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Ketogenic Diet in People With Schizophrenia

NCT05968638 · Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 50

Last updated 2025-11-12

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder with a heterogenous presentation, lack of clear understanding of pathophysiology and only partially effective treatments. First-line antipsychotic drugs block dopamine, but many people continue to suffer from persistent positive or negative symptoms that cannot be fully treated with available medications. Recently, our group has found that dietary modulations have efficacy comparable to antipsychotic medications and that determining which patients could benefit from a personalized treatment framework is critical.

The ketogenic diet consists of low-carbohydrate, moderate protein and high fat intake inducing a state in which ketone bodies in the blood provide energy to the cells. In pharmacologic mouse models a ketogenic diet regimen resulted in complete restoration of normal behaviors, independent of strict caloric restriction and other work has suggested that a ketogenic diet may improve schizophrenia like deficits in rodents. An open label ketogenic diet study in the 1950s reported improvement in schizophrenia symptom. At least 7 additional case reports have found robust improvements or complete resolution of schizophrenia symptoms. Recently a retrospective study found robust and significant improvements in schizophrenia symptoms in 10 schizoaffective disorder patients treated with a ketogenic diet. In addition to psychiatric symptoms, improvements in metabolic outcomes have been demonstrated. However, to date, there have been no published double blind randomized controlled trials evaluating the effects of a ketogenic diet since few sites can conduct inpatient trials and have observation and control for food intake

Conditions

Interventions

OTHER

Regular Diet

Regular Diet

OTHER

Ketogenic Diet

Ketogenic Diet

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • University of Maryland, Baltimore

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Deanna L Kelly, Pharm.D., BCPP · Study Principal Investigator

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
DOUBLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
64 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2023-09-01
Primary Completion
2026-08-01
Completion
2027-08-01

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05968638 on ClinicalTrials.gov