flavor sample pack with any purchase using my link: sustainabledish.com/LMNT

 

Transcript:

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Welcome to the Sustainable Dish Podcast. I’m Diana Rodgers, a real food registered dietitian, author, and sustainability advocate. I co-host this podcast with James Connolly, who was a producer on my film Sacred Cow. I also founded the Global Food Justice Alliance, an initiative advocating for the inclusion of animal-source foods like meat, dairy, and eggs for a more nutritious, sustainable, and equitable worldwide food system. You can check it out and join me at global food justice.org. Thanks again for listening. And now, on to our show. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Welcome to the podcast, everyone. Today I have with me, Dr. Tommy Wood. I’m not sure, Tommy – have you been on the podcast? Or did I just have your partner from Nourish Balance Thrive?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

You may have had Chris, back in the day? I don’t know. I don’t think I have been… I think I interviewed you for our podcast when we had one. But I don’t think I’ve been on your show.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

All right, well, um, would you introduce all the credentials you have? Because there’s a long list on your email, and I forgot so but please explain what you do.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I am an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. Most of my work is running a lab, the neonates neuroscience lab where we study ways to treat the injured newborn brain. But we also do work in traumatic brain injury and increasing increasingly doing some work in cognitive decline in later life. So kind of looking at the brain across the entire lifespan.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, the two most important times to get those nutrients that I’m so passionate about.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So and one of the things that I’m most interested is in how what we can learn about in the developing brain then tells us about the aging brain as well, I think there’s more similarities than most people usually think about. But alongside that, so I have undergraduate training in biochemistry. I went to medical school at the University of Oxford, I worked as a doctor for a couple of years in London. Then I did a PhD in physiology and neuroscience. And so alongside my academic career, which is a lot of it’s based in the lab, I’ve also worked with multiple companies, looking at health and performance athletes, adults with chronic health conditions. I currently work with Formula One drivers. That’s the main sort of group that I currently work with, but also some other companies looking at sort of democratizing various aspects of health and digital health to try and improve outcomes in as many people as possible. That’s sort of, you know, just a few of my sideline activities.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Amazing, amazing stuff. And, so we’ve been friends for a while, I think we probably met through the ancestral health, like at one of those conferences or something like that. So you reached will you explain why you reached out most recently to me?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. So I subscribe to a newsletter. And I read it every week. And I’m a big fan of Sacred Cow. And I’ve known Robb for a long time, a big fan of his as well. And you linked to a story in The Daily Mail, this newspaper in the UK, about how Edinburgh in Scotland was signing up for this thing called the plant-based treaty. And what they intimated was that, as part of this sort of attempt to improve people’s health and the planet’s health, at the same time, they were going to remove animal products or meat, from the menus at schools, hospitals, and nursing homes. And what particularly got me worked up is this idea that we’re essentially decreasing the nutrient density and quality of the foods for those who are most at risk. And that is the aging population. But also, you know, if you’re feeding kids in schools, the kids who get free school meals or those with a lower socioeconomic status, who may not, who may have food insecurity at home, may have other problems getting access to high-quality foods, and those are the kids that were removing these nutritious foods from and that I mean, I got really worked up. I’m not gonna lie. So I emailed the board of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine. I am one of the founding trustees, I still sit on the board. And what’s different about the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine compared to other lifestyle medicine societies – we’re now the second largest in the world. But one thing that was very important to us was to make sure that all the different ways that we can use lifestyle to improve health were incorporated and that includes multiple theories of diets and how they can improve health. So in particular, not being… you sort of dogmatically focused on plant-based foods and plant-based diets as being the first

Diana Rodgers, RD  

And I should qualify that. So for people who don’t know, the most of the lifestyle medicine type organizations, I think it’s the American Academy of Lifestyle Medicine. What is the American version?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

 The American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Diana Rodgers, RD  

