Episode: 140
Reset Your Mental Health: The Diet & Nutrition Protocol From a Renowned Harvard MD
with Dr. Chris Palmer, MD
Get more energy, ease anxiety, and feel better.
In this episode, you’ll learn the exact steps to optimize both your mental and physical health.
Harvard’s Chris Palmer, MD, explains why he believes your diet is causing your brain to misfire, which is why simple changes to your diet and lifestyle can improve your mental health.
Learn simple, science-backed steps to feel energized, reduce anxiety, and climb out of that funk for good.
Listen on:
If you’re feeling lost, exhausted, or hopeless, remember this: your brain is designed to heal.
Dr. Chris Palmer, MD
Featured Clips
Transcript
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:00:03):
50% of US adults currently has pre-diabetes or diabetes,
Mel Robbins (00:00:11):
50%,
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:00:12):
One in two at the same time that the metabolic health of Americans is going down the toilet. So is their mental health. The brain is an organ, just like the heart is.
Mel Robbins (00:00:27):
This is personal for you.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:00:28):
When I was 12, my mother has a nervous breakdown. She loses everything as a result of her mental illness. Early on, I wanted nothing to do with the mental health field. I hated it. I was furious with it. When I got into medical school, my heart was breaking with every patient that I saw because I was thinking, you deserve better. You deserve a better life. What I'm here to say is that we can in fact figure this out and we can give people real solutions.
Mel Robbins (00:01:03):
Hey, how you doing? I'm so glad you're here. It's your friend Mel, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. And first of all, thank you for being here with me. And I also want to thank you for taking the time to listen to something that could improve your life. I think that's pretty cool. And whether you're a longtime listener or you're brand new, you are part of the Mel Robbins podcast family and we are a smart, empowering, positive group of people. And I'm glad that you're a part of us. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading experts on confidence and motivation. And I'm on a mission to inspire you, to empower you with tools and inspiration and the expert resources that you need to create a better life. And boy oh boy, are you in for a treat today.
(00:01:46):
I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Dr. Chris Palmer to the podcast today. And lemme tell you why I wanted him to be on the show. Dr. Palmer is a professor at Harvard Medical School and he has spent almost 30 years at the number one psychiatric hospital in the nation. That is Harvard's teaching Hospital McLean Hospital, right here in Boston. And based on his extensive clinical experience, Dr. Palmer wants to change the way mental health is discussed and treated. Today, he's here to explain to you his brain energy theory, which is a concept that many people in the medical field think it's controversial. I personally do not, which is why I wanted you to hear it and know about it. Dr. Palmer believes that your diet can make you mentally ill. And for decades, he has been trying to help people with severe mental illnesses and treatment resistant cases, and he grew frustrated with the very limited options that were available to him to help make people better.
(00:02:46):
And he's obsessed with finding a way to help his patients and to help you achieve better outcomes and live the life that you deserve to live. Dr. Palmer's message is incredibly hopeful, and it's also tactical. You'll learn about patient studies where the results are honestly shocking. He will explain how he believes that your diet and metabolic issues are causing your brain to misfire, which is why he also believes that simple changes to your diet and your lifestyle can help you heal your brain and improve your mental health. Now, I'm clearly excited that he's here because I know that this is one of those episodes that's going to either change your life or it will change the life of someone that you love. The information that Dr. Palmer is about to share with you, it could help someone you love finally start to climb out of their depression or get their anxiety under control, or help loosen the grip of OCD or an eating disorder or lessen the impact of PTSD and even make a significant difference with a mood disorder.
(00:03:46):
Now, before we jump into the research that connects every mental health issue with a metabolic disorder, we will begin with Dr. Palmer's personal story. You're about to learn that there's a deeply personal reason why Dr. Palmer is passionate about changing what he calls a deeply broken mental health system and why he's on a mission to find simple and accessible options that will help you and your loved ones. And after you hear his story, you'll also learn about a few case studies, and then he will unpack his brain energy theory, which is the connection between your metabolism, your brain functioning, and your mental health. And finally, Dr. Palmer, he will leave you in action because I often say this is not just a listening podcast. This is a doing podcast. So we want you doing something. At the end of this, he's going to explain the exact plan that he uses as a starting point with his patients here in Boston.
(00:04:41):
Now I'm going to underscore something that you will hear Dr. Palmer repeat throughout the episode. And it's this, if you are inspired to make any lifestyle or diet changes based on what you hear today, only do so after consulting with your own doctor. I am so thrilled to be able to bring you this world-class resource at absolutely zero cost. Dr. Palmer has changed my own understanding of my metabolism, my brain, my own mental health, and I'm confident that he's going to do the same for you. His research is so exciting and important that just a few weeks ago, Harvard University announced that Dr. Palmer is the founder and director of a brand new metabolic and mental health program here at Harvard's Teaching Hospital in Boston. And it is such a gift that you and I are able to spend time with him. His practice has a wait list that is years long, but today he's here for you and your loved ones. Now let's jump into that conversation.
(00:05:38):
You have something pretty exciting and revolutionary to share based on 30 years of research, personal experience, treating patients. You have answers to those questions and you're here with a really inspiring message. So what is it that you want the person to know at a high level about your work?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:05:59):
So I think the most important thing I want people to know is that they are probably being told that their mental illness is genetic or neurodevelopmental or something else, and that the experts are doing the best they can and that people just need to accept that they can have serious, debilitating, lifelong mental disorders. And there's not much we can do about that. I just want to say mental health treatments work, and we have many treatments. They do work, they save millions of lives every year, but the reality is they fail to work for far too many people. Some people get those treatments, they get them year after year after year, and they just don't work. And we in the mental health field have been struggling with this. It's not that we're blind to this. And so we in the mental health field have been desperate to find better answers.
(00:06:56):
And what I want people to know is that cutting edge research over the last 20 years completely shatters that hopeless message. There is hope we can use science now to help people get better. Wow. I think the most exciting news is that there are concrete things that most people can do today with diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, managing your substance use or even the prescription medicines that you're taking, all of those common sense things that there are ways that people can put those strategies together to actually heal their brains, to function better, to reduce their suffering. And I'm not just talking about mild anxiety or depression. Yes, I am talking about those. So if somebody's suffering from burnout, yes, this is for you, but I'm also talking about people suffering from horrible, debilitating mental disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, A DHD, whatever, whatever diagnostic label you want to talk about. This applies to those people too.
Mel Robbins (00:08:15):
Let's start at the beginning. What made you figure all of this out, Dr. Palmer? Because this is personal for you.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:08:24):
It is. There is an epidemic of mental health problems in the world. I have seen so many patients week after week, year after year, not getting better with all the pills that I'm trying. And as a provider, I definitely have wanted to help them have wanted to understand what am I missing? Why aren't they getting better? I look at the nationwide worldwide statistics and they are awful, abysmal and only getting worse here. The United States, one in five people right now in any given year..
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:09:00):
Has a mental illness over the course of a lifetime, 50%, one in two adults in the United States will meet criteria for a mental illness at some point or another during their life. There's no question All of that drives me. But I think what you're kind of asked me is Chris Palmer, why are you a psychiatrist? Why did you decide to do this? And then it does get very personal. So I personally had mental illness when I was a kid, and it started as OCD. It was never diagnosed, it was never recognized. Nobody knew what it was. I didn't know what it was. I just knew that I was odd and different.
Mel Robbins (00:09:53):
What made you go okay?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:09:57):
Oh, I was kind of a mess as a child, unfortunately. I really was kind of a mess.
