A very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) has a preventive effect in overweight, episodic patients who experience migraine that appears within 1 month, a new study found. Researchers sought to determine the therapeutic effect of a very low-calorie diet in overweight, episodic patients who experience migraine during a weight-loss intervention in which participants alternated randomly between a VLCKD and a very low-calorie non-ketogenic diet (VLCnKD) each for 1 month. The primary outcomes measure was the reduction of migraine days each month compared to a 1-month pre-diet baseline. Among the findings:
- Thirty-five obese migraine sufferers were allocated blindly to 1-month successive VLCKD or VLCnKD in random order.
- During the VLCKD patients experienced ‒3.73 migraine days respect to VLCnKD.
- The 50% responder rate for migraine days was 74.28% during the VLCKD period and 8.57% during VLCnKD.
- Migraine attacks decreased by ‒3.02 during VLCKD respect to VLCnKD.
Di Lorenzo C, Pinto A, Lenca R, et al. A randomized double-blind, cross-over trial of very low-calorie diet in overweight migraine patients: A possible role for ketones? [Published online ahead of print July 28, 2019]. Nutrients. doi: 10.3390/nu11081742.