A new RCT suggests ketogenic therapy can rapidly improve metabolic health in schizophrenia-spectrum and bipolar I disorders, and shows early signals of psychiatric improvement.

In this video, Dr. Bret Scher breaks down this newly published study led by Dr. Judith Ford at UCSF: the first randomized controlled trial investigating ketogenic therapy in people with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and bipolar-1 disorder with psychotic features.

You’ll learn:

How the study was designed (a 1-month randomized phase plus an optional 4-month single-arm extension) What changed at 30 days (clear improvements in metabolic markers; psychiatric outcomes showed trends that did not reach statistical significance in the randomized portion) What improved over longer follow-up in the extension phase (encouraging changes in metabolic health, cognition, and psychiatric measures) Why this matters for patients and families today, and what future, longer controlled trials need to confirm

Published in Schizophrenia Bulletin and funded by the NIMH and Baszucki Group, this study adds to the growing literature on the potential benefit of ketogenic therapy for psychiatric disorders.

These results indicate the need for larger, extended randomized controlled trials to test the safety and efficacy of ketogenic therapy in patients living with serious mental illness.