Dr. Chris Palmer: Your Diet Could Be Causing Anxiety, Depression & Brain Fog (6 Simple Changes to Make Today)

Most psychiatrists or neuroscientists will say there's no way that what we eat would play a role in something like depression by polar disorder or schizophrenia.

When you actually start to pull back the curtain, it's horrifying.

“How do we know if metabolism's healthier on healthy?”

How's my mood? How's my anxiety? How's my ability to sleep? Any of those things should be at least warning signs that you may have impaired metabolism somehow or another impact in your brain. Chris, it is so great to have you here today and I'm so excited to ask you so many questions. Thank you for making the time and thanks for being here. Thank you so much for having me on.

Chris, I want to start with something that I watched a part of recently.

You recently addressed the senate and I thought it was a really powerful speech you gave and I just wanted the audience to get context.

What was the thesis or what was the main approach for that presentation in speech? The overarching theme of that roundtable discussion was that here in the United States and actually throughout the world we have an ever-increasing chronic disease epidemic. And so many people focus on the epidemics of obesity and diabetes. And there's no doubt that those are skyrocketing in prevalence. And I was there to represent the mental health epidemic that is occurring concurrently,

that we really can't separate physical health and mental health, although many people want to.

“But I think that as we have these escalating rates of obesity and diabetes,”

we have escalating rates of a broad range of mental illnesses, neurodevelopmental conditions, mental health conditions, mental disorders, whatever term you like, even though those things mean very different things to a lot of people, we have escalating rates of things like autism, ADHD, anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, substance use disorders, eating disorders,

it's across the board, across a wide range of diagnoses. And the bottom line is that what we're doing

to address these chronic diseases isn't working and we need a paradigm shift. And what is some of the surprising sources of what's happening in the world? I think we all know that social media and the advancement of technology has some responsibility. We all know that our lack of movement and lack of connection and isolation has partly a responsibility, but what are some of the more surprising or some of the ones that you think we need to take

“more serious know of? I think probably for a lot of people, one of the more surprising things”

for mental health, is that the same factors that can play a role in obesity, for example, can also play a role in mental health. And the one that gets overlooked most often is the role of diet or nutrition. You know, if you talk to most psychiatrists or neuroscientists and ask them does diet play a role in mental health, most of them will say probably not, that the brain is just a really complicated organ and there's no way that what we eat, nutrition would play a role in

something like ADHD or even depression and certainly not something like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. By and large, most people in the mental health field believe that those are either genetic biological disorders or they are largely due to psychological and social factors, trauma, stress, social adversity and that those are the causes, but people leave out what we're putting into our mouth every day that actually becomes our brain, becomes the neurotransmitters,

influences the way every cell in our body functions. And yeah, I just want to point out, because this is really difficult for some people to grasp and they think that I'm making stuff up or they think that there's no way that can be, or this is highly speculative, this must be speculative. And what I'm here to say is that if you actually do a deep dive into the neuroscience literature and the cell biology literature of the mental health field, you know, researchers have been

struggling for decades actually over a century to figure out what exactly causes mental illness

dysfunction in cells appears to come up again and again across a wide range of mental health

conditions and those same metabolic kind of biomarkers or studies come up for things like obesity and diabetes and cardiovascular disease. And in fact, people with those metabolic disorders are more likely to have mental health conditions and people with mental health conditions are more likely to have mental health disorders. And so it's really a way to begin to put the science together and more importantly help people truly heal and recover sometimes.

What's wrong about understanding of metabolism as it stands right now? Most people when they hear the word metabolism, they usually think about burning calories and they

“think that's what it is. It's just the rate at which we burn calories and that plays a significant”

role in whether we are fat or thin. Athletes have a slightly more sophisticated understanding of

metabolism so they're in VO2 max and some other metrics of metabolism and that might make them stronger or faster or have greater endurance so that they can run a marathon or they can run 100 miles or whatever they want to do. And all of those things are in fact true. Metabolism is related to burning calories. It is related to athletic performance but it is so much more than that. A simple way to think about it is it's this foundational process that living organisms

used to convert food into energy or building blocks to maintain our grow ourselves. From a biological stance, it's foundational in the definition of a living organism so it's kind of all encompassing.

“And in that way, the scientists have a hard time arguing with me because they're like well”

if you're saying that, then yeah, of course mental illnesses have to somehow be related to that.

But I quickly stump them when I start asking them about what about the role of nutrition in that process. And yeah, it's undeniable that nutrition plays a foundational role in metabolism. So how do you think it's not related to mental illness? And then they're like, almost speechless, like, well, wait, you've stumped me. That's, no, it can't be that simple. And in reality, it is. It is that simple. And when you really understand the details of it, we can help even people with

severe crippling mental illnesses. So most people don't have a problem thinking that diet might play a role in mild anxiety or mild depression. Most people kind of get that. A lot of parents aren't too surprised that diet or nutrition might play a role in ADHD, for example. All that

“sugar and processed foods and artificial dyes and everything else in our food supply. I think a lot”

of them aren't shocked. They're not in disbelief that that might play a role in the way a child's brain functions. And those things are true, but I'm also talking about this severe crippling mental illnesses, including things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It's all of them. They're all interrelated and they all relate to metabolism. Let's look at it from a macro viewpoint before we go into the micro. When I started learning about a very basic level of

some of these things, I watch really improcessed foods and what's really going into genetically modified foods and how things are being processed. Even at a very basic level, I was shocked to believe that we could get away with putting this stuff into food. Like it's remarkable, especially when I looked at the standards of the FDA versus some of the standards in the UK, where there are a lot higher in the UK. I'm not saying they're perfect. But when I came to America, I just saw

like, you didn't even, you know, it felt like you could just put anything on the back of a pack or maybe even skip a few things and people wouldn't be aware. How do we get that far? Like how did we get so far away from creating things that are actually good for people or at least not bad for them? It's actually almost somewhat unbelievable that this is the state of affairs. And most a lot of people, if they're not really aware of this field, will think that the conversation

that we're about to have or that we're beginning to have sounds like a conspiracy theory. Like it can't be that bad. The government is looking up for us. We have the food and drug administration, they're ensuring that our food is safe. Why are you raising alarms? Why are you scaring people with this nonsense? Of course, everything they put in food is safe and it's been thoroughly and rigorously tested. To those people who are saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't, don't be conspiracy theorists

journal article that just appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, which is one of the most

“prestigious medical journals in the United States, at least, and arguably in the world. And it just”

appeared in the journal a couple of months ago. And it was about the lax oversight of chemicals and food additives in the food supply in the United States. And in fact, about two years ago, there was an artificial ingredient called tarah flower. It sounds so innocent. It sounds beautiful. Like tarah must be like a flower and you grind it up or who knows? Who knows? It sounds lovely. It does. They added this to a new product, a beef substitute.

