RFK Jr makes unfounded declare the keto weight loss plan can ‘cure’ schizophrenia

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an unfounded claim on Wednesday that the keto diet can cure schizophrenia.

Health experts were quick to call the comment a vast overstatement regarding the relationship between the diet and the disorder.

Kennedy made the comments while he was visiting Tennessee as part of a national tour to encourage Americans to “eat real food,” according to The New York Times.

His tour is serving as an information campaign to highlight the changes he’s made to the federal dietary guidelines. The new recommendations include eating more protein and fats — like steak, cheese, and butter — drinking whole milk, and avoiding carbohydrates.

During his visit to the Tennessee State Capitol, Kennedy said “we now know that the thing things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country,” and claimed that a Harvard doctor had “cured schizophrenia using keto diets.”

“There are studies right now that I saw two days ago where people lose their bipolar diagnosis by changing their diet,” Kennedy said.

The Health and Human Services Secretary has been openly skeptical of vaccines and medication. In 2024, he said that ADHD medication had “poisoned” an entire generation of children. Last year, he fired the entire 17-member Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices vaccine board and replaced them with handpicked skeptics.

In Tennessee, Kennedy was apparently referring to a 2019 paper by Dr. Christopher Palmer, who described “two patients with longstanding schizophrenia who experienced complete remission of symptoms” after they began the keto diet. According to the research, both patients “were able to stop antipsychotic medications and have remained in remission for years now.”

Palmer and his colleagues said in September that the keto diet was a “promising therapeutic approach for schizophrenia.”

The Independent has requested comment from Palmer.

“Keto,” as it’s often called, is a diet that generally consists of at least 70 percent of calories coming from fat, fewer than 10 percent coming from carbohydrates, and fewer than 20 percent from protein. The diet has proven popular for people looking to shed weight without having to go vegan or seriously reduce their caloric intake, but critics have warned that the focus on fats can, over time, be detrimental to one’s heart.

While there are many accounts of keto dieters losing weight, the diet is also difficult to stick to because so many foods — even common staples like some fruits and vegetables and beloved treats like pizza — are prohibited by its rules.

There have been some short-term studies — like one published by Stanford last year — that have found the keto diet “might” help schizophrenia patients, but health experts warn that “might be helpful” is not the same as the nation’s top health official declaring a complicated mental illness has been cured by cutting out bread.

Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, told The NYT that it is “simply misleading” to claim that schizophrenia symptoms can even be improved by the keto diet, never mind cured.

“There is currently no credible evidence that ketogenic diets cure schizophrenia,” Dr. Mark Olfson, another Columbia psychiatry professor, told The NYT.

He noted that most of the studies that tested the keto diet as a treatment for mental health disorders — including the Stanford study referenced by Kennedy — did not include a control group following a regular, non-keto diet.

Kennedy seems all-in on high-fat and protein diets. On January 7, Kennedy declared that the “war on protein” was over.

“Today the lies stop,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Protein and healthy fats are essential and were wrongly discouraged in prior dietary guidelines.”

The Independent has requested comment from Kennedy via the DHHS.

Source: independent.co.uk