Podcasts · Beyond Well with Sheila Hamilton

Ep. 407/ Maya Schumer. Bipolar Disorder and Keto.

6 Apr 2026 · 35 min

Maya Schumer earned her PhD studying the very disorder she carries, using neuroimaging and machine learning to map the neural signatures of mania and emotional impulsivity at the University of Pittsburgh. She is now a postdoctoral fellow at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School's flagship psychiatric institution. She also lives with Bipolar I.

So when Maya began a modified ketogenic diet and noticed her cognition sharpening, her mood stabilizing, her daily life becoming simply less effortful, she understood the implications in a way few patients could. Today on Beyond Well, Maya Schumer talks about what twenty-first-century psychiatric treatment gets right, what it still gets wrong, and why the emerging field of metabolic psychiatry may be closing a gap that millions of people have been falling through.

The episode on the publisher’s site ↗ (opens in a new tab)