And in fact, over 400 people around the United States were hospitalized, many of them with

liver failure. Really? Because of this product. And the FDA began an investigation when they started recognizing a lot of people who are eating this food are getting sick. And they looked

“for the usual suspects initially. They looked for bacterial infections or contamination. They looked”

for, you know, lead poisoning or mercury or something, some contaminant in the food. And they couldn't find anything. And they continued their investigation. And then at some point they had to start going through the ingredient list. And then they came across this innocent sounding thing called

tarah flower. And they had to ask, well, what exactly is this? And they went to the manufacturer,

what is it? And they said, oh, that's a new thing that we just added. And here's the kicker. The manufacturer was allowed to declare for themselves that it was safe. The FDA doesn't rigorously test these new chemicals that get added to our food. They rely on the menu factors. It's an honor system right now in the United States. It's an honor system that we are supposed to trust the menu factors that if they decide that they want to create a new chemical and add it to our

food and call it an additive or call it an emulsifier or a food coloring or whatever they want to do, they are not absolutely required to rigorously test it. Instead, they can simply declare that we consider this generally recognized as safe or grass with no requirement of proof that it, in fact, is safe. And again, that sounds outrageous. It sounds unbelievable and yet the FDA just conducted an investigation two years ago and concluded that this manufacturer included that stuff.

When you actually start to pull back the curtain, it's horrifying. It's horrifying. About 10,000 chemicals are in the US food supply. And many of them have not been rigorously tested for safety, like liver failure, safety, let alone. And here's the kicker. And here's the really kind of terrifying thing. Let alone what impact do these molecules have on human metabolism or the human brain? We don't know. No one knows. Because nobody's bothered to ask that question,

and nobody's bothered to do the research. So that becomes a likely culprit in this chronic disease epidemic that we're allowing manufacturers to just put all sorts of stuff into our food without testing it. And it's certainly one of the lower hanging obvious choices in terms of what might be driving our chronic disease epidemic. It's remarkable when you hear it from that perspective of the idea that we're all putting things into our body trusting that they've been tested or at least

being hopeful that someone's thought about them being good for us. And not only have they not been tested, they've been added in without much prior thought or research or checking. And it's so hard

“because you look at so many people who are struggling today. And people naturally, I think, put”

you know, take responsibility and they think, God, I need to be better or I need to lose weight or I need to build muscle or whatever it is that they want to do. But it almost seems like the system set up against them. We've been conditioned and hardwired since we've been young eating these products, the chemicals have got into our bodies. And of course, it's harder to break that habit. So I feel so much empathy and compassion for anyone who is struggling right now

with their health because it's partly not their fault 100%. I actually think in most cases, in almost all cases, it's not their fault that they were children at some point in their parents.

US dietary guideline committee, our healthy foods and what they're still being told are healthy foods.

You know, the US dietary guidelines to date don't mention ultra-processed foods. They don't mention all of these artificial ingredients because the assumption is they don't matter. The assumption is to just make sure you get enough calories, try to minimize saturated fat, maybe minimize sugar, somewhat less than 10% of your calories from sugar to the lot still. 10% of your nutrition from sugar is a lot of sugar. But they don't even mention the impact

“of these other substances on human health. And you know, in their defense, I think 30 years ago,”

nobody seemed to be aware of much of this. There were very few people, if any, who were really rigorously researching this and really fully understood what is this. But now we have more than ample evidence. Epidemiological evidence, basic science evidence, animal studies, all sorts of things, numerous lines of evidence to all support this conclusion that these foods are bad for us. And I think, again, the thing that I really want to drill home for people is that they affect human

health broadly, yes, they play a role in overweight or obesity, yes, they play a role in heart disease, yes, they play a role in diabetes and blood sugars. But let's not forget the brain.

“That's the tricky thing because what I'm arguing is that in the same way that eating”

these foods are too much of these foods can drive your heart to actually become pathologically compromised to the point of you potentially having a heart attack. It can cause your liver to fill up with fat, which impairs its function. It can cause kidney problems. It can cause immune system dysfunction. In the way that all of those different organs are beginning to malfunction, the confusing thing to a lot of people is the brain. Because when the brain malfunctions,

it's usually subtle and it starts for most people in the form of things like brain fog or a lack of motivation or depressed mood or mild anxiety symptoms or inattention, like those are the types

“of things that most people experience and those of course are ubiquitous symptoms today in society.”

I mean, look at the rates of burnout, for example, we have record rates of burnout and most people

would never even associate burnout with their metabolic health, let alone with what they're putting

into their mouth every day. And what I'm saying, I'm not trying to exonerate the workplace completely. So yes, many of us are overworked. Yes, many of us are going 24/7. Yes, many of our bosses now expect us to respond to emails at midnight because there's a crisis at work or whatever. And yes, that is extraordinarily stressful. That is absolutely playing a role in burnout, but so too is the actual physical health of our brain. And the reason I can say that so confidently

is because I've had numerous countless people who have done things like change their diet or begun exercising or prioritize sleep or just taking themselves off of their screen for so much. And they're burnout evaporates. Their work situation doesn't change one bit, but they're tolerance for it changes immensely. And all of a sudden they go from somebody who

feels like I can't keep up, I can't keep up. I'm never good enough. I just can't do this much work.

They're being too hard on me. Why was I so stressed by this? This actually isn't that difficult. I'm resilient. I'm smart. I'm efficient. My brain is on fire. My brain is like, I just got that report done in one hour. And two months ago it took me two days to do that report. No wonder I was so burned out. Yeah. Took me two days to do the report. When it really

a whole new world opens up. Yeah. You know, hearing that resonates so strongly for me because I feel that for so many of us, we know that it's very unlikely there'll be a day soon enough that our workload will diminish. Right. If you're waiting for that day for your work to reduce and the

“workload to go down, kind of that's what stresses us out is knowing that that day isn't going to come.”

