Case Report: Carnivore–Ketogenic Diet for the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Case Series of 10 Patients, Open Access (2024)

Scientific Paper

Very-low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets (KDs), long-known and well-studied as a
therapeutic option for pediatric epilepsy (1), are becoming increasingly popular for the clinical
treatment of a broad range of medical conditions. Public awareness of KDs mostly focuses on
applications related to obesity and diabetes, but there is also accumulating data for KD in other
conditions. This includes preclinical and clinical interventional data for certain mental health
disorders (2, 3), chronic infectious disease (4), and human randomized controlled trial data
for Alzheimer’s disease (5, 6) and polycystic kidney disease (5), to name a few examples.
The therapeutic potential of KD may derive from a combination of three features of
the diet:

1. Carbohydrate reduction can facilitate weight loss and improve glycemic control in those with obesity, metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, or diabetes.
2. The restrictive nature of the diet often facilitates the elimination of “problem” foods, including those that may act as immune triggers.
3. Ketone bodies generated by the liver are potent regulatory and signaling molecules, akin to hormones as much as they are fuel substrates. They regulate the immune system and metabolism through cell surface receptors, inflammasome inhibition, histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition, epigenetic regulation, and by acting as post-translational modifiers through the process of lysine β-hydroxybutyrylation on >1,000 different proteins.

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[Gastrointestinal Tract (GIT). Ulcerative Colitis (UC). Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD). Nutrition. Ketogenic Diet. Carnivore Diet.]