#ketones — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #ketones, aggregated by home.social.
-
DATE: August 13, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Ketogenic diets may increase blood alcohol levels while reducing the drive to drink
A high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet alters the way the liver processes alcohol and tends to reduce alcohol consumption in alcohol-dependent male rats. These findings suggest that changing the body’s primary energy source could influence both the rate at which alcohol is broken down and the drive to drink. The research was published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
A ketogenic diet involves eating high amounts of fat and very few carbohydrates and proteins. This nutritional pattern forces the body to stop relying on blood sugar, or glucose, and instead burn fat to produce molecules called ketone bodies. These ketone bodies then serve as an alternative fuel for the brain and body. Previous research indicates that heavy alcohol use reduces the brain’s ability to use glucose, leading to an energy deficit that might drive withdrawal symptoms and the urge to drink.
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and University of Pennsylvania designed the present study to better understand how this dietary shift interacts with alcohol processing.
“The study builds directly on our previous work showing that a high-fat, low carb ketogenic diet intervention reduced alcohol withdrawal symptoms in human inpatients with AUD, and reduced alcohol intake in rodents,” said Corinde Wiers, an assistant professor of psychiatry and radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who supervised the study along with Leandro Vendruscolo, a Stadtman Investigator and chief of the Stress and Addiction Neuroscience Unit at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
In their previous experiments, the research team noticed an unexpected pattern. “Interestingly, in that earlier work we also observed that rats on a ketogenic diet had much higher blood alcohol levels compared to chow-fed rats, after receiving the same amount of alcohol,” Wiers explained. “That was an unexpected finding and raised an important question: is the ketogenic diet changing how the liver metabolizes alcohol? The present study was designed to investigate that question and to better understand how ketogenic diets affect both alcohol metabolism and alcohol consumption.”
In the first phase of their research, the scientists maintained eight male and eight female adult rats on a ketogenic diet. A comparison group of eight male and eight female rats ate standard laboratory chow. The ketogenic diet consisted of 93 percent calories from fat, and the standard chow provided 13 percent calories from fat. After eight weeks, the rats on the ketogenic diet had higher blood ketone levels and lower blood glucose levels.
To test alcohol processing, the researchers exposed these rats to a short four-hour session of alcohol vapor. The rats on the ketogenic diet exhibited higher blood alcohol levels compared to the chow-fed group. Upon analyzing the liver tissue, the scientists observed that the ketogenic diet lowered the levels of alcohol dehydrogenase 1, or ADH1, an enzyme responsible for breaking down alcohol. The diet also lowered levels of pyruvate and lactate and increased the ratio of specific coenzymes involved in energy transfer, known as the NAD+/NADH balance.
“The original observation that really motivated this study was that ketogenic-diet-fed rats had much higher blood alcohol levels after alcohol exposure,” Wiers noted. “In the current study, we found evidence that this is related to slower liver alcohol metabolism, including lower levels of the major alcohol-metabolizing enzyme ADH1 and changes in the liver’s NAD+/NADH balance.”
Next, the researchers conducted positron emission tomography scans on a separate group of eight male rats to track how the diet affected brain energy use. They assigned four rats to each diet for eight weeks. The scientists injected the animals with a traceable radioactive sugar to see how much glucose the brain absorbed. The images indicated that the rats on the standard diet had higher sugar absorption across multiple brain regions, while the brains of the ketogenic diet group absorbed less sugar, providing evidence of a shift toward ketone-based energy production.
This shift in fuel sources might play a role in behavioral changes. “We cannot yet say exactly why the ketogenic diet reduced alcohol consumption,” Wiers explained. “In addition to less efficient alcohol metabolism, our findings point to changes in brain energetics as one possible contributor.”
In a third experiment, lead authors Sophie K. Elvig and Adrienne McGinn along with the rest of the team tested how the diet influenced the motivation to drink alcohol in dependent rats. They trained 20 male and 31 female rats to press a lever to receive a small dose of alcohol. The rats were then split into ketogenic and standard diet groups. To induce physical dependence on alcohol, the researchers exposed the animals to daily cycles of 14 hours of alcohol vapor followed by 10 hours of regular air.
Because the earlier experiment showed that a ketogenic diet slows alcohol breakdown, the researchers controlled for this metabolic difference. They adjusted the vapor chambers to deliver about 40 percent less alcohol to the ketogenic diet group. This adjustment successfully equalized the blood alcohol levels between the two groups.
During the daily withdrawal periods, the rats were given 30-minute sessions where they could press the lever for alcohol. The researchers found that male rats on the ketogenic diet pressed the lever fewer times and drank less alcohol per gram of body weight compared to the male rats on the standard diet. However, the diet did not alter alcohol consumption in the female rats. The ketogenic diet did not affect lever pressing for water in either sex, which indicates that the reduction in drinking among males was specific to alcohol.
