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Speaker 1: Doctor Matt Bernstein, Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: So, Matt, you have been a practicing psychiatrist for over

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Speaker 1: twenty years and you're the CEO of A Chord, and

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Speaker 1: a Chord has really caught my eye because you provide

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Speaker 1: metabolic based mental health programs and like, when I saw that,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, hallelujah, hallelujah, somebody actually approaching mental health from

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Speaker 1: a different and probably more effective angle. Before we dive

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Speaker 1: into this, do you just walk through the training required

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Speaker 1: to be a psychiatrist and maybe give us a couple

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Speaker 1: of career highlights or career lows or what sort of

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Speaker 1: drove you to this spiece?

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, so it's like being a psychiatrist is a medical doctor.

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Speaker 3: So first we do four years of undergraduate education. I

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Speaker 3: was actually an English literature major at Columbia University. Then

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Speaker 3: I had a little time in between that and medical school,

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Speaker 3: which is four years. And then beyond those four years,

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Speaker 3: we do four years of psychiatry training, one year in

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Speaker 3: internal medicine, and then three years of straight psychiatry.

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Speaker 1: So you're twelve years in all.

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Speaker 2: In all, post high school, twelve years of training, that's right, yeah.

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Speaker 1: This is crazy, so kind of thirty years old by

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Speaker 1: the time if you don't take any breaks by the

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Speaker 1: time you pop out of the training sass. Right, okay,

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Speaker 1: and then let's so you organized the first metabolic psychiatry

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Speaker 1: conference in twenty twenty three. We had a very very

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Speaker 1: brief chat before you came on. I've had a metabolic

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Speaker 1: neurologist on who you're familiar with, doctor Matthew Phillips. And

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Speaker 1: now we've got a metabolic psychiatrist, which is really cool.

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Speaker 1: Now I've got a little insight into this area, mainly

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Speaker 1: through reading doctor Chris Palmer's book, which I'm sure you'll

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Speaker 1: be familiar with Brian Energy. But tell our listeners what

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Speaker 1: is metabolic psychiatry overall?

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Speaker 3: Sure, So it's really approaching mental health through the lens

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Speaker 3: of metabolic health, with the recognition that the brain is

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Speaker 3: the most energy intensive organ in the body by far,

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Speaker 3: weighing about two percent of our overall body weight, but

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Speaker 3: using usually more than twenty percent of our overall energy.

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Speaker 3: So the brain requires lots of energy. When the body

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Speaker 3: isn't producing energy efficiently and effectively, it affects brain health first,

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Speaker 3: and we can intervene on brain health through that metabolic

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Speaker 3: these metabolic interventions, and we've known this for I mean

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Speaker 3: really actually millennia. In the time of Hippocrates, they used

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Speaker 3: fasting to treat seizures fifth century BC, and then this

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Speaker 3: was picked up again in the nineteenth century. There were

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Speaker 3: fasting clinics all over the place, and a very clever

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Speaker 3: doctor at the Mayo Clinic in nineteen twenty one used

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Speaker 3: the ketogenic diet to treat pediatric epilepsy.

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Speaker 1: I remember that, yeah, and it was very effective. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then we just sort of forgot about it for

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Speaker 1: a quite.

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Speaker 3: A wele well, the neurologists never fully forgot about it.

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Speaker 3: They were studying this all along and using it in

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Speaker 3: treatment refractory kids. So for the first thirty forty years

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Speaker 3: after that, it was used extensively in epilepsy. But then

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Speaker 3: the medications came along, and everyone's enamored with the drugs.

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Speaker 3: Right there, we can pop a pill, you know, you

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Speaker 3: take of medication. It's much easier, you don't have to

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Speaker 3: completely change your diet, and so that's what neurologists gravitated

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Speaker 3: towards to treat epilepsy. But there was always a recognition

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Speaker 3: that with certain kids, the diet worked much better than

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Speaker 3: the drugs. And there were kids who would be on

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Speaker 3: two or three anti seizure medications at a time, still

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Speaker 3: having seizures all throughout the week, and they would switch

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Speaker 3: them to a ketogenic diet. They would see control over

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Speaker 3: the seizures. They could taper them off of all of

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Speaker 3: those medications and still get control over the seizures with

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Speaker 3: the diet. And then what was even more amazing is

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Speaker 3: many of those kids could come off of the diet

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Speaker 3: after two or three four years and still retain control

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Speaker 3: over the seizures.

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Speaker 1: So that period of because they kind of fixed in

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Speaker 1: inverted commas, the dysfunctional metabolism in certain parts of the breed.

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Speaker 3: I think we don't really know scientifically exactly why some

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Speaker 3: of those kids can come off the diet and some

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Speaker 3: of them can't, but that was certainly an intriguing thing.

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Speaker 3: You know, there's very few brain disorders where there's any

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Speaker 3: treatment that fixes the problems such that you don't need

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Speaker 3: the treatment anymore. Yeah, so that's really fascinating and intriguing

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Speaker 3: and led to lots of neuroscience research about how are

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Speaker 3: thesees doing what they're doing in the brain. And so

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Speaker 3: now we've had decades of neuroscientists delving into, you know,

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Speaker 3: what is going on with ketogenic diets and brain health,

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Speaker 3: and there's now lots of studies about that, and lots

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Speaker 3: of theories and many mechanisms now that have been identified

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Speaker 3: about how these ketogenic diets improve brain health.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember going through my nutrition master's degree and

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Speaker 1: you know, the whole talk about the brain was the

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Speaker 1: brion needs glucose, and it just runs off glucose. But

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Speaker 1: but then we have seen that the brion actually functions

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Speaker 1: really well in the absence of glucose and actually in

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Speaker 1: some cases seems to prefer ketones.

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Speaker 3: Yes, well, just to clarify, actually it never stops using glucose.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, correct.

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Speaker 3: So, no matter how deep of a ketosis someone's in

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Speaker 3: and how helpful that is for their brain, there are

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Speaker 3: certain parts of the brain that always going to be

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Speaker 3: using some glucose. And so what we do is we're

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Speaker 3: really providing this additional source of fuel, not not a

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Speaker 3: complete alternative source of fuel. But in addition, we're getting

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Speaker 3: a signaling from the keytones to tell these neurons and

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Speaker 3: other brain cells to change in certain ways. And we

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Speaker 3: think that maybe you know, in it, you know, we

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Speaker 3: don't know which is more important, but that's also very important,

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Speaker 3: that signaling that the ketones are giving to the brain.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's important to know when people are

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Speaker 1: on a ketogenic diet that the body still makes enough

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Speaker 1: glucose that's right right through gluconeogenesis, So it has this

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Speaker 1: whole process that's evolutionarily conserved that it can make as

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Speaker 1: much glucose as it needs in the absence of a

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Speaker 1: dietary source of glucose, like, for instance, if our ancestors

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Speaker 1: were were not deliberately practicing fasting, but if they went

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Speaker 1: for periods with our food and I see, I want

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Speaker 1: to just take a couple of steps back and your

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Speaker 1: description about the brilling. You know, two to three percent

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Speaker 1: of our wee about twenty plus percent, and particularly in

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Speaker 1: times of chronic stress, you know, or high cognitive demands,

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Speaker 1: you know, up to thirty percent of our energy. But

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Speaker 1: and then when you look at it like that and

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Speaker 1: then realize that that compromised energy supply can really affect it.

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Speaker 1: But like, like when you thought of that, was it

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Speaker 1: like a duh moment For years as a psychiatrist where

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Speaker 1: you going, oh my god, this is so bloody obvious.

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Speaker 1: Not that I've seen it. I can't unsee.

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Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, yeah, I mean, of course this was not

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Speaker 3: part of my training at all. We didn't learn nutrition

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Speaker 3: in all of those twelve years, you know, college, medical school,

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Speaker 3: residency training. I got almost no training in nutrition, which

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Speaker 3: is very common in the States, It's.

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Speaker 1: Very it's very common over here in Australia, it's very

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Speaker 1: common around the world. I mean, most medical degrees would

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Speaker 1: have a maximum of two weeks of nutritional training. But

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Speaker 1: for me that they in psychiatry in particular, has got

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Speaker 1: no nutritional training. I mean that's kind of dark a

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Speaker 1: just stuff, really, isn't it. When we know what we

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Speaker 1: know today, it's true.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think and there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: resistance in the psychiatric world about this alternative way of

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Speaker 3: seeing brain health and mental health.

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Speaker 2: As you might imagine.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this message that we can have such a profound

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Speaker 3: effect on the brain through non pharmacologic, non psychotherapeutic options,

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Speaker 3: and it's not to throw those away. They can be

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Speaker 3: incredibly powerful and life saving. I've seen medications and other

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Speaker 3: biological standard psychiatric treatments save lives many times. I used

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Speaker 3: to work on an inpatient unit with people who were

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Speaker 3: acutely ill. The medications literally would save lives. We used

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Speaker 3: ect It would save lives, I have no doubt, but

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Speaker 3: those treatments are not very good at continuing to make

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Speaker 3: people well after the acute crisis is over.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know that's it's an interesting observation, Matt.

