Patrick Holford: Simple Wisdom for a Healthy Life

My guest today is Bob Quinn - a true pioneer of ancient, organic grains. In this rare opportunity to meet with him in his 80th year, en route to Italy, recorded in the car on the way to the airport, we unpack the whole story from the origins of the organic, wholegrain movement in the 80’s, up to now. He explains why it isn't gluten that’s causing so many people to react to wheat (other than coelia...

My guest today, Professor Robert Lustig - neuroendocrinologist and Professor Emeritus from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), world-renowned for unravelling how sugar, fructose and ultra-processed foods degenerate health - proposes that there is one messed up underlying process that almost all contributors to cognitive decline compound. This is an overload of reactive oxygen specie...

My guest is Dr Tommy Wood, who is Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Paediatrics at the University of Washington. He also heads research at the Food for the Brain Foundation and brain trains professional athletes including Olympians and Formula 1 racing drivers. With a Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, a medical degree from the University of Oxford, and a PhD...

In today’s podcast, my guest is Dr Bill Wilson, a front-line physician who practiced medicine in Minnesota and Massachusetts for over 40 years. Three years ago, Dr Wilson was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment - often described as pre-dementia. Instead of accepting it as inevitable, he took action. The result? He reversed it. Now, drawing on both his medical background and personal experienc...

Happy New Year! As we head into 2026, what actually matters when it comes to protecting your health - and what’s just noise? In this month’s podcast, I share my top health predictions for the year ahead and the habits truly worth adding to your New Year Resolutions. We go behind the headlines to unpack health politics, misinformation, and some uncomfortable truths - from vaccines and new Alzheimer...

My guest today is sleep expert Dr Greg Potter. He is a recent addition to Food for the Brain’s scientific advisory board and helps individuals and organisations sustainably improve their health and performance. He’s an expert in sleep, circadian rhythms, nutrition, and metabolism and in this podcast we are going to find out what sleep is all about and how to optimise your sleep for better health f...

My next guest is neurobiologist Professor Jonathan Stone, a leading light in biological science in Australia, who served as Secretary in the biological sciences in the Australian Academy of Science for several years and is recipient of numerous science awards. In his research papers, over 200 in all, he asks important questions. For example, why are we designed to produce the toxic amyloid protein...

If you keep meaning to change your food or drink habits but fail, you might be stuck in an ‘addiction’ trap. My guest in this podcast is clinical psychologist Dr Jen Unwin, an expert in food addiction, campaigning to get it recognised in the same way that alcohol addiction is. You’ll learn the six tell-tale signs that you’re getting hooked. The ever-increasing prevalence of addiction to junk food,...

Artificial intelligence is going to have a bigger impact than the ‘digital revolution’ that gave us computers and smartphones. As conventional healthcare crumbles, and disease, especially mental and neurological disorders, accelerate as a direct consequence of big pharma and big food influence, will AI have the ability to change the paradigm for better or worse?   Former GP Dr David Jehring, digit...

My guest today is Dr Louise Newson. She is a physician, women’s hormone specialist and member of the UK Government’s Menopause Taskforce. She is also an award-winning doctor, educator, and author, committed to increasing awareness and knowledge of perimenopause and menopause. Described as the ‘medic who kickstarted the menopause revolution’, she has empowered a generation of women to have a greate...

My guest today, is neurologist Dr Dale Bredesen, an expert in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and author of the book ‘The End of Alzheimer’s’, which created quite a stir when it came out. Now, his latest book ‘ The Ageless Brain ’, takes the conversation further. I’ve read his book and he’s read my latest, ‘ Alzheimer’s: Prevention is the Cure ’, so we have a rich conversation compari...

What is autism? Is it truly on the rise, along with the broader concept of ‘neurodivergence’? With one in six children now identified as having special educational needs, could this increase be due to over-diagnosis, genetic factors, or something more? In this episode, I’m joined by three pioneers in the field—experts with extensive experience working with thousands of children diagnosed with auti...

