RFK Jr. is back with another bizarre claim. On Wednesday, the Health and Human Services secretary claimed that the keto diet can cure schizophrenia – an unfounded claim. Experts were quick to call him out, suggesting there may not be a direct relationship between the two.
Kennedy’s comments came as he was visiting Tennessee as part of his national tour, which he embarked on to encourage Americans to “eat real food,” reports The New York Times. The tour is part of his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Recently, the HHS secretary made several changes to the federal dietary guidelines, backed by the Trump administration.
NEW – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Dr. Chris Palmer (Harvard) has cured schizophrenia using keto diet pic.twitter.com/BS1XbJygYk
— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) February 5, 2026
The new recommendations encourage Americans to consume more proteins such as steak, cheese, and butter. Both RFK Jr. and Donald Trump want Americans to drink more whole milk and avoid skim milk. The new guidelines also discourage high-carbohydrate intake.
During his visit to the Tennessee State Capitol, the Health and Human Services secretary made a bizarre claim. “We now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country,” said Kennedy. Doubling down on his claim, he said that a Harvard doctor had “cured schizophrenia using keto diets.”
The HHS secretary said, “There are studies right now that I saw two days ago where people lose their bipolar diagnosis by changing their diet.” He was seemingly referring to a 2019 paper published by Dr. Christopher Palmer. In his paper, Palmer described “two patients with longstanding schizophrenia who experienced complete remission of symptoms” after they started following a keto diet. The research concludes that both patients were ultimately “able to stop antipsychotic medications and have remained in remission for years now.”
.@SecKennedy: “The things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country…It’s not only affecting our physical health, it’s affecting our mental health as well, and we’re asking people now: eat real food.” pic.twitter.com/BLxS6KqRbj
— HHS Rapid Response (@HHSResponse) February 4, 2026
Dr. Christopher Palmer and his colleagues claim that the keto diet was a “promising therapeutic approach for schizophrenia.” However, many experts disagree. A professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, told The New York Times that the claim is “simply misleading.” According to him, the keto diet can barely improve schizophrenia symptoms, let alone completely cure them, as RFK Jr. believes.
This is not surprising given that RFK Jr. has made several unfounded claims since he became the HHS secretary in 2025. Like Donald Trump, he has been vocally skeptical of vaccines and medication. He also backed Trump’s claim that vaccination has led to a surge in autism rates across the nation. In 2024, RFK Jr. said that ADHD medication “poisoned” a whole generation of children in the country.
