For the first time in my 25 year career in psychiatry, there seems to be some agreement among Western medicine researchers and functional medicine practitioners about the role of leaky gut (also called gut dysbiosis or intestinal permeability) as the gateway for chronic inflammation and its effects on the entire body including psychiatric and mood disorders.
Can that really be true? You may be wondering how that could happen given the problems that occurred with the misuse of LSD and magic mushrooms (psilocybin) by the youth culture in the 1960s. They were finally banned in the U.S. altogether in 1970 so there could be no further studies until recent years.
Doctors always recommend a healthy diet but the truth is I don’t even think anyone knows what that means anymore including most doctors themselves. The standard American diet is pretty much a disaster for the human body and mind. The other problem is that even if there was a consensus on what constitutes a healthy diet getting people motivated or inspired to adhere to it is very challenging. However, there was a young woman who presented to me with severe depressive symptoms. Medications were only temporarily helpful and even dietary changes revealed no consistent pattern until she hit upon a modified ketogenic diet.
