Sep 25 2010
Schizophrenia, gluten, and low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets
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reviously, Dohan (Acta Psych Scand 1966, 42(2):125-152) observed a decrease in hospital admissions for schizophrenia in countries that had limited bread consumption during World War II, which suggested a possible relationship between bread and schizophrenia.
Early work with lectins clearly showed that the brains of schizophrenics bind lectins differently than the brain tissue of non-schizophrenics, which appears to make sense in that the carbohydrate content of schizophrenic brain tissue (in addition to dementia and a few other illnesses) revealed the existence of spherical deposits in the inner and middle molecular layers of the dentate gyrus in the hippocampal formation which contained fucose, galactose, n-acetyl galactosamine, n-acetyl glucosamine, sialic acid, mannose and chondroitin sulfate; many of these blood group active carbohydrates with known lectin binding affinities (link).
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.(link)
I don’t suffer from schizophrenia, but I can tell you that bread is definitely bad for my head. No doubt about it.
Thank you for your work, it is highly appreciated!
Cheers from DownUnder
Lynda
I very much agree that the effects are not fabulous with my consumption of bread. I am left feeling ungrounded.