Dhru Purohit Show - Inflammation of the Brain is Making Us Foggy, Depressed, and Anxious - Here’s How to Fix It By Protecting Our Mitochondria

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. You know, we used to think that mental health disorders were largely the result of a chemical imbalance. You guys have heard this before. I'm about 40 and I can remember my dad being in the psychiatric world growing up when I would ask people, why do some people suffer from mental health disorders? All the people at my dad's clinic would say it's a chemical imbalance. Just something went wrong inside of the brain and that's why they're going through what they're going through. But now actually we're learning so much more that this idea of chemical imbalance is kind of wrong

Starting point is 00:00:34 and maybe has been wrong for a really long time. The latest research is actually pointing towards inflammation. And we're learning more and more about how inflammation impacts the brain, not just with mental health disorders, but even things like brain fog and lack of clear thinking and lack of focus. It's not just about the inflammation itself. It's about the role that mitochondria play when it comes to brain health. In today's episode, which is an incredible compilation episode, I revisit some of my top conversations

Starting point is 00:01:03 with some of the truest experts in this space. And if you care about this topic, even if you think you've heard these interviews before, I pick out these golden moments with my team that really tie into this theme, which is understanding the role of inflammation and mitochondria on brain health. In particular, we have three people we're highlighting today. We have Dr. Georgia Ede, Dr. Chris Palmer, and Hannah Wern. We go deep into this idea of mitochondria with all three of these individuals and the role that cleaning up our diet, protecting our mitochondria, improving our lifestyle leads to protecting our brain and, of course, our body. Let's dive right into my first conversation on today's compilation episode, Dr. Georgia Eid, Harvard-trained physician and researcher.

Starting point is 00:01:50 So we know a lot more even than we did 10, 15 years ago, about some of the, driving forces behind mental health problems. We used to, for 75 years, it's really been about chemical imbalances, these sort of mysterious imbalances in serotonin, norpenethrin, neurotransmitters. But really recently, we've come to understand that it has a lot to do with inflammation of the brain and something called oxidative stress in the brain and insulin resistance. So these three, you know, often will refer to these as sort of the unholy Trinity that are, you know, driving mental health problems.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. And so, and we can talk more about any one of those if you like. But before we do or don't, depending on what you prefer, I just want to make it clear that refined carbohydrates like sugar, flour, cereals, fruit juices, and refined vegetable oils, these directly promote inflammation and oxidative stress. and the refined carbohydrates are powerful promoters of insulin resistance. And these are ingredients that, as you alluded to, these were a relatively small part of our diet. In the case of refined carbohydrates, they've been a growing percentage of our diet over many hundreds of years.

Starting point is 00:03:12 But really, with the past 100 years or so, is when we started to base our diet on these foods and have lots and lots of products. that contain these foods. So these are the signature ingredients of the standard American diet. It's not red meat. It's not saturated fat. It's not those ingredients we've been eating since time and memorial.

Starting point is 00:03:37 These are, when it comes to refined carbohydrate, it's not that they're brand new. It's that they're now in everything. And with the refined vegetable oils, it's actually that they are brand new. They really have only been part of our food supply for about 100 years or so. And really a significant portion of our food supply since the 19, since 1960, when the American Heart Association deemed vegetable oil is heart healthy.

Starting point is 00:04:05 So now, vegetable oil is in every or nearly every food, processed food, product on the market, prepared foods, et cetera. It's almost impossible at this point to avoid this very, very new ingredient. Thank you for that breakdown. And we're going to pull on all of those threads. a lot of the controversy that surrounds them, which you dive into in your book, which is fantastic, by the way. We have the link in the show notes. It's called Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind. I highly recommend people pick up a copy. Let's continue further down this roadmap. I'd love to just

Starting point is 00:04:39 chat a little bit more about to really drive home exactly what we're talking about. So let's go through standard American diet, even though there's not an average American diet, The standard American diet is pretty standardized. Walk us through breakfast, lunch, and dinner and give us an idea of how these two categories of foods show up because you'd be surprised how many people actually don't know what a refined carbohydrate in their regular day-to-day and the quantity and the amount of refined carbohydrates actually exists. So I've found that this example of you walking people through the day helps people really visualize how much of these might be in their diet, both the carbohydrates as well as the fats.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Could you take us through a typical day and what you'd be seeing that would show just the astronomical usages of these two categories of foods? Sure. Yes, I think that's really useful because I think most people aren't aware. and most people think of, most people understand that they should probably be eating less sugar, but what they don't necessarily realize is that refined carbohydrates like flour and polished cereals and refined cereal products are essentially sugar. And so it doesn't have to taste sweet to turn instantly into sugar in the bloodstream. And so starches, refined starches are just as sugary as sugars. And this, I think, is a really common.

