Category: Depression

Articles about Depression by Lori Calabrese, MD | The Ketamine Blog

The World Health Organization asserts that depression causes more disability worldwide than any other illness. In addition to standing alone as a disabling disorder, it also worsens other illnesses from diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, and brain injuries. We present these articles about depression to show the many ways this disorder is expressed, ways to treat it, and to dispel stigma caused by lack of information.

Causes

Depression and stress create a self-defeating cycle. Prolonged stress prunes the synapses, the dendrites attached to them, and the dendritic spines, reducing the network necessary for optimal signaling in the brain. Consequently, thinking slows and outlook darkens. In addition, creativity all but disappears. Depression follows this process, imposing yet more stress on the these all-important signaling structures.

Other structures in the brain enter the process. These structures in turn malfunction and make the symptoms worse. The lateral habenula, the amygdala, the thalamus, and the hippocampus each play a role in depression. By the same token, depression impacts them, too.

Treatment

Only about a third of people who suffer with depression find relief with traditional antidepressants. These medicines increase neurotransmitters in the brain and eventually increase neuron growth. But the actions of these medicines delay the process and these patients improve slowly. Sometimes, if the first trial with a medication doesn’t help, a different one or combination can help another one third or so of those who didn’t feel better after the first trial. Unfortunately, 33% of people suffering from depression find no relief from these medications. Until recently, they were left with little or no hope of relief for the rest of their lives.

Benefits of Ketamine Treatment

However, ketamine treatment is a novel and advanced treatment that has changed the prognosis for those treatment-resistant patients. Ketamine switches the mRNA to “On” which turns on the DNA to turboboost the brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor (BDNF) that proliferates neuronal growth along with synapses, dendrites, and dendritic spines which play such a vital role in improving signaling throughout the brain.

Another benefit of ketamine is how rapidly it causes the G proteins to slide off the lipid rafts in the cell membrane. This allows them to get back to work enhancing signals. It also causes the cell bursting in the lateral habenula to be dampened. Another process that allows you to experience a sense of reward – and feel better – when something good happens. Basically, ketamine treatment goes to work to help you feel better fast.

Then you enjoy clearer thinking and more creativity. Also a rewarding and upbeat outlook filled with light and joy. Add to that the improved initiative, increased motivation, and hope that makes life worth living again. This remarkable outcome occurs in 65-70% of treatment-resistant patients in general, and much more than that when the treatment is highly personalized. And the results are rapid and robust. Extraordinary.

As you read these articles about depression, keep in mind that there is always hope. Researchers continue to work to find more aspects ketamine’s effects on the brain that can impact the outcome.

Metabolic Psychiatry’s Secret Weapon: Therapeutic Nutritional Ketosis

The most remarkable, neuroscience-driven advances in psychiatry, are emerging after decades of research and evidence-based experience known as metabolic psychiatry. Metabolic psychiatry is all about understanding the connections between psychiatric symptoms and metabolic dysfunction. We’ve talked often about the reality that the brain is part of the body, and what goes on in the body affects the brain. If metabolic health is suffering, psychiatric health can not be at its best. If the mitochondria are suffering from energy shortage due to insulin resistance, so is the mitochondria in the brain. And when the brain’s energy is restricted, its compromised ability to function well results in symptoms like memory loss, brain fog, erratic shifts in mood and behavior, depression, and anxiety. But metabolic psychiatry’s secret weapon is therapeutic nutritional ketosis. More about that ahead.

Pearls from Dr. Ede

Dr. Georgia Ede, a psychiatrist who specializes in nutritional and metabolic approaches to psychiatric symptoms, recently joined an interview with Dr. Bret Scher, the director of Metabolic Mind, and Carlene MacMillan, Chief Medical Officer of Osmind. They discussed a subject you know is dear to my heart, which is how a ketogenic diet can improve brain health so beautifully that you can actually achieve remission.

It may surprise you to know that over 50% of all adults in this country suffer from insulin resistance, or the inability in the cells for insulin to process glucose. And that causes problems…lots of problems! It causes high blood sugar levels throughout the body because the cells aren’t able to pull the glucose out of the blood stream and put it to work in the cells.

And even worse, it keeps the brain from processing glucose, which creates an energy crisis for the brain. As we’ve talked about before, the brain is part of the body, and your metabolic health incorporates every organ in your body. When insulin resistance impairs your body’s ability to process glucose, all your organs suffer damage.

Crisis of Brain Energy

So, it’s vital that an alternate fuel source for the body, and especially the brain, is provided. When you consume a ketogenic diet, your body makes the shift from relying on glucose, to relying on ketones for fuel. Ketones don’t need insulin to be used in the cells, so it’s a limitless source of fuel.

Because the brain uses so much energy – a full 20% of what the entire body uses – it’s vital that its energy source be readily available and inexhaustible. And it is, as long as you’re eating ketone producing foods…or ketogenic foods…and your body’s fat stores serve as a supplement.

Metabolic Evaluation is Vital

Dr Ede talked about her wish to see every psychiatrist do a metabolic evaluation as part of the intake assessment of each patient. Every patient with psychiatric symptoms deserves a metabolic evaluation to see if there is metabolic dysfunction involved—because it can be so readily reversed. Everyone needs to know about evidenced-based ways to change their lifestyle to improve their overall wellbeing, as well as their psychiatric condition. Whether they incorporate a ketogenic diet or not, they need to see how they might improve their metabolic health. You can’t have excellent mental health unless you’re metabolically healthy as well. And honestly, metabolic psychiatry’s secret weapon is, after all, nutritional ketosis. That’s what causes the change and improvement.

I heartily agree, and a comprehensive metabolic evaluation is just one part of our deep-dive assessment for our TouchPoints 180™ program.

So, these are the elements she suggested for that assessment. Because when you use A1C as a marker for metabolic health, it’s not effective, — because it’s a measure of Type 2 diabetes after it has already taken hold. And it’s important to keep in mind that it can take up to 20 years of high-carb eating for Type 2 to develop. So the key is to discover the metabolic dysfunction before it does.

So what you really want to know is how much insulin your body is actually having to pump out day after day to counter the carbohydrate load you’re eating in order to maintain your fasting blood sugar in a normal range. She made the point that those climbing insulin levels are damaging your physical health — and your brain metabolism.

Brain Metabolism

When we refer to brain metabolism, we’re talking about the ability of your brain to turn glucose into energy. We test for the fasting insulin level, which should ideally be under 5. Yes, under 5. (In our practice, we actually run tests to determine your insulin resistance score, which gives you a numbered score if you are insulin resistant.)

You also should check triglycerides, which should be below 100mg/dL, and better yet, below 80 mg/dL. You want HDL to be above 40-50 (pushing 100 is better) and you want your waist circumference to be less than half your height.

As you can see, these are simple measures, easily available, and can easily give you a ballpark idea your current metabolic health—and there are many more sophisticated tests which take a deeper dive. When these numbers are out of whack, it’s a good indication that your metabolism needs an intervention.

The beauty is, that you can change these numbers very quickly with a ketogenic diet. Amazingly, you can drop your fasting insulin and triglycerides in days or weeks. You don’t have to lose 50 pounds to begin to see important changes! You just need to get your body metabolizing fat, and achieve nutritional ketosis.

Metabolic Psychiatry’s Secret Weapon

In fact, the ketogenic diet is not the only dietary intervention that will achieve this. The carnivore diet, or a vegetarian diet that’s low carb and high in fat, and that is properly formulated with the best quality proteins and all of the micronutrients you need. You can find a diet that helps you achieve therapeutic nutritional ketosis. It can be an adapted from carnivore, vegetarian, mediterranean… the goal is to find a dietary intervention that works for you; it just needs to help you maintain a consistent state of ketosis.

And it needs to fit your life.

This isn’t a solution that addresses the superficials. This solution attacks the root cause. Metabolic dysfunction throughout your body causes damage to your organs and brain because of an energy crisis in your mitochondria. It’s vital to improve your metabolic health by natural means.

What About GLP-1?

Dr. Ede states that GLP-1 such as Ozempic and others can help with some of these same things. But they are not what we recommend for our patients — they do not offer the sustainable cellular benefits of nutritional ketosis and have many potential short and long-terms side effects: continued use, weekly injections, huge monthly costs and copays, etc. The good news is that the same and more can be achieved with ketosis. Through a ketogenic diet without copays, without side effects, and without injections that disrupt your normal metabolic function, you can achieve remission.

I agree with her that a huge advantage to seeking metabolic health through dietary intervention is that it puts the power in your hands. We teach our patients how to do this, and offer dozens and dozens of personalized opportunities to help them make it happen. Unlike the old paradigm where the doctor prescribes the medication, and the patient takes it. In this approach, you learn to wield this tool to cultivate your own metabolic health.

It’s empowering, confidence building, and improves your own autonomy. It makes you proud of yourself to know you’ve made your body and mind healthy by changing your lifestyle and food choices.

You can give someone a fish, and they’ll eat a meal. But if you teach them to fish, they’ll have the knowledge to be able eat for the rest of their lives.

Education about metabolic health empowers people to restore their own metabolic health. And to restore their physical health and mental health as a result.

Why Does Ketosis Help Alzheimer’s, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia?

Metabolic psychiatrists know that if you have insulin resistance you don’t just have a blood sugar problem, you also have a brain sugar problem. The brain cannot utilize glucose without adequate insulin. Over time, slowly, the brain is losing its glucose processing power. By the time you notice any memory problems (this sets the stage for Alzheimer’s by the way) you can already have lost 25% of your brain’s glucose processing power. So you need a supplemental fuel source as a result. Ketones bridge that energy gap for you. They don’t need insulin to fuel brain cells. So the brain cells can go back to work doing their job at an optimum level. Because they’re fueled with ketones.

The key is ketosis. And it triggers a cascade of changes that put the brain cells back on their feet.

If You Suffer From Psychiatric Symptoms

Maybe you have tried prescription medications that haven’t improved your symptoms, or maybe psychotherapy hasn’t helped, either. Maybe you’ve been told your condition is “treatment-resistant.” Metabolic psychiatry may not be the solution to every single psychiatric issue, but it’s in your best interest to find out if it might help yours.

When you consider that more than half of all adults in the US suffer from insulin resistance, and insulin resistance contributes to psychiatric suffering, it’s not such a bad idea to find out if your symptoms could be related to your metabolism, your mitochondria, and the way your body and brain use energy and signaling.

Metabolic psychiatry’s secret weapon is therapeutic nutritional ketosis.

Join us in our TouchPoints 180™ program, and take charge of your own health, physically and mentally. Take back your life and your wellbeing.

We’re all about helping you build your life at its best.

To the restoration of your best self,

July 8, 2024
Ketamine Treatment Provides Transformation Going Forward

Lexi released a long, deep sigh as she stared out the window. What was the point? Just holding herself up in the overstuffed chair was too much of an effort. But, she knew she had to drag herself to her feet, and get in the shower. Another day had begun, and she needed to go to work. She didn’t know how she could do it, but without a paycheck she’d be in a much worse situation. She just had to. Eventually she shuffled into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes and turned on the water. After drying off, she pulled on her robe, and drug herself back to the kitchen, and poured another cup of coffee. Sitting at the table, head in hands, she tried to picture herself dressing, and actually going to work. She drew a blank. But, eventually, she was locking her front door, getting in her car, and starting the engine. Unfortunately, she’d never heard of ketamine treatment or that it provides transformation now, and in the future. She just didn’t know.

Feeling Like a Zombie

She pulled into the parking lot and gathered her purse and lunch, then walked toward her building. Once she finally reached her desk, she sat with hands propping her chin, trying to remember what she was doing when she left yesterday. Blank again. She’d had bouts of depression in the past, but this was harder. Worse. It was so hard to think. If thoughts went through her mind, they were worry, fear, shame. But not remembering something constructive. Siiiggghhhhh.

Before too long, her boss walked up to her desk and asked if the “plan” was ready. Plan?? She wondered. Hmmm…oh wait…

“Oh the plan. Not completely. I’ll try to get it to you by the end of the day.” (Maybe she could throw something together by then.)

“Lexi, something has to give. I needed your plan for this next project 3 days ago. We’re out of time. I have to present it tomorrow morning. What’s going on?” Her boss’s voice was rising…becoming shrill.

