Show notes
I’m honored to connect with Dr. John La Puma today. Dr. La Puma spent three decades building the case that food, nature, and light are clinical tools, not just lifestyle add-ons. He was the first physician to complete a professional cooking curriculum, and he used that training to co-develop the first cooking and nutrition course taught in a U.S. medical school, a course now adapted across roughly 80% of U.S. medical schools. He later did the same thing for Nature, co-developing and teaching the first skills-based Nature as Medicine CME course for physicians with UCLA. His most recent work extends the same logic to the built environment, coining the phrase "digital obesity and indoor epidemic" to describe a specific underdiagnosed driver of modern fatigue tied to how little time people spend outdoors and how much artificial light and screen exposure they get instead.
In our conversation, Dr. La Puma discusses how we went from chefs' training to co-developing the first culinary medicine course; the indoor epidemic and digital obesity; how most people spend about 93% of their lives indoors; how light impacts bone health; and deep sleep metrics. We also explore how poor air quality can reduce cognitive performance, the significance of phthalate exposure and other endocrine-mimicking chemicals, and green dopamine. Dr. La Puma highlights the health benefits of gardening, explaining how it exposes us to microbes and stimulates serotonin. We also cover nervous system awe, movement, how forest bathing can boost your immune system while reducing inflammatory markers, how exercise can help us live longer, nighttime red light therapy exposure, sleep and recovery, and animal companionship as a health intervention.
Stay tuned for today’s interesting and highly informative conversation about lifestyle as medicine with Dr. John La Puma. I highly recommend his book, The Indoor Epidemic, with the actionable information it contains.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
Dr. La Puma shares his motivation for bringing nutritional science and cooking into his medical practice
How spending much of your life indoors can affect your nervous system, circadian biology, and metabolism
The value of morning light for supporting sleep and rebuilding bones during perimenopause, menopause, and andropause
How indoor air quality impacts cognitive performance
Dr. La Puma shares his approach to reducing exposure to chemicals from household cleaning products
The potential benefits of gardening and spending time with your hands in the soil
How intentional time outdoors can support sleep, mood, energy, and memory
A bright blue-white light at night may interfere with restorative sleep.
Animal companionship and how it can improve our health and wellbeing
Bio:
John La Puma, MD, ChefMD™ is a two-time New York Times bestselling author, board-certified internist, and professionally trained chef who pioneered Culinary Medicine. He now pioneers EcoMedicine from his small regenerative teaching farm. His upcoming book, Indoor Epidemic, reveals how spending 93% of life indoors steals sleep, focus, and years, and how reclaiming just 7% outdoors can restore them using the evidence-based Outdoor Rx framework. This is a clinically validated intervention, presenting nature as foundational medicine, an essential component of health and the missing pillar in optimizing longevity and healthspan.
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