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Speaker 1: I'm just today five weeks out from open heartshot. Wow,

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Speaker 1: because I'm very very lucky. Boy. I am discovered because

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Speaker 1: I'd play soccer with a cardiologist and asked them, if

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Speaker 1: you do some checks. I was born with a bicusp

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Speaker 1: of diotic vale, right, So I'm very lucky because it

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Speaker 1: probably would have killed me if I hadn't picked it up,

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Speaker 1: or certainly caused heart failure. But what I observed going

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Speaker 1: through that whole hospital system is that we have a

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Speaker 1: very very effective sick curse system, but not a very

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Speaker 1: effective health slash willness system. Right. It's really all about

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Speaker 1: just treating the disease or the condition and really not

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Speaker 1: very much, if anything, about then returning to optimal health

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Speaker 1: and wellness and quality of life and all those sorts

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Speaker 1: of things.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly right.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly how I see things. And as you

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Speaker 3: said before, once you sort of see this this way,

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Speaker 3: you can't unsee it. Once you see the importance of

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Speaker 3: the underlying metabolic health to the function of all the

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Speaker 3: cells in the body, not just the cells in the brain,

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Speaker 3: but all over, you can unsee how important that is.

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Speaker 3: And once you also feel it and experience it, when

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Speaker 3: you achieve some better metabolic health. Wow, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 3: the sky's part for most people when that happens, And

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Speaker 3: it does take a lot of work. I mean, of

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Speaker 3: course you know, and I know that this isn't something

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Speaker 3: you do by you know, hanging out on the couch

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Speaker 3: and getting up and you know, doing a few laps

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Speaker 3: on a treadmill once or twice a week like this

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Speaker 3: is serious work.

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Speaker 1: And coming back to your point earlier, lots of people

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Speaker 1: will in a human nature, we default to the easier option.

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Speaker 1: It's easier to pop uphill, and that's what people tend

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Speaker 1: tend to go towards. And it's harder to change your lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: And it's really freaking hard to change that, yes, particularly

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Speaker 1: if you've been eating a certain way, and certainly ultra

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Speaker 1: processed foods, which we're now seeing are quite addictive. I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure if you saw the recent umbrella review on

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Speaker 1: ultra processed foods so a review of reviews of meta

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Speaker 1: analysis and find convincing class one evidence that increasing ultra

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Speaker 1: processed foods in the de it increased risk of anxiety

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Speaker 1: by I think it was forty eight percent off the

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Speaker 1: top of my head, and common mental health disorder by

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Speaker 1: fifty three percent. Like class one evidence. Yeah, you don't

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Speaker 1: say that shit in nutrition, right, I mean, this should

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Speaker 1: just be alarm bailed for psychiatrists on people all around

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Speaker 1: the bloody country.

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Speaker 2: Shit it shit, absolutely, Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The more we actually study it, the more we see

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Speaker 3: how powerful food is. It's really the most powerful thing

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Speaker 3: to control our epigenetics. You know, we're all born with

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Speaker 3: certain genes, but that's really only ten to twenty percent

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Speaker 3: of the story of health. The other eighty to ninety

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Speaker 3: percent is what's going to turn the genes on and off,

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Speaker 3: which is epigenetics. And of course many things control epigenetics,

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Speaker 3: but food is the one that we have the most

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Speaker 3: powerful control over. You know, it's so powerful and we

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Speaker 3: can control it, and here we are instead, you know,

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Speaker 3: eating diets that really you know, do the worst to us.

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Speaker 1: And absolutely absolutely, and I think Hippocrates let food be

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Speaker 1: thy medicine and medicine be thy food, right, absolutely, the

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Speaker 1: intur Greeksikia. So now I know there was a bit

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Speaker 1: of a pivotal moment for you in your journey, and

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Speaker 1: it was around your son's mental health journey. Could you

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Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about that?

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Speaker 3: Sure? So you know, here we are, we have three boys,

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Speaker 3: and we're talking about eight years ago now almost. We

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Speaker 3: have twins at the time who were fourteen and another

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Speaker 3: one who was twelve. They were very happy, well adjusted kids,

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Speaker 3: going to school and playing sports and music and friends

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Speaker 3: and all these things. And you know, I'm a psychiatrist,

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Speaker 3: my wife's a psychologist. You know, some people might say,

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Speaker 3: our poor kids, they've got double shrink parents, you know,

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Speaker 3: of course, but but they were doing great. And then

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Speaker 3: all of a sudden, two of my boys, one of

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Speaker 3: the ones the twins, who was fourteen and the other

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Speaker 3: one who was twelve, got very very sick, all both

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Speaker 3: at the same time, which was very unusual, and it

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Speaker 3: looked very psychiatric mental health. In the beginning, they got

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Speaker 3: a cute depression, severe anxiety, but when we started really

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Speaker 3: looking closer, they had a lot of physical symptoms and

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Speaker 3: really severe cognitive symptoms. Which one would not expect from

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Speaker 3: just you know, depression and anxiety and kids. They could

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Speaker 3: not even go to school. I mean they really just

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Speaker 3: had to drop out of life. It was that severe,

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Speaker 3: and it really almost happened overnight, and so two at

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Speaker 3: the same time, you know, we were wondering, you know,

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Speaker 3: what happened?

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Speaker 2: What, you know, did we do something?

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Speaker 3: But it really pointed to you know, potentially something environmental

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Speaker 3: or infectious that you know, would cluster together like that.

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Speaker 3: Well it took quite a while to figure out, but

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Speaker 3: eventually we learned that they had a form of autoimmune encephalitis,

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Speaker 3: which is essentially the immune system attacking parts of the

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Speaker 3: brain that were causing these mental health symptoms. We got

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Speaker 3: no help from traditional medicine. I mean literally none. And

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Speaker 3: here I am, we have great resources, I know a

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Speaker 3: lot of people, I'm a doctor myself in Boston. We

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Speaker 3: could get no help from traditional medical care at all,

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Speaker 3: and eventually sort of went into this medical odyssey working

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Speaker 3: with functional medicine providers and environmental medicine providers and eventually

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Speaker 3: got them well through very intensive treatments of infections and

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Speaker 3: their immune systems that traditional medicine didn't provide. One of

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Speaker 3: my sons is still unfortunately sort of had a relapse

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Speaker 3: during COVID and so he's not all the way well yet,

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Speaker 3: but at one point he was almost all the way

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Speaker 3: well from those treatments. And really what it taught me

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Speaker 3: was that we don't know everything, and in fact, we

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Speaker 3: don't know a lot about the body and biology and

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Speaker 3: the brain. And you know, it really made me rethink

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Speaker 3: how many of my own patients have something physical going on.

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Speaker 3: I mean, as you probably know, you know, psychiatric diagnosis,

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Speaker 3: mental health diagnosis is.

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Speaker 2: Not based on valid biology. We sort of gave it.

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Speaker 3: We sort of gave up validity and psychiatric diagnosis with

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Speaker 3: ds M three.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I have talked about this quite a few times

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Speaker 1: that there's I think DSM five and you correct me

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Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. Maybe is one hundred and six identified

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Speaker 1: conditions and not one of them has a consistent biological signal. Correct.

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Speaker 2: Correct.

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Speaker 3: So we don't use biological markers in psychiatric diagnosis at all.

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Speaker 3: We try to rule out a few things. You know,

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Speaker 3: if someone goes to an er, they'll get a chemistry

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Speaker 3: panel and a complete blood count, and you know they

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Speaker 3: may get an EKG or if in very rare circumstances.

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Speaker 3: They might get a CT scan of their head if

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Speaker 3: they're a first episode of psychosis, but that's kind of

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Speaker 3: the end of the medical workup most of the time.

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Speaker 3: And I just start thinking to myself, you know, my

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Speaker 3: kids had a condition. If I, if we didn't dig deeper,

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Speaker 3: my wife and I, they would have been lost to

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Speaker 3: their a mental health condition that no one can treat,

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Speaker 3: no one can help. And how many of my own

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Speaker 3: patients have we sort of done the same thing to

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Speaker 3: have we abandoned they have a you know, this is

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Speaker 3: a there's a physical basis to what's going on in

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Speaker 3: their brains, and yet we just put them in this

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Speaker 3: diagnostic category, give them some medications that were essentially fiddling

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Speaker 3: with neurotransmitters, which may be somewhat effective, as I said,

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Speaker 3: sometimes life saving in the acute setting, but very or

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Speaker 3: almost never does a psychiatric medication get someone all the

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Speaker 3: way back to wellness, true true wellness, where they're back

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Speaker 3: to their functioning, they're back to their normal social roles.