“I’m sorry, Jill.” Tears filled Lexi’s eyes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me but everything has become so much harder. Almost impossible. I can’t describe it, but my mind is blank, I have zero energy, and I feel hopeless that it’s ever going to get better. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do. I rack my brain, but I can’t figure out how to think, or to come up with ideas. I’m just blank and overwhelmed.”

Jill stared at her, blinking. Incredulous. “Now you’re telling me this? Why didn’t you tell me weeks ago?”

Jill turned on her heel and stormed back to her office.

Shame, Disgust, and Hopelessness

Lexi was disgusted with herself but had no idea how to find a solution. “I’m going to lose this job. Then I’ll lose my apartment. After that, I’ll be homeless because you can’t get a place to live without an income.” The shock and terror of it all gripped her and she could hardly breathe.

She stared at the papers on her desk. She knew it was too late to come up with anything helpful for Jill’s presentation in the morning. But she kept staring, hoping some new idea would spring into her mind. If only Lexi had realized how close she was to learning ketamine provides transformation for people suffering like this every day.

Fifteen minutes later, Hannah walked up to Lexi’s desk, and slipped her a sticky note with a name and phone number scrawled on it.

“I couldn’t help but overhear, Lexi. I’ve noticed how you’ve seemed to be losing confidence lately, and you seem to be getting more and more down. I’ve noticed it especially the last few months. Maybe we could talk at lunch?”

“Hi Hannah. Yes, it’s been harder and harder for me to function at all. I’ve been depressed before in my life, but this is worse than I’ve experienced before. I’m afraid I’m going to lose my job and I don’t know how to prevent it. What’s this?” She asked, holding up the stickie note.

Hope Rises From a Stickie Note

“That’s the phone number of a doctor not too far from here who offers an amazing treatment. My sister fell into a desperate place with depression and suicidal thinking. It lasted 6 months before she found out about this treatment. She went to this doctor’s practice, and received IV ketamine treatment… and she got so much better, she felt like herself again. Ketamine treatment provides transformation for her.

“The suicidal thinking stopped after the first infusion, and the depression symptoms lifted more and more over time as she received the infusions that followed. This honestly changed her life, Lexi. I thought you might like to look into it..? It might help you get back to yourself, too…?”

Lexi stared at the scrap of paper. It was hard to compute what Hannah was saying. But she decided to call this number and see what she could find out.

At lunch, she sat in her car and made the call.

The person she talked to was informative and kind. She explained that Lexi would need to meet with the psychiatrist for an evaluation to move forward. Lexi made an appointment because of what Hannah had described about her sister. If it worked for Hannah’s sister, maybe it would help Lexi, too. Apparently, ketamine treatment provides transformation for lots of people…? She hoped it would help her.

Her appointment was set for two days away. When the time came, Lexi called in sick to work (she was sick, after all, right?), and spent a considerable time with the doctor, answering lots of questions the best she could.

The doctor told her she was suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) and while ketamine treatment wasn’t effective for everyone, it was actually transformative for many, many of her patients. And she felt it was very likely that it would make an enormous difference for Lexi.

Lexi received the first infusion that afternoon.

Her neighbor drove her home afterward.

Two days later she went in for another ketamine treatment. While she didn’t feel any better yet that afternoon, the doctor had explained that some people don’t begin to experience the antidepressant benefits right away. So she tried to not worry.

That evening at home, she checked her email, and she’d received something from Hannah.

A Study Confirms Ketamine Treatment’s Effectiveness

“Hi Lexi, I was googling about ketamine treatment, and ran across this new article about a study at Northwestern University that was published in Cellular and Molecular Life Science just last week on February 27. See what you think.”

Hmmm…Northwestern University, huh?

Lexi opened the article, and as described, it described a study just published at that university. It said that treatments for depression need to act quickly, but they also need to have a sustained, long-term benefit.

As part of the study, they learned that a major benefit of ketamine treatment is that it causes antidepressant effects within hours on newly formed brain cell connections, and it also causes more of these to be formed. So ketamine treatment can start to work quickly and continues to work over time— on these brand new connections as they form over time because of ketamine treatment.

Apparently, ketamine treatment provides transformation for people rapidly, and long term, as well.

The senior author of the study was John Kessler, MD, professor of neurology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine. It sounded pretty credible to Lexi.

She felt reassured that serious scientists were studying this treatment. She’d had no idea.

Lexi soon received the 3rd and 4th infusions, and things began to change. She felt initiative… in the sense of pulling out the project they were working on in her job, and researching ideas to make it more effective. It felt so good to be feeling productive again…useful in a way.

She spoke with her boss the next day and told her she was getting treatment for depression, and she believed she was going to be able to contribute more again at work.

She thought she’d only need 6 treatments. But she had two more. After 8 infusions, she was beginning to feel like her old self. Creativity began to bloom inside her, and she enjoyed sharing her ideas with the team. Even more reassuring, she had the energy she’d been lacking for so long, to do what needed to be done. She began to notice herself singing in the shower and walking quickly from the parking lot, with a sense of anticipation.

Hannah agreed to meet her for dinner after work on Friday, and Lexi was eager to share all that had happened, and how it had transformed her. She expressed her deep gratitude for how Hannah had stuck her neck out to tell her about ketamine treatment. It had saved her job. And she wasn’t exaggerating when she told her it had saved her life, too.

After about a month, Lexi felt that her outlook was slipping into some hopelessness and overwhelm again. The doctor had cautioned her about this possibility, so she made another appointment for a booster infusion.

Afterward, and in the weeks to come, she felt much better again. And that built her confidence that if this ever happened again, she knew where to go. This thing about ketamine treatment providing transformation was very real. It would see her through.

Ketamine Can Transform Your Life, Too

When you find yourself in crisis with severe depression, and thoughts of suicide, ketamine treatment can stop those suicidal thoughts in an afternoon. It can replace the listlessness and despair of depression with a bright outlook, creativity, energy, and hope.

If you’ve struggled like Lexi, or Hannah’s sister, and you need treatment to help you experience restoration to your best self and your best life, call us.

We’re here to help you live again, give again, and enjoy the rewards of your life.

You’ll be so glad you did.

To the restoration of your best self,

March 18, 2024
Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy (KMT) Can Fix Your Mood and Health

Brianna sank into the sofa, and groaned as she leaned over to pull on her shoes. It was hard to reach them, and she grunted repeatedly as she reached down to tie her laces. Uggghhhhh. She just had to lose weight. She was too big around her waist to comfortably reach her feet anymore. How did this happen? When did this happen? Was it the pandemic? She hadn’t noticed, but she had been forced to buy larger clothes to be comfortable. She should have noticed that! Or…maybe she had…and didn’t care enough to do something about it. Everything had seemed so futile for a long time…and it had been harder and harder to care. For things like her weight to even matter at all. While she drank her coffee she browsed on her laptop. Ketogenic metabolic therapy (KMT) showed up in an email, so she opened it.

Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy is Food as Medicine

The email was sponsored by a nutrition organization that touted this month, March, as National Nutrition Month by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Hmmmm. Why was she receiving an email from them?

I mean, she thought, I try to eat from the 5 basic food groups, but it isn’t always that convenient. I do eat a lot of fast food too, and frozen prepared food. Whatever I can manage.

Bottom line, she didn’t think it mattered much.

But she wondered why she felt so draggy. Did she sleep enough last night? Her legs felt heavy, and it was a chore to get ready for work. She’d been noticing this for a few months, and wondered if she’d gained THAT much weight in her legs specifically? Were they just so so much heavier than they had been? If only she’d known about ketogenic metabolic therapy.

As she walked to the car, she tripped and nearly fell on her face. It startled her, and sent a sensation of panic jolting through her. Her heart pounded, and she couldn’t catch her breath. It washed over her how awful it would have felt if she’d fallen hard on the concrete. She was only 25, but it would have hurt. Bad.

Absent-Mindedness Wasn’t A Joke

Once in the car, she couldn’t find her keys. She dug through her purse and didn’t find them. She went back in the house and looked everywhere! Where were they? Finally, she realized they were in her hand. She rolled her eyes. This happened... All. The. Time.

Even after she started the car and put it in gear, she was still shaking from that near fall. This had been happening more and more, where something unexpected struck her with a panicked feeling. Losing her keys hadn’t helped.

Why were her reactions so intense? For several months, she’d found herself making mountains out of molehills, mostly at work. But…at home too, now that she thought about it. She couldn’t seem to let things slide off her back. Everything was a big, bad event.

She felt raw…and volatile.

She determined she would look at that email that caught her attention after work. There was a lot to learn, and soon she would begin to learn about ketogenic metabolic therapy and how it can heal.

While she ate her dinner that evening, she scanned her emails to find the one about National Nutrition Month. It mentioned the concept of “farm-to-fork.” Farm to what? She followed links and kept reading.

Brianna learned about the nutrition found in foods grown on carefully managed farms, where soil was allowed to rest and restore nutrients, and how much that improved the nutrition of the vegetables grown there. She learned about grass fed beef, and grass finished beef. Now this was something she’d never heard of.

She knew grass fed beef provided more nutrition when you consume it. But grass finished? She dug deeper. And learned more.

Grass Fed Beef or Grass Finished Beef?

So it turned out that grass finished beef is very different from grass fed. “Grass fed” refers to cattle that were fed grass at some point in their lives… it might be that they started eating grass when they were young, then were fed other things, like grain. “Grass finished” beef refers to cattle fed nothing but grass their entire lives.

She learned that grass finished beef has a deeper red color than traditional beef because of its high vitamin E content from the grass the cow ate. Vitamin E is extremely beneficial in helping to balance cholesterol, reduce free radicals, improve vision…in fact, this said it seemed to lower risks of some types of cancer.

It also had nothing added, like hormones, and was rich in antioxidants vitamins like A, B6, B12, D and E. These improve skin health, strengthen immunity, and improve your memory and mood.

Hmmmm… my mood…and memory? This is surprising. I never thought much about nutrition before, and it sure never occurred to me that the food I eat can make my mood better or worse…or my memory, for heavens sake!

Brianna searched the internet for more articles about farm to fork… and nutrition… and mood. She saw articles about ketogenic diet and how it can help all sorts of medical problems. She ran across the term ketogenic metabolic therapy. Now this was brand new to her. The concept of using a ketogenic diet to treat metabolic illness.

Definitely not her wheelhouse.

But wait. The next article she scanned talked about metabolic syndrome, and metabolic conditions. And it described symptoms she actually had. Like weight gain, a spreading waistline, lack of energy, apathy, fatigue. People described feeling weighed down, emotionally and physically.

Brianna had to admit it to herself. This could be HER.

Then, she ran across a link to Metabolic Psychiatry so she clicked. It was informative, and described their program for helping people improve their outlook and mood, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and a host of other conditions by using light exercise and food as medicine. And she read about ketogenic metabolic therapy.

Wha…?

Food as medicine?

She learned that when a person has this “metabolic syndrome,” a most effective way to treat it is by drastically reducing carbohydrates, and eating a wide variety of farm grown foods that are first, low in carbohydrates, plus from all the color groups.

And to eat foods high in fat. So it might include avocados, and cheeses, coconut or olive oil (avoiding seed oils), grass fed butter, fatty fish like salmon, tuna, and trout, grass finished beef, and heritage pigs that are allowed to forage in grass.

She learned that ultra processed foods like frozen pizza, lunchmeat, potato and corn chips (her weakness), donuts !!Oh NO!!, and artificial sweeteners, were all contributing to her metabolic problems.

It had never, EVER, occurred to her that her snacks and fast food – and frozen dinners with diet drinks – were all contributing to how bad she felt.

So, Brianna found a program on this website that offered support, a dietitian to help her with planning her diet, and group conversations along with walks in nature, to help her reset her life.

She called for an appointment.

Learning… To Improve Her Life

It was time to get serious, and learn.

She was able to get an appointment to learn about the program on Friday.

Brianna found out she was depressed and had moderate anxiety, as well as brain fog. No wonder she’d been so down. She also learned she was pre diabetic. Who knew? She should have, if she’d been paying attention.

But that was ok. She was paying attention now. And she was going to find out what to do to fix her mind and her body.

Brianna joined the Touchpoints 180™ program and got to work. She knew this was going to be challenging. But she wanted to improve her life. So she set herself up to start reading all she could.

