Mark Bell's Power Project - The Keto Miracle: A New Hope for Depression, Bipolar and Schizophrenia - Dr. Chris Palmer || MBPP Ep. 1070

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

In episode 1070, Dr. Chris Palmer, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the incredible success Dr. Palmer is having with his mental health patients by putting them on a ketogenic diet. https://www.instagram.com/chrispalmermd/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

For the last really 20 years, I've been using the ketogenic diet to treat people with serious, crippling, disabling mental disorders. What's the research show in terms of like Alzheimer's and dementia? When the participants were on the ketogenic diet, they had improvement in quality of life. It did also improve cognition. Would a ketogenic diet help somebody get over the feeling of depression? We definitely have case reports of people with clinical crippling depression going on ketogenic diets and for whatever reason, their depression goes away. How much time have you seen it be able to reverse for certain individuals?

Almost always within two weeks, people will start to notice, I'm feeling something from this. This is different. Excited to have Chris Palmer on the show. Welcome to the show, Chris. Thank you, Mark, for having me on. Yeah, I got an opportunity to see you on a couple podcasts. And the first place I saw you was Tim Ferriss' podcast,

maybe a year or so ago when I first saw it. And I thought it was super fascinating the way that you're able to assist so many people with mental health slash mental illness via their diet. And we've heard some people kind of poke around these ideas before, but it seems like you've really been able to do a deep dive with it. Not only do a deep dive with it, you've been able to assist and help. You have so many case studies. And so maybe to kind of open the show here, maybe you can just describe a little bit of your past.

And then also if you could talk to us a little bit about a couple of case studies that are maybe some of your favorites that really help people overcome some of these monumental issues that they may have had? Sure. So the quick story on me, I won't go into my personal stuff, but if you want me to, I'm happy to. But a quick story on me is I am a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School. I've been here for almost 30 years. I work at McLean Hospital. So currently ranked number one in psychiatry by U.S. News and World Report. Go McLean.

So in many ways, I am part of the establishment. I am part of the tried and true traditional establishment. And then in many other ways, I am part of the tried and true traditional establishment. And then in many other ways, I am a rebel. I am out there doing ketogenic diets for people with all sorts of mental illness. I've been using, you know, I use regular traditional treatments, medications, psychotherapy, additional treatments, medications, psychotherapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, ECT, ketamine. I use all of that stuff. I've used all of that stuff for my whole career. And I will be the first to say those things fail to work for far too many people.

And we need better answers and we need better solutions for the people that those things don't work for or for people who have horrible side effects to those things or whatever. And so for almost the entire time I've been in this field, I've always been thinking outside the box, trying to figure out new ways to treat people. And so for the last really 20 years, I've been using the ketogenic diet to treat people. And so for the last really 20 years, I've been using the ketogenic diet to treat people with serious, crippling, disabling mental disorders. Yeah, it helps people who are a little burned out too. Yeah, it can help people with ADHD or not serious serious crippling mental illnesses, but I'm talking all the way, schizophrenia, bipolar, the worst cases that you can think of. And these are people who've tried all the traditional treatments and nothing's working for them.

And they're still hallucinating. They're still delusional. And I'm using this treatment. And the bottom line is, the thing that gives it so much credibility. A lot of people don't know this. A lot of people think keto is that weight loss diet. Maybe bodybuilders use it to look good for a competition, lose a little body fat, whatever. And yes, keto is all of those things. But the ketogenic diet is also an evidence-based 100-year-old treatment for epilepsy. It can stop seizures even when medications don't.

And the reason that's so important is that we use epilepsy treatments in psychiatry all the time. Tens of millions of people, a lot of the pills we use are epilepsy treatments. So in some ways, what I'm doing is nothing new. May I ask, has a caloric deficit ever been compared to a ketogenic diet in terms of helping with seizures or mental illness? Have you seen anything? Like, I'm just kind of wondering, like, you know, you put someone on a diet and, of course, there's going to be some changes. But maybe previously they weren't really on a diet. So has the ketogenic diet ever been compared when it comes to mental health? Has it ever been compared to, like, just being in a caloric deficit or maybe some intermittent fasting or something like that?

We do not have any official studies on that. It's an important question, and it's actually a question that gets asked a lot because a lot of people, even some of the skeptics, think, well, you're just putting people on a diet. They're losing a little bit of weight, so they feel better. But there are a couple of things that I just want to say in response to that. One is, I'm treating people with crippling hallucinations and delusions. Going on a diet historically has never made hallucinations and delusions stop. Lots of those people go on diets. Sometimes they starve themselves on purpose or because of psychotic reasons. They think all of the food is poison, so they're starving themselves.

But they eat a little bit of bread here and there or some cookies every now and then, whatever. eat a little bit of bread here and there or some cookies every now and then, whatever, they aren't necessarily getting remission of their illness by reducing their calorie intake. Although I do know of some anecdotal cases, tragically, where one man in particular had chronic schizophrenic. He was a brilliant man, but developed schizophrenia, was in and out of hospitals. And he actually would starve himself when he was in the hospital, telling the people, I feel better when I am starving myself. Nobody figured it out. Nobody knew what that was about. They just thought he was crazy and that he was just trying to kill himself.

And tragically, he passed away. But his daughter actually is in the ketogenic diet space and kind of recognizes after the fact, wow, my dad might have been trying to treat himself. Like nobody knew the science. Nobody understood why it might work. He may have been getting any ketones, right? Pardon me? He may have been producing some ketones with the fasting that he was doing. Absolutely. He may very well have been self-medicating. of that is that Russians have actually been using fasting, 30-day fasts, to treat serious

mental illness, schizophrenia, bipolar, crippling depression, and other things. They've been using fasting since the 1940s. They've been doing this for a long time. Now, everybody in the United States pretty much hates the Russians. And so we just think that they're torturing these poor, mentally ill people and starving them to death. So the Americans don't give it a second thought. They just think, oh, those bad Russians, they're doing their bad stuff again to these poor, mentally ill people. But in fact, in the 1970s, there was an American psychiatrist who went over to Russia to check this stuff out. And he initially went as a skeptic. He's like, what the hell are these people doing to these poor, mentally ill people?

He shows up on this fasting unit, and within days, he's dumbfounded at how much better everybody seems to be getting. They come in paranoid, hallucinating, delusional. And he's like, I see their symptoms melting away and they're getting nothing but water. That's all they get is water. The challenge, the problem is that the Russians don't seem to understand the ketogenic diet. So after 30 days, they're like, okay, you're going to starve to death. Now we got to start feeding you. And they feed people bread and potatoes and other stuff. Takes them out of a ketogenic state and they discharge them.

And more than likely, their symptoms are coming back. There is one... Pardon me? Go ahead. Oh, there's just one example that says it's almost certainly not about a caloric deficit. And that example is children and infants with epilepsy. So, when children and infants with epilepsy use the ketogenic diet as a treatment for their seizures, they are in a caloric surplus. They are eating enough ketogenic food to grow and gain weight and thrive, and yet the ketogenic diet still stops their seizures, at least for some of them. And so that example, and we have an abundance of evidence in tens of thousands of these children and adolescents with epilepsy, we know that it can really work for a lot of them. They're all growing, they're gaining weight, and it stops their seizures.

No, very few other dietary interventions. There's a low glycemic index diet where basically you're cutting out processed foods. You're cutting out a lot of the flour and sugar and carbs, but you get some carbs, but low glycemic ones. And that diet can sometimes stop seizures for some people. So there are some variations on the diet, but the theme is the same. It's carbohydrate restriction, reducing glycemic index seems to have powerful brain effects. You know, the cool thing about what you just mentioned there, Dr. Palmer, is that I have a lot of family in Nigeria and my grandma was from there

too. And one thing that people do over there when people get sick or when, you know, people get mental illness and it's something that they've been doing for hundreds of years is they fast and pray. Like they do water fasts and pray. And maybe they were able to see that when these people fast, for some reason they get better, but maybe they didn't realize it's because of ketosis. So it's funny that that trend goes on in a lot of other places, but here we kind of look at it like it's a woo-woo thing. Absolutely. And the reality is what you just said has happened in almost every culture on earth, not just Nigeria. It's happened in every culture.

We have used fasting as a treatment or as a religious practice. And a lot of times they go together. It's kind of both. If somebody's really sick, if somebody's dying, who are you going to turn to? You're going to turn to God. And what are going to turn to? You're going to turn to God. And what are you going to do? You're going to fast. You're going to please him, and you're going to make a sacrifice, and you're going to fast.

