Abstract. Affective disorders are multi-faceted both in their clinical symptoms and pathogenetic features, which are the basis for the significant inter-individual variations in treatment responses. About 1/3 of patients with MDD will develop clinical presentations of treatment resistant depression (TRD). Diet interventions present a unique and potentially useful treatment strategy for mood disorders, giving encouraging results. The ketogenic diet (KD) is a high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet. This diet forces the body to use fats rather than carbohydrates as the principal energetic source. KD possesses beneficial systemic effects and neurotrophic, neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory properties in the CNS. The aim of the present review is to evaluate the potential of KD as an innovative therapy for affective disorders and to present data from animal and human studies investigating the dietetic intervention in the management of affective disorders.

Key words: affective disorders, bioenergetics, brain, ketogenic diet

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