The American College of lifestyle medicine, and I believe there’s one in Australia as well, but they are, they have their kind of roots in the Seventh Day Adventists religion, and they are extremely plant-based, even though they don’t kind of come out and say it. But when you go to any of their nutrition, like when you really dig into their nutrition, it is all, you know, everything is caused by animal source foods, and all solutions, lifestyle-wise, require the removal of animal source foods, and they’re working pretty closely with the Biden administration right now. So I am very concerned about this group. And when you told me that you have ties to the British one, I’m sure you knew that I was gonna feel triggered by that. And so you qualified it right away and told me no, it’s not the same. It’s not the same.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. And so particularly, I mean, the lifestyle medicine movement, as people think of it was started by the Americans. And that’s where this plant-based ideology is really rooted. The Australians, I will say, much more aligned with the Brits in terms of all encompassing, and really taking a true view of all the available evidence and acknowledging that multiple different dietary strategies is going to be important for different people. But yeah, so I did have to qualify that, because that’s something you know, lifestyle medicine sort of comes baked in with plant-based diets, unfortunately. And so, then, so I emailed the board, and, you know, outlined the concerns that basically said to you, like, if this happens, then we’re decreasing… a decrease in the quality of the diets for those who are most at risk. And unanimously, everybody agree with me, and everybody got really worked up. And so I think that kind of signifies that, you know, the, the sort of the ideologies we use in our society sort of align with what I just said. And a letter was very quickly written to the Edinburgh City Council. And actually, many of the members are based in Scotland. So this is very close to home for them, you know, outlining, you know, really to see the evidence for these practices. This is why we think there’s risks associated with this, all this kind of stuff. And they wrote back very quickly and said, this isn’t true. We’re not doing this. The Daily Mail has said something that’s not correct. So a part of me felt a bit bad that I sort of worked everybody up into a frenzy because of this. But equally, I was really heartened by the response. And I was also, I think this is important, because this is not gonna be the first or the last time that we hear about something like this. So I think being prepared, you know, and making sure that we have the available evidence to kind of show why these foods are important for particularly people at either end of life and those who are most disadvantaged. You know, I think we’ll have those arguments ready as more of this comes in the future, which I’m sure it will.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yes, well, um, I would actually love to see that letter sort of stripped of who it’s to and, you know, from, you know, just so that I could maybe share some of the points in it. And I’m also seeing some pretty scary stuff coming out of England, actually Oxford county, or Oxford? I don’t know what they call it county or…

Dr. Tommy Wood  

It might be the Yes, Oxfordshire Council. Yeah.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

A lot of these city governments in England are at least going plant-based, vegan for like the city meetings and things like that. So it is happening there. And…

Dr. Tommy Wood  

If a consenting adult, so cognitively functioning adults want to do that – all power to them, like no problem. But as soon as you start pushing, I mean, of course, we could debate the evidence, but pushing this on others who cannot make that choice and for whom it will really impact their health. That’s what… that’s why I really think we need to push back.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yes. And I completely agree with you. People have asked me like, do you have vegan friends? And I do have vegan friends actually. And I think personal choice is really important. And it’s a right. But children and seniors, especially those are relying on these meals services or people in a hospital like recovering from a wound and or a burn have having three times the protein requirement of any other person in that hospital. Taking meat away from these people is doing more harm than good. And somebody needs to be shouting about it. So thanks.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Thanks. So I’ve done a little bit of something similar here. And again, often there’s like saber rattling that they’ll make these changes. and it doesn’t really, really happen. But you know that will change in the future. But here at Seattle Children’s Hospital is a is an institution I’m affiliated with and times they’ve talked about removing meat from meals in various places, and I’ve kicked up a bit of a stink. And I think there’s plenty of evidence for why that’s important, particularly for the kids, right? If the adults want to go to the cafeteria and buy plant-based burgers rather than beef burgers, I mean, that’s their choice. But you know, for the kids, I think it’s really important that we make sure they get nutritious meals.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, I did go to a presentation by Healthcare Without Harm. And they were touting how great you know how they were saving the planet by reducing meat. And, you know, they were improving the nutrition. And I mean, my hand just shot up in the air. And I was asking how? Why? You know, and you know, oh, and by the way, they were saving the hospital all this money? Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, and that’s really, a lot of times what it’s about is cutting costs in food service. Because, I mean, as a dietitian, I had to take a lot of classes, everyone who runs a food service operation in a hospital or any other like major institution, those are dietitians. And our training as dietitians is to send out an RFP, and you have to go with the lowest bid. Like there’s nothing about like sustainable food sourcing or quality food or anything like that. It’s you have to go with the lowest bid. And so, you know, if these plant-based companies can come through with cheaper alternatives to meat, then that’s going to really sway these foodservice people.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

And you get what you pay for.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Mm hmm. I’m so curious. I didn’t know about the Formula One racers. And I’m so curious, before we jump into my big passion, which is making sure kids get the right nutrition. I imagine that your typical Formula One driver might have a very specific kind of profile as far as maybe someone who can hyper focus and high adrenaline, I don’t know, are there specific nutrients that are specific things that you do as an advising doctor to this population?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, that’s a great question. And actually, you know, I mean, sort of demographically, it’s pretty well known that Formula One drivers are majority, young white males. There are some others, obviously, Lewis Hamilton is the only Black Formula One driver and there are some some people have other ancestries, but it is kind of rooted in that demographic, with which they are working to change, I think that’s important. But beyond that, they’re actually all incredibly different. And one thing that I’ve learned from working with Formula One drivers is that each one needs something very different. And they thrive on a wide variety of diets. And I’ve seen them try a multitude of different things. And, you know, as they come into the public focus, and you know, either succeed or fail and then go back. So, it really does depend. And the majority of the work that I do is very much tailored to the individual. But we, you might think about some of the basics, like a lot of the drivers sort of almost on their own, but with a bit of sort of tinkering and empirical trial, they sort of shy away usually from a bunch of very high glycemic index carbohydrates, particularly around times and they perform often, some drivers don’t eat at all, or very little on a race weekend, because they feel that it helps their cognitive function. But again, there’s some eat a whole bunch. So it is difficult to draw sort of exact rules, but then we will do some testing and it will often look at nutrient status, minerals, Omega three status, vitamin D. We look at homocysteine. We look at the vitamin status, you know, all of this is important for cognitive function. And I don’t have you know, a whole bunch of randomized control trials that say in a very healthy young population, you know, this is critical for for performance, but equally, you know, at the very spiky end, when you don’t really have much room to play around with things, you know, making sure you have all your bases covered, I think is is an important approach. So, those are things that we’ll look at and make sure that you know, covering them to the best of best of their abilities.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