Mel Robbins (00:10:04):
Well, fortunately for the rest of us, because I think it's one of the reasons why you have so much compassion and passion to serve.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:10:13):
It is so when I was a kid, I was just relentlessly bullied and teased. As I said, I had OCD, so I had fears of contamination. I thought things, if I touched something, it was contaminated. At one point I actually thought the air was contaminated and I would go around putting my hand over my mouth every time I talked or opened my mouth.
Mel Robbins (00:10:42):
Wow.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:10:44):
Which of course made me look, I'm sure just very popular. So I am like this odd, crazy little kid. I just kind of meandered through that way. And then when I was 12, some horrible, awful stuff happened and my mother's extended family are involved and she has a nervous breakdown, which starts with what we would call major depression. It quickly spirals into depression with suicidality, and then shortly thereafter begins to include psychotic symptoms. So she becomes convinced that she's Mary Magdalene reincarnated. The world is ending. Jesus Christ has come back. He's a priest that she's going to for counseling. My father is now the devil incarnate. And so that leads to them getting a divorce. And my mother loses everything. She loses everything. As a result of her mental illness, she loses custody of all eight kids. So I'm one of eight. She loses all of her money, she loses the house.
(00:12:16):
She and my father had started a business, a pharmacy. She loses ownership of that and doesn't get any portion of it. So she left and was living in a rooming house, and I was terrified for my mother. She got psychiatric treatment through all of this. She was hospitalized. She took antipsychotics, she took antidepressants, she took mood stabilizers, and they basically drugged her. They made it so that she slurred her speech. She couldn't walk a straight line. She couldn't keep her eyelids up open. She looks drugged and she's still crazy. And I'm like, what on earth are they doing to her? These psychiatrists are like evil. They're arrogant jerks and they're drugging her and she's not better. What is wrong with these people? Why aren't they helping her? So when she lost everything and moved out for the two reasons of number one, I'm like, she's going to die.
(00:13:30):
She's psychotic, depressed and suicidal, and she's just lost everything. She is going to be dead. So I left. I left my father and my seven siblings and I went to live with my mom. And we started off in this rooming house. The support money that we were getting wasn't enough to pay for this room. We ran out of money. We end up homeless. My first day of high school, I'm living in a homeless shelter going to high school. We end up getting some money from her father, get a tiny apartment by the railroad tracks. I'm living with her. That was one of the most miserable times in my life.
Mel Robbins (00:14:18):
How on earth did that inspire you to want to become a psychiatrist? I think as I listen to this, I keep thinking I would've gone so far in the other direction away from mental health, away from people who are struggling with profound illness.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:14:42):
Early on, I wanted nothing to do with the mental health field. I hated it. I was furious with it. I saw them as a bunch of incompetent, arrogant snobs.
Mel Robbins (00:14:52):
And yet you end up at Harvard as the literally chief psychiatric resident at the most acclaimed mental health teaching hospital, arguably in the entire world. What was it that made you then want to go, okay, I actually am going to become a psychiatrist?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:15:14):
It's really interesting because when I got into medical school, I was still actually of the mindset. I don't want to be a psychiatrist. I was going to be maybe a surgeon or a pediatrician or just a family medicine doc, anything but psychiatry. And when I did my psychiatry rotation, I remember going in with hope like, oh, I'm at a really good medical school now. These are the people who know how to do it right. These are the smart psychiatrists. I just assumed all of those incompetent, arrogant fools that I met dealt with before they were out of the West coast.
(00:15:58):
Yeah, they were just Midwest jerks. And now I'm at one of the leading medical schools in the country. And when I did my rotation, I was again just heartbroken. I saw all of these patients coming in when we were drugging them, and they were still crazy, but they looked drugged. All of them looked drugged. They were shuffling around. They couldn't keep their eyes open. They looked like zombies. And I was thinking, what the hell are they doing? And at that point, I actually was even more emboldened. Oh, this is definitely not the field for me. And yet my heart was breaking with every patient that I saw because I was thinking, you deserve better. You deserve a better life. You deserve better treatment than what we are giving you. I know that you didn't do anything wrong. I know that you don't deserve this. Nobody can see that. Now you're like a homeless schizophrenic now and everybody looks down on you. But I know from my own experience that no, this was somebody, this still is somebody maybe that somebody is still in there waiting, hoping to be saved. And yet all we're doing is drugging them. All we're doing is giving them pills that aren't working. Make no mistake if the pills work, I'm all for it. I'm talking about the people who are taking their pills and they aren't working and just having horrible side effects.
(00:17:49):
And it's interesting because the thing that really pushed me, I'm a little bit of a rebel. The thing that pushed me, thank God, the thing that pushed me is that I actually was one of the top students in medical school. I won an award for being one of the top students.
Mel Robbins (00:18:08):
Let's go Dr. Palmer.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:18:10):
There were all of these. There are all these professors who are keeping an eye on me trying to figure out what should Chris Palmer become? What kind of a doctor should we steer him to be? And I remember at least two different professors when they asked me what I was considering, I said, oh, maybe surgery, maybe pediatrics. And I would usually throw in, maybe possibly psychiatry. And they all said, no way. Don't do psychiatry.
Mel Robbins (00:18:45):
Why?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:18:46):
That would be a waste. It would be a waste of your talent. You are a smart, you are one of our top medical students. Don't waste it on that field of psychiatry where all they do is throw pills at people that don't really work. You're better than that, Chris Palmer. You need to go into a different field. That infuriated me so much. Is that why the psychiatrists are all incompetent? Is because none of the good ones go into psychiatry? Is that why this field is such a mess? So that pushed me, obviously all of my personal experience. So I ended up at McLean in Harvard. When I ended up there, I was still struggling with low grade OCD, low grade depression. And now I am developing metabolic syndrome. I have high blood pressure. I'm only in my twenties and I have high blood pressure. I've got horrible lipids. So I've pretty much got all of the biomarkers of metabolic syndrome.
Mel Robbins (00:20:01):
And so what did you do when you get diagnosed with this metabolic disorder?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:20:09):
So year after year, my doctor kept telling me, go on a low fat diet and exercise. And I was already doing that. And I kept telling him, I'm doing a super low fat diet. At one point I was eating less than five or 10 grams of fat a day. So I was on super low fat diet. I was exercising at least three times a week, going to the gym, running, doing other things. And everything was getting worse. My blood pressure was just going up and up. My blood sugars were going up, everything was getting worse. And he leans in and is like, we're going to have to put you on medicine. We're going to have to put you on medicine. And that the final time, he actually was very clear and firm, you've got to go on medicine. You must like we're done
Mel Robbins (00:20:56):
For your blood pressure and your cholesterol
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:20:58):
For your blood pressure, cholesterol and prediabetes. We're done. We're done messing around. You've got to go on it. And I realized how serious it was because I'm only in my twenties. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to be having heart attacks when I'm 45. This is not cool.
Mel Robbins (00:21:12):
And I'm taking three pills a day.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:21:14):
But I also realized I don't want to go on pills because going on pills means it's only going to be downhill from here. I want to be able to control this through diet and exercise.
Mel Robbins (00:21:23):
So what'd you do?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:21:24):
And so I changed my diet totally. The rebel in me came out and I had heard about...
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:21:24):
The Atkins diet, which is a low carb, usually ketogenic diet. And I give it a try primarily to reverse my metabolic syndrome. That's all I wanted to do. I had heard through the rumor mill from other people that they were improving their diabetes, improving their cholesterol, improving their blood pressure by going on the Atkins diet. I actually was highly skeptical at first. I didn't really think it could be true. I was taught that this is a horrible, dangerous diet, don't do it. But at that point, I'm like, well, I'm out of options better than pills I've done. I've done everything. I'll give this diet a try. And then three or six months from now, I'll just go on the pills. And what happens within three months, my metabolic syndrome is completely gone.