And when people get better, they attribute the effect to God, that God is performing a miracle because we did what he wants. We fasted and we prayed and he's answering our prayers and we're getting better. And what I'm here to say as a scientist, it doesn't take away from God and religious belief. And for people who want to believe that that's the way it all works, great. I would say God works in mysterious ways and he turned the science into helping. He said there's a scientific reason why you got to be fasting and why you got to be praying and believing. And when people follow the protocol, I will make the science lineup and the biology lineup to get them better. Interestingly enough, in the Bible, Jesus turned bread into fish and fed.

So he's on to the ketogenic diet from the start, I think. Absolutely. Get rid of that bread. I want to know how specific of a ketogenic diet are we talking? Because, you know, some people, a lot of people in the fitness industry, when they think about keto, they're like, okay, fats, but I'm also going to eat high protein. But also there's like, when it comes to the clinical side of ketogenic diets, usually they really lower that protein intake and keep the fats high. So how specific are we talking? You know, it's a really important question, and the answer really depends on the person. So if somebody is really overweight or obese, they have a lot of fat stores on their body that

we can tap into. And that person can probably simply restrict carbohydrates. If they eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day, no matter how much protein they eat, they will probably be in a high state of ketosis. They can eat fat if they want, but they don't have to eat fat because we've got a lot of fat on their body that we want to tap into. And their body will just automatically start using their own fat stores as a fat source for a while, obviously. Once they then lose all of their weight or lose a lot of their weight and lose a lot of their body fat stores, the body starts clinging to that remaining fat. And bodybuilders know this, like losing, getting down to 5% body fat is not

an easy task. Every little extra percentage of body fat that you want to lose becomes increasingly difficult and challenging because the body's clinging to that extra body fat and not letting it go. And so if somebody with obesity comes to me who also has schizophrenia, I might start off their protocol with just carb restriction. Eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day and don't even worry about the rest of the stuff. Eat as much protein or as little protein as you want. Obviously, I want them to get enough protein so that they're getting their basic requirements. And then the fat is really kind of optional. Eat as much or as little fat as you want. Add as much fat to your meals or as little fat to your meals. But keep your carbs low. And for a lot of them, they have very high levels of ketosis.

And that's enough of an intervention. As they then start to lose weight, then I actually have to get more sophisticated with the dietary intervention and start saying, okay, now we got to limit your protein. Now we got to increase your fats. Conversely, if somebody comes to me who's thin and also hallucinating, um, then I have to start off with that more difficult protocol. I have to start off with you. This is not an unlimited diet.

You, you, you have to get really rigid. We're going to weigh and measure for a little while until you can get into a groove and we're going to figure out what gets your ketone levels up. And once their ketone levels are up, we usually give it a few months to see if it's going to work. It doesn't work overnight. It can take a few months for it to kick in, but when it kicks in for the brain effects, it can be nothing short of a miracle. I have seen people who've been hallucinating, I have seen people who've been hallucinating, delusional for 20 plus years, and all of those symptoms just start melting away. And they're like, wow, I didn't know my brain could work like this anymore. And it's not just that those symptoms go away. They'll say, I'm smarter now. I can read a book now and remember it. I'm motivated. I want to go exercise. Before, I was just too tired and unmotivated, and it was just a chore. And now, I want to do it. I feel good. I feel great, actually. And I didn't know I could feel this way.

What is it specifically you think about ketones that is helping all these patients? You know, that's one of the million-dollar questions. So, we actually have a tremendous amount of science on what the ketogenic diet is doing to stop seizures, for instance. And the reality is, if you talk to the different scientists who are doing this work, they disagree. All of them have their own little pet projects or pet mechanisms of action. So, some of them are focused on insulin and insulin signaling. Ketogenic diet reduces insulin levels, reduces glucose levels, improves insulin sensitivity. And insulin actually plays a—it's not just about diabetes, which is what a lot of people equate insulin with.

Insulin actually is produced in the human brain, as far as we know, and it plays a powerful role in brain function. Insulin is almost like a neurotransmitter in the brain. And so when you improve insulin signaling, you can improve brain function. Other people are focused on neurotransmitters. The ketogenic diet can change neurotransmitters, reduce excitatory neurotransmitters, increase the activity of inhibitory or GABA neurotransmitters.

The ketogenic diet actually changes the gut microbiome, and that ends up having effects on the brain. So there are some researchers who've done mouse studies arguing that that may be its primary mechanism of action. The ketogenic diet is changing the gut microbiome. That ends up being really beneficial to brain function. Other people focus on inflammation. It decreases neuroinflammation. I'm particularly focused on the ketogenic diet's effects on these tiny things in our cells called mitochondria

because I actually think that is where the real magic is. Mitochondria are a way to connect a lot of these other dots about insulin and inflammation and neurotransmitters and even the gut microbiome. That mitochondrial biology gets ridiculously complicated fast. Happy to go in as much or as little detail as you want on that, but mitochondrial biology affects all human health, essentially. And bodybuilders, athletes are really focused on mitochondrial biology because that's what helps make your muscles bigger. So, creatine, that supplement that we muscles bigger. So creatine, that supplement that we're all taking, creatine, that goes to mitochondria. That makes mitochondria produce

more ATP. That can make your muscles bigger. That can give you more energy to lift more. That can then create a positive feedback cycle where you're getting bigger and bigger with more creatine. Creatine is also helping your brain though. I'll stop there. I can just keep going on. I want to ask you about the mitochondria aspect because I actually heard you talking about it once. And we had a doctor, his name is Jack Cruz. And when we were talking about mitochondria a bit, he got a bit mad at me because he was like, oh, you didn't know that all your mitochondrial DNA comes from your mother. And I heard you actually talking about this, about how that's not the full story about your mitochondrial DNA. So can you kind of explain to us what you mean by that? Because we're under the impression that we get all of it from our mom,

and maybe that's the case, but what specifics are we missing? No. So mitochondria have their own genes, which is highly unusual for any organelles. And the reason that the overwhelming majority of biologists believe that's the case is because mitochondria used to be an independent living organism. They used to be a bacterium. And at one point, billions of years ago, another organism basically ate this other bacteria, but they both lived. So mitochondria do have their own DNA. And for the most part, there are 13 genes, for instance, that code for the ATP machinery. Mitochondria actually have more genes than just that. I think it's about like 39 maybe at last count, something like that. But those genes are specific to the mitochondria. But if you look, and that is what we mostly inherit from our mothers,

although recent research published in Nature and leading biological journals says, oh, actually, father's mitochondria can sometimes make it into the baby. It's a tiny percentage compared to the mothers. So it's not the overwhelming majority, but father's mitochondria do make it into babies and humans and it perpetuates. So it's not exclusively mom. The big money, when you talk about the genetics of what codes for your mitochondria, it's not those 13 tiny genes that are just coding for some of the enzymes. It's actually about, I think, like 1,300 genes in the cell nucleus that are actually coding for all of the different proteins and things that make up mitochondria. and things that make up mitochondria.

So most of the genes that code for our mitochondria are located in the cell nucleus. And what that means is that we get one copy from mom and we get one copy from dad. And that those proteins then make up most of the different parts of mitochondria in our cells. But those 13 genes that are focused on ATP machinery mostly came from mom. I love all this stuff. I think it's super fascinating.

Something that I've been thinking about lately, I've learned some stuff about how your body can produce its own water. And it's my understanding that when you're on a ketogenic diet, your body makes even more water as opposed to if you're consuming carbohydrates. Have you heard anything about this, like the fourth phase of water and how it can impact mitochondria? Because I think it's really neat how we can influence the mitochondria via going outside in the sun, doing things like grounding. And I know that people sometimes, you know, they think these things are fake, I guess, in some way. But it does seem to me that there's more and more evidence that some of this stuff is true. Yeah, I lost you for just a second. But I heard grounding, going outside in the sun,

water. So the quick answer is I'm not a biochemist, so I'm not going to go to the water thing. Our bodies do produce water. It's actually part of the process of taking in oxygen, turning it into carbon dioxide. We produce our own water. And then within mitochondria, there's a lot of talk, but also controversy around deuterium kind of labeled water and whether you want to drink deuterium-free water and all these kinds of things. So I'm not going to go there because I'm not an expert on that. But the reality is that changing our diet absolutely changes water content. Going out in sunlight, this is non-controversial. Sunlight affects our mitochondria.