Starting point is 00:06:16 and point of confusion. So, for example, if you have whole wheat toast in the morning, or if you have a sweetened yogurt, let's say you have a blueberry yogurt in the morning, let's say you have a smoothie that has a lot of fruit juice in it. Let's say that you have a bowl of cereal. Even if it's a quote-unquote whole-grained cereal, there are eating a truly whole-grained cereal is a very, very rare experience. There are almost no cereals on the market that are truly whole grain. And that's another whole conversation we could have because of the strange definitions, USDA's strange definition of what constitutes a whole grain. So if you're eating anything with flour in it, anything made with flour, any baked goods, cereals, if you're eating anything that's

Starting point is 00:07:03 sweetened, whether it's a smoothie or a yogurt or a brand muffin, things that bagel, things that we've been taught to think of as normal breakfast foods, you're really flooding your system with a lot of glucose all at once. Whether it's sugar or starch, it all breaks down to glucose. And so that's, breakfast is actually one of the most sugary meals of the day for most Americans because of how we think, what we think about as, you know, a typical breakfast. And when people are trying Starbucks coffee, double frapitino that people get. Thank you for, that's another really excellent example. Yes. And so, you know, Starbucks is fascinating to me because, Most of the products that they offer people are loaded with sugar.

Starting point is 00:07:52 And so it's become very, very common to drink, not just eat, but to drink a lot of sugar, starting from the very first part of your day. And so when people are trying to reduce the carbohydrates in their diet of any type, improving the quality or quantity of carbohydrate in the diet, breakfast is the toughest, that breakfast is where the most changes usually need to be made. Because as you move on through lunch and dinner, it becomes a little bit more balanced. You start to see more proteins showing up in the meal often. So for lunch, let's see a lot of people would have a sandwich for lunch, right?

Starting point is 00:08:26 So you've got the bread which has refined carbohydrates in it. You might have your yogurt on the side or granola bar. A lot of carbohydrate, refined carbohydrate in those. But you might also have some cheese or you might have, you know, a slice of ham or a slice of turkey or, you know, something with some protein in it. But breakfast doesn't always have a protein in it because we've been taught to think of things like eggs and bacon and meat and cheese as dangerous. So, and then dinner is the easiest. You know, dinner often will have a decent portion of protein, sometimes some vegetables. And but but then what comes along with dinner is often a starch on the plate.

Starting point is 00:09:07 And if that's, say, for example, white rice, white rice is just pure gluten. or baked potato, pure glucose. So, and then you might have dessert. And then you might, I think as many Americans do, rather than just eating three times a day, you might eat six times a day. You might have a snack around 10.30 in the morning, then around 2.30 or 3 o'clock,

Starting point is 00:09:30 and you might have an extra coffee, like you so sweetened coffee for Apogino. And then before you go to bed, you might have another snack while you're maybe watching TV or winding down. So most Americans, are eating refined carbohydrates five to six times a day. It's mind-blowing.

Starting point is 00:09:49 And you mentioned insulin resistance. And we've done so many episodes where we've talked about metabolic health and insulin resistance, but particularly here, both for your waistline and for your brain health, can you make the connection of what happens to our body when we get stuck in this place of insulin resistance? What damage is it doing to the brain? and what damage is it also doing to the waistline? Yeah, so insulin resistance is, you know, now,

Starting point is 00:10:18 depending on which study you look at and how you define it, 88% of us in the United States now have at least some degree of insulin resistance. And, you know, this is a serious metabolic disorder that, you know, most people, many people still have never heard of. Most doctors don't test for, and most of us already have. And this is, you know, we often, it's often called, pre-diabetes because it so often can lead to type 2 diabetes over a long period of time and susceptible individuals.

Starting point is 00:10:48 But if you have pre-diabetes, you don't just have a blood sugar problem. You have a brain sugar problem because what's happening, when your blood sugar is going too high and your insulin levels are going too high, insulin resistance is caused by high insulin levels. So insulin is a hormone that you produce in response to every month. meal and snack, unless you're eating pure fat, you're getting an insulin response. It's normal and healthy to get an insulin response. We need insulin.

