Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sparks Backlash After Claiming Keto Diet Can ‘Cure’ Schizophrenia’

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sparks Backlash After Claiming Keto Diet Can ‘Cure’ Schizophrenia’

A new wave of backlash is following comments made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he suggested a ketogenic diet could “cure” schizophrenia, a claim mental health experts say is unsupported and potentially misleading.

Speaking at the Tennessee State Capitol on Feb. 5, the Health and Human Services secretary tied mental illness to diet, telling the crowd, “We now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country.” He also cited a Harvard-affiliated doctor who he said had “cured schizophrenia using keto diets.”

Experts quickly pushed back.

“There is currently no credible evidence that ketogenic diets cure schizophrenia,” Columbia psychiatry professor Dr. Mark Olfson told The New York Times. Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum added that available research offers only “very preliminary evidence,” calling it “simply misleading” to suggest keto can cure the disorder.

Even the researcher Kennedy referenced clarified that patients were in remission, not cured, stressing that “more research is needed.”