Thread: Atkins Diet May Reduce Seizures In Children With Epilepsy

I have a baby with seizures. That's what got me researching things. His neurologist mentioned he may have to go on a high-fat/low-carb diet.

Here is the link to the article from Johns Hopkins.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press.../12_09_03.html

What I found most interesting, though, was the research they are doing into the ketogenic diet itself. (And its appropriateness for children.) Apparently everyone is terrified that children who follow this kind of diet are going to grow up obese (if they don't have heart attacks before puberty, that is.)

However, I found this article from the National Society for Epilipsy that has found otherwise:
http://www.epilepsynse.org.uk/pages/...flets/keto.cfm

It says: "If the diet is kept to carefully, the child will not usually become overweight or have an increased risk of heart disease."


I'll be glad when everyone figures this out! (Not the part about children, specifically, just the part about low-carb diets not causing heart disease.)

Cassandra

Johns Hopkins started studying the effects of ketogenic diets in children around the 1900s. They abandoned the treatment when other treatments (such as pills) were created.

Use of ketogenic diets to treat epilepsy in children came back in the 90s when a father began reading up on the history in order to help his sick child. After that, the medical community sort of "remembered" the treatment, and began doing research on it to help children that can't be helped by other treatments.