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Speaker 3: The medications just don't do that almost ever. And the

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Speaker 3: sometimes with psychotherapy we can get almost all the way there,

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Speaker 3: but we're missing something in my field clearly, and So

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Speaker 3: then I was sitting in a Grand Rounds lecture at

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Speaker 3: McLean Hospital part of Harvard, and my colleague who I

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Speaker 3: knew from way back when I was a resident during

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Speaker 3: my training, doctor Christopher Palmer, who you mentioned his book,

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Speaker 3: is giving a lecture on ketogenic diets and psychosis and

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Speaker 3: showing data about how ketogenic diets can help the brain,

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Speaker 3: and then showing some case reports of some people with

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Speaker 3: chronic psychotic disorders who were on the strongest medication and

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Speaker 3: still having psychotic symptoms and having those symptoms completely reversed

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Speaker 3: by a ketogenic diet.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 3: And I'm sitting there and my jaw hits the floor,

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Speaker 3: and literally, I think most of the people in the

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Speaker 3: room didn't quite believe him, but I knew him, and

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Speaker 3: I knew he was telling the truth. And I had

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Speaker 3: already had my own experience with my kids at that point,

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Speaker 3: and I knew that, you know, there's more to the story,

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Speaker 3: And here he is, you know, telling me what more

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Speaker 3: of the story there was. And I was sort of

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Speaker 3: off to the races learning more about that at that point,

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Speaker 3: and then trying to figure out how am I going

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Speaker 3: to apply this to my patience, which is a big challenge,

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Speaker 3: which we can get into.

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Speaker 1: Yes, just before we move on, I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: say that that as a fellow dad, I really think

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Speaker 1: for you, you with your your your your kid's journey

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Speaker 1: and having had a my little guy went through cushions,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty horrible and has pretty horrible mental health

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Speaker 1: effects that nobody even bloody looked at. And yes, when

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Speaker 1: like medicine was fabulous to the point of getting the

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Speaker 1: tumor rut, but then absolutely useless in terms of his recovery,

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Speaker 1: and we had to go and work with a functional

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Speaker 1: medicine doctor and do all sorts of different things slightly

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Speaker 1: alternative to get him back to wellness. So yeah, look,

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Speaker 1: I just want to say I feel your pain, and

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Speaker 1: I know how motivated can it can also be, and

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Speaker 1: to go and try and find something that's actually going

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Speaker 1: to work. Now, now that's getting back to this whole

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Speaker 1: idea of metabolism and mental illness. How much of mental

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Speaker 1: illness do you think has a strong metabolic component.

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Speaker 3: It's a great question, and I don't pretend to know

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Speaker 3: the answer to that. We're still so early in the

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Speaker 3: science of really understanding how powerful these metabolical treatments may

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Speaker 3: or may not be in mental health disorders. But what

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Speaker 3: I can say is that for the people who respond

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Speaker 3: it can be really incredible. And then the people who

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Speaker 3: even have a lesser than incredible response, there's still profound

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Speaker 3: and powerful, important changes that are going on that we see.

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Speaker 3: So at the minimum, I tell people, if you're going

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Speaker 3: to do this, it's a lot of work, but I

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Speaker 3: can guarantee you that you're going to feel more energy,

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Speaker 3: You're going to have better sleep, you're going to have

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Speaker 3: a better concentration and focus. Those things are almost universal

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Speaker 3: for anyone who's done a program of improving their metabolism

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Speaker 3: and really improves their metabolism. We may also get, you know,

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Speaker 3: bonus things like, you know, stabilizing your mood if you

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Speaker 3: have bipolar disorder, or reducing your psychosis if you have

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Speaker 3: a schizophrenia or schizoeffective disorder, or reducing your obsessions if

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Speaker 3: you've got OCD. I've seen all of those things happen

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Speaker 3: in people. And at this point, again the science is

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Speaker 3: so early, it's hard to predict how much of a

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Speaker 3: symptomatic benefit people are going to get, or maybe how

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Speaker 3: long it might take. I mean, that's the other part

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Speaker 3: is that for some of these people, it may be

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Speaker 3: that this is a treatment that could give them some

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Speaker 3: immediate benefit. As soon as they're into keytosis, some people

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Speaker 3: start feeling the benefits, and for other people it may

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Speaker 3: take quite a few months or even many months for

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Speaker 3: them to get all of those benefits. But the benefits

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Speaker 3: accrue over time as the metabolism continues to improve, as

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Speaker 3: the mitochondrial health continues to improve from that ketone signal,

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Speaker 3: the benefits keep accruing.

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Speaker 1: Now, and look, we'll dive into the role of the

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Speaker 1: mitochondria in a minute, and really into the kedogenic diet,

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Speaker 1: but just really if we take a step back and

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Speaker 1: look at first principles here kind of like you know,

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Speaker 1: the observation earlier on that the bring you know, it's

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Speaker 1: only two to three percent of the way but uses

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Speaker 1: twenty percent plus of energy. I like to think of

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Speaker 1: these things from the perspective of the human genome. And

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Speaker 1: I remember as a legendary exercise physiologist Professor Frank Booth,

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Speaker 1: who in a research paper in twenty twelve said the

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Speaker 1: human genome hasn't changed in over forty five thousand years.

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Speaker 1: They said the current human genome requires and expects us

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Speaker 1: to be highly physically active for normal functioning. But then

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Speaker 1: you add on a couple of things to that. And

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Speaker 1: if you just look at our species, the evolution of

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Speaker 1: our species, we've always moved as shitload, shitload more.

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Speaker 2: Than we had to just survive, right, we had.

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Speaker 1: To absolutely, And now the research around the role of

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Speaker 1: milo kinds, these signaling molecules from contracting muscle and how

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Speaker 1: they impact every friggin organ including the brain. You know

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Speaker 1: this is in your face, right, But then you know nutrition,

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Speaker 1: we have always as a species eaten natural foods, and

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Speaker 1: the enzymes in some of those foods they work as

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Speaker 1: cofactors for our metabolism. And it just for me is

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Speaker 1: pretty friggin obvious that with then you take this genome

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Speaker 1: and you stop it moving or reduce its movement. You

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Speaker 1: then do two things in nutrition. You reduce the amount

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Speaker 1: of good nutrition that it's it's it's really depended on

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Speaker 1: and depends on metabolically, and you replace that with a

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Speaker 1: whole heap of ultra processed ship which we know is

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Speaker 1: doing damage. And then if you throw in lack of

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Speaker 1: sleep as well, which you know was a psychiatrist can

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Speaker 1: cause mood disorders in and of a tone and a

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Speaker 1: whole heap of overstimulation, like good luck with your mental health.

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Speaker 2: It's so true. It's so true.

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Speaker 3: The modern world is an absolute setup for poor mental health.

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Speaker 3: It's not individual people's fault. I mean, I think that's

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Speaker 3: really important to say, is that the system is set

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Speaker 3: up for people to have poor mental health.

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Speaker 2: Everything you described is one hundred percent true.

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Speaker 3: And I would add in were we evolved to have

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Speaker 3: light as a nutrient as well, the right amount of

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Speaker 3: blue light in the morning and no blue light in

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Speaker 3: the evening and throughout the night, and that was such

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Speaker 3: a powerful way to control our circadian rhythms, and our

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Speaker 3: whole biology is controlled by those rhythms. And we've also

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Speaker 3: messed that all up by being indoors all the time

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Speaker 3: and having blue light at the wrong times at night,

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Speaker 3: which is the most powerful signal for us, Katie and clock.

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Speaker 3: But absolutely the exercise thing, you know, you make me

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Speaker 3: think of this book I read by an anthropologist Dan Lieberman.

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Speaker 2: He's at Harvard.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well he wrote Exercised also, which is an

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Speaker 3: interesting one. It's all about how we are not. We

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Speaker 3: did not evolve to choose to exercise ever. In fact,

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Speaker 3: we evolved to conserve our energy because throughout our evolutionary

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Speaker 3: history we were barely surviving. You know, food acquisition was

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Speaker 3: the biggest challenge for survival and predators of course, but

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Speaker 3: food acquisition was really the main thing. So that means

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Speaker 3: we were going through periods of time where there was

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Speaker 3: no food or no carbohydrates, in and out of ketosis

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Speaker 3: all the time. So we certainly evolved to have ketones.

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Speaker 3: Keytones were part of our survival mechanism, which I want

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Speaker 3: to go into as well. But you know, we had

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Speaker 3: to move so much to survive. Whenever there was a

436
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 3: chance to rest our, brains of course were evolved to

437
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 3: choose to rest. And here we are, we have no

438
00:28:09,200 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 3: survival need to move anymore, correct, And so of course

439
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 3: no one wants to go. It's not in our brains

440
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,439
Speaker 3: to want to go and exercise. I mean, of course,

441
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 3: those of us who do, we've taught ourselves that this

442
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,239
Speaker 3: is good for us and that will feel good, and

443
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 3: that there's really good reasons to do it, and and

444
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:30,919
Speaker 3: then it becomes a habit, and of course you know,

445
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 3: we feel all the benefits of it, but most people

446
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 3: don't do it because we didn't evolve to, you know,

447
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 3: wake up and decide I'm going to go run for

448
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 3: no reason. And in in you know, in persistence cultures,

449
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 3: subsistence cultures, now, you know, in you know, traditional cultures,

450
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,479
Speaker 3: people look at the idea of exercises the craziest thing

451
00:28:54,520 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 3: they've ever heard, you know, because he goes and talks

452
00:28:57,120 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 3: to these people, and you know, in the remote parts

453
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:04,360
Speaker 3: of Africa, and yeah, the hads they don't exercise for

454
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 3: exercise sake.