And this idea of what you just said, that actually, but when you work on all these things, your tolerance grows and your ability to deal with that level of stress and pressure grows and your resilience grows. And it reminds me a couple of years back, maybe even a bit longer now, I remember I had a choice and I saw the choice very consciously. I either had to slow down where I had to up level my health because I was working more than ever, I was working harder than ever.

And I didn't want to slow down because I love what I do and I'm really grateful I get to do what I do. But I saw that if I didn't improve my health drastically, taking into account sleep, diet, meditation, working out exercise, then there was no way I could keep up. It was, it was going to be downhill. And having made all those changes, not that I've perfected them,

and I'm still in the process of always iterating and trying to get better at all of them and

strengthen different parts. But I found myself having a much greater capacity that I ever imagined of what my body and mind are capable of doing. And again, I'm grateful I didn't lucky I get to do what I love. So there's that element for sure that makes a big difference. But what you're saying is so true that my resilience and my tolerance for the amount of what I do is far greater than it would have been. And so I loved that we're not living in this fake land of, oh yeah, there'll be

a day when you know, you only have to do 50% of that report. No, you're still going to have to do that report, but maybe it won't stress you out as much. In one way, this comes down to something

that seems so obvious. When you say it, it's like everybody's like, yeah, we've heard that a million

times, that's so cliche, like it doesn't really mean anything. And that is self-care,

“that if you're working really hard, it's actually even more important that you take time out”

to meditate or to prepare a helpful meal instead of grabbing junk food already prepared, ultra-processed. It's even more important that you take enough time to get adequate sleep. Even though you feel like you're on a treadmill and you can't keep up, by not sleeping, you're slowing down your brain capacity the next day. And now you get even further behind in your work. And then you feel the need to stay up even later, trying to catch up. And now you're even

more sleep deprived and now your brain is really not firing on all cylinders. So the sound by recommendation is self-care. And everybody's like, yeah, we've heard that a million times. That's so worthless. Don't tell us something we haven't heard. And yet so many Americans and people around

“the world are getting trapped in these vicious cycles where they're not doing it. I think that”

when we take enough time, it's not even take time to slow down because I love what you just said. I want people to live life with vigor. I want people to have passion. There are so many problems in the world. We need people to be passionate and like step up and like be there. Be there for your career. Be there for other people. Be there for your family. Be there for your friends. That means doing stuff. It doesn't mean slowing down and watching Netflix all night. It means

doing stuff. But make sure that you're doing enough self-care so that that engine can keep running. And so that that passion remains. Do you feel the right people when the room that day who heard you that can make a change? Where do you feel the change from a macro level needs to come from? And do you think we're in a phase where we're going to go into that change or do you not feel hopeful? It ends up getting really complicated, especially in terms of the politics because

we had an election. And I've spoken with a couple of reporters who actually said that roundtable discussion really put the make America healthy again movement on fire and really

allowed it to spread. The reality is that we have a new incoming administration.

been. How some people are not at all happy about the election results. Some people are terrified.

What's going to happen? Some people are angry. I'm hearing from those people all the time.

“And yet I want to say that there are opportunities as well. And I think that right now,”

especially in healthcare and the National Institute of Health, that there are going to be some disruptive changes coming. Time will tell. Whether that ends up being a good thing or a bad thing. And the thing that I'm most hopeful

about is that a national conversation has begun. And just the other day,

we had Senate hearings largely with Democrats. And we heard from staunch liberal Democrats like Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders and others who were having the exact same conversations that we had in that conservative Republican Senate roundtable discussion.

“And I think that is hopeful because despite the political”

animacities and despite all the things that we are going to disagree on, make no mistake.

Like people sometimes do ask me like what side do you take? I don't take a side. I'm a human

being with complex perspectives on a lot of different issues. I don't think there's one human being on the planet that I would say I agree on everything with. So it's probably wise. So I am going to have my own sometimes very strong opinions on different issues. But what we can all agree on is that there is this chronic disease epidemic that it is primarily metabolic health disorders and mental health disorders. And we need to put together that science. And once and for all we need

to start doing something about it. And that includes taking on corporate corruption that is largely playing a role in this to come back like concretely what does that mean to come back to what we just talked about a little bit ago. Manufacturers should not be allowed to introduce brand new chemicals into food that is sold in the United States without rigorous testing. Why on earth does anybody think that's a good idea? We have more than enough chemicals to choose from that are already

not tested. So we got a lot of work to do to try to catch up. But why do we need even more new ones? We don't. For sure. For sure switching to the the more micro. How do we know if metabolism's healthier unhealthy? How do we feel it? You know, so I'm really focused on the brain effects. And unfortunately there are not objective tests that people can go out and get. So you really do have to just subjectively think through how's my mood? How's my anxiety? How's my ability

“to sleep? How's my use of substances? How are my relationships? How do I interact with others?”

Am I having panic attacks? Any of those things, especially when they're occurring for no clear reason? Should be at least warning signs that you may have impaired metabolism somehow or another impacting your brain. The good news is that there are some concrete biomarkers that we can all use. And those are usually the biomarkers that for what we call metabolic syndrome. And those biomarkers include low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugar. So pre diabetes insulin resistance

whatever it gets called high blood pressure. And then abdominal obesity or extra abdominal fat. The shocking news for any of your listeners who don't know this is that 93% of Americans currently have one or more abnormalities among those biomarkers. We're leaving the brain out of it in order to be considered metabolic healthy. You would have to have none of those five biomarkers and only 7% of American adults currently gets that. So unfortunately this really is an epidemic

those things as you mentioned. So fluctuation and mood, they're experiencing brain fog,

“they're experiencing low energy. Where should they start? The basics that I think people can really”

do on their own. And I'll start there and I just want to say as a caveat because I'm a psychiatrist who treats like schizophrenia bipolar. And so those those parents are listening to me like don't give me this fluff. Don't like give me the results. We can we can get to that. But for the overwhelming majority of adults and even children. I would say it breaks into the six pillars of what we call lifestyle medicine. And so we're going to look at diet nutrition,

movement or exercise, sleep, minimizing or reducing harmful substances. If you happen to use any

of them stress reduction practices like meditation or mindfulness. And then usually that six bucket people will talk about relationships on purpose. I like to broaden it to purpose. And I think

“that's one of the primary roles is certainly not the only but one of the primary roles that”

relationships serve. So I kind of say relationships slash purpose. So all of your listeners are already all over purpose and relationships and meditation and mindfulness. Reducing harmful substances is pretty obvious. I'm talking about alcohol, marijuana, smoking, vaping, those kind of things.