All right, okay. So let’s move then to your specialty, which is pediatrics and brain function and in the nutrients required are optimal brain function. And where those come from best? Is that a leading question?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

To say, is that a leading question? So, there’s a lot of ways that that we could cover this. But in reality, if you think about what nutrients have really been studied in terms of their importance for brain development, they are iron, and omega three fatty acids, and B vitamins, B 12, being a critical one. But obviously, folate is very important. Ensuring, essentially, that your methylation system is running properly. And that’s because largely, that’s required in order to make sure that the omega three fatty acids that you have, are being inserted into the membranes in the neurons as phospholipids, where you need them. And then choline would obviously be a very important one, as well. So where do we get those? You get it from fish, eggs, and meat. That’s the short answer. And very happy to dig into.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

I’m glad you mentioned choline because choline is one that gets dropped off a lot. It’s not usually listed as one of those essential things that you see on like a nutrient panel. But it’s another one that you know, eggs are a pretty great source of choline. And if you’re not consuming eggs, and only eating a plant-based diet, I’m not sure there is any choline in any plant-based foods.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

So soy and sunflower lecithin are your main plant-based sources. And so if people are, if people are plant-based and you know, they can check their homocysteine and other things, but I would recommend that they take some… so you can, you can get it from a plant-based diet, you just have to be, you have to focus on a source. But there’s, as we see this sort of rising it both in mothers and the population in general, you know, increasing incidence of non alcoholic fatty liver disease associated with metabolic syndrome, one of the potential underlying cause of that is a choline… is essentially a population level choline deficiency, because choline is really critical for exporting fats out of the liver. And there’s been a big focus on choline supplementation in sort of the prenatal arena. You know, both because it’s important for the fetus, but then it’s also important for the mother’s metabolic health. So people and there are some now some randomized controlled trials showing benefit of choline supplementation. So I think some of it is coming into that sort of, you know, neonatal, or prenatal area. But yeah, I think probably a large number of people could do with eating more choline.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, maybe we could go through each one of those major nutrient categories that you mentioned, and just kind of rattle off the benefits and then what happens in a deficiency or even insufficiency of that because, you know, we don’t really document a lot those insufficiencies which you know, for most people that aren’t eating an exclusively whole foods diet, they’re at risk of a maybe not a deficiency, but an insufficiency of that nutrient.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

So we can, so I think I mentioned iron first we can start with iron, and a lot of the work that I do in the lab is around preterm brain injury, so babies born earlier than usual. So pre being preterm is technically before 36 weeks gestation. And we know that the more preterm you are, the higher the risk of some kind of neurodevelopmental impairment. And some of that is actually linked to the loss of iron supply and iron regulation is critically important. And I’m a partner… so one of my colleagues, Sonny Jewelers, has run multiple clinical trials looking at Iron status in preterm babies, and we’re running a whole other one now, seeing if we can, or she’s running it to try and improve iron delivery to preterm babies. And that’s because iron is particularly critical for the development of white matter, which is, so people think about human brain, it’s kind of this big, wrinkly structure. And on the outside, you have the cortex, which is the gray matter. And then, you know, that’s actually quite a thin layer overall. And beneath that is this whole bunch of sort of thick, dense, fatty stuff, which is the white matter is essentially these insulated neurons that are really critical for sort of rapid communication in the brain. And, you know, compared to most other species on the planet, particularly compared to rodents and things like that humans have a bunch more white matter. This is a big part of the why we have the brains that we have. And iron is critically important for that for developing that part of the brain. And that part of the brain is also actively developing in that third trimester that period during which preterm babies are born. So if they lose that iron source, you actually need to give them a whole bunch of iron while they’re in the NICU, the neonatal intensive care unit, as they then grow in the hospital, rather than in the uterus. And for a long period of time, people were really concerned that giving a bunch of iron would cause a whole bunch of oxidative stress. But we have a number of datasets and some actually statistical analyses of these big clinical trial data sets that I’m doing myself, really showing that the more iron you give, and earlier you give it, the better the neurodevelopmental outcome for that infant. However, the white matter doesn’t stop developing at term right essentially finishes developing in your mid in your mid 20s. That’s when you’re when your white matter essentially is finished developing as the prefrontal cortex is sort of fully matured. But, you know, it’s more important earlier on. So really, in those periods of time, the first couple of years after birth, iron is critically important. And there’s not a bunch of iron in breast milk. But there’s enough, and then also some things like lactoferrin, to help you absorb the iron that you get in there. But then as your brain continues to grow, which it does, for several years after that, iron remains really important. And the best source of bioavailable iron is from meat sources, and I think you yourself have posted or refer to multiple studies where if you actually look at randomized controlled trials of meat intake in those who have overall lower quality diets, usually in lower-income settings, you know, there’s a significant improvement in cognitive development. Sure, a big part of that is greater availability of iron because iron deficiency worldwide is one of the if not the most common cause of any kind of neurodevelopmental impairment.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Right? And you know, a couple things around that. I actually did a nutrient intake challenge where I was trying to get you know, my DRI, do have all my nutrients, you know, under 2000 calories, but like max out every single one of my nutrients every day, which you don’t need to do every single day. But I was… that was my goal. I was like, I’m a dietitian, I should be able to figure this out without getting supplements. And the iron thing was really hard for me even on the days where I ate red meat three times a day, it’s like steaks. I was not getting my iron requirement. And it was only when I pulled in… so I don’t like the taste of liver. I did not grow up eating liver but I pulled in desiccated liver supplements, and had to end… you have to take like six of these in order to like actually, you know, make it qualify. And that was the only way I was able to get my iron. My whole goal was to beat Rhonda Patrick. Because she was in that too.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Is this in that Marty Kendel’s like high diet quality challenge?

