High-fat diet could be a successful treatment for schizophrenia

The ketogenic diet, as it is known, has already been used to control epilepsy, and researchers from the James Cook University in Australia reckon it could do the same for schizophrenia.

It’s all to do with the carbohydrates, common in most diets, which get converted into glucose (sugar in the blood). The glucose seems to feed the pathways in the brain that cause schizophrenic episodes.

But a high-fats/low-carbohydrates ketogenic diet forces the body to use alternative energy sources, known as ketone bodies, which are the products of a breakdown of fats. Ketones seem to by-pass the malfunctioning cellular energy pathways that cause schizophrenia.

A schizophrenia patient who mainly eats meat, butter, cheese and salmon, for example, should see symptoms improve if not disappear altogether, the researcher surmise.

The diet also counters some of the worst effects of the antipsychotics, which include weight gain, heart problems and type 2 diabetes.

Thus far, the ketogenic diet has been tested only on laboratory mice, and so researchers want to carry out more animal studies – and eventually human trials – before being sure the diet works.

(Source: Schizophrenia Research, 2015: 169: 491)

What do you think? Start a conversation over on the... WDDTY Community