Together, we can transform the mental health field to improve the lives of the millions of people suffering from mental illness. 

 

Hello! I’m Dr. Chris Palmer. 

I’m the Founder and Director of the Metabolic and Mental Health Program and the Director of the Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education, both at McLean Hospital, and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. For over 28 years, I have held administrative, educational, research, and clinical roles in psychiatry. 

My book, Brain Energy, presents the first comprehensive theory of what causes mental illness, integrating decades of clinical, neuroscience, and metabolic research into one unifying theory. Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. This theory integrates biological, psychological, and social factors and helps us understand the connections between mental health and physical health. It answers questions that have long plagued the mental health field, but more importantly, it offers new solutions, ones that come with the hope of long-term healing as opposed to just symptom reduction. 

Please join me in a grassroots movement calling for a transformation in the mental health field. Countless people are desperate for more effective treatments. We can – and must – do better. 

Chris Palmer MD treating schizophrenia low carb md podcast

Brain Energy Platform

Mental health is metabolic health.

Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. We need dramatic changes in mental health education, clinical care, and research. It is possible to put mental disorders into remission and this should be the goal of all treatments. 

Mental health research funding can affect every part of the health care cost curve.

From 2015 – 2019, only 4% of the global healthcare research funding was for mental health, even though mental disorders are now the leading cause of disability worldwide. The brain energy theory offers a new path for rapid progress in neuropsychiatric research and the development and validation of more effective treatments.

Insurance should cover mental health and metabolic treatments.

Accessing quality care can be difficult and sometimes impossible. Insurance should provide appropriate reimbursement for clinicians, hospital care, residential care, dietitians, fitness trainers, health and wellness coaches, physical and occupational therapists, and rehabilitation specialists. These professionals and services target the root causes of mental and metabolic disorders. 

Not every mental experience is a mental disorder.

Helping people cope with situations or experiences that cause anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic symptoms is different from helping people who are suffering from a metabolically malfunctioning brain.

Mental health and physical health are inseparable.

Interrelated physical disorders – diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s Disease, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, and chronic pain — all have strong relationships with mental disorders. Treatments for all of these will overlap, even though there will be differences based on areas of the brain and body affected. Integration of these fields will lead to more rapid progress than continuing to treat them as unrelated, unique diagnoses. We need to treat whole people, not just individual symptoms or diagnoses.

... and much more.

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