Summary
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.
Key Words: Epilepsy, ketogenic diet, pH hypothesis, metabolic hypothesis, amino acid hypothesis, ketone hypothesis
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