The ketogenic diet in pharmacoresistant childhood epilepsy

Abstract

Available pharmacologic treatments for seizures are limited in their efficacy. For a patient with seizures, pharmacologic treatment with available anticonvulsant medications leads to seizure control in <70% of patients. Surgical resection can lead to control in a select subset of patients but still leaves a significant number of patients with uncontrolled seizures. The ketogenic diet and related diets have proven to be useful in pharmacoresistant childhood epilepsy.

Keywords: GLUT-1 deficiency; MCT diet; doose syndrome; epilepsy; infantile spasms; ketogenic; lennox-gastaut syndrome; low glycemic index diet; modified atkins diet; seizures.