I've been doing keto for 10 months now for weight loss and have coincidentally managed to reduce my bipolar meds to a quarter of my initial dose over this period of time (very slowly).
Hello… Thank God for your research… as a 60 year old woman with bipolar…. waited my entire life for some kind of research to go in a different direction besides prescription medication’s …. ♥️♥️♥️♥️
Metabolism and Mitochondrial Function in my considered judgment are the major factors that are involved in all or almost all chronic diseases including most so-called "mental disorders"! I am a retired physician and have experienced a 50-pound weight loss with a ketogenic diet. I am off diabetes medicine, off amlodipine for hypertension, of a statin for hyperlipidemia. My seasonal affective disorder is improved by 75% and my psychomotor energy is improved. I have ADHD but have been off Adderall for 5 years because of I have paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. I have some problems with attention and focus, but I would estimate that a ketogenic diet has allowed me to get along reasonably well without the Adderall. I hope my own experience encourages others. I do recommend books by Georgia Ede, MD; and Chris Palmer MD. I would be remiss were I not to mention that walking 3 to 5 miles a day has been helpful. The question remains whether I would have had the psychomotor energy and concentration to pursue and stick to my walking had I not adopted a ketogenic diet??
So excited about this groundbreaking study! Dr. Phillips is amazing - thank you Dr. Scher & Metabolic Mind for doing this interview. Dyane Harwood, co-host of the new "Our Healing Journey with Metabolic Psychiatry" Podcast with Michael Belanger
Are they looking for more participants for this study? I would love to be in some sort of study! I am on bipolar/adgd spectrum currently on ketogenic diet under guideence of Nicole Laurant. I would be willing to travel, I have relatives in Pittsburg area.
It is interesting. It does give me hope. I started doing Keto now carnivore for almost four years. It would be interesting to see how a carnivore would do in a study like this. Many carnivores are saying that fruits and vegetables are causing inflammation. The study in mice vs humans I’m not placing any comfort in that. We react totally differently and our way of eating is so different. Maybe a study using dogs. Would be more useful. After all you would feed dogs meat only. As in no kibble so no dry food which has a lot of processed food in it. Feeding dogs meat and fresh raw meat would be healthy for them. But would anyone do a study like this? The dog food industry would loose money. Even with this study I worry that whatever discovery happens that it would be silenced. As in if being on a ketogenic diet or carnivore diet you no longer need medication. This also would not be great for big pharma. Where is the money in it? I have not been on any antidepressants or even any anti inflammatory medication for four years. I save a lot of money I’m not having to pay for medication. I still go see my doctor and seek out therapy when needed. Life goes on and there are stressors but I can handle them better because I have cognitive function and clarity. Versus before I could not process my feelings and my behaviour was volatile.
Thanks for sharing! It's hard to be patient for the results of studies related to keto. I'm real curious about what they can find to predict who keto will work for. I hope for more studies like this for other mental health issues (schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, ocd, etc). I'm amused that mice can have a keto diet.
I have a hypothesis. We're overthinking this, if keto helps for a lot of wildly different symptoms then it can't be just affecting some neurotransmitter or another, it must be more basic than that. I think we have a long evolutionary history of living on fat and a short history of living on carbs. Different parts of brain have adjusted to recent evolutionary pressures at different rates. When anything goes wrong with glucose metabolism the activity in some parts of brain doesn't match the others and disturbs the normal balance of activation-inhibition that produces the mind. Keto helps because it takes us back to old and trusted metabolic pathways and levels the activities. You can't really have genetic problems with fat and ketone metabolism because those would simply be fatal in early development. Maybe some parts of brain need more energy, they are the first to suffer but their complimentary systems in other parts of brain are still working fine at normal levels of activity.
I think she's oversimplified it for the purpose of easier communication, I would assume she's say the GABA balancing is a downstream rather than direct effect.
Maybe. Another idea is that keto as such doesn't stabilize anything in particular but only provides a stable energetic environment that the brain can use to stabilize itself over time. Glucose levels vary a lot on high carb diet and that never allows the brain to create a long-term stable configuration of metabolic rates between different parts. Imagine a complex machinery with lots of parts working through material inputs at different rates. It takes time to adjust the flow rates on each of them to balance the load. But if your input electric power is unstable then balancing everything becomes impossible, because the varied input affects each part differently and imbalance everything shortly after you've matched it.
Honest question from someone who's never conducted research; why do these clinical trials take so long and require so much money? 6 million seems quite excessive for such a small sample group
I always see tons of videos about depression and bipolar on keto/carnivore but never on panic attacks. Does it have the opposite effect on panic attacks?
If GABA is the key, then how can we introduce GABA into our bodies, would GABA supplements work ?? I heard that it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier, hence why it won't work. What supplements can we take to increase GABA or glutamine, or glutathione.
For GABA it's weird. Some people can indeed absorb it and it can have a brain effect. Some don't. However it's hard to say that GABA will reach the desired places in the brain. So endogenous is best. Things like meditation. Slow controlled breathing sessions. Cutting out excess dopaminergic / stimulating activity. Can increase GABA.
Magnesium, pre-/pro-biotics, L-theanine, B6 (and possibly potassium) are GABA Cofactors. Also read GABA supplements cannot pass the BBB and high doses can result in a negative feedback loop.
@@jan_ellison_baszucki Yes, if the body is reaching an artificial GABA effect that the body does not want to reach, it will downregulate and further cause trouble if you stop taking it. but this happens if you have sharp increases in GABA that goes beyond a certain measure, or chronic intake of it.
Fructose is the only carbohydrate to produce Uric acid. Uric acid in the brain blocks mitochondrial ATP and can trigger low energy levels in the brain. Elevated Uric acid is linked with dementia. So this makes sense as to why keto can benefit mental health.
Unfortunately, these studies take time. Recruiting tends to be the slowest part. But we can hope that, with the growing enthusiasm for dietary therapies, they will recruit quickly. The results may take a year or so.
Thanks for your answer! I‘m from Austria and would like to be part of this campaign. I suffer also from schizophrenia/bipolar for about 6 years now. I tried keto last year for about 6 month. unfortunately i broke up and ended up in the Hospital, but now i would give it another shot😅
"The Bipolar Brain"? How in this reductionist world would one Operationally Define such an entity. LOL Psychiatry!! Trauma in it's myriad manifestations. C'mon with the downstream "guesses."
