A Root Cause of Mental Illness: Harvard Professor
The ketogenic diet is curing mental illness for many, and the science suggests that it’s because of how it shifts our metabolism
What causes mental illness? For years, despite medical advances, this pressing question has remained unanswered.
Often, patients seeking clarity encounter explanations such as “it’s genetic” or “depression is a lack of serotonin.” Of course, there are countless experiences that can contribute to mental illness, including social isolation, addiction, and trauma. But researchers have also long known that there’s a biochemical aspect to depression.
Dr. Christopher Palmer, a Harvard professor of psychiatry, has been connecting the dots of thousands of research articles regarding the relationship between mental illness and mitochondrial dysfunction.
According to Dr. Palmer, this collective research raises concerns about the current treatments used for mental disorders.
A Chance Discovery
Dr. Palmer started his investigation in 2016, when he helped a patient with schizoaffective disorder lose weight. The patient suffered not only from severe mental illness but also from low self-esteem due to the weight gain he experienced while on psychotropic medication.
Weight loss brought a dramatic drop in symptoms.
Dr. Palmer said he initially couldn’t believe that switching to a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet could have stopped the patient’s chronic auditory hallucinations and paranoid delusions. Dr. Palmer quickly started using this intervention in other patients and saw similar—sometimes even more dramatic—results.
This experience encouraged him to learn how a change in diet could help with severe mental illness.
Putting the Pieces Together
Dr. Palmer found decades of studies revealing the connection between metabolic health and brain health.
“The more I uncovered in terms of those concrete mechanisms of action, I realized there’s something much bigger here. I’m beginning to connect a lot of dots that our field hasn’t been able to connect before,” Dr. Palmer told The Epoch Times.
In November 2022, he released a book titled “Brain Energy” highlighting his discoveries and theorizing that mitochondrial disorders are the root cause of all mental illnesses.
Drawing from decades of research on metabolism and mitochondria, Dr. Palmer said he believes that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. This means that these conditions aren’t permanent defects and can be corrected by identifying and addressing their root cause.
This insight challenges the notion that conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are lifelong disorders.
“People with labels such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder can put their illnesses into remission, they can heal, and they can recover,” he said.
“That goes against much of what we tell people today.”
What is Mitochondrial Dysfunction?
Cellular structures called mitochondria are vital for all cells to function normally, including brain cells. When mitochondria aren’t operating correctly, various health problems can arise, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, obesity, and Type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Palmer pointed out that when mitochondria fail to work correctly, this can also lead to mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The brain needs a considerable amount of energy to work efficiently.
When mitochondria aren’t churning out enough energy, this can lead to abnormalities in the brain’s structure and function, leading to mental illness.
Dr. Palmer said mitochondrial dysfunction can produce several changes in the brain that can cause mental illness to develop. These changes include fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels, oxidative stress, and inflammation.
Groundbreaking Theory
If the origin of mental disorders is mitochondrial dysfunction, treatments that address the underlying issue could be more successful than traditional tools.
Medication and cognitive behavioral therapy, the standard treatment for most mental disorders, can sometimes manage symptoms but often fail to cure the disease.
Dr. Palmer, whose clinical work spans more than two decades and focuses on the most treatment-resistant cases of mental illness, discovered that many patients struggling with mental illness also demonstrate signs of mitochondrial dysfunction.
He said addressing the fundamental mitochondrial disorder can often improve their mental health condition. Some of his patients have experienced remission of mild to severe symptoms, including depression, psychosis, and hallucinations and then reduced or discontinued their medications.
Although helpful for some patients in the short term, psychiatric medications can often produce side effects such as reduced libido, increased risk of suicide, and weight gain.
“We seriously need to look at the risks and benefits of those treatments over the long term,” Dr. Palmer said.
He cautioned that people should never discontinue the use of medications without speaking with their medical providers.
Low-Carb, Ketogenic Diet Shows Promise
According to his research and clinical experience, Dr. Palmer suggested numerous strategies to mitigate the effects of mitochondrial dysfunction, including common-sense lifestyle changes such as exercise, improved diet, stress reduction, and adequate sleep.
