2024 Canada
42 Minutes
Language: English
Director: Lauren Kennedy West
Watch the film on Laurens YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pIs30jDxeo&t=343s
Summary:
YouTuber Lauren Kennedy West had been sharing how to live a good life with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder by managing symptoms when she discovered the keto diet. Until then, she had lived believing that she had a lifelong chronic disorder, and that accepting and managing her symptoms was the best life she could have. She decided to try this diet, with relatively cautious expectations of the effect it might have. Many of her followers on YouTube warned her and also criticized her for encouraging others to engage in dangerous experimentation.
After just a few weeks of consuming fats and proteins as her energy source, she experienced significant changes in her energy levels, a reduction in symptoms, a feeling of stability, and a general sense that life was more open and accessible. Soon, she also felt that the neuroleptics she was taking had a stronger and more sedative effect than before. In consultation with her psychiatrist, she therefore began to taper off the medication, with very good results. About a year after changing her metabolism through diet, Lauren experienced remission from her chronic mental illness. She has also found a professional community and support groups that can tell her the same thing she has experienced herself: the keto diet can change the very cause of mental disorders. Now West wants an open, collective conversation about the understanding of mental disorders.