Deplete

The low-carbon ketogenic, or keto, diet has been used to treat epilepsy for around a century, but how it does so is unclear. Studies in mice suggest its anti-seizure effect comes from changes to the gut microbiome.

The team freeze-dried the samples and mixed them with a liquid, then gave them to mice on a regular diet, with half the mice receiving pre-keto samples and the other half post-keto samples. All the animals were given antibiotics to deplete their existing gut microbiome so only bacteria in the samples could colonize their guts.

The researchers used electrical stimulation to induce seizures in the mice. They found that mice that consumed the post-keto samples needed about 22 percent more stimulation, on average, before a seizure occurred compared with mice that ate the pre-keto samples. This indicated that the diet protects against seizures by altering the gut microbiome.