Mel Robbins (00:22:20):
So translation means lower blood pressure, better cholesterol, you've lost some weight and you're no longer prediabetic.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:22:29):
Yes.
Mel Robbins (00:22:30):
But here's the breakthrough that happened 30 years ago. That is changing the entire mental health field. What else happened?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:22:43):
I noticed dramatic improvement in my mental health, that my mood, energy, sleep, concentration were better than they had ever been in my entire life. And I really, I couldn't believe it at first before the diet. I actually really always thought that there are just lucky people and unlucky people, that there are people, there are these people who are happy and peppy and they have energy and they have good lives, and they have good parents, and they have good genetics. And they have this saying they like to work hard and play hard. And the playing hard in particular never made sense. What's the point? Because I was so exhausted. I was laying on the couch watching television every night after working really long days, sometimes in the hospital or at medical school or whatever. I worked my ass off. But I was so exhausted all the time that I was like, why on earth would anybody ever choose to go out and play hard? Aren't you all tired and burned out like I am? And I just figured I just got the bad draw of the straws.
(00:24:18):
I don't have good genes, or I didn't have good parents, or I didn't have the good child. Or there's something wrong with me. There's just something wrong with me. I'm not like those other popular people. They are lucky and I'm not. And when I changed my diet, I noticed that I was becoming one of those people that I now had energy to not only work hard, but I wanted to play hard too. And I had more confidence and motivation and energy and all of it. And I'm thinking, what is this? This is impossible. This is not who Chris Palmer is. Chris Palmer is that nerdy little kid who's depressed and burned out and has worked his ass off to get where he is. But I'm that loser. I'm just that loser who has to work for everything that I get. And now all of a sudden life is changing and it's becoming effortless. What is this? But my brain is once and for all, finally starting to fire on all cylinders, and all of a sudden I'm like, oh my God, life is going to be wonderful and beautiful and easy and effortless because I don't know. I don't have to work for it anymore. It's just happening When your brain works well, I mean our brains are the control center for our reality. They are. It is hard to describe. I want to say it is everything and it is everything. It is our experience and perception. It's all of it.
Mel Robbins (00:26:23):
I just love his passion and his enthusia. Can't you just hear how much he wants this for you? And here's what I also love about this conversation. He just explained how he had this huge breakthrough personally, and then he wanted to start to dig into why this change in his brain happened after simply changing his diet. And one of the things that I found very fascinating about Dr. Palmer's work is the results that he achieved with his very first patient. This patient had such fantastic and frankly, shocking results that it inspired Dr. Palmer to take this very seriously. He went on to research this phenomenon of the connection between your metabolic and your mental health. So after the break, I asked Dr. Palmer about that patient and the jaw dropping results he saw. Stay with us because that's what you're going to hear next. Welcome back.
(00:27:28):
I'm Mel Robbins, and you're listening to an interview I did here in Boston with Harvard's Dr. Chris Palmer, who is changing the way we look at mental health disorders using his brain energy theory. Now, Dr. Palmer, as you just learned, says your food could be making you mentally ill, and it's also potentially the secret to helping you become mentally well. And now we're going to go and get into what does that really mean? So let's jump back into the interview. Dr. Palmer has just told you his own personal story, this breakthrough that he's had. He's now been a practicing doctor here at Harvard McLean's Hospital. He's been practicing for a number of years and he's about to tell you the very first patient he used this new approach with. So when was the first time you used this approach with a patient?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:28:17):
Yeah, so this man is actually this part of the story that completely upended my career as a psychiatrist. So I had been using lifestyle strategies, dietary strategies with patients who had depression, anxiety, even personality disorders for years. Actually almost a decade and a half at that point. But those were just depression and anxiety. And then one of my patients with basically schizoaffective disorder, so it's a cross between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He asked for my help to lose weight. And for a variety of reasons, we decided to try the ketogenic diet. This man, I just want to set the stage. This man had been my patient for eight years.
(00:29:11):
He was tormented by his illness. This illness ruined his life. He had hallucinations and delusions every day. He was convinced that people were out to get him, that people were trying to harm him, that he had been targeted. He was essentially a hermit. He was tortured to leave his home because he was convinced that people were reading his thoughts, that they were going to try to hurt him, that somebody was going to pull out a gun or a knife any moment and hurt him that anytime somebody laughed in public, even if they were far away, he was convinced they were laughing at him, that they were part of the conspiracy that they were all making.
Mel Robbins (00:30:02):
And how were you treating him? How as a psychiatrist? You had been seeing him for eight years. I mean, was it medication?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:30:08):
He had tried 17 different medications at this point. Wow. None of them stopped his symptoms. They maybe decreased his anxiety and agitation a little bit. They made him gain a tremendous amount of weight. He gained over a hundred pounds. He had been in and out of hospitals. He had been in and out of psychotherapy. He had been in group homes, and the reality is he was being treated at McLean Hospital, which right now is ranked number one in the United States for psychiatry. I don't say that to brag. I say that because that is the state of affairs in the mental health field. Even when people have access to the very best care, they can end up like that. And in my mind, that is completely unacceptable now. But that's where we were at. That's where I was at.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:31:09):
That's where a lot of people, unfortunately, tens of millions of people still are, that they think this is just what we have to do. And so anyway, this man now weighs 340 pounds. He gets it in his head. I'm never going to have a girlfriend if I don't lose some weight. I think I want to try to lose some weight. And I'm thinking, good for you. You want to do something to help yourself? Great.
Mel Robbins (00:31:37):
I'm going to run with this.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:31:38):
Let's do something about this.
(00:31:41):
He had already tried several other diets unsuccessfully. They just didn't work for him. So for a variety of reasons, we try the ketogenic diet. I'm just trying to help this guy lose weight. Now, I'm not thinking anything's special is going to happen within two weeks. Not only does he start losing weight, but I begin to notice dramatic improvement in his mood. He starts making better eye contact. He starts talking more. He's smiling more. He's kind of coming to life, coming back to life in a way that I had never known him for eight years. And I'm thinking, this is really curious that you're feeling so happy. I'm thinking, well, maybe he's just happy because he's losing weight. Makes everybody feel better that, oh, I'm succeeding. Losing weight. Isn't that great? Now, he was still having hallucinations and delusions at this point, so I'm thinking he's just feeling a little better. The shocking thing to me was that about two months in, he spontaneously starts reporting to me. Those voices that I hear all the time, they're starting to go away.
Mel Robbins (00:32:56):
You're kidding?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:32:58):
And then he says, you know how I always thought that there were these families controlling me and they targeted me and they were trying to torment me and they were trying to hurt me? I'm like, yeah, I'm really thinking, oh, are we going to talk about that for the millionth time again? Oh my God, we've talked about that a million times now. Yeah. What about it? He said, I don't think that's true anymore. As I think about it, I don't think they're doing that. And as I say it out loud, it sounds kind of crazy. Maybe it never was happening. And maybe what's happening is that I have had schizophrenia all along, like everybody's been trying to tell me that I refused to believe and maybe my schizophrenia is going away.
Mel Robbins (00:33:57):
What was it like for you as a psychiatrist to see somebody emerge from that cloud of a severe mental illness?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:34:12):
Early on the early days, I really actually had trouble believing what I was seeing. He lived with his father, and so his father knew him well and was very involved in his care. And fortunately, he also had been going to a psychologist at McLean Hospital for counseling. I actually, on several occasions, had to go to both of them, both the father and the psychologist, and say, I'm having trouble believing what I'm seeing. Are you two seeing dramatic improvement in our patient? Is he getting better in a way that you've never seen? Because I've never seen him like this? And both of them said, yes. We don't know what's happening, Chris. You're the doctor. Figure it out. What is happening? What are you doing? What is going on?
