Medical News Summary: Case of severe epilepsy alleviated by high fat diet

About: Case of severe epilepsy alleviated by high fat diet
Date: 23 December 2004
Source: The Star Phoenix
Author: Janet French
Medical News Summary (summary of medical news story as reported by The Star Phoenix): 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.
URL: http://www.canada.com/fortstjohn/story.html?id=fc72a065-ac3a-44e1-8dc8-347d66e1a0b4
Related Disease Topics: Epilepsy
Related Symptom Topics: Seizure

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Related Medical News Channels: This medical news summary article refers to the following medical channel categories:

• Diet
• cause of epilepsy
• cause of seizure
• Medication
• medication and seizure
• medication and epilepsy

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