Dietary Interventions Improve Mitochondrial Function for Mental Health

Key Quotes

"If you delve into the science -- all the accumulated research from the last 100 years and beyond, including neuroimaging, genetic, neurotransmitter, hormone, trauma, and adverse childhood experiences studies -- and understand what's happening in the brains and bodies of people as a consequence of these factors, you arrive at one conclusion: mental disorders are metabolic in nature. It is incontrovertible that diet plays a massive role in metabolism. Therefore, I strongly believe that diet might be contributing to the mental health epidemic we're witnessing, and it also might offer a path to hope, healing, and recovery. As a scientist and clinician, I know with certainty that diet can heal and help people recover from chronic, horrible, debilitating mental illnesses."

Dr. Palmer argues that a comprehensive review of scientific research leads to the conclusion that mental disorders are fundamentally metabolic. He asserts that diet is a critical factor in metabolism, suggesting it contributes to the current mental health crisis and offers a potential avenue for recovery. Dr. Palmer states with certainty, based on his scientific and clinical experience, that dietary changes can lead to healing from severe mental illnesses.

"From my own personal story, during medical school and residency, I suffered from low-grade depression, OCD, and other symptoms. I also developed metabolic syndrome, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and pre-diabetes. I wasn't significantly overweight and was exercising, but I was following a low-fat diet, mostly of processed foods because they were cheaper. This was the diet touted as healthy at the time -- low in fat was supposedly good for us. My metabolic syndrome continued to worsen. To treat it, I changed my diet to a low-carbohydrate one. Within three months, my metabolic syndrome was completely gone. What truly dumbfounded me was that my mental health was better than it had ever been in my entire life."

Dr. Palmer shares his personal experience of suffering from depression and metabolic syndrome while adhering to a low-fat, processed food diet. He explains that switching to a low-carbohydrate diet resolved his metabolic issues and, unexpectedly, significantly improved his mental health. This personal narrative serves as an example of how dietary changes can have profound effects on both physical and psychological well-being.

"But if I have that profile, if I have that sort of mental health profile now, as I sit here, and then for the next decade I eat processed junk food, am I going to send my mitochondria into disarray, which is going to increase the probability that I have a mental health disorder? Yes, I think yes. We have, you know, there's no way we will ever be able to do a human randomized controlled trial to test that precise, unethical hypothesis. But we have large epidemiological studies that strongly suggest that people who eat a lot of ultra-processed food have a higher risk for developing depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders."

Dr. Palmer responds affirmatively when asked if a diet of processed junk food could lead to mitochondrial dysfunction and an increased risk of mental health disorders. He acknowledges the ethical impossibility of conducting a direct human trial for this hypothesis but points to large epidemiological studies. These studies, Dr. Palmer notes, indicate a strong correlation between high consumption of ultra-processed foods and an elevated risk of developing conditions like depression and anxiety.

"So, one story that I will just share, just because it's probably one of the most powerful stories I know, was a woman whose real name was Doris. In the book, I called her Mildred because I changed everybody's names, but she actually gave me permission to use her real name, so in honor of her, I want to use her real name. She was a woman who actually had a horrible, abusive childhood, lots of trauma. And by the time she turned 17, she started having daily hallucinations and delusions and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over the ensuing decades, she tried numerous antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and other medicines, but none of them stopped her symptoms. She remained with all of the symptoms of schizophrenia. She ended up gaining a massive amount of weight. She ended up weighing about 330 pounds. By the time she was 70, her life was devastated by this diagnosis."

Dr. Palmer introduces the case of Doris, a woman diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17 who experienced decades of persistent symptoms despite trying various psychiatric medications. He details how her condition led to significant weight gain, reaching 330 pounds by age 70, and how her life was severely impacted by the diagnosis. Dr. Palmer uses Doris's story to illustrate the potential limitations of conventional treatments for severe mental illness and to set the stage for discussing alternative interventions.

"So, unbeknownst to most people, the ketogenic diet was developed over 100 years ago now by a physician for one and only one purpose: it was developed to stop seizures. And in fact, the ketogenic diet has been studied extensively for its effects on the brain over the past 100 years, and it is an evidence-based treatment for epilepsy. And the reason that that is so important is because we use epilepsy treatments in psychiatry all the time. Lots of the medications that we prescribe to psychiatric patients are in fact epilepsy treatments. And so we know that there's a lot of overlap between epilepsy and mental illness, and that treatments that help with epilepsy can also help with mental illness."

Dr. Palmer explains that the ketogenic diet, often perceived as a fad, was originally developed over a century ago specifically to treat seizures. He highlights that its efficacy for epilepsy is well-documented through extensive research on its brain effects. Dr. Palmer emphasizes the relevance of this to psychiatry, noting that many psychiatric medications are also used to treat epilepsy, suggesting a significant overlap in the underlying biology and a potential for epilepsy treatments to benefit mental illness.

"But at the end of the day, I'm convinced that it's really the metabolic changes and the mitochondrial changes that are so important and that are so instrumental in these dramatic improvements in things like stopping seizures or stopping hallucinations and delusions."

Dr. Palmer expresses his conviction that the profound improvements observed in conditions like seizures, hallucinations, and delusions are primarily driven by metabolic and mitochondrial changes. He believes that the ketogenic diet's effectiveness stems from its ability to induce these fundamental shifts in the body's energy processing and cellular function. Dr. Palmer posits that these metabolic and mitochondrial alterations are the key mechanisms behind the dramatic recoveries seen in patients.