Mel Robbins (00:35:12):
And all that you did was change his diet.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:35:16):
All that I did was change his diet. That man went on is now gone on to lose 160 pounds and has kept it off to this day, almost seven years later. That man got so much better. At one point that he was able to move out of his father's home, he was able to go to school and get a certificate. He was able to perform improv in front of a live audience, started teaching karate, has done amazing things since then. I want to say for the record, he is not cured. He was on a tremendous amount of medication. And for him, it's been over seven years and we still haven't been able to fully get him off of everything. He's on a lot less than he ever was.
(00:36:07):
And as we get him off of medicines, a lot of times things can get worse initially, and then they start getting even better than they were before. So it's this very rocky road. And by no means, I want to be clear with your listeners, please don't try to do this on your own. It can be very dangerous. It can be very difficult. But the reality is, I have many patients who have successfully gotten off their meds, have many people, hundreds and hundreds of people reaching out to me, actually thousands of people reaching out to me, sharing their stories of success, sharing with me how they have used metabolic treatment strategies, largely lifestyle treatment strategies that we know affect mitochondria. And they are sharing their stories of how they have recovered from chronic debilitating mental illnesses all the way from chronic depression to bipolar, to schizophrenia, to eating disorders. People with anorexia nervosa have put their anorexia into remission for the first time in 20 or 30 years.
Mel Robbins (00:37:16):
Isn't this mind blowing at this point in the interview, I was thinking, I wish I knew about this years ago. And I bet you're thinking the same thing. And you're probably also thinking about a ton of people that you want to send this conversation to right now. But hold that thought because there's a lot more that we need to dig into. I mean, personally, what I wanted to do was hear more about the research and the specific eating protocol that Dr. Palmer was using with his patients. And why on earth is it changing the mental health and the functioning of the brains of his patients? So stick around because there is so much more to this conversation. And after a short word from our sponsors, you and I are going to jump right back into this episode and this life-changing conversation with Dr. Palmer. I'll see you after the break.
(00:38:06):
Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and you're listening to an interview that I did here in our studios in Boston with Harvard's Dr. Chris Palmer. And I'm so glad that you're still with me because you now know the remarkable results that Dr. Palmer achieved in his own life that he's achieving with patients here in Boston. And I'm sure you're curious, alright, what exactly is this eating protocol? What are the lifestyle changes? What do I need to do? Why is this working? And so as we drop back into this conversation, you're going to hear Dr. Palmer explain the science of why he believes mental illness is a metabolic issue. And I'm about to ask him, how the heck can you tie together metabolism and mental health?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:38:50):
So we have long known that there are bio psychosocial causes for mental illness. So that means neurotransmitters, hormones, genetics play a role, stress and trauma play a role, loneliness, addiction, all of these things can play a role in mental illness. But to date, nobody has been able to put them all together in one coherent way. And what I am arguing is that cutting edge research over the last 20 years, once and for all helps us connect those dots.
(00:39:32):
And the simplest way to put it is that what I am saying is that people who have brain disorders, their brains are either doing something that they're not supposed to be doing or failing to do something that they should be doing. Those people with brain disorders have a metabolic problem affecting their brain. And that is how we can tie together neurotransmitter imbalances, hormone imbalances, stress, trauma, loneliness, all of it, and put it together in one clear way.
Mel Robbins (00:40:04):
You now call this the brain energy theory.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:40:07):
I do.
Mel Robbins (00:40:08):
And explain that so that anybody listening can understand what the brain energy theory is.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:40:13):
So in a nutshell, it says that mental disorders are metabolic disorders affecting the brain.
Mel Robbins (00:40:21):
What does metabolic mean?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:40:24):
So most people think of metabolism in this really simplistic way. They think that it's burning calories and it affects our weight. So I don't want to take away from that. There is no doubt that metabolism does influence how much you weigh does influence your body weight. It affects your athletic performance. So those things are true. But the reality is metabolism is so much more than that. Metabolism is a fundamental part of all living organisms. So in the simplest terms, I would say metabolism is taking food and oxygen and some other things like vitamins and nutrients and turning those things into energy or building blocks that are used to maintain or grow cells. It is humans eating and drinking and breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. Those are foundational to metabolism. But in fact, they play a role in every cell within our body. They play a role in the way our cells develop, the way they function or don't function properly, whether those cells live or die.
Mel Robbins (00:41:45):
And just so that I am staying with you, doc, I want to make sure I understand. When you say metabolics, so do you have an analogy that would help someone like me that does not have a medical degree? I'm not a neuroscientist.
Mel Robbins (00:42:00):
I want to be able to leave this conversation and both explain it to my daughter who has anxiety, or to my son or myself who has a DHD or my husband who has treatment resistant depression. I want to be able to explain this. So when you use that big word metabolic, what are you referring to in the body and how can we understand it at a simple way?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:42:23):
So in many ways, metabolism is ridiculously complicated.
Mel Robbins (00:42:30):
I was afraid you were going to say that.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:42:32):
No, it really is. And so I'm going to give you a few analogies, but for context, I need people to understand that I get as a scientist and as a researcher, I get it is very, very complicated.
Mel Robbins (00:42:44):
Great. And I appreciate you being willing to help those of us that are not planning on getting a PhD in this to actually understand the word metabolic
(00:42:56):
Because It's input process and then how it changes your body. But I like visuals and I know you have a really good one.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:43:05):
So the easiest way to help people at least understand the complexity of metabolism is like traffic in the city. And so if I ask you what controls traffic in the city or what are all of the factors that play a role in whether there are traffic jams or no traffic jams,
Mel Robbins (00:43:29):
Number of cars, number of stoplights, patterns of the traffic flow, whether or not there's construction accidents...
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:43:46):
Everything you said is true. So on one level it's complex, right? It's really complicated. But if we really want to get to the heart of what causes traffic accidents and what causes traffic jams, we also want to think about what's controlling all of these cars. At the end of the day, it's the drivers inside of the cars, the drivers. If all of the drivers are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, traffic is going to flow optimally. And if the drivers start messing up, if they're on their cell phone, if they're having a road rage day, if they're flipping people off, if they're slamming on the brakes for no good reason, if they're swerving into the other lane, traffic accidents, traffic jams begin to occur. So at the end of the day, the drivers are foundational to the flow of traffic.
Mel Robbins (00:44:43):
Agree.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:44:44):
And with metabolism and human metabolism, it is equally complex. There are lots of things. There are biological, psychological, social things, our diet, sunlight exposure, our sleep, the temperature of the room, we're in our age. All of those things play a role in metabolism. But if you really look foundationally in a scientific way, well what's really at the heart of it? It's these tiny things in our cells called mitochondria,
Mel Robbins (00:45:14):
And
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:45:14):
They are actually foundational to metabolism. They are a part of the definition of metabolic problems or metabolic function.
(00:45:27):
And the great news is that we can use cutting edge research about them over the last 20 years to once and for all start to piece together this complex mental health puzzle of what causes mental illness. And much more exciting news is if you then ask the question, well, if there's a problem with mitochondria or metabolism, what can we do about it? Common sense lifestyle strategies like changes in diet, exercise, sleep, stress reduction, managing substance use, those things can actually correct metabolic problems. So they can help people lose weight. If they've got a metabolic problem, they can help type two diabetics reverse their diabetes. They can help prevent heart attacks. And what I am here to say is that those same strategies in the way that they can play a role in your blood glucose and the way that they can play a role in your weight, in the way that they can play a role in preventing heart attacks, they can help restore your brain function and help your brain work better so that you no longer have what's called a mental illness.