“It was also interesting that the reduction in alcohol consumption occurred in male but not female rats, suggesting that sex may be an important factor in how metabolic interventions affect alcohol use, at least in rats,” Wiers told PsyPost.
These parallel changes in liver function and behavior highlight the complex nature of alcohol dependence. “I think this study illustrates why it is important to look at the whole body when studying addiction,” Wiers said. “Alcohol use is influenced not only by the brain, but also by peripheral metabolism and the interaction between the brain and organs such as the liver.”
The slowed alcohol metabolism suggests a potential risk for people attempting this diet. “Our findings suggest that a metabolic intervention can have effects in both directions, potentially reducing alcohol consumption while also slowing alcohol metabolism,” Wiers added. “That combination makes it especially important to study these interventions carefully before assuming that a ketogenic diet is necessarily beneficial or harmful for people who drink alcohol.”
The most relevant limitation is that these effects were observed in an animal model. “The most important caveat is that these are findings in rats, and we cannot assume that the same effects occur in humans,” Wiers cautioned. “We need a lot more work to determine the mechanisms and whether they are relevant to individuals with alcohol use disorder.”
A direct comparison to human metabolism is still pending. “If these findings translate to humans, the same amount of alcohol could result in greater alcohol exposure while following a ketogenic diet,” Wiers said. “This was an animal study, so we don’t yet know whether these effects occur in people. But we do know that increased sensitivity to alcohol is an anecdotally reported side effect of ketogenic diets.”
To explore this in humans, Wiers noted that her lab is currently conducting a clinical trial, led by postdoctoral fellow Xinyi Li, testing the effects of a four-week ketogenic diet on alcohol intoxication.
Looking ahead, the research team aims to evaluate several diet-based and pharmacological approaches to treating addiction. “Our broader goal is to understand how the body’s metabolic state influences addiction,” Wiers said. “Ketogenic diets fundamentally change the fuels available to the brain, shifting it away from glucose toward ketone bodies. We are particularly interested in whether these changes in brain energetics can influence alcohol craving, withdrawal, and alcohol consumption.”
Some scientists are already exploring whether metabolic medications used for diabetes and weight loss, known as GLP-1 receptor agonists, might also reduce drinking. “Ultimately, we want to determine whether metabolic interventions, including the ketogenic diet, ketone supplement drinks, and GLP-1 receptor agonist medications, can be developed into useful treatments for alcohol use disorder, while also understanding their potential effects on alcohol intoxication and other risks,” Wiers concluded.
The study, “A ketogenic diet reduces hepatic alcohol metabolism and alcohol consumption in rats,” was authored by Sophie K. Elvig, Adrienne McGinn, Xinyi Li, Janaina C. M. Vendruscolo, Juan L. Gomez, Robert Pawlosky, Bryan Mackowiak, Luis Gonzalez, M. Todd King, Michael Michaelides, Bin Gao, Nora D. Volkow, George F. Koob, Corinde E. Wiers, and Leandro F. Vendruscolo.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #KetogenicDiet #AlcoholMetabolism #ADH1 #LiverHealth #Ketones #AlcoholUseDisorder #Neuropsychopharmacology #BrainEnergy #GLP1RAg #AlcoholConsumption
-
DATE: August 8, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Ketogenic diet improves metabolic health and may reduce symptoms in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
A recent study published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin suggests that a ketogenic diet provides metabolic and psychiatric benefits for individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. The research indicates that shifting the brain’s primary fuel source from carbohydrates to fat derivatives called ketones tends to improve markers of blood sugar regulation. The findings also provide evidence that adopting this diet is associated with reduced symptoms of depression and psychosis over time.
People diagnosed with psychotic disorders frequently experience impaired cognitive function and disrupted daily living. The psychiatric medications typically prescribed to manage these conditions tend to induce high rates of metabolic dysfunction. These physical side effects often include elevated blood sugar, weight gain, and an increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome involves a cluster of risk factors, such as high blood pressure and elevated fasting glucose, which correlate with shorter lifespans and more severe psychiatric symptoms. Diet plays a large role in the onset of this syndrome, and individuals with schizophrenia often face lifestyle challenges that make traditional nutritional management difficult.
The ketogenic diet is a nutritional approach composed of roughly 70 percent fat, 20 percent protein, and 10 percent carbohydrates. By severely restricting carbohydrate intake, the diet forces the body to break down fat into molecules known as ketone bodies. These ketone bodies provide an alternative energy source for cells.
