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TL;DR
This narrative review discusses the potential for ketogenic diets to reduce obesity and central inflammation in people with multiple sclerosis, which may improve glutamate activity and subsequently reduce anxiety and depression.
Frontiers in Nutrition · 6 authors, 4 centres
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This narrative review discusses the potential for ketogenic diets to reduce obesity and central inflammation in people with multiple sclerosis, which may improve glutamate activity and subsequently reduce anxiety and depression.
This narrative review synthesizes existing literature on the ketogenic diet (KD) as a potential non-pharmacological therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS). The authors propose a mechanism where KD increases blood ketone bodies, which may improve mitochondrial function and reduce neuroinflammation. They link this to a reduction in obesity and associated conditions like insulin resistance, which can promote inflammation via interleukins. This reduction in inflammation is hypothesized to decrease pathological extrasynaptic glutamate activity, a process associated with functional disability and emotional disorders like anxiety and depression in MS. The discussion cites previous clinical studies, including one with 65 relapsing MS individuals that observed improvements in fat mass, fatigue, depression, and disability after 6 months of KD.