Nearly a decade ago Dr. Erin Bellamy began questioning the limits of the current standard of care for inpatient psychiatric treatment. “I was working in an inpatient psychiatric unit and could see that my patients weren’t receiving lasting relief,” she says. Around the same time, new research on low-carbohydrate diets for Type 2 diabetes was making headlines, with some studies pointing to unexpected improvements in mood. These findings led Bellamy to dive into the literature on metabolic connections to psychiatry, where she found a small 1965 study that tested ketogenic diets as treatment for schizophrenia. To her surprise, the trial had never been pursued further. “I thought there had to be something there that warranted a closer look,” said Bellamy. “All I wanted to do was help people improve their mood and symptoms, and live a happy life.”