William Furness | Metabolic Mental Health

For too long we’ve treated mental illness as bad thought patterns. That assumption is broken. I’m building at the intersection of metabolic × mental health. I share emerging science and hard-won lessons from scaling healthcare as a 3x CEO (1x Unicorn)

@grannyash510 @threadreaderapp Hope it’s a useful read! More on the mitochondria-mental health connection coming 🧠⚡

@WilliamFurness @threadreaderapp unroll please

I've been saying this for a while. Now JAMA Psychiatry said it louder. 54 studies. 17,065 people. The real story of depression isn't in the monoamines... It's in the mitochondria. 🧵

I hear the frustration, and a dozen failed trials is brutal. It doesn't mean nothing will work...it often means the current framework isn't asking the right questions yet. There's a whole emerging metabolic psychiatry literature (check out Harvard and Stanford's metabolic psychiatry sites) worth bringing to a clinician open to it. You're not out of options. Keep the hope up.

@WilliamFurness So what the fuck am I supposed to take after a dozen drugs doing nothing

@Hakan_Atalay2 @conatus1632 @nicknorwitz @MitoPsychoBio @NTFabiano 100. But I'd argue the strongest reading of the mito literature isn't "mitochondria explain everything", it's "mitochondria are the interface where the social becomes biological." Picard & McEwen (@Columbia) mapped exactly this. Both/and, not either/or.

@conatus1632 @WilliamFurness @nicknorwitz @MitoPsychoBio @NTFabiano Bütün indirgeyici yaklaşımların akıbeti bu çalışmaları da bekliyor, çünkü “Serotonin her şeyi açıklar” yerine “Mitokondri her şeyi açıklar” geçiyor. Psikiyatride, hele de depresyonda, insanın toplumsallığını ihmal eden tüm hipotezler eksik kalacaktır.

Love this add. The SCN + compound pharmacy frame is real. And the newer piece: 670nm red light acts directly on mitochondria too. it thins the nanowater around ATP synthase so the rotor spins faster (Glen Jeffery, UCL). (more energy with less RoS) Light and mitochondria aren't two stories. They're one.

@WilliamFurness Turns out it's a Light deficiency. Just like SAD. Indoor lifestyles are devoid of the 1000+ Lux of outdoors. Eyes bring light into the center of the brain. Entrain the master clock SCN, open up the compound pharmacy in the pituitary and Block BLUE after sunset for the win!

@AFreshLitBeacon Theres some tremendous early data about how a ketogenic diet (particularly in combination with exercise) can drive quicker improvements in mito health!

Which means Nutritional Ketosis is a root-cause resolving approach🥰

The most elegant metabolic finding I've heard this year: 670nm red light doesn't "energize" your mitochondria. It thins the nanowater on the inner membrane so ATP synthase spins faster with less friction...more ATP, less ROS. Think thinner viscosity of oil in an engine. @hubermanlab × Dr. Glen Jeffery, worth the 2 hrs. hubermanlab.com/episode/red-li…

Red light therapy sounds like a trend… until you understand what it’s actually doing. Specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light support mitochondrial function, which means better energy production, improved recovery, and healthier skin. Who has yet to try?

Question for you...isn't the opposite case also supported? A 36–48h fast can force the metabolic switch in people too insulin-resistant for gradual TRF to ever get there. Longo, Anton, and Fung all have data on this. Maybe the variable isn't fast length, but where someone's metabolism starts?

One of the biggest mistakes people make? Jumping straight into aggressive fasting. Your body has to learn how to switch between fuel sources... that takes time. It’s called metabolic flexibility and most people skip that step. That’s when things start to backfire.

@SahilBloom There's a reason this works. You're already in a cortisol awakening response ~30 min post-wake. 2 min of movement stacks a catecholamine surge, a lactate signal, and an AMPK pulse to your mitochondria on top. The "winning feeling" is real. It's your energy system turning on.

If you struggle with morning energy, do this right when you get out of bed: • 5 squats • 5 push-ups • 5 lunges per leg • 30-second plank I call it my 5-5-5-30 Method. It’ll give you a boost and start your day with a winning feeling. Takes 2 minutes and just works. Try it.

Mental health is metabolic health. Mitochondria are the common ground. And for the first time, we are building the tools to see it, measure it, and actually do something about it. @nicknorwitz @MitoPsychoBio @NTFabiano jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…

This is the foundation for a different kind of mental healthcare. One where we stop guessing and start measuring. Where "how are you feeling?" is backed by biomarkers, not just symptom checklists. It's why we're building (see link below)

@MitoPsychoBio More mitochondria = more brain energy capacity = more resilience to stress, mood, cognition. This is exactly why we think the future of mental health looks more like exercise physiology than pharmacology. Excited to read the piece.

Exercise is good for the brain. But why? This morning in The Science and Experience of Energy we explore the effects of exercise on brain mitochondrial. And why making more mitochondria might in part be why moving keeps our brain healthy. martinpicard.substack.com/p/mitochondria…

The mechanism behind this is underrated. Daily walking progressively increases mitochondrial density in slow-twitch muscle fibers…which directly upregulates fat oxidation capacity. Your body literally gets better at burning fat as fuel. 12k steps isn’t just “moving more,” it’s metabolic training.

I stay lean without doing cardio every day. I just walk a lot - around 12k steps daily. People think fat loss requires crazy workouts. It usually just requires moving more than you currently do. Most people don’t have a fat loss problem. They have a sitting problem.

Solid foundation. One underrated add: resistant starch. Recent research shows it selectively feeds butyrate-producing gut bacteria, which directly improves insulin sensitivity and drives visceral fat reduction…independent of calories. Retrograded rice, or green banana flour. The gut-metabolic axis is the missing variable in most belly fat conversations.

IfI Wanted to Lose Belly Fat By Summer, I'd Do This: 1. Eat the Optimized Mediterranean Diet. Fatty fish, leafy greens, berries, nuts, and olive oil. This helps lowers inflammation, improves insulin sensitivity, and helps strip visceral (belly) fat without extreme dieting.