fat and epilepsy

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http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080506/ZNYT04/805060354/1020/FEATURES/ZNYT\

04/Evidence_a_High_Fat_Diet_Works_to_Treat_Epilepsy

Evidence a High-Fat Diet Works to Treat Epilepsy ALIYAH BARUCHIN

- Last modified: May 07. 2008 4:58AM Published Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A formerly controversial high-fat diet has proved highly effective in reducing

seizures in children whose epilepsy does not respond to medication, British

researchers are reporting.

As the first randomized trial of the diet, the new study lends legitimacy to a

treatment that has been used since the 1920s but has until recently been

dismissed by many doctors as a marginal alternative therapy.

" This is the first time that we've really got Class 1 evidence that this diet

works for treatment of epilepsy, " said Dr. J. Helen Cross, professor of

pediatric neurology at University College London and Great Ormond Street

Hospital. She is a principal investigator on the study, which will appear in the

June issue of The Lancet Neurology.

Though its exact mechanism is uncertain, the diet appears to work by throwing

the body into ketosis, forcing it to burn fat rather than sugar for energy.

Breakfast on the diet might consist of bacon, eggs with cheese, and a cup of

heavy cream diluted with water; some children drink oil to obtain the fats that

they need. Every gram of food is weighed, and carbohydrates are almost entirely

restricted. Breaking the diet with so much as a few cookies can cause seizures

to flare up.

For the British trial, the researchers enrolled 145 children ages 2 to 16 who

had never tried the diet, who were having at least seven seizures a week and who

had failed to respond to at least two anticonvulsant drugs.

One group began the ketogenic diet immediately. The control group waited three

months before starting it. In the first group, 38 percent of the children had

seizure rates reduced by half, compared with 6 percent in the control group.

Five children in the diet group had reductions exceeding 90 percent.

Perceptions of the diet have changed sharply in the last decade. In 1993, a

Hollywood producer, Jim Abrahams, took his 1-year-old son, Charlie, to Dr.

M. Freeman at the Pediatric Epilepsy Center at s Hopkins, which was one of

the few centers championing the diet. Within three days of starting the diet,

Charlie's incapacitating seizures, which had resisted multiple medications and

surgery, stopped entirely.

With his wife, , Mr. Abrahams founded the Charlie Foundation to Help Cure

Pediatric Epilepsy to promote education about the diet. He produced an

instructional video for parents and a made-for-television movie, " First Do No

Harm, " starring Meryl Streep as a mother who seeks out the diet for her child.

As a result of the s Hopkins work, research on the diet blossomed and it

became a standard treatment at hospitals and epilepsy centers in the United

States and abroad.

Dr. Shlomo Shinnar, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Management Center at

the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, called the new study " an important

trial that lays to rest the issue of 'Does it really work or not?' "

Although the diet has to be medically supervised, Dr. Shinnar said, it is a

mistake to believe that it requires extensive hospital resources and a staff's

constant attention. " Here they don't have this, " he said of the British trial.

" This study makes it clear that this actually can be made to work in a community

setting. "