8 Reasons to Try Low-Carb for Mental Health

Most of the points dont even relate to mental health.

1 and 2 are good outcomes of low carb diets for those for whom this matters - ie diabetics and those with impaired glucose tolerance.

But how is that a mental health issue???

The day a food or food combination can repair neural receptors and regulate serotonin/dopamine levels will be a joyous day indeed.

That day is not today.

Sadly there is not a lot of science behind any way off eating but there seems to be more support for Keto for physical and mental health improvements these days. Laws do not permit making humans into lab animals to gain a lot of hard research data. The current military work with Keto WOE's perhaps is bringing more science to bear on WOE's in general. We just do not know much about the human body relatively speaking today.

I have schizophrenia, and I can categorically state that (having tried both low and high carb plans), that low carb does not help my mental health at all. I feel less full without carbs, more twitchy, and thus not do as well. Carbs help keep me full.

I tried to tell this to a keto-following friend of mine and was shut down with "you just need to stick with ketosis".

I'd agree with the criticism on the article, and that it seems to really stretch and twist the studies to try and make its point, and failing.

But that said, there are some reasons that I've seen that could provide some explanation for why people are so devoted to the idea that low carb could be helpful for some people's mental health. In part because sometimes, it absolutely is. I know of at least a few conditions that would improve due to a low carb diet, but often because of changes in the diet as a result of being low carb, only

Just some examples.
1. Based on more than one randomized study, celiac disease seems to be present in about 3% of the population (so a few million). Based on studies looking at how many celiacs are diagnosed (last numbers I looked at within the last 5 years), its estimated that about 90% of celiacs are NOT diagnosed.

That leaves us with a population of a couple million people who are sick when they eat gluten, but don't know why. Depression is a common symptom of celiac disease (uncertain whether due to inflammation or nutritional deficiencies, last i heard). So that's a couple million folks who, if they go low carb, are usually eating LESS gluten, and suddenly have much better physical, and often mental, health.

Then add on a few MORE million people who know these undiagnosed celiacs and have seen absolutely valid, true, improvement in their friend/family member, and know it's all due to a diet change.

2. In a similar vein, gluten intolerance also seems to affect a few million - the population with this is not so certain, research is not as thorough, and some initial (and poorly designed) studies couldn't confirm it existed, but later studies found definitive biomarkers of immune response in those claiming gluten intolerance, that were not celiac immune response.

Again - this is still a population who would likely see improvement in physical, and potentially mental, health if they went low carb (and therefore lower gluten).

3. Mental health professionals, and even studies, are frequently crap at any sort of rigor in determining if mental health patients have physical problems that may cause their mental health problems. Which means that if a person does anything with their diet that positively affects a physical problem, which as a result fixes the mental problem, there is no way for the patient - undiagnosed with their actual issue - to know the true reason. More 'low carb fixes my body' fans are born. And potentially more 'low carb is the devil' folks, because different diets could impact different conditions in opposite ways, of course.


5. Newest research has shown that inflammation and the immune system may have a big role in mental illness of various types. "Once considered an immune privileged site, it is now clear that immune actions in the brain play a critical role in many fundamental neural processes and are increasingly implicated in the aetiology of mental illness. " https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/84/9/e1.33 (this is not really showing the research much, but it's a good starting point for anyone who wishes to investigate the concept).

The implications here are that anything that increases inflammation in the body (which is the majority of auto-immune disorders, among other things) may impact our mental health. Potentially - research has a long way to go on this, however, so it's more a case of something that can be considered when discussing this as 'what if,' but proves little, to date.

5. Although there is still a lot of research to be done, preliminary research is promising that dietary changes can have a positive impact on some auto-immune diseases, which means that sometimes, a low carb diet (whether because of carb content or the foods left out of the diet when carbs are removed) might actually help, potentially, lower inflammation, which could potentially affect mental health.

Part of this research stemmed originally FROM research on celiac disease. Because docs know that auto-immune disorders are triggered, but celiac disease is the only auto-immune disorder where we KNOW the trigger (gluten) and can actually put it into remission. And the gluten doesn't HAVE to be eaten to trigger the immune system response in celiacs - one study found that if you injected gluten in the cheek of a celiac (with no gluten making it down the throat to the stomach) it would trigger an immune response, too.

So docs have wondered if OTHER auto-immune diseases might have triggers that we could determine and perhaps help put into remission, too. Not much success, as of yet, but docs have been looking more these last few years at food and how it may impact these diseases.


So I know these don't prove anything, and are absolutely not supporting the original article, but it's just some examples of people who could have gone low carb and had legitimate improvement in their body and/or mental health, due to legitimate reasons that are unique to their situation (but common enough that millions of people would be in these categories, all told), which might explain why it's so popular as a way to improve health.

Excellent info, thanks for posting.
I have never heard this about low-carb but I believe it. I was once diagnosed with MDD, bipolar and all sorts of other stuff but after getting fit and losing weight (watching my diet) all the mental problems evaporated.
I definitely have a carb sensitivity as well...