The first thing she did when she got home was to throw away all the frozen pizza, burritos, TV dinners, ice cream, cookies, bread, rice, and potatoes. She knew this would surely be a learning experience, but those foods were glaringly obvious offenders.

LOW CARB. That was the ticket.

Then, a quick trip to the grocery store to load up on salmon, trout, scallops, grass fed beef. (They’d told her at the Metabolic Psychiatry office that they had sources for grass finished beef, so she’d find out about that this week.) She bought avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, kale, broccoli, eggs — good whole food, not powders, processed or commercial “keto”.

Once home, she prepared her first meal. “Wow! This is delicious!!” It was scallops sautéed in garlic and grass fed butter with a caprese salad of cherry tomatoes, thick mozzarella slices, and fresh basil leaves. It was a symphony of flavor! East. And night and day better and more delicious than fast food.

She hadn’t realized what she was missing!

Weeks passed. Her transition to therapeutic nutritional ketosis the first week wasn’t unpleasant, though she heard that it was for some people. It’s not to say that she never missed the junk food she’d lived on all her life. Sometimes French fries sounded appealing, but she would just eat a few avocado slices and the desire dissipated.

She was so focused on buying food, attending the nature walks, preparing meals to take to work as well as to eat at home, she forgot to weigh herself. So after 4 1/2 weeks she stepped on the scale before her shower.

Brianna’s jaw dropped.

She’d lost 18 lbs!! No wonder her clothes felt so frumpy.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she smiled a big, bright smile. She hadn’t noticed, but she could see it now. She was slimmer. What a reward!

She decided she would go shopping on Saturday, and get some clothes that fit better. Maybe only a couple outfits, because she knew she would lose more.

After 5 1/2 months, she had lost 35 lbs, and was still losing. She had dropped 3 dress sizes so far.

But more important, the fatigue, anxiety, and depression were gone. She had energy, hope, and anticipation about the future. Her thinking was more clear and sharp than it had been in many years…well, since she was a child.

And she was feeling so much calmer, she was coping with life better, and enjoyed a wonderful feeling of wellbeing.

Plus, an important and added benefit revealed itself at her next doctor visit. Her A1C had dropped and was low enough she was no longer considered pre-diabetic. She’d dodged that freight train, too!

And this was all about the food she ate!

The term ketogenic metabolic therapy (KMT) had meaning for her now that she had experienced such improved health, and freedom from symptoms, as a result of the way she was now eating and her involvement in the Touchpoints 180™ program.

She knew this was not a fad. This was a whole new way of life that was solving her problems and removing her obstacles. And it was sustainable. She decided to maintain a low carb lifestyle and a ketogenic diet.

Her instincts told her if she went back to eating like she used to, she’d end up diabetic, sick, and depressed again. She wanted no part of that.

This wasn’t an experiment. This was a new and better way to live. And she was going to keep living it.

With joy.

What About You?

Do you struggle with symptoms of metabolic dysfunction, like erratic blood sugars, weight gain around the waist plus everywhere else? Depression, anxiety, brain fog? Maybe PTSD, OCD, or bipolar disorder?

Perhaps you haven’t realized that these conditions are metabolic, just as diabetes is. If not, you may not realize your symptoms can lift with a personalized, consistent, ketogenic diet that brings you into therapeutic nutritional ketosis.

Well, it can.

If you have symptoms like Brianna, and you hadn’t connected the dots to realize you can experience relief with ketogenic metabolic therapy, call us.

We’ve set up a way to help you get the relief you need through Metabolic Psychiatry, including therapeutic carbohydrate restriction with a personalized, whole foods ketogenic diet.

Let us help you achieve a whole new level of health and wellbeing. That’s what we’re here for.

To the restoration of your best self,

March 18, 2024
How Mitochondria Can Help Heal Your Brain…And Your Body!

When you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, you need answers, solutions, and information that leads you to take action to change your health, and your life. Maybe you’re suffering from unrelenting depression that medicines don’t help, and maybe you’ve gained weight – even exorbitant weight – that you feel powerless to lose. Maybe it has just happened, or maybe it’s a side effect of all the medicines you’ve tried for treatment. Just maybe, the weight gain has given rise to pre-diabetes, or Type 2 diabetes, and sometimes the more weight you gain, the more you want to eat. And that increased weight causes worse depression. And what if your depression symptoms have been accompanied by OCD symptoms, or hallucinations, and even delusions? Let’s talk about how mitochondria can help your brain heal.

Chris Palmer, M.D., author of the book Brain Energy, was recently interviewed on Jordan Peterson’s podcast. He had so many good things to say about conditions that include all these different symptoms… and a wonderful explanation for why.

Is Depression Always a Disorder?

First, he said, all humans get depressed, feel anxiety, humiliation, and shame. Those are normal emotions in specific circumstances, and they can help you make necessary changes to improve your life. Human emotions are not disorders — they’re part of being human. When that happens, it’s not a disorder.

But, there are so many ways you can suffer, and develop patterns that aren’t appropriate or adaptive adjustments to events in your life or your environment.

You can develop patterns as you try to adapt to events in your life that caused you hurt or broke your trust that aren’t so good for you. But those aren’t necessarily brain disorders, either.

Some people have actual brain disorders, where their brain is not functioning properly. They have anxiety for no reason, because cells are firing when they shouldn’t be. Or depression, because cells aren’t firing when they should be.

This can cause crippling OCD, persistent depression, mania, even hallucinations, and delusions… for NO reason.

Through the ages humanity has formed theories about the cause of symptoms like these. From demon possession to bile to dopamine and beyond. But none of these theories connect the dots for all of these conditions. Mitochondria connect those dots. And mitochondria can help your brain heal.

They’re the crux of a central theme that revolves around metabolism.

What’s the Role of Metabolism?

Understanding metabolism—and mitochondria—helps us better understand how risk factors for these conditions come together. It gives us clear direction for treatments we can put in place. And it shows us how changes in diet, exercise, hormones, and medications can be helpful or harmful. And how substance use can impact a condition and its treatment.

Someone who has vital elements missing in his life, like a rewarding job, significant and rewarding relationships, and a sense of purpose, can be depressed because the human brain is hard-wired to be depressed in the absence of those things. Its purpose is to push that person to develop the social connections to integrate him into a rewarding life.

Then, Dr. Palmer pointed out how pain provides a great comparison. When you have pain because of an injury or surgery, that’s pain for a good reason. It’s logical and easy to explain. Of course you have pain!

But when you have pain for no reason, that’s a disorder. Cells are firing for no valid reason. They’re malfunctioning.

By the same token, he stresses that when you’re depressed for obvious reasons, that’s not a disorder. But when you’re depressed – or have anxiety – for no good reason, it rises to the level of being a disorder.

And Mitochondria Can Help Your Brain Heal

There is a wide range of medical conditions that can cause the exact same symptoms of depression, like neurological disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, hormone imbalances, like hypothyroidism, women’s hormones during menstrual periods, pregnancy, and menopause, low testosterone. Inflammatory conditions. A host of others.

And that makes us wonder… what is the connection between all of these diseases and conditions that could explain the same depression symptoms?

Dr. Palmer said that this is a really important clue to solving the puzzle!

What Causes Mental Disorders??

For all people suffering from mental illnesses—psychiatric conditions—around the world, how can we produce better treatments? He believes it’s by recognizing a common denominator, or a common thread. And it seems clear that what they all have in common is metabolism. And…more specifically, it’s these tiny things in our cells called mitochondria.

Schizoaffective Disorder and Ketogenic Diet

He told the story of a patient he’d had for 8 years. This man had schizoaffective disorder, with chronic hallucinations and delusions; he was overly suspicious, convinced everyone was out to get him, laughing at him, spying on him, and trying to hurt him. He’d tried 17 different medications — none had helped. He’d gained massive weight and asked Dr Palmer to help him lose it.

So Dr. Palmer put him on a ketogenic diet — to help him lose weight.

Within 2 weeks, he was losing weight. But Dr. Palmer noticed a powerful antidepressant effect taking place. He was flabbergasted. How could two weeks of food affect symptoms that had been there for years?

Then, came the shocking revelation. About 2 months after starting the ketogenic diet, he started spontaneously reporting that his hallucinations and delusions were beginning to go away.

That man went on to lose over 160 lbs and has kept it off for seven years now. He was amazingly able to do things he hadn’t been able to do since he was first diagnosed.

This man could go out in public without paranoia — he completed a certificate program, performed improv before a live audience (no joke!) and he started teaching karate. He was able to do things that had not only been impossible for him, they’d be impossible for just about anyone with his illness.

Dr. Palmer began using the diet with other patients, quietly. And took a deep dive into basic science and bodies of evidence from treating epilepsy, to other bodies of evidence, about bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.

Not a Fad Diet

The ketogenic diet is not a fad weight loss diet. It’s an evidence-based treatment that’s been used for more than 100 years for epilepsy. So Dr. Palmer thought that maybe that’s why this is changing this patient’s brain symptoms… because of the effect it has on epilepsy in the brain.

Maybe those same processes are reducing his psychotic symptoms. Could it be?

He studied the enormous body of evidence in the field of neurology regarding how the ketogenic diet stops seizures. There are changes in neurotransmitters, changes in the gut microbiome, decreases in inflammation…

But one thing stood out:

It improves how mitochondria function, which means:

IT IMPROVES BRAIN METABOLISM

The metabolic theory of brain disorders can explain to us why neurons might be overactive – or hyper-excitable — through neuroimaging studies, cell biology studies, and others that confirm this. We know that people with these brain conditions have hyper-excitable neurons. That there are parts of their brain that just start firing when they shouldn’t.

Not so different from a pain cell that fires when it shouldn’t.

So to understand why this happens, we can turn to the metabolic/mitochondrial theory to connect the dots with all the symptoms of these conditions. Mitochondria can help your brain heal.

It helps us understand why sleep deprivation can lead to psychosis, and why antidepressants can precipitant mania.

When we understand that the mitochondria is at the foundation of what occurs to create so many different psychiatric symptoms, it allows us to find treatments and solutions that may actually help people heal and recover.

To understand mitochondria better, we think of it like this: 90% of the food we eat ends up as fuel in the mitochondria. When mitochondria get fuel, they convert it into energy in the form of ATP, or they break it down to smaller molecules to create hormones, enzymes, new proteins, neurotransmitters, or cell membranes…. or mitochondria can convert that energy to make heat.

If you run a fever, they’re creating that. If you’re too cold, the mitochondria are underperforming.

The medical field that’s focused on obesity, the cardiovascular field, the Alzheimer’s field, the ageing and longevity field have all been fueling research over the last 20 years on the role of mitochondria that is now taking off by leaps and bounds. Let’s learn about just how mitochondria help your brain heal.

Mitochondria are Central to Just About Everything

They serve up the fuel that’s used to create, regulate, and release neurotransmitters like serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, GABA, and more. And those neurotransmitters impact mitochondrial function.

Mitochondria also help control the expression of genes from the nucleus, which is called epigenetics.

Mitochondria help turn inflammation both on and off.

We’ve known that cortisol, the hormone, is poorly and improperly regulated in people with brain disorders. Mitochondrial dysregulation is believed to be the cause of cortisol dysregulation. So how can we get mitochondria to help your brain heal?

Mitochondria are affected by our diet, our exercise, our drug and alcohol intake… but here’s the kicker.

Biological, Sociological, Psychological

Trauma and childhood adversity directly impact mitochondrial function and health. So by understanding and treating mitochondria, we can resolve the connections between the biological, sociological, and psychological risk factors that lead to brain disorders.

The ketogenic diet also mimics fasting. And fasting triggers a process called autophagy, to clean out faulty cells and cell parts to help the body restore itself. The ketogenic diet also cleans up and removes faulty mitochondria, which is called mitophagy. Hugely important repair processes for brain health and longevity. And when mitochondria are fueled by a ketogenic diet they themselves become larger, more productive… they multiply.

These are just a few of the ways that help mitochondria heal your brain cells. And your cells in the rest of your body, too.

Fasting-Mimicking Diet

In some people, especially with extremely difficult diagnoses, it is sometimes necessary under medical supervision, to intensify that fasting state.

The most intense approach is to ingest nothing except water for a limited period of time. A second level of intensity might be to trigger a fasting state in the body with a carnivore diet, meaning nothing but meat…or beef, specifically. (Nose to tail deep nutrition is important there.)