Laboratory studies suggest that ketone metabolism yields more energy than glucose metabolism, which might help counteract the dysfunctional glucose processing often observed in the brains of individuals with schizophrenia. Previous case reports and uncontrolled studies provide evidence that the ketogenic diet can alleviate metabolic syndrome and psychiatric symptoms in various mental health conditions.
“A number of pilot studies have signaled the promise of a ketogenic diet as a treatment of serious mental health, but to attribute these positive effects to the diet rather than any other factors we still need randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the ketogenic diet to another diet,” said Judith M. Ford, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. “Our study was a first attempt to directly make this comparison in participants with schizophrenia-spectrum or bipolar-1 disorder.”
The researchers recruited adult participants who met the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder with psychotic features. The research began with 58 participants who were randomly assigned to either a ketogenic diet group or a diet-as-usual control group for a one-month period.
Participants in the ketogenic diet group received 18 microwavable meals each week from a contracted delivery service. They were instructed to consume at least two provided meals a day and keep their overall carbohydrate intake below 10 percent. The diet-as-usual group was asked to continue their typical eating habits and did not receive prepared meals. Both groups received weekly check-in calls from a licensed dietitian.
The researchers measured several physiological variables, including body weight, insulin resistance, and hemoglobin A1c, which is a protein that reflects average blood sugar levels over several months. The authors also measured cognitive performance and psychiatric symptoms, such as depression and the positive and negative symptoms of psychosis. The analytical models adjusted for participants’ initial baseline scores to ensure that any observed changes were not due to preexisting differences between the groups.
At the end of the one-month trial, individuals in the ketogenic diet group demonstrated metabolic improvements compared to those eating their usual diet. Based on objective blood tests, the ketogenic group successfully reached and maintained standard nutritional ketosis. “We also showed that this diet is highly feasible in this population, with 83 percent of daily-tested participants maintaining ketosis in the one-month RCT portion of the study,” Ford noted.
Compared to the diet-as-usual group, participants on the ketogenic diet experienced a relative decrease in body mass index and lower levels of both hemoglobin A1c and insulin resistance. For instance, the ketogenic diet participants saw a moderate absolute reduction in their body weight and blood sugar markers, whereas the control group experienced nearly no change. Cognitive performance and symptoms of psychosis did not differ between the two groups at the end of the first month.
Partway through the trial, the researchers secured funding to offer an extended four-month ketogenic diet phase to all participants. A total of 25 individuals completed this extended dietary protocol. “Adherence to the diet was also high in this extension period (94 percent), with no reports of significant side effects from the diet,” Ford explained.
“I don’t know if this surprised us, but we were really encouraged to see the high feasibility of this diet in an outpatient population of patients with schizophrenia-spectrum or bipolar-1 disorder,” Ford said. “A common assumption we hear is that the diet must be too difficult for participants with severe mental illness to adhere to, but 25 of the participants opted to continue on the diet beyond the one-month RCT.”
This level of adherence suggests that lifestyle interventions are possible for this population when adequate resources are provided. “This choice to extend demonstrates the viability of this diet as a long-term intervention, along with support from our team, which included providing them with 18 microwavable ketogenic meals per week via a specialized delivery service, an initial coaching session, and support from a dietitian or research assistant,” Ford added.
Because there was no active control group for this extension phase, the researchers assessed changes by comparing the participants’ metabolic and psychiatric measurements at the four-month mark directly against their initial baseline scores. “The most notable effects in this study were the significant metabolic improvements in the ketogenic diet group compared with the control group in the RCT part of the trial,” Ford said.
After four months on the ketogenic diet, participants demonstrated enhanced cognitive performance and reductions in both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. They also experienced a marked reduction in depressive symptoms. Measurements of body mass index and hemoglobin A1c remained lower than their initial baseline levels.
“While we also saw significant improvements in depression, schizophrenia symptoms, and cognitive performance after four months on the ketogenic diet, we can’t attribute those effects to the specific diet, as it was offered to all participants at this stage,” Ford cautioned.
Readers might wonder why cognitive benefits did not appear earlier in the trial. Ford clarified this timeline, referencing similar clinical observations from other recent diet studies. “We weren’t able to see neuropsychiatric or cognitive benefits of the ketogenic diet after only one month on the diet, indicating that participants may need a longer time on the ketogenic diet for those benefits to emerge,” Ford said. “This is consistent with other similarly-sized single-arm pilot studies such as Volek et al. (2025), Campbell et al. (2025), and Sethi et al. (2024).”
To explore the mechanics behind these improvements, the authors conducted statistical tests to see if the clinical gains were tied to the presence of ketones or simply to weight loss. They found that higher levels of blood ketones strongly correlated with greater reductions in hemoglobin A1c and depressive symptoms.