Starting point is 00:11:20 But if you're eating too many of the wrong carbohydrates too often, you will get an exaggerated insulin response. And over time, it may take longer and longer for that insulin response to normalize. Because insulin is having to work harder and harder and rise higher and higher to deal with that incoming sugar low, three, four, five. five, six times a day. So what's happening, when people develop insulin resistance, it's a perfectly normal and natural protective response

Starting point is 00:11:50 to being overwhelmed by too much insulin in the system. Cells do not want to be bombarded with insulin. So they naturally pull back and sort of start to tune down their response to insulin. So insulin resistance is the body's natural response to too much insulin. Too much insulin is the body's natural response to too much of the wrong carbohydrates too often, right? So high blood sugar, high insulin levels. So that's insulin resistance. So what is the problem with that?

Starting point is 00:12:20 So when you eat something very sweet, let's say you have a fruit smoothie and it's got a lot of sugar or juice in it, you'll get a glucose spike as your body absorbed all those glucose molecules. Then you'll get an insulin spike right on its tail to squirrel away all that excess glucose. into your cells. And it brings the blood sugar back down again to normal. So you might think, well, what's wrong with that? As long as it comes back down to normal, what's the problem? There are two problems.

Starting point is 00:12:48 One is the blood sugar spike, which is exaggerated and unnaturally high because high glucose levels are toxic. They're toxic to every cell in the body. And this is why people with type 2 diabetes risk damage to every organ in their bodies. glucose itself when it's too high is toxic but high insulin levels are the things insulin it may take years and years and years and years for your for your blood glucose to go up and stay up type 2 diabetes but what's happening when you go to get a fasting blood sugar test at your doctor which is what most people use to check metabolism you're seeing your

Starting point is 00:13:29 glucose level at the very first thing in the morning after you've been fasting all night long It tends to be normal. What you want to know is how much insulin is your body needing to produce to keep your blood sugar normal? Because it will. It will keep your fasting blood sugar normal for years, 10, 15, 20 years until it can't anymore. And that's type 2 diabetes. So what you want to know is not do you already have type 2 diabetes? You want to know if you have high insulin levels.

Starting point is 00:14:00 because high insulin levels slowly over time rob your brain of energy. That is very important for people to know. And it's not something most people measure. It's not something most people pay attention to. And it's not something most people make a connection between their insulin levels and their brain's ability to produce energy. You know, one of my favorite sections instead of the book. And we'll come back to inflammation,

Starting point is 00:14:30 oxidative stress, and then also you talk about nutritional deficiencies. We're going to come back to all three of those categories. Those are four different categories that you outline that are all different ways that these mental health disorders and other chronic diseases can develop inside of the body. So we'll come back to that in a second. But one of my favorite sections inside of the book was you sort of walking us through some of the basics of the brain and how sophisticated of a system the brain is and how much of our total energy the brain uses and how sense of it is.

Starting point is 00:15:10 Can you chat about that for a quick second? Because I think that'll be important to set up everything else that we get a chance to get into. Sure. So the brain is just 2% of the body's weight, but it commands 20% of the body's energy supply. So that's 10 times more than you would expect for an organ of its size. why does it need all of that energy? It needs all that energy because it's an electrical organ. And it takes a lot of energy to produce electricity. And you have to do it 24-7. So it's really important for people to understand that if the brain doesn't have a really reliable, smooth, steady access

Starting point is 00:15:50 to high-quality energy every minute of every day, then something's going to go wrong. And what goes wrong for you is going to depend on your genetics, your family history. The way you've lived your life to that point, what other types of damage may already be present. And how you're eating and how you're living your life, your metabolic health, right? So for some people, it will eventually look like depression. For some people, it will eventually look like dementia. For some people, it may, you know, on there's certain vulnerabilities may look like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. And so it may look like ADHD. So how? the brain malfunctions will vary from one person to another, but there's no question that if you

Starting point is 00:16:35 have poor metabolic health, you will not have optimal mental health because the brain requires access to high quality energy 24-7 and if you want a stable, smooth, reliable supply of energy. If you're trying to run your brain entirely on or mostly on carbohydrate from your diet, that supply of energy is not going to be smooth and stable. It's going to be unstable. And therefore, your brain chemistry will also be unstable. So I think it's very important that people understand that, you know, energy is really everything to the brain. And there are many different things that can disrupt energy supply and energy production. But the most, the thing that you have the most control over in terms of that process is how you feed your brain.

