Christopher M. Palmer - Brain Energy

Contents

Praise for Brain Energy

Brain Energy is a dramatic breakthrough in understanding mental illness by a leading Harvard psychiatrist who provides a revolutionary road map for people suffering from depression, anxiety, bipolar disease, in fact, almost any brain disorder. The discoveries of brain science have forced us to reimagine mental health and provide hope in a field that for many has not provided significant relief from suffering. If you suffer any mental health challenges (who hasnt), then this book just might change your life.

Mark Hyman, MD, senior advisor at the Cleveland Clinic Pr_R for Functional Medicine and 14-time New York Times bestselling author

Brain Energy provides a long-awaited unifying mechanism underlying a vast spectrum of mental illness conditions. And this new paradigm will undoubtedly usher in potent therapeutic interventions for pervasive psychiatric conditions for which standard pharmaceutical approaches have proven minimally effective. Christopher Palmers work empowers patients and their health care providers alike.

David Perlmutter, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain

Dr. Palmer takes a provocative and insightful look into the origins of mental disorders, which have profound implications for how we treat the disease... and for our diet.

Jason Fung, MD, nephrologist and author of three bestselling health books

Psychiatry will never be the same. The medical profession needs to apply Biochem 101 if its going to solve mental illnessand metabolic illness, while theyre at it. Christopher Palmer poses the hypothesis, supports it with data, and, in my humble opinion, nails the treatment: feed the brain what it needs.

Robert H. Lustig, MD, MSL, emeritus professor of pediatrics at UCSF and author of Metabolical

For more than two decades, Dr. Palmer has organized world leaders in psychiatry to educate clinicians about emerging innovations in the field. He challenges the status quo with this brave new idea in Brain Energy that instructs us to seek simple solutions to human problems, rather than chemical ones that can only change biology, not lived experience. Brain Energy is a book all psychiatric professionals should read as a useful criticism of our fields major deficits. It is a book all people should read to understand how much they can do (and not do) for the sake of their mental health. Basic health is self-evident but takes courage to commit to taking exquisite care of your body and, by extension, your brain.

Lois W. Choi-Kain, MD, MEd, director of the Gunderson Personality Disorders Institute and assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School

After a bipolar episode at age nineteen, our son was seen by more than forty mental health practitioners and prescribed twenty-nine different medications. But it was not until he started on a ketogenic metabolic therapy under the guidance of Dr. Chris Palmer that he got his mind and his life back. Dr. Palmers metabolic approach has the potential to radically impact the worlds mental health epidemic. Brain Energy is a must-read.

David Baszucki, founder and CEO of Roblox and cofounder of the Baszucki Group, and Jan Ellison Baszucki, author of ASmall Indiscretion and cofounder of the Baszucki Group

If you have ever been dissatisfied with the rather hard-to-defend explanations of mental illness, this groundbreaking book is for you. Palmer, a practicing psychiatrist, not constrained by the received wisdom of the field, audaciously travels further than most. He puts forward a strong case for throwing away what we were taught about the causes, the diagnosis, and the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Instead, he brings the tiny mitochondria, once mere bacteria, into center stage and takes you on an exhilarating intellectual journey to reveal the new beginnings of psychiatry.

Zoltn Sarnyai, MD, PhD, professor and head of the Laboratory of Psychiatric Neuroscience, James Cook University, Australia

Dr. Christopher Palmer has written a must-read primer for anyone considering understanding and treating mental health. The book will guide you to understand why metabolism and mitochondria are fundamental to keep your brain healthy... a call to action to transform mental health treatment. Read this bookand learn from one of the best.

Ana C. Andreazza, PhD, professor of pharmacology and psychiatry, University of Toronto and founder and scientific director, Mitochondrial Innovation Initiative

Dr. Palmer is uncanny in his synthesizing extant literature and providing a prescient thesis on the pathoetiologic and potentially therapeutic role of metabolics of neuropsychiatric conditions. The thesis and framework proffered by Dr. Palmer provides for many prevention and therapeutic opportunities in psychiatry and take us one step closer to disease-modifying possibilities.

Roger S. McIntyre, MD, FRCPC, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Toronto, Canada

Brain Energy, by Dr. Chris Palmer, is the much-needed new perspective on mental health that could revolutionize the way we think about, research, and treat mental health conditions. Its a guaranteed best-seller, a book you wont want to put down, and one that could change your life or that of a loved one. The nuance, clarity, and sensitivity with which Dr. Palmer addresses the complex issues of mental illness is nothing short of incredible. He brings his skills as a Harvard-trained clinical psychiatrist to bear in his writing, anticipating the readers next question and then weaving it into a narrative that is the perfect mix between science lesson and storybook. Filled with brilliant analogies, jaw-dropping statistics, fascinating scientific details, and moving patient stories, this book is an absolute must-read. And, speaking as both a PhD scientist myself and a Harvard medical student, I wish this book could be mandatory reading for the next generation of doctors. If it were, Id suspect wed see rates of metabolic diseases, including mental health conditions, start to dip within a generation. This book will change many lives.

Nicholas Norwitz, PhD in neurometabolism (University of Oxford) and Harvard Medical Student

There is so much we do not know about the relationship among metabolism, health, and disease. Thankfully, Dr. Christopher Palmer cuts through the noise and tackles mental disorders by focusing on first principles: metabolism is the foundation of brain health, and brain health is the foundation of our best future. Brain Energy is a book that cannot be read and incorporated into policy soon enough: mental disorders are an accelerating crisis, especially among children. This is not rocket science; its neuroscience.

Susan A. Masino, PhD, professor of applied science and neuroscientist at Trinity College

Kudos to Dr. Chris Palmer for penning a thought-provoking and superb book on the revolutionary breakthroughs occurring in psychiatry, a discipline in medicine that has suffered far too long and from too much stigma. Its a must-read for all of us as we undoubtedly, without exception, have a family member or a dear friend battling a challenging psychiatric condition. There is finally optimism and light at the end of the dark tunnel.

Sanjiv Chopra, MBBS, MACP, FRCP, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and bestselling author

It is clear to me from clinical practice that what we eat and drink affects our brain function and mental health but I never understood why. Dr. Palmer brilliantly connects the dots to explain why this is true. A pioneering work!