European pilot study in BJPsych Open led to weight loss and lower blood pressure, along with improvements in mood, energy, and anxiety—fueling hope for a new treatment for bipolar disorder.
| Diagnosis | Bipolar Disorder |
| Principal Investigators | Iain Campbell, PhD, Daniel Smith, MD, & Harry Campbell, MD |
| Institution | University of Edinburgh |
| Location | Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom |
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. Increased ketone levels were correlated with participants’ improvements in mood, energy, impulsivity, and anxiety, with some describing the intervention as life-changing.
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In this video, Dr. Iain Campbell, PhD, Baszucki Metabolic Psychiatry Research Fellow, shares how his experience alleviating bipolar symptoms through ketosis inspired a pilot trial published this week in BJPsych Open, featuring both his insights and participants' experiences, highlighting the urgent need for new treatment options.
In this video, Dr. Iain Campbell, PhD, Baszucki Metabolic Psychiatry Research Fellow, shares how his experience alleviating bipolar symptoms through ketosis inspired a pilot trial published this week in BJPsych Open, featuring both his insights and participants' experiences, highlighting the urgent need for new treatment options.
This pilot study explored the effects of a ketogenic diet on participants with bipolar disorder. 20 participants who were not currently experiencing mania or depression followed a ketogenic diet for 6-8 weeks. The ketogenic diet was linked with positive effects on both brain and metabolic measures.
Ketone levels, measured in a subset of participants, were correlated with improved mood and energy level, and reduced anxiety and impulsivity. Advanced neuroimaging revealed decreased glutamate and glutamine levels in brain regions associated with emotional regulation in participants in ketosis, indicating that ketogenic therapy may reduce neural excitotoxicity, a factor implicated in bipolar disorder. Researchers also observed decreases in myo-inositol, a component of insulin signaling pathways. Participants experienced significant weight loss and cardiovascular benefits, including decreased BMI and blood pressure.
These findings suggest ketogenic therapy is a promising treatment approach for both mental health and metabolic outcomes in serious mental illness, highlighting the need for larger-scale clinical trials and further studies to understand the mechanisms that cause these improvements.
This study is the first randomized controlled trial to publish results of the effects of a ketogenic diet in adults living with schizophrenia-spectrum and bipolar disorders. The findings demonstrate feasibility, meaningful metabolic improvements, and a signal of psychiatric symptom improvement, while underscoring the need for longer, more rigorous controlled trials.
This is the first pilot trial to evaluate ketogenic therapy as an intervention for anorexia nervosa, a condition with one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder and limited effective biological treatments. Conducted in a predominantly virtual, supervised outpatient setting, the trial demonstrated high adherence, no significant change in weight, and meaningful improvements in eating disorder and depressive symptoms, suggesting that ketogenic therapy is a feasible adjunctive intervention when delivered with specialized clinical support.
The study is the first in the history of psychiatric research to test a ketogenic diet as a treatment for major depressive disorder. These promising preliminary results in a young adult population demonstrate improvements in psychiatric and metabolic health.
Dr. Shebani Sethi’s 4-month clinical trial at Stanford of ketogenic diet for serious mental illness showed promising preliminary results indicating remission of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in participants who adhered to the diet, as well as reversal of metabolic syndrome for those with the diagnosis.