455
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 2: Ever.

456
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 3: They sit around if they can, and of course they

457
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 3: still because their survival needs will get you know, a

458
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 3: good ten twelve miles a day, but they will never

459
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 3: choose to do it if they don't have to.

460
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Like we are absolutely aligned on this. I

461
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: wrote a book called death by Comfort while modern life

462
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: is killing Us and what we need to do about it,

463
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: And it was that whole idea that we am default

464
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 1: towards comfort and relaxation because of exactly all the stuff

465
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 1: that you just said. Yeah, now, let's let's not then

466
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 1: talk about the role of the ketogenic So you've mentioned

467
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: a number of times the ketogenic diet, and let's use

468
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:54,440
Speaker 1: that as a segue into metabolic treatment versus medication treatment.

469
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,640
Speaker 1: So obviously you're an expert in both camps right now,

470
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 1: So just give us the overview on that and as

471
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 1: dive as deep as you want into high a ketogenic

472
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: tyte and ketones in particular or play a role here.

473
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yeah, there's so many ways I can go

474
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 2: with this.

475
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 3: But the one thing I want to say at first

476
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 3: is that, and I know you know this, is that

477
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 3: we don't have a lot of deep knowledge about how

478
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: psychiatric medications help with mental health disorders, and in fact,

479
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:31,520
Speaker 3: the prevailing theories, for example, the serotonergic hypothesis of depression

480
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 3: has been challenged and I think very much.

481
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: I've had one of the authors of the seminal research

482
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: paper on this podcast.

483
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 3: I know exactly what you're talking about, the umbrella research

484
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 3: article from the group in London.

485
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

486
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 3: Yes, so you know, all we know is that we

487
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 3: can fiddle with these neurotransmitters and we can get some

488
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 3: percentage of people of reduction and symptoms, not a huge

489
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:02,200
Speaker 3: percent them and certainly not all the way to wellness

490
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 3: and with a lot of side effects. Meanwhile, on the

491
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 3: other side of the ledger, with this metabolic approach, the

492
00:31:09,160 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 3: ketogenic diet, as I alluded to, the neuroscientists have been

493
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 3: studying this intensively because they've known the ketogenic diet works

494
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 3: in epilepsy and they're trying to figure out, well, how

495
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 3: does it work? Of course, I think the main motivation

496
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 3: for a lot of them is how are we going

497
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 3: to find a drug that mimics what this diet does,

498
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 3: because it's hard to get people to do the diet.

499
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,600
Speaker 3: But we now know that there's at least seven main

500
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,720
Speaker 3: mechanisms of how this diet works, and I can go

501
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 3: through I can go through them. We've already alluded to

502
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,479
Speaker 3: some of them, but one is this alternative source of fuel,

503
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 3: and that one's important. I'll go into a little detail

504
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 3: about that. The brain becomes insulin resistant just like the

505
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 3: rest of the body does. In mental health disorders. It

506
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 3: may be that the brain is insulin resistant well before

507
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: the rest of the body. Different organs get insulin resistant

508
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,720
Speaker 3: at different rates, and so when the brain is insulin resistant,

509
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:08,000
Speaker 3: it can literally be bathed in glucose but not be

510
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 3: able to get that glucose into the cell to burn

511
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 3: for energy.

512
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: And the keytones type three diabetes type three.

513
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 3: Exactly, So that same mechanism may be at play with

514
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 3: mental health disorders, or at least some of them. Or

515
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 3: some of the people that have them, and we bypass

516
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 3: that blockade essentially by getting ketones into those neurons, and

517
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,640
Speaker 3: it doesn't need insulin to get in. And so in

518
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,120
Speaker 3: that case, some people will get that immediate effect from keytones.

519
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,959
Speaker 3: Even exogenous keytones will give them a huge mental health boost,

520
00:32:38,200 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 3: or even something like MCT oil which makes has deliver

521
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 3: make keytones out of it.

522
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: That's a really important point that I just want to

523
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: double click on mot that that and again those first principles.

524
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: If your neurons are not getting the energy, they don't work,

525
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 1: they stop working, and then you are going to have

526
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: compromise Brian function, which can manifest in a range of

527
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: different psychiatric conditions. Absolutely, and you restore the energy, then

528
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 1: neurone start working again, that Brian starts working again. I

529
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: think that's really important for people to understand. I just

530
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: wanted to really emphasize that.

531
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: Thank you.

532
00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:22,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, that's important to double click on for sure.

533
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 3: So that's the first mechanism. Second one I would say

534
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 3: is this improvement in mitochondrial health. So the keytones are

535
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 3: a signal for mitochondria biogenesis, but also for mitophagy, essentially

536
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 3: the recycling of the old damage, non working mitochondria, you know,

537
00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 3: breaking them down for parts and making new, good, well

538
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 3: functioning mitochondria. And people might remember from their high school

539
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 3: biology that mitochondria are the energy factories in the cell,

540
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:59,000
Speaker 3: which they certainly are, but they do many many other things, right.

541
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: Shit, look right, more than just producing energy. We've actually

542
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: had a whole podcast on the mitochondria with doctor Cristo

543
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,359
Speaker 1: bill Yow. So anybody who wants to dive into that

544
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: can can go and look at that. But yeah, uh,

545
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm all over this like a spider monkey,

546
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: that that that mitochondry. But isn't it amazing just as

547
00:34:17,520 --> 00:34:20,799
Speaker 1: a little aside high the sale and even in the

548
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 1: mitochondria high it recycles and these these but this this

549
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: mital autophogy that hi just high freaking clever and and

550
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: and how there's no wasted resource within the sales r.

551
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: It's constantly recycling stuff to to recreate. Ny.

552
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 3: Well, it's amazing. The whole process of autophagy is absolutely incredible.

553
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: We recycle everything.

554
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: All of our.

555
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,960
Speaker 3: Cells get recycled, not just the mitochondria, but our cells

556
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 3: and our tissues recycle. In fact, you know, if you

557
00:34:55,080 --> 00:34:58,000
Speaker 3: look at like one of your muscles. You know, your biceps.

558
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 3: Let's say you know that bias is not going to

559
00:35:01,360 --> 00:35:03,759
Speaker 3: be there's not going to be a single cell that's

560
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 3: the same a year from now.

561
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 2: That's there.

562
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 3: Now, Yes, it's just incredible. We keep recycling ourselves. We're

563
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 3: not the same cells now. There are some cells that

564
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 3: stick around and don't recycle, neurons in particular, but muscle cells,

565
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 3: they'll just recycle, turnover. We got a whole new set

566
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 3: of them, whole new muscle, you.

567
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: Know, in a year. Absolutely incredible, that's right, and that

568
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: most people have good no idea about that, right Like that,

569
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,720
Speaker 1: I talk about change and cellular change. The only reason

570
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: we're still alive is that we're constantly recycling.

571
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: So we need to take care of our recycling.

572
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 3: And one of the ways we get ourselves to recycle

573
00:35:43,840 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 3: is having some periods of time when we're not eating.

574
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 2: That helps with autophogy. Exercise for sure.

575
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 3: Ketogenic diets are very powerful signal for autophogy and especially mytophagy.

576
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:00,720
Speaker 3: So that's our second mechanism. The third one is less

577
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 3: oxidative stress. So when we burn fat for fuel, it's

578
00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 3: much cleaner than burning glucose for fuel, and so we

579
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 3: are producing less oxidative stress. People are so interested in

580
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 3: taking antioxidants, which I'm all for as well, but even

581
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 3: more powerful is just let's produce less oxidative stress in

582
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 3: the first place. And if we can reduce some of

583
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 3: the simple carbohydrates, get our bodies to be burning more

584
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 3: fats and ketones in the brain versus you know, glucose,

585
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 3: we're going to create less oxidative stress in the first place,

586
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 3: create less of that damage.

587
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 2: Less energy is.

588
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 3: Needed to squelch the oxidation oxidative stress.

589
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I think most people don't realize. I mean,

590
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: most of the ultraprocessed foods are simple carbohydrate bias because

591
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: it's very very cheap to produce it highly profitable, and

592
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: most people don't realize about age GLYCATIONI antestors that we

593
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:03,359
Speaker 1: get from the die congestion of these simple carbohydrates, and

594
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,279
Speaker 1: that causes oxidative stress and inflammation at a cellular level,

595
00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: which just wreaks havoc on your metabolism.

596
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,839
Speaker 3: Yes, it does, absolutely and and just you know how

597
00:37:13,880 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 3: much resources need to be put into fixing all the damage.

598
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: That's a good point, actually, Yeah, the antioxy and defense

599
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: systems and stuff like that expensive to runness stuff is.

600
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 3: So you already mentioned the fourth mechanism, which is inflammation.

