I have a 32 year old daughter who struggled from age 17 with mental health issues before she was diagnosed as schizoaffective/bipolar. Even after that she has struggled for years with her mental health with a number of hospitalizations and time spent in secure mental care facilities where she is now but about to get out to independent living. Her young adulthood has been lost to mental illness. Myself, I've been keto/ketovore for 3 years now with great results. Once she is out I am hoping to help her to slowly move into the ketogenic lifestyle in the hope it will help her mental illness and I'm excited to see how it goes for Lauren (I'm also a subscriber of her channel.)
This gives me hope! How was your 1-2 first weeks? I am afraid because always when I started Keto I was really exhausted and tired and being tired makes my depression worse. Bless you and your daughter, that you care about her!
@@NatalieNicole2222 in the beginning symptoms may get worse that’s another reason why it is important to be medically supervised in case one may need to temporarily increase medications :)
@@NatalieNicole2222 It sounds as if you experience the keto flu which can happen to anyone although I've not experienced it. Try easing into keto more slowly rather than just flipping the switch. Reduce your carbs until you are low carb (50-100 g/day, keto is generally less that 50/day, more often less than 20). Eliminate added sugar, then as much as you can. Make sure you get enough sodium, drink an electrolyte solution. Add more fat to your diet. See how you feel as you go along, keto flu generally lasts less than 2 weeks. As your body adapts to using ketones more for energy, you will become less exhausted. Find a physician that is at least accepting of keto because they have other patients who have done well on it. (I discovered the nurse of my dermatologist had been keto for years.) A Dr. who is hostile to keto will not be helpful. But take it slow. Exhaustion is not uncommon for anyone with the keto flu, I can experience it even now when I fast for more than a day.
Chris Palmer talks about how difficult the transition can be without medical support - changing doses etc.. so be careful and I absolutely wish you the best as my heart goes out to you, your family and your daughter Maybe get his book if you haven’t already, called Brain Energy.
I had a great childhood, no family issues, was a bright Aspbergers kid who learned visually I’d say. It all started with the alcohol in college the amphetamines I was on all my life as an adolescent. Bad people I hung out with bad enviorments I chose to involve myself in due to the underlying bipolar anhedonia and bipolar negative symptom like issues. Further disruption of my cyrcadium rythym to ignight some pleasure….it all cascaded into a schizoaffective issue for me that I haven’t been able to shake. Who I was then and who I am now are different people completely. Negative symtoms are the worst. It’s fascinating listening to talk after talk with Chris Palmer and metabolism makes complete sense and really always has. Everything from the amphetamines, to the adolescent use of alcohol, the depersonalization, the marijuana it’s all metabolic issues of the brain. Stories like hers are so important and I’m excited to be starting keto soon and hope it will hope with totality of symptoms
interesting was on amphetamines as a child smoked weed as. ateenager and still have unrelenting dpdr might give the keto diet another shot but its difficult to manage especially without any professional supervision dpdr is generally caused by psychic trauma
@@Mijn3023 yes it sure is. Happens in bipolar or anhedonic conditions. With isolation and more marijuana and adverse expierences it led to a transient psychosis situation or called schizotypy. I wonder if keto alone would work for restoring function in me as it talks about
@@Mijn3023 I’m starting with Nicole Larant as well in the new year. She seems like a very knowledgeable person with the keto diet and works remotely. It’s worth trying for sure
We hope it helps her, too! Lauren is amazing and well-spoken. People can present very differently with any type of severe mental illness. In many cases, a mental health condition is not apparent.
In a state of ketosis my irritable bowel symptoms subside, even if I’m eating copious amounts of diverse fibers and low carbohydrate legumes like black soybeans. from my understanding certain strains of beneficial bacteria such as akkermansia municiphila proliferate easier, a strain which has been virtually non detectable in my GI tract. It would be interesting to analyze my biome during ketosis as I can only speculate as to what’s occurring
I’m moved to tears with happiness for Lauren’s journey with metabolic therapy 🐬 This is exactly what I pray for, for my loved one 🙏🏽🙏🏽 Watching closely
Lauren does lead a full life. I have been following her trip w hope. I have been four monthes on keto. I’d like to talk about my experience. As I would love to hear in these comments others their experience. This is a grand experiment for all of us. I have rapid cycling bipolar 1. Say four episodes a year. After a longish mania, I had been really struggling. It felt like I was drowning. Per usual, slow thinking, no motivation. Stuck in a painful hell. My husband saw an article on NPR, and I knew I had nothing to lose. Now I feel and think much much better. And also. This is very important:My diet experiment had diferent variables. And still there was amazing success. What was different. I really struggled with nausea and weakness. I couldn’t do my tasks, and could barely walk my dog. It was too much. I couldn’t take care of my spouse.m I had been doing the diet for about a month.So I went up to 100 grams. Officially out of ketosis, I guess. But then the real miracle really happened...I became very clear and energetic. Not up, seemingly normal. So leaving keto and upping carbs a bit so far has Made me a believer. What will happen next? Right now I’ll stick with 100 gram carbs. I last saw Lauren talk about leaving ketosis after tasting something sweet and immediately getting psychotic. This wasn’t my experience. Again, I hope we can hear each others experiences. Results may vary. That’s good to know I think. Like many, I can barely Y afford the keto diet. Still I do what I can. I checked nutritionist guided programs listed in Metabolic Mind. . I’d love to join one of these programs. The first one wanted 996$ for through help. Or six hundred for some help. I’ll check more nutritionists prices. In the meantime, I’m figuring it out as I go. So. I hope to hear others experiences, to see what works.