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yes. So every day I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m low on selenium. What has selenium? I’m running out trying to find endives or whatever it was that, uh, you know, but so iron. You know, kids don’t like spinach.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Oh, there’s a funny story about that. I don’t know if you… so Elsie Widdowson, like 100 years ago, essentially, she was she published that first like nutritional chemistry of foods that looked at like the ion content of foods. And they got the decimal point in the wrong place for iron and spinach. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Oh, Interesting.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

And so that’s where… that’s where some of this like, I mean, there is iron in spinach, of course. But that’s where some of the…

Diana Rodgers, RD  

The misperception that spinach is high in iron. And probably Popeye helped.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. He definitely helped.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

But there was also another study that looked at eight-year-old boys in India, and they couldn’t even physically eat enough lentils, like get them in their bodies to get the nutrients they required, especially, you know, that the most concerning micronutrients. And so it can just be really hard, you know, kids who are being told that meat is bad will almost certainly not get the iron requirement that they need.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. And so I’ve had some… I know somebody else who’s working with some schools in the Middle East to try and improve because they have increasing… already high but increasing rates of childhood obesity and type two diabetes, and so they’re trying to improve the quality of nutrition in schools. And, you know, kids should eat more vegetables, right? That’s great. If they can, of course they should. But you can’t do do that at the expense of saying that meat is bad, right? And that’s where you know, so I don’t know, in theory, have anything against like the occasional meal being meat free, fine. But if it comes with this messaging that makes them think that meat is bad for them, right? There’s years of damage that could come along with that.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Exactly. That’s my whole point with the New York City public school system having vegan Fridays and meatless Mondays. It’s not like, oh, what’s my problem with salad I’m such… you know, I eat salads. Sometimes I’ll eat a meal that doesn’t have meat in it. But it’s the all of the messaging from meatless Mondays, which had great intention, but it’s not evidence-based messaging gets to go up in those schools. And these kids are hearing from their mayor, that being vegan is ideal because of obesity. And I think there’s this disconnect that people think obesity is from overeating. So if we just take out the meat, they’ll lose weight, and then they won’t be obese anymore, and then everything will be fine. Like that’s, I think, the logic that they’re going on, and people are not understanding that you can be both obese and malnourished at the same time.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, and there’s, I mean, you can easily overeat, quote unquote, vegan foods, which I think is why some people, you know, some people will now focus on whole foods plant-based, or they’re promoting a plant-based diet, because at least some of its baked into food quality, right? You can’t overeat a salad, unless you’ve covered it in a bunch of salad dressing that’s rich in oils and things like that. So yeah, I mean, there’s multiple areas of that thought process, clearly. Yeah.

Diana Rodgers, RD (LMNT Ad)

This podcast was made possible by my favorite electrolyte company, started by my friend and Sacred Cow co-author Robb Wolf – LMNT. The all-natural sugar-free powder you just add to water, which tastes great and gives you the perfect amount of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to keep you perfectly hydrated. They have a limited-time grapefruit flavor, and I’ve developed a recipe on my blog for the Salty Grapefruit Limeade and I know you’ll love it. So check it out and also take advantage of LMNT’s free flavor sample pack with your purchase. So just visit sustainabledish.com/LMNT to place your order. Remember, just drinking plain water can actually leave you more dehydrated, which is why you need to replenish your electrolytes. LMNT is absolutely the best-tasting and cleanest option out there. I drink it daily. So, go to sustainabledish.com/LMNT to claim your free gift, and thanks!

