Popular Diets - The Ketogenic Diet

Popular Diets - The Ketogenic Diet: Popular Diets

The Ketogenic Diet is a high fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet that is mostly used to control difficult cases of epilepsy in children...


This diet forces the body to burn fat rather than carbohydrates. Given the relative lack of carbohydrates, the liver converts fats into fatty acids and ketone bodies. This leads to a situation known as ketosis which has an anticonvulsant effect. This diet was first developed in the 1920 but lost popularity when effective anticonvulsant drugs became available.

In the mid-1990s a two-year old epileptic boy was not responding to anticonvulsant drugs or alternative therapies. He underwent the Ketogenic Diet at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland and rapidly became seizure free. His father, the Hollywood producer Jim Abrahams, created the Charlie Foundation to help promote this treatment. The 1997 TV movie …First Do No Harm starring Meryl Streep is a fictionalized account of the diet and its effects. The movie is available on DVD in some stores and through the Charlie Foundation. Partly because of the movie and television exposure, there has been renewed scientific research in this diet. Some evidence exists that epileptic adults may benefit from this diet, or a less rigorous one such as a modified Atkins diet.

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