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. 2023 Oct 11;15(20):4334.
doi: 10.3390/nu15204334.

The Effect of Three Different Ketogenic Diet Protocols on Migraine and Fatigue in Chronic and High-Frequency Episodic Migraine: A Pilot Study

Yan Tereshko  1 , Simone Dal Bello  1 , Cherubino Di Lorenzo  2 , Alice Pittino  1 , Francesca Filippi  1 , Enrico Belgrado  3 , Christian Lettieri  1 , Giovanni Merlino  1 , Gian Luigi Gigli  4 , Mariarosaria Valente  1   4
Affiliations

The Effect of Three Different Ketogenic Diet Protocols on Migraine and Fatigue in Chronic and High-Frequency Episodic Migraine: A Pilot Study

Yan Tereshko et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Aims: We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of three different ketogenic diets on migraine and fatigue in chronic and high-frequency episodic migraineurs.

Methods: 76 patients with migraine were treated with the KD for at least three months. Three different KD protocols were used (2:1 KD, LGID, and VLCKD). We evaluated the fatigue severity scale (FSS), migraine frequency, migraine intensity, MIDAS, and HIT-6 at the baseline and 3-month follow-up, and we compared the results. We also correlated the mean FSS reduction with the mean migraine frequency, migraine intensity, BMI, fat mass, free-fat mass, MIDAS, and HIT-6 reduction.

Results: FSS improved from 4.977 ± 1.779 to 3.911 ± 1.779 at the 3-month follow-up (p < 0.001). This improvement was significant in both high-frequency and chronic migraineurs. Moreover, the three KD protocols effectively improved migraine intensity, frequency, MIDAS, and HIT-6. There was a mild correlation between mean FSS reduction (p < 0.001), mean MIDAS (p = 0.001), and HIT-6 (p = 0.002) reduction.

Conclusions: The VLCKD, LGID, and 2:1 KD may improve migraine intensity, frequency, and fatigue in chronic and high-frequency episodic migraineurs.

Keywords: KD; LGID; VLCKD; fatigue; headache; ketogenic diet; migraine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
(A) The scatterplot for the correlation between the mean reduction in the FSS and the mean reduction in HIT-6 score. (B) The correlation between the FSS score’s mean reduction and the MIDAS score’s mean reduction. The blue dotted line represents the 95% confidence interval.
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Grants and funding

This research received no specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.