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, that was a lot on iron. Okay, DHA, and EPA.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. So these are obviously your long chain, omega three fatty acids, we do have the capacity to synthesize them ourselves from precursors, like ALA, which you can get from plant-based sources, but this is very genetically driven. And even then, it seems unlikely from the sort of like the bunch of available evidence, it’s basically unlikely that particularly during gestation, that you can make enough Omega three or DHA, long chain Omega three or DHA for the developing fetus. What’s interesting is that it’s incredibly tightly regulated like that developing brain needs DHA, more than anything else. DHA is like the first fat that really starts to accumulate in the brain alongside some arachidonic acid. And then also oleic acid, those are the three that kind of early on in brain development, both in utero and early after birth, those are really ones that the brain sort of sucks up, and that the mother will sacrifice her own DHA stores. So they’re transported to the fetus. So what’s kind of good about our fat stores, one of the good things about it is that they’re essentially a depot for certain fatty acids and DHA is one of them. So if you have sort of intermittently eaten a good amount of fish throughout your life, you’ve probably stored out stored up a fair amount of DHA in your adipose tissue. And then if you are, if you’re pregnant, you will start to specifically draw that DHA out of your adipose tissue in order to give it to your fetus, because it’s critical for the developing brain. And it’s very tightly regulated. So you can look at the DHA status of the mother. And if they have a very high DHA status, they’ll they’ll move less of their DHA over and if they have a low DHA status, they’ll basically use everything that’s got to give it to the baby. Because it’s so critical for the brain. The EPA is probably less important for the brain itself. But obviously we know that it’s very important things like cardiovascular function and stuff like that. But DHA is specifically taken up into the brain. There’s also a number of studies that show sort of, in developing children, if they eat a diet that contains some seafood, it’s associated with improved neurodevelopmental outcomes studies done in the Seychelles, and studies in the UK, that show that often people say, but what about things like heavy metals, mercury, you know, I’m worried about that for the brain. And, you know, I think there’s a good amount of evidence that the selenium that comes along with that… with the seafood is protective against the mercury that might be in seafood. And even then, you know, increased seafood even though it comes with a higher, slightly higher mercury burden is still associated with improved neurodevelopmental outcomes because of the DHA being so critical for the brain. Something that’s… I’ve spent a lot of time looking at and we’ve even tinkered with in the lab is sort of a competing effect of other fats in the diet. There’s a lot of, you know, talk out there about the effects of seed oils, and I think some of them particularly in adults are probably overblown, but in the developing brain, I am still very concerned and about them, you can kind of see over the last 60 years that the amount of linoleic acid in breast milk has gone up three or four fold, at least because it’s increased in our diets. And there were autopsy studies from babies who died of something unrelated to their brain when you look at the fatty acid composition of the brain. And you can see that if they were fed a diet, like a formula that didn’t have any DHA, and EPA had a whole bunch of generic acid in it, that brain has no DHA, and it’s just full of linoleic acid you’d like completely, you completely disrupt the accumulation of normal fats that are critical for brain function. So there are a bunch of animals studies that show something similar, if you have a very high amount of in like acid in the, in the sort of the mother’s diet – this is rat studies, then that brain is more susceptible to injury, and it inhibits the uptake of DHA into the developing brain. So I say this not because I want everybody to be like really scared about this, but I think he’s just really sort of hammers home the importance of making sure there’s adequate DHA in the diet, so that it’s sort of it’s getting into the brain, because it does seem to both the fire itself, and then some of its downstream metabolites seem to compete or prevent DHA getting into the brain as it as it normally would. And so, in that particular part of life for that particular reason, you know, I think it is really important to make sure that you get a sort of a good balance of fats in the diet.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, when my kids were little, they were fortunately really curious about food. And like, the more tentacles are eyeballs, the more interesting to them, and especially my son, and so things like chicken hearts on a skewer or sardines, like the fact that he could see the whole fish and then eat it, or an octopus or something like that to him, you know, and then I would talk about the benefits also, you know, not in, you know, white matter, language, but in like, super night vision or whatever I would say for you know, vitamin A, or whatever, really worked. 

