Your Brain Needs
Energy to Heal
Discover how schizophrenia can be understood through metabolism and mitochondria — and learn about the ketogenic diet that helped people recover after decades of symptoms.
💬Mental disorders are metabolic disorders of the brain. When mitochondria aren't working properly, neither is the brain.
🧠 What is Brain Energy?
Your Brain Uses Energy
Your brain is only 2% of your body but uses 20% of all your energy. When energy production fails, symptoms happen.
Mitochondria Make Energy
Tiny parts in your cells called mitochondria produce energy. When they don't work well, brain cells struggle.
Diet Can Help
The ketogenic diet gives your brain a different fuel source and helps fix mitochondria. It has helped people with schizophrenia.
Tom's Story
Tom had schizoaffective disorder for 13 years. He tried 17 different medications — none worked. He had hallucinations and delusions every single day.
Then he tried the ketogenic diet to lose weight. Within two months, his hallucinations started to fade. He began questioning his paranoid beliefs.
Tom lost 150 pounds, moved out of his father's home, got a certificate, and even performed improv comedy!
🥑 How the Ketogenic Diet Helps
According to the research in Brain Energy
Alternate Fuel
Gives your brain ketones instead of glucose — a fuel that works better for struggling cells
Fixes Mitochondria
Stimulates the creation of new, healthy mitochondria and cleans out broken ones
Brain Cleanup
Triggers autophagy — your cells' cleaning process that removes damaged parts
Balances Brain Activity
Increases GABA (calming) and decreases glutamate (exciting) — reducing hyperexcitability
Reduces Inflammation
Lowers brain inflammation which damages mitochondria
Improves Metabolism
Reduces insulin resistance which blocks energy from reaching brain cells
💬Within weeks, not only had Tom lost weight, but I began to notice remarkable and dramatic changes in his psychiatric symptoms. He was less depressed and less sedated. He began making more eye contact, and when he did, I saw a presence and spark there that I had never seen before.
📊 The Evidence Is Overwhelming
This isn't just one doctor's theory — it's supported by decades of research
research papers linking mitochondria to schizophrenia & bipolar
people studied in Danish Registry proving all mental disorders are connected
years of evidence that fasting and ketogenic diets stop seizures
of people saw reduced or stopped seizures on keto diet in early studies
⚠️ The Treatment Crisis
of depression patients achieve full remission with medication
of schizophrenia patients achieve recovery
shorter lifespan for people with serious mental illness
💬I spent 13 years at the NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of papers published by really good scientists at fairly high costs—I think $20 billion—I don't think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness.
We need a new approach. The brain energy theory offers hope.