Dear Norman G. King,
I do not have this disorder, but I have used the ketogenic diet for myself and coached people through it for various mental ailments (e.g., Parkinson's disease, depression, cancers). It is also pretty damn amazing with some aggressive cancers.
Here is Duke University on the subject:
Nutrition & Metabolism
Schizophrenia, gluten, and low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diets: a case report and review of the literature Bryan D Kraft1 and Eric C Westman*2
Address: 1Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, DUMC Box # 31179, 2301 Erwin Road, Durham, NC 27710, USA and 2Division of General Medicine, Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, 4020 North Roxboro Street, Durham, NC 27704, USA
Email: Bryan D Kraft - b@duke.edu; Eric C Westman* - e@duke.edu *
Corresponding author
Published: 26 February 2009 Received: 14 August 2008
Accepted: 26 February 2009
Nutrition & Metabolism 2009, 6:10 doi:10.1186/1743-7075-6-10 This article is available from: http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/6/1/10
© 2009 Kraft and Westman; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
We report the unexpected resolution of longstanding schizophrenic symptoms after starting a low- carbohydrate, ketogenic diet. After a review of the literature, possible reasons for this include the metabolic consequences from the elimination of gluten from the diet, and the modulation of the disease of schizophrenia at the cellular level.
If you would like some support in doing this I will be happy to post with you daily and you can track symptoms on paper or an excel spread sheet.
Do talk with your health care provider about this. I am not a health care provider and just a person who tries things. Ketogenic diets are one of my favorite "first" steps; exercise in conjunction with the KD is superb.
If you have any diabetic condition, then this requires
very very close medical supervision, maybe even 24-hour. I am not aware of persons with diabetes type I doing this diet; it may be very dangerous to do this diet for some persons. Do check with your doctor. The diet is getting more attention at universities these days. Oxford is trialing it with Parkinson's these past twlve months. It is consistent in alleviating arthritic pains as far as I can tell. I had back surgery 20 years ago and when I do this diet I have no aches in my back.
The diet mimics fasting because all sugars are removed from the diet. After 2-4 days the brain must tell the body to start converting fat into fuel (because there are no more sugars available to fuel the body's caloric needs).
Less than 20 g of net carbs are consumed per day. "Net" carbs means that you can deduct the fiber grams from the total carbohydrates.
Here's the behavioural progression I see:
Day 1-2: feel about the same
Day 2-3: carvings for anything sugary (bread, potato, etc) come up
Day 4: very grumpy, peak carb cravings; this is the day the liver is drained of the last the body's sugar stores and the brain begins to think it is starving. The body and brain are is not starving, but because the brain is used to getting its energy from carbohydrates, the absence of carbohdrates makes the brain think the body is being starved; meanwhile the person is eating adequate protein and high fats (e.g., eggs grilled in coconut oil). The Eades (MD couple) have a recipe book for this diet.
Day 5: getting easier
Day 6: family and friends usually see an improvement in the perso's behaviour and outlook
Day 7: the person usually reports feeling better (in Parkinson's the diet alleviates PD-induced constipation, for example)
Now the body is largely fueled on 'ketone bodies', energy made from fat. Ketone bodies are shown to have neuroprotective effects (see the work of Mary Newport MD with her husband Steve and his Alzheimer's condition)
I hope this helps.
vHere is the link to the study in Bio Med Central for you and your doctor to consider.I encourage exercise throughout this week,, always having a protein shake or hard-boiled egg on hand before the exercise and after the exercise to prevent massive energy drop.
I would guess that by Day 8 meditation and mindfulness and life will be a very different experience for you, positive. But I don't know. You would be one of the few persons with schizoaffective disorder testing this.
(Edit: thanks to Gabriel for tipping me off to the KD)