Dr. Tommy Wood  

So, the one thing one nutrient that I haven’t mentioned yet, but sardines reminds me of it. Sardines are the highest food source of creatine, which is like creating this magic for the brain, it does everything. And 100 grams of sardines, will give you like three to five grams of creatine like the same as a creatine supplement that you’d recommend to most people. So there’s a bunch of creatine in sardines.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Oh, wonderful. Yeah. I mean, it’s also a wonderful source of calcium, if you get it with the bones on it. And it’s, you know, that’s another area where people could do better, as well. All right, B 12.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, so…

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Keep going.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Keep going. So, B12. Another critically important nutrient, and again, probably for the brain… well, maybe to two reasons. The second one is still slightly hypothetical. But the first is the sort of running your methylation cycle properly, which B12 is sort of a critical component of along with folate and a few other things. It’s, you need that system to function in order to create phospholipids in the membranes of the neurons in the brain. So we talked about DHA being critical. But in order for DHA to do its job, it needs to be sitting inside the membrane of a cell, particularly it’s concentrated in mitochondria, and the synapses, which are like the areas where the neurons talk to each other. And for it to sit in that membrane, it needs to be part of a phospholipid. And there are three main things to a phospholipid it’s some fats, so DHA being one of them, glycerol, and some kind of phosphorylated headgroup. And then choline is a critical one of those. That’s why choline is really important because this forms that sort of head group. But in order to smush, all those things together, you need your methylation cycle to working properly, that’s one of the important things that methylation is used for. So that’s where B12 is particularly critical for the brain. And when you know, I’m going to jump to the other end of life because this is where I think there’s some really nice evidence for this. When I was working on the elderly care wards, as in Thomas’s Hospital in London, a decade ago now it’s a long time ago. But whenever somebody came to us first with cognitive decline any kind of you know, suspected dementia or memory problems. The first thing we did was it was called a dementia screen. And we tested for iron status, vitamin D status, and B vitamin status, B2, our folate and if B12 was either looked low ish or was low, we also tested for something called methylmalonic acid, which is a socio-functional marker of B12 deficiency. And that’s because we know that these components are so critical for cognitive function, and we were doing this in a nationalized health care system a decade ago. And the same is true right at the beginning of life. But there are a bunch of studies in that area that kind of show this. So the B Proof study done in the Netherlands, the vites caucus study done at the University of Oxford, what they’ve essentially shown is that if you provide B vitamins, so they used like, the cheapest, nastiest B vitamin supplements that you can get your hands on, and they’re still had huge effects benefits for the brain in terms of slowing cognitive decline and slowing brain atrophy. But what they found and sort of secondary analysis that the studies have found is that in order for the B vitamins to work, you need adequate Omega three status, because they interact with each other. And so that kind of brings us back to this idea that that’s why the sort of, you can’t just have more of one or the other, you need to have enough of both. But that’s kind of the main reason why B12. is so critical.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

And B12 is something I mean, they have found even in mothers who weren’t eating meat, but were supplementing with B12 and breastfeeding their babies, there is still the potential for permanent brain damage in these babies that weren’t getting the right amount of B12. So I get really passionate when I hear about this kind of stuff, because it really upsets me.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. And, yeah, both there’s so much… there’s so much capacity to do harm, first by, you know, preventing the mothers from eating this, because, you know, brain development really starts while that baby is in the uterus, you know, in their, you know, months of time when this brain is growing, and those nutrients are needed, but then they continue to be required in the breast milk or formula, a few formula feed. And then as you start to transition to solid foods like these are critical throughout this entire time period. So just bulk removing these foods in the diet, I think, yeah, like you say, is really quite worrying.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, and I think a lot of my passion for this comes from being an undiagnosed celiac until I was in my mid 20s and really struggling in school. I actually made it all the way through high school without reading a book cover to cover, which is something I shouldn’t be bragging about. But I was able to fake it with being a really great artist, and, you know, just making an amazing painting of what I thought the book was about. And I just kind of like blew the teachers away, and they were like, okay, she’s just the art one. But I’ve talked about this with Robb too, because he also said that when he was in high school, but words would swirl around pages, and I’m certain that is because both of us are, you know, have autoimmune conditions driven by a gluten intolerance. There was definitely some malnutrition going on. We weren’t getting it. Right. Because once I got to grad school, and I knew I was celiac, I got straight A’s the whole time. But I just I know the power also of you know, I have two high school kids now who are very, very athletic, very sharp and articulate. And that’s not the norm that I’m seeing out there. And the normalization of this hyper palatable, ultra processed foods, which are, you know, making them overeat, combined with snacking culture, just families not sitting down to that meal with like a meat and two vegetables, which, you know, was sort of, maybe not that typical when I was growing up in the 80s, but definitely was more common, but you’re just not seeing that anymore with how busy and overscheduled people are and working parents. And so kids are just grabbing what they enjoy eating and not necessarily what is the best choice and also the grazing culture where you’re just kind of taking that edge off the hunger, but not actually being hungry enough to sit down to a healthy meal. Like when I counsel people who have very picky children, I tell them to stop giving them goldfish crackers, or whatever, those little snacky things all day long, because that actually allows them to push away the healthy choices because they’re never actually hungry enough to maybe eat something that isn’t going to like just light up all their reward centers in the brain

