Brain Health & Nutrition

2023 Cha Chi Ming Education Series CONCLUDES

May 18  |  June 22 |  July 27 |  August 24 | September 28

Past Events

September 28 - Food and Mood | Presented by Tom Yang ND, LAc (SESSION RECORDED)
Wu-Hsun-Tom-Yang

Wu-Hsun Tom Yang
ND, LAc

Chef Jared Batson

View the Presentation VIEW RECORDING

SePTEMBER 28, 2023

Curious About the Connection Between Mood, Food, and Health?

6:00pm – 7:15pm PST

Why do we gravitate towards sweets when our spirits need a lift or when we’re in the mood to celebrate? We’ll dive into the science behind our food cravings and how these everyday eats influence not just our moods but also our blood sugar levels.

Join us for an exploration of how the nutrients in your diet can have a profound impact on your short-term and long-term emotional well-being. Discover the secrets to feeling better through the foods you love.

Dr. Yang will delve into Eastern Asian Medicine’s unique perspective on food and its incredible potential to influence your mood and overall health.

For the grand finale of our cooking series, brace yourself for an interactive cooking demo with a nutritious yet delicious chocolate dessert! Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your relationship with food towards a happier, healthier you!


Wu-Hsun Tom Yang is a licensed naturopathic physician and acupuncturist who specializes in pain and stress management. Currently, he practices out of the UW Sports Medicine Clinic at Ballard and UW Primary Care Clinic at Northgate. He is particularly interested in addressing how pain and stress may affect sleep and digestion. He graduated from Bastyr University with a Master of Science degree in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine and a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine. He is board certified through National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) and has volunteered as a subjective matter expert in biomedicine for NCCAOM since 2019. As a practitioner, Dr. Yang strongly believes in the power of patient education and prevention. By understanding their conditions better, patients can work with practitioners to maximize their well-being. His goal is to deliver individualized treatments using a combination of modalities: acupuncture, herbal medicine, and manual therapy. Outside of clinic, Dr. Yang teaches for the Acupuncture and Eastern Asian Medicine department as an adjunct faculty at Bastyr University and enjoys gardening, traveling, and watching international films.


Chef Jared Batson will lead an interactive cooking session.

Jared Batson is a food industry veteran with over 20 years of experience and training. He is the chef/owner of Onion Bulb Productions, a culinary consulting and catering business that supports businesses and private clients alike. He is thrilled to be included in this year’s Cha Chi Ming Education Series with the Osher Center for Integrative Health! After many years working in restaurants and on entrepreneurial food industry projects of his own, Jared has spent much of the past five years involved with nonprofits in the educational and workforce development spaces. These culinary collaborations include work with groups like Common Threads, Seedco, and the Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center, in addition to more local organizations to him like Work Well and the Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County. Jared is passionate aboutfood access, culinary mentorship, and nutrition education, and has loved getting to know his local communities better through this work. While Jared isn’t digging into his work he can be found digging in his garden in Hopewell, maybe even with a pizza slice in hand.

August 24 - Food or Supplements? - Presented by Dr. Debra Bell (SESSION RECORDED)
Debra Bell

Dr. Debra Bell

Chef Jared Batson

View Presentation View Recording

Food or Supplements?

Thursday, August 24, 2023
6:00pm – 7:15pm PST

There are over 29,000 dietary supplements on the market. It can be overwhelming to know what if any to purchase. Can we get everything we need for our health and especially brain health from our diet? Do we need supplements for brain health and if so, which ones? Join Dr. Debra Bell as she addresses these questions during her presentation. She will talk about diet vs supplements for health, as well as how to choose good quality and safe supplements.

Debra G Bell, MD is Co-Director of Education at the UW Osher Center for Integrative Health and assistant clinical professor at the University of Washington Department of Family Medicine. She has been a pioneer in the field, practicing and studying integrative medicine for over 35 years. As an integrative medicine family physician, Dr. Bell sees people of all ages for integrative primary care and integrative consults with a particular interest in integrative women’s health. She has expertise in many modalities including: botanical medicine and the use of vitamins, and supplements, nutrition, mind-body medicine, health and spirituality and bio-identical hormone replacement therapy.

 
Her passion for integrative medicine has continued throughout her career which has included working in private practice, offering home birth, and developing and directing an integrative medicine center at a community hospital. She also has been on faculty at the department of family medicine at other medical schools. Prior to joining UW Osher Center, she practiced at the Penny George Institute of Health and Healing in Minneapolis.  
 
It is important to her to share information and educate others about integrative medicine. She has given many lectures, presentations ,and workshop locally and nationally for the general public and well as for health care students and colleagues. She has been interviewed and quoted in many different media settings including newspapers, blogs, public radio and local TV news stations.  
 

