Low-carb diet reduces seizures for people with drug-resistant epilepsy

The person is Grace Wade.

It is possible to reduce seizures in people with drug-resistant seizure by 50% with a low-carbohydrate diet.

When anti-seizure drugs were developed, the use of a low-carb diet to treat epileptics fell out of favor. Nearly a third of the 50 million people with the disease don't respond to the drugs.

160 people between the ages of 10 and 55 years old were recruited by Manjari Tripathi and her colleagues at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The researchers advised half of them to follow a modified Atkins diet, which consists of eating only 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, which is less than the recommended amount for adults in the US. The participants continued to take their drugs. Participants completed a quality-of-life questionnaire before and after the study and caregivers tracked seizures and meals using a daily log.

More than 26 per cent of those on the low-carb diet had their seizures reduced by more than 50 per cent compared to the month before the trial. Only 2.5 per cent of the group was the same as the others. Compared to the control group, the low-carb group reported more improvements in quality of life.

Seizures can be reduced by inducing ketosis, which is when the body burns fat as its main fuel. She says there are a number of possible mechanisms for why this improves seizure.

It is encouraging to see that the modified Atkins diet can be effective in treating diseases. The ratio of carbs to fats in all foods is calculated using the ketogenic diet, which is used to treat epileptics. It can be a lot more time consuming. She says that the modified Atkins diet is not as strict as it could be.

There is a journal reference to neurology.

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