Epilepsy – Diet

Transcript

In those patients, we have other types of of treatments. One treatment is diet. In children we often use something called the ketogenic diet where there’s a very, very, limited diet with very little carbs. And that has an antiseizure effect. The problem is that in adults, that’s a very difficult diet to stick to. Such a limited amount of carbs one, mishap, you know, one muffin or candy bar and the diet is ruined. So, there are other diets though in adults that may be effective. One’s called the modified Atkins Diet where it’s a limited carb diet, but not as limited as the ketogenic diet. Now the question is, what are the long term ramifications of the modified Atkins died? And we don’t know exactly. We know that it causes weight loss and it causes elevation in cholesterol. Kind of the big questions are, does it affect heart disease and stroke risk down the line? The answers, nobody knows that yet.