Currently, one in five Americans live with a mental illness, and these rates have been tracking alongside increases in metabolic disease. Yet, conventional psychiatric care does not typically include discussion of food or an assessment of metabolic dysfunction, obesity, or insulin resistance in the evaluation or treatment of mental health conditions.

On this episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy, I was happy to sit down and talk with Dr. Shebani Sethi Dalai about the relationship between mental health and metabolic disease, and how we are gradually coming to understand that inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance may represent important root causes of many chronic brain illnesses, including many psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Shebani Sethi Dalai is a double board-certified physician in Obesity Medicine and Psychiatry. She is the Founding Director of Stanford University's Metabolic Psychiatry program and Silicon Valley Metabolic Psychiatry, a new center in the San Francisco Bay Area focused on optimizing brain health by integrating low carb nutrition, comprehensive psychiatric care, and treatment of obesity with associated metabolic disease.

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