Dr Ally Jaffee – Multi-Award-Winning NHS Junior Doctor

Meet Dr Ally Jaffee as part of our series “Inspirational You, Awesome Sisters United” about women in medicine achieving incredible things in today’s world:

• • Co-founder of Nutritank
  • Winner of the Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award 2022
  • Winner of the Diana Award 2021
  • Winner of BBC Food & Farming New Talent Award 2019

• Mental Health Speaker & Charity
• Trustee

“Let food be thy medicine” – Hippocrates

Dr Ally Jaffee grew up in London. She describes her childhood-self as a fussy eater. But her mother, a vegetarian and a fabulous cook, always ensured she ate lots of fruit and vegetables. For Ally and her South African parents, food has always been an integral part of family, social life, and a celebration of their Jewish culture.

Ally attended Highgate School, one of the UK’s leading co-educational independent schools. Despite being awarded straight A’s in her A-Levels, volunteering at a Hospice, a Wildlife Conservation Charity, and a community-based HIV Clinic, she was unsuccessful in gaining a place at medical school first time round.

Unperturbed, Ally turned this disappointment into an opportunity for further study and travel. During her gap year, she developed an interest in nutrition, lifestyle medicine and holistic healthcare whilst observing practices in Australia & the USA.

In 2015, Ally enrolled at Bristol Medical School. In 2016, she volunteered at the College of Medicine’s Food and Medicine Conference. There she met the Chair of the College, Dr Michael Dixon OBE, an influential GP renowned for his advocacy of social prescribing and patient-centred care. In the following months, Ally was appointed national student nutrition lead.

Through this lens, Ally became aware of the lack of emphasis on nutrition in her medical school teaching. Even though the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guidelines advocate diet and lifestyle as first line treatment for innumerable physical and mental health conditions, Ally’s lecturers prioritised pharmaceutical and surgical interventions.

She discovered that this was not unique to her institution and that nationally trainee doctors only received 2-15 hours of teaching on nutrition during their entire (5-6 year) medical education. As a result, most medical graduates lacked the confidence and knowledge to advise patients how to make meaningful, lasting, positive dietary and lifestyle choices.

In a society awash with faddy diets, misinformed celebrity-endorsed crazes, and costly weight loss subscriptions, Ally recognised the confusion faced by many, even health professionals, in navigating the myriad of conflicting advice.

She aspired to shift the population’s reliance on social media and glossy magazines for diet and exercise tips, to a trusted source of authoritative, evidence based, culturally inclusive information.

Dr Ally Jaffee began her campaign in her second year at medical school. Alongside fellow student, Iain Broadley, she co-founded Nutritank. Its purpose: to create an innovative hub of information and educational resources for food, nutrition, and lifestyle medicine to empower healthcare professionals to advise and inform their patient communities to live healthier lives.

Working with collaborators including dieticians, the Association for Nutrition (AFN), and NNEdPro Global Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, Ally and Iain set about the mammoth task of convincing every UK Medical school to commit to increasing nutrition and lifestyle education within their curricula.

Thanks to social media they soon gained mainstream media attention and found themselves on BBC News, Radio 4’s The Food Programme hosted by Sheila Dillon, as well as Channel 4 with Celebrity Chef and Public Health Campaigner, Jamie Oliver.

By 2019, they had secured the backing of the GMC to institute national change within all UK Medical schools. Since then, Ally has received numerous awards in recognition of her work.

Increasingly, major randomised controlled clinical trials such as the SMILES trial, and the Lyon Diet Heart Study are demonstrating significant benefits of nutritional interventions in Depression and Cardiovascular disease.

Nutritank now has branches in most UK Medical Schools. It offers online educational and CME-accredited webinars with leading world experts on cutting-edge topics such as:

• The role of nutrition in brain health
• Faecal Microbiota Transplants against Anorexia Nervosa
• The gut-brain connection: food, mood, and microbes
• Omega 3 fatty acids in Depression

Nutritank provides information on where to access other accredited nutrition and lifestyle medicine courses and offers discounts on university courses, diplomas, and national conferences.

In addition, members receive money off credible nutritious food brands, lifestyle brands and exercise classes.

Also, the founders of Nutritank have been invited to sit on the NHS England Hospital Food Clinical Committee to support the work of The Hospital Food Review, chaired by Philip Shelley. Celebrity Chef, Dame Prue Leith is a patron of the group.

Their team are currently running a national Quality Improvement Project looking at Junior Doctors’ attitudes towards their hospital food environment and its impact on their health, wellbeing, performance and ultimately patient care.

If you are a junior doctor, do fill out the survey.

After 3 years at Bristol Medical School, Ally’s passion for holistic healthcare led her to pursue an intercalated BSc in Medical Humanities, Creative Arts, Philosophy & Law at Imperial College London. It was a year Ally was hugely looking forward to, but unfortunately the year in which Ally faced her greatest struggle: her Mental Health.

Looking at this assertive, determined young woman and her incredible achievements it is difficult to believe that she ever doubted herself. But Ally openly admits to suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Clinical Depression, and Panic Disorder whilst at medical school. Like most medical students and doctors, she delayed seeking help due to the stigma surrounding mental health.

Today, having successfully responded to antidepressant medication, Innate Health and Resilience Training (IHEART) and holistic lifestyle practices such as good nutrition, sleep hygiene, and yoga, Ally is a passionate advocate for ‘Vulnerability as Strength’. She openly talks about her struggles in the hope to reduce stigma.

Ally collaborates with several mental health charities on key campaigns and is a Chimo Trust charity trustee. She has recently been invited to co-host a new Mental Health Podcast alongside campaigner Antonio Ferreria, dedicated to interviewing young people. ‘The Diner Party Podcast’ is sponsored by Central Northwest London NHS Trust and will be airing soon.

Ally’s career goal is to practice as a Holistic Psychiatrist – specialising in nutritional, lifestyle & creative interventions within mental illness.

Her role models are

• Dr Felice Jacka, world nutritional psychiatry expert of the Food and Mood Centre, Australia
• Dr Drew Ramsay, Nutritional Psychiatrist and author of Eat to Beat Depression and Anxiety
• Dr Gregory Scott-Brown, Holistic Psychiatrist and author of ‘The Self-Healing Mind’
• Dr Pooja Lakshmin, Psychiatrist and author of ‘Real Self Care’

We have absolutely no doubt that she will succeed.

Ally’s main message is that eating healthily doesn’t have to be restrictive:

• Add in more vegetables, pulses and grains to meals you would already eat eg. curries & pastas
• Try some high fibre swaps:
  • swap white rice for brown
  • white pasta for whole-grain
  • white bread for multi-grain.
• Get in those omega-3 foods for optimal brain health. Try to eat oily fish at least twice a week.
• Meal prep in bulk at the weekends to prevent impulsive eating of unhealthy food during the week. Freeze some “go-to” meals.
• Save money by buying frozen fruit & veg.
• Cook batches of pulses and grains such as lentils, brown rice, wholewheat pasta in advance then add in fresh or frozen vegetables on the day.
• Eat the rainbow, especially dark leafy greens and purple veggies like red cabbage (high in polyphenols).
• Try some fermented food which contain live bacteria (probiotics), for instance Kimchi and sauerkraut, which are great for your gut.
• Drink lots of water

• Seek Connection
• Embrace Creativity
• Show Compassion