Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

Vidcast:  https://www.instagram.com/p/C8AWS54v41-/ The high fat dietary therapy that has successfully controlled difficult-to-manage childhood epilepsy improves the symptoms of those with schizophrenia and bipolar disease.   Psychiatric researchers at Stanford University conducted a pilot study of the diet in 23 subjects, 5 of whom suffered from schizophrenia and 16 of whom suffered from a bipolar disorder.  All were already receiving appropriate medicinal management. Overall, 79% of the entire group on the ketogenic diet showed marked symptomatic improvement.  Those most adherent to the diet enjoyed a 92% improvement while those semi-adherent enjoyed a 50% improvement demonstrating a type of dose-response phenomenon.  For those with bipolar disease, 88% achieved marked improvement if diet-adherent while 60% improved if semi-adherent.  For those with schizophrenia, the diet triggered only a 32% improvement. This pilot study suggests that adding a ketogenic diet to standard psychiatric pharmacotherapy impr