Families and Peers

Individuals and families are finding hope and inspiration in the promise of improving metabolism to create mental health.

Video credit: Iain Campbell

Mia's Story

Mia battled bipolar disorder for 41 years, including hospitalizations, disability, and suicidal depressions. After just a few weeks in nutritional ketosis, she put her illness behind her. Watch BipolarCast episode 11 to hear Mia Mendez share her full story.

BipolarCast Episode 11

Filling the Gap

When the Baszucki family first learned about ketogenic diets for treating mental illness, they relied heavily on a few critical but disparate resources.

Our team at Metabolic Mind believes metabolic therapies can be life-changing. We seek to fill the information gap by consolidating credible resources and real-life stories from our collaborators and peers, and by providing practical tools to help you on your metabolic mental wellness journey.

When the Baszucki family first learned about ketogenic diets for treating mental illness, they relied heavily on a few critical but disparate resources.

A Paradigm Shift

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.

How to Talk with Your Doctor

This handout, prepared by Dr. Georgia Ede, provides a helpful overview of the scientific and clinical rationale for using ketogenic diets in psychiatry, including links to published articles. It is something that patients can download and share with their doctors to help explain the rationale for treating mental illness with nutritional ketosis. Or simply send your doctor to the clinician resources section of our website.

Download Guide

Sample Labs to Request Before Starting Keto

Before starting ketogenic therapy, it’s a great idea to request labs that will establish your metabolic health baseline and identify any pre-existing conditions. You could ask your psychiatrist or your primary care provider to order a blood draw, or order them yourself from Own Your Labs. Use this document as an example of laboratory levels to measure before beginning ketogenic therapy.

Download Lab Request PDF

Finding Help

The field of metabolic psychiatry is growing rapidly, but we know it can still be hard to find professionals trained in this approach. If you can’t find a keto practitioner specifically trained in mental health, you could try working with your current primary care physician, therapist, or psychiatrist and finding a keto coach or dietician to provide education and support.

Keto mental health clinician directory

The practitioners listed in this directory offer clinical services that support the use of ketogenic metabolic therapies for the management of mental health conditions. This list is for information purposes only and does not imply endorsement of any provider.

Diagnosis:Diet Clinician Directory

Diagnosis:Diet Directory

Low-carb and keto lifestyle clinician directories

Learn More

Featured metabolic mental health practices

Advanced Ketogenic Therapies

Accord

Mental Health Keto

Ellenhorn

Innovative Psychiatry

IKRT

Advanced Ketogenic Therapies

Accord

Mental Health Keto

Ellenhorn

Integrative Ketogenic Research & Therapies

Integrative Ketogenic Research

Innovative Psychiatry

Integrative Ketogenic Research

Keto and low-carb lifestyle guidance

DietDoctor.com offers the most exhaustive collection we’ve found of practical resources for exploring and maintaining a low-carb or ketogenic lifestyle.

Keto Diet Basics

Helpful beginner resources for starting a keto diet.

Food Guide

Foods that can help you sustain and enjoy a keto diet.

Guide to Ketosis

Potential health benefits and things to watch out for as you begin keto.

What to know before you begin

Dr. Bret Scher hosts a series of videos to help people begin ketogenic therapy to treat serious mental illness.

Best Practices for Treating Mental Illness with a Keto Diet

If you’re considering starting a ketogenic diet to treat symptoms of psychiatric illness, it is important to find a practitioner who can help guide you through the process. In this video, appropriate for both clinicians and individuals, expert clinicians share their recommendations for getting started with a ketogenic intervention.

If you’re considering starting a ketogenic diet to treat symptoms of psychiatric illness, it is important to find a practitioner who can help guide you through the process. In this video, appropriate for both clinicians and individuals, expert clinicians share their recommendations for getting started with a ketogenic intervention.

What You Need to Know BEFORE Starting a Keto Diet for Mental Health

Nutritional ketosis, or a keto diet, could help improve symptoms of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and more. But please don’t start a keto diet to treat mental illness without first understanding common pitfalls and risks. A keto diet alters physiology and it’s important to understand steps to take to begin safely.

Nutritional ketosis, or a keto diet, could help improve symptoms of mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and more. But please don’t start a keto diet to treat mental illness without first understanding common pitfalls and risks. A keto diet alters physiology and it’s important to understand steps to take to begin safely.

Who Should Use Keto for Mental Illness?

Therapeutic nutritional ketosis can be part of a comprehensive treatment for a broad spectrum of psychiatric illnesses – from anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and mild or moderate depression to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and everything in between. Experts weigh in on who is a good candidate for using therapeutic ketosis to treat a mental illness and when is a good time to dive in.

