Weekly Digest 5
WEEKLY DIGEST
This week, we published two new pieces on The Science and Experience of Energy.
The first takes you inside the Ernst Strüngmann Forum on metabolic neuropsychiatry—where global experts convened to rethink mental illness through the lens of brain energy, metabolism, and whole-body physiology.
The second shares how the food we eat can ultimately impact how we feel and our mental health. It explores cases where the medical ketogenic diet has had dramatic effects on the lives of people with mental illness.
Together, these posts introduce the important links between food, metabolism, mitochondria, and our mental health, as well as the new field of metabolic neuropsychiatry that is emerging to shed light on the mysteries that remain.
Bringing Brain Energy Into Focus: Inside the Ernst Strüngmann Forum on Metabolic Neuropsychiatry
The atmosphere was electric.
Forty experts from across the world were coming together with one goal: to advance the emerging field of metabolic neuropsychiatry.
As our bus pulled up to the Ernst Strüngmann Institute in May of 2024, the modern metal and glass building appeared to glow as it reflected the morning sunrise. A busy week lay ahead, and we were ready and eager to begin.
Discovering the Medical Ketogenic Diet to Treat Mental Illness
When he was 16 years old, Matt Baszucki, a bright young man from Santa Cruz, California, was diagnosed with bipolar disease. He was in college, studying engineering, when he had a bout of severe psychosis while in his college dorm room. He had to come home and was rushed to the hospital, which led to his diagnosis.
Matt’s condition was so severe, he had to drop out of college.
This thread on metabolism and mental health keeps clicking things into place for me. I've been piecing together these patterns for years now by watching what happens in bodies (mine included) as we move through stress, aging, life transitions - just paying attention, feeling it, tracking the shifts. But I've been tracking it through the midlife lens, working with people navigating these transitions, noticing what's really happening under all the (broken)cultural noise and social media/bro-culture soundbite explanations.
For me, your mitochondrial/metabolic work is landing as the "human animal" piece - you're showing me the mechanism behind what I've been observing at the lived experience level. Really, really grateful for this work 🙏