Harvard Psychologist: "The Keto Diet" Helps in Treating Mental Illnesses

SadaNews - Christopher Palmer, a psychologist at Harvard University, stated that following a diet or regimen that relies on high doses of fat and moderate amounts of protein while reducing carbohydrates, known as "the Keto diet," can help some patients regain control over their mental faculties by directly addressing metabolic disorders in the body, according to the German news agency.

 

Palmer published his book "The Energy of the Mind" in late 2022, where he asserted that the roots of mental illness are related to metabolic disorders in the body, not imbalances in brain neurotransmitters. He has been a staunch advocate of this idea for years.

"The Keto Diet"

Palmer, who works at McLean Hospital near Boston, told UnDark, a site specialized in scientific research, that the Keto diet has been used for a long time in traditional medical practices to treat severe epilepsy cases. Many studies in recent years have shown that the ketogenic diet not only helps control seizures, bipolar disorder, severe depression, and schizophrenia but can also sometimes reduce the side effects associated with antipsychotic medications.

A study published in the journal Research Psychiatry last year involved psychologist and obesity expert Shipani Sethi from Stanford University, who conducted an experiment involving 21 adult participants suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, all of whom had metabolic issues like obesity or insulin resistance and were on antipsychotic medications.

Symptom Improvement

When they were subjected to a diet emphasizing increased fats and reduced carbohydrates (the Keto diet) while monitoring their health and psychological state over four months, it was observed that three-quarters of the volunteers showed improved symptoms of psychosis, their weights decreased, their metabolic processes improved, and side effects of the psychiatric medications they were taking diminished.

Psychologist Georgia Eddy, trained at Harvard, conducted an experiment involving 31 adult participants with severe psychiatric illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, whose mental states remained unstable despite years of intensive psychotherapy.

Two Weeks on the Diet

In an experiment conducted at a hospital in France, 28 of the volunteers were put on a specialized diet for two weeks or more, the necessary period to begin observing the results of the experiment, and it was noted that all volunteers adhering to the diet showed significantly improved psychological conditions along with improved metabolic processes.

The severe symptoms of the underlying psychiatric illness decreased in 43% of the participants, and 64% of the volunteers had their psychiatric medication doses reduced by the end of the experiment. According to Eddy, many psychologists and neurologists believe that severe mental illnesses are entrenched problems, making it hard for them to envision that a diet could have an effective impact on these medical conditions.

Some psychologists like Palmer and Eddy believe that by addressing metabolic disorders in the body, the Keto diet supports the brain's essential functions and stabilizes the neural environment, allowing many patients to feel better and even be able to stop taking psychiatric medications altogether.

"Only Reducing Symptoms"

However, another group of doctors, like Sethi, believes that the Keto diet may only reduce pathological symptoms. Sethi states, "It is encouraging that a person can manage the illness somewhat, in a way different from conventional treatment methods, but we use metabolic treatment as a complementary therapy, not as a replacement."

During the trials, researcher Eddy found that "the level of improvement in patients who adhered to the Keto diet was higher by a factor of seven to ten compared to patients who only took depression or psychosis medication."

Doctors note that the Keto diet is not advised and may not be safe for all patients; those with pancreatitis or metabolic issues related to fat metabolism that prevent them from burning body fat, or those with genetic imbalances making them unable to exclude carbohydrates, may face health issues if they adhere to such a diet.

Eddy emphasizes that the ketogenic diet is not suitable as a standard procedure for treating all mental illnesses; rather, doctors must devise a system that fits each medical case individually, noting that some patients may follow plant-based diets or a plant-based Keto diet that combines the Keto regimen with avoiding animal products. Additionally, some recent studies have begun to tailor genomic sciences to create meal plans based on each patient's condition, aiming for the best results.

It is noteworthy that the interest of psychiatry in fasting or diets as a way to control some diseases dates back to ancient times and is not just a new medical trend. Hippocrates observed in the fifth century B.C. that epilepsy patients who fasted or were starved ultimately had fewer seizures. In 1921, endocrinologist Russell Wilder from the Mayo Clinic in the United States discovered that depriving the body of carbohydrates could have the same effect on metabolism as fasting; however, unlike fasting or starvation, the ketogenic diet is characterized by its sustainability.

Since Wilder's discovery, many scientific experiments have shown that the Keto diet significantly helps stabilize the body's nervous system and reduces seizures in one-third of epilepsy patients who do not respond to conventional treatment methods, according to the Undark website.