Colgan, Dana Dharmakaya, Stadler, Diane D, Hope, Aluko A et al. · Case reports in clinical medicine · 2025 · DOI
This study describes one patient with Long COVID who experienced significant improvements in their symptoms after following a special diet (ketogenic diet) combined with lifestyle changes including exercise, better sleep schedules, and stress-reduction practices delivered remotely. The authors reviewed existing research suggesting this combined approach might help address underlying problems in Long COVID and support the body's ability to handle stress.
This work is relevant to ME/CFS because Long COVID and ME/CFS share overlapping pathophysiological mechanisms including metabolic dysfunction, autonomic dysregulation, and post-exertional malaise. If validated in larger studies, multimodal interventions targeting metabolism and lifestyle factors could provide a much-needed evidence-based treatment option for both conditions, which currently lack FDA-approved therapies.
This case report does not prove that ketogenic diet or lifestyle interventions are effective treatments for Long COVID or ME/CFS in the general population. A single patient's improvement does not establish causation—the symptom improvement could result from placebo effect, natural recovery, regression to the mean, or unmeasured factors. Larger randomized controlled trials would be needed to determine efficacy.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Colgan, Dana Dharmakaya, Stadler, Diane D, Hope, Aluko A, Zwickey, Heather, Davenport, Todd E, & Weimbs, Thomas (2025). Clinically Meaningful Improvements in Long COVID Symptoms Following Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy Combined with Lifestyle Interventions-A Clinical Case Report and Review of the Literature.. Case reports in clinical medicine. https://doi.org/10.4236/crcm.2025.148052
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-colgan-2025-clinically-meaningful,
author = {Colgan, Dana Dharmakaya and Stadler, Diane D and Hope, Aluko A and Zwickey, Heather and Davenport, Todd E and Weimbs, Thomas},
title = {Clinically Meaningful Improvements in Long COVID Symptoms Following Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy Combined with Lifestyle Interventions-A Clinical Case Report and Review of the Literature.},
journal = {Case reports in clinical medicine},
year = {2025},
doi = {10.4236/crcm.2025.148052},
note = {PubMed: 40901355},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/colgan-2025-clinically-meaningful},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-29. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/colgan-2025-clinically-meaningful
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