The ketogenic diet: proposed mechanisms of action.
The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet used to treat drug-resistant seizures, especially in children. A number of possible mechanisms of action have been proposed to explain the anticonvulsant effects of the diet. Four of these hypothetical mechanisms are discussed in the present article: the pH hypothesis, the metabolic hypotheses, the amino acid hypothesis, and the ketone hypothesis.
Nylen
Kirk
K
Department of Pharmacology and University of Toronto Epilepsy Research Program (UTERP), University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A8, Canada.
Likhodii
Sergei
S
Burnham
W McIntyre
WM