Touchpoints 180™

But in most cases, a properly-formulated, nutritious diet of very low carbohydrates, moderate servings of protein, and high fat, creates this therapeutic state of therapeutic nutritional ketosis. This is the treatment strategy we use in our Touchpoints 180™ program — with striking results. Our patients see proof day in and day out that mitochondria can help heal your brain. And that it can last. So do their families.

Are YOU sick and tired of being sick and tired?

If you struggle with a whole cluster of symptoms like Dr. Palmer and I have talked about here, and nothing you’ve tried has made a difference, call us.

See what the science of nutritional psychiatry can do to restore your joy… and your life.

We’re here to partner with you in your recovery to living a better life. We can show you how.

To the restoration of your best self,

February 19, 2024
Metabolic Psychiatry Can Heal Your Brain AND Your Body

Crystal wobbled, then caught herself with her hand on the table. Whoa…I’m dizzy. She took a breath, then planted her feet and felt steady enough to keep moving. As she dug through her purse, her hands couldn’t find her keys in her purse, so she dug deeper. Sighhh…where are they?? After dropping her purse on the table, she looked over the kitchen countertops and saw no keys. Walking through the house, she found no keys in the bathroom or bedroom. Nope, not the living room, either. Scratching her chin, she started opening cabinets. Then the refrigerator. Wow! There they were, ice cold, next to the cream she had used for her coffee. She rolled her eyes. My head is filled with clouds, she thought. She didn’t realize that metabolic psychiatry can heal so many of these symptoms.

Grabbing her keys, Crystal pulled her purse strap over her shoulder, and started out the door to the car.

Weight Gain, Blood Sugar, and Depression

She’d struggled with her blood sugar for 8 years. Her weight had been slowly but steadily climbing. When she went on diets and lost some, she gained it right back.

Now her doctor was referring her to an endocrinologist and cardiologist. He was concerned for her Type 2 diabetes, her blood pressure, and her cholesterol. He told her they often go hand in hand. Anxiety climbed to her throat, choking her, as she drove on.

But it wasn’t just her cholesterol, dizziness, and blood sugar that worried her. She’d lost her motivation. It was getting harder and harder to get up and get things done. Her house was becoming more cluttered, the laundry was lagging behind. Her bathroom hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, and her sheets needed to be changed.

I don’t even recognize myself anymore. What’s wrong with me?

She stopped at her favorite drive-through on the way to order a cheeseburger, French fries, and a diet Coke. After wolfing it down, she felt like she could go to the doctor appointment without feeling so hungry. If only she understood how this high carbohydrate meal was making her worse… and that metabolic psychiatry can heal.

Once she got out of the car, she could hardly walk into the office.

They sent her to the lab for a blood draw, then back to the exam room. She liked the doctor. He was easy to talk to, and understanding about her lack of energy, motivation, and her struggle to find the initiative to cook more nutritious meals for herself.

Her Doctor Gets Real

Then, he leaned against the counter, and said, “I’m going to level with you, Crystal. I think all of the symptoms you’re struggling with are related. They have a common cause.

“They’re all related to your metabolism, which has become dysregulated. Metabolic illness can cause you to gain weight. It makes your waist expand, it can cause depression, brain fog, and anxiety. It can result in high cholesterol, high blood pressure, poor energy, and difficulty making decisions and sticking by them. And type 2 diabetes can cause a host of other problems, like the dizziness from low blood sugar, brain fog, and poor thinking.

“We need to work together to get your metabolism healthy and resilient. Doing that will help relieve all these symptoms you’re experiencing. I’ll be keeping a close eye on your blood sugars and your A1C, and your cardiologist will oversee your heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol.

“You need a psychiatrist for your depression, anxiety, brain fog, and panic attacks. I’m referring you to one here in the area who’s got a whole treatment program that can treat those symptoms and turn your metabolism around all at the same time. One of my patients with her lost 60 lbs, and was able to come off medication–hers and mine! Metabolic psychiatry can treat all these symptoms, in addition to those your cardiologist will monitor.

The thing about all these metabolic symptoms you’re experiencing is that they form a vicious cycle. Depression makes you want to eat foods that aren’t healthy, and eating those foods makes your depression worse. Then, you gain weight which makes you feel more out of control and that feeds your depression and drives up your blood sugar and cholesterol. And on and on it goes.

Touchpoints 180™

“The beauty is that by working with this doctor’s program, you get benefits for all these other conditions. She’ll focus on your psychiatric conditions, but the program will help you lose body fat consistently, bring down your A1c and your insulin, and that will eventually resolve your diabetic symptoms, and improve your cholesterol and blood pressure, as well.

“She calls her program Touchpoints180™ and it would be so perfect for you. It’s the first of its kind anywhere. We’re fortunate to have it here in the area.

“Here’s her website. Give her a call and instead of jumping on medication now that I know you don’t want, see what you can do to get your metabolism on track — body and brain. Then I’ll see you back in 3 months.” As he handed the slip of paper to Crystal, her heart did a little leap. Not what she expected. It felt like hope.

When she reached her car, she didn’t want to wait another minute. She pulled up the website on the slip of paper, found the phone number, and called.

She was able to arrange an appointment quickly.

Metabolic Psychiatry Changes Her Life

The doctor evaluated her on a psychiatric and metabolic level. It was medical psychiatry but also holistic psychiatry and integrative. Everything was pulled in. Then, she met with an experienced ketogenic registered dietitian/nutritionist for a deep dive nutritional assessment, looking at her history, her food story, what she liked and didn’t like, and what had happened to her as she gained weight, did develop yo-yo dieting, and got more and more sick of herself.

But instead of feeling bad about herself, she felt heard. Instead of judgement, she found hope.

They really get this, she thought.

Joint Feedback: Psychiatrist and Ketogenic Registered Dietitian-Nutritionist

They both explained how food is the best medicine for her brain cells, as well as those in the rest of her body. There was more about how metabolic psychiatry can heal so much in the body. They talk about this as not a fad, but a leading-edge treatment that could be used to actually get her symptoms to STOP. Comprehensive treatment that was designed personally for her brain, and her body by the whole team, not a download from an app created with AI.

It included both scheduled and drop-in activities, in person and virtual — like walks in nature, building friendships, support for her family and friends, meetings with her to help her maintain therapeutic nutritional ketosis. They introduced her to the idea of meticulous monitoring, labs, biometrics, and digital tools, and explained how it all worked together and why all of this was important.

They didn’t say, “Let’s see how it goes.” They said, “You’re going to feel amazing.”

She felt supported, a new and refreshing element that was unusual in a doctor’s office. She was more accustomed to being told to lose weight. Then 3 months later, being criticized for not losing enough.

This was a whole new experience. And she liked it.

She left the office… which was lovely — in fact more like a spa … armed with a whole new idea of what to keep in the house, what groceries to pick up, what to order out….and excited about joining their nature walks, working with them closely for advice and questions, reading the next book for their book club — she couldn’t believe they ran a BookClub! She got geared up, preparing to learn new recipes, new meal structures, and new digital apps.

She had to push through her anxiety to show up for it all, and she wasn’t sure she’d try it all out all right away, but something this important deserved her best effort. After all, this was her chance to get better… to even maybe get well.

Getting Started

Her first meal was delicious and satisfying. This wasn’t anything like any low-cal diet she’d been on before where still was still hungry when she got up from the table. There was no sense of deprivation. Just her agreement to get rid of carbohydrate-heavy foods – and toss them.

So, into the bin went potatoes, bread, rolls, biscuits, rice, and powdered sugar for frosting on cakes. Then she filled her fridge with butter, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, sharp cheddar, avocados, chicken, shrimp, salmon, ribeye steak, and all colors of bell peppers, leafy greens, and broccoli.

Crystal was set for her first week.

The program was active, and the walks in the fresh air began to pierce her isolation. She noticed she began to look forward to those walks, and filling her lungs with fresh air. She even began to venture into conversation.

This idea of walking outdoors among the trees with her doctor was a whole new paradigm. Who ever heard of such a thing? But it was confidence-building, and comforting at the same time. If it weren’t for all of the different opportunities to connect, she would never have walked like this by herself. Metabolic Psychiatry really does heal.

But she wanted to get better.

So she just kept showing up as scheduled. Within about 3 weeks, she realized she was relaxing. The anxiety was gone. She hadn’t had a panic attack in awhile. She also was thinking more clearly. Crystal marveled at the changes she was seeing in herself.

And she was losing weight!

So this is how this works. Touchpoints 180™ is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. Who knew it could be so easy? All I have to do is make it my priority and show up, prepare and eat the meals. Participate in phone calls. Extraordinary.

Six months after she began participating in Touchpoints 180™ Crystal had lost 38 lbs. Her A1C had reduced dramatically. It was still within the “diabetic” range, but her blood sugars were becoming lower and more stable. And she knew this wasn’t some diet she would eventually abandon.

She knew this was a whole therapeutic lifestyle she could continue. So she did, and it got easier and easier as her A1C continued to drop and improve over time. Now she actually believed that her diabetes would eventually resolve.

Meanwhile, her muscle tone had improved from all the walking, and the depression had faded, leaving her with a much brighter outlook. She hadn’t experienced panic in months, and felt so much more control in her life.

And a big bonus: her mind was clear. Clearer than it had been in many years. She was just amazed. Keeping up with her keys was so easy now, along with a host of things that used to baffle her.

Crystal felt younger, more energetic, and liked the way she looked. So confidence building. And this was just the beginning.

A year later, she had dropped 4 sizes, and had gotten her sassiness back. She felt like herself again. Metabolic Psychiatry and Touchpoints 180™ really can heal.

And she continued with Touchpoints 180™ to benefit from the advice, monitoring, and help with changes in her food preparation to slow down her weight loss, and maintain her weight, which was just right.

Her A1C was 5.6, and she was technically no longer a Type 2 diabetic. But she knew that without this lifestyle, it could all reverse. So she stuck with the lifestyle that worked, and all the support that went with it.

Life Transforming

This metabolic intervention had not only transformed her brain but it had also transformed her life. She would never have believed it until she experienced it.

Do you struggle with the symptoms Crystal did?

Metabolic dysfunction can create an array of symptoms like s evere depression, OCD, panic attacks, severe anxiety, bipolar disorder, an eating disorder, or alcohol misuse. We harness all of the latest research (and contribute to it!) in metabolic psychiatry to create carefully formulated, therapeutic low carb and ketogenic treatment in Touchpoints 180™ program. We want to reverse what’s gone wrong, heal your symptoms and give you back your life.

If you can relate to Crystal’s story, and want to get both your brain and your body health, call us.

We’re here to figure it all out, help you, guide you, and walk shoulder to shoulder with you, to find your best self ever.

To the restoration of your best self,

February 12, 2024
Ozempic Risky? Try Touchpoints 180™ For Weight Loss w/o Cancer

If you’re struggling with weight gain that’s causing other health problems like Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression…maybe social anxiety… and every time you manage to lose weight, you just gain it back… let’s talk. You need an alternative to traditional weight loss diets, rather than weight loss medications, or fads. If you’ve talked to your doctor about medications that can help you lose weight and/or manage your diabetes symptoms, you may be struggling with the potential risks of these meds. The most prominent medicines that produce weight loss may also help with Type II diabetes. We’re talking about Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound. Studies have shown people lose significant weight on these medications, when taken a year or more. But are they all they’re cracked up to be? What about the risk of thyroid cancer? Let’s take a closer look at weight loss w/o cancer.

Ozempic for Type II Diabetes

Ozempic is a medication FDA-approved for Type II diabetes. It also helps with weight loss, and some doctors may prescribe it off label for that. Because it’s been so widely marketed, it has come to be the general term for a weight loss medication used to treat diabetes.

You might think of it similar to the way people say, “Coke” referring to any soft drink, or “Vaseline” referring to some type of lubricant.

So, Ozempic has become the general term for a class of injectable weight loss drugs used to treat diabetes. But, it’s not the only one, as we’ve mentioned, and they aren’t all the same.

In the case of Ozempic, it was originally FDA approved for the treatment of Type II diabetes at small doses of 0.5mg and 1mg in 2017. Then, by 2022, it had been approved at 2mg doses.