Dr Eric Berg, Dr Ken Berry are helpful but you might like to try taking Lithium OROTATE, the,mineral not the drug, as it appears to be deficient in people with bipolar. Dr John Gray has a video but there are plenty of videos you can find, Nootropics Expert etc. who will list the benefits. I take it for ADHD, very calming and balancing! Namaste 🙏
Good luck Lauren! In my home I am the only one doing keto for health. My advice is don't pin your treatment choices on whether or not everyone in your home eats this way. I know from my experience the whole family benefits when I feel better and follow the lifestyle. Cheers, Michael
Very exciting! Hoping for the best with this potential treatment for Lauren, obviously, I am optimistic, but I appreciate all the groundwork she is doing ahead of time to lay the tracks for an easier transition. And the prospect of documenting the entire process from non ketogenic, through keto flu, and then potential benefits will be fascinating to see and to my knowledge hasn't been documented in the way she seems to be approaching it. For her audience and for ketogenic therapy in general this could be a huge window into this potential therapy and showing the 'good the bad and the ugly' as they say. Best of luck to Lauren and I can't wait to see on her channel how it's going
We couldn't agree more! Through documenting her journey in real-time, Lauren will be sharing resources with a large audience in a way that has not been done before! We are grateful that she is using her amazing platform in this way. Her project is likely to have a great positive impact on many people looking to adopt metabolic therapies to treat severe mental illness.
I just got a new diagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder bipolar. Lauren your channel has provided me with a lot of vocabulary to communicate to my therapist and psychiatrist. Unfortunately at a very young age 12 years I always felt like something was following me which I discovered was paranoia. So began my journey with psychiatrists and meds. I have more hope these days even though at the beginning of my journey.
I hope she wears a CGM, tracks her Boz Ratio (morning fasting blood sugar /blood ketones), and considers Metformin as an adjunctive therapy (maybe especially when it’s hard to keep carbs low) 🔬🤓. Her findings will be huge!
She is getting support from professionally trained clinicians in the keto space. I am sure they will be monitoring her very closely. I have never heard of taking metformin while doing the keto diet.
It helps me when my glucose is staying stubbornly high despite eating no-very low carbs, moderate protein, etc. Really interesting research around Metformin helping to repair the blood brain barrier and moving the needle when psych meds aren’t working, as talked about on this channel. Though if you can do without it, that’s ideal.
Our understanding is that a carnitine deficiency can make it harder for someone to get into ketosis, but not that ketosis itself causes a carnitine deficiency.
Here's an interesting update. A recent study suggested for those treating their epilepsy with ketosis, their carnitine levels can go down over the course of therapy. So it may be worth it for people to work with their healthcare team and follow carnitine levels. www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2023.1304209/full
Is this ketogenic diet good for weight loss in individuals who gain weight from antipsychotics like quetiapine? I recently gained a lot of weight from taking 600mg in the evenings. It's not really the appetite, but more the way it affects my metabolism. Thank you.
A ketogenic diet has been used for decades to treat type 2 diabetes and even put it into remission. However, many people need to be cautious to prevent low blood sugar or other complications from diabetes medications. It's always important for someone to work closely with their healthcare team. Here are some resources that may help www.dietdoctor.com/diabetes/guides
A friend in the field of psychoanalysis argued a dietary protocol for psychiatric disorders would only prove effective if the person is in general, metabolically unhealthy (ie suffering from insulin resistance, obesity etc) could somebody be simultaneously physically fit / active and have poor brain energy metabolism ? Does ptsd and other chronic stressors contribute to poor brain energy metabolism?
Ketogenic diets could improve mental health by 2 different mechanisms. 1- improving metabolic health, and 2- changing the fuel our brains use from 100% glucose to predominately ketones. So theoretically that could still benefit someone who is metabolically healthy. We will learn much more as more research is done!
Check out the book "Brain Energy" by Dr. Chris Palmer. He argues that most diseases, particularly psychiatric disorders, involve metabolic and mitochondrial dysfunction. One of the main causes is dietary, but it's not the only cause. Also, one can have metabolic and mitochondrial issues without being diagnosed with a metabolic disease. Even people who later get diagnosed with a metabolic disease, they might've had insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome for years or decades. So, many people who think they are metabolically healthy are not .
