#112: 🥗 Metabolic Psychiatry
How Diet and Metabolism Impact Mental Health
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💬 In this note:
🥗 Metabolic Psychiatry
🎧 The Feeling that Moves us Forward
⚡️ Eye Implant
🥗 Metabolic Psychiatry
The Metabolic Health Crisis in America
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that 40% of American adults are classified as obese.
Among them, 36% report symptoms of anxiety, depression or both.
And it’s not just about weight.
88% of American adults have poor metabolic health.
For those with psychiatric diseases, the rates are higher.
Understanding Metabolic Psychiatry: The Brain-Metabolism Connection
What is Metabolic Psychiatry?
That connection between metabolic health and mental health led Shehabni Sethi, MD, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford, to coin the term “metabolic psychiatry.”
She realized that in order to provide proper psychiatric care to her patients, she needed to address the two problems simultaneously.
Insulin Resistance and Mental Health
At Stanford Medicine’s Metabolic Psychiatry Clinic, they’ve made a startling discovery: insulin resistance can double your risk of depression.
Here’s how it works.
When we eat, our blood sugar rises, and the pancreas releases insulin to help bring those levels back down.
But modern diets, packed with processed carbs and convenience foods, cause blood sugar spikes over and over again.
That forces the body to release more and more insulin to keep things under control.
Over time, this constant demand leads to insulin resistance. That’s when the body stops responding to insulin effectively.
Insulin resistance can snowball into diabetes, heart disease, mental health disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.
In the brain, it is suggested that insulin resistance makes the blood-brain barrier “leakier.”
More harmful substances can get in, triggering inflammation and causing damage.
Dr. Sethi states she sees more inflammation in the brains of people with mental illness compared to healthy individuals.
How Metabolism Impacts Mental Health
Insulin resistance isn’t just about mood. It’s been linked to Alzheimer’s, ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.
In his book Brain Energy, Dr. Christopher Palmer points out that as far back as the 1800s, doctors noticed diabetes and mental illnesses like schizophrenia often ran in the same families.
Why?
It comes down to metabolism, the way our bodies create energy, grow cells, and deal with waste.
When metabolism goes wrong, brain cells can’t function properly.
That dysfunction might explain why mental disorders develop.
Food & Lifestyle Change First
These days, GLP-1 medications like Ozempic are rising in popularity for metabolic health.
They can improve how the body handles insulin and carbs, but they’re not the only answer.
Dr. Sethi and Dr. Palmer both agree: food and lifestyle changes should come first.
By helping patients make sustainable shifts in their diets and habits, metabolic psychiatry aims to improve both mental and metabolic health for the long haul.
The Ketogenic Diet for Mental Health & Metabolic Disorders
One powerful tool is the ketogenic diet.
Dr. Palmer argues in Brain Energy that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain and that the keto diet can be a game changer.
The ketogenic diet lowers blood sugar and provides the brain with ketones, an alternative energy source.
Even in severe insulin resistance, ketones cross into the brain easily, filling the energy gap.
Dr. Ede recalls patients saying things like, “My brain just woke up. The lights turned on. I can think again.”
Mental clarity. Mental clarity. Mental clarity.
The ketogenic diet isn’t new, it’s been used for 100 years to treat epilepsy.
Now it’s showing promise for conditions like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.
A growing body of research, including case studies, pilot trials, and even small randomized controlled trials, supports the efficacy of the ketogenic diet in treating a wide range of psychiatric disorders.
The Future of Mental Health Care
Metabolic psychiatry has the potential to revolutionize mental health care.
By addressing metabolism, psychiatrists can offer their patients more than just temporary fixes.
They can provide lasting solutions.
This isn’t just about medicine.
It’s about empowering patients to take control of their health through food, lifestyle, and personalized care. It’s about reshaping the future of mental health.
🎧 Content of the Week
Emotions 2.0; The Feeling that Moves Us Forward, on Hidden Brain
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Emotions aren’t just about how we feel. They’re about how we survive.
In the episode “Emotions 2.0”, host Shankar Vedantam dives into the science behind our emotions, showing how they’ve evolved to serve a bigger purpose.
Take anger, disgust, and fear.
These emotions aren’t just reactions, they’re tools.
Anger helps us set boundaries.
Disgust keeps us away from harm.
And fear? It helps us avoid danger.
Shankar interviews psychologists who explain the evolutionary functions of these feelings. By understanding what emotions are really for, we can learn to manage them better.
The episode is also practical.
It is packed with tips for using emotions constructively, whether in personal relationships or at work.
If you’re curious about the science of emotions and how to navigate them more effectively, this episode is a must-listen.
It’s engaging.
It’s thought-provoking.
And it might just change the way you think about your feelings.
⚡️ Check This Out
Neuralink competitor Science Corporation, restored vision in legally blind patients.
Marking a historic milestone in treating blindness caused by geographic atrophy (GA), an advanced form of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
For patients who’ve lost their central vision and struggle to read or recognize faces, the Science Corporation’s PRIMA implant restored real form vision.
Trial participants demonstrated significant improvement in letter acuity, with some achieving fluency in reading.
Average improvement: 23 letters (4.6 lines) at 12 months post-implantation.
Best improvement: 59 letters (11.8 lines).
Success threshold: 10 letters (2 lines) improved for clinically meaningful results.
Max Hodak, CEO of Science Corp, echoed the sentiment stating, “This is the first time fluent reading has been definitively restored in blind patients. It’s a turning point for the field.”
The implant safely restores vision without degrading natural sight.
Patients can see text with unprecedented clarity, and the zoom function allows enhanced detail.
With over 8 million GA cases worldwide, PRIMA could redefine care for millions.
Science Corp is working toward European market approval (CE mark) to bring this life-changing technology to patients soon.
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Edited by Wright Time Publishing