From Brain Energy by Chris Palmer
Mental disorders are the most common caue of disability on the planet. And our current treatments model doesn't work well. For example, despite dozens of antideppresants, therapies, electro and magnetic brain stimulation, ketamine, and more -- depression is the single most disabling illness.
Our current model is geared towards symptoms - not causes. Imagine this -- you get a headache and take advil and it goes away. So you are diagnosed with Advil-defiiciency-disorder. That's basically how our system works right now. The point is we get people with a host of sumptoms and call it a syndrome. And then we say "there's a chemical imbalance" -- but why? Why aren't things working? That's the question.
Also important to point out that for sympomatic fields (eg psychiatry) there is no concrete test for most of these things. So distinguishing between a normal mental state and a syndrome or disorder is largely subjective. Do I feel a little down or nervous or am I depressed or have GAD? There is a danger of medicalization - corporate marketers trying to convince you that any negative mental state is an illness.
So getting back to the root cause (why) question -- the first hint is a common pathway for mental illness. There is a ton of interrelation and correlation between epilipsy, diabetes, obeity, autism, depression, schizophenria, and the like. This is odd at first - what do things like obesity or diabetes (phsyical issues) have to do with mental. Well it turns out they are all questions of metabolic function.
Metabolism is energy flow and regulation through body (and head). The brain is like 5% of weight but 30% energy consumer. All this ties back to dysfunction in regualting energy to the brain. Metochondria regulate this at tcellular level and when they don't fuction properly it leads to over active or under active or abscence brain functions.
Mitochornia respond to biopsychsocial factors - not just genes or chemicals but mental stress and social trauma. All of these things can disrupt metabolic function. So to restore proper brain function you must normalize metabolism.
The main ways to do that are diet (usually ketogenic or similar) and exercise (Z2 is best). You also must stop consuming drugs/alcohol, reduce stress, seek therapy for trauma/afflictive mental patterns, improve sleep, and all of this often occurs while weening off of pharmaceuticals.
Connections