Posted on 04/05/2024 9:29:56 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
For people living with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, standard treatment with antipsychotic medications can be a double-edged sword.
Now, a pilot study has found that a ketogenic diet not only restores metabolic health in these patients as they continue their medications but it further improves their psychiatric conditions.
Sethi remembers when she saw a patient with treatment-resistant schizophrenia whose auditory hallucinations quieted on a ketogenic diet.
In the four-month pilot trial, Sethi's team followed 21 adult participants who were diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, taking antipsychotic medications, and had a metabolic abnormality—such as weight gain, insulin resistance, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipidemia or impaired glucose tolerance. The participants were instructed to follow a ketogenic diet, with approximately 10% of the calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein and 60% from fat. They were not told to count calories.
The research team tracked how well the participants followed the diet through weekly measures of blood ketone levels.
The participants underwent a variety of psychiatric and metabolic assessments throughout the trial.
Before the trial, 29% of the participants met the criteria for metabolic syndrome, defined as having at least three of five conditions: abdominal obesity, elevated triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, elevated blood pressure and elevated fasting glucose levels. After four months on a ketogenic diet, none of the participants had metabolic syndrome.
On average, the participants lost 10% of their body weight, reduced their waist circumference by 11% percent, and had lower blood pressure, body mass index, triglycerides, blood sugar levels, and insulin resistance.
The psychiatric benefits were also striking. On average, the participants improved 31% on a psychiatrist rating of mental illness known as the clinical global impressions scale, with three-quarters of the group showing clinically meaningful improvement. Overall, the participants also reported better sleep and greater life satisfaction.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
As the saying goes: “First World maladies are caused by First World diets.”
Have to love the English language, especially at 4 am with only a sip or two of coffee. I never knew mental illness amongst pilots was so widespread to warrant a study.
Only among United pilots flying Boeing aircraft.
Valid but I’ve noticed in my travels that even in poor third world counties where high carb diets where bread/tortillaa/rice/beans were a primary source of calories even a lot of the poorest were somewhat overweight and unhealthy
FWIW I can keep my carb intake at no more than a few percent of my diet and still eat 3500-4000 calories a day and lose/maintain weight while with “normal” carb intake I will put on weight at half that amount of calories
Interesting.
If you don’t mind my asking:
-What are you using for the bulk of the calories?
-Just normal daily activity/workouts or HIIT workouts 3xWeek or ?
Schizophrenia and severe depression are autoimmune attacks against brain tissue. In other words the immune system attacks brain tissue which has been compromised by pathogens. The pathogens are bacteria which are propagated in the gut by ingested fructose, and placed into the brain by wheat proteins.
Poke fun at it until you die. It is what it is.
Mostly fatty meat, cheese, full fat unsweetened yogurt,nuts, pork rings as my “snack”
I eat coleslaw or broccoli and most days some baked winter squash or yam for added fiber
I walk quite a bit but about 3x a week I do pull ups, push ups, planks, squats hard for about 30 minutes and get my heart rate way up the whole so it’s kind of high intensity and every opportunity to pick up and move heavy things I take advantage of
I felt very good when on keto. Missed my taters though.
I love potatoes but not only do they blow me up they cause a ton of inflammation in my body and now even just a handful of fries and I can feel my joints stiffening for days
Right. They are very bad for you. I eat only about 1/10 of what I used to. Ditto for pasta which I also love.
Thank you.
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