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Whatchathink???

traveler - 12 October 2011 11:05 AM

Whatchathink???

Count me very skeptical, though I’d be delighted if there were such a simple cure.

Epilepsy like cancers is not a single disease. Some epilepsies are caused by metabolic disorders and some of these may benefit from a ketogenic diet. I would check with a competent board certified neurologist before starting such a diet.

I agree with Asanta and Doug. The story is very compelling, and its from a reputable source ( Mass General Hospital). its hard to argue with the results but these are two very extreme cases they are profiling. Most epileptics do not have seizures anywhere near as often as these boys did. Its certainly possible that there may be something to this diet and that it may help a segment of the population who have seizures. I believe they said about 30% of patients responded but they didn’t say whether that was 30% of all epileptics or just 30% of a certain type of epileptic patients.  They also didn’t elaborate much in the story about what sort of research has been done. I wonder about the suggested mechanism too. The biochemistry is accurate but its possible that they could be completely wrong about the mechanism by which the diet actually helps these kids. There may be some other mechanism that actually leads to the results they are seeing. The high amount of fatty acids in the diet could be doing something to stabilize cell membranes for example.

Certainly food for thought.

Not being a pediatrician I don;t have a lot of experience with childhood seizure disorders, but this was interesting so i decided to do a quick search. it seems like this treatment was once “alternative” but has since been the subject of several controlled studies and has gained some support as a result. This is a good example of the difference between alternative treatments and traditional ones. Alternative simply means untested and therefor potentially useful, useless or harmful, but do your homework and run some studies and if you can prove the treatment works, it will be accepted by the mainstream medical community. Too bad the alt med supporters don’t get that. It seems as though the mechanism of action is not as clear as they imply in the story. According to one article i read that is still under study. Heres a link to a couple of abstracts for anyone who is interested.

http://jcn.sagepub.com/content/24/8/979.abstract

http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/95/7/550

http://www.neurology.org/content/65/11/1810.short

macgyver - 12 October 2011 04:32 PM

I agree with Asanta and Doug. The story is very compelling, and its from a reputable source ( Mass General Hospital). its hard to argue with the results but these are two very extreme cases they are profiling. Most epileptics do not have seizures anywhere near as often as these boys did. Its certainly possible that there may be something to this diet and that it may help a segment of the population who have seizures. I believe they said about 30% of patients responded but they didn’t say whether that was 30% of all epileptics or just 30% of a certain type of epileptic patients.  They also didn’t elaborate much in the story about what sort of research has been done. I wonder about the suggested mechanism too. The biochemistry is accurate but its possible that they could be completely wrong about the mechanism by which the diet actually helps these kids. There may be some other mechanism that actually leads to the results they are seeing. The high amount of fatty acids in the diet could be doing something to stabilize cell membranes for example.

Certainly food for thought.

As well as different causes for seizures, there are also different kinds of seizures… Grand Mal (the kind of seizures people think of when you say seizure) petit mal, absence seizures, to name a few.. I think you will find it is a little more complicated than it was presented to be…

I’m happy with the feedback on this. It is a reputable source, and as MacGyver points out it no longer considered “alternative” which is why I put the thread in this general topic and not the alternative one.

And yes, the biochem is correct. I suspect these kids have some wicked halitosis. 

This diet makes sense only if it can cure the epilepsy after a while, not as long-term treatment to simply control the symptoms. What’s the point of being seizure-free if you’re going to develop all sorts of health problems and probably reduce your life expectancy and quality of life due to malnourishment?

I had uncontrolled epilepsy between the ages of 5 and 24 (diagnosed when I was 8). Luckily for me, I had localized “petit mal” seizures in the right temporal lobe, which meant I could possibly benefit from surgery. So I went under the scalpel in 1992 and I’ve been seizure-free since then, without any side effects or loss/changes in mental acuity, and completely quit taking medication in 1995. It would be great if some kind of surgery could be effective on the more generalized “grand mal” seizures like in the case of this kid doing the keto diet, but I think research should be done mostly on treatments that won’t potentially create new health problems as side effects.

ETA: Adverse effects such as these ones.