 In 1921 , Rollin Woodyatt reviewed the research on diet and diabetes . He reported that three water @-@ soluble compounds , β @-@ hydroxybutyrate , acetoacetate and acetone ( known collectively as ketone bodies ) , were produced by the liver in otherwise healthy people when they were starved or if they consumed a very low @-@ carbohydrate , high @-@ fat diet . Russel Wilder , at the Mayo Clinic , built on this research and coined the term ketogenic diet to describe a diet that produced a high level of ketone bodies in the blood ( <unk> ) through an excess of fat and lack of carbohydrate . Wilder hoped to obtain the benefits of fasting in a dietary therapy that could be maintained indefinitely . His trial on a few epilepsy patients in 1921 was the first use of the ketogenic diet as a treatment for epilepsy . 
