BS Free MD with Drs. May and Tim Hindmarsh - Medicine, Life, Family, Physician, Doctor, Healthcare, Medical History · Doctor Podcast Network

431 — Breaking the Bias: Nicole Laurent on Keto as a Mental Health Ally

·1 hr 32 min·4 clips

Actually, it's called the Metabolic Mind Award That was presented to her in 2022 from the Wazowski Brain Research Fund and the Milken Institute, based on just presenting information as well as her website, she has a website called mentalhealthketo.

The episode opens with the hosts framing Nicole Laurent as someone who helps people use ketogenic dietary therapy as a treatment for mental illness and neurologic issues. They describe her as easy to listen to and good at making complicated ideas plain. From there, the conversation moves quickly into keto as a kind of brain hack. May and Tim treat that idea as serious, not cute. Nicole talks through how fasting can help when someone has slipped out of ketosis and is feeling lousy. The hosts mention using an 18-hour fast in a bipolar patient who has fallen off track, along with MCT oil, BHB salts, and then getting back to ketogenic meals. The show keeps returning to a simple point: not eating is the fastest way to jump-start ketosis. It also makes clear that the goal is not endless fasting, but using fasting to get into a metabolic state that can then be maintained with food. Tim adds the historical angle, noting that ketogenic diets were developed in the early 1920s to mimic fasting for seizure disorders. That turns the conversation from trend talk into medical history with a purpose. May then brings in her own experience as an anorexic teenager and young adult. She recalls feeling a strange high when she did not eat. The moment is blunt and personal. It gives the episode a lived-in edge that keeps the discussion from floating away into theory. The hosts are willing to talk about how a body can feel good in ways that are not actually good. They do not linger there for sentimentality. Instead, they use it to underline how tangled appetite, mood, and identity can get. Nicole's role in the conversation is to keep translating keto into treatment language. The hosts respond by pushing on the practical stakes: what do you do when someone is off the wagon, what do you do when the brain is not steady, and what does it mean to use food as part of care. The pace stays loose and conversational throughout. The tone is direct and comfortable with plain speech. The episode lands as an argument for taking keto seriously as part of the mental health conversation.

As heard by us

A brisk, opinionated look at keto as a mental health tool.

Keto is treated here as a clinical tool, not a theory, with Nicole Laurent presented as a counselor who uses ketogenic dietary therapy for mental illness and neurologic issues. That keeps the focus tight and practical, even if the broader debate stays mostly offstage.

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Why you'd press play

Hear a no-BS case for keto as a mental health tool.

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