It does so directly on our skin. So when you get a suntan, that is through mitochondrial adaptations. The mitochondria are actually absorbing the photons of light. And that is what is stimulating the reactions that result in you tanning or not tanning. They also stimulate the reactions that result in you tanning or not tanning. They also stimulate the reactions that result in you burning or not burning. And unfortunately, they also are involved in the reactions that lead to skin cancer. So, mitochondria are playing a big role in light, and that's why we use light therapy all the time. Even in psychiatry, there's this new cutting-edge treatment, photobiomodulation.

Basically means light. Put light on the human body somewhere, somehow, and people are putting light all sorts of places. I won't even go to all the different places they are sticking probes up into and putting light there, but let there be light. And what we're doing when we put light on the human body, whether it's through the skull or just in your eyes or on your skin with red light therapy or other types of light, all of the light therapy, essentially all of the light therapy is focused on mitochondria. The light is affecting mitochondria and that results in beneficial effects. It can lower blood glucose. It can make people less depressed. It might help

cognitive impairment for somebody who has traumatic brain injury or a concussion from a sports injury. So it's being used for all sorts of things. parasympathetic, which allows you to be calmer. But a lot of us, and myself in the past included, breathe through our mouth when we sleep. And when you're breathing through your mouth, you have a higher heart rate, you wake up with a dry mouth, it actually makes your dental issues worse and your sleep quality becomes much worse too. That's why we use and we've partnered with Hostess Shape for such a long time, because no matter if you're using a CPAP, if you have a beard or whatever you're dealing with, if you're able to breathe through your nose when you sleep, your sleep quality will be better and everything else in life will get easier. Your fitness habits, your nutrition, et cetera, because your sleep is

quality because you're breathing through your nose. So get hostage tape on your mouth. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, that's over at hostagetape.com slash powerproject, where you can receive five packs of hostage tape for the price of three. That's almost half of a year for the price of three. That's again at hostage tape.com slash power project links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. I wanted to jump back to kind of more on the mental health side of things in, in the simplest of easiest ways to follow this whole thing. Um, is it safe to say that a ketogenic diet can help aid somebody,

I'll say get over, because I don't want to use the word cure, because if you use the word cure, things get a little screwy. So would a ketogenic diet help somebody get over the feeling of depression? Yes. It is not a panacea. So I have to start there. So depression is a heterogeneous

condition. We all get depressed and that's not a disorder. It's not a brain disorder. It's not a condition. It's just called being a human being. If you have a major defeat, if someone you really love dumps you, if someone you really love dies, if you start a business and you go bankrupt, we're all going to get a little depressed or a lot depressed, as the case may be. And that's not a mental illness as far as I'm concerned. I don't consider that a mental disorder. I don't consider that a brain disorder. I consider that being a human being. And yet those same pathways can get triggered at the wrong time in other people. So people who are perfectly fine on the surface, and they'll even say, I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't

know why I'm so unhappy. I don't know why I'm so depressed, why I'm thinking about death. Because on the surface, I have a perfectly good life and there's nothing wrong. And yet, I just can't stop thinking about whatever. So, depression can be a mental illness or a brain condition or a brain disorder, however you want to think about it. And we definitely have case reports of people with clinical crippling depression, sometimes long-standing depression, years and years of depression, going on ketogenic diets, and for whatever reason, their depression goes away. And some of those people

have been doing the diet for years now, and they remain in remission. Like one guy had been depressed on and off for over 20 years, chronically suicidal. His wife was about to leave him. She was so fed up with his just depression and his inability to function in the world and just negativity and all of that. And he has been doing phenomenally well for over seven years now. Depression hasn't come back. He got off all of his psychiatric meds. We have published case reports in the literature. And the good news is we've got clinical trials underway now for people with regular depression and for people with bipolar depression, which is kind of a different variant of depression. But we've got clinical

trials underway. Do you think with the knowledge that you have now, I've heard your story on Tim Ferris where you talked about your mother and her struggles. Do you think with the knowledge that you have now, I've heard your story on Tim Ferriss where you talked about your mother and her struggles. Do you think with the knowledge that you have now, you'd be able to treat your mother? Yeah. It's actually really tragic because my mother had basically what she called a nervous breakdown. It turned into psychotic symptoms. It started with depression, turned into psychosis. And it ended up ruining her life.

She never got better. She got treatment. She did what she was asked to do by the psychiatrist. She took their pills. She did talk therapy. She did all sorts of things. And nothing worked for her. And nothing worked for her. And knowing what I know now, there were so many factors that were playing a role. She was about the time of menopause, and brain metabolism. There's zero doubt about that. That

is like a huge field in neurology and psychiatry now is women's hormones and the effect on brain metabolism. And so for her, we could have tried a diet like the ketogenic diet. We may have added some hormone supplements. We may have done some other treatments. I probably would have avoided some of the treatments they gave her because those tend to be toxic and not very helpful. But I have little doubt that if I knew what I – if I knew back then what I know now, there were so many things that we could have tried to try to get her better. How do you open up someone's mind to doing this?

I'm sure by the time they see you, maybe they're pretty much ready for that. But how do you get someone kind of ready for it? They're, I don't know how to say it without sounding disrespectful, but they're not in their right mind already, right? They're, I don't want to say crazy. It's probably not the right way to say it, but they're already not in a good frame of mind, I'll say. And now you're pushing this diet onto them and they're like, I've tried everything, man. I've done everything and nothing works.

And I'm in this shitty situation. I just don't want to be here anymore. How are you to get someone started? So there's no doubt. It's not an easy process. And it's not like you can just go up to somebody who's suffering from a really severe mental illness and say, oh, try that keto diet. Check in with me in three months and let me know how it's going.

That's not going to work out very well. That would be like going up to an alcoholic and saying, hey, your life could be so much better if you just stop drinking. There, I just gave you the magic advice, the magic cure. Stop drinking. I'll check in with you in three months and I'll see how that's going for you. Well, that is the right answer. It is.

The alcoholic needs to stop drinking, but that's not the right solution. The solution is getting down to the nitty-gritty. How are you going to do this? This is going to be really hard. It might start with just convincing them that this is the solution, that this is the path. And so, you may spend weeks or months, even years, just trying to convince them, you need help, and this is the help you need, and we somehow got to help you get off alcohol. But even when they say, okay, I'm ready, I'm ready to get off alcohol, somebody better be ready to dig in with them and be like, okay, so what are you going to do when you go to that party and everybody's shoving a drink in your face? What

are you going to do? How are you going to get by? How are you going to say no? What are you going to do when you have a really shitty day? What are you going to do when, you know, whatever, all the, when it's time to celebrate, when it's time to commiserate. And so getting people to do a ketogenic diet, because this isn't just lose five pounds or 10 pounds and or do a nice cut and then you're done. And then, you know, this is actually a long haul treatment that's going to be at least a few years for most people. And so we're going to have to dig in and help them figure out how are you going to do this

day to day. And I think the first two months in particular are the worst. That's when people are craving. That's when they can feel weak or dizzy. Their whole body is adapting to ketosis. So it's not an easy process at all. And so usually what I do is I share that information with them up front. This is going to suck.

And that goes a long way. It really does. A lot of people want to like sugarcoat that or say, oh, you're going to feel great. It's going to be so easy. I know lots of people who can do keto. I go the other route. easy. I know lots of people who can do keto. I go the other route. I actually find it's easier to get people to do it when you prepare them for how bad it might feel. And you get them prepared, but you stay focused on the big goal. And the big goal is you want a better life.

You want these symptoms to go away. You want to be able to function in the world. And you've already tried lots of medicines or lots of hospitalizations or lots of talk therapy or whatever else they've tried, and none of it's worked. So it's time to step up your game and try something different. And, you know, it's really interesting because I talk to weight loss doctors all the time. And they come to me and they're like, Chris Palmer, how do you get your schizophrenic patients to do a ketogenic diet and stay with it? I can't get my weight loss patients to stick with it. How do you get your patients to stick with it. How do you get your patients to stick with it?