Mel Robbins (00:46:40):
Wow. I want to go back to the analogy I was with you and I'm like, okay, the drivers are the power, the drivers. Okay, the drivers. And then if you now take that analogy and we talk about metabolism, are the drivers in your metabolism, your cells, or are they something else?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:47:02):
They're the mitochondria inside our cells.
Mel Robbins (00:47:05):
And what is mitochondria?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:47:07):
So mitochondria, for people who've had high school biology, they probably remember mitochondria.
Mel Robbins (00:47:14):
I had high school biology.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:47:16):
You don't remember? I
Mel Robbins (00:47:16):
Do not remember.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:47:17):
That's okay.
(00:47:18):
Yes. Okay. Okay. So most people who have heard of them have heard that they are the powerhouse of the cell. And what that means is that they are taking food and oxygen and turning it into energy. So mitochondria are controlling most of those processes in human cells. They are controlling our metabolism. But in many ways, the cutting edge research part of it is that they're also playing a role in hormone production. Things like cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone. The first step in the synthesis of those hormones occurs within mitochondria. Mitochondria play a role in producing and regulating neurotransmitters like serotonin or dopamine. Mitochondria play a role in turning inflammation on and off. Mitochondria are affected by all of those lifestyle strategies, diet, exercise, sleep, hormones, substances, substance abuse, like cigarette smoking, alcohol, marijuana. But here's the thing, they're also affected by psychological and social factors. Trauma and stress affect our mitochondrial function, which then ends up affecting our metabolism, which then ends up making us or putting us at higher risk for developing a wide variety of mental illnesses. All the way from PTSD to depression to anxiety to A DHD, to bipolar to schizophrenia. People with serious adverse childhood experiences, so horrible childhoods, trauma abuse, they're at higher risk for developing essentially all of the mental illnesses. But guess what else? They're at higher risk of developing,
Mel Robbins (00:49:26):
I have no idea.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:49:27):
Obesity, type two diabetes, heart attacks. And they are at very high risk of dying early deaths from those things.
Mel Robbins (00:49:37):
And you're here to say that if we focus on improving our metabolic health, which is food, sleep, lifestyle choices that are largely within our control at a cellular level from the inside out, you can heal all of this and have profoundly better health outcomes.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:50:01):
Yes. I think for most people, that is 100% true. There are people who probably have rare genetic conditions or hormone imbalances or infections, chronic infections or other things that are also impacting their metabolism. They may need additional strategies. So I'm not here to say that I've got the cure all for every woman with mental illness. The second thing that I want to say is that the devil is in the details. I don't want anybody to come away from this conversation thinking that Chris Palmer is saying that if people with schizophrenia just ate a little more broccoli, it would cure their schizophrenia. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that a dietary intervention is simple as just eat more vegetables is going to cure schizophrenia.
Mel Robbins (00:50:56):
What are you saying?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:50:57):
But what I am saying is that dietary interventions, such as the ketogenic diet, which starts to get very science oriented, but if we use science informed dietary strategies like a ketogenic diet, I actually have been getting people with horrible lifelong schizophrenia better. Some of them are putting their horrible, debilitating mental illnesses into remission sometimes off of all psychiatric meds and living dramatically better lives.
Mel Robbins (00:51:36):
Whoa. I want to see if I can give this back to you because I am on a mission to make sure everyone listening can translate this extraordinary research of yours and these groundbreaking findings about the connection between food and your metabolism and every aspect of your health. But for this conversation, your brain functioning and you being mentally well. So I think we all kind of understand generally, alright, if I'm a smoker, if I eat a lot of processed food, if I sit around on my couch all day and I'm playing video games or I'm just looking at social media, that's not good for my heart, that you can kind of predict based on people's habits, who's likely to have a heart attack because their food that they're intaking, the way that their lifestyle choices are impacting their health, it's pretty evident that that could lead to a heart attack. But what you're basically saying is that after 30 years of research, those same lifestyle choices of food and sleep and exercise and breathing and how your body metabolizes, this is changing the functioning and structure of your
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:52:49):
Brain. Absolutely. That is in my mind, incontrovertible now. So in the same way that diet and exercise can affect your heart and your liver and your kidneys and your ovaries, guess what? The brain isn't immune. I don't know who on earth came up with a concept that the brain is somehow the only organ in the human body that is a immune from all of those things. When every other organ system is being affected, the brain is being affected. And what are the symptoms? How do we know when the brain is being affected? It comes out as what we call mental illness. So some people might have symptoms of A DHD, others might have symptoms of an anxiety disorders. Others might have chronic unrelenting depression and an extreme metabolic dysfunction. Extreme cases people might develop schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other debilitating conditions.
Mel Robbins (00:53:54):
What are the symptoms that you have a metabolic issue?
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:53:57):
So profound metabolic issue would be serious obesity, type two diabetes, history of a heart attack, history of metabolic syndrome or current symptoms of metabolic syndrome, which include high blood pressure, insulin resistance, bad lipids. We're looking at two biomarkers in particular, which are low HDL cholesterol,
Mel Robbins (00:54:29):
Which
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:54:29):
Is the quote, good cholesterol. So if you have low levels, that's bad. And then high triglycerides. So if triglycerides are really, really high, that is a bad sign as well.
Mel Robbins (00:54:42):
Okay. So if you have any of these things in yourself or somebody that you care about deeply or I would venture to say any of the mental health issues that are not tied to something specific going on in your life, but that are just kind of chronic, this is an indication. These are symptoms that you have something going on with your metabolism
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:55:07):
A hundred percent.
Mel Robbins (00:55:09):
Got it. Okay. So what's interesting about this is you're basically saying you got somebody walk into your office with A DHD or depression or chronic anxiety or schizophrenia or severe OCD or Tourette's or anything that any human being may struggle with you as a Harvard trained psychiatrist. Now see those as a symptom of a metabolic disorder.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:55:36):
I do. And that has completely changed the way I practice psychiatry.
Mel Robbins (00:55:41):
Wow, that is so cool because I think since the history of time, people have walked into a psychiatrist or psychologist or a psychoanalyst. There's a bazillion people you could see with some kind of mental health struggle or some severe issue that they're dealing with from a mental health perspective. And we attack the mental health issue without going neck down into the body. And when you say, whoa, anybody in your life that has, and you've listed a lot of things from anxiety to depression, to OCD to PTSD, to being on the autism spectrum, to schizophrenia, to bipolar disorder, to trauma, all of these things, imagine how transformative it is to look at somebody that you love and go, oh, this mental health issue is a symptom of your metabolic system being completely out of whack.
Mel Robbins (00:56:50):
You need to understand this is a symptom of a metabolic disorder in their body. Holy shit. I think I just got this.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:56:57):
And you have said it very articulately and very clearly and plainly, and I don't disagree with anything you've said. And it has profound implications because in case people think like, well, but I'm doing okay, I have a mental illness and my treatment isn't so terrible, I want to be clear by ignoring the metabolic root causes, people with mental illness are at increased risk for developing over their lifetime a broad range of medical conditions. They are at higher risk of developing all of the metabolic disorders. They're higher risk of developing obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. They are at higher risk of developing autoimmune disorders and other conditions. And on average, people with mental illness are dying early deaths on average for all of the psychiatric diagnosis. If you take them all together, a DHD, anxiety, personality disorders, depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, if you take all of them and put them all together, on average, men are losing 10 years of life and women are losing seven years of life.
