Essentials: Diet & Nutrition for Mental Health | Dr. Chris Palmer

Essentials: Diet & Nutrition for Mental Health | Dr. Chris Palmer

August 27, 2026 · 39 min

About this episode

Dr. Chris Palmer discusses the impact of diet and nutrition on mental health, including the benefits of ketogenic diets and carbohydrate restriction.

In this Huberman Lab Essentials episode, my guest is Dr. Chris Palmer, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. We explain how nutrition and metabolism directly affect mental health, including the biological mechanisms underlying these effects. We also discuss how carbohydrate restriction, ketogenic diets and fasting can improve mood, energy, and, in some cases, treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Chris Palmer (00:00:20) Personal Story, Nutrition & Mental Health (00:05:28) Treatment-Resistant Mental Disorders & Low-Carbohydrate Diet (00:07:32) Sponsor: Eight Sleep (00:08:51) Ketogenic Diet & Schizophrenia Success Story (00:12:20) Nutrition for Mental Disorders, Ketosis, Highly Processed Foods (00:15:13) Epilepsy & Ketogenic Diet, Fasting; Mitochondrial Benefits (00:21:14) Sponsor: BetterHelp (00:22:15) Mitochondria Functions, Mental Disorders (00:28:05) Mitophagy, Autophagy, Longevity & Calorie Restriction (00:33:12) Sponsor: AG1 (00:34:25)…

Topics covered

Keywords

Sponsors

AG1, Eight Sleep, BetterHelp

More episodes of Huberman Lab

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Huberman Lab podcast page.