Starting point is 00:17:30 Your brain cares very much about what you eat. And the information that most people have about how to feed the brain properly, what a brain healthy diet is, is unfortunately incorrect. So most of us have been feeding our brains improperly our entire lives. So that sounds dire, but really it's an empowering thought because if you have the right information and you start feeding your brain properly, you have no idea how much better you could feel when you eat properly. It's that simple. Next up, I speak with Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Chris Palmer about a revolutionary

Starting point is 00:18:13 way of understanding and treating mental illness. Dr. Palmer shares about his work connecting metabolic and mental health and how a ketogenic diet can be used to produce mitochondrial repair. Talk to us about mitochondria in the context of everything that you've set up here in the conversation. So the reality is that, you know, most people know mitochondria as the powerhouse of the cell, that they create ATP, which is the energy currency of cells. And they are the powerhouses of the cell, and there's no question about that. They do that. You know, one researcher used this analogy, which I love. He said, if you think about the cell like a computer, a lot of people think mitochondria are like the power cord to that computer.

Starting point is 00:19:02 And they are. But in fact, mitochondria are actually the motherboard of that computer. So they are both the power cord and the motherboard. A lot of this research is new and cutting edge. And I think that's one of the reasons nobody's put it all together. is that a lot of this research has only taken place in the last 10 or 20 years, and it's primarily taking place in the metabolic field, the fields of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes. It's also taking place in the aging field. So researchers looking at the aging process are increasingly

Starting point is 00:19:43 honing in on mitochondria as primary culprits. For better or worse, the mental health field is a little bit behind the curve on this. And it's not that some researchers are, because some researchers have been leading the forefront in this field and have been out there screaming and shouting, it's mitochondria. Why isn't anybody paying attention to me? So I'm going to be out there at the forefront, just shouting and screaming, it's mitochondria. And I'm hoping maybe I can persuade more people than they were able to. But when you do a deep dive into the science of mitochondria, that was where my mind was blown as an academic psychiatrist. Because all of a sudden, as I began to learn more and more about what mitochondria do

Starting point is 00:20:31 and all of the roles that they play in cells, I began to connect the dots of mental illness. It turns out that mitochondria play a direct and clear role in the production and regulation of neurotransmitters, including serotonin, dopamine, noropenephrine, ashtoneliorated. Thylcholine, GABA, glutamate. They play a direct role in the production and regulation of key hormones like cortisol, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone. They play a direct role in the regulation of gene expression. A lot of people have heard of epigenetics. Well, if there is one and only one factor that controls more of epigenetics than anything else in biology, it's mitochondria. If you want to understand epigenetics, you must understand mitochondria and the role that they are playing in the expression of genes.

Starting point is 00:21:29 All the way from neurodevelopment to everyday gene expression to turn, you know, different genes on and off. Mitochondria play a direct role in turning inflammation on and off. If mitochondria are dysfunctional, it means that you, your inflammatory response might be underactive or overactive. And we all know that can cause problems in all sorts of people. Mitochondria appear to be affected by the gut microbiome. The gut microbes actually send signals that appear to influence the function of mitochondria. And although this may seem surprising, mitochondria were actually bacteria at one point.

Starting point is 00:22:19 And bacteria actually communicate with each other. And sometimes that communication is symbiotic and beneficial to both of them. And sometimes that communication is actually hostile communication. Bacteria are trying to out-compete each other. And they're sending signals to try to outdo each other. Like, I want the food and I want to reproduce a colony of bacteria. Not you. And so they're sending out harmful substances to inhibit metabolism of other microorganisms.

Starting point is 00:22:49 within your own body. And surprisingly, that goes to our mitochondria, which are in most human cells. And so once I began to realize this, it began to connect the dots of mental illness. But I should add a couple of other things. It's not just biology. It's psychology and social factors, too.

