Abstract

An animal model for study of the anticonvulsant properties of the ketogenic diet is described. A high fat diet (70% lipid) based on raw pork sausage and casein is ingested and tolerated moderately well by mice. Pups weaned onto the diet at age 16 days exhibited significant resistance to maximal electroshock and hydration threshold electroshock, as well as some protection against the tonic extensor phase of bicuculline-induced seizures, when challenged 10 days later at age 26 days. At this time the animals revealed a mean total blood ketone body concentration of 2.56 mM (controls, 0.30 mM). No protection against threshold electroshock or pentylenetetrazol-induced convulsions was observed. Protection against maximal electroshock, as well as ketonemia, disappeared within 3.5 hours of initiation of standard sustenance. Pups fed the high fat diet (or starved) for only one day at age 25 days did not exhibit increased resistance to experimental convulsions and were not as ketonemic as animals which had ingested the diet for 10 days. Similar negative results were obtained when adult mice were fed the ketogenic diet for 10 days. Results are discussed in terms of utilization of ketone bodies for cerebral energy metabolism.