So those are not good for you. No matter what you've heard, no matter who said this vape is really

good for you. It's really not good. Why is it not good? What's it doing? So it depends on what's in the vape. But we are actually not designed to inhale chemicals into one of the lungs. Interesting. Other lungs are not supposed to have this vape chemical in them. And you know, there've been extreme examples where people actually develop life threatening kind of pneumonia type situations from possibly contaminated vapes. But we know from long-term studies that people who are vaping

are more likely to still have health conditions on that specific topic. If somebody is smoking tobacco and they can't stop smoking tobacco is vaping better for them. Yes, it is better for them. So if you're moving from smoking cigarettes, you cannot quit. But maybe you could just vape instead of smoking cigarettes, then go ahead, start vaping. But then at some point I want you to stop vaping because vaping is not healthy for you. And then it really depends on the substance that it's

in it because people are vaping THC, they're vaping nicotine, they're vaping all sorts of things. And the tragic news is even when people switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping nicotine, more often than not the nicotine concentrations are stratospheric compared to what they were smoking. And so they end up getting even more addicted to nicotine than they ever had been.

“And now they really can't stop. What's marijuana doing to the brain?”

Marijuana actually has a lot of constituents. If you're talking about the whole plant, it's got a lot of different chemicals in it. Some that might be neutral. Some will argue, might be beneficial. CBD is the most commonly touted one that might have some benefits for people. I think what we can unequivocally say is that THC is bad for the human brain. So THC does a lot of different things. It's interacting with these receptors throughout our brain and body.

It makes your heart rate go up. Central to my science work is it can impair mitochondrial function. So these tiny things in ourselves called mitochondria, it can impair their ability to function. And at the end of the day, the end result is that we know that people who smoke a lot of marijuana will have cognitive impairment. They will have impairment in motivation. Now this is probably not a shock to most people. So imagine the teenage boy in his parents

basement playing video games all day smoking weed. He's less than motivated and he's relaxed about it. He's not bothered that he's not doing a lot. He's not bothered that his brain doesn't work all that great because he's relaxed. Not a great way to go through life and certainly not a great way to have purpose in your life and relationships and everything else. But more importantly, it can impair brain function over time. And the most striking evidence that we have is that THC can increase

choice and whether they're getting something or not. We can give them THC and they can develop severe brain conditions. Like conditions, we have a lot of human data more epidemiological data because we can't do a randomized control trial of 1,000 kids and have half of them smoke marijuana

every day and half of them not. That would never be approved by an ethics board. So instead,

we have to look at people who are smoking versus not smoking and seeing are they more likely to develop psychotic disorders. And in fact, it seems that they're probably about four times more likely to develop something like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder than people who don't. So marijuana, not good alcohol, similar kind of story, not good for your brain, not good for

“metabolic health. You know, I think most people probably know the exercise recommendation move”

try to build muscle. Like, even if you're a couch potato right now and really overweight, just anything, walk around your living room, do some squats, do one or two jumping tight, like anything, just start somewhere. And then I would probably encourage people to try to get outside if they're really new to movement, try to go outside because you're getting like multiple interventions at that point. You're getting away from a screen. So don't walk outside

with yourself on a front of your face. Walk outside and just enjoy nature, like try to be mindful of your environment. Even if you're in a city, you can still look at the sky and see the clouds or look at what trees might be around or any little corner park or something. Yeah. So that can be a common intervention where now you're getting some sunlight, now you're out in nature, now you're practicing some mindfulness as you're moving your legs and walking around.

You're getting away from screens for at least a little bit of time and that can give your brain a break. So lots of ways to do movement all the way up to do CrossFit, go run a marathon,

“do whatever you want to do. Yeah. And then nutrition, honestly nutrition is the most complicated”

story. And I think the first thing that I want to just say for everyone is that there's not a

one size fits all nutrition strategy for all humans. And why is that? Because different humans have different sensitivities, allergies, preferences. They have different gut microbiota. They have different genetics and epigenetics that they inherited from their parents. They have all sorts of differences. And so some people are going to do really well on one type of diet. Some people might do really great with whole grain foods and others might have gluten in sensitivity in the extreme

form celiac disease. And that person is going to do horribly with whole grain foods. And so there's no one size fits all. Other people might do great with nuts. Other people might have fatal allergies to nuts. We just have to acknowledge people are different. And that's one of the things that I

am always challenged by in even like podcaster interviews is people are like, well, give me

the three recommendations for everyone. It's like, well, it's not possible. Yeah. Unfortunately, so I want to say it's not that simple. But I don't want people to hear that phrase. It's not that simple. And here it is, it's impossible. Therefore, it's impossible. It's not impossible. It's not rocket science. You just have to know a little bit. And you just have to be willing to experiment a little

“bit. I think the universal principle that I usually recommend, very appropriate based on all of the”

stuff that we've already discussed about ultra-processed foods is eat real whole foods that you're a great-grandparents may have seen on their table, on a plate, somewhere, somehow. And you can process them yourselves. You can make them into stews or dishes or whatever. I mean, you can mash the potatoes. If you're into mashed potatoes, you can, you can do all sorts of things with your food. And I'm not at all opposed to making your food delicious with adding spices and other

things to it. But those are all real whole foods as opposed to the things that you buy in a plastic bag from the grocery store that have several ingredients that you have no idea how to pronounce. The foods in the actual makeup of our diet will look different for everyone because we're so different. But what do we need to know then about Mark is like information? I think those are the things that are more common, right? You mentioned there might a country as well. It's like, these are the

figure out what food to write for us and those that are not. Is that accurate? I think it is accurate.