It’s a glucagon-like peptide1 agonist, that works by imitating a hormone that’s produced naturally in your body. That hormone is called glucagon-like peptide 1. So Ozempic, and medications like it, are called GLP-1 agonists, or sometimes just GLP-1 drugs. As in, “I want my doctor to give me one of those GLP-1’s.”

It’s music to the ears of Big Pharma.

GLP-1 stimulates the secretion of insulin, suppresses a hormone called glucagon, and increases a satisfied, or “full” feeling by slowing the emptying of your stomach.

Since glucagon helps you to feel hungry, suppressing it tamps down your appetite. On top of that, by slowing your digestion, you feel full longer.

Another thing this drug does is focus on some areas of the brain, like the hypothalamus, where you find your appetite control, as well as choices you make about eating. Sounds promising on the surface, doesn’t it? But there’s more to the story.

Wegovy for Weight Loss Specifically

A drug similar to Ozempic, but FDA-approved for weight loss specifically, is Wegovy. Each of these medicines is a brand name for the same medication, called semaglutide, but they’re offered in different dosing devices.

Ozempic comes in a multi-use injecting pen, and Wegovy — which dispenses at a higher dose — is offered in a single use, disposable pen. So even though they’re basically the same medicine, they’re not FDA-approved to treat the same condition, and as such, the pens dispense different dosages.

While those are just little details, there are lots of big potential problems with this medicine, whether it’s under the brand name of Ozempic, or Wegovy, or it’s a knock-off version, a non-FDA-approved compounded formulation of semaglutide.

Moderate to severe gastrointestinal symptoms like nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or constipation, pancreatitis, gastroparesis (paralysis of the stomach), gallbladder disease, diabetic retinopathy, and allergic reactions.

Loss of important lean muscle — almost as much, pound for pound, as the loss of fat (about 40% of the weight loss is muscle) — lean muscle that you may never be able to build back. A huge deal because muscle is very metabolically active and you need it to keep the weight off once you’ve lost it.

Because if you go off the drug, and you gain back the weight you lost, you’ll likely gain it all back as fat. (It doesn’t usually come back on as fat plus muscle.)

In addition, and even more alarming, is the risk for thyroid cancer. Studies conducted to identify the link between these semaglutide medicines, found a moderate risk of thyroid cancer, although they couldn’t identify whether the risk was specific for medullary or papillary thyroid cancer.
Think about that for a minute.

Not a rare risk. Not a slight risk. A moderately increased risk of cancer.

When you consider the seriousness of this risk — actuallly all the risks — and all of the lawsuits that have already been filed against the companies, the doctors and the pop-up shops dispensing compounded versions of these — you should take a breath… and consider whether these semaglutide medicines are your only option. Surely there’s a path to weight loss w/o cancer.

And, well, there are two more we can discuss.

But, not sure they’re preferable alternatives. See what you think.

Mounjaro and Zepbound

Mounjaro is FDA-approved for Type II diabetes, and Zepbound is FDA-approved for weight loss. Sound familiar?

It should. This pair is two versions of the same medicine, like Ozempic and Wegovy are. It’s just a different medicine. Tirzepatide.

Tirzepatide

This medicine, more familiar by the brand names Mounjaro and Zepbound, works by imitating two hormones, instead of the single one that Ozempic and Wegovy use.

These two hormone mimickers are glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor and the GLP-1 receptor agonist like Ozempic and Wegovy. Both of the hormones these two mimic are “satiety” hormones. Your body releases them in the intestines, so you know when you’ve had enough to eat.

By using this double hormone approach, Mounjaro seems to be more effective at controlling glucose levels. Plus, Mounjaro and Zepbound yield greater average weight loss than the GLP-1 medicines alone.

So, what’s not to love about tirzepatide?

Well, it’s the side effects. Some say they aren’t as severe as those for the GLP-1, or semaglutide medicines. And by combining the two mechanisms of action, GIP and GLP-1, the side effects might be easier to tolerate. You might not get so nauseous. You might not throw up every day. Trouble is, it was only FDA approved in May 2022, so there’s lots to learn.

But those gastrointestinal symptoms are still side effects of tirzepatide —Mounjaro and Zepbound — and the moderately high risk of thyroid cancer when you use these medications is real.

So what do you do if you live with obesity and the diseases associated with it, like type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, anxiety, PTSD…

You do need to lose weight, and you need to feel better. Is injectable medicine that’s rife with side effects and risks your only option? Is there any other option to achieve weight loss w/o cancer?

Yes!! There is Something Better!

There’s a special intervention that’s based on metabolic science. Metabolic psychiatry makes use of therapeutic nutritional ketosis to shift your body’s method of generating energy for your cells from glucose to ketones. By eating very low amounts of carbohydrates, and high amounts of healthy fats, your body will transition its method of generating energy, and will continue to consume those fats you eat, as well as your body fat, to continue to fuel your cells.

Well-fueled cells are happy cells, and when they’re happy, your body functions so much better in so many ways.

Ketones are natural, and they’re made by your body, in your body, and we’re genetically wired to produce them… easily. We have been since the dawn of time. They are a much more efficient and beneficial fuel that help all your cells function better—especially cells in the brain and heart. Your brain cells will operate at their best, clearing out brain fog, depression, and anxiety.

Conditions like bipolar disorder, social anxiety, PTSD, and eating disorders can fade away. (We were the first to publish stunning results with this treatment approach in one of the deadliest psychiatric disorders, anorexia!) and we continue to break new ground with real-world scientific results from our practice showing how easy this can be, what it takes to adopt and maintain nutritional ketosis, and what it takes to make depression and anxiety go away. And all the while, if you’re overweight, your weight will likely steadily decrease. And what’s more, it’s the healthiest, safest way to lose weight: it’s weight loss w/o risk of thyroid cancer!

We call it metabolic health. And metabolic health leads to mental health.

Touchpoints 180™ – Your Better Alternative to Health

The funny thing about Type II diabetes is that it disappears once you get metabolically healthy. You’ll see your A1C slowly decrease until it finally drops below 5.7, and your diabetes symptoms are gone. The numbers are living proof that your body is healing. HDL’s of 96. Triglycerides of 66. You become the living proof of glowing health.

Delicious Ketogenic Diet

Eating this ketogenic diet is like eating gourmet food every day. It’s just a matter of choosing all your favorites in the good fats category. Perfectly prepared North Atlantic wild caught salmon, with a cream based dill sauce, if you like. Lightly browned scallops in garlic butter. Sounds delectable, doesn’t it? Sautéed spinach, snow peas, sliced mushrooms, with sweet peppers and tomatoes in butter and olive oil with balsamic vinegar alongside a tender filet mignon. Caprese chicken with basil and mozzarella cheese. Grilled avocados with roast brisket, feta cheese, sour cream, and pesto.

And we’ve got ways to make a well-formulated ketogenic diet work for any budget.

Mouth watering yet?

This isn’t deprivation, it’s not a fad diet, and it’s not the Wild West out there that you see on You Tube. A well-formulated, medically supervised ketogenic diet is a metabolic intervention to give your body the fuel it needs to restore itself. It uses food as medicine to help you get healthy and well. Mental health and freedom from symptoms that have lingered for years can finally be yours. Weight loss (where you lose body fat and not muscle) is the beautiful side effect of this intervention.

Touchpoints 180™ is our special, customized program to help you achieve therapeutic nutritional ketosis, so you can get better.

It includes support from a remarkable registered dietitian/nutritionist, nature walks, phone calls, and lots of education. We even have a LowCarb Lifestyles Book Club every month for our patients.

We’re so dedicated to education and empowerment that we’ve opened it to the public and offered it on MeetUp.com. (If you’d have told me 20 years ago, when I was at Hopkins, Harvard, and Yale, that I’d be doing nature walks and book clubs with my patients I’d have laughed—that just wasn’t what doctors did then. But it’s on the cutting edge of what doctors can do now).

We don’t just talk. We walk the walk, and we walk it with you.

Because we know how extraordinarily life-changing it is.

Why on earth risk thyroid cancer, serious gastric conditions, and the misery that goes with them… when you can have great food, improved energy, better cognition, and mental clarity — and watch your symptoms of diabetes, obesity, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, brain fog and even PCOS, melt away?

Enjoy a beautiful and delicious path to weight loss w/o cancer.

If you’d like guidance and support to improve your metabolic health and gain a healthy, bright outlook, call us.

We’re so excited about what global research in metabolic health is revealing for your improved overall health and wellbeing.

Join us and let’s work together for you to live your best life.

To the restoration of your best self,

February 5, 2024
Ketogenic Diet Weighs In: Sugar Addiction and Mental Health Now

Jenni paused to try to remember what she was doing. Coffee. That was it. Her mind was so foggy, as if her head was stuffed with peanut butter. Or styrofoam. Uggghhhh… she thought. Maybe coffee will help. But truth be told, she doubted it would help enough. She was tempted to sit down and abandon the coffee idea… but she pressed on. While she sipped the steaming beverage from her mug, she thought about the hopelessness she felt, and the futility. The irritability. And the agitation. How she wished she could remain calm and serene. That she could move through the routine of each day unruffled. But little things made her explode at times, then hate herself for it. Jenni caught her reflection as she walked past the mirror in the entry hall. Ugghhh, she thought again. Jenni hardly recognized herself anymore. She’d really gained a lot of weight these last 7 months. It was so discouraging. And…it was weird…she didn’t feel like she ate that much. How had she gained so much weight? She’d heard about sugar addiction, and even mental health exercises that might help, but didn’t believe any kind of addiction applied to her.

Chasing Energy and Relief in all the Wrong Places

And why did she feel so draggy, so run down, without stamina? Why so hungry when she’d already eaten? The gnawing craving for pizza, potato chips and dips, festive coffee drinks and soda, plagued her. She finally quit fighting it, drove the car to her fav caffeine drive-through, and ordered a venti coffee loaded with syrups and topped with whipped cream. Plus a croissant sandwich. And a frosted cookie.

There. That should hit the spot.

She wolfed down the sandwich, sipped on the coffee voraciously, and finally took big bites out of the beautiful, artistically decorated cookie. She was beginning to feel some relief.

For now, she felt less irritable, almost soothed. So she headed home after a quick stop at the convenience store to grab a bag of potato chips and some dip, a frozen pizza for later, along with some Rocky Road ice cream. And, of course, popcorn.

Each time she began to feel down again, she brainstormed and treated herself to a carbohydrate-rich delight. Cookies, frosting, frothy coffee, chips, dip, ice cream. It was amazing how much better she felt as she bit into them. However, by the third bite or so, the pleasure faded. Nevertheless, she finished eating them, anyway.

Over and over, every day. Desperately seeking relief via food pleasure.

By the time she finished the treat she’d been devouring, the pleasure was gone, and her emotions sank, along with her energy.

One day, she checked her email, and there was one seeking applicants for an “overeaters” club. While that certainly didn’t apply to her( or so she thought), she wondered if making friends at such a club might allow her to meet people who had ideas about her low energy, irritability, agitation, and feelings of futility – that seemed to be her constant companions.

So she read the entire email and found some links at the bottom. One of them caught her attention.

Your dysfunctional metabolism may be causing your depression which may be caused by your dysfunctional metabolism. What??

What’s metabolism got to do with depression? She clicked on the link out of pure curiosity, and discovered it was an article that connected depression, anxiety, agitation, and feelings of futility with your metabolism, and how you can treat those symptoms with certain types of foods, exercise and movement, social relationships, and maybe even meditation.

It seemed to imply that craving and eating sugary foods could be a sign of sugar addiction, and that could cause mental health symptoms. Shocking...

She read on.

What is this? Some sort of hype…? She wondered. Some sort of woo woo group?

As Jenni kept reading, she learned that current neuropsychiatric research and practice provided evidence that the kinds of symptoms that were plaguing her were connected to metabolic dysfunction.

Inflammation Can Cause Psychiatric Symptoms

She learned that metabolic disease often included inflammation, and inflammation is often involved in psychiatric symptoms. Symptoms of depression, anxiety, rage, irritability, agitation… these are often associated with inflammation. The worse the inflammation, the more intense the symptoms.

And this inflammation can be linked with ultra processed foods… and sugar. She read that when your metabolism is out of whack, you tend to crave sugar and carbohydrate-heavy foods.

