Ketone Diet For Epilepsy
After a year on the ketogenic diet.
Ketone diet for epilepsy. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. The diet is a medical treatment and is usually only considered when at least two suitable medications have been tried and not worked. The ketogenic diet is a high fat low carbohydrate adequate protein diet that has been used for almost a century in the treatment of epilepsy. Usually the body uses carbohydrates such as sugar bread pasta for its fuel.
The ketogenic diet for epilepsy was initially formulated to produce biochemical changes that occur during fasting. How ketosis helps with epilepsy isn t known but it does. A ketogenic diet for epilepsy should always be undertaken under medical supervision. Find out what kinds of foods your child can eat if she takes up the ketogenic diet and learn about the challenges and side effects of a meal plan that gets rid of seizures in some kids with epilepsy.
Even so experts are still unsure how precisely ketosis or the keto diet helps people with epilepsy. Because the ketogenic diet is very low in carbohydrates fats become the primary fuel instead. Genic producing ketones are formed when the body uses fat for its source of energy. Testing for ketone bodies in urine the ketogenic diet is a high fat adequate protein low carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used mainly to treat hard to control refractory epilepsy in children.
The ketogenic diet kd is a broadly effective treatment for medically refractory epilepsy. Normally carbohydrates in food are converted into glucose which is then transported around the body and is important in fueling. The ketogenic diet is used in both children and adults and provides a practical nonpharmaceutical alternative to anticonvulsant drugs. In this review we present one intersecting view of how the kd may exert its anticonvulsant activity against th.
Epilepsy is a metabolic disease and one theory is that the keto diet works by altering a. The ketogenic diet kd is a high fat low carbohydrate controlled protein diet that has been used since the 1920s for the treatment of epilepsy. The ketogenic diet is a proven and accepted treatment for epilepsy especially among. The diet has significant anti inflammatory and anti oxidative impacts which appear to alter the way some genes involved in epilepsy are expressed.
The diet appears to alter ketone metabolism in the brain in a way that enhances the brain s ability to produce the neurotransmitter gaba which has a calming effect on the brain. The name ketogenic means that it produces ketones in the body.