Healthline: Atkins Diet Along with Medication May Help Reduce Epilepsy Seizures

By Bob Curley

Medication, electrical implants, and brain surgery are among the interventions that can limit dangerous and sometimes deadly epileptic seizures.

However, experts say there is a fourth method that is both non-invasive and free of side effects: diet.

A high-fat, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet has been used since the 1920s to control epileptic seizures, notably among children. Ketones, formed when the body uses fat for energy, are believed to act as an anti-seizure agent in the brain.

“When the brain is forced to run off of these secondary energy sources in the absence of large amounts of carbohydrates, there is something in that change in metabolism that improves control over epilepsy,” Dr. Tyler Allison, a neurologist at Children’s Mercy Kansas City and a fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, told Healthline.

Read the full article via Healthline

The Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Children's Mercy

Children's Mercy Neurology Department