What is a ketogenic diet?

Also known as: low-carb diet, ketogenesis.

A Ketogenic Diet (KD) is a high fat and very low in carbohydrate diet that can be used as a medical treatment for epilepsy. It gets its name because it tricks the body into thinking food and caloric intake is low, which in turn causes the liver to make ketones to use as energy. It’s shown effectiveness in controlling many kinds of epilepsy in patients of all ages and for weight loss in adult individuals.


Reviewed by: Cristina Visona, MS, RDNN, CSP, LDN

This page was last updated on: 1/29/2019 3:21:13 PM

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