DOES KETO DIET HELP WITH PSYCHIATRIC ISSUES

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi everyone, This is California Youth, a podcast that brings
you the latest news from across California. Now here's your host,
doctor Carlos. But before we get to the connection, there
was a new study that came out on the Keto
diet and this is being challenged. A new study shows
the Keto giantic diet cures schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And

(00:24):
this could be a classic example of influencers drawing conclusions
from a study that wasn't designed appropriately. And this is
the problem now is a lot of individuals who don't
know how to read studies, who are just jumping in
with the headlines, maybe summarizing it, or really going off
with somebody else's commentary. A new study examined twenty three
people with bipolar disorder the PMID is three eight five

(00:46):
four seven six zero one and schizophrenia and placed them
on a Keto diet for four months and found that
the diet significantly improved the symptoms of their condition. This
led to the overreaction, of course, but was design Was
the study designed properly? In this case, there is no
control group, which is to raise the red flag, so
we do not know if the effects on schizophrenia bipolar

(01:06):
were due to the keto or the fact that the
people in this study lost a lot of weight or
body fat, and we're metabodically more healthy now. They intended
to lose about twelve percent body weight, thirty six percent
visible fat, and improve their insulin sensitivity by twenty five percent,
which is not a joke either, and this can but
unfortunately this is a huge confounding variable right because other
studies using lifestyle and dietar interventions that were not the

(01:28):
keto have also showed improvements with people with schizophrenia bipolar,
So it seems to say that as long as they
get healthier metabolically so reducing fat weight and insolent sensitivity,
that this would improve the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There
is one mental disorder though, that seems to have a
unique benefit, and that's epilepsy, at least with the keto diet.

(01:51):
This is likely in due in Part two, the ketos
providing an alternative fuel source and lowering glucose levels in
the brain, which may have time convulsion effects, but the
full mechanism is not completely understood, and of course this
has led many low carbon advocates to make sweeping claims
about the keto treating mental disorders, but this far it
is not supported by data. It seems that more it's

(02:14):
more connected to you being healthier metabodically than it does
with anything else. Does the effect of lowering the glucose
using an alternative source of energy have any impact on
bipolar schizophrenia? That would be interesting because you'd have to
look at the parts of the brain, especially on schizophrenia
and psychosis, to see if there's a glucose uptake in
specific areas. If I remember correctly, it's going to be

(02:38):
in the mesolymbic area of the brain for psychotic episodes,
and would that be causing Would that area of the
brain having an increased take of glucose if you switch
the fuel source, would that help? I don't know. It's
something I'm sure they'll try to investigate, but for now,

(02:58):
this is where we're at.