Kennedy Jr’s statement probably referred to the Harvard psychiatrist Dr Christopher Palmer, who said he has “never once used the word ‘cure’ in my work. I have never claimed to have cured any mental illness, including schizophrenia,” but added: “I have talked about ketogenic diet being a very powerful treatment, even to the point of inducing remission of symptoms of schizophrenia.”
RFK is a crackpot moving way too fast. At the same time, The Guardian is equally misleading in its headline here.
There IS evidence that Schizophrenia, like a lot of other disorders (epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Bipolar, etc) have links to the microbiome. Here is a paper analyzing various studies into keto as an effective treatment for schizophrenia. It’s not perfect, it’s not for everyone, and more research is needed.
Technically the Guardian is correct when they say there is no evidence that keto can “cure”, but I find it very misleading when there is a decent bit of evidence that it is an effective treatment.
I’ve suspected for a while now that a good chunk of common health issues might be caused by malnutrition. Like energy needs are being met and/or exceeded, but not necessarily the case for each nutrient.
Like I’ve started to recognize when I’m protein deficient. I get a headache and general unwell feeling. I’ll have an appetite for things with protein but it doesn’t just feel like hunger.
And personally, if I’m feeling depressed and unmotivated to do anything, even what’s usually fun, I can resolve that with a vitamin b-complex supplement (usually I take vitamin D and K2 with it, so those could be playing a role), and if that doesn’t have me feeling better (as in normal, not just “less depressed”) within 15 minutes or so, I also take a magnesium supplement. This may or may not work for anyone else (it requires that your depression be caused by b and/or magnesium deficiency), but it has consistently worked for me since 2020, when it helped get over the exhaustion that might have been long covid.
Micronutrients are essential for many different body functions and I think it’s easy to miss some if you don’t have a lot of variety in your regular diet, especially if you mostly eat processed stuff where the process could inadvertently remove or change the nutrients into something we can’t absorb.
I agree that one’s biome can also play a big role, though I think nutrient intake (both what you consume and what you absorb) and gut biome health can end up in a vicious cycle because those microbes also need the right nutrients to stay healthy and can be exposed to substances that are fine for us but toxic to them. I haven’t looked in a while, but this was my objection to all the studies that “showed” glyphosate was safe, as the ones I saw were mostly about how it doesn’t react with any of our own bio-processes, but no information about whether that’s the same for the bacteria we have a symbiotic relationship with.
RFK is a crackpot moving way too fast. At the same time, The Guardian is equally misleading in its headline here.
There IS evidence that Schizophrenia, like a lot of other disorders (epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, Bipolar, etc) have links to the microbiome. Here is a paper analyzing various studies into keto as an effective treatment for schizophrenia. It’s not perfect, it’s not for everyone, and more research is needed.
Technically the Guardian is correct when they say there is no evidence that keto can “cure”, but I find it very misleading when there is a decent bit of evidence that it is an effective treatment.
I’ve suspected for a while now that a good chunk of common health issues might be caused by malnutrition. Like energy needs are being met and/or exceeded, but not necessarily the case for each nutrient.
Like I’ve started to recognize when I’m protein deficient. I get a headache and general unwell feeling. I’ll have an appetite for things with protein but it doesn’t just feel like hunger.
And personally, if I’m feeling depressed and unmotivated to do anything, even what’s usually fun, I can resolve that with a vitamin b-complex supplement (usually I take vitamin D and K2 with it, so those could be playing a role), and if that doesn’t have me feeling better (as in normal, not just “less depressed”) within 15 minutes or so, I also take a magnesium supplement. This may or may not work for anyone else (it requires that your depression be caused by b and/or magnesium deficiency), but it has consistently worked for me since 2020, when it helped get over the exhaustion that might have been long covid.
Micronutrients are essential for many different body functions and I think it’s easy to miss some if you don’t have a lot of variety in your regular diet, especially if you mostly eat processed stuff where the process could inadvertently remove or change the nutrients into something we can’t absorb.
I agree that one’s biome can also play a big role, though I think nutrient intake (both what you consume and what you absorb) and gut biome health can end up in a vicious cycle because those microbes also need the right nutrients to stay healthy and can be exposed to substances that are fine for us but toxic to them. I haven’t looked in a while, but this was my objection to all the studies that “showed” glyphosate was safe, as the ones I saw were mostly about how it doesn’t react with any of our own bio-processes, but no information about whether that’s the same for the bacteria we have a symbiotic relationship with.