Fix Your Brain by Fixing Your Body: Metabolic Psychiatry Explained
Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Shebani Sethi reveals how to fix your brain and heal mental illness by fixing your body first. Learn the secrets of metabolic psychiatry, a revolutionary approach to treating depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and more by addressing the root metabolic causes.
For too long, psychiatry has treated mental illness as if it lives only in the brain. But what if the real story begins in the body? My guest today, Dr. Shebani Sethi, is the founding director of Stanford’s Metabolic Psychiatry Program , the first of its kind to unite nutrition, metabolism, and mental health care. She explains that poor metabolic health, like insulin resistance (which affects 1 in 3 people in the US), can double your risk of developing depression.
On this revealing episode, we explore how shifts in your body’s metabolism directly affect your brain and why this whole-body approach could transform how we prevent and treat mental health conditions.
In this episode, we discuss:
– What metabolic psychiatry is and how it connects body dysfunction to mental illness.
– The shocking link between insulin resistance and your risk for depression and other psychiatric conditions.
– How poor metabolism creates energy deficits in the brain (cerebral glucose hypometabolism) that drive symptoms.
– The four key mechanisms of metabolic disease: inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and impaired plasticity.
– Practical, evidence-based tools like the ketogenic diet to reverse severe mental illness in just months.
– The most important biomarkers and lab tests to ask for to uncover the hidden drivers of your mental health.
– The future of mental health and how to get started on a metabolic approach to heal your mind.
Dr. Shebani Sethi is a Clinical Associate Professor at Stanford and the founding director of its Metabolic Psychiatry Program. She is a leader in the field, exploring how nutrition and metabolism can be used to treat mental illness
#MetabolicPsychiatry #MentalHealth #Depression #Anxiety #DrMarkHyman
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(0:00) Understanding the prevalence of insulin resistance and its impact on mental health
(0:20) Introduction of Dr. Shebani Sethi and Stanford’s metabolic psychiatry program
(1:29) The connection between the body and mind in psychiatry
(3:12) Historical context of metabolism and mental health
(4:31) Defining metabolic psychiatry and its holistic approach
(7:25) Rethinking mental illness through the lens of metabolic psychiatry
(10:06) Dr. Sethi’s journey into metabolic psychiatry and obesity medicine
(13:24) Overlap between metabolic conditions and psychiatric symptoms
(15:18) Insulin resistance in the brain’s impact on mental health
(20:26) Mechanisms of metabolic disease affecting psychiatric conditions
(21:16) Addressing inflammation in mental health treatments
(25:16) Exercise, mental health, and mitochondrial function
(27:12) Importance of nutrients in psychiatric conditions
(29:46) Evaluating biomarkers in mental health treatment
(34:41) Gluten antibodies’ relationship with schizophrenia
(40:12) Lifestyle changes for mental health and positive outcomes
(45:48) Nutritional therapy and government funding in psychiatry
(49:18) Introduction to Hyman Hive membership community
(50:19) Chronic illnesses’ connection to psychiatric improvements
(54:16) Metabolic psychiatry’s convergence with psychedelic medicine
(57:55) Success with obesity drug Qsymia for eating disorders
(1:01:38) Precision and personalized metabolic psychiatry
(1:03:56) Microbiome’s importance in mental health treatment
(1:06:01) Drug mechanisms and integrating tools in metabolic psychiatry
(1:07:20) Advances in diagnostic technology and potential of biomarkers
25 Comments
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I agree that a ketogenic diet can be very helpful for some people if they can sustain the restrictions. This diet has also shown promise for cancer patients.
The only point of disagreement with some keto proponents is when some want to force everyone into that specific diet.
Another concern that I have is that when people find it too difficult to sustain a super restrictive diet, they just go back to eating the same ultra processed junk they ate before. That's because they never learned the difference between real food and lab made junk.
I have had good success eating real food, eliminating all ultra processed foods including added sugars, etc. And I have focused on eating single ingredient foods with anti-inflammatory properties and foods that contain antioxidants.
As a result, I have been able to be off anxiety and depression medications for many months now.
Most of these real foods can also be eaten on a very low carbohydrate diet.
Although beans and legumes, most fruits, and some nuts and seeds contain too many natural carbohydrates for the super restrictive keto diet.
On a ketogenic diet, one also needs to be very careful with packaged foods that are labeled as keto friendly. While those foods sometimes have wood products added to contain fiber, they are still multiple ingredients ultra processed junk.
Perhaps elimate the ultra processed junk first and replace it with real foods, something grown in the ground or an animal that ate something grown in the ground. Single ingredient foods are the best.
And people can later decide whether they want to restrict their diets further by going keto, carnivore, vegan, etc.
When we compare the results from almost any diet to the patient's health when they were eating almost all ultra processed foods, the post-diet results will be great. Same with the classic Mediterranean Diet and anti-inflammatory eating plan.
Yup, carnivore diet rocks for the head space. My head doc is impressed. Check this out. Addiction? Well, I found out sorta by accident that if you keep the Proper amount of Dopamine in your brain, you no longer have that “addictive personality” archetype, period.
You can get dopamine from Many NON ADDICTIVE SOURCES. Healing the gut lining also helps in this realm exponentially.
Yeah, I’ve taken Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology and Im working on the Psychology trip now.
You cant get addicted TO ANYTHING if you keep enough dopamine supplied by the gut to your brain, in order for the brain to FUNCTION PROPERLY.
So much for that 12 step trip. Nothing wrong with AA, meetings are better than the Bar ANY DAY.
But….. I started taking Nootropics after I could no longer take prescribed ritalin for life threatening adhd, due to weight loss.
No more adhd, bipolar1. Not to mention my brain is SUPER HIGH FUNCTIONING nowadays….not due to mania, due to the ADHD. My hi IQ brain processes info 100 times faster than most folks. Which often gets misdiagnosed as BP1 Mania.
Embrace the adhd and put that stuff TO WORK FOR YOURSELF.
My adhd was so bad that I nearly got killed crossing the street, three separate times. I couldnt read for nine months after losing the ritalin. I was in poverty big time. And super high fat beef was on super sale one day, expiring the next day. I put a hundred pounds in my freezer, I LOVE BEEF so I can live on beef for a month – totally ignorant of the Carnivore diet.
Loll….. Three days later, I really didnt need any ritalin. And my brain had been waiting for the moment when it could start reading again…..AND IT STARTED READING, at which point I was in bed with the body builders on youtbe, found out about Russian Nootropic Smart Drugs that FLOOD THE BRAIN WITH DOPAMINE. (Eventually the carnivore alone didnt keep enough dopamine in my brain, so…. Heal the gut lining for dopamine.
If I add more details youtube will delete this comment.
LIVE LONG AND PROSPER – EAT CARNIVORE
Yeah, Im working on the persistent insulin resistance….and I have ZERO BODY FAT, triathlete body. I walk my dog five or ten miles per day…and in my head walking IS NOT “Exercise” its just walking.
NEXT? HELLO FASTING…..
Yeah, after carnivore I ditched the lithium, my head doc was “concerned”. I just recently started self dosing lithium at 20mg. per day from a trace mineral perspective. I had no idea that the Lithium frees up the insulin gateway. Im gonna be persistent on the low dose lith and see how that plays out.
Thanks for the info
THIS is so important in our current society. I work in a psych facility and this doesn’t exist. Just pushing medication and NO ONE gets better! (34 years RN). And schizophrenia seems to be an “overused” diagnosis. Most of our patients are addicts as well. So there’s a deeper malady here and eating healthy, exercise and proper supplements could replace these God awful meds ✅ of course along with counseling. 🙂
Metformin? Yeah, what ever. I took Berberine wich is what Metformin was designed after. That stuff killed my brain functionality AND made me sedentary. Ditto with the Chromium. Tossed that stuff down the sink, where it belongs. Coz metformin kills your mitochondria function, like, thats how it works. And if it even DOES relieve insulin resistance, being blood sugar “healthy” and dumb as stump doesn’t work for me.
BPC-157 peptide and Carnivore heals the gut lining like nothing else does.
Mold exposure causes mental illnesses AND metabolic diseases as well. Like BIG TIME.
Get ready for the next big rollout on social media and here on YouTube they're going to be insisting that you have couples time you get married and you're going to have all kinds of romantic specials they're going to give you bonuses to buy houses and cars they're going to give you specially discounted tax rates all in an effort to get you to go have sex because they don't have any more children to tax❤😢🤣
I'm so happy that we finally start talking about how environment, nutrition, toxins are being included in psychiatry. Nutrition should be the first mode of action in psychiatry.
Thank you. This is a big step forward. The psychiatric community needs to begin to understand this crucial connection.
Great podcast I think we also need to prevent mental health conditions in the first place no one speaks about the fact that older parents aged 35 and over increase the likelihood of neuroschyciatric disorders in their offspring and I think that older parents are possibly affecting the mitochondrial health of their offspring leading to the incidence of neuroschyciatric disorders in their offspring.
I have been trying to research the connection between schizophrenia and metabolism. I am so grateful for this piece and I have been a fan for over a decade! Thank you! WE NEED MORE RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS !
We don’t have a mental health crisis, we have a HEALTH crisis starting with our garbage food
congrats on this interview and hope other podcasters interview her and also Dr. Uma Naidoo at Harard/Mass Gen
Another psychiatrist who is leading the move towards nutritional and metabolic psychiatry that challenges the current orthodox and traditional theories and practices…..another one is at Harvard, Dr. Uma Naidoo..who wrote Your Brain on Food and director of lifestyle psychiatry at Mass Gen Hosp. These two might be seen as contrarian to the larger psychiatry community
This is brilliant. Thank you so much for this episode.
Reading your book Young Forever, fascinating! It will change my life, thank you for all you do to help all of us to live longer, happier lives😊👍🏻
❤
i had tried everything the influencers pushed keto, juice cleanses, biohacks. my body was a mess. bloated, restless sleep, and constant brain fog. in frustration i downloaded The Peasant’s Prescription by Grace Wild. i will be honest i expected fluff, but the chapter about why peasants’ bones were stronger than athletes today stopped me cold. i decided to try the all day movement approach grace described. instead of punishing workouts, i just added small bursts of movement throughout the day. within a month my posture improved and i could carry groceries without back pain. i could feel my body working the way it was supposed to.
the only cause of depression is the psychiatric industry. for the sake of money they create what they're supposed to cure, reason why it is against the humans rights.
This interview was all over the place, how about focusing on the mitochondria. Mental health is brain health, let’s change the narrative.