Ketogenic Diets in Neurology, Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine

Key points

The ketogenic diet (high fat, low carbohydrate) reduces alcohol withdrawal severity and craving in alcoholics.

Improving brain energetics by a ketogenic intervention shifts the brain from glucose to ketones as fuel.

The ketogenic diet may improve depression and other symptoms in individuals recovering from SUDs.

The ketogenic diet (KD) is unique in improving symptoms for many conditions, from epilepsy to addiction , according to a recent JAMA Psychiatry article . It’s a high-fat, very-low-carbohydrate nutritional therapy that shifts the body's from glucose dependence to ketone production as the primary fuel source. Increasing evidence implicates metabolic dysfunction, neuroinflammation, and neurotransmitter imbalance in psychiatric and addictive disorders—domains d