Sam Godin’s epilepsy was so severe in 2004 that Toronto Sick Kids doctors suggested his mother take her three-year-old son home and plan his funeral. But she would have none of that.
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At Mac, they met with a neurologist and pediatric dietician Jennifer Fabe, who had reviewed Sam’s medical records.
“Within 10 minutes, they told me Sam wouldn’t respond to medications so they would slowly wean him off them and try this diet.”
It was a ketogenic diet that Fabe says is “high fat, adequate protein and low carbohydrate” and is medically supervised.
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The ketogenic diet is not exactly new, says Fabe.
“It’s existed for about a century, starting in 1920 and is traditionally offered to people who are drug-resistant, usually after the medications have failed.”
Research suggests the diet may help treat brain tumours and autism and is used elsewhere in the world for these purposes, she adds.
A ketogenic diet can be difficult to implement because everything has to be measured and this can overwhelm families, Fabe says. But at McMaster, they recently developed a version with a less strict adherence to measuring every food item.
Sam’s outcome of becoming seizure-free is not the norm. Fabe has seen about 20 kids in her 14 years at McMaster become seizure-free, she say.
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The diet can be an option for a select few but is becoming more standard practice worldwide, he said — 10 per cent of the patients on it can become seizure-free and about 40 per cent see the number of seizures reduced by more than half.
So how does it work?
“This is the million-dollar question. Nobody knows …” he says
Source: http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5528033-special-diet-has-kept-teen-seizure-free-since-age-5/