Efeitos da dieta cetogênica à base de trienantina nos episódios convulsivos de ratos portadores de epilepsia induzida por pilocarpina

Abstract

The main importance of temporal lobe epilepsy due to its high prevalence and high proportion of patients with refractory epilepsy to treatment, making it necessary in this case, the use of alternative therapies, such as the ketogenic diet. This diet is rich in fat, low in carbohydrates and proteins, and since 1921 has been used for patients unresponsive to medical therapy. This dissertation deals with the investigation of the effects of the ketogenic diet based on triheptanoin in epileptic seizures in rats and was developed in the form of two articles. The first article, The role of the ketogenic diet on oxidative stress occurring in epilepsy, presents a review of the relationship between oxidative stress and epilepsy, highlighting the possible beneficial effect of ketogenic diet in this context. Several results show that, in fact, this dietary method reduces oxidative stress markers. The second article, entitled Effects of ketogenic diet based on triheptanoin in seizures of rats with epilepsy induced by pilocarpine, describes the experimental study conducted in Wistar rats were divided into three groups, named according to the diet received, in control (standard diet AIN-93G), CetoTAGC7 (ketogenic based in triheptanoin; AIN-93G diet modified to contain 4% soybean oil, 25.79% of triheptanoin and 40% margarine) and CetoTAGsoja (ketogenic based in soybean; AIN-93G diet modified to contain 29.79% of soybean oil margarine and 40%). The ratio lipid: carbohydrate + protein ketogenic diets was 3.5:1 (control diet, 1:11,8) and experimental period lasted 19 days. It was found that the energy value of the share of feed intake and weight gain made by the three groups during the experimental period were not different (P> 0.05). There was no significant difference among the three groups regarding the ratio of feed efficiency (P> 0.05). The behavioral analysis showed no difference for the variable frequency of spontaneous recurrent seizures, however the duration of the attacks of animals belonging to the group triheptanoin was lower in the last experimental day. Future additional research are encouraged, therefore, the results of this study indicate, however modestly, to a potential beneficial effect of triheptanoin to control seizures, which could be investigated under different conditions, like a period longer than is tested by this protocol.