Schizophrenia
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Schizophrenia or Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder is a serious mental illness affecting how people think, feel, and behave. Individuals living with schizophrenia suffer from experiences or thoughts that seem out of touch with reality, which can include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech, unusual physical behavior and expression of emotions, and reduced motivation. A related condition, schizoaffective disorder, combines symptoms of schizophrenia with mood disorder features such as depression or mania, further complicating diagnosis and treatment.

Due to the complexity of the symptoms associated with schizophrenia, it’s difficult to assess prevalence, but it’s estimated to affect approximately 24 million people worldwide.

The leading theory on the cause of schizophrenia has been altered brain chemistry, especially dopamine, but also other neurotransmitters like serotonin, glutamate, and GABA. The challenge with this theory is that these patterns vary widely between individuals, making it difficult to pinpoint a unifying cause. This has contributed to treatments that are often suboptimally effective and frequently come with significant side effects.

Research increasingly points to schizophrenia as a complex condition shaped by genetics, brain chemistry and structure, metabolism, environmental stressors, and substance use. The emerging metabolic theory of schizophrenia offers a unifying framework and with it, growing interest in metabolic interventions like ketogenic therapy, which may help address multiple underlying mechanisms.