Starting point is 00:23:16 and we know those play a role in mental illness, and it turns out that psychological and social factors, such as loneliness or trauma or stress in the stress response, directly impact the function of mitochondria, and mitochondria actually play a direct role in this human stress response, including psychological. And so again, once people understand the science of this, it starts to connect the dots of mental illness and all of the factors that we've known for decades play a role in mental

Starting point is 00:24:01 disorders. You said a key phrase there, mitochondrial dysfunction. And the science that you outline and you talk about inside of the book is so clear. And sometimes people have a hard time. And this could even be academics that are in this field of studying mental disorders. Because this is a game-changing paradigm. You're coming in with like a whole new take, which is tough for people to sort of swallow because they were taught completely otherwise.

Starting point is 00:24:30 But in the area of mitochondrial dysfunction, even if somebody says, okay, I see the science, it's there. There's often a misunderstanding of the modern-day factors that contribute to that, the direct connection. So lay out that direct connection. And what are some of those things that directly contribute in our modern day lifestyle to that significant dysfunction of mitochondria that has all those cascading effects that you mentioned? One of the beautiful things about this theory is that the answers that I'm going to give you all line up with well-known established risk factors for mental disorders. So they, you know, diet plays a profound role in the function of mitochondria. We all know

Starting point is 00:25:17 diet plays a profound role in metabolic health. So diet plays a role in obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. It plays a role in metabolic syndrome, which I had, well, it might be more surprising to people as diet also plays a profound role in mental health too and the brain function. but exercise plays a direct and clear role. As I said, trauma, stress, neglect also impact the function of mitochondria. Sleep plays a powerful role. Light exposure in circadian rhythms play a role. That means avoiding light at night when you should be sleeping, getting some exposure to bright light,

Starting point is 00:25:59 in particular in the morning or during the day. But substances that we know can, that we know are highly associated with mental disorders, in particular alcohol, marijuana and tobacco, smoking cigarettes. All of those play a harmful role in the function of mitochondria. And we know that those are all connected with both mental health and metabolic health. I forget if I mentioned sleep, but sleep is a huge one. Poor sleep adversely affects mitochondrial function. And so once, again, I think once people understand the science,

Starting point is 00:26:43 it starts to connect all of the dots and all of the risk factors that we've known for decades are there. Are there any pivotal studies or work that you've been involved in or any of their colleagues of a larger network that you might just want to highlight a little bit when it comes to you mentioning about the science, like pivotal things that sort of really helped understand this framework that you're helping us build out. Yeah, there are several that I could mention. I'll mention a couple. So one is, you know, this may feel like left field to people, and that's why I'm going to start

Starting point is 00:27:26 with it. I love it. There is an epidemic of autism spectrum disorders in our society right now. Rates have tripled in the last 20 years. And everybody's scratching their head to try to understand why. What's going on? Autism is supposed to be a genetic disorder. It's a neurodevelopmental disorder.

Starting point is 00:27:53 People probably come out of the womb as autistic people. They're born that way, they're programmed that way. And if it's not out of the womb, it's very early in life. To set a little light on that statistic and why might the rates be skyrocketing, we know that women who are obese are anywhere from 30 to 100%, depending on the study you look at, more likely to have an autistic child. women who are diabetic are about have double the risk of having an autistic child. Women who have both obesity and diabetes have a three to fourfold increased risk of having an autistic child.

Starting point is 00:28:41 Men who are obese have double the risk of having an autistic child. Everybody's scratching their heads trying to figure out where is all this autism coming from? Well, look around people. There are skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes in men and women who are having babies, and it's actually not shocking at all where this autism is coming from. You have to understand the science of mitochondria to understand how obesity or how diabetes leads to a neurodevelopmental disorder. but I outlined some of that science in the brain energy theory. And, you know, another kind of shocking, I think, example is alcoholism.

Starting point is 00:29:35 Most people think of alcoholism, that's not, that doesn't have anything to do with obesity or eating. That's a problem of willpower. Alcoholism has existed for millennia. people have talked about alcoholics forever and ever. What are you talking about Chris Palmer? That has nothing to do with metabolism. Well, it turns out that we have an abundance of data, and actually this data comes from one of the leading neuroscientists in the world.

Starting point is 00:30:06 Her name is Dr. Nora Volka. She is the director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. She has been doing research for decades documenting that people, people with alcoholism have metabolic problems in their brains. And that the pathways that are related to reward, the pathways that are related to alcohol consumption seem to be metabolically compromised, it turns out that alcohol actually gets converted into something called acetate, and that acetate goes up to your brain and fuels your brain cells.

