Transform Your Mental Health With Diet & Lifestyle | Dr. Chris Palmer

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Chris Palmer. Dr. Chris Palmer is a psychiatrist and researcher at Harvard University. He focuses on how metabolic health and mitochondrial health in particular can be leveraged to treat and in some cases, cure psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, autism, depression, bipolar, and ADHD. Today, we discuss how metabolic health, something we hear a lot about nowadays, is really about mitochondrial health and the specific lifestyle and other factors that you can use to improve mitochondrial number and function. We talk about things like exercise, sleep, sunlight, which you've heard about before, but we talk about those from a different perspective. And we discuss some things that have never been discussed before on this podcast, at least in light of mitochondrial health, things such as creatine, methylene blue, nicotine. And we talk about the key role of specific B vitamins and iron in brain function. We also have a very direct discussion about vaccines and whether or not inflammation caused by vaccines can potentially damage mitochondria, which then leads to mental health challenges. And of course, in that context, we discuss the vaccine autism debate. We also discuss public health and what is needed to truly change the way people exercise and eat, and the rapidly changing landscape of the National Institutes of Health and the CDC. As you'll soon hear, Dr. Palmer gives us a master class on mitochondrial function and how to improve this vital aspect of our health. If you've heard about metabolic health, you've heard about the obesity crisis, that's important. But looking at all of that and approaching it through the lens of mitochondrial health, you'll soon learn, is absolutely the way to go. It's a new perspective that will change the way that you think about mental and physical health, and that no doubt will impact your health practices in very positive ways. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, this episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Chris Palmer. Dr. Chris Palmer, welcome back.

**Chris Palmer** (2:18)
Thank you so much for having me back.

**Andrew Huberman** (2:20)
I credit you with leading the call to arms, the public awareness and the implementation of what some people call metabolic psychiatry, but what we could easily just call the relationship between mental and physical health and the use of nutrition, supplementation and where appropriate prescription drugs for the treatment of mental health. But what do you call this field that you've basically founded and that you're pioneering? There are others, right? But that you're pioneering and how should the general public think about the relationship between mitochondria and their mental health for those that are not aware? Educate us.

**Chris Palmer** (3:04)
I could talk for hours on this. So first of all, thank you for, I think you're actually giving me way too much credit though.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:13)
I don't know about that.

**Chris Palmer** (3:14)
I'm talking a lot about it and I think, I will accept that maybe I'm able to talk about it in a way that helps people understand it that other scientists haven't been able to.
But one of the more important reasons I want to say this is because unbeknownst to a lot of people, this field has actually been around for about a century and a half. Researchers in the 1800s around the turn of the century, well up into the 1960s, were hyper focused on the role of metabolism in severe mental illness. Schizophrenia Bipolar Disorder, they were actually measuring levels of lactate and glucose and other metabolic biomarkers in people with Schizophrenia Bipolar Disorder documenting differences. Really honing in on these metabolic disruptions is potentially the cause of mental illness. And then our field lost its way. We became focused on neurotransmitters and assumed that they were the primary cause of mental illness. While other fields were focused on psychological and social factors. You know, we got cognitive behavioral therapy. We still had psychodynamic psychotherapy. But people were doing research on adverse childhood experiences. That was really taking off, documenting that that's related. And so, you know, the field kind of splintered into these biological, psychological, social camps. And people really hyper focused in all of these ways.
To me, this field of integrating metabolism with mental health, with physical health, is about unifying that whole story. It's about unifying and building on what these researchers a hundred years ago were pursuing. It's about integrating the biological, psychological, and social camps. It's about putting it all together and stop being so reductionistic and simplistic to suggest that it's all biological, or it's all psychological, or it's all social, and that if it's one, it can't be the other. It can be all of them. And it's different combinations for different people. So in many ways, I'm just standing on the shoulders of giants who have done groundbreaking work to create the science that allows us to put this all together.