We’re in a global mental-health crisis. People are more depressed, anxious, addicted, and isolated than ever.

There are treatments — medication, therapy, recovery programs — and they work. But not all of the time and not for everyone.

Part of the problem, says Dr. Christopher Palmer — Director of the Department of Postgraduate and Continuing Education at McLean Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School — is that the origin of mental illness is still largely a medical mystery.

But Palmer doesn’t think so.

“What I'm here to say is we are, in fact, missing the elephant in the room,” he says. “Because mental metabolic problems have been identified in the brains and bodies of people with mental illness for over a century.”

In a talk given at the CrossFit for Health Summit on Feb. 3, 2024, in Austin, Texas, Palmer presents the case for mental illness as metabolic illness, advocating for an integrated approach to mental-health treatment in which CrossFit could play a pivotal role.

“The CrossFit prescription can be a legitimate biological metabolic brain intervention for people with real mental illness,” Palmer says.

CHAPTERS

0:00-3:54 - The state of the global mental-health crisis.
3:54-5:23 - The problem with mental-health treatments.
5:23-10:53 - The great mysteries of mental illness: What is it and what causes it?
10:53-12:55 - The P factor and D factor: The unknown element all mental disorders share in common — and the one they share with physical disorders.
12:55-13:49 - Mental disorders are metabolic in nature.
13:49-16:46 - The bidirectional relationship between mental illness and obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.
16:46-21:53 - Mental illness and lifespan reduction: a behavior issue or a metabolic one?
21:53-24:17 - Thinking in complex feedback loops instead of linear relationships.
24:17-26:33 - What is metabolism and what controls it?
26:33-28:29 - Mitochondria as the unifying link for the risk factors for mental illness.
28:29-30:07 - A new approach to treatment.
30:07-36:00 - Exercise and mental health.
36:00-39:08 - The ketogenic diet as a metabolic treatment for mental illness.
39:08-40:46 - CrossFit as a legitimate biological metabolic brain intervention for people with mental illness.

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