Infants and young children with epilepsy due to a confirmed genetic abnormality had a better response to treatment with ketogenic diet compared to patients with other types of epilepsy, according to a review of 10-year experience at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Results were published in Scientific Reports.
“Overall, we observed that ketogenic diet continues to be a safe, effective and well-tolerated treatment for patients under 3 years of age with drug-resistant epilepsy,” says study author John Millichap, MD, an epilepsy specialist at Lurie Children’s and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “Based on our experience, clinicians could consider offering ketogenic diet earlier to infants diagnosed with genetic epilepsy, perhaps even before it becomes clear that the patient is not responding to anticonvulsant medication.”
Ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carbohydrate and protein restricted diet that is rigorously medically supervised. It is widely recognized as an effective treatment for epilepsy that does not respond to medications.
“The ketogenic diet helps control seizures by reducing fluctuations of blood sugar, which reduces hyper-excitability in the brain,” explains Dr. Millichap. “At Lurie Children’s we have used it since 1963.”