Is the antiseizure effect of ketogenic diet in children with drug-resistant epilepsy mediated through proinflammatory cytokines?

In order to understand whether the antiseizure mechanism of ketogenic diet (KD) is mediated through its anti-inflammatory effect, we measured the serum concentrations of cytokines IL- 1β and IL-6 in 21 children with drug-resistant epilepsy. We found a significant reduction in the levels of serum IL- 1β and IL-6 levels at one-year of KD therapy compared to baseline. However, we did not find any correlation between decrease in the serum concentrations of these interleukins with the reduction in seizure frequency at one-year of KD therapy, which may be due to the small sample size and heterogeneous patient population we studied. Future studies should try to overcome these limitations.