I am much more successful at getting my patients to stick with the diet than those weight loss doctors are. And the reason is because my patients have a lot more skin in the game. They are fighting for their lives. lot more skin in the game. They are fighting for their lives. They're not just trying to lose five pounds or 10 pounds or 50 pounds. Weight loss for a lot of people is not a highly motivating goal. They're not tormented by being overweight, usually. The patients I work with, every day they are tormented by their symptoms. They are desperate. They will do anything. They will let a doctor shock their brain with electricity because they're that desperate. Guess what? They'll also do a diet and stick with it.

Like, they really will. But you just have to have some faith in them. You have to be there to support them, educate them. Yeah, they're going to try it. Yeah, they're going to fall off the wagon. I already know that. I go into it with them saying, okay, what's going to happen three weeks from now when you fall off the wagon and then your symptoms start coming back? Let's come up with a plan now. And they'll argue with me. I'm not going to fall off the wagon, Dr. Palmer. Don't worry. I'm not going to do it. I'm feeling great. I'm like, you are going to fall off the wagon, but it's going to be okay because everybody does. And we're going to get you back on it. We're going to start talking about that now so that it's not a crisis when it happens.

And so that you know it's coming and you expect it. And that works well. But again, similar to how we work with an alcoholic. If you go in with an alcoholic and say, oh, you haven't had a drink in three weeks. Okay. I think our work is done. Like you're setting that person up for failure. You gotta, you gotta be honest with that person. Okay. Christmas is coming or your birthday's coming, or you're going to have a shitty day. What are you going to do when that happens? How are you going to get by? How are you going to manage? And so we need to

do the same thing with ketogenic diet therapies. Now, Dr. Palmer, is this a diet that they'll need to be on? If an individual does have full-blown schizophrenia, is this a diet that they'll need to be on for the rest of their life? Because I think when some people think about it, they're like, okay, I can do it for a while. And then when my symptoms and things get clear, I can start eating normally again. Normally, once again. So that is probably one of the biggest questions that we as a field don't yet have definite answers for because we just don't have enough long-term people who've used a ketogenic diet to overcome something like schizophrenia and then see how they do. The information that informs this answer primarily comes from the

epilepsy field. So when people have horrible treatment-resistant epilepsy, they've tried lots of medications, nothing stopping their seizures. When they go on a ketogenic diet and it does stop their seizures, more than 50% do not have to do the diet for life. They only have to do the diet for somewhere between two and five years. Somewhere in that window, the two to five-year mark seems to be the amount of time that it takes for the brain to heal itself so that when the person stops the diet, their seizures never come back. And so we have reason to believe that if that's the way it is in epilepsy, that might be the way it will be for people with serious mental illness. And I can tell you, I know of some patients with bipolar disorder, for instance, who have used the ketogenic diet

to put their symptoms in remission. They feel great. They're off all their meds. Some of them have been doing it for over seven years. Now, some of them, when they have, some of those people, when they have tried to go off the diet, their symptoms start coming back. And so they go back on the diet. I'm not always sure how much of that is just fear. Like when you transition off the diet, you might notice some mood symptoms. I think they sometimes are maybe for good reason because they've been thrown in the hospital against their will and all sorts of bad stuff. They don't want to take that chance. So I think if they notice any difference when they stop the ketogenic diet, they're usually

kind of maybe freaking out and like, oh, I'm just going to go back on it. With some of them, I do know people who have gone for, you know, the longest case that I know of was a woman in her 70s. She was 70 years old. She'd had schizophrenia for 53 years. She's 70 years old, tries a ketogenic diet for weight loss, puts her schizophrenia into remission, gets off all her medicines. She ended up living for another 15 years off of psychiatric meds, no more symptoms of schizophrenia. She basically put her schizophrenia into full and lasting remission. Some might call that a cure. She lost 150 pounds too, so that was a nice side effect. But she was able to cheat on the diet. When the holidays came, she could cheat and not have any major symptoms. But she always ended up going back to at least a low-carb-ish diet.

She wasn't necessarily in ketosis all the time, but she was on a lower-carb diet. Another patient that I know who's put her schizophrenia into remission for almost 10 years now, she'd had it for 20 years. It's been in remission for almost 10 years now. She'd had it for 20 years. It's been in remission for almost 10 years. She's usually not in ketosis anymore, but again, she's on more of a whole foods paleo diet. But then whenever she notices symptoms coming back, if she notices some depression or anxiety or something else, she just goes back on a ketogenic diet for a little bit. the symptoms usually go right away

and then she's on her way again unfortunately i lost my brother uh to he was bipolar and um you know it's just hard for him to cope with his day-to-day and i i kind of wonder you know with a diet like this a ketogenic diet and we knew about a ketogenic diet my brother and i my brother chris and i uh messed around with the diet a bunch of times. We didn't really know of its impact this way. We just kind of were like, oh, this is kind of cool to like lose some body fat. This is kind of cool for, you know, bodybuilding or for training that I was doing at the time. But I really appreciate the work that you're doing because it's got to be helping so many people. And I know nowadays there's so many people.

You hear so many talking about depression, loneliness, anxiety. Have you seen anything specific with some young people that are dealing with a lot of anxiety? Have you seen the ketogenic diet be beneficial with maybe calming some of the symptoms of that down as well? Absolutely. And honestly, for a lot of the younger people, if their symptoms are just low-grade depression, anxiety, loneliness, maybe lack of confidence, some other kind of low-grade symptoms, oftentimes they don't even need a ketogenic diet. They just need to get off the junk food, the sugar, and other stuff. A lot of times, if you just help them clean up their diet, I usually add in exercise because a lot of times they're not exercising at all.

So throw in some exercise and maybe throw in some morning light therapy, get outside, like look at, like let some sunshine get onto your skin, let it get into your face. That can be revolutionary for people. I know people who like that, that's the magic cure. They're probably never in ketosis, but again, simple, basic lifestyle strategies that anybody listening to your podcast already knows. Well, yeah, duh, of course. Of course, those things are going to be helpful. And yet, all of your listeners also know most people aren't doing those things, and the health of the population is just plummeting.

Earlier, you mentioned something about the effects that it can have on motivation, right? The ketogenic diet can aid in giving you a little bit of motivation. And just in conversations with everyday people, what I get back a lot is I'm not motivated and I'm tired all the time. And we talk about this all the time on the podcast. The one thing that you can do that's gonna help your cognition, that's gonna help your fitness,

whether it's a weight loss or muscle gain is getting adequate sleep. And a lot of people struggle with sleep. How does the ketogenic diet help with sleep? So that's a really great point. And I couldn't agree with you more. Sleep is essential to metabolic health. And sleep is essential to mental health too.

Sleep is essential to health, human health. And it's interesting because when people start a ketogenic diet, so in that first month, some people can actually, their sleep can get worse before it gets better. And it can get worse in the way that some people actually get revved up, too revved up from the diet. And they'll actually say, I'm hyper, my brain won't stop, I'm fidgety, and they can have trouble sleeping. So there are lots of tips and strategies to get people through that. If they absolutely need to use medications, like over, even over the counter sedating sleep meds or something for a few days, not permanently, but just for a few days to get their cycle back in check.

Fine. If they want to do some morning light therapy or just, you know, an hour before bed, really wind down, like play with your exercise regimen. That can help burn off some of that energy before you have to go to bed. Figure out a good time for you to do that so that you burn off that energy. You get kind of tired, but then you've got enough time to wind down before bedtime. So lots of strategies to get through that, over that hump. But we do have some clinical trials from people with, for weight loss, for diabetes, for epilepsy, who use ketogenic diets. And on average, most people end up experiencing tremendous improvement in sleep. So their sleep gets better, more restful. So people who are

oversleeping because they're burned out and tired, if they're sleeping nine hours a day, on a ketogenic diet, they might get by on seven hours of sleep a day, but they'll actually say, I don't need any more sleep. I don't even want any more sleep. I'm ready to start the day. I got stuff to do. I got a life to live. I'm just going to start doing it. And who wants to lay in bed all day? And that's what we want to see. I'm curious about this. I know everybody has their own individual issues when it comes to this. But for those, again, that are dealing with schizophrenia, I know some people who their medication makes them feel like they have a cloud over their head. But it does help some of those symptoms go away.

So they feel tired all the time, right? the time, right? So if a person's doing this, what is, and I know, again, it's different for everybody, but what kind of time, how much time have you seen it be able to reverse for certain individuals? Like what can people expect? I know you can't say in six months, this is how it's going to be, but like what signs can people be paying attention to, to actually realize this might actually be working? Because I can imagine that somebody starts doing the diet, they don't see, they don't feel anything within a month and they're like, ah, this isn't going to work for me, right? So what can they be looking at as like maybe landmarks or ways to track things just to make sure they're on the right track? So for people with really severe mental illnesses, and this would include severe depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, severe PTSD, other things.

