S1E8: Dr. Austin Perlmutter - Covid-19 and Mental Health: How This Pandemic Exacerbated a Bad Situation

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dr. Austin Perlmutter is a Board-Certified Internal Medicine Physician, a New York Times best-selling author, educator, and consultant who focuses on helping people identify and resolve their biological basis for stuckness in the body and brain and around decision making.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He comes on the show to dive into how the Covid-19 virus and pandemic affected our mental health, what it’s going to take to improve our brain and mental health starting today, and he shares strategies for how we can limit our exposure to stressful media in this episode.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Here’s a list of the topics that Dr. Perlmutter and Chris Irvin cover:</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">00:00 Introduction to Dr. Austin Perlmutter and his background</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">2:58 Dr. Perlmutter’s latest paper on how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting rates of depression</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">3:46 Cognitive and mental health complications with Covid-19</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">7:32 For those people who get Covid, what’s it doing to the brain to cause mental health issues?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">12:00 The symptoms to watch out for that are related to brain function</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">20:12 Are there any proposed mechanisms for how inflammation and the immune system can cause things like depression and anxiety?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">27:05 Are there any factors we know that will determine the fate of tryptophan going down that different pathway and turning into a harmful metabolite versus a potentially beneficial one?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">30:02 Is targeting inflammation and the immune system a great way to get at the root cause?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">30:24 What role do drugs like SSRIs have here?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">