Snapshot · On Purpose with Jay Shetty
More than 1,900 people have participated in published trials of the ketogenic diet for mental health conditions, with the overwhelming majority showing some benefit.
Where this was said
At 59:15 · chapter starts 59:05
One of the episode's most humanly powerful moments arrives here: Palmer describes the emotional arc of patients who experience full remission from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder through ketogenic interventions. [1] — Dr. Chris Palmer "When patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder achieve remission through dietary intervention, many don't celebrate — they grieve. Th…" 59:50 The expected response — joy, relief — comes, but it is consistently accompanied by something darker: profound grief for the decades of life stolen by the illness. These patients lost their relationships, their education, their independence, their identities. The question 'why didn't someone give me this 30 years ago?' is not rhetorical — it is raw and real. Palmer conveys this with the authority of someone who has sat with those patients repeatedly, and it gives weight to everything he has argued throughout the episode. The stakes of getting psychiatry right are not academic; they are measured in human lives.
When patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder achieve remission through dietary intervention, many don't celebrate — they grieve. Thirty lost years of relationships, careers, and independence collapse into a single devastating question: why didn't someone tell me this 30 years ago?
Dr. Palmer's mother — a normal middle-class woman raising eight kids — broke down in her early 40s and was never helped by psychiatry. She lost custody of her children, her home, her money, her identity. He watched it happen furious at the field he would go on to join and try to transform.
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