(00:58:14):
And when we look at what are they dying of, the primary cause of death is heart attacks. They are losing essentially over about 15% of their lifespan because they are dying of metabolic problems, but they're dying early. They are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. And so the ends of their lives are not pretty. They are not great. They are things that we all want to avoid. And the mental health field are largely ignoring all of that thinking. It's not our problem. It is our problem. These are human beings coming to us, begging us for help, asking us for help. We need to offer them comprehensive human healthcare. And that means not only reducing their mental symptoms, but also means keeping them happy and healthy as long as possible. Helping them live full vibrant lives, helping them prevent getting these other medical conditions and helping to prevent them getting dementia when they get older. We owe it to them to do that.
Mel Robbins (00:59:30):
And your work is offering a brand new pathway of treatment for people and hope
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:59:37):
It is.
Mel Robbins (00:59:38):
How excited are you that you are now the head of this new institute that Harvard just named, that people are taking your research after decades of doing this in your own practice? Very, very seriously.
Dr. Chris Palmer (00:59:56):
It's actually sometimes very overwhelming and humbling. And every now and then I'm waiting to wake up from my grandiose dream. What is your dream? My dream is to help people who are suffering from mental illness, who aren't getting better with current treatments. And there are tens of millions of those people. And it doesn't just affect those people. It affects their family members, their parents, their spouses, their siblings. It affects society at large because those are our coworkers who call in sick a little more often or maybe they just aren't as productive as they should be. And in extreme cases, those are the people that end up in our prison system. They end up living on the streets, they end up using drugs and overdosing or they end up dead from other causes. And there are literally tens and tens of millions of those people.
Mel Robbins (01:01:07):
Well actually, if you take the ripple of the impact of having anybody in your life that you love struggling, it's every human being on the planet that's impacted by this.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:01:21):
It is. Everybody knows someone, everybody. And if anybody listening to this thinks I don't, then I have some sad news for that person. The people in your life just don't trust you enough to open up and be completely honest with you about what they're going through themselves or what they're going through with their family members. Because I guarantee you, based on the statistics, everybody knows somebody, either an immediate family member or a nephew or niece or cousin, uncle, aunt. Everybody's got somebody. And when you look at the devastation to these people's lives, I'm not talking about the one in four American women taking an antidepressant who many of whom are doing well, I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about people's lives who are ruined by mental illness. I'm talking about your nephew or niece that is not doing well in school. The parents are tearing their hair out, trying to understand what do we need to do to help this kid? We've already tried 10 pills. He's in weekly therapy, nothing's working. Everybody's blaming and shaming the parents. The parents are clearly messing up. It's clearly their fault. They're not doing enough to help this kid,
Mel Robbins (01:02:59):
Or it's social media or kids these days are weak or what's wrong with this generation? There is so much blame and frustration and anger aimed at the people that are struggling and at the systems around them that are ineffective at helping.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:03:15):
Yeah. And what I'm here to say is that at the same time that rates of obesity are skyrocketing at the same time that rates of pre-diabetes and diabetes are skyrocketing. For those who don't know, 50% of US adults currently has pre-diabetes or diabetes,
Mel Robbins (01:03:40):
50%.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:03:42):
One in two United States, adults has pre-diabetes or diabetes at the same time that the metabolic health of Americans is going down the toilet. So is their mental health. Those are not coincidences. They are interrelated. The brain is an organ just like the heart is. It is being impacted by all of the same factors. Whether you want to blame diet or social media or a lack of exercise or laziness, whatever you want to blame, microplastics, all of the environmental toxins. The reality is all of those things are playing a role. I'm not here to say that all of those things are exonerated. They definitely are playing a role. What I'm here to say is that at the same time that they affect people's weight and their diabetes, they are affecting their brains. And we call it mental illness. And we can in fact figure this out. We can understand the science and we can give people real solutions.
Mel Robbins (01:04:55):
Go off Dr. Palmer. I mean, I could listen to you all day because you know what? It makes so much sense. It does seem complicated when you're in the thick of it. But the way you explain it, it does seem so simple.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:05:08):
So in one way, it's overwhelmingly complicated science. I get it. But in another way, if you really understand that science, it leads to really simple, obvious concrete solutions
Mel Robbins (01:05:26):
Because our audience is so hungry. Tell me what to do, Dr. Palmer, tell me what to do. And I know ever since your work has become public and the institute at Harvard and McLean has been announced and you've been appearing on podcasts, I know that people from around the world are calling and begging you to work with them. And you are under an avalanche of people who just want your help. And I understand why, because you are offering something that feels accessible. You are offering stories of hope. And so if I realize that this is not medical advice, but given that you've got thousands of people that call you every week begging you for medical advice, is it possible for you to give a broad stroke recommendation for people to follow for one month, for 21 days?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:06:27):
For people who are suffering from mild to moderate disorders, their safety is not in danger. They have not been suicidal. They haven't tried to hurt any themselves or anyone else. They're not hallucinating or delusional. If I had to give generic advice, what's the highest bang for the buck? I would say try a ketogenic diet for a three months and then we'll see how it goes. We actually have a tremendous amount of science on the ketogenic diet. Most people know the keto diet is a fad diet, a weight loss diet, a dangerous diet. So unbeknownst to most people, the ketogenic diet was developed over 100 years ago by a physician for one and only one purpose. It was not weight loss, it was to actually stop seizures. The ketogenic diet is now an evidence-based treatment. We have lots of randomized controlled trials. We have gold standard meta-analysis and the medical literature proving that this is effective. It is reputable, it is legitimate. The ketogenic diet is an evidence-based treatment for treatment-resistant epilepsy. And what that means is that if somebody has seizures and medications don't stop their seizures or even brain surgery doesn't stop their seizures, the ketogenic diet can often work in a way that medications and even brain surgery may not have worked for those people.
Mel Robbins (01:08:10):
Why?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:08:11):
And so that's the beautiful thing for my research. So we have decades of research looking at the ketogenic diet, trying to figure out how on earth does this diet stop seizures when our great pills didn't like what is going on here?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:08:27):
And so we know that the ketogenic diet is changing, is having profound effects on the brain function. It's changing neurotransmitters, it changes gene expression, it decreases brain inflammation and body inflammation as well. It central to my thesis, it actually improves mitochondrial function, which in a nutshell means it's improving metabolism and in particular brain metabolism. And so one of the great things about the ketogenic diet, like when it's used for epilepsy, is that people don't have to do it for life. Most often. People only need to do it for like two to five years. That actually,
Mel Robbins (01:09:13):
That sounds like a long time, honestly, two to five years of a. But what is it? Because you guys say keto this, keto that keto ketosis or whatever the hell the words are. What is the keto? What am I eating? Walk me through a day of being on the keto diet.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:09:29):
So the keto diet in a nutshell is very low in carbohydrates, moderate in protein, and high in fat. So what you would eat if you were doing a ketogenic diet, again, I want to even set the stage. There are vegan versions of a ketogenic diet, vegetarian versions, omnivore versions where you're eating both animal sourced and plant sourced food...
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:09:55):
And even kind of carnivore versions of this diet where all you're eating is meat and eggs and stuff like that.
Mel Robbins (01:10:01):
So this is very inclusive, everybody, but let's just say you and I are going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner today. What are we ordering?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:10:07):
So what I might eat if I were eating a ketogenic diet, I am an omnivore. I eat both animal sourced and plant sourced foods. I would wake up and I might have eggs and bacon or sausage or some kind of meat. Let's go.
