Ketogenic diet exhibits anti‐inflammatory properties

Summary The ketogenic diet (KD) is an established treatment for refractory epilepsy, including some inflammation‐induced epileptic encephalopathies. In a lipopolysaccharide (LPS)–induced fever model in rats, we found that animals given the KD for 14 days showed less fever and lower proinflammatory cytokine levels than control animals. However, KD rats exhibited a decrease in circulating levels of arachidonic acid and long‐chain n‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), suggesting that the anti‐inflammatory effect of KD was probably not due to an increase in anti‐inflammatory n‐3 PUFA derivatives. These properties might be of interest in some conditions such as fever‐induced refractory epileptic encephalopathy in school‐aged children.