High fat ketogenic diet shown to reverse diabetic kidney disease

A high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet has been found to reverse diabetic kidney damage in mouse research studies.
The study carried out by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, found the ketogenic diet to be effective in reversing the effects of diabetic kidney disease (nephropathy) in mice with type 1 and type 2 diabetes .
The researchers knew that a particular ketone, 3-beta-hydroxybutyric acid (3-OHB), reduced cell response to glucose and designed the study to test whether a high-fat diet could reverse the effects of diabetic nephropathy .
2 months of the ketogenic diet was shown to reduce the ratio of albumin to creatinine –a common measurement for extent of kidney damage.
Dr Charles Mobbs, who lead the study, said: “Our study is the first to show that a dietary intervention alone is enough to reverse this serious complication of diabetes”. Encouragingly, Dr Mobbs also believes the diet could also help with related diabetic complications such as retinopathy and neuropathy.
The study, ‘Reversal of Diabetic Nephropathy by a Ketogenic Diet’, was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).