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Something that actually has some nutrients in it. Right. I think this is critically important. You know, the obviously… the specific nutrients that we talked about but then you know the wider dietary patterns and quality of foods and the effects of ultra processed foods for a few reasons. We’ve just been analyzing again this dataset from these are babies born extremely preterm, and then we have their growth trajectories after they leave the hospital and then we look at the numerator ailments of outcomes still only at two years, we’re still pretty young. But this seems to kind of continue, where you see that if they have accelerated weight gain without, like parallel increases in height. So this is essentially, they’re just getting fatter. And it happens early in life. And it’s something that’s partly historically been isogenic, right? It’s the doctors, of course, it’s because they’re like, these babies are small, we need to feed them up. And that’s kind of being weight gain at any cost. And this seems to cause  – well, first of all, there’s this issue with sort of early reprogramming, there’s these seem to be these epigenetic, and maybe related to the gut microbiome effects, there’s still sort of looking at it, but the, you sort of have this stressed early life both in the uterus and then you’re born too early. And there’s these, these kids, and then the adults are at higher risk of type two diabetes, higher risk of obesity, high risk of all cause mortality, they die younger, a whole bunch of things happen. And part of it is the environment that they’re born into. And part of it is maybe some early reprogramming of the immune system and other things. But you see there, this sort of greater fat gain even early on is associated with worse neurodevelopmental outcomes. And conversely, particularly in the kids who are born preterm, if they gain relatively more muscle mass, which obviously means that they have to be physically active, and they have to eat more protein. Which means usually means that they’re eating high quality foods overall, they then have improved cognitive, cognitive function. So you have these nutrient poor, ultra processed foods are usually very low in protein, which is probably part of the reason why they drive overeating. So then you have these associated effects on body composition, and, you know, multiple aspects of this poor nutrients, poor protein, probably, you know, a whole bunch of metabolic effects that are coming, you know, long term as body composition sort of changes, potentially for the worse. This is then associated with worse brain functions. So multiple reasons why, you know, and again, this is not to like scare people away from eating these foods, they just shouldn’t make the bedrock of what kids are being fed.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, there’s certainly a time and place for them. But that, like, I wrote a post for Robb’s blog a long time ago that triggered all the people because I was at a doubleheader middle school softball game and out come, the brownies at halftime at like, or whatever, not halftime, that’s a football term. This is how much I know about sports. It was like in between the two games. Yeah. And all the girls had baked brownies and cupcakes for each other. And so they brought them to the game. And there was like this big sharing thing. And I was like, whose birthday is this? This is… it’s fine, like birthday food. But like, this is just a regular Saturday, and it’s a sports event, and they hadn’t had lunch. And nobody else was horrified by it but me and I was, I was just sitting there kind of stewing in my chair, you know, watching all this. So let’s talk a little bit before we go about sarcopenia, and also, dementia and Alzheimer’s as quickly as you can in the next few minutes. But I mean, there’s a lot of people that still don’t really understand that metabolic issues are really driving brain decline later in life. So will you talk a little bit about that?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah. Again, sort of multiple angles that you can come at this, but I’ll focus on two in particular. So muscle mass or loss of muscle mass – sarcopenia, or loss of muscle function, sometimes called dynapenia seems to go sort of hand in hand with aging and cognitive decline. And there’s a few reasons why this may be causative to a certain extent. So muscle mass is critical for brain function for a number of reasons. One is, the act of moving your muscles is neurotrophic, you release a whole bunch of things called myokines, including things like brain derived neurotrophic factor, but a whole bunch of stuff that we’re still discovering that can actually support growth and function of the brain. So physical activity sort of directly releases things that support brain function. There’s also an aspect of this like neuromuscular connection. So by moving your body, you are driving a stimulus to the brain and those connections support a brain function. And a colleague of mine and I, Josh Turner, he’s a neurologist, we recently wrote a paper about cognitive demand and cognitive decline. And, you know, one of the things that’s really sort of comes out of multiple threads of evidence says that one of the reasons why we lose brain function is because we just stop using our brains and by – I know when we think we’re using our brains, you know, we’re busy all day, right? I was using my brain all day, but you were just sat in meetings, answering emails, stressed, multitasking, none of that is really challenging your brain, you know, it’s not the same thing as how you challenge your brain when your brain is growing in the first place. And that’s kind of how I think about it. So when kids are developing their brains, they’re learning motor skills, social skills, language skills, these things that are really difficult, and they’re constantly like pushing to the edge of their abilities, failing, and then getting a bit better, and sleeping right to get give themselves plenty of rest and recovery to kind of develop and adapt. And that’s the kind of thing that we stopped doing with our brains and physical activity is one of the important ones, particularly physical activity that has a coordination component that seems to be really good for the brain. So if you do a randomized controlled trial of dancing, versus circuit training, dancing is better for the brain. And you can see this on an MRI scan. And that’s probably because there’s a coordination component, there’s a social component, when there’s music component, all these different inputs for the brain are really important. So that’s one part of it. And we another paper that we currently have under review, we looked at a big population dataset, and we had muscle mass, muscle strength and cognitive function. This is an older adults, people 65 or above. And what we found was that all kinds of physical activity, you know, directly correlated with cognitive function. So that could just be your day-to-day physical activity, but also, any specific attempts to do kind of exercise, either resistance training, or some kind of aerobic or intense exercise, all of those things are good could have just like walking to everything else. And then strength, muscle strength is one of the best predictors of of cognitive function. And that could be sort of neuromuscular function thing. Or it could be you know, there’s some aspects of overall health that are important for muscle function could be diet quality, that’s important too. But what was really shocking to me is that in this dataset, which is a nationally representative data, data set, the enhanced data set, muscle mass and physical activity were not correlated, which just doesn’t make any sense, except for if you think about how we gain muscle mass. And most people in the population gain muscle mass just because they gain more mass in general. And in just through overeating for being in a caloric surplus in that setting, that muscle is less beneficial. Because you can see that muscle is not associated with improvements in strength, you just gained more muscle, but it’s not functional. So when you’re thinking about the connection between muscle mass, or muscle and brain health, it has to be the kind of muscle that you developed by actually stimulating your body through some kind of physical activity. So that was one of the takeaways that we got that, yes, muscle is important for the brain, but only if that’s muscle that you’ve generated through some kind of physical activity, which is sadly, not that common in the general population.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, and then, of course, as people age, their ability to digest protein decreases their requirement for protein increases because of that. And, you know, we see, of course, more obesity and overweight people who are over 65, which, you know, further leads to their risk of brain decline.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, and those, so there were a few studies that have looked at, say, body composition overall. And either brain volume, like how much of your skull is filled with brain or cognitive function. And of all the different body composition metrics, yes, sort of obesity as a broad category is associated with worse cognitive function. But in reality, muscle mass, again, is the best predictor. So more so than fat mass. And I think that kind of links for all the reasons that we mentioned. But you’re right, as you get older, you get this thing called anabolic resistance, it means that you probably need a different stimulus, or at least more protein to get the same, to get the same muscle gain or retain the same muscle, that same muscle mass. But this is also the time in life, when people tend to eat less and less protein might particularly if they go into some kind of care facility where you hardly get any protein at all. And that just accelerates that accelerates that loss. So one of the things that I think is important that kind of comes out or that is is easy enough protein, which hopefully we’ve made a good case for, and you make a good case for, you know, every time you write something, I’ll say something and I think that’s, that’s critically important. But there’s there’s also this importance of, you know, if we’re focusing on body composition, and long term health, cognitive function, cardiovascular disease, all these kinds of things. Focusing on gaining muscle, I think is is something that I would put the focus on rather than, say losing weight, losing fat. Because usually when we do that what we end up doing is just losing a bunch of muscle mass. And it has this sort of self fulfilling cycle. So anybody can gain muscle. And I think sort of focusing on that gives us this really sort of tangible point that will help all those sort of downstream health effects. 