Mel Robbins (01:10:22):
Sounds like Sunday brunch, Dr. Palmer.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:10:24):
I might add extra butter. If I need more fat, I might add extra butter to the eggs. So some people might look at me making my eggs thinking, why are you putting all that butter in your scrambled eggs? And I would say, because I need the extra fat. For lunch, I would probably, and for lunch and dinner, similar meals, I would probably have a protein source. So that could be steak, chicken, salmon, poultry, and I would have low carb vegetables, so that could include broccoli, spinach, any kind of lettuces, cauliflower, cucumbers, pickles, things like that. I would take my pick when I prepared those vegetables, I would put extra sources of fat on those vegetables, so I would put olive oil and plain vinegar. So that might be my kind of serving. I might emphasize nuts and avocados because those are very high in fat and typically thought of as healthy sources of fat.
Mel Robbins (01:11:37):
So how long would you suggest that somebody, if they're going to start with the ketogenic diet, how long should you try it? And what would you look out for Dr. Palmer to know that it's actually impacting you in a positive way?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:11:53):
So I would recommend getting some information on a well formulated ketogenic diet. So you want to do it right. You want to include enough healthy types of foods. People sometimes need extra electrolytes like sodium, potassium, magnesium when they get started on the diet. And nonetheless, there's this thing called the keto adaptation phase or keto flu. So the first week or two in particular can be very rough. I'm just going to let people know.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:12:26):
People can feel weak, hungry, hangry, dizzy, irritable, other things really? Why? Because they're basically withdrawing from sugar or carbohydrates. More importantly, their body is trying to do this shift from burning primarily on carbohydrates to running on a combination of carbohydrates and fats as fuel sources. And for some people that can be an easier transition. For others, it can be a more difficult transition.
Mel Robbins (01:12:58):
So let's just say you get the keto flu. We're now on the other side of the keto flu. We're starting to perk up. What are you going to feel and how do you know if it's working?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:13:09):
So the first thing that most people will start to feel is an antidepressant effect. And so they will start to notice that they just feel lighter. They have a little more energy. They brain starts working a little better. Some people might notice that their sleep is feeling more restorative. So if there's somebody who usually has to use an alarm, push the snooze button several times, they might start to notice that it's easier to wake up in the morning. They get going faster than normal. Some people will notice if you're a power lifter, for instance, or a weightlifter, you will notice a decline in your ability to lift weights for about two months, and it will come back. For people using this for mental health, it's usually not a lifelong diet. What a lot of people will do for one to five years, they actually reinvigorate their metabolism. Or most importantly, what that means to me is that they're improving their mitochondrial health, and that actually can then persist so that you've actually done some healing work on your body. And so that if you go back to a whole, foods still a healthy diet. I'm not encouraging people to go back to a junk food diet with a lot of processed foods, but if they start adding back carbohydrates, even complex carbohydrates, whole grains or potatoes and other things,
(01:14:55):
They may do extraordinarily well. And again, I want to be clear, I don't necessarily recommend the ketogenic diet for everyone. Not everybody needs it. Some people can just get rid of the junk food and the processed foods. Some people can just get rid of the extra sugar in their diet and do spectacularly well. So they might do well on a paleo diet or
Mel Robbins (01:15:20):
Whole 30,
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:15:21):
Whole 30 or a vegetarian or vegan, whole food, plant-based diet. There are lots of options.
Mel Robbins (01:15:27):
Okay, great. So eating healthy. What's the next step in your brain Energy protocol?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:15:32):
Try to exercise a little more than you're currently doing.
Mel Robbins (01:15:36):
Is that all I have to do? If I'm doing zero, are you talking one day of resistance training is enough or would you want to see me out three
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:15:43):
Days? If you are doing zero, do anything. So if you did one day of resistance training a week, but you did most of your major muscle groups and you did it to the point of failure, that would be more than enough. I love it. But you've got to go to failure. If you're only going to work out once a week, you've got to go to failure. We need to build those muscles, which means you're not just going to lift it a couple of times and say, oh, I'm tired. You're going to go until you can't go anymore. Just one set. But you're going to go until you can't go anymore. But it could be just taking a walk after dinner every night. If you can do it every night, it doesn't have to be a long walk. It could be a 10 minute walk, whatever. Just get out of the house, get away from a screen, walk around the block. The third thing I want you to prioritize sleep.
Mel Robbins (01:16:40):
How much do I need?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:16:42):
You need at least seven or eight hours. The ideal way to know if you're getting adequate sleep is are you able to get out of bed reasonably okay, or are you pushing the snooze button? Are you exhausted? Are you dragging yourself out of bed? If you're dragging yourself out of bed, you're not getting enough sleep, you should be able to wake up and get out of, and it should not be torture. If it's torture, you're not getting enough sleep. Your body's begging you to stay in bed, you want to stay in bed, well, you need more sleep, go to bed earlier. That's the solution. You're probably waking up for a reason because you have to be somewhere like work or school at a certain time. That means you needed to go to bed an hour or two hours or whatever earlier that night, the night before. So get your ass in bed, turn off the television,
Mel Robbins (01:17:41):
You, Dr. Palmer, the
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:17:42):
Computer, whatever. Go to bed. Try to get more sleep. Reduce your use of harmful substances. That means alcohol. If you are really struggling with a mental health condition, give me three months off alcohol. I'm not asking for a lifetime. I'm not asking for forever three months off alcohol because we're trying to give your brain a chance. If you were a professional athlete training for a marathon, your coach would tell you, no alcohol, none. Zero, zero tolerance. If you were training for the Olympics, your coach would tell you, zero alcohol. I don't want to hear it. Guess what else? No marijuana, no CBD, no smoking, no vaping, none. Period. End of story. Don't argue, don't talk back. Just don't do it. Don't do those things. Why? Because they're all negatively impacting your brain metabolism. Your brain metabolism is begging for help. We see it in the symptoms that you're exhibiting.
(01:18:50):
We want to give you a fighting chance. You can introduce these things again in the future when you're healthy, when you're healthier and more resilient, and you can tolerate a drink every now and then, great. But for now, while we're trying to help you heal and recover, we're going to give your brain a fighting chance. We're going to do those things. We're going to give it three months, and then we're going to see how it's going. My honest guess is if people could really do that, it's a lot to ask. I know, and people may not be able to do it all at once,
Mel Robbins (01:19:26):
But isn't your mental health and your happiness and the vitality that you feel and the peace that you feel worth it? I mean, it's 90 measly days.
Mel Robbins (01:19:36):
The ketogenic diet, get a good night's sleep, stop drinking and smoking for 90 measly days and take a walk every night after dinner. That's what you're asking. And you're saying, based on 30 years as a Harvard psychiatrist and the world's leading expert in the brain energy theory, which you created and metabolic health, this should remarkably improve the way that you feel
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:20:08):
It will. I am hearing from thousands of people around the world who are doing that alone, and they feel remarkably better. If it's helpful. I just want to say this, and when people are really severely depressed and down and out, they will say, and they will think, why should I be alive at all? And now you're going to ask me to give up the one thing that gives me comfort, which is food or alcohol or vaping. I kind of sort of don't even want to be alive anyway. And the only thing that gives me any bit of comfort for even five or 10 minutes are those things. I can't give those up what I say. I work with people like that all the time. What I say to those people is, I'm only asking for 90 days. I'm not asking for a lifetime. I'm saying, do you want to try to feel better? Would you like to get out of this living hell that you are in right now? And is it worth a 90 day experiment? Almost always, I can convince people to do it. Again, they may not be able to do it all at once. So maybe we have to work on diet first and then add in some exercise and then add in. Let's get you off the vaping and then add in the sleep.
Mel Robbins (01:21:42):
But start with the diet.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:21:43):
I would start with the diet because the diet, the ketogenic diet can have profound effects on mood and energy. And when people just start to notice that little bit of improvement after the first or second week...
