KETOGENIC DIET – FROM THE IMPLEMENTATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE TO NOWADAYS

Introduction: The ketogenic diet (KGD) is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. In 1920`s the diet was developed to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children. Nowadays its efficacy has been proven in many other diseases, such as metabolic disorders, brain tumours, autism, Rett syndrome, and in other areas, it has been actively studied. Aim: The aim of this article is to represent the historical review of the therapeutic implication of KGD, as well as to reveal the contemporary clinical trends in which it is being used. Material and Methods: A literature review of 96 scientific reports in English has been made. Results and Discussion: The KGD was developed in the early 1920s. In the period 1970-1990, the therapeutic use of the diet was discontinued, due to the breakthrough of the new anticonvulsants for epilepsy. The interest in KGD was recovered after a meeting of the “American Epilepsy Society” in 1996. The diet demonstrates anticonvulsant efficacy in epilepsy therapy. According to a survey in 2013, the incidence of seizures among half of the number of children was reduced by at least a half, and 15% of them were completely discontinued. The diet is also used in the treatment of metabolic diseases, such as GLUT 1-deficiency syndrome, reducing the incidence of seizures, improving muscle coordination and concentration. It is also effective in pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency syndrome by replacing the major energy source - glucose with ketones. Along with these, it is also used in patients with autism (in approximately 60% of patients it improves learning ability and social skills), Rett syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and others. Its mechanism of action is not fully clarified, as well as its degree of effectiveness in some areas. Conclusion: The ketogenic diet is widely implemented worldwide. It comprises a tremendous therapeutic potential that has been growing considerably during the past decades

The genomic history of southeastern Europe

Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium bc, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 bc. We document a west-east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.Iain Mathieson … Wolfgang Haak … David Reic