The Brain Energy Fund

Let’s transform mental health care!

Mental illnesses are a growing crisis and are now the leading cause of disability on the planet. Although we have many treatments to offer, they fail to work for far too many people. Why can’t we do better?

“No one knows what causes mental illness.”

“There is no cure for mental illness.”

“We don’t know how a psychiatric medication will affect a person until we try.”

Brain Energy changes all of this!

Decades of clinical, neuroscience, genetic, and metabolic research reveal that mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. This leads to entirely new ways to understand and treat mental illness. There is hope for healing, even from serious mental disorders that are currently thought to be lifelong, chronic, and incurable.

WE NEED CHANGE!

1. Mental health is metabolic health. We need dramatic changes in mental health clinical care, education, and research. It is possible to put mental disorders into remission and this should be the goal of all treatments.

2. Mental health and physical health are inseparable. Interrelated physical disorders — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s Disease, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, fibromyalgia, migraine headaches, and chronic pain — all have strong relationships with mental disorders. Treatments for all of these will overlap, even though there will be differences based on areas of the brain and body affected. Integration of these fields will lead to more rapid progress than continuing to treat them as unrelated, unique diagnoses. We need to treat whole people, not just individual symptoms or diagnoses.

3. Not every mental experience is a mental disorder. Helping people cope with situations or experiences that cause anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic symptoms is different from helping people who are suffering from a metabolically malfunctioning brain.

4. Insurance should cover mental health and metabolic treatments. Accessing quality care can be difficult and sometimes impossible. Insurance should provide appropriate reimbursement for clinicians, hospital care, residential care, dietitians, fitness trainers, health and wellness coaches, physical and occupational therapists, and rehabilitation specialists. These professionals and services target the root causes of mental and metabolic disorders.

5. Mental health research funding can affect every part of the health care cost curve. From 2015 – 2019, only 4% of the global healthcare research funding was for mental health, even though mental disorders are now the leading cause of disability worldwide. The brain energy theory offers a new path for rapid progress in neuropsychiatric research and the development and validation of more effective treatments.

WITHOUT A GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT, HOWEVER, CHANGE IS UNLIKELY.

Science and evidence aren’t enough to change a field.

To do that, we need people — lots of people — all working together!

“And so, I call on you and ask for your help… This movement needs you, your friends, and your family. I’m not asking for myself, but on behalf of the countless people who are suffering from mental illness alone and in silence; on behalf of those begging for more effective treatments and better lives; on behalf of those who are tormented on a daily basis by their mental symptoms; on behalf of those who have lost all hope; on behalf of all the people who continue to hide in their homes in shame and humiliation from the stigma of mental illness; and in memory of the countless people who couldn’t hold on and are no longer with us. Let’s put an end to this suffering, once and for all. Let’s not waste another day.”

— Christopher M. Palmer, MD (excerpt from Brain Energy, page 303)

The Brain Energy Fund is dedicated to transforming the mental health field and improving the lives of millions of people.

• We need education for patients and family members, such as free podcasts and webinars

• We need patient support groups

• We need an ongoing social media campaign

• We need advocacy efforts

• We need clinician training programs on metabolic treatment approaches

• We need provider directories so that people can find appropriate treatment

All of this will take time, people, and resources.

Please help!

Our initial fundraising goal is $200,000. This will provide for ongoing advocacy, a social media campaign, and free education for patients and family members. Additional support will allow us to pursue even more.