The Ketogenic Diet and How It Helps with Epilepsy

“Let thy food by thy medicine, and let thy medicine be thy food.” In a time when medical treatment is heavily dominated by prescription drugs that kill over 100,000 people each year, perhaps it is time that we take some advice from Hippocrates, who understood the medicinal power of food. One of the most well-known dietary treatment plans is the Ketogenic diet, which has been implemented to treat children and adolescents with intractable Epilepsy for nearly a century.

Epilepsy is a neurological disorder characterized by recurring, unprovoked seizures. It is estimated that over two million people in the US currently have Epilepsy, and many of those cases originate during the years of infancy and childhood. For many with Epilepsy, anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) are sufficient in controlling seizures. However, many patients taking AEDs experience severe side effects, and for others, the drugs have very little effect when it comes to controlling seizures. For children who fall under this category, the Ketogenic diet may be a worthy alternative.

The ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carbohydrate diet that has an anticonvulsant effect in many children and adolescents with Epilepsy. Typically, the body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, which is then used to fuel cellular respiration in our bodies. When the body lacks a sufficient amount of glucose to maintain the body’s energy needs, fatty acids in the mitochondria of liver cells undergo beta-oxidation, in which they are broken into acetyl CoA molecules. Through a series of reactions known as ketogenesis, the acetyl CoA is converted in ketone bodies, high energy molecules which have a unique ability to cross mitochondrial membrane and the blood-brain barriers, making them good source...

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...ively charged sodium ions out of the neuron for every two positively charged potassium ions into the cell, thus resulting in a net change of the charge inside the neuron of -1 for every pump of the enzyme. Because the pump transports ions against their concentration gradient to return the neuron back to its resting potential, the pump requires ATP. Without the ATP needed to repolarize the neuron, the membrane potential cannot return to its stabilized state.

Increased levels of phosphocreatine and glutamate allow for increased production of ATP in the mitochondria of neurons. One of the functions of ATP is to fuel the sodium potassium pumps which work to stabilize membrane potential in neurons. By stabilizing this membrane potential, neurons can maintain ion level homeostasis for a longer period of time, thus enhancing the neurons resistance to metabolic stress.