Starting point is 00:30:42 And when alcoholics aren't drinking, those brain cells are actually energetic. energy deprived. But when they drink alcohol, the acetate fully fuels those brain cells and brings them back online. And that's why alcoholics are probably driven to drink. They want to feel better. They want their brain to be firing on all cylinders. It is uncomfortable. It produces anxiety. it produces some bad state for them to be sober, essentially. And so she and her colleagues actually set out to see, can we help these brain cells in some way other than alcohol and acetate? And they realize there's a similar connection between acetate and acetone,

Starting point is 00:31:34 which is a ketone body. So they turned to the ketogenic diet as well. and they admitted a group of alcoholics to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is funded by our taxpayer dollars, and they detoxed them. And they put half the patients on a standard American diet, and the other half of the patients got a ketogenic diet. And the ones who got the ketogenic diet needed fewer benzodiazepines as part of their detox protocol. Despite getting less medicine, they had fewer withdrawal symptoms.

Starting point is 00:32:08 They had fewer cravings for alcohol. And sure enough, they did brain scans on these people and found that the people getting the ketogenic diet had improved brain metabolism. And they had decreased brain inflammation. And so that on the surface is shocking because most people would think alcoholism has nothing to do with diet. Why are you talking about diet? and yet leading neuroscientists and researchers are using a dietary strategy to help improve brain metabolism to help alcoholics stop drinking. Fascinating.

Starting point is 00:32:52 It really is mind-blowing. And to connect both of those two things together, both of those, first of all, are just shocking. The data that you're presenting about autism and its connection to obesity, and then, of course, you're just talking about alcohol. But looking at it, the connection between those two things is we're talking about how lifestyle, primarily diet, is poisoning our body, which is actually poisoning our mitochondria, which is causing dysfunction and what you do to the body you do to the brain. Absolutely. I think that's one major.

Starting point is 00:33:32 If somebody said, you know, what is the biggest takeaway that will come out of this era? of the people that are driving this narrative, which I would put you out one of the individuals of the forefront of that. It's the brain and body are not separate. What we're doing to the body is having significant impact on our brain and how do we know? Just look out in the world and see how bad things are. And now we finally have the science to back up that narrative. Absolutely. Next up, we're talking with Hannah Warren, who shares her incredible testimonial of reversing a bipolar disorder diagnosis by applying the principles of Dr. Chris Palmer's brain energy theory. You know, I'm so thankful to Twitter, now known as X.com, because one day I was just on Twitter

Starting point is 00:34:22 looking around at people who were talking about this topic. And I came across Hannah Warren, and I reached out to her and I asked her, would she be open to coming on the podcast and telling her story? And I'm so glad she did. Hearing her story should give anybody who's impacted by a mental health disorder or a family member or a loved one who's going through something severe, whether it be bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, hearing Hannah's story should give you inspiration that tackling the brain energy component of metabolic health could lead to in many instances maybe no evidence of disease or at least an improvement of symptoms. Let's listen in to my conversation with Hannah Warren. I want to read something mind-blowing that you wrote on your website as an

Starting point is 00:35:09 introduction to your story. You wrote, I have experienced three severe psychotic breaks that required hospitalization. I was diagnosed with bipolar one disorder and repeatedly told I had a lifelong chronic illness. After discovering the work of Dr. Chris Palmer, who's been on this podcast before, a Harvard psychiatrist and author of Brain Energy, I implemented metabolic therapies that put my neurometabolic dysfunction into remission. So let's get into some of the details. You know, when I told a few people that we were going to be doing this episode, I had so many questions that people had about some of the details that were there.

Starting point is 00:35:50 So I believe it was in 2021 that you discovered Chris's book. Yes, I started, I discovered Chris Palmer's work in the summer of 2021. So it was before brain energy was even released, but I discovered the concept of ketogenic therapy and started it at that time. Take us from there. was the first time that you were like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to implement it because it sounds like it connected a few of the dots. You were already, you had a bunch of dots, you had a bunch of dots that you were connecting on your own, but the concept kind of was

Starting point is 00:36:22 connected for you. And then you made a decision of, okay, I'm going to implement this. So what did you implement? So as I had mentioned, I had done a lot of extended kind of therapeutic water fasting. And it was actually to the extent where I felt so good in ketosis when I was water fasting that I almost got addicted to it. I was doing like three-day fast here, six-day fast there. And my friends were starting to be like, why are you always wanting to fast? You know, so when I understood this idea that metabolic therapies and ketogenic therapy as a fasting-mimicking diet could be healing for my illness, it made perfect sense.

