The Potential Effects of the Ketogenic Diet in the Prevention and Co-Treatment of Stress, Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, and Bipolar Disorder: From the Basic Research to the Clinical Practice.
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative literature review of preclinical and clinical studies without systematic review methodology or meta-analysis
PubMed 38892480 · doi:10.3390/nu16111546
What was done
The authors conducted a narrative literature review searching PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science to evaluate preclinical animal research and human clinical studies examining the ketogenic diet for the prevention and co-treatment of stress, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.
What was found
The abstract reports no quantitative data or effect sizes. Preclinical animal studies consistently showed symptom reductions in models of stress, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder. Human clinical studies were characterized as mostly uncontrolled, short-term, methodologically heterogeneous, and limited by high dropout rates and lack of dietary compliance measurements.
Why it matters
The paper summarizes emerging interest in metabolic interventions for mental health while highlighting the substantial gap between animal findings and rigorous clinical trial evidence.
Limits
The review provides no quantitative synthesis, meta-analysis, or specific study counts in the abstract. Clinical evidence is limited by non-randomized designs, short durations, small sample sizes, high attrition, and unverified dietary adherence.
Cited by
- supports The ketogenic diet is being researched and explored as a clinical intervention for psychiatric disorders and metabolic conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, cancer, and diabetes.