“And I think about diet and nutrition in actually really complex ways. Most people think about it as”

making sure you get enough nutritious stuff to promote health so that most commonly used term is nutrient dense foods. Eat nutrient dense foods and you'll be good. And what's wrong with ultra-process foods? Well nothing really is wrong with them, but they are nutrient deficient. You're just eating calories without the good nutrients that you need. And so some dietitians will even say that. Go ahead and eat all the ultra-process foods you want, but then throw in some

broccoli here and there. Unfortunately that's not going to work. So there is a need for nutrition. There is a need for nutrients for all the different vitamins and adequate amount of protein and other things that we need. Yes that's true, but diet and dietary interventions can be so much more than that. Some people may benefit from losing weight in which we want to come up with strategies to help them accomplish other people can actually be metabolically compromised because they are

malnourished or underweight. So think of somebody with anorexia nervosa or a cancer patient with severe unrelenting depression who can't eat or just has completely lost his appetite and is nauseous all the time and is now starving to death really for all intents and purposes. I would actually argue that they too have a metabolic problem, but it's malnutrition. It's a lack of

essential nutrients. And so the intervention for those people is eat more. We need to replenish

your stores. We need to get you to have a calorie surplus if possible. So right there I just mentioned two polar opposite interventions. One group needs to lose weight and another group needs to gain weight. And then there are people who have food sensitivities so they might do elimination diets or just

“try to figure out what am I sensitive to? What do I thrive on? What don't I thrive on?”

And then the final category that I usually talk about is kind of a dietary intervention that can actually become a treatment unto itself. It's usually in the form of fasting or a fasting mimicking diet and there are many types of fasting mimicking diets. Probably the the most commonly no one is a ketogenic diet, but there are others. There are plant sourced, low calorie,

fasting mimicking diets. The researcher Walter Longo is kind of known for, but ultimately they are

all centered on this process of going without or tricking your body that maybe it is going without even when it's not, which is kind of the sneaky thing about the ketogenic diet. Is it tricks your body into thinking that it's fasting when it's really not fasting? But the reason that is important to just know is that people should not fast forever for good health because that's called starvation and you'll die within a week or so. Not good for your health. And so this isn't technically a life

long, healthy diet that everybody should be on. And yet it can have a powerful healing properties

when done for the right amount of time in the right circumstances. I mean some people might be skeptical of this, so in case anyone is I just want to point out every culture on earth has used fasting as either a healing practice or a religious practice for millennia. I don't think that's a coincidence.

“I think that humans in every culture on earth have noticed gosh, we're fast, miracles can”

sometimes happen. Yeah. And different cultures or religions have attributed the mechanism of action to God, you know, showing mercy and healing or whatever a variety of other, you know, we're exercising the demons that were clearly present. It's all sorts of explanations have been evoked over millennia.

say, whoa, this actually is really doing a lot of amazing things in the body and brain.

“And it is promoting healing. Now, if anybody's super religious and they're a little annoyed”

with me for saying it like that, God was probably involved in biology and physiology too. So if you want to stick with this is God's thing, this is what God wants us to do and he chose mercy when we do it, well, he would still probably work through scientific methods to change biology and make it work that way. I don't know. But that's the thing where we can start to get really sophisticated with using these interventions with the right people in the right circumstances

to promote healing and recovering. Earlier you mentioned clients of yours or people who struggling with schizophrenia or bipolar and you're saying that they wouldn't appreciate these more surface-level solutions with bipolar, which we hear about a lot more often. I feel,

“what is it? How many people are struggling with it? And what are some of the recommended steps there?”

So bipolar disorder is one of those disorders that is skyrocketing in presence. Why is that? I think that with all of them, with all of the different diagnostic

labels, there's so much disagreement about why is that? It's such a critical question and an important

question. And I just want to say for the record, I fully understand that there are different explanations fall into three categories, I would say. Category one, we're just better recognizing it and diagnosing it. And that's a good thing. It's a really good thing. Everybody's talking about mental health today. We've got a purpose podcast talking about mental health. And so of course, everybody is just getting diagnosed and getting the treatment they need. But the rates can't

possibly really be increasing, especially with something like bipolar because many in the field believe

it's genetic. And that wouldn't change in prevalence over such a short period of time. The second

category is disbelief. This can't possibly be true. Americans are just whiny, lazy people, everybody loves to have a label. They all want to be special. Everybody wants to be special these days. And they all want to label or more. And so that everybody wants to have ADD, everybody's got one of the other. And there's no way this many people can really have this many mental health conditions. And so it's all fake. And we're kind of related to that. People are just seeking pills

because they like the pills. So with ADHD. Oh, everybody's just wants to be on stimulants. They're all gaming the system. They're all going into the psychiatrist complaining about how they have symptoms of ADHD when they really don't. And really what they just want is they want their drugs.

“They want Adderall and Riddlein. And they're hooked on them. And that's what that's about.”

And then the third category is no folks. They're really actually going up in prevalence. And I'm in that category, not to say that being the third category. Not to say that the other two can't sometimes occur. Yes, I do know some people who like labels and probably like them too much and want attention from them. And yes, I do think that we are talking about mental health more. And we are diagnosing people who maybe would have been missed 30 years ago. I do think that's real.

So I'm not saying that those aren't true. But I think the bulk of the statistics, because the stats are staggering. With bipolar disorder in the United States alone, the rates of doubled in adults and they're up exponentially in children and adolescents. And like with children and adolescents, just to I mean, one study found a 4,000% increase in the diagnosis. That was largely because in the 1960s and 70s, nobody diagnosed children with bipolar disorder. And now we're kind of,

you know, if there's a little fidgety and moody in throat tantrums, we might label that bipolar, even though it's not really the definition of bipolar at all. Some people will diagnose that as bipolar and start treating it. The usual treatments for bipolar disorder are mood stabilizers

is far too many people don't respond to those. There are some who respond beautifully to them

“and I'm all for that far too many don't. Why are they still being given out if they don't work?”

I think it's because of that path truth that they do sometimes work for some people. And so you'll have people marching in the streets kind of figuratively at least saying this saved my life. Don't take this away. But for anybody who knows anyone with bipolar disorder, overwhelming majority of people, do not achieve remission and recovery from the treatment. And we as a field tell them you just have a chronic disorder. You'll have this for life.

