Case of severe epilepsy alleviated by high fat diet

A girl who suffered from severe epilepsy had as many as 130 seizures each day. She often required resuscitation and her epilepsy medication made her exhausted and she became incapable of speech. The girl was taken to hospital after her condition continued to deteriorate and doctors advised her to try a special diet. This diet had been tried on the girl when she was much younger without success. This time, the success was remarkable. After 12 weeks on the diet, the last 10 weeks have been seizure free. Doctors anticipate several years on this diet will hopefully ultimately cure her and she will be able to return to a normal diet. 80% of her diet consists of fat with minimal sugar, protein and liquid consumption. The measures need to be exact for it to work. It results in the body going into ketosis where the body uses fat for energy instead of sugar. The mechanism of its action is unknown but it has been proven to work in up to two thirds of patients who try it. The girl's whole quality of life has been improved by the diet.

Source: summary of medical news story as reported by The Star Phoenix

Related Disease Topics:

• Epilepsy

Related Symptom Topics:

• Seizure

Article Source Details

About: Case of severe epilepsy alleviated by high fat diet

Date: 23 December 2004

Source: The Star Phoenix

Author: Janet French

URL: http://www.canada.com/fortstjohn/story.html?id=fc72a065-ac3a-44e1-8dc8-347d66e1a0b4

Related Medical Topics

This summary article refers to the following medical categories:

• Diet
• Cause of epilepsy
• Cause of seizure
• Medication
• Medication and seizure
• Medication and epilepsy

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