Nutrition is becoming recognised as a crucial health factor. Therefore experts have established dietary guidelines for a healthy diet and clinical nutrition is targeting individual nutritional needs as a health measure. Nevertheless, some individuals practice different nutrition regimes in faith of their hypothetical positive effects on the human body. One of these popular diets is a ketogenic diet. By following the ketogenic diet, metabolism changes and because of glucose deprivation ketone bodies (acetone, acetoacetate and D-β-hydroxybutyrate) start to form. State of ketosis some individuals practice as a weight loss therapy, but medicine acknowledges only its anti-epileptic effect and its aspect on remedy of specific metabolic disorders, which are pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency and glucose transporter deficiency syndrome. However, there are also some side effects of this diet regarding its impact on bones, digestive problems, dyslipidemia and effects regarding compliance. Therefore medical supervision is necessary for ketogenic diet therapy. Another disadvantage of the diet is also strict restriction of carbohydrate intake, which is not supported by official dietary guidelines. Therefore experts have started to study dietary supplements which increase the concentration of ketone bodies as an approach to overcome the negative ketogenic diet aspects that represent health risks. But also those have their drawbacks in ways of possible overload of salt intake, unpleasant flavour and regular consumption in order to maintain the desired ketone bodies concentration. Due to research of supplements that increase ketone bodies concentration being in its earliest stage, the mechanism of said supplements is still to be explored in details. Therefore it is not yet possible to assess whether formation of ketone bodies by dietary supplements intake is in long-term view reasonable and safe or if it is an alternative to the ketogenic diet. In order to find an answer to the initial question, it is concluded that future studies are to be carried out, especially in sense of supplements potential impact on health and its long-term impact on the human body. Only then it will be evident whether use of these dietary supplements is safe and if those supplements have potential use in human diet.
|