A recent American study showed that the keto diet contributes to calming the excessive activity of the immune system, which may help some people with diseases such as multiple sclerosis in the future.
The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco in the United States, and was published in the journal Cell Reports, and written about by the Eurick Alert website.
The results of the study – which was conducted on laboratory mice – showed that the ketogenic diet contributes to increasing anti-inflammatory compounds in the body by controlling some of the factors that affect the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Keto diet
The keto diet relies on restricting the consumption of foods that contain large amounts of carbohydrates, such as baked goods, pasta, fruits, and sugars, and in return, it allows the consumption of fats.
The body uses carbohydrates as an energy source, and in the absence of this source, the body breaks down fats instead of relying on carbohydrates, and this produces compounds called ketone bodies. Ketone bodies provide energy to cells and can also cause changes to the immune system.
A ketone is a natural chemical that the body produces when it uses fat as an energy source instead of carbohydrates (sugars). The body usually gets energy from glucose extracted from carbohydrates in food, but when glucose is not available in sufficient quantity, the body resorts to breaking down fats to produce energy, and as a result ketones are formed. Ketones are formed mainly in the liver. When there is not enough insulin, the body cannot use glucose effectively and so turns to burning fat, which results in the production of ketones.
Ketone to the rescue
Working on mice with multiple sclerosis, the study found that mice that produce a ketone called beta-hydroxybutyrate suffer from less severe disease symptoms.
The ketone beta hydroxybutyrate stimulates one of the beneficial bacteria in the intestine to produce indole lactic acid, which prevents the activation of T helper 17 cells, which are one of the immune cells that contribute to the occurrence of multiple sclerosis and autoimmune disorders. The other.
“What’s really exciting is the discovery that we can protect these mice from inflammatory diseases just by putting them on a diet fortified with these mice,” said Dr. Peter Turnbaugh, a researcher at the Benioff Center for Microbiome Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, in the United States, and one of the researchers involved in the study. Vehicles.
Future treatment
In this study, scientists investigated how the ketogenic diet affected mice with multiple sclerosis that were unable to produce the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate in their intestines, and which they found suffered from more severe inflammation than those whose intestines produced this ketone.
Surprisingly, when they supplemented the diet of these mice with the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate from an external source, the mice’s condition improved.
To find out the mechanism of the effect of the ketone beta hydroxybutyrate on the beneficial bacteria in the intestines, this ketone was isolated and studied in three types of experimental mice that differed in their diet: the first group was fed a keto diet, the second group was fed a high-fat diet, and the third group was fed a keto diet. Fed a high-fat diet, the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate was also added as an exogenous supplement.
Then they examined the outcomes of the microbial metabolism in each group of mice, and found that the positive result of the diet came from a type of beneficial bacteria called “Lactobacillus murinus.” Through further tests, they found that these beneficial bacteria produce indole lactic acid, which is known to affect the immune system.
In a subsequent experiment, the researchers fed mice either the beneficial bacteria (L. murinus) or gave them direct indole lactic acid as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, and they observed a significant improvement in the symptoms of the disease in both cases.
Although these experiments were conducted on laboratory mice, they herald a new approach that offers hope for finding a cure for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders using nutritional supplements.
“The big question now is how much of this will be reflected in real patients,” says Dr. Turnbaugh. “But I think these results offer hope for developing a more palatable alternative to help these people rather than requiring them to adhere to a restrictive and difficult diet.”
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis – according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke in the United States – is known as a chronic neurological disorder, and it is an autoimmune disorder, which means that the immune system – which normally protects us from viruses, bacteria and other threats – attacks healthy cells by mistake. Wrong way. Symptoms of multiple sclerosis usually appear in young people between the ages of 20 and 40 years.
Symptoms of multiple sclerosis
The National Health Services website in the United Kingdom indicates that there are many possible symptoms of multiple sclerosis, as each affected person is affected by this condition differently. Symptoms may come in the form of “relapses” and then disappear, and may get worse over time.
The most common symptoms include:
- Feeling very tired.
- Eye or vision problems, such as blurred vision or eye pain.
- Feeling numbness or tingling in different parts of the body.
- Feeling imbalanced and dizzy.
- Feeling cramps and stiffness in the muscles.
- The need to urinate frequently.
- Problems with memory or concentration.