NeuroSource

11/01/2026

People who drank too little water had a bigger stress hormone surge.

Low drinkers (about 1.3 liters a day) had a cortisol rise of 6.2 versus 4.0 in high drinkers (about 4.4 liters a day). That is about 55% bigger.

Researchers put 32 healthy adults through the same stressful test: a speech and mental math in front of a silent panel. Both groups felt equally anxious, and their heart rates rose the same. Only the stress hormone was different.

The study was small, the groups were picked by their usual habits rather than assigned at random, and it was partly funded by a bottled water company. It measured one stressful moment, not long-term health.

What this means for you: if you usually drink little, your body may react harder to stress than you can feel. Drinking enough every day is a free, easy habit worth keeping.

11/01/2026

Older adults who ate eggs most days had less Alzheimer's.

Eating 5 or more eggs a week went with 27% lower risk than never eating eggs. Even 1 to 3 eggs a month went with 17% lower risk.

Researchers followed 39,498 adults aged 65 and older for about 15 years. 2,858 of them developed Alzheimer's.

This study shows a link, not proof. The people studied were Seventh-day Adventists, a very health-minded group, and many who never ate eggs were vegan. People in the early stages of Alzheimer's may also change how they eat.

Eggs are a top source of choline, which the brain uses to make a key memory chemical. The study did not measure that directly.

What this means for you: for most people, an egg a day is not something to fear. The old cholesterol limit that made eggs look dangerous was dropped from US guidelines in 2015.

10/31/2026

"Nothing can be both safe and effective." That's what Professor Peter Gøtzsche told me when I sat down with him.

He co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration, and he's spent decades digging into drug trial data. His view is blunt: the way psychiatric drugs are used causes much more harm than benefit.

He's clear they can help in acute situations, if you need to be calmed down. The problem is doctors keeping the same patients on them for years.

A few things he shared that stuck with me:

→ If a drug has benefits, it will always harm some people. The real question is how often and how badly.

→ Come off an antidepressant too fast and you can develop what he calls an "abstinence depression." It's withdrawal, but it gets read as proof you still need the drug.

→ Few doctors know how to taper very slowly at the small doses at the end, rather than halving the dose every couple of weeks.

→ Going through Eli Lilly's own clinical study reports on Prozac in depressed children, he and David Healy found two su***de attempts that had been left out of the published trial.

His takeaway: if you want to know what a drug really does, don't rely on medical journals. Go to the source data.

If you're on one of these drugs, please don't stop suddenly. Come off slowly, with a prescriber.

If you're struggling, call or text 988 (US) or your local crisis line.

Comment TAPER and I'll send you my free safe tapering guide.

10/31/2026

Danny was put on Klonopin at 13. Ten years after her last pill, she still can't sleep through the night.

I sat down with her to hear her story.

Her home life was chaotic and unsafe. She reached out for help. After describing all of that, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 13 and started on antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and a benzo.

She told me the first Klonopin was probably the best thing she ever felt. Peace. No anxiety going to school or walking into her house.

That's the trap. It felt like a gift and a curse.

Over the years her dose climbed from about one or two a day to four. Every time she said she couldn't sleep or her anxiety was still bad, it went up. A 5-minute conversation and another script.

She says the Klonopin wiped out her gut instinct. Life turned into numbing.

At 21 she found out she was pregnant and quit everything cold turkey. She had multiple seizures in the first two weeks.

Nobody had ever told her, since she was 13, that you can't just stop this medication.

Later she went back on "as needed," and struggled to get off again. She started forgetting a PIN she'd had for years.

When she finally came off for good, the shaking lasted years. The nausea eventually lifted. But she says her nervous system still feels like it's on fire. She jumps at sounds and wakes up constantly.

What's helped her most has been changing how she eats and therapy for complex trauma.

Her message to parents: research the medication. Ask what your child is eating. Try natural approaches first. Ask whether it's long term and what coming off looks like.

What these kids really need is healthy, stable adults around them. The treatment often happens with the parents.

And if you're on a benzo, please don't stop suddenly. Come off slowly, with a prescriber.

If you're struggling, call or text 988 (US) or your local crisis line.

Comment TAPER and I'll send you my free safe tapering guide.

10/30/2026

10/30/2026

4 years ago Dale and I went backpacking in Bankhead.

It was during that trip that it dawned on me that we were aging. We were climbing over some slippery rocks and had one of us taken a fall we could’ve been seriously hurt and had no way to get the other out of the forest.

