Essentials: Diet & Nutrition for Mental Health | Dr. Chris Palmer

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. And now for my discussion with doctor Chris Palmer. Chris, doctor Palmer, thank you for being here. Thank you, Andrew, for having me. I have a lot of questions for you, and I'm really excited about this topic because I think most people know what mental illness is, or they have some idea what that is. Most people have some idea what nutrition is. Fewer people certainly know how closely those things can interact. I think everybody is familiar with the feeling of a food or the ingestion of a food making them feel good in the short term. But I believe that very few people understand or are familiar with the fact that nutrition and our mental health interact in this very intimate, maybe even causal way. And that is something that occurs over long periods of time, meaning what I ate yesterday, the day before, maybe even ten years ago could be impacting the way that my brain and body are making me feel now. So, if you would, I'd love for you to just tell us about a little bit of the history, in particular your history with exploring the relationship between nutrition and mental health. And then we can dive into some of the more particulars of ketogenic diets versus other diets, and some of the truly miraculous findings that you and others are coming up with based on real patients and real experiences of people who suffer and then find relief by altering their nutrition. Sure. This story really starts with my own personal story. I don't need to go into great detail, but to set the stage, when I was a kid, I definitely had mental illness. Started with OCD. I went on to have subsequent depression, suicidality, all sorts of things. Somehow or another, I pulled myself together and got through medical school, actually did quite well in medical school, and then was doing my internship and residency at Harvard. And at that point in time, I was diagnosed with metabolic syndrome. So, I had high blood pressure, horrible lipids, and prediabetes. And I was doing everything right, supposedly. I was on a low fat diet, and I was exercising regularly. And year after year, my doctor kept telling me diet and exercise. I was doing everything he kept telling me to do. Everything was getting worse. My blood pressure kept going higher. And at some point, he said, you're gonna have to go on medication for your prediabetes, something for your cholesterol, and something for your blood pressure. So three pills. Basically, you're screwed. It's your genes. You're just gonna have to bite the bullet and take meds. As a physician, I knew what that meant. I knew that I'm …