The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Moment 201: Harvard Psychiatrist Reveals The #1 Foods You Must STOP Eating To Heal Your Brain
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Could what you eat be affecting your mental health? Dr. Chris Palmer reveals groundbreaking research connecting metabolism, diet, and mental illness. From the role of mitochondria to the impact of ultra-processed foods, he explains why conditions like depression, anxiety, and even schizophrenia may be linked to metabolic dysfunction. Listen to the full episode here - Spotify- https://g2ul0.app.link//D8YKGKa38Qb Apple - https://g2ul0.app.link//GrQnbmd38Qb Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Chris: https://www.chrispalmermd.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How does diet influence mental health?
Most people have no clue that diet plays any role in mental illness or mental health. 95% of mental health clinicians think it's laughable that anybody would suggest that diet can play a role in mental illness. They think it's laughable. What do you think? I think if you do a deep dive into the science... all of the science that we have accumulated over the last 100 years and longer sometimes.
If you do a deep dive into all of those neuroimaging studies that we've been doing, all of the genetic studies we've been doing, all of the neurotransmitter and hormone studies and trauma studies and adverse childhood experiences studies, if you do a deep dive into the science, And you understand what is happening in the brains and bodies of people as a consequence of those things.
Chapter 2: What is the connection between metabolism and mental disorders?
Or what could be causing those things. If you put it all together, you come to this soundbite that mental disorders are metabolic in nature. And there is no reason. questioning whatsoever it is incontrovertible that diet plays a massive huge role in metabolism and therefore i believe very strongly that diet might be playing a role in the mental health epidemic that we are seeing
And it also might provide an avenue of hope and healing and recovery. And I use the word might as the scientist in me, as the clinician in me. I know without certainty it can heal and recover people who have had chronic, horrible, debilitating mental illnesses.
Chapter 3: Can diet changes improve chronic mental illnesses?
And I know from my own personal story, when I was in medical school and residency, I'm still suffering from low-grade depression, OCD, other symptoms. But I also developed what's called metabolic syndrome. I developed high blood pressure, high cholesterol. pre-diabetes. And I wasn't really overweight. I was exercising.
Chapter 4: How did Dr. Chris Palmer's personal experience influence his views on diet?
I was following a low-fat diet, mostly of processed foods because they're cheaper. But that was the diet that was touted as a healthy diet. It was low in fat. And as long as it was low in fat, that was supposed to be good for us. And my metabolic syndrome just kept getting worse and worse. And so at some point,
In order to treat my metabolic syndrome, I changed my diet to essentially a low carbohydrate diet. And within three months, my metabolic syndrome was completely gone. But the thing that just dumbfounded me was that my mental health was better than it had ever been in my entire life. And I just couldn't believe what I was experiencing. I didn't know that I could be that kind of a person.
I didn't know that I could be happy and positive and energetic and confident. I had no idea. I didn't think that was in me. And by changing my diet, all of those things happened.
Chapter 5: Why are ultra-processed foods harmful to mental health?
the level of the mitochondria are you saying do you believe that because you changed your diet to more sort of natural healthier foods at the level of the mitochondria the mitochondria were able to function more more naturally themselves and in a more um yeah functional way which meant that they released the chemicals they released in the processes they go through and
were more consistent with positive mental health? Is that like the simpletons way of understanding it? And before then you talked about manmade compounds in the foods, et cetera. I'm assuming you're saying that some of the modern foods that we eat, the ultra processed foods that have all of these random named chemicals inside them that we see on the labels,
Chapter 6: What dietary changes can optimize mitochondrial function?
the mitochondria don't know how to deal with that. So it's causing the same sort of dysregulation and dysfunction that they might see if we'd gone through like an extreme trauma or something else or some other adverse environmental situation. It's just this dysfunction of the mitochondria, which is causing the knock-on effects we see.
100%.
Okay, great. It's perfect. Super interesting. Okay, so on that point then, we have to zoom in on this thing of diet. If you wanted my mitochondria to be perfect, and maybe even give me a case study of patients you've worked with that you've prescribed a certain diet to, what diet, what food would you tell me to eat? And what would you tell me not to eat?
Chapter 7: How can individualized diets help mental and metabolic health?
So I actually don't have a one-size-fits-all prescription. Okay. And so I want to say that up front. So I would want to know who am I working with and how is their mental and metabolic health now? Me. So you. Yeah. So I would want more details. Are you having symptoms of any mental health condition?
I would say no. However, I can have moments where I feel a little bit anxious. Okay. So, you know, I've been through a lot of, I'd say like stressful events in my life because I was running a big business. We had hundreds of employees, paydays all the time. So I had this, at one point I had this constant, subtle stress.
And so I would want to know, do you feel like you have anxiety for no good reason?
Sometimes, sometimes it can feel a little bit like that. It's very infrequent, I'd say. But I can also have moments where I just think of something and then I get the same kind of like, it's almost like the fight or flight response has just kicked in.
But you think of something adverse or stressful? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the one thing I would say about that And we could get into a lot more details, which we probably don't want to do now. I don't mind. Podcast. But my strong guess, based on just what you've said, is that that level of stress and anxiety... is quote unquote normal.
Because you are sensing, I have to go do something that's really scary right now. Or I have to go do something that's going to ruin someone's life or that might threaten my success. It is normal and actually healthy to have anxiety and stress in those situations.
The anxiety and stress can sometimes be quite helpful and adaptive because it can make you pause and reflect on, is this really what I want to do? As opposed to being overly confident and just proceeding. Your own personal history almost certainly informs your level of stress response. And again, so if you go back to your own traumas,
you're going to remember when I'm facing a situation like this, it's helpful to be on hyper alert. It's helpful to be hyper vigilant. And your body and brain will remember that helped you navigate this safely and effectively.
But if I have that profile, if I have that sort of mental profile now as I sit here, and then for the next decade, I ate processed junk food, Am I going to send my mitochondria into disarray, which is going to increase the probability that I have a mental health disorder?
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