Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by extreme mood swings that include emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). Symptoms can include euphoria, increased energy, or irritability during manic episodes, while depressive episodes may bring feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and low energy. Bipolar I involves full manic episodes, often requiring hospitalization, while Bipolar II features milder hypomania and severe depression. These mood shifts can profoundly affect daily life, relationships, and functioning.

Bipolar disorder affects between two and four percent of the population worldwide, yet research has been tragically underfunded relative to other psychiatric conditions. Traditional treatments include medication and therapy, but emerging metabolic strategies, such as ketogenic therapy, are showing promise.

Although most sufferers struggle to maintain stable work and social lives, those living with bipolar disorder have paradoxically made outsized contributions to science, academia, government and the arts. Though often viewed as a lifelong illness, the Baszucki family has witnessed firsthand that full recovery is possible through evidence-based metabolic interventions that stabilize brain networks.