Health and nutrition and culinary medicine has been an important part of Dr. Bell’s personal and professional life.  She loves to cook and learn about food as medicine. Her enthusiasm has rubbed off on her family who all have grown to be excellent cooks of healthy, delicious meals!  


Chef Jared Batson will lead an interactive cooking session.

Jared Batson is a food industry veteran with over 20 years of experience and training. He is the chef/owner of Onion Bulb Productions, a culinary consulting and catering business that supports businesses and private clients alike. He is thrilled to be included in this year’s Cha Chi Ming Education Series with the Osher Center for Integrative Health! After many years working in restaurants and on entrepreneurial food industry projects of his own, Jared has spent much of the past five years involved with nonprofits in the educational and workforce development spaces. These culinary collaborations include work with groups like Common Threads, Seedco, and the Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center, in addition to more local organizations to him like Work Well and the Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County. Jared is passionate aboutfood access, culinary mentorship, and nutrition education, and has loved getting to know his local communities better through this work. While Jared isn’t digging into his work he can be found digging in his garden in Hopewell, maybe even with a pizza slice in hand.

July 27 - Meal Planning Tips to Optimize Brain Health | Presented by Kelly Morrow, MS, RDN, FAND (SESSION RECORDED)
kelly morrow
View Presentation View Recording

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Meal Planning for Optimal Brain Health

Thursday, July 27, 2023

6:00pm – 7:15pm PST

Incorporating nutrient-packed foods into balanced, flavorful meals to fuel our brains

Do you find meal planning and preparation challenging and time consuming? Do you want to improve your diet but don’t know where to begin? Whether you are starting from the beginning or are looking for a few new ideas, this class is designed to help you identify eating strategies and convenience foods that will help support a healthy brain. We will discuss practical techniques to streamline meal planning, as well as resources and techniques to incorporate nutrient packed foods into balanced, flavorful meals that fuel the brain and body.

We will explore important nutrients and foods that support brain health and cognitive function, discuss simple and practical ways to incorporate brain supportive foods into your everyday diet, and review strategies to improve motivation and make lasting dietary changes for better health. 

 

Kelly Morrow, MS, RDN, FAND is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. She has been on the faculty at Bastyr University since 2002 where she has supervised clinical rotations at the Bastyr Center for Natural Health and taught in the Departments of Nutrition and Exercise Science, Naturopathic Medicine, Midwifery and Acupuncture and East Asian Medicine. 

Kelly has been in private practice since 2000 and has previously worked at Evergreen Hospital in radiation oncology, the Booth Gardner Parkinson’s Center and in Community Health Promotions. Currently, she sees patients at Seattle Integrative Medicine.

As a nutrition educator, Kelly helps people learn about how food affects health. As a nutrition counselor, she helps people with motivation and making sustainable changes while supporting personal preferences, lifestyle, and culture. Kelly uses an integrative, body positive, gender affirming and non-diet approach.

 

Clinical Interests:

  • Nutritional influence on mental and cognitive health including Parkinson’s disease
  • Kidney disease including Polycystic Kidney Disease
  • Digestive disorders including Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), IBS and IBD
  • Food allergies and elimination diets
  • Weight neutral approaches to health and mindfulness in health behavior change
  • Women’s health and hormone balance
  • Cardiovascular disease, blood sugar balance and healthy aging

 

Professional Affiliations

  • Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
  • Washington Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
  • Dietitians in Integrative and Functional Medicine

 

Special Projects:

  • Co-Editor and author, Krause and Mahan’s Food and the Nutrition Care Process textbook
  • Co-Investigator, study dietitian, Investigation of Medical Management to Prevent Diverticulitis (IMPEDE) Trial, University of Washington
  • Committee member, Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) working group
  • Content developer for the Inflammation and Environmental Exposures and Elimination Modules of the Integrative and Functional Nutrition Certificate of Training, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
  • Faculty, Integrative and Functional Nutrition Academy
June 22 - Healthy Gut, Healthy Brain | Presented by Iman Majd MD, LAc (SESSION RECORDED)

Dr. Iman Majd

Chef Jared batson

 

view presentation view Recording

Dr. Iman Majd presents:

Healthy Gut, Healthy Brain: Optimizing the gut microbiome for better brain function

Thursday, June 22, 2023

6:00pm – 7:15pm PST

Brain health is defined as current cognitive function as well as prevention of brain aging diseases in the future. We have the ability to impact our risk for brain disease through lifestyle interventions, when implemented decades prior to onset of symptoms. Learn how we can engage mindset and purpose to take care of our physical brains.
 
