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

A trial of 160 folks discovered that pairing customary epilepsy therapies with a low-carbohydrate food regimen decreased seizures by greater than 50 per cent in 1 / 4 of individuals

By Grace Wade

Pairing a low-carbohydrate food regimen with typical epilepsy drugs can cut back seizures in folks with drug-resistant epilepsy by 50 per cent.

Utilizing low-carb diets to deal with epilepsy started a few century in the past however fell out of favour as soon as anti-seizure drugs have been developed. Nonetheless, almost a 3rd of the roughly 50 million folks worldwide with epilepsy don’t reply to those medication.

Manjari Tripathi at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi and her colleagues recruited 160 folks between 10 and 55 years previous who had greater than two seizures a month regardless of utilizing not less than three anti-seizure drugs at most doses. The researchers suggested half of them to comply with a modified Atkins food regimen, which consists of consuming solely 20 grams of carbohydrates a day, drastically chopping down on the 275 grams advisable for grownup each day consumption underneath US dietary tips. All individuals continued customary epilepsy medication. Caregivers tracked seizures and meals utilizing a each day log, and individuals accomplished a quality-of-life questionnaire earlier than and after the research.

After six months, greater than 26 per cent of these on the low-carb food regimen noticed month-to-month seizures decreased by greater than 50 per cent in comparison with the month earlier than the trial. The identical was true for less than 2.5 per cent of the management group. The low-carb group additionally reported considerably higher enhancements in high quality of life, on common, in comparison with the management group.

Low-carbohydrate diets cut back seizures by inducing ketosis, which is when the physique burns fats as its main gasoline, says Tripathi. There are various potential mechanisms for why this improves epilepsy together with modifications within the intestine microbiome, irritation and electrical signalling between neurons, she says.

Mackenzie Cervenka at Johns Hopkins College in Maryland says it’s encouraging to see that the modified Atkins food regimen will be an efficient remedy. Prior research to deal with epilepsy with food regimen usually use the ketogenic food regimen, which requires calculating the ratio of carbs to fat in all meals. “That may be much more time consuming,” says Cervenka, which means fewer folks stick with it. “The modified Atkins food regimen is much less rigorous with regard to preparation and monitoring,” she says.

Journal reference: Neurology, DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000206776

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