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Yeah, you see a lot of especially women only doing walking or running and not incorporating any lifting. And it’s really too bad because as they lose, you know, the goal isn’t weight loss, as you said, it’s fat loss by maintaining muscle and you can really do that best with eating high protein and lifting heavy things.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yes, absolutely. My two of my favorite things to do.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Awesome. Anything else? Any exciting projects you have coming up? Where can people find you?

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Yeah, people can find me mainly on Instagram at Dr. Tony Wood, that’s where, you know, I’m getting a little better if there’s a podcast and there’s a reel or something associated with it, I’ll post it there. And I’ll post podcasts and stuff in my stories. If I publish a paper that’s relevant to this, I’ll post it there. It’s all this kind of health stuff. I intend to be working on a book, but we’ll see. Now I’m in talk with some publishers. So we’ll see how that comes together. And that will be a sort of a very practical and approachable sort of book about brain health and cognitive function. So that maybe in the next few months, there’ll be more news on that.

Diana Rodgers, RD  

Okay, well, just let me know. And I’m happy to promote anything you put out there because I’m a huge fan. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Tommy Wood  

Thanks so much for the invite. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Diana Rodgers, RD 

Thanks so much for listening today and for following my work. If you believe in making sure that people all over the world should have access to nutritious food, please join my mission through my non-profit, the Global Food Justice Alliance. Visit sustainabledish.com/join and become a sustaining member today. All sustaining members get early access to ad-free podcasts plus free downloads, and you’ll be helping get healthy protein like meat, fish, and eggs to food-insecure kids. That’s sustainabledish.com/join. And thank you.

My posts may contain affiliate links, which means you don’t pay any more, but I may make a small commission, which helps me continue to bring you great new posts. Read my full disclosure/disclaimer here.

Enjoy This Podcast? Share It With Friends!

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Articles

Stay Up To Date

Join 60,000+ advocates just like you!

Stay Up To Date

Join 60,000+ advocates just like you!

Scroll to Top

Sign Up for my newsletter Below, and You'll Receive Instant access to all my Free Monthly Downloads!