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Dan was 19 years old when he was hospitalized for schizophrenia. He was prescribed daily medication and as a side effect, he quickly took 100 pounds.
"I weighed 340 pounds," said Dan, who asked to keep his last name because of the stigma attached to mental illness. "I'm about 6 feet tall. It's quite heavy. "
His treatment and weight remained virtually unchanged for more than a dozen years before he began to slowly take steps toward his recovery. He started karate five years ago, doing regular exercise.
Then his doctor at McLean Hospital in Belmont prescribed a new diet: he helped Dan eliminate almost all carbohydrates, replacing them with healthy fats and a little more protein. The diet took a while to get used to, but after three years it became a routine. If he goes out with friends, he will order a salad or just sip a water and eat when he goes home.
Diet is part of a growing trend in medicine: prescribing certain foods – or asking patients to eliminate them – to improve their health.
Three studies published in recent weeks show the range of new research linking food to health. In the journal Science, researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center conclude that a molecule in vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and kale can actually fight cancer. It seems to help reactivate a gene that suppresses many tumors.
In a new study of 50,000 older women followed for two decades, those who followed a low-fat diet – rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains – were less likely to get breast cancer and die. And in a third, tiny study, fasting 15 hours a day – as Muslims do during the holy month of Ramadan – seems to improve metabolism, increasing protein levels playing a role in maintaining cellular health and the response from the body to insulin.
The trend is not entirely new. The ketogenic diet has been prescribed for a century to children with epilepsy. Abandoning almost all carbohydrates – bread, pasta, even most fruits – forces the body to pass from burning sugars to fat burners. In a way, this seems to correct the electrical problems in the brains of many children with terrible epilepsy. Some range from hundreds of seizures a week to just a few; in others, the crises cease completely.
Christopher Palmer, Dan's psychiatrist at McLean Hospital, believes that the same change in energy source could help fight mental illnesses.
People with mental illness and obesity can overeat to have enough energy, says Palmer. Their brain cells might not properly process the fuel from sugar due to genetic factors, poor nutrition or the stress of a toxic childhood. To feed the brain, they often turn to the diet preferred by most Americans: a lot of processed foods, sugar and easily digestible carbohydrates.
"Their cells emit an SOS signal:" Give me, feed me – go and eat some more, "says Palmer, but all that extra glucose can not get into their cells, so they eat too much and put on weight, but "still do not get enough energy".
Palmer thinks that a strict ketogenic diet forces the body to resort to a different energy source, which allows it to better fuel the brain cells with fuel. As brain function improves, very early evidence suggests that it can reduce psychosis, anxiety, and other symptoms of mental illness.
"The good news in all of this is that these things are reversible. The metabolism can be changed by what we eat and by exercise, "Palmer said, adding that he was participating in the three studies on the current ketogenic diet and mental health in the world. "It's a really exciting area of research."
In another study at Northeastern University, researchers used large data to better understand the effects of nutrients on the body and brain.
Albert-László Barabási, a computer scientist in the north-east of the country, explains that of the 17,000 chemicals identified in foods, we only know how about 150 of them affect the body. He is interested in research published around the world to understand what others are doing.
"We need to know what chemicals affect your health, your disease, and therefore we can give you very specific advice. That's exactly why we do this, "he says.
Barabási hopes to use this information to help doctors and other researchers identify specific foods that people should eat – or not eat. Perhaps at some point, he says, this could be personalized, so we could tell someone whose body does not treat certain foods well enough to avoid them.
"If I could just say," Hey, you do not have to change all your eating habits, but leave those two ingredients out of your food, "I think it would be a much easier diet to follow through the most individuals, "said Barabási.
According to Darius Mozaffarian, Dean of the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, there is no doubt that something must change in the American diet.
Obesity is part of the problem, says Mozaffarian. But even people with normal weight develop diabetes, cancer, stroke and other health problems because of poor eating habits.
"Our food system makes us sick," he says. "It's absolutely the first cause of poor health in our country."
Although nutritionists continue to challenge the details, they usually know what is best for us and what is not. Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts and some whole grains are in good health, says Mozaffarian; processed meats and other processed foods, white bread, chips and sodas are not so good.
The idea of adding or eliminating only a few specific foods to improve our health has not yet received broad scientific support. But for Dan, now 35, a dramatic change in his diet has had a huge impact.
After three years of ketogenic diet, Dan is thinner than 140 pounds. He takes improvisation classes and works twice as a volunteer. He even had his black belt in karate.
Dan is not cured, but he is much better off.
"I take about half the amount of medication I had when I started the ketogenic diet," he says. "I feel good, much better than me.
Dan and his doctor believe that other people can also benefit.
"When it comes to diet and exercise," says Dan, "I think this is an area where we continue to neglect the improvement of all types of ailments."
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