There’s no cell service in that forest and hardly any people. I don’t think we saw any people other than at the car as we were getting ready to pack in. Not unusual for where we like to set up camp.

When we came home, Dale bought a Garmin satellite system so that we can make contact if we need to and still go into remote, isolated areas.

I’m about to complete my 63rd trip around the sun.

In some ways, I’m more aware that I’m aging, but in many ways I feel better than I ever have and I’m just getting the hang of this life.

We are in the process of creating a couples optimal aging program

We have a lot of incredible tools that we have been using to age well and we want to share them with couples who want to do the work to grow in intimacy and purpose and joy rather than decline the way many Americans are.

I just did an interesting blood panel and my biological age came up as 56 instead of 63. I think we’re doing some things well and we’re excited to share.

10/30/2026

Dr Daniel Fisher is an international pioneer in the mental health recovery movement who helped transform psychiatric care by demonstrating that full recovery from severe mental health conditions is possible.

After personally overcoming a diagnosis of schizophrenia, he earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School to reform the mental health system from within as a psychiatrist.

Dr Fisher’s work has shifted international policy toward human connection and peer-led empowerment rather than forced treatment and lifelong institutionalisation. He is also author of “Heartbeats of Hope: The Empowerment Way to Recover Your Life” that is being translated into Spanish.

This post covers some excerpts from a Mad in America interview with Dr Fisher, by Alan Robinson.

Alan: How did you handle the potential confusion or conflict of being both a former
patient on one hand and a practising doctor on the other?

Dr Daniel Fisher: Bridging those two worlds has been a lifelong task. Initially, I coped
by leading two separate lives and keeping my lived experience secret for three years,
sharing it only with the head of the department. Over time, I earned the trust of survivor advocates. I waited until I finished my three-year residency before publicly disclosing my history. At the end of my residency, I was invited onto a television talk show, People Are Talking, to debate forced treatment. I invited my former supervisor to debate me. Right before we walked onto the stage, I told him I was going to reveal my past hospitalization. He sarcastically responded, “It’s very fashionable these days to have been hospitalized.”

Alan: You were told you would never recover, and went on to earn doctorates. Did you feel like living proof that the system’s prognosis was completely wrong?

Dr Daniel Fisher: When giving talks to psychiatric audiences, many psychiatrists remained deeply sceptical about recovery. One psychiatrist told me after a talk, “You couldn’t possibly have had schizophrenia, because your presentation made sense.” The assumption was that people simply do not recover from schizophrenia.
Years ago, a friend attending a graduate-level abnormal psychology course at Boston University challenged her professor when he told the class that people never recover from schizophrenia. She mentioned that a friend of hers—a psychiatrist—had recovered. When the professor claimed I must have been misdiagnosed, they went through the DSM-III criteria item by item, confirming I met every single criterion, including catatonia, mutism, and being out of work and social functioning for over six months. Facing this evidence, the professor shifted his response to: “Well, if he met the criteria, he must still be sick—he’s just a case of a disabled psychiatrist.” It shows how deeply entrenched the belief in non-recovery was.

Alan: Looking back on your journey as a historical pioneer in this movement, what is
your message for the future?
Dr Daniel Fisher: The mental health system will not give up its power without a struggle. While I am not an abolitionist—because removing the mental health system without alternatives would leave prison as the only option—we must continuously organise laterally across the globe to demand our rights and demonstrate our capabilities.
Furthermore, as society turns increasingly toward artificial intelligence, we will see its limitations. AI lacks a heart; it cannot feed people’s dreams or replace genuine human connection. This technological shift highlights the urgent need to return to the root of our shared humanity—which is precisely what our movement represents.

Read the full Mad in the World feature interview here: https://www.madinamerica.com/2026/10/overcoming-schizophrenia-and-transforming-psychiatry-an-interview-with-dr-daniel-fisher/

Or watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_st28OGDiAM

10/29/2026

10/29/2026

“Prozac tapers itself.” You’ve probably heard this one.

The idea comes from Prozac’s (fluoxetine’s) long half-life: it leaves your body slowly, so stopping it can feel gentler than stopping other antidepressants. But “gentler” doesn’t mean “safe to stop all at once.” Plenty of people still get withdrawal symptoms when they come off it too fast, and those symptoms can show up weeks later, when it’s easy to mistake them for relapse.

A slow, gradual taper that fits you is still the safest way off.

Comment TAPER and I’ll send you our free Safe Tapering Guide.