Ketogenic Diet for Epilepsy and Seizure Disorders

The Ketogenic Diet

• The ketogenic diet (KD) is a therapeutic and anti-seizure lifestyle option for many children, presenting a natural and sustainable treatment for epilepsy.
• The KD has been established as a treatment option for epilepsy, with a complex biological basis for reducing seizure frequency, including a reduction in blood glucose levels, enhanced beta-oxidation, and an increase in phosphocreatine levels.

Epilepsy and Seizure Disorders

• The KD has been studied and applied in various ways worldwide since the 1920s, with a vast number of publications about the diet.
• The KD was developed as a dietary means of mimicking the metabolic state of therapeutic fasting without having to fast an individual completely for a long period.
• The 'classic' KD, introduced by Dr. Wilder in 1921, contains high amounts of fat, moderate amounts of protein, and low amounts of carbohydrates.
• The KD is an established non-pharmacological treatment for epilepsy that has been in clinical use for over 90 years.

Weight Loss and Obesity Management

• The KD promotes a spontaneous reduction in food intake, leading to weight loss, which is often associated with a decrease in appetite and circulating levels of hunger.
• The KD has been proven to be effective for weight loss in both the short and long term, independently of the proportion of caloric restriction, the need for changes in macronutrient patterns, and the effect without drugs, surgery, or longer adherence.
• Different studies have reported average weight losses between 6% and 90% after 3 to 24 months.

Type 2 Diabetes and Insulin Sensitivity

• The KD maintains its characteristic as a versatile and flexible diet that is particularly sustainable as long as a variety and sufficiency of food is well planned.
• The KD has been proven to have beneficial effects on glucose homeostasis and T2DM, despite side effects such as weight loss and high LDL levels.
• The KD has beneficial local effects in the human brain, including improving glucose-insulin homeostasis and energy homeostasis in damaged brain areas.

Neurological Disorders

• The KD has regained interest as a therapeutic diet applied in various types of cancers, cancer cachexia, and brain cancers.
• The KD has therapeutic effects on various lifestyle-related metabolic disorders, including obesity, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).

Cardiovascular Health

• The KD has been shown to benefit diabetic, obese, insulin-resistant, heart failure, and metabolic syndrome individuals.
• The KD improves insulin resistance, glycol-, lipo-, or ureagenesis, beta-oxidation, and LP(a) level or glycation, size, and ApoC-III glycating ability of LDLP, which may decrease LP(a) in addition to T2D, obesity, inflammatory, and metabolic damage.
• The KD appears to be more protective than a Western diet with respect to CAC score, a good predictor of CV events.

Cancer Treatment and Prevention

• The KD may act in combination with other treatments to have a synergistic therapeutic effect.
• Isotopic tracer and PET scan studies provide support for the rethinking of the prevailing view of a heightened probability for cancer in persons with diabetes or obesity or elevated respiratory quotient (individually or combined).
• The KD may be a way to treat and prevent cancer by targeting respiration through nutritional intervention.
• The KD benefits radiation therapy by making cancer cells more vulnerable to treatment.

Explore the ketogenic diet's therapeutic effects on epilepsy, its biological basis, and its role in reducing seizure frequency. Learn how it's a sustainable treatment option for many children.