Eating disorders were totally glossed over in medical school, and that’s because they are notoriously hard to treat, so there were not a lot of solutions presented to us. In fact, still to date there are no effective biological treatments for Anorexia Nervosa.
But a new study offers hope, and not only that, but it is a simple, holistic, all natural way to address eating disorders without expensive medications, therapies or treatment programs. Just a dietary modification that has the ability to successfully treat Anorexia Nervosa so well that it puts patients into multi-year long remissions without relapse.
That’s because it treats the neurology behind the condition, instead of forcing unrealistic behavioral changes or attempting to medicate the symptoms away. Flow up research has found this exact same dietary intervention can also cussessfully treat binge eating disorders and food addiction disorders as well.
What is this magical diet that helps all spectrums of eating disorders? It’s simply a keto diet.
In a pilot study (published in 2023 in the Journal of Metabolic Health) reaserchers found that a keto diet successfully treated 100% of patients, with a weight gain of 45+ lbs each, reducing their anxiety around eating, decreased body-related fears, and put every single one of them into long term remission.
That is likely because the origin of Anorexia Nervosa (AN) behavior is the brain’s overwhelming desire to be in “starvation ketosis” — with patents attempting to satisfy this neurogenic impulse for ketosis through extreme food restriction. Eating becomes a type of powerful phobia, and that’s because it goes against the brain’s strong signaling to be in ketosis. Patients with AN have anxiety and fear surrounding eating because it break the ketogenic state of the brain, and becomes a primal fear that is incredibly difficult to overcome with mental health support and therapy.
In fact, I would say it’s unfair to expect a patient to try to change how their brain works and force feed themselves when eating itself triggers a panic state. Instead, AN can be treated simply by teaching the patient to maintain ketosis through a ketogenic diet, where the brain is able to have the ketosis state it is signaling for while allowing the patient to eat normally. This shift to a keto diet allowed all of the patients to release their fear surrounding eating and to find immense relief surrounding food consumption, body image, and brain satiety. All patients experienced a deeply improved sense of well being and were able to go into full remission when introduced to the keto diet.
A full review of all of the medical literature on AN and keto diet, including animal and human studies, was published in 2024 in Frontiers In Nutrition, where the authors conclude that the keto diet truly helps heal the condition at the source, in the brain. They state that the “…specific neurobiological underpinnings for AN can be modified with a therapeutic ketogenic diet.”
So if a keto diet helps severely underweight patients feel the relief of releasing food struggles, what happens at the opposite end of the spectrum of eating disorders? What happens to patients with binge eating patterns or food addition?
A pilot study (published in the Journal of Eating Disorders in 2022) found incredible success treating food addiction and binge eating with a keto diet — all patients in this study had significant reductions in binge eating, significantly decreased cravings, and all were able to successfully decrease undesirable eating behaviors while simultaneously losing between 10 – 24% of their body weight and keeping it off successfully for the entire study period (9 – 17 months.)
Again, this is likely because a keto diet addresses the brain’s actual biological root cause by modifying neurochemical signaling. All in all the patients on a ketogenic diet found that they were less controlling and anxious about food, less fixated on food, and that translated into less binge eating and addictive behaviors and successful weight loss that stayed off.
Considering what a positive impact keto diets have on neurotransmitters and brain function, might a keto diet actually provide improved mental health with other refractory conditions such as depression, bipolar, and schizoaffective disorder?
Yes.
Research published in Frontiers In Psychiatry in Jul 2022 found that not only does a ketogenic diet (low carbohydrates and an emphasis on proteins and veggies) help with refractory epilepsy and other organic brain disease, but it also benefits psychiatric conditions.
Patients with severe mental illness resistant to other treatments — who were not improving despite intensive psychiatric care, were placed on a ketogenic diet with a 20 grams of carbs a day limit. The patients studied had diagnosis of major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and/or schizoaffective disorder not responding to conventional psychiatric therapy.
The patients were followed for a period of up to 8 months on this diet and the results showed an impressive, statistically significant improvement in not only mental health parameters but also in metabolic health, with improved weight, blood pressure, blood glucose and blood lipid profiles. The ketogenic diet was well tolerated and provided sustainable and significant improvements in both depression and psychosis symptoms — very impressive in patients who could not improve despite having the best treatments in medicine.
If a ketogenic diet, or even simply reducing the amount of carbs one consumes, can boost the mental health outcomes for very severe, refractory mental illness, I’m very encouraged to think what it might do for less extreme cases of depression, or for anxiety or OCD or agoraphobia or body dysmorphia or any number of other mental health concerns.
Obviously I sincerely hope this study will be followed by bigger studies that include other mental health issues, and of course I will keep you posted when those results are published.
In fact, next week I’m blogging about how your very next meal can make a huge difference in your mental health — foods to choose and foods to avoid if you have anxiety, depression or other mental health issues… so if you are not already on my newsletter list, you can join it to stay updated on this and other free uplifting, holistic health information right here:
Meanwhile, if you tend to get anxious, or depressed, struggle with an eating disorder, or have any other mental health concern, you might want to give a ketogenic diet a try.
Diet truly does affect our mental wellness, and going on a keto diet is a fabulous things you can do, and the best part is that is works along with any conventional therapy you are already on. And that’s one thing I really love about the possibility of consuming a ketogenic diet to help boost your treatment results for depression, anxiety, eating disorders or other mental wellness concerns — you can do this right along with any medications or therapies you might already be taking.
That’s the power of focusing on holistic health and combining it, or tailoring it, to what is already working for you from the best of conventional medicine as well.
xoxox,
Laura Koniver MD
