A fascinating study that not only proves again that metabolism is at the core of conditions that medicine denies are metabolic, but suggests a simple and potentially curative approach. Namely, ameliorating insulin resistance and thus restoring glucose metabolism. Now, since it well-known in the bioenergetic community that insulin resistance is driven by excessive fat accumulation and oxidation, the findings of the study below suggest that something as simple as lowering fat intake, increasing sugar intake, and/or taking substances such as aspirin and niacinamide (both of which ameliorate insulin resistance) may be enough to treat (cure?) conditions considered by medicine lifelong and only manageable (but not curable) by therapy with potent psychotropic drugs. In corroboration of the new study findings, a prior study found that one of the main effects of lithium – the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder – is to improve insulin sensitivity.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-022-02122-6
Bipolar Mood Shifts Linked to Insulin Signaling in the Pancreas
Restoring Insulin Sensitivity Can Help With Chronic Bipolar Disorder, Study Suggests
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The medical community is becoming increasingly more aware that patients with bipolar disorder are predisposed to diabetes, and that diabetes can, in turn, make patients’ bipolar episodes worse. Those individuals are particularly vulnerable to Type II diabetes, an impairment in the way that the body regulates blood glucose levels, either as a result of insufficient production of the glucose-lowering hormone insulin or because of decreased sensitivity to insulin. Rates of Type II diabetes in patients with bipolar disorder are three times higher than those in the general population, and a large portion of patients with diagnosed bipolar disorder are prediabetic and have reduced insulin sensitivity while their blood glucose level remains normal. Insulin resistance, or reduced insulin sensitivity, is a serious risk factor for worse mental health outcomes in bipolar disorder patients and can make patients less responsive to conventional medications. But despite these grim statistics, psychiatric clinics seldom order tests for insulin resistance – which are relatively straightforward and cheap – and treating established diabetes does not appear to be enough to improve patients’ psychiatric outcomes.”
“…To see if treating insulin resistance would improve treatment-resistant bipolar depression, researchers designed a proof-of-concept clinical trial. The trial included 45 middle-aged participants who failed eight or nine psychiatric drug treatment trials. The vast majority of patients had a chronic course of illness with no periods of remission for over 25 years. By trial design, approximately half of the patients received regular doses of metformin – a cheap and readily available insulin sensitizing drug – while remaining on their regular medication regime, and the other half received placebo. As early as six weeks after metformin treatment was initiated, the researchers saw promising changes. By 14 weeks, half of the patients in the metformin group became insulin-sensitive and their depression and anxiety subsided drastically. Better yet, the improvements in depression, anxiety and general functioning were sustained up to 26 weeks. “Given that the only other therapy that works comparably well is electroconvulsive therapy – a procedure that involves applying electrical current to the patient’s brain, causing a controlled seizure — achieving the same result just by restoring insulin sensitivity seems astounding,” said coauthor Dr. Jessica Gannon, associate professor of psychiatry at Pitt.“