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:22:00):
That then gives them the energy to then give up the alcohol or the vaping or to start walking when they felt like they couldn't walk before, it gives them that little bit of hope, and then they add those other interventions. Nine times out of 10, when I start people on the intervention, they will say, I'm definitely stopping all this crap in 90 days. Fine, Dr. Palmer. I'll do it for 90 days, but then I'm stopping. If I get them to 90 days and they're dramatically better, they will say, there's no way in hell I can go back to that living hell that I was just in.
(01:22:43):
A few of them have gotten mad at me, you tricked me. Now I'm stuck on this diet. Now I'm stuck on giving up alcohol or vaping. You tricked me. This wasn't the plan. And I'm like, but you feel better. And they're like, yes, I feel like a new person. I can't believe I feel so good. And I'm like, well, maybe a few years and then you'll have more and you'll be able to add those things back. More often than not, what people find is that they feel so much better that they don't want to add those things back anymore because they realize those things are going to make me go backwards, and I'm moving forward finally, and I'm feeling better.
Mel Robbins (01:23:22):
Thank you for saying that because I know that when you're really in a dark hole and you don't think you can get better and you're being asked for Chris, it was hitting the vape pen every day or hitting the weed pen every day or drinking bourbon, just an numb out. And I didn't even realize the extent of it until the diagnosis came in. The thought of facing it without those things was terrifying. And what's interesting as I was listening to you is I was thinking, you're not giving up weed or alcohol. You're giving up depression and Dr. Palmer, you are offering the hope and more importantly, the medically proven results that it can work.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:24:22):
It can
Mel Robbins (01:24:25):
Any final thing you want to say because there's a lot of people that are going to forward this to somebody in their life who has crippling anxiety or depression. And having been in that place myself and having been married to somebody who is struggling, I'll tell you what, when you're in a dark place, you are a stubborn son of a gun. And so could you speak directly to that person right now who isn't listening to their family, doesn't want to hear it, has given up hope. As a Harvard psychiatrist with 30 years under your belt, having worked with thousands and thousands of people and even cured major mental illnesses with this approach, what would you say?
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:25:17):
I think I would actually want to speak to them not as the Harvard psychiatrist with all of those credentials that you just list and not with all the scientific knowledge that I have that emboldens me to know that what I'm saying to you is true. But I would want to speak to that person as somebody who's been there myself, somebody who suffered relentlessly for years from crippling depression. I couldn't get out of bed. I wanted to kill myself. I tried to kill myself several times. I could not imagine a future for myself. I really assumed that I would be dead before I turned 20, and that was really all but certain in my mind that there's no way I will be alive when I'm 20.
(01:26:14):
What I would say to people is, if I can get through that is I really did believe that I would be dead, that I could not possibly live like this for the rest of my life. And it had been going on for years since I was a young child. If I can get better. So you, and you just have to believe, and if you're skeptic, if you're doubting any of this, there's so much science to back it up. And the reality is you really can do it for 30, for 90 days, for three months. You can do it. I have patients with horrible, crippling schizophrenia who can do it. I have patients with bipolar disorder who can do it.
Dr. Chris Palmer (01:27:15):
I have patients with alcoholism and other diagnoses that can do it. And if they can do it, so can you,
Mel Robbins (01:27:28):
Dr. Chris Palmer, change in the world. Thank you.
(01:27:33):
Thank you. Now, can you see why I was so excited to introduce you to Dr. Palmer? I love his passion and I love how tactical the information is. In fact, the second I finished talking to him, I knew at least a dozen people that I was like, I got to send this conversation to them. They have to hear this. And I find an episode like this one so empowering because it not only makes me think differently, I'm sure it made you think differently about how you're taking care of yourself, but don't you love having something like this to be able to send to a friend or a family member? I mean, it can be really hard to get through to somebody that you love and make them understand why they need to take better care of themselves. So instead of you doing it, let Dr. Palmer do it.
(01:28:17):
He's the perfect person to speak to somebody why he's been there, but he also has the credentials of being at Harvard for 30 years. I can't wait to hear how this impacts your life and how this episode, as you share it, impacts the lives of people that you love. And by the way, this is just part one of the resources that Dr. Palmer is going to provide you with because in the very next episode that I'm releasing, guess what? He's going to give you insight about a topic that everybody keeps writing in about, and that is A DHD. Dr. Palmer is going to discuss neurodivergent conditions like a DHD and how your metabolism is impacting life with it. It can either help you, it can hinder you. So A DHD is coming next, and until then, in case no one else tells you, I wanted to make sure that I tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life.
(01:29:09):
And I want to thank Dr. Palmer for giving you the information that is going to help you do it. Alrighty, I'll talk to you in a few days and to you on YouTube. I want to say I love you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here and spending time with me on YouTube. Please, please, please, if you haven't already hit subscribe. It's a way that you can support this show and you can support your friend Mel Robbins. Please share this episode with anybody that can benefit from this information, which is everybody on the planet. And I know that you want to know how to take better care of your brain now that you've learned all this. So you're going to want to watch this next, a better Brain, three habits for productivity, memory, and longevity.
Guests Appearing in this Episode
Dr. Chris Palmer, MD
Dr. Chris Palmer is currently the director of the Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education at McLean Hospital, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and thought leader in the connection between mental and metabolic health.
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Books
Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a revolutionary new understanding that for the first time unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain.
Palmer puts together the pieces of the mental illness puzzle to provide answers and offer hope. Brain Energy will transform the field of mental health, and the lives of countless people around the world.
Resources
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- Biochemical/Biophysical Research: Mitochondria in metabolism and cell death
- Cell: The evolving role of mitochondria in metabolism
- JCO Oncology: Is mitochondrial metabolism a new predictive biomarker?
- Johns Hopkins Medicine: Amount of mitochondrial DNA predicts mortality
- Current Opinion in Psychiatry: Ketogenic diet for schizophrenia
- Schizophrenia Research: Ketogenic diet and remission in schizophrenia
- Nutrition & Metabolism: Schizophrenia, gluten, & low-carb ketogenic diets
- Neurocase: The ketogenic diet for type II bipolar disorder
- Int. Journal of Bipolar Disorders: Metabolic profile in patients newly diagnosed
- NE Journal of Medicine: Low-carb vs. low-fat diet in severe obesity
- Epilepsia: Ketogenic diet exhibits anti-inflammatory properties
- Cell Metabolism: A ketogenic diet exhibits longevity in adult mice
- The Charlie Foundation for Ketogenic Therapies: mentioned by Dr. Palmer
- Epilepsia: Intermittent vs. continuous ketogenic diet
- Cannabis Cannabinoid Research: Cannibidiol impairs brain metabolism
- HHS Author Manuscripts: The metabolic basis of epilepsy
- J. Proteome Research: Metabolic framework for the improvement of ASD
- Journal of Clinical Investigation: Enhanced metabolism on multiple sclerosis
- Epilepsia: Comorbid epilepsy in autism spectrum disorder
- Autism Research: Genetic modifications associated with ketogenic diet
- Frontiers in Pharmacology: The ketogenic diet as a treatment paradigm
- Frontiers in Pharmacology: Ketogenic diets: an update for child neurologists
- Int. Journal of Molecular Sciences: Links between metabolic disorders and IBS
- Translational Autoimmunity: Autoimmune diseases and metabolic disorders
- Toxicological Sciences: Metabolic syndrome and associated diseases
- Neurological Review: Metabolic disorder in Alzheimer’s Disease and dementia
- Nature Reviews Endocrinology: Roles of life stress in metabolic disorders
- Frontiers in Public Health: Impact of education and age in metabolic disorders
- Cell Research: Mitochondrial metabolism and cancer
- Diabetes: Roles of mitochondria in health and disease
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