Ketogenic Diet May Aid Mental Health Treatment
A new study finds that a Ketogenic diet could help mental health treatment, and thereby address the unwanted side effects of medication.
According to research by a group at James Cook University, Australia, led by Associate Professor Zoltan Sarnyai, the same type of diet that bodybuilders use to produce extra muscle mass and strength- all without out of control weight gain- has been found to help people dealing with schizophrenia. According to Professor Sarnyai, the ketogenic diet, one that is high on fat but low in carbohydrates, forces the body to burn ketone bodies, and in rodent trials the mice sustained by a ketogenic diet showed fewer behaviors resembling schizophrenia than those on a normal diet.
Long used to help manage epilepsy in children, the group found that behaviors like hyperactivity, social withdrawal, and memory deficits happened less frequently. This discovery led Sarnyai and his colleagues to, “hypothesize that this same process of providing an alternative energy source for the body could be circumventing pathways in the brain – in particular, the abnormally functioning cellular energy pathways that are suspected to cause the mental health problems that characterize schizophrenia, including hallucinations, delusions, and muddled thoughts.”
Using this new diet the majority of a person’s energy would come from fat; dieters would consume butter, cheese, salmon, etc. In order to control the diet and monitor the patient, they would initially be given medication and live in an in-patient setting. If the diet is found to be successful and effective in humans, the team feels there would be additional benefits as well: a lower body weight and blood glucose levels. Currently, the medications given to sufferers of schizophrenia cause weight gain and cardiovascular issues associated with high glucose levels in the blood. A ketogenic diet would fix that.
