How your metabolism could alter your mental health

VPM | By Berly McCoy

Published August 26, 2026 at 3:00 AM EDT

A cartoon of a human silhouette showing a brain, digestive tract, microbes and gears. Around the silhouette are colorful layers, and foods including (clockwise from bottom left) strawberry yogurt, bananas, bread, chicken, apple, kimchi, buts, cheese and broccoli. — As trends like the keto diet soar in popularity, doctors are looking at a more measured use of the intervention – to treat mental health disorders.

In 2009, medical student Shebani Sethi watched a patient in a weight loss program make a remarkable recovery. The dietary intervention she underwent alleviated her schizophrenia symptoms, something the woman had tried – and failed – to treat with medication for years. That experience sent Shebani down a medical path that would lead her to treating mental health in a radically different way. Today host Emily Kwong talks to Shebani about the emerging field of metabolic psychiatry and how ketogenic metabolic therapy may treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

Read Shebani’s article on metabolic psychiatry here.

Interested in more lifestyle science? Email us your question at [email protected].

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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez. Tyler Jones checked the facts. The audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

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Berly McCoy

Kimberly (Berly) McCoy (she/her) is a producer for NPR's science podcast, Short Wave. The podcast tells stories about science and scientists, in all the forms they take.

McCoy started working with NPR as the program coordinator of the NPR Scicommers, a group founded by Joe Palca and Maddie Sofia to teach scientists and engineers how to better communicate and find community.

After lending a fact-checking hand to the Short Wave team on and off, they graciously taught McCoy the production ropes, where she now produces regularly, with stories ranging from axolotls to physics.

In another life, McCoy earned her PhD in biochemistry transforming viruses into nanoreactors. She dug through garbage to understand human recycling behavior, counted rattlesnake tongue flicks to gauge their diet preferences and caught endangered butterflies on mountain tops for population surveys.

See stories by Berly McCoy