Dr. Ede: Low Carb Diet Superior to Antipsychotic Medications
 

Very informative article comparing results from diet over medication.

Link to the full article:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...0c77fa-97647217

Great Article, one of the best I've read on this subject.
I've already forwarded a link to it!
I also like how Dr. Ede thinks. I'm reading more of her articles right now.
Thanks for posting!

Over the course of several years back in the day, suffering from debilitating depression, I had 5 different psychiatrists. Not one ever asked me what I ate or if I exercised. The usual first question was, "What medications have you tried?". The first doctor seemed dumbfounded that I hadn't been on any medication before, given my depression "score".

Supplementing with the appropriate kind and amount of magnesium was the best "antidepressant" I found. Back when I was trying the drugs, the ones that boosted norepinephrine were the worst for me. Similar problems with VLC. But I can see how keto would definitely work for some people, as in the article.

I too spent about 2 decades suffering from major depression. No drug, and I tried them all, helped. One psychiatrist diagnosed me with "treatment resistant depression" which seemed to me as just another way of saying our drugs don't work but instead of saying we're clueless they said you're resistant. Diet was never mentioned.

A low carb diet cured me of depression. I have supplemented with magnesium for years and that probably played a role too although I didn't take it knowing of its role in depression. So many of these drugs mess with appetite, raise insulin levels, lead to weight gain and diabetes. It's part of the stupidity of conventional medicine and the grip of the pharmaceutical industry on the psychiatric profession. It's shameful.

Jean

I feel like you could be describing me with this story, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who fits this bill. I also spent two decades suffering major depression, and tried every drug available, and got labelled "treatment resistant". And then I went on a LC diet for weight loss and cured my depression. Bam.
(I wasn't even supplementing magnesium until much later, but I know from trial and error that it's the carbs -- particularly refined sugar -- that trigger my depression. I think we are all a little different in our triggers and fixes, but I firmly believe that dietary changes and targeted nutritional supplementation are far more effective than Big Pharma drugs.)

I get so angry now at Big Pharma and the way it has completely rewritten how we treat these illnesses. There are so many people suffering from mental health issues who are unable to believe that dietary changes will really help them -- or unable to enact those dietary changes in the current social climate we live in, because when you're depressed/anxious/messed up in the head it is SO much harder to do all your cooking and meal prep versus just buying prepackaged foods off the shelf.

I have many friends suffering from mental health problems and even after seeing how much it has changed my life, they are unable to apply that to themselves. And even though I hate seeing them suffer, I don't blame them for finding it difficult to fly in the face of everything their doctors and friends and family are telling them, not to mention the constant barrage of messages from society and the media. All I can do is tell my story, and hope that one day they will hear it enough from enough different sources that it gives them the courage to try it themselves. If enough people speak out, maybe we can enact change from the ground up, because it's never going to come from the top down.

Maybe one problem is the idea of "self-medication" of depression with food, we've got this thing where a Big Mac and fries is supposed to make you happier, at least in the short-term. Also I think it's easy when you're depressed to overvalue pessimistic information, and undervalue the optimistic. So you have people eating the SAD diet, unquestionably bad for them, maybe low carb would help, but it's easier to credit the naysayers than the cheerleaders. If your conscious self is full of doubt and indecision, unconscious mental processes are liable to make those food decisions for you.

I guess see Dr. Lustig's new book for a discussion of the difference between happiness and pleasure... I'm actually not that down on seeking pleasure, it's just that things that give us pleasure ought to be self-limiting. Sometimes a warm bath seems enticing, it feels like you could soak for days--if it's day two, and you're still adding hot water to the tub to keep it warm, that's a problem, you should have felt, okay, that's enough of that long ago. I get pleasure from bacon and eggs, but I'm satisfied before I've eaten more than I need, I can get on with my day. If tolerance to a medication builds up too quickly, it's really just an addictive substance.

A ketogenic diet makes all sorts of things more pleasant for me, things like walking barefoot, or taking a shower. I'll enjoy a small piece of cheese more--but then be less likely to binge on the cheese once I've had a taste.

There's increasing evidence that a lot of depression might just be magnesium deprivation.

Much like supplementing B6, to prevent pellagra after the turn of the last century, "emptied the asylums" in the Southern US.

I'm not surprised by results like that. Personally, my mental abilities improved when I first went LC. The late Seth Roberts experimented with supplementing fat and observed improvements in mental abilities. Scurvy is noted to be associated with a distinct state of mind, somewhat a cynical outlook on things and self. MS includes some behavioral symptoms which improve with LC. A plain old fever from the flu comes with a fairly obvious brain fog that basically renders us incompetent. I discovered that pain can shut down my brain. If I had a list, it would probably include every known pathology.

The brain can't be expected to work as if nothing happened, when its function relies on the proper function of the rest of the body. On this forum, we are fully aware of the multitude ways LC helps us, and the multitude ways a high-carb diet makes us sick. It's only a small step to acknowledge that LC has the ability to help and even treat what we see as strictly mental disorders.

Exactly. It's a complex organ, but still has needs like any other :)