“For the first time in years, I felt like my brain was finally running on the right fuel,” said one of the participants in a new pilot study on a ketogenic diet in bipolar disorder. Published today in BJPsych Open, the study is the first to use neuroimaging to demonstrate that a ketogenic diet may improve brain metabolism in individuals with a bipolar disorder diagnosis.

UCLA Health is set to begin a multi-site pilot study to explore whether a ketogenic diet, when combined with mood stabilizing medications, helps stabilize mood symptoms in teenagers and young adults who have bipolar disorder.