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 McClain'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. When was the first time you used this approach with a patient?

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. 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.

How were you treating him? How, as a psychiatrist, you had been seeing him for eight years? I mean, was it medication?

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 100 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. 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.

Yeah.

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, I'm going to run with this. Let's do something about this. 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 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 at 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, you know those voices that I hear all the time? They're starting to go away.

You're kidding.

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? 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.

What was it like for you as a psychiatrist to see somebody emerge from that cloud of a severe mental illness?

Early on, the early days, I really actually had trouble believing what I was seeing. He lived with his father, 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. Like, figure it out. What is happening? What are you doing? What is going on?

And all that you did was change his diet.

All that I did was change his diet. That man went on, has 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. 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.

I 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. We have long known that there are biopsychosocial 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. And in 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.

You.

50% of U. S. Adults currently has prediabetes or diabetes. 50%.