The Ketogenic Diet in the use as treatment for epilepsy has been around for quite some time now. It was originated and has been successfully practiced at John Hopkins University for decades.
This diet has normally been perscribed to children whose seizures are severe and do not respond to medications.
This diet is devised to keep it's patient in a constant state of ketosis, which simulates what happens to the body during fasting. The purpose of this is to switch the body over to burning fats instead of glucose for energy. Burning fat is the basis of this diet. The large number of ketones produced by fat burning is what keeps seizure control.
Ketosis causes a short term sedative effect and also acts as an appetite suppressant which results in patients not feeling hungry while they are on the diet. It is still unclear exactly why this diet works, some feel that a high fat diet alters the brain chemistry and the sensitivity to certain transmitter sites. There is still much research left to be done on this matter.
As newer and more medications begain to come out the Ketogenic Therapy became less and less popular. Recently, however, people are looking for more holistic ways to treat seizure disorders and it's use is once again on the rise.
Candidates for this diet have always been children who have tried several medications and combinations and have been unable to achieve control.Usually it was used in children over one year and was seldome used on children in thier later years of school.
Most of the reasoning behind this was the feeling that it would be too difficult for a school child to resist "temptation".
It is just recently being looked at as a valuable therapy among adults. It has been said that one reason it was not used in adults was because of the difficulty they supposedly had maintaining ketosis. In talking with other adults and in my own experience this has not proven to be a problem.
Starting the Ketogenic Diet is not easy and requires a 5 day hospital stay for initiation. Usually the first 2 days are fasting with little or no water depending on the individual.
The faster high ketosis is achieved the sooner the diet can be started. By the 3rd day in the hospital ketois has started and the patient is given one third strength meals, day 4 two-third strength meals and day 5 of discharge is on full keto meals.
Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Ketogenic Diet Therapy Part One in Seizure Disorders is owned by . Permission to republish Ketogenic Diet Therapy Part One in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
