In 2011 Dr. Mobbs’ research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine have for the first time determined that the ketogenic diet, a specialized high-fat, low carbohydrate diet, may reverse impaired kidney function in people with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
Since high glucose metabolism causes kidney failure in diabetes, researchers hypothesized that the ketogenic diet would block those toxic effects of glucose.
Dr. Mobbs’ research indicates that exposure to the diet for as little as a month may be sufficient to “reset” the gene expression and pathological process leading to kidney failure.”
The researchers also identified a large array of genes expressed during diabetic nephropathy not previously known to play a role in the development of this complication. These genes are associated with kidney failure as a result of the stress on cellular function. The team found that the expression of these genes was also reversed in the mice on the ketogenic diet.
“Knowing how the ketogenic diet reverses nephropathy will help us identify a drug target and subsequent pharmacological interventions that mimic the effect of the diet,” said Dr. Mobbs. “We look forward to studying this promising development further.”
As always the big pharmaceutical companies are looking at a drug target treatment as he feels the “the extreme requirements of the diet, it is not a long-term solution in adults”
So in summary the researcher founds that after eight weeks, kidney failure was reversed in the mice on the ketogenic diet. And they plan to continue working on a external drug treatment to mimic the affects of the ketogenic diet.
Source – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110420184429.htm