Learning goals:
  • Identify key lifestyle interventions that impact physical aspects of brain health 
  • Learn how stress management practices cultivate resilience
  • Understand the importance of purpose and connection in building neuroplasticity

Chef Jared Batson will lead an interactive cooking session. We will be preparing Chana Masala and Raita, the recipe and shopping list are included

At the age of fifteen Jared began his journey into the food industry and never looked back. As a chef, he has cooked and traveled across the country and worldwide, working under accomplished chefs in Chicago, California, and at the esteemed Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland. He is proud to have been mentored by James Beard & Bocuse d’Or winners alike, and would credit them for his own Jean Banchet Award, won with his business and team in Chicago. From a culinary standpoint both locally and abroad, Jared has fostered his desire to support sustainable agriculture and forward thinking restaurants that are pushing for impact beyond their menu.

More recently, while still living in Chicago, he brought this mindset to the acclaimed Green City Market, where he served as a Board Member and operated his popular wood-fired catering business for over four years. After passing the torch onto a fellow employee, Jared spent time consulting for various Chicago-Land food businesses, in addition to serving as the Executive Chef of Research & Development for a successful Chicago-Based multi-unit national restaurant group.

Now, after planting roots on the East Coast, Jared has spent the last three years bringing his enthusiastic entrepreneurial spirit to the forefront with companies such as Zuul Kitchens, by adding a wealth of culinary creativity and operational know-how to his work. While he continued to support the ever-growing Zuul team as a Culinary & Kitchen Design Consultant, Jared spun off on his own and established a chef-driven consulting business to engage with the NYC marketplace. One of his consulting clients, the Stanley Isaacs Center, turned into full time work as of late, as he now serves as the Director of Culinary steering a culinary training and workforce development program for NYC’s out-of-work and out-of-school youth.

 

Dr. Iman Majd is an associate professor, Board Certified in Integrative Medicine, Family Medicine and acupuncture in the Department of Family Medicine at University of Washington, Seattle. He is the first physician to create a successful model incorporating acupuncture and Integrative Medicine consult in primary care at UW. He currently serves as the chair of the Board of Commissioners of the NCCAOM and is the Vice President of Medical Acupuncture Research Foundation (MARF).
 
Dr. Majd has a long history of advocating for integrative medicine and health at the national and international level, collaborating with national organizations on initiatives to make Integrative Medicine more accessible to all patients. His teaching philosophy is aimed at bringing academic knowledge into practice and helping the next generation of providers to harness skills for a data-supported person-centered integrated approach to health and well-being.
 
Dr. Majd has been involved with different research studies in the field of Integrative medicine and acupuncture, including his recent research on auricular acupuncture for pain management in a group setting that was funded by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
 
In his practice he uses an integrated East-West approach to health, bringing the knowledge and wisdom from Eastern and Western medicine together to educate his patients, collaborate with, and empower them in their journey to optimal health.
May 18 - Mom Your Brain | Presented by Dr. Emily Wong (SESSION RECORDED)
Session Recording

Mom Your Brain

Thursday, May 18, 2023

6:00pm – 7:15pm PST

Dr. Emily Wong will kick off our Brain Health & Nutrition lecture series. Learn how we can engage mindset and purpose to take care of our physical brains.

Brain health is defined as current cognitive function as well as prevention of brain aging diseases in the future. We have the ability to impact our risk for brain disease through lifestyle interventions, when implemented decades prior to onset of symptoms. Learn how we can engage mindset and purpose to take care of our physical brains.
 
Learning goals:
  • Identify key lifestyle interventions that impact physical aspects of brain health 
  • Learn how stress management practices cultivate resilience
  • Understand the importance of purpose and connection in building neuroplasticity

Dr. Emily Wong (Dr. Em)

Emily Yen Wong, BSc, MD, MHA (University of Washington, Seattle), LMCHK, DABIM (Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine)
Honorary Clinical Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong (HKU), Dept of Fam Med and Primary Care

Dr Emily Wong received her undergraduate BSc and MD degrees at the University of Washington (UW). She completed specialty training in Internal Medicine at UCLA and went on to specialize in Women’s Health. Dr Wong completed her Executive Masters of Health Administration degree (EMHA) at the UW, and fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine (AWCIM) at the University of Arizona. 

Read More

Past Events

Title

Description

Living Well with Memory Loss | Presented by Thomas Grabowski, MD (Recording coming soon)

As our society ages, more people are living with memory loss and dementia, and there is a need to transform medicine for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. In order to really do this, we must reframe the way we think about the disease. We and our partners have realized the importance of educating our patients, their families, and our community to understand the entire course of Alzheimer’s disease, including its presymptomatic and mild cognitive impairment stages, and the importance of strengths-based programs for individuals with memory loss. We have also tried to model the inclusion of people with memory loss in our programs, especially in The Memory Hub, our community center for a dementia-friendly community, and the venue for this lecture. These approaches will, paradoxically, become even more important as disease-modifying treatment approaches emerge for Alzheimer’s disease.

