Transform Your Mental Health With Diet & Lifestyle | Dr. Chris Palmer

My guest is Dr. Chris Palmer, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School. He explains how specific nutrition, exercise, supplement-based, and other factors can improve mitochondrial health and thereby provide relief from adult and childhood ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and symptoms of autism. We discuss mitochondrial biology, whether vaccines can impact inflammation and mitochondrial health, and the potential ramifications. We also review creatine, methylene blue, and urolithin A, as well as the role of B vitamins and iron in treating depression. By the end of this episode, you will understand the powerful link between metabolic health and mental health, and the lifestyle, dietary, and other factors you can leverage to help overcome common mental health challenges and disorders.

Articles

• Tunnelling nanotubes between neuronal and microglial cells allow bi-directional transfer of α-Synuclein and mitochondria (Cell Death & Disease)
• Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake (Cell Metabolism)
• Consumption of Ultraprocessed Food and Risk of Depression (JAMA Network Open)
• Ketogenic diets for drug‐resistant epilepsy (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews)
• Ketogenic diet therapy for pediatric epilepsy is associated with alterations in the human gut microbiome that confer seizure resistance in mice (Cell Reports)
• A pilot study of a ketogenic diet in bipolar disorder: clinical, metabolic and magnetic resonance spectroscopy findings (BJPsych Open)
• Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: The Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial (JAMA)
• Opponent control of reinforcement by striatal dopamine and serotonin (Nature)
• Urolithin A improves muscle strength, exercise performance, and biomarkers of mitochondrial health in a randomized trial in middle-aged adults (Cell Reports Medicine)
• Prevalence of Iron Deficiency and Iron-Deficiency Anemia in US Females Aged 12-21 Years, 2003-2020 (JAMA)
• Transcobalamin receptor antibodies in autoimmune vitamin B12 central deficiency (Science Translational Medicine)
• Associations between maternal preconception and pregnancy adiposity and neuropsychiatric and behavioral outcomes in the offspring: A systematic review and meta-analysis (Psychiatry Research)

Books

• "The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire"
• "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer"
• "Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More"

Other Resources

• Antidepressant Use Among Adults (NCHS Data Brief, September 2020)
• American Heart Association opposed removing ultra-processed foods from SNAP eligibility
• Fasting Mimicking Program & Longevity (Valter Longo)
• Prolon
• Is sugar addictive? (Harvard Gazette)
• Timeline

Huberman Lab Episodes Mentioned

• Rick Rubin: Protocols to Access Creative Energy and Process
• Dr. Chris Palmer: Diet & Nutrition for Mental Health

People Mentioned

• Ben Barres: neurobiologist, Stanford University
• Valter Longo: professor of gerontology and biological science, University of Southern California
• Paul Saladino: physician, known for the carnivore diet