The ketogenic diet has proven to be the most successful for Dr. Palmer’s patients. The ketogenic diet, which dates back to 1920, was first used to treat epilepsy. The diet—high in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates—has been shown to increase the number of mitochondria in cells and enhance their function.
One of the ways the ketogenic diet benefits mitochondrial health is through the production of ketones. When the body is in ketosis, it produces ketones from stored fat as an alternative, more efficient fuel source. These ketones can provide energy to cells, including brain cells, which rely heavily on mitochondria for their energy needs.
Mitochondria assist in the production of neurotransmitters, chemicals that influence mood and behavior, such as serotonin and dopamine.
The ketogenic diet also improves insulin resistance because it’s low in sugar and carbohydrates. Insulin resistance can also impair the creation of new mitochondria. Insulin resistance results in dysfunction of the mitochondria, reduced energy production, and cellular damage, including in brain cells.
A Picture of the Research
Research from 2015 found that the ketone metabolite, which is the energy molecule created when the liver breaks down fat, could block NLP3 inflammasome-mediated inflammatory diseases. A study published in BMC Psychiatry in April found that inflammatory processes linked to NLP3 were an important contributor to severe psychiatric disorders and that NLRP3 inflammasome was elevated in people with psychiatric disorders.
A review published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews in 2018 looked at research regarding a ketogenic diet’s effect on mood disorders. A ketogenic diet fuels the body with fat rather than carbohydrates.
According to the review, preclinical studies at the time found that the diet had antidepressant and mood-stabilizing effects.
“Ketogenic diet has profound effects in multiple targets implicated in the pathophysiology of mood disorders,” it reads.
The researchers said the diet should be considered a “promising intervention.”
A 2020 research review echoed that finding. The study, “Ketogenic Diet as a Metabolic Treatment for Mental Illness,” set out to describe why ketogenic diets seem to help with mental illness.
“Psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder and binge eating disorder, are neurometabolic diseases that share several common mechanistic biopathologies,” the authors wrote. “These include glucose hypometabolism, neurotransmitter imbalances, oxidative stress and inflammation. There is strong evidence that ketogenic diets can address these four fundamental diseases, and now complementary clinical evidence that ketogenic diets can improve the patients’ symptoms.”
There have also been studies that put those theories into action.
A retrospective analysis published in 2022 looked at 31 inpatients to see how the ketogenic diet affected illnesses that resist treatment, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizoaffective disorder.
It was tested on patients in a psychiatric hospital whose symptoms were poorly controlled despite intensive psychiatric management.
“The administration of a ketogenic diet in this semi-controlled setting to patients with treatment-refractory mental illness was feasible, well-tolerated, and associated with significant and substantial improvements in depression and psychosis symptoms and multiple markers of metabolic health,” the study reads.
Hope on the Horizon
If mental illness is significantly driven by metabolism and dietary changes can ease or erase symptoms for many patients, the ketogenic diet could be a life-changing therapy for countless Americans.
“We have hundreds of cases of people with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia putting their illnesses into remission. Scientists are pursuing this. We have at least 10 controlled trials of the ketogenic diet for serious mental illness underway now. One is getting ready to publish their pilot trial results soon,” Dr. Palmer said.
“There is a lot of momentum behind this. This groundbreaking theory opens up entirely new ways for us to conceptualize and treat mental illness going forward. Studies are already underway and rapidly advancing, yet this can have real results in real people today.”
See more here theepochtimes
Header image: Healthy Women
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
Tom
| #
If anything, the mainstream media can lead to mental illness if you engage with it. The foods you eat have a direct to mental illness. No drugs can do anything long term.
Reply
Howdy
| #
Mental illness is there by design, waiting for the correct trigger. Just like many other things beyond Human control.
Reply
Joe
| #
What you eat IS in you control!
Reply
Howdy
| #
What you eat is not the cause of mental illness!
Reply
Howdy
| #
I’m back. to put some things straight.
First, your response is misleading Joe, I didn’t say food choice was not in one’s own control.
So, what about this (my caps):
the science SUGGESTS that it’s because of how it shifts our metabolism
Dr. Palmer said HE BELIEVES that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain.
