Ketogenic Diet Can Help Prevent Cognitive Decline

Cognitive abilities can be boosted by following a ketogenic diet- a high fat, low carbohydrate diet regime, finds a new study. The study further states that this diet can help mitigate the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Consuming a ketogenic diet that is high in fat and low in carbohydrates can prevent cognitive decline, reports a new mice study. The findings of the study are published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

"Recent science has suggested that the bacteria might regulate neurovascular integrity in the gut, so we set out to see whether the ketogenic diet enhanced brain vascular function and reduced neurodegeneration risk in young healthy mice," said Ai-Ling Lin from the University of Kentucky in the US.

Health Benefits of Ketogenic Diet
Ketogenic diet is a diet where you load up on protein and fat and drop your carbohydrate intake. Here’s how you get started on a ketogenic diet.

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"Neurovascular integrity, including cerebral blood flow and blood-brain barrier function, plays a major role in cognitive ability," Lin added.

For the study, the team examined the effect of diet on cognitive health on mice, which followed a ketogenic diet regimen.

Two groups of nine mice, aged 12-14 weeks, were given either the ketogenic diet or a regular diet.

Ketogenic Diet May Affect Anaerobic Performance of Athletes
Ketogenic diet mainly consists of a low carbohydrate diet which leads to increased production of ketones. Ketogenic diets reduce exercise performance of athletes in activities that are dependent on anaerobic energy systems.

The team found that after 16 weeks, mice on ketogenic diet had significant increase in cerebral blood flow, improved balance in the microbiome in the gut, lower blood glucose levels and body weight, and a beneficial increase in the process that clears amyloid-beta from the brain a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.

"While diet modifications, the ketogenic diet, in particular, has demonstrated effectiveness in treating certain diseases, we chose to test healthy young mice using diet as a potential preventative measure," Lin said.

Ketogenic Diets and Sport Performance
Ketogenic foods do help the athletes to burn fat and cure epilepsy, but excess amount of such foods causes toxicity in blood and damages the liver and kidneys.

"We were delighted to see that we might indeed be able to use diet to mitigate risk for Alzheimer's disease," Lin noted.

Source-IANS

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