Huberman Lab
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Original episode
PodcastHuberman Lab
Publisher/creatorScicomm Media
Published
Shortcast updated
About this episode
In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. Chris Palmer, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. We explain how nutrition and metabolism directly affect mental health, including the biological mechanisms underlying these effects. We also discuss how carbohydrate restriction, ketogenic diets and fasting can improve mood, energy, and, in some cases, treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) Chris Palmer
(00:00:20) Personal Story, Nutrition & Mental Health
(00:05:28) Treatment-Resistant Mental Disorders & Low-Carbohydrate Diet
(00:07:32) Sponsor: Eight Sleep
(00:08:51) Ketogenic Diet & Schizophrenia Success Story
(00:12:20) Nutrition for Mental Disorders, Ketosis, Highly Processed Foods
(00:15:13) Epilepsy & Ketogenic Diet, Fasting; Mitochondrial Benefits
(00:21:14) Sponsor: BetterHelp
(00:22:15) Mitochondria Functions, Mental Disorders
(00:28:05) Mitophagy, Autophagy, Longevity & Calorie Restriction
(00:33:12) Sponsor: AG1
(00:34:25) Carbohydrate Restriction, Depression Treatment
(00:37:23) Acknowledgements
Disclaimer & Disclosures
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Episode summary
This AI-generated Shortcast summary may omit nuance. Use the original episode when context or exact wording matters.
Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials. I’m Andrew Huberman. Food can change how we feel immediately, but nutrition may shape brain and mental health over years. Chris, let’s dig into that.
My interest was personal: OCD as a kid, then depression and suicidality. During Harvard residency, I developed metabolic syndrome despite low-fat diet and exercise. Atkins normalized my markers within three months—and improved my mood, concentration, energy, and sleep. Maybe happy, peppy people aren’t simply blessed.
With treatment-resistant patients, I quietly offered the diet to willing people. In 2016, a man with schizoaffective disorder, daily voices, paranoia, and seventeen failed medication trials tried keto. Within weeks he was more alive; by six to eight weeks, voices and delusions faded. He lost 160 pounds, lives independently, and tapers medication slowly with supervision. Never stop psychiatric medicine without professional help.
Nutrition belongs among treatment tools, not as a reckless replacement for meds. And keto has a neurological history in epilepsy.
Exactly. Created in 1921, keto mimics fasting’s seizure-reducing effects without starvation and remains useful for treatment-resistant epilepsy. It affects neurotransmitters, glucose and insulin signaling, inflammation, gene activity, and the microbiome. My focus is mitochondria: keto may remove damaged ones and generate healthier ones. Large randomized mental-disorder trials are underway.
Mitochondria aren’t dumb-jock power plants. They direct cellular resources, support neurotransmitter production and release, and influence stress hormones, inflammation, and healing—linking systems disrupted in mental illness.
For burnout or anxiety outside psychiatric care, I’d reduce carbohydrates and junk food, especially high-sugar, high-fat combinations. Some may not need ketosis. With chronic depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, disability, or multiple prescriptions, get serious clinical support; this is brain treatment, not casual weight-loss experimentation.
Chris, thank you for approaching this carefully, offering a mechanistic framework, and showing real lives.
Thank you, Andrew. It’s been a pleasure.
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