10/26/2023


Thomas Grabowski, MD, is the Director of the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC). He oversees a multi-disciplinary effort to further a precision medicine approach to Alzheimer’s disease. This work aims to better define key steps in the pathological process and thereby identify new therapeutic targets that will help people with different variants of this disease. Dr. Grabowski is the Imaging and Biomarker Core Leader, working with Co-Leader, Dr. Christine MacDonald, PhD.
 
Dr. Grabowski is a leader in both the clinical and research efforts around neurodegenerative disease and dementia at the University of Washington. In his role as the Medical Director of the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center and a behavioral neurologist, he leads a provider team that diagnoses, treats, and supports patients living with memory loss or dementia. He has made patient and family wellbeing into a top priority in the clinic, by helping people adjust to cognitive challenges over time and leveraging intact personal strengths.
 
He also conducts research as the Director of the UW Integrated Brain Imaging Center (IBIC), where his group uses functional and structural brain imaging methods to understand how brain systems supporting memory and language are affected by neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, he aims to improve the potential of functional brain imaging to diagnose and monitor early Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and frontotemporal spectrum diseases. He currently leads the Therapeutic Pipeline Project’s Dynamic Functional Connectivity MRI in Preclinical AD, along with Tara Madhyastha, PhD., to evaluate the potential of MRI and PET scans to serve as a tool of diagnosis or to track disease progression.
 
Research Interests
Behavioral Neurology; Dementia Treatment, Diagnosis, and Clinical Care; Structural and Functional Imaging; Language Processing Neural Systems, and Precision Medicine
   

Planetary Health: Learning from Indigenous Wisdom (watch video)

Hon. Leonard Forsman, M.S., (Suquamish) grew up in Suquamish on the Port Madison Indian Reservation and lives there today with his family. He has been Tribal Chairman for the Suquamish Tribe since 2005. Mr. Forsman is President of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, Northwest Regional Vice President of the National Congress of American Indians and currently serves on multiple tribal, intertribal, and intergovernmental boards and commissions. President Obama appointed Mr. Forsman to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation as the Native American Member in 2013 and Vice-Chair in 2016. Governor Inslee recently named him to the Board of Regents for the University of Washington. Mr. Forsman has a Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation from Goucher College where he studied the relevance of the National Register of Historic Places to tribal cultural values systems.

5th annual Cha Chi Ming Lecture, 10/27/2022

   

Cooking Up Health: Recipes for Reducing Inflammation

How we eat can affect inflammation, and certain diets are more likely to decrease pain and other symptoms of disease, 4/7/2022  (virtual).
Chef Jared Batson leads interactive cooking
   

Art Therapy: Creative Expression in Holistic Care

 

 

Optimal Brain Performance: Fight Dementia (10/21/21 video)

 

Art therapy has been well established as an effective method for the treatment of symptoms of vicarious trauma. 

4th annual Cha Chi Ming Lecture, 11/21/2021 (virtual)
Presenter: Beth Donahue, PhD

 

Learn how to optimize your brain performance and become a foot soldier in the fight against dementia. Memory loss is not an inevitable part of aging, 10/21/21 (virtual).
Presenter: Dr. Emily Yen Wong

 

 

 

 

 

 

Compassionate Care and Connection in the Time of COVID

Panel discussion on clinical practice during COVID-19. Learn how these providers have  created caring and connection with themselves and others in the midst of a pandemic, 10/29/2020 (virtual).

  • Laura Yon, Yoga Therapist, Hospice Massage Therapist, End of Life Doula
  • Sunita Iver, ND, LM, Naturopathic Physician & Midwife
  • Iman Majd, MD, LAc, Director, Osher Clinic, Clinical Assistant Professor, Family Medicine 
  • Lucille Marchand, MD, Palliative Care Physician
   

Re-humanizing Medicine: Transformation for Healers & Health Care Systems

Speaker: David Kopacz, MD, a Primary Care Mental Health Integration psychiatrist with the Seattle VA, and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington. He is the author of Re-humanizing Medicine: A Holistic Framework for Transforming Your Self, Your Practice, and the Culture of Medicine, 10/29/2019.    

Art and Healing

The therapeutic and restorative properties that the arts bring into our day-to-day lives (11/27/2018).
Presenter: Dr. Emily Wong