Ketogenic treatment reduces the percentage of a LHON heteroplasmic mutation and increases mtDNA amount of a LHON homoplasmic mutation

Background The vision loss in Leber hereditary optic neuropathy patients is due to mitochondrial DNA mutations. No treatment has shown a clear-cut benefit on a clinically meaningful end-point. However, clinical evidences suggest two therapeutic approaches: the reduction of the mutation load in heteroplasmic patients or the elevation of mitochondrial DNA amount in homoplasmic patients.