A low-carbohydrate, high-fat ketogenic diet (KD) can help to treat refractory epilepsy, a condition that affects more than a third of epileptic patients who don’t respond to existing anticonvulsive drugs. What scientists haven’t understood is how this kind of diet can help to prevent seizures. A team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has now found that gut bacteria play a key role in mediating the protective effects that a ketogenic diet can have on refractory epilepsy. In vivo studies by Elaine Hsaio, Ph.D., and colleagues established a causal link between two specific types of gut bacteria that flourish under a ketogenic diet and protection against seizures in two different mouse models of epilepsy, including one that mirrors human disease. Interestingly, they found both of the bacterial species must be present to protect against seizures. “This study inspires us to study whether similar roles for gut ...
Original Article: Gut Microbiome in Ketogenic Diet Protects against Epileptic Seizures