Where they're really having severe symptoms. They're disabled by their symptoms. They might be on medications that are making them feel tired and lethargic and unmotivated. Usually, I start the process with we're not changing your meds right away. We're just going to try the diet, make sure you can do it, and then see what we can get out of the diet alone. Keeping your meds stable. And the clock starts when I get them into ketosis, like a higher level of ketosis. And that can take time for some people. Some people just play with the diet. They don't know how to do it. They struggle with it. They keep cheating every other day. And well, they're not getting into high levels of ketosis.

So you work with them. You stick with it until you get, once they get into like a moderate level of ketosis, that's when the clock starts. Almost always within two weeks, people will start to notice, I'm feeling something from this. This is different. For some people, it can be within a matter of days, but usually for the overwhelming majority of people within two weeks, the first thing they notice is just, I have more energy. I'm having more motivation. Again,

for some, it might be too much and then they might have trouble sleeping. That needs to be safely managed because if they don't get sleep, that can cause other problems that you don't want to have them getting. And then we wait. And I tell everybody with a severe mental illness, you've got to give this diet at least three months. It's not fair to yourself or to the diet to expect it to work in less time than that. Now, for some people, it does work in less time. Some people, within a month, they can start noticing something. But I've definitely had patients who, a month in, they're basically saying it doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. And we wait two months, and then at the two-month mark, they're like, yeah, maybe those voices are starting to get a little quieter and they're going away.

Three months, boom. That's when it's, oh, my God. I think I went all day and I didn't hear those voices at all. I can't believe it. Like, that hasn't happened in years. Like, how did I just go through this whole day without hearing any voices? And the fascinating thing is that, so for people with schizophrenia, you know, when they hear the voices, they usually

think the voices are real and they mean something. It's either the voices are dead people talking to them or they're God or the devil or, you know, aliens or their families torturing them, whatever. Usually at that three-month mark, that's where they start saying, and you know what? I can ignore them now. And I don't give a shit. Like, I just don't care about those stupid voices anymore. And they're probably not real anyway. It sounds kind of crazy. And they're probably not real anyway. It sounds kind of crazy. And they're

probably not real. And like, why have I been ruining my life paying so much attention to these stupid voices when they may not even be real? And then, you know, you're off to the races. If they're still taking a lot of medications, I'm really going to strongly encourage them to work with their healthcare provider who's prescribing those meds. But at that point, they can probably start to reduce their meds and maybe even get off some or possibly all of them. But it needs to be done in a very careful, safe, controlled way. And what type of thing would you suggest they use to track being in ketosis? Because some people use different things. Is there any type of thing would you suggest they use to track being in ketosis?

Because some people use different things. Is there any type of product you'd suggest they grab? If people can afford it, and that's an if, but if they can afford it, I'm a huge fan of blood ketone levels. They are more reliable than any other ketone monitoring device. So the blood levels, it costs about a dollar per test strip. And then you got to pay usually about 80 bucks or something for the monitor. So not everybody can afford that.

And if you're looking for blood ketone levels and treating a severe mental illness, I want you to get blood ketone levels greater than 1.5 if you can, somewhere between 1.5 and 3.0 of blood beta-hydroxybutyrate. It can go too high, so you don't want it greater than 5 or 6. If you get it greater than 5 or 6, you can actually start getting into ketoacidosis territory and you don't want to do that. And what happens? What should they do? If it gets into five or six range, add just a little bit more carbohydrates to your diet or a little more protein. Eat a little more protein. That's even

the safer way to do it. But back off on the diet. When people have an acute emergency, so if their blood ketones are 6.0 and they're really nauseous and they're sick, then I've actually had some patients where we have them sipping orange juice or apple juice literally from a teaspoon. So you're taking tiny, tiny amounts, but just get a little bit of sugar into your system to bring those ketones down. But that's a rare event. Most people can't get ketone levels that high. So it's a rare problem to have. And, but yeah, I think I answered your questions, but let me know if I didn't. And you're looking at approximately like one gram of fat per gram of protein-ish to kind of get you headed in the right direction? Do you think that's

a fair number? Can you say that again? Because you broke up actually. Yeah. One gram of fat per gram of protein that you consume, somewhere in that range, and then keeping the carbohydrates 20? That would definitely be a good range. That ends up being kind of a two-to-one ratio diet. So we talk about the ratio of calories from fat to the ratio of calories from everything else. And a one-to-one ratio of fat to carbs because fat has a little more than twice as many calories per gram ends up being a two-to-one ratio diet. And that's actually kind of, yeah, that's a pretty good place to start. Some exceptions to that are these thin people. So, unfortunately, the thin people have a harder time getting into a therapeutic state of ketosis than the fat or overweight people. So unfortunately, the thin people have a harder time getting into a therapeutic state of ketosis than the fat or overweight people. The people who are obese, this is the blessing

of obesity is you can get into ketosis fast and easy. Just restrict your carbs. No counting at all. You are blessed. But the thin people, they are going to have to weigh and measure, and they might have to go to a three to one ratio or something like that, where they're even eating a little more fat than that. You're probably wondering why am I wearing these glasses? Well, it's because I'm being bathed in blue light. And blue light isn't necessarily bad. There's blue light in the sun. But if you're in your office, if you're indoors, if you're in front of a screen during the daytime, it's not a great idea to have your eyes being bathed by blue light all day long. That's why EMR Tech, a company that we've partnered with,

has blue light daytime glasses and blue light blocking evening glasses. These glasses right here are meant for you to wear during the daytime when you're in front of screens, et cetera. But if you're outside, take the glasses off and get the natural sunlight. And if you're at home in the evening when sun sets and you need to be in front of the TV or you need to be in front of your computer or on your phone, these glasses are the ones to get. They also have the best red light therapy devices

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These are literally the best red light therapy devices on the market. And if you want to save on them, Andrew, how can they do that? Yes, you got to head over to emrtech.com. That's E-M-R-T-E-C-T-E-K.com. And check out enter promo code POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's emrtech.com, promo code POWERPROJECT. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. And what's the effectiveness of maybe like MCT oil? Like my understanding that MCT can turn into ketones a little more readily. Even coconut oil has a high amount of MCT oil in it. And then I understand there's some of these supplemental ketones. What are some of your thoughts on some

of that stuff? So the MCT oil is a huge benefit. So if, again, not everybody can afford it. I deal with people who are disabled on disability. They are poor and they can do ketogenic diets, but they don't get blood monitors and they don't always even have a budget for MCT oil, unfortunately. But for people who have a budget for MCT oil, absolutely add it to a ketogenic diet because you can get by with a lower ratio of fat to protein. So you might only need to eat 0.8 grams of fat for every one gram of protein. That essentially allows you to eat more protein, basically, is the bottom line. You can eat more protein. You can get by on a less strict version of the ketogenic diet. And that has a strong evidence base. We've got clinical trials of

adding MCT oil for epilepsy treatment, and it helps a lot. In terms of exogenous ketones, and there are many, you can get ketone salts, ketone esters, there are new things coming out. That gets more complicated fast. The bottom line is that we have very good evidence that drinking a bottle of ketones is not at all the same intervention as doing a ketogenic diet. There is no ambiguity. So a lot of times people just want to take the easiest method. And so they think, well, I'll just drink some ketones two or three times a day and I'm doing a ketogenic diet. I'm like, nope, you are not doing a ketogenic diet at all. So if you're eating donuts and cookies and ice cream and then washing those down with a bottle of ketones, you're doing something, but it's not a ketogenic diet. It might be beneficial.

Exogenous ketones are probably showing the most promise right now for alcoholism, actually. We've got clinical trials with alcoholics. We've got some clinical trials of the ketogenic diet being effective for alcohol withdrawal, for reducing alcohol cravings, improving brain metabolism, and reducing brain inflammation in alcoholics. When they go on a ketogenic diet, all of those beneficial things happen, and they crave less alcohol. So it can help in the treatment of alcoholism because they crave alcohol less. And there are some people who are really hopeful that maybe when we're treating alcoholics, if they have a craving for alcohol, we could have them drink a bottle of ketones instead.

