Bubba Do Wah Ditty wrote:

Source: Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

Atkins Diet May Reduce Seizures In Children With Epilepsy

Good, someone final did the study. Folks have been asking
for such a study since at least 1999 when I started Atkins.

Related News Stories
Ketogenic Diet Reduces Seizures In Many Children, Hopkins
Researchers Find (October 1, 2001) -- Johns Hopkins neurologists report that
a rigorously high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet not only reduces the number of
seizures in children with severe seizure disorders, but also keeps the
frequency of ... full story

A diet that's almost meat-only has been used for many years
as a treatment for epilepsy. Since such an extreme works,
why not try the less extreme but still ketogenic Atkins plan
in a study? Bingo, Johns Hopkins doctors do it.

In a limited study of six patients, including three patients 12 years
old
and younger on the Atkins regimen for at least four months, two children and
one young adult were seizure-free and were able to reduce use of
anti-convulsant medications. Findings of the study, scheduled for
presentation today at the American Epilepsy Society Meeting in Boston, also
showed that seizure control could be long-lasting on the diet, with the
three patients continuing to be seizure-free for as long as 20 months.

The researchers caution that because of the small number of study subjects,
their look at the relationship between the Atkins diet and seizure control
should not lead to its routine use in children with epilepsy, nor at this
point should the Atkins diet be used to replace the ketogenic diet the
rigorous high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet already proven to reduce or
eliminate difficult-to-control seizures in some patients.

A pilot study is a good start.

In the short term, Kossoff says it's possible the Atkins diet could be used
in selected patients as a "trial run" for individuals considering the
ketogenic diet in the future. "Success on the Atkins diet may be a good
indication of patient compliance and efficacy of the ketogenic diet," he
adds. "Because the Atkins diet is easy to read and versions of it are
available in paperback at bookstores, families can easily follow this kind
of a strict, low-carbohydrate diet on their own for several weeks to
determine if this is something they can adhere to."

I can't say that drug companies should like this, but "curing"
an illness with diet alone sure beats taking a medicine or
going through a doctor's treatment plan.

Also, because the Atkins diet was originally designed for weight loss,

There are two stories on that and I think they are both
true. One is that Doctor Atkins tried it on himself and
since he lost weight it was designed for weight loss. The
other is that Doctor Atkins noticed that low fat diets
tended to make his heart patients worse in the long run,
so he searched for a method to make their blood tests
better in the long run. He found low carbing does that
so he started prescribing low carb. Then he noticed
his low carbing patients lost weight.

Kossoff says it is possible patients following the diet to reduce seizures
may lose weight in the process. If that does occur, and a patient's weight
has reached unhealthy levels, the patient should be instructed to increase
calorie intake by eating more fats and proteins.

Following Atkins isn't reduced calorie (under eating is
against the rule just like over eating is against the
rules). Since the loss rate falls as the amount left to
lose falls, this almost never happens. It's far more
common for folks to stop losing with 10 to go than for
folks to go below their goal. Doesn't look like the
doctors doing the study knew of this trend.

In the Hopkins study, patients began with 10 grams of carbohydrates per day,
more than the typical amount provided on the ketogenic diet, but fewer than
used in the induction phase of the Atkins diet (20 grams/day). Carbohydrate
intake was gradually increased for some patients. Five out of the six
patients attained ketosis (the state of producing ketones) within days of
starting the Atkins diet and maintained moderate to large levels of ketosis
for periods of six weeks to 24 months.

Most excelletn, a study that doesn't just use Induction.
I am thrilled to see this. Interesting that they kept
some at or below Indcution and others they put on what
Atkins actually is in its entirety.

Kossoff says that Hopkins researchers will further examine the role the
Atkins diet plays in the management of epilepsy in a larger clinical study
of 20 children with epilepsy, which began in September 2003 and already has
enrolled several patients.

Yea-haw!

Thanx for the quote.