601
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,399
Speaker 3: So the ketogenic diet reduces neuroinflammation. We now know that

602
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 3: inflammation is a huge component for most of the mental

603
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 3: health disorders. It's been most studied in depression. They're actually

604
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 3: studies that show that people who are depressed, who have

605
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 3: elevated C reactive protein, their depression responds to anti inflammatory

606
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:52,840
Speaker 3: drugs and so you know, and that's been replicated a

607
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 3: number of times.

608
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, and I've seen studies actually on tumoric and

609
00:37:57,640 --> 00:38:02,080
Speaker 1: calcumen being pretty effective as an antidepressdent. And actually out

610
00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: of iran on looking at saffron, yes, which is anti inflammatory,

611
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: good anxiety really effect.

612
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 3: Safron's good for anxiety actually, but of course those are

613
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 3: not nearly as powerful as the reduction in inflammation we

614
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,200
Speaker 3: get from a ketogenic diet.

615
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's the fourth.

616
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:25,839
Speaker 3: Fifth one I'll talk about is neurotransmitter based. So we

617
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 3: ketogenic diet produces an increase in GABBA, which is our

618
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 3: calming neurotransmitter, the one that people are looking for when

619
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 3: they're taking a drink of alcohol or taking a medication

620
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:42,759
Speaker 3: like a benzodazepine like laraise a PAM or diazepam clinasea PAM. Yeah,

621
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:46,399
Speaker 3: the brand name would be Valuum or adavan xanax. Those

622
00:38:46,480 --> 00:38:49,719
Speaker 3: there's the brand names. And it reduces the kegenic diet

623
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 3: also reduces glutamate, which is this excitatory neurotransmitter that we

624
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 3: certainly need, but too much of it causes lots of problems.

625
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 3: And in fact, a study just came out today I

626
00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 3: think in the British Journal of Psychiatry. A group in

627
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 3: University of Edinburgh did a pilot study on ketogenic diet

628
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:13,399
Speaker 3: and bipolar disorder and they didn't have a control group.

629
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 3: There are controlled studies going on now, but most of

630
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 3: the ones published so far don't have control groups. But

631
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 3: they saw a really nice response to bipolar with the

632
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,200
Speaker 3: ketogenic diet dose response as well, so that the higher

633
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 3: the keytones, better response. But what they also did is

634
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:33,959
Speaker 3: magnetic resonance spectroscopy of the brains and what they saw

635
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 3: is it very significant reduction in glutamate in these people

636
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 3: whose bipolar got better from a ketogenic diet. And this

637
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,759
Speaker 3: is really cool because the other things that reduce glutamate

638
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 3: are anti epileptic drugs. And also when people with bipolar

639
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 3: recover from any mechanism, they get a reduction in glutamate.

640
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 3: But this was the biggest reduction in glutamate that's been

641
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,279
Speaker 3: seen from any intervention was the ketogenic diet. So that's

642
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 3: really exciting because we're now seeing some really good hard

643
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:10,040
Speaker 3: science associated with the clinical outcomes in that study, which

644
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:10,720
Speaker 3: is very cool.

645
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: That is that is very cool actually, and and the

646
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: dose response that's a telling thing as well, isn't it

647
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 1: when you see that dose response for people, I think

648
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:23,520
Speaker 1: we are a gluten baturgic society. We really because we're

649
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 1: just always all right, and this is what a lot

650
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:27,920
Speaker 1: of people don't realize. And glue to me. It's been

651
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: highly implicated in depression as well. And then because glue

652
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: to me, I think it's important for people to understand

653
00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: that that excital toxicity that can happen with too much

654
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: glue to me, basically the nerve celle can fire itself

655
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,800
Speaker 1: to death. And and actually my main professor, Grant Scofield,

656
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: showed me research that when a a sale and neuron

657
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: dies from excited toxicity, it actually spills out glue to

658
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: me and inflammatory compounds that then infect and have a

659
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: negative effect on surrounding neurons, and there can be like

660
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: this negative domino effect.

661
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 2: It's very interesting.

662
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's so that's in the intro. I didn't

663
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,959
Speaker 1: realize that included. Sorry, A kindogenic diet increases GABA, which

664
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: is the balance. I mean, everybody hears about serotonin and

665
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 1: dopamine and all of these things, but there are dominant neurotransmitters,

666
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:23,439
Speaker 1: aren't it, glued to meine in gabba and if they're

667
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: not in balance, good luck.

668
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 2: They're all over the brain.

669
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 3: So right, there are systems that use serotonin, there's some

670
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 3: systems that use neuroper nephrins, some that use dopamine, but

671
00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 3: the whole brain is running on GABBA and glutamate. I mean,

672
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 3: it's the brakes and the gas. It's like the basic

673
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 3: fundamental neurotransmitter systems in our brain and they've got to

674
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,920
Speaker 3: be in balance. And as you're right, modern world, as

675
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 3: we talked about, is very pro glutamine and very short

676
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 3: on gabba.

677
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

678
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 3: So what we got two more more one The one

679
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 3: is really an overlap with exercise, but the ketogenic diet

680
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 3: on its own increases bdn F brain drive neurotropic factor.

681
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 4: Ah, that's interesting, okay, Because I knew that that a

682
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 4: mega three fatty acids can increase BDNF, I did not

683
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 4: know that that a ketogenic diet produces BDNF.

684
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 1: My listeners will be very familiar with BDNF. I'm buying

685
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,919
Speaker 1: on about it all the time. I think somebody once

686
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: described it as miracle growth. I think you guys used

687
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: to have miracle growing.

688
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:35,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So the way I describe it is, all

689
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 3: these neurons have these fine little branches and they connect

690
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 3: to not just a few other neurons, to hundreds and

691
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 3: sometimes even thousands of other neurons that process these They

692
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 3: call them dendrites, and they call they almost look like

693
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 3: the branches of a tree, so they call that arborization.

694
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 3: And what B D and F tells these neurons to

695
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:59,240
Speaker 3: do is make more branches, you know, arborize more connect

696
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 3: to more neurons, and the more connections the better. So

697
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 3: we really need this stuff for our brains to function optimally.

698
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 3: It's one of the things that exercise is very good

699
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 3: at producing more bdn F. But ketogenic diet also does

700
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:15,960
Speaker 3: that on its own, and so you're doing both.

701
00:43:16,000 --> 00:43:18,280
Speaker 2: You get that, you know, double effect essentially.

702
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about because I remember

703
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:26,200
Speaker 1: years ago, and I don't know where I saw the paper,

704
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 1: but it was suggesting that some of the antidepressant medication

705
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: and you know, it was like, well, if it was

706
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: about serotonin, these antidepressants can impact on serotonin because they

707
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: inhibit the reuptick pumps as as you will though, right,

708
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:49,319
Speaker 1: but that that happens instantly, but people generally don't see

709
00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 1: an effect for weeks. And I remember reading a research

710
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,520
Speaker 1: paper that was suggesting that some of those drugs could

711
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: increase b dn F, and they thought that it was

712
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: the increase and the bdn F, not the change in

713
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: serotonin that could have an impact on some people. I've

714
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:08,360
Speaker 1: read those any thoughts.

715
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 3: I've read those studies too, and I think there is

716
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 3: something to that. But you know, again, like most of

717
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 3: the research with antidifferent.

718
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 2: You know, there's just not that much there.

719
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 3: Maybe it's b D and F, but here we have

720
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:28,600
Speaker 3: much more science in with the ketogenic diet about raising

721
00:44:28,640 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 3: BD and F.

722
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:32,480
Speaker 2: It's a solid mechanism, you know, we know that it

723
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 2: does it. Yeah, it's not and.

724
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 1: It doesn't come with a ridiculous list of side of correct.

725
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,520
Speaker 3: Correct, And so the last one is the microbiome gut

726
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 3: brain axis. So we know that the ketogenic diet yeah,

727
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 3: changes the microbiome and there and we know how powerful

728
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 3: the microbiome is as a mediator between this gut brain axis,

729
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 3: which is a really powerful impact on brain health and

730
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:04,760
Speaker 3: gut health. It's this bi directional communication, incredibly powerful signals

731
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:09,879
Speaker 3: through neurons, through chemicals, through hormones that are going back

732
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,880
Speaker 3: and forth all the time. I like to say, you know,

733
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:14,799
Speaker 3: if someone comes in to see me, if they've got

734
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:19,760
Speaker 3: a significant depression anxiety, I asked them about their gut health.

735
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:24,879
Speaker 3: Almost universally there's gut health issues. I almost never see

736
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 3: someone with a healthy functioning gut. If I ask, most

737
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 3: of the icientists don't ask. In fact, I didn't ask

738
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 3: until I, you know, learned about this stuff because it

739
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,799
Speaker 3: wasn't part of my training. But it's absolutely important, and

740
00:45:38,040 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 3: ketogenic diet improves and changes microbiome composition in a way

741
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 3: that improves brain health. We don't know all the details yet.