And that might be enough to take the edge off of that craving so that they can then not drink. And people are pursuing that line of research. We've got preclinical trials, which means animal models with rats and mice. But they're doing human trials now with exogenous ketones. And companies are already geared up. They've got beverages that look like seltzers or other things, hard ketones without the alcohol. It looks like it's an alcoholic beverage, but it's not. So the companies are already on board with this. I'm not sure that that's the best. So for anybody who wants to use that for alcoholics, I'm not sure giving them something that looks like alcohol is the best

strategy. We got to retrain them and retrain their habits that they don't need to be drinking alcohol. So maybe give them a different bottle of ketones that looks more like a medicine or something and they drink that. But whatever, whatever works. Yeah. What's the research show in terms of like Alzheimer's and dementia? Because it seems like that is becoming, you're just hearing more and more talk of that. And I think they said by like 2050, they think like half the population is going to suffer from that. Yeah, we've actually got some larger clinical trials underway now.

So we had some small pilot trials published of people with Alzheimer's disease. It's only like 20, 30 patients, but people with Alzheimer's disease were randomly assigned to either a ketogenic diet or a low-fat diet. In one study, they gave both groups both of those diets and they separated it. So they're like, you do a ketogenic diet for 12 weeks, and then we're going to wash out for 10 weeks, meaning do whatever you want. And then we're going to have you do a low-fat diet for 12 weeks or vice versa with some of the other participants. And when the participants were on the ketogenic diet. They had improvement in quality of life, improvement in activities of daily living, which means they could get themselves dressed. They could get on and off a toilet by themselves. I know those sound like small things to most people, but when you can't do them,

they are massive. They are massive for the individual because they're humiliating. It's humiliating to have to have another human being help you get on and off a toilet. And it's awful for the caregivers who have to do that. And so the ketogenic diet actually improved those things in people with Alzheimer's disease. It did also improve cognition, but not enough that it was a statistically significant difference from the low-fat diet. But we've got larger clinical trials underway now. Good. And Dr. Palmer, I wanted to know about this. Actually, I know someone, again, who their schizophrenia actually ended up coming on in their early 20s, and it was shortly after they actually started smoking marijuana. But currently, it's actually, I feel as if they maybe find themselves smoking every now and then because it's something that they say helps quell their voices, correct? For them. Now, I want to know,

what should people be paying attention to when it comes to THC and marijuana, if this is something they deal with, and maybe if it isn't something that they deal with? As soon as you started telling your story, I said in my head, he's going to talk about marijuana. I know it. This is extraordinarily common. And we have large human epidemiological studies that have looked at people over time. People who use a lot of marijuana are more likely to develop all sorts of neuropsychiatric disorders. That means depression, anxiety, but also schizophrenia. And we have animal models that show that giving animals high doses of THC induces the same physiological effects that we see in schizophrenia. Now, there are people who are pro-marijuana who say, well, that's not enough proof for me.

And the reality is, so for those skeptics, we will never be able to do a study where we take 10,000 children and have 5,000 of them smoke marijuana every day. And we tell the other 5,000, don't you dare touch marijuana and see what happens to them. No review board would ever approve that study because it would be unethical. no review board would ever approve that study because it would be unethical. And it would be unethical because most people would assume we are harming the people that we are telling to smoke marijuana every day. We're going to harm them, and it may be irreversible harm. The reality is that any substance that inhibits mitochondrial function, and we know THC inhibits mitochondrial function. And we know THC inhibits mitochondrial function. That is not a question. If you believe in science, if you believe in scientific studies, you have to believe that is true because we've seen it time and again in human cells,

in petri dishes, in animal models, in human models, in brain imaging, in all sorts of things. in animal models, in human models, in brain imaging, in all sorts of things. THC inhibits brain metabolism or brain mitochondrial function. And I believe that is central in its role in potentially triggering or possibly causing schizophrenia in some people. possibly causing schizophrenia in some people. The reality is that inhibiting brain metabolism can stop symptoms. That's the paradox, is that by stopping your brain, you can sometimes stop the hallucinations, but you're actually making your brain weaker and more vulnerable over time. It would be like if somebody had a cast on their leg and their muscles shrunk. They might say, every time I try to work out with that leg, it hurts and I get muscle spasms. So what's the solution? I'm just not going to work out anymore.

Well, not working out anymore is a short-term solution to preventing muscle spasms, but it's a long-term solution to being disabled or less than healthy. And it's the same thing with marijuana. Your friend may in fact get short-term benefits every time he uses marijuana, but he is taking a long-term toll on his brain health. He is harming his brain every time he smokes. And it's just making his brain metabolism, his brain mitochondrial function even more impaired. The good news is that as long as he's alive, as long as his brain cells are alive, he can recover.

Just like as long as somebody has skinny leg muscles, they can get them bigger. There's hope. There is hope. But you're going to have to do the work. And it's not always going to be pleasant. And it may not be easy, but you can do it. I'm trying to build these legs, Doc. I'm trying. So, I'm sure we've all seen it. I know I've personally seen it where a parent's having a really difficult time with their child. The child's probably been diagnosed by a doctor with some form of behavioral or mental, I'll say, health issue. And it seems like the child almost is addicted to chips, cookies, carbs. child almost like is addicted to like chips, cookies, carbs, when the parent wants to get them like actual food, they freak out and the, you know, the just, it doesn't work very well.

What advice do you have for a parent that is trying to go this low carb route when their child is already acting this way and they're, you know, no need to point fingers, right? Because the kid can't go to the store and buy food by themselves, but they are already deep into these bad habits. Knowing that a ketogenic dial could help with all of these symptoms, what is some advice to help some of those parents kind of hit the switch and get rid of some of these very palatable, yummy, tasty carbs in favor of a higher fat, higher protein diet? So, you know, the real answer is it depends on how much of a crisis there is. Like, is the kid having a crisis, not doing well in school, suicidal, teachers are raising concern, psychiatrist is

ready to add two more pills to this kid's regimen. If there's a crisis going on, you may need a more drastic and immediate intervention. And you may need to be like, okay, starting Saturday, intervention time. None of that crap food in this house anymore. No eating out for the next month. We're all going to do this together. So, I just kind of alluded to the most important aspect, but I'm going to say it out loud. If you want a kid to do something, everybody in the house has to do it. Certainly the parents. If you've got other kids, you might be able to come up with a system for them so that

they don't have to do it. But the kid needs to understand this is not a punishment. This is not, hey, all of us are going to keep eating our cookies and ice cream, but you can't have any because you're a bad kid. That is not the right message to be sending this kid. The right message is we've all let our diets go to hell and we're all getting on the bandwagon together. We are a family. We're in this together.

We're going to do it together. And so step one is you got to get everybody's buy-in to do that. And then, again, if you need an immediate intervention, just start on some start day. For the majority of people, they don't need an immediate intervention. So it's talk to the kid. Okay, here are the 10 foods that we routinely buy for you, that you routinely eat as part of meals or as snacks or as treats. Here are the 10 foods that we are going to try to eliminate over the next four months. Pick one that you're willing to give up starting next week. And you get rid of that food.

And that food is no longer in the house. That food is no longer available. At the same time, instead of shoving carrots or celery sticks or chicken wings or even bacon in front of this kid, I mean, if any of those things work, if shoving some of that food in front of the kid is helpful, great. Shove the food in front of that kid. But usually that's not the solution. The better solution is to distract the kid from the need to eat junk food. Most of the time when people are eating junk food is because they are bored or lonely or whatever, and they don't have anything to do. So the other thing the parents are going to start doing is we are going to start having some activities.

We are going to go for a walk around the block. We're going to go play soccer in the park down the street. We're all going to go to the gym together. We're going to go swimming. We're going to whatever. We're going to do chores. We're all going to do some yard work. We're going to plant a garden.

We're going to fix up the house. We're going to do a garden. We're going to fix up the house. We're going to do a project. We're going to add an addition. Whatever you're doing, find some things to do. They can be fun things. Ask the kid what he or she wants to do. Do those things. But you're going to do those things so that everybody's not sitting around a table feeling tormented, looking at food that's not very appetizing compared to the food that everybody had been eating. That's not the way to live life. That's not the way to make these changes. The way to make the changes is to focus on non-food activities that are going to fill your day.