To what extent is a child’s mental health set in pregnancy? What can women do in pregnancy to ensure optimal mental health for their child? Also, what happens to women’s brains and mental health when their nutrition is sub-optimal in pregnancy? How can we help children and teenagers to achieve their full potential for mental health? In this podcast, I'm speaking to Julia Rucklidge, Professor of Cl...

To what extent is your health destiny pre-determined? Is it nature or nurture – what you eat and how you live that determines your health history? My guest in this podcast is a specialist in nutrigenomics. That is the field of rich interactions between your genes and your environment. Emma Beswick is not only a nutrigenomic expert but also a graduate from the Institute for Optimum Nutrition so she...

Dr Christopher Palmer is a Harvard psychiatrist and researcher working at the interface of metabolism and mental health. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Founder and Director of the Metabolic and Mental Health Program and Director of the Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education, both at Harvard and at the McLean Hospital. He is author of the b...

The latest iteration of the highly influential Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, authored by numerous professors from around the world, led by University College London’s psychiatry Professor Gill Livingston has, for the third time, ignored the hardest hitting evidence for homocysteine lowering B vitamins, misrepresented the science on omega-3 and concluded that the evidence for ‘unhealthy...

I’m talking to Steve Bennett, author of The Fibre First Diet, a book which proposes that simply re-ordering the foods you eat can trim your waistline and prevent diseases. We get under the hood of what’s really going on and how to gain control of your weight and health without feeling deprived. We will explore insulin resistance and how to reverse it, what really drives hunger, quick solutions to...

Keeping your brain young is a science. Ageing happens because of oxidation (think wrinkly skin). Nowhere is there more oxidation activity than the brain because your brain uses more energy than any other organ and generates more oxidants. There are 7 key antioxidants which, together recycle each other. These are vitamin C, E, glutathione, anthocyanins, co-enzymeQ10 and alpha lipoic acid. There’s a...

In this podcast, I bring the three top scientists who know more about fats and the brain than any others - Professor Michael Crawford, visiting Professor at Imperial College London and head of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition, Professor William Harris from the Fatty Acid Research Institute (FARI) and neuroscientist Dr Simon Dyall, a director of of the International Society for...

My guest today is Dan Kittredge, who knows more about what makes food nutritious than anyone I know.  Dan Kittredge has been an organic farmer for more than 30 years and is the founder and executive director of the Bionutrient Food Association (BFA), a non-profit whose mission is to “increase quality in the food supply.”  Known as one of the leading proponents of “nutrient density,” Dan works to d...

Ask the man in the street what’s driving Alzheimer’s and they’ll probably say a third is in the genes. Or that it’s just what happens when you age. Neither of these statements are true. Alzheimer’s is a largely preventable disease and my guests today are tackling the two fundamental questions. Firstly, what are the positive and negative behaviours – diet, lifestyle, environment – that prevent and...

My podcast guest is Dr Georgia Ede, MD, a Harvard-trained, board-certified psychiatrist based in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. Her interest in nutrition arose after discovering a new way of low carb ketogenic eating that reversed several bewildering health problems. Her speciality is nutritional and metabolic psychiatry and ketogenic diets. Her passion is empowering people with psychiatric cond...

My guest today is Uma Naiidoo who founded and directed the first and only hospital-based program in Nutritional, Lifestyle and Metabolic Psychiatry and is Director of Nutritional and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical school. Her books Your Brain on Food and The Food Mood Connection are bestsellers in the US. Here we focus on anxiety a...

My podcast guest today is a legend in the world of omega-3. Dr Bill Harris is Professor in the Department of Medicine in the Sanford School of Medicine at the University of South Dakota. He has been a front runner in measuring omega-3 status and developed the omega-3 index, running studies on the effects of omega-3, with more than 300 published pieces of research to date, backed by five National I...

Homo sapiens brain size is 20% less than it was 29,000 years ago. IQ is also falling 7% a generation. Mental illness is on the increase. Why?   Why are our brains shrinking?   Today’s guest is Professor Michael Crawford. He discovered that brains are made out of omega-3 DHA in the 1970s. He is the Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition.   At Chelsea & Westminster he h...