While medication for schizophrenia remains the gold standard for treatment, there’s an emerging field known as metabolic psychiatry that may hold some promise as a complement to that approach. The field explores the effects that nutrition and metabolism — the way your body processes food for fuel — have on your mental health.
According to Stanford Medicine, mental and metabolic illnesses often occur together. As many as 40 percent of people with conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder also have metabolic syndrome, which can include increased waist size plus high blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.
Metabolic psychiatry uses interventions, including dietary changes, to address metabolic factors that might underlie mental illness. An example is the ketogenic diet, which could offer benefits for brain health. More research on the keto diet and mental health is needed, but there’s a possibility that this could be added to medication therapy for some people with schizophrenia and other disorders, says Khendra Peay, MD, a psychiatrist and the founder of Capital Area Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Washington, DC.
“If more clinical trials support this as a potential complementary intervention with current treatment, this could not only reduce the severity of the metabolic illnesses associated with schizophrenia, but could also potentially help to change the trajectory of the illness itself,” Dr. Peay says.
Here’s a look at why this way of eating might be helpful, along with suggestions from a dietitian on how to implement the keto diet for those looking to give it a try.
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