We're really sorry. We don't have cures in psychiatry. There's this such thing as a cure. And you're just going to have to do your best and manage. And we'll do our best to help you. But yeah, you'll probably be in and out of hospitals sometimes. You know, fault of your own. You'll be taking your pills religiously and then the season will change and you'll have an episode.

“And we just we just don't know what to do about that. I think what the real question you would”

probably have to mean with how good diet play a role for them. You know, when people hear me talk about diet can play a role for severe mental illness, most are still skeptical. But we now have absolutely hundreds, but probably I've heard from thousands of people who've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder who have experienced significant improvement and/or remission of their symptoms using ketogenic diets or fasting mimicking diets. And I want to just say up front to some people

ketogenic can even be kind of a triggering word for some people. I just want to say up front you can do a vegan ketogenic diet. You can do a vegetarian ketogenic diet. You can do an omnivore ketogenic diet. You can do a carnivore ketogenic diet. So there's a broad range of foods that people can eat and be on a ketogenic diet. So it's not about plants sourced versus animal sourced foods. It's not about eating bacon all the time. Some people make it that and then that

can be ketogenic for them, but it doesn't have to be all bacon if you don't want it to be all bacon. And all bacon probably is not a healthy diet. I'll just say for the record. You probably need a little

more nutrition than that. Usually the first thing that I say for this skeptics who are like that,

there's no way that can be true this sounds unbelievable or crazier. It sounds like he's a quack or he's selling something. A lot of people think that you're selling something. Like well actually, I don't get paid any royalties for people who do ketogenic diets. I wish I did. I wish there was a ketogenic society that would give me a ten cent royalty or something

“for everybody who chies it, but no such luck. I think one of the really important things to just”

point out for any skeptics right off the bat is that although a lot of people know the keto diet is this fad weight loss diet. In fact, it was developed 100 years ago by a physician for one and only one purpose and that is to stop seizures. The ketogenic diet is an epilepsy treatment. Wow. And it is actually now an evidence-based epilepsy treatment. We have many controlled trials. We have two kind of gold standard medical reviews called the Cochrane Reviews that support

that the ketogenic diet is a very effective treatment for epilepsy, especially childhood epilepsy, even when medications fail to stop the seizures. And the reason that's so important to point out is that it turns out that we use epilepsy treatments for a wide range of mental health conditions but in particular by polar disorder. So a lot of anti-convulsants like Deppicote, Tegrittal, Limectal, Gabapentin, others are used for they were actually developed initially for epilepsy.

They're really epilepsy pills. But most of your listeners, if they recognize any of those names, they recognize them as psychiatric pills or psychiatric medications because they're most commonly prescribed for that. And so in a way given that we use epilepsy treatments all the time for mental health conditions, it shouldn't be shocking that a diet that can stop seizures might also play a role for some people. Wow, I had no idea. That's fascinating. How did we even discover that something

that was used on for years ago for that was possible now to use again? The first published study

put them on a ketogenic diet for just two weeks and they noticed at least some improvement in

“their symptoms. Largely, people haven't even really seriously considered it or thought about it.”

And the usually the assumption is that people with mental illness can't do a diet. Right, that's, I mean, yeah, people with mental illness are too impaired. They're really sick. There's no way they could do a diet. But what I'm here to say is it please don't shortchange them and underestimate their determination to get better because I'm getting people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and crippling depression to be able to change their diet and stick with it. When people are fighting

for their life, it's really amazing what they're capable of doing. Even when they're so impaired,

even when they're so impaired, I'm not here to say they're not impaired. I'm also not here to say it's easy. I'm not here to say like, oh, just tell them ketogenic diet and then two days later,

“they're going to be cured. That's not the way this works. People need support. They need education.”

They need a lot of help. They absolutely need a lot of help. But it is possible. It is doable. And when we support these people, they can do it. And the, you know, the great news is that although to some people, this may sound anecdotal or Chris Palmer's making stuff up or what we now have 20 controlled trials underway around the world of the ketogenic diet for a wide range of mental health conditions, eight of them are randomized controlled trials. And we have several pilot trials,

many case reports already published. I actually just published a review article on this topic of how often is the ketogenic diet being used for mental health conditions. We have over 50 publications already published in the literature and over 1900 people, 1,900 people, who participated in these trials. And the overwhelming majority of them found some benefit. No, I'm not trying to say all of them were cured of their mental health condition because mental health is a lot more complicated than just

diet. And I'm not here to say anyone treatment is going to magically fix everyone because that's not the way it works. And I hear from people around the world who have suffered from chronic severe crippling mental illnesses. And a lot of them are getting full remission. Sometimes off of their psychiatric medication, sometimes they're able to completely taper off. And even that, like when they get remission, it's not like this simple process shocking, surprisingly. Because you would think that like,

oh, if I put them into remission, they should be so happy, jumping up and down for joy, smile all the time. And there's some of that. There's also this phase that almost everybody goes through a profound grief for the life that they've lost. They recognize I just lost 30 years of my life to that illness. Well, why didn't somebody give this to me 30 years ago? Because I was in college I had a girlfriend. We were going to get married. And when I became schizophrenic, I lost everything.

I had to drop out of college. I've never had a girlfriend since. I lost all my friends.

I couldn't live independently anymore. I gained all this weight. I've been a pariah in society for 30 years. And now I'm better. What am I supposed to do? Chris, when I'm listening to you, I'm thinking we've talked about the macro, we've talked about the micro, but when I'm hearing you talk about it that way, I'm like, what made you dedicate your life to this work? Because this isn't just something that you do. It's who you are. You can tell by the passion you have for it. The

the energy you have for the people that you support and serve and work with every day. Like you said, you don't have any skin in the game when you look at it from a business point of view. So where's that coming from? I have had my own struggles with mental illness from a very young age in terms of OCD, later crippling depression, suicidality, all sorts of things. And I'm happy to go into that at some

“point if you want to. But the real reason I ended up becoming a psychiatrist is because of my mother”

who, you know, I'm from a family of eight kids and when my mom was in our early 40s,

she had been relatively quote-unquote normal up until then. Amazing, a family helping my father run

in her family that were ridiculously stressful and put a tremendous burden on her.

