The original therapeutic diet for paediatric epilepsy provides just enough protein for body growth and repair, and sufficient calories to maintain the correct weight for age and height. Side effects may include constipation, high cholesterol, growth slowing, acidosis, and kidney stones.
Some evidence shows that adults with epilepsy may benefit from the diet and that a less strict regimen, such as a modified Atkins diet, is similarly effective. Around half of children and young people with epilepsy who have tried some form of this diet saw the number of seizures drop by at least half, and the effect persists after discontinuing the diet. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood (a state called ketosis) eventually lowers the frequency of epileptic seizures.
However, if only a little carbohydrate remains in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies, the latter passing into the brain and replacing glucose as an energy source. Normally carbohydrates in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is important in fueling brain function. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. The ketogenic diet is a high- fat, adequate- protein, low-carbohydrate mainstream dietary therapy that in medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children.
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