742
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 3: I mean, if if we know all the details about

743
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 3: the microbiome gut brain access in general we've had, we'd

744
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 3: have very powerful treatments at our hands, and we're you know,

745
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 3: you know it's powerful, but we're at the infancy of

746
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 3: really understanding how to manipulate it and what really makes

747
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:05,479
Speaker 3: a healthy microbiome, what really makes you know, what really

748
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 3: works for brain health. We just we're just seeing little

749
00:46:08,560 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 3: glimpses of magic so far. We don't have all the

750
00:46:11,040 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 3: answers yet.

751
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think anybody who tells you they know

752
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: exactly what a healthy microbiome looks like is full of

753
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: my dog's cramp. That's my view on this. It's just

754
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 1: as you say. It's it's in its infancy, but we

755
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: know it plays a massive right.

756
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 2: That's right, That's exactly how I see it.

757
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 3: I mean, we can measure all the you know, all

758
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:34,319
Speaker 3: the bacteria species by you know, DNA analysis, and you

759
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 3: can get this nice report and spend hundreds of dollars.

760
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 3: But I think you're right in saying that if anyone

761
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 3: tells you they know exactly what that means or exactly

762
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,719
Speaker 3: what you need to do to fix that, you know

763
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,880
Speaker 3: they're they're lying to you. You know, it's a nice

764
00:46:46,920 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 3: story to say. Okay, now we can do all these interventions,

765
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 3: but we just don't have the science to know that

766
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 3: those interventions really make the changes in the microbiome that

767
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 3: we need to make. It's all, you know, it's associational

768
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 3: at this point. But we do know that avoiding the

769
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 3: chemicals that ruin our microbiome, eating things that nourish our microbiome, fiber, polyphenols,

770
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 3: you know, probiotic foods like fermented foods, We know those

771
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:19,560
Speaker 3: things are important for microbiotic health. We just don't know

772
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 3: exactly how to manipulate it in a very specific scientific

773
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 3: way yet.

774
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: Now that leads to an interesting question. So depending on

775
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: the type of ketogenic diet that people go on, you know,

776
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: they could have very low fiber in this and some

777
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: researchers around the GOT will go, well, you have to

778
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:45,879
Speaker 1: have a lot of fiber for a healthy gut, right

779
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:52,360
Speaker 1: the you know the count because and particularly around the

780
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 1: short chain fally acids that are produced. But as my

781
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,640
Speaker 1: me professor Grantzcofil who's a big fan of the katogenic diet, says,

782
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 1: you know, butter produces butta rate right and and and

783
00:48:03,600 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 1: so there are things in a kidogenic diet that will

784
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:15,840
Speaker 1: actually supplant or or replace. Fiber is a substrate, but

785
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: is the you know, and this might be just gaswork here.

786
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: But when people have mood disorders and they go in

787
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: a ketogenic diet, do we think the impact on the

788
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: microbiome is more of they're now not eating all of

789
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: that shit that is disrupting it, or is it? And

790
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:43,239
Speaker 1: the stimulation of certain things from elements of the ketogenic

791
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:47,239
Speaker 1: diet and independently, you know.

792
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 3: I don't think we know the answer, but I agree

793
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 3: with your first point that it's so powerful to remove

794
00:48:54,400 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 3: the chemicals and the preservatives and all these things that

795
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,800
Speaker 3: we know are toxic to the microbiome. So at the

796
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 3: very minimum, when we put someone on a ketogenic diet,

797
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,439
Speaker 3: they immediately are going to eat a lot less processed food.

798
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: You can't eat ult process on the hyogenics.

799
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:16,279
Speaker 3: Right, You're going to be making much of your own

800
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 3: food yourself, or you're going to be obtaining it from

801
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 3: a place that's using whole foods because that's the only

802
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 3: way to get the macronutrients right. And so most likely

803
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:30,799
Speaker 3: that's the biggest factor I personally, you know, And again

804
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 3: I don't think the whole story is out here yet.

805
00:49:34,480 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 2: I like to hedge my bets.

806
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 3: I think there's some good evidence about fiber and polyphenols

807
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 3: from plant foods being really good for our health in

808
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 3: the long run. There's actually some interesting work on polyphenols

809
00:49:46,160 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 3: giving signals to the mitochondria that are very similar to

810
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:52,879
Speaker 3: what ketones do to the mitochondria. The genetics overlap quite

811
00:49:52,880 --> 00:49:57,759
Speaker 3: a bit. They're both hormetic things, hormetic stressors. You know,

812
00:49:57,800 --> 00:49:59,640
Speaker 3: polyphenols are a hermetic stressor.

813
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: But I think can can you talk a little bit

814
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: about that because Mark Mattson, I remember cheeses twenty thirteen

815
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: reading a research paper by Mark Mattson about hormetic dietary polyphenoes.

816
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 1: And I'm a huge fan of horrors. Me and Grant

817
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:18,319
Speaker 1: who are talked about their starting a lab called the

818
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: Hormees love it. So just go down that pathway a

819
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,880
Speaker 1: little bit for people and have that understanding, because, like you,

820
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:33,799
Speaker 1: I'm utterly convinced about polyphenols and the fiber story. We

821
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 1: can see a healthy microbiome with less fiber and more fiber,

822
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't think we know all of it.

823
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to back to hormetic polyphenols.

824
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:48,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, polyphenols are compounds in plants.

825
00:50:49,000 --> 00:50:51,759
Speaker 2: There's about eight thousand of them. They're just a you know,

826
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:52,280
Speaker 2: a group.

827
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 3: Of chemicals, and there's eight thousand different types.

828
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:55,919
Speaker 2: Some of them have been.

829
00:50:55,840 --> 00:50:58,720
Speaker 3: Studied to have, you know, some really interesting health effects.

830
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 3: You mentioned curcuman before, for that's an example, Resvera trolls

831
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 3: another example, Alison fore, you know, interesting you know, medicinal properties.

832
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 3: But essentially, what they often are doing is they're causing

833
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:19,760
Speaker 3: stress or hermetic stress to the cell. And of course,

834
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 3: you know, you know, and your audience notes, the idea

835
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,600
Speaker 3: of a hermetic stress is that it's going to cause

836
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 3: a stress that the cell will need to adapt to

837
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 3: and get stronger by adapting to it.

838
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:31,959
Speaker 2: Now, I think, you know.

839
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 3: For some people, you know, a very you know, you know,

840
00:51:35,600 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 3: who don't have a healthy gut, this can be problematic

841
00:51:39,280 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 3: because if they're there's holes in the gut wall. Let's

842
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:49,719
Speaker 3: say these polyphenales are getting into the bloodstream unchanged, unmetabolized,

843
00:51:49,920 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 3: because really what often happens is the polyphenals are getting

844
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:57,600
Speaker 3: metabolized by the microbiota their food for our gut bugs,

845
00:51:57,920 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 3: and they're metabolized and them turning them into a different

846
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 3: chemical that maybe could.

847
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 2: Be useful for us.

848
00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,760
Speaker 3: And so it's this is synergy between eating plant foods,

849
00:52:06,800 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 3: a healthy microbiota, and a healthy gut wall, that may

850
00:52:10,520 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 3: be what's really working. And so for some people I

851
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 3: think it is really important they need to actually reduce

852
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 3: their plant material and some people can heal their gut

853
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 3: by going to a low plant, low fiber diet, these

854
00:52:24,640 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 3: carnivore diets for example, and there's one hundred really interesting

855
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:32,319
Speaker 3: you know idea of you know, healing the gut that way.

856
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,480
Speaker 3: My hope is that for some of those people they

857
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:37,800
Speaker 3: can heal their gut and maybe get back to adding

858
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 3: in some of these plant materials. Now a lot of

859
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 3: them don't want to. They say, I've never felt better

860
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:45,759
Speaker 3: in my life. I am done with plants, you know,

861
00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:47,720
Speaker 3: And they're never going to go back. And that's okay.

862
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 3: I mean, they're doing great, you know, that's fine. But

863
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 3: I do think there's potential benefits of these hormetic stress

864
00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 3: or polyphenols. I do think there are potential benefits of

865
00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:01,359
Speaker 3: different types of fiber if the gut is functioning well

866
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:06,080
Speaker 3: and the microbiomes functioning well. So I like to include that.

867
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,920
Speaker 3: But if someone's really having gutshoes will start eliminating some

868
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 3: things and the carnivor is really almost like the ultimate

869
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 3: elimination diet to heal the gut.

870
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 1: Right it is, Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And you will see

871
00:53:18,040 --> 00:53:21,839
Speaker 1: a bucketload of people who say that they hate their

872
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:25,279
Speaker 1: gut on the carnivor. And I think you bring up

873
00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,719
Speaker 1: a really good point, Matt, is that I think nutritional

874
00:53:29,760 --> 00:53:34,880
Speaker 1: recommendations should be conditional, right, And so you talk to

875
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 1: anybody who has a problem with fod maps and so

876
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: so you know, you give them. So my wife has

877
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: got a little bit of an issue with some of

878
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: the fod maps. Things She eats garlic or onions, which

879
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: she loves, and her stomach just absolutely blows up. Right,

880
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:02,919
Speaker 1: So this is the thing, were its conditional right. It's

881
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: anybody who says always are never and it just should

882
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:09,239
Speaker 1: listen to them.

