Ketone Bodies, Glycolysis, and KATP Channels in the Mechanism of the Ketogenic Diet

Overview

Journal Epilepsia

Specialty Neurology

Date 2008 Dec 17

PMID 19049596

Citations 41

Authors

Gary Yellen

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The ketogenic diet (KD) has shown remarkable efficacy in the treatment of drug-resistant childhood epilepsy. Our understanding of how the KD produces its anticonvulsant and antiepileptogenic effects remains incomplete, which is perhaps not surprising for a biological manipulation as sweeping as dietary change. Several hypotheses focus on ketone bodies, fuel molecules that circulate at millimolar concentrations in the blood of patients on a KD, as causative agents. Here I consider some recent evidence for one such hypothesis, involving a possible role for altered glycolysis and consequent activation of a class of potassium channels called K(ATP)channels.

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