Starting point is 00:36:57 It finally explained why I had intuitively felt that fasting was so good for me and why I was constantly wanting to do it over and over. So because it clicked with me right away, it was really easy for me to decide to implement it. And then not only that, but I actually had already established quite a bit of willpower because of all the fasting that I had done. Nothing's tough. Yeah. Especially you're talking about a three-day fast and 40-fast.

Starting point is 00:37:22 Like, that's tough for people to do. Yeah. So for me, ketogenic therapy is a piece of cake. I kind of feel like even now, if I need a little boost in willpower, there's nothing like an extended fast to give you that because if you can kind of beat that, primal urge to eat, you feel like you're on top of the world and you can do anything, you know. So as a vegetarian keto, people would think that's so restrictive and so difficult. But when I had the experience of fasting, it didn't seem too bad.

Starting point is 00:37:49 So it was, and I luckily, of course, I also had metabolic flexibility because of that. So it was very easy for me to get into ketosis. And once I figured out, for me it was pretty easy just to figure out staying away from certain foods and that was it was easy for me to maintain a good level of ketones even just by staying away from certain foods and I was never very strict about trying to carb count or anything like that because that didn't really feel sustainable for me. I just got a keto mojo meter, did a bit of intermittent fasting, stayed away from foods that I knew were off limits and it was pretty easy to keep my ketones at around the 1.5 level. Let's break some of that down because some people are listening to

Starting point is 00:38:30 and they're like, okay, I think I know what keto is, but I'm not sure. She's talking about ketosis. So let's explain a few of those components. So one of the core ideas in brain energy is this idea that, first of all, we have to be metabolically flexible to even start to recoup some of the benefits of this. So just explain in your understanding or how you would explain it to another layperson, what is metabolic flexibility? Sure. So typically people in our culture, you know, eating a lot of carbs, our bodies fueled through glucose and blood sugar, and that's what we burn for energy. And when you completely restrict your carbohydrates, your body switches to fat as the fuel source, both your own fat stores, you know, which I had plenty of to use, so I was happy with that,

Starting point is 00:39:17 but also dietary fat. So when you eat a ketogenic diet, you're restricting those carbs, eating a higher fat diet. As a vegetarian, I'll be honest that, when I looked at, you know, wanting to keep my carbs around 20 grams, it really didn't seem possible when I was counting carbs. But when I just got a keto mojo meter and tested my ketone levels, I could find that I could eat plenty of vegetables and feel satiated, didn't feel like I was over-restricting. And I could still stay in a higher level of ketosis, which meant that I knew that my body was producing and running off of ketones. You know, we're lucky that we live in a day and age where there's more conversation about mental health than ever. But largely that conversation

Starting point is 00:40:00 in America, but also most of the Western world, is focused on access, right? Awareness and access. Hey, don't, you know, stigmatize people who have mental health issues. Hey, have awareness, be able to talk about it. People should talk about it. People are struggling. They're going through tough times on the spectrum of mental health issues that are there. But really, a lot of the work that you're involved with now, especially as part of like metabolic mind, the initiative that you're part of, part of the nonprofit, is like, well, great, that's a start and that's an important start. But there's a next level to this. And the next level to this is that maybe there's a strong aspect to just the same way that somebody could get cancer and then be, you know, have it be in

Starting point is 00:40:51 remission, the same thing could happen with these severe mental health disorders. They'd say, actually, a bigger part of it is not just a complete, quote-unquote, brokenness of the mind, which is how people saw things in mental health for a long time and still see them today. But rather, there's a state that's being created inside of the body and the brain that could create what we describe on the outside as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia or some of these other diagnosis that are there, so that this is something that people could possibly get better from, right? That's the mission and the work that you're up to. If you had to describe brain energy, you know, you're talking. You flew out here from where's home base?

