Less carbs, more fat: ketogenic diet makes migraine patients' headaches disappear

Before the ketogenic diet became the latest low-carb diet trend, it was used to treat childhood epilepsy. Doctors had observed that fasting reduced the amount of seizures, and eating mainly fat and little else mimicked the effect of starvation in the brain. In recent years, researchers have made similar positive observations with migraines. Cherubino Di Lorenzo studies the effect of a ketogenic diet on migraine patients and, in his latest paper, their brains at the Sapienza University of Rome.

ResearchGate: What is a ketogenic diet?

Cherubino di Lorenzo: The ketogenic diet is a particular nutritional regimen that mimics starvation by restricting carbohydrate intake. It was developed 95 years ago in order to treat drug-resistant epilepsy in children. Traditionally, the ketogenic diet is rich in fat and low in carbohydrates, but in the past decades another type of ketogenic diet was developed to treat obesity and metabolic syndrome: the low fat (10-15 grams/day) low carb (20-50 grams/day) diet, also known as the very low calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD).

RG: What does this diet do to the body and the brain in particular?

Di Lorenzo: During a ketogenic diet, carbohydrate restriction induces the fat metabolism to produce so-called ketone bodies. These ketone bodies act as a replacement for carbohydrates and fuel several types of cells, including neurons. In the classic ketogenic diet, the fat that's taken in with the food is the source for the production of ketone bodies . In...

Source: Science - The Huffington Post - October 27, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: news