The Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy Diet
- Aug 2, 2024
- 3 min read
A fascinating presentation on the ketogenic diet from best-selling author Julie A. Fast, a world leading mental health expert on the topics of bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and psychosis.
For most people, a balanced diet can help keep moods relatively stable and promote healthy aging. But as many of us with bipolar know, a balanced diet is rarely enough to manage mood swings or other health concerns associated with medication induced metabolic syndrome. Any diet used to manage bipolar disorder and at the same time prevent metabolic syndrome needs to address the role of insulin in the bipolar brain. Luckily, a diet originally created to help manage epilepsy shows great promise in helping people with bipolar disorder: the ketogenic metabolic therapy diet.
This month our guest speaker was best-selling author Julie A. Fast, a world leading mental health expert on the topics of bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and psychosis, who gave a fantastic presentation on the ketogenic diet.
Julie is the top bipolar disorder management writer in the world with over 500,000 books sold and 15 million views of her online work for bp Magazine, Psychology Today, and other publications, and is the bestselling author of several books:
Personal Journey
Julie was an exceptional speaker - gracious, highly knowledgeable, energetic and deeply empathetic. And she is no stranger to Edinburgh. During a holiday visit to the city in 1992 with her then-partner, Julie couldn't help but notice the pervasive smell of chocolate everywhere. This aroma was actually, of course, the familiar smell of brewers yeast that some of you may recall in those days. Despite the beautiful setting, Julie couldn't stop crying. "I'm just going through changes" she explained to her concerned partner.
Within a year, her partner had been diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder, with Julie diagnosed with both mood and psychotic mental health problems and schizoaffective disorder. In hospital for 3 months, Julie vowed "One day I'm going to write about this" and so her career as a writer of best-selling bipolar management books was born at a time when there were few similar resources on the market.
The Ketogenic Diet Julie responded to lots of interested questions from the audience around the differences between the Instagram "keto" diets currently in vogue, and the targeted metabolic therapy diet with its very low carbs content and moderate protein levels, but emphasis on fat intake. Check out Julie's recent article in bp Magazine for more details.
Julie has also been interested in the recent pilot study conducted on bipolar and the keto diet, led by Professor Danny Smith's research group here at Edinburgh University a couple years ago. The study included participation from a number of Bipolar Edinburgh community members and the interim results of the study can be found here.
The keto diet study had a lasting impact on many from our community. One of our group members, Oliver Seligman, author of Befriending Bipolar: A Patient's Perspective, gave an update on his life following his participation in the study and his experience with bipolar on the ketogenic diet. You can hear more what he has to say on YouTube.
One important note is that ultra low-carb diets such as a metabolic therapy diet should not be attempted without the advice and supervision of both a medical professional and a registered nutritionist or dietitian. These therapeutic diets typically have less than 20g of carbohydrate per day as opposed to the trendy "Instagram" keto or low-carb diets, which might have under 50g per day and include a wider range of foods. Please be sure to consult with a professional before attempting the diet. or hop on to the forthcoming trials (see below).
In addition to her own work, Julie has worked extensively with Dr Chris Palmer MD, a Harvard psychiatrist and researcher working at the interface of metabolism and mental health. His best-selling book Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More is a highly-influential read in the metabolic psychiatry field. You can hear more from Dr. Palmer on his perspective of the ketogenic diet here.
Thank you to Julie and everyone who attended for making this such a great talk, and a big thank you to Cai for arranging Julie to come along. To find out more about Julie's work, visit her website.
We also believe a full clinical trial of the keto diet for bipolar may be started by the University of Edinburgh in the near future, so keep an eye on a shout-out for trial participants soon on our What's On page.
