ENCORE: A Unified Theory of the Root Cause of All Psychiatric Disorders, Part 1

Intelligent Medicine

In "Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More," Dr. Christopher Palmer offers a unified theory of the root cause of all psychiatric disorders. It’s a matter of deficits in metabolic function, which can be triggered by a variety of insults including environmental toxins, poor diet, sleep deficits, altered microbiome, inflammation, sedentary lifestyle, and stress. State-of-the-art imaging studies reveal the role that brain energy deficits play in a multitude of disorders. In his clinical practice of psychiatry, Dr. Palmer utilizes a ketogenic diet to upregulate the efficiency of brain mitochondria, resulting in dramatic symptom remission. He decries the “band-aid” approach of of conventional psychiatry which prioritizes symptom relief via drugs—generally incomplete—over a search for underlying precipitants, which can yield more comprehensive recovery.