883
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 2: That's right.

884
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:11,799
Speaker 3: There's no one diet that fits all. We need to

885
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,799
Speaker 3: individualize it to that person and for that time in

886
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 3: their life, and it might change over time for them

887
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 3: what's needed. But there's no that's really human diet that

888
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:22,720
Speaker 3: doesn't exist.

889
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:26,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's no perfect human diet that that there's

890
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:29,600
Speaker 1: no one diet that is going to be optimal for

891
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 1: you throughout your life course and you know, having certain

892
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:38,520
Speaker 1: conditions can then change it. Like you said, that's that's

893
00:54:38,600 --> 00:54:42,680
Speaker 1: that's really important, and that that is a a a

894
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:47,480
Speaker 1: or force of the the impacts of of of the

895
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: of the ketogenic diet and how they actually do it.

896
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:54,800
Speaker 1: So and then let's just talk a little bit about

897
00:54:54,960 --> 00:55:01,040
Speaker 1: the mitochondria in general. How big a role do you

898
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: think the mitochondria play and what other support other than

899
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 1: a kidogenic diet. So just before you answer that question,

900
00:55:09,520 --> 00:55:12,520
Speaker 1: and you said earlier on about light and the importance

901
00:55:12,560 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: of light, I don't know if you've seen some of

902
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: the studies around photo biomodulation and the use particularly of

903
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:24,720
Speaker 1: near infrared light for neurodegenerative diseases. Like I nearly fail

904
00:55:24,760 --> 00:55:27,400
Speaker 1: off my chair when I've readen that, and I actually

905
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:31,719
Speaker 1: have a red and near infrared light panel that has

906
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 1: actually been really useful for my recovery. But the shit

907
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:40,800
Speaker 1: that happens in your sales and with different wave lengths

908
00:55:40,800 --> 00:55:44,399
Speaker 1: of light and how the mitochondria react to them, it's

909
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 1: just mind boggling.

910
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:46,399
Speaker 2: It is.

911
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, the mitochondria are absolutely central to metabolic health, not

912
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 3: just because they're the ones producing the energy in the cell,

913
00:55:55,200 --> 00:56:03,279
Speaker 3: but they're involved in the whole process of energy accumulation, acquisition,

914
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:07,400
Speaker 3: and distribution, so many of the steps they're involved in

915
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:11,680
Speaker 3: the first steps of hormone synthesis, neurotransmitter release. They're turning

916
00:56:11,760 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 3: genes on in the nucleus, turning them off. You know,

917
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:19,440
Speaker 3: they're they have an intelligence and they react to certain things.

918
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 3: They get energy from wavelengths of light. As you were

919
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:28,760
Speaker 3: mentioning photobiomodulation, they're reacting to the stress in our lives.

920
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 3: They've been able to actually see under the microscope mitochondria

921
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 3: change when people are doing a meditation. They react to

922
00:56:37,160 --> 00:56:41,759
Speaker 3: medical they react to someone meditating, They huddle around the

923
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:45,439
Speaker 3: vesicles as the neurotransmitters are going to be released. They

924
00:56:45,480 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 3: have an intelligence. It seems that we're finding that I

925
00:56:49,080 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 3: think we're again just scratching the surface, just like we're

926
00:56:51,520 --> 00:56:56,239
Speaker 3: scratching the surface of the microbiota. And you know, I

927
00:56:56,239 --> 00:57:00,600
Speaker 3: think all of the metabolic psychiatry program that that I

928
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 3: want people to follow is focused on mitochondria. So ketogenic diet.

929
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:09,480
Speaker 3: Of course, we've talked about exercise, which is of course

930
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:15,840
Speaker 3: is huge for mitochondria and mind body practices which I

931
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,960
Speaker 3: just talked about. These mitochondria reacting to the stress response

932
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 3: and the relaxation response and circadian rhythms with light, getting

933
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 3: that morning sunlight, getting the hormones and balance cortisol and

934
00:57:28,760 --> 00:57:32,440
Speaker 3: melatonin imbalance at the right times, and then also getting

935
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 3: that direct energy source from the best source of light

936
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:40,600
Speaker 3: of all, which is our sun. You know, we need

937
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 3: people outside more and so that's the whole program. That's

938
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:46,600
Speaker 3: what we do at a chord. It's all of those

939
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:50,760
Speaker 3: things and avoiding these metabolic disruptors like processed food and

940
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:54,400
Speaker 3: chemicals in the water and blue light at night and

941
00:57:54,440 --> 00:57:57,880
Speaker 3: all these things that will disrupt our metabolism and our

942
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:02,040
Speaker 3: mitochondrial health. So if someone does all of it at once,

943
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:05,800
Speaker 3: that's the idea is that you know, immerse ones, immerse

944
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:09,080
Speaker 3: someone in the whole program and teach them how to

945
00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: do it so that when they go home they can

946
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,720
Speaker 3: continue all of these lifestyle changes that they made and

947
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:19,080
Speaker 3: continue to accrue the benefits over the course of many months.

948
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: We need to take you and clone you and just

949
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:30,400
Speaker 1: have rapid reproduction. And so to tell me what sort

950
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 1: of benefits are you seeing at a core like and

951
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 1: what sort of people come to you guys, and what

952
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:43,080
Speaker 1: sort of results are you seeing because this is the

953
00:58:43,120 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 1: most comprehensive mental health intervention that I've ever heard of.

954
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much.

955
00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've had people with many different diagnoses, so we

956
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:56,000
Speaker 3: can take someone who has almost any mental health diagnosis.

957
00:58:56,440 --> 00:59:00,120
Speaker 3: They have to be stable enough that they can do

958
00:59:00,160 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 3: this program. They have to be motivated enough to want

959
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:05,080
Speaker 3: to do this program. So they have to have made

960
00:59:05,120 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 3: a decision that they want to use diet and exercise

961
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 3: and mindfulness and sleep rhythms to.

962
00:59:13,320 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 2: Work on their problem. And we're going to help them

963
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 2: do it.

964
00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:17,760
Speaker 3: We're going to give them a lot of support and

965
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 3: a lot of teaching, and we have a chef there

966
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:22,680
Speaker 3: is making delicious foods, so it makes it very easy

967
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:25,560
Speaker 3: to do the ketogenic diet when when she's cooking the

968
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 3: food and we have a dietician crafting the meals. So

969
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 3: we've had people with bipolar disorder type one and type two,

970
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 3: skizo effective disorder, major depressive disorder OCD. Many of these

971
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:45,840
Speaker 3: folks have had comorbid PTSD. Because almost everyone in the

972
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:48,880
Speaker 3: mental health world has traumatic experiences.

973
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 2: But we can take people who.

974
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:55,400
Speaker 3: Have you know, some anxiety and ADHD and they'll get

975
00:59:55,440 --> 00:59:59,400
Speaker 3: a tremendous response and we've just seen incredible outcomes for

976
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:03,000
Speaker 3: the people who do the program. We're monitoring their blood work,

977
01:00:03,040 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 3: we're monitoring their key tone levels, continuous glucose monitor, body

978
01:00:07,280 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 3: composition scans, and mental health rating scales. So we're seeing

979
01:00:10,880 --> 01:00:15,000
Speaker 3: the results and they're just really, really mind boggling results

980
01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:18,960
Speaker 3: that we're getting through these interventions in ways that traditional

981
01:00:19,040 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 3: psychiatrists just would not have expected. And you know, to

982
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:25,040
Speaker 3: be honest, I wouldn't have expected, you know, five six

983
01:00:25,160 --> 01:00:27,120
Speaker 3: years ago, if someone told me that I was going

984
01:00:27,200 --> 01:00:29,440
Speaker 3: to be running a program like this and getting these results,

985
01:00:29,640 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 3: I would have left. Wow.

986
01:00:32,480 --> 01:00:35,440
Speaker 1: And are these are they all impatient that they have

987
01:00:35,520 --> 01:00:39,439
Speaker 1: to come in and stay with you guys to get

988
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: the sort of full immersive experience.

989
01:00:41,400 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 3: It is an immersive in person program we have. It's

990
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:47,120
Speaker 3: this very small program. We're just you know, we're just

991
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 3: getting started here. But we have five beds and we

992
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:53,200
Speaker 3: can have people who live nearby can come for day

993
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 3: treatment if they want, and just come and eat all

994
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 3: their meals and get all the education and all the programming.

995
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 3: They can then go back and sleep in their own

996
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:02,800
Speaker 3: bed at home if they want, if they live close

997
01:01:02,880 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 3: enough by.

998
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:10,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, that is amazing and tell me last question,

999
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: what are you excited about in the future of the

1000
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 1: mental health landscape and what are you concerned about as well?

1001
01:01:19,440 --> 01:01:19,600
Speaker 2: Well.

