A fascinating Zoom presentation to the Lothian Bipolar Group by world-leading author Julie A. Fast.
Julie is a world leading mental health expert on the topics of bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and psychosis. She is the bestselling author of Loving Someone with Bipolar Disorder: Understanding and Helping Your Partner, Take Charge of Bipolar Disorder: A Four Step Plan for You and Your Loved Ones to Manage the Illness and Creating Lasting Stability and Getting it Done When You’re Depressed: 50 Strategies for Keeping Your Life on Track.
Julie is the top bipolar disorder management writer in the world with over 500,000 books sold and 15 million views of her online work for bp Magazine, Psychology Today and other publications.
Julie was an exceptional speaker. Gracious, highly knowledgeable, energetic and deeply empathetic. She is no stranger to Edinburgh, it turns out. During a holiday visit to the city in 1992 with her then-partner, Julie couldn't help but notice the pervasive smell of chocolate everywhere. This aroma was actually, of course, the familiar smell of brewers yeast that some of you may recall in those days. Despite the beautiful setting, Julie couldn't stop crying. "I'm just going through changes" she explained to her concerned partner.
Within a year, her partner had been diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder with Julie diagnosed with both mood and psychotic mental health problems - schizoaffective disorder. In hospital for 3 months, Julie vowed "one day I'm going to write about this" and so her career as a writer of best-selling bipolar management books was born at a time when there were few similar resources on the market.
Julie responded to lots of interested questions from the audience around the differences between the Instagram "keto" diets, currently in vogue, and a metabolic therapy diet with its very low carbs content and moderate protein levels. Check out Julie's recent article in bphope magazine for more details:
One important note is that ultra low-carb diets such as a bipolar metabolic therapy diet should not be attempted without the advice and supervision of both your medical professional and a registered nutritionist or dietitian. These therapeutic diets typically have less than 20g of carbohydrate per day as opposed to your typical "Instagram" keto or low-carb diets which might have under 50g per day with the latter encompassing a far wider range of foods that can be consumed. So ask advice first, or hop on to the forthcoming trials (see below).
Julie was also interested in the pilot bipolar keto study that was done by Professor Danny Smith's group at Edinburgh University a couple of years ago (which was partially funded by the Baszucki Group research fund). A number of Lothian Bipolar Group members were involved and the interim results are published here.
One of our group members, Oliver Seligman (himself the author of a number of interesting books including "Befriending Bipolar: A patient's perspective") gave an update on life post the keto pilot and his experiences resuming the diet which can be viewed on YouTube:
Julie has worked extensively with Dr Chris Palmer MD, a Harvard psychiatrist and researcher working at the interface of metabolism and mental health whose best-selling book "Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health--and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More" is a highly-influential read in the metabolic psychiatry field:
Check out Chris Palmer's interview on YouTube with Mikhailia Peterson here.
Following additional funding from the Wellcome Trust, we believe a full clinical trial of the keto diet for bipolar may be started by the University of Edinburgh in the near future, so keep an eye on a shout-out for trial participants soon.
Finally, Julie addressed another area of study of her's: cannabis and bipolar and the reasons why legalisation (with strings attached) in the USA led to the huge increase in the ratio of THC to CBD with growers breeding plants for potency. The relative reduction of brain-protective CBD, which in days-of-old meant weed was a pretty benign substance, has made modern varieties a "no-go" for many people with bipolar.
Thank you to Julie and everyone who attended for making this such a great talk, and a big thank you to Cai for arranging Julie to come along.