Robert F Kennedy Jr claims keto diet can “cure” schizophrenia
Robert F Kennedy Jr has made the curious claim that a keto diet is the “cure” for schizophrenia we’ve been missing all along.
The Health Secretary made a 20-minute address in Nashville, Tennessee, on February 4th. He stated that the high-fat ketogenic diet can cure schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Kennedy made the claim while speaking alongside the Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, speaking in support of the Trump administration’s new Dietary Guidelines for Americans document.
As part of his tour of America, he is urging Americans to eat “real food”; the new guidelines emphasise protein and fats, including steak, cheese, butter, and whole milk, over carbohydrates.
“We now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country,” Kennedy said.
He added that a doctor at Harvard had “cured schizophrenia using keto diets.” Here, he was referring to Dr Christopher Palmer, who stated in 2019 that two patients had “experienced complete remission of symptoms” with a keto diet.
He went on, “There are studies right now that I saw two days ago where people lose their bipolar diagnosis by changing their diet.”
Skeptical about his bullish claim, the New York Times requested a comment from Kennedy to provide evidence for these new assertions. As a result, a post amplifying Kennedy’s statement made by advocacy group Make America Healthy Again Action (MAHA), was taken down.
Dr Paul Applebaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, has reacted to these comments, sharing that it is “simply misleading to suggest that we know that ketogenic diets can improve schizophrenia symptoms, much less that they can ‘cure’ the condition.”
Kennedy has a history of bizarre ideas promoted with little scientific evidence behind them. For example, the politician doesn’t believe HIV is the cause of AIDS. He also insisted that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jewish people and Chinese people.