Following a ketogenic diet may improve the lives of people with serious mental health conditions like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, a study has found.
Stanford Medicine researchers found that eating a low carbohydrate, high-fat diet helped to restore metabolic health in patients on antipsychotic medications. The diet also improved their psychiatric conditions.
“It’s very promising and very encouraging that you can take back control of your illness in some way, aside from the usual standard of care,” said study author Shebani Sethi, an MD and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.
Although the pilot study had a small sample size of 21 participants, the research suggests that dietary interventions can play an important role in treating mental illness.
For four months, the researchers followed 21 adult participants who were diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. They were also taking antipsychotic medicines and had a metabolic issue, such as weight gain, insulin resistance, hypertriglyceridemia (too many fats in the blood), dyslipidemia (blood lipid levels that are too high or low) or impaired glucose tolerance.
Metabolic disorders like these are a common side effect of antipsychotic drugs. They can put people off taking their medications, which can worsen the symptoms of their condition.
The study participants were told to follow a ketogenic diet, focusing on non-processed foods and non-starchy vegetables. They were given access to ketogenic cookbooks and a health coach.
The researchers carried out metabolic assessments on the study participants during and after the trial. After four months on a keto diet, none of the participants had metabolic syndrome.
On average, the participants lost 10 percent of their body weight, reduced their waist circumference by 11 percent, and had lower blood pressure, body mass index, triglycerides, blood sugar levels and insulin resistance.
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Those on the diet also experienced psychiatric benefits. Three-quarters of the group had clinically meaningful improvement in their psychiatric conditions. The participants also reported better mood, improved sleep, more energy and greater life satisfaction.
The researchers highlight that there is increasing evidence that psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder stem from metabolic deficits in the brain, which affect the excitability of neurons.
They hypothesize that just as a ketogenic diet improves the rest of the body’s metabolism, it also improves the brain’s metabolism. However, there are likely multiple mechanisms and factors involved in the development of such conditions.
“The ketogenic diet has been proven to be effective for treatment-resistant epileptic seizures by reducing the excitability of neurons in the brain,” Sethi said. “We thought it would be worth exploring this treatment in psychiatric conditions.”
The full findings of the study were published in Psychiatry Research.
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