Ketones are produced by the liver in response to famine as well as diabetes. In the case of the former, they serve as a replacement for glucose in providing fuel for mitochondria to convert to useable energy in the brain.

In PD, the mitochondria are damaged in such a way that they cannot burn glucose. But the damage seems not to interfere with their ability to burn ketones. In the thread about using diet to reduce symptoms, it may be that some of us are experiencing a form of this effect. Either way, this represents a new way of attacking PD. It also is not going to earn Big Pharma much money, so if it is going to bear fruit it will need our help.

You can cause your body to produce ketones by manipulating your diet. Fasting, for example, triggers their production. A diet extremely high in fat also does it. The latter has been a long used treatment for epilepsy in children. But it is a terribly hard diet to stick to and has some danger.

But there is a possibility that a compromise exists that can help PD. Could we eat our way to health?


1: Neurology. 2005 Feb 22;64(4):728-30.
Comment in:
Neurology. 2006 Feb 28;66(4):617; author reply 617.

Treatment of Parkinson disease with diet-induced hyperketonemia: a feasibility
study.

Vanitallie TB, Nonas C, Di Rocco A, Boyar K, Hyams K, Heymsfield SB.

Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, St.
Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, USA. tedvani@ewol.com

Ketones may bypass the defect in complex I activity implicated in Parkinson
disease (PD). Five of seven volunteers with PD were able to prepare a
"hyperketogenic" diet at home and adhere to it for 28 days. Substituting
unsaturated for saturated fats appeared to prevent cholesterol increases in four
volunteers. Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale scores improved in all five
during hyperketonemia, but a placebo effect was not ruled out.

PMID: 15728303 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]