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Those suffering from seizures or other epileptiform activity need to know that changes to their diet can have a significant impact. Before anti-seizure medications became wide spread, one of the main courses of action was to put children and even adults on a strict ketogenic diet. In a very high percentage of sufferers this worked to either significantly diminish or completely abate their seizures. The ketogenic is a very high fat, high protein, extremely low carb diet.
Why does the ketogenic diet work? Here is the technical part. Many individuals lack the ability to properly transfer glucose into brain cells for a fuel supply. This is often due to a lack of expression of the Glut-1-transferase gene. When groups of neurons start to suffer from chronic loss of fuel they will ironically spontaneously fire. If enough fire you get a seizure. However these individuals can still use ketones as a fuel source instead of glucose (don’t ask me for the chemical structures).
Great! What’s the problem then? A very high ketone diet can sometimes be a bit hard on the kidneys and the diet itself can be extremely difficult to maintain. If you are like me and enjoy your occasional sweets, breads, pastas, or rice this can be difficult. But there is hope! Recent research has confirmed that most individuals can receive almost the same benefit from the modified Atkins diet which is a lower carb diet, but not as severe as the ketogenic diet. The modified Atkins diet allows for more vegetable carbs and some carbs in general but the balance is still set up for your body to produce ketones for use by the brain.
I recently spoke to a veterinarian who told me that many of the dogs he sees with seizures respond in the same way. He thinks the modern dog food has too much simple carbs in it. I think the modern human food does too. Isn’t it nice to know there is a natural, cost effective way to help an otherwise complicated disorder. Now who’s brave enough to try the diet? If you have tried, please let us know how it has gone for you.
Your thoughts/comments.

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