There was a day about a year after I sent my bipolar 1 illness into remission using ketogenic and other metabolic therapies, when I began to get angry: 

Why hadn’t anyone told me there was an effective, empowering form of treatment that could liberate me from the burden of mental illness? Why had I never heard of this straightforward, readily available lifestyle intervention that can alleviate psychiatric symptoms and reverse the underlying neurometabolic dysfunction that causes them? 

I began to remember long forgotten facets of myself from before my illness. In my new state of remission, off of medication, I had my energy back. I began to relish my experiences of daily life again and crave knowledge, creativity, connection, and adventure. I reflected back on the many years I had lived in limbo, stable on Olanzapine–the antipsychotic medication that had kept me sane but caused weight gain, fatigue, impaired cognition, and blunted emotions. I felt like my life was a house that had been gutted, and then refurbished to become beautiful, functional, and cozy. Thinking back on the decrepit, dreary, and barely inhabitable environment I tolerated for so long made my blood boil. I was grateful to be well. So why was I angry?

Healing from a severe and debilitating illness can elicit a variety of emotions, both positive and negative. I have spoken to many others with lived-experience who similarly faced complex feelings throughout the healing process–spanning from elation to intense anger to deep grief over years lost. I understand that my experience of mixed emotions is not unique. I also understand one of the primary reasons I never heard about this treatment is a lack of knowledge about it in the field of psychiatry. The metabolic psychiatry movement is new and cutting-edge; many clinicians are still unaware. The more I learned about metabolic health, the more perplexed I became by this gap in knowledge, not just in psychiatry, but in mainstream medicine. Most clinicians don’t fully understand the role metabolism plays in chronic illness. Dysfunctional metabolism is possibly the underlying driver of all non-communicable diseases. Ketogenic therapy (unlike other forms of treatment that only address symptoms) is an effective intervention for many conditions as it can repair metabolism and treat root causes, leading to long term healing. 

Discovering that metabolic dysfunction can cause so many “chronic” conditions, from diabetes to heart disease, made me feel united with others who have healed with metabolic therapies, whether they had treated a physical or psychiatric condition. On one hand, this knowledge is liberating, reinforcing the idea that “mental illness” is biological and not psychological; on the other, it is unfathomable and infuriating to me that a potential solution to so many of these illnesses is hiding in plain sight for the vast majority of patients and doctors. 

That feeling of anger skyrocketed after reading a recent article in the Guardian by Neil Barsky, founder of the Marshall Project. Barksy argues that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) purposefully downplays the role that a low-carb ketogenic diet can play in reversing type 2 diabetes and connects this to the financial influence that big food and big pharma has on the ADA:   

“The big winners of the ADA’s cozy arrangements with industry, of course, are the pharmaceutical companies that enjoyed an estimated $58bn in annual sales in 2017, and the medical device and food companies who donate to the ADA in exchange for recipe endorsements.

The losers are the millions of people with diabetes who suffer amputations, blindness, neuropathy, often daily shoot themselves with insulin and eat carbohydrate-rich foods because they simply are not informed about their healthier options. It is not too late for the ADA to, loudly and in no uncertain terms, tell people with diabetes the truth. It might lose funders, but it would also save lives.”

The ADA's reluctance to recommend low-carbohydrate diets, even after officially acknowledging their effectiveness in the past, sends dangerously mixed signals to the community and has a direct impact on the health and wellbeing of countless Americans. And if Barsky’s arguments are indeed true, then the ADA is failing in its duty to serve the people.  

Reflecting on this, it is easy for me to spiral down a rabbit hole of fury and fixate on the evils of our modern “sickcare” culture–which often feels as though it was built on profiting at any cost. I sometimes wonder whether a similar version of this has played out in the mental health space. Is this why so many people don’t know that ketogenic diets can be an effective treatment for serious mental illnesses? Could greed and industry influence be at the heart of this knowledge gap? In the end, I have accepted that, at least for me, knowing the answer doesn’t change the result. Nor does it give me back what I lost.

