A Harvard psychiatrist who studies the link between diet and mental health said on Friday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was “not accurate” in claiming he had “cured” schizophrenia using the keto diet, but that he hoped interest from Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement would expand access to the treatment.
The psychiatrist, Dr. Christopher M. Palmer, who met Mr. Kennedy shortly before the 2024 elections, was a candidate to become the next director of the National Institute of Mental Health, according to his spokeswoman. He said in an interview that he would not be the next director, but did not elaborate.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy told a crowd at the Tennessee State Capitol that “we now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country,” and that a doctor at Harvard had “cured schizophrenia using keto diets.”
“It’s not accurate,” Dr. Palmer said when asked about Mr. Kennedy’s remarks. “Although I appreciate Secretary Kennedy’s enthusiasm for my work, I have never claimed to have cured schizophrenia or any other mental disorder, and I certainly never use the word ‘cure’ in my work.”
But, Dr. Palmer added, “I have talked about treatment, and I’ve talked about a robust response for some individuals to the point of remission of symptoms.”
He said that he envisioned a day when “dietary interventions” might be a first-line treatment for psychotic disorders, but that at present, he did not advise patients to stop taking antipsychotic medications or try the diet without close medical supervision.
Mr. Kennedy’s spokesman declined to comment.
The high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet has been shown to help patients lose weight, but it also poses risks to cardiovascular health. It is also an evidence-based treatment for epilepsy, Dr. Palmer said, and can be effective at controlling seizures when medication does not work.
Dr. Palmer initially prescribed the keto diet, under close medical supervision, to help a patient with schizoaffective disorder lose weight. The patient continued taking his medications, Dr. Palmer said, but after about two months on the diet, “he spontaneously started reporting that his hallucinations and delusions were going away.”
In 2019, Dr. Palmer wrote about two patients with schizophrenia who experienced “complete remission of symptoms” with the keto diet and were able to stop antipsychotic medications. He and his colleagues recently described the diet as a “promising therapeutic approach for schizophrenia.”
Most establishment psychiatrists are far more cautious about the promise of ketogenic therapy, warning that evidence for its effectiveness is largely based on case studies and small pilot trials.
A 2025 policy paper from the American Psychiatric Association says that treating psychiatric symptoms with a ketogenic diet “remains controversial, and lacks robust, consistent evidence-based research to warrant implementation into routine practice.” It also notes the “logistical challenges” of adhering to the diet, especially for people with severe mental illness.
Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, a Columbia University psychiatry professor and past president of the association, described the evidence in favor of the diet as “very, very preliminary.” He called for studies comparing patients both on and off the diet, who were followed for six to 12 months and evaluated by people who did not know which patient was eating what.
“Until then, it’s simply misleading to suggest that we know that ketogenic diets can improve schizophrenia symptoms, much less that they can cure the condition,” he said.
Still, there is intense enthusiasm among patients around Dr. Palmer and his work.
“This has been my heartbreaking journey for the last several years,” Dr. Palmer said, “because I literally have thousands of people reaching out to me begging for this treatment, and the reality is there are not many clinicians” who offer it.
Dr. Palmer’s patients include the son of Jan Ellison Baszucki and her husband, David Baszucki, the chief executive of the online gaming platform Roblox and a major donor to President Trump’s White House ballroom project. Ms. Baszucki, a former Silicon Valley marketing executive, founded a nonprofit, Metabolic Mind, to fund and promote research on diet and mental health.
Dr. Palmer said there were around 20 trials underway using ketogenic therapies for a range of psychiatric disorders, including two randomized control trials in patients with schizophrenia, whose results would be published within the next year. In addition, he said, Wellcome, a global health foundation, is funding a large trial in Britain.
Dr. Palmer said he and Mr. Kennedy met in September 2024, when Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, hosted a round-table discussion on nutrition. He was invited at the suggestion of Dr. Casey Means, Mr. Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, and her brother, Calley Means, a top adviser to Mr. Kennedy, who also attended.
Dr. Palmer said he had participated in the event to promote metabolic treatments for psychiatric disorders and to advocate more research funding. “I certainly did not know that event was somehow going to turn into this thing that we call MAHA, and that it was going to support one candidate over another,” Dr. Palmer said.
As an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Palmer is also affiliated with Mass General Brigham. He said Mr. Trump’s cuts to biomedical research, and the continuing legal battles between Harvard and the Trump administration over the president’s demands that the university pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the government, were affecting his work.
“I think in some camps, they do affiliate me somehow with MAHA and I want to just remind you, I’m at Harvard Medical School,” Dr. Palmer said. He went on: “Trump was not very kind to Harvard Medical School, and I’m working at MGB. Both institutions are in dire financial problems, and that is absolutely affecting me.”
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
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