1002
01:01:19,600 --> 01:01:23,160
Speaker 3: What I'm excited about is that right now, as we speak,

1003
01:01:23,360 --> 01:01:27,560
Speaker 3: in early twenty twenty five, there are many randomized controlled

1004
01:01:27,600 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 3: trials of the ketogenic diet in mental health with basic

1005
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:37,160
Speaker 3: science components along with it, meaning they're doing neuroimaging, metabolomics,

1006
01:01:37,200 --> 01:01:40,000
Speaker 3: genomics going on right now.

1007
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:41,000
Speaker 2: And so the.

1008
01:01:41,000 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 3: Data and the papers that are going to come out

1009
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,440
Speaker 3: in the next couple of years, I'm just over the

1010
01:01:46,440 --> 01:01:48,520
Speaker 3: moon about what we're going to see in these papers.

1011
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 3: We're going to learn so much about what works, how

1012
01:01:52,040 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 3: it works, what's going on in the brains, what's going

1013
01:01:54,880 --> 01:01:59,560
Speaker 3: on in the metabolism during all of these interventions. So

1014
01:02:00,080 --> 01:02:02,200
Speaker 3: that science that's going to come out I'm just so

1015
01:02:02,320 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 3: excited about. I think what I'm worried about is I

1016
01:02:07,240 --> 01:02:10,120
Speaker 3: think what happened in the epilepsy world, which is that

1017
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 3: they knew that the ketogenic diets work, and they knew

1018
01:02:14,320 --> 01:02:16,840
Speaker 3: that they would work even when the medications wouldn't work,

1019
01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 3: and even and there's you know, twelve randomized controlled trials

1020
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 3: showing that they work in kids and adults in epilepsy,

1021
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 3: and still it's not even in the first line treatment

1022
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 3: or the second line treatment or.

1023
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 2: The third line treatment.

1024
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 3: And so that's what I'm most worried about, is that

1025
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 3: we can show how effective this is and show how

1026
01:02:35,240 --> 01:02:39,200
Speaker 3: amazing it is, and the field of you know, my

1027
01:02:39,320 --> 01:02:42,520
Speaker 3: own colleagues are going to turn over and say, well,

1028
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 3: we can't get people to do it. It's too hard,

1029
01:02:45,520 --> 01:02:47,160
Speaker 3: So let's forget about it.

1030
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's go down to drug right, right.

1031
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:52,800
Speaker 3: Or or some of the other exciting things. There are

1032
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 3: other exciting things happening in mental health with psychedelics and

1033
01:02:56,920 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 3: some brain stimulations. Some of the you know, mess studies

1034
01:03:00,680 --> 01:03:03,800
Speaker 3: that have come out are really exciting, and so you know,

1035
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:06,960
Speaker 3: those are more medical. They're not diets, they're not exercise,

1036
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 3: and so I just worry that everyone's going to gravitate

1037
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:14,760
Speaker 3: towards these you know, medical things that are exciting too

1038
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 3: and miss what I think is the headline, which is

1039
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 3: that the metabolism is the underlying you know, basis the

1040
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:26,479
Speaker 3: foundation of the brain's health. Those other things are great

1041
01:03:26,480 --> 01:03:29,200
Speaker 3: if someone gets into trouble, but let's work on the

1042
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:31,240
Speaker 3: foundation for everybody first.

1043
01:03:32,040 --> 01:03:35,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, get your metabolism right, and your physical and

1044
01:03:35,560 --> 01:03:39,120
Speaker 1: mental health will thank you for it for your entire right.

1045
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:39,600
Speaker 2: That's right.

1046
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:43,080
Speaker 1: It just we just can't get away from the fact

1047
01:03:43,240 --> 01:03:46,000
Speaker 1: of what our genome requires. Going back to what we

1048
01:03:46,120 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, exactly, Matt, this has been absolutely bloody awesome,

1049
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: eye opening and inspiring an equal degree. Where can people

1050
01:03:58,120 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 1: go to find more about you? Got you personally under

1051
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:07,640
Speaker 1: core in general? And do you have any plans in

1052
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 1: the future to try to be able to scal this intervention?

1053
01:04:12,720 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: And I get the impatient requirement of the minute, but

1054
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:19,440
Speaker 1: is there any plans on that.

1055
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:23,240
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we love the idea of scaling this up, and

1056
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:26,160
Speaker 3: I think we need to demonstrate what we can do,

1057
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 3: how powerful it is, what are the ingredients that are

1058
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 3: most important. So that's sort of the phase where the

1059
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:36,040
Speaker 3: field is now. But people are absolutely very interesting, including myself,

1060
01:04:36,080 --> 01:04:38,760
Speaker 3: and figuring out how do we provide this to way

1061
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,880
Speaker 3: more people at way less of a cost, How do

1062
01:04:41,920 --> 01:04:45,760
Speaker 3: we make this easier for people and especially people with

1063
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,480
Speaker 3: a mental health condition. So again, you know, keygenic diet

1064
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:52,480
Speaker 3: might be challenging for regular Joe out there, but add

1065
01:04:52,520 --> 01:04:55,240
Speaker 3: in this person has a pretty significant depression and it

1066
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 3: becomes even more challenging.

1067
01:04:56,920 --> 01:05:01,560
Speaker 1: So that's hence the requirement for the price.

1068
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 3: That's why it's not just online, you know, do it

1069
01:05:04,400 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 3: at home. You know, some people can do it that way,

1070
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 3: and I love it when people can do it that way,

1071
01:05:08,280 --> 01:05:11,600
Speaker 3: but many of the people that I work with, my clients,

1072
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:14,160
Speaker 3: need more support than that to do it.

1073
01:05:14,240 --> 01:05:14,760
Speaker 2: At this point.

1074
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:17,800
Speaker 3: In terms of where people can find me, I'm on LinkedIn.

1075
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:20,480
Speaker 3: I'm not a big social media presence, so people aren't

1076
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 3: going to find me on you know, X and Instagram.

1077
01:05:25,640 --> 01:05:27,400
Speaker 2: I'm just not out there. But they can find me

1078
01:05:27,440 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 2: on Instagram.

1079
01:05:28,040 --> 01:05:31,200
Speaker 3: If anyone wants to message me on Instagram, I always

1080
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 3: connect with them there. And then people should look at

1081
01:05:34,480 --> 01:05:38,840
Speaker 3: the Accord web page. So Accord mh dot com is

1082
01:05:38,880 --> 01:05:40,920
Speaker 3: the web page for a Chord and that people can

1083
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:44,960
Speaker 3: learn all about the program there and if someone has

1084
01:05:45,000 --> 01:05:48,360
Speaker 3: any interest in We've had people come from other countries already.

1085
01:05:48,480 --> 01:05:50,480
Speaker 2: You know, if someone from your neck.

1086
01:05:50,320 --> 01:05:52,400
Speaker 3: Of the woods or people listening all over the world,

1087
01:05:52,480 --> 01:05:54,360
Speaker 3: if they want to come to a Cord to get

1088
01:05:54,360 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 3: this treatment, we would love to have you. Unfortunately, at

1089
01:05:57,640 --> 01:06:00,640
Speaker 3: this point it is a private, pay you know, fairly

1090
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 3: pricey kind of program. Again, we'd love to make this,

1091
01:06:04,720 --> 01:06:07,960
Speaker 3: you know, easier and inexpensive for people. That is the

1092
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 3: goal for sure, But at this point this is sort

1093
01:06:10,080 --> 01:06:11,760
Speaker 3: of where we are. Was how we have to start.

1094
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:16,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I get that, and hopefully at some stage

1095
01:06:16,440 --> 01:06:19,520
Speaker 1: governments will then, you know, as you guys grow and

1096
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:22,240
Speaker 1: get your efficacy, have a look at this and think

1097
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:27,560
Speaker 1: about the longest Absolutely, yes, these these intensive interventions can

1098
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:33,480
Speaker 1: be expensive, but what's the cost of somebody being having

1099
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:37,080
Speaker 1: a serious mental health disorder for twenty thirty years and

1100
01:06:37,400 --> 01:06:38,960
Speaker 1: even just the cost of the medication.

1101
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 3: Costs of the medication is tremendous. But think about the

1102
01:06:41,720 --> 01:06:45,720
Speaker 3: lost productivity. Think about the costs of their families and

1103
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 3: the lost productivity there. Think about the pain and the

1104
01:06:49,440 --> 01:06:52,040
Speaker 3: anguish that they and their families have to go through.

1105
01:06:52,520 --> 01:06:55,040
Speaker 3: You know, we can avoid a lot of that, I think.

1106
01:06:56,920 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Awesome, doctor Matt Bernston, you have been awesome. Thank

1107
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:03,000
Speaker 1: you very much. Thank you so I'd love to have

1108
01:07:03,040 --> 01:07:03,439
Speaker 1: you on again.

1109
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:05,240
Speaker 3: It's I'd love to come back. It was a really

1110
01:07:05,240 --> 01:07:05,960
Speaker 3: fun conversation.

1111
01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:06,360
Speaker 2: Thank you.