“And she had what started is what she called a nervous breakdown that quickly turned into depression”

and suicidality and then pretty quickly turned into psychotic symptoms. And she was hospitalized, she was medicated, she was getting psychotherapy, she was getting all of the treatment that the mental health field had to offer, none of it worked. And she ended up living the rest of her life with a chronic psychotic disorder and it ruined her life. It's not an understatement. She lost custody of Oliver eight kids. I went to live with her for a while. We end up homeless together

for a while. I mean, it was a nightmare. But she loses custody of her kids. She loses her business. She loses all of her money. She loses friends, family, all sorts of things due to this psychotic disorder. And I saw all of that happen. And I was furious with the mental health field, furious. Why are they so incompetent? Why aren't they helping her? Like I knew there was something wrong with her. It was clear. She was delusional. She thought she was married,

Magdalene Riancarnated. She thought the world was ending. She would get paranoid about people. I mean, all sorts of symptoms. So I knew there was something wrong with her, but I was just

“in disbelief that the mental health field could be so incompetent. Why aren't they helping her?”

Why aren't they making her better? They have a hospital. What are they doing? And when I saw what they were doing, I was horrified because they were putting her on medicines that made her seem like a zombie. But she was still crazy. And I was like, what are they doing? What are they doing? And ultimately, she's the reason I became a psychiatrist because I saw how devastating mental illness can be. It's not that devastating for everybody. Thankfully, some people have mild moderate things.

That's great. But I saw that it can literally ruin a person's life. It can ruin an entire family. And that she was innocent. She didn't do anything to deserve any of that. She wasn't using drugs. There was no blame. No way to blame her for any of it. And I went into the field hoping that maybe somehow I might be able to make a difference and

do something different. Thank you for sharing that. It's incredible that you were able to

turn a pain into a purpose for you, even though I kind of imagine how painful it was over those years just watching that and feeling helpless, I'm sure at times, and hopeless. And do you believe that if you knew what you know now, then that there were different ways of helping and supporting her 100%. You know, when I went into psychiatry, I became one of those evil psychiatrists who just told out pills that didn't really work. And I felt so helpless

and so hopeless for our field because you had to. Because those were the only tools that I had available and people would end up in life-threatening situations. There would be mannequin psychotic and a danger to themselves or others. And we had to do something. We had to keep them alive. Or I felt compelled to try to keep them alive. And that was the only tool that I had learned about.

I always was skeptical of all of it. I always kept a healthy dose of skepticism about

everything I was doing in the mental field because I recognized this is the same thing that

“they did for my mom and it didn't work. So why should we think this is going to be any better?”

But I felt helpless. I didn't know what else to do. I am now filled with tremendous hope that when we put it all together, when we put all of this science together, and we understand some actual interventions that can really be done right now in 2024, like a ketogenic diet. The science of how that would help the brain of someone was schizophrenia, gets really complicated fast. I can understand that science. I can't. Other people don't need to.

and we're going to coach you and provide support and figure out what you can do and what you

don't want to do. And it's an achievable treatment. It's a realistic, accessible treatment. Today in 2024, and it can save lives. What I am most hopeful about is the way that this broader theory can help us develop even more tools and treatments and strategies. And I'm really hopeful. It will force us to rethink a lot of what we're doing in our field. It will force us to look for root causes, to use treatments. Some of them need to be used

sparingly, I would argue, maybe in life-threatening situations, but then we need to move on to

“health-promoting treatments. I mean, my 50s, I don't know how much more time I have, but I think I have”

enough time that in my lifetime, I believe it is possible that we will see a transformation of the mental health field. And we will look back on the way we treated mental illness in 2024, as almost barbaric. And how could they have done that? Why didn't they use these other strategies that are so much more effective? I am really hopeful that we may see that day in the next 10 to 20 years.

And if there are parents and future parents listening who have in their family had a history of

mental health, and they don't want to pass it on to their children, what are the things they should be looking at? Is it possible to not pass it on? If you do have genes that increase risk, you have passed them on, it's not your fault as a parent, your parents did it to you, and their parents did it to them, and so don't don't spend any time or thought beating yourself up over that. So genetics do get passed on, and we're not changing those anytime soon.

Appied genetics also get passed on, unfortunately, and that gets more complicated. It means that if you've been traumatized as a parent, if you had a horrible childhood, your parents physically beat you, surprisingly, you have passed at least a glimpse of that experience onto your children.

“When people have trauma especially prolonged trauma, it causes changes in what I think we can safely”

just call epigenetics. And that might mean modifications to your DNA, it might mean micro RNA molecules and other kind of things that actually can get transferred in eggs and sperm cells to neutral children, and can impact their future mental health and metabolic health. Some parts are unchangeable, but the good news, the great news, is that genes and even epigenetics are not the primary determinants of these illnesses. I believe environment, the way we live our lives is

and the strongest testament to that is actually the exponential rise in rates. Our genes have not changed. Our epigenetics may have changed, but epigenetics can change one way or another.

“If you are a parent to a child, we're going to do all of the usual obvious things. You're going to love”

your child. You're going to provide safety. You're not going to cauddle completely. You're going to let them be independent, take some risks. You're going to let them fail every now and then. You're going to do all of those things. You're going to really support and encourage them to have friends and community. You're going to have them move. You're going to have them get outside. All of that stuff probably the single biggest blind spot for most parents is what you're allowing

your child to put into his or her mouth day after day after day. If they live in America, there's a very, very good chance. They are eating a lot of ultra processed foods. That is something that most people is not even on their radar that that could play a role in brain health. And what I'm here to say very loudly and clearly is it can play a role in brain health.

living in poverty in an abusive household, with substance use and all, yes, all of that is much worse

than it, the diet. There's, that's not a typical abuse substance abuse. All of that is much worse than what you're putting in your mouth. But for all of the other parents who are like, no, we're already, we live in a loving, safe home. Our child has all of that. We're going, bending over backwards to provide all of that. The one thing that again is a blind spot is nutrition. And it's not about your child's not getting enough calories because I know your child's

probably getting more than enough calories. It's not that your child's not getting all of the vitamins and nutrients, here she needs. It's that your child is also getting all of these chemicals

“that have been added to the food that are actually affecting brain function. And who knew?”

