Research
Micronutrients & recovery
A three-week ketogenic diet shifts tryptophan metabolism to increase kynurenic acid and decrease quinolinic acid, potentially promoting mitochondrial protection and reducing neuroinflammation.
Following a ketogenic diet may shift your body's processing of tryptophan away from potentially neurotoxic byproducts (quinolinic acid) toward protective ones (kynurenic acid). This suggests a potential neuroprotective benefit of long-term ketosis.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Urine analyses... revealed changes to the tryptophan pathway depicting reduced quinolinic acid (-13.46% ± 6.12%, p = 0.0478) and elevated kynurenic acid concentrations (+10.70% ± 4.25%, p = 0.0269).
Why this rating
Same study as N1, robust metabolomic data, but specific to urine markers and enzyme activity inference.
Source
A ketogenic diet substantially reshapes the human metabolome
David Effinger et al. · Clinical Nutrition · 2023
rct · n=40Cited 44×
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