And then you're just going to eat because you're hungry and you're going to slowly and progressively eat healthier foods and fewer and fewer of the unhealthy foods. What does something like lifting weights do for our brain metabolism? I realize that it's kind of chewing up glucose in some ways. Is that something that, like lifting weights in particular, have you noticed it having a huge impact on the people that you work with? It does. So lifting weights, if you do it right, you're going to grow muscle. And doing it right means you need to go to failure at least every now and then, and you need to eat enough protein and calories in order to get some muscle growth. When you grow muscle, you grow mitochondria in

that muscle. Muscle ends up being an endocrine organ. So muscle will spit out hormones, peptides, and other things that can make their way up to the brain and help brain metabolism and brain mitochondrial function. So any kind of exercise, so improving your cardiovascular fitness with zone two training or improving growing your muscle size with weightlifting, those are the two most powerful ways to improve brain health. And it's that simple. Can you tell us about the nonprofit that you started? I think that's really interesting for people that are listening. I think that's a lot of the ways you get a lot of your research done and stuff like that. So that's not a non – are you talking about Metabolic Mind?

Yeah, with Matt Batowski. Yeah. So the Bazooki family, they're the ones that started this nonprofit called Metabolic Mind. the ones that started this nonprofit called Metabolic Mind. It is focused on advancing ketogenic therapies for severe mental illness and even milder mental illnesses. They are funding lots of clinical trials. They've got a group of over, I think, probably 125 neuroscientists, psychiatrists, mental health professionals, metabolic health professionals from around the world all collaborating. They're doing a lot of advocacy, patient education, other stuff.

I'm still working through McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School. We've got, we just got a $3 million gift, and we've been offered even more money to start advancing this work and doing research. We've got a clinical trial of the ketogenic diet for bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder underway now at McLean Hospital, funded by the Bazooki Group. So we's really, we've got over a dozen clinical trials in process now of ketogenic diets for severe mental illness and milder mental illnesses. Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Oxford University in the UK. This is a really kind of growing, exciting field to be in.

You know, just curious, because I can imagine if somebody is sick and they're listening to what we're talking about to you right now, they're going to be like, I want to reach out to Dr. Palmer. And you probably already have a lot of people that you work with, and it's not going to be easy for everyone to try to reach out to you, right? So if somebody doesn't have a support system and they're hearing this, do you have any suggestions for people they should try to maybe reach out to or, I don't know, clinics, online things? What resources do people who don't have support systems have? I would recommend that they go to metabolicmind.org. They are trying to put together some patient directories. They can go to my website, chrispalmermd.com. That's one of the websites.

And you can actually, I've got some ketogenic dieticians listed there who are treating patients with serious mental illness. Most of them are working virtually. I don't get a penny for telling you about them. I'm just doing it as a service. People can sign up for a wait list if they want. I'm hoping to start clinics that will scale rapidly soon. I'm in discussions with business people, philanthropists, investors, and others. People want these services fast and now. If they want to learn about the medical version of the ketogenic diet and a lot of those resources, I would highly recommend charliefoundation.org. So that is focused on epilepsy,

but they will tell you how to do the medical grade version of ketogenic diet. And you mentioned ketamine earlier. Is ketamine a psychedelic? A lot of people do consider ketamine a psychedelic. And there are people who trip on it, who have kind of experiences that are surreal and kind of, yeah. So ketamine, interestingly, also increases neuroplasticity. All of the psychedelics do. They increase neuroplasticity. And at least one of the mechanisms that they increase neuroplasticity, and at least one of the mechanisms that they increase neuroplasticity through is through mitochondrial adaptations. So it is promoting neuroplasticity

in your brain by changing your brain metabolism, by making it more flexible and fluid, so that maybe instead of focusing on being depressed and miserable, you can focus on something to live for. Has anybody treated any of these diseases that you're working on with psychedelics, with mushrooms or anything like that? Yeah, there's a whole field research. For the most part, they're staying away from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Most of the psychedelic clinical trials are excluding them, but they are using it for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addictions, and other disorders. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much for your time today. Where can

people find out more about you? Appreciate you. Yeah. Brainenergy.com is probably the best source. It's got a lot of articles. You can learn more about the book that explains a lot of this in detail. And you can sign up for our newsletter for free. There's a lot to check out. Dominic D'Agostino, Andrew Huberman, and a couple others had nothing but great things to say about you. So, appreciate the work you're doing out there. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you all. Thank you, sir. You and your leaders had an awesome night. You got dinner or you just came back from the gym and it's time for that fun time, but you look down at your Willie and well, it's not working the way it should. Where's that blood flow? Well, that's where joy mode comes in.

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Absolutely. And I think it's applicable too. I think one of the hardest things for anybody who's dealing with specifically schizophrenia is just the consistency of being able to stay on a diet like this. Because a ketogenic diet is difficult for even people who don't have mental illness. Yeah. One of the things that I always found interesting about the ketogenic diet is that you do kind of get locked into it. And a cool thing is,

is that because it takes so many days to get into ketosis, to get into this state, just for people that don't know, it can sometimes take 10 days and sometimes it could take 20 days. It kind of depends on the person, depends on what you're doing, depends on how much you're eating,

how active you are. There's a lot of factors that go into it. And because it takes that amount of time, you're like, I'm not going to mess this up. You know, you still might still, you know, those cravings sometimes really call to you and they're super strong. So sometimes you still blow it. But even if you do, even if you go off the diet a little bit, yes, you're kicked out of ketosis if you ate like a donut or some pizza or something like that. But as long as it didn't turn into like a giant binge that lasts like the whole weekend, then you should be able to get back into it very quickly. So it's not like a video game where you have to start over completely. You at least get to start over

at the same level rather than from the very beginning. It's one of those things where I just think it'd be beneficial for people to try. Cause I remember like, you know, when you started fasting years ago, 2017, 18, one of the reasons why I'm still low carb at this point is because, well, I just feel better being low carb or no carb, like mentally, physically it's. And you're still fast here and there, right? Still fast quite a bit here and there. I still sit there multiple days where where like i just like won't eat until the evening or have one meal but you're definitely producing ketones yeah yeah but but that's the thing it's like it's definitely worth it to try these things out and see how you feel and then see how your diet adjusts from there

especially if you're someone who finds yourself eating a lot of carbohydrates like if you're a 400 500 gram per day eater see how you feel for a little bit and then carbohydrates. Like if you're a 400, 500 gram per day eater, see how you feel for a little bit. And then see if you feel that you need that many carbs. You might not. How do you guys feel about, because that's what comes up a lot when people are like in the gym lifting or training, whatever, jujitsu.

Like, oh, but I need carbs for the energy. I need the fuel. And I know we've talked about this with so many people. It's like, oh, have carbs around your training session or whatever. And it's just, I think people, myself included, get stuck around that. Like, no, I need to have carbs for energy. When you guys have dabbled in keto or in fasting, I mean, was it a significant difference? Was it like a time, like an adaptation period? Like did something change when you started cutting out some of these carbs or all of these carbs? I know for me, it's just like an adaptation period. You know, sometimes people say, oh man, like I started to lose some weight and then, um, and I got weaker.

I got flat. Yeah. I got flat. i got flat i got weak and i just think they didn't maybe give it enough time i'm not disagreeing with them probably what they felt is probably real and sometimes you know you go to do an exercise especially something like a bench press or squat you don't have that same kind of weight underneath you um it's just gonna feel way different but you just have to give it some time and then also you have to think about what you're gaining i think we have a tendency to look on like, oh, I lost 10, 15 pounds on my squat. Who really cares about your squat?

And I mean, if you're a power lifter, then maybe you do need to care about your squat. But if you're moving down a weight class or something, maybe losing the weight is not going to be that bad. It's going to be honest, move down that weight class. And if you're like a jujitsu athlete or a soccer player, football player, I don't think it's really going to matter that much that you lost 15 pounds on your squat. You're probably

going to be faster because you've lost some body fat. Yeah, dude, it's a time thing. I remember when I started doing some fasting, started doing some like low to no carb, I felt like shit for a minute, especially my performance. And then there's this transition period where I was just like, I actually feel pretty, I actually don't, I can go to jujitsu without having to eat beforehand, as long as I have some calories in my system. And then I was like, okay, you know what? Let's bring a little bit of carbs back. See how we feel. Okay. That feels good. I can eat a hundred grams of carbs and perform like I was before. I can eat 150. That's all I need. Whereas before I was eating like 400, 500, and that was what I felt I needed. I think that's a, that's a really good place to be, uh, as far as your performance, because like, um, there's, there's less brain fog, there's really good performance. And again, you don't need that many carbs to be able to perform. Right. So I think most people that have the reasoning of like, I need it for my performance. It's just an excuse to eat excess carbs. And I

won't say it's purely an excuse. Cause again, there is that phase of it feeling like crap. I don't want it. And also maybe you're trying to look like Nick Walker or something. Like if your goal is to be like this crazy bodybuilder, it's eat your carbs, bro. Yeah. We got nothing to say with say to you, you know, yeah. Have you guys compared like you went super low carb for a while and you're like, Oh no, I am feeling good. I've, I've, you know, that adaptation period's over and I feel great. And then one day you have some bench bagels again and you give it a shot and you're like, Whoa, wait a second.