Well, increasingly now we do now. And so now we really need to do something about that. What are some of the chemicals that we are convinced of having negative impacts on our brain health? Convinced, I can't, you know, I need to acknowledge the controversy in the field.

And there are powerful forces that will work to keep this controversial.

And what are those powerful forces you ask? The food companies that make these products? If I am the maker of Doritos, I don't want anybody saying bad things about Doritos. It's nothing wrong with Doritos. Everybody should be able to treat themselves every now and then. And the Doritos makers will hire medical experts to cast doubt to say there's no way the

“Chris Palmer's right. There's not adequate evidence for this. That can't be true.”

Don't listen to him. He's a conspiracy theorist. He's just trying to alarm you.

Again, the great news is that increasingly we have Republicans, Democrats, many powerful people

finally coming together in a unified way on this front. So I'm hopeful. The precise chemicals, it's really hard to narrow down. The biggest challenge is that we can't do randomized controlled trials in humans. If researchers believe that chemical acts is harmful potentially, the ethics review board would not allow them. Even if this is ubiquitous in our food supply, the ethics review board

might say, no, you can't. We're not going to allow you to do this study.

“But it's still going to partner. If your hypothesis is correct, and this is a harmful substance,”

you're going to harm half of the people in your study. We can't have you do that. So it's not allowed in the study, but it's allowed in the food. It would be allowed in the food because it hasn't been proven dangerous. But if you're exposing people to a danger and there's no benefit to them, the ethics board is looking out for the research participants. And if I'm a research participant, you know, you want to test the hypothesis that cyanide is bad for humans.

I'm going to give half the people cyanide and half of them not. And just see what happens. The ethics boards will say, no, you can't do that study because your assumption is that this is a harmful thing. And so we can't have you poison half the participants. That's not going to benefit them in any way. So instead, what we do have are animal studies. And one of the clearest most recent examples of potential harm to with a mental health condition based on this

kind of animal research is with a substance called aspirate or neutral sweet. This is found in ever 500 diet foods and sodas. It is ubiquitous in our food supply. Aspartame is found in diet coke, most of the other diet sodas. It's ubiquitous in our food supply. And it's largely considered to be perfectly safe. So researchers actually took mice and they exposed them to normal doses of aspirate. So not extra high doses, not toxic doses, just normal doses that somebody who's drinking

several diet coke today might be exposed to. The mice who got the aspirate were more likely to have anxiety-like behaviors. Those anxiety-like behaviors were reduced with valium, a common treatment

is this normal anxiety or is this some kind of weird aspartame anxiety? Is this like are we

“inducing some brand new type of anxiety or is this bread and butter run of the mill anxiety disorder?”

And it was bread and butter run of the mill anxiety disorder. The researchers then looked at the brain function of these mice. And sure enough, they found a migdola hyperactivation. So the migdola is kind of sometimes known as like the fear center or the panic center. So that lined up here's the devastating part, though, is that the mice who were given aspirateum went on to have babies and those babies went on to have babies. None of the babies were exposed to aspirateum,

but for two generations, the increased risk for anxiety-like behaviors persisted, which means that aspirateum is inducing epigenetic changes that can be transmitted to your children

and your grandchildren. Now if if this is my state, data from mouse studies, again, we will never

ever be able to do these studies and humans. We can't dissect the amygdala. That will never happen. We do have large epidemiological studies documenting already. People who consume a lot of artificial sweeteners are more likely to have anxiety disorders. They're more likely to have depression. They're more likely to have a wide range of mental health conditions. So we've got probably the best level of evidence we're ever going to get already in humans that this does apply to humans. It seems.

But what this means concretely is that if your mother drank a lot of diet coke,

you might have an anxiety disorder because of that. Even if you have never had a diet coke in your life.

Now of course more than likely you have plenty of diet coke because if your mother drinks diet coke, she's probably offered you some and you have probably also been consuming a lot of it as well. Now does that mean everybody who drinks aspirateum has an anxiety disorder? Of course not. It's one of probably hundreds or thousands of risk factors. So it's just one way to begin to

“understand that. But that's why I come back to the generic recommendation I make which is”

if you are suffering from a mental health condition or if you want to prevent mental health conditions. Eat real whole foods. Just eat real food and aspirateum's not a real food. It's just not. Definitely thank you Grace. Yeah. Grace thank you so much for your research, openness, vulnerability is well going into your personal story and we end every episode of on purpose with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one word to one sentence maximum.

And so, Chris Palmer, these are your final five. The first question is what is the best mental health advice you've ever heard or received? Accept yourself for who you are. Question number two, what is the worst mental health advice you've ever heard or received? Let's talk about your relationship with your father as a way of understanding everything that's wrong with you. Question number three, what something you used to believe was true about mental health but you don't anymore.

The chronic severe mental illnesses are a life sentence. It's tangible. It's not impossible.

They are treatable. A question number four on what's been the most important mental health

habit or change you've made in your own life. Changing my diet and fifth and final question, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Be kind to each other. Chris Palmer, thank you so much. The book's called Brain Energy, grateful for your time, your insight, your research, your openness and just thank you for showing up with so much passion and enthusiasm and energy for what you're doing and I'm really, really happy that we got to sit down

and spend this time together. I know that I definitely believe in the gut-brain connection and

“just the value of what we're putting in our bodies and how it's affecting our mind. I think you can”

if you're still enough, you can feel it on a daily basis. I love that science backs it up but I could probably know it just from sitting with different foods and seeing how I feel internally and noticing the difference. I'm glad that all of these recommendations and solutions are coming forward for people to actually be able to make a genuine change in their life and not a misleading

No, thank you Jay for having me and thank you for all the work you do to help so many people,

“millions and millions of people. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. I hope you'll come back again. Thanks.”

If you love this episode, you'll love my conversation with Dr. Joe Dispenser on why stress and

overthinking negatively impacts your brain and heart and how to change your habits that are

“on autopilot. For giving this is when you overcome the emotion of your past and so you feel”

so good that you no longer want to feel bad. If you love this episode, you love my conversation

with Emma Watson on why she stepped away from Hollywood to redefine success and rediscover

“a sense of self. It's not that I have stopped doing interviews because I want to hide myself away”

because I wanted to be able to have a certain type of conversation that I didn't see able to find a space for. This isn't eye-hark podcast. Guarantee Human.