Our Story. 

The Beginning. Caroline’s maternal aunt, Dr. Barbara Scolnick, a Massachusetts physician, with no expertise in eating disorders, became determined to find a better way to treat the disease when she saw the terrible toll anorexia nervosa took on her beloved niece and the ineffectiveness of the current treatment protocol.  The approved treatment then and now is to encourage the patient to eat ALL foods, with the help of family or a support person at home or in a hospital or residential treatment center; receive “talk therapy”, and then resume making one’s own food choices.  The treatment takes months at best and usually years, at great cost, often with many relapses. At worst, it fails and the patient either continues to live a very restricted life or dies from suicide or starvation. 

The Science.  Dr. Scolnick studied the science and uncovered hints in the medical literature that nutritional lipids (fats) might unlock the ferocious grip of this horrible illness.  Laboratory rodents have been recognized as a fairly good model for studying human anorexia. Studies showed that some caged rodents given a running wheel and slightly less food than usual, began to run excessively and eventually did not eat. This behavior, known as activity-based anorexia, replicates the self-starvation plus hyperactivity that marks human anorexia nervosa. As long ago as the 1970s, it was observed that activity-based anorexia was interrupted if the animal was fed high fat food, the essence of a metabolic ketogenic diet.  A 2016 study from Dr. Chiye Aoki’s laboratory at NYU demonstrated that rodents reduced self-starvation if they received one infusion of racemic ketamine.  A 1998 human study showed that 9 of 12 patients with chronic anorexia experienced substantial relief from food obsessions and compulsions following IV ketamine infusions. This 20+ year old study was neither repeated nor referenced until it was cited in the Case report that was published describing Caroline’s experience.