As I recovered, I began to recognize the true toll of my illness. I realized that my psychiatric condition, and the treatment I received, had not only decimated my physical health (I gained more than 70 pounds), but it had made me feel foreign to myself and impacted all of my life choices. Not knowing who I was anymore, I settled for an uninspiring job in marketing and sales, because I didn’t have the energy or enthusiasm to pursue a career that would be more challenging and rewarding. I fell into an unhealthy relationship with an alcoholic who became emotionally abusive. Only after healing did I come to recognize this invisible bondage that had become so much a part of my identity that I had forgotten it was there. When it fell away, I became free. I began to unpack my multifaceted emotions in an effort to decide where I would go with my newfound liberation. 

Anger can fuel a metabolic health movement

My dominant emotions at this time of my life are gratitude and love, yet, when I come across blatant examples of misinformation and reflect on the cost it has on the lives of innocent people, I get so angry it hurts. Having suffered enormous consequences from metabolic dysfunction, losing not just my physical health, but my very sense of self, I am enraged by the price I paid due to ineffective treatment. The mind is the worst thing one can lose; rediscovering the self is both painful and empowering. I will never take my agency for granted again. 

When rage ensues, I let it. It infuses me with even more drive and purpose to unite with others and amplify the critical message that ketogenic therapy can put chronic conditions into remission. The key is to employ my thoughts and emotions, both positive and negative, in the most constructive ways possible to enrich the world. I understand that there is no greater gift than being able to help others also find their way to healing. I feel immense gratitude for my role at Metabolic Mind as it gives me the opportunity to co-create a movement that brings metabolic therapies to the forefront. My connection to the metabolic health community helps me to transmute the raw power of my anger into fuel: by focusing on the importance of raising awareness to help others find these effective, life-changing treatments, I can channel the energy of my anger into mission-motivated action, deeply rooted in love and purpose. 

People who take health into their own hands can change the world 

Individuals who take charge of their own well-being can spark transformative change. By uniting and amplifying positive, inspiring voices, we can drown out the dominant ones that perpetuate sickness rather than promoting health. I witness this on a daily basis. I see individuals who have overcome chronic depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and anorexia; they have immense emotional depth, intellectual insight, inquisitive and curious minds. Implementing metabolic therapies has allowed them to reclaim their lives and share the message with others. Events like Dave Feldman’s Citizen Scientists Conference (CoSci) bring individuals together to fuel a movement. Driven by both anger and compassion, the individuals calling for a better way to do science and medicine are catalyzing change. Our own Dr. Bret Scher spoke about how ketogenic therapy is a medical intervention and not just a “diet.” Matt Baszucki shared his phenomenal story of putting bipolar 1 disorder into remission with metabolic therapies, and then becoming an advocate who leads the way for others. My dear friend, metabolic health writer, Jessica Apple shared her journey of using ketogenic therapy and nutrition to put LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults) and anxiety disorder into remission; impressively, despite getting all the standard, wrong medical advice from clinicians, she was guided by logic and experimented her way to effective treatments that restored her health. People like Matt and Jessica exemplify how individuals can become beacons of hope for others looking to revolutionize their health and transform their lives. 

I have learned that rather than suppressing my anger, I can embrace it, turning it into rocket fuel that energizes me to engage in the movement to raise awareness of metabolic health with others who have lived-experience like Matt and Jessica. To triumph over the powerful institutions that incentivize keeping the population chronically ill instead of promoting healing and recovery, we need to come together with immense energy and join forces to fight back with all our might. Battling the status quo is not going to be easy. Through positive community building, we can bring visibility to a broken system, but, even more importantly, we can also raise awareness of practical solutions that will create a ripple effect of healing, changing not just individual lives, but our collective future. In our corner, we now have a growing body of evidence demonstrating that healing is possible. United, we will win!