A recent episode of the Huberman Lab podcast featuring Dr. Martin Picard, a professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University, has sparked considerable interest with bold claims about the therapeutic potential of ketogenic diets for serious mental health and inflammatory conditions.
During the conversation about mitochondrial function and energy metabolism, Dr. Picard discussed how dietary interventions, particularly ketogenic diets, have shown remarkable effects for some individuals suffering from conditions traditionally considered difficult to treat.
Dr. Picard shared a compelling personal account involving the Bazucki family, whose foundation awarded him a research prize. Their son had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and struggled for years with various treatments and medications that either didn’t work or made things worse.
After encountering a psychiatrist using ketogenic diet as treatment, the family saw dramatic results. According to Dr. Picard, the mother reported having “her son back” within weeks, with his mood stabilizing, improved sleep, and an end to the cycling between mania and major depression.
The researcher emphasized that he has now met “dozens of other patients” and “so many people” who successfully manage their mental health disorders with ketogenic diets, often monitoring their blood ketones to ensure they remain in ketosis.
However, Dr. Picard was careful to frame these observations within the limitations of current research methodology. He explained that randomized controlled trials often fail to capture the profound individual responses some people experience.
While a ketogenic diet might not work for everyone, he suggested “the ketogenic diet could literally save lives and could cure or be like a really solid treatment for schizophrenia or bipolar or Crohn’s disease…for like 20% of the population and we’ll never find out just because we have a science of averages.”
Dr. Picard advocated strongly for personalized approaches to health interventions, noting that what constitutes life-changing treatment for one person might have no effect, or even negative effects, on another.
The discussion connected these dietary effects to mitochondrial function and energy transformation in cells. Dr. Picard’s research focuses on how mitochondria don’t merely produce energy but act as sophisticated systems that pattern and distribute energy throughout the body, influencing everything from inflammation to mental clarity.