How Experiential Training Builds Clinician Confidence in Ketogenic Therapy

How can clinicians become more comfortable using ketogenic therapy in mental health care? In this episode of Metabolic Mind, Dr. Bret Scher speaks with Dr. Deanna Kelly about Live It, Launch It!, a training program designed to help clinicians learn ketogenic therapy by experiencing it themselves.

Dr. Kelly explains why evidence-based treatments can still take years to reach everyday clinical practice, especially when providers don't feel confident using them. To address that gap, her team recruited clinicians for a program that combined ketogenic therapy education with four weeks of personally following a ketogenic diet and published it as a study: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1913325/full

Clinicians started with very low confidence in their ability to use ketogenic therapy. With education alone, those scores improved substantially, and actually living the diet pushed confidence even higher. Participants also reported improvements in mental and physical health, along with an average weight loss of about five pounds.

They cover:

Why clinician confidence can limit adoption of new treatmentsHow Live It, Launch It! was designedWhy experiential learning added more than education aloneHow clinicians learned to troubleshoot ketosis in real timeWhat participants reported about mood, brain fog, anxiety, and physical healthWhy group support helped clinicians understand how differently people respondWhat side effects and challenges came up during the four weeksHow this model could be scaled across residency programs and health systemsWhy the next step is measuring whether clinicians actually use ketogenic therapy more often with patients

For Dr. Kelly, the goal is to help clinicians move from knowing about ketogenic therapy to feeling prepared to discuss it and use it in practice as the evidence continues to grow.

📖 Want to learn more about metabolic psychiatry? Check out our blog “Metabolic Psychiatry: A New Lens on Mental Health” to explore how researchers and clinicians are examining the connection between metabolism and mental health: metabolicmind.org/resources/library/blog/stories/metabolic-psychiatry-a-new-lens-on-mental-health/

🔎 Have questions about how to apply metabolic therapies effectively? Submit them at metabolicmind.org/questions to be featured in a future Metabolic Mailbag episode.

#KetogenicTherapy #MetabolicPsychiatry #MetabolicMind #LiveItLaunchIt

Expert Featured:

Dr. Deanna L. Kelly PharmD, BCPP

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