Changes in body weight did not correlate with these specific metabolic or psychiatric improvements. “Also, we wondered throughout the trial if benefits would be due solely to weight loss,” Ford said. “We were gratified to find that the improvement in depressive symptoms and metabolic health was not related to weight loss but to ketone levels, even in the one-month RCT.”
The study design involves a few elements that could influence how the outcomes are interpreted. “There are a couple of caveats,” Ford noted. “First, it’s important to note that we did not have a control group for the four-month extension of the study, meaning all significant improvements we observed in neuropsychiatric symptoms and cognition were in a single-arm design. This indicates the need for longer-term RCTs to explore these effects.”
Because the control group did not receive catered meals, the ketogenic diet group had an inherent advantage in accessing free, easily prepared food that included fresh vegetables and proteins. “Second, we only provided meals to the ketogenic diet group, while the diet-as-usual group followed their regular diet,” Ford said. “As a result, we can’t rule out that meal provision itself contributed to some of the observed benefits. We recommend that future studies address this variable in their design.”
The study relied on a relatively small sample size, which prevented the authors from testing complex statistical models or separating the outcomes by specific psychiatric diagnoses. Certain physiological measurements were not tracked during the trial. The blood tests did not assess markers like cholesterol or detailed electrolyte balances.
These omitted measures are important for evaluating long-term cardiovascular health and the risk of developing kidney stones on a high-fat diet. The research team also did not track adjustments to participants’ psychiatric medications throughout the study.
Future research could benefit from longer monitoring periods and larger sample sizes to clarify how dietary interventions interact with standard psychiatric treatments.
“Our results are really promising, indicating that a ketogenic diet is feasible and safe in patients with serious mental illness, and our single-arm extension findings also indicate that the ketogenic diet may be beneficial for alleviating depression and schizophrenia symptoms,” Ford concluded. “We hope to see more funding being made available for RCTs that follow larger groups of patients for longer periods of time to establish whether the ketogenic diet is an effective treatment strategy for serious mental illness.”
The study, “Metabolic Improvements with a Ketogenic Diet Correlate with Symptom Improvement in Psychosis: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” was authored by Samantha V. Abram, Juliette M. Kyner, An Vu, Zanib Naeem, Shebani Sethi, Michael S. Jacob, Susanna L. Fryer, Daniel H. Mathalon, and Judith M. Ford.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #KetogenicDiet #MetabolicHealth #Psychosis #Schizophrenia #BipolarDisorder #Ketones #DepressionSymptoms #MentalHealthDiet #Neuropsychiatry #SchizophreniaBullets
-
7 years ago: Ketone supplements used at Jumbo-Visma https://www.cyclisme-dopage.com/dossierdefond/2019-07-16-cyclingnews-com.htm #cycling #doping #JumboVisma #Ketones #TeamSky #DeceuninckQuickStep #JumboVisma #Ketones #TeamSky #DeceuninckQuickStep #JumboVisma #Ketones #TeamSky #DeceuninckQuickStep
-
@infoseclogger @da_667 you lose more in the summer, or at least it is easier psychologically, i had a ton of exercise in the last month, if anything i gained weight, I was not consciously compensating to gain or lose. i think you have to calorie restrict but not go into ketosis - even serious dieting can backfire #brown back fat #ketostix #ketones
-
Mitochondria in the heart, skeletal muscle, kidney, and liver of individuals with Type 2 diabetes or with fatty liver disease have a diminished ability to produce energy from ketone bodies.
Summary: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-people-diabetes-fatty-liver-disease.html
Original paper: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/ebiom/article/PIIS2352-3964(25)00451-7/fulltext
-
"Unlike #glucose, #ketones effectively stabilized deteriorating brain networks, but with effects that differed significantly across critical transition points. Ketones showed moderate benefits in young adults (20-39 years), showed maximum benefits during the midlife “metabolic stress” period (40-59 years) after which networks begin destabilizing, but had diminished impact in older adults (60-79 years) once the network destabilization hit maximum acceleration and the domination of compounding vascular effects.
Mujica-Parodi and co-authors say that these findings could revolutionize approaches to preventing age-related cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases like #Alzheimer’s."
-
Glucose metabolism constitutes most of energy metabolism but the liver breaks down fat into Acetyl-CoA to create usable energy w/ #ketones as byproducts. Ketones are essential when glucose isn’t available in growing babies as well as fully developed adults.
Neuroscientists studying #LongCovid brain fog say it’s cerebral hypometabolism, among other things, causing it.
One interesting thing about the brain is it improves its metabolic uptake in periods of fasting or starvation.