I was missing these carbs or maybe it feels better than I remember. Anything like that? Um, when it comes to lifting, I would say yes. Like if I had a little bit of carbohydrates, I think almost anybody could say if you had a little bit of carbohydrates before a training session or, you know, handful of hours before a training session, you almost always will feel better. I think there's some sort of like uptake of, of high of hydration that's happening. Um, because, you know, carbohydrates help to hydrate the cell. Um, but on top of the magnesium and the calcium and potassium, sodium,

all those other things that you've taken in, they're really kind of all latching onto, in my smelly science brain, they're all sort of latching onto each other and entering the muscle cell and making you a little bit more swole. And also, you might just weigh a little bit more. So depending on the activity that you're doing, you know, if you're going to bench at like six o'clock at night and you can make yourself four to six pounds heavier

by that time, I think that's probably a pretty good advantage. Now, if you're going to go on a run or you're going to, you know, go, if you like hopping on a bike or something like that, those guys that do the Tour de France, they care so much about their weight that they're willing to be kind of almost borderline dehydrated. That's why when they fall, it's such a tragic thing. You watch them fall and you're like, well, they fell at kind of a slow speed.

I don't understand why they can't get back up. Well, they've been on their bike for X amount of days and their body weight is so light, but they want their body weight to be chasing like ketosis or ketones or whatever. So like maybe just cutting back on carbs, like for breakfast, no carbs, and then dinner, have rice with steak and that sort of thing. So it kind of like halfway ketogenic in my day. You know, something is if somebody is a performance athlete, like if somebody does jujitsu or they, uh, they're pretty active, you can still have a decent amount of carbohydrates while being in ketosis. And not like decent amount of carbohydrates while being in ketosis. And not like you're trying to chase being in ketosis, but if you do want to chase being in

ketosis, you probably could still have 40 to 50 grams of carbs and be in ketosis if you're that active of an athlete. Like if you're doing jujitsu, a session of jujitsu and some lift, like, yeah, you're going to be in ketosis even if you eat 40 grams of carbs, most likely. But I think like you, you know, if you'd go low carb for a period of time, get enough fat and get enough protein in, you'll still see some of the benefits of what we're talking about here. You don't have to chase the ketones. I believe like a caloric deficit sets you up for some of this stuff too. And so does fasting. And we can't forget that fasting and ketosis run right next to each other. They're buddies, you know, like fasting mimics ketosis and ketosis mimics fasting. They work great together. So if you want to try to sort of cheat the system, I do think that maybe at some point it would be a good idea for people to get rid of

carbohydrates from their diet just for like a, almost like a two week stretch. See if you can go like 50 or lower for a little while. Maybe that's when you're on a vacation or maybe that's when you're chilling a little bit more. But I think it would be a good practice. I know Joel Green and a couple other people, Superbrain's kind of a fan of this too. And Joel Green, you know, he says all kinds of really interesting things, but he would be like, this is an anti-cancer day and I'm going to like go full keto

and I'm going to go like, so in his head, he's like, oh, I'm going to, you know, stave off, you know, because some forms of cancer people believe that might be attached to our metabolic health. And so he might, you know, for that regard, maybe have a little MCT. Maybe he's trying to drive up those ketones for that day, even though you can't maybe necessarily

like get into ketosis for the day. But I think fasting is a great way to go about it. And I think, I also think that like the ketogenic diet to like really be sitting in like nutritional ketosis where your Keto Mojo is one of the companies you can use to, uh, you prick your finger and you check your ketone level. There's, there's, there's like another one, like there's two on Amazon. They're like the main ones you buy either one and they're, they're going to be a little different from each other. So some

people buy both because they nerd out and they, they check them against each other. And sometimes they're off quite a bit. I actually think that the key, when you're not trying to treat what Dr. Palmer's treating, the key to a ketogenic diet, I think is to kind of ride the line of being close to being in ketosis. You're kind of almost always brushing up against it. And that's where an athlete, I think like in SEMA,

with the amount of muscle mass that he has, eating 100, 200 grams of protein or carbohydrates, sorry. He's probably right there all the time. Not necessarily like nutritional ketosis, maybe not the 1.5 Dr. Palmer was talking about, but he might be like 0.7 or one just by eating the way he eats. Yeah. And then like, it's been a while since you were actually like deep, deep in like keto style diet eating and then like it's been a while since you were actually like deep deep in like keto style diet eating and stuff like that for me every time it comes up i want to like oh that's pretty good excuse or a good reason to jump back in um how sustainable is it you know like i know it's like low carb seems to be like the easiest to find out and about

but as far as like cravings and that sort of thing, again, just talking for like the general population of people that are listening, we are kind of attached and tied to some of our yummy carbs. How long does it take before you start like realizing like, actually, I don't need these carbs and I can sustain this diet. Kind of reminds me of the Mike Dolce Kit Kat story. You don't become, you know, like you feel like you don't need to surrender to him after a while. And I've been doing like low carb-ish for a long time. I kind of hate to classify it much as anything anymore just because it gets confusing to people. And they're like, sometimes I see you eat a potato and sometimes you have rice.

It's like I have a potato like once a week. I have a serving, a serving of a half a cup of rice, maybe once a week. Maybe there's a week where I have a little bit more. Maybe there's a week where I have a little bit less, but I kind of just do what calls to me. You know, I kind of just do at this point what I feel, but I think a lower carb diet is sustainable

for very, very long periods of time. I think it can be a lifelong thing. I have so many friends that have been doing it very long periods of time. I think it's a, it can be a lifelong thing. I've have so many friends that have been doing it for a really long time. Like the, like Ron and Shannon Penna, um, and a bunch, a bunch of long list of a bunch of other friends have been doing it for a long time. And myself and my wife included. Does a pint of Ben and Jerry's ever call it to you anymore? Well, that's pretty much pure protein and, and, uh, fat, right? MCT oil, pretty much protein and fat right MCT oil pretty much protein and fat

especially like the new Ben and Jerry's they came out with one that's carbless I don't know have you seen it yet oh the carbless one

yeah that's gonna cause some indigestion it just puts you right in ketosis when you eat the whole thing yeah

but you gotta eat the whole thing makes sense yeah yeah I mean some of those foods still call to me that's a lie guys

someone's gonna take that food seriously I'm googling it right now looking it up of course some of those foods still call to me. That's a lie, guys. Someone's going to take that food seriously. I'm Googling it right now. I'm looking it up. Of course, some of those foods still call to me. But, you know, what's wrong with eating some of those foods sometimes? There's just nothing wrong with it.

There's no reason why you can't. But, again. Sometimes isn't every day. Yeah. And I think that when somebody is trying a diet, man, I think a day or two seems like a lifetime, you know, a couple of days seems like an eternity to them. And so I have a lot of friends that they'll tell me, man, I'm doing, I've been on this for, you know, a while now. And I'm like, we were just talking about your binge last Sunday. And that was only like four days ago, you know? Since then. And it seems like, yeah. Well, four days of putting in the work can feel really difficult

if you haven't been able to ever get back, get on track the way you need to. I remember like thinking in my head, I used to kind of be like, all right, I'm going to make it like 15 days or I'm going to make it like 20 days. And then when people like Stan came around, they would tell me I'd ask them questions about like, all right, I'm going to make it like 15 days or I'm going to make it like 20 days. And then when people like Stan came around and they would tell me, I'd ask him questions about like, when do you cheat? When do you do? It's like, I don't really care. I don't. I'm like, how is that possible?

And O'Hearn and some of these other guys. That's not the way I want to really live my life because I'd rather have some influence of some of those things here and there. But I'm about halfway to where those nut jobs are. All right. Let's take her on home here, huh? Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.