Therapeutic nutritional ketosis can be part of a comprehensive treatment for a broad spectrum of psychiatric illnesses – from anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and mild or moderate depression to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, and everything in between. Experts weigh in on who is a good candidate for using therapeutic ketosis to treat a mental illness and when is a good time to dive in.

The Best Books to Guide You

Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind

A powerful plan to improve mood, overcome anxiety, and protect memory for a lifetime of optimal mental health.

Metabolic psychiatry pioneer Dr. Georgia Ede argues that while medications have their place, the most powerful way to change brain chemistry is with food, because that’s where brain chemicals come from in the first place.

A powerful plan to improve mood, overcome anxiety, and protect memory for a lifetime of optimal mental health.

Metabolic psychiatry pioneer Dr. Georgia Ede argues that while medications have their place, the most powerful way to change brain chemistry is with food, because that’s where brain chemicals come from in the first place.

Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind

Brain Energy

A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding mental health–and improving treatment for anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, and more.

Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a new understanding that unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain.

A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding mental health–and improving treatment for anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, and more.

Drawing on decades of research, Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Chris Palmer outlines a new understanding that unites our existing knowledge about mental illness within a single framework: Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain.

A revolutionary breakthrough in understanding mental health–and improving treatment for anxiety, depression, OCD, PTSD, and more.

Brain Energy

Additional Reading

Why We Get Sick

by Benjamin Bikman

A scientist reveals the groundbreaking evidence linking many major diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease, to a common root cause—insulin resistance—and shares an easy, effective plan to reverse and prevent it.

Why We Get Sick

The Alzheimer's Antidote

by Amy Berger

Amy Berger’s research shows that Alzheimer’s results from a fuel shortage in the brain: As neurons become unable to harness energy from glucose, they atrophy and die, leading to classic symptoms like memory loss and behavioral changes.

The Alzheimer's Antidote

Good Energy

by Casey Means, MD

As Dr. Casey Means explains in this groundbreaking book, nearly every health problem we face can be explained by how well the cells in our body create and use energy. To live free from frustrating symptoms and life-threatening disease, we need our cells to be optimally powered so that they can create “good energy,” the essential fuel that impacts every aspect of our physical and mental wellbeing.

Good Energy

The Case for Keto

by Gary Taubes

For fifty years, the medical establishment has preached the same rules for losing weight: restrict calories, eat less, and exercise more. Yet in that time, obesity in the United States has skyrocketed. So why has this prescription so clearly failed?

The Case for Keto

The Big Fat Surprise

by Nina Teicholz

In The Big Fat Surprise, investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals the unthinkable: that everything we thought we knew about dietary fat is wrong. She documents how the low-fat nutrition advice of the past sixty years has amounted to a vast uncontrolled experiment on the entire population, with disastrous consequences for our health.

The Big Fat Surprise

Beyond Metabolic Mind

Leading metabolic mental health projects from some of our collaborators and friends.

Metabolic Collective - Volunteer Roles

Channel your passion for metabolic therapies by volunteering with Metabolic Collective, a startup nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness and increasing access to metabolic care for psychiatric and neurological conditions.

Metabolic Collective

Lauren’s Living Well with Schizophrenia - Keto and Metabolic Health Project

Follow along with Lauren on YouTube as she undertakes a six-month adventure with ketogenic and metabolic therapies to treat her schizoaffective disorder.

Lauren's YouTube

Dr. Chris Palmer’s Brain Energy Magazine

Subscribe to Dr. Chris Palmer’s Brain Energy Magazine to learn more about the brain energy theory of mental illness.

Brain Energy Magazine

BipolarCast: Keto+Bipolar with Matt and Iain

Subscribe to this YouTube podcast where Dr. Iain Campbell and Matt Baszucki host peers and experts on the use of ketogenic therapy for bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Cast YouTube

Nicole Laurent’s Mental Health Keto Blog

Subscribe to Laurent's Mental Health Keto Blog: Because you deserve to know all the ways you can feel better.

Mental Health Keto

Donika’s Keto Lifestyle for Mental Health Virtual Meet-Up

Visit this twice-monthly online support group for people interested in using ketogenic diets for mental health.

Keto Lifestyle Meetup

MetPsy App

Download this free app to receive clear information on lifestyle and diet changes, connection with a community and affordable coaching support.

MetPsy App

Our Healing Journey with Metabolic Psychiatry

Listen to Our Healing Journey with Metabolic Psychiatry, hosted by Dyane and Michael, two individuals who have put bipolar disorder into remission with ketogenic therapy.

Dyane and Michael's Podcast