Starting point is 00:41:38 Chicago area, a small city called Rockford. So you're going to fly out here and people are saying, what are you up to? And someone says, well, give me the basics of brain energy, right? How would you describe it? Okay. So I'm always very careful when I talk about. the science behind metabolic therapies because I see everything through the frame of my experience as a person in remission from bipolar disorder. It's all through that lens of lived experience. I'm not a clinician. So I think if anybody really wants to learn about this, they should definitely purchase a copy of Brain Energy, which is a phenomenal book. You know, throughout my journey of healing, I read a lot of wonderful self-development books that impacted me. But brain energy

Starting point is 00:42:21 is the only book that has fundamentally transformed my life. And I could read that book over and over as I try to understand the complex science. So at this stage, it's important to remember that this is an emerging field, which means there's a lot of science that needs to get figured out still, a lot of research that's currently being done. So clinicians have a variety on views on what are the underlying mechanisms that make these metabolic therapies and specifically ketogenic therapy, so healing that it can actually put severe mental illness into remission. And so because I'm most

Starting point is 00:42:56 familiar with the brain energy model from reading the book and from being a part of Dr. Christopher Palmer's volunteer team, I like to think of it in terms of mitochondria as the key driver. And different clinicians have different views on the underlying mechanisms. But when it comes to mitochondria, I think that the most simple metaphor that Dr. Palmer uses, that everybody can kind of relate to, to is that if you think about metabolism, like traffic, there's a lot of different factors that impact traffic, there's weather, there's road construction, but mitochondria we can think of as the drivers in the cars. And when you have someone who's experiencing mitochondrial dysfunction, you can imagine it's almost like there's a bunch of wild, reckless drunk drivers out on the road,

Starting point is 00:43:44 getting into car crashes. Obviously, that's stopping all of the traffic and all of the flow. So when you have mitochondrial dysfunction, when you undergo metabolic therapies, ketogenic therapy, as a fasting, mimicking diet, what happens is this process called mitophagy, which is cleaning up your mitochondria. So it's literally like going in and taking out those crazy reckless drivers. At the same time, you get mitochondrial biogenesis, which is literally your body creating fresh, new functional mitochondria. so you're replacing those drivers and all of a sudden the traffic starts to flow again. So I think though there was definitely an immediate benefit for me when my brain switched fuel

Starting point is 00:44:30 sources from glucose to ketones, and that is clearly a powerful mechanism as well. I think I've seen a really gradual incremental improvement of my state over time that even continues to this day. To me, that's kind of evidence of perhaps a more long-term process of healing of the mitochondria, which is why you do the ketogenic diet for an extended period of time. You know, the fasting I was doing before was healing. Obviously, you cannot fast indefinitely, but you can do the ketogenic diet on an ongoing basis. Now that I have my life back, you know, it's interesting because I'm literally at that point

Starting point is 00:45:11 where I could go on and forget that I ever had bipolar disorder. I feel like the world has opened, that my future is bright, I can pursue dreams that I thought would never be possible. But at this point, I have decided that, you know, until these metabolic therapies become mainstream and people know that this is an option, I really want to devote my career to help raise awareness and make these treatments accessible. They should be covered by insurance. You should be able to easily find somebody who's trained in metabolic psychiatry to help with this option. where I feel very fortunate to have put my past behind me. I mean, I really feel no longer any shame or baggage associated with my illness. I feel that I'm healthy and I can pursue kind of the life that I always wanted to live.

Starting point is 00:46:00 But I feel like at this point, it would be selfish of me to forget the gravity, the weight, the seriousness of the illness that I went through until we make sure that people see this, cutting-edge science and know that there are better options out there. Well said. You know, as a society, we're experiencing and dealing with mental health conditions and disorders at a rate more than ever before. And it's pretty freaking scary. I hope you're walking away from today's episode with a greater understanding of the ways

Starting point is 00:46:34 in which we can nourish, protect, energize, and even heal our brains and our mitochondria. Of course, and obviously legally, I have to always mention people, it's always recommended to work with a health care provider to adjust medication. especially if somebody's going through something severe, a severe mental health disorder. And sometimes it's even useful to work with a practitioner when it comes to a therapeutic, ketogenic diet as a treatment for mental health conditions too. In fact, Dr. Georgia Ead has an incredible database on her website, which we'll link to in the show notes. And if you found today's episode to be informative, do me one huge favor.

Starting point is 00:47:10 Please share it with someone in your life, a family, a friend, a loved one, a coworker who you think could benefit from hearing from these incredible guests. I'm Drew Perot. I'll see you back later on this week with a brand new episode of The Drew Perot Show.

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