[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

From http://lifestyle.aol.co.uk/health/high-fat-diet-hope-for-epileptics/article/20080502191309990005

Doctors have confirmed that a special high-fat diet can help children seriously afflicted with epilepsy.

Among children given the diet, seizures dropped by more than a third over a three-month period. At the same time, children not given the diet experienced a more than 33% rise in seizures.

The ketogenic diet has been successfully used to treat children with drug-resistant epilepsy since the 1920s. However, this was the first time it had been tested in a randomised trial.

The diet consists of large amounts of fat, little carbohydrate and controlled amounts of protein. It is thought to mimic the biochemical response to starvation, when ketone bodies fuel the brain rather than sugar.

Ketone bodies, used as an energy source for the heart and brain, are compounds produced when fatty acids are broken down in the liver and kidneys. They provide a vital energy lifeline when fasting.

The trial, based at the Institute of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, involved 145 children aged two to 16, who suffered epilepsy fits at least one a day or more than seven times a week.

Around half the children were assigned a ketogenic diet immediately. The other half were given the diet after a delay of three months.

In the diet group, the number of seizures dropped by more than a third. Children who had to wait before having a ketogenic diet saw the number of seizures they suffered rise by about the same amount.

A total of 28 children in the diet group saw a more than 50% seizure reduction. Five children on the ketogenic diet had their seizures cut by more than 90% compared with none in the comparison group.

Great - control their epilepsy by raising their risk of diabetes!

[another_someone]

Or lower their risk of diabetes (if it indeed does that) by raising their risk of epilepsy.

The nature of all medicine (including dietary control of disease) is to balance risk.  All choices have risks, and you have to look at how you manage the best balance.  Looking at a risk of something in 20 years time, when the person may not survive 5 years, you look at the 5 year survival first.

As for diabetes and fat - is that really a risk?  I thought diabetes was concerned with the metabolising of sugars, so is it necessarily effected by fat.  On the other hand, high fat diets do present a risk for the liver.


As I have indicated several times before, I am not a believer in the one size fits all diet.

[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

Or lower their risk of diabetes (if it indeed does that) by raising their risk of epilepsy.

The nature of all medicine (including dietary control of disease) is to balance risk.  All choices have risks, and you have to look at how you manage the best balance.  Looking at a risk of something in 20 years time, when the person may not survive 5 years, you look at the 5 year survival first.

As for diabetes and fat - is that really a risk?  I thought diabetes was concerned with the metabolising of sugars, so is it necessarily effected by fat.  On the other hand, high fat diets do present a risk for the liver.


As I have indicated several times before, I am not a believer in the one size fits all diet.

Obesity brings a higher risk of diabetes.

[another_someone]

Obesity brings a higher risk of diabetes.

Aside from the fact that this is a generality (is all obesity the same - the fact that obesity is correlated to diabetes does not mean that all forms of obesity have equal correlation), but one also has to ask whether all high fat diets lead to obesity (the Atkins diet comes to mind).

[DoctorBeaver (OP)]

Obesity brings a higher risk of diabetes.

Aside from the fact that this is a generality (is all obesity the same - the fact that obesity is correlated to diabetes does not mean that all forms of obesity have equal correlation), but one also has to ask whether all high fat diets lead to obesity (the Atkins diet comes to mind).

That is, of course, true; but having had it rammed down our throats that we should avoid fat as it increases the risk of diabetes, it seems somewhat ironic that fat is now being trumpeted as a palliative for epilepsy.

[rosalind dna]

But I am thin and epileptic also I heard about this story on Sunday night. It only relates to those with a genetic thing for it which I am not.

BTW I am working on an epilepsy thread for TNS it's taking a while as I am a right perfectionist. that does run in the family LOL