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A transformative new approach to mental illness.
Conventional psychiatric treatment typically relies almost entirely on medications to keep symptoms under control. Talk therapy is often prescribed as an adjunctive treatment, but the root causes of mental illness, as well as the lifestyle changes that can lead to healing, are often left out of treatment paradigms.
Metabolic psychiatry seeks to flip treatment for mental illness on its head, putting therapeutic nutrition, circadian rhythm management, and movement as the foundation of recovery and wellness.
A cohesive cross-diagnostic mechanistic framework.
Building on emerging clinical evidence, Dr. Chris Palmer and colleagues explore the potential of ketogenic therapy across a range of mental health and neurological conditions. Drawing on both mechanistic insights and clinical data, the authors outline how metabolic dysfunction—expressed as mitochondrial impairment, oxidative stress, inflammation, and glucose hypometabolism—may contribute to psychiatric symptoms. Dr. Palmer is currently developing a brick-and-mortar clinic in the Boston area offering a metabolic approach to mental health.
Challenges and rewards of implementing ketogenic metabolic therapy in mental health
Grounded in Nicole Laurent’s clinical expertise, this perspective article delves into the potential of ketogenic therapy for mental health. Nicole highlights the therapeutic promise of this intervention based on hands-on patient interactions. This article is particularly relevant for psychotherapists and counsellors who wish to provide psychological support to their clients as they adopt a new lifestyle strategy.
Five Key Insights from a Metabolic Psychiatry Pioneer
Dual-trained in obesity medicine and psychiatry, Dr. Shebani Sethi, who coined the term Metabolic Psychiatry for her flagship clinic at Stanford, shares five key insights on ketogenic therapy to treat serious mental illness with Stanford Medicine. Dr. Sethi is currently hard at work developing a digital therapeutics company addressing serious mental illness.
A panel discussion on ketogenic therapy for psychiatric disorders, San Diego, 2023
“While not a panacea, ketogenic therapy can be a cornerstone intervention that allows many people with severe mental illness to treat the root cause of their condition and experience an astonishing, almost unbelievable transformation.”
– Hannah Warren
Dr. Georgia Ede’s introduction to ketogenic therapy for clinicians
Decades of scientific evidence suggest that mental illness is rooted in systemic metabolic dysfunction affecting the brain. Ketogenic therapy and other metabolic strategies are emerging as promising new treatments for psychiatric disorders. This PDF offers Dr. Georgia Ede’s perspectives on the rationale for supporting ketogenic therapy in clinical practice.
Dr. Georgia Ede maintains a free directory of clinicians offering ketogenic therapy to treat mental disorders.
If you use ketogenic dietary therapies to treat psychiatric conditions in your psychiatric, medical, nursing, nutrition, counseling, or coaching practice, Dr. Georgia Ede welcomes you to submit your practice information for possible inclusion in this directory.
Ketogenic diets were first understood to be helpful for brain function in the field of epilepsy one hundred years ago. Over time, five therapeutic variations of the ketogenic diet have been published in the medical literature as effective treatments for diseases with underlying metabolic dysregulation, such as epilepsy, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. The Charlie Foundation maintains the list of evidence-based variations on its website.
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We partner with leading clinicians and scientists to develop and distribute free continuing medical education (CME) courses on leading platforms like MyCME. Clinicians can earn AMA PRA Category 1, AAFP, CNE and CE credits. Courses cover metabolic psychiatry as well as metabolic health topics more broadly. We also consolidate other training courses and certifications offered by partner organizations in metabolic and mental health.
Earn CME CreditsOver the last 50 years, the Dietary Guidelines of America have encouraged eating patterns that lack a robust scientific rationale and have contributed to an explosion in chronic disease. We are honored to collaborate with organizations fighting to publish nutrition science that supports metabolic health.
“Psychiatrists need to start thinking like whole-person doctors, because the brain is part of the body.”
“Our study reversed insulin resistance using metformin for bipolar depression. The evidence is compelling enough based on our effect sizes and based on the magnitude of improvement in these patients who were otherwise treatment-resistant…This got patients better in six weeks. Why wouldn’t you try it?”
“The usual paradigm in medicine has been that you start with a drug and if that doesn’t work you add another drug, or many more drugs. I think it would be better for us as a community to look at the brain more holistically. Could a dietary intervention that is metabolism-based affect the processes in the brain that produced the disease to begin with, in which case are you modifying or curing the disease?”
“How we live and eat profoundly impacts our body and brain and, thus, our mental health. The way we have changed our eating over the past century has made us more vulnerable to mental difficulties, including eating disorders. The ketogenic diet provides an alternative way of bringing energy to the brain and shows potential in normalizing brain function and behavior to help people feel themselves again.”
“Metabolic psychiatry and ketogenic psychiatry harness the latest research on metabolism and energy to help you eat better, feel better, get your body back, lose weight, move more easily, and even taper off some medications.”
“The approach at my Stanford clinic integrates non-pharmacological metabolic methods—nutritional and lifestyle therapies—with medication. The good news is we are seeing encouraging improvements in mental health after treating metabolic conditions in this way. ”
“Ketogenic therapy is the most powerful intervention I’ve seen in my career because everyone who has done it has had benefits. I can’t say that about any medication.”
“The specific psychiatric disorders in which mitochondrial dysfunction has been identified include the following: schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, major depression, autism, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, anorexia nervosa, alcohol use disorder (aka alcoholism), marijuana use disorder, opioid use disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Dementia and delirium, often thought of as neurological illnesses, are also included.”
“You do not actually know who you really are or what your brain is capable of if you do not treat underlying factors, including metabolic disorder and nutritional deficiency. There is a treatment option here you have not yet explored that could be life-changing for you.”