IF mental illness is significantly driven by metabolism
THEORIZING that mitochondrial disorders are the root cause of all mental illnesses.
IF the origin of mental disorders is mitochondrial dysfunction
Doesn’t sound like facts does It?
Then there’s also this:
“many patients struggling with mental illness also demonstrate signs of mitochondrial dysfunction.”
So not all of them. I would expect mitochondrial dysfunction to be a factor in all cases since it’s claimed a root cause, even though the previous paragraph is no evidence.
Reply
Climate Heretic
| #
“What you eat is not the cause of mental illness!”
I suggest you do some research on this. What you eat can cause mental illness.
Changing one’s diet is just one factor in helping people with mental illness recover.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Reply
Howdy
| #
I did some research. No solid evidence of food being the cause.
Diet can cause a better mood.
Diet can make you feel better
On the other hand, fasting can help mood apparently. Does that help at all? No.
Salad MAY help depression.
You believe what you like, It’s Inconclusive, as I stated in the beginning.
You know, if you eat ‘healthy’ foods, it tend to promote feeling better purely because one expects to feel better.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the “law of attraction”?
https://www.verywellmind.com/understanding-and-using-the-law-of-attraction-3144808
Howdy
| #
Here’s more evidence for those who think it’s nonsense:
“There are many clinical trials where a person who has taken the placebo instead of the active treatment has reported an improvement in symptoms.
Belief in a treatment may be enough to change the course of a person’s physical illness..”
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/placebo-effect
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect.
Science… It’s a bit more complicated than placebo, since one can also cause them-self to get ill, or die
Plenty more examples if you wish to look.
True belief is the crux. It is critical.
Climate Heretic
| #
Unfortunately for you, you have to prove that the professor. Christopher Palmer’s findings are wrong.
I don’t believe. I only know what I know and my research shows the following:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/diet-and-depression-2018022213309
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178117301981
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23078460/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28137247/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.662357/full#B8
Your research, “the laws of attraction” and “the placebo effect”, have no bearing on whether food causes or does not cause mental health issues.
The brain is part of the body and the body needs nutrients and these nutrients come from foods. If the body does not get these nutrients then one tends to become sick. The most classic example is the history of scurvy.
Regards
Climate Heretic
Howdy
| #
“Unfortunately for you, you have to prove that the professor. Christopher Palmer’s findings are wrong.”
I’m afraid not. The professors words state the verdict for themselves. As allready shown by me, nothing is stated fact. Indeed, I claimed the evidence is inconclusive, as it is. Not as wrong. The final words of the article even state that fact:
“This groundbreaking theory opens up entirely new ways…”
Case closed.
As I previously stated, believe what you like, but an open mind is allways an asset, denial works for nobody, and offers the same view as blinkers to a horse..
Good day to you.
Seriously
| #
It’s been documented for centuries. When grain was introduced, it caused mental imbalance/symptoms in SOME people. It is in the records from the time we started farming these grains, creating cities and societies. 10,000 years this evidence goes back, so not new science. I’ve read it in several books – one was Guns, Germs, and Steel. It listed references so you can find there if you want to track down what I say. It’s been noted in archeology, for centuries. I suggest that despite this apparent downside to this NEW WAY OF EATING, it was accepted because it reduced the amount of fear and everyday insecurity that hunter/gatherers must have experienced daily and thus, stress. Security in numbers certainly proved tantalizing as well. Also the ability to socialize, interact with more people, which is pleasurable to most of our social species. Who was it who famously said ‘it’s easier to get a man to change his politics (religon?), than what he eats.’ Grains are sugar, sugar is addicting…and truly harmful to the body.
Reply
VOWG
| #
Grain has kept man alive for thousands of years. I guess all our ancestors were basically nuts. Oh well.
Reply
denis dombas
| #
Howdy, what is “healthy food”? According to FDA definition?Go opposite to that!
Reply
Howdy
| #
I don’t take notice of the FDA, or any other, Dennis. Good or bad, I’ll live my way, find out myself, then I can’t blame others if it goes bad.
Reply