Another Potential Benefit Of The Ketogenic Diet?

The idea of the ketogenic diet is to eat very-low-carb, moderate-to-high fat, force the body to switch to burning fat for energy, by starving it of carbs.

On the one hand, it’s good against refractory epilepsy in children (this is actually what it was created for), and it can result in weight loss, which some people want.

On the other hand, it’s bad for the heart (low-carb is good for the heart, generally speaking, very-low-carb like the keto, however, is relatively bad for the heart), it increases the risk of kidney stones and can lead to renal failure, its weight-loss effects are short-term at best, and it significantly increases osteoporosis risk, even in the short term, and especially in the long term.

Rather than flood you with links for each of those, we’ll link to our main article about these pros and cons, here:

Ketogenic Diet: Burning Fat Or Burning Out?

That said, we will also quickly mention a few relevant things we’ve written about since that article, namely:

• Why Keto Fat Loss Doesn’t Work So Well For Women ← short version is that in response to a drop in carbohydrate intake (even if made of for with fat, calorie-wise) estrogen tries to save us from starving by prioritizing fat storage to outlast the famine we are obviously experiencing
• The Diets & Supplements That Can Mess Up Your Skin ← keto is in the #1 spot here
• How To Dodge The “Keto Flu” ← this is about the unwanted symptoms of being ketosis, something that is a goal in the ketogenic diet, those less favorable symptoms including bad breath, weight loss, appetite loss, increased fatigue and irritability, digestive issues, and insomnia

Keto as an antipsychotic treatment?

This very latest study was published today, at time of writing, so never let it be said we don’t bring you hot-off-the-press cutting edge health science!

Researchers (Dr. Judith Ford et al.) found that a ketogenic diet produced rapid metabolic improvements in people with schizophrenia-spectrum or bipolar I disorders after one month, while those who continued the diet for 4 months additionally enjoyed improvements in psychiatric symptoms and cognition.

This was a relatively small study with 58 adults, of whom 47 completed the initial one-month randomized comparison between a ketogenic diet and their usual diet, and 25 chose to continue the ketogenic diet for an additional 4-month single-arm extension.

Notably, higher ketone levels were associated with lower blood glucose and reduced depression scores on the PHQ-9*, even after accounting for weight loss, suggesting ketosis itself may have contributed to these benefits.

*One of the most commonly-used measures of depression is known by the snappy name of “PHQ9”. It stands for “Patient Health Questionnaire Nine”, and you can take it anonymously online for free (without signing up for anything; it’s right there on the page already):

Take The PHQ9 Test Here! (under 2 minutes, immediate results)

There’s a chance you took that test and your score was, well, depressing. There’s also a chance you’re doing just peachy, or maybe somewhere in between. PHQ9 scores can fluctuate over time (because they focus on the past two weeks, and also rely on self-reports in the moment), so you might want to bookmark it to test again periodically. It can be interesting to track over time.

In the event that you’re struggling (or: in case one day you find yourself struggling, or want to be able to support a loved one who is struggling), then do check out: The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need

Back to the study: the fact that the findings suggest that a ketogenic diet might address cognitive and depressive symptoms that current antipsychotic medications (which often have worse side effects than the ketogenic diet) often don’t adequately treat, is quite a potential benefit as it could make a big improvement to the lives of many.

In the words of Dr. Ford herself:

❝The improvement we saw in cognitive and psychological symptoms is particularly important in people with psychotic disorders, because current medications that address their psychosis don’t address their overall mental wellbeing, including cognitive or depressive symptoms, which can be debilitating.❞

That said, it is worth mentioning that the longer-term findings came from a small, uncontrolled extension involving only 25 participants, so they can’t establish that the ketogenic diet caused the observed improvements; it’s just looking promising, and hopefully more research will be done, to be sure.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to read this latest science for yourself, here it is: Metabolic Improvements with a Ketogenic Diet Correlate with Symptom Improvement in Psychosis: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Want a more generally healthier diet?

We recommend the Mediterranean diet, which is generally considered the “gold standard” of healthy diets.

See also: Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean

(the above is about keeping to the Mediterranean diet, while tweaking one’s choices within it for a specific extra health focus such as an anti-inflammatory upgrade, a heart-healthy upgrade, a gut-healthy upgrade, and a brain-healthy upgrade)

However, if you’d like a more comprehensive overview of what various diets might do for you, then here you go:

Which Diet? Top Diets Ranked By Experts ← a panel of 69 doctors and nutritionists examine the evidence for 38 diets, and score them in 21 categories (e.g. best for weight loss, best for heart, best against diabetes, best for the liver, etc).

Take care, and enjoy!