Because – and this was a surprise – sugar is actually not needed for your health or survival. Who knew?? That, in fact, your natural digestion takes healthy foods like protein and turns them into the glucose (biological sugar) your body needs. So when you consume refined sugar – the white stuff – it’s always in excess of what you need. And it’s addictive. That’s why they call it sugar addiction, and it has consequences to your mental health.

Feeding the Monster: Sugar Addiction and Mental Health

Unfortunately, when you eat it, you want more. It triggers your pleasure center in your brain, which makes you want even more. But the more of it you eat, the less pleasure you experience…so you want to eat more to experience that pleasure again… And more. And then… well, after you stop eating it, you can start to feel withdrawals, so you want more still to make that feeling go away and the pleasure to return.

The trouble is, eating sugar and other ultra processed foods like hot dogs, potato chips, frozen pizza, candy, cake, donuts, and ice cream, feeds the sugar addiction, and you don’t get the nutrients your brain needs to function properly. These foods feed the inflammation. And when your brain is inflamed, it doesn’t get sore like an inflamed throat gets sore, or swell like an inflamed sprained ankle.

Instead, it malfunctions with symptoms like agitation, depression, irritability, and anxiety… manic symptoms. Even psychosis. Maybe your moods change rapidly. Maybe your memory isn’t so good anymore. Or maybe you develop an eating disorder. Those brain cells can’t function like they’re supposed to.

And to get better, it’s vital that you eat very small amounts of carbohydrates.

We’ve all done it—many of us grew up eating ultra processed foods, full of unhealthy seed oils, high sugar and lots of carbs. But feeding you body and brain that way over time means your metabolism suffers, and your become malnourished because your food is not nourishing. Even though you may appear obese on the outside, inside your cells are starving. They need the vitamins and minerals you get from whole foods like vegetables, omega 3 fatty acids from fatty fish like salmon and avocados, healthy and nutrient-dense animal fats, flavonoids from onions, lettuce, tomatoes, cheese… These are foods that feed your cells. Eating these foods, and removing ultra processed foods from your diet, as well as excessive carbohydrates, is using food as medicine. In fact, the right food IS medicine.

At the bottom of the page was listed a doctor whose practice focused on Metabolic Psychiatry. It’s metabolic medicine geared specifically to restore mental health.

Jenni slept on it. Then, in the morning as her sugar cravings began to crowd in again, she called that doctor and made an appointment.

The doctor discussed metabolic dysfunction, how damaging too much carbohydrates and refined sugar can be, and explained the approach she uses, a wrap-around program with all kinds of opportunities to build knowledge, support and success.

Jenni learned more about the symptoms that had plagued her, about the sugar addiction and how it was sabotaging her body and her brain. And her emotional stability!

Touchpoints 180™

She was excited by the sophisticated work-up, the digital tools, the in-person connections and the personalization of it all. This wasn’t a one- size-fits-all handout, or a conveyor belt approach with nameless people behind a great logo. And starting wasn’t nearly as hard as she had feared. The rich and healthy foods that were prescribed for her were so satisfying that her cravings for sugar started to slip away.

Although there were moments over the coming weeks when she wistfully thought about those foods she was no longer eating, something had changed. She didn’t want them anymore, didn’t go out driving around to find them, and she realized she wasn’t eating something just to eat it.

Her brain felt different. Her thinking was different.

So this is what it’s like to take food as medicine. She liked it!

It Wasn’t Long Before She Felt the Improvement

Most importantly, she was feeling better and better. Feeling more upbeat, less reactive, and more and more with a sense of just…well-being.

And it just kept improving… Meanwhile, in the next several weeks she noticed her pants waist fitting more loosely… then her top began to hang from her shoulders. Her belly was shrinking! She started wearing clothes she used to wear that were a size smaller; then in 3 months, 2 sizes smaller. Wow oh wow!

From what she’d learned and more importantly, what she saw and felt, her body was metabolizing her fat, and she was losing weight without feeling hungry or tired. What a reward!

With all she’d learned about her metabolism and her health, she had no intention of returning to her old dysfunctional way of living (and eating). This was easy. She felt content. Less and less volatile. More at peace.

Jenni had found freedom in her body from her sugar addiction, and especially a bright outlook and mental clarity. The symptoms of agitation, futility, and hopelessness all quietly subsided.

She found she had patience when she would have exploded before. Her confidence in her ability to manage her life bloomed.

Are you struggling with your weight… and maybe an unrelenting addiction to sugar?

Do you have symptoms of Type 2 diabetes or other metabolic illness along with psychiatric symptoms?

If you struggle with brain fog, irritability, agitation, hallucinations, depression…and nothing you’ve done has helped, call us. We’re breaking new ground.

Come and join us in using a new and healthy approach, Ketogenic Psychiatry, Touchpoints 180™, and see what evaluation, guidance, and support can do to transform your life, your health, and your joy as you move forward in your best life.

To the restoration of your best self,

January 22, 2024
Ultraprocessed Foods and Depression? Get Relief with a Keto Diet!

Trish sludged through the day. Life had gotten so hard. Her nursing job had become almost insurmountable. Patients needed her, but her energy was drastically depleted, and she didn’t know why. The mental acuity she’d always relied on… seemed spongy, foggy somehow. If she couldn’t fix this, she could lose her job. Then what would she do? She decided she could take a break before her patients needed their next round of medications, so she slipped into the break room to try to clear her head. A bag of chips, a packaged sugar-free cinnamon roll from the machine, and a diet drink might revive me, she thought. After the break, she felt weighed down, and her outlook was no better. The food felt good while she was eating it, but didn’t do much for her condition. Little did she realize, these ultraprocessed foods (UPF) and her depression symptoms were related.

Too Much Artificial Sweetener

Somehow she finished her shift, and drove home. She kicked off her shoes, and stretched out on the sofa. Before long, she was asleep.

Around midnight, she woke up – so foggy-headed – and stumbled to her bed.

At 5am, her alarm sounded. She dragged herself out of bed and into the shower.

I feel so bad. This is awful. How can I get the real me back? Trish was beginning to feel desperate.

She called in sick to work, then made an appointment with her doctor. While she sat in the waiting room, she noticed a printed article on the table about ultraprocessed foods. As she glanced over it, she saw it reported a study about the link between ultraprocessed foods and depression.

Depression? She wondered…

It described a study of 31,712 women who reported information about their diet every four years. The average age of the women was 52, and since Trish was 51, she thought this might apply to her.

So she kept reading. The study found that those who consumed more than 8.8 servings a day of artificial sweeteners or artificially sweetened drinks, had a 50% higher risk of depression than those who consumed less than 4 daily servings.

Alarming!

It was incredible that nurses were the subjects of the study! Since Trish was a nurse herself, she wondered if all this was related to how super busy nurses are, and how they often have trouble taking time to eat healthy food — and often survive on snacks, diet drinks, and iced tea with artificial sweeteners…? She could sure relate to that.

The article pointed out that it would require a vast amount of research to study all the elements in ultraprocessed foods. Plus, whether each one is associated with depression. Still, they did find a strong link between high consumption of artificial sweeteners and episodes of depression.

Wow–artificial sweeteners, or sugar, is in just about everything you buy that is low fat or low cal, or zero cal.

Was Her Consumption of UPF Too High?

Trish contemplated this. Could it be?

She also knew that there were plenty of nurses who watched what they ate more closely than she did, and who drank water instead of diet drinks. They also were the ones who kept their stamina up by jogging or working out at the gym before or after work. Overall, they were the health conscious ones.

For Trish, the idea of exerting herself any more than she already did at work…well, it sounded like a defeated idea before she even tried. She had absolutely no extra energy for all that, and didn’t feel emotionally up to putting out any extra effort. She was doing all she could with her job, and bolstered herself with caffeine.

It was all she could handle, doing all she could with just her job — and she certainly bolstered herself with caffeine. Coffee, Starbucks, Dunkin, and diet drinks — she liked them all. And she always used artificial sweeteners, because she didn’t want the calories of sugar.

Ultraprocessed Foods Linked to Depression – What a Concept!

When she was called in to see her doctor, she mentioned the article. She described her symptoms, her misery, and her worry that she was losing her ability to do her job well.

He nodded his head in agreement throughout her comments.

He said, “Trish, you do sound depressed. That would account for your outlook, feeling overwhelmed, and your lack of energy. It could also be contributing to your weight gain, high blood pressure, and cholesterol. It’s amazing how all these symptoms seem to go together with a metabolism out of whack. Recent studies like the one you read about today support the need to get your metabolism back on track.

A Program With a Solution

“I’d like you to see a psychiatrist near here who has a wonderful practice in Metabolic Psychiatry. Her program helps people whose metabolisms are out of balance, and the consequential depression… as well as other metabolic problems.

Touchpoints 180™

“She offers a comprehensive program, without medication, that can treat your depression. The beauty is that it will likely resolve your brain fog, as well as energy deficit…and will help you lose weight easily, too. Many people see their cholesterol drop, and their blood pressure, too.

“Why don’t you make an appointment with her, work on her program, and come back and see me in 3 months? We’ll re-evaluate your symptoms again at that point.”

Trish left with a renewed sense of purpose.

She didn’t feel any better, but maybe this new doctor could help her get to the bottom of what was wrong with her body and outlook. Once she reached her car, she called the number her doctor had given her, and made an appointment to be evaluated for their Metabolic Psychiatry program.

Metabolic Psychiatry

After she met with the psychiatrist, and with the registered dietitian-nutritionist, Trish learned about how they would use food as medicine, by helping her switch from glucose to ketones as the primary energy source for her cells. She learned that would help her achieve therapeutic nutritional ketosis, and how that would improve her energy, clear her brain fog, lift her depression, and tamp down the anxiety.

There was so much science here that for once, she believed it.

Plus, she learned that once her body was in therapeutic nutritional ketosis, it would seek fat to consume for energy, making use of excess body fat, as well as good fats in her diet. She knew about the mitochondria being the power house of the cells, but had never learned about all this before.

So that’s how it helps you lose weight, she thought.

The Registered Dietitian provided her with so many opportunities to fine tune this, learn, eat food that she really liked, with customized ideas for meals …and showed her what to do to ensure she stayed ketogenic when she was at work. Options, food that was easy, and ratios that were right for her.

Ultraprocessed Foods Linked to Depression: Especially Sweeteners

The first step she took was to drop diet drinks from her diet… and switch to water, like the health conscious nurses she worked with. The research had blown her away. The dietitian encouraged her to think in terms of feeding her cells with efficient energy through ketones, rather than trying to compensate with caffeine.

So, she stopped at the grocery store to buy whole, healthy foods for her new diet. Things like salmon, scallops, chicken, cream for sauces, cheeses, olive oil, eggs, broccoli, bell peppers, and pistachios.

It was a little uncomfortable tapering off all that caffeine, and getting away from the sweeteners and the diet drinks. But it got easier quickly. Within a week she could feel an improvement in her brain fog.

How about that? She mumbled to herself when she noticed. So far, so good…

Transformative Ketogenic Diet

After a long weekend, she was ready to go back to work. She took small snacks of cheese and fresh vegetables, and bottles of water, so she could avoid the cafeteria or vending machine. Last night, she had prepared salmon and broccoli for dinner, so she brought left-overs for lunch. She realized some simple planning was going to help this new lifestyle work.

When she got off work that afternoon, she drove home, then walked to the nearby park. She hadn’t enjoyed the fresh air — or even noticed it — in a very long time. Something was improving.

Trish found she was beginning to feel enjoyment again over the coming weeks…a feeling like it was good to be alive. The overwhelm that had suffocated her seemed to be subsiding, and she found she had the energy to get her work done with time to spare.

3 Months Showed Her the Proof of the Pudding

When she returned to her PCP 3 months later, she’d lost 12 lbs, and had never expected that much! Plus, her blood pressure was improving. Wow. It was working!

After her bloodwork, she decided to go to the animal shelter and see if she could find a kitty to take home. Actually, she read she should adopt 2 kittens to keep each other company while she was at work. It was a fun exercise, and she marveled that she had the emotional energy to consider a pet. She decided to give it a little time to be sure she was stabilized before she added the responsibility of another household member. But it was fun to think about.

Two days later, she heard from her doctor’s office that her blood sugar and triglycerides were coming down, too.

The combination of her improved cognition, her mental clarity, and bright outlook, and the changes she was seeing in her body (and her bloodwork) were all proof that this was the lifestyle change she needed, and she got excited about continuing to living this life, this way. She didn’t want to ever go back to the awful way she felt before.

6 Months and She was On All New Ground

To celebrate 6 months of ketogenic living, she decided she was plenty stable and getting better every day. So she drove to the animal shelter and played with the kittens. Two of them, a gray and white one, and an orange tabby, were especially playful with her, so she adopted them both and took them home.

She named the gray and white one Keto, and the tabby seemed like a Genie. Every time she called them by name she was reminded of her new life, new hope, and new metabolism because of ketogenic psychiatry.

She could have named them Hope and Joy, but this was far more thrilling. Gratitude filled her heart as she looked at these two babies pouncing all over her house, her legs, and her heart.

At 52, Trish had a new lease on life.

How is the New Year looking for you?

Do you have hope, energy, and purpose? Or do you feel overwhelmed, fatigued, mentally fuzzy, and discouraged?

Metabolic Psychiatry can help you get your metabolism back on track, improve your A1C, brighten your outlook, relieve depression symptoms, increase your physical and mental energy, and restore your hope and enjoyment in life. A big help can be reducing ultraprocessed foods that are linked to depression… especially artificial sweeteners.

And by eating low carbohydrate foods, and foods high in good fats, you can give your cells what they need to thrive.

Using food as medicine, you can feel restored and healthy again.

If you suffer with symptoms of depression, overwhelm, lack of energy, and other metabolic symptoms like Trish, and you’re sick of it, call us.

Our Touchpoints 180™ program can help you find the real you again, relieve you of metabolic and depression symptoms, without medication…using food as your medicine.

You’ll be amazed at how much better, and hopeful, you can feel.

To the restoration of your best self,

January 8, 2024
There’s Hope After a Long Life of Debilitating Depression

David looked in the mirror. He looked tired, sad, empty. He’d tried so hard to find solutions. For as long as he could remember. And suicidal thoughts … they’d always been there. Since he was four, life had seemed so empty and futile. Packed with disillusionment upon disillusionment … and disappointment. He could remember when he was only 6 years old, wondering if he drank a bottle of window cleaner, if the pain would end. He’d lived his life having too many days when he just couldn’t get out of bed, or face even routine tasks. Now he was 45, and he felt like he’d tried it all. Two decades of psychotherapy that better equipped him for living a circumspect life, but never relieved the pain and emptiness. He was losing hope after a long life of debilitating depression, because nothing seemed to help.

A Lifetime of Depression

In his 30’s, he’d worked with psychiatrists for years, trying SSRIs, SNRIs, and testosterone replacement. Each effort gave some mild relief, but never seemed to touch the core problem.

Then, in his 40’s, he worked with brilliant professionals in prominent university hospitals, did the whole thing, looked for help in every good place. But only recently did me meet someone who worked at the front lines of innovation.

Her name was Bea, and she had a deep knowledge of nutrition at the cell level. They met for lunch, and she talked about her work with mitochondria, the proverbial “power house” in the cell. The more she talked, the more glued he became to her every word.

She talked about her research partners, and what they were learning about mental health. She explained how the mitochondria in each cell are the source of mental and physical energy. That if they aren’t producing enough energy, then the person lacks the mental, emotional, and physical energy he needs to function.

That concept hijacked David’s attention. He’d been held hostage by a long life of debilitating depression. He’d spent his entire life trying to find ways to simply function consistently. This was an explanation that had never occurred to him.

So he opened up to Bea about his story. He’d had phenomenal educational and entrepreneurial opportunities, but fluctuated between times of elite inventive accomplishments and periods when he couldn’t function at all. His self-confidence was badly damaged as a result. But in sparkling times, he could create amazing things.

What worried him the most was that his wife had just given birth to their son. He had become obsessed with finding solutions that would empower him to be present and engaged with his baby boy. To be a reliable part of his life.

As things were, he had periods of time when he had to pull into himself, close the blinds, and try to recover. He didn’t want that to continue through his son’s life. He just had to find a way to get rid of his lifelong depression. He didn’t want it be lifelong throughout his son’s new life. Or throughout the rest of his wife’s life.

As Bea described the needs of the cells, and how they functioned, he was introduced to a whole new paradigm. Could this have anything to do with his condition?

Ketogenic Psychiatry in Connecticut

Bea told him about a psychiatrist in Connecticut whose practice provides metabolic psychiatry, ketogenic psychiatry really, for people who’d suffered like he had. It was only an hour and a half away.

David made an appointment, and drove to that office 3 days later. Was it possible he would learn about a true solution?

He’d been so hampered all this life. During the drive he thought about how different his life could have been if he’d found out about this 40 years ago. His entire long life of depression could have been completely different.

All those years of ups and downs, times he could excel and times he was all but disabled. What would it have been like to feel good and functional all that time?

But then, how long had they known about this? How new was it?

And then another thought occurred to him. If he hadn’t suffered so severely, would he have dedicated his life to finding solutions for himself, and in turn, for others who suffered like he had?

It was staggering to consider.

The doctor was clearly astute, informed, and compassionate. She explained metabolic psychiatry, and their Touchpoints 180™ program. They talked about how they use food to transform the way he was feeling — food he actually liked. Real food. Good food. Not shakes, powders, or pills. How it’s personalized and adapted by their registered dietitian, using low carbohydrate, moderate protein, and how its high in healthy fats that can actually turn on an energy cascade, and shrink his body fat. And she suggested he read Brain Energy by Christopher Palmer, M.D., explaining that it would help him understand why generating ketones for his brain cells could be so restorative.

So David went to work on removing seed oils from the pantry and headed to the grocery store for foods that he would begin to eat, with cool ratios that would work for his metabolism, and not against it. He didn’t have to figure anything out–they’d done all that for him! And had a long talk with his wife about how he was going to use food as medicine — and his hope that it would work.

By the end of the first day, David came face to face with a culprit that had been holding him back all his life. Sugar. Actually, sugar addiction. Actually…. it was bigger than that. It was really like processed food addiction. Was that even a thing?

Sugar Addiction had Fed His Long Life of Depression

He hadn’t considered how hard it would be to drop his carbohydrates so drastically. He found himself craving cookies, donuts, and ice cream. Arrrggghhhh! He’d always craved candy bars, or cookies and milk, but never thought of it as an addiction per se. But, he also found that if he ate something high in fat, like avocados, the craving would subside. So that was good to know.

By the end of the second day, his mind seemed to be clearing. What?? He hadn’t realized how much brain fog he had until it began to go away.

After 3 days, he was feeling so much better. He was amazed at how he could look at foods he would have devoured before, like a package of cookies, and he no longer felt tempted. His mind was clear, his emotions seemed more stable.

His experience with their metabolic psychiatry program, Touchpoints 180^TM got him outside in fresh air, enjoying nature walks, and interacting with others who were on the same journey — with a doctor and a dietitian who actually walked with their patients! He felt like he was part of a community. And not so alone.

In the next few weeks, David had more physical energy, and mental energy, as well. HIs creativity soared, as he worked on plans for his business venture. His long life of debilitating depression seemed like it was his past life. It didn’t feel like it was going to be his future any more.

And he couldn’t help but notice something else… he was stable. His emotions weren’t fluctuating. He wasn’t falling into the ditch emotionally. There were no days when he couldn’t get out of bed. This was amazing!

Every day, in between work obligations, he spent with his baby boy, playing, reading stories, entertaining him during tummy time. His wife told him the transformation in him floored her! And that she was thrilled they were both living a low carb lifestyle where ketones were front and center.

Getting Better and Better

After six months had passed, he began to realize this was going to last. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined life being like this. The anxiety that had made it hard for him to leave the house at times seemed to lose their hold.

David knew he was going to keep feeding his brain with ketones that his body could produce for the rest of his life. (People have done this for decades–he just never knew that!) When they said their treatment was a Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy, that was for sure! He felt better than he ever had with therapy. He had never lived so well. He’d actually never felt so well, and so healthy. He’d never known this capacity for accomplishment, for relationships, for creating…and for being available for his son.

And he knew he didn’t have to ever go back to the misery and suffering of his life up until six months ago. He had such hope for the future.

How About You?

Have you struggled and suffered with depression that has plagued you all your life? Have you searched for answers through every pathway you could find to no avail?

Metabolic psychiatry and Ketogenic psychiatry is providing a path for restoration and remission of a wide variety of psychiatry conditions.

If you’ve suffered like David, and nothing you’ve tried has helped, call us.

Learn about our Touchpoints 180™ program and see what we can do for you.

We’re here to guide you to a happier, healthier life.

To the restoration of your best self,

December 18, 2023
Diet for Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome? Get Better with a Ketogenic Diet

Danielle and Zach had been married 6 years. They hadn’t wanted to have children right away, and decided to start their family 4 years ago. But as time went on without getting pregnant, they began to worry that something was interfering with conception. It had reached the point for Danielle that each time her menstrual cycle began, she felt sadness, loss, disappointment, and a growing hopelessness. They finally decided they needed to make an appointment with a fertility specialist. They wondered what could be wrong, and if there was anything more they could do on their own to conceive. Danielle secretly wondered if PCOS might be the problem, and if there was a special treatment or diet for polycystic ovary syndrome.

Fertility Specialist Solves the Mystery

After a thorough examination, the specialist told them that Danielle did, after all, have polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS. (Danielle had read about this in a magazine at the doctor’s office.) The doctor explained it was the most common endocrine/metabolic disease in women. Apparently, her ovaries were producing excessive amounts of androgens, which are male sex hormones. These hormones are commonly found in women in very small amounts, but the elevated levels they saw in Danielle were interfering with her ovulation.

She explained that sometimes a woman’s body isn’t making enough of the hormones she needs to ovulate, which is to release a mature egg from her ovary. When she doesn’t ovulate, the ovary can develop small cysts. And these cysts make the androgens, causing the androgen levels to increase higher and higher.

So what happens with high androgen levels? Well … things like infertility, missed or extremely light periods, excessive hair growth on the chest, stomach, and back, weight gain in her belly and trunk, acne, and hair thinning like male pattern baldness, to name a few.

Danielle had been sad for a long time. She also struggled with tension about getting with friends, meeting new people, and fears of bad things happening. She’d never been like this before, but her reluctance to get out and about, to have fun and socialize, was becoming a bigger and bigger problem.

Sometimes Zach didn’t recognize her.

The doctor sent them home with printed information. So Danielle and Zach got on their laptops. They read about PCOS, and learned about the changes it can cause.

They continued to wonder if there was anything she could actually do — instead of medication — maybe a diet for polycystic ovary syndrome or lifestyle changes that Danielle should consider? They read a scientific article that described many of Danielle’s symptoms, but focused on depression, anxiety, and weight gain, in addition to infertility.

Not what she wanted to hear.

She was also frustrated with her oily skin and new acne that was breaking out on her face and shoulders. She hadn’t had problems with her skin since she graduated from high school!

But wow — as they began to understand depression and anxiety, she realized she was struggling with those symptoms, too. She just didn’t want to see herself that way. Neither of them had ever had these symptoms before, so this was new ground. And she had been gaining weight in the last year.

The more Danielle learned, the worse she felt about herself. Her body was the obstacle to their starting the family they both wanted so much. She also was ashamed of the way she looked.

They read more articles that described how PCOS seemed to be linked to shorter life spans, because of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes, cancer in the uterus, and cardiovascular disease.

So the pressing question rose in their minds: How could they get this under control?? She felt like PCOS was out to destroy her.

They read about medications that might help … and the risks that accompanied those medications. Danielle and Zach had a lot of talking ahead of them.

What To Do?

Zach had been watching his wife’s health and outlook deteriorate over the last year and a half. He was deeply concerned, but felt at a loss to help. However, all this information they’d discovered made him feel they were on a path of discovery to find out what they could do about it.

Knowledge is power, right?

They searched together for treatment options, and learned about medications for Type 2 diabetes, medications to prevent the hair growth and acne, medications to help Danielle ovulate, medications for depression and anxiety, and on and on.

They both found the idea of taking so many medications unsettling, especially if they were able to find a way to conceive. So they kept reading.

One Saturday morning, as they sipped coffee, they were reading more articles, and came across an article by Michael Monostra about seven studies that analyzed the use of a ketogenic diet for polycystic ovary syndrome. The article referred to this specialized diet as an intervention, rather than a means of losing weight in the traditional sense.

Ketogenic Diet as a Treatment

It turned out that in these studies, women participated in this nutritional intervention for at least 6 weeks, and as a result their reproductive hormone levels improved considerably.

They read that the ratio of luteinizing hormone (LH) to follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) is normally around 1:2, but in women with PCOS it’s higher, around 2:3. This high LH needs to be brought down to balance with the FSH to reduce the symptoms and the infertility of PCOS.

These studies found that the dietary intervention of a ketogenic diet for polycystic ovary syndrome, actually did just that. What? And as a bonus, the women also lost weight. Because a ketogenic diet uses “good fats” to generate energy in cells, body fat is broken down, ketones are generated, and weight loss happens. The ketogenic diet consists of very low carbohydrates, so weight gain slows way down.

And because this results in a balance between LH and FSH, the body can once again ovulate.

Hope began to grow, and Danielle and Zach searched for a way to have medical supervision, and to get help for her depression and anxiety. They found a psychiatry practice that offered Ketogenic Psychiatry.

Hmmmm. Now that’s interesting…

So they checked out the website of that practice, and learned they offered a whole program for using a ketogenic intervention and lifestyle changes for psychiatric and metabolic conditions. There was a dietitian and a whole team who played an integral role in patient treatment. It seemed that this program could possibly help Danielle in multiple ways.

From what they read, a ketogenic diet was not just for PCOS, but was proven to reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as eating disorders, cardiovascular symptoms, Type 2 diabetes… even dementia. It was all about making the cells more healthy and resilient by fueling them with ketones.

Zach and Danielle decided to visit the practice together. They search had an individual evaluation—3 different appointments, lots of labwork, body composition testing… it was fascinating. They each got their own personalized treatment. And they loved the face that the doctor and the team joined them on taking walks in nature, meeting new friends on the same journey. Slowly they started to upgrade their food choices.

They discovered they loved eating nutrient-dense healthy food instead of the sugar filled sweets and high carb bread and potatoes they had always relied on. And the processed foods like hot dogs, lunch meat, breakfast cereals, and packaged muffins.

But they never looked back.

Avocados, eggs, cheeses, cream sauces, salmon, scallops, trout, bacon, steak, fresh mushrooms, colorful vegetables, and so many other delicious foods made up their meals. Eating had become a treat.

But more enjoyable was what happened to them. Within several weeks, the brain fog they both had experienced for so long, seemed to just lift. They both had a clarity they’d never really had before.

They wouldn’t have believed it.

Their energy for engaging in life, facing challenges, growing together as a couple, and feeling hope for the future began to permeate their minds and hearts.

Hope Was Growing

Then, it happened. Five months after starting the ketogenic program, Danielle seemed to missed her period. She was worried that the PCOS was causing her menstruation to stop so she went to the gynecologist.

After an examination and checking her urine sample, the doctor came back in her exam room beaming.

“Danielle,” she said. “You’re pregnant!”

“Are you sure?? I have PCOS!”

“Yes, I’m sure. You’re about 6 weeks along. Are you still participating in that ketogenic program?”

“Yes, Zach and I both are. It’s helped us so much, we don’t plan to ever stop. It’s become a lifestyle. We’re both so much healthier and happier. And now we’re going to be a family!!”

“I’m beyond happy for you both. I’m going to contact the author of that article you gave me about PCOS and ketogenic interventions and learn more. This may be a real breakthrough for other women like you. Please make a prenatal appointment for 4 weeks on your way out. And congratulations!!”

Danielle’s feet didn’t touch the ground as she walked to the appointment desk. She couldn’t wait to tell Zach. As soon as she got to the car, she called him.

“Hi Daddy… “

“Huh..? What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. You’re a daddy. I’m 6 weeks pregnant!!!!!”

Zach dropped the phone. She heard all the clunking clatter as he tried to retrieve it.

“Are you serious???””

“YES!!!”

“I love you, Momma!!!”

“Get off work as soon as you can. I’ll see you at home!”

Thirty five weeks later, Danielle and Zach welcomed a beautiful 7lb. baby girl. For the next several weeks they were sleep-deprived, but phenomenally happy. Then, three and a half years after that, they welcomed an energetic 8 lb. baby boy.

The symptoms of anxiety, depression, insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, acne, and hair growth on her body had all long subsided. She felt resilient, confident, energetic and hopeful about her life and her family. Danielle could never have imagined a diet for polycystic ovary syndrome could have transformed their lives like it had.

She and Zach had found metabolic balance and were vibrant. They relished their family life with exuberance. And they determined to bring up their children with healthy real foods that give their bodies the best foundation for health.

Consider what Ketogenic Treatment Can Do For You

What about you? Have you noticed how much can go wrong when your metabolism isn’t functioning at its optimum best? Do you suffer from depression, anxiety, brain fog… maybe insulin resistance causing weight gain? Do you have symptoms like Danielle did, or a diagnosis of PCOS?

It’s no less than remarkable what a ketogenic nutritional intervention can do to set your health on solid ground.

If you can relate to any or all of Danielle’s symptoms, and you’re overwhelmed about what to do, call us.

Our Touchpoints 180™ program includes a customized plan by our registered dietitian with real food that you like, nature walks for exercise, relaxation, and fresh air, videos to show you how to prepare simple meals for your ketogenic diet, and lots of support.

We want you to enjoy optimum health, relief from symptoms, and the joys of a clear, bright outlook. Let us help.

To the restoration of your best self,

September 11, 2023

Category: Depression

Articles about Depression by Lori Calabrese, MD | The Ketamine Blog

Causes

Treatment

Benefits of Ketamine Treatment

Metabolic Psychiatry’s Secret Weapon: Therapeutic Nutritional Ketosis

Pearls from Dr. Ede

Crisis of Brain Energy

Metabolic Evaluation is Vital

I heartily agree, and a comprehensive metabolic evaluation is just one part of our deep-dive assessment for our TouchPoints 180™ program.

Brain Metabolism

Metabolic Psychiatry’s Secret Weapon

What About GLP-1?

You can give someone a fish, and they’ll eat a meal. But if you teach them to fish, they’ll have the knowledge to be able eat for the rest of their lives.

Why Does Ketosis Help Alzheimer’s, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia?

If You Suffer From Psychiatric Symptoms

Ketamine Treatment Provides Transformation Going Forward

Feeling Like a Zombie

Before too long, her boss walked up to her desk and asked if the “plan” was ready. Plan?? She wondered. Hmmm…oh wait…

Jill stared at her, blinking. Incredulous. “Now you’re telling me this? Why didn’t you tell me weeks ago?”

Shame, Disgust, and Hopelessness

Fifteen minutes later, Hannah walked up to Lexi’s desk, and slipped her a sticky note with a name and phone number scrawled on it.

Hope Rises From a Stickie Note

Lexi stared at the scrap of paper. It was hard to compute what Hannah was saying. But she decided to call this number and see what she could find out.

At lunch, she sat in her car and made the call.

Her appointment was set for two days away. When the time came, Lexi called in sick to work (she was sick, after all, right?), and spent a considerable time with the doctor, answering lots of questions the best she could.

Lexi received the first infusion that afternoon.

That evening at home, she checked her email, and she’d received something from Hannah.

A Study Confirms Ketamine Treatment’s Effectiveness

Hmmm…Northwestern University, huh?

Lexi soon received the 3rd and 4th infusions, and things began to change. She felt initiative… in the sense of pulling out the project they were working on in her job, and researching ideas to make it more effective. It felt so good to be feeling productive again…useful in a way.

After about a month, Lexi felt that her outlook was slipping into some hopelessness and overwhelm again. The doctor had cautioned her about this possibility, so she made another appointment for a booster infusion.

Ketamine Can Transform Your Life, Too

We’re here to help you live again, give again, and enjoy the rewards of your life.

Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy (KMT) Can Fix Your Mood and Health

Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy is Food as Medicine

I mean, she thought, I try to eat from the 5 basic food groups, but it isn’t always that convenient. I do eat a lot of fast food too, and frozen prepared food. Whatever I can manage.

Absent-Mindedness Wasn’t A Joke

Even after she started the car and put it in gear, she was still shaking from that near fall. This had been happening more and more, where something unexpected struck her with a panicked feeling. Losing her keys hadn’t helped.

She felt raw…and volatile.

While she ate her dinner that evening, she scanned her emails to find the one about National Nutrition Month. It mentioned the concept of “farm-to-fork.” Farm to what? She followed links and kept reading.

She knew grass fed beef provided more nutrition when you consume it. But grass finished? She dug deeper. And learned more.

Grass Fed Beef or Grass Finished Beef?

Hmmmm… my mood…and memory? This is surprising. I never thought much about nutrition before, and it sure never occurred to me that the food I eat can make my mood better or worse…or my memory, for heavens sake!

Definitely not her wheelhouse.

Brianna had to admit it to herself. This could be HER.

Food as medicine?

And to eat foods high in fat. So it might include avocados, and cheeses, coconut or olive oil (avoiding seed oils), grass fed butter, fatty fish like salmon, tuna, and trout, grass finished beef, and heritage pigs that are allowed to forage in grass.

It had never, EVER, occurred to her that her snacks and fast food – and frozen dinners with diet drinks – were all contributing to how bad she felt.

Learning… To Improve Her Life

Brianna found out she was depressed and had moderate anxiety, as well as brain fog. No wonder she’d been so down. She also learned she was pre diabetic. Who knew? She should have, if she’d been paying attention.

Brianna joined the Touchpoints 180™ program and got to work. She knew this was going to be challenging. But she wanted to improve her life. So she set herself up to start reading all she could.

LOW CARB. That was the ticket.

Brianna’s jaw dropped.

She’d lost 18 lbs!! No wonder her clothes felt so frumpy.

She decided she would go shopping on Saturday, and get some clothes that fit better. Maybe only a couple outfits, because she knew she would lose more.

But more important, the fatigue, anxiety, and depression were gone. She had energy, hope, and anticipation about the future. Her thinking was more clear and sharp than it had been in many years…well, since she was a child.

And this was all about the food she ate!

She knew this was not a fad. This was a whole new way of life that was solving her problems and removing her obstacles. And it was sustainable. She decided to maintain a low carb lifestyle and a ketogenic diet.

This wasn’t an experiment. This was a new and better way to live. And she was going to keep living it.

What About You?

Perhaps you haven’t realized that these conditions are metabolic, just as diabetes is. If not, you may not realize your symptoms can lift with a personalized, consistent, ketogenic diet that brings you into therapeutic nutritional ketosis.

How Mitochondria Can Help Heal Your Brain…And Your Body!

Is Depression Always a Disorder?

Some people have actual brain disorders, where their brain is not functioning properly. They have anxiety for no reason, because cells are firing when they shouldn’t be. Or depression, because cells aren’t firing when they should be.

They’re the crux of a central theme that revolves around metabolism.

What’s the Role of Metabolism?

But when you have pain for no reason, that’s a disorder. Cells are firing for no valid reason. They’re malfunctioning.

And Mitochondria Can Help Your Brain Heal

And that makes us wonder… what is the connection between all of these diseases and conditions that could explain the same depression symptoms?

What Causes Mental Disorders??

Schizoaffective Disorder and Ketogenic Diet

So Dr. Palmer put him on a ketogenic diet — to help him lose weight.

Then, came the shocking revelation. About 2 months after starting the ketogenic diet, he started spontaneously reporting that his hallucinations and delusions were beginning to go away.

Dr. Palmer began using the diet with other patients, quietly. And took a deep dive into basic science and bodies of evidence from treating epilepsy, to other bodies of evidence, about bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia.

Not a Fad Diet

He studied the enormous body of evidence in the field of neurology regarding how the ketogenic diet stops seizures. There are changes in neurotransmitters, changes in the gut microbiome, decreases in inflammation…

It improves how mitochondria function, which means:

IT IMPROVES BRAIN METABOLISM

It helps us understand why sleep deprivation can lead to psychosis, and why antidepressants can precipitant mania.

*Hmmmm… my mood…and memory? This is surprising. I never thought much about nutrition before, and it sure never occurred to me that the food I eat can make my mood better or worse…**or my memory,* for heavens sake!