The ketogenic diet, known for its high-fat, low-carb approach, is more than a popular weight loss strategy.
It has been a beacon of hope for controlling seizures in children with epilepsy, especially those who don’t benefit from standard seizure medications.
A recent study at UCLA, published in Cell Reports, offers new insights into how this diet works, focusing on the human gut microbiome—the vast community of microorganisms living in our digestive system.
Gregory Lum, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA, along with Professor Elaine Hsiao’s lab, explored how the ketogenic diet changes the microbiome in ways that could protect against seizures.
Their findings could pave the way for innovative treatments that harness these benefits without the diet’s strict requirements and potential side effects like nausea and fatigue.
The ketogenic diet isn’t typically the first choice for treating seizures due to its demanding nature and side effects.
This is why Lum’s research is so vital—it seeks to understand the diet’s effects at a molecular level to improve treatment for the one-third of epilepsy patients whose seizures don’t respond to existing medications.
Building on previous research by Hsiao’s lab, which showed that mice with epilepsy had fewer seizures on a ketogenic diet compared to a standard diet, Lum examined how the diet alters the gut microbiome in children with epilepsy.
He conducted a fascinating experiment where he transplanted fecal samples from pediatric epilepsy patients, both before and after starting the ketogenic diet, into mice.
The results were striking. Mice receiving post-diet fecal transplants exhibited a greater resistance to seizures than those receiving pre-diet samples.
This suggests that the diet-induced changes in the gut microbiome play a crucial role in seizure protection.
Significantly, the ketogenic diet altered key functions in the children’s gut microbiomes related to fatty acid oxidation and amino acid metabolism.
These changes were preserved in the fecal transplants and appeared to contribute to seizure resistance.
Lum’s study is a promising step towards new microbiome-based therapies for pediatric epilepsy. By pinpointing the beneficial microbial functions, it might be possible to enhance the ketogenic diet’s effectiveness or even replicate its positive effects without the diet itself.
This research opens new doors in understanding and treating epilepsy, offering hope to those for whom traditional medications fall short.
If you care about nutrition, please read studies about how Mediterranean diet could protect your brain health, and the best time to take vitamins to prevent heart disease.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies that olive oil may help you live longer, and vitamin D could help lower the risk of autoimmune diseases.
The research findings can be found in Cell Reports.
