Happy Sunday, everyone. I’ve spent most of this weekend putting finishing touches on the term paper for my psychology class. Lots of work, but it’s interesting work: I’m writing about issues that pop up routinely in these weekend reading posts.
Specifically, I’m considering the placebo/nocebo effect as it relates to our experience of food. Too much to summarize neatly here (plus I’m a little braindead from combing through citations), but the research has given me a deeper understanding of what I know intuitively from my work, which is that our beliefs and assumptions about food exert a very powerful influence on how we experience food physically.
This can be problematic, especially in cases of orthorexia or food fear. Research (albeit limited research) suggests that negative anticipation about food can cause physical distress. Presumably this is a cyclical and self-reinforcing pattern: anticipation induces symptoms, and the experience of those symptoms bolsters fear or anxiety. The potential upside would be that a hopeful or expectant posture could enhance the sense of well-being that we derive from food, too—even aside from the nutritive value we’re taking in.
Expectation isn’t the whole story, of course: plenty of other factors influence how food makes us feel. But it is remarkable and humbling to be reminded of the power of the mind to influence the body. Our professor routinely notes that the patients who are most susceptible to psychosomatic illness are also especially capable of self-healing. It’s an empowering idea, and I hope I’ll have more opportunity to explore it, especially within the nutrition realm.
I’m sure there will be more to say at when my own mind is working a little better. For now, I’m turning this post over to some enticing recipes and interesting medical reads from the last week!
Roasted radishes are one of my favorite spring treats—it’s incredible how sweet they become, given how peppery they are! Danielle and Cameron’s roasted radish and farro salad looks just lovely. The recipe calls for butter for roasting the radishes, but you could easily use vegan buttery spread or olive oil instead.
Another grain salad that caught my eye this week is Erin’s simple, vibrant coriander cauliflower amaranth salad. I really don’t use amaranth often enough, and this dish would be a perfect place to start.
Bek’s ultimate vegan portobello burger is plant-based comfort food at its finest. It’s crusted in panko bread crumbs and stuffed with cashew cheese—how much more decadent and delicious could a vegan burger recipe be?!
I’ve never thought to make hummus with mung beans, but Lindsey’s recipe is inspiring me. I also love her whole spread in the post, which includes beet chips, olives, and a homemade gluten-free za’atar bread. Yum.
For dessert, I’m loving Renee’s pretty raspberry cheesecake bars. They’re a perfect sweet treat for berry season, which is just around the corner where I live.
1. First, a candid and sensitive essay by Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu on what it feels like to experience hurt feelings as a physician.
More and more, medical schools are coming to recognize the importance of humanistic care and offering training that better enables doctors to communicate with their patients. It’s nowadays understood that good medical care recognizes patients’ feelings and works to earn their trust.
But if doctor-patient relationships are to be truly bidirectional, then doctors will also experience feeling and vulnerability. Okwerekwu recounts a situation in which she administered particularly sensitive care to a patient, only to have the entire ministration be forgotten. She writes,
I think it’s great that doctors are being encouraged to engage fully with the individuals they’re trying to help. But Okwerekwu’s perspective is an important reminder that deeper relationships will create the potential for hurt feelings or perceived slights on both sides—a factor that medical training should address.
2. One of the newest trends in healthcare is the emergence of high-tech apps and virtual care programs. It’ll be interesting to see how these services work for consumers and whether they can be made affordable, but some of the early feedback and data is promising.
Anahad O’Connor recently profiled Virta Health, which uses careful food tracking, blood glucose monitoring, and guidance from doctors and dietitians to help those suffering from Type 2 Diabetes. The couple he profiles used Virta to take charge of their health in a very proactive way, and their story is inspiring.
3. I’ve been struck by the co-incidence of eating disorders and celiac disease (along with other autoimmune diseases) that I see in my work, so I was really interested to read about a new study demonstrating linkages between anorexia nervosa (AN) and celiac disease (CD). The linkage seems to work bidirectionally, which is to say that those diagnosed with celiac are more likely receive a previous or subsequent diagnosis of AN.
My initial thought was that chronic health conditions have been shown to be a predisposing factor for development of disordered eating; one reason may be that patients become hyper-vigilant about diet in an attempt to manage the illness. The study authors posit three possible explanations for their findings:
I’m so curious to see follow up to this. If you want to check out the original study, you can find it here.
4. Many people consider whether they would donate an organ to a loved one who was in the midst of a health crisis, but the idea of donating to strangers feels like more of an abstraction. Dylan Matthews has some inspiring words to share about why he chose to donate a kidney and why it was less difficult—and even more rewarding—than one might imagine. Part of what makes the story so special is that Matthews’ donation wasn’t isolated:
The article totally changed my thinking about organ donation. I appreciate that Matthews uses approachable, commonsense language to write about a choice that might seem incredibly daunting and heavy.
5. My medical nutrition therapy class was assigned The Emperor of All Maladies last fall when we were studying cancer/oncology nutrition. It was my second time reading the book, and I was struck once again by how well Siddhartha Mukherjee captures the sheer complexity of cancer as a collection of diseases.
Ed Yong’s recent article in The Atlantic shares some similarities with Mukherjee’s. It’s a really interesting and well-written account of how researchers are coming to better understand the many pathways by which cancers can evolve and using that knowledge to develop treatment options.
Enjoy the reads, the food, and I’ll be back this week with an easy, colorful, and flavorful vegan taco recipe for warmer weather ahead.
xo
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Good morning, all, and happy Saturday to you. After what feels like a really long week, I’m happy to enjoying a morning at home, catching up on articles and recipes, even if I’ll soon be cracking the books open to prepare for my final exams. I’ve got my human development exam on Tuesday, which is actually fun to prepare for, as this particular chunk of material is fascinating to me. It includes adolescent nutrient needs and deficiencies, inborn errors of metabolism, food allergies…
I’m drafting this post from a room that’s only a few blocks away from where my old apartment used to be in Washington, D.C.. I’m down here because my cousin’s twin babies were baptized over the weekend, and my mom and I made the trip to celebrate them. It’s a short trip, only two nights. My hope was to come down earlier and spend time catching up with my friends here, but with all of the recent feeling unwell, I wanted to spend…
The first time self-soothing was explained to me, it was by a friend who had her hands full taking care of a new baby. Self-soothing, she said, is when a baby develops the capacity to calm his or herself down. It’s seen as being key to uninterrupted nights of sleep for parents, since it allows babies to get back to rest if they should happen to wake up during the night. A little while later, when I was exploring resources on coping with…
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This dish looks like just wonderful.
Thanks so much for including my burger in your round up Gena 🙂 I love your weekend reading posts! You always give me so much to ponder <3
I love your weekend readings, and look forward to them! You always have a wonderful assortment of fun, practical and thought provoking posts.
Thanks for another great thought provoking line up Gena! I have some mung beans hanging around and I am intrigued by that hummus recipe! xo