Baszucki Group Announces Two Research Initiatives for Youth with Bipolar

Specialized teams exploring ketogenic metabolic therapy in pediatric bipolar patients aim to inform future trials and improve care options

Baszucki Group today announced the launch of two new initiatives across multiple sites exploring the effectiveness of ketogenic therapy for children and adolescents with bipolar disorder. The participating groups include a family resource center and four academic research institutions offering specialty programs devoted to treating serious mental illness in children and adolescents. Both programs are pioneering metabolic research with pediatric bipolar patients. These projects aim to develop ketogenic therapy programs and establish pilot data to fuel future randomized control trials and support programs in a youth population.

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Baszucki Group announces two research initiatives for youth with bipolar. Holistic, long-term support for children with bipolar and their families: Children’s Mental Health Resource Center, led by Elizabeth Errico, Founder and Executive Director of the Children’s Mental Health Resource Center, Inc. A multi-site trial of ketogenic therapy as a treatment for bipolar in adolescents: UCLA Semel Institute, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, led by Dr. David Miklowitz, Professor of Psychiatry in the Division of Child and Adolescent] Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute, and a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University.

The National Institutes of Health estimates that over one million children and adolescents in the U.S. have bipolar disorder. Diagnosis in this population can be challenging and treatment options are often limited. The two youth bipolar initiatives aim to address these challenges directly by enrolling young and adolescent individuals into programs that provide a dietary intervention along with comprehensive support for the management of a bipolar diagnosis.

A multi-site trial of ketogenic therapy as a treatment for bipolar in adolescents

The first initiative is ​​a multi-site trial involving four members of the Baszucki Group-funded Child and Adolescent Bipolar Network (CABIN); UCLA Semel Institute, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Led by Dr. David Miklowitz, Professor of Psychiatry in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the UCLA Semel Institute, and a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Oxford University, this study will enroll 60 youth experiencing bipolar depressed or mixed (depressed with hypomanic or manic symptoms) states who will be assigned to the ketogenic therapy group or the American Heart Association diet control group. Both groups will receive ongoing standard of care treatment, including medications, family education, nutrition and sleep/wake cycle regulation. The study will assess adherence and safety, symptom improvement, and metabolic outcomes.

Holistic, long-term support for children with bipolar and their families

The second project, “Ketogenic Therapy in Action”, is being led by Elizabeth Errico, founder and Executive Director of the Children's Mental Health Resource Center, Inc. (CMHRC). This comprehensive, year-long program is providing education, peer support and professional consultations to the eight enrolled participant families. The program includes support for both individuals and their families, focusing on successful long-term adoption of the therapeutic dietary intervention. The program is collecting data on competency and mastery of the educational content, longitudinal changes in diet and changes in psychiatric symptom presentation.

“Our family's experience with bipolar disorder gave us a deep understanding of the helplessness parents feel when conventional treatment options don’t work fully,” said Jan Ellison Baszucki, co-founder and President of Baszucki Group. “We are proud to support research that aims to expand those options and provide families with the resources and education they need to integrate ketogenic therapy–which gave our son his life back–into their care plans.”

Both youth bipolar initiatives represent patient-centered holistic approaches which will inform future trials and improve care options for children and adolescents with serious mental illness. These studies incorporate the lived experiences of families, patients, and clinicians into their findings, along with quantitative data on psychiatric and metabolic symptoms. Assessing the impact of ketogenic therapy in this population is a crucial first step toward increasing uptake of this treatment modality, encouraging health insurance reimbursement, and integrating metabolic assessments as standard practice in psychiatry.

These initiatives build upon Baszucki Group’s ReTHINK Bipolar research program, which has already funded over $14 million in clinical trials of ketogenic therapy at leading institutions, including Mayo Clinic, McLean Hospital, the University of Pittsburgh, Stanford University, University of Edinburgh, University of California - San Francisco, and James Cook University.

About Baszucki Group

Launched in 2021 by Roblox founder and Chief Executive Officer David Baszucki and best-selling author Jan Ellison Baszucki, Baszucki Group leverages private giving, impact investing, advocacy, storytelling and community building to drive foundational change. A primary objective of Baszucki Group is to transform mental health outcomes by supporting initiatives at the intersection of metabolism, psychiatry and neuroscience. To learn more about metabolic strategies for treating mental disorders, including ketogenic therapy, visit Metabolic Mind, a nonprofit initiative of Baszucki Group.

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