Summary
Paul Saladino joins Paul Saladino MD Podcast to discuss how to correct the root cause of your depression/anxiety/eating disorder. Key topics include nutritional and metabolic root causes of depression and anxiety; dietary interventions for mental health improvement; why pharmaceutical-only approaches often fall short.
Key Points
- Nutritional and metabolic root causes of depression and anxiety
- Dietary interventions for mental health improvement
- Why pharmaceutical-only approaches often fall short
- Nutrient deficiencies linked to mood disorders
- Eating disorders through a metabolic lens
Key Moments
Cold plunging for mood and depression
Saladino mentions cold plunging as a modality he personally uses, in the context of discussing root causes of depression and anxiety.
"So, so many benefits to organs, such unique sources of organs, never wasted by our ancestors, shouldn't be wasted today. If you can get them fresh, do that. That's amazing. If you can't get them fresh, check them out at heartandsoil.co. That's heartandsoil.co, where we make the finest organ supplements on the planet, grass-fed, grass-finished, regeneratively raised in a glass bottle with fancy labels. They're pretty, pretty. They're pretty pretty. I love them. And we are here to help you reclaim your birthright to radical health."
Blue light blocking for circadian rhythm protection
Saladino describes his commitment to protecting circadian rhythms at night by wearing blue light blocking glasses around bright lights.
"I want to start by giving a shout out to my friends at BlueBlocks, B-L-U-B-L-O-X.com. They make some pretty great blue light blocking glasses. I'm a big fan of circadian rhythms and protecting my circadian rhythm at night. It means that I wear blue blocking glasses when I'm around bright lights at night."
Ketogenic diet for psychiatric illness
Discussion of the ketogenic diet as a potential therapeutic approach for schizophrenia and psychiatric illness, noting it may work by restoring brain energy metabolism through shifting fuel sources.
"Before we dive into all of this on this week's podcast and talk about mental illness, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and some evidence that I think points to a dietary cause, a nutritional cause, a biochemical cause, an inflammatory cause for these, or at least connections between all of these elements of the human existence. I wanted to respond to something that happened on Instagram this week. There was someone in the nutrition space."
Melatonin production and meal timing
Saladino discusses how insulin and melatonin are contradictory hormones, using this as an argument for eating meals early in the day to avoid suppressing nighttime melatonin production, and the importance of morning light for circadian entrainment.
"And that is what we do. We name things and then we always have a drug for it if we can name it. Once we run out of drugs for something, it is untreatable in the mainstream Western medical paradigm or it doesn't exist. If there are conditions within mainstream society that don't have drug treatments, they are either considered idiopathic, which means we don't know what causes them, untreatable, unremediable."
