Inspired, she started contacting clinicians and researchers, looking to bring more visibility - and funding - to the treatment. "Within a couple of months, we saw a dramatic change," she says. Jan Baszucki enlisted Palmer's help as her son gave the ketogenic diet a try. Their son Matt had bipolar disorder and had been on many medications in recent years. In early 2021, he started working with the eldest son of Jan and David Baszucki, a wealthy tech entrepreneur. Two patients with schizo-affective disorder had "truly dramatic, life-changing improvement in their psychotic symptoms," he says. Palmer had his own revelation about the diet a few years earlier, which he detailed in a 2017 case report. The ketogenic diet avoids most carbs and instead focuses on high-fat foods, proteins and vegetables.īut some doctors had already started researching it after seeing the potential in their practice, among them Chris Palmer, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital. in mental health at the University of Edinburgh, hoping to do his own research and learn whether it could help others. How exactly was a diet performing this alchemy? Campbell decided to pursue a Ph.D. "It struck me as really significant, like life-changing." A career-launching moment "I realized it was actually the ketone level that was making this shift in my symptoms in a way that nothing else ever had," he says. Soon, he was tracking his ketone levels, courtesy of an at-home blood test. He started learning about the ketogenic diet, which is high fat and very low carb, on podcasts and YouTube videos. It turns out he'd unknowingly entered ketosis: A metabolic state where the body switches from glucose as its primary energy source to ketones, which come from fat. In an effort to lose weight, he drastically cut back on carbs and instead focused on protein and fat. What had changed? A few weeks earlier, he'd started a new diet.Ĭampbell dealt with unwanted weight gain and metabolic troubles, a common side effect of psychiatric medications. Over the years, he tried different treatments, but it had become "increasingly difficult to live with." Mental illness runs in his